A Spork in the Drawer

All Whine All The Time

Meet John S. McCain, the world's oldest baby:

John McCain said Thursday that Barack Obama’s poll numbers are rising as the economy seems to sink "because life isn’t fair.”

“He certainly did nothing for the first few days,” McCain told Fox News Thursday. "I suspended my campaign, took our ads down, came back to Washington, met with the House folks and got on the phone, and also had face-to-face meetings.”

He's a liar, too.

Later:

MCCAIN: Listen, frankly I wish they hadn’t picked a moderator that isn’t writing a book favorable to Barack Obama, I mean let’s face it. […] Frankly I would imagine that there’s other people out there who aren’t writing a book that’s going to be on inauguration day favorable to Senator Obama but that’s life.

Yesterday:

I think that Gwen Ifill is a professional and I think she will do a totally objective job, because she is a highly respected professional. Does this help that if she has written a book that’s favorable to Sen. Obama? Probably not. But I have confidence that Gwen Ifill will do a professional job.

Flip and flop.

Has St. John taken a position which he hasn't contradicted within days if not hours?

From bad to worse:

John McCain is pulling out of Michigan, according to two Republicans, a stunning move a month away from Election Day that indicates the difficulty Republicans are having in finding blue states to put in play.

McCain will go off TV in Michigan, stop dropping mail there and send most of his staff to more competitive states, including Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. Wisconsin went for Kerry in 2004, Ohio and Florida for Bush.

If his running mate, a noted Constitutional scholar, flops tonight the desperation is going to get truly ugly.

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The First Rule Of "Playing Politics" Is To Not Get Caught

Oopsie-daisy:

The Republican National Committee's new advertisement critical of the the Wall Street "bailout" was produced and sent to television stations in key states before the package failed, officials at two stations said.

"Wall Street Squanders our money. And Washington is forced to bail them out with -- you guessed it -- our money. Can it get any worse?" asks the ad's narrator, as the words "BAILOUT WITH OUR MONEY" cross the screen. (The answer: Obama's plans would make it worse.)

[...]

Kae Buck of WLNS in Lansing said her station received the at at 7:55 a.m. Monday. Luanne Russell of Pittsburgh's WTAE said her station received it at 10:49 Monday morning.

A Republican spokesdrone blames the ad on...Barack Obama. I'm not kidding.

Meanwhile, after spending spending yesterday afternoon and evening blaming the failure of the bailout bill on a mean speech by Nancy Pelosi the Republicans today are redefining the term "backpedaling":

(Video doesn't seem to want to embed. Click the link to watch.)

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Gingrich/Palin '12!

Newt Gingrich: Hypocrite and opportunist.

Not that you didn't already know that.

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Pathetic Old Man

The Drama Queen:

After interrupting his presidential campaign to come back to Washington on Thursday morning to try to push forward a $700 billion bailout deal, Mr. McCain remained in his condominium in Arlington, Va., until 12:30 p.m. Saturday, when he emerged and made a one-minute trip in his motorcade to his campaign headquarters around the corner.

Here's the punchline:

Asked why Mr. McCain did not go to Capitol Hill after coming back to Washington to help with negotiations, Mr. Salter replied that “he can effectively do what he needs to do by phone.’’

To be fair, maybe McCain just learned of Mr. Bell's new-fangled talking machines.

But wait, there's more!

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

Using some poor kid's wedding as a campaign tactic. Classy.

How anyone, including McCain's surrogates and staffers, can discuss him without smirking is beyond me.

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Over Already?

The McCain Campaign releases a statement:

Senator McCain has spent the morning talking to members of the Administration, members of the Senate, and members of the House. He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans. The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon. Following the debate, he will return to Washington to ensure that all voices and interests are represented in the final agreement, especially those of taxpayers and homeowners.

Why, it's almost as if the whole "I'm suspending my campaign to focus on saving the country" thing was but a cheap political stunt.

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As We Speak...

...St. John is giving a campaign speech.

So much for suspending the campaign.

Of course, they'll say he had to because that uppity elitist Barack Obama refused to be all bipartisany with that nice hero, John McCain.

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The Truth Will Out

We're in such a financial crisis that something has to be done NOW and needs to be approached WITH UTMOST SERIOUSNESS:

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

So given the seriousness of the situation why didn't Hank Paulson just ask for ELEVENTY KAJILLION DOLLARS?

[Via Think Progress.]

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Surely You Have Something Better To Do

Like watch paint dry. Or clip your toenails. Perhaps dip your sheep.

George W. Bush (remember him?) to appear on your teevee tonight in an effort to scare the bejesus out of you.

I don't think this is best use of Mr. 19%'s time.

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Hank Paulson: Time Traveler!

Let's all jump into the Way-Forward Machine:

I'm angered by the things that got us here....It may make you angry, it makes me angry. When you ask about the taxpayers being on the hook, guess what? They're already on the hook. They got put on the hook by the system we have, the system we all let happen, the system that Congress, the administration, future administrations, let exist.... [emphasis added]

Now, when it comes to grammar I'll be the first to admit that I'm not good with cases. What case would somebody in the future doing something in the past be? Besides a logical impossibility, that is.

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New Adventures In Whining

They're becoming parodies of themselves:

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record.

But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

The errors in McCain strategist Steve Schmidt’s charges against Obama and Sen. Joe Biden were particularly notable because they seemed unnecessary. Schmidt repeatedly gilded the lily: He exaggerated the Biden family's already problematic ties to the credit card industry; Obama’s embarrassing relationship with a 1960s radical; and an Obama supporter’s over-the-top attack on Sarah Palin when — in each case — the truth would have been damaging enough.

[...]

But as he went on to list a series of stories he thought reporters should be writing about Obama and Biden, in almost every instance he got the details wrong.

It gets worse:

Asked about the series of errors, McCain aides could not provide evidence to back up Schmidt’s assertions.

One McCain aide, Michael Goldfarb, said Politico was “quibbling with ridiculously small details when the basic things are completely right.”

Another, Brian Rogers, responded more directly:

“You are in the tank,” he e-mailed.

Stephen Colbert was probably more right than he knew when he said, "Facts have a liberal bias."

And if this is how St. John plans to run the country we're going to wish for the gentle days of BushCheney.

Think about it.

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Al Gore Invented The Internet John McCain Invented The Blackberry

Oy.

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One Of Our Verbs Is Missing

The NYT's Michael Cooper and Jim Rutenberg have a story in today's edition looking at John McCain's campaign recent campaign tactics. Here's the condensed version:

[S]tretching the truth...twisted Mr. Obama’s words...falsely claimed...repeatedly, and incorrectly, asserted...misrepresented...less than honest.

Hmmm, there's a word missing there but I can't quite put my finger on it...something something...oh, yeah, I got it: LIE.

And, as should be expected, the article is chock-a-block with false equivalencies in regards to the Obama campaign.

Just another example of your Liberal Media at work.

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Ear Form

Sarah explains the Bridge to Nowhere:

GIBSON: But you turned against it after Congress had basically pulled the plug on it; after it became apparent that the state was going to have to pay for it, not the Congress; and after it became a national embarrassment to the state of Alaska. So do you want to revise and extend your remarks.

PALIN: It has always been an embarrassment that abuse of the ear form -- earmark process has been accepted in Congress. And that's what John McCain has fought. And that's what I joined him in fighting. It's been an embarrassment, not just Alaska's projects. But McCain gives example after example after example. I mean, every state has their embarrassment.

GIBSON: But you were for it before you were against it. You were solidly for it for quite some period of time...

PALIN: I was...

GIBSON: ... until Congress pulled the plug.

PALIN: I was for infrastructure being built in the state. And it's not inappropriate for a mayor or for a governor to request and to work with their Congress and their congressmen, their congresswomen, to plug into the federal budget along with every other state a share of the federal budget for infrastructure.

Congressional ear forms earmarks are an embarrassment. Which is why she's fighting so hard for them. Or against them. Or something.

Ye gods, if anyone can parse her sentences have at it.

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Proven Liar

A friend passes along the latest from Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films:

Barack Obama (President)	$

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Mendacious Moose

The lies never end:

Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

Do you want to hear this crap for four more years?

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Democrats We Can Do Without

James Carville (again!):

I can't sit here. They're run a completely false ad against Barack Obama and you say he's out there talking about this. I mean, my point is, I really don't think that senator McCain knows about this ad, and in my heart of hearts, I want to believe he's an absolutely furious about this and somebody's being called on the carpet because this ad is blatantly completely false.

From this point on let's just assume that Carville is working for McCain.

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Where We Are

Josh:

All politicians stretch the truth, massage it into the best fit with their message. But, let's face it, John McCain is running a campaign almost entirely based on straight up lies. Not just exaggerations or half truths but the sort of straight up, up-is-down mind-blowers we've become so accustomed to from the current occupants of the White House. And today McCain comes out with this rancid, race-baiting ad based on another lie. Willie Horton looks mild by comparison. (And remember, President George H.W. Bush never ran the Willie Horton ad himself. It was an outside group. He wasn't willing to degrade himself that far.) As TPM Reader JM said below, at least Horton actually was released on a furlough. This is ugly stuff. And this is an ugly person. There's clearly no level of sleaze this guy won't stoop to to win this election.

I couldn't put it better myself. McCain's whole campaign is designed to test just how stupid and racist the American electorate is. And so far it's coming up aces. For those of us who pay attention and aren't complete idiots or delusional whackjobs the campaign also seems deliberately designed to crush our souls. With each passing day - hell, each passing hour - I can feel the energy, the interest, and what little human decency I have left draining from me.

Come what may, I just want this fucking thing to be over.

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Vice President Sock Puppet

Ignore the men behind the curtain:

There was a flutter of attention when McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told a group of Post reporters and editors yesterday that his team was having to rework the vice presidential acceptance speech because the original draft, prepared before Gov. Sarah Palin was chosen, was too "masculine." While we all wondered to ourselves what might make a speech masculine or feminine, no one batted an eye at the underlying revelation: that the campaign was writing the nominee's speech before knowing who the nominee would be.

Again, we live in the Age of Stupid.

[Via Atrios.]

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Almost Getting It Right

The Zombie Lie that Gov. Bob Casey Sr was denied a speaking spot at the 1992 Democratic National Convention because of his anti-choice stance keeps being reported even though it's completely untrue.

In a break from that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in an article about the Governer's son, Sen. Bob Casey Jr, offers something of a corrective:

The previous day, sitting in a Starbucks not far from the convention site, Mr. Casey reflected on his father's less welcome reception and the changes in the party on the issue on which the late governor had so strenuously opposed former President Bill Clinton. The senator acknowledged that the precise details of why the elder Casey was barred from that New York City podium in 1992 are still in some dispute. In his memoirs, the late governor said it was a deliberate insult motivated by his opposition to abortion rights.

Other reports have attributed it to his failure to endorse the Clinton-Gore ticket prior to the convention.

"I think it's best to let the historians debate it and move on and look to the future," his son said.

Tepid (at best) and it doesn't come until the 16th paragraph (talk about burying the lede) but it's something, I suppose.

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Oh Dear...

It appears that Cindy Hensley McCain - aka Mrs. Maverick - has a secret:

Last Tuesday, NPR broadcast a story about Cindy McCain's business and charity work. In it, Ted Robbins described McCain as the only child of Jim Hensley, a wealthy Arizona businessman. The next morning, NPR received an e-mail from Nicholas Portalski of Phoenix, who heard the story with his mother.

"We were listening to the piece about Cindy McCain on NPR, All Things Considered, and it just struck us very hard," Portalski said.

His mother, Kathleen Hensley Portalski, is also Hensley's daughter.

[...]

McCain herself routinely uses the phrase "only child," as she did on CNN last month. "I grew up with my dad," she said then. "I'm an only child. My father was a cowboy, and he really loved me very much, but I think he wanted a son occasionally."

[...]

"I'm upset," Kathleen Portalski says. "I'm angry. It makes me feel like a nonperson, kind of."

While Hensley père set Cindy up as the Beer Queen of Arizona Kathleen was left with...$10,000.

NPR asked the McCain campaign — specifically, Cindy McCain — to comment or respond. Neither replied.

So what is Cindy ashamed of?

[Via FDL.]

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McCain Agonistes

St. John doesn't like to talk about his POW experiences, part MMCCCXXXIV:

“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” [Spokesperson Nicolle] Wallace said.

Wallace is referring to Saturday night's Rumble with the Religious hosted by fundie pastor Rick Warren. Since both candidates were asked the same questions, whoever went second - McCain as it turned out - was supposedly enveloped in a "cone of silence", meaning that he was unable to hear the questions asked of Obama and thus was unable to prepare for them. The Obama campain suspects otherwise.

Now, whether or not St. John cheated I can't say but what the allegation has to do with his having been a POW - which he doesn't like to talk about, always remember - is beyond me.

Meanwhile, is His Maverickeyness plagiarizing again?

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The Scum Also Rises

It turns out that Republican sleasemeister Mary Matalin - wife of alleged Democratic strategist James Carville - is now an editor at a division of the publishing giant Simon & Schuster. Her latest? The Obama Nation (notice the pun) written by the original swiftboater himself, Jerome Corsi. Undoubtledly, the book will be filled with outright lies; indeed, the NYT delicately notes that significant parts of the book "have already been challenged as misleading or false in the days since its debut on Aug. 1" The piece goes on to give us this choice bit:

Ms. Matalin said in an interview that the book “was not designed to be, and does not set out to be, a political book,” calling it, rather, “a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that.” She said she was unaware of efforts to link it to any anti-Obama advertising.

Riiiight. Two rightwing political operatives put together a screed against an opponent and it's not "political book" and the editor of said book is "unaware" of any coordination with Republican propaganda groups.

The article also details Corsi's unfounded attacks on John Kerry four years ago but despite his well-known record for lying it isn't until the 14th. paragraph that the article points out, as Oliver Willis notes, "Several of the book’s accusations, in fact, are unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate."

Burying the lede, indeed.

I've no doubt that the "news" networks have learned from their experiences of four years ago and won't fall for the spin of this fabulist again.

I've no doubt.

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Crime Pays

I've long lost the ability to be shocked by this sort of news:

In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned.

[...]

"They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News.

On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, "There may be some possible link" to Bin Laden, adding, "I wouldn't put it past him." Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden's henchmen were trained "how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together."

But by then the FBI already knew anthrax spilling out of letters addressed to media outlets and to a U.S. senator was a military strain of the bioweapon. "Very quickly [Fort Detrick, Md., experts] told us this was not something some guy in a cave could come up with," the ex-FBI official said. "They couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next."

If you haven't been reading Glenn Greenwald on the anthrax case you really ought to get caught up here, here, and here.

Additionally, Ron Suskind has a new book out today new book out today:

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

I'm not convinced that we'll ever recover from the BushCheney administration. At the very least it's going to take years if not decades.

I'm tired and frustrated by it all.

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Eight Years Ago Today...

...Texas Gov. George W. Bush said:

“So when I put my hand on the Bible, I will swear to not only uphold the laws of our land, I will swear to uphold the honor and dignity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God.”

How'd that work out?

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Holy Cow!

Remember this morning's Wall Street Journal story about how Barack Obama is too thin to be president? Well, it turns out that "reporter" Amy Chozick used Yahoo! message boards to invent the story out of whole cloth and then tried to erase the evidence.

It occurred to me that this is a violation of journalistic standards but then I remembered that Rupert Murdoch now owns the WSJ so...what standards?

Send Amy some love: amy.chozick@wsj.com

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Today In Straightytalky Talk Talk

St. John has a strategery:

This ad asserts a McCain campaign talking-point that Obama wouldn’t make time for wounded troops unless cameras were allowed to follow him, but did make time to work out at a gym. This, of course, is a lie. It’s a blatant lie. Steve Schmidt, a disciple of Karl Rove’s who worked on George W. Bush’s 2004 ad/communications effort, though, is playing the Rovian playbook that says that it doesn’t matter if it’s true as long as your target audience (non-college educated white working class voters) won’t bother to find out the actual truth, and believe that it “sounds like it might be a true.”

So McCain intends to lie. Lie openly, lie frequently, to not even try to hide the lying. Not to point out the obvious but if a Democrat engaged in this sort of campaigning that Democrat would be destroyed by the "liberal" "news" media. Maybe the Villagers are starting to see how much they're being played but I'm not willing to put any money on that yet.

What's more, they're not even bothering to hide rank opportunism:

What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was...wait for it...using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.

Needless to say, Business Week isn't exactly a Communist rag so maybe there's hope yet. [Via John Cole.]

As if that weren't enough, today St. John is screaming that Obama is playing the "race card". Lovely, just lovely.

Notice that it isn't even August yet. Imagine the fun we'll be having in October.

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Too Much For Even The WaPo

Is the corporate media waking up?

For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true. [emphasis added]

It's now undeniable that St. John aims to become president by brazenly lying:

McCain's advisers said they do not intend to back down from the charge, believing it an effective way to create a "narrative" about what they say is Obama's indifference toward the military.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said again yesterday that the Republican's version of events is correct, and that Obama canceled the visit because he was not allowed to take reporters and cameras into the hospital.

"It is safe to say that, according to press reports, Barack Obama avoided, skipped, canceled the visit because of those reasons," he said. "We're not making a leap here."

Asked repeatedly for the "reports," Bounds provided three examples, none of which alleged that Obama had wanted to take members of the media to the hospital. [emphases added]

NYT editorial:

Mr. McCain used to pride himself on being above this ugly brand of politics, which killed his own 2000 presidential bid. But he clearly tossed his inhibitions aside earlier this month when he put day-to-day management of his campaign in the hands of one acolyte of Mr. Rove and gave top positions to two others. The résumés of the new team’s members included stints in Mr. Bush’s White House and in his 2004 re-election campaign, one of the most negative and divisive in memory.

Almost immediately, the McCain campaign was using Mr. Rove’s well-honed tactics, starting with an attempt to widen this nation’s damaging ideological divide by painting Mr. Obama as a far-left kook. On July 18, Mr. McCain even suggested that Mr. Obama is a socialist to the left of the Senate’s only avowed socialist: Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

[...]

Many voters are wondering whether a McCain presidency would be an extension of Mr. Bush’s two disastrous terms. If the way Mr. McCain is running his campaign these days is an indication, Americans don’t have to wait until next January for the answer to that one.

Actually, there can be little doubt that a McCain presidency would be a third term for BushCheney. Indeed, St. John has made it clear that he's even more gung-ho for military adventures.

Let's hope our "news" media wakes up and reports fairly.

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Today In Mavricky Maverickness

Birth Control Edition:

Now that's Straighttalk™!

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But What Of Obama's Commitment To Andorra?

Holy Joe: Lying prick.

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Today's Mavericky Goodness

Taking a cue from George:

Says Fox's Shep Smith:

I reported at the top of this hour that the campaign had told us at Fox News that the audience would be made up of Republicans, Democrats, and independents. We have now received a clarification from the campaign and I feel I should pass it along to you. The McCain campaign distributed tickets to supporters, Mayor Bloomberg, who of course is a registered Republican, and other independent groups.

Predicts Nicole Belle: "Next, McSame will be demanding loyalty oaths."

Four more years!

Rat Leaves Ship

Discovers that water is wet.

When the most servile of Bush toadies turns the end in truly nigh.

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Republican Family Values

Rep. Vito Fossella

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Facts Are Stupid Things

'Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

'No, no!' said the Queen. 'Sentence first - verdict afterwards.'

'Stuff and nonsense!' said Alice loudly. 'The idea of having the sentence first!'

'Hold your tongue!' said the Queen, turning purple.

'I won't!' said Alice.

'Off with her head!' the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.

- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865

Alaska:

Alaska's state legislature is looking to hire a few good polar bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon — researchers just have to fill in the science part.

A $2 million program funded with little debate by the legislature last month calls for using state money to fund an "academic based" conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming. Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears' survival.

We've gone down the rabbit hole.

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Still Not Liberal

CNN/Time-Warner:

Former White House press secretary Tony Snow will join CNN as a conservative commentator beginning today, it was announced by Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S.

Get ready to laugh:

"In the White House, Tony brought a remarkably human touch to the discussion of public policy, which he will continue to do as part of the Best Political Team on Television," Klein said. "He will contribute a unique breadth of political and journalistic expertise to what is already the most provocative and wide-ranging political analysis on the air."

If by "remarkably human touch" Klein means "unrepentant lying" then, yes.

And just think of how much this makes CNN/Time-Warner's campaign coverage "fair and balanced"!

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Ringer

Any doubt that ABC/Disney has a political agenda is now erased. Josh:

Remember that woman from the debate last night who the moderators showed videotape of asking whether Barack Obama "believes in the flag"? Her name is Nash McCabe.

[...]

Now, it does seem like McCabe is not a fan of Sen. Obama's. And I think we can assume that it's not a coincidence that McCabe managed to show up featured in the Times and also as the sole outside questioner in the ABC debate. Presumably, a researcher for ABC or Gibson saw the piece in the Times, figured, hey, this lady hates Obama and is seriously ginned up about the lapel issue. Let's send a camera crew Obama and film her slamming Obama to his face. It'll be great in the debate.

So this was hardly the voice of a random citizen; ABC/Disney sought out someone with full knowledge that she'd go after Obama. Ethical? Does it matter anymore? (Josh also wonders about another "citizen" questioner who was a "former" supporter of Hillary.)

Turning to the NYT story Josh mentions we find this:

Ask whom she might vote for in the coming presidential primary election and Nash McCabe, 52, seems almost relieved to be able to unpack the dossier she has been collecting in her head.

It is not about whom she likes, but more a bill of particulars about why she cannot vote for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“How can I vote for a president who won’t wear a flag pin?” Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist, said in a booth at the Valley Dairy luncheonette in this quiet, small city in western Pennsylvania.

Mr. Obama has said patriotism is about ideas, not flag pins.

“I watch him on TV,” Mrs. McCabe said. “I keep looking for that lapel pin.”

This illustrates quite nicely our descent into collective madness. The election could hinge on a flag pin.

A flag pin.

Let's face it: Too many Americans are as dumb as dirt.

McClatchy has background on McCabe here.

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I'm Sure An Apology Will Be Forthcoming

Caught lying:

A federal investigation has concluded that U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman's 2006 re-election campaign was to blame for the crash of its Web site the day before Connecticut's heated Aug. 8 Democratic primary.

[...]

The Lieberman campaign alleged it was the target of a "denial of service attack," which can involve bombarding a Web site with external communications to slow it or render it useless.

"Our Web site consultant assured us in the strongest terms possible that we had been attacked," former Lieberman campaign spokesman Dan Gerstein said in December 2006.

According to the FBI memo, the site crashed because Lieberman officials continually exceeded a configured limit of 100 e-mails per hour the night before the primary.

"The system administrator misinterpreted the root cause," the memo stated. "The system administrator finally declared the server was being attacked and the Lieberman campaign accused the Ned Lamont campaign. The news reported this on Aug. 8, 2006, causing additional Web traffic to visit the site.

No doubt Holy Joe will do the honorable thing. <=Sarcasm

[Via Josh.]

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Fluffing A Liar

The AP's Lara Jakes Jordan has a lightweight profile of Attorney General Michael Mukasey which includes this bit:

In San Francisco the next day, he choked up mentioning the Sept. 11 attacks to illustrate what might happen if the government cannot eavesdrop on the phone calls of suspected terrorists. "You've got 3,000 people who went to work that day and didn't come home to show for that," he said, pausing first to compose himself. The federal courthouse where he served as chief judge at the time of the attacks is just blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan.

Perhaps this intrepid reporter should read Glennzilla here and here.

Good work, Chuck and Di.

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The Dog Ate The Computer Drives

A likely story:

Older White House computer hard drives have been destroyed, the White House disclosed to a federal court Friday in a controversy over millions of possibly missing e-mails from 2003 to 2005.

[...]

"When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired ... the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction," the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola.

How convenient.

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No One Could Have Imagined

St. John of MarverickStraightTalk a liar?

Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson's quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station.

Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, likely attended the meeting in McCain's office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting. "Was Vicki there? Probably," Paxson said in an interview with The Washington Post yesterday. "The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings."

The recollection of the now-retired Paxson conflicted with the account provided by the McCain campaign about the two letters at the center of a controversy about the senator's ties to Iseman, a partner at the lobbying firm of Alcalde & Fay.

St. John of MaverickStraightTalk is ethically challenged?

But when McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every one was part of the Washington lobbying culture he has long decried. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon and SBC Telecommunications. His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.

[...]

But even as Black provides a private voice and a public face for McCain, he also leads his lobbying firm, which offers corporate interests and foreign governments the promise of access to the most powerful lawmakers. Some of those companies have interests before the Senate and, in particular, the Commerce Committee, of which McCain is a member.

Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain's Straight Talk Express bus.

St. John of MaverickStraightTalk did favors for a felon?

Iseman and her colleagues had been lobbying the FCC, the House of Representatives, and the Senate (including John McCain, with whom McCain's advisors believed Iseman had an inappropriate relationship at the time) to win approval for the foreign purchase of American broadcast companies--that is, Conrad Black's properties, which were headquartered in Chicago.

The Straight Talk Express has blown a tire and slid into a ditch.

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Oh Joy

Right here in River City:

An Evening with Karl Rove

I'll be sure to clear my calender.

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No One Could Have Predicted

Shocking:

Karl Rove, the strategist behind President George W. Bush's ascendancy to the White House, will join Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel as a contributor starting with Super Tuesday, the network said.

KKKarl will no doubt be adding to that FOX "News" sheen of "fair and balanced."

Or possibly just its oily sheen.

[Via JMM.]

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Fiction Vs. Fact

Fiction:

In Afghanistan, America, our 25 NATO allies, and 15 partner nations are helping the Afghan people defend their freedom and rebuild their country. Thanks to the courage of these military and civilian personnel, a nation that was once a safe haven for al Qaeda is now a young democracy where boys and girls are going to school, new roads and hospitals are being built, and people are looking to the future with new hope. These successes must continue, so we're adding 3,200 Marines to our forces in Afghanistan, where they will fight the terrorists and train the Afghan Army and police. Defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda is critical to our security, and I thank the Congress for supporting America's vital mission in Afghanistan. (Applause.)

Fact:

A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country's rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after "liberation" and under the democratic rule of the West's ally Hamid Karzai.

Few even notice the lies anymore.

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Shocking!

Study: False Statements Preceded War

Who could have guessed?

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq's links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell's 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

I have trouble believing this.

BushCo™ isn't filled with liars! The very idea is preposterous!

Harrrumph!

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When Fact Is Fiction And Teevee Reality

So, earlier today the deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, held a televised press conference to discuss the fires in SoCal. Question after question from the assembled reporters were softballs. Did I say "reporters"? Well, it turns out there were no reporters there, just FEMA staffers pretending to be reporters.

Life in Bushworld is unsettling.

Think Progress has the video.

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This just in: The FEMA press conference was so egregiously dishonest that even WH spokescritter Dana "The Dip" Perino condemns it.

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Big Surprise

George's speech last night was chock full o' lies, distortions and omissions.

You're shocked, I'm sure.

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It's Official

They think we're idiots. Why does the administration repeatedly conflate Iraq with al-Qaeda? It's simple!

The reason to emphasize al-Qaeda, aides said, is simple. "People know what that means," said one senior official who spoke about internal strategy on the condition of anonymity. "The average person doesn't understand why the Sunnis and Shia don't like each other. They don't know where the Kurds live. . . . And al-Qaeda is something they know. They're the enemy of the United States."

[...]

Former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, one of the group's founders, said the ad is not misleading by saying "they attacked us" in the context of Iraq and showing the image of the Sept. 11 attack. "Iraqis did not attack us on 9/11," he agreed. But it does not matter, Fleischer added, because some of the same sorts of people who did are now fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

"Nine-one-one absolutely is a bona fide, legitimate reason to remind people what's at stake," he said. "The point is not that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. They're not. But 9/11 should be a vivid reminder to everyone about how vulnerable our country is and that's why we need to win in Iraq."

I've been trying to unpack that statement. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 therefore Iraq has everything to do with 9/11. Have I got that about right?

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Lying Sack Of Shit

Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, appearing before Congress with Gen. Petraeus, just implied that the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps were carried out by Hezbollah. They weren't. They were carried out by Lebanese Christian Phalangists while their allies, the Israeli Defense Force, stood to the side.

Why on earth he would bring this up is beyond me. Why he would imply that Muslims were responsible is all too evident.

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Surprise!

You know that long-awaited, sure-to-tell-the-truth report on the situation in Iraq from Lord and Savior Gen. David Petraeus? The one that's going to determine the course of the war and occupation? That one?

There isn't going to be a report at all!

BushCo™ does it again!

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Fun!

Former (Current?) Sen. Larry Craig (R-Wide Stance) can't decide if he's in or out. It appears that none other than Snarlin' Arlen has talked him in to reconsidering.

Meanwhile, via David Kurtz, in the case of Diaper Dave Vitter (R-Huggies), "DC Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey might be claiming that she'll have to divulge national security secrets to defend herself.

Say what you will but sometimes the Republicans provide terrific entertainment.

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KO

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***IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT***

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Wide Stance) wants you to know:

"Let me be clear: I am not gay. I never have been gay[.]"

Craig, second from left, is "not gay."

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Another (Non) Surprise

Something to think about as we await the coming of Jesus Gen. David Petraeus:

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

The LATimes has seen fit to bury this little gem in the 28th. paragraph.

Given that every politician and pundit in existence is banking on God's Petraeus' report this is a somewhat important revelation, no?

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