Dear Media, Please Cover McCain More. Really.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that one of the front-runners for the presidency is simply not up to the task… Sadly, the following is not an Onion ‘news’ story:

CHICAGO, IL (SNRK News) — In the wake of two weeks filled with one blunder after another on basic facts of national security from geography to recent history, Barack Obama’s campaign is reeling and taking hits from all sides.  The once ascendant Obama campaign is now struggling to regain its footing in the wake of what seems to be an onslaught of negative press coverage.

“This man’s ignorance about matters vital to saving American lives is simply astonishing,” said conservative columnist Charles Sauerkraut-Hammer.  ”No American voter in their right mind would let this man anywhere near the red button–God forbid a 3AM phone call.”

In just a few short weeks, Obama has insisted that Shiite Iran is training hardline Sunni Al-Qaeda (forcing Republican Chuck Hagel to twice step in and correct the error), talked about the non-existent border between Iraq and Pakistan, asserted that the surge in 2007 began before the Anbar awakening in 2006, confused Sudan and Somalia, inaccurately called David Petraeus the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, repeatedly referred to the nonexistent nation of Czechoslovakia, and ignored Afghanistan by calling Iraq the first major conflict after 9/11.  And these are only a few of Obama’s recent gaffes.  Meanwhile, Iraqi president Nouri Al-Maliki was recently quoted in a German magazine supporting McCain’s plan to stay in Iraq for the full 100 years necessary to stabilize the oil-rich nation, which in turn forced the Obama campaign to adopt McCain’s rhetoric, calling for a “centennial withdrawal horizon.”

Disillusionment with Obama’s gaffe-prone campaign has led many leading Democrats to consider replacing him prior to the Democratic Convention with a candidate such as Hillary Clinton, who might have a prayer of winning the election–or at least of engaging credibly in a debate on foreign policy.

The press has savaged Obama mercilessly for his recent errors.  Coverage of Obama’s gaffes has generated the same media frenzy normally reserved for extremely important stories about domestic issues–for instance, the far-reaching consequences of Jeremiah Wright’s damnation of America, which caused the deaths of thousnds of Americans from fiery brimstone hail.

Meanwhile, John McCain’s recent trip overseas has bolstered his considerable foreign policy credentials in the eyes of the American press and the public, leaving Obama stuck on domestic soil at small gatherings where he has made one factually inaccurate statement after another to an increasingly hostile press.

“Even the liberal media like CNN and the New York Times are starting to take notice,” said conservative New York Times columnist William Kristol-Nacht.  ”Ultimately, there’s no way to defend this guy or try to keep the race close anymore.  CBS tried to cover for him a couple of times by altering his answers, but thanks to the fair-and-balanced alternative media, blogs like Free Republic exposed the pro-Obama media bias for what it is.”

Liberals are also worried.  In an opinion piece published in The New Republic magazine, Democratic Leadership Council president Harold Ford said, “Obama has reinforced Democratic weaknesses on national security.  It’s time for Democrats to admit that Republicans have won this debate, and emulate John McCain’s positions as much as possible.”  Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman agrees: “It’s time to bring the Democrat Party back to the sort of successful wartime policies we had under JFK and LBJ.”

While it has taken the press some time for Obama’s gaffes to trickle through what has been undeniably favorable coverage, the dam has burst, causing the campaign to go into damage control mode.

Said one campaign insider on condition of anonymity, “As a candidate, if you make just one major mistake on an issue like the geography of the Middle East, the press will jump on you.  It’s like saying Poland isn’t a communist country.  It just kills you.  But doing it again and again?  It’s hard to see how the campaign will recover from this.  It’s tough when the press just repeats your candidate’s mistakes 24/7 on the cable news shows.”

The above, of course, is a snarktacular commentary on the media’s virtual black out of Sen. McCain’s recent string of gaffes from the silly flubs like talking about “Czechoslovakia,” a country which no longer exists, to the more fundamental, and potentially costly, errors like mixing up Shia and Sunni and also confusing the timeline of the very Iraq War he is trying to make central to his campaign (which CBS conveniently covered up for him). Heck, through no fault of his own McCain was even the victim of a random applesauce pratfall at that Pennsylvania grocery store.

Why, again, is it that the McCain campaign is complaining about media coverage? Most Obama supporters, given his recent gaffe-a-thon, agree with him that he should get more media time.

Besides, the McCain camp brought this on themselves by needling Sen. Obama on the ‘foreign policy’ point relentlessly; making it more of a news issue than it may have been had McCain not turned it into such a significant item with his promotion of it beforehand and his over-the-top attacks against it during the trip.

(h/t thereisnospoon)

Up is Down, Dogs are Cats, Weird is Normal

With serious tongue planted in serious cheek, Chris Bowers pokes fun at those Fuzzy Math elitists on the TeeVee telling us how to think:

[MSNBC's] First Read has a serious question about current polling:

But do consider this question: Which candidate has the bigger problem in the polls — Obama (who seems to have hit a ceiling in the high 40s) or the better-known McCain (who’s stuck in the low 40s in many national or state polls)?

Yes, do consider this question.

Is it better for a candidate to be polling in the high forties or in the low forties? Seriously, think about this one for a while, because the answer isn’t as obvious as it seems. [...]

Let me rephrase: is it better to have more public support or less public support? [...]

That they even felt compelled to ask the question is demonstrative of a long-standing pundit reflex to argue that everything is good for Republicans.

Gee, I wonder why the for-profit media would want to make a consistently growing 12 pt (+/-) lead for Sen. Obama seem like it’s a can’t-be-missed, gotta-stay-tuned, neck-and-neck race.

Couldn’t have anything to do with trying to drive ratings and selling more dead trees, could it?

Jealous Much?

After weeks of criticizing Sen. Barack Obama about not having been to Iraq in a while and ignoring the fact that Sen. John McCain himself went to Iraq just this past March and has also made other international visits this year while a presidential candidate, Mac and his campaign have absolutely laid into Obama this week with a non-stop flow of vitriolic attacks — despite earlier claims of wanting to run a respectful race. Sen. McCain has, unfortunately for his campaign, also had just about a gaffe a day and during this string of ad hominem attacks against his competitor. Such is life in this modern political era and it’s well within McCain’s rights to do these things.

But while much of that was expected because it is a presidential race, there has been a strange effect among purported McCain supporters (and/or Obama haters, I s’pose).

Are they jealous because the Democratic candidate is so well-spoken and so many of his consistently held positions are bearing fruit?

Or are they frustrated because their nominee is routinely making such bizarre foul-ups despite his carefully coiffed reputation as a “maverick” (even though McCain has lobbyists running his campaign from top to near bottom) and some sort of foreign policy expert (even though McCain’s been all over the map, literally and figuratively)?

Or, perhaps, both? To wit:

Fuzzy Math on Internet Rankings, update-a-roo

Readers will note that through all this back and forth described below former nurse and social conservative activist Jill Stanek never actually responded to Arch’s original point about what he sees as her ulterior motive for attacking Carly Fiorina [see the update below for a response by one of Ms. Stanek's compadres]. Rather, she has tried to distract away from it by first missing the point (or perhaps ignoring it) and later turning to sideshows about blog rankings.

The courteous gentlemen and gentleladies at Ill Review have taken to spewing “sheep vomit”* on Archpundit now that he’s back to blogging (and pointing such things out) after his father has recovered and is out of the hospital.

“The surge: It can be whatever you want it to be…”

Greg Sargent at TPM notes Sen. McCain’s inherent contradiction in now claiming that the surge began before the surge actually began. Mac’s time-bending comments come following his major flub on the recent history of the Iraq War (a flub conveniently covered up by CBS News’ editing team). From Mr. Sargent:

…this afternoon John McCain pushed back on criticism of his Anbar-surge timeline flub by arguing, in effect, that the overall strategy change that made the Anbar Awakening possible began before the actual surge in troops:

The Arizona senator has told reporters during a stop at a super market in Bethlehem, Pa., that what the Bush administration calls “the surge” was actually “made up of a number of components.” McCain says some components of the surge began before Bush ordered more U.S. troops into Iraq.

Greg Sargent concludes: “The surge: It can be whatever you want it to be…”

And here conservatives have been telling us for months now that this campaign is about judgment.

The surge is not some sort of performance art that the gaffe-prone McCain campaign can simply mold into whatever image it likes. It was a strategy approved by Pres. Bush and led directly to a massive build-up of US troops in Iraq; which also led to more KIAs among those brave souls.

The surge is not a political football with which Sen. McCain can now throw laterals or, more likely of late, make fumbles. It was one part of an overall change in Iraq — changes which also had quite a lot to do with Iraqi self-responsibility and community willpower. In terms of unstated goals (for which McCain is now taking credit) the surge likely did have something to do with the decrease in violence around Baghdad and Sen. Obama has clearly articulated such despite McCain’s feigned outrage. But President Bush laid out clear goals for the Iraqi Parliament as rationale for the surge, and those have not been completed.

What is clear is that Sen. Obama’s “big picture” viewpoint  makes eminently more sense than McCain’s simple cheerleading when it comes to our ongoing wars in the Middle East. The Rumsfeld plan to underman and underequip our invasion force in 2002 proved disastrous in Iraq. But, at the same time, taking all those men and women in uniform off the table for Afghanistan (and even from natural disasters here at home) has in effect doubled-down on the Republicans’ errors in judgment of the past 8 years. And their’s is supposed to be the “foreign affairs” and “military strategy” party?

We must focus again on resolving the issues in Afghanistan and, in particular, win the battle against the Taliban and al Quaida. Strategically redeploying our intrepid GIs out of Iraq is the only way to accomplish that — and that’s why, ultimately, all of this blabbering about a noun, a verb and the surge does not help illustrate one ounce of “judgment”.

Kirk Omnibus

Team America again carries water for the Kirk campaign with this goofy rant that Congressional Candidate and Northwestern Professor Dan Seals is “unemployed”…

Wasn’t it just a few short weeks ago that TA was griping about Mr. Seals’ very employment at Northwestern University? Yes. Yes it was.

It’s really an either/or — partisans can’t complain that he’s both employed and unemployed. Then again, that would mean that TA would have to pick just one distortion to infopimp rather than simply shake the Magic 8 Ball and see what pops up.

Arch and Brownsox have some other thoughts on this manufactured baloney.

–

That same TA post also features a tear-jerker of a story (and “story” seems quite an appropriate word) from a commenter labeled “awwinnetka” claiming to work in the office in which the Seals family closed on their current home and that Dan Seals was very sad to learn the home he bought was not in the 10th… We’ve already seen one bogus Internet hoax promoted by Illinois’ con blogosphere today. This bizarre little soliloquy has all the hallmarks of being another tall tale, especially since Hank Perritt and then Lee Goodman, not Dan Seals, ran in the elections following redistricting. Note that TA responded with positive reinforcement to “awwinnetka” just 8 minutes later…

Sockpuppet or simply speedy silliness? We retort. You decide.

–

Rep. Mark Kirk may be getting nervous (or one of the local precinct captains volunteering for him is)…

His yard signs popped up all over the neighborhood about two weeks ago; but very literally just in this one precinct within a couple blocks’ radius.

Most towns do not allow political yard signs more than 90 days out so mid-July is quite early.

–

And, mere weeks after conservative bloggers went ballistic because Cong. Bill Foster sent out a franked district newsletter, Cong. Kirk has sent out another of his seemingly more frequent newsletters. In addition to the usual photo of the VA hospital unveiling and astronaut Jim Lovell, this one also features a blurb touting how Rep. Kirk is fighting against Governor Blagojevich of all people.

Not that a Congressman working in Washington DC can actually do much about the governor back in their homestate, but Rep. Kirk again claimed that Illinois’ earmarked Federal capital dollars were in jeopardy (because of Blago) and that Kirk worked with Democratic Congresswoman Melissa Bean to save them.

“Save them” from what is unclear, since the money doesn’t ever appear to have really been at risk as political journalist Rich Miller and others have frequently reported.

Why Kirk focused solely on championing for our just desserts over Gov. 13% (rather than throwing in Senate Pres. Emil Jones and other characters) is more clear… Blago’s got a big target on his back from Dems and GOPs alike.

I’ll scan the newsletter in when I have a chance.

Conservative fans react to McCain Iraq gaffe, Updated x3

As the controversy over CBS’ creative editing of Katie Couric’s interview with Sen. John McCain continues to grow throughout the day, the local conservative blogosphere has had this to say about it:

…

… (are those crickets I hear?) …

…

Instead, our good friend Fran Eaton, editor of Illinois’ self-proclaimed “conservative crossroads”, unwittingly posted a snarky Internet hoax about ABC News.

The hoax was apparently sent in earnest by an Ill Review reader named Linda Ward who seems to believe it. The urban myth purports to describe a behind-the-scenes story about Sen. John McCain’s most recent trip to Iraq and coverage of it by ABC News’ Martha Raddatz.

Problem is there is nothing true about it.

The hoax centers around the false claim that so-and-so’s niece “Katelyn” is stationed in Iraq and was assigned to Raddatz during her coverage of McCain’s visit. It goes on to claim that Katelyn told her Stateside mom that Raddatz asked 60 soldiers who they would vote for and 54 said Sen. McCain, 4 said Sen. Barack Obama and 2 said Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The hoax concludes with the obvious punchline that Katelyn’s mom watched the news that night, hoping to catch a glimpse of her girl on TV, and Raddatz’ actual aired story included 3 soldiers for Obama and 2 for Clinton, but no mention of any GIs favoring Mac.

As mentioned, it’s an Internet hoax and easily debunked by a 2 second visit to any number of fact-finding, myth-busting sites like Snopes.com, etc.

Illinois Review reader Kate Sykes even notes in comments that another conservative blogger, Michael Gaynor of Conservative Voice, originally ran that same hoax as fact a few days ago but then recanted and apologized today after being made aware of its complete fallacy. In fact, 3 of the 4 commenters to that same Review story note the hollowness behind the hoax (the first was apparently as snookered by it as Ms. Eaton).

What are the facts?

With a little more digging through the Internet tubes, one learns from other conservative bloggers that the alleged “original” author of the email, a retired US Air Force Maj. General, has disavowed ever writing, let alone sending, such an email.

Also, the timeframes and characters in the story are just plain off. ABC’s Martha Raddatz did not travel with Sen. McCain to Iraq and her report from Iraq came weeks after his trip. He went in mid-March and Raddatz’ report aired April 7.

Indeed, even the voter support tally in the hoax is off. Raddatz’ report included one McCain supporter (not “none”).

Snopes.com reports that Maj. Gen. Louis Buckman’s (ret.) statement is also available online, as is the actual ABC News segment by Ms. Raddatz and Jung Hwa Song from April 7, 2008.

Like the other Internet hoaxes swirling around this campaign (in particular, the lies regarding Sen. Obama’s faith), this “ABC in Iraq” fiction appears to be bogus through and through. The protagonist “Katelyn” likely doesn’t even exist.

Other conservative bloggers are correcting themselves and apologizing to their readers even as Ms. Eaton opened her retelling of the hoax as if it were true with the line:

How telling… IR Reader Linda Ward shared this infuriating tidbit with us today…

Now that it’s been quite clearly and thoroughly revealed that there was nothing “telling” or “infuriating” about this fiction, perhaps the good Ms. Eaton will follow the lead of her forthright conservative colleagues by issuing a mea culpa.

While she’s at it, maybe she can let the world know her thoughts on the real world story of Sen. McCain’s major Iraq gaffe and the liber… corporate media’s whitewashing of same.

UPDATE: That didn’t take long… Rather than discuss the error Illinois Review has erased the posting – no explanation as of yet.

UPDATE 2: Ms. Eaton’s post is back up with that mea culpa. She writes in part:

That’s a mistake we hope not to make again, but if we do, we will stand corrected.

I have certainly given Illinois Review and its contributors their lumps in the past for posting out and out fiction as if it were reality or ignoring/twisting facts in order to promote some special partisan interest.

Given that, I say in all sincerity: Good for Fran for owning up to this boo-boo.

I and others are still curious to know, however, what her and her conservative friends think of Sen. McCain’s major flubbing of the Iraq War’s timeline (esp. given that he knew that timeline 18 months ago) and the Eyeball Network’s own eraser job of same. Since the security situation has improved in Iraq to the point where Iraqi forces are much more capable of holding their own, the issue of when and how fast our amazing troops can come home is an important one.

OK, Fran… UPDATE x3: Apparently the snark smells too good over at Illinois Review and Ms. Eaton couldn’t resist. After writing her apology and explanation she decided to backtrack a bit with a second update…

You’ve got to chuckle as we read the big news of the day throughout liberal Illinois-based blogs that Illinois Review’s credibility is somehow hanging by a thread because we posted a bit sent in by an IR reader that proved to be fiction rather than fact.

This one blog is certainly not the whole of the liberal Illinois-based blogosphere, and as of this writing I’ve been the only blogger that I can find to even remark on Ms. Eaton’s posting of the hoax and gracious mea culpa. And I didn’t say Ill Review’s credibility was hanging by a thread… I just pointed out the well-documented errors in Ms. Eaton’s post.

She may also wish to note that the “big news of the day” is actually related to the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee’s major gaffe on Iraq and CBS’ sweeping of it from last night, to which I’ve been repeatedly referring. In other words, neither she nor I are “the big news of the day”.

Apparently somebody flipped the partisan light switch back on over at Ill Review… oh well. Chuckles indeed. Here’s to hoping Snopes is now at least bookmarked on the Reviewers’ PCs.

Katie Couric hearts John McCain, Updated x2 with McCain Contradicting Himself

“I mean, that’s just a matter of history.”
- Sen. John McCain
July 22, 2008 to Katie Couric of CBS News

Well, isn’t this special? First, some actual history…

• Col. Sean McFarland heads 1st Brigade, 1st Division while deployed to Iraq, 1/2006 to 2/2007 (1/2006 to 5/2006 in Nineveh Province. 5/2006 to 2/2007 in Ramadi, al Anbar Province)
• “Anbar Awakening” founded by Iraqi Sheik Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi in al Anbar Province, around 8/2006 or 9/2006
• Col. McFarland announced “Anbar Awakening” on 29 September 2006
• Pres. Bush announce “surge” strategy on 10 January 2007 (four months after “Anbar Awakening” is founded)
• US troops in Iraq go from 132k in 1/2007 to 152k by 3/2007
• US troops in Iraq begin peaking at 168k in 9/2007
• Sheik al-Rishawi assassinated by roadside bomb in Ramadi, al Anbar Province, 9/2007

(Author’s note, if anyone has any dates that are more specific please link to historical info in comments and I’ll update here to ensure accuracy.)

Second, we learn the McCain claim of what is “just a matter of history” via a CBS News transcript (and in a moment, I’ll let Keith Olbermann explain why it’s so important to note these quotes are from the transcript of the “exclusive interview” and not the actual airing of that interview)…

Couric: Senator McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?

McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane (phonetic) was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn’t make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.

They were out there. They were protecting these sheiks. We had the Anbar awakening. We now have a government that’s effective. We have a legal system that’s working, although poorly. And we have progress on all fronts, including an incredible measure of security for the people of Iraq. There will still be attacks. Al Qaeda’s not defeated. But the progress has been immense. And to not recognize that, and why it happened, and how it happened, I think is really quite a commentary.

(emphasis added)

Thanks to the crystal clear timeline we can see that Sen. McCain’s sense of “history” is evidently distorted.

“I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened” indeed, though shining the bright light of truth on those fallacies helps quite a bit. Sen. McCain’s response to that question was completely off-base and just plain wrong. (Sadly, as noted in the timeline that Sheik was also not protected by the surge as he was murdered by an IED.)

Unfortunately for CBS News’ already tattered reputation, the transcript of that Couric/McCain interview differs significantly from the edited footage which aired. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and others noticed (unofficial Countdown 22 July 2008 transcript):

Olbermann: In an interview with the CBS Evening News earlier today the presumptive Republican nominee getting the basic timeline and history of the surge completely wrong.

We cannot play that portion of the interview for you because CBS curiously, to say the least, left it on the edit room floor. It aired Katie Couric’s question but in response it inserted part of McCain’s answer to another question instead.

How do we know this? We consulted a transcript of the entire, original interview which was available on the CBS website.

(emphasis added)

What did CBS actually air, versus what McCain actually said? Just ask YouTube…

Now, I understand why conservative partisans keep bringing up this false notion that the media is somehow liberally biased when reality indicates otherwise. It’s just another way to try discrediting the news when it doesn’t go their way, and to discredit Sen. Obama’s abundant command of the both the national and world stage. (By the by, instead of complaining about it did con partisans ever stop to consider that the media may be tagging along with Obama’s overseas trip to such a large extent because they want to be right there in the scrum if he does make some gaffe? Early network gets the worm…)

I even understand why CBS, still smarting from 2004’s “Rathergate” for whatever it’s worth, would pull such an obvious stunt like this. They want to burnish their street cred amongst the right-wing of the political spectrum and are apparently willing to give McCain a mulligan to do so.

But for a supposed “news” organization to blatantly cover up for a major gaffe like this is simply inexcusable.

Some free advice for CBS News: let the cards lie on the table where they fall instead of trying to manufacture storylines like this, lest ye become the storyline yourself.

And some free advice for the rest of the lazy, narrative-fed news media: report facts, not your preferred outcomes. For several days last week, TV and print pundits were hypothesizing Obama’s trip could turn into a gaffe-a-minute.

Yet it has been McCain who is regularly and repeatedly making errors regarding foreign affairs and facts on the ground, from confusing Sunni and Shia Muslim sects to constantly referring to Iron Curtain era nations like “Czechoslovakia”.

Why are the pundits still opining that he’s somehow got “more” foreign policy cred than Sen. Obama whose current trip illustrates his proficiency in talking and dealing with world leaders (let alone our own military commanders)?

If Obama actually screws up (like his mistaken reference to “Israel” instead of the US being a friend to Israel…) go ahead and call him out on it, as minor as that was. But if McCain errs, report that with equal aplomb.

An informed citizenry demands no less.

UPDATE: Jed Report found C-SPAN footage of a conservative think tank meeting with Sens. McCain and Lieberman from 5 January 2007, five days before Pres. Bush even announced the surge. McCain is seen clearly speaking about the Anbar Awakening as being a sign of progress and in direct contradiction to his error from last night.

UPDATE 2: Politico’s Ben Smith notes that after weeks of complaining that the press was paying more attention to Sen. Obama and his campaign (even though Sen. McCain was getting plenty of air time and, in particular, response time) … Sen. McCain has canceled today’s press availability in Pennsylvania as his campaign tries to figure out how to handle this.

(h/t Roger Eaton)

Thank you (follow up to “More, please”)

Last week, State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias announced plans for a lower-cost “green energy” loan program funded through state investment monies. The Peoria Journal-Star reported:

Matt Mamer, vice president of business services at CEFCU Financial Center, said the interest rate CEFCU will offer through “Green Energy” should be about 5 percent, depending on the lender and other variables. Without the program, the rate would be closer to 7 percent, he said.

“This program provides a lower cost of funds we can pass directly to the businesses,” Mamer said.

It shouldn’t be difficult to spend the required $10,000 investment, said Joe Driscoll, co-owner of Midwest Green Energy in Peoria.

Converting to green energy is not cheap, even if it saves money in the long run, he said. [...]

Driscoll said he hopes the treasurer’s program will increase demand for green technology, adding to federal tax incentives and state rebates for environmentally sound investment. [...]

The treasurer’s office is always investing – between $7 billion and $9 billion at any one time – and this is just another form of investment, he said.

State Sen. David Koehler, D-Peoria, said the new program is a smart way to help out Illinois businesses and simultaneously help the environment.

Hmm, now where’d Giannoulias get that idea? (Just kidding.) I am certainly a big supporter of these sorts of smart, efficient government & open market collaborations because in the end everyone ends up a winner: the green tech industry gets a boost; businesses and others get a good deal on new infrastructure investment; the people of the state get a good return on their money; and more.

Combined with grants and incentives from both public and private sources the new Cultivate Illinois “Green Energy” loan program can do a lot of good for people in both the short- and long-term and on a variety of fronts (financial, environment, PR and good will, etc.).

Now it just needs to be “cultivated” into more than a basic one-year pilot program.

Worthy Causes: Operation Support Our Troops – Illinois

The annual Operation Support Our Troops – Illinois “Rockin’” Concert is coming up this weekend at Cantigny Park in Wheaton. If you’re free Saturday afternoon and eve donate and stop by to see Beatles cover band American English and Gary Sinise’s Lt. Dan Band.

OSOT-IL has been doing these concerts annually for the last several years and as with other groups dedicated to helping our troops and their families that I’ve highlighted like SALUTE the money or goods you donate will go to a good cause because the OSOT-IL concert is run by grassroots volunteers right here in Illinois and the money and items donated go to supporting our GIs and their families. (Contrast that to the “Freedom Concerts” promoted by Sean Hannity and Ollie North which appear to have a very large portion of the donations going to Hannity and North’s salaries, etc. instead of to our troops.)

Cantigny’s beautiful, we’ll hopefully have good weather and the bands can jam. Enjoy!

Donate: Operation Support Our Troops-Illinois

Get a Ticket: OSOT-IL Rockin’ Concert, Saturday, July 19

Biss fundraising skyrockets vs Coulson (IL-17), updated

According to a press release sent out today, Daniel Biss has now outraised incumbent State Representative Beth Coulson for the third consecutive reporting period. Not only that, but he is cruising past her on several fronts that voters tend to look at when it comes to campaign fundraising. That same release provides these stats:

The reports from the first half of 2008 shows Biss outperformed Coulson by 60 percent in total money raised, more than two-to-one in money raised from individual receipts, more than three-to-one in money raised from within the 17th District, and nearly 50 percent in money raised in low dollar contributions.

Coulson did outperform Biss when it came to PAC contributions – nearly one-third of Coulson’s money came from Political Action Committees compared to Biss’s ten percent.

What jumps out at me is the 3 to 1 in-district rate since donors in-district also tend to be voters.

Mr. Biss is putting in the hard work it takes to run a campaign and stay rooted to his neighbors and community. This, in turn, bodes well for the 17th district should those folks elect him as their new State Rep this autumn.

Progress Illinois has also taken note of Mr. Biss’ work ethic.

Update: The Biss campaign now has the full press release online (PDF).

The Joke’s on Jester George Dienhart, updated x3

Welcome to ‘Inside Baseball’ (or should I say ‘Inside the Boxing Ring’)

So now pointing out facts which dispel Mr. Dienhart’s lies are considered “personal attacks” and “diatribes” and “lies” in and of themselves…

No wonder Sen. Obama’s suggestion that we Americans ought to ignore these distractions and instead focus on actually solving the weighty matters before us has led him to a consistent and evermore substantial lead over Sen. McCain since the Democratic nomination process ended.

And little wonder too that Mr. Dienhart’s own updates and comments have devolved into the very things he and his supporters claim of my fact-based presentations: diatribes full of personal attacks on my integrity and lies about both what I’ve written and what Sen. Obama has said.

Clearing the air

This is really, really inside baseball and concerns Mr. Dienhart’s repeated slams against me (see his Update 2) in his increasingly salacious posts making claims about non-existent Obama “flips” on Iraq.

Just clearing the air a bit…

The Dienhart inanity continues: cherry-picking as performance art

As if his first post in this debate wasn’t fibbing enough, George Dienhart has updated his most recent, very carefully parsed post and — again — cherry-picks out only the parts which fit his narrow, bizarro alternate reality all while continuing to falsely claim that somehow my pointing out facts which negate his fibs are “lies” in and of themselves.

Does Mr. Dienhart not know how to read the entire proposal Sen. Obama originally put forth in January of 2007? Does he not understand that taking only a few bullet points out of my own posts (post 1 and post 2)  debunking his junk while ignoring the conclusions thereof doesn’t make his fibs any more true than before?

Sadly for his readers, this appears to be the case.

Perhaps Mr. Dienhart will bother to actually link to these posts and quotes of which he whines instead of cherry-picking a few lines from them as he fabricates his misinformation.

Only then would his readers be able to judge for themselves who is referring to fact-based info — such as the actual contents of Obama’s plan from 2007 which included references to the residual forces Mr. Dienhart now lies about being a “flip” — and who is, quite frankly, acting like an irritable troll by clipping quotes in convenient places.

Then again, in his partisan fog, perhaps Mr. Dienhart really thinks that Obama is somehow flipping his consistent positions simply because he’s not repeating every single line item of every single policy proposal every single time he mentions said proposals during 30 second debate points and soundbyte interviews… (Of course if he did do that then partisan Obama-haters would start complaining that Obama is overanalytical and elitist… Oh, wait, they’re saying that too. Hard to believe, I know.)

That said, the hypocritical Mr. Dienhart may want to discontinue crying about “partisan talking points”. Everything I’ve linked to was pre-existing information which I simply (and all too easily) referred to shine the light of truth on Mr. Dienhart’s lies.

On the other hand, several points Mr. Dienhart makes come straight from GOP talking points. Here’s but one example… Mr. Dienhart quotes something from what he calls a “Democrat” National Committee meeting (not sure what that is since the actual meeting on that day was the Democratic National Committee).

So right off the bat we know he’s using a unique misspelling. A quick Google search including that typo reveals that Mr. Dienhart pulled “his” talking point from an equally half-witted July 5th Republican talking point memo PDF hosted at GOP.com. GOP.com is, of course, the website of the Republican National Committee (or is it the “Republic” National Committee?).

Dienhart brain cramp continues unabated; ought to seek help from “Dr.” Phil Gramm for Whineyitis

In attempting to defend his lies about Sen. Obama, Illinois Review whiner George Dienhart continues to parse the finest of lines and blatantly make up baloney. He complains that my earlier post pointing out the facts behind his fibs claiming Sen. Obama has somehow “flipped” his Iraq position missed his intended point and that I should get reading lessons. It seems he needs to look in the mirror.

Readers should know Mr. Deinhart is so enamored with me he once called my office just to check on my whereabouts. I suppose he probably made the trip from beautiful Bull Valley one day and knows all about my ugly green kitchen countertops (a la conservative stalker extraordinaire Michelle Malkin) and he probably even looked up my DMV records and knows all about that junky old green Mazda Protege I got rid of years ago (my first new car, ah memories).

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First, the Dienhart parsing…

Here’s what he originally wrote:

[...] The latest flip was on the war. It seems that Obama will not pull the troops out . Liberals can now collectively whine about how this isn’t a flip. All done now? Here is the quote from Sen. Obama.

“I have put forward a plan that will get our troops out by the end of 2009. We already saw today reports that the Iraqi minister suggests that we’re going to be in there at least until 2018, a decade-long commitment. Currently, we are spending $9 to $10 billion a month. The notion is that we are going to sustain that at the same time as we’re neglecting what we see happening in Afghanistan right now, where you have a luxury hotel in Kabul blown up by militants and the situation continues to worsen.”

Notice that first sentence? “I have put forward a plan that will get our troops out by the end of 2009.” What did Sen. Obama say in his recent Op/Ed piece in the New York Times? “’We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces.”

I’ll leave the bizarre, yet historically correct reference to Mesopotamia alone for the moment. Let’s call this what it is- a flip. Oh, and lets just be honest about what he is proposing- the same “residual force” that John McCain was crucified on earlier in the campaign. [...]

(emphasis added for clarity)

Now, my post called Dienhart out on the “Notice that first sentence” bit… not the “Oh, and” bit which took up a much smaller portion of his post.

Again, there is no “flip” here.

Obama’s Plan for Iraq is the same 16 month strategy he first proposed as binding legisltion in the Senate in January 2007.

• January 2007 (when it was first introduced) + Obama’s 16 Month Strategic Redeployment = March 2008
• January 2008 (when Obama again mentioned it in a Dem debate) + Obama’s 16 Month Strategic Redeployment = March 2009
• January 2009 (when the next president is sworn in) + Obama’s 16 Month Strategic Redeployment (should it be Obama who is elected) = March 2010

…In other words, the Obama Plan for Iraq is exactly the same. The only thing changing is the timing and the obstructionist Republicans — from the filibustering Senate GOP to the veto-ready Republican president — are the ones causing the delays in implementation.

Heck, even the Iraqi leadership is now essentially agreeing with Obama on the concept of a strategic timetable.

But, Dienhart’s second post goes on and on about how he wasn’t really talking about the timing (despite what he wrote about 2009 vs 2010). No, instead he now says he was really emphasizing the last few sentences so ignore all the other stuff. To wit, he now writes:

“Ahh, that’s not what the piece was addressed. Quite clearly, I stated that the flip occurred when Obama went from advocating a total pullout from Iraq to leaving behind sixty thousand troops as a “reaction force”.”

As I demonstrated above, Mr. Dienhart wrote about the 2009 vs 2010 timing for the majority of that first diatribe and didn’t really get into discussing the point about residual forces until after he says “Oh, and…”

Bizarre, but it leads to…

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Second, the Dienhart baloney…

Mr. Dienhart originally wrote, “It seems that Obama will not pull the troops out” and “Oh, and lets just be honest about what he is proposing- the same “residual force” that John McCain was crucified on earlier in the campaign.” (Again, emphasis added.)

This too is not a flip, despite Mr. Dienhart’s deepest partisan wishes.

You see, from the get-go Sen. Obama has said the same thing about having a limited number of troops in country after the strategic redeployment of the combat brigades. Surely Mr. Dienhart, as a military man himself, knows the difference in forces. Obama has never said he would pull out every single GI (our embassies are guarded by Marines after all, would Mr. Dienhart complain about that too?) but that we do need to focus on redeploying the bulk of our battle forces, a point on which the majority of Americans agree with him.

Recall that Sen. Obama first introduced his plan to the Senate in January of 2007. From his Senate website, dated January 30, 2007:

“The plan allows for a limited number of U.S. troops to remain as basic force protection, to engage in counter-terrorism, and to continue the training of Iraqi security forces. If the Iraqis are successful in meeting the thirteen benchmarks for progress laid out by the Bush Administration, this plan also allows for the temporary suspension of the redeployment, provided Congress agrees that the benchmarks have been met and that the suspension is in the national security interest of the United States.”

In other words, there is no “flip” and Dienhart flops again.

Perhaps it is Mr. Dienhart who needs that reading lesson. Or, perhaps he’d like that thinking lesson instead since both his first and second post merely mimic the bogus and hollow yelps of “Flip!” from other partisan conservatives.

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And some miscellany…

By the by, Dienhart complains that the trackback on the original posts appeared twice. Horrors.

I hadn’t realized the trackback popped up twice on the original Dienhart screed. I’m not sure why that would’ve happened other than I was thinking about posting an update about other cons writing about non-flips so I stopped in on that post’s edit feature later in the day (I ended up not doing the update). I suppose those darn Internets may have taken that as a double-post.

If I could fix the quirk to soothe Mr. Dienhart’s poor feelings I would but really it’s nothing he should worry his pretty little head about though.

As for why I write about Illinois Review contributors… they keep posting malarkey and rational folks like me will keep debunking it. If the Reviewers don’t like that, it’s well within their means to stop writing their spurious essays and start writing honestly. (It’s funny how the non-Ill Review peeps I debunk have the same complaints, as if I’m hurting their egos instead of pointing out facts. Go figure.)

I get that Mr. Dienhart apparently loathes what Sen. Obama has proposed and all the values for which he stands. But does he really need to continue to make up such claptrap? Apparently doing so, just like calling random people just to check in on them, fulfills some sort of desire for him.

To each their own.

PS: Mr. Dienhart may consider the 63% of Americans who say the Iraq War was not worth it as “anti-war” (ABC News Poll, 7/10-13, 2008). But, really, most of us rational Americans are simply anti-lying our way into war and, more importantly, anti-bungled war. Same goes for Democrats or Republicans who worm their way into needless wars — they both tend to get clobbered at the ballot box.