Lies and Distractions

McCain is running a classic modern GOP campaign where the lie is actually the plan.

There's no reason to expect a McCain Presidency to be any different:



It's all one big distraction and pure gutter politics. McCain is now clearly running for Bush's term now.

Elect McCain and prepare for scandal and failure.

Here's the guy.

Kicking In

The election is on. Lots of fears about McCain's gain in the polls, but is it just the same GOP states solidifying, i.e. in the South due to Palin's appeal to the previous unenthused Religious Right?

Speaking of Palin, how nasty is she? -- per Newsweek:

Court documents show that Judge Suddock was disturbed by the alleged attacks by Palin and her family members on Wooten's behavior and character. "Disparaging will not be tolerated—it is a form of child abuse," the judge told a settlement hearing in October 2005, according to typed notes of the proceedings. The judge added: "Relatives cannot disparage either. If occurs [sic] the parent needs to set boundaries for their relatives."

Nice White House-type family. But as Palin continues to lie about her propensity for earmarks:



...there's another piece of her public service past coming to light -- charging rape victims for their own rape tests:

While Sarah Palin was serving as the Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the city charged victims of sexual assault between $300 and $1200 for their own rape kits. A rape kit is a sexual assault forensic evidence kit, used to collect DNA that can be used in criminal proceedings to assist in the conviction of those who commit sex crimes. The kit is performed as soon as possible after a sexual assault or attack has been committed. It is usually humiliating and uncomfortable for the victim–imagine enduring that and then paying $1200 just so that the criminal who assaulted you might be caught.

I guess there's being a woman, and then being for women's rights.

Meanwhile more Republicans are calling successful African Americans "uppity" in broad daylight, making one wonder if the hoods are in the closets. But things are just starting to fly now, with Obama about to announce awesome August fundraising numbers, and striking hard at McCain -- just in time:

“John McCain says he’s about change, too — except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics,” Mr. Obama told his supporters here. “That’s just calling the same thing something different.”

With a laugh, he added: “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change; it’s still going to stink after eight years.”

While the McCain campaign tried to claim Obama was calling Palin a pig, that's laughable on the face of it. And you know that Dems are sensing it's time to step up for face four more years of helplessness when Paul Begala lets one rip for Obama:

ALEX CASTELLANOS: The amazing thing about Sarah Palin is when she became governor she actually stood up and said no.

BEGALA: That’s not true.

CASTELLANOS: She took a strong stand. That is rare and that never happened.

BEGALA: That’s just not true. You know, John, the facts matter. There’s lots of things that are debatable who is more qualified or less experienced or more this or more passionate, whatever. It is a fact that she campaigned and supported that bridge to nowhere. It is a fact that she hired lobbyists to get earmarks. It is a fact that as governor she lobbies for earmarks. Her state is essentially a welfare state taking money from the federal government… This is the problem. We have this false debate when we ought to have at least agreed upon facts.

That's right. Call out the liars and let them be damned.

McSame & Chenlin

Is there enough time between now and the election to expose Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin for the fraud she is?

Is McCain & Co. finally getting called out by the press on the mounting lies that she was against the "Bridge to Nowhere," when she was all for it but flipped when it looked bad politically?

(You know, Palin as same old opportunistic politician.)

How about that she spent the state's money on herself -- writing herself a per diem for staying home at night 312 times in 19 months, even for exercising on Thanksgiving?

(Palin as opportunistic narcissist. An unfortunate mirror of a narcissistic nation?)

Or how about her failure to wrest away control of the investigation into her own wrongdoing in her burgeoning Troopergate scandal?

(Palin the excellent student of Bush/Cheney/Rove, and already starting with the scandal and lawyering up even before being elected VP.)

Or maybe she'll keep walking away from ordinary voters asking honest questions like:

Sarah first looked at Caterina said hello, and I shook her hand. I asked, "Are supporting Ted Stevens this year?" She replied, "He's under indictment you know...his trial is in September." I replied, "But are you voting for him?" She walked away without answering.

(Palin already in an undisclosed mental location.)

The Democratic Party, not just Barack Obama and Joe Biden and even Hillary Clinton, have 55 days to get everyone to understand that the McCain/Palin Maverick Myth is simply a lie, false advertising, not close to what Obama/Biden plan to do to save this country. The Republicans are still the same Republicans that screwed it all up these past eight years. Like this:



Do your part or suffer the consequences.

Froth of the Damned

It's possible my feelings will change as the year tails out, but I'm thinking that Woody's Allen's unlikely new film, Vicky Christina Barcelona, is my favorite moviegoing experience so far this year. Sure, The Dark Knight is excellent spectacle, especially in IMAX. And I may have laughed harder throughout Tropic Thunder or Forgetting Sarah Marshall. But Allen has made his best film since, well, I'll call back to 1989's Crimes & Misdemeanors. And this one is shot better.

What touched me about this new Allen opus is how well it captures that particular bohemian freedom and experimentation of youth, that time of openness and frothy decisions which you don't think will have the critical impact on your life that maybe they do. Rebecca Hall (excellent in The Prestige but the protagonist here) and Scarlett Johansson (best performance to date?) play Vicky and Christina, two friends with very different views of love, who are on that one last trip together to Barcelona, where they meet a reknown painter paid by the incredibly appealing Javier Bardem and, eventually, his psychotic ex-wife (Penelope Cruz). The rondelay of seduction leads to rather unexpected places, and ultimately a comic rondelay of the damned, although the sureness of touch makes it seem almost soft-pedaled, even as the final image takes our beautiful co-leads down.

During the first third of the movie, the most effervescent section, we're watching a movie about youth that could almost be created by a young filmmaker. It's the the twists in the second and third act that reveal the long view of a novelist, not condemning as an angry young director might, but certainly putting the knife in on the expressed theme that "only unfulfilled love can be romantic."

Along the way, with 60 year-old Spanish cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe, Allen seems to rediscover the camera, even more profoundly than he did with another highly successful recent picture of his, Match Point. Since the tragedy this time is more Chekhov than Dreiser, the feeling is a hell of a lot lighter, but the shots are sumptuous and feel like discovery, whether the tourist trip to the Catalan world or the beauty of the young starlets in close-up.

Whatever the pleasures of the other movies listed above and the shared competence with Allen's latest, this is the one that feels the most like real people undergoing real character change, inasmuch as attitude changes while character remains constant. This is the movie breathing fully of life and offering the most flesh-and-blood experience in the most entertaining way, with lots of laughter but something tho take home and think about.

And, as a little bit of a reality check for those (like me) who sometimes deride auteur Allen for his flops, let it be noted that this is Woody Allen's 43rd directing effort. That kind of directorial productivity only happened back in the days of the studio factories, and now he's doing each one basically as an annual independent film. When all is said and done, considering his 100% creative control, it is a career unparalleled in the history of moviemaking.

And #44 is on the way.

Fiscal Nightmaress

Even the Wall Street Journal is onto Gov. Sarah Palin's fraudulent claims that she's a fiscal conservative:

The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.

The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin's legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla.

Turns out she's just George W. Bush in drag -- spend, spend, spend, lie, leave 'em in debt.

Joe's Right

Clear away the b.s. from the past week and here's the truth:



Unlike his opponent, Obama made a Presidential choice.

The difference is obvious.

The King

I could write about Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech but the sizzle was last night with the new celebrity; I could cover Cindy McCain's $300,000 outfit which could itself cover a down payment on an eighth house, or Sarah Palin's second ethics charge as filed against her today by the Alaska Police Union for illegally looking into personal records; I could comment on how GOP Rep. Westmoreland laid bare the inherent racism of the "elitist" tag by calling Obama and his wife (I kid you not), "uppity"; I could even link to Obama's ultimate cool, collected, community organizer explaining press conference where he said he'd been called worse things than Palin did on the basketball court.

But I'd rather tell you about a great guy I met several years ago, during my life as an entertainment advertising exec.

Every year the Hollywood Reporter hosts the Key Art Awards, named for the primary image used to sell a movie. This is the Oscars of movie marketing and, as such, is held in the very same Kodak Theater where the Oscars happen annually. There's usually great talent hosting the show and I saw Sarah Silverman, Kevin Nealon, Rob Schneider and others join in the marketing side of the industry making fun of itself even as it rewarded itself with statuettes (one of which Ms. Silverman sniffed and said smelled "assy").

I believe it was the last one I went to that saluted Don LaFontaine, not exactly a household name, but definitely a household voice. His signature line:

In a world...

Don's voice actually changed how movies were marketed, from the old days of listing stars and attractions to creating a mood, telling the story more atmospherically, drawing you in rather than shouting out at you. And yesterday he died at the rather abbreviated age of 68.

I had the good fortune to meet Don at the always-excellent catered, open bar reception that always follows the Key Art Awards. He was talked to by everybody, but there was a moment and he seemed so approachable that I just had to approach him.

He was warm, welcoming and just modest enough, understanding the slight undercurrent of absurdity there but still grateful for the recognition. I asked a bit about his past based on the program notes and in-show testimonials, and learned that a large part of the reason for his early success as a coming attractions voiceover talent was that he was working, starting in the 1960's, as a movie marketeer himself. He continued to do double duty, being appointed head of the Paramount trailer department in 1978. But his voiceover work grew so much that he built a home studio and sometimes did up to seven jobs a day. In fact, based on the number of contracts signed, LaFontaine "is the most employed actor in the (Screen Actors) guild's 75-year history."

As his ubiquity grew he remained able to make fun of his image, including a famous Geico ad:



And you may remember:

Last year, he did a promotion for the “The Simpsons Movie,” in which his comments were immediately echoed by characters from the film. At one point he says, “Hey, you’re just repeating everything I’m saying!” and Homer responds: “I know. It’s weird!”

So it's sad that he's left us, four years younger than GOP Presidential nominee McCain, a man who seemed (based on the very funny videos made for the awards show that night) generous with his fellow voice talent and warm of spirit:



I guess he's left our world...or...maybe he's in a different world altogether...

Hate Mongers

I'm thinking that the GOP jumped the shark tonight, or maybe they just continued the arc over the shark that McCain's choice of Tracy Flick, I mean Sarah Palin began just five days ago. Even as recently as 2004, the Republicans' 9/11 Convention, there was condescension, yes, belittling and fear-mongering (what is already seen as the hallmark of the Cheney/Bush/Rove Administration), but as they still felt they had a leg to stand on (war) they weren't hateful without any other seasoning.

Aside from Mike Huckabee, who has the graciousness of Obama to praise Obama's achievement in a non-partisan American way, the headliners were full of spite and did little to define themselves or their party as anything other than identity -- no clear vision, no new ideas, nothing constructive enough. Nothing else to sell but hatred.

Mitt Romney opened up by opening fire on the media, hoping that the nation will turn against The New York Times for reporting the truth about both Mayor Palin and Governor Palin's hypocrisies and lies on taxes, earmark, Bridge to Nowhere, child services, loyalty tests, book censorship and Troopergate. Ex-NYC Mayor and adulterer Rudy Giuliani derided citydwellers for being "cosmopolitan". And the star of this Salo-like evening of reality TV, where an entire callow family from unwed couple to passed around infant to unborn child were paraded before the Party like sacrifices on the alter of ambitious partisanship.

For a party that thrives on red meat, the Palin family and the promise of its tabloid-to-White House narrative is divine sustenance. But the family is fed by the candidate, and the candidate may have made the mistake of believing she had already introduced herself, in a single under-attended appearance last Friday, as a gracious-enough public servant that she could turn attack barracuda as quickly as tonight.

The line that I believe will be remembered after the rest of her speech is forgotten:

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

When you denigrate the term "community organizer" you're denigrating not only all the people who don't get to live in a state-owned mansion or squander a small town's pension, you actually sacrifice your own creature comforts in order to improve the lives of others less fortunate. When Gov. Palin smears community organizers, she's dismissing church people as well, those who create the programs that actually give some relief to the little guy and gal.

When you denigate "community organizer" you denigrate service. Paradoxically, considering her claims to be of the people, it valorizes the more institutionally powerful elective office over community service.

In fact, the cold angry core of this convention and campaign is a reliance on the subordination of all other forms of service to military service, particularly military service which entailed actual physical and mental suffering, torture and deprivation, particularly John McCain's military service and incarceration by the enemy, the one we shouldn't have been fighting at the time, in the war we lost. There's not much constructive, not much developed forward thinking. There's just another flowering of the Conservative stabbed-in-the-back mythology.

Sarah Palin may not win this election, but she is clearly the future of the Republican Party. Mitt would do well to cut her legs out from under her now, otherwise he will lose the nomination to her in four years. If she can outrun justice in Alaska.

The gleam in her eye, her fixation on the camera, the obvious pleasure she got from being part of the club, stepped up to the big time by adopting a speech actually prepared for one of the male contenders to read, juiced with the faux defiance of her biographical droppings, it's all so ambitious. There's no sense of a plan for the American people in her speech, no substantive program for change. It's all oppositional, as if her Party hadn't been in power for the past eight years. The lies come hard and fast and the challenge isn't to refute them, it's to even keep up. All the rest is gussied up bile.

I know she's energized the GOP base, but it isn't even close to 50% of the country anymore, and if I were a Romney-style economic Republican, I'd work behind the scenes to get her indicted in Alaska, because the Party is now prisoner of the Religious Right. There's only one national figure, i.e. since last Friday, who has this wing's full emotional investment.

All I want to know is which campaign raised more money off of would-be Miss Congeniality's speech tonight.

I'd lay a bet it's Obama's.

Too Much

There's been a landslide of Sarah Palin. I can't be the only person wanting her off the ticket so she and her whole family and checkered history get out of my head. McCain I can handle, but not with Palin by his side. The two of them together, it's too McCreepy.

I'd like to have something original to say about the whole thing, and there's a lot of whole thing there. The lie about her being anti-earmark -- she loves earmarks when they're for her dominion. Her ironic, and tragic, slashing of funds for homeless teenage mothers. The affiliation with the anti-U.S.A. fringe Alaska Independence Party who's founder curses the American government and our flag. Her being in church a few weeks ago when the founder of Jews for Jesus spoke (easy way to lose Florida for McCain) and

described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's "judgment of unbelief" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity.

Now the National Enquirer is on the case and if what they did for John Edwards' career is any indication, the mudslide will continue, along with other mainstream publications with lurid headlines.

Heck, McCain's "maverick" choice even has mainstream media doing its job:



A shock, I know. But the material keeps on coming -- who knew that the Palins had a car wash that fell in to non-compliance by not filing or paying fees. Or that her spokesperson lied about her having visited Ireland. (This with the Wikipedia that had to be scrubbed, including her phantom Miss Congeniality award, all reinforce Palin as a resume padder.) And the McCain people getting handily scooped again today, on her Mayorial papers at the Wasilla town hall.

At dis-juncture like these, the beast is more apt to be laid bare. Witness McCain Campaign Manager, Rick Davis, giving the game away:

Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain's presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Post editors this morning.

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

In other words, they can only run on image, not issues. It's McCain, not Obama, who's the supplicant at the alter of celebrity culture. And there's Phil Gramm today, reiterating that those criticizing the current oligarchical economy are "whiners". Seriously. He's proud of that shit.

Sully has the killer quote from all of tonight's RNC speeches:

"What you can expect from John McCain as President is precisely what he has done this week," - Joe Lieberman.

Terrifying.

Unsalvageable?

The title of this post might refer to the Republican National Convention, coming on the heels of the gladiatorial challenge that was the Democratic National Convention (with Obama coming out not into the Parthenon as the GOP spinmeisters mistakenly called it, but rather the Coloseum as if in his hard-hitting speech he was calling to McCain, "Come out, come out, wherever you are..."), or it might refer the Sarah Palin GOP VP nomination, or it might refer to John McCain candidacy itself.

At this point the RNC is a shambles, with Monday a, um, wash as Hurricane Gustav managed to force massive program cancellation but then made land more safely than expected, thank God, saving lives but denying any dramatic visit by McCain or McCain/Palin to the distressed area.



It doesn't help that tanks are roving the streets of St. Paul to quell protests and even Democracy Now's Amy Goodman has been arrested for expressing her Constitutional right to free speech:



Meanwhile, why haven't I seen any new photos or live video of Palin this past 24 hours? Am I missing something, or is she under wraps as she lawyers up on her Troopergate (and gets a deposition date), reveals a teen pregnancy in her family in order to end rumors of another teen pregnancy that might seem even stranger, turns out to have been Wasilla's "Mayberry Machiavelli" ordering loyalty tests as Mayor, appears to have lied in her Wikipedia entry about winning Miss Congeniality in a beauty contest, and been a member of a fringe Alaskan secessionist party:



You know, putting country first.

Worst political day ever? How about when right-leaning cable heads like Campbell Brown start to wail on your experience claims:



What all this does is the very thing it was meant to avoid: split the Republican Party. You've got serious government and security Republicans faced with a Presidential nominee who doesn't do sufficient vetting on the first major decision of his office, thrown into post-vetting instead and only beginning that process on the first day of their national convention. You've got what appears more and more to be a cynical violation of "country first" principle calling into question the candidate's judgment and playing right into the Obama's argument against McCain, along with the "four more years of the same" meme. You've got the first Administration Republican in history lawyering up before even being nominated. You've got a campaign that tried to throw the long-ball diversion (as Obama calls non-issue, non-policy politics) of all time boomeranging back to create the hugest possible diversion for the GOP itself at the very week where it needs to bind together in full.

You've got a Party out of any possible control by the candidate and ostensible Party Leader:



Big question: if Palin is forced by the party elders and hands to Eagleton out, who will run with the damaged McCain? McGovern couldn't do better than Sargent Shriver, who had started The Peace Corps but never held national elective office. In situations like these, the stink of the loser is too great, the label of second choice too humiliating.

My guess is McCain will/would wind up with his original choice, Joe Lieberman, mainly because that's another guy with nothing left to lose.

As for Governor Palin, I just think all of this backwoods Alaskan smalltown stuff makes her look more and more disconcerting to the average American voter, and will remain so even after she's left the scene.

Very disconcerting.

Hang Time

How long before Gov. Sarah Palin is off the GOP ticket?

I'd give it 12 more days. Maybe Gustav manages to save her and the GOP with McCain able to grandstand on Monday rather than have Bush and Cheney speak at the Convention. Maybe it just gives them more hang time.

Easily the most telling news I've read these past 24 hours is that the vetting process was so deficient that a Democratic opposition researcher has revealed that he was the first to contact her hometown newspaper for the archived stories not available on the paper's Website. Word is that the McCain campaign only today sent eight "researchers" (ratio of researcher to fixers?) to the town, but the Dems obviously got there first.

This tells us two things: Sen. John McCain made an ill-prepared decision, and the Dem side just made sure they can't be cut in line by McCain's team without everyone knowing it's a fix.

And they can pass stories to the press first, too.

The more current stuff, her "Troopergate," is starting to come out. The potentially damning story begins :35 in.



Look, I've read the suppositions and question-provoking time-line and photos about her family and wonder if it's the greatest Karl Rove plant ever, so I think it's a place to tread carefully, and ultimately only germane as yet another demonstration of John McCain's dangerously unsuited-to-the-Presidency decision-making style. This wouldn't even be a question if we'd already gotten to know her nationally, or via a major state. Or if she'd be 100% vetted.

It also calls into question two other core McCain strengths: his honor and integrity. It also calls into question just how adolescent is his personality -- per Hilzoy:

The more I learn about this choice, the more it reminds me of Bush's choice of Harriet Miers. I don't think it's at all similar in its political ramifications -- Miers' nomination was seen as a betrayal by social conservatives, the very people who are thrilled by Sarah Palin. But it is similar in the manner in which each was chosen. In each case, the person who made the choice had wanted to pick someone else, someone he regarded as a close friend., In each case, he was told that he couldn't choose that person because it would be politically disastrous. In each case, the person who made the choice responded not by sitting down and thinking about who might fill the role s/he was to be nominated for with distinction, but by making a quick and ill-considered choice of a plainly unqualified person, a choice that seemed like an insult to the office that person was nominated to fill.

Moreover, in each case that choice reflected the fact that the person making it was chafing at the discipline required of him. As far as I can tell, Bush reacts very badly to the idea that his powers as President are limited in any way, or that he owes anything whatsoever to his party or his allies. McCain is similarly undisciplined: he has been willing to do what his party requires of him, up to and including sacrificing his honor and his principles, but he visibly bridles at it, and he seems to be thrilled at the chance to be a maverick again. If that requires picking a vice presidential nominee who is wholly unprepared to take over as President, without doing anything like the vetting a Presidential campaign would normally require, then so be it.

I heard someone working at the supermarket who was clearly leaning to embrace the Palin pick today say that it showed McCain was a gambler -- as if that was a good thing. We know Obama plays poker and used those skills to recognize when Hillary had revealed her "tell" -- an in-person encounter during the Primaries when he knew he had gotten to her. We know McCain loves to play craps, throw those dice, and he did it again on Friday. Both are a form of gambling, but Michael O'Hare explains the difference:

Poker is a game of nearly infinite subtlety and complexity, in which money is managed across a constantly changing information landscape as deep as the psychology and perspicacity of all the players. Smart poker players are much better at it than dumb ones, though smart in the usual sense is not enough to be good at it. Some people are bored with poker and can't concentrate on it well enough to succeed, but not because it's beneath their intelligence. The nearest analogy is investing in securities, or perhaps commanding small units in combat, except for the team aspect of the latter and the impersonal dimension of the former.

Craps, like roulette and a slot machine, is a simpleminded exercise whose players pay a fee for a particular kind of reptile-brain excitement. It is not social, and no player can change the odds on the next move, which are a set of nine numbers that never change (though more complicated side bets are possible, they also depend on a fixed small set of probabilities). There is no such thing as being good at craps, and no such thing as being a steady winner.

But let's let some video tell the story. Is Palin somehow a foreign policy expert due to geography? Ask expert Cindy McCain:



Is she, after just one date, what John McCain described today as his "soul-mate?"

Is there anything telling about this hilarious and maybe unfair video dissection from The Jed Report?:



Now, compare all that drama, which the McCain campaign clearly wanted to stir up in hopes of catching the news cycle and from there the campaign in an exponentially greater way than even the Clinton tried back during the primaries, with the Obama-Biden team, interviewed in Denver by 60 Minutes just minutes after Obama's historic acceptance speech Thursday night:


Watch CBS Videos Online

Which team seems more trustworthy to run this great country?

My next prediction: with Huckabee chafed for not being vetted, with Romney pissed that he did so much to defend McCain these past few months after coming in second but got dissed, Pawlenty probably thrilled that the convention in his city is being shortened after being told he all but had the job last Wednesday/Thursday morning and ending up with eggface, and even some serious neocons offended, McCain either makes Palin work or by a month from now, especially if she does an Eagleton, he'll be like kryptonite -- radioactive.

My earlier prediction that by November 4th voting for John McCain over Barack Obama is still on track. Maybe they can whitewash Palin fast enough, but her first two weeks may be the hardest to survive. Troopergate questions at the Biden-Palin debate could be devastating just for being asked, and I don't think the GOP elders would let her get that far.

There's a reason that McCain's choice is sucking all the air out of the campaign, and there will be reason why we'll be grateful for more Obama when he chooses to expose nationally again (I'd bet not until the debates) rather than his increasingly popular state/local visits. We don't want to be disappointed, we want this country run right again.

Maybe I'm mistaken, maybe it'll take longer than I'm thinking to metasticize, but with Palin I'm thinking John McCain just rolled snake eyes.

The Aliens

After so many months and surely so many more planned spending countless dollars attempting to frame Barack Obama as as The Other -- celebrity, foreigner, radical, hustler -- it's all gone to waste in one single announcement.

Here's my new theory:

In selecting, at this particular historical juncture, Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running-mate, and as immediately evidenced in the jarring optics of the announcement event, and coming exactly on the heels of the blockbuster Democratic National Convention that successfully introduced Barack Obama and his adorable, Christian American family, in symbiosis with Joe Biden and his awesomely Catholic American family, as perfectly normal yet just acceptably exceptional enough to be White House worthy, John McCain has flipped the equation and flushed all his money down the toilet.

Because now his ticket is the one looking like aliens.

I'll explain, but first let's be clear: Obama and his campaign made John McCain blink. Worse than that, and they must be pretty blown away themselves at their success, hence their buttoning down on any criticism of her by name, just sticking it to McCain on judgment with Palin implicit, they made him make an error. A huge one.

He'll get his Republican Christianists (while her pastor problem and fervent support of Pat Buchanan may spook every elderly Jew in Florida), and via the orchestrated media moments might scoop up some low-information voters, but anyone remotely serious and fair-minded about how they use their Constitutional vote is unlikely to squander it on a man who's integrity, judgment, temperament and management style are now called into question. The numbers on this choice are historically bad out of the gate.

Now that we're learning -- apparently at the same time as John McCain -- that Sarah Palin has potentially multiple abuse-of-power scandals (involving her husband and family) way the hell up in odd Alaska, a state visited by infinitely fewer Americans than Hawaii, a state most American view as stranger than Idaho and certainly more remote, and that there may even be a family planning cover-up in the wings, Gov. Palin is doing no favors for the image of her home state. I wouldn't even be surprised if they lose it (before or after she Eagleton's off the ticket) since those that know her there don't think she's qualified for V.P. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if she only serves out one term as Governor, if not indicted.

But more than that, she and McCain just look so odd together.

Marc Ambinter has a comparison of the key images from both campaign Websites. Obama and Biden look like they're having a great time together because they are -- it's from the Convention. And Obama is clearly the boss. McCain and Palin, however, appear interchangeable, equals in some sort of real estate company, McCain generic and diminished by the equal size, but Palin popping way too much with the same creepy wide-eyed grin and glare she had at the announcement event.

You look at Obama and Biden and see two men in the middle, one in his late 40's, one in his early 60's, i.e. both middle aged. And you know that one of them knows how to lead a team and has a plan while the other knows how the system works and can be a partner in making his plans law.

You look at McCain and Palin, you see a gap, essentially an unfilled chasm between them. She's early 40's, he's early 70's. He's just made a decision that creates questions (while the choice of Biden was a comforting answer of great finality) so now we're all wondering again, and not in a hopeful way. She's a great big question mark, with only sixty days for us to vet her from zero, no previous national (only Party) profile. While she has only 60 days to get the basic requirements in national security and foreign affairs knowledge for the job.

McCain and Palin is a great big nothing. Everything is in freefall in-between them.

Whether McCain's decision betrays desperation or gambling, his arrogance or cynicism, his process as hectic or improvisational, this is a perilous way to introduce a new face, and the bottom line is simply dissonance.

On the other hand, here's the Obamas and the Bidens out on Main Street tour, eating ice cream, hanging together at gazebos. Looking like America.

Looking wholesome.

Shiny

Although it's a bummer that I'm participating in the same cheap political ploy that has, as even the Obama campaign expected, taken the media's eye off the epic glory of Barack Obama closing the deal last night (and without a goddamned teleprompter!), it's just too perfect. In fact, if anecdotal reports are correct, McCain flipped the last few customers over to Obama for good this morning.

What have we learned from the past 24 hours?

About John McCain, I've learned that he's attracted to shiny, newish things. For his first Presidential decision, he hired the person who could very possibly replace him before the end of his first term, whom he had met exactly one time before this week, and spoken on the phone with once. Because, according to McCain camp and GOP reports, he wanted someone from outside Washington who would reinforce his defunct "maverick" image. So he went as far out as possible. To Alaska.

He either did little vetting of her, or thought she could pick it all up really quickly (meaning, of course, that his "experience" slam against Obama is bullshit), or in some sort of ragingly egotistical way thinks it won't matter because he will never die or be debilitated in office, even after four bouts of skin cancer and a current medical report totalling over 2,000 pages. So he clearly believes the campaign can somehow bamboozle the news media into co-selling a Sarah Palin narrative they are feverishly concocting as I write this for injection into Monday's Republican National Convention.

He stopped thinking with the big head and went for the shiny object.

Look, we all know John McCain likes being around great looking younger (than him) women. He likes charming them, he likes their admiration, if they're lobbyists he shuttles them off with him (Where in the World is Vicki Iseman?), he has dumped a sick wife for one who also happened to be loaded with beer money.

Shiny shiny!

I learned that John McCain is a coward. He wanted to nominate his friend, Joe Lieberman, but his party insiders howled over the Senator's party affiliation and liberal social views. He wanted to nominate his friend, Tom Ridge, but his party insiders told him he would lose the fundamentalist base due to the former Governor's pro choice views. But he had ridiculed former Governor Mitt Romney during the primaries and thanks to his own house counting gaffe they couldn't add another bushel of 'em. And Governor Tim Pawlenty was being laughed about on the air last night, which was when McCain made the final decision.

A snap, reactive, ill-considered, small-ball decision dressed up as big-ball but ah obvious sham to all but the most deluded believers.

McCain was too much of a coward to go with his first choices so he decided to say f.u. to everyone and pulled a 20-month Governor of a tiny population state who's previous job was Mayor of a 6,000 person town, and who has shown absolutely no in-depth study or thought about national security, foreign affairs, or nationwide economic policy.

Think she'll be vetted for potential Commander-in-Chief over just the remaining sixty days? ("Way to go, Brownie!") Way to make us all feel that much more secure, John.

Way to put your own ambitions first and country way behind.

I guess Barack was right last night: John McCain just doesn't get it.

About Sarah Palin I learned that she is not related to Monty Python's Michael Palin. I learned that she's not the breath of fresh air that John's campaign is trying to sell, she's actually a plain ol' Bush-era Republican. After all:

• Due to her ego, she made terrible fiscal decisions that cost her town exponentially more wasted public money than it should have, and left the wreckage for others to clean up.
  
  
• She believes in Creationism and thinks it's fine to be taught in schools as an alternative to proven science.
  
  
• She's against a woman's right to an abortion, even in cases of rape or incest.
  
  
• She doesn't believe global warming has anything to do with man-made factors.
  
  
• She is ignorant of the actual function of government.
  
  
• She rewrites history.
  
  
• Her close GOP party buddy and endorser is in a bribery scandal.
  
  
• She wants to open up protected lands in Alaska for big oil drilling.
  
  
• She hates bears.
  
  
• She's under government investigation for abuse of power.
  
  
• She likes to point out whiners.

What did I learn about Hillary Clinton?

That for all my complaints about her during the primary season, when she finally accepted that she had lost the battle and the dust cleared, she rose to the occasion and, by way of her graciousness and forcefulness, came out more appealing than she went in.

And, praytell, what did I learn about Barack Obama?

He knows how to play big-ball. He knows the right way to go about making a momentous decision and come out with the best possible answer. He doesn't make crucial long-term governing decisions for short-term political gain.

He knows how to manage a media drama, giving the MSM what it needs (Obama/Hillary rift) and then paying it off exactly the way he intended. He knows how to successfully mount a massive event. He knows how to deliver at a crucial moment. He can draw 38 million viewers, more than the Oscars, the Super Bowl, the American Idol finals.

He won't back away from any challenge. He's smarter, more qualified, more suited and ready to be Commander-in-Chief than John McCain.

Today John McCain closed the deal for Barack Obama. John McCain not only proved the truth of the meme that he'd be Bush's third term with his Harriet Miers-esque decision, he actually echoed the first President Bush's choice of the prima facie unsuited Dan Quayle -- as well as Richard Nixon's choice of conservative-appeasing, under-experienced Spiro Agnew, who preceded Nixon prematurely out of office in disgrace.

Taken against Barack Obama clearly, reasonably, and forcefully laying out of where he wants to take this country last night, one now knows everything one needs to know about this crazy, egotistical, dangerous gambler, John McCain, who I learned turned 72 years old today, not a lot of time left to rectify mistakes.

I learned that he's actually unfit for the office of President of our United States of America.

Fun Fact

Did you know:

John McCain is 23 years older than the state of Alaska.

Fourth Night

So definitely the man:

These challenges are not all of government's making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

Smack.

John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time?

I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change.

Framed:

Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

Smack!

In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.

Well it's time for them to own their failure.

Dirt off my shoulder:

I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States.

You puny man:

America, now is not the time for small plans.

Close him down:

John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.

And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush Administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we're wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

That's not the judgment we need. That won't keep America safe. We need a President who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.

Bring it on:

These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.

Don't you go there:

So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

You pitiful, puny man:

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

You make a big election about small things.

Open it up:

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

C'mon home:

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Say it:

Thank you, God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.

Yowtch:

But beyond the press, sir, just in terms of ...
I think we're running a fine campaign, and this is where we are.

Do you miss the old way of doing it?
I don't know what you're talking about.

Really? Come on, Senator.
I'll provide as much access as possible ...

In 2000, after the primaries, you went back to South Carolina to talk about what you felt was a mistake you had made on the Confederate flag. Is there anything so far about this campaign that you wish you could take back or you might revisit when it's over?
[Does not answer.]

Do I know you? [Says with a laugh.]
[Long pause.] I'm very happy with the way our campaign has been conducted, and I am very pleased and humbled to have the nomination of the Republican Party.

You do acknowledge there was a change in the campaign, in the way you had run the campaign?
[Shakes his head.]

You don't acknowledge that? O.K., when your aides came to you and you decided, having been attacked by Barack Obama, to run some of those ads, was there a debate?
The campaign responded as planned.

Fascinating:

While Obamaniacs competed for tickets and withstood long lines to see their hero at Denver's Invesco Field, John McCain's rumored announcement of his running mate here tomorrow is not exactly drawing the same interest.

McCain arrived here tonight to news reports that free tickets are still available to his rally tomorrow at a basketball arena at Wright State University. The Nutter Center has a capacity of about 12,000.

Godsmack:

Republican officials said yesterday that they are considering delaying the start of the GOP convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul because of Tropical Storm Gustav, which is on track to hit the Gulf Coast, and possibly New Orleans, as a full-force hurricane early next week.

The threat is serious enough that White House officials are also debating whether President Bush should cancel his scheduled convention appearance on Monday, the first day of the convention, according to administration officials and others familiar with the discussion.

For Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Gustav threatens to provide an untimely reminder of Hurricane Katrina. A new major storm along the Gulf Coast would renew memories of one of the low points of the Bush administration, while pulling public attention away from McCain's formal coronation as the GOP presidential nominee...

...A hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico could also cast unwelcome attention on the offshore oil rigs that McCain has championed as a solution to rising gasoline prices -- they are now being evacuated in the face of the coming storm.

History in the making.



Make the most of it.

Third Night

Well, that's history in the making, with Barack Obama as the first mixed race candidate ever nominated for President of the United States of America by a major political party. Since George Washington got the first nod.

A lot more red meat tonight. Last night, I think Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) had the best single non-primetime line, taking a huge shot McCain's supposed independence:

John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush more than 90% of the time...that's not a maverick, that's a sidekick.

Tonight it might be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), old enough himself to get away with hitting McCain on age, who had the best line not in primetime:

Speaking at the Democratic National Convention, the Nevada Democrat likened McCain to a bogus doctor, calling him “kindly old Doc McCain” and comparing his plan for expanded offshore drilling to “snake oil.”

“Kindly old Doc McCain would like to sell it to you anyway,” Reid said.

Much of tonight was about vouching for Obama as Commander-in-Chief, using his own yardstick, judgment. Bill Clinton did a great job and got the most delegate love. Joe Biden did fine as well.



But it was the man who appear between them who gave the best speech of his life:



His most damaging passage to McCain, hitting him up as either opportunist or weak-minded:

I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain.

To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician: I say, let’s compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain.

Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once called irresponsible.

Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill.

Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote.

Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you’re against it!

Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself.

How addled is McCain?

He's thinking it might be a smart move to pick Joe Lieberman as his VP.

Second Night

I've just seen Hillary's speech after hearing some of it on the radio earlier tonight, and think that anyone who says she somehow didn't show enough support for Barack is simply a provocateur sowing discontent for partisan or mercenary purposes.

She gave her supporters a chunk of their catharsis (the nomination process Wednesday night will complete it) but more importantly, she gave them a challenge. For someone who's been accused of egoism, she flipped that around on its head by asking her supporters if they were only in the campaign for her, or if they're really committed to the issues and policies both she and Barack support.

Also found myself particularly when she used Harriet Tubman as a bridge between African-American and women's struggles for full rights in U.S. history, without underlining the connection, played beautifully.

There's no doubt Clinton has improved as a speaker since the start of the campaign. Tonight she earned her place in or alongside the Obama Administration come January. If he wins, he owes her, big-time.

Here's two bonus Zannel clips of the night. First, a couple explains their support to yanquimike:



And odum of Vermont explains "Democratic National Condoms:



Party on, party.

First Night

I didn't catch everything at the Democratic National Convention tonight, but having now seen Michelle Obama's and Ted Kennedy's speeches, I think they've gotten it rolling. I'm hoping that Hillary Clinton, exceptionally forthright today in her support for Barack Obama and denouncement of McCain using her clips against him, will bring some hardcore critique of the presumptive Republican nominee tomorrow night.

Ominous news came with the good, and I hope we can thank the law enforcement personnel in Denver for stopping the only potential horror show in town.

Meanwhile, Zannel and the grassroots bloggers lifecasting on it from the floor of the DNC are providing a completely different view than the mainstream media, compelling, star-speckled, and real. And they've already been featured on CNN.

Take a look.

Zannel at the DNC

It's late and I've been traveling a lot starting last Tuesday, but I do want to introduce the new PoliticsBlue channel on Zannel, home of mobile lifecasting like in the widget on the top right of this blog. This is something new, a community channel with 14 contributing members, all grassroots bloggers given the very rare floor accreditation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver all this week.

By odd coincidence I was actually on a plane to Denver this afternoon, oblivious to the fact that this is the day before the huge thing happening in that city starting, like, now, until I passed Obama foreign affairs brain Samantha Power in the front row of business class. Would that I had missed my connecting flight by five days.

But hey, with real-people bloggers from Vermont, Florida, New Mexico et al microblogging with video and pictures and even Twitterish text updates all week, I'm starting to feel like I'm there. Like making the drive from Florida with Kenneth Quinnell of Burnt Orange Report:



Or Casey Ann Hughes of The Natchez Blog interviewing a first-time Mississippi delegate:



Or maybe just hang out with Rob Miller's crew from The Utah Amicus:



There's a reason they're called political parties.

Biden

Sorry I've been on a bit of a break, to end shortly, but if you really want to know my opinion of Barack Obama's VP choice, this may help:



Conservatives pray for Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE). Seems like he's thoughtful and genuine with regular citizens one-on-one as well.

Most of all, it's great casting. What a great personality to have in the White House with Obama, coming over to hang in the Oval Office, getting the latest mission from his boss, then opening the doors for him to succeed.

Biden's smart, candid, seasoned, well-liked. He'll attack McCain on policy and maybe go up against Mitt Romney.

What's not to like?