Black Box Report

I own how many homes???

So, John McCain can’t remember how many houses he owns...I’m sure you can relate. Happens to me all the time. Lots of people I know have that problem. After all, as Matthew Yglesias points out, it’s a tricky question:

I was wondering yesterday how it is that you manage to spend almost $4.7 million on a condo in Phoenix, and the answer turns out to be that the McCains bought two luxury condos and combined them. The $4.66 million figure is the combined price of his cribs.
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This is one reason why it’s a bit unfair to tag McCain as out of touch for being unable to remember how many homes he owns. When one of your homes is really a combination of two different luxury condos the metaphysical status of your property comes into question.

And that's just his primary residence(s) in Phoenix. Then there's McCain's Hidden Valley Ranch in Sedona. It's just one piece of 15 acre property, but it has 6 houses. Then there's the condo in Virginia, a few in California; some he lives in, some are just investments and...well, you can see it gets hard to keep of them all. Someone should share this link with the AZ senator so he can keep his answer straight. Maybe one of those staffers who he pays good money to worry about these things so he and Cindy don't have to. After all, people of McCain's class have more important things to worry about. So cut him some slack:

We shouldn't judge him too harshly. After all, a man who wears $520 Italian loafers, owns a million dollar parking lot, thinks the baseline for rich is making $5,000,000 a year and whose wife is worth $100M really can't be expected to recall such petty details on the spot.

Besides, Obama eats arugula, drinks gourmet tea and vacations in Hawaii! And even if that also describes your average lower middle class California college student, who cares if John McCain can't remember how many homes make up his $13 million+ real estate portfolio? As we all know, only Democrats are elitist:

He could bathe in rivers of Evian on a platform composed of platinum and rhino bones, and it wouldn’t particularly matter because he likes to look gruff and he’s white and he wants to cut taxes. The fact that he’s entirely removed from virtually all knowledge of his housing situation in the midst of a nationwide housing crisis, however, isn’t room for any concern of elitism because [noun] [verb] [POW].

And right on cue...

"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.

That was Team Maverick's response to the Obama campaign's newest ad, which came out, like, minutes after this story broke.

For some reason, Democrats think this could provide an opening to hit McCain on:

McCain has opposed increases to the minimum wage, he opposes universal healthcare, and he blamed the housing crisis on homeowners. At the same time, McCain thinks the economy is strong, that Bush has been a good steward of the economy, and what the nation really needs is more tax cuts for millionaires…It's not about wealth and elitism; it's about being out of touch.

Because not knowing how many million dollar homes you own shows you're a true Man of the People.

Wealthy, out of touch people.

Seperated at Birth?

In 2006, Joe Lieberman was in a bit of a spot. His stubborn and increasingly vocal support for the Iraq War and perrenial thorn in Democrats' side had a lot of Connecticut Democrats fed up and ready to give Joe the heave-ho. Faced with a tight primary battle against newcomer Ned Lamont, Lieberman needed some Dem street cred and begged another popular newcomer, Barack Obama, to campaign for him. Two years later, this is how Lieberman repays a fellow Democrat's kindness:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican official tells The Associated Press that Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman will be speaking at the Republican National Convention.

The GOP official said Wednesday that Lieberman would deliver a speech as Republicans gathered in St. Paul to nominate John McCain for president.

Like anyone didn't see that coming.

Like former Georgia senator Zell Miller before him, Lieberman has followed a career arc from moderate Democrat scold to an Iraq war supporting, Republican talking point machine, such that anytime a Democrat felt a knife in the back, Joe's name was usually on the handle. And that's as good as it gets for an audition to play in St. Paul:

Maybe Lieberman will reiterate his claim that Obama has not always put his country first. It's awfully valuable to McCain and the GOP to have a so-called Democrat leading with such a smear, and there apparently is nothing Lieberman won't do for his new buds.

But is there anything they won't do for Joe? Actually, there's quite a lot, and Joe shouldn't get too comfy with his new chums:

I hope that when Lieberman gives his speech...he realizes that the delegates cheering him on are the same people who'd be rioting in the streets if their party ever gave Lieberman anything more than a symbolic honor...Lieberman's only use to the Republicans is as a sideshow act; and he, of course, has no use anymore to Democrats...He truly is a man without a political home. So sad.

There's not much hope for Lieberman keeping his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Although Harry Reid has let Joe do his business in the Democratic Party punchbowl for so long, even this may not matter. As Open Left says:

I still remain skeptical that they will actually strip him of his committee chair, since it will demonstrate self-respect and a willingness to stand up to conservative Democrats.

One way or the other, come November 5th, expect Joe to have a little more time on his hands, and for the Homeland Security / Government Affairs Committee to actually get some work done. After all, there's not much of a reason for Harry Reid to do anything sooner than that:

If (Reid) pulls the trigger, Lieberman gets to…tout it as evidence that partisanship has gone too far, that he was deemed perfectly qualified and capable of serving the American people on those committees until he stepped out of line, and that McCain’s the only maverick in the race willing to bridge that divide and put country first.

Lieberman's going to do all that anyway, but at least he won't be able to throw the rest of the Senate Dems under the bus as well.

Again, that is.

And so Lieberman is going all in for McCain. He has no other choice, really. The Democrats are highly likely to pick up at least one seat in the senate, making Joe's agreement to caucus with them irrelevant. And once Joe's no longer a Democrat in any way, shape or form, he'll cease to be of any interest to the media that loves them some Democratic infighting. A McCain victory is Joe's only shot at maintaining any relevancy or power, either on a committee or as part of a McCain cabinet.

As for even higher aspirations, given Joe's speaking slot on the first day of the convention (not to mention his ostensibly pro-choice position), it probably rules him out as McCain's VP choice. But the Associated Press was still mentioning his name as a possibility as of yesterday, so who knows?

Debate continues as to whether or not that was a typo.

Making ALL Democrats happy is like herding cats; almost impossible and arguably not worth the effort. Something for Barack Obama to keep in mind when selecting a running mate, as almost all the names on his short-list have cons as well as pros. And at the top of that short list seems to be Tim Kaine:

Kaine would reinforce Obama’s qualities — they’re both young, smart, committed Christians, who don’t much care for the traditional ways of doing things in Washington.

What are the downsides? For one thing, there would be plenty of questions about Kaine’s experience in government. He’s worked his way up the ladder — four years as the mayor of Richmond, four years as Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor, and two-and-a-half years as governor — but by some measurements, that may not be considered a lengthy record.

On a related note, Kaine’s foreign policy experience is limited.

Putting aside Kaine's support for the Iraq War and views on abortion in line with George W Bush, there's certainly no danger of Kaine upstaging Obama on the stump. His previous instance of national exposure was giving the Democratic response to a State of the Union address a couple of years ago. To say it was painful to watch the Eyebrow of Doom in action is an understatement.

For a VP pick with more experience, TalkLeft suggests either Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh or Delaware's Joe Biden:

Biden and Bayh are longtime Washington figures...I think it is Kaine UNLESS Obama decides he needs "experience" in the VP slot...Between Bayh and Biden, it is true that Biden is gaffe prone, but he is an effective attack dog with a resume that allows him to attack John McCain on foreign policy. If (this) is what Obama decides he needs for his VP, I think Biden will be his choice.

If politicians were ice cream, Evan Bayh is practically the definition of "vanilla," while Smilin' Joe Biden is Ben and Jerry's "Everything But the Kitchen Sink." The Delaware senator is an effective pol and strong on foreign policy, but the chances of his mouth taking the Obama campaign far off course are huge. And let's not forget the Bush-Biden Bankruptcy Bill, for which many Democrats have yet to forgive him for.

Bayh, on the other hand, wouldn't make the waves Biden would and he's reliably liberal on most social issues. On the surface, there's a lot to like about Indiana's junior senator:

Bayh is super-popular in Indiana and could very well tip the state blue, he is another young and telegenic figure to add to the campaign, and he is a moderate centrist known for straddling the political divide on a number of issues.

Helping to foster an economic surplus for Indiana doesn't hurt either. And Lee Hamilton certainly seems to approve of the guy:

"Evan has a lot of experience," said Lee H. Hamilton, a former House member from Indiana and a respected Democratic elder. "He has got Hollywood good looks, and he speaks well. He would be very loyal."

Perhaps Obama could see his way to giving this nice Irish Setter Hoosier a home?

But then there's that "moderate centrist" bit. That should set off warning signals, because 99% of the time it's used as a beard for Republican-enabling Democrats:

Mr. Bayh's support of authorizing force in Iraq stands in sharp contrast to Mr. Obama's oft-stated view that he showed the good judgment to oppose the conflict from the start. After his vote, Mr. Bayh in early 2003 joined Mr. McCain as an honorary co-chairman of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which made regime change in Iraq its central cause.

"He was not only wrong, he was aggressively wrong," said Tom Andrews, national director of the Win Without War coalition, referring to Mr. Bayh. "In my view, he would contradict if not undermine the Obama message of change, turning a new page on foreign policy and national security."

And that, my friends, is not change you can believe in:

One key to Obama's candidacy has been a general refusal to let the terms of the foreign policy debate be dictated by the GOP and a willingness to challenge Republican frames on national security. Bayh, by contrast, is a darling of the class of Democrats who leap through GOP frames whenever Republicans say "jump," like so many trained seals jumping through hoops.

When you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas, and in a close race, Obama can't afford to scratch. Or to pick someone who's currently repeating the same mistakes with Iran.

Bayh and Biden are both are consummate DC insiders. The outsider choices are the aforementioned Kaine and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius:

Sebelius and Kaine are both governing choices, not campaign choices. They're not going to match Obama's enthusiasm levels...(or) do all that well at the VP debates...But they are solid; they are centrist-in-style; they are Washington outsiders; they know how to balance budgets and deal with Republicans.

A female VP not named Clinton? I'm sure her supporters will take that well. And so,...you knew it was coming..."Why not Hillary?"

I have asserted on numerous occasions that Hillary will not be Obama's running mate. And yet...It's not like any of the other apparent contenders are obvious choices (or would be perfect picks)...Of course, one can make a compelling and perhaps convincing case against Hillary...But I've warmed to her again since the primaries ended, and I think the case for her has gotten more compelling, not less, with time.

One big problem there? His name is Bill.

Bottom line, some Democrats aren't going to be thrilled no matter who Obama picks, as none of the contenders seems to be that perfect match. So go ahead and pick and send me the text message. With the convention a week or so away...tick tock. Time's a-wastin.

BLACK BOX PREDICTION: None of the Above

So, who wants a job, as John Nance Garner put it, that's "not worth a bucket of warm [spit]?" Quite a few people, actually. The office of Vice President of the United States has gone from being, in John Adams' time, "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived" to a fourth branch of government, accountable to no one, that plays by its own rules.

Pretty sweet gig, huh?

More than just ribbon cuttings, diplomat schmoozing, outing CIA agents and planning WWIV, the most tantalizing aspect of being Vice President is you have the inside track to your party's nomination should everything go well for eight years*. The fundraising practically takes care of itself; on the job training for the big chair; and you get to say the things to your political opponents that your boss can't say for not seeming "presidential."

So with the clock ticking towards both parties' conventions, it's time to look at who wants to be the co-pilot of the Straight Talk Express.

Last week, the McCain campaign, with an assist from Bob Novak, floated the rumor they were ready to announce any moment now, so stop paying attention to Obama and those hundreds of thousands of cheering Germans! Look at me! But of course that didn't happen, and Novak was left to console himself by running over a pedestrian.

As anticipation cranked up over when McCain would announce, the list of who he would announce got a little shorter. Rising GOP star, Governor Bobby Jindal took himself out of contention, saying he already had the job he wants (presumably he meant Governor of Louisiana, not professional exorcist).

Given McCain's sluggish fundraising and less-than-vigorous image, Beltway insiders say former rival Mitt Romney is near the top of the short-list. The Mason Conservative approves:

(Romney) is an exceptional choice in many respects, including bringing in a national figure to the ticket...He has also made all the right moves since leaving the race...becoming a vocal surrogate for McCain among conservatives...They differ, yes, but Romney seems to the embodiment of the compromise many Republicans have made with McCain.

The Sunshine Boys

But while Hugh Hewitt and Kathryn Jean Lopez are already swooning at the idea of Romney back on the national ticket, other conservatives are less than enthusiastic:

While choosing Romney to be his running mate would make Washington journalists happy, it would be nothing short of political suicide for McCain....
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Romney's fans on the right like to believe that Romney lost because Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson helped carve up the conservative vote, but it was only because of Romney's weakness among conservatives that either of them had an opening.

Although he presented himself as a full-spectrum conservative, Romney faced his share of detractors within each branch of the conservative movement. There were economic conservatives who opposed his universal health-care plan in Massachusetts, social conservatives who didn't think his conversion on abortion was sincere, and national security conservatives who had doubts about his lack of experience in foreign affairs.
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To the extent that conservatives did rally around Romney toward the tail end of his campaign, it was mainly as a last ditch effort to prevent McCain from becoming the nominee. This is obviously now moot.

And how do liberals feel about the prospect of McCain/Romney '08?

MITTENS!!

OHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASE

Because if there's anyone that flip-flops more than John McCain, it's Mitt Romney.

Blogger John Cole is convinced McCain will pick Jesus' Own Candidate, Mike Huckabee:

I know all the bobbleheads are talking about Pawlenty or Crist for McCain as VP, but for some reason I still think he is going to pick Huckabee. I think people are radically underestimating how important it is for McCain to be surrounded by people he likes...That is why I think he is going to choose Huckabee. He is comfortable with him, and with McCain, that is all that matters.

Meanwhile, the boys over at Powerline think McCain should go with someone with a little less baggage:

He should forget about trying to make a major splash with his selection for VP...and make his decision on the basis of credentials, respect and affinity. This, I assume, is what McCain wants to do anyway.

Who benefits from this approach?...Perhaps Tim Pawlenty. He's a bit of a nearly man himself in that I suspect he would help McCain nearly carry Minnesota. But Pawlenty has no apparent downside the way Romney, Huckabee, Ridge, Jindal, and others do...McCain named Pawlenty cochair of his campaign last year and we have every reason to believe that he thinks highly of him.

Indeed, the Minnesota governor's stock is on the rise among conservatives, token and otherwise:

I think Pawlenty is the most likely choice. Second choice is Romney, after very loud teeth-gnashing from McCain. You'll just be able to feel the love at the convention...Third choice is Charlie Crist. Of course, now that I've gone on record, McCain will probably pick...someone else no one is discussing.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Newly married Florida governor Charlie Crist has also been mentioned as a potential running mate for the Republican nominee....

Not Gonna Happen.

But what about the unexpected choices? All those somebodies that no one is currently talking about? RCP gives the rest fo the field 10-1 odds:

We think there could still be a surprise or two left up McCain's sleeve. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in Minnesota talking him up...Senator Joe Lieberman would be an off-the-wall pick to counter Obama picking, say, Nebraska's Chuck Hagel. When you need the news coverage, as McCain does, (their) odds go way up.

.......McCain/Lieberman '08???

The Dream Team

OHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASEOHPLEASE

BLACK BOX PREDICTION:

The first rule of picking a VP: First, do no harm. And to this extent, the Powerline boys got it right. While each of the more well known names brings something tangible to the table for McCain, they each bring too much baggage that outweighs their benefits. In this sense, Tim Pawlenty is liked by the (religious) right people, he's a red governor in a blue state for independent appeal, and as John Cole correctly pointed out, McCain likes surrounding himself with people who like (or at least flatter) him. As vanilla as they come, Pawlenty has no obvious hamstrings, although a VP announcement would have his closet stuffed with more skeleton-snooping journalists and oppo-researchers faster than you could say "Monkey Business." But he's safe, and given how well the Republican brand is regarded these days, for McCain, that's about as good as he can do.

As Good as it Gets

[* Unless you have a popularity approaching single digits, 50% lower than your historically unpopular boss and it's pretty clear the public would actually prefer a bucket of warm spit over you.]

On Sunday I saw the Tennessee church shooting story, and I suspect, like many of you, shook my head at yet another senseless shooting. Today, however, I learned what precipitated the hail of gunfire and that this was not a random act of madness but a calculated hate crime on a targeted population.

Most of us like to take pride in how far we’ve come in America. From our ugly, not too distant past, real progress has been made when it comes to racial and gender equality. You'd have to be an idiot to think we've leveled the playing field or scrubbed from our history the stain of slavery, but few will deny, slowly but surely we're getting there.

I wish I could say the same thing about homophobia. Being a bigot is no longer tolerated, but in too many places mocking gays still gets a laugh, and in some places the laughter is replaced with pure hate. Please don't kid yourself, that this was one sick wacko in Tennessee. Consider just this year the uncensored bile from elected officials and so called “men of god” when debating same sex marriage or repealing "don't ask, don't tell." It wasn't that, with every fiber of their being, they didn't and don't believe gays are equals; many of them believe it's okay to marginalize the population without any fear of being branded a bigot. Too often they're proven right. Gays are blamed for terror attacks, hurricanes, floods, droughts - I’m surprised the recession hasn't been pinned on them. And while we laugh at the nutjobs who point the fingers - we laugh.

We didn't laugh after Matthew Shepherd was murdered in Laramie and were not laughing after this tragedy in Tennessee. But lets not kid ourselves that because "Will and Grace" was popular or that most guys weren’t threatened by the "Fab Five", we've turned a corner on tolerance.

Too many people still think it's okay to hate.

So today was yet another iconic moment for barrack Obama. Instead of "yes we can", nearly a quarter million Germans heard the senator tell them "this our time." The elements have grown familiar; a moving backdrop, standing room only crowds, rousing address and then thunderous applause. His campaign is responsible for almost every indelible moment in this neverending election season, he's running at a time when the public is thirsting for change, his opponent is saddled with an unpopular president and war, and is, even by his own supporters admission, not exactly inspiring.

So why, if he's so hot and McCain anything but, is this race still a race? The Wall Street Journal put it best: “Midway through the election year, the presidential campaign looks less like a race between two candidates than a referendum on one of them -- Senator Barack Obama.”

The polls back it up; the latest numbers show Obama up six points, same as a month ago. And interestingly, by a two to one margin, voters are focused on what kind of a president Obama would be compared to McCain.

What I want to know is, what are they waiting for? I get the experience issue; two years ago the guy was going to work in Springfield, but what experience is actually a strong suit for McCain? Stay the course in Iraq? I can't see people lining up for that bumper sticker. Is it the color thing, or the unfamiliar name? I'm sure some people still get freaked out by a black guy in the oval office, and others still buying the smear campaign centered around Obama’s full name and the scary connotations they try to evoke, but that's not enough to explain why this race doesn't have a double digit spread.

The only thing I can think of is that people look at Obama like the new kid in school. So far he's friends with everybody from the jocks to the geeks, but a lot of the student body still isn't sure. Is he too good to be true or is he a breath of fresh air that every school, and country, needs?

His speech in Germany may be another step in convincing the skeptical but I think, for many, he still has a long way to go.

During his weekly radio address Saturday, President Bush said he "has great confidence that our economy will pull through this difficult period, because I have great confidence in the innovative spirit of the American people." That, my friends, is a lie.

Not the part of the American spirit, but the part about this Commander in Chief believing in our resolve. Consider the challenges we face today as a nation, and what we've been told to do in the face of that adversity. When we were attacked our fearless leader told us "go shopping." When Afghanistan wasn't enough, Bush did not tell us "we have nothing to fear but fear itself,” he told us to fear everyone including Iraq. If the spirit of the American people was never in doubt, why would we torture in secret prisons and trample on the Constitution while spying without warrants on those same Americans?

Right after Bush praised Americans’ can-do it spirit Saturday, he said if we truly want to solve the stranglehold the Middle East has on our energy, we'd push congress to let him drill offshore. Does he really believe we're that stupid? Instead of asking us to commit to a generational plan of renewable energies - full of vision, sacrifice and, I’m sure, trial and error - once again he says, “don't worry, be happy.”

How's that game plan working out for you?

George Bush did not create the financial crisis were knee-deep in, but he sure as hell fostered it. Every economic indicator is going in the wrong direction and possibly the most important one isn't making headlines.

A recent poll found an unprecedented level of doubt and pessimism among Americans, with the younger generation believing our best days are behind them.

That boundless spirit W talks about has been frittered away under his watch, because too many Americans have lost faith that someone is in charge, and that someone has their best interests in mind. The biggest failue of this administration isn't Iraq, Katrina, trashing our standing in the world or even the crumbling economy. The worst thing Bush and friends have done to us is, for the first time in a long time, we doubt we can do it. Bob Herbert wrote a column Saturday in the NY Times that summed it up:

When exactly was it that the U.S. became a can't-do society? It wasn't at the very beginning when 13 ragamuffin colonies went to war against the world's mightiest empire. It wasn't during World War II when Japan and Nazi Germany had to be fought simultaneously. It wasn't in the postwar period that gave us the Marshall Plan and a robust G.I. Bill and the interstate highway system and the space program and the civil rights movement and the women's movement and the greatest society the world had ever known.

Fast forward to today. Big ideas are too big, were told. Every problem's answer is tax breaks for the very folks who need it least and a pat on the head from our president who tells us it'll all be OK. We know it's not that easy, we know something has got to change. So here's our moment and our choice: if inspired leadership emerges do we reach for it? Do we make the tough, painful tradeoffs that make things better for our kids’ generation? Or do we follow our president's lead and keep passing the buck as we struggle to keep our heads above water? The time for happy talk and this president are over. Will we be the next greatest generation or just more of the same?

Our time is at hand.

When it comes to a policy on Iraq, the differences between John McCain and Barack Obama couldn't be more distinct. McCain wants to stay until an as-yet-undefined victory has been achieved. Obama wants to leave in roughly 16 months, and that will be victory enough. This weekend, as Obama prepared to embark on his Mideast trip, Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki essentially cut McCain's talking points off at the knees:

In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

(Sound of needle scratching across the record)

Asked if he supported Obama's ideas more than those of John McCain, Republican presidential hopeful, Maliki said he did not want to recommend who people should vote for.

"Whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops would cause problems."

Now which presidential candidate would that be? But wait, it gets even better:

"The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit because it seems like an admission of defeat to them. But it isn't," Maliki told Der Spiegel.

Ouch.

The Keystone Cops routine that followed was just as interesting, if not at all surprising. CENTCOM issued a release on behalf of the Prime Minister claiming Maliki had been “misunderstood and mistranslated.” What the mistakes were, no one would say. What Maliki supposedly actually said, no one knows. But rest assured, the Iraqi Prime Minister didn’t actually say that.

Except Der Spiegel stood by their story. An independent translation passed inspection. And two days later, Iraqi officials agreed, setting a goal of American troop withdrawal by the end of 2010, mere months difference from Obama’s stated goal.

It’s hard to underestimate how this changes the entire playing field of the presidential campaign. At the Atlantic, conservative blogger Marc Ambinder calls a game changer:

This could be one of those unexpected events that forever changes the way the world perceives an issue. Iraq's Prime Minister agrees with Obama, and there's no wiggle room or fudge factor. This puts John McCain in an extremely precarious spot: what's left to argue? To argue against Maliki would be to predicate that Iraqi sovereignty at this point means nothing.

Indeed. As Ambinder related in a later post, a Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign told him in an email, "We’re f***ed." And whether or not Maliki meant to act as an influence on American politics or was just reflecting his own political reality, either way, Maliki has put McCain between a rock and a hard place:

Either (McCain) endorses a timetable for withdrawal, which he has consistently said would be a disaster, and cedes his only big issue to Obama -- and more importantly, concedes that Obama's judgment is sound -- or he deliberately ignores the concerted, expressed wishes of the Iraqi government in order to prolong an unpopular war.

Unpopular here and in Iraq, hence Maliki's unprompted endorsement of Obama's time line table “horizon.” So what does McCain do? To get the ball rolling he went on the Today Show and said he and Gen. Petraeus know what's better for Iraq than the wogs and their democratically elected leader.

Q: If the Iraqi government were to say, if you were president, ‘we want a timetable for troops being removed,’ would you agree to that?

McCAIN: I’ve been there too many times. I’ve met too many times with him. And I know what they want. They want it based on conditions. And of course they’d like to have us out. That’s what happens when you win wars.

Even Hot Air calls the response tone deaf:

Where he gets in trouble is in his answer to the direct question about Maliki, dismissing the Spiegel interview by insisting “I know what they want” and thereby somehow managing to sound both arrogant and in denial at the same time...
...Suggesting that he, from his U.S. enclave, knows "what Iraqis want" more so than the prime minister is only going to make this worse.

Too late. Never ones particularly good at impulse control when it comes to their plans falling apart like wet Kleenex, the rightwing blogosphere is already making room for Maliki under the bus:

We should tell Maliki, loudly and in public, that he owes his job to us, and that further prosecution of our military operations in his country will be conducted with regard only to U.S. interests, as determined in consensus by our established domestic political processes. And if he doesn't like that, he can go to hell.

Perhaps now would be a good time for a refresher on the definition of “sovereignty.”

OK, maybe not. But since these Iraqis never did come through with those flowers and candy for our gracious act of invading, crippling and occupying their country...Have we mentioned how shifty the guy is?

As I've mentioned before, Maliki, of the Shiite Dawa Party which opposed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq in the first place, has long-standing ties to Iran and Syria — and has expressed support for Hezbollah. The only thing that surprises me about this story is that anyone is surprised.

Nope. No surprise here. What Digby D-Day said:

There's just no way to spin this. Regardless of Maliki's motives, this is a total rejection of the McCain conservative position on Iraq. They never wanted to "win," they wanted to stay. And they are being told they have to leave.

Considering this effectively neuters McCain's position on Iraq and leaves him with...what, the economy? It's hard to see how this could be much worse for him.

But good news for the rest of us:

What's truly amazing about this turn of events is that it more and more looks like the Prime Minister of Iraq is going to help engineer regime change back in the US.

Regime change you can believe in.

There are nights when I feel like a broken record; oil prices setting new highs by the day, new housing reports with staggering foreclosure data, every day stories of people stretched to the breaking point, and too often beyond. Make no mistake, before it became vogue I’ve been warning against the economic hurricane that's fast approaching and the last thing I wanted was to be proven right. But that being said, this is America; if we keep our heads and finally get some sober leadership we can make it through even this. After all, we have seen worse.

The Great Depression saw the Wall Street crash where over two days the market fell by nearly a quarter. In one week the market lost ten times the amount of the annual budget of the federal government. As scary as IndyMac’s collapse and the spectre of another hundred or so banks possibly being on the watch list is nothing compared to what they saw in the early 30's, where 11,000 banks - nearly half of the banks in America - shut their doors. FDR famously declared a three day bank holiday when he told Americans "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." America listened are we persevered.

In the 80"s we saw nearly 800 banks close because of the Savings and Loan crisis.

And when the dot com bubble burst 8 years ago, we saw huge selloffs in tech stocks and nearly $5 trillion in market value wiped out.

My point is not “don't worry, be happy.” In fact, I don't think we’ve seen in at least a generation the systemic mess that's staring at us today. But I do think we have weathered storms before. Perspective is important, and unfortunately, I think were going to need it.

The government may not want to face more market catastrophes, but if it was only that easy. In a classic bank run scenario, IndyMac could be just the beginning. According to one analyst, as many as 300 banks could fall within the next three years.

While the feds can't save everybody, they know they have to draw a line in the sand when it comes to Fannie and Freddie. But while extending hundreds of billions in credit and propping up the stock hopefully stops the bleeding, nobody thinks it cures the patient. The public is scared, confused and frustrated with a system and a marketplace that seems to be selling different truths by the week, changing rules on the fly and can't get its own act together. The feds had to rescue the twin mortgage giants, but just like everybody else in the financial sector they're infected with the sub-prime virus and really don't know just how bad they've got it.

Here's what I know. They're will be more writedowns, big ones at the biggest firms. More banks will close, and not just the mom and pop variety either. More people will be laid off and expect a lot more foreclosures.

What we don't know is how bad this will all get. If anybody knew mortgages, the thinking went, it was Fannie and Freddie. Now nobody thinks anybody really has a clue. Efforts to stabilize the market haven't worked and in an ominous sign treasury bills were being sold not bought, a sign investors aren't even running to the one sure thing they've always been able to count on.

Here's the scary part: they may be on to something. If Fannie and Freddie have to be saved at all costs, who do you think will do the saving? You got it: we the taxpayers! Don't believe the dummies who tell you debt and deficits don't matter; they do, and are already eating more and more of our budgets for just interest payments.

People are starting to get all the pieces of the puzzle - gas prices, credit crunch, housing crisis, layoffs...etc. They don't like the picture that's coming together.

I don't know the prescription for recovery, but I do know it won't be quick and painless. The faith and confidence of the public is shaken and if our leaders aren't careful the next shoe that drops will turn that fear into something worse. These are perilous times.

In a year of economic uncertainty, the only given seems to be more bad news. But before anyone chalks the Fanny and Freddy story up as just more bad news, you’d better sit down. The two mortgage giants hold more than half of the nearly $10 trillion in U.S. debt. Let that sink in…$5 trillion.

If a movie producer is searching for a storyline for the next horror flick, they may want to consider crawling into the heads of Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chairman Bernanke. For now, their saying all the right things, but the fear and building panic on Wall Street is almost palpable.

If either Freddy or Fannie, or god forbid both, fail we are talking havoc on the nation's financial system and the broader economy as well.

By law the mortgage giants are required to hold only a fraction of what's mandated for commercial banks as financial cushion against risk. Translation: no money under the mattress for a rainy day, and yes, it's pouring outside.

Freddy and Fannie were created because congress wanted to have a steady stream of money for home mortgages, and they have. In many ways they're more important than ever, since our government is depending on them to provide much-needed mortgage financing at a time when credit has gotten much harder to come by.

As we speak, every official is trying to talk investors off the ledge, but don't kid yourself, at the same time they're preparing for the worst. Would the government throw these giants a lifeline? They hate bailouts, but really, what’s their choice?

Nobody knows how this movie ends but consider what Bernanke himself had to say two years ago when talking about the massive holdings of Freddie and Fannie. The two, he said, "present a systematic risk" to our financial system.

Let’s just hope this is a scary flick with a happy ending.

It all started with Barack Obama's decision to forego public financing. Immediately, charges that he had "broken a promise" were thrown about; in the fall of 2007, in a questionnaire from the Midwest Democracy Network, Obama said he would take part in the public financing system if his Republican opponent did the same. John McCain made Obama's decision to abandon public financing a whole lot easier by breaking the law in plain sight:

I mentioned earlier today that it was quite a thing to see John McCain denouncing Barack Obama for breaking his word on public financing when McCain himself is at this moment breaking the law in continuing to spend over the spending limits he promised to abide by through the primary season in exchange for public financing. (By the FEC's rules, we're still in the primary phase of the election and will be until the conventions.)

So while Obama certainly reversed course, it's hardly the flip-flopping betrayal of principle that the media and McCain's campaign (is there a difference?) portrayed it as. Obama is still an advocate of campaign finance reform, having passed legislation as both an IL state senator and U.S. senator. Even one of the original authors of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act approved:

Norm Ornstein, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and substantial contributor to the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act -- also known as the "McCain-Feingold" campaign finance legislation -- said on Thursday that Obama's move was "pragmatically the right decision to make," and that, if the Senator had not chosen that path, "I would have sued him for political malpractice...

"When you have the ability to raise the kind of money that he could raise and do it without selling your soul to spend all the time between now and the election on fundraisers, your goal is to win an election and not turn your back on the people voting. There will be outraged editorials and McCain will be justifiably pi$$ed. But it was pragmatically the right decision for him to make."

But all that is complicated stuff, so "Obama flip-flops on public financing" was the take-away. And while liberals merely yawned, the seed was sown.

Next came a series of potential landmines in the campaign trail, courtesy of SCOTUS. First, in D.C. vs Heller, the Supreme Court struck down Washington D.C.'s ban on handguns, something Obama had previously contended was constitutional; now he supported the Court's decision. While conceding that "what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne," Obama reiterated his support for the 2nd Amendment, and pointed to Justice Scalia's affirmation of the need for regulation. The left grumbled. Despite any evidence D.C.'s ban actually worked, many on the left don't consider any gun regulation open for negotiation.

Then came Obama's opposition to the Court's ban on the death penalty for child rapists. More grumbling from the base over a supposed betrayal of their principles, but the fact is Obama never changed his position, one he wrote about in his book, "The Audacity of Hope." But again, the perception was that Obama was moving away from the Democratic base.

This feeling was compounded when he announced his decision to expand faith-based charities as president. The base howled. This was one of George W. Bush's more blatant attempts at funneling money towards his supporters on the religious right, and Obama was going to expand that? Outrageous! Except that wasn't the case:

I don't actually have a problem with money going to church-linked organizations as long as they aren't exempt from oversight or anti-discrimination laws and don't proselytize. Early Associated Press reports incorrectly stated that Obama would allow such organizations to discriminate in hiring based on religion, but that apparently is not the case.

As with all of these things the devil is in the details, but there's nothing wrong with supporting good programs.

Again, not a flip-flop, but a perceived shift towards the center, or worse, the right, when in fact Obama hadn't moved at all. Some of Obama's supporters understood the nuances of each of these positions; others did not. But none of them took kindly to this:

“After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year’s Protect America Act.
......
“It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives — and the liberty — of the American people.”

The liberal blogosphere's response?

EPIC FAIL

One of the basic principles for organzing conservatives is, if it angers liberals, it must be a good thing. Was this the final piece of evidence that Obama - like just about every presidential candidate before him - was tacking to the center after securing his party's nomination? Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas thought so, and withheld donations because of it:

There is a line between "moving to the center" and stabbing your allies in the back out of fear of being criticized. And, of late, he's been doing a lot of unnecessary stabbing, betraying his claims of being a new kind of politician. Not that I ever bought it, but Obama is now clearly not looking much different than every other Democratic politician who has ever turned his or her back on the base in order to prove centrist bona fides.

What's more, Obama's appeal to the "mushy middle" may be a recipe for disaster:

The Obama brand has always been about inspiration, a new kind of politics, the audacity of hope, and "change we can believe in." I like that brand. More importantly, voters -- especially unlikely voters -- like that brand.

Pulling it off the shelf and replacing it with a political product geared to pleasing America's vacillating swing voters -- the ones who will be most susceptible to the fear-mongering avalanche that has already begun -- would be a fatal blunder.

Realpolitik is one thing. Realstupidpolitik is quite another.

Of all the positions that anger liberals, Obama’s switch from promising to support a filibuster against the surveillance bill to eventually voting for a “compromise” that wasn’t will undoubtedly be the one that hurts him the most. It wasn’t a subtle “refining” of his position; it was a reversal, and one that didn’t have the benefit of any reasonable logic to back it up other than political expediency. Obama doesn’t want to waste any energy combating Republican attacks that “he doesn’t want us to spy on terrorists” (even thought they’ll attack him on that and other nat’l security issues anyway). With this one move, Obama has dampened supporters’ enthusiasm and taken some of the sheen off his political aura. While it may not cost him many votes in the long run, it will definitely cost him donations. Given his fundraising prowess, this may not be a problem, but it certainly doesn’t improve his standing with anyone. Informed independents and Democrats already opposed warrantless wiretapping and telecomm immunity; the only ones who supported it were National Security Authoritarians Republicans and some Blue Dog congressmen, none of whom who were going to vote for him anyway.

To minimize this, Obama directly addressed the claims that he’s moving to the center (if not the claims of his betrayal on FISA):

Barack Obama had heard quite enough of the complaints that he is pirouetting, leaping, lurching even, toward the political center.

He is at heart, he told a crowd in suburban Atlanta, a pretty progressive guy who just happens to pack along a complicated world view.

“Look, let me talk about the broader issue, this whole notion that I am shifting to the center,” he said. “The people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.”

To this, he adds, parenthetically: “And I must say some of this is my friends on the left” and those in the media.

“I am someone who is no doubt progressive,” he said, adding that he believes in universal health care and that government has a strong to play in overseeing financial institutions and cracking down on abuses in bankruptcies and the like.

Bloggers are a passionate bunch. And to move the nation on a controversial issue, you need passionate people to drag the herd in the right direction. But sometimes that passion gets in the way of more pragmatic thinking, and it’s at times like these when it does well to stop, take a deep breath, and consider the alternatives:

Inevitably, in a national campaign, the smart Democratic candidate is going to do things that (tick) me off — I’m going to vote for them anyways! Whether the Barrow endorsement was an attempt to push the GOP into more spending in safe states (if an Obama endorsement can help an inveterate blue dog like that, the guy must be running towards the center) or whether it had some other justification, whether the FISA compromise reflects sound political calculation or a craven casting-aside of principles or something in-between, at this point I’m going to swallow hard and trust the Obama campaign to do what it has to do to win, because I’ll tell you one thing: with a Democrat — any Democrat — in the White House, things will be a whole (lot) better than they’ve been.

If I ever meet a politician who lines up with ever last one of my views on every single issue, I’ll simply jump on my magic carpet, fly over to Yankee Stadium to bat in the cleanup spot, and go home to my wife, Keira Knightley, because I’ll know I’m dreaming.

You can’t always get what you want, but sometimes, you get what you need.

12 days ago the Army fired Gina Gray. Who's Gina Gray, you ask? Just the latest person shoved aside who tried to do the right thing in a war whose architects have, without fail, done the wrong thing.

About three months ago, Ms. Gray took over as the Public Affairs Director at the Arlington National Cemetery. Soon after her appointment she realized military regulations were being violated; the media was being denied access to coverage of funerals of the Iraq war dead, even after the soldiers’ families granted permission. She fought to enforce protocol but was first demoted, then later canned. More than having policy and judgment on her side, Ms. Gray also has experience. She served in Iraq, had her convoy attacked and has impaired hearing to prove it.

A lot has improved under Defense Secretary Gates, but garbage like stop losses, the shortchanging of our troops and what happened to Gina Gray are still far too common.

If the powers that be thought about it instead of being so myopic, they'd realize the families’ courage and grace in sharing their loss lets the public become more invested in a war that for too long has been shielded from view at all costs.

Like no other time in history, the public has not been called on for shared sacrifice. Instead we are told "don't worry, be happy," or unforgettably, to go shopping.

Who is this administration, the same administration who embedded troops when the going was good, to now override family wishes for their own loved ones?

I have never seen a single media story that has trivialized a soldier’s death in Iraq or Afghanistan. By shielding America from caskets coming home, not attending funerals, not showing grieving families, this White House leaves us with the numbers of the dead and an occasional picture. No connection; no investment in a war were told has to be waged.

Gina Gray deserved better, and so do we.

For anybody who still believes the economic mess we find ourselves in was a perfect storm or some unforeseeable crisis, I suggest you read the recently released report from the long dormant Securities and Exchange Commission. The agency that has been ridiculed for fiddling while Wall Street and our economy burned concluded in their investigation that the rating firms - beyond a shadow of a doubt - where more than just part of the problem, they all but lit the match.

A little background. Rating agencies have been considered the unimpeachable objective voice of Wall Street. They’re supposed to review the financial health of everything large and small so the investor, public or private, can invest with confidence. I said supposedly because as e-mail trails from the big three rating firms conclude, these guys knew the Titanic of the mortgage mess was heading for an iceberg, but instead of shouting “iceberg ahead!” they said “full speed ahead!”

Beyond the pure greed there was also the fact these guys couldn't keep up with the workload. Instead of doing their homework and the due diligence investors expected, they took shortcuts.

But there was more. Analysts, we all believed, rated products simply on their financial health. Instead at Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch, analysts openly worried that a fair but tough rating might cost the firm business.

The bottom line here is that the roosters were guarding the henhouse, and all investors were none the wiser. When I say all investors, I mean you. It wasn't just the fact cats that thought they were investing in triple-A rated products when in reality they were buying garbage drowning in sub-prime debt. It was anybody with a 401k or state pension plans that didn't know it was “buyer beware.”

The investigations and lawsuits will soon begin, but the hard truth is there was a ponzi scheme being run in New York; not on a street corner but in the corner office of the ivory tower of Wall Street.

On RFL we get into issues like remembering fallen soldiers from our region, investigating the latest hold up at Ground Zero and the huge consequences on our doctors and hospitals with Medicare cuts. But let me tell you what I don't plan on covering. Don't hold your breath if you think I’m going to get into A-rod's marital woes or possible affair with the Material Girl. Turn the channel if you want the latest on Christie Brinkley’s latest ugly divorce. I'm not getting into this stuff, not because I’m holier than thou or out of some false sense of journalistic ethos; I’m not talking about this garbage because I couldn't care less.

Now I may be many things, but an I’m not an idiot. I know full well every daily tabloid in New York has Rodriguez, Madonna, assorted boyfriends and spouses plastered on its front and back pages.

But by now when the subject of the latest dingbat starlet, Hollywood scandal or breakup comes up, people affiliated with this program know to skip it because I just won't spend my time on stuff you see on the rags at the supermarket checkout line.

But because we are an interactive program that pays more than lip service to the premise that you the viewer have a stake in the show, the least I owe those who ask why we ignore these kind of stories is a reason.

My wife would be more than happy to tell you I spend way too much time following the Yankees, but you could not pay me to have the faintest interest in the latest drama with A-rod. I want the guy to hit the ball, catch the ball and throw the ball. I couldn’t care less about who he sleeps with or whose arms his jilted wife is running into. Like other entertainers, his job is to entertain me. I am not invested in their lives; don't want to live vicariously through them; am not pained or overjoyed by their personal lives. I've never understood people who are devastated by a Hollywood couple breakup. They don't care about your relationship and almost always don't ask you to care about theirs. Here’s a novel concept: Worry about your own life and stop trolling for gossip on others or feed the beast that is the cottage industry of the new media.

I love the people who rail against the intrusive papparazzi, but are the first in line to snatch the latest issue of the magazine's with glossy covers of Britney Spears’ latest meltdown, pouring gas on a situation everybody knows is close to flameout.

Or how about those lovely spreads of one cellulite backside after another, where the magazine asks you to match the actress with her butt (a picture, may I add, they often snap when she's walking on the beach with her kids)? Just curious how many of you ladies would like some photog stalking you for an unflattering shot in a bikini?

But let me come back to my main point. While I find it ugly for readers to follow the latest flavor's bulimia watch, or other assorted human frailties - why in god's name does anyone care?

Now I can almost hear the person saying, “Wait a second, Rich. How come it's okay to go nuts over a lawmaker with a hooker or playing footsie in an airport men's room?”

Here's the difference:

Politicians ask us for our votes and more importantly, as was the case with Spitzer and Craig, play moralists in judgment and governance of other's lives.

In the end I won't spend time on these tabloid stories because there inane, I couldn't care less and most importantly, I refuse to feed the beast. Do me a favor, even if you think I’m dead wrong, or I don't get it, objectively step back and look at what all these stories have in common. They delight in the misery of others. The sheer joy the tabloids are having with the Rodriguez story is off the charts. I remember the good laugh a few people had looking through the pics of Britney’s latest follies in child care. We are talking about a child, right?

How about the morbid fascination with the body bag of Heath Ledger? It gave me the creeps. Look at reality TV, bullying on-line…the list goes on and on.

So get a grip, get a hobby, get a life. This garbage isn't news, it's rubbernecking on the human highway of self destruction. You can stop for a gawk, but I won't be putting up the pictures.

This tragedy ought to make every one of us sick and mad for two very different reasons. First, of course, is the impossible contradiction of the promise of our hospitals to save and care for their patients versus the video of staffers treating Esmin Green as road kill to be ignored in dying and death. Area residents may have been shocked by the video, but few were truly surprised.

Kings County Hospital, and others like it, are America’s dirty little secret. They’re where we send our poor and mentally ill to get whatever care they can get, out of sight, out of mind. The only reason the case is now on our radar is because the video became public. But don't kid yourself; this wasn't one bad day at the hospital, this was just one caught on camera.

About a year ago, a state agency filed a lawsuit calling the psychiatric center at Kings County Hospital "a chamber of filth, decay indifference and danger...Patients are subjected to overcrowded and squalid conditions often accompanied by physical abuse and unnecessary and punitive injections of mind altering drugs...From the moment a person steps through the doors, she is stripped of her freedom and dignity and literally forced to fight for the essentials of life."

The suit said the hospital's emergency ward was the worst of the worst; patients marooned for days, literally forced to sit on the floor, bathrooms filthy and fly ridden, and that patients with the temerity to complain too loudly are sometimes handcuffed, beaten or injected with psychotropic drugs.

We should all be outraged and we should all demand change; but there is the other part of this story that is part of a bigger problem with our society. Esmin Green writhed in pain and died in front of staffers, security guards and patients and nobody lifted a finger.

A month ago in Hartford, CT, Angel Torres was struck in broad daylight on a crowded street. As the 78 year-old lay motionless on the road, the hit and run sped off and passerbys and motorists just looked on. Angel Torres will be on a ventilator for the rest of his life.

Last year a 43 year-old woman writhed on a L.A. County Hospital floor; again, no one could be bothered to lift a finger. When her boyfriend begged the police for help, he was arrested for a parole violation.

It is said we should be judged as a society by how we treat the least among us. If that's the standard, I suggest we are in deep trouble.

Gen. Wesley Clark had the temerity to suggest that John McCain's military service, admirable as it was, might not automatically qualify him for president.

Cue the Mother of All Hissy Fits! Conservative blogs were outraged!....Even more than usual. McCain's base, the media, excoriated Clark for "criticizing" McCain's military record - even though Clark did no such thing. As with certain high-profile teevee pundits making bone-headed rookie mistakes - repeatedly - these network anchors are well-paid enough to master the simple art of reading comprehension:

It’s crucially important that we have a political debate in this country that’s at least sophisticated enough to be able to handle the following rather basic idea: Arguing that a person’s record of military service is not a qualification for the presidency does not constitute “attacking” their military credentials; nor can it be described as invoking their military service against them, or as denying their record of war heroism.

That’s not a very high bar for sophistication. But right now it’s one the press isn’t capable of clearing.

Some even suggested Clark's comments were an attempt at "Swiftboating." But that word does not mean what they think it means:

Now that “swift-boating” has entered the vernacular, let us remember that the original SwiftBoat Veterans for “Truth” were for the most part neither in their hope to take down Kerry’s candidacy. Has Wesley Clark in some way made any untrue allegations in saying that being a POW and a non-combat era fighter pilot does not necessarily qualify you for the highest elected office in the land?

Not according to John McCain:

Clark’s argument that military service is not sufficient alone to be president is an argument that has been made by McCain himself:

- During an interview with National Journal, John McCain was asked if “military service inherently makes somebody better equipped to be commander-in-chief.” McCain said, “Absolutely not…I absolutely don’t believe that it’s necessary.” [National Journal, 2/15/2003]

- I believe that military service is the most honorable endeavor an American may undertake. But I’ve never believed that lack of military service disqualifies one from occupying positions of political leadership or as Commander and Chief. In America, the people are sovereign, and they decide who is and is not qualified to lead us. [American Legion Speech, 9/7/1999]

- Earlier this year at Washington’s Gridiron Club, where humor is the required fare, McCain lay bare what underlies his candidacy. Wearing a jacket outlandishly festooned with dozens of fake military medals, McCain said, “The question I ask myself every morning while shaving in front of the mirror is: OK, John, you’re an incredible war hero, an inspiration to all Americans. But what qualifies you to be president of the United States?” [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 11/7/1999]

Of course, that was the old John McCain. The "new" (but still old) John McCain thinks differently, and is apparently impervious to irony:

In hopes of nipping any criticism in the bud, the [McCain] campaign brought on board a man quite familiar with how these types of attacks gain legs: Bud Day, a fellow POW who was part of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that worked so hard to defame Sen. John Kerry's own Vietnam record.

McCain's campaign would prefer that the only person to talk about McCain's service should be McCain. He mentions it constantly, and even has footage of his tiome as a POW in a campaign ad. So that pretty much puts it on the table. And Josh Marshall at TPM thinks it's a good discussion to have:

Does McCain's military record mean that even the Democrats have to concede the point that he's more qualified to be commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, that his foreign and national security policy judgment is superior to Obama's? It's simply a fact that McCain has a record of really poor judgment on a whole list of key foreign policy and national security questions.

His apparent willingness to bomb Iran first and ask questions later, for example.

But all this is beside the point. For years, one of conservatives' bread and butter plays was smearing the military service of anyone* who disagreed with them, Bush, the Iraq War or any aspect of the GWOT (* see John Kerry, Scott Beauchamp, and of course Gen. Wesley Clark).

And while Clark said his comments were his own and did not represent Barack Obama's views in any way, conservatives are still trying to tie the two together:

If the willingness to fight for your country, put your life on the line and suffer the brutality McCain suffered as a POW doesn't make the cut as far as qualifications go, how far below that does a "community organizer" show up on the list of non-qualifications?

Let me see if I can explain this.

On the left is Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer. On the right is John McCain's military service. You can make juice out of both, but beyond that, they aren't really comparable and shouldn't be the only considerations when ordering breakfast.

Or electing a president.

Winston Churchill once said, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." These days the lies come in anonymous emails, rightwing blog posts and via FOX News, repeated by Rush Limbaugh and the cashier at the supermarket. They are legion:

So we’ve all heard the rumors: Obama is a Muslim. Obama isn’t American. Obama hearts terrorists (and gives terrorist fist-jabs). Obama is too black. Obama is not black enough. Obama is a thug. Michelle Obama is Barack Obama’s baby-mama. Obama wants to give up all of our rights to the Muslims, and probably the French, too. Obama is every right-wing scare tactic ever.

And all it takes is for normal Americans, non-political junkies who are only tangentially aware of the Democratic candidate with the funny-sounding name, to hear these rumors repeated ad nauseum as the gospel truth...and believe it. People like the good citizens of Findlay, OH, aka Flag City, USA, profiled on today's cover of the Washington Post:

[Jim Peterman] believes a smart vote is an American's greatest responsibility. Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama continues to eat at him.

On the television in his living room, Peterman has watched enough news and campaign advertisements to hear the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service. But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor's house, at his son's auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate's background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

"It's like you're hearing about two different men with nothing in common," Peterman said. "It makes it impossible to figure out what's true, or what you can believe."

Well, no, not impossible. Because all of the rumors, from flag pins and faith to his heritage and “questionable patriotism,” are demonstrably false. With proof and everything. But when critical thinking has gone the way of pet rocks and platform shoes, it may not make a difference:

The problem is, of course, that even when they’re "corrected", the correction is simply another story they're being told about Obama, one they then weigh against the story they're being told by their friends and neighbors, and one that they're allowed to approach as if they're simply equivalent narratives.

Reading the Post’s piece, I’m reminded of William F. Buckley saying the job of conservatives was "to stand athwart history, yelling, 'Stop!’” Small town America is often more conservative than its urban counterpart, suspicious of change and the inexorable flow of history that threatens their idyllic status quo. They’re set in their ways and quite happy about it – and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, except when reality needs to be perverted to maintain the illusion. There’s a term for this kind of behavior, and it’s not a kind one:

A friend of mine emailed me recently, mentioning that he and I have a mutual acquaintance who believes all of the same nonsense about Obama (and then some). When he tried to set our friend straight, it was pointless. Any and all evidence was simply rejected out of hand.

He asked what to do. I’m at a bit of a loss. Someone who hears a lie, is given evidence that proves it’s a lie, but chooses to believe the lie anyway is being willfully ignorant.

Fortunately some people aren't taking willful ignorance lying down:

The Obama campaign is fighting back with television ads and its rumor-debunking website, plus it has a couple college students going door to door in the town trying to set the record straight. But seeing as how people seem to believe the rumors because they hear them from people they know and trust, you wonder if the Obama campaign's tactics will actually work.

Good luck on that. When each new day brings a new internet headline like – honest to god – this one:

Is Obama devotee of monkey-god idol?

...they've got their work cut out for them.

Appeasement!

President Bush on Thursday lifted trade sanctions against North Korea and moved to remove it from the U.S. terrorism blacklist, a remarkable turnaround in policy toward the communist regime he once branded as part of an "axis of evil."

Activist Judges!

Americans can keep guns at home for self-defense, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in the justices' first-ever pronouncement on the meaning of gun rights under the Second Amendment.

The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's ban on handguns. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most federal firearms restrictions intact.

Liberal Media!

The Washington Post’s ‘fair and balanced’ op-ed page: four conservatives and David Broder.

War is Over!

Long time readers know I am a fan of Barron's, and frequently reference the usually fine Econoday updates of daily economic data. But the NYT's Floyd Norris points to what can only be described as the single most absurd commentary on Sentiment data you will likely read in your lifetime.

"Consumer confidence is unusually low, at its fifth all time worse reading in 40 years of Conference Board data. The Conference Board's consumer confidence index literally plunged in June, down nearly 8 points to 50.4. The expectations component is at a record low of 41.0, down more than 7 points, with the present situation at 64.5, down nearly 10 points for its worst reading since the early part of the ongoing expansion in 2003. But there is an expansion still underway and this is not a time of war, which makes the results difficult to figure."

Normally at this point in our conversation, I would be railing about whether the economy is expanding, given the negative readings in jobs creation, manufacturing, income, and consumption, and how understated inflation makes GDP look better than it is regardless.

But considering that this is not a time of war, I must have another explanation. It seems I have fallen thru a tear in the fabric of spacetime into an alternate universe.

That would explain a lot.

But not everyone else is...

UPDATE: ...and a new meme is born.

A giant in American journalism, Tim Russert - NBC News Washington Bureau Chief and host of the seminal political gab fest Meet the Press - passed away today, dead of a heart attack while working on the job at NBC. He was 58.

I had often been a critic of Russert, not because I thought he was bad at his job, but because it was readily apparent that he had all the tools, skills and, certainly, the platform to be better at his job than he often was. And even at that, he was often leagues above his contemporaries.

And then, when we least expected it, Russert had an epiphany, of sorts:

What he said bears repeating:

MATTHEWS: What about John McCain perhaps being attended by his bad angels? Some time in October deciding that he has to win this campaign in the worst way. Isn’t there a tremendous opportunity against a guy named Barack Hussein Obama to run a very tough negative campaign and win, perhaps not in a happy country, but just win it in the worst way. Isn’t that opportunity just sitting there for him?

RUSSERT: Well, I think you heard Senator Obama talk about wedge issues of patriotism and religion, trying to put that down as a marker. I’ve heard Mike Murphy, a former McCain adviser, saying that he thinks that Senator McCain should not be criticizing Senator Obama as much as he has, but be much more optimistic and not be seen or perceived as angry. But I don’t think that’s the kind of campaign Senator McCain wants to run. There may be some so-called independent groups, 527s, who might take a different tack.

But in an interesting way, based on our previous conversation, it’s a role I think the media can play, in really trying to keep pushing this back to this big debate on big issues and not get caught up in a lot of this minor skirmishing that goes on and videotape that gets released where we just run wild with it and sit back and say, what happened? Why did we not cover some of these big differences like Iraq, like Iran, like negotiating around the world, like health care? There’s profound differences between McCain and Obama in health care.

[emphasis added]

Yes, Mr. Russert, there are. And I am profoundly sorry that you won't be here to help point those out.

I speak for everyone at RNN in expressing condolences and respect to his grieving friends and family.

Sunday mornings won't be the same.

Given her "What does Hillary want?" non-concession concession speech last week, many Democrats were concerned about Hillary's follow-up this weekend. As it turned out, concerns were unwarranted, as Hillary hit all the right notes and delivered the speech many hoped she would give last Tuesday night.

Let the healing begin!

This was the speech that she needed to give. Senator Clinton showed class, courageousness, determination and a unshakable commitment to the causes she and the Democratic party believe in - yes, there were bumps in the road over the last 16 months, but she never gave up and we commend her for sticking to her guns.

They say the best speech a politician ever gives is the one following a loss, and this was easily Hillary's best. Reviews were glowing almost across the board. Even passionately-pro-Clinton bloggers like Taylor Marsh were ready to turn the page:

Hillary Clinton did what she needed today and then some. No reservations. No pauses. Complete commitment.

Hillary is a better candidate today and all I can do is dream about tomorrow. I stand by her today, tomorrow, anywhere, any time, any year. Today and tomorrow that requires me to do everything I can to defeat John McCain, and make sure Barack Obama is elected president in November. That's exactly what I intend to do.

An argument can be made that the prolonged Democratic primary process was good for Democrats: massive increases in registered voters in all 50 states; vetting of Obama's background to pre-empt the coming GOP attacks; record fundraising for Democrats. But the scars are all too visible. Schisms in the progressive blogosphere were stark. While a majority of left-leaning blogs either declined to choose sides outright (even if a majority of those approved of Obama's campaign style more than Clinton's), many A, B and C-list blogs made no bones about which candidate they supported, and which they despised.

Of the pro-Obama/anti-Hillary blogs, the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, AMERICAblog, Oliver Willis all either praised Clinton's speech and (to varying degrees) welcomed their Hillary-supporting brethren and sistren back into the fold - or at least if they had nothing to say, said nothing. Of that lot, the worst had to be Andrew Sullivan, sufferer of CDS (Clinton Derangement Syndrome) from way back, who, while praising Hillary's speech, couldn't help but get in one last dig:

I think history will show that she didn't quite have the talent to do it on her own steam, but that she made it much easier for another woman to become president one day. Her two biggest problems: She first married a man who was her political superior and was then defeated by one. She is a very talented politician but it was her fate to find her career hemmed in by two even more talented ones: Bill and Barack. She made up for it all with enormous hard work, diligence and ruthlessness. At any other moment, she would have won. But this is history and politics at the highest level. You cannot defeat such a moment if you are a Salieri. And she had to deal with two Mozarts.

Buh-bye.

Classy. Guess the Soul of a Conservative just can't let go of some things. To wash that bitter taste out, I suggest this post from John Cole at Balloon Juice, another former conservative-blogger-turned-reality-based-community-resident who, despite a deep and abiding dislike for the Clintons, managed to find a graceful nugget of empathy on what must have been Hillary's hardest day:

Clearly, this is a concession and Clinton is now ready to move forward. We’ve all given the Clintons a very rough time here over the past couple months – so much so that we could, at times “no longer rationally discuss” it. Fair enough. Her camp has aggravated us. At the same time, I really kind of feel for her. For years, it has been assumed that Hillary Clinton would be the first woman president of the United States. It was also assumed, rightly or wrongly, that this would happen this year, and I have no doubt that was in her plans (and those of the Democratic Party) all along. At the beginning of this campaign, nearly all of us assumed she would be the nominee until this phenomena named Barack Obama joined the race.

So while I didn’t like it, I can completely understand how Hillary wanted to go right till the end, making every argument she could, even when to the rest of us it seemed irrational. It was her dream job and she was going to make history. But someone else comes along who’s going to get that dream job and is also going to make history. It’s got to be quite a kick in the stomach. Think about it: You apply for the job of a lifetime. You know you’re going to get it because there is no competition. You psych yourself up, knowing the job is yours and the interview process is merely a formality. All of a sudden, a new candidate for the job comes along and becomes the favorite with the recruiting manager.

On the other side of the coin, pro-Hillary/anti-Obama blogs like the aforementioned Taylor Marsh, TalkLeft and Corrente all agreed (again, to varying degrees of begrudgement) to support Obama as the party's nominee.

So everyone can all hold hands and sing Kumbayah now.

Well, almost everyone.

In every war, there are casualties, and in the Great Democratic Primary War of '08, the most noticeable loss was that of former CIA spook and lefty blogger Larry Johnson at No Quarter. During the campaign, like the other pro-Hillary/anti-Obama blogs, No Quarter trafficked in the rightwing talking points about Obama: "Bittergate", Rev. Wright, "illegitimate" election, "elitist", etc. But once the candidate herself drew the line for her supporters and urged them to unify behind the man with the most delegates, Larry and Co. said "Hell no, we won't go!"

I never imagined that less than 24 hours after Hillary suspended her campaign some of her most ardent supporters would overdose on the Cult-Aide...Have the pod people taken over???...
Nothing has changed. Obama did not become qualified because Hillary was forced to suspend her campaign. All of the horrible things we know about Obama and his unelectability are still real. There is no magic wand that can make it go away.

Disappointment is understandable. Clinton ran an historic campaign and came thisclose to being the first female presidential nominee. That’s a tough pill to swallow. But if time doesn’t heal all wounds, maybe cold reason will:

Clinton supporters understand who the nominees are. I suspect they are not about to vote for an anti-choice Bush third termer like John McCain, who is on the wrong side of every issue Hillary cares about, and who will appoint Supreme Court justices that will be with us for years to come, but we shall see.

If you can't accept your own candidate's eloquent call for unity as the best way to advance the ideals your own candidate stands for, might I make a suggestion? Take your voter registration card – the one that says “Democrat” – and rip it up. Then, go out and register as a Republican. Campaign, blog and rant to your heart’s content in support of John McCain. It’s time to re-evaluate which side you’re on.

I admit, I hadn't thought twice about this moment when I saw it. After walking out into the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, MN to give his victory speech upon the conclusion of the Bataan Death March Democratic primary process, the presumptive Democratic nominee shared a hug and a kiss with his wife, Michelle, and then the two shared a moment that was almost more intimate than the kiss; a fist-bump, a small, private gesture of celebration between the two. I thought it was telling for a campaign that has it's own signature way of doing things, but mostly I thought, "what a sweet gesture."

Little did I know what malice lurked in such a seemingly innocent gesture.

First the press zeroed in on this novel gesture, as if they had just discovered a new tribe in the wilds of Borneo. The gesture has only been around for decades, but I'm guessing DAP (short for Dignity and Pride) doesn't get thrown around much at Beltway cocktail parties.

And with good reason!

Teasing a segment on the "gesture everyone seems to interpret differently," Fox News' E.D. Hill said: "A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? ... We'll show you some interesting body communication and find out what it really says." In the ensuing discussion with a "body language expert," Hill referred to the "Michelle and Barack Obama fist bump or fist pound," but at no point did she explain her earlier reference to "a terrorist fist jab."

It's either that, or the Obamas are flashing secret gang signs.

This has been a very educational campaign season. Who knows what ruin our country would've come to if we hadn't discovered all the ghetto thugs and terrorists in Major League Baseball.

New numbers from the Labor Department have left economists aghast. In the month of May unemployment jumped a shocking half a percent to 5.5%, the biggest spike since the 1980's. Digging into the numbers, many noticed an unusual jump in the number of teens and 20-somethings looking for work in may. It appears an early start to the summer job hunt might be skewing the numbers. But economists say there is no question, the nation's job market is getting worse. Businesses handed out 49,000 pink slips last month, with workers in construction, manufacturing and retail all seeing jobs vanish at a quick pace. This month's jobs report is the fifth in a row where employers have cut positions. So far, 2008 has seen almost 325,000 jobs disappear thanks to the economic slowdown.

And here's a sobering thought: Statistics say that in just a few years, 3.5 million jobs will have been sent overseas, American jobs outsourced as cost-saving measures by companies who are employing cheaper labor around the globe. Outsourcing is far from a black and white issue, as everyone tries to adjust to the growing global economy.

In a way the issue of outsourcing has its roots in WWII. Protectionism, it can be argued, drove the Japanese attacks. Our leaders after the war decided in their wisdom that we could not wall off the world, and the results have been good for America. But while we've historically enjoyed trade surpluses, in recent years that surplus has turned into an ever-growing deficit.

In business, nobody promises you a profit. As a champion of capitalism, I accept the risks with the rewards of trade. But the problem today is that we’re losing on an uneven playing field and, even worse, many of our own are the worst offenders. I'm all for making a buck, I even get that the global economy for some means outsourcing or closing up shop. But for entire industries in America, jobs are getting shipped overseas and pink slips are getting handed out by the thousands to U.S. workers - just because they can. CEO's get even more obscene pay packages, foreign workers still get exploited and worst of all the offenders get rewarded - not condemned - by our government. In the bizarre world that can only be Washington, a company that shutters its plant stateside, sends jobs to China and sets up a corporate shell in the Caymans actually gets rewarded with a de facto tax shelter.

I’m not here to rewrite the tax code, but I do know this: If you take advantage of all this country has to offer, then cut and run to make the heftiest profit margin you can, there ought to be price. Again, I believe in capitalism, but if you're willing to do anything to make a buck, you ought to pay the piper.

This:

...to this:

QOTD from Attaturk at Eschaton:

"Oh, Go with the Green Background"

"It'll make you look like the cottage cheese in a lime jello salad" Always a good look for an older gentlemen.

The aesthetics of McCain's speech, just mercifully completed before a slightly energized crowd of literally dozens, was awesome in how dreadful it was.

On substance, it's kind of hard for anyone to compare to the first African American acknowledging his nomination as standard-bearer for a major political party and odds-on favorite to be the next president of the US. But when McCain's substance consisted of loud protestations that he's not really a third term for Bush, while mirroring him on just about every major policy point, perhaps he should have just taken a pass Tuesday night.

On style...? While I doubt the lime green background was McCain's idea, his PR handlers should be thoroughly horse-whipped for letting him stand in front of it. On rhetorical style, McCain's halting, sweating speech, riddled with difficulties reading his teleprompter in front of a (small) roomful of 200 or so bored supporters in which he bltantly ripped off the Obama campaign message (to an awkward effect)...Well...I'll let his biggest fans weigh in with what they thought:

QOTD II:

I’m listening to John McCain’s speech (live) down in Louisiana as I type this.

My prediction: the Republicans are going to get beat like a red-headed stepchild this fall. Sigh.

Do presidential debates have mercy rules?

Before we get into the backroom politics and the mystery of “will he or won't he ask her to be his VP” – let’s step back for a moment, take a breath and remember this moment in history.

Whether you were a Hillary supporter like myself, or even a Republican with no intent of voting for Obama in your lifetime - take a mental snapshot of this moment and be proud that you lived in a time in American history where you witnessed what many believed, even a few years ago, we would not witness in our lifetime. A black man, in a post 9/11 world, with a name like Barack Hussein Obama, is representing his party for president.

Not many years ago, Obama wouldn't have been allowed to vote or even share a cab with a white guy, let alone marry a white woman. In five months he is the odds-on favorite to become leader of the free world, shepherding in a chapter in history, I believe, will be the most important in my lifetime.

Nobody needs to tell me all the problems we have in America. We’re stuck in a war; the economy is a mess; the gap between the Haves and Have Nots has never been wider. I know this, and I shine a light on it every night. But that doesn't take away from last night. We have come a long way, and while we have a long way to go, we are getting there.

AP tally: Obama effectively clinches nomination

WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, based on an Associated Press tally of convention delegates, becoming the first black candidate ever to lead his party into a fall campaign for the White House.
......
The AP tally was based on public commitments from delegates as well as more than a dozen private commitments. It also included a minimum number of delegates Obama was guaranteed even if he lost the final two primaries in South Dakota and Montana later in the day.

Superdelegates have been pouring in to Obama all day, Clinton says she's "open" to the idea of being Obama's VP, and Michelle Obama has yet to be caught railing against "whitey."

We can has General Election now?

The end may be near and the final curtain dropping for a couple of area Democrats. Obviously, Hillary is the headliner here and I'll get to her end game in a moment. But while the New York senator may have done it her way, Rob Andrews in New Jersey absolutely has done it the wrong way.

In going after fellow Democrat Frank Lautenberg in the Garden State's senatorial primary, Rep. Andrews has launched a scorched earth campaign that burned every bridge he had in his own party, and for what? He has a snowball's chance in you know where of winning, broke his word to the delegation that he wouldn't run and then took a cheap shot on the age issue that nobody will, or should, forget. About the only thing going for Andrews is that nobody will be watching his exit, since we'll all be focused on Hillary's next move.

Unlike almost every other talking head I've had no problem with the former First Lady hanging around. She's toughened Obama up, gotten the dirty laundry out before the general and forced Democratic voters and party elders to make a choice in a very close race. But with Florida and Michigan resolved by the DNC, a decision has been made. After tomorrow night, if Hillary fights on she will quickly learn not many of her steadfast allies are so steadfast. Here's hoping she gets out on her own terms and brokers a deal in everybody's best interest, including hers.

Maybe she'd be the Democrats best chance in November, maybe she'd be the best president, but after last weekend, I believe that ship has sailed. It's been a heck of a race. I, for one, hope it ends now, not in Denver.

So, last week, Barack Obama was giving a speech in New Mexico, and committed the heinous crime of misstating a bit of his family history. He claimed his great-uncle helped liberate the concentration camp at Auschwitz at the end of WWII. That was incorrect, as Republicans and the Crack Conservative Blogger Brigade pointed out with much tsk-tsking and questioning of Obama's fitness for office.

The truth of the matter was that Obama's great-uncle actually helped liberate Buchenwald, a Nazi slave labor camp, and not Auschwitz. And while some resorted to (im)moral equivocation between the two, most conservatives realizing this was not their "Tuzla" moment for Obama, dropped it and the case was closed.

....or was it???

No, to all our amusement, it was not:

Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light did some digging and discovered a website dedicated to preserving the history of the 89th Infantry Division of World War II, the division in which Obama’s great uncle served and helped liberate the Ohrdruf satellite of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Seeking to get to the bottom of a mystery that had been solved hours earlier, Gilbert dutifully fired off an email to the site’s owners, Ray and Mark Kitchell, thus setting up the greatest b**ch slap in history:

—– Original Message —–
From: Steve Gilbert
To: markkitchell@yahoo.com
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.”

And now, the coup de grace:

The reply was quick and to the point:

Please crawl back under the rock you came out from.
Good day

Raymond Kitchell, veteran 89th Inf Div

Watch it all in its slow-motion-train-wreck glory here.

Brings a tear to your eye....

The mayor may be asking why, he may be saying it's unacceptable, but the sad fact is construction mishaps have become so common in New York, nobody should be surprised. Things have gotten so bad congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, whose district has seen two fatal crane collapses, said she's appalled and is calling on OSHA in Washington to come in and do a complete inspection of safety conditions at construction sites. Make no mistake, that’s a clear smack to the mayor, who she and a growing chorus believe isn't getting the job done.

Coming from a fan of the mayor, the outrage is completely legitimate. We've had a City Inspector resign after being arrested for falsifying business records. The city's Building Commissioner was pushed out. But what's changed?

Today's collapse happened at a site that was shut down for a day because they were working without a permit and operating the crane unsafely.

Obviously, New York, we have a problem.

Earlier this week we learned 80% of building plans had violations and the city's self-certification system is part of the problem.

We didn't need a second deadly crane collapse to convince us we have a big problem. Enough talk, enough buck passing Mr. Mayor. Construction workers and the people down below shouldn't have to hold their breath every time a building goes up in the Big Apple.

A conscience is a horrible thing...but my book advance makes it a li'l better.

Scott McClellan was always my favorite White House Press Secretary.

Ari Fleischer and Tony Snow were always too comfortable in a job whose sole purpose is spin. They weren't just good at it, they enjoyed it. On the other end of the spectrum, poor Dana Perino has that ever-present look of someone who's vaguely aware that something is amiss, but as long as she does her job, everything will work out OK. And why not? Most of the things that account for her boss' rock-bottom approval ratings happened before her tenure.

But Scott McClellan, for all his blank stares and robotic repetitions of denial, had soul. You could see the effects of the spin he was in taking its toll on him. While Fleischer and Snow took evident delight in misleading the press, and Perino's denial is as deep-rooted as her loyalty to the administration, Scotty looked more and more physically uncomfortable the weaker his stories became. The cognitive dissonance on his face when he'd utter his catch phrase, "I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation," was writ as large as a Times Square billboard.

And yet - and this is what I loved about him - in the face of all of this, he did the job anyway. Fleischer and Snow, whether they believed what they were saying or not, never let it show, and Perino doesn't seem to know any better. But Scotty did, and he went ahead and lied his fool head off anyway.

Fleischer and Snow have been at the kool-aid trough long enough that they'd never regret a single thing. Perino will likely move on and try to forget this episode in her life ever happened. But I always wondered if, and when, Scotty would break.

And now we know:

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence.

Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):

• 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.

So, Scotty...tell us something we didn't know.

Of course, the White House is "puzzled" and thinks "it is sad" that the Scotty they knew and loved is now "disgruntled" (i.e. like a postal worker! crazy!). Former colleagues are shocked that he never expressed these reservations while serving.

Maybe because he valued his job?

The pushback is inevitable. Already Rove has likened him to a "leftwing blogger." Book sales will be touted as his sole reason for turning against his former master (although Scotty has two other very good reasons named "Rove" and "Libby"). This despite the inherent acknowledgement that Bush is extremely unpopular and Bush-bashing sells (ask Ari Fleischer how his rose-coclored memoir Taking Heat did).)

In the end, McClellan's book serves to underscore two things that come as no surprise to anyone outside of Bush's 28% dead-enders:

Between 2001 and the present, the American press failed miserably:

Just consider how remarkable that is. George Bush's own Press Secretary criticizes the American media for being "too deferential" to the Government. He lays the blame for Bush's ability to propagandize the nation on the media's uncritical dissemination of the Republican administration's falsehoods.

And...ummmm....we told you so:

Scott McClellan tells us Dirty Effing Hippies we were right about most everything. Of course, being right about everything we already knew that.