Sorry for the lack of posts. I’ve been on vacation for a few days up in the White Mountains of NH and have been pretty much staying away from politics this week. I arrived at the parents’ house for the last leg of my time off to find that things have changed significantly since I last checked out the political blogs and general campaign news. Obama has opened up the largest lead he has had to date in the polls, and they haven’t yet even taken into account the disastrous interview Sarah Palin had with Katie Couric.

I was pretty surprised to see Jack Cafferty say that having Palin one 72-year-old heartbeat from the presidency should scare the hell out of you.

I first heard Ron Kuby intersperse sections of Miss South Carolina’s infamous speech from the 2007 Miss Teen Pageant with Sarah Palin speaking at a town hall meeting in Michigan. Palin was attempting to answer a question from an audience member who had a very specific and precise question for the VP candidate — what did she bring to the ticket in regard to foreign policy experience. Here’s her answer:

And now I see that people on YouTube are doing the same with the Couric Interview, actually dubbing Miss South Carolina’s words over video of Palin answering the question.

The problem here is that Palin has obviously been “over-coached,” and it has just been too much for her to handle. So what comes out are these jumbled talking points that she’s had poured into her head over the past few weeks since she accepted the nomination.

The litmus test will be whether or not Palin can hold her own against Biden next Thursday in the Vice Presidential Debate. Biden had better be the ultimate statesman, and not get into any trouble for saying anything that could be remotely construed as sexist. He should just answer the questions calmly, just as Obama did tonight, and let Palin hold her own if she can. The key here is to do no damage to the Democratic ticket. If he can do that, he will win, because I highly doubt that Palin will be able to hold HER own. I predict that at least twice next Thursday, we will see a repeat of the “word salad” (to use a phrase from Boston Legal) that has plagued Palin recently. She will have been “overprepared,” and unless she’s a genius who can completely sort out where one talking point ends and the other begins, and in what categories each one belongs, she will look like she’s extremely out of place, and unqualified to lead should anything happen to the president.

As for tonight’s Presidential Debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, by all accounts, Barack Obama completely held his own on stage with John McCain tonight, and completely nailed him on the fact that he said the Iraq war would be “quick and easy” and that he knew exactly where the Weapons of Mass Destruction (TM) were, and that we would be greeted as liberators. It’s about time SOMEONE nailed SOMEONE for that. So often we forget about these things, and so conveniently for the candidates who said these words at the time. Thank you, Barack Obama, for reminding us that John McCain was part of the crew who claimed these things.

One of the most heated arguments between the two candidates was whether or not Henry Kissinger, one of McCain’s advisers (and, according to McCain, a friend for 35 years), supported high-level administration talks with rogue administrations like Iran with NO preconditions. Obama reportedly claimed Kissinger did support such talks. McCain, using the argument that he knew Kissinger for years, claimed Kissinger did not.

After the debate, Katie Couric noted that this question had come up during her interview with Sarah Palin and said that she had called Mr. Kissinger for clarification on whether or not he supported such high-level talks with no preconditions.

He told Couric that yes, he did support such talks.

Now the question is, why would McCain lie about something like this, and state several times something that he knew not to be true? Or, at the very least, state so strongly something he wasn’t sure about and actually got entirely wrong? Could it be because he lies first and asks questions second? Surely he knew Kissinger’s position on this. I mean, it’s been such a hot-button topic. McCain has made a big deal about Obama’s willingness to have high-level administrative negotiations with leaders of rogue nations (although he claims that Obama would have actual face-to-face talks with these leaders, which is patently untrue). Surely McCain knew that one of his chief advisers agreed with Obama’s strategy, even as he tried to nail Obama for supporting it? Or is that a tactic? See, McCain also claimed Obama didn’t know the difference between a strategy and a tactic.

I think the difference there is pretty easy to spot, and I’m surprised McCain made such a big deal of it. Here, I’ll use the two words demonstrating what I believe their meaning to be. I’m not a college professor, I never attended law school. So perhaps I’ll use them incorrectly. But someone please correct me if I’m wrong. Here goes.

“I think McCain’s tactics in this race have failed so far. Perhaps he should adopt a different strategy?”

UPDATE: Here’s an article where Kissinger directly supported talks with Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program. It mentions, “The opinion of the former secretary of state for Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford differs sharply with that of the current GOP administration, which has maintained a strict policy of not negotiating directly with governments deemed to sponsor international terrorism.” Got the link from this post at Andrew Sullivan’s, ‘Daily Dish’.

How many times have we heard that the Republicans trust us to do the right thing while the Democrats want to legislate our lives? I’m not going to go into the fact that it is the GOP that wanted to amend the Constitution to state their opposition to gay marriage, that it is the GOP that wants to restrict a woman’s right to do what she wants to do with her own body, or that it is the GOP that wants to legislate other “moral” issues.

Unfortunately, it seems in at least one industry (and possibly many more) they trusted the wrong people to “do the right thing.” The result is — in yet another case, but in a different landscape — the GOP is scrambling to fix something it should have seen coming and should have prepared for long ago.

It’s no surprise that since the economic house of cards built by the deregulation-crazed Republican guard over the past decade has now fallen, John McCain is suddenly talking about re-regulating things. He’s getting all high and mighty about how these Wall Street CEOs and CFOs and other people who just happened to contribute to his campaign have led us down this road.

I’m sorry, Senator, it was not them who led us here, but the Republicans who set up the trough where these executives were allowed to belly up and stuff themselves silly at the expense of the American taxpayer.

When creating legislation (in this case, de-regulation), it seems the Republicans can’t — or don’t want — to see the possible ramifications of their actions. They allow banks and investment firms to get into bed with each other and then are surprised when the two factions work together to build a giant bubble that inevitably pops, necessitating a government bailout. Surprise!

It was the same thing with the “Iraq resolution” that Robert Byrd said was handing the president a “blank check.” We give someone the power to abuse the system, then are shocked when they do so.

Does the GOP really expect us to believe that greed is not part of corporate America? Does it really expect us to believe that when it deregulates an industry and removes all the barriers to doing the wrong thing under the guise of “removing government bureaucracy” that they fully expected that all these executives would do things on the up-and-up?

If you believe that, I have a bridge in Alaska that I’d like to sell you.

Bottom line, the GOP knew exactly what it was doing here, and now John McCain is trying to run away from what Barack Obama calls the “final verdict” on Bush (and the GOP).

He can’t run away from it. He’s part of it. And now, he’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s lying and flip-flopping at every turn. He just says whatever he wants, and even his most loyal supporters in the press are starting to call him on it.

Longtime supporter and Washington Post writer, Richard Cohen, recently noted he had long “been in the tank” for McCain, but now says

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains — his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that’s all — but just as honorably. No more, though.

David Ignatius, also a Post writer and McCain supporter, recently wrote this article about how McCain will do anything it takes to win, including lie. Here is a snippet:

Thinking about the Palin choice, you begin to ponder other moves McCain has made on the road to winning the Republican nomination. McCain was right a few years ago to warn that Bush’s tax cuts would have potentially ruinous fiscal consequences; now he favors extending the cuts that have produced a crisis of debt and deficit. Why did he switch his position, other than political opportunism?

…

In May 2006, after McCain had courted the Rev. Jerry Falwell in an effort to win conservative support, I asked him if he was bending his principles for the sake of winning. “I don’t want it that badly,” McCain answered. “I will continue to do what is right. . . . If that means I can’t get the Republican nomination, fine. I’ve had a happy life. The worst thing I can do is sell my soul to the devil.”

McCain can try to dodge this economic crisis all he wants. He can continue to state in face of the private views of just about any American you can find on the street that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” And he can flip-flop on the need for a certain amount of regulation in the economy.

My hope is that people see he is no longer Candidate McCain 2000, but Candidate McCain 2008.

The Republicans have led us down this road with the help of some right-leaning Democrats. John McCain cannot extricate himself from that party, no matter how hard he tries. He, along with his party, can take a gigantic share of the responsibility for what is happening today with the AIG, Fannie, Freddie, and Stearns bailouts. He can take partial responsibility for the failure of the 150 year old institution known as Lehman Brothers.

When you elect leaders, you have to hope they have the intelligence to know that if you leave legislative loopholes open, they will be used. When you open up the door for greed to take over, it will. You have to see where there is possible potential for abuse, especially in regard to corporations whose — by definition — only stated goal is to reap profits for executives and shareholders.

If you haven’t seen the movie, “The Corporation,” I urge you to see it. It argues that if corporations were people (and they are increasingly being legislated as such) they would be psychopaths who would be unable to exist in society at large. Would you trust a psychopath to do the right thing if he had any wiggle room to get more money if he did the wrong thing instead of staying on the straight-and-narrow?

John McCain helped free the same psychopath he is now saying he’d contain with regulation, now that the psychopath has destroyed a large section of the US economy.

I think we’ve had enough “reactionaries” in the White House. It’s time for someone who will be a little more offensive when it comes to these things. That’s really all there is to it.

This “Economic Katrina” should be enough to reveal to any rational person which choice is the right one in this election. The question is, will people believe John McCain when he lies to their face and tells them, “hey, I’m not responsible for this mess — remember I’m the maverick!”

This, despite his campaign crew being largely comprised of lobbyists and other assorted fat cats.

How many times have we heard that the Republicans trust us to do the right thing while the Democrats want to legislate our lives? I’m not going to go into the fact that it is the GOP that wanted to amend the Constitution to state their opposition to gay marriage, that it is the GOP that wants to restrict a woman’s right to do what she wants to do with her own body, or that it is the GOP that wants to legislate other “moral” issues. Unfortunately, it seems in at least one industry (and possibly many more) they trusted the wrong people to “do the right thing.”

It’s no surprise that since the economic house of cards built by the deregulation-crazed Republican guard over the past decade has now fallen, John McCain is suddenly talking about re-regulating things. He’s getting all high and mighty about how these Wall Street CEOs and CFOs and other people who just happened to contribute to his campaign have led us down this road.

I’m sorry, Senator, it was not them who led us here, but the Republicans who set up the trough where these executives were allowed to belly up and stuff themselves silly at the expense of the American taxpayer.

When creating legislation (in this case, de-regulation), it seems the Republicans can’t — or don’t want — to see the possible ramifications of their actions. They allow banks and investment firms to get into bed with each other and then are surprised when the two factions work together to build a giant bubble that inevitably pops, necessitating a government bailout.

Surprise! It was the same thing with the “Iraq resolution” that Robert Byrd said was handing the president a “blank check.” We give someone the power to abuse the system, then are shocked when they do so.

Does the GOP really expect us to believe that greed is not part of corporate America? Does it really expect us to believe that when it deregulates an industry and removes all the barriers to doing the wrong thing under the guise of “removing government bureaucracy” that they fully expected that all these executives would do things on the up-and-up?

If you believe that, I have a bridge in Alaska that I’d like to sell you.

Bottom line, the GOP knew exactly what it was doing here, and now John McCain is trying to run away from what Barack Obama calls the “final verdict” on Bush (and the GOP).

He can’t run away from it. He’s part of it.

And now, he’s not even trying to hide the fact that he’s lying and flip-flopping at every turn. He just says whatever he wants, and even his most loyal supporters in the press are starting to call him on it.

Longtime supporter and Washington Post writer, Richard Cohen, recently noted he had long “been in the tank” for McCain, but now says

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains — his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that’s all — but just as honorably. No more, though.

David Ignatius, also a Post writer and McCain supporter, recently wrote this article about how McCain will do anything it takes to win, including lie. Here is a snippet:

Thinking about the Palin choice, you begin to ponder other moves McCain has made on the road to winning the Republican nomination. McCain was right a few years ago to warn that Bush’s tax cuts would have potentially ruinous fiscal consequences; now he favors extending the cuts that have produced a crisis of debt and deficit. Why did he switch his position, other than political opportunism?

…

In May 2006, after McCain had courted the Rev. Jerry Falwell in an effort to win conservative support, I asked him if he was bending his principles for the sake of winning. “I don’t want it that badly,” McCain answered. “I will continue to do what is right. . . . If that means I can’t get the Republican nomination, fine. I’ve had a happy life. The worst thing I can do is sell my soul to the devil.”

McCain can try to dodge this economic crisis all he wants. He can continue to state in face of the private views of just about any American you can find on the street that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong.” And he can flip-flop on the need for a certain amount of regulation in the economy.

My hope is that people see he is no longer Candidate McCain 2000, but Candidate McCain 2008.

The Republicans have led us down this road with the help of some right-leaning Democrats. John McCain cannot extricate himself from that party, no matter how hard he tries. He, along with his party, can take a gigantic share of the responsibility for what is happening today with the AIG, Fannie, Freddie, and Stearns bailouts. He can take partial responsibility for the failure of the 150 year old institution known as Lehman Brothers.

When you elect leaders, you have to hope they have the intelligence to know that if you leave legislative loopholes open, they will be used. When you open up the door for greed to take over, it will. You have to see where there is possible potential for abuse, especially in regard to corporations whose — by definition — only stated goal is to reap profits for executives and shareholders.

If you haven’t seen the movie, “The Corporation,” I urge you to see it. It argues that if corporations were people (and they are increasingly being legislated as such) they would be psychopaths who would be unable to exist in society at large. Would you trust a psychopath to do the right thing if he had any wiggle room to get more money if he did the wrong thing instead of staying on the straight-and-narrow?

John McCain helped free the same psychopath he is now saying he’d contain with regulation, now that the psychopath has destroyed a large section of the US economy.

I think we’ve had enough “reactionaries” in the White House. It’s time for someone who will be a little more offensive when it comes to these things. That’s really all there is to it.

This “Economic Katrina” should be enough to reveal to any rational person which choice is the right one in this election. The question is, will people believe John McCain when he lies to their face and tells them, “hey, I’m not responsible for this mess — remember I’m the maverick!”

This, despite his campaign crew being largely comprised of lobbyists and other assorted fat cats.

Only in America could this guy still be tied in the race with the “change” candidate.

I caught Nancy Pfotenhauer, one of McCain’s senior policy advisers on CNN this past Sunday on Late Edition. I don’t think anyone has better used the “I know you are but what am I” defense in recent memory. Here she is in a quite heated debate with Chris Matthews, and for every point, she pretty much responds, “so are the Democrats.” Pitiful.

What’s more, she doesn’t seem to understand that it’s rude to talk over others. And someone might want to tell her to stop grinning like someone’s taking her high school portrait every time someone on the left makes a good point that might hurt her candidate. Notice at the end of this debate, when she gets rattled, she just echoes Robert Gibbs’ words, and then gives him the “if looks could kill” grin.

Pfotenhauer’s own economic status must not be too stellar either, as it seems she wears the same outfit to all these talk shows. OK, that’s petty I know, but I just couldn’t resist. These two clips are about a week apart.

When was the last time your three-day rate at a hotel room was $707 a night? For Governor Sarah Palin and her daughter, Bristol, that would be October 2007, when the two attended Newsweek’s annual Women and Leadership Conference in New York City, as cited by the Washington Post.

I just did a search at Travelocity and it seems the going rate for hotels in NYC is anywhere from $280 a night to $600 a night.

So much for fiscal responsibility. When the taxpayers are footing the bill for your hotel room, why not charge it up?

The main story over at the Post though, is the amount of money the Governor has charged the state for travel expenses relating to her family, and other expenses she claimed while at spending time at home.

My guess is this is all within normal limits, and it certainly seems like Palin is spending far less than her predecessor on these sorts of things, actually saving the Alaska taxpayers money since she was elected. The press should be careful that this isn’t perceived as nitpicking. It’s a story, but I imagine it won’t carry much weight with voters.

More interesting is this revelation in Time magazine that “Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident, and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 2 1/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double.”

My parents recently visited Alaska, and they said everything there is priced higher, so this is not surprising actually.

Two more stories that aren’t really stories at the end of the day. So why am I calling your attention to them?

The truth is I’ve become an addict. I’m addicted to distraction. I call it “Palin Syndrome.” I can’t focus on the issues anymore, I need to keep reading any story I can find about Sarah Palin. I know there’s some good dirt there somewhere, and if we can only get it into sunlight, Obama will suddenly be at 60% to McCain’s 30%. The other 10% being wishy-washy “undecided” types who are waiting for yet another FOX commentator to really convince them this time that Obama’s a Muslim, or that he’s not a real patriot because he doesn’t wear a flag pin or something like that.

I’ll be right back with another post. I’m sure I’ll find something soon to comment on…

It’s quite obvious why the McCain campaign has kept Sarah Palin to a tightly controlled script since announcing her as the VP pick. They’re terrified of her making some obvious mistake. I don’t know why they’re so afraid. The fact that McCain and Palin have flip-flopped or goofed on the answers to many questions hasn’t hurt the team’s poll numbers. In fact, it seems as though McCain got an 11-point bump out of the RNC without addressing a single concern of middle-class Americans.

So why worry? If Palin flubs the answer to some question during her big ABC interview with Charlie Gibson later this week, all she needs to do is dodge the question or answer with GOP rhetoric. People obviously won’t know the difference. In fact, it just might make her more appealing! As Bill Maher once said about Bush, “he doesn’t know… He doesn’t know! Leave him alone, he just doesn’t know…”

McCain’s campaign manager has said this campaign is not about the issues. America is buying right into that. All Palin needs to say is something about patriotism, or reform, or bureaucracy, or perhaps rattle off some snarky witticism that the campaign prepared ahead of time, and that’s all that will get coverage. She’ll be totally prepared by the end of the week, and the press will be reporting with enthusiasm on this new political discovery rather than on her answers. God knows now that Olbermann and Matthews and anyone else who dare speak a word against this pair gets relegated to cleaning the restroom stalls at NBC headquarters.

America apparently doesn’t care about policy. It doesn’t care about issues. It doesn’t want to hear specifics about how the candidates will tackle the most important problems of the day. The people of America just want a good (quick!) sound byte, a picture of the flag, and a few lies to their faces. That’s all. It’s not about the issues… Exactly.

As the poll numbers inch upward for McCain, I’m wondering why it seems like it’s taking so long for the Obama camp to push back. I’m starting to think that this is 2004 all over again, when Kerry let the swiftboaters define him and he took way too long to immediately punch back. Obama’s got plenty of money (given to him by small folks like myself), why isn’t he spending it?

Perhaps he is spending it, just not in NY? If he is, it doesn’t seem to be getting any national coverage. Of course, with the Palin stories still sucking any air out of the room, I’m not surprised.

Perhaps Obama’s campaign folk think that 57 days is plenty to reverse the momentum? That’s possible. However, if it gets any closer to the election and McCain’s numbers are still picking up, Obama is going to have to try something more drastic. How many commercials have we seen from the McCain campaign that haven’t actually AIRED, or that have aired only a couple times, but have received play after play on some program while some talking head discussed the ad? Free advertising. National coverage. Obama might have to do something controversial and get coverage this way if people don’t stop talking about Sarah Palin. He can buy all the ads he wants, but no one will be talking about them until the Palin excitement fades.

I can’t believe I’m writing this. The Palin excitement? Jesus.

The point is, if Obama is fighting back right now, nothing seems to be getting through. These days the only Obama message getting through is slip ups like talking about his “Muslim faith.” OK, I repeated it here, but I’m going to put it in context, something that other blogs are not doing… Purposefully not doing…

The slip came when Obama suggested that McCain had not talked about “my Muslim faith,” meaning that he hadn’t tried to label Obama a Muslim. Here is the context, as taken from the Post article linked above:

The exchange came after Mr. Obama said that Republicans are attempting to scare voters by suggesting he is not Christian, which McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said was “cynical.”

Asked about it on ABC, Mr. Obama said, “These guys love to throw a rock and hide their hand.”

“The McCain campaign has never suggested you have Muslim connections,” said Mr. Stephanopoulos, who repeatedly interrupted Mr. Obama during the interview.

“I don’t think that when you look at what is being promulgated on Fox News, let’s say, and Republican commentators who are closely allied to these folks,” Mr Obama responded, and Mr. Stephanopoulos interrupted: “But John McCain said that’s wrong.”

“Let’s not play games,” he said. “What I was suggesting — you’re absolutely right that John McCain has not talked about my Muslim faith. And you’re absolutely right that that has not come.”

Mr. Stephanopoulos interrupted with, “Christian faith.”

“My Christian faith,” Mr. Obama said quickly. “Well, what I’m saying is that he hasn’t suggested that I’m a Muslim. And I think that his campaign’s upper echelons have not, either. What I think is fair to say is that, coming out of the Republican camp, there have been efforts to suggest that perhaps I’m not who I say I am when it comes to my faith — something which I find deeply offensive, and that has been going on for a pretty long time.”

So this is the only news Obama is making as of late, well, along with his idiotic flip-flop of a notion that he might not actually rescind the Bush tax cuts, and of course he had to mention that rescinding the cuts would actually be a tax increase, giving more fodder to his Republican rivals.

Bottom line, the campaign is in trouble. There’s no denying it. The McCain camp has so much momentum it succeeded in having Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews basically fired as political anchors. I know the Obama camp probably sees this poll-reported momentum as a blip, but it had better be very careful, and it had better start nailing its opponents to the wall on their many many lies.

I think the “Bridge to Nowhere” issue is a great one to start with. People are already familiar with the Bridge to Nowhere as a symbolic example of all that is wrong in Washington. They also remember very clearly the distorted John Kerry line, “I actually voted before it before I voted against it.”

The Obama campaign needs to blitz the airwaves with the fact that Sarah Palin was a supporter of that bridge before she was against it, and then took some of the money anyway. That will stick in peoples’ minds. Very simple. Use Rove’s playbook against the GOP. After that you can talk about how Palin didn’t really “sell” the Alaskan jet on Ebay, and how she was a big proponent of earmarks for her state. You might even throw in some of her speech at the church in her town, where she said the the Iraq war and the new gas pipeline were “God’s will.” I don’t know if painting her as a religious crackpot would do any good, and it might do some harm, but if things get desperate there’s always that option. If used properly, it could certainly scare off some independents.

Folks, it’s going to have to get dirty. We all know how the game is played now. If Democrats want to talk about policy, Republicans will attack us on the finer points. When we defend or try to clear up the lies by getting into details, no one wants to listen. That’s just how it is. And while we’re defending and clarifying, they’re immediately back on offense with ad hominem attacks which America then sends around in e-mail threads, and again we’re suddenly on defense. And as the momentum swings, a few letters to MSNBC results in even more favorable coverage for the GOP because MSNBC doesn’t want to take the chance that they could be caught on the “wrong side of history,” despite the fact that they made that mistake with Phil Donohue what, seven years ago now? In the administration’s rush to war, MSNBC didn’t want anyone on the air saying, “hey, maybe we should really think about this for a second.”

So it seems like right now because everyone is on the McCain/Palin bandwagon, everyone’s afraid to be critical of what could be the upcoming administration. It’s going to take a big rush from Obama to overcome this. It’s starting to look like an uphill battle.

I’m sure the campaign is not going to show its hand, but I sure would like — at the very least — to hear that the folks over there are not worried, that they have a plan, because I’m scared shitless right about now that we’ll see four more years of John McBush, and then eight more with the uber-neoconservative, Christianist wackjob Palin. I can’t even imagine in my wildest nightmares what this country will look like after they appoint three more conservative justices to the Supreme Court.