Obama Calls McCain Out

In other words, "bring it on".

McCain Needs to Fire Charlie Black

Great new ad from MoveOn about the scumbag lobbyist in charge of McCain's campaign:

McCain Is One Ugly Dude

But he used to be even uglier. Check out this video from two years ago. Look at the huge bag of fat under McCain's chin. Or is it loose skin?

Here's a screen capture:


And now here is a more recent pic. This is his official Senate portrait, complete with all the magic tricks that photographers can provide. He is still ugly, but the waddle under his chin is far less pronounced.


What happened to him over those two years? Did he loose weight? Did he go under the knife and get some plastic surgery?

And more important -- what is McCain going to look like after the election, when he doesn't have to worry about his appearance any more? To paraphrase Rush Limbaugh, do you really want to see this guy falling apart on national TV for four years?

Saudis to Bush: Fuck Off

From the NY Times:

Saudi Arabia Friday rejected the idea of increasing oil production to help ease soaring gasoline prices, telling President Bush that the kingdom already is meeting its customers' demand for crude.

The apparent rebuff came as Bush appealed to Saudi King Abdullah to use his country's vast oil reserves -- the world's largest -- to put more oil on the market and reduce the upward pressure on prices. It was the second time this year that Bush has made such a personal appeal to the Saudi monarch.

What an embarrassing failure this President is.

Obama Hits Back At Bush, McCain

Right Wing Hack Tries to Smear Obama, Fails

As we've mentioned before, the folks trying to smear Obama with the Jewish community are the lowest scumbags on Earth. Why should anyone listen to them? They don't know anything about history, some of them are anti-Semites themselves, and they are simply doing it as a political ploy.

Obviously, Bush's speech in Israel today was the lowest low we've seen yet. It doesn't get any worse than comparing someone to Nazi appeasers. But Chris Matthews got to smack around one of the many right wing gasbags on this issue, and found that he doesn't know what the hell he is talking about:



By the way, the smear on Robert Malley is just moronic if you know the facts. Here is what NBC News had to say:

One of the Obama campaign's informal Middle East advisers, Robert Malley, confirms to NBC NEWS that he has resigned from any role in the campaign because critics have tried to make an issue of his meetings with Hamas. The Times of London called him about it this morning, and has posted a story online. As a result, he called Obama's campaign today and took himself out of any future role.

Malley's paid job is with the International Crisis Group, which, he says, requires him to meet with Hamas and others. Malley worked for six and a half years at the Clinton National Security Council under Tony Lake and Sandy Berger. Lake is now one of Obama's top foreign policy advisors.

Speaking to NBC NEWS, Malley said, "I decided based on the fact that this was becoming a distraction that it was best that I remove myself from any association with the campaign."

Malley added, "My job with the International Crisis Group is to meet with all sorts of savory and unsavory people and report on what they say. I've never denied whom I meet with; that's what I do."

Malley said he always informs the State Department in advance and briefs them afterward.

So Kevin James was lying about Robert Malley. He wasn't "secretly working in confidence with Hamas". He was gathering information to file a report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This right wing attack is total bullshit.

So what is the "International Crisis Group", you ask? Here is the Wikipedia description:

The ICG is considered the world’s leading independent, non-partisan, source of analysis and advice to governments, and intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations, European Union and World Bank, on the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict. Its primary goals are a unique combination of field-based analysis, sharp-edged policy prescription, and high-level advocacy, with key roles being played by a senior management team highly experienced in government and by a highly active Board of Trustees containing many senior diplomats.

So basically, this is the equivalent of smearing a Red Cross worker who met with the junta in Burma while delivering food supplies to the typhoon victims. Or smearing a United Nations staffer who talks with Hezbollah leaders while preparing a report on Iranian terrorism for the Security Council. Malley was just a policy analyst who was doing his job. It's not like he was a paid lobbyist for the homicidal junta in Burma, like two of McCain's staffers!

These smears are total garbage. Everyone who sympathizes with Israel should realize that these Republicans are exploiting their fears for politican gain. It's disgusting.

Counterpunch of the Day

An Obama aide, responding to McCain's attacks:

Let there be no doubt that George Bush is John McCain's wingman on this. This is a fight we like.

108

Today marks 108 days until John McCain turns 72 years old.

And on that note, we have a new video from the boys over at "Younger Than McCain". Hit it!

Huge McCain Blunder: Says Reagan Didn't Negotiate With Iran

Look at what John McCain, Mr. Foreign Policy Experience, said today while agreeing with Bush's repulsive remarks in Israel:

“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,'’ Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio. “I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.'’

The Obama campaign and we in the liberal blogosphere need to jump on these comments. Once again, McCain has demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge about foreign policy and American history. First he got confused over Sunnis and Shiites, now this.

McCain seems to be forgetting something kind of important that happened during the Reagan administration.

It's called the Iran-Contra Scandal.


I'll let Wikipedia tell the story:

The Iran-Contra affair was a political scandal which was revealed in 1986 as a result of earlier events during the Reagan administration. It began as an operation to increase U.S.-Iranian relations, wherein Israel would ship weapons to a moderate, politically influential group of Iranians opposed to the Ayatollah Khomeni; the U.S. would reimburse Israel with those weapons and receive payment from Israel. The moderate Iranians agreed to do everything in their power to achieve the release of six U.S. hostages, who were being held by the terrorist group Hezbollah. The plan eventually deteriorated into an arms-for-hostages scheme, in which members of the executive branch sold weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of the American hostages, without the authorization of President Ronald Reagan. Large modifications to the plan were conjured by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council in late 1985. In North's plan, a portion of the proceeds from the weapon sales was diverted to fund anti-Sandinista and anti-communist rebels, or Contras, in Nicaragua. While President Ronald Reagan was a supporter of the Contra cause, he did not authorize this plan, nor was he aware that the funds were being sent to the Contras.

After the weapon sales were revealed in November 1986, Ronald Reagan appeared on national television and stated that the weapons transfers had indeed occurred, but that the United States did not trade arms for hostages. The investigation was compounded when large volumes of documents relating to the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan administration officials. On March 4, 1987, Reagan returned to the airwaves in a nationally televised address, taking full responsibility for any actions that he was unaware of, and admitting that "what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages."

John McCain was in Congress during the 1980s, in fact he was moved up to the Senate in 1986, so surely he couldn't have forgotten about this. Iran-Contra was the biggest scandal of the Reagan administration. They traded arms to Iran in the hopes that the Iranians and Hezbollah would release U.S. hostages. John Kerry, who was one of the lead Senate investigators into Iran-Contra, should be the go-to man for the Obama campaign on this.



Regarding the 1981 release of hostages, McCain also misses the facts. Again, from Wikipedia:

In 1979, Iranian students took hostage 52 employees of the United States embassy in Iran. On January 20, 1981, the day Ronald Reagan became President, the hostages were freed following the Algiers Accords.

Who negotiated the Algiers Accords? Warren Christopher and the Carter administration. Ronald Reagan had nothing to do with it.

Unless...John McCain is accidentally giving credence to the "October Surprise" conspiracy theory. You know, the one that says the Reagan campaign secretly negotiated with Iran to prevent the release of hostages until Reagan took office?

The October Surprise conspiracy was an alleged plot that claimed representatives of the 1980 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign had conspired with Islamic Republic of Iran to delay the release of 52 Americans held hostage in Tehran until after the 1980 U.S. Presidential election. In exchange for their cooperation, the United States would supply weapons to Iran as well as unfreeze Iran's monetary assets being held by the US government.

Jimmy Carter had been attempting to deal with the Iran hostage crisis and the hostile regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini for nearly a year. Those who assert that a deal was made allege that certain Republicans with CIA connections, including George H. W. Bush, arranged to have the hostages held through October, until Reagan could defeat Carter in early November, and then be released, thereby preventing an “October surprise” from the Carter administration in which the hostages would be released shortly before the election. The hostages were released the day of Reagan's inauguration, twenty minutes after his inaugural address.

No matter how you interpret McCain's remarks, they are completely out of step with history.

Disgusting Behavior By George W. Bush

Here is what George W. Bush said while speaking to the Knesset in Israel today:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Some people suggest that if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of our enemies, and America rejects it utterly. Israel’s population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because America stands with you.

This is obviously - obviously - a veiled attack on Barack Obama. And it is utterly disgusting that the President of the United States would engage in such petty, misleading smear based attacks in front of the parliament of one of our strongest allies.

Bush knows exactly what he is doing here -- or at least his advisors do. First, he is falsely saying that Obama wants to negotiate with terrorists. Not true. Second, he says that Obama's negotiation policy is equivalent to negotiating with Nazis before WWII, which in turn means that Obama is the sort who would allow the Holocaust to happen. This is bullshit on many levels. Using WWII and the Holocaust as an analogy for every foreign policy problem is a complete fallacy, and is only used by cowards and simpletons like Bush to present their political foes as Chamberlains and wimps. Sorry Bush/McCain, you guys are not Churchill. And two-bit thugs like Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (who was elected, by the way, because of Bush's bellicose language) are not Hitler.

Third, Bush hints at the false smear attack pushed by the House Republicans, saying that Obama called Israel a "constant sore". Once again, totally false.

For Bush to question Obama's dedication to Israel, in front of the Israeli Knesset, during a heated election, all in order to install his pal John McCain in the White House is completely repulsive. I have a very low opinion of Bush, but even this shocked me. If Bush had any balls, he would have just mentioned Obama by name. But we all know George W. Bush is too much of a wimp and a crook to stand up to anyone who can punch back.

Here is Barack Obama's statement in response:

“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power - including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy - to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.”

I also like Joe Biden's more blunt response:

“This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset . . . and make this kind of ridiculous statement.”

“He is the guy who has weakened us,” Biden said. “He has increased the number of terrorists in the world. It is his policies that have produced this vulnerability that the U.S. has. It’s his [own] intelligence community [that] has pointed this out, not me.”

Biden noted that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have both suggested that the United States ought to find a way to talk more with its enemies.

"If he thinks this is appeasement, is he going to come back and fire his own cabinet?” Biden asked. “Is he going to fire Condi Rice?”

In a separate statement, Sen. John Kerry said that Bush "is still playing the disgusting and dangerous political game Karl Rove perfected, which is insulting to every American and disrespectful to our ally Israel. George Bush should be making Israel secure, not slandering Barack Obama from the Knesset."

Politically, the more Bush attacks Obama, the better Obama will look. But as an American, I am ashamed and infuriated. Congress should move to censure Bush immediately.

Oh, and it's no surprise to me, but John McCain agrees completely with Bush. Check out his lame attempt to label his foes as Chamberlains, and his flat-out lie about Reagan and Iran:

“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,'’ Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio. “I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.'’

Actually, Senator McCain, Ronald Reagan did negotiate with the Iranians. It's called the "Iran-Contra Affair," you were in Congress at the time, perhaps you forgot. We actually sold weapons to Iran to appease terrorists like Hezbollah and get them to release hostages, all under Reagan's orders!

There are conflicting accounts about why Iran released our hostages in 1980, but none involve Ronald Reagan simply imposing his will. The official story is that it was the Algiers Accords that led Iran to release our hostages in 1981. It was a Carter official, Warren Christopher, who negotiated this accord.

It has also been suspected, but never proven, that the Reagan campaign made a secret pact with Iran to hold the hostages until after the election. This is known as the "October Surprise".

Either way, McCain shows that he doesn't have the character or the knowledge one would expect in a president. He is either lying, or his senility is more advanced than we know. But it is once again clear that he has no class and no shame, just like his pal Bush.

McCain Lies, Flip-Flops About His War Plans

Sounds a bit like Nixon's "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam:

Sen. John McCain will pledge today that most American troops will return home from Iraq by 2013 if he is elected president, a position that closely resembles the promises made by both of his potential Democratic rivals....

McCain has repeatedly resisted offering a timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops, saying that to do so would be tantamount to giving terrorists a timeline for defeat. During the Florida primary, McCain was withering in his criticism of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for what he said was support of a withdrawal timeline.

Just last month, McCain said that "To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests, and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility. It is a failure of leadership.''

Don't believe a word this guy says. He thinks we are winning in Iraq, he's happy to keep our troops there, and once elected president nobody would be able to stop him from starting more wars.



My prediction: McCain catches flak for his flip-flop from angry right wingers. He issues clarification, stating that this is merely a "best case scenario, not a guarantee", thus undoing whatever political benefit he's trying to pull from this crap. Second, this destroys any criticism McCain can make of a "precipitous withdrawal" by Obama. After all, McCain has talked about doing the same thing! Third, this depresses the hard core Republican base even more. If McCain isn't gonna be hard core on the war, they why did they even nominate him?

McCain is trying to fool the American people. But he's gonna get from all sides on this one, as he should. Only the media will eat it up.

70-Year-Old Republican Senators: We're Too Old For VP

As you know, John McCain will 72 years old come election day. If elected, he would be the oldest first term president in our history (Ronald Reagan was 69 when elected).

But according to McCain, 72 isn't too old. He may be "older than dirt", as he says, but those decades and decades of service give him experience.

Yet some of his fellow Republican Senators disagree. The Hill conducted a survey of 97 U.S. Senators, to see which ones would accept a VP slot. Three of McCain's supporters said no, and for reasons that McCain might not like. Carpetbagger reports:

TPM posted an item noting the responses from some of the Republican caucus’ septuagenarians: “Don’t you find it odd that three Republican Senators (Thad Cochran, 70; Pete Domenici, 76; Chuck Grassley, 74) all noted that they were too old to be Vice President. Kind of odd given the circumstances of the current Republican nominee…”

Good point. Here are the specific responses:

* Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) — “When I was much younger I would have probably said, ‘Sure, I’ll be glad to accept it,’ but I’m 70 years [old] and they need a younger person for the job. I would probably tell them, ‘Look for somebody else.’ ”

* Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) — “No. I’m too old.”

* Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — “I’m too old to be vice president. But I am young enough to be reelected to the Senate.”

McCain is older than Cochran, and he will be the same age as the other two sometime during his first term. A VP has to be ready to assume the presidency at a moment's notice, so the age issue is the same. Perhaps somebody should ask McCain whether he agrees with his fellow Republicans (and half of America) that 70 is just too old for the presidency.

Obama's Consolidation Begins

New Washington Post poll, out tonight:

Amongst General Population:
Obama: 51%
McCain: 44%

Prefer Democrats: 53%
Prefer Republicans: 32%

Uncomfortable with 72 year old president: 39%
Uncomfortable with African American president: 12%

Amongst Democrats:
Obama: 53%
Clinton: 41%

Against either Democrat, age could be a significant obstacle for McCain. Only three in 10 said they were "entirely comfortable" with the prospect of a 72-year-old newly-elected president, about half as many as said they would be similarly comfortable with an African American or female president.

McCain romps against Obama among the 16 percent who see the country as headed in the right direction, but among the near-record 82 percent who hold a pessimistic view, Obama runs more than 20 points ahead of McCain. Similarly, about seven in 10 of those who disapprove of Bush said they would back Obama over McCain, while McCain picks up most of those who are still behind the president. The trouble for McCain is that Bush's approval has slipped to 31 percent, and has been under 50 percent for 38 consecutive months.

Evangelicals For Obama?

Two recent news pieces have caught my eye, both indicating that Christian evangelicals may be supporting the idea of an Obama presidency, but for radically different reasons.

On one side you have evangelicals who, like the rest of us, are sick of the Republicans:

For decades, evangelicals have been seen as solid supporters of the Republican Party. That could be changing.

The religious right, a cornerstone of the so-called Reagan revolution -- the battle over abortion law, and gay marriage -- wants a change.

At least some evangelicals do.

A group of influential Christian leaders are declaring they are tired of divisive politics, tired of watching fights over some issues trump all the good they could be doing....

For Democrats, the timing is good. The party has been pushing to overcome the "faith gap," that many feel has hurt them with church-going voters.

The WSJ is even more explicit:

If he’s the nominee, Obama has a real chance at winning substantial evangelical support.

First, evangelicals are in a period of de-alignment from the Republican Party. The leading evangelical pollster George Barna found that only 29% of “born again” Christians now say they support Republicans, compared with 62% in 2004. That doesn’t mean they’ll flock to Democrats -– they could end up voting Republican just as much ever -– but large numbers are up for grabs.

But Robert Novak thinks there could be another portion of the evangelical vote who crave an Obama presidency in much the same way they crave an all-out bloodbath in the Middle East -- because it might hasten the apocalypse:

One experienced, credible activist in Christian politics who would not let his name be used told me that Huckabee, in personal conversation with him, had embraced the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve. That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals: that the pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible's prophecy.

According to this activist, at the heart of the let-Obama-win movement is longtime Virginia conservative leader Michael Farris -- the nation's leading home-school advocate, who is now chancellor of Patrick Henry College (in Purcellville, Va.) for home-schooled students. Best known politically as the losing Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1993, Farris is regarded as one of the hardest-edged Christian politicians. He is reported in evangelical circles to promote the biblical justification for an Obama plague-like presidency.

Now this is just batshit loony, but if true it wouldn't bode well for McCain. You see, unlike George W. Bush, McCain is not a very religious guy. He doesn't talk about his faith, he doesn't even know if he's an Episcopalian or a Baptist, he's denounced (and re-embraced) Falwell and Robertson, and he just doesn't have a lot of cred with evangelicals. That's why he can't distance himself from Hagee or Rod Parsley -- it would be another slap in the face to the lunatic fringe of the Republican base.

But if these same evangelicals split away from McCain because they think an Obama presidency is God's will, he's in trouble. I don't remember any talk like this in 2004, because evangelicals loved Bush and thought HE was God's chosen one. If they start thinking Obama is the chosen one (albeit for less favorable reasons), then they might just stay home in November and let His will be done.

Evangelicals composed one third of Bush's vote in 2004. If McCain can't keep them together, he'll lose the election. And right now there are signs that evangelicals could be hemorrhaging from both sides.

John McCain, Warmonger

Glenn Greenwald offers up a fantastic analysis of John McCain's philosophy towards war, much of it forged from his Vietnam experience. Money quote:

John McCain is the ultimate embodiment of America's hoary, Vietnam era "stabbed-in-the-back" myth. We should fight wars with massive bombing campaigns and unleashed force, unconstrained by excessive concerns over "collateral damage" and unimpeded by domestic questioning. That's how we could have (and should have) "won" in Vietnam and how we'll "win" in Iraq. That's why the central truth of the 2008 election is that, when it comes to foreign policy, the Kristol/Lieberman-supported John McCain is a carbon copy of the Bush/Cheney warmongering mentality except that he's actually more extreme about its core premises.

Exactly right. McCain blames the American public and Congress for going soft in Vietnam, and thinks we could have "won" with a lot more bombing and killing. Naturally, if you read between the lines of his current speeches, McCain believes the same thing vis-a-vis Iraq, Iran, Syria, and other hotspots around the globe. McCain, unconstrained, would make Bush look like a sissy. He likes to play the role of the reluctant warrior who, gosh-darnit, just has to go bomb the hell out of everybody so that America can be left alone.

Electing this man would be incredibly dangerous, to say the least.

McCain's Lobbyist Pals Tied to Burma's Genocidal Junta

You know that military junta in Burma (Myanmar) that has killed thousands of dissidents, committed genocide against the Karen minority, and is currently blocking typhoon aid to tens of thousands?

Well, that gang of killers hired DCI Group, a Washington D.C. lobbyist firm, for the tune of about $300,000 in blood money. The founder of DCI Group, Doug Davenport, was John McCain's regional campaign manager. DCI Group's CEO, Doug Goodyear, was named chief executive officer of the Republican National Convention. At least, they were until this last weekend when the press found out about their connections to this murderous regime. And you think Mark Penn's ties to Colombia were bad? This looks horrible for McCain.

But when you surround yourself with lobbyists, as McCain does, you are bound to have these conflicts of interest. As Marc Ambinder reports:

Ironically, as Newsweek reported, Goodyear was asked to become convention CEO after Davis's lobbying firm partner, Paul Manafort, was nixed because of his own close ties to foreign governments and controversial companies.

Maybe next time McCain brings up Obama's acquaintance with a 60s relic like Ayers, or whatever phony controversy happens to be the flavor of the week, the press should ask McCain about his ties to the bloodthirsty junta in Burma.

Obama on Israel

A fascinating interview of Obama by the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg. It pretty much refutes nearly all of the misconceptions about Obama being pushed by right wing smear artists. It seems to me that Obama demonstrates a deeper knowledge and understanding of Israel than John McCain, by far. You should really go read the whole thing.

Obama and I spoke over the weekend about Hamas, about Jimmy Carter, and about the future of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. He seemed eager to talk about his ties to the Jewish community, and about the influence Jews have had on his life. Among other things, he told me that he learned the art of moral anguish from Jews. We spoke as well about my Atlantic cover story on Israel’s future. He mentioned his interest in the opinions of the writer David Grossman, who is featured in the article. “I remember reading The Yellow Wind when it came out, and reading about Grossman now is powerful, painful stuff.” And, speaking in a kind of code Jews readily understand, Obama also made sure to mention that he was fond of the writer Leon Uris, the author of Exodus.

David Grossman is one of Israel's best writers. His acclaimed nonfiction book The Yellow Wind was published in 1987, meaning that Obama (if he really did read the book when it first came out, has been engaged on Israeli issues for at least 20 years.

Does anyone think that McCain has ever read David Grossman or Leon Uris? Perhaps Goldberg should ask him. I'd like to know what McCain's Israeli policy is, and whether it is more than a doubling-down of the ineffective Bush policy.

Once Again, Obama Shows Alarming Common Sense

Obama vows to end DEA raids on medical marijuana suppliers:

At a November appearance in Audubon, Iowa, Obama recalled that his mother had died of cancer and said he saw no difference between doctor-prescribed morphine and marijuana as pain relievers. He said he would be open to allowing medical use of marijuana, if scientists and doctors concluded it was effective, but only under "strict guidelines," because he was "concerned about folks just kind of growing their own and saying it's for medicinal purposes."

Obama went a step further in an interview in March with the Mail Tribune newspaper in Medford, Ore. While still expressing qualms about patients growing their own supply or getting it from "mom-and-pop stores," he said it is "entirely appropriate" for a state to legalize the medical use of marijuana, "with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors."

In response to recent questions from The Chronicle about medical marijuana, Obama's campaign - the only one of the three contenders to reply - endorsed a hands-off federal policy.

"Voters and legislators in the states - from California to Nevada to Maine - have decided to provide their residents suffering from chronic diseases and serious illnesses like AIDS and cancer with medical marijuana to relieve their pain and suffering," said campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.

"Obama supports the rights of states and local governments to make this choice - though he believes medical marijuana should be subject to (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) regulation like other drugs," LaBolt said. He said the FDA should consider how marijuana is regulated under federal law, while leaving states free to chart their own course.

LaBolt also said Obama would end U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raids on medical marijuana suppliers in states with their own laws.

McCain has flip-flopped all over this issue, as usual, but winds up on the side of the Bush administration:

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, has gone back and forth on the issue - promising a medical marijuana patient at one campaign stop that seriously ill patients would never face arrest under a McCain administration, but ultimately endorsing the Bush administration's policy of federal raids and prosecutions.

Chalk this up as yet another issue on which Obama demonstrates consistency and common sense, while McCain shows himself to be a Bush-like political hack with his finger in the wind.

If McCain Really Wanted To Win

The McCain campaign will apparently pursue a 1988-style campaign of deceit and smears against Barack Obama. They'll say he's unpatriotic, soft on crime, soft on terrorism, secretly Muslim, socialist, Marxist, a Black Panther, a Weather Underground sympathizer, a Hamas sympathizer, and, oh yeah, he's just too young and inexperienced.

But this isn't 1988 anymore, and it's not 2004 anymore. And most important, Barack Obama is not Michael Dukakis or John Kerry or even Al Gore. He is comfortable in his own skin, he's got a great counterpunch, and he gives the best speeches we've seen from a politician since early Clinton and RFK. Hillary Clinton tried these same tactics against Obama and lost, despite having just about every institutional advantage possible.

And let's face it -- the Republican brand is at its lowest point since Watergate. Bush is the most unpopular president in modern history. If John McCain, who is basically pushing all of Bush's policies, really wants to get elected then he has to take some bold steps.

Here is our advice:

1. Publicly disinvite George W. Bush from the Republican National Convention.
2. Publicly disinvite Dick Cheney from the Republican National Convention.
3. Invite Colin Powell and Christine Todd Whitman to speak instead.
4. Announce that you will "win" the Iraq war in your first three years, and pull out in year 4 no matter what.
5. Name Mike Huckabee as VP

I have plenty of other advice (single-payer health care, higher taxes on rich, clean energy investments, New Deal-type infrastructure programs, rooting out war profiteers, etc.) but I know that neither McCain nor the Republican party would ever accept such popular proposals.

Indeed, it is unlikely verging on ridiculous to think McCain's camp would consider the advice above. But distancing himself from Bush, beating back the "100 years in Iraq" comment, and placating the Christian base while putting a fiscal moderate on the ticket would do wonders for the McCain campaign's prospects. It takes on their three biggest weaknesses and really establishes McCain as a maverick.

But I don't think we'll be seeing any of this, do you?

Speaking Of Too Angry...

Here is the most popular host on Fox News, conservative Bill O'Reilly, back when he worked on Inside Edition:



[Update:] Well it looks like CBS has forced Youtube to take the video down. But no fear, you can still watch it here at Crooks & Liars.

You can see why he's a John McCain fan. They both have a tendency to lose their cool.

112

Today marks 112 days until John McCain turns 72 years old.

Happy Mother's Day!