Palin Fought Help for Victims of Rape

I'm not sure if this goes in the insensitivity file, or the lie file. The major TV network news teams have detailed another example of untruthfulness from Palin, and this time it also highlights her incomprehensible - to all reasonable people - insensitivity to victims of rape.

Palin has contended that she fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Moneghan because of insubordination, and has cited as her "last straw" his insistence on going to DC on a trip she is now categorizing as 'lobbying'.

Alaska leads the nation in sexual assaults against women.

The "last straw," the campaign said, was a trip Monegan planned in July to seek federal money for investigating and prosecuting sexual assault cases.

Despite Palin's claim she did not authorize the expenses for the travel, there is clear evidence that she did.

A travel authorization document signed by Palin's Chief of Staff Mike Nizich on June 18 approved Monegan's trip to Washington for the purpose of meeting Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

So she fired the Police Chief of Wasilla because he didn't think women who were raped should have to pay for their own rape kits, and Sarah did.

Then she fired the Public Safety Commissioner because he went to Washington to seek money to prosecute rapists, and Sarah didn't want any money to prosecute rapists.

But dammit, she built a sports arena! And she billed the state of Alaska for 312 days she and her husband and her kids stayed home.

That's priorities for you.

This is a 'woman's ' candidate? Can you imagine the uproar if a man did this?

Cellmate of McCain's

For what it's worth, a friend passed this along. Her husband is a Vietnam vet.

(My husband is) at the Rolling Thunder POW fest and talked to a cell mate of McCain's who said he's not voting for him--horrifying temper.

McPalin in decline

Sarah Palin became an instant fascination that rejuvenated John McCain and his campaign. But "the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away," as the saying goes.

According to polls reported by DailyKos, her approval/disapproval daily tracking polls have gone from +17 net to -4 over the course of a week.

Beginning on Sept 11 with a 52/35 split, it steadily declined each day by about 3 points of favorability to 42/46 on Sept 18. Other polls are less dramatic but still show a steady decline as people get to know more about her.

This has to be bad news for the McPalin campaign, just when they need something to offset the return of the economy as the central issue. McCain is limited to big bluster and rash statements, just when we need -- as the Wall Street Journal so aptly put it -- "a calm and steady leader." They went even further and called his response "un-Presidential."

As a member of the Senate for 22 years, an avowed champion of deregulation, with Phil Gramm as his chief financial adviser, and having said he doesn't understand the economy as well as he should, McCain hasn't got much economic political capital. So all he can do is bluster and try to obscure his positions -- and blame the crisis on Obama. That is so bizaare that it simply boggles the mind how even he can say it with a straight face.

Further, in the New York Times on 9/19, Paul Krugman quoted an article by McCain in the Sept/Oct issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries, in which he champions a market-based reform of health care.

Here's the jewel of a quote:
"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done in the last decade in banking, would provide more innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."

How would you like to have to defend that statement in the midst of a near collapse of our whole economic system, due in large part to removal of that very kind of regulation he wants to free the health care system from?

I do not believe that Sarah Palin, even if she still had that +17 approval ratio, could save Johnny Mc from himself right now.

Faust had his Gretchen, whose innocent goodness got him into heaven anyway, despite his having sold his soul to the devil.*

But, if I may paraphrase an earlier VP candidate: "Governor, I knew Gretchen. Gretchen was my friend. And, Governor Palin, you are no Gretchen."

Ralph
* (There are many versions of the Faust story, some with different endings. I'm thinking of the one that Mahler used in the text for his 8th symphony.)

McCain's very bad week

The political week draws toward the end, and it has been a very bad one for John McCain.

To cap it off here on Friday (and it's not over yet) are two items:

1. FoxNews has sent a cease and desist letter to the McCain campaign, demanding that it remove an ad that includes the voice of one of its reporters.

2. The Wall Street Journal called McCain's remarks about SEC Chairman Christopher Cox not only false but "un-presidential." And it added that, in a time of crisis, the people want a "calm and steady leader" -- clearly implying that McCain isn't.

And these are supposed to be his friends !!!!!

Not to mention that he seemed to confuse Spain with a Latin American country and didn't recognize their president's name; that Palin was caught in another lie, about when she actually asked her teenage daughters (including the pregnant one) to "vote" on whether she should accept the VP slot.

And to ice the cake: the tracking polls have flipped back to an Obama majority.

Ralph

Asking the kids

McCain's fitness should still be our primary concern, but something about Sarah Palin tonight just needs to be said. Why does she lie when she doesn't need to? It's her counterpart to Hillary's embellishing the story of going into Iraq under sniper fire.

In her interview with Sean Hannity on FoxNews, Palin told how she asked her teenage daughters for their opinion before accepting the VP offer. And "they’re like, ‘Absolutely, let’s do this, Mom,’” she quoted them as saying.

The only problem is that it was a lie. It is well-documented, and confirmed by Todd, that the girls were not told the news until they arrived in Ohio for the announcement, presumably to avoid leaking the news. That makes sense. So why make up a different story, saying she asked them before accepting?

Maybe she did actually ask them what they thought -- the night before it was to be announced to the waiting world. What were they going to say? "Uh, Mom, don't do it. Remember? I'm pregnant. Did you forget? And remember me, Mom? Willow, your second daughter? And remember you yourself have a 4 month old infant with Downs Syndrome, Mom? I'm 14 years old and I am not that baby's mama." "Call off the big news conference, and let's go home." Do you suppose they felt free to do that?

So was she a nice mom to ask her daughters what they thought? Or is she a monster mom who doesn't really care what they thought, doesn't really care if their young lives are exploited in tabloids and paraded before screaming crowds; she just wanted to tell a good story to make herself sound like that kind of mom who would consider her children's feelings and their needs?

And this makes it very clear that, before she made her decision, Sarah did not have that long heart to heart talk with Bristol about how it would affect her, having her inconvenient pregnancy paraded before the world, and making it politically necessary for her to announce that she and Levi were going to get married. Did Levi have the same "free" choice about getting married? Did they make him an offer he couldn't refuse?

We've come a long way since such situations were called shotgun weddings. Maybe Levi made them an offer they couldn't refuse? Here's hoping he had a good lawyer and drove a tough bargain: let's say $100,000 to keep quiet until after the election and attend major events with the family; if you win, we'll get married for $1,000,000, plus one of Mr. McCain's houses, college educations for both, and a big trust fund for the little one. There would surely be some Republican fat cats who would fork it over. They'll get it back in earmark contracts many times over.

Cynical? Disdainful? You bet.

Ralph

McCain gaffe #139

Actually, I've lost count, but here's one more: Today the new McCain, who is now for regulation of financial markets that he used to be against, boasted that if he was president he would fire the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to prevent the current economic crisis. (Would he also fire himself for voting for deregulation that allowed such to happen?)

The problem is that the president does not have the authority to fire the SEC Chairman. It's true he makes the appointment; but once confirmed the Chair has independence and cannot be fired at the wish of the president.

It's easy to see how a small detail like that might slip the mind of a busy campaigner, and by itself I wouldn't consider it a very serious lapse. But all these little gaffes do add up; and, with serious ones like confusing Sunni and Shia(3 times, after being corrected) and not recognizing that Spain is in Europe and not Latin America, I believe we have a potential president who could make George Bush look like a master of detail and articulation. Ah . . . that may be going too far.

Let's see how he looks at the debate next week. Jim Lehrer will be respectful, but I think this has got to be addressed in some way -- at least his flip-flops on issues, his misstatements. And then Lehrer must follow-up, follow-up, follow-up when he makes these mistakes during the debate. If he has a melt-down of testiness, or a senior moment, so be it. The people need to know what they're buying.

Ralph

McCain's fitness questioned

Even John McCain's Rovian-trained handlers must be tearing their hair lately, trying to spin his gaffes, misstatements, and confused answers. To say nothing of his lies and flip-flops.

The latest is now playing out in the international media and beginning to seep into our own news cycle. In an interview by a Spanish radio station, he seemed not to know who the president of Spain is, or even perhaps confused Spain with Latin American countries. The interviewer said, "Let's talk about Spain," then asked if as president he would meet with President Zapatero. He gave some vague generic answer about establishing closer relations with our friends and standing up to those who want to do harm to the U.S.

When pressed for an anwer to whether he would meet with Zapatero, he said: "all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us, and standing up to those who are not, and that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America, and the entire region."

When she reminded him she was talking about the President of Spain, he sounded confused. For the interview transcript, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/18/mccain-meant-to-reject-sp_n_127449.html

OK. And we're worring about simple things like Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away from the presidency and not having foreign policy credentials.

As a psychoanalyst, I agree with my profession's ethical prohibition against making diagnostic statements about public figures. However, that does not prevent me from observing, just as major news sources are now beginning to do, that McCain often seems confused, makes glaring misstatements of facts, seems uninformed about his supposed expert area of foreign affairs, and reverses and contradicts himself without seeming to be aware of it.

I say this as a liberal, progressive blogger addicted to spouting off, and not in my professional role: I am seriously worried about John McCain's mental fitness to be president. He often seems to be not just old, a sloppy thinker, and given to risky decisions but possibly even showing signs of cognitive impairment.

Perhaps there is some other explanation. Has he perhaps been keeping secret that he is deaf and doesn't hear questions? Does he have such anxiety that his thinking gets confused when he's on the spot, but is clear as a bell behind his desk making executive decisions? Is it an act, to appear stupid? Maybe there's another explanation, but I'm waiting to hear something other than spin.

We should be very very worried about the prospects of an impaired McCain, backed up by a ridiculously unprepared vice president Palin, being put in charge of the (once) most powerful country in the world.

Ralph

a Palin-McCain Administration?

Did anyone catch the slip-up in Palin's today? She referred to a "Palin-McCain" administration. Later she corrected that and reveresed the order, just before she pledged to run a "transparent" administration.

Transparent? This woman who won't talk to the press, release her taxes, participate in the Troopergate probe?

How do I lie to thee, let me count the ways

Maybe the Palin/McCain campaign poem should be

How do I lie to thee, let me count the ways...

Here's one everyone in the media seems to have overlooked, from factcheck.org

Palin claims Alaska "produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy." That's not true.

Alaska did produce 14 percent of all the oil from U.S. wells last year, but that's a far cry from all the "energy" produced in the U.S.

Alaska's share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent, according to the official figures kept by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

And if by "supply" Palin meant all the energy consumed in the U.S., and not just produced here, then Alaska's production accounted for only 2.4 percent.


Alaskan production accounts for only 4.8 percent of all the crude oil and petroleum products supplied to the U.S. in 2007, counting both domestic production and imports from other nations.

McCain, too perpetuates this lie, using the same 20% figure in an attempt to pump up her slim resume. Both of these liars say this is an average, over years - but they won't say how many years. What most people don't know is that Alaskan oil production is down 22% in the last five years. The 20% figure cited by Palin/McCain comes from production in the 1980s and 1990s,long before Palin was governor.

So let's say 96.5% of the energy produced in the US did NOT come from Alaska. That puts Palin's 'expertise' and 'readiness' to be President in a different light.

exploiting children

This observation, by Donald Craig Mitchell, from the AlaskaDispatch raises a lot of serious moral questions. He went to the Palin rally in Anchorage, and noticed Bristol and Levi sitting in the bleachers.

Once I noticed them, I kept my eye on Bristol and Levi. What I learned provoked an odd empathy for the awful pickle Wasilla High School's hockey stick wielding homeboy now finds himself in.

Bristol and Levi sat shoulder-to-shoulder. But not once did they look at each other, speak to each other, or in any way acknowledge each other's physical presence. Not once. For an entire hour. Instead, Bristol stared straight ahead and Levi had the glazed look of a trapped feral animal.

Then when Sarah wound up her autograph signing and the people sitting in front of him on the bleacher began climbing down, Levi stood up and, without looking at or speaking to his betrothed, turned in the opposite direction and walked away.

What I took away from that is that the People Magazine spin about how excited the happy couple is about their upcoming nuptials and Levi's "Bristol" finger tattoo is the Karl Rovian nonsense that anyone who thinks about it for a scintilla of a second intuitively knows that it is. If McCain-Palin lose, my easy bet is that there will be no nuptials. But if they win, the hand Levi dealt himself by having had the poor luck to knock up the daughter of the Vice President of the United States (at the time who could have known?) will have to be played out.

What does this say about Palin? Levi and Bristol certainly made a mistake and they should not be condemned for that. But does Sarah have the right to force these 2 kids to compound that mistake merely because it will make things easier for Sarah as she runs for VP? Are you, as a parent, serving the needs of your daughter by forcing a boy who doesn't want her to be with her? What kind of person would set aside what's best for their child, merely to furthur their own ambitions?

But see, the right wing would accept 2 kids making a mistake and doing the 'right' thing by getting married. But the right wing would condemn a mother trotting around with a pregnant 17-year-old and no father in sight.

I feel sorry for Levi. And Bristol.

McCain vs McCain

Suddenly, the campaign has shifted. Partly due to the diminishing Palin infatuation, but mostly it is the sudden explosion of major financial institutions, a whilrwind at least equal to the force of the Palin phenomenon. And Obama seems to have the political advantage here, by a long shot.

Informed people can have different economic policies, but a long list of major economists and former officials in governmental positions in economic and monetary policy are supporting Obama's positions. The list includes Paul Volkner, chairman of the Federal Reserve during the Reagen years, three of the last five chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission, three Nobel Laureates in Economics, plus Warren Buffet -- as well as major names more identified with Democrats. (see http://econ4obama.blogspot.com/2008/06/obama-economic-advisors-and-economic.html).

Rather than simply rely on experts' endorsements, or on the logic of Obama's positions, we need go no further than McCain's own confused statements and contradicting positions to make the case against him as a steward of the economy.

From a New York Times article today: "As recently as January, Mr. McCain argued at a Republican debate that Americans were better off than they were eight years ago; by this summer he had released an advertisement that said “we’re worse off than we were four years ago." His first big speech on the mortgage crisis warned against excessive government intervention; a month later he released his plan for government action to help people keep their homes."

And the Washington Post today reports that in 1999, McCain helped push through the landmark legislation, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which removed "the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies . . . [that] helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments." (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/16/AR2008091603732.html?hpid=topnews)

The article continues: "McCain now condemns the executives at those companies for pursuing the ambitions that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made possible." That is, at one time McCain apparently thought deregulation was a great idea, and helped bring it about. Now he's blaming those who took advantage of the deregulation, as though it's only some "bad actors" who are responsible, not the policies that encouraged it. (Remember Abu Ghraib where it was only some bad actors who caused all the problems, not the Bush administration's policies?)

So now, after pushing deregulation as a fundamental policy of governing, McCain is now "scrambling to recast himself as a champion of regulation to end 'reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed' on Wall Street" (WashPost).

Let's understand this: deregulation is a good idea, but when greedy people make a mess and bring our economic world to the brink of collapse, then we have to have regulation to fix things?

But isn't that the whole purpose of regulation -- to prevent exactly that from happening, and not just as a bandaid after the damage has been done?

Wow, I'm reserving a front row seat at the Obama-McCain debate on domestic issues nine days hence.

Ralph

The Hypocrisy Express

There he goes again!

McCain accused Obama of being 'opportunistic' because he talked about the problems on Wall Street. But it's all right for McCain to talk about those problems?

And yesterday on Morning Joe, when he didn't like being asked questions he took a swipe at Mika Brezinzki, calling her an Obama supporter; yet when she pointed out that her brother works for the McCain campaign, he called it "A cheap shot".

The McCain campaign had been quick to say Obama should be tarred because of comments made by acquaintance William Ayers, but when Palin in her acceptance speech quotes an avowed racist and anti-semite Westbrook Pegler(who wrote, among other things, it is "clearly the bounden duty of all intelligent Americans to proclaim and practice bigotry", and said about Robert Kenedy when he was running for President, that he(pegler) hoped "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies." - no one should hold his views against Palin? I guess she hasn't read the person she quoted? Didn't bother to look him up?

And let's not talk about the way he blames Obama for the sleazy McCain adds - If he met me in town hall meetings I wouldn't run ads full of lies and distortions. Puhleeze. That's like a rapist saying, if she hadn't been a woman I wouldn't have raped her, so my behavior is her fault.

McCain has to be worried about the way some conservative columnists have dismissed Palin. Dave Brooks wrote that she "has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness."

Roos Douthat said, "she seemed about an inch deep on every issue outside her comfort zone...there's no way to look at her performance as anything save supporting evidence for the non-hysterical critique of her candidacy - that it's just too much, too soon"

Richard Cohen had this to say about McCain, "His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not."

Then supporter Carly Fiorina said Palin didn't have the ability to run a large company(a remark she later attempted to mend by including all the candidates in that category).

These critiques are coming from the right. Even Rush Limbaugh was exasperated at the way Palin failed to properly handle the Wall Street meltdown.

The Palin phenomena has run its course. I don't see her gaining any more popularity than she has now, and with all the scandals associated with her there's a good chance her popularity could come crashing down.

That means McCain will have to come out from behind her skirt and stand on his own. The old McCain might have been up to it. The new McCain is doomed.

Economics -1, or the Palin/McCain Experience

With everything crashing down, let's take a look at what McCain/Palin really believe.

McCain is on record as saying he knows nothing about the economy. Fair enough. If anyone doubted that, he proved his point when he said yesterday the economy is fundamentally sound. Of course, if I had 13 houses, I'd think it was fundamentally sound, too.

So let's take him at his word. Well, since he knows nothing about the economy, I guess it's fair to assume Sarah will take a lead role in this, right? What has she done in this sphere during her brief political career?

She took a town with a zero deficit and turned that into a multi-million dollar deficit. She raised tax revenues by over 30%. She gave every citizen of Alaska $1200, rather than invest it in infrastructure.

Yes, she fired the Governor's chef - oh, wait a minute! The chef still has his job, he just cooks for the legislature now. Anyways, it was a good gesture, even if it didn't save any money. She needed to get rid of the chef so she could afford to buy a tanning machine for the Governor's mansion. We all know how essential a good tan is in enforcing the principles of good governance.

Well, she got rid of the jet, right? Let's not quibble over the fact that she didn't actually sell the jet. It was sold, at about a $50,000 loss. And then she billed the state $43,000 in air travel for her and her family. That's what, $93,000 in less than 2 years. By the time her 4 year term is up her travel expenses might total exactly what the jet cost. Thought out that one, didn't she?

And she was savvy enough to recognize she's above the law, above the reach of the IRS, in billing the federal government $71,000 for her and her family to stay at home. While Alaska also has to pay for upkeep on the executive mansion set aside for the Governor. So I guess that didn't really save any money either, did it?

Most heartening to me, though, is that she and her husband, Todd sat down together and decided which items to veto from the budget. I don't know about you, but I'm relieved to know that the person most responsible for deciding on budget priorities in a Palin White House will be a high school graduate whose most crowning achievement is being able to drive snowmobiles in 2,000 mile races - and what an example that is, for teaching children about the importance of conserving energy!

In answering a question in the Gibson interview about foreign policy preparedness, Palin pointed to the absurdity of flaunting one's knowledge and experience; she claimed the people don't want to be governed by someone who has a stack- high list of accomplishments, who have met with world leaders. So wouldn't her approach towards economic issues be the same?

The people won't want those pointy-headed economists, people who have studied markets and mortgages and banking and insurance companies, etc. etc. making decisions.

All they want is someone who can go in and shake things up. Someone who knows nothing, and so isn't burdened by prior knowledge. She can see Russia from Alaska. She can see Wall Street on her TV(when she's not reading People magazine, or Us).

Forget Alan Greenspan, Toddie can do it.

Here's the simple way of looking at this situation. The meltdown on Wall Street is due, in a large part, to a lack of regulatory oversight.

The Republicans, McCain, Palin believe in nothing but deregulation.

So, you want those guys to be in charge of trying to fix this mess?

Goodbye Lipstick

The Huffington Post perfectly captures the sudden shift in the campaign theme with its headline today: "Hello, Economy; Goodbye Lipstick." The silver lining to this very dark economic cloud is that this forces the political conversation back to the main issue, the one where McCain and the Republican's are most vulnerable.

This is not a time when you'd want to be defending the deregulation craze that contributed to this Wall Street freefall. And here's what Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo says:

"Let me get this straight. John McCain's top economic advisor, former Sen. Phil Gramm, is the guy who authored the deregulation law that most agree is the ultimate cause of today's financial meltdown. Tomorrow's and probably next week's too. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch, which swirled into brokerage oblivion today, is one of McCain's top economic advisors too. And now McCain says he's going to clean up the mess by putting in tighter regulations and oversight even though he's always supported lax oversight and his top economics guy is the one who loosened the rules in the first place."

It's going to take an awful lot of lipstick to disguise this pig.

Ralph

Capone and Palin - Brought down by tax problems?

It would be ironic if it turned out Sarah Palin shared with Al Capone the ignominy of being brought down because of her tax returns. But there is some indication that could be a big issue - and perhaps why McCain is stonewalling on releasing Sarah's returns.

Apparently, the per diem payments have to be listed as income unless she could deduct them as legitimate business expenses. According to one blog

It does not appear that such deductions would have been allowable for any amounts attributable to travel by her husband and children. Section 274(m)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code strictly forbids deductions for bringing spouses and dependents along on business travel unless the spouses and dependents (a) are employees of the taxpayer (here, the taxpayer is the governor), (b) are travelling for a bona fide business purpose, and (c) would otherwise be entitled to deduct the travel on their own tax returns.

Sarah collected $17,000 for herself. Todd collected $19,000 and her children $25,000.

Unless Palin's spouse and kids are also her employees and she can show that they were away on their own businesses, their expenses would not be deductible by the governor. And therefore she cannot exclude from income any per diems attributable to any of them. (By the way, since she's the employee, the income would be required to be reported on her own return, not her kids'.)

And Sarah may have trouble with her own travel expenses.

Only travel "away from home" qualifies for tax exclusion (or deduction), and for this purpose, one's "home" is generally the principal place of one's business. In this case, the governor reportedly works out of offices in both Anchorage and Juneau, but since she has only one state job, she can declare only one of those as her tax "home." If Juneau is her tax "home" (which would seem to be the case, since that's the capital), she cannot exclude or deduct meals and lodging expenses incurred in Juneau, and if Anchorage is her tax "home," she cannot exclude or deduct such expenses incurred in Anchorage or Wasilla.

You can find this and more at the TaxProfBlog
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/09/sarah-palins-ta.html

This is the type of thing Obama - and people like us - have to keep pressuring the media to cover.

The gloom lifts

OK, folks. This is going to be all right. The Obama team has got its groove back. They have a wonderful new ad out, called "Honor." It begins with a clip from McCain back then (2000?) saying, "I will not take the low road to the highest office in this land."

Then it flashes up quotes from various news publications (Time, WaPost, etc): 'the sleaziest ads ever,' 'truly vile,' 'dishonest smears that he repeats even after being exposed as a lie,' 'a disgraceful, dishonorable campaign.'

And it concludes, "It seems deception is all he has left."

Blogger Joseph Romm (Huffington Post) says this is the winning strategy for Obama, and it sounds like they get it, beginning with Claire McCaskill's great line on This Week yesterday: "You know, honor is talked about a lot in this campaign. Honor comes with honesty. And you've got to be honest about the facts."

As Romm points out, attacking McCain's honor allows them "to turn all of the ongoing lies by and about Palin -- which are presumably designed to goad the Obama campaign to go after her, rather than McCain -- into a character attack against McCain." It also allows any future attacks by McCain to be reframed as another example of McCain's dishonesty and dishonor.

And it even takes a page from the Karl Rove playbook: attacking your opponent's strength. McCain's honor has been a hallmark of his image. But the difference in the Democrats using it against him is that he has destroyed his honor himself; we're not manufacturing some presumed low road attack using distortions and lies, as Rove does -- just pointing out the obvious.

The Romm post is worth reading: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-romm/obama-nails-the-winning-m_b_126479.html

There seems to be a groundswell of pushback on the McCain campaign strategy of lying ads, and it's building rather than going away. An Associated Press article begins with:"The 'Straight Talk Express' has detoured into doublespeak." Even FoxNews' Megyn Kelly challenged McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds about the McCain lies pretty aggressively.

Karl Rove's statement that McCain had gone too far seems more an evaluation as campaign strategy (if you make claims that can easily be refuted by fact, they backfire) than as a question of character and honor. And who knows what ulterior motives Karl may have in saying it. But at least I think we can take it as a negative comment on the strategy of it.

So -- as blue Monday comes to a close (and I'm not even going to think about what happened on Wall Street) my blues have been lifted by a ray of sunshine. There's hope again. And as a bit of icing on the cake, there's a late afternoon flash that Colin Powell, while saying he's still reserving his options, he did say that an Obama election "would be electrifying."

Ralph

Monday blues

Here's my new, blue Monday, presidential race worry:

We need to move beyond the trivia and Sarah Palin's lack of preparedness and even beyond all the comments about her popularity turning the ticket upside down. Lately, I have begun referring to "McPalin." But there is a more serious worry.

Mike Luckovich's cartoon in yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Frank Rich's column in the New York Times got me thinking about this. The cartoon depicts a short, old, befuddled looking McCain, with a taller, alert and assertive looking Palin standing next to him. An adviser says: "To avoid gaffes, you should shield your running mate from the media." And Palin answers, "Got ya."

The real worry is not so much that Sarah Palin would be one heart beat away from the presidency; it's that she would become the de facto president, her ambition aided and abetted by the hard right ideologues and the ruthless forces now running the campaign. We may not have seen the last of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. I'm convinced they will find a way to control this debacle from behind the scenes.

Frank Rick spells it out: John McCain of 2008 is too weak to serve as American's chief executive, he is now "a guy who can be easily roiled by anyone who sells him a plan for 'victory,' whether in Iraq or in Michigan. A McCain victory on Election Day will usher in a Palin presidency, with McCain serving as a transitional front man, an even weaker Bush to her Cheney."

We've been talking about a third Bush term; we should be worrying about a third Cheney term -- or worse. Obama's focus should be on McCain, on his flip-flops, his confusion, his ignorance of economic issues, his retrograde ideology about fighting terrorism. I think maybe the Obama campaign is already on top of this. Yesterday on This Week, Claire McCaskill declared that McCain's age and health are very real issues that must be talked about. It needs to be carefully done, but it's McCain's fitness, even more than Palin's, that needs to be questioned.

In retrospect, maybe my "McPalin" is appropriate after all. It means "son of Palin."

Ralph

PS: here's an excellent article from Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues. A femininist speaking against Sarah Palin: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/drill-drill-drill_b_124829.html

Rove can't stop McCain's lies

It looks like even when Karl Rove complains that McCain's ads don't pass the truth test, McCain still isn't going to change. His latest Spanish-language ad blames Obama for voting in a way that prevented immigration reform - even though McCain and Obama cast identical votes on the issue.

Didn't someone once say Rove's basic strategy is, Repeat a lie so often people think it's true? McCain certainly learned that lesson.

And it was good to see Bob Herbert in the NYT come straight out and say Palin is totally unprepared to assume the presidency because of her basic lack of knowledge. He pointed out the obvious issues - her ignorance of the Bush Doctrine, her belief that being able to "see" Russia from Alaska makes her more prepared to deal with foreign leaders than actual experience and knowledge. Herbert was particularly stunned by the fact that on the anniversary of Sept. 11, she told an audience of soldiers that they would be fighting the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans. Was she deliberately falsifying history, or does she still not know that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

Herbert, as are all thinking people is terrified at the thought of a Palin presidency.

...she is not well versed on the critical matters confronting the country at one of the most crucial turning points in its history. The economy is in a tailspin. The financial sector is lurching about on rubbery legs. We're mired in self-defeating energy policies. We're at war. And we are still vulnerable to the very real threat of international terrorism. With all of that and more being the case, how can it be a good idea to set in motion the possibility that Americans might wake up one morning to find that Sarah Palin is president?

On a tax note - McCain won't let Palin release her tax returns. I know her salary as governor is around $81,000, and I just found out Todd listed income in 2007 of around $93,000 from his oil field and fishing work - not bad for a man who only has a high school degree.

National insanity

We have moved beyond the "silly season" and into national insanity. The economy is almost in freefall and Greenspan says it's going to get worse; Gen. Petraeus, ending his tour of command in Iraq, sounds somber about the fragility of the reduction in violence; more and more people lack health insurance; Bush has done damage to our government that will take more than one presidential term to repair; etc. etc.

And we are preoccupied with lipstick on pigs, charges of sexism over trivial remarks, blatant lies in ads, and nearly half the population just doesn't care. I stay near the boiling point of rage, but it's impotent rage. I find myself seriously thinking that the Republicans are going to do it again -- run a campaign that has nothing whatsoever to do with issues or substance, and everything to do with what's the best strategy for winning, no matter whether it requires outright lying, turning reality upside down, making up smears on your opponent, stealing the vote. They're gearing up for that, planning on wholesale challenges at the polls of people whose homes have been foreclosed and now have different addresses, as well as those people who don't respond to mailings that have to be returned confirming their address (caging).

There is some good news, and I grasp at straws, like the excellent articles in the Times and the WaPost today, both critically examining Palin's record as mayor and governor. Greenspan says McCain's economic plan won't work; borrowing money to cut taxes is never a good idea. And major news organizations are saying McCain's ads have gone too far, and they're beginning to report fact checking. Even Karl Rove has said they've gone too far (he's right and his reasons are sound, but beware of Rove 'bearing gifts.' He can't be up to any good).

In a reality-based world, this should all be good news. But will it actually have any effect on voters? Perhaps, with a small segment of the undecided vote; but as close as it is now, that might be enough.

So I zoom up and down the rollercoaster. And in the end I fall back on three things: (1) my belief that the Palin effect has peaked and some sense of reality will return to some of the pack; (2) the factors which usually are most decisive in elections are still in Obama's favor (the economy, the popularity (or lack) of the president, and the desire to change the direction of government; and (3) Obama gets knocked off kilter by events like Jeremiah Wright and Sarah Palin, but he usually finds his way again. It's still the smartest presidential campaign in modern history. I'm counting on them to rebound from this and find the right strategy.

But, to be honest, friends, I don't have a good track record. In 1972 I stayed up half the night, hoping against hope that McGovern could still pull out a victory. Same with Mondale and Dukakis, and Gore (that was more like weeks), and Kerry. So I don't have a lot of confidence in my optimism, and I have even less confidence in the wisdom of the American voters.

It's dizzying to swing from cautious optimism to gloom, all in the space of writing this post. But I simply cannot tune out, even for a day.

Ralph

SNL nails Palin

Although I personally share Ralph's enthusiasm for the NYT presenting an in-depth piece on Sarah Palin, I doubt it will change the minds of anyone who is planning to vote for her. Still, it's good to see some news organization taking the time to present the facts of Sarah honestly. It's sad that during this election cycle, the toughest interview of a candidate was conducted by the women on the View, and the most incisive critique of Sarah as a candidate was presented in the opening sketch on Saturday Night Live

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2008/09/saturday-night.html

Ironically, this might have a greter influence than all the talkking heads put together. Let's hope so.

And by the way, did you read where Todd Palin was not only speaking to others in government about what the Troopergate mess, he was also privy to confidential documents about the players, and was cc'ed on every email. Another unelected 'official' making government decisions?