Friday, September 26, 2008

26 Sep 2008 04:30 pm

McCain As Drama Queen

Mickey agrees with me.

26 Sep 2008 04:19 pm

The Eagleton Scenario: A Second Poll

I polled readers three weeks ago. With writers at NRO now contemplating Palin bowing out it seems like a good time to revisit the question. For the record, I voted yes the first time around and you guys voted 2:1 no. So let's see what you feel now:

26 Sep 2008 04:18 pm

Obama's Misleading Ads

The NYT rightly slams Obama:

In all, Mr. Obama has released at least five commercials that have been criticized as misleading or untruthful against Mr. McCain’s positions in the past two weeks. Mr. Obama drew complaints from many of the independent fact-checking groups and editorial writers who just two weeks ago were criticizing Mr. McCain for producing a large share of this year’s untruthful spots (“Pants on Fire,” the fact-checking Web site PolitiFact.com wrote of Mr. Obama’s advertisement invoking Mr. Limbaugh; “False!” FactCheck.org said of his commercial on Social Security.)

Obama doesn't need to engage in this sort of mud-slinging. It's good to see the NYT calling him on it.

26 Sep 2008 04:01 pm

Out Of Juneau

Yep: it's here. You have to endure this dude yammering on for a 50 seconds but after that, Sarah Heath, now known as Sarah Palin, takes the stage in the Miss Alaska Pageant:

26 Sep 2008 03:21 pm

Do Debates Matter?

Eventually, yes:

...while debates rarely prompt immediate, measurable change, post-debate evaluations can. In 1992, right after the first debate, 24 percent of viewers said Ross Perot had won. By the very next night, amid positive reviews of Perot’s performance, that perception had grown to 37 percent among people who either had watched it, or heard or read about it. And Perot’s support did advance, from 6 percent before the debates to 17 percent after them.

 

26 Sep 2008 02:57 pm

Obama vs The First Amendment

Jesse Walker harps on Obama's general counsel trying to get an anti-Obama NRA ad off the air:

As a political move, this is stupid. Not only does it cast the campaign as a bunch of speech-squelching bullies, but it makes the ad itself into a story and thus guarantees that more people will see it. (A trivial example: I wouldn't have stuck it in a blog post if it weren't for the controversy.) But of course there's much more on display here than poor political judgment.

Continue reading "Obama vs The First Amendment" »

26 Sep 2008 02:41 pm

Palin's Tax Returns

The Washington Post reports today that Sarah Palin "accepted gifts valued at $25,367 from industry executives, municipalities and a cultural center whose board includes officials from some of the largest mining interests in the state." On a somewhat related note, Mark Kleiman asks:

When are we going to see Sarah Palin's tax returns?

Those per diems for lodging at home "meals and incidental expenses" while at her home in Wasilla were taxable income. Did she report them, or cheat?

McCain has released his tax returns (though not Cindy's). Obama and Biden have both released their tax returns. I hounded Clinton during the primaries until she released hers. Why should Palin get a pass?

26 Sep 2008 02:33 pm

Wall Street And The GOP Break Up

Pethokoukis gets an e-mail from a money manager.

26 Sep 2008 02:24 pm

The Mask Slips

I don't understand how Rich Lowry can write this while keeping a straight face:

Does Palin know enough to be a national candidate right now? No, but she can be mostly walled off from the press. Will attacking Obama on Fannie and Freddie open McCain to attack because one of his top aides lobbied for the organizations? Yes, but he can bulldog through it. Is going to Washington going to help much of anything? Probably not, but the symbolism matters.

Does nothing matter but this absurd and reckless partisan game?

26 Sep 2008 02:12 pm

Into The Lion's Den

Lowry:

One side effect of McCain's debate gambit is, I'm told, that everyone at Ole Miss now hates him. It will make for a very hostile audience tonight among those students and faculty attending. He might have to apologize for creating the uncertainty or make some explanation up front, which is never ideal.

Maybe McCain will get federal marshalls.

26 Sep 2008 02:06 pm

Et Tu, K-Lo?

When even the mother of all kool-aid drinkers can't watch another Palin interview, you know it's bad:

I’m not where my friend Kathleen Parker is — wanting her to step aside to spend more time with her family and Alaska — but that’s not a crazy suggestion.

26 Sep 2008 01:51 pm

McCain Has Already Won The Debate!

That's the ad they have already placed. They really do believe they "create their own reality," don't they?

26 Sep 2008 01:48 pm

The Atmosphere In The McCain Camp

Halperin:

General atmosphere is utter confusion.

26 Sep 2008 01:36 pm

"My Cringe Reflex Is Exhausted"

Kathleen Parker changes her mind on Palin:

“It was fun while it lasted.

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted. Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there.”

You know it's bad when no one on the Corner will even mention the interview; and when GOP blogger Glenn Reynolds can only link to Althouse. Does Reynolds think Palin is qualified to be governor of Alaska, let alone vice-president of the United States?

26 Sep 2008 01:21 pm

Deep Freeze

Hilzoy isn't impressed by our dealings with Iran or North Korea:

As far as I can tell, besides invading two countries on their borders and making noises about how they might be next, our Iran strategy has involved trying to keep them developing nuclear weapons by scrunching up our faces and sending really bad thoughts in their general direction. Possibly we also have people from Other Government Agencies sticking pins into Ahmedinejad dolls in some Top Secret bunker somewhere.

26 Sep 2008 12:33 pm

Finally, An On-The-Record Confirmation From McCain

The Washington Post yesterday asked the McCain campaign on the record whether Trig Palin is Sarah Palin's biological son. Howard Kurtz, one of the most prominent media journalists in the world, asked that question.

By answering the Kurtz question on the record, McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb is indeed saying that this is a legitimate factual question, as it is. Here is the answer, the first on-the-record confirmation of Sarah Palin being the biological mother of Trig, courtesy of the Washington Post:

"These rumors are false. It is her baby. The whole thing is absurd. All of this rests on the fact that she wore her pregnancy extremely well. A couple of months later, there are a ton of pictures showing she is obviously pregnant. It's ridiculous. There's just nothing to it. We're not going to release her gynecological records to prove it. It's just madness."

I am delighted to publish this statement from the McCain campaign. I have always been delighted to publish factual statements by any campaign. I have been waiting to publish such a clear confirmation for almost a month. The only trouble with this statement from the McCain campaign is that it is untrue in one respect.

Continue reading "Finally, An On-The-Record Confirmation From McCain" »

26 Sep 2008 12:14 pm

Quote For The Day II

"[T]here is the factor that we all know exists and that few people will talk about: the race factor.... Somebody's going to vote for somebody not on the basis of the content of his character but on the color of his skin and that's just called sin with a capital S because racism is a sin. And we all knew that racism has been in a lot of the white church," - National Association of Evangelicals chief lobbyist Richard Cizik.

26 Sep 2008 12:11 pm

The Smell Of Napalm In The Morning

Felix Salmon sizes up the current state of affairs:

No one is a winner here. Yes, JP Morgan looks as though it's got itself a good deal for WaMu -- basically buying the bank for $1.9 billion unencumbered by any corporate debt or preferred stock. JP Morgan also now owns the bank which was largely responsible for reinventing retail banking over the past decade, and WaMu's abilities on that front will be very valuable at for the Chase brand. But unless House Republicans start getting constructive on bailout negotiations today, no financial institution is going to look very healthy. (And top management at Goldman Sachs will look like geniuses for raising $15 billion just before everything fell apart.)

Continue reading "The Smell Of Napalm In The Morning" »

26 Sep 2008 12:05 pm

Plausible Deniability Goes Out The Window

Murray Waas gets a scoop:

Sources say Alberto Gonzales now claims that President Bush personally directed him to John Ashcroft's hospital room in the infamous wiretap renewal incident—and that in another instance the President asked him to fabricate fictitious notes.

We will discover, I think, that Bush was intimately involved in everything Cheney did. Including the war crimes.

26 Sep 2008 11:52 am

McCain's Debate Head Fake

Nate Silver has a theory.

26 Sep 2008 11:51 am

McCain's Comedy Continues: Blink, Blink, Blink

You don't know whether to laugh or cry:

Senator McCain has spent the morning talking to members of the Administration, members of the Senate, and members of the House. He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans.  The McCain campaign is resuming all activities and the Senator will travel to the debate this afternoon.

So McCain blinked. He said he would suspend his campaign until there was a deal. He did not suspend his campaign. He asked for the debate to be postponed till after the deal. There has been no deal and he has caved on the debate.

This is an unstable, vicious, partisan man unfit to be a senator at this point, let alone a president.

Tom Toles' cartoon is here. His archive is here.

26 Sep 2008 11:38 am

Quote For The Day

"We've seen over and over again that the blogs are the most effective fact-checking tool that we have," - McCain spokesman, Michael Goldfarb, to Michelle Malkin.

26 Sep 2008 11:28 am

A Modern-Day Bank Run

Henry Blodget:

WaMu (WM) depositors panicked on September 15, after Lehman Brothers failed.  In the 10 days since, they have pulled out $16.7 billion of deposits, or 9% of WaMu's deposits as of June 30.

26 Sep 2008 11:10 am

"Another Politcal Stunt"

The Obama campaign whacks McCain:

"...make no mistake: John McCain did not 'suspend' his campaign. He just turned a national crisis into an occasion to promote his campaign. It's become just another political stunt, aimed more at shoring up the Senator's aimed more at shoring up the Senator's political fortunes than the nation's economy. And it does nothing to help advance this critical legislation to protect the American people during this time of economic crisis."

Pace Bill Clinton, I can't see any other explanation. Was it to distract from the Couric interview and the Rick Davis scandal?

26 Sep 2008 10:55 am

Watching Palin Speak

Fallows levels judgment. Ross is dumbstruck. Well: he sure tried to give her a chance. Douthat, Greenwald and Dreher have now all reversed themselves in the face of ... the evidence. A sign of sanity in a political world that has gone crazy.

26 Sep 2008 10:50 am

The Joker

26 Sep 2008 10:45 am

Palin: Kissinger Is Naive

His notion that leaders in the US should actually engage the leaders of other powers in order to negotiate is, according to the vice-presidential candidate for the Republicans:

That's beyond naïve. And it's beyond bad judgment.

She also denied that Kissinger even believed such a thing:

I've never heard Henry Kissinger say, "Yeah, I'll meet with these leaders without preconditions being met."

Ilan Goldenberg has. What must Kissinger and Baker and Scowcroft think about their party now?

Continue reading "Palin: Kissinger Is Naive" »

26 Sep 2008 10:44 am

Ed Rollins Explains

A pretty revealing exchange with Anderson:

"At the end of the day, there's a lot of people thinking about how to rebuild this party," said GOP strategist Ed Rollins on CNN, "and do we want to rebuild it with John McCain, who's always kind of questionable on the basic facts of fiscal control, all the rest of it, immigration. And I think to a certain extent this 110, 115 members of this study group are saying, here's the time to draw the line in the sand."

Continue reading "Ed Rollins Explains" »

26 Sep 2008 10:39 am

McCain's Coming Hail Marys

Slate predicts. With McCain, anything can happen at any moment. Now imagine him dealing with a nuclear Iran.

26 Sep 2008 10:33 am

The Afghanistan Mission

Judah Grunstein weighs in:

Is the mission a nation-building/counterinsurgency operation? If so, we're propping up a government that is widely perceived as corrupt from top to bottom not only by the general population, but also by its vice president in an on the record quote. We're also trying to instill 21st century governance in what one questioner referred to as a 17th century society.

26 Sep 2008 10:03 am

The Palin-Couric Interview

An edited version:

26 Sep 2008 09:53 am

Debate!

Americans still want one.

26 Sep 2008 09:37 am

McCain's Bizarre Behavior

How on earth does one make sense of it? The last week, he has plunged from one gimmick to another, finally landing on this transparently cynical bid to "suspend" his campaign until a bailout deal - then returning to Washington to actually say nothing while the deal collapsed:

At the bipartisan White House meeting that Mr. McCain had called for a day earlier, he sat silently for more than 40 minutes, more observer than leader, and then offered only a vague sense of where he stood, said people in the meeting.

In rode the man on the white horse, whom no one really needed. And when he got there, he didn't resolve the impasse, and he didn't propose a plan. He just sat there, er, blinking. Now he's tied himself into the comic position that if this deal isn't made by tonight, he won't show up at the debate, so there.

It's like a seventeen year old going to their room and slamming the door when he can't be the center of attention. Matt Cooper notes:

Continue reading "McCain's Bizarre Behavior" »

26 Sep 2008 09:31 am

She's Getting Worse, Not Better

Ezra Klein wonders why Palin is getting less coherent:

The fact that Palin's responses to questions are becoming increasingly incoherent rather than rapidly more polished is interesting. Rote memorization should have all but eliminated the overlay of nonsense in her answers by now. Matt Yglesias offers a decent hypothesis, saying, "It’s possible that all this cramming is causing Palin to become less coherent — instead of just parrying questions she knows she doesn’t have good answers to, she’s trying to remember canned lines but it’s too much all at once to actually get right."

This is the person John McCain believes could take over as president in an instant and cope with three wars - in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan - and a potential reprise of the Great Depression. Unbelievable.

26 Sep 2008 09:16 am

Palin Says We Have Victory In Iraq

I wonder if she knows who general Petraeus is. He has another view, I think.

26 Sep 2008 09:09 am

The Jewish Vote

Sarah Silverman has a proposal.

26 Sep 2008 09:07 am

More Couric

As Anderson Cooper put it, "Coming up -- the interview everyone is talking about.  You have to see it to believe it."  You sure do:

26 Sep 2008 08:51 am

A Hot War With Pakistan

This strikes me as a very big deal:

Pakistani and American ground troops exchanged fire along the border with Afghanistan on Thursday after the Pakistanis shot at two American helicopters, ratcheting up tensions as the United States increases its attacks against Qaeda and Taliban militants sheltering in Pakistan’s restive tribal areas.

My worry is that Bush is doing this for political, not national security reasons. I wish that suspicion were not even thinkable, but after the last eight years, I realize that this president (like McCain) does nothing that is not political.

(Hat tip: Larison)

26 Sep 2008 08:17 am

Alternatives

Larison, by no means an Obama supporter, sees one difference between the candidates:

McCain will have us on tenterhooks on a daily basis wondering whether he will call for impeaching the Supreme Court or bombing Uruguay and he will denounce anyone who questions his proposal as a selfish and corrupt villain, and while Obama might adopt equally awful views he will do so more slowly and allow the rest of us time to organize opposition and rational counterarguments that might actually prevail.

Yes: one of them is deliberative and sane; the other one is impulsive and, in the evidence of the last month, borderline. My worry about Obama is that he may be too cautious. But then I look at his campaign and see one of the most daring, yet unfailingly professional and careful operation. And I feel reassured.

26 Sep 2008 07:32 am

A Liberal Realignment?

Jim Manzi makes the argument. Bush made it possible. Obama will make it happen. And some of us will have to return to remaking conservatism from the ground up. I can assure you this: I want Obama to win this election as much as anyone. But I will be his toughest critic if he wins, and I will criticize him on the basis of my conservative principles. First: we have to get rid of the most corrupt, incompetent, unhinged, and power-mad political machine since Nixon.

26 Sep 2008 07:07 am

The Couric-Palin Implosion

More reader reax from last night's debacle:

It's obvious Palin has like 10, 15 maybe 20 talking points on all the various subjects that might come up during one of these interviews. She has been directed, or has chosen, to just regurgitate them depending on the question. That part of the interview is rather entertaining...seeing her try to weave her answer into what the question was about. It's when a follow up is asked, or a clarification is sought, that she decides to wing it. That's when it flies off into skit comedy material. She really thinks she can pull it off. That is what makes it so cringe-inducing. She doesn't even seem to realize what a fool she is making of herself, and of McCain. If she had any dignity she would realize she's in way over her head and fall  back on the tried and true "spend time with the family" excuse and get out of the race.

I've thought from about two days after her selection that she would have to withdraw at some point.

Continue reading "The Couric-Palin Implosion" »

Thursday, September 25, 2008

25 Sep 2008 11:36 pm

What Suspension?

I've been besieged by reader emails telling me of McCain ads blasting away on television all day. The latest:

About 11:45 am on the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia. The ad was the Angry Freddy Mac Black guy who advises Obama to burn down white people’s houses or something like that.

McCain = Liar. McCain = Rove.

25 Sep 2008 10:53 pm

The Show Must Go On?

Obama calls McCain's bluff:

The Senator, the source says, is willing to make the scheduled debate a townhall meeting, a one-on-one interview with NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer, or the combination of the two in McCain’s absence.

Allahpundit wobbles:

Is McCain prepared to hand The One a 90-minute campaign commercial in front of a national audience? I’m guessing no,

Continue reading "The Show Must Go On?" »

25 Sep 2008 09:33 pm

Letterman Is Still Pissed

The latest:

He said he felt like a "patriot" to let McCain off his commitment to deal with the economy and "now I'm feeling like an ugly date." "That's what I feel like, I feel like an ugly date," he said. "I feel used. I feel cheap. I feel sullied."

It's what McCain does: he abuses patriotism to advance his own self-interest. I used to love him - for years. I now believe he is a despicable, lying, utterly cynical pol.

25 Sep 2008 09:08 pm

Palin's Former Supporters

Rod Dreher bails:

Couric's questions are straightforward and responsible. Palin is mediocre, again, regurgitating talking points mechanically, not thinking. Palin's just babbling. She makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero.

He was in love with her last week.

25 Sep 2008 08:43 pm

Inside The Cabinet Room

Ambers reports:

The fact is that Boehner doesn't have 100 votes from his conference -- 100 votes that Nancy Pelosi really wants. And that's not McCain's fault. But Boehner and the White House -- and McCain -- if they want to get something passed -- do have the responsibility to persuade these Republicans to support the bailout. After all, if not to get these recalcitrant Republicans on board, why did McCain go to Washington in the first place?

He went there as a stunt. Isn't that now totally obvious? And is McCain honestly going to go to bat for a Bush bailout of Wall Street - against the conservatives in his own party? Is this where McCain wants to be - backing Bush's latest massive gamble as he did the last one in Iraq?

25 Sep 2008 08:33 pm

Inside The Country That Is A Gulag

The Economist searches for signs of famine in North Korea:

Though North Koreans are already reported to be dying of hunger, a vast famine remains improbable. Localities have learnt not to depend on the central government for food, and this time appear better prepared. Meanwhile, the emergence of informal markets since the last famine underlines how much better North Koreans’ coping mechanisms have become. Still, the outside world again faces the uncomfortable problem of rewarding a regime’s bad behaviour with aid. That is the price of caring more for North Koreans’ welfare than their government does.

25 Sep 2008 08:18 pm

Couric-Palin Reax

From you, not the bloggers:

After reluctantly watching the Couric interview of Palin, I felt more strongly than ever -- viscerally -- that she and McCain must be stopped for the good of the nation and the globe. And it occurred to me that, should they lose, we will eventually hear the inside story from the campaign:  that from the moment McCain impulsively picked her, every single move the campaign made, every hail Mary, the war on the press, the suspension of the campaign, etc., was focused first on containing the damage they knew would be caused by letting Palin open her mouth without a teleprompter.

She must be pressured to release her medical records NOW.

Remember she's capable of endlessly repeating indisputable untruths. Of course we need her medical records. Her word is meaningless. Another reader:

If I had been the person interviewing Gov. Palin, and had asked for specific examples of McCain's leadership on a topic that he brags about, and had been told, in essence, "I cant, think of any, but I'll get back to yah," I'd have laughed, and said that you've got to be kidding me!

Another:

Continue reading "Couric-Palin Reax" »

25 Sep 2008 07:57 pm

Americans Are Not As Stupid As Steve Schmidt Believes

A reader writes:

Poor Katie! She tried and tried, didn't she? But that Sarah... Before she opened her mouth I thought she was simply under qualified, albeit pretty. Now, after hearing how Putin flying over Alaska airspace gives her foreign policy experience, and this "So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today." -- I've changed my mind.

I think she's just dumber than a door knob. Seriously.

Her candidacy is the biggest joke in modern American political history. No competitor.

25 Sep 2008 07:20 pm

The Couric Interview Part II

Words fail:

Reading the transcript doesn't help:

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.