john mccain

From John McCain's Bottled Hot Water Collection, a series of videos highlighting some of the funniest and strangest go … [Read more]

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From The New York Times, an Op-Ed by Frank Rich describes how "the 2008 election is now an Obama-Palin race about “the future,” and the only person who doesn’t seem to know it is Mr. … [Read more]

From the American Prospect, "The Great Depression was caused not by a stock crash but by a banking … [Read more]

From the LA Times, an article about how John McCain's campaign is using blatant lies to garner votes, and how people fall for it. … [Read more]

According to The Economist, "John McCain’s choice of running-mate raises serious questions about his judgment."

THE most audacious move of the race so far is also, potentially, the most self-destructive. John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running-mate has set the political atmosphere alight with both enthusiasm and dismay.

Mr McCain has based his campaign on the idea that this is a dangerous world—and that Barack Obama is too inexperienced to deal with it. He has also acknowledged that his advanced age—he celebrated his 72nd birthday on August 29th—makes his choice of vice-president unusually important. Now he has chosen as his running mate, on the basis of the most cursory vetting, a first-term governor of Alaska. … [Read more]

The New York Times reports on the latest gloomy unemployment picture:

The unemployment rate jumped to 6.1 percent in August, its highest level in five years, pushing the troubles of American workers to the center of the political debate as the presidential campaign enters its final weeks.

For the eighth consecutive month, the nation’s employers shed jobs, 84,000 last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. In all, 605,000 jobs have been lost since January. The steady rise in unemployment, from 5.7 percent in July and 5 percent in April, is one that many economists associate with recession.

Both presidential candidates — Senators Barack Obama and John McCain — said through spokesmen that they would favor an economic stimulus package from Congress this fall. … [Read more]

Most people who survived their traumas become stronger survivors.  McCain is one presidential candidate who overplays the victim card once too many times.  When he could not answered how many homes he has, he played the POW card.  Do we need the constant reminder of "poor me", "me the victim" personality of a guy to be our president?  Get over it!!!  We do not need any excuses or justifications of McCain's inability to deal with our economic, social, health care, unemployment, and energy issues.

Read more:  The "P" in "POW" Does Not Stand for "President

Did you see Barack Obama go on The O'Reilly Factor last night—right into the belly of the beast? While we didn't want Obama to appear on FOX initially, he wisely chose the same night John McCain delivered his RNC speech (the same night FOX received some of its highest ratings) to make an appearance. Talk about stealing the GOP's thunder!

Obama was no doubt trying to appeal to conservative voters, since 88% of FOX viewers voted Republican in 2004. But FOX won't let their conservative base go without a fight. That's why O'Reilly needled and interrupted Obama, trying to get him to simplify many of his answers—a far cry from the softballs O'Reilly lobbed at many prominent Republicans like Rudy Giuliani in the past. And that's why FOX has been attacking Obama with the same relentless smear tactics that they used against John Kerry four years ago. Watch them use the exact same attacks.

Don't let FOX repeat its history of distortions. Send this video to everyone you know! And get a copy to networking sites like Digg as soon as possible. Make sure everyone knows that FOX is always willing to distort, slander, and smear—whatever it takes to advance their conservative agenda. 

According to Judith Warner, "With Sarah Palin, the smoke-and-mirror games of Republican politics continue."

It turns out there was something more nauseating than the nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate this past week. It was the tone of the acclaim that followed her acceptance speech.

“Drill, baby, drill,” clapped John Dickerson, marveling at Palin’s ability to speak and smile at the same time as an indication of her unexpected depths and unsuspected strengths. “It was clear Palin was having fun, and it’s hard to have fun if you’re scared or a lightweight,” he wrote in Slate.

The Politico praised her charm and polish as antidotes to her lack of foreign policy experience: “Palin’s poised and flawless performance evoked roars of applause from delegates who earlier this week might have worried that the surprise pick and newcomer to the national stage may not be up to the job.”

“She had a great night. I thought she had a very skillfully written, and very skillfully delivered speech,” Joe Biden said, shades of “articulate and bright and clean” threatening a reappearance. (For a full roundup of these comments go here.) … [Read more]

Jon briskly examines some glaring hypocrisy regarding a few recent issues.

Segment 1: The question of experience and the politics behind Sarah Palin and Tim Kaine as potential Vice Presidential candidates.
Commentators: Karl Rove

Segment 2: Teen pregnancy and privacy, regarding Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol, and Jamie Lynn Spears.
Commentators: Bill O'Reilly

Segment 3: Sexism, reverse sexism, and the "Gender Card" as applied to, and by, Sarah Palin and former Presidential Candidate Hilary Clinton.
Commentators: Dick Morris, Nancy Pfotenhauer

Segment 4: In her own words.

Regardless of your positions, do not attack or praise Sarah Paln, or any other female candidate, as a woman, do so only on her relevant merits. 

Two conservative commentators on MSNBC, after they think they're off the air, say what they really think about the veep choice. Noonan and Murphy on Palin.

Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we'll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We'll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she's the right woman for the job Up next, one man who's already convinced and he'll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman. (cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

PN: It's over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MM: They're all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it. … [Read more]

Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein characterize McCain's choice of Governor Palin for Vice-President as potentially disastrous for reflecting poorly on his decision-making and judgment, but there are some possible political benefits. 

The disconnect between the reality of this campaign and how it is perceived and presented by the mainstream media is now a major part of the year’s story.

STOP the presses! This election isn’t about the Clintons after all. It isn’t about the Acropolis columns erected at Invesco Field. It isn’t about who is Paris Hilton and who is Hanoi Hilton. (Though it may yet be about who is Sarah Palin.) After a weeklong orgy of inane manufactured melodrama labeled “convention coverage” on television, Barack Obama descended in classic deus ex machina fashion — yes, that’s Greek too — to set the record straight. America is in too much trouble,he said, to indulge in “a big election about small things.”

As has been universally noted, Obama did what he had to do in his acceptance speech. He scrapped the messianic “Change We Can Believe In” for the more concrete policy litany of “The Change We Need.” He bared his glinting Chicago pol’s teeth to John McCain. Obama’s still a skinny guy, but the gladiatorial arena and his eagerness to stand up to bullies (foreign and Republican) made him a plausible Denver Bronco. All week long a media chorus had fretted whether he could pull off a potentially vainglorious stunt before 80,000 screaming fans. Well, yes he can, and so he did. … [Read more]

McCain's choice of an inexperienced governor reveals a campaign so weak that it resorts to a desperation play.

The news was so stunning I refused to believe it until I saw John McCain on the TV screen announcing his pick for Vice President. There's no need to disparage Sarah Palin. She's seems like a smart, serious person. But what the choice reveals about McCain is devastating with a capital D for Desperation.

Within forty-eight hours, all America will be talking about her. What people will say is, "You mean, if John McCain croaks, she becomes our president?" Gasp, yes. That is what McCain has decided. So much for "experience" and wise judgment as a campaign issue.

The Senator was widely thought to be on the fifty-yard line, nose to nose with Barack Obama. But this selection reveals the Republican campaign strategists knew better. Picking the obscure and under-experienced governor from Alaska for veep means McCain and his people recognize they are in a very weak position for the fall campaign. So weak they decided to throw a forty-year Hail Mary pass and hope audaciously for a lucky catch.

It won't succeed. In fact, I expect this gambit is going to drive far more voters to Obama's column than it does for McCain.

Obama's address soared with idealism and savaged the elitist policies of John McCain.

Barack Obama met his moment in Denver on Thursday.

The media feverishly raised expectations for Obama's address, while Republicans had relentlessly pre-branded the large grassroots gathering as some kind of celebrity spectacle. From the moment he marched on stage, however, Obama beat inflated expectations and dispatched his GOP detractors.

His speech was both soaring and chilling, imbued with heartening idealism and wonkish detail; it deftly called for a new, civil politics while also issuing a call to arms against the lethal failures of the incumbent administration. Zeroing in on his Republican opponent, Obama honored John McCain's integrity while questioning his temperament. Declining to impugn the motives for McCain's many policy reversals, Obama simply savaged the Republican's recent embrace of an elitist economic agenda. Obama rejected the political ploys of fear and deceit, but used McCain's platform and recent statements to depict the Washington fixture as an out-of-touch figure from a bygone era, clueless to middle class struggles, ignorant of the definition of rich in the federal tax code, and generally stuck "grasping at the ideas of the past." … [Read more]

An article from Ari Berman in the Nation about Obama's political platform:

In advance of his much-anticipated nomination speech tonight, an increasing amount of attention is being devoted to what Barack Obama would actually do as president.

In a luncheon panel convened by National Journal on Tuesday and moderated by veteran journalist Ron Brownstein, Obama domestic policy director Heather Higgenbottom said that Obama's top three priories in the White House would be ending the war in Iraq, passing universal healthcare and promoting energy independence. Higgenbottom said Obama was "still looking at what to do" about jumpstarting a faltering economy, but favored an immediate second economic stimulus package and an energy rebate to deal with high gas prices.

Obama's economic platform--and message--remains a work in progress. He's begun hitting John McCain on bread and butter issues, but has yet to propose--or prioritize--a grand plan to lift America out of recession and put people back to work, like Bill Clinton stressed in 1992.

Obama may be a visionary speaker, but he's very much a pragmatist when it comes to governing. "His ideology is what works," said Bruce Reed, President of the Democratic Leadership Council and Clinton's former domestic policy advisor. "Obama's new on the scene," says Reed, "so he has an opportunity to not come with a label. A clean slate offers all sorts of possibilities."