Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

I would write something here about McCain's acceptance speech except that — I swear this is true — I literally fell asleep part way through it.

(Note also this week's special Wednesday edition of Wednesday Mostly Palin Bashing.)

• Jeffrey Feldman, Frameshop: McCain Video 'Tribute' Links Iran to 9/11
• Kos, Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up — lots of people thought the McCain speech fell flat. Videos and more at JustMoreOfTheSame.com
• Crooks & Liars, Clock is Ticking as McCain Campaign Hides Palin from the Press
• Political Animal,
  • Thumbs down
  • A swing and a miss
  • Watch What They Do, Not What They Say
• NYT Editorial, Editorial: The Real John McCain
• E. J. Dionne Jr., WashPo, Elegy for a Maverick
• TMZ, Republicans Lack Heart! (GOP rips off artists yet again…)
• TMP, Mystery Solved! — why was McCain posing in front of a photo of Walter Reed Middle School (located in North Hollywood, California)? (Earlier post: Surprised.)
• Kos, Flee the Press
• Rick Perlstein, Sarah's Trigonetry. Brilliant.
• TPM on Team McCain's Editing Goof
• Matt Bodie, Prawfsblawg, Bob Dole, John McCain & Michael Lewis
• Juan Cole, Informed Comment, Rambo and the Mean Girl
• DeLong,
  • John McCain's Bad Judgment, Part CIII
  • John McCain's Awful Judgment, Part LXIII
  • I Am Not Making This Up: John McCain's Bad Judgment, Part XLII
  • John McCain's Bad Judgment—and Ross Douthat's Too
  • John McCain's Awful Judgment, Chapter CCCIII: ABC News Wakes Up!
• Weak effort from worsethanbush.org, Real McCain of Genius: Houses

• TMP, If You Can't Stand Up to the RNC …
• Political Animal, A perfectly functioning teleprompter
• Douglas Rushkoff, Hate Party
• Political Animal, Let's define 'primary responsibilities'
• Crooks & Liars, Delusional John McCain peddles “Alaska is close to Russia” nonsense
• HuffPo, Palin Also Supported The “Road To Nowhere” (And May Still)
• Eye on Miami, McCain and Palin: volatile and unpredictable meets smug and sarcastic … by gimleteye
• Georgia10, Kos, Real Vetting Roundup
• Sarah Palin: Earmark Queen Of The Earmark State
• Kate Klonick and Zachary Roth, TPM Muckraker, Palin As Reformer? Not Quite…
• Bobo2020, Kos, PALIN-tology – Speech rebuttal – 150 issues in 1 week: “I have identified nearly 150 issues, problems, falsehoods, and embarrassing comparisons for McCain's unbelievably reckless VP choice.”
• Vanity Fair estimates the cost of Cindy McCain's convention Outfit at $300,000 — which would make it more expensive than the average home in the USA, valued at $217,800. (According to an analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, the McCains have received $313,413 thanks to George Bush's tax cut.)
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• Community organizers — Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony — might have some differences with Palin's attack on community organizers.
• Daily Show does Palin
• BooMan, On Pitbulls and Lipstick
• Political Animal, The Truman Show

There was just too much to wait for Friday.

Can't she quit the ticket already? Then I could get back to bashing McCain….

• CBS News, John McCain’s campaign threatened legal action against the National Enquirer today for running a story about McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, allegedly having an affair with her husband’s business partner.

OK – We've jumped the shark here. If you don't believe me, see Sarah Palin is your new…

• Romanesko, Everything the press touches about Palin turns into a scoop
• George Bryson, Anchorage Daily News, Official: Palin's never issued an order to Alaska Guard
• Political Animal, 11th-hour vetting
• BarbinMD, Kos, Palin on McCain's “pork list”
• digby, Orthogonian Joan of Arc
• Political Animal, Bringing Home The Bacon, Part II
• Andrew Halcro, Shadow Governor?:
  

  In the aftermath of the Walt Monegan firing, one question keeps surfacing over and over again; why does the governor's husband, Todd Palin appear to hold so much power?

  After all, Nancy Murkowski or Susan Knowles were never accused of pressuring a commissioner or inappropriately sitting in on meetings that should have been private.

  The stories started last year when Representative Ralph Samuels told me about going into a meeting, he thought would be private, with Governor Sarah Palin. Much to his surprise, Todd Palin was there and proceeded to sit through the entire meeting.

  Other lawmakers have shared similar stories and were shocked at how inappropriate Todd's presence was at meetings with the governor.

• TalkLeft, Cindy McCain Says She Disagrees With Palin on Abortion
• Joe Klein, TIME, Angry Amateurs
• MediaMatters, Myths and Falsehoods in Media Coverage of Gov. Sarah Palin
• BoingBoing, Sarah Palin, would-be banner of books; Crooks & Liars, And Banning Books Too?
• DeLong, Sarah Palin = Spiro Agnew
• James Fallows, The Palin pick is not like the choice of Dan Quayle — it's like Clarence Thomas
• Crooks & Liars, More on McCain's Strategic Setback
• Crooks & Liars, Senior Republicans Question McCain’s Judgment
• Redstateresident, Daily Kos, Peggy Noonan says “It's over” because of Palin Pick—Update w/transcript; also Crooks & Liars, Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy’s off air attack of Palin for VP pick. Who’s telling the truth?
• TalkLeft, Palin , Prisoners and the Alaska Prison System
• Jon Soltz, VetVoice, Is the McCain-Palin Campaign Violating Operational Security?
• Dan Froomkin, Unqualified for Duty
• From the Department of Human Shields
• ThinkProgress, Palin digest – continually updated
• Alaska Democratic Party, Palin Claims To Be Reformer, But Will She Vote For Indicted Senator Stevens This November?
• Former POW says McCain is “not cut out to be President”
  
  
• TPM,Palin Refuses To Testify In Trooper-Gate Probe
• OpenLeft, What If They Put On a Republican Convention and No One Came?
• Yglesias grasps the essential: It's about McCain:
  

  Looking at the Sarah Palin debacle, one is reminded that one of the principal powers of the presidency is the power to appoint people — federal judges, ambassadors, cabinet secretaries, subcabinet officials, FEC members, the Amtrak board, all kinds of things. Presidents don’t always put the best people in these positions, but normally they give the matter some thought.

• Sarah Palin and Christian Dominionist Theocracy
• dday, Hullaballoo, Sharks Patrol These Waters (excellent summary of the various Palin scandals up to mid-day Sept. 2, 2008)
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• TPM, Palin's Lobbyist Has Abramoff Ties
• Brandon Friedman, VoteVets Palin as Commander of the Alaska National Guard? Please.
• ROFL: Ben Smith, Politico, Palin's stopover. Or, to put it more bluntly, Palin lied about visiting Ireland as part of her foreign policy experience (John Aravosis, AmericaBlog)
• Obama Campaign Preemptive Response to McCain's Nomination: The Same:

• Palin's Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview (“Pastor Kalnins has also preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war “contending for your faith;” and said that Jesus 'operated from that position of war mode.'”)
• Political Animal, Post hoc vetting
• Emptywheel, Firedoglake, Notice What's Missing from this Thorough List of Vetting Discovery?
• Jake Tapper, ABC News, Members of 'Fringe' Alaskan Independence Party Say Palin Was a Member in 90s & Another AIP Official Says Palin Was at 1994 Convention
• Teddy Partridge, Firedoglake, Alaskans Aren’t Buying Palin’s Bridge Story
• CNN: Tucker Bounds On Palin Foreign Policy Experience:

• Sarah Palin: Birth Control, Sex Ed, and Abortion:

• TPM, Out of Order? (now the vetting starts???)
• Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, Focus Group Hell
• Political Animal, Worst. Vetting. Ever.
• TalkLeft, Palin's Pastors
• Crooks & Liars, John Kerry: Palin Choice Proves McCain’s a “Prisoner of the Right Wing”
• Political Animal, They're running out of arguments
• Paul Collins, Slate, Why Mccain Can't Stop Saying “My Friends.”
• Robert G. Kaiser, WashPo, The Friend He Just Can't Shake (Bush & McCain, BFF)
• The Return of the Mayberry Machiavellis
• She's pretty ignorant, in a politically significant way: JLFinch, Kos, Palin thinks Pledge written by Founding Fathers (just off by 100 years or so)
• TPM, National Security Incredibility & Big Picture & Getting Real
• OK, this video from the Jed Report is pretty mean. But … :

• Political Animal notes the media waking up to McCain's 'Outright lie' on taxes
• Palin's Mother-In-Law Not Sure Who She'll Vote For
• Lauren Weinstein, Chuckle of the Day: Cindy McCain on Palin's National Security Experience
• Crooks & Liars, Just Because McCain Says He’s a “Maverick” Doesn’t Make It So
• Crooks & Liars, FNS: McCain Calls Palin His “Soulmate”
• Crooks & Liars, To Serve For The Wrong Reasons: “What does it say about Sarah Palin that in her first big appearance before a national audience – her introduction as McCain’s running mate – she decided to flat out lie about her accomplishments?” (That she's in a long tradition of GOP Veeps from Agnew to Cheney?)
• Bob Geiger, McCain To Katrina Victims In 2005: You're On Your Own
• HuffPo, McCain Camp Didn't Search Palin's Hometown Paper Archives — and they want to run the country?
• Goldy,Tippecanoe and Palin Too
• TPM, Getting Real About Palin
• Ruth Marcus, WashPo, A Heartbeat Away From Cynicism
• Read this: Tristan Snell, Open Left, Who Chose Palin?
• Judgment: John McCain Owes the Troops a Better VP Pick:

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• The Washington Note, Country First? More like “Country Last”
• Obama Campaign reaction to Palin: No Change
  
  
• Delong, John McCain Says His Behavior While Katrina Hit New Orleans Was “Inappropriate”. No kidding. See the picture.
• BoBo2020 at Kos, PALIN-tology – 45+ Problems for McCain's VP in just 35 hours
• Kos, McCain Hates (Other People's) Property
• Editor & Publisher, Surprise? First Two National Polls Find Palin Gains LESS Support from Women
• Rep. Diana DeGette: Palin Choice an “Insult to Women”
• Palintology
• Exclusive: Chief Fired by Palin Speaks Out
• Crooks & Liars, POWn’d, You Lose!
• smintheus at Kos, Some things you didn't know about Sarah Palin
• smintheus at Kos, He won millions of votes – but isn't on his ticket
• Political Animal (now under new management), collects links to people saying McCain's pick of Palin is evidence that he's off his trolley.