McCain Is Underestimating Obama

One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be in danger in a hundred battles.

One who does not know the enemy but knows himself will sometimes win, sometimes lose.

One who does not know the enemy and does not know himself will be in danger in every battle.

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War

"He [Barack Obama] really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time. If there was any other issue before the American people, and you hadn't had anything to do with it in a couple of years, I think the American people would judge that very harshly.

-John McCain, 5/26/08

For weeks I've been wondering what the general election dynamic will be between Barack Obama and John McCain. In the eyes of some, such as Andrew Sullivan, they are alike in many ways - open-minded, rational, respectful, principled. From this perspective, the election will be about ideas. John McCain's reformist strain of Republicanism vs. Barack Obama's progressive/pragmatist strain of liberalism. They will disagree vociferously, the logic goes, but will respect the other side and keep the discourse at a high level. We've even heard talk of moderator-free debates between Obama and McCain as early as this summer.

But I think this reading is 100% wrong. For one thing, John McCain is not open-minded, rational, respectful or principled. The guy is a human weather-vane, doing whatever he must to win the election at all costs. When the political winds (or his own spite) call for him to be a maverick on a few issues, he'll do that. In 2000 he ran as a moderate Republican in opposition to Bush, then took a few maverick stands in 2001 (such as voting against the tax cuts and flirting with leaving the Republican party) because of his anger towards Bush. Heck, he might have even voted against Bush in the 2000 election.

But that was then, a brief hiccup in an otherwise strongly hard right record. McCain quickly came back into the conservative fold after 9/11, and since then he has voted with Bush over 89% of the time. For the past four years he has been running for president, and as a result he has shredded the last vestiges of dignity that he once had. He has flip-flopped on torture, immigration, tax cuts, Roe vs. Wade, ethanol, campaign finance reform, "agents of intolerance", lobbyists -- you name it, he's flipped on it. So no, John McCain is not principled, and he isn't open-minded about anything that might upset the right wing base. His policies aren't rational (they are mostly just xerox copies of the Bush mistakes), and his statements have become increasingly out of touch with reality.

But most important: McCain does not like Senator Obama, and he does not respect him. This animosity goes back a long way, to at least 2006. McCain is known for his hot temper and his grudges, so it is unlikely that things will cool between he and Obama any time soon. Sure, McCain and Bush made up and became friends, but does anyone think that wasn't a political decision? Do you think McCain really likes the guy who smeared his wife and kids?


But McCain is making a huge tactical blunder in this election, one for which he will pay a dear price. He is underestimating Obama.

Perhaps McCain is blinded by hatred. Maybe he thinks his opponent will be a pushover, like Kerry and Gore before him. McCain has never faced a serious Democratic challenger in Arizona, so perhaps he is simply inexperienced when it comes to having a real foe on the left. But Hillary Clinton made the same mistake, and you see where she is today. Clinton's advantages over Obama were much greater than McCain's, and she is a strong candidate. Yet Obama took her out without breaking a sweat, leaving the Clinton campaign confused and shocked.

Nobody is calling McCain "inevitable", but he's acting like he is. As you can see from the quote above, McCain dismisses Obama as inexperienced, naive, ignorant, and misguided. Perhaps this is why McCain doesn't even try to get his facts straight, why he blows up in anger when criticized, and why he is foolishly running his campaign on the same lame themes used by Clinton.

This may also explain why McCain's campaign is still in disarray, why he has been slow to make a VP pick, and why he has so far failed to either define himself, define Obama, or build a campaign infrastructure. The guy has had almost four months to himself, and his poll numbers have stayed flat as a pancake.

Obama is going to be in full general election mode by the middle of next week. He is going to consolidate the Democratic base, register voters, train volunteers, and continue to raise money hand over fist. McCain has had a huge head start, the kind usually afforded only to incumbents, and what does he have to show for it? Some of the worst TV ads ever made. No consistent message. Vague policy ideas. Weak fundraising. An unsatisfied base. Multiple campaign scandals. And lots of hand-wringing by Republican insiders.

McCain really needs to get his act together. And he needs to knock off the smug attitude he has towards Obama. Not that it will bother me much, but McCain is setting himself up for an ass-whupping if he takes his opponent lightly.

Obama Rips McCain On Troop Levels

Today, in Montana:

"There ae are honest differences about how to move forward in Iraq, just like there were honest differences about whether or not we should go to war. John McCain was for the invasion of Iraq; I opposed it. John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s war in Iraq indefinitely; I want to end it. So there’s going to be a clear choice for the American people this November.

“But that’s not what John McCain’s been talking about the last few days. He’s been proposing a joint trip to Iraq that’s nothing more than a political stunt. He’s even been using it to raise a few dollars for his campaign. But it seems like Senator McCain’s a lot more interested in my travel plans than the facts, because yesterday – in his continued effort to put the best light on a failed policy – he stood up in Wisconsin and said, “We have drawn down to pre-surge levels” in Iraq.

“That’s not true, and anyone running for Commander-in-Chief should know better. As the saying goes, you’re entitled to your own view, but not your own facts. We’ve got around 150,000 troops in Iraq – 20,000 more than we had before the surge. We have plans to get down to around 140,000 later this summer – that’s still more troops than we had in Iraq before the surge. And today, Senator McCain refused to correct his mistake. Just like George Bush, when he was presented with the truth, he just dug in and refused to admit his mistake. His campaign said it amounts to “nitpicking.”

“Well I don’t think tens of thousands of American troops amounts to nitpicking. Tell that to the young men and women who are serving bravely and brilliantly under our flag. Tell that to the families who have seen their loved ones fight tour after tour after tour of duty in a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged.
“It’s time for a debate that’s based on the truth, and I can’t think of anything more important than how many Americans are in harm’s way. It’s time for a debate that’s based on how we’re going to end this war – not a debate that’s based on raising a few dollars for John McCain’s campaign.

“The American people have had enough spin. Just this week, we were reminded by President Bush’s own former spokesman of how it was deception – not straight talk – that misled the American people into war. It’s time to cut through the tough talk so that we can be straight with the American people about a war that’s cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer. It’s time to end the political game-playing so that we can finally end this war. That’s what I’ll do in this campaign. And that’s what I’ll do when I’m President of the United States.

If this is election is about ending the war in Iraq vs. staying forever, it will be a blowout by Obama. Not only does McCain need to do his homework, he needs to start telling Americans when he's gonna bring the soldiers home. 100 years won't cut it, 2013 won't cut it, none of this "surrender" talk with cut it. He needs to get real.

McCain's current argument is a total non-starter, and his military background won't save him. Especially when he doesn't even bother to know the basic facts in the region.

McCain Doesn't Know Squat About Iraq

Another huge blunder by the increasingly senile McCain:

So I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it’s succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough and there will be setbacks.

Of course, this is totally out of step with reality. There are currently 155,000 troops in Iraq, whereas pre-surge levels were 130,000. In addition, Mosul had multiple terrorist bombings yesterday, and Al Qaeda is still operating there.

I think it is becoming more obvious with every passing week that McCain is not ready to be president. I've said it many times on this blog, but the guy is too old and out of touch. He should be retired somewhere, playing with his grandkids and great-grandkids. He shouldn't be running for the toughest job on Earth. Maybe 10 years ago McCain was up for it, but not anymore. And of course, it doesn't help that his policies are terrible.

Surprisingly, McCain has refused to apologize for this latest gaffe. His aides say that he simply got the verb tense wrong, and I'll tell you right now that this excuse is gonna become infamous for how lame it is. Does McCain not know the difference between past, present and future? Does he know what the meaning of "is" was? Or what "was" is? His campaign is admitting that he's a moron, just so they don't have to admit that he's an idiot. I'm seriously laughing as I write this.

But McCain has also chided the press for "nitpicking". I'm sure if Barack Obama was off by over 20,000 in the number of troops in Iraq, McCain wouldn't consider it "nitpicking" to point it out. If McCain is really trying to bill himself as the greatest expert ever on Iraq, he needs to get his facts straight. He's been wrong about Iraq from day one, and he still hasn't righted the ship.

Here is the response from Obama surrogate John Kerry:

“It’s very disturbing to have John McCain constantly raise questions about what he knows and what he bases his judgments on,” Kerry said. “If you don’t know the number of troops it’s very difficult to make a judgment on if they are over-extended.” Kerry continued, “It raises serious questions about his comprehension of this challenge.”

The Massachusetts senator also knocked McCain’s quasi-serious offer to go to Iraq with Obama, who has not been there since 2006. Kerry said he would recommend Obama make the trip, but on his own terms. Kerry said McCain’s offer rang hollow and would result only in a “media circus” and considered it a “political stunt.”

The tone of Kerry’s criticism come as somewhat of a surprise considering the two senators had shared previously warm relations, and McCain was one of Kerry’s most high-profile defenders during the “Swiftboat” ad campaign that ran against him in his 2004 presidential bid questioning his war record.

“John McCain is out of step with history and facts,” Kerry said today, calling the Iraq War a mistake. “John McCain defends that mistake, Barack Obama understood from the beginning that it was a mistake,” he said, “By any measure this is a failed foreign policy that not only is John McCain defending, but promising to continue for four more years.”

McCain's list of gaffes and mistatements continues to grow. By November, he's gonna be known as the most gaffe prone, out of touch candidate since, well, George W. Bush.

94

Today marks 94 days until John McCain turns 72 years old.

He is six years older than Fred Thompson.



By point of comparison, Barack Obama is six years older than Owen Wilson, Sara McLachlan, Daniel Craig, and Will Smith:

WWII Vet Vs. Right Wing Bloggers

Hat tip to Sadly, No! for finding this.

You know it's silly season when Republican wingnuts start questioning the service of veterans, and start arguing that some Nazi concentration camps weren't all that bad (since the deaths were merely in the tens of thousands).

And now it's become even funnier. This idiot right winger Steve Gilbert, hot on the trail of the "truth" regarding Obama's great uncle's service liberating Buchenwald, wrote to WWII vet Raymond Kitchell and his son Mark Kitchell, who together run a site dedicated to the 89th Infantry.

What has ensued is a total pwning and smack-down the likes of which only a WWII vet can deliver.

Here was Gilbert's letter:

—– Original Message —–
From: Steve Gilbert
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 6:14 AM
Subject: Any Record Of Charles W Payne?

Mr. Kitchell,

As you may have heard by now, Barack Obama has claimed that his great uncle Charlie Payne was a member of the 89th Div that liberated Buchenwald.

According to records his full name is either Charles W Payne or Charles T Payne (most likely the former), and he was born in 1924 — and he is still alive today.

He most likely was from Kansas at the time of enlistment.

Do you have any record of this gentleman?

Thank you,

Steve Gilbert
sweetness-light.com

PS - If you go to my website, you will see that I was probably the first to note the error in Mr. Obama’s first claims about his “uncle.”

The response by WWII vet Raymond Kitchell:

Please crawl back under the rock you came out from.

Good day

Raymond Kitchell, veteran 89th Inf Div

Pwn3d.

But Gilbert stumbled out for round two, by challenging the integrity of Kitchell and his website:

S&L has exchanged correspondence with a site claiming to support Obama's position. The emails make the site seem dubious, at best.

To which Kitchell wrote back:

To: Steve Gilbert
Subject: Re: Any Record Of Charles W Payne?

I don’t claim to represent anyone. You are the one who came to my son and I asking for information.

Please spend ample time chasing down the lies fed to you by chickenhawks Bush & Co. Like 90% of this administration, they don’t have the foggiest idea what we went through or what we saw at Ohrdruf.

Pwn3d. Again.

Instead of tucking his tail between his legs, or at least shutting up, the brave Gilbert posted another snide comment on his site. Remember, he's talking about a WWII vet here:

I wonder how many people who visit the 89th Infantry site and support Mr. Kitchell’s work realize his politics are those of Cindy Sheehan?

Instead of continuing this lame back-and-forth with idiot Gilbert, WWII vet Kitchell posted this on the front page of his 89th Infantry website:

Concerning the service of Mr. Charles Payne: C.T. Payne was a soldier in the 89th Infantry Division. He served in the 355th Infantry Regiment, Company K. The 355th Infantry Regiment was the unit to liberate Ohrdruf. Mr. Payne was there.

For those who seek to minimize the horrors of Ohrdruf since it was a 'work' camp and not a 'death' camp, we have but one word: shame. Ironically, this argument has been made to us time and time again by various Holocaust-deniers and other pro-Nazi groups. We will let the testimony of survivors and veterans speak for themselves.

"It has been recorded that in Ordruf itself the last days were a slaughterhouse. We were shot at, beaten and molested. At every turn went on the destruction of the remaining inmates. Indiscriminant criminal behavior (like the murderers of Oklahoma City some days ago). Some days before the first Americans appeared at the gates of Ordruf, the last retreating Nazi guards managed to execute with hand pistols, literally emptying their last bullets on whomever they encountered leaving them bleeding to death as testified by an American of the 37th Tank Battalion Medical section, 10 a.m. April 4, 1945.

Today I'm privileged thanks to G-d and you gallant fighting men. I'm here to reminisce, and reflect, and experience instant recollections of those moments. Those horrible scenes and that special instance when an Allied soldier outstretched his arm to help me up became my re-entrance, my being re-invited into humanity and restoring my inalienable right to a dignified existence as a human being and as a Jew. Something, which was denied me from September 1939 to the day of liberation in 1945. I had no right to live and survived, out of 80 members of my family, the infernal ordeal of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Ordruf, and its satellite camp Crawinkle and finally Theresinstadt Ghetto-Concentration Camp."

Rabbi Murray Kohn

Not only does he smack down the claims of Gilbert and his ilk, he righteously points out that their mindset is the same one embraced by Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis. Right wing bloggers should know better than to engage in such fights. They will always lose.

And that completes this week's edition of WWII vets vs. 101st Fighting Keyboarders.

(cross-posted at Daily Kos)

McCain to Obama: Let's Go To Iraq

John McCain is itching to take another stroll through Baghdad, and he wants to take Obama with him. The RNC is even putting up a clock counting how many days it's been since Obama went to Iraq.

If I was the Obama campaign, I'd put up a clock letting people know how many days it will be until we start bringing the troops home.

Actually, I'd have two clocks. The Obama clock would say about 200 days, or however long it is until Jan. 20th, 2009.

The McCain clock would have about 37,000 days, or 100 years. I know that McCain has also talked about 1,000 years, 10,000 years, even a million years in Iraq, but 100 years seems to be his favorite.

The Obama campaign:

On the day after the former White House press secretary conceded that the Bush administration used deception and propaganda to take us to war, it seems odd that Senator McCain, who bought the flawed rationale for war so readily, would be lecturing others on their depth of understanding about Iraq. Senator Obama challenged the President's rationale for the war from the start, warning that it would divert resources from Afghanistan and the pursuit of Al Qaeda and mire us in an endless civil war.

Obama's Great Uncle Helped Liberate Buchenwald

Today, I learned that Obama's great-uncle was one of the first American soldiers to liberate a concentration camp during WWII. He was part of the 89th infantry, which liberated the camps at Buchenwald. He was a genuine American hero.

I have to give a shot out to the RNC, who made such a big deal out of this. I didn't watch Obama's Memorial Day speech, so I wouldn't have known otherwise. The RNC is apoplectic all because Obama mistakenly said it was Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald. Considering this is an old family story that Obama mentioned off the cuff during an unscripted Q&A, it's easy to see how a mixup could be made. Yet Republicans, who have spent the last 30 years portraying every Democrat as an elitist and a liar, don't want to let it go.

Here's the timeline of how it went down. On Memorial Day, during a Q&A session, Obama was talking about post-traumatic stress disorder and said the following:

"I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps. And the story in my family is that when he came home, he just went into the attic, and he didn't leave the house for six months. All right? Now, obviously something had affected him deeply, but at the time, there just weren't the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain.”

The RNC went ballistic. They knew that Obama's support with Jewish voters could only benefit from such a story, so they rushed out an urgent memo to the media. From the tone of this memo, they probably thought Obama was making this up out of whole cloth. After all, he'd never mentioned this story before.

Barack Obama’s dubious claim is inconsistent with world history and demands an explanation. It was Soviet troops that liberated Auschwitz, so unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there’s no way Obama’s statement yesterday can be true. Obama’s frequent exaggerations and outright distortions raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief.

Obama and his people checked his family records, determined that it was Buchenwald, not Auschwitz:

Senator Obama’s family is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II – especially the fact that his great uncle was a part of liberating one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald. Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically.

The RNC, still gloating, stepped back their attacks a bit. I'm sure they were pissed that the bulk of Obama's amazing story was true.

At times it appears that Barack Obama inaccurately recalls his own history and American history, so it’s important that we point to the facts. In this case, we’re happy to see that he took the time to set the record straight.

I am sometimes shocked by the crass gotcha games that Republicans like to play. If I was asked to recount where my grandfather went on bombing runs during WWII, I'd probably get the names wrong too. Maybe my grampa bombed France in his P-51 Mustang, maybe it was Germany, maybe it was Austria or Holland. I wasn't alive then, I've forgotten the details of his stories, I just know that he was an ace pilot and a hero who fought the Nazis. The big point that Obama was making, that his great uncle liberated a Nazi concentration camp and saw horrible things, is still true even if Obama mixed up the names.

But I would like to thank the RNC for making a big deal out of this. Now I have yet another anecdote to help assure my Jewish friends that even though Obama might have some Muslims in his family tree, he also has concentration camp liberators in there as well.

[UPDATE] Jake Tapper of ABC weighs in:

No matter where you stand, I guess I just don't particularly care to see Concentration Camp survivors on the same page as cartoon Pinnochios, as whoever does graphics for the Washington Post's great fact-checker Michael Dobbs has done HERE.

And do we really need the headline "Where In the World Is Auschwitz?" This isn't a joke.

I am certainly part of the media world that pounces on politicians when they screw-up. As such, I'm often guilty as charged when it comes to not seeing the forest for the trees. In this instance, the forest is the deliberate extermination of 12 million people. And the sacrifices of the brave Americans who risked and gave their lives to save those people victimized by Nazi barbarism. Not to mention our fighting men and women through the generations who have had to deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a conversation about which prompted Obama to mention his great uncle.

Obama deserved to be called out for his mistake. But it's also worth noting that despite all the talk about Obama's problems with the Jewish community, he's never mentioned before that his great uncle helped liberate a concentration camp until it came up in North Las Vegas in a conversation about PTSD.

Former Bush Spokesman Agrees: Bush Was Not Honest About Iraq

Scott McClellan, who you may remember was the White House Press Secretary from 2003-2006, is publishing a tell-all memoir that really takes it to Bush, Rove, and the whole corrupt gang. No surprise to us, but conservatives and Republicans who believed in Bush should be taken aback by the book's contents. After all, McClellan was not some fringe player -- he was the President's public face on a daily basis.

Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception”:

• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.

• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”

• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity....

McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush's liberal critics and even charges: “If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.

“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”

Among other notable passages:

• Steve Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, said about the erroneous assertion about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium, included in the State of the Union address of 2003: “Signing off on these facts is my responsibility. … And in this case, I blew it. I think the only solution is for me to resign.” The offer “was rejected almost out of hand by others present,” McClellan writes.

• Bush was “clearly irritated, … steamed,” when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: “‘It’s unacceptable,’ Bush continued, his voice rising. ‘He shouldn’t be talking about that.’”

• “As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided.”

• “History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

Would have been nice if McClellan shared his opinions back when they could have done us some good. But instead he joins the long list of Bush appointees who stay quiet while in office, only to publish scathing tell-all memoirs afterwards. Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, Paul Bremer, David Kuo, Matthew Dowd, Christie Todd-Whitman, Tom Ridge, John Dilulio, David Iglesias, Colin Powell, the list really goes on and on. Once Bush is out of office, expect even more of these characters to claim they "knew" Bush was wrong but just weren't courageous enough to tell anybody.

MoveOn's Bush-McCain Challenge

Visit MoveOn.org today, and see if you can tell the difference between George W. Bush and John McCain.

You'll have a tough time, trust me. I did.

McCain Proud Of His 0% Rating On Women's Issues

If you are a woman, John McCain does not care about your needs. Period. His record on wage discrimination, sexist outbursts, and women in the military, and general women's issues are bad enough. But on reproductive rights, he is downright terrible.

I'll let Arianna Huffington take it from here:

Since 1983, in votes in the House and the Senate (where he has served since 1987), McCain has cast 130 votes on abortion and other reproductive-rights issues. 125 of those votes were anti-choice [pdf]. Among his voting lowlights:

He has repeatedly voted to deny low-income women access to abortion care except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life (although McCain is now wavering on trying to put these exceptions into the party platform).

He voted to shut down the Title X family-planning program, which provides millions of women with health care services ranging from birth control to breast cancer screenings.

He voted against legislation that established criminal and civil penalties for those who use threats and violence to keep women from gaining access to reproductive health clinics.

He voted to uphold the policy that bans overseas health clinics from receiving aid from America if they use their own funds to provide legal abortion services or even adopt a pro-choice position.

Of his anti-choice voting record, McCain has said, "I have many, many votes and it's been consistent," proudly adding: "And I've got a consistent zero from NARAL" through the years. And last month he told Chris Matthews: "The rights of the unborn is one of my most important values."

What's more, McCain has made it very clear that if he becomes president he will appoint judges in the Scalia, Roberts, Alito mold. His big judicial speech earlier this month was filled with coded buzz words that make it clear that, if given the chance, he'd replace 88-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens with an anti-choice Justice who would tip the scales against Roe v Wade. Throw in an additional anti-choice replacement for the 75-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and you can kiss the right to choose good-bye for a long, long time.

It's a very clear choice. McCain will take away women's rights without missing a beat.

Obama, meanwhile, has a consistent 100% rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, as well as a near perfect record on women's issues.

McCain And His Senate Pals Love This New Swift Boat Group

Sorry for the sparse blogging recently, I was enjoying Memorial Day Weekend in San Francisco.

Lots of news to cover. Most important, in my mind, is this new McCain-527 scandal. You see, John McCain has long railed against 527s and other outside groups that infect our politics with smear attacks. John McCain even co-authored the McCain-Feingold legislation to limit these kinds of soft-money attack groups. And this month, McCain declared that nobody who works for a 527 can also work on his campaign.

The only problem? McCain has no principles, he's the Double Talk Express, and he has no interest in actually following his words with actions. As you may know, he is already gaming the FEC system. Now it's been revealed that two of his campaign co-chairs, Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Lindsay Graham, are on the board of advisors of a despicable Swift Boat 527 called "Vets for Freedom".

I'll let Jed Report provide a video summary:



Basically, McCain's credibility is on the line. Either Graham and Lieberman resign from Vets for Freedom, or they resign from the McCain campaign. They can't have it both ways, and McCain looks weaker every day this is unresolved.

Imagine if George W. Bush appeared at a Swift Boat Veterans for Truth rally. Could he really distance himself from their attacks after that? It's the same thing here. Even if/when Lieberman and Graham pick sides, McCain is still tarnished. Every time Vets for Freedom runs an ad questioning Obama's patriotism, remember that McCain stood proud on a stage with those scumbags.