Freeway Blogging

Because someone has to do it.

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Brain cancer leads Novak to retire

Bob Novak, conservative columnist, has decided to retire due to his "dire" cancer prognosis. From the NYTimes:

Robert Novak, the conservative columnist who learned recently that he has a brain tumor, says his condition is “dire” and he has retired, his home newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, reported on Monday.
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In recent years, Mr. Novak was best known as the journalist who identified Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. A federal investigation into the source of that information followed, which led to the conviction I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, on obstruction and perjury charges. President Bush commuted Mr. Libby’s sentence.

On July 23, while driving in Washington, D.C., Mr. Novak struck an elderly pedestrian, and later said he did not realize the accident had happened. It is not clear whether the incident was connected to his brain tumor.

Awful lot of brain cancer popping up now, wonder if it has anything to do with cell phones? There's a study here, here and here if you want to learn more and decide for yourself. Read the rest of this post...

Jet Blue charging passengers $7 for pillow, blanket

May they all go bankrupt. Read the rest of this post...

John McCain's "boob raunch fest"

Didn't hear about this in the Britney ad. (More here.) Read the rest of this post...

McCain flip-flops on raising taxes again

This time on energy taxes. It appears he might be for raising them too. Boy it sure is easy to get John McCain to cave when it comes to raising taxes. This comes after McCain flip-flopped on not raising taxes to pay for Social Security. Read the rest of this post...

Your laptop may be detained at the border, and there's nothing you can do about it

To be fair, they can strip search you too, and have been able to for years, and they don't. Usually. So just because they can seize your launch, your iPod, your Blackberry, your cell phone etc. doesn't mean necessarily that they will. Then again, I could see them arguing that your electronic laptop isn't as personal as your, well, personal laptop. (Of course, their new scanners can see that too, and will, and there's nothing you can do about it.) But it'd be nice to have some clarification about this, whether they're just going to start scanning computer hard drives for pirated music, movies, porn, etc. Read the rest of this post...

How about the Democrats defend one of our vets for once?

This is really abominable. It's all well and good for Democrats to constantly stumble over themselves to see who can proclaim John McCain a bigger hero, but General Clark is a vet too - and he actually made it to General, which means he did something right. He deserves a little more respect than our side has given him over the past month. For CBS to bring this bullshit up again is simply shoddy journalism. It's bad enough that they took the quote out of context, and that our side subsequently threw Clark under the bus, but now CBS is going to rehash this thing every time they interview a Democrat? Kerry's response is simply abominable. Apparently we haven't learned sufficiently how to stop a Swiftboating, have we? Read the rest of this post...

Why is Newsweek using Obama's middle name?

The only time we use the middle names of presidents (or politicians) is to distinguish them from other presidents of the same name (e.g., George W. Bush vs. George H.W. Bush). We also use a politician's middle name when the politician themself uses it - to wit: Hillary Clinton was Hillary Rodham Clinton for a while, or perhaps still is, but it was her choice to use the middle name. My middle name is George, no one calls me John George because I don't call myself John George. So why is Newsweek gratuitously throwing a "Hussein" in this story? And how is it that no editor caught this? Read the rest of this post...

Obama's new energy ad

Obama whacks McCain -- and Bush -- on oil (reposted with youtube of the ad):



Thoughts? Read the rest of this post...

What's wrong with John McCain?

Joe posted a video yesterday from Jed, showing McCain trying to answer a question from an audience member, and the video is really disturbing. From three different angles you just watch McCain get sort of totally confused. It's like one minute he's there and the next he's not. McCain's campaign would like nothing better than to demonize anyone who dares mention McCain's age (he's going to be 72 this month). But the fact remains that there's a real question as to why the John McCain we knew in 2000 was vibrant and on the ball, and why John McCain circa 2008 seems prone to repeated gaffs and bouts of confusion. And let's not forgot, McCain got tons of media attention in 2000 as well - and he wasn't at all as "off" as he is today, so it's not just a question of "oh, candidates make gaffs when they're on cam 24/7" - McCain didn't have these problems in 2000. Read the rest of this post...

Rasmussen has Obama and McCain in a tie. This is troubling.

(NOTE FROM JOHN: I've added my thoughts to the end of joe's post.)

The trend of the tracking polls hasn't been good of late. Rasmussen, which is a quite reputable poll, has Obama and McCain tied today -- and with leaners (basically people who haven't made up their minds, but are forced to choose for the poll), McCain is up by one point. This is the first time that McCain has tied or beaten Obama in the poll, Obama has always been up. Not anymore:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows the race for the White House is tied with Barack Obama and John McCain each attracting 44% of the vote. However, when "leaners" are included, it’s McCain 47% and Obama 46%.

This is the first time McCain has enjoyed even a statistically insignificant advantage of any sort since Obama clinched the Democratic nomination on June 3 (see recent daily results).

I've had a bad feeling about the direction of the campaign for the past couple weeks. We've been saying for months that McCain and the GOP would go negative, very negative. No surprise. That is what's happening. Karl Rove and his crew are at their best destroying people and they're running the show now. The latest tracking polls seem to indicate that McCain's negative attacks are having an impact. The corollary is that Obama's response hasn't been working, or at least it hasn't been enough. That needs to change, fast.

Granted, this is a national tracking poll and, as we've written many times, this election is about the states, because it is. I'll be monitoring FiveThirtyEight.com for any movement on the state polls.

For those who think it's too early to be worried, here's some historical perspective: the first Swift Boat ad attacking John Kerry was launched on August 5, 2004.

NOTE FROM JOHN: I've learned that when Joe gets worried, it's time for the rest of us to worry too (Joe was the one who predicted in early November that Hillary would lose the nomination and Obama would win it).

Obama seems pretty much on his own in facing down McCain's increasingly nasty attacks (yes, we have the blogs, but the blogs aren't enough by themselves - see my discussion of this further down). The conventional wisdom is that the best way to respond to these kind of attacks is to respond in kind, and blow them out of the water (note how McCain responded to Obama's "race" comment, and note how it threw the Obama people off-balance - also, note what McCain did to Wesley Clark). You do that with the candidate himself, sometimes (if you feel a need to show that the candidate can get angry if necessary, i.e., has balls), but more often you use outside groups and surrogate members of Congress, and other third parties, like the blogs, talk radio, etc. But in this case, our outside groups were shut down a few months ago, so they're gone, and many of their staff, some of the top political people in town, aren't even working on the election at all now. As for Democratic Senators and House Members, they've been oddly silent over the past week or two, and at least don't seem part of any larger, public, and coordinated strategy to counterattack. And yes, finally, the blogs are still here, but as I've argued many a time (see the Alito filubuster fiasco), the blogs can't act in a vacuum. A proper political marketing strategy requires multiple layers, multiple actors, each complementing the other's work, the other's message, the other's attacks.

Rasmussen's poll today sends one message to John McCain. His disgusting, sleazy, personal attacks on Obama are working. We can now expect a lot more, and there's little reason to think that they won't be just as effective next time.

Just very, very disturbing. Read the rest of this post...

Alisa Miller: Why we know less than ever about the world

From TED.com

Alisa Miller, head of Public Radio International, talks about why -- though we want to know more about the world than ever -- the US media is actually showing less. Eye-opening stats and graphs.

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McCain is ducking his old friends from the bus

Ah, the good old days. When John McCain and his pals in the press could just ride around in the bus and chat. Those were the days when McCain could make mistakes and his pals would cover for him. Now, he won't talk to them -- and sounds like some of the reporters are actually covering what McCain says (if they can ever get near him). Oh, it's all the fault of the blogs:

In 2000, when top news executives were clamoring for a chance to ride the fabled bus, McCain would spend hours talking to reporters who would write one story a day. "Now, with each bus trip, everyone's filing a blog report, every little thing is picked up and off it goes," says Slate correspondent John Dickerson. "It certainly takes him off message."

McCain adviser Steve Duprey, a former chairman of New Hampshire's Republican Party, says "he'd love to be back on the bus, driving around with eight or 10 of you, and just riffing. In New Hampshire, if he'd say something that wasn't artfully phrased, there was more of a flow -- he could revise something, or say let's talk about baseball. He'd get a pass. But in the age of blogs, there's always someone who makes a big deal out of it."

McCain is "pained" at all but ending the sessions, says spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush White House communications director, but "we have to find a balance. He won the primary essentially on a bus with the press. . . . He's intensely loyal to the back-and-forth with the press. It's who he is. It will always be part of our mix."

Note to anyone reading this: Do not believe Ms. Wallace. She is one of the prime spinners from the Karl Rove school. Trust nothing she says. The "balance" of which she speaks is no balance. Because of the new media, the traditional media types can't cover for McCain anymore. And, McCain needs cover because he is overly prone to mistakes and gaffes -- and he just makes things up.

Then, there's this little tidbit about CNN's John King, who is increasingly one of the biggest tools in the media:

When CNN's John King was interviewing the senator for a profile to run before the Republican convention -- and raised the race-card flap at the end -- aides tried to cut him off. McCain gave a 10-second answer and ended the interview with a quick handshake as King tried to follow up. The aides later chastised King for raising a subject that was not part of the agreed-upon agenda.

King only got an interview by agreeing to a specific agenda. CNN wanted the interview for some convention promotion. In other words, sounds like he sacrificed some of CNN's integrity, not that the network has too much, to get McCain on camera - McCain set the ground rules so McCain would look good.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Not to mention, considering that McCain's campaign invoked the race card last week, practically accusing Obama of being a racist (oh the irony there in so many ways), why are they now afraid to talk about it? Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

This could be a wild week -- and not just because the Olympics are starting on Friday.

What are the chances either Obama or McCain will pick a running mate this week? The punditry will be in a frenzy for the next couple days trying to figure it out. If not, the widely held belief is that neither candidate will make that announcement during the Olympics.

Today is Barack Obama's 47th birthday. We'll give at least equal coverage to McCain's 72nd birthday on August 29th.

Take it away. Read the rest of this post...

Horrible stampede at temple in India

Chris has officially begun his vacation in the south, so it's time for me to pick up on the more worldly news. What a horrible story. From AP:

Family members moved through row after row of bodies overnight in a grim search for their loved ones among the 145 people killed in a deadly stampede at a remote mountaintop Hindu temple.

In many cases, families lost several relatives who were killed together as they went to the Naina Devi Temple in the foothills of the Himalayas Sunday to celebrate Shravan Navratras, a nine-day festival that honors the Hindu goddess Shakrti, or divine mother.

Mukesh Chabba went to the temple with 11 family members to celebrate the recent birth of his son. Only five of them survived.

The 31-year-old farmer lost both of his parents, his wife, his 2-year-old daughter, his brother and sister-in-law and their 17 year old daughter. He saved his infant son by passing him to a young man who was on a ledge above the main path, he said.

"There was a lot of shouting and pushing. People fell down and could not get up. They just suffocated," he said.

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