Boehner-Cantor Tag Team

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The unabashed tag team of John Boehner and Eric Cantor have now spoken about the increasingly violent rhetoric and acts against Democrats who voted for healthcare reform, and Eric Cantor makes clear that it's red herring and blame-the-victim time. The false equivalencies are flying around, and political cowardice by the likes of John McCain excusing Sarah Palin's violence prompts are on full display.

It's a pretty wretched sight coming out of Washington these days. Will the media now further fuel the flames? Or will they referee the filibustering and blustering and fingerpointing and call them what they are?

Time will tell. But Mrs. McMahon will fit right in with this crowd if she wins in November.

Who knows, maybe she'd even call a tag team what it is....
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UPDATE: According to Eric Cantor, the Dems are flnning the flames of violence. Thus spake the arsonist.

Shorter John McCain

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And let's be candid, John McCain couldn't get much shorter than he has gotten lately.

On Don't Ask, Don't Tell, here's the shorter, true take:

What do you mean I'm not president?

That pretty much sums up everything about John McCain...sore loser.

Sore.

Loser.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Sarah Reads God's Mind

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(Marking time this Monday morning waiting to hear whether Governor John Hoeven, the now-most-popular Governor in the US_—Thanks, Bakken Oil Patch!—will announce that he is going to stay at #1 or run for the Dorgan seat to become part of the minority party and take up permanent whining for a career change.)

Meanwhile:
Sarah Palin believed her running for vice president was "God's plan." So said a former top McCain campaign aide on Sunday night's 60 Minutes.

Just in case you missed it with all that football to choose among.

So let's see if I'm understanding this: God whispers in John McCain's ear to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Sarah Palin. Pitbull with lipstick outa Wasilla Alaska, the meth capitol of the sub-Arctic...but of course that's just a coincidence. With a family that fits right in the Octomom Heenie balloon boy Jon and Kate "reality" era.

And God did this because?

Well, I've got one thought. God realized the only way a black man could get elected president in the "modern" warmongering pistolpackin' rightwing era would be if the opposing side were so horrifically inappropriately not ready, not fit for office that Americans would rather even vote for a young, community organizin', big city African-American promising hope and change.

Betcha Sarah never thought of that one.
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Undermining....

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Joe Lie-berman and the friendly folk at Fox news have been quick to ramp up the Fort Hood shootings into national security. Hearings to come.

Not to be outdone, Senator John McCain joins in the fray at an event for Mitch McConnell:

"This may sound a little harsh, but I think we ought to make sure that political correctness never impedes national security...."

Nor political opportunism neither, Senators?

Wonder which one of these guys will be first up in the lazy Rolodexes of the Sunday morning gas bag shows?

President Obama set exactly the right tone and the right message in his memorial service comments.

Give the guy due process, convict him and and carry out appropriate punishment.
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

McCain's Golden Fleece

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John McCain is channeling his inner William Proxmire these days as he rails--rightly--against the over-9000 earmarks in the budget.

I'm okay with that.

With this caveat. McCain owes us the due diligence of not just shooting off his mouth but engaging his brain trust aka staff to scratch the surface of what each earmark he specifically attacks does.

I take his basic point that there should be no earmarks, that if something truly merits funding it should stand the test of scrutiny for inclusion in the budget. Ho-kay.

But then what about these stats from his own...I was going to say "party" but we can fine tune this to his fellow Republican Arizona Senator. Courtesy ThinkProgress, Senator John Kyl, is one of the top earmarkers in the Senate, to the tune of $118 million in fiscal 2008.

Guess it's easy to be against earmarks when the other guy in the state is pushing through gazillions of 'em....

Hell, McCain could take his own colleague to the men's room stall, er, woodshed, and drum home his earmark philosophy and earn some street cred that legitimizes him. Or not.

But let's just say that ol' Kyl and the Republicans and Democrats who are all

One Last Grand Truly Maverick Gesture

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I confess. Watching John McCain last night on Saturday Night Live, exhibiting more warmth and comfort in his own skin and self-deprecating humor than we've seen all this long campaign season...well, I had a brief flash of thought that if that had been the John McCain...and the McCain campaign we'd seen all these months...well, that John McCain could've swept the election. Fair and square.

Right now, of course, we're still in the twilight zone of pre-election worrying over Diebold and flippin' voter screens and voter suppression and all those other dirty tricks the extremists in the Republican party have become known for...and some we don't even know about.

And then there's the last hour unveiling of the Rev. Wright commercials by 527s. Maybe knowing those were coming and expecting those would tip the election to him were what made McCain so relaxed on SNL.

I hope not. I hope he's as appalled as the rest of us are by the blatant appeal to fear and racism that is the only thing the Rethuglican wing of the Republican Party has to offer. I hope at long last he decides enough's enough. That this is one last step he will not take.

That John McCain will stand up and renounce these sleazy, pandering, cynical commercials and email and leaflets and whatever other tactics the Rethugs are using and take back his honor.

Yes, I hope, nay expect, that John McCain will stand up and in one last grand truly maverick gesture...endorse Barack Obama.
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Remember History...or Repeat It

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Just remember, when George W. Bush dawdled and partied while the City of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were deluged by Katrina, who he was partying with...and who was partying with him.
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Whatever Means Necessary....

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I remember reading about Cindy McCain telling her adopted daughter, Bridget, who was deeply hurt by the slurs of South Carolina 2000 that it was politics. Nasty business, but politics.

Maybe that level of tolerance of vile tactics, the "good man" rationalizing using any means necessary just to survive, is what informs the current strategery of the McCain campaign.

Maybe he tells himself it's like back in the years in 'Nam, when yes, he did sign papers against America while a POW. You do anything necessary just to survive.

Unless you don't.

Joe Klein's commentary on John McCain's friendship with David Ifshin, an anti-Vietnam war protestor, "McCain's Radical Pal," is telling. That friendship was far closer than any serving-on-a-board-together collegiality by Obama and William Ayers. But what if it were an identical level of friendship.

Like the dark characters of the Bush Administration, notably Dick Cheney, and the callow, unethical charlatans of Republican consultancy, notably Karl Rove and his acolytes, there is evident in McCain these days a willingness to rationalize that anything goes.

That dishonor--breaking the Honor Conduct code of the Naval Academy and the naval tradition of the McCain family--is situational and acceptable in furtherance of the goal...survival.

Survival of a campaign mired in sleaze and smear. But the McCains' self-denial tells them that's okay. It can be washed off. It can be made right...once the election is over.

After all, it's just politics.
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Battleground North Dakota

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Right after the Republican convention, the poll numbers leaped for John McCain and Barack Obama shuttered his North Dakota offices to disperse his paid staff into Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Reality has returned.

This morning, the leading newspaper instate, The Forum [Fargo] blasted a nearly full-page feature headlined: Obama Leads in ND.

The polling margin is tight -- Obama-45%, McCain-43%, with 12% Undecided. But within those numbers are some startling--for North Dakota--statistics. Like, 17% of those who self-identify as strong Republicans plan to vote for Obama. 40% of those who self-identify as independents plan to vote for Obama.

Right here in my own neighborhood, traditionally a Republican neighborhood, we've been trending Democratic for a couple of decades. This year, there's more "Sarah!" signs [2] than McCain signs [1].

And Obama signs are popping up on almost every block. A testimony to the candidate and a motivated grassroots operation in-state and elsewhere.

We are all battleground states now.... except for the ones Obama has already locked up.

Vote absentee early if you can...and on Election Day pitch in: GOTV, GOTV, GOTV.

Prisoner of....

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More and more, John McCain is looking like a prisoner of slimeball rightwing political "consultants" and cronies and "conservative" voices of the Atwater-Rovian School of sleazeball politics. Delivering hostage tapes of lies to appease those who control him.

At least that's the only possible alternative explanation to John McCain being so desperate and covetous of winning the Presidency that he will stoop to any vile tactic of race-baiting and inciting hatred and anger in the crowds who attend rallies to hear his and, even more, Sarah Palin's scathing and disingenuous attacks on Barack Obama.

Attacks that are joined by the likes of Cindy McCain and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Some company to keep.

Even as he calls McCain to account, though, Frank Rich like too many of his fellow reporters and opiners gives him a pass--and a benefit of the doubt that McCain no longer deserves.

The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism, and each day the mob howls louder.

Friday in Lakeville, Minnesota, McCain grudgingly responded to one of Minnesota's lesser nice [shorter: Lice] citizen's attack on Obama as an "Arab" by saying that Obama was a decent family man, a citizen, that they had disagreements.....

Now, maybe McCain had an epiphany and realized he needed to pull back from the rants and rousing of the rabble. Or maybe not.

Because just moments from that comment, McCain was attacking Obama as someone who never worked across the aisle. A flat-out bald-faced thou-shalt-bear-no-false-witness lie that would come as a surprise to Senator Dick Lugar [R-IN] and Senator Tom Coburn [R-OK]...for starters.

But then, when McCain signed on with the merchants of hate and gambled on Palin the Barbarian, he signed away his Honor Conduct.
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UPDATE: Garrison Keillor has thoughtful words for real honor conduct. And Matt Tiabbi dons his hazmat suit to delve into the world of Rove.
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[crossposted at Firedoglake's Oxdown Gazette]

Follow the Money

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A short history of Keating Five...and John McCain's career-long drive to deregulate everything in sight.

Too complicated you say? Who can follow it?

Well, consider this...deregulation and total nonregulation of the swaps market [a phony dodge that offered insurance on risky investments that wasn't called insurance, therefore wasn't regulated] is how the whole frackin' planet got into this financial mess.

So take a little trip down memory lane with the re-doubtable Senator John McCain.

And ask yourself, hasn't he done enough damage already to the economy of America...and the planet?

Hate Talk Express

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We've been hearing little belches of bile of late from the McCain team of desperation. You know, that anti-Muslim DVD that's been tidily tucked into midsized newspapers around the country. The one I will give no further press by naming or linking. You know it's out there.

Speaking of out there, since the veep debate something else has been "out there"--the hate talk machine is starting to ratchet up. Oh, my yes. Sarah Palin's leadin' the charge, callin' Obama unAmerican and unpatriotic, and associatin' with characters like William Ayers.

Interesting, coming from a woman who's in bed--literally and figuratively--with Alaska-firsters, who want to separate that state from the rest of the Union.

Not to be outdone, Senator Joe Lieberlouse, CT for Joe, this morning on Faux "News" carried the baton a little further forward about Obama's "questionable associations." Hmmmm, Joe, seems to me you were one of those questionable associations, y'know, bein' his Senate mentor and all.

Say it ain't so, Joe.

Gee, that sounds familiar. Now where have I heard that before?

Now lots of folks aren't taking kindly to this "guilt by association" stuff. Like Paul Begala, this morning on Meet the Press, pointing out that John McCain has his own "questionable associations"--with the extremist, racist, anti-Semitic U.S. Council for World Freedom.

John McCain sat on the board of a very right-wing organization. It was the U.S. Council for World Freedom. It was chaired by a guy named John Singlaub, who wound up involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. It was an ultraconservative right-wing group. The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981, when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League, the parent organization, which ADL said, “has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and Anti-Semites.”

Which I suppose you could dismiss as so much ancient history. Except that right now the McCain camp is having to do damage control for John's own brother Joe likening Northern Virginia to a hotbed of commies.

So when Sarah Palin used that "say it ain't so, Joe" line the other night...do you suppose she was maybe mixin' up her Joes?
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America, this is your 3 a.m. wake-up call

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When John McCain said he saw his "soulmate" in Sarah Palin, was this what he had in mind?
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Lions and Tigers

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The Friday night thrilla gave undecided Americans plenty of opportunity to take the measure of the men who would be president. And one looked Presidential. Calm, reassuring, knowledgeable, sure of his facts.

The other looked like a petulant reverser into second childhood. Boastful, shrill, histrionic, petulant, just plain mean.

I'll be honest, for a while I really wanted Obama to zap McCain with a zinger retort back at McCain's bullying, taunting, provocative tactics. But Obama didn't.

Instead, he spoke directly to all of us who watched. He tried to engage McCain, but McCain wouldn't--couldn't?--look him in the eye.

And I thought of a child taught to have respect for his elders, not to pile on when they are in the process of humiliating themselves.

A child who went thru a troubled youth, but the fundamentals of his upbringing by his mom and grandparents kept him grounded and he worked through that time. Just as he worked to excel in his studies, all the way through his college and law school degrees.

And how he's been working all his adult life to bring along those kinds of qualities of character and help others find them in themselves, rejecting the easy path, the greedy path.

Last night we saw the petulant old tiger, snarling, clawing, lurching for his footing.

And we saw the new lion, past young, rising in his prime to lead through the turbulence and challenges that lie ahead.
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Suspend Your Disbelief

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Right in the middle of writing the last post came the announcement that McCain says he is suspending his campaign, wants to delay the Friday night debate with Obama, to debate the financial crisis in Washington.

Ahem, John, you sure you can find the way? Seems you've been missin' a few votes of late...like almost all...for months now.

Ah, but I'll bet your lobbyist consultants can lead you the way....

More details and opining as events unfold.
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Yes, children, STUNT is a five-letter word. But I've got a hunch the five-letter words that are getting to McCain were POLLS...and PRESS.

Rash-n-Reckless

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Wow, when even George Will says yer a hothead, you've got some real image problems to overcome.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

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Gramm-arse

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Let's deconstruct all the flying conversation, the steamrolling from the Bush White House, the oh-don't-we-sound-mellow-and-reasoning from the Congressional Republicans as they stick the shiv in our backs, and the so-far strong statements from the Democrats like Chris Dodd and economists like Paul Krugman.

The $700 Billion or $1 Trillion or whatever the number is that Henry Paulson was flacking Sunday on all the morning talk shows. The absolute proactive aggressive protectionism against accountability that's a prime component of this subprime bailout panickfest.

And bring it down to one simple question: Come January, would you want "Secretary of the Treasury" and John McCain's BFF* Phil Gramm with his hand in that cookie jar and absolutely no oversight at all?

Nope, me neither.

*BFF = Best Friend Forever? Or...Biggest Financial Fuckup?
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Who's on First

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John McCain likes to boast that he puts Country First. He'll have an opportunity to put that on the line as Congress tackles the megabazilliondollar bailout Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has cooked up.

Over the weekend, that bailout spread out just a wee bit more, right on over to the yodel-ay-eeee-who? territory of UBS. Best known as the bank Phil Gramm works for. That's right, now the taxpayer's expected to not only bail out Wall Street, but Swiss Street, as well.

You know Phil Gramm. The mush-moufed Texan [why are they always Texans?] who gave us the Enron debacle and never met a bill he couldn't sneak a little deregulation into.

Phil Gramm. Former Senator. Lobbyist. Best Friend Forever of his fellow deregulation buddy, John McCain.

So what will it be for John McCain this week? Country First? Or Cronies First?
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Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeettt

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Sunday night on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley elicited few details from John McCain. Oh there was a laundry list of issues where he differed with President Bush--a short laundry list that belies the facts.

Treatment of prisoners, Senator? But you supported George Bush's authorization of torture...after you opposed it.

Mostly, during the segment I viewed, McCain seemed to be more inclined to bash Obama with deceptive statements [Obama will raise taxes...well, yeah, except for that 95% of Americans who will get tax cuts.] than to offer detail on how he would accomplish any of the goals he espouses.

Well, there was one little detail he mentioned. A detail that surely will perk up the ears of farmers who raise sugar beets up here in Prairie Country. Farmers down south who raise sugar products, too.

McCain said tonight on 60 Minutes he would cut the sugar subsidy.

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttt.
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More Babble

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With feathers on his lips, the same ol' same ol says today the foundations of our economy are strong. And a McCain-Palin administration would bring accountability and transparency to Washington.

Then why are McCain's team advising and helping Palin obstruct and obfuscate the investigation of her alleged abuse of power as Governor of Alaska. Accountability? Transparency? I don't think so.

Why are the McCain team repeating the lies that have already been debunked, dishonored, and deplored across the political spectrum, by Republicans and Democrats alike?

Folks, you can't trust the fox to guard the henhouse...or fix it either. The Republicans controlled Congress for twelve years. They've controlled the White House the last seven-plus years.

Now they want another four years.

While Galveston lies in ruins, hidden away from public view. While New Orleans still languishes. While Americans from coast to coast, small towns to big city neighborhoods are being driven out of their homes by bankruptcy.

And the Republicans have mocked us from the moment they named their own network.

We've been out-Foxed long enough.
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Vote Democratic in November.
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