Category Archive

Over the weekend, former NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark (Ret.), a Barack Obama supporter, was discussing Sen. John McCain’s qualifications (or lack thereof) for office on CBS’ Sunday morning news show.

Bob Schieffer: Well you, you went so far as to say that you thought John McCain was, quote, and these are your words, “untested and untried,” And I must say I, I had to read that twice, because you’re talking about somebody who was a prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy. He’s been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for lo these many years. How can you say that John McCain is un- untested and untried? General?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in Air- in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, ‘I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it-’

Bob Schieffer: Well-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: ‘ -it publicly.’ He hasn’t made those calls, Bob.

[...]

Bob Schieffer: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be President.

Unfortunately, in their race to find the lowest common denominator and most sensationalist soap opera soundbite, the media (at the bidding of the faux outraged McCain Campaign [video]) has seen fit to only repeat the very last sentence which, clearly from the entire context, was set up by that most liberal (not) of networks, CBS.

And while the quote, “I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be President,” is technically accurate (note the Republicans said the same of President John F. Kennedy’s boat in WWII) it is “inartful” as Sen. Obama noted in today’s Quote of the Day. (Keep in mind that while Sen. McCain had been shot down and held as a POW, Gen. Clark was carried off the Vietnam battlefield on a stretcher. He’s no stranger to the crucible of combat.)

You see, on Monday Sen. Obama made a speech in which he said that no one should denigrate anyone’s military service. Many folks naturally took that as a repudiation of Gen. Clark’s comments from the day before.

Turns out that that Obama phrase has been part of the working draft of that speech for about two months. So unless Sen. Obama can look into the future, it was simply coincidence that he said that just after Gen. Clark’s off-the-cuff response to CBS’ Bob Schieffer.

And so on to the Quote of the Day, wherein Sen. Obama reminds us that the kerfuffle over Sen. McCain’s military service means little in the face of McCain’s lack of judgment and pandering to the political winds on the key issues facing we Americans. After being asked again about the Clark remarks:

“I guess my question is why, given all the vast numbers of things that we’ve got to work on, that that would be a top priority of mine?” he said. “I think that, you know, right now we’re here to talk about how we can make sure that kids in Zanesville and across Ohio get the kind of support that they need and communities that are impoverished can start to rebuild. I’m happy to have all sorts of conversations about how we deal with Iraq and what happens with Iran, but the fact that somebody on a cable show or on a news show like Gen. Clark said something that was inartful about Sen. McCain I don’t think is probably the thing that is keeping Ohioans up at night.”

While it may be giving McCain’s lobbyist campaign staffers and lying swiftboat backers a touch of insomnia, it’s probably not the thing keeping most other Americans up at night either.

(h/t Bob Sackamento)

Sen. Barack Obama got down and dirty to pitch in for a bit of moral support as Quincy, Illinois fights back floodwaters, filling not just one or two sandbags but a whole slew of them. He also gave a pep talk to the scores of volunteers working through the pain of their aching arms and backs to do what they can. Several folks have noticed too that for the past many days front and center on his campaign website is a large graphic encouraging folks to do what they can — donate, volunteer, etc.

Isn’t that what people who claim to be “conservative” always say people should do: volunteer to help each other instead of relying on government to “bail them out”… donate their own money at an amount they choose rather than investing tax dollars since “it’s your money”…

So why is it that Sen. Obama is the only candidate doing these things?

Sen. John McCain has been hopping from campaign fundraiser to campaign fundraiser in California (”west coast values”) and will soon head to more in Texas. He has a tiny graphic buried on his campaign’s homepage (at least it’s there) but instead of an immediate, boots on the ground response he’s off wining and dining GOP big-wigs. In a way, it fits the McCain pattern — he has routinely voted against relief and responsibility for Gulf Coast victims of Katrina.

We already knows what happens when a president doesn’t have a clear grasp on a natural disaster; and by their actions large and small our nominees are letting us know which one will change from that legacy and which one will merely continue it.

Natural disasters shouldn’t be a political issue, but how candidates and incumbents respond to them is.

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Donate if you aren’t able to volunteer. Or, consider other ways to help too.

Who knew that the document our Founding Fathers wrote and ratified back in the 1780s has a “September 10th mindset” even though it has somehow, someway managed to see our great nation through more than two centuries of growth, progress, wars, peace, economic depressions and boom times.

Apparently, Sen. McCain knew. And he’s part of a dwindling nattering nabob of conservative negativity who doesn’t like their fictional “September 10th mindset” … or our Constitution, apparently.

The latest info-pimped non-issue to be drummed up as a “scandal” by the conservative partisans involves Sen. Obama’s birth certificate; which the campaign released today.

It’s a pretty standard form and reveals no new information.

But why the cons would run around yelping “he won’t release his birth certificate” is unclear when it’s such an asinine demand that his campaign probably didn’t consider anyone could be so asinine as to invent such a non-issue in the first place… And these con partisans then created a slew of blatantly false rumors as to why he wouldn’t meet their demands to see the document on top of that.

Maybe these Jerry Fletchers need to remove their tin foil hats and stop drinking that kool-aid.

What’s next, terrorist pineapples?

…And now that the bar has been lowered further by these hyper-partisan cons when will John Sidney McCain III release his birth certificate from the Panama Canal Zone?

I wrote on Sunday about another of the lies Sen. Lindsey Graham told America during his “This Week” appearance on ABC.

Sen. Graham’s bit was ostensibly to talk up John McCain but in reality he ended up mostly muddying waters and blurring lines. In the process, he told the whopper I noted last Sunday about McCain’s campaign not being full of lobbyists when the fact is not only are there lobbyists working at the highest levels of Camp McCain but they even do their lobbying from the back of his Straight(ish) Talk Express and are clearly influencing his policy statements, both foreign and domestic.

But enough about the Mac team’s attempts at smoke and mirrors on lobbyists.

Sen. Graham, of course, lied about other stuff too. To wit, on the heels of the discussion of McCain’s cozy association with lobbyists came this whiney subject-changer in the form of a weak try at guilt-by-association:

“John McCain didn’t borrow money from a guy going to jail to build his house.”

- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) discussing Barack Obama on Sunday’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulous.”

Neither did any other presidential candidate, including front-runner Barack Obama.

Eric Zorn of the Tribune describes 8 basic points as he tries to set Sen. Graham, and the record, straight on Rezko. In short:

1.  The deal could have gone down without Rezko.  …

2. The Obamas did not get a special discount on the  house. …the sellers have confirmed that the sale price was the result of routine real estate negotiations and was the best offer they received on the house.

3. The sellers rejected two lower bids from the Obamas. …

4.   The Rezkos did not pay an inflated price for the vacant lot. …

5.  The Obamas did not get a special discount from the Rezkos when they later purchased a one-sixth strip of the vacant lot to enlarge their  yard. …

6. The Obamas did not receive or borrow any money from the Rezkos to buy their house. …

7.  Obama hasn’t done any political or personal favors for Rezko  since this saga began. …

8. The reason Obama is nevertheless correct in describing his actions here as “boneheaded” is that Rezko is and was a sleazeball.

ArchPundit has a ton more details in his series on Tony Rezko for anyone who’s actually interested in the truth.

If all the Republicans have on Sen. Obama are lies (which would fit an emerging pattern of other lies)… what does that mean for the McCain campaign?

On this morning’s This Week with George Stephanopolous Senators Lindsey Graham (Bush and McCain supporter) and John Kerry (Obama supporter) decided to tell a little fib and George let it slide…

The topic was lobbyists’ influence and DC status quo. Sen. Kerry correctly pointed out that GOP nominee John McCain’s campaign is full of lobbyists including those who’ve tried to spin away the mortgage crisis  because they lobby for the very banks at the heart of the bad loans…

Sen. Graham carried water for McCain and his lobbyist friends everywhere by laughably claiming there are no lobbyists in the McCain camp…

Oh really? Somebody apparently forgot to tell them to stop lobbying from the back of the Straight(ish) Talk Express…

(No wonder some of his ’staff’ could forego pay when his campaign tanked earlier.)

Umm. What?

I must’ve been changing a diaper or getting a jar of pureed pears ready when McCain (who agrees with President Bush that healthcare for kids is bad) said this because I don’t remember this from his speech at the suburban New Orleans ‘high school gym’.

I have to say, I disagree with McCain on giving bottled hot water to babies — thirsty or not. I don’t believe in scalding infants; not my thing.

(Yes, people. He clearly misspoke. It’s a Friday funny.)

Break out the Courvoisier…

The Trib had a front page article today describing how presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain might be able to pick up some women who are former Hillary Clinton supporters. Indeed, there are now groups of former Clinton supporters vowing to back McCain simply out of spite.

That’s too bad because, knowing Sen. McCain’s record on women’s and family issues, it’s a bit difficult to imagine that anyone who had previously supported Hillary Clinton would willingly support McCain.

If the intent is simply to spite the Dems then piching support for Green Party nominee Cynthia McKinney I could understand… but John McCain?

The Trib quotes a professor who explains why some may be so persuaded…

“To the extent that McCain can make Obama look like a big risk—make them feel a little leery about the change he might bring about—he might be successful in attracting them,” said Susan Carroll, senior scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “He does have that independent reputation and that reputation of thinking for himself and not necessarily going along with the Republican Party line, which I think a lot of people find appealing.”

Ah, so that’s it. The media-propped myth that Sen. McCain somehow has an “independent” aura and doesn’t toe the Republican party line…

Sure. Once one actually looks at the facts, it’s clear that this “reputation” is not deserved but is instead carefully manicured with a mix of sweet and sour: tasty bbq ribs when the media is good and does something McCain likes but belligerence against the media when they dare tell an unflattering, but true, story.

That’s why he voted with the Bush agenda 95% of the time last year and 100% of the time so far this year. Might independent there.

I’m sure that’s also why McCain decided that Bush’s veto of healthcare for kids was a good idea. Little kids don’t ever get sick or hurt, do they? So what if their moms and dads can’t afford health insurance. It’s not like moms care about their children anyway, right Senator?

John McCain’s “not necessarily going along with the Republican Party line” must also be why he supported his party’s filibuster and eventually sinking of the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act. The Lilly Ledbetter Act was named after a woman who found out her employer, Goodyear Tire, was paying her less then men. It would’ve rebuffed the recent conservative Supreme Court’s legislation from the bench decision to essentially allow companies to continue paying women less, so long as they don’t get caught. Instead of being concerned about whether or not women were being paid less for doing the same work as men, McCain was instead so concerned about companies being sued that he completely skipped the vote.

Speaking of paying women an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work, McCain also voted against increasing the national minimum wage. What one demographic has far more people at minimum wage than any other? Women. Yet John McCain voted to filibuster an increase in the minimum wage.

Finally, it’s also abundantly clear that, after much flippity-floppity dilly-dallying, John McCain finally came out and admitted he’d like to overturn Roe v. Wade. After all, who best to decide what a woman should do than (no, not her and her doctor) some Senator from Arizona? It is quite surprising that supposedly liberal women who were supporting a pro-choice such as Sen. Clinton are now planning to switch gears and work for an anti-choice and anti-privacy candidate like McCain.

So, right here, in the span of just a few paragraphs and a few minutes of research are four pieces of legislation directly affecting women which clearly illustrate McCain’s positions — positions that are decidedly in line with his party and against women.

Unfortunately, this sort of research appears to be too much work for Trib reporters who comment on this stuff on the front page of a national newspaper. (To be fair, the Trib did devote a baker’s dozen words to McCain’s opposition to equal pay and the minimum wage… buried in the second to last paragraph… after Obama supporter Sen. Claire McCaskill [D-Missouri] apparently mentioned it.)

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UPDATE: So-Called Austin Mayor notes that there is likely to be little to worry about. I agree (Clinton Supporters for McCain had all of about 5k members nationwide … If they all lived in Florida it might be one thing, but let’s be honest: 5000 people out of the millions who will vote in November is a drop in the bucket.

Still, I find the boiling threats of “but we’ll vote for McCain” to be hokum given how his adherance to the Bush legacy and failed conservative policies is completely antithetical to all the issues for which Sen. (and Pres.) Clinton stand.

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UPDATE 2: London’s Daily Mail newspaper notes that McCain’s own associates consider him to be a womanizer:

The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind

‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens…it just does.’

Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled [first] wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons [...]

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.

‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.

‘This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.’

With leaders like these, why is it that the partisan conservatives keep (falsely) blathering on about “family values”?

Much has been made of Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s willingness to talk to other world leaders, even adversaries.

John McCain, who has been supporting Bush’s Iraq policy of shoot first/ask later, is of the opinion such talk amounts to appeasement. He’s been oddly quiet on that notion since it was revealed in recent weeks that Israel was holding high level talks with long-time opponent Syria, but still. (And, as is turning out to be true with so much of the Bush legacy that McCain hopes to continue, the American people agree with the Obama position, not the McCain stance.)

Even so, one may wonder how such talks may proceed. Obama has described his vision for it by describing Reagan’s talks with Gorbachev and Nixon’s talks with Mao, but sometimes it’s difficult to imagine what it would be…

Wonder no more: Obama gave caucuses-with-Dems-but-endorses-Republicans Senator Joe Lieberman (CT-Connecticut for Lieberman) what has been described as a cordial, but very stern, talking-to on the floor of the Senate the day after Obama secured the likely presidential nomination.

Sure, there was a handshake or two… and a few pats on the back… but it was clear what Sen. Obama expected of his adversary, and the likely consequences of not meeting those expectations.

IlliniPundit thinks he sees a pattern of unfamiliarity…

Sen. Barack Obama yesterday on Tony Rezko:  “This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew…”

Obama on April 29 on Rev. Jeremiah Wright:  “the man I saw yesterday was not the man I knew for 20 years.”

Anyone sensing a theme?

First, the same could be asked of straightish talker Sen. McCain’s constant chatter about opposing lobbyists even as he employs scads of them on his campaign staff (some of whom brag about doing their lobbying work while riding on his campaign bus — and I don’t mean telecom lobbyist Vicki Iseman) and even as he mysteriously, and routinely, bends over backwards to help them.

But more importantly, Sen. Obama was not involved in any of the stuff Rezko was charged with (but Gov. Blagojevich and Republicans Bob Kjellander and Bill Cellini allegedly were). So no, Obama wouldn’t have known the guy was running around committing fraud because he wasn’t involved in it, etc.

By the way, Mr. Rezko also raised thousands of dollars for Pres. Bush’s White House run, money which (to my knowledge) was not given back or donated to charity. (That BuzzFlash article is a bit off on its numbers. Rezko co-hosted the 2003 $3.8 million Bush/Cheney fundraiser in Chicago. He didn’t necessarily raise all $3.8 mil by his lonesome. But, the “minimum” amount to qualify as a co-host was $100,000 — and Rezko had given a few grand directly to Bush/Cheney in addition to that 100k over the years.)

And as for Rev. Wright, obviously Sen. Obama has been in Washington serving as our Senator for the past 4 years or so. Before that, he spent a good deal of time in Springfield. It’s not too difficult to imagine that no, he was not sitting in a pew when those 30 seconds of out-of-context, YouTubed tape loops were filmed and thus that, no, he didn’t recognize the National Press Club version of limelight-seeking Rev. Wright…

That is, if one is intellectually honest.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain needs to decide whether he wants to be George Bush’s best bud or just throw him under the bus and be done with it.

On Tuesday evening, we learned from Sen. McCain that despite his 95% Bush voting record in 2007 and his 100% Bush voting record in 2008, that suddenly:

I disagreed strongly with the Bush administration’s mismanagement of the war in Iraq.

Now, it’s rather odd that Sen. McCain would try to tell his national audience that he “disagreed strongly” with Bush on Iraq since just a few weeks ago he told us all on the Michael Gallagher Show:

No one has supported President Bush on Iraq more than I have.

So… which is it?

No wonder the ‘applause’ was delayed from his Republican audience. They were clearly confused by the flip-flops he was wearing on his sleave.

Don’t believe the audio? Unfortunately for the Straightish Talker there’s also plenty of video…

(That said, it’s also rather odd that he would go to a suburb of New Orleans to make his speech. Sen. McCain has not only repeatedly worked against supporting that great American city while it rebuilds, he was also caught eating his cake with George Bush while the two ignored all the people literally drowning in NOLA.)

First it was replacement GOP candidate Marty Ozinga (IL-11) ripping off Obama’s logo with a very similar looking Ozinga08 logo…

Then, in his failed attempt at a presponse to Presidential nominee Obama’s gracious, balanced victory speech, Sen. John McCain splashed a new slogan all across his kelly green backdrop… a new-to-McCain slogan very similar to the slogan Obama has been using this whole time.

Now, we find out Sen. McCain is also mooching not just Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In” slogan, but also his logo and website graphic design.

Why vote for John “mimicks Obama” McCain when you can vote for the real thing?

Then again, seeing as how John McCain has been imitating George Bush these past many years — voted with the Bush agenda 95% in 2007, and 100% so far in 2008 — yet is now suddenly playing Peter by denying the Bush legacy it’s clear his strategy seems to be simply having his finger to the wind … at least, depending on which audience McCain is pandering to.

If we have no rule of law, we have only anarchy. But, this doesn’t seem to matter to self-proclaimed “law and order” conservative partisans.

To wit: McCain Message Coordination w/ Anti-Obama “Veterans For Freedom” organization

If the coordination (which seems obvious) is proven, it is illegal based on current election law. This, of course, comes after the McCain campaign apparently violated his own campaign finance law.

John McCain had to write his own jokes for this YouTube piece.

I wonder why the national press following his campaign doesn’t pick up on this more… (Could you pass that sweet BBQ sauce … and a beer?)

And his ideas are different than Pres. Bush’s failed conservative policies how?

Someone pass the ribs basket while we wait for the not-so-liberal media to report on the many shady deals McCain’s chief campaigner and lifelong lobbyist Charlie Black has under his belt…

Is McCain’s chief Charlie Black a…

(a) Lobbyist to the Dictator Stars?

(b) Lobbyist Cashing in on Taxpayer-funded Pork?

(c) Lobbyist with ties to Fake Astroturfing PR Efforts?

(d) All of the Above…!

Congrats John McCain — thanks to the lobbyists you’ve hired to run your Double Talk Express your “maverick judgment” is going the way of those used wetnaps from your Sedona Resort BBQ For the Media… and it’s unlikely any SNL sketches are going to help.

While it’s despicable that GOP “leaders” such as Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) would choose to slice out only the few phrases that would make the presumptive Democratic nominee for president look bad (and they have to actually ignore those phrases’ real intent even at that), it’s equally deplorable that a well-respected journalist such as the Sun-Times’ Washington Bureau chief and political columnist Lynn Sweet would let them get away with the distorted half-quoting via her own half-baked he-said/they-said stenography at her to-the-minute blog.

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Oh dear. From WaPo:

Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers].

Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain’s 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks.

He was reluctant to support it until his campaign-manager-who-is-also-a-lobbyist, his former staffers, and a six-figure bundler were hired?

What is it that John Ruberry, Juliana “Dan Proft” Johnson, and other conservative partisans keep saying about having the judgment to be president?

We know what Sen. Obama says about that mythical McCain judgment: McCain has lost his bearings. Hopefully Sen. McCain won’t get so worked up at having been caught red-handed in this land benefits deal that he hops off and calls the reporter a dirty name.
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Newt Gingrich has some advice for worried, “shellshocked” Republican incumbents in Congress:

In a piece published in Human Events, the Republicans’ onetime captain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.

Does he mean this “bold course of real reform“?

Because, in all honesty, just because he’s calling his ideas ’something brand new’, Sen. McCain’s only offering 4 more years of the same (or 100 years, depending on who you ask). …Except for the ribs. The bbq ribs are new.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain needs to get his facts straight…

Says McCain:

“This subsidized (ethanol) program - paid for by taxpayer dollars - has contributed to pain at the cash register, at the dining room table, and a devastating food crisis throughout the world,” McCain said in a statement.

Oh really? Unfortunately for the apparently confused Senator, reality is quite different than the cons’ spin. Also from that Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article:

…not enough attention was being placed on the role that rising crude oil prices - which surged to $120 a barrel Monday - have played in driving up the cost of food.

“It’s the wrong medicine for the problem,” Wisconsin Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen said. “If we hadn’t had the significant increase in renewable fuels that we’ve seen in the last five years, we would have higher gas prices today, not lower ones.”

Moreover, an editorial in today’s Chicago Tribune from rocket engineer and mathematician Robert Zubrin and global security expert Gal Luft adds more facts to debunk the cons’ anti-ethanol spin:

Here are the facts. In the last five years, despite the nearly threefold growth of the corn ethanol industry (or actually because of it), the U.S. corn crop grew by 35 percent, the production of distillers grain (a high-value animal feed made from the protein saved from the corn used for ethanol) quadrupled and the net corn food and feed product of the U.S. increased 26 percent.

Contrary to claims that farmers have cut other crops to grow more corn, U.S. soybean plantings this year are expected to be up 18 percent and wheat plantings up 6 percent. U.S. farm exports are up 23 percent. [...]

The increased demand for food from the hundreds of millions of people in China and India rising out of poverty and moving to a more calorie-rich diet affects the price of food the most. Second is the price of [petroleum-based] fuel.

Higher fuel prices increase the cost of production, transport, wages and packaging, the main cost of retail food. For example, a $3 box of cornflakes contains 15 ounces of corn that cost 8 cents when bought from the farmer. So, farm commodity prices have almost no effect on retail prices. But the effect of oil price increases can be huge.

So, given those facts, what should Sen. McCain really be worried about? The current president’s Saudi “uncles”.

Zubrin and Luft again:

According to Merrill Lynch analysts, without biofuel programs, the price of oil would be about $13 a barrel higher than it now is. A $13 savings for each barrel could save the U.S. $65 billion in foreign oil payments.

So, rather than shut down biofuel programs, we need to radically augment them, to the point where we can take down the oil cartel. (emphasis added)

Should we be looking at other alternative fuels beside corn-based ethanol? Absolutely. The whole point to a “free” market is competition.

Give petroleum competition through ethanol, methanol, electric, “100mpg biodiesel“, etc.

Give corn-based ethanol competition through cellulosic-based ethanol, etc. (Shoot, Brazil uses sugar cane ethanol and even exports it to us!)

Much of that will require a reluctant Detroit (and Japan, Germany, Korea, etc.) to lay out an extra $100 or so to upgrade modern vehicle to meet Flexfuel standards. But $100 per vehicle in exchange for saving $65 billion-with-a-B in oil payments to foreign countries? That’s a bargain.

Open it up to actual competition.

Go read the whole Zubrin/Luft column. They raise several good points on how we can be spending our fuel dollars here at home, driving the US economy, rather than shipping that money off to OPEC and other foreign hands.

(h/t Illinois Review)

Irony has long had a home among the partisans of the conservative persuasion and today’s events are proving no different. McCain apologists like John Ruberry and Pat “Melvinna” Hickey, among others, are attacking a guy who was simply quoting something McCain is alleged to have called his wife…

(In recent days, other McCain apologists have also gone after the recent Democratic National Committee ad which not only quotes McCain’s own words but shows the video clip of him saying those words. Attacking people who quote McCain appears to be par for the course, since more and more of what he says is unfortunately indefensible.)

A fellow who had previously supported Sen. Joe Biden’s primary campaign asked Sen. John McCain during one of his townhall events a question that many people concerned about McCain’s well-known anger management issues have:

“This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I’ve been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a cunt?”

Harsh language, but the reality is this questioner was asking Sen. McCain whether or not the reports of that infamous domestic tirade are true (the c-word was precipitated by his wife playfully mussing his hair a bit in front of some other people, who verified that he said it).

McCain’s obfuscation?

“Now, now. You don’t want to …Um, you know, that’s the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don’t …. There’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language. So I’ll move on to the next questioner in the back.”

The source of the c-bomb report? A book called The Real McCain by Cliff Schecter, which includes this paragraph:

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “You’re getting a little thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” McCain’s excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

(emphasis added)

Of course, this townhall question gets to the heart of McCain’s claims that he’s a “straight” talker, “one of the guys” and, most importantly, “prepared and experienced”…

First, he never answered the question. If the fact-checked report was somehow untrue (and the people who verified that he did indeed drop the c-bomb on his wife were for some reason fibbing) he could have just said so and put it to rest. He could have even “condemned” that four-letter-word since “condemnation” is the bar he seems to prefer for rhetoric he doesn’t like. And, we’ve already learned that once McCain “condemns” something it magically disappears down the memory hole with all those rib baskets and wetnaps simply by virtue of the fact that he is the McCain and the press thinks he talks straight.

So much for that “straight” talk.

Second, Sen. McCain is hardly “one of the guys” given that he dumped his first wife, a former model who had faithfully and anxiously waited for him while he was being held prisoner, because she was in a car accident and got chubby. In exchange, the Navy airman cum politician married a beautiful millionaire heiress. Her wealth has supplied McCain with handfuls of homes (including the site of his ribfest for the lackey media near the resort town of Sedona) and a private jet…. about as elitist as they get.

And, unfortunately, she was the target of McCain’s tirade in which he reportedly used the c-word, a word of which he now says, “There’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language.”

I agree.

Third, is he truly prepared to keep his renowned anger in check?

Did he, as reports verify, or did he not use such disrespectful language to verbally abuse his wife, a spouse who has provided him with so much material wealth in life, simply because she was being playful with her own husband?

And if he did, why did he feel a need to use such a harsh, abusive word and then duck a simple question about it?

As one of his apologists, John Ruberry, has already admitted Sen. McCain has been found in the past to have “poor judgment”.

Is ignoring a voter asking McCain to simply deny or verify-and-explain more of that same “poor judgment”?

Is insulting his doting wife by calling her a “trollop” and a “c***” also a sign of anger issues and yet more “poor judgment”?

Finally, another of the McC-word apologists used the headline “Stay Classy Dems” to whine about the guy who quoted McCain… seeing as how the questioner was asking about what McCain said, shouldn’t that read “Stay Classy McC-word”? Nice spin, but the question wasn’t what was offensive. What Mr. McCain called Mrs. McCain in that hot-headed haranguing is what is offensive.

PS conserv-o-partisans: Even former Biden supporters who are now supporting Obama are Americans, as are all the women McCain might call “trollop” or “c-dash-dash-dash” and, if McCain were elected president, he’d be their president too. Go figure.

Here’s video from that townhall with Sen. McCain refusing to either deny the report or condemn the word…

Question:

Why is it that a reverend who quotes an ambassador as evidence of his assertion that a nation cannot go to the four corners of the earth arming despots and tolerating intolerable regimes is lambasted endlessly for more than a month by our bloviating pundits and sundry partisans while another reverend with truly radical interpretations of scripture (calling the Catholic Church the Great Whore of Revelation) to promote his notion that the End Times are nigh while also declaring that an American city deserved to be damned by God (note that NOLA lost 1000 churches but Bourbon Street was fine) is sloughed off with only a few softball questions and “oh, by the way” mentions?

What is different between Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Rev. John Hagee … except skin color?

Both are well-known, nationally-recognized preachers.

Both are bombastic in a fire and brimstone way.

Both are American and active in American society.

Both interpret Scripture in a manner they deem appropriate to advance their perceived calling and mission. And, in that vein, both have declared that God damns America for what they declare are her sins.

There is only one difference between them… skin pigments.

Actually, two differences when you consider their impact on presidential campaigning.

While it is true that Rev. Wright was Sen. Obama’s former pastor and he officiated the Obamas’ wedding and baptised their daughters, Sen. Obama did not seek his endorsement nor any particular support from him at all. In fact, he has now given two speeches — alternatively described as “strong,” “displaying true leadership,” “groundbreaking” and “very presidential” — forcefully denouncing Rev. Wright’s sometimes outlandish and hammy claims. Rev. Wright, quite simply, was Sen. Obama’s pastor and that’s it — not a kitchen cabinet guy, not a political confidant, not a pursued endorser.

Obama has had to give two landmark speeches clarifying his positions and presidential goals (and denouncing his former pastor’s remarks) and still the media won’t let go of their most recent ’shark week/missing blonde’ fetish even as they virtually ignore the deeper controversies swirling between Rev. Hagee and Sen. McCain, which could impact national security when you stop to consider what is being suggested.

As a matter of fact, Sen. John “Not So Straight Talk” McCain obviously has gone back on his words of 2000 in which he declared radical conservative religious leaders “agents of intolerance” and “un-American.”Yet in preparing for 2008 McCain pursued Rev. John “Catholicism is the Great Whore” Hagee and similar radicals vigorously, as if he were getting ready for the prom and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Now that he has Rev. Hagee’s hand in support, McCain says he’s “glad to have” it.

For those who claim questions about Rev. Wright are questions related to Sen. Obama’s judgment, what does this two-faced sophistry say about Sen. McCain’s judgment?

And all McDouble-Talk has to say are the magic words “Of course I denounce it” to dust Hagee’s repeated radical and controversial sermons and public statements off his dark suit’s sleeves (each laden with anti-Catholic, anti-American, and anti-common decency themes).

But no one in the media has bothered to ask if this relationship means that if McCain’s elected president he’ll be “glad to have” Hagee’s counsel on matters related to, say, the Middle East and … Armageddon? We already know Jewish leaders don’t want Hagee’s support because of his anti-peace and anti-democratic views and even Catholic conservative pundits have rebuked him and McCain’s gleeful acceptance of his support.

In 2000, McCain said, “Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance.”

What changed?

And why does the media routinely give McCain a pass on his double-talk?

(Maybe they’re still craving those “delectable” BBQ ribs, which apparently come with sweet and tangy cognitive-reducing sauce…)

McCain blames the Minneapolis bridge collapse on Congress:

Republican John McCain said Wednesday that the bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people last year would not have happened if Congress had not wasted so much money on pork-barrel spending.

Yet, McCain is a member of that same Congress he now chastises. If he really had a problem with his fellow Republican Ted Stevens and his Bridge to Nowhere, as he now claims, then he could’ve filibustered the spending bill til he got his way.

In fact, if McCain had a problem with spending over the last umpteen years all he had to do was turn to his fellow Republicans — they controlled Congress for all but a few months in the decade-plus leading up to that tragic bridge collapse.

This all-talk, no-action gig seems to be a pattern with McCain: saying he’s against something but not actually doing anything to quash it. From Rev. Hagee’s bigoted and anti-American sermons to the North Carolina Republican Party’s bizarre racially tinged guilt-by-association ad to now throwing his own fellow legislators under his campaign bus….

Indeed, having the presumptive Republican prez nominee throwing his fellow Members of Congress under the bus as a cheap political stunt makes even less sense than when the actual incumbent Republican President did the same thing a day earlier. (Pres. Bush complained Congress wasn’t sending him any bills to help “fix” the economy. It is members of Bush’s and McCain’s Republican Party who are holding up those bills with procedural shenanigans while the majority Dems have been working to get those bills unlocked from the GOP hijinx and send them down the street to the Prez…)

PS: If he were really concerned about our roads and bridges and infrastructure McCain wouldn’t be suggesting his cotton candy gas tax holiday (tastes good, but rots your teeth and leaves you empty). His empty gesture would instantly vacuum $10 billion out of the Highway Trust Fund with no alternate funding source for infrastructure investment in mind. Conservative and progressive economists agree that McCain’s anti-tax plan stinks

Con partisans are positively giddy claiming that Sen. Obama is somehow “whining” about Wednesday night’s True Hollywood Story - “On Stage” … “debate”. (Methinks they need to get their mock-o-meters checked. Making fun of how odious that Reality TV programming was is not the same as “whining”.)

Would conservative complainers like Anne Leary, John Ruberry and Dan Curry be saying the “hard questions” needed to be answered had it been Sen. John McCain … and if he had been asked a litany of Heathers fodder such as:

• McCain’s role in Keating 5
• when the violence will end in Iraq in order for the proposed 100 (or million, take your pick) years of American deployment to begin
• “Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran“
• the blonde lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, riding on McCain’s “straight talk” bus
• McCain’s divorce from his injured first wife (who remained true to him as he was held as a POW) and affair before his divorce
• why would John McCain’s Florida co-chair offer $20 to perform oral sex on another man
• Keating 5
• Pastors Parsley and Hagee and their anti-Catholic, pro-Armageddon preaching and why McCain would specifically seek out endorsements from such men
• why did he wear a bulletproof vest and require a large military escort (replete with gunship helos) while declaring a Baghdadi market that has seen many horrific bombings (including within days of his visit) was just jim dandy
• the blonde lobbyist riding on his bus
• Keating 5
• tax cuts for the wealthy while mainstream Americans (the other 90% of us) are struggling
• the blonde lobbyist riding on his bus
• why McCain caved on unAmerican torture
• is McCain Episcopalian or Baptist and why switch if switch he did
• the blonde lobbyist riding on his bus vis a vis McCain’s reputation as a skirt-chaser
• McCain’s record of coziness to lobbyists in contrast to his media persona as a straight talker
• McCain’s relationship with conservative pastors who blamed 9/11 and Katrina on Americans, thus making them anti-America conservatives
• the patriotism of conservative pastors who blamed 9/11 and Katrina on Americans
• is McCain an elitist because he married into a $100 million fortune
• his current wife’s past drug habit
• why Americans should vote for someone like McCain who admits he doesn’t know much about economics and, of all people to advise him, turned to the architect of much of the nation’s current credit woes, especially during a widespread downturn
• would John McCain consider Florida State Rep. Bob Allen for VP
  
• the blonde lobbyist riding on his bus

My hunch is conservative partisans would be hopping mad. In fact, we’d likely be hearing weeks’ worth of “Woe is me, the mean media is soooo snively and (gasp) lib’rul…”

Their concern would likely be especially acute if some of the questions were initially raised a day or two before in an interview the supposedly neutral moderator had with, say, Sam Seder or Rachel Maddow. Seeing as how former Clinton White House staffer George Stephanopolous apparently got some of his “debate” questions in his interviews with conservative pundits Sean Hannity and Steve Malzberg I’m sure Curry, Ruberry and Leary would be fine with a debate moderator using questions verbatim from Rachel Maddow.

Then again, as Mr. Ruberry’s excuse-making declares, those lines of questions also get to a more fundamental query, “Does he have good judgment?” … at least in a push-polling, rumor-mongering kind of way.

If the media is going to buy into these conservative partisans’ character-assassination-as-legit-campaign-tool efforts (and, indeed, further that cause by chewing up and regurgitating opponents’ tired and old attacks for half of a debate) then Sen. McCain ought to answer “tough questions” that have little or nothing to do with what the American people actually care about.

–

As an aside… I wonder how long it’ll be before we’re back to being told by these same con partisans that the media is too soft on Sen. Obama.

–

(adapted from a shorter DKos comment; h/t to smintheus and georgia10 for their ABC sideshow “debate” synopsis as reference)

M’mm, M’mm. Toasty:

It took less than 12 hours from the time the media caught wind of Cindy McCain’s recipe theft for John McCain’s campaign website to scrub away the offending pages…

Personally, I’m not sure how an intern can be responsible for messing up the McCain “family” recipes. Did the intern lose Cindy’s recipe box only to haphazardly try to replace them with Food Network recipes? If only we could all steal and lie and lay it off on the unpaid help.

Of course, it’s not like the McCains were paraphrasing their friends’ family recipes to prove a similar point during a speech. That’d be a horror of horrors.

Can you pass the rib sauce, please? Say, what kind of “elitist” serves up passion fruit mousse anyway?

While you’re up, can we have a dinnertime discussion about some real issues instead of silly nonsense that just goes to prove our candidates and their wives are … wait for it … actually human beings (and that, for all the complaining conservative partisans do about the media’s coverage of Sen. Obama, the traditional media tends to give Sen. McCain an even bigger pass).

Extra pulp please.

PS: Can you add some saccharin while you’re at it? Thanks.

Sen. John McCain likes to remind reporters and anyone else who will listen that he rides on what he calls the “Straight Talk Express”… Neverminding the fact he has a rather interesting definition of “straight talk,” each day we learn a little more about the man the Republicans have given their nomination to.

Today being the 40th anniversary of the day Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered one would naturally expect politicians to give speeches and the reporters covering them to ask about their reflections of Dr. King.

Sen. Barack Obama — did you know he’s black? …who knew? — offered Americans yet another stirring speech on the potential our nation holds for the future.

Sen. McCain, on the other hand, all but said he’d barely even heard of Dr. King while trying to explain away his vote against naming Martin Luther King Day as a holiday.

As most Americans know, Sen. McCain was a POW in Vietnam during part of the time Dr. King was active and, according to him, his captors withheld most news from their prisoners. His other excuse for voting against honoring Dr. King was that Arizona doesn’t have many black people living there…. which is odd since at the time he was not an Arizona state representative but instead a United States Representative from Arizona (and there are, obviously enough, a great many black people living in these United States).

Kagro X cuts right through Sen. McCain’s tripe by pointing out that apparently while the VC captors withheld most news about Dr. King, the “Straight” Talker has noted the POWs had plenty of news to talk about regarding then Gov. Ronald Reagan as they idled away those long hours in horrific enemy prison cells tapping out Morse code messages about the coming Reagan Revolution.

- …. — … . / - .- .–. … / … — ..- -. -.. … / .-.. .. -.- . / — -.-. -… ..- .-.. .-.. … …. .. -

Go figure.

(h/t Kagro X)

Boston Globe reports:

John McCain has officially broken the limits imposed by the presidential public financing system, according to spending reports filed last week by the campaign. [...]

McCain’s lawyers contend that the spending cap no longer applies.

Does it no longer apply because of … magic?

McCain’s no Maverick … he’s a Washington Wizard! It’s all so clear now.

The senator was certified to enter the matching-funds program last year when he was starved for cash. But once he started to win, he decided to hold off. On Feb. 6, after his Super Tuesday victories, he wrote to the Federal Election Commission to announce he would withdraw. [...]

But David Mason, chairman of the commission, wrote to McCain’s campaign last month to alert him that the commission had not yet granted that withdrawal request [...]

Oops. Not so magical after all. More like deciding to ignore the law and deal with the consequences later, if caught.

Sounds like another Republican we know and love. One note that the Globe skipped over — even though McCain never took cash from the public funding kitty he did have material gain from his certification for the program by obtaining a bank loan thanks to McCain using the forthcoming public funds as collateral. (This is different than 2003/4 Presidential candidate Gov. Howard Dean who never had any material gain from public funding before withdrawing and being granted permission to withdraw.)

While typically little ironies like Sen. John McCain apparently breaking the spending limits in the McCain-Feingold law would tend to be manna for media mavens’ 24/7 tape loops, those guys are apparently more interested in taking liberal pastors out of context, ignoring conservative pastors who’ve uttered similar or worse, and, most important of all, salivating over thoughts of back massages and specially-seasoned ribs.

Dave Niewart nails it:

It’s one of those things that seems perpetually to mystify Republicans: Why the heck don’t black people vote for them more often? [...]