Josh Marshall: McCain wants to define Obama as a Muslim, anti-American, BLACK, terrorist, Arab

An intense, and pointed, commentary from Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall. Josh is a very good writer and thinker, but he's not prone to the amount of emotion that I and some others in the blogosphere sometimes like to show (cough, Matt Stoller :-) So when Josh writes something like this, the media takes notice. We take notice.

Hopefully, everyone can now see the McCain strategy for running against Barack Obama. Yes, we have some general points on taxes, culture wars and McCain as war hero who can protect us in ways that flash-in-the-pan pretty boy Barack Obama can't.

But that's not the core. The core is to drill a handful of key adjectives into the public mind about Barack Obama: Muslim, anti-American,BLACK, terrorist, Arab....

Now, a good deal has been made out of John McCain's repudiation of talk radio yakmeister Bill Cunningham, who led off for McCain at one of his rallies with the full run of Obama sludge. But don't be distracted or fooled....

Don't insult your intelligence or mine by pretending that John McCain's plan for this race doesn't rely on hundreds of Cunninghams -- large and small -- across the country, and the RNC and all the GOP third party groups, to be peddling this stuff nonstop for the next eight months because it's the only way John McCain have a real shot at contesting this race.

If McCain really wants to repudiate this stuff, he can start with the Tennessee Republican party which dished all the slurs and smears about Obama being a Nation of Islam-loving anti-Semite, just today. And once he's done talking to the people who will be running his Tennessee campaign, we'll have a number of others he can talk to, like the head of his Ohio campaign, former Sen. Mike DeWine, who gave that Cunningham guy his marching orders.

Let's just not fool ourselves, not lie to ourselves about what's happening here and who's in charge.

Read the rest of this post...

In the small world department...

I was just out having dinner with friends, including a Democratic candidate for a Republican House seat this fall, when who do we spot at the next table, Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones. You remember her, she's the Clinton campaign surrogate one who said on Monday that Obama's "native country" and "nation" was Somalia, and whose office you subsequently called to give her a piece of your minds. I resisted the urge to walk over and tell her that Senator Obama's native country is America, what's hers? Read the rest of this post...

Bernanke ready to sacrifice average Americans to save Wall Street

Gosh, thanks. While I appreciate the public arguing between Federal Reserve governors on the subject of whether to focus on inflation or Wall Street, it's discouraging to hear Bernanke so willingly point towards another Wall Street gift. During the Bush years, the middle class has been shafted and has not enjoyed the economic benefits that mostly helped the wealthiest Americans. There was no trickle down and they didn't even try to hide behind such false stories as they did during the Reagan years. They simply didn't give a damn.

Now all of the excesses of the Wall Street wet dream, where they were given full authority by Republicans do to pretty much any damned thing they liked, are crashing down. Suddenly, we're all supposed to jump and give Wall Street more free money so we can help them bounce back. Money isn't falling from the sky, it's leaving your wallet to bail these bums out. The same middle class who has footed the bill for Iraq, footed the tax cuts for the rich, more expensive health care, fewer benefits and payed the price for lack of traditional regulation, is being asked to sacrifice - again - so that Bernanke can help Wall Street dig out of the hole they put us in. We're in for a bumpy ride one way or another so let Wall Street fend for themselves and think about the middle class. Inflation and sagging wages are taking their toll, but don't tell that to Bernanke. He doesn't give a damn unless you are Wall Street. Read the rest of this post...

Just how many times has McCain met the guy he never met?

More on Bill Cunningham, the guy who was introducing McCain and called Obama "Hussein" and then said Madeleine Albright was ugly. The guy who McCain says he never even met before. Well, a reliable source tells me that Bill Cunningham has had several invitations to McCain events at which he has met with McCain for relatively brief periods, and that McCain has been on Cunningham's radio show twice - once from the Capitol itself in 1995. Doesn't sound like John McCain has never even heard of this guy before. But then again, dementia isn't pretty. Read the rest of this post...

Obama Makes Gay Ad Buys in Ohio, Texas

Obama's campaign is reaching out to gays in Ohio and Texas. Both Hillary and Obama have had their ups and downs with the gays, but overall, they're both excellent on the issue, and far better than McCain and the far-right bureaucrats and Supreme Court justices he'd appoint. I'll never forget watching McCain in 2000 talk angrily, in response to a question about gay rights, how being gay had nothing to do with other civil rights, like being discriminated against because you're black, etc. Nice man, Mr. McCain.

Andy over at TowleRoad got his hands a copy of the print ad. Read the rest of this post...

Making Common Cause with criminals

Remember when good government groups were about stopping Washington insiders from helping their friends thwart the public good? Not so much anymore.

You'll recall we've been talking a lot over the past week about how John McCain is on the verge of committing a criminal act by pulling out of the public finance system, and violating its spending limits, after having used that system to get a $4m loan and to get on the ballot in numerous states? And remember how we told you that McCain's crime is punishable by a 5 year jail term? This isn't some esoteric campaign finance pledge McCain is breaking - it's the law.

Well, you might be surprised to hear that good government, pro campaign finance reform groups like Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Public Citizen, the League of Women Voters and U.S. PIRG have all been silent on John McCain's impending campaign finance crime.

Now why is that? I mean, sure, Public Citizen is just waking up from its 4 year nap after the last time Ralph Nader came out of his hole, ran for president, and tried to throw the election to the Republicans, so we can forgive their inaction - I mean, they did just wake up. (And in any case, Nader seems hell-bent on throwing elections to Republicans, so should we expect the group he founded to endanger yet another 8 years of rampant Republican corporate welfare over a simple thing like our potential future president being a criminal?) But what about the other groups? What possible reason could Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and U.S. PIRG have for suddenly not caring so much about campaign finance reform rules and presidential candidates breaking the law?

Matt Stoller over at OpenLeft got a very angry email from Common Cause after he dared ask this question. Interestingly, Common cause responded to everything Matt wrote about except the main point of Matt's post, why Common Cause was remaining silent over McCain's impending criminal campaign finance offense. Funny that.

Then again, it is understandable. I mean, these groups have been around for a while, and they've worked for years with John McCain, they've laughed with John McCain, shared the good times and the bad with him - they like John McCain, and John McCain has become their friend. They have influence with John McCain, they lobby John McCain, and they may fear losing that influence if they hold McCain as responsible for his crime as they hold other politicians for their crimes.

You see, in Washington, sometimes you have to do what's wrong to do what's right. Read the rest of this post...

9/11 Redux: 'Thousands of Aliens' in U.S. Flight Schools Illegally

Republican "limited government" at its worst. From ABC:

Former FAA Inspector: TSA's Enforcement of Post-9/11 Laws 'Basically Nonexistent'

Thousands of foreign student pilots have been able to enroll and obtain pilot licenses from U.S. flight schools, despite tough laws passed in the wake of the 9/ll attacks, according to internal government documents obtained by ABC News.

"Some of the very same conditions that allowed the 9-11 tragedy to happen in the first place are still very much in existence today," wrote one regional security official to his boss at the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration.

"Thousands of aliens, some of whom may very well pose a threat to this country, are taking flight lessons, being granted FAA certifications and are flying planes," wrote the TSA official, Richard A. Horn, in 2005, complaining that the students did not have the proper visas.

Read the rest of this post...

McCain lied (again). This time about never having met surrogate who called Obama "Hussein" and said Albright was ugly.

It was just last week that McCain lied to the media about never having met a lobbyist involved in last week's scandal (he had met with the lobbyist, and admitted it under oath in 2002). Now he's lying about this controversy as well. Or he's telling the truth, he actually thinks he didn't meet all these different people because the 71 year old McCain no longer has all his faculties.

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Obama: McCain and Bush "took their eye off the people who really were responsible for 9/11"

McCain enabled Bush's failed strategy in Iraq. McCain enabled Bush's failed strategy against Al Qaeda. The Bush failure is the McCain failure and Obama is going to remind the American people of that at every single opportunity.

The latest smackdown of McCain from Obama via Ben Smith:

"John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but so far all he’s done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq," he said.

Obama was responding, incredulously, to McCain's suggestion that he's unaware of the presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which the Arizona Senator said earlier today was apparently "news" to Obama at last night's debate.

"McCain thought that he could make a clever point by saying, 'Well let me give you some news, Barack, Al Qaeda is in Iraq,' like I wasn’t reading the papers, like didn’t know what was going on." Obama said, leaning into his developing McCain impression.

He then described the context -- a hypothetical question from Tim Russert -- and said, "First of all, I do know Al Qaeda is in Iraq, and that’s why I said we should continue to strike Al Qaeda targets."

"I have some news for John McCain," Obama continued, "That’s there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain" began the Iraq war, he said.

"They took their eye off the people who really were responsible for 9/11," he said.

Thanks to Bush and McCain, Al Qaeda isn't vanquished, they're stronger. Read the rest of this post...

Bush EPA at it again - corporate farms exempted from laws

The corporate world is going to look back at the Bush years as a dream period. Whatever they want, no matter how crazy or dangerous to others, gets the official Bush seal of approval. If only there was another branch of government that had some power to provide balance and call them out. If only...

Under pressure from agriculture industry lobbyists and lawmakers from agricultural states, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to drop requirements that factory farms report their emissions of toxic gases, despite findings by the agency's scientists that the gases pose a health threat.

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What counts as a "win" for Hillary next Tuesday

From Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post:

What's clear from our conversations is that the expectation among party poobahs is that Clinton needs -- at a minimum -- popular vote victories in Ohio and Texas to continue her campaign until the next big showdown in Pennsylvania in late April.

We couldn't find a single person who thought Clinton could/should go on if she split the raw vote with Obama in Ohio and Texas. "Right now it feels like air going out of a tire very slowly and you'd have to believe that they could not hold the superdelegates with a loss in either [state]," said one Democratic consultant granted anonymity to speak openly.

Others have estimated, more precisely, that Hillary needs to get at least 65% of the delegates in both Texas and Ohio. See Chuck Todd's analysis, below:

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Both Obama and Hillary have a 100% rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood

I just wanted to bring that up since I keep getting these emails telling me how just awful Obama is on choice issues. In fact, he's fine. And so is Hillary, she's at 100% for both NARAL and PPFA as well. Still, I've gotten enough of these abortion-urban-myth emails about Obama, and they do seem orchestrated by someone, so it seemed necessary to finally weigh in about both candidates. They're both fine on abortion and choice issues, so please, whoever is throwing the kitchen sink at Obama - stop it, we're not idiots. You can check PPFA's and NARAL's scorecards for all your candidates. Read the rest of this post...

McCain facing serious legal question about his campaign finance "deal"

So one of John McCain's claims to fame is that he's the champion of campaign finance reform. But, we're seeing the dark side of McCain. He's actually the champion of scamming the campaign finance system:

Still, questions about the legality of the deal have turned the fine print of McCain's borrowing into a source of intense scrutiny among leading campaign lawyers. Several suggested McCain has landed in a legal bind: If McCain used the promise of public financing to secure the loan -- as Democrats suggest -- he faces strict spending limits. If public funds were not involved -- as Potter argues -- that poses other problems.

And, McCain, who is on the verge of breaking the law, wants to make public financing an issue with Obama. As if. I'll repeat what we wrote during our debate open thread when Russert asked Obama about public campaign financing for the general election:

Campaign finance. Here's the answer -- listen, Tim -- McCain is on the verge of breaking the campaign finance laws. He could go to jail for 5 years as a result. Why do I care what McCain thinks about this issue, he's lost all credibility. As for Obama, Russert got it wrong. Obama didn't promise to take public funding, he said he'd sit down with the GOP nominee and try to work out a deal. Big difference.

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Just watched Russert give his debate review. He not only reports the news. He is the News. Looks like NBC cleaned him up over night, too.

Twenty debates is a lot. I know how exhausting it is too watch them all. Can't even imagine the stress and pressure on the candidates to perform. But, our candidates have been tested and they've had to answer some tough -- some amazingly inane -- questions.

What's going to set off McCain's legendary temper? You know he's going to lose it at some point during the general election. It's in his nature. I've said before he's like the nasty, crazy old man in your neighborhood who was always screaming at the kids over nothing. But your parents didn't believe you. They just thought he was a nice old man because they never saw him yelling and acting erratic. Then, one day, he explodes in front of them and they see it for themselves. That's John McCain. He's trying to keep his temper in check -- but he's going to blow. It's a matter of time. That would actually be a good question for CNN: Do you think John McCain will lose his temper over some perceived slight and start screaming and yelling during the campaign? ___Yes ___No

Okay, start. Read the rest of this post...

Democrats calling for change in food safety

It's refreshing to hear a voice of reason on such a critical issue Congresswoman DeGette may finally be helping Congress turn the corner on food safety. The current system has been cracking for a long time courtesy of the GOP "let industry self regulate" programs. Even the USDA and FDA are unable to make food recalls and instead, rely on the violators themselves to do this. Amazing, isn't it? To compound the problem, the Bush administration has equipped those federal agencies with industry people who are more interested in letting business do as they please rather than think of consumers. Budgets have been slashed, regulation has disappeared and the problem gets worse every year despite big talk by industry and their friends in the GOP.

DeGette's call for federal mandatory recall authority is the right thing to do for painfully obvious reasons. While I don't see the current administration showing any interest in taking action even if they did have the authority, we are only months away from a new administration that hopefully will care about consumers. The Big Food execs will continue to tell everyone that they are in control but history tells us something different. Providing regulation authority is a great first step. Read the rest of this post...

Dollar falls through support level, oil hits new high

From bad to worse in the GOP economy. The dollar has fallen through a very important support level $1.50 - €1 so if the greenback fails to bounce back quickly this could hit the free fall that many have been predicting. So what does this mean in America? Exactly what happened yesterday, which was a nasty inflation (stagflation) report courtesy of high energy costs.

Oil hit yet another new high, breaking through the $101 figure. Looking at the trends in oil, while it could drop back into the $80s though realistically, there is little preventing another climb. Just about anything can make the prices go back up (Turkey invading Iraq, hurricane, rumors, you name it) and now that the $100 support level has been tested and kicked aside it will be much easier for it to go up again. The Democrats really need call out the GOP and McCain in particular on this. These results are directly linked to years of bad policy by the Republicans. If we fail to drive this point home early and often, shame on us. Read the rest of this post...