Bob Herbert Gets It

Yep.

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

Since then, Senator McCain has only upped the ante, smearing Mr. Obama every which way from sundown.

McCain's campaign has gone totally into the gutter. But unlike Rove's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, it has no issues, no credibility, and frankly no competence.

I'm obviously no fan of the Bush campaigns, but even they were above running ads with Britney, Paris and Moses. Everyone is pretending to be worried and/or outraged over these ads, but I find them patently ridiculous. McCain may get some short term bounce from all the free media he's getting, but at a serious long term cost.

McMaverick's credibility is now in the toilet.

Who Is The Real Celebrity?

Exactly.

The McCain camp wants voters to believe that Obama's "arrogance" befits his "celebrity" and makes him "selfish"--unlike (you guessed it) McCain, who always puts "Country First." Or so his slogan says.

The only problem? It makes just as much sense to call McCain an elitist as Obama. Nevermind that the Illinois senator is a bi-racial child from a broken family raised in a modest single-parent household. Or that there are plenty of "country clubs" still unwilling to accept African-Americans as members. Or that the last "celebrity" to occupy the Oval Office was Ronald Reagan, McCain's hero. Simply imagine the memo David Axelrod could send to reporters about the Republican nominee. "Only a celebrity of John McCain's magnitude could star on blockbuster television shows like '24' and appear in big-budget motion pictures like 'Wedding Crashers,'" it would read. "These are not campaign commercials or news interviews, but major Hollywood productions--which is no surprise, given that he's pals with Warren Beatty. Only celebrities like John McCain own seven homes, date Brazilian models, marry blond, jet-owning heiresses worth $100 million, ring up $500,000 a month on the family credit card, forget the last time they pumped their own gas and wear $520 black calfskin loafers by Ferragamo." Get the picture?

Good Move

The only thing that has worried me about the general election, and I mean the ONLY thing, is this issue of offshore drilling. We all know that Americans are hurting at the pump, we all know they may vote on this issue more than any other (definitely more than Iraq), and we also know that they are just dumb enough to think that offshore drilling will actually make a difference.

I'm against offshore drilling, I don't think it will produce much oil and won't make a damn bit of difference in gas prices now or in the future. Ending the war in Iraq and drawing down tensions with Iran would make a 1000 times more difference in stabilizing world oil markets.

But this is an election we absolutely have to win. I've been hoping that Obama would express openness to offshore oil drilling, if only to take the issue off the table. If McCain is Mr. Drilling and Obama is Mr. Renewables, we all know that just enough dumb voters (not you, dear reader) would pull the lever for the old man to maybe, just maybe, get him over the top.

So I was quite heartened to read this today:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

This is actually the perfect way to sell it. We'll open up offshore drilling, but only if we raise fuel efficiency big time and invest big bucks in renewables like solar and wind. I'm cool with that. If Obama is elected, he could change his mind and ban offshore drilling anyway. The important thing, the only thing, is to get elected first.

The Most Critical Question

This should be the focus of Obama's campaign. Period.



Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. If voters go into the booth thinking about this question, Obama will win in a blowout. Which is perhaps why McCain would rather talk about the surge, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and bogus "race card" charges instead.

Poor Desperate McCain

Another really lame web ad. For an attack ad, this actually makes Obama look pretty good. And that is despite taking two quotes completely out of context.



Confident? Popular? Optimistic? Sense of self-deprecating humor? Since when are these bad traits in a president? I seem to remember George W. Bush running a surprisingly successful reelection campaign on such tactics.

McCain isn't going to win by talking about how popular and confident Obama is. Because if it is a choice between personalities, the country will choose smiling Obama over the grumpy creepy old man. McCain's only chance is make Obama look oblivious to regular concerns (using offshore oil, etc.). But it's hard for Mr. $500 Shoes and Private Jet and Ten Houses to come across as a man of the people, especially when he lacks the good old boy charm of Reagan and W.

A Dumb McCain Ad I Missed

This came out a few weeks ago, don't know how I missed it. Clearly, the "McCain Makes Dumb Ads" problem is not a recent one:

Obama Responds To Ridiculous Britney Ad

He seems as amused as the rest of us over McCain's desperate and lame tactics.

McCain Hypocrisy

So it turns out that McCain was planning to attack Obama if he visited the troops in Germany. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was…wait for it…using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents — a lie.

Steve Benen plays "what if":

But imagine if it had gone the other way. Let’s say Obama had told the Pentagon to shove it, he showed up at Landstuhl, spent time with wounded U.S. troops, and the McCain campaign had launched its Plan B — condemning Obama for using the troops as campaign props.

It’s obviously just a guess, but my hunch is, the week would have unfolded the exact same way. The McCain campaign would have run its ad, the media would have picked up the “Obama exploits the troops” attack, and we would have had day after day of “debate” about whether Obama can be commander-in-chief if he recklessly blows off Pentagon rules in the midst of a campaign swing.

In other words, it didn’t matter which path Obama took — smear artists were prepared either way.

The Race Card

Pretty funny. The Republicans, who for months have been feeding a whisper campaign about Barack Obama based on his race, religion, background, name, whatever -- are now accusing the Obama campaign of using the "race card".

You gotta be kidding me. And now John McCain, more in sadness than in anger, admits that yes, the Obama campaign is being racist against him:



The NY Times editorial board chimes in:

The presumptive Republican nominee has embarked on a bare-knuckled barrage of negative advertising aimed at belittling Mr. Obama. The most recent ad compares the presumptive Democratic nominee for president to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton — suggesting to voters that he’s nothing more than a bubble-headed, publicity-seeking celebrity.

The ad gave us an uneasy feeling that the McCain campaign was starting up the same sort of racially tinged attack on Mr. Obama that Republican operatives, some of whom work for Mr. McCain now, ran against Harold Ford, a black candidate for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. That assault, too, began with videos juxtaposing Mr. Ford with young, white women.

Mr. Obama called Mr. McCain on the ploy, saying, quite rightly, that the Republicans are trying to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills.’’

But Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, had a snappy answer. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.’’

The retort was, we must say, not only contemptible, but shrewd. It puts the sin for the racial attack not on those who made it, but on the victim of the attack.

It also — and we wish this were coincidence, but we doubt it — conjurs up another loaded racial image.

The phrase dealing the race card “from the bottom of the deck” entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga. Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson’s lawyers, famously declared of himself, Johnny Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense team, “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”

It’s ugly stuff. How about we leave Britney, Paris, and O.J. out of this — and have a presidential campaign?

Billmon has more.

Joe Klein think John McCain is showing himself to be a poor leader.

And McCain was asked by a supporter about his ridiculous Britney-Paris ad. This is what he said:

MCCAIN: But what we are talking about here is substance and not style. And what we are talking about is who has an agenda for the future of America. Campaigns are tough, but I’m proud of the campaign that we have run. I’m proud of the issues that we have been trying to address with the American people…. So, all I can say is that we are proud of that commercial.

The guy is a laughingstock. We'd better fucking win this election, that's all I have to say.

New CNN Poll

So much for all that talk about how Obama can't break the 50% mark in polls:

CNN:
Obama: 51%
McCain: 44%

Maybe folks should start wondering why McCain can't break 45%.

Too Dumb For Words

I just have to say -- the McCain campaign is truly moronic. Who do they think is gonna believe that a Harvard-educated, 46-year-old black man has anything in common with two rich young talentless bimbos like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears?

I mean, really?

I hope McCain gets a tiny bounce in the polls right about now, just so they learn the wrong lessons from all this. Because if they think these kinds of braindead, idiotic attack ads are going to get Old Man McCain into the White House, they've got another thing coming.

Because see, when you try to make your opponent out to be a dumb empty suit who doesn't know how to lead the country, you'd better hope that an empty suit shows up to those three debates in the fall. You'd better hope that Obama comes across as a foolish, know-nothing debutante.

Because if Obama shows up and actually looks a hell of a lot smarter than John McCain, it's bye-bye to Republican chances in November. McCain already lost his signature issue -- Iraq. Strong debates by Obama would destroy McCain's only other chance -- making Obama out to be ill-prepared and unacceptable.

If McCain's abilities in these town halls and TV interviews is any gauge, I think he's gonna have one hell of a tough time getting over that hump.

NAS: "Sly Fox"

A pretty good rap song about Fox News and the Fox Corporation. This isn't the official video -- it's actually better than the official video.

Here you go:

New Obama Ad: "Low Road"

McCain & Britney

They are more alike than you think:

Professor Obama

The NY Times does an interesting piece on Obama's years as a law professor.

For more analysis and background on this topic,check here. The NY Times asked various law professors to examine Obama's course materials to get their take on it.

The consensus: a very intelligent, unbiased teacher who didn't try to impose his views on students. Yale professor Akhil Reed Amar is particularly impressed, while former Clarence Thomas clerk John Eastman has only mild criticism.

Obama in Missouri, Ripping McCain on Economy

Always fun to see him on the attack (though the best quotes are not in this video clip:



Here is some of what he said:

My opponent believes we’re on the right track. He’s said our economy has made great progress these past eight years. He’s embraced the Bush economic policies and promises to continue them.

Senator McCain wants to debate taxes, I'm ready. I just was just reading that Wild Bill Hickock had his first duel right here in Springfield, MO. Family legend is that Wild Bill is a distant relative of mine (I'm serious). I don't know if it's true, but it's the legend. I think it's true because I'm ready to duel John McCain on taxes right here.

You can't tell me we can spend $10-12 billion a month in Iraq, but we can't invest some of that money right here in the United States of America. That’s what we can do in this election. The choice is ours.

Where was George Bush for the last eight years? For that matter, where has John McCain been for the last 25? Now there idea is drill for more oil...I know it's tempting, but it's not real.

Nobody thinks John McCain has a new idea on how to fix our country's problem. All they've been doing, every ad has been attacking me.

Not one person thinks he has any new ideas, so they're trying to make me risky. "He's not patriotic."

We don't have much to offer, but "he's risky." I know you don't really like what we're doing, but "he's risky." That's their argument.

It's true that change is hard. Change isn't easy. And the question you have to ask yourself is, what's more risky? Bringing about changes you know we need to make, or doing the same thing over and over and over again even though we know they won't work.

We are in a time where it is risky NOT to change.

McCain's Meltdown Continues, Compares Obama to Britney and Paris Hilton

This ad is just fucking ridiculous:



Obama is like Britney Spears? Or Paris Hilton? If this is the best the McCain campaign can come up with, Obama will have no problem winning in November. Americans are dumb, but they aren't THAT dumb. Hillary Clinton already ran this kind of campaign and lost, despite having many more inherent advantages than McCain has.

And of course, the ad is filled with more lies. "Higher taxes on electricity"? Where the hell did that come from? But apparently the McCain campaign doesn't care about the truth anymore.

I do find it funny that they can't find any unflattering images of Obama. He looks better in his worst shots than McCain looks in his best shots. And I also don't think that Obama drawing huge crowds it necessarily viewed as a bad thing.

[UPDATE]: The Obama's camp's response:

"On a day when major news organizations across the country are taking Senator McCain to task for a steady stream of false, negative attacks, his campaign has launched yet another. Or, as some might say, ‘Oops! He did it again.’"

Our dependence on foreign oil is one of the greatest challenges we face. In this election the American people have a real choice -- between Obama’s plan to provide tax rebates to American families while creating a renewable energy economy in America that frees us from our dependence on foreign oil, and Senator McCain’s plan to continue the same failed energy policies by handing out nearly $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies while investing almost nothing in the new energy sources that represent our future.

Pretty funny. McCain is setting himself up for lots of jokes about Paris and Britney.

As I seem to recall, McCain's hero Bob Dole once did a series of Pepsi ads with Britney Spears. Just past McCain's face on Dole and you already have a pretty good comeback right there.

Schizophrenic Media

So on the one hand we have the media acting responsibly, pointing out how dishonest and dishonourable McCain's campaign has become.

First, a Washington Post article that basically slams McCain for his dishonest "Obama snubbed the troops" attacks:

For four days, Sen. John McCain and his allies have accused Sen. Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.

The attacks are part of a newly aggressive McCain operation whose aim is to portray the Democratic presidential candidate as a craven politician more interested in his image than in ailing soldiers, a senior McCain adviser said. They come despite repeated pledges by the Republican that he will never question his rival's patriotism.

I would have been even harsher than this article, but it's a step in the right direction nonetheless.

Also, the NY Times editorial board rips McCain for his Bush/Rove type tactics:

Well, that certainly didn’t take long. On July 3, news reports said Senator John McCain, worried that he might lose the election before it truly started, opened his doors to disciples of Karl Rove from the 2004 campaign and the Bush White House. Less than a month later, the results are on full display. The candidate who started out talking about high-minded, civil debate has wholeheartedly adopted Mr. Rove’s low-minded and uncivil playbook....

Like Mr. Bush, Mr. McCain confuses opposition to an unnecessary war with a lack of spine and an unwillingness to use force when the nation is truly in danger. Obviously, Mr. Obama is untested as a commander in chief and his trip was intended to reassure voters. But Mr. McCain is as untested in this area as Mr. Obama, and it is hard to imagine a worse role model than the one Mr. McCain seems to be adopting: President Bush.

Many voters are wondering whether a McCain presidency would be an extension of Mr. Bush’s two disastrous terms. If the way Mr. McCain is running his campaign these days is an indication, Americans don’t have to wait until next January for the answer to that one.

Very good.

And yet, on the other hand, we have the media pundits acting like a bunch of snotty gossip queens. What are the people on TV talking about? Are they talking about how McCain is a lying, gaffe-filled smear artist? Nope.

Instead, we have douchebags in the media who continue the push the lame (and in my view racist) attack that Obama is too arrogant or presumptuous.

Barack Obama met with fellow Democrats yesterday to take their questions and discuss policy. What does the WaPo's Dana Milbank say about this? Obama is being too "presumptuous" because he is acting too presidential. Maybe Obama should start making bad speeches, drawing small crowds, and knocking over jam containers at supermarkets like John McCain.

Obama tells the House Democrats "‘It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions". In other words, Obama is the anti-Bush. It's not really about Obama himself, but the fact that he represents a shift from the horrible unilateral policies of the past eight years. Who doesn't think this is true? Yet the WaPo's Jonathan Weisman and the idiots on cable news claim Obama is being too "uppity", too "arrogant", starting to "believe his own hype".

I'm sorry, but Obama spoke the truth. And let's be honest -- you have to be self-confident to run for President. George W. Bush was lauded for his confidence 8 years ago, despite having far fewer accomplishments than Obama has. Remember all the talk about how he was "comfortable in his own skin"? So what has changed? I think it's part anti-liberal bias, part racism. Sorry, it's true.

On Monday, Obama tells some fundraisers that "We are in a position where the odds of us winning are very good. But it’s still going to be difficult. We’re not going to see a huge gap develop between now and Nov. 4 [in the polls]. This is going to be a close election. I’m new on the national scene. People sort of like what they see, but they’re not sure." Sounds like an accurate assessment to me. But what do the pundits on TV say? They flip out, saying he is too cocky. Give me a fucking break.

So this is the playing field we have to work against. It is no surprise that somebody like George W. Bush could be elected twice with the current state of our media, and it is also no surprise that a candidate as unworthy and dangerous as McCain could be so close in the polls. For this reason, Obama will have to work that much harder to dominate McCain both in visuals (the convention contrast) and at the debates.

Because it's clear that while some in the press want to report the truth, others are simply interested in tearing down the Democrat, a game they have become quite good at over the past 20 years.

For more, check out this excellent HuffPo article:

The man who slayed Democratic royalty, who has raised more money than any political campaign in US history, drawn record-breaking crowds in the US and abroad, who has been ahead of John McCain since widespread general election polling began four months ago, this man is presumptuous for thinking he has a good shot at becoming president and should therefore get to know his potential counterparts and visit the sites of US military activity?

....

What angers John McCain and bemuses many traditional observers is how unflappable Barack Obama remains in public, no matter how condescending the attacks. There is little doubt that the thick skin he grew over decades came in handy as he started to run for president. The past 18 months surely were not the first time Obama was baited for being black, for being white, for being Muslim, or for not being from "here," and it must be fascinating, although not unexpected, for him to see these patronizing attitudes resurface at this stage of his life. For the rest of us, what is fascinating is to witness how these old-school mindsets are backfiring on those who hold them, making them look less wise, more prejudiced, less fit to lead and altogether completely unappealing.

McCain Has Become A Mean Old Man

And with his dishonest new ads and increasingly hostile behavior, is the media starting to take notice?

Sen. John McCain, American war hero and admired political maverick, as well as presumed Republican nominee for president, had a message for Elisabeth Bumiller, the venerated New York Times reporter, along with the rest of the media assigned to travel with him the week of July 20.

"What do you want, you little jerks?" McCain said to Bumiller and those behind her, as the press surged forward on the "Straight Talk" Boeing 737 on July 21.

No one ever accused the Arizona senator of not being blunt. But he had come a long way from the media-friendly, boyishly charming, brazenly honest, free-wheeling McCain that so many in the media had come to love during the 2000 Republican primary. That man was now gone. Vanished....

But McCain's real transformation occurred when he began to attack his opponent. There was a time when McCain labeled Obama as "naive," for wanting to sit down with the leaders of Iran and put together a definitive 16-month pullout from Iraq. Last week, however, the GOP's likely nominee grew increasingly angry at Obama, then on a well-chronicled and supremely-successful tour of the Middle East and Europe. Last Monday McCain indicated that Obama had no right to the Oval Office, dismissing him as "someone who has no military experience whatsoever." The following day McCain went even further, saying, "It seems to me Sen. Obama would rather lose a war to win a campaign."

With that, it felt like the McCain of 2000 had disappeared entirely. His rage has blinded him to missed opportunities, to moments where he could make people remember who he was during that long-ago golden primary race and, more important, what his domestic agenda will be. Should he win, he will do so as a man unrecognizable from the one that made himself into a beloved political figure eight years ago. If any of the man that was John McCain still exists, it will be a long and difficult struggle to find him.

If McCain continues to feel like he is losing the race, expect him to continue getting nastier and nastier. The press will realize that cuddly old McCain isn't such a nice guy after all. And perhaps the voters will notice too.

Great New Anti-McCain Video

The Obama campaign hasn't taken me up on my ad script below, but have no fear -- there are still lots of outside groups taking on McCain. The guy is like a human punching bag, everyone wants to take a swing.



Hilarious.

The Ad That Will Ruin McCain's Week

OK, I'm just throwing this idea out there for free use by the Obama campaign.

On MSNBC today, I heard Tony Blankley speak some rare words of wisdom. He said that in hardball politics, "if you are explaining you are losing". So I don't think the Obama should use explanations to respond to McCain's offensive new ad.



Instead, they should turn the tables using mockery. Make McCain be the one who has to explain himself.

Without further ado, here is my ad script:

FADE IN on unflattering picture of John McCain.

NARRATOR: John McCain is confused again.

Shot of John McCain speaking to a townhall meeting.

NARRATOR: First he claimed that he had a "perfect" record on veterans issues, even though he got a "D" from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

A report card with a "D" rating circled in red.

NARRATOR: Then he denied endorsing Obama's Iraq plan, even though he told CNN it was a "pretty good timetable".

Newspaper clips of McCain saying "pretty good timetable".

NARRATOR: And now, McCain is claiming that Obama didn't visit the troops, even though Senator Obama visited our troops just a few days earlier.

Video clip of Senator Obama shooting 3-point shot with troops. The same clip McCain used, but in full color with sound.

NARRATOR: Tell John McCain to get his facts straight. America deserves better.

Smiling picture of Obama.

OBAMA: I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this message.

This ad succeeds by making John McCain look like a liar, which he is, and by forcing McCain to explain his misleading claims. McCain's campaign would try to come back and say they were talking about troops in Germany, not troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. But as Blankley said, "if you are explaining, you are losing".

This ad also crushes McCain on his terrible veterans record and his flip-flopping on withdrawal. Obviously you could find a dozen other lies McCain has told, but I thought these fit well into how McCain is not being honest about matters of war and veterans.

Good News/Bad News For McCain

Good news:

A USA/Today Gallup poll gives him his first lead in two months (amongst "likely voters". I predicted this last week, so it's not a surprise.

Bad news:

The same poll shows him losing to Obama amongst all registered voters.

Also, McCain had another "growth" surgically removed from his cancer-plagued face:

ABC News' Bret Hovell reports: John McCain had a small piece of mole-like skin removed from his right temple this morning at a regularly scheduled dermatological checkup in Phoenix.

"It was just a precautionary measure," a campaign aide said when she told reporters about the procedure aboard McCain's plane.

McCain can be seen wearing a bandage on that spot.

The aide said that it was "nothing that looked in any way cancerous."

....

The aide was unable to describe to reporters whether any pathology studies had been conducted on the removed skin.

Some unnamed aide doesn't think it was cancerous, so everything is just dandy -- right?

McCain Is Confused About Iraq

This pretty much sums it up:

McCain To Name Pawlenty As VP Tomorrow?

The rumor mill continues to churn.



Gov. Pawlenty is McCain's safest choice, but he's also a very weak pick in many respects. Unlike Huckabee or Palin or even Romney, he doesn't excite anybody. Hell, polls show that people in his home state would be less likely to vote for McCain if Pawlenty is on the ticket.

Plus, he oversaw the collapse of a major bridge in his state, and he has developed a Cheney-like reputation for secrecy.

But overall, he's a standard right wing evangelical type who doesn't have enough name recognition or pizzazz to excite anybody about McCain's ticket. But he's not a total joke like Romney or Huckabeen or Jindall, so it makes sense that McCain would throw up his hands and choose him.

Get Ready For Another McCain Flip-Flop

McCain jumped on the Obama bandwagon too soon. Now with his favorite Bush appointee General Petraus expressing disagreement with "timetables", expect McCain to once again say he is against any timetables.

Don't know about you, but I'm already dizzy.

If I Was A Republican

I'd be pretty pissed that McCain has already backtracked on his "no tax increase" pledge even before he's been elected:

When asked if that includes a possible hike in the payroll tax, McCain reiterated that nothing -- including such a tax hike -- is "off the table."

"I don't want tax increases. Of course, I'd like to have young Americans have some of their money put into an account with their name on it," McCain said.

However, in a February interview with Stephanopoulos, which also aired on "This Week," McCain made a pledge not to raise taxes as president. When Stephanopoulos asked, "Are you a 'read my lips' candidate, no new taxes, no matter what?" McCain responded affirmatively: "No new taxes."

But maybe they don't care about these things anymore.

I do remember Rush Limbaugh saying something along the lines of "If you give voters a choice between a Republican acting like a Democrat and a Democrat, they'll choose the real thing."

McCain Is An Asshole

Look at the expression on Sen. Lindsay Graham's face when McCain acts like an asshole to this female reporter:



But at least he didn't call her "sweetie", right?

If McCain Can't Control His Dogs

Then how can he control the country?



*Of course, you can't expect McCain's dogs to obey him when he only stays in this particular house (he has nine of them) for a few days per year.

Jerusalem Post Impressed By Obama

From the Jerusalem Post's editor-in-chief:

Two months ago in the Oval Office, President George W. Bush, coming to the end of a two-term presidency and presumably as expert on Israeli-Palestinian policy as he is ever going to be, was accompanied by a team of no fewer than five advisers and spokespeople during a 40-minute interview with this writer and three other Israeli journalists.

In March, on his whirlwind visit to Israel, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, one of whose primary strengths is said to be his intimate grasp of foreign affairs, chose to bring along Sen. Joe Lieberman to the interview our diplomatic correspondent Herb Keinon and I conducted with him, looked to Lieberman several times for reassurance on his answers and seemed a little flummoxed by a question relating to the nuances of settlement construction.

On Wednesday evening, toward the end of his packed one-day visit here, Barack Obama, the Democratic senator who is leading the race for the White House and who lacks long years of foreign policy involvement, spoke to The Jerusalem Post with only a single aide in his King David Hotel room, and that aide's sole contribution to the conversation was to suggest that the candidate and I switch seats so that our photographer would get better lighting for his pictures.

Several of Obama's Middle East advisers - including former Clinton special envoy Dennis Ross and ex-ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer - were hovering in the vicinity. But Obama, who was making only his second visit to Israel, knew precisely what he wanted to say about the most intricate issues confronting and concerning Israel, and expressed himself clearly, even stridently on key subjects.

If I was a Republican, I'd be embarrassed that after 54 years of military and government experience, McCain still needs assistance to conduct a foreign policy interview.

Pathetic.

How Far We've Come

Remember last week, or two weeks ago, when the press was all worried that Obama would make a major gaffe while overseas? You know, like mix up Sunnis and Shiites? And yet here we are, Obama's trip is over, and he was almost completely gaffe free. Instead, it was McCain who was a gaffe machine on everything from the Iraq-Pakistan border to when the Surge started to what the Surge really is. McCain made a series of hypocritical attacks, getting facts wrong all along the way. And meanwhile Obama was cheered by 200,000 American-flag-waving Germans.

Oh, and you remember how the press talked nonstop about how Obama might have to adjust his positions after seeing the conditions on the ground? Well it turns out that the opposite happened: events on the ground conformed to Obama's positions.

Obama's trip didn't change his position on Iraq, but it did change McCain's. Here is a potential line the Obama campaign could use, provided by Chris Bowers:

Senator McCain thought that I would change my position on Iraq after visiting the country. As it turns out, my trip to Iraq actually changed his position, and he now thinks my withdrawal plan is "pretty good."

Bob Herbert, Frank Rich, and even David Broder have written excellent columns about how bad this week has been for McCain.

And it is still getting worse. New poll numbers:

Gallup:
Obama: 49
McCain: 40

Rasmussen:
Obama: 49
McCain: 44

Research 2000:
Obama: 51
McCain: 39

If I Was A Republican

I'd be pretty pissed that the best candidate my party could offer is a confused, senile, angry, extremely old man who has never run a competent campaign in his life. He's trying to run a Bush-Rove type campaign, but he's doing it incompetently. Remember when Bob Dole tried to go on the attack in 1996? It was pathetic, but apparently the Republican party hasn't learned its lesson about not nominating 70-year-old fogies.

Oh, and I'd also be worried that a world class flip-flopper like McCain will do whatever his Democrat buddies John Kerry and Ted Kennedy tell him to do once he is elected.

33

Today marks 33 days until John McCain turns 72 years old. He is hoping to be the oldest first term president in history, and the second oldest president ever.

Old Man McCain Turns Desperate

If you haven't seen McCain's desperate new smear ad, check it out here.

Basically, among other false charges, McCain accuses Obama of ignoring wounded soldiers because he wanted to bring camera. This, of course, is a total lie.

Here is how TPM reported the situation:

"We have longstanding Department of Defense policy in regards to political campaigns and elections," Pentagon spokesperson Elizabeth Hibner told me. "We informed the Obama staff that he was more than welcome to visit as Senator Obama, with Senate staff. However, he could not conduct the visit with campaign staff."

After being told this, the Obama campaign announced yesterday that it had decided it was "inappropriate" to make the visit as part of a campaign trip.

It's unclear how Obama could have made the visit at all, given the Pentagon's directives. No Senate staff was on the trip, and the Obama camp says they received the Pentagon's directives on Wednesday, after they were already abroad.

Bottom line: We're not seeing any issue here at all.

Indeed, John McCain didn't even try to visit these same troops during his March visit to Europe. Instead, he went to a campaign fundraiser in London. And McCain can't use Obama's valid excuse, because his Europe trip was official Senate business. It was not a campaign-funded trip. McCain didn't make the effort to visit these troops, and now slams Obama for his good faith effort to go.

Using the troops as political props is exactly what Obama was trying to avoid. Bush's Pentagon gave him two terrible options: either cancel the planned trip, or risk defying regulations that prevent campaign-funded trips to military bases. He picked the honorable option, as even Republican Senator Chuck Hagel stated today:

"At that point, it was a political trip for Sen. Obama," Hagel said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I think it would have been inappropriate for him -- and certainly he would have been criticized by the McCain people and the press and, probably should have been -- if, on a political trip in Europe, paid for by political funds, not the taxpayers, to go essentially then and be accused of using our wounded men and women as props for his campaign."

And yet, now McCain is not only using wounded troops in an attack on Obama, he actually uses footage of Obama visiting the troops in the ad. This is at once tasteless and laughable, as it undermines the whole message of the smear ad.

Anyway, it is clear there is going to be some backlash over this. Indeed, there will be major backlash over McCain's increasingly desperate and negative attacks on Obama's character and patriotism. The one reason McCain has been able to outperform other Republicans this cycle is because of this reputation as a straight-shooting, unconventional Republican. A "compassionate conservative", you might say. Attacks like this one will undermine McCain's image and destroy his last best chance to win this thing.