Obama's passion

TIME columnist Joe Klein writes:

“Obama’s measured style worked in the spring but hurt him over the summer ... One of the great strengths of the Obama candidacy has been the sense that this is a guy whose blood doesn’t boil, who carefully considers the options before he reacts ... But that’s also a weakness; sometimes the most rational response is to rip your opponent’s lungs ... That sort of spontaneity—that sort of real passion—is what’s missing from this candidacy. I suspect Obama will have a hard time winning unless he finds some of it.”

Obama is finally showing that passion today, so let's hope it keeps up. Read More......

Maureen Dowd is not happy with Hillary

In many ways, Maureen Dowd, when she's at her best, is like a political cartoonist. Her articles are kind of one big long joke until you get to the end, your breath catches up with you, and you suddenly go "oooooohhhh." This is one such article. Here's her latest. Read More......

McCain made Charles Keating part of his campaign team today

Jed posted an excerpt of John King's paean to John McCain last night. We've heard King really, really likes McCain personally, but he actually dealt with one of McCain's biggest controversies -- The Charles Keating Scandal:



Perfect timing because Keating is back big time -- and McCain did it himself through his weak attacks on Obama about Rezko. McCain shouldn't have gone there, but he did. Jonathan Singer reviews the history:

The Keating Five is an old story, so many reporters have shied away from saying much about it because it isn't new -- there aren't a whole lot of new developments in the story. But with McCain talking about allegedly shady relationships, the opportunity is there to go back over McCain's ties to Keating -- whose nefarious activities, which were at least in part aided by his relationship with McCain, ended up costing the American taxpayer $3.4 billion (a whole lot more than the $14 million Rezko was alleged to have received).

Just how close was McCain to Keating? Take a look at this rundown I posted back in January:

Though McCain might try to downplay his involvement, his campaigns received $124,000 from Keating and his associates during the 1980s (AP, 3/2/91), and McCain was described as being personally closer to Keating than any of the other members of the Keating Five (Roll Call, 1/20/92). What's more, McCain accepted more than $15,000 in free trips from Keating, including vacations to Keating's resort in the Bahamas -- trips that McCain failed to disclose at the time (New York Times, 2/28/91; San Francisco Chronicle, 12/3/90).

In the end, the crash of Keating's savings and loan -- which had been shielded by some of his best friends in the United States Senate -- cost billions to the American taxpayer, as mentioned above, and all told the federal government ended up on the hook for close to $125 billion in the fallout of the crisis that befell the underregulated industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Does McCain really want to have to talk about all of this? About the Bahaman vacations he took paid for by Keating? Probably not. But he may soon have to as a result of the shortsightedness of his campaign advisors. Nice move team McCain!

Nice move indeed. Keating is back. It's an ugly story. Lots of taxpayer money wasted. And, I didn't know Cindy was right in the thick of it. Read More......

Concord Monitor: McCain has learned to talk out of both sides of his mouth

From the Concord Monitor:

Politicians need a host of skills, but there was one that the old John McCain was proud not to possess: the ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth.

On Tuesday, while perched on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, McCain proved that he's mastered that trick.

"It is time for America to get serious about energy independence, and that means we need to start drilling offshore at advanced oil rigs like this,'' McCain said, from the giant, 10,000-barrel-per-day structure owned by Chevron and Exxon Mobil. Barack Obama has said that offshore drilling "won't solve our problem. . . . He's wrong, and the American people know it," McCain said.

Unfortunately, although many Americans believe that offshore drilling will provide real relief from high energy prices, it's the new McCain who's wrong. Before he switched positions, McCain opposed lifting the ban on offshore drilling and had this to say: "Those resources, which would take years to develop, would only postpone or temporarily relieve our dependency on fossil fuels." That's still true.

McCain assumed his party's thin green mantle with his focus on global warming and his support for a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. But how green a president would McCain be? Judging by his Senate career, the answer is: not very.

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Ouch

"Senator McCain should take the day off at one of his seven homes to consider whether his support for outsourcing, tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas and continued spending of ten billion a month in Iraq is really putting 'country first.' To us, it sounds like just more of the same." – Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor

Actually, since we got this quote, the confirmed number of homes McCain owns has jumped to eight. Read More......

McCain's repeated use of the POW-card poses a risk

This video a reader just sent me is an example of how the perception that McCain is overplaying the POW card - such as, invoking McCain's former POW status to explain why he can't remember how many homes he owns - is starting to pose a risk for him, as Politico's Ben Smith warned earlier today.

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McCains buy second beach condo in the same building at the same time McCain advises Americans to skip their vacation to make their mortgage payments

From TPM Election Central:

Cindy told her interviewer that the reason they needed a second beach condo in the Coronado building was that the first was too crowded because her kids were staying there and as a result she "couldn't get in the place."

Cindy continued: "So I bought another one."

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THIS JUST IN: McCain actually owns 8 homes

McCain couldn't remember how many he owned. His staff claimed 4. Newsweek says 7. Politico now says 8. And five of the eight were purchased in the past four years. Including multiple condos in the same town, which is kind of weird. Now McCain is trying to invoke "ethics" to change the topic. Yeah, let's talk ethics, Mr. Keating Five. Or is that Keating Six? I can never remember. Read More......

McCain spokesman uses euphemism for "f*cking"

Yikes. Sounds like the McCain people are a tad thin-skinned. I mean, in addition to invoking John McCain's former POW status in a debate over how many houses John McCain owns, McCain's spokesman used the word "fricking"- which is a euphemism for "f*cking." Not sure James Dobson is going to like that kind of talk. Of course, even more interesting was how McCain's spokesman declared, quite Scarlett O'Hara-like, that asking John McCain why he can't recall how many houses he owns is just the worst, most personal attack, ever! Yeah, I can see what they mean. I mean, questioning a guy's patriotism, suggesting that Obama is such an egomaniac that he WANTS to lose in Iraq, having war-monger Joe Lieberman say that Obama doesn't always put his country first, none of that is personal. Oh no. But asking John McCain why he can't remember how many homes he owns, that is just the most personal question ever asked of a presidential candidate in all of recorded history.

Which leads one to ask, why is it personal to ask why McCain can't remember how many homes he owns? Does the answer have to do with something personal that the McCain campaign isn't telling us? Read More......

McCain's housing gaffe doesn't matter because - are you ready? - he was a POW

Thank you, I predicted it. It only took the McCain campaign three hours, or so, to invoke John McCain's former POW status to defend him from attacks regarding his gaffe yesterday in which he couldn't remember how many houses he owns. You see, the McCain campaign explained to the Washington Post today, McCain was a POW. It's not entirely clear why that's relevant to a discussion of McCain owning 7 or 8 or 9 homes, and not being able to remember exactly how many homes he owns, but it apparently doesn't matter. Because McCain was a POW. Did everybody get that?

Ben Smith at Politico has more, including a warning that McCain may be overusing the POW card to his detrminent:

McCain aides referred back to McCain's time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam in defending him from the mockery over his houses.

This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," says spokesman Rogers.

It does seem like they're flirting with Giuliani/9/11 territory here, in which at subject that seems utterly immune to humor, used as a first resort, suddenly becomes a running joke among your political enemies and your late night comic friends.

It was McCain himself who warned John Kerry about overusing the "hero" thing. Read More......

McCain lied about his wife Cindy meeting Mother Teresa

How do you not remember, or remember when it didn't happen, that you met Mother Teresa? Even worse? How do you remember, incorrectly, that that is how you adopted your daughter? Here is what McCain's campaign Web site used to claim about his wife, Cindy:

Cindy led 55 medical missions to third world and war-torn countries during AVMT's seven years of existence. On one of those missions, Mother Teresa convinced Cindy to take two babies in need of medical attention to the United States. One of those babies is now their adopted daughter, 15 year old Bridget McCain.

It isn't true:

The McCain campaign had also put out the story that Mother Teresa “convinced” Cindy to bring home two orphans from Bangladesh in 1991.

Mrs. McCain, it turns out, never met Mother Teresa on that trip. (Once contacted by the Monitor, the campaign revised the story on its website.)

Seriously, how do you get the story wrong about how you found your daughter? And imagine had Michelle Obama, and her husband via his campaign Web site, lied about meeting Mother Teresa, let alone lying about how they came about having their daughter, apparently in order to pad their resume. Imagine the fireworks. Read More......

Audio of McCain losing track of how many houses he has

Short and sweet. I'm thinking there may need to be a remix of this... Read More......

Remember, only the little people pay taxes on their 8 or 9 homes

And the McCains are not little people. Read More......

Obama knee-caps McCain over house gaffe

Now THIS is what I'm talking about (transcript follows):



Here is the text of what Obama said:

But the fact of the matter is that John McCain is offering more of the same. He said a while back that he thought that we had made great progress economically during the years that George Bush has been in office. Now, that raised some eyebrows. Great progress economically. Who is he talking to? And it turns out that you get a sense of who he's talking to because some of you saw the Saddleback Forum with Rick Warren. He was asked, well, who do you consider rich? And he thought about it for a second, I don't know. Maybe if you make $5 million. $5 million, then you're rich. Which means, I guess, if you're only making $3 million a year then you're middle class. I guess that's what he meant.

His top economic adviser said the other day that Americans should stop complaining; they’ve become a nation of whiners. That all these economic problems everybody is talking about is just a mental recession. And if you would just change your mind, everything would be okay. Somebody’s been laid off, their plant’s closed and gone to Mexico or China, change your mind. It’s all good. Then, yesterday, he was asked again, what do you think about the economy? He says, Well, I think the economy is fundamentally strong; said the economy is fundamentally strong. Now, this puzzled me. I was confused as to what he meant.

But then there was another interview – this is yesterday, same day – where somebody asked John McCain, how many houses do you have? And he said, I’m not sure. I’ll have to check with my staff. True quote. I’m not sure. I’ll have to check with my staff. So they asked his staff, and he said, at least four. At least four. Now, think about that. I guess if you think that being rich means you’ve got to make $5 million and if you don’t know how many houses you have, then it’s not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong. But if you’re like me, and you’ve got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don’t lose their home, you might have a different perspective. And by the way, the answer is John McCain has seven homes.

So there’s just a fundamental gap of understanding between John McCain’s world and what people are going through every single day here in America. And you don’t have to be – you don’t have to be a Nobel Prize Laureate economist. You just have to have a little bit of a sense of what ordinary people are going through to understand that we can’t afford eight more years or four more years or one more year of the same failed economic policies that George Bush has put in place.

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AP has picked up the "McCain doesn't know how many homes he owns story"

This is the beginning of a very bad story for John McCain. Days after saying that you're aren't "rich" unless you make over $5 million a year, he acknowledged yesterday that he has no idea how many homes he owns. His campaign now claims he owns 4. Newsweek estimates the number at 7 or so. And Mrs. McCain herself has said "8 or 9." First off, why doesn't McCain know how many homes he has? Is he not remembering things now (again)? Second, who has so many homes that they don't know how many they have? Third, why can't the McCain campaign itself even seem to find out how many homes McCain has - they claim 4, Newsweek says there are far more? I mean, McCain is lucid enough to answer the question, out of the glare of the media lights, isn't he? Read More......

Obama releases new ad over McCain "I don't know how many houses I own" gaffe

Good. And the ad nicely avoids the issue of whether McCain is losing his cognitive abilities because of his advanced age (he's going to be 72 in a week). Rather, the ad simply notes that Americans are suffering economically and John McCain, and his seven houses, thinks everything is going swell.



UPDATE: The McCain campaign just issued a response that is so all over the place, it's worthy of a Democrat. It also evinces just a wee bit of pique :-)

“Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses? Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people “cling” to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans?

“The reality is that Barack Obama’s plans to raise taxes and opposition to producing more energy here at home as gas prices skyrocket show he’s completely out of touch with the concerns of average Americans.”

Well, if the McCain campaign wants to play the kitchen sink game, let me add a few points:

1. Adultery is forbidden in the Bible.
2. So is bigamy.
3. How is Vicki Eiseman?
4. Keating Five.
5. Stealing medicine from poor children to feed your drug addiction, while not specifically enumerated in the Bible, is probably frowned upon.
6. I can't remember if I have five or six points to make here.
7. Oh yeah, and according to John McCain, Obama's $4m makes him "middle class." Read More......

Tim Kaine on McCain's House Gaffe: "He Couldn't Count High Enough"

Fiesty. We like that. So let's have a contest. How long do you think the McCain campaign can go today without responding to Kaine's joke by invoking John McCain's former POW status?

Read More......

Debates announced

Joint statement from Obama and McCain:

The Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns have agreed to hold three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate in September and October sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. The campaigns have come to the earliest agreement on presidential debates reached in any general election in recent history. This announcement reflects the presidential campaigns' agreement on dates, locations, and the formats for the fall debates. Campaign-appointed debate negotiators House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said they were pleased to have reached an early agreement to provide the American people with the opportunity to see and hear the candidates debate the critical issues facing the country. The two campaigns have accepted sponsorship of the debates by the Commission on Presidential Debates, subject to the debates being conducted under the terms of their agreement.

Summary of McCain-Obama Debate Agreement

The two campaigns agreed today on a framework for four General Election debates, to be sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Key elements of the agreement are:

First Presidential Debate:
Date: September 26
Site: University of Mississippi
Topic: Foreign Policy & National Security
Moderator: Jim Lehrer
Staging: Podium debate
Answer Format: The debate will be broken into nine, 9-minute segments. The moderator will introduce a topic and allow each candidate 2 minutes to comment. After these initial answers, the moderator will facilitate an open discussion of the topic for the remaining 5 minutes, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment

Vice Presidential Debate
Date: October 2nd
Site: Washington University (St. Louis)
Moderator: Gwen Ifill
Staging/Answer Format: To be resolved after both parties’ Vice Presidential nominees are selected.

Second Presidential Debate
Date: October 7
Site: Belmont University
Moderator: Tom Brokaw
Staging: Town Hall debate
Format: The moderator will call on members of the audience (and draw questions from the internet). Each candidate will have 2 minutes to respond to each question. Following those initial answers, the moderator will invite the candidates to respond to the previous answers, for a total of 1 minute, ensuring that both candidates receive an equal amount of time to comment. In the spirit of the Town Hall, all questions will come from the audience (or internet), and not the moderator.

Third Presidential Debate
Date: October 15
Site: Hofstra University
Topic: Domestic and Economic policy
Moderator: Bob Schieffer
Staging: Candidates will be seated at a table
Answer Format: Same as First Presidential Debate
Closing Statements: At the end of this debate (only) each candidate shall have the opportunity for a 90 second closing statement.

All four debates will begin at 9pm ET, and last for 90 minutes. Both campaigns also agreed to accept the CPD’s participation rules for third-party candidate participation.

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Obama and Reid need to tell Daschle and Feingold to STFU

Joe was watching CNN yesterday and saw CNN's John King promoting the special report he's done on McCain called "McCain Revealed." King (who we've heard really likes McCain personally, and let's his opinion be known) said, "Among the surprises, we talked to some Democrats about McCain's reputation for having a big temper." Those Democrats are Democratic Senator Feingold and former Democratic Senate Leader Tom Daschle.

King said, while both of them want Obama to win and think he would be a far better president, "both also say they think Democrats who say McCain is too volatile, too temperamental, are just wrong. And, that they think, if he wins the election... they don't want that... but these two leading Democrats say, if he wins the election, they'd be happy to work with him. They actually think he'd make a pretty good president."

That's nice. On the same day the DNC is sending out messages criticizing McCain's volatile temper, Daschle and Feingold totally undercut that very argument. Not to mention, it's one of our strongest arguments against McCain, and Daschle and Feingold are busy whoring for jobs in the next McCain administration.

KING (voice-over): Daschle describes McCain as emotional, visceral, yet distances himself from Democrats who say McCain is too volatile.

DASCHLE: I'm not saying I'm right. All I'm saying is I don't view it as a -- as a problem.

SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD (D), WISCONSIN: I'm for Barack Obama for president. And I think he has a perfect temperament to be president of the United States. But even though I feel strongly about that, I can't sit here and say that John McCain doesn't have the temperament to be the president of the United States. I frankly think he does. And I think he'd be a good president....

KING (voice-over): Maverick was the label more and more attached to McCain. And he liked it.

FEINGOLD: I think he's essentially an Independent who wants to call them as he sees them. I think modus operandi is to say here's a problem, what can we do to fix it?

It's time that Senators Daschle and Feingold were told to STFU or pay a serious price for supporting the enemy. Daschle screwed up, maybe he was tired, but Feingold - good God, why don't you just get on stage alongside Joe Lieberman at the GOP convention, if you like McCain so much, Senator.

The Republicans wouldn't tolerate this kind of crap from their own, and this is the second time Feingold has pulled this stunt in as many weeks. Daschle should be told that no more pro-McCain statements will be tolerated, and Feingold - the man who brought us Attorney General Ashcroft, the man who talks progressive but never really actually does anything - should be told that if he opens his big mouth one more time he should kiss his committee assignments good bye. Read More......

McCain said yesterday that he was unsure how many houses he has

Okay everyone, quiz time! "How many homes do you own?" Now come on, don't cheat. Aw, you got me - you're right, it's a trick question. I mean, how many Americans can answer a tough curveball question like that!

Okay that's just scary. How rich do you have to be, and how cognitively impaired, to not remember how many homes you have? Folks, this is just weird. McCain's oddly inconsistent mental state is a serious, valid question in this election, and the media seems afraid to address it head on. Real people don't have so many homes that they can't remember, unless they're absurdly rich, or they're losing their faculties. McCain didn't make these kind of gaffes eight years ago, when he was 64. What's going on?

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think - I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told us in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where - I'll have them get to you."

The correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia, according to his staff. Newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties.

Actually Cindy McCain said in the past that they have 8 or 9 houses, she's not sure either.

NOTE TO DEMOCRATS: This is manna from heaven. Run a freaking ad about this, non-stop. Unless of course you think it's too mean and you just can't touch it, then we can just have an independent group do it. Oh, that's right - you killed the independent groups. Never mind. I hear the White House isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway. Read More......

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Didn't get my text message overnight so no V.P. announcement yet. The suspense is building, huh? The clock is ticking.

And, while we're on the subject of V.P., McCain said he would have chosen Cheney, too -- and Jed has the video:



McCain will give us four more years of Bush. Now, we know he'd want four more years of Cheney, too.

Start threading... Read More......

Bill Donohue is obsessed with gays (and it's not very becoming)

Anti-semite, homophobe Bill "Hollywood likes anal sex" Donohue, the self-appointed leader of the American Catholics, is obsessed with all things homosexual. It's odd and a little disturbing just how much attention Donohue pays to all things gay. How does he know so much about Hollywood's love of anal sex? His latest gay-related crusade is to prevent the DNC from giving credentials to Towleroad. Donahue also wants no credentials for Bitch Ph.D.

Andy's response is, of course, perfect:

If Donohue is so focused on sex, his time would be better focused on healing the epidemic of sexual abuse against children by clergy in the Catholic church, and considering the facts on the use of condoms, which the Church has said have no effect on the prevention of AIDS, rather than attempting to influence American politics by limiting the Democratic ideals of free speech, inclusion and tolerance.

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