Sunday McCain Roundup

I've got visitors in town, so blogging will be lighter than usual today.

Here's the roundup of news:

Frank Rich laughs at the idea that misogynist McCain will win the female vote.

Ten years ago John McCain had to apologize for regaling a Republican audience with a crude sexual joke about Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and Janet Reno. Last year he had to explain why he didn’t so much as flinch when a supporter asked him on camera, “How do we beat the bitch?” But these days Mr. McCain just loves the women.

In his televised address on Barack Obama’s victory night of June 3, he dismissed Mr. Obama in a single patronizing line but devoted four fulsome sentences to praising Mrs. Clinton for “inspiring millions of women.” The McCain Web site is showcasing a new blogger who crooned of the “genuine affection” for Mrs. Clinton “here at McCain HQ” after she lost. One of the few visible women in the McCain campaign hierarchy, Carly Fiorina, has declared herself “enormously proud” of Mrs. Clinton and is barnstorming to win over Democratic women to her guy’s cause.

How heartwarming. You’d never guess that Mr. McCain is a fierce foe of abortion rights or that he voted to terminate the federal family-planning program that provides breast-cancer screenings. You’d never know that his new campaign blogger, recruited from The Weekly Standard, had shown his genuine affection for Mrs. Clinton earlier this year by portraying her as a liar and whiner and by piling on with a locker-room jeer after she’d been called a monster. “Tell us something we don’t know,” he wrote.

But while the McCain campaign apparently believes that women are easy marks for its latent feminist cross-dressing, a reality check suggests that most women can instantly identify any man who’s hitting on them for selfish ends. New polls show Mr. Obama opening up a huge lead among female voters — beating Mr. McCain by 13 percentage points in the Gallup and Rasmussen polls and by 19 points in the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey.

Teacherken thinks this race won't be close, but we should organize like it will be.

Maureen Dowd says that Europe is having Bush fatigue, while Bush is just as moronic as always.

Remember how the McCain campaign flipped out because Obama's VP vetter got a loan through Countrywide? (And no, I still can't figure out what was wrong with this). Well, the NY Times reports that McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, may have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act when he lobbied for Ukraine in 2005:

The issue of foreign lobbying has flared up in the current presidential campaign because of past dealings abroad by several former lobbyists working for Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

For instance, a lobbying firm owned by Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, has worked in recent years for a Ukraine politician, Viktor Yanukovich. Both Mr. McCain and the Bush administration supported the opponent of Mr. Yanukovich, who had close ties to Vladimir V. Putin, then the president of Russia and now prime minister.

During this time, however, Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, never registered as a lobbyist for Mr. Yanukovich even though Paul Manafort, Mr. Davis’s business partner, had met with the United States ambassador in Kiev on Mr. Yanukovich’s behalf.

In a related development, Mr. McCain may have first become aware of Davis Manafort’s activities in Ukraine as far back as 2005. At that time, a staff member at the National Security Council called Mr. McCain’s Senate office to complain that Mr. Davis’s lobbying firm was undercutting American foreign policy in Ukraine, said a person with direct knowledge of the phone call who spoke on condition of anonymity....

Such a call might mean that Mr. McCain has been long aware of Mr. Davis’s foreign clients.

We'll see how long Rick Davis lasts. I think by the time the election rolls around, McCain's staff will look a lot different than it does today.

McCain cancels a fundraiser with a fellow misogynist who once said rape victims should enjoy the experience. Perhaps McCain should also return the $300,000 that this asshole raised for him. God, these Republicans are all creeps, aren't they?

Colin Powell ponders whether he should support Obama. First of all, this would be a major blow to McCain, since Colin Powell is considered the sort of respected bipartisan Republican that McCain makes himself out to be. But at the same time, it won't do much to revive Powell's legacy. His last chance to redeem himself was to resign from Bush's cabinet and endorse Kerry in 2004. He didn't, and well, the rest is history.

McClatchy tracks down many of the folks released from Guantanamo Bay. None of them were terrorists when they were arrested, the experience in Gitmo made them very anti-American by the end. No surprise. And of course, John McCain argues that because these prisoners become anti-American, we can never release them. I'm not sure where McCain plans to send them when he "closes" Gitmo, but I'm guessing a fair trial and possible freedom won't be in their future.