Category Archives: Politics: McCain

Target-rich environment.

• Obama campaign, Real Change
  
  
• Obama campaign, Still [1982]
  
  
• TalkLeft, John McCain's Record on Drugs
• Political Animal, Rape Exams
• WashPo, Palin Links Iraq to Sept. 11 In Talk to Troops in Alaska — even GWB doesn't do that any more
• National Enquirer (!), PALIN FAMILY SHOCKERS: WHAT SARAH'S REALLY HIDING!
  
  Also, PALIN WAR: TEEN PREGO CRISIS
  [Note: Why it's ok to link to the National Enquirer]
• Eric Muller, Is That Legal?, explains his Five Stages of Palin:
  

  1. Astonishment.
  2. Perverse joy.
  3. Disbelief.
  4. Anger.
  5. Abject terror.

  I'll be stuck at stage 5 from now until Election Day.

• The 'Moose in the Headlights' Moment
  
  
• Juan Cole, Informed Comment, Palin on World Affairs: Just not Ready for Prime Time
• Kos, Moose In The Headlights
• Political Animal, Palin vs Gibson, Round 1
• Atrios, Sympathy For Palin
• W. David Stephenson on homeland security, Can we afford to have such an unprepared person as Veep?
• HuffPo, Palin's ABC Interview: Stumped On Bush Doctrine, Seems To Contradict McCain On Pakistan
• TPM, Painful & Sarah Palin On Bush Doctrine: Homina, Homina, Homina
• ThinkProgress, Palin Stumped On The Bush Doctine, Believes It Is The President's 'Worldview'
• Political Animal, Palin And The Bush Doctrine
• OliverWillis, Sarah Palin Fails The Bush Doctrine Test
• Firedoglake, Sarah Palin's Embarrassing Interview and What It Says About McCain
• Annotated version of the video, John McCain Explains The Bush Doctrine To Sarah Palin
• Why won't McCain face the press? Maybe he's feeling shy. Also, TalkLeft, McCain Afraid Of Olbermann?
• TPM, Ask Her About the Rape Kits
• Kevin Drum, Healthcare, McCain Style
• Picture This: John McCain Visits Criminal's Yacht — the day after he pleads guilty to multimillion-dollar fraud. But it's such a nice yacht….
• Get Energy Smart! NOW!!!,
  • Moving from Denialist to Skeptic?”
  • Sleeping with a Secessionist
  • Bald-faced Deception: McShameless McCain
  • Sarah Palin's Angry: Global Warming threatens “My Guy's” hobby
• Mark Adams, The American Street, Sarah The Impaler — She’s Nuts
• TPM says they are so bad, Like I Said, Four More Years of Bush Would Be Vastly Preferable
• Tapped, McCain: Do Americans Really Want To Work?
• AFL-CIO NOW Blog, Social Security: Obama Would Strengthen It, McCain Would Put Retirement at Risk
• Political Animal, Palin and rape-kit charges (yes, it's every bit as bad as it sounds)
• But, hey, it's OK, McCain has the same disgusting opinion, see Jed Report McCain Voted Against Biden Law Requiring Free Rape Exams
• Needlenose, Dispelling the Palin glamour
• Jim Carlton, Wall St. J, Ethics Adviser Warned Palin About Trooper Issue: Letter Described Situation as 'Grave,' Called for Apology. Links to more about this story, including related stories at Political Animal, Palin's 'grave' trooper scandal
• Watch this interview of John McCain — he can't handle hard questions. And he says Palin's national security credential is that she “knows more about energy than probably anyone else” in the entire USA.
  [Update: I've removed the embedded video. You'll have to click the link to see the video because the automatic starting was driving me crazy.]
  (via AmericaBlog)
• More about just how breathtakingly silly McCain was in the above from Emptywheel at Firedoglake, McCain Makes the Case that Energy State Governors Are Great on National Security
• And still more: Josh Nelson, McCain Thinks Palin Knows More About Energy Than Anyone Else in the United States
• And yet again: Political Animal, McCain still struggling with the basics
• Joe Klein, McCain's Health Care Tax Increase
• Political Animal

, Palin and Pegler

• TalkLeft, McCain Goes Dirty
• Kevin Hayden, What McCain can’t hide
• He loves invasions: ThinkProgress, On Morning Of 9/11 Attacks, McCain Immediately Began Making The Case For Iraq War
• ProgressiveAccountability.org, ProgressiveAccountability.org » John McCain by the Numbers
• Matt Stoller, OpenLeft, Did McCain Tamper with the Drug Enforcement Agency to Protect His Career?. Also, see the video,
  
• ThinkProgress, McCain 'Truth Squad' Surrogate: McCain Supports Equal Pay For Women In 'Concept' Only
• Eschaton, John McCain Has Super Powers
• Reuters describes failed McCain rally – his first without Palin
• AFL-CIO Now Blog, Palin: What Do We Know About Her?
• Political Animal, Thinking like a Republican
• Various writers at Kos,
  • FactCheck Checks McCain FactCheck Facts: McCain “Facts” Not Factual
  • Yet More Creeping Cheneyism
  • Palin to Law: Drop Dead
  • Miss (Non) Congeniality (“Only 35% of moderates view her favorably. In other words, among this key block of voters, Pinocchio Palin is doing about as well as President Bush. For comparison purposes, Joe Biden is viewed favorably by 70% of moderates.”)
  • McCain/Palin '08: The Lie Is The Plan
  • John McCain is a Liar
  • McCain Once Blamed Palin's Bridge for the MN Collapse
  • McCain/Palin: Putting Japan First
• Lessig dissects McCain's (lack of) leadership on tech policy — while heading the relevant Senate committee:
  
  
• Kevin Hayden, The Misery Indexes Haunt McSame (and predict his defeat)
• TMP, Lying Sarah Watch & Lying Sarah Watch
• Do all McCain's people lie? Crooks & Liars, DNC’s Chief Researcher: We Sent “Zero” Oppo-Guys To Alaska — McCain ad says they sent 30…including (gasp!) lawyers.
• Steve Clemmons, The Washington NOte, Lincoln Chafee Refers to Sarah Palin as a “Cocky Whacko”
• Informed Comment, Eyewitnesses: Palin Asked Repeatedly about Removing Books: Eyewitness: “No Way it was Rhetorical.”
• McCain Means The Draft
  
  
• Spot the pig: Joe Klein, Apology Not Accepted
• 
• An oldie but goodie:
  John McCain vs. John McCain
  
  
• TalkLeft, Newsweek: Palin Warned By Court To Stop DisparagingTrooper
• Kos, Grand Old Perverts
• Political Animal, OMG The Cub Scouts!
• DeLong, John McCain Lies All the Time, About Everything
• Political Animal, The Colbert strategy
• TPM, Lying Sarah Watch
• Next shoe drops on the Palin per diem story: it's taxable income. So says U.Pitt Law Prof Tony Infanti, in Taxing Sarah Palin’s Per Diem. Did Palin declare this income on her federal and state tax returns? Will she release her tax returns? Cf. Jack Bog's Blog, Governor Palin, your tax return, please.
• Jonah Gelbach, Prawsblog, Palin's Tax Record: Offsides? Icing? High Sticking?
• Fred Clark, Slacktivist, Gov. Palin and the Fib from Outer Space
• Over at ABC's blog, Pigs Are Flying
• Emptywheel, Sarah Palin's Failure as Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska National Guard
• Obama campaign statement on Governor Palin's repeating the debunked “Bridge to Nowhere” claim today
• This smells like an abuse of power: Brandon Friedman, VetVoice, Alaska National Guard General Changes Story; Palin [Suddenly] Promotes [Him]
• E. J. Dionne Jr., WashPo, Pulling the Curtain on Palin
• Fafblog, Sarah Palin Sarah Palin Sarah Palin!
• James V. Grimaldi & Karl Vick, WashPo, Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home; Taxpayers Also Funded Family's Travel. Great quote from former Gov. Tony Knowles: “clearly, it is and it looks like a scam — you pay yourself to live at home.”
• John Aravosis, AmericaBlog,Wasilla charged rape victims for their own forensic exams under Mayor Sarah Palin?
• Political Animal, Losing the pundits, one by one
• TPM, Unfit for High Office
• Political Animal, Pure sleaze
• ThinkProgress, Lies To Nowhere: The McCain Campaign’s Inaccuracies On Palin’s Bridge To Nowhere Support — even has a counter
• Crooks & Liars, History of the Hot tempered John McCain
• War and Piece: quotes Hillary Clinton in Florida today: “Asking the Republicans to clean up the mess they made is like asking the iceburg to save the Titanic.”
• Obama, “No Maverick” Ad
  
  
• My Cat Wears Clothers, Sarah Palin hates cats: out of Palin's 6 best friends only one of them will commit to voting for her.
• HuffPo, Sarah Palin: A Trojan Moose Concealing Four More Years of George Bush
• DeLong, 23 Reasons to Think John McCain Has Bad Judgment
• Sarah Palin: Maverick to Nowhere
  
  
• Political Animal, Obama questions GOP 'change'
• CQ Politics, Palin Less Upset by Alaska's Other 'Bridge to Nowhere'
• HuffPo, Palin Makes Her First Gaffe; also Kevin Drum, Gaffe Watch
• McCain on the Border (en espanol)
  
  Translation:

  Al Punto on Univision: But, talking about secure borders,

  John McCain: Sure

  Al Punto: You voted for the construction of the wall between Mexico and the United States. However, the Mexican Government has just confirmed that every year, at least half a million Mexicans come to the United States. How exactly are you planning to secure that border? Every single minute there is an immigrant coming into the United States illegally.

  McCain: I didn't vote for, quote, I am not sure what you are talking about, but we can secure,

  Al Punto: About 700 miles

  McCain: I say we can secure our borders with walls and/or fences in urban areas, and then virtual fences, vehicle barriers

  Al Punto: But you did vote for the wall

  McCain: I didn't vote for an, I don't know what you are exactly what you are referring to. What my plan was…

  Al Punto: In the Senate, you voted…

• MoJo Blog, Sarah Palin's Secret Emails
• Sebastian Mallaby, WashPo, McCain's Convenient Untruth
• South of the Suwannee, The Dilemma
• TalkLeft, Alaskans Assess Palin's Leadership and Follow-Through
• TalkLeft, McCain Afraid Of Olbermann?
• Crooks & Liars, Face The Nation: McCain Defends GOP Lack of Diversity By Ignoring the Question
• They're not just avoiding the press, it seems McCain & Palin won't answer questions from members of the public.
• This e-mail is so viral, my dad sent it to me: From a Housewife Hated by Sarah Palin for Defending the Librarian. And according to NPR, it's real.
• Incredible Sarah Palin's Pregnancy Decision Tree (too big to fit here), via Eye on Miami, Sarah Palin: Decision Chart: After the Water Broke. By Geniusofdespair
• Minette Marrin, The Times (London)This cynical choice has left McCain’s honour in shreds
• emptywheel, Rather than Vetting Palin, McCain Will Orchestrate a Cover-Up of Her Abuse of Power
• Eye on Miami, McCain and Palin: “being there” and under any circumstances, do not meet the press… by gimleteye
• Joe Klein, Swampland (TIME), No, Actually, It's that the Economy is Falling Apart
• brownsox, Kos, It's Not That John McCain Doesn't Get It, It's That He Just Doesn't Care
• David Lightman and Matt Stearns, McClatchy Newspapers, McCain's history of hot temper raises concerns; see also Crooks & Liars, McClatchy, WaPo and Romney Warn About McCain’s Out of Control Temper
• Jim Moore, “The mission of the Palin candidacy is to inject sarcasm, hate, poisonous invective into the US Presidential Campaign.”
• NYT Editorial, John McCain’s Energy Follies
• Crooks & Liars, McCain surrenders GOP Party Platform. Includes Palin’s hard lined stance on Abortion
• AP via MSNBC, Palin church promotes conversion of gays: VP candidate hasn't expressed views on 'pray away the gay' movement
• Priceless Daily Show Clip (I): John McCain's Big Acceptance Speech

• Priceless Daily Show Clip (II): John McCain: Reformed Maverick

• Scholars & Rogues, If she’s a feminist, we should be able to ask who cares for Sarah Palin’s kids
• TRex, SOS! — “How do YOU clean stubborn spots off your resume?”
• HuffPo, 'Thrown Away Flags' Story False, Dem Convention Official Says
• Palin in Hiding: Political Animal, No interviews for you
• Mark Fiore, Fun with John and Sarah
• TPM, Meme Taking Hold?
• Steve Clemons, The Washington Note, Well Why Then Did Sarah Palin Try to Fire the Small Town Librarian?
• Fred Clark, Slacktivist, Church & state
• HuffPo, Exclusive: MAD Magazine's Election Coverage, Sarah Palin Edition
  
• Bob Herbert, NYT, Running from Reality
• Eye on Miami, The Non-Profit “Defenders of Wildlife” are not “Wild” About Sarah Palin. By Geniusofdespair
• Saul Friedman, Watchdog Blog, McCain’s Choice of Palin Has Made His Age an Issue
• DeLong, Yet Another Reason John McCain Should Not Be President
• Needlenose, John McCain: Aspiring to be our next vanity president
• Kevin Drum, Palin and the Press
• TalkLeft, Jewish Group Launches Online Campaign Against McCain/Palin
• Informed Comment, Palin Watch
• Troopergate:
  • Sounds like obstruction of justice? Reed Hunt at TPM Cafe puts the question more delicately but still… See Lawyers, Troopergate, and Questions
  • Kevin Hayden, When will the coverups end? Ask John McCain
  • Crooks & Liars, Troopergate: A devastating exposé
  • TPM, Obstruction & Delicate Dance
  • ABC News: Investigation into Palin Now on Fast Track
  • Anchorage Daily News, Palin's stall: Governor is stonewalling the Troopergate investigation
  • Political Animal, Stonewalling in Alaska
  • Alaska Lawmakers to Seek Subpoenas in Palin Inquiry
  • TalkLeft, Alasks Daily News Editorial: Palin Should Stop Stonewalling on TrooperGate
• Really Funny (also sad and sadder): Hunter, Kos, McCain Winning Coveted “Stock Photos” Demographic? (not unrelated incompetence: Crooks & LiarsMcCain’s Convention Backdrop Epic Fail
• AFL-CIO, McCain-Palin: Still Offering Nothing for Working Families
• 
• Crooks & Liars, Sarah Palin Slashed Funding For Teen Pregnancy Programs
• Political Animal, That's not waffling you can believe in
• Making Light, I knew John McCain was hot for more wars, but—
• David Brin, Some Things Palin Comparison
• Political Animal, The bogus eBay story; also Mark Adams, The American Street, I Know That eBay Plane Is No Big Deal (but…); Susan Crawford, She didn’t sell the plane on eBay
• Crooks & Liars, Steinem: Sarah Palin “Shares Nothing But A Chromosome” With Hillary
• Political Animal, Comparisons
• Joe Biden on Fire:

  
  

• Lobbyists for McCain (formerly Billionaires for Bush) go to the RNC to hand out “Proud Bush-McCain Republican” stickers to delegates and dignitaries. Hilarity ensues.
• Carla Axtman, Blue Oregon, On Sarah Palin, family values and me.
• Political Animal does a fact check on McCain's speech's two lines about healthcare. Two lines, two lies.
• Sandy Levinson, Rolling the “legacy” dice with John McCain
• Crooks & Liars, GOP Platform Bucks McCain, Backs Palin on Abortion
• Major Garrett, Fox News [!] Blogs, Does John McCain Have a Tax Problem? Answer: Probably
• Daniel Solove, Experience and the Presidency
• Kevin Drum, McCain's Character
• Daily Howler, WITTGENSTEIN’S CHALLENGE! When two fact-checkers fact-checked Palin, we saw why Republicans lie
• Political Animal, The ambiguities of 'reform'
• Brian Tamanaha, The Promise Conservatives Expect McCain To Break: Appointing Judges Who Won't Legislate
• DeLong, Palin Leaves Campaign Trail. Flees North…
• Crooks & Liars, A Visibly Upset Keith Olbermann Castigates RNC 9/11 “Tribute” Video
• Kos, McCain weeps for real estate investors
• CNN Political Ticker: Heart condemns McCain-Palin use of “Barracuda”
• People For the American Way, Right Wing Watch, Bauer Exposes McCain Campaign's Hand's On Role in Crafting GOP Platform
• Crooks & Liars, Colbert Annihilates Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin
• Kos, eBay Jet Sale? Didn't Happen
• Rick Hills, The Emir of Alaska?
• Crooks & Liars, Jeffrey Toobin: I’m not gonna lie, McCain was “shockingly bad”
• Crooks & Liars (and half of the rest of the world), Tom Ridge: “John Bush… err… John McCain is his own man”
• Get Energy Smart! NOW!!!, Sarah “Energy Expert” Palin
• Dependable Renegade, has a great observation:
  

  Hmm. Maybe not the best idea for the candidate nicknamed “McBush”.

  
  
  REUTERS/Jim Young

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.)
• 
• 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)
• 
• 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:

• 
• 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.

I look forward to how the GOP explains that Gov. Palin is ready to be President.

Meanwhile, here is a tiny bit of Palin-bashing, since it is Friday.

• The kindest thing Progressive Alaska can say is that she's Photogenic. Note: the Vogue cover is photoshopped; reality is boring.
• What's the right historical parallel?
  • Jonathan Singer, MyDD, Sarah Palin is Spiro Agnew?
  • Harriet Miers (pace Scarborough)?
  • Dukakis?
  • Powerline, a very conservative blog, says, Geraldine Ferraro: “If she really is the nominee, will it come across as a desperation move, a Hail Mary, as Mondale's choice of Ferraro did in 1984? I'm afraid so. Her experience just doesn't justify a place on the ticket.”
• Palin's Foreign Policy Experience — none, basically.
• A little whiff of scandal: Palin staff pushed to have trooper fired:
  

  Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday revealed an audio recording that shows an aide pressuring the Public Safety Department to fire a state trooper embroiled in a custody battle with her sister.

Some pretty brutal stuff this week. And something subtle too. And then …. THE GAFFE ….

• Peter Swire, Wonk Room, McCain's Privacy Paper Gets His Own Record Wrong
• CNN Politics, Roberta McCain denies lawsuit against son's ex-wife — who you gonna believe, the McCains or those lying court documents?
• WashPo, McCain's Maverick Side: Grandpa Would Be Proud
  Mother's Father Made Fortune on Liquor, Gambling
• TampaBay Trib, Tropical storm costs McCain a million
• ThinkProgress, Jindal stumped when asked to name new 'big ideas' that McCain is proposing. See also Carpetbagger, The dearth of ‘new big ideas’
• ThinkProgress, McCain: ‘I Have Not Missed Any Crucial Vote’ On Energy Legislation (Hint: not even close to true )</li)
• Carpetbagger, McCain, judgment, and a response to the attacks of 9/11
• Carpetbagger, The candidates define ‘rich’. McCain says if you make under $5 million/year you are not 'rich'.
• Seeing the Forest, McCain's “Cross In Dirt” Story Questioned; see also Digby
• Russ Daggatt, georgia on my mind
  

  “You can be forgiven if you haven’t been following closely the fighting between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia. But there are two lessons that we all absolutely must take away from these events:

  1/ Under no circumstances should John McCain become president of the United States and you should do everything you can between now and November 4 to make sure that is the case.”)…

  This was one of those “3 a.m. moments” that this election was supposedly all about (before McCain put oil drilling and Paris Hilton front and center). And McCain failed it. Disastrously. Worse than our worst fears. It is now apparent that McCain would be even more impulsively belligerent than Bush and even more arrogant and unwise in heeding the war-mongering urgings of his neocons advisors.

• More reviews of McCain's tech plan. They are not kind.
  • “[McCain's Tech Plan] reads like some crotchety technophobe knocked over the bumper sticker wrack at an Ayn Rand Reading Revival and tried to rearrange them so it made a policy.” — Harold Feld
  • “Seriously, this is approaching Chuck Norris-level aggrandizement. How delusional does this guy have to be to imagine himself the hero of every situation he's in, to the point that he has to frame himself as a white knight on regulating packet shaping over the internet? I'm actually kind of impressed. Here are the rest of the sub-headings. They are of course not about technology, they are about John McCain.” — Matt Stoller
  • “The McCain worldview scares the hell out of me. Technology is complicated — and the solutions we need are fairly complex — they require an in depth understanding of the problem if you're going to formulate a solution. And McCain clearly doesn't understand some of the core problems… I'm still waiting for McCain to release a real technology plan — one that helps consumers and addresses the problems we're facing instead of protecting corporations and ignoring technology market failings.” — Sascha Meinrath
  • “McCain has delivered his tech policy. And it's clear: This election will determine whether America willfully becomes a third-world participant in the online economy and culture.” — David Weinberger
  • “In summary, the McCain plan says, “What's good for AT&T and Comcast and Cisco and the RIAA is good for America.” It's about their Internet, nor ours.” — David Isenberg
  • “We have already had 16 months of no policy in the technology realm and an admitted lack of knowledge by the candidate himself. Now the campaign can't even get the basics straight on something they absolutely should know — the candidate's own record.” — David Swire
  • “McCain declines to put net neutrality into law. Indeed, he declines to guarantee all Americans the right to obtain the information they want, communicate to everyone they want, send non-obscene and lawful information to anyone they want, over the Internet. Why? What's the hold-up? Why not assure this paradigm?” — Reed Hundt
  • “We see that millions of Americans are using the Internet to help each other out, and to improve the way government works. The Obama technology plan encourages civic engagement and openness. Unfortunately, the McCain plan adopts the Bush/Cheney approach, which promotes privileges for big companies at the expense of democracy.” — Craig Newmark
  • “Where Obama has specifics and new ideas, McCain has old ideas and positions that would be taken for granted in any Administration other than the one now ending. The reason is that McCain has a problem: he's out of step with the real world.” — Kevin Werbach
  • “McCain fails to understand that net neutrality only regulates the internet in the same way the First Amendment to the US Constitution regulates speech!! There are many different kinds of regulation, and this is one that protects the rights of individuals and an entire public good from being victimized by giant corporations.” — Jon Bartholomew
  • “The policy statement starts by addressing McCain's economic policies, which emphasize perpetuation of Bush's low tax on capital gains and reduction of the corporate tax rate…The fact that tax cuts landed at the top of the list reflects the prominent role that the Republican take on fiscal conservatism will play in McCain's policy decisions.” — Ryan Paul/Ars Technica
  • “The computing-challenged McCain, who said that he needs his wife to cut on the computer and check email for him (“I am an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all the assistance that I can get.”), has released his technology “policy”. It sounds like another handout to corporations and a screw you to the rest of us.” — Pam Spaulding
  • “McCain's tech policy is one big giveaway to big corporations, an incoherent, muddled mess that does nothing to address the challenges America faces in vaulting our technological development into the 21st Century. Not only is he against net neutrality, he barely addresses things like wireless spectrum, broadband development, copyright law reform–and when he does, it's invariably in favor of the big business interests to which his campaign is utterly beholden.” — Martin Bosworth
  • “It's been widely reported that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is a self-admitted 'illiterate' when it comes to computers. But some have suggested that he could still put forward sound technology policy because he surrounds himself with tech-savvy advisers, such as former Hewlett-Packard chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina and former eBay president and CEO Meg Whitman. But it's unclear how much he is listening to them. Yesterday, McCain finally released his technology platform. (Until this time, 'technology' was not even listed in the Issues section of his campaign website.) His plan supposedly focuses on innovation, but in reality, it often repeats McCain's previous non-innovative positions, such as his opposition to net neutrality. — Amanda/Think Progress
  • “In outlining his policy, McCain reiterated his opposition to net neutrality, a hot-button issue for many bloggers and technology advocates…
    John McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like “net-neutrality,” but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices.

    He also believes that if you put the internet in neutral, it'll stall.” — Mary Phillips-Sandy/Comedy Central

• Carpetbagger, McCain’s ‘cone of silence’ (it wasn't)
• Bark Bark Woof Woof describes McCain's media strategy as Preemptive Whining
• Little suspecting what was about to blow up, Brave New Films released McCain's Mansions:

• The Inq (UK), US presidential candidate is a pirate
• Carpetbagger, McCain takes credit for a bill he fought against (again)
• Kevin Drum explains how to attack John McCain: tell the truth. In Attacking John McCain he advises making these points:
  

  [W]hy not concentrate on character critiques that have some real grounding in reality? Just to give a few examples:

  • McCain is old and gets confused occasionally.

  • McCain is running an ugly, smear-based campaign.

  • McCain has a legendarily short fuse.

  • McCain is annoyingly self-righteous.

  • McCain's straight talk has evaporated in the face of his need to win evangelical votes.

  Does this sound like commander-in-chief material? I think not. With solid repetition, these can all be made into fairly devastating attacks that have the added benefit of (a) being true, and (b) sounding true. So use them early and often.

• Crooks & Liars, McCain lied about being in the cone of silence at Warren’s Forum… And where is Rick Warren’s outrage?
• The Matthew 25 Network released this ad, Families
  
  This is McCain bashing at its finest, subtly contrasting Obama's virtues with McCain's failings, without ever even mentioning them. (And that was before the next item below!)
• (Cindy) McCain family values, via NPR: Cindy McCain's Half Sister 'Angry' She's Hidden
• DNC, Five Million

• McCain's Iraq (cartoon)
• Via Crooks & Liars
  

• Jack Cafferty, CNN, Is McCain another George W. Bush?
• Kos, McCain Campaign “Clarifies” His Colorado Water Grab Statement
• Yglesias, The Hysteria-Based Foreign Policy
• McCain fellow POW Phillip Butler explains Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain (ok, it's from March, not this week, but I just saw it).
• Huffpo, Vilsack: McCain Puts Oil First, Not Country
• Crooks & Liars, McCain’s “Outrageous” Exaggerations: Voted for earmarks he now rails against
• Unbelievable: Washington Post, Sibling Revelation: An Overlooked Branch of Cindy McCain's Family Tree — Cindy McCain has another never-mentioned half-sister, who (like her father in his will) she also cut off from any share of the family millions. McCain family values in action. See also Ellroon at The American Street, Cindy McCain Lied, who asks quite reasonably, “Can you imagine what would have happened in the media if Michelle had lied like Cindy lied?”
• Kos, McCain Agrees That We Will Not Capture Bin Laden Without a Draft
• Obama Ad plays the Abramoff/Reed card,

• GWU Battleground poll finds that while 69% of voters are extremely or very comfortable with an African American candidate, only 30% are extremely or very comfortable with a 72 year old candidate. In addition, only 40% are extremely or very comfortable with a divorced candidate.
• Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain
• Christian Science Monitor discovers that Cindy McCain lied about meeting Mother Teresa:
  

  The story about Mother Teresa “convincing” Mrs. McCain to bring home two children from an orphanage in Bangladesh has been retold many times. Initially, the “About Cindy McCain” page on the McCain campaign website read: “Mother Teresa convinced Cindy to take two babies in need of medical attention to the United States. One of those babies is now their adopted daughter, 16-year-old Bridget McCain.”

  The media picked up the theme. A story earlier this year on ABC’s “Good Morning America” stated, “With Mother Teresa’s encouragement she brought her fourth child, Bridget, home.” An April 2008 Wall Street Journal profile states that Mother Teresa “implored” Cindy to bring the girls to the United States. Other articles say Cindy did it “at the behest” of Mother Teresa.

  But a source who was with McCain on that 1991 trip, and who asked that his name not be used because of prior legal dealings with the McCain family, says that Mother Teresa was not at the orphanage when Cindy decided to bring the two girls home.

  A 1991 article in the Arizona Star at the time of the adoption only mentions that the children were from an orphanage that was started by Mother Teresa. It does not mention a meeting with Mother Teresa or her asking McCain to bring the girls to the US.

  According to biographies of Mother Teresa, in 1991 she was in Mexico where she developed medical problems. From there, she went to a hospital in La Jolla, Calif.

  A McCain source acknowledged that Cindy McCain did not meet Mother Teresa during the 1991 trip to Bangladesh but said McCain did meet her later on, although the source could not say when or where. The campaign has since reworded the reference to the adoption on its website.

  The story may be worse than it seems; the adoption was during a period when Ms. McCain was addicted to pain pills; her drug dependency might have mixed her up on details. But it appears that's not when the story got embellished — see Mark Nickolas, Huffpo, The Anatomy of a Deception: How The McCains Changed Their Baby Adoption Story Just Before 2008 Bid

• ThinkProgress, Romney: McCain Doesn’t Speak For McCain When He Suggests Renegotiating The Colorado River Compact
• McCain's staff is so afraid of subjecting him to tough questions, they cut off the phone line to a reporter who started asking a hard one. (via Politico)
• ABC News, McCain Backs Away from Abortion Pledge — moderate maverick now says no abortions allowed ever, even in cases or rape or incest. (Which is, I suppose, a more logically consistent view if one believes life begins at conception. But it's not the public's view. And rather hard on the victims.)
• Jonathan Alter, Newsweek, The Smear Gap
• McCain's bad judgment: Judgment? McCain Says He'd Have Picked Cheney, Rumsfeld:

• Kos, “McCain: Simple, Direct, Deceitful”
• Politico, McCain unsure how many houses he owns. The correct answer, by the way, is The McCains own at least seven homes, maybe ten homes — or maybe even more, according to Exactly how many homes does McCain own?. Which is probably why they think “rich” starts at earning $5 million/year … (Cf. Crooks & Liars, $100 Million Man McCain: Rich Not Defined by Income)
• This one isn't going away: McCain can’t remember how many homes he owns. See also DNC:
  
  Daily Kos, McCain can't remember all his houses? The “I don't recall” routine is starting already!; Carpetbagger, McCain owns so many homes, he’s lost count.
• The Obama campaign has a video on McCain's houses that they call “Seven”:
  
  

• House flap manna from heaven for Obama, Dems
• Carpetbagger, The temperament question comes roaring back
• Carpetbagger, A noun, a verb, and ‘prisoner of war’
• Jeb Report, McCain: Still 'The One' For Lobbyists,

• McCain's limp response to the “homes” flap: McCain Camp Plays POW Card On House Gaffe (via HuffPo)
• McCains Bought Second Beach Condo At Around Time McCain Said Struggling Homeowners Needed To Skip Vacations
• Nitpicker, The McCains pay $270,000 per year for butlers and maids—that's $50,000 more than the median value of an American home.
• Open Left, Elite Base,

• Aaron Walker, Help John McCain Count His Houses!

• Did I mention that this gift will keep on giving? Kos, How many surrogates will speak to McCain's housing hoard? I forget.
• John McCain and his Houses:

• dengre, Daily Kos, McCain’s Abramoff Problem: CliffNotes Edition…
• The Fabulous Life of John McCain:

• Eye on Miami, The unknown houses of John McCain, by gimleteye, asks “Someone has the keys to John McCain's houses. They must have keys. Who has them? Do you know where the keys to your houses are?”
• Even Mr. Substance, aka Paul Krugman, approves of piling on the 'Houses' gaffe: see A Very Good Jeer
• Kos, Ahhh, this might be why the GOP is freaking out — how many houses does McCain's veep pick have? If it's Romney then his three puts the ticket's total well into double figures by any count (except McCain's: he'll admit to 'only' four of his own).
• Let's all pile on! TPM, Lifestyles of the Rich And Mavericky
• I love this idea: — joeyess, John McCain's House Keys:

• Next week's issue via Juan Cole's Informed Comment, Security Agreement Undermines McCain; Dulaimi Was Planting Bombs; Awakening Councils Targeted

Turns out McCain's approach to foreign policy is rather more bellicose than anyone (other than a hard-core neo-con) imagined in their most horrible dreams.

• Phoenix New Times, Postmodern John McCain: the presidential candidate some Arizonans know — and loathe. Keven Drum has reactions at John McCain and the Low Road
• Too long for TV, but “The High Road,” independent grassroots pro-Obama ad truth squadding McCain is pretty good:

• Another day, another gaffe, ThinkProgress, McCain Gets His Hamdan Facts Wrong, Falsely Claims He Was Found Guilty Of ‘Supplying Weapons’ In Afghanistan
• TalkLeft, McCain's Lobbyist Problem. It won't go away.
• Crooks & Liars, McCain’s Latest Lie: Obama is the ‘Big Oil’ Candidate
• Carpetbagger, McCain’s DHL problem may cost him Ohio
• Carpetbagger, A tale of two affairs
• John McCain has a problem telling the truth
• Reading Adam Nagourney & Jim Rutenberg's NYT article, Embracing a Free-Form Style, McCain Leads a Camp Divided, you can't help but conclude that this guy's management style is a disaster and he has a short attention span.
• Kos, John McCain & the Opening Ceremony at the Olympics suggests a certain tone-deafness
• Brooks Jackson, Newsweek, Fact Check: More Tax Deceptions — McCain misrepresents Obama's tax proposals again. And again, and again. “Summary
  McCain released three new ads with multiple false and misleading claims about Obama's tax proposals.”
• Crooks & Liars, FNS: Rick Davis Brags On McCain’s Maverick-ness; Facts Be Damned
• From Jesus' GeneralInvesting in McCain:
  
• Las Vegas Sun, McCain's attacks on rival fall flat with vets group
• DeLong, The McCain Campaign Makes Up Its Own Facts on Health Care
• TPM TV, Dazed and Confused:
  
  And then Crooks & Liars goes one two better at, John McCain’s Greatest Campaign Hits
• Carpetbagger, Russia, Georgia, and McCain’s reckless belligerence; Cosmic Iguana, McCAIN – READY FOR WAR … WITH RUSSIA?
• Slightly unfair but likely effective ad being run in Ohio called Job Killing John
  
  Unfair because no one could keep them all in America, so for once McCain is being honest here.
• Taegan Goddard, Political Insider, Did McCain Plagiarize His Speech on the Georgia Crisis? — and from Wikipedia???
• TPM says, if McCain gets elected, You're In Danger (Why? Because as Kos writer smintheus says, McCain on Georgia: Even Cheney isn't bellicose enough
• Obama goes negative on TV (in a 'me too' fashion?) with “Embrace”:

• DNC Ad, Exxon John
  
  Pretty good parody of the infamous John Cornyn commercial (which also got this good response from Rick Noriega).
• Kos, Vote Boredom. Vote Apathy. Vote McCain
• Greg Sargent, TPMEC, McCain Supports Tax Breaks For Oil Industry — But Not For Wind Power
• The Hill, McCain ignoring calls to cancel controversial fundraiser
• Kos, The McCain Myth: Abortion Rights
• Did Scheunemann Engineer McCain's 2005 Nobel Prize Nomination Of Georgian President For Financial Gain?
• OpenLeft, McCain Prepares to Hand the Internet Over to Comcast, Verizon, AT&T
• Crooks & Liars, The Olympic Ad Wars: Obama vs. McCain
• Mark Adams, The American Street, Uhm, So What Century Is McCain Living In?
• NYT, In Split Role, McCain Adviser Is Sometimes a Lobbyist. And who, dare I ask, could possibly object to that?
• On the 73rd anniversary of the Social Security program, FDR's grandson, James Roosevelt Jr., attacks McCain for wanting to privatize Social Security:

• ThinkProgress, U.S. Troops Deployed Abroad Reject McCain's Iraq Plans, Donate 6:1 To Obama
• Joe Klein, at TIME's Swampland blog, is so disappointed in McCain that he seems to be bidding for membership in the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill,
  

  But there is no excuse for what the McCain campaign is doing on the “putting America first” front. There is no way to balance it, or explain it other than as evidence of a severe character defect on the part of the candidate who allows it to be used. There is a straight up argument to be had in this election: Mcain has a vastly different view from Obama about foreign policy, taxation, health care, government action…you name it. He has lots of experience; it is always shocking to remember that this time four years ago, Barack Obama was still in the Illinois State Legislature. Apparently, though, McCain isn't confident that conservative policies and personal experience can win, given the ruinous state of the nation after eight years of Bush. So he has made a fateful decision: he has personally impugned Obama's patriotism and allows his surrogates to continue to do that. By doing so, he has allied himself with those who smeared him, his wife, his daughter Bridget, in 2000. Those tactics won George Bush a primary—and a nomination. But they proved a form of slow-acting spiritual poison, rotting the core of the Bush presidency. We'll see if the public decides to acquiesce in sleaze in 2008, and what sort of presidency—what sort of country—that will produce.

• AFL-CIO brands McCain as a plutocrat willing to trash Social Security.
  
• Is this (“Approval Ratings: The Public v. McCain”) the best anti-McCain ad ever? It could be. It's a grass-roots production by cartwrightdale.

• Ellroon, The American Street, Is that why Mikheil Saakashvili made a direct appeal to John McCain?