The Resurrection

I couldn't agree more with John Aravosis:

After eight years of having Republicans call me an un-American troop-hating fag-loving socialist, after months of John McCain embracing the hate to a level where his own supporters were calling out for Barack Obama to be assassinated, no one is going to be permitted to tell me with a straight face that "oh you know, both sides do it."

Your side was abominable. Your side was hateful. Your side race-baited. Your side gay-baited. Your side lied like we've never seen in recent presidential campaign history. Your side used a tax-cheat who would do better under Obama's tax proposal to be your everyman on the issue of taxes. Your side, in a veiled effort at race-baiting, said Obama doesn't put his country first. Your side had the audacity to call Obama a socialist. Your side suggested he was a Muslim. Your side suggested he was a terrorist. Your side suggested he was Osama bin Laden.

Spare me the crap about how both sides do it. You people are a disgrace, you've been a disgrace for eight long years, and all your hate and lying and venom and vitriol finally bit you in your collective fat ass.

The effort to raise John McCain's reputation from the dead has already begun. He'll give a TV appearance where he'll rend his garments and bat his eyes and talk about how sorrowful he was to see what his campaign perpetrated. And everyone in the Village will try to fall in line.

Enough. You show your true character when put under the spotlight. John McCain showed his, and proved himself winning to go to any lengths to extend the glory to which he feels entitled. I'm not particularly interested in letting bygones be bygones. The Democratic nominee got multiple threats on his life as the anger of McCain-Palin rallies reached a fever pitch.

McCain will have to live with himself. And anyone that tries to throw him a lifeline will hear from me, at least.

...here's a classic of the burgeoning resurrection genre.

Learn, Damn You... Learn!

For some reason the McCain campaign is continuing to use the same fear and smear tactics to try and discredit Barack Obama, despite the demonstrable evidence that they have not worked.

* Despite months of attacks on Obama's allegedly sinister background and cultural identity, a solid majority of likely voters, 57%, say that Obama has a background and set of values they can identify with, versus only 39% who say he doesn't. Those numbers are virtually identical to McCain's, which are 57%-38%.

* Asked which would concern them more about an Obama presidency, his lack of experience or the possibility that he would raise taxes, 14% cite taxes and 20% cite inexperience. Forty-eight percent -- more than those two combined -- say that "neither is a concern." This, despite weeks of attacks on Obama as a lightweight and empty suit who wants to hike taxes on ordinary plumbers and hockey moms everywhere.

* Despite all the attacks suggesting that Obama harbors a secret and shadowy agenda that he has yet to reveal, a huge majority of 67% say that they know what Obama and Biden would do if elected.

Contrary to my title, I hope that Republicans DON'T learn their lesson and keep running the same stupid campaigns that are ill-suited to an informed electorate and this historical moment. Because I actually feel we're living in a time of political engagement, which is poisonous to Republican strategy. Yet they keep rolling out the same basketball every election and hope that they can score with it. People are sick and tired of being scared and angry.

..."Does Obama think terrorists are the good guys?" Does Sarah Palin think anyone gives a crap what she has to say?

The proper reaction to this stuff at this point is not outrage but mockery.

The Leaked Surprise

I don't know if these 11th-hour smears are going to work at a time when the total financial meltdown tends to focus the mind a bit. But if undecideds were looking for an excuse to vote against Senator Obama, they've been handed it. It appears that Obama has an aunt from Kenya who is living in Boston illegally after her request for asylum was denied four years ago. Illegal!!!1! By the way, Barack Obama doesn't seem to know this aunt well or have any sort of relationship with her.

The interesting part of this is how the asylum denial was discovered. The quoted portion is from this AP story.

"Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one of them a federal law enforcement official. The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release."

To quote Josh Marshall:

That's about as transparent a red flag as an outfit like the AP is usually willing to give. And there you have it. Quite likely working in concert with the McCain campaign, a Bush administration official is leaking details on an immigration case to try to help McCain three days before the election. It's shades of Bush I's riffling through Bill Clinton's passport files just before the 1992 election in a desperate last minute gambit as they were swirling down the drain.

Guess what? THAT'S illegal. And unlike some random relative who has no relationship to Obama, it's likely this was carried out at the highest levels of either the Bush Administration or the McCain campaign.

We'll see if it has any impact - I think it will be minimal. But the circumstances of the leak ought to be investigated as well.

UPDATE: Things that could have driven the news cycle as last-minute revelations about McCain that were ignored by the larger media:

1) A mysterious donor who gave $70,000 to John McCain in one day and $269,000 over the course of a year.

2) John and Cindy used military jets for vacation trips to Bermuda back in 1993.

3) A potential fatal car crash back in 1964.

4) McCain pushed regulators to approve a land swap for a key contributor.

Any or all of these could have been in the genre of these last-minute smears, but you know, that wouldn't be sporting.

The Last Bit Of Bile

This attempt to trump up an association between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi, as if it's a problem for a politician to know a world-renown scholar, is really sickening. So much so, in fact, that even the Washington Post editorial board disapproves.

For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s, he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don't agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn't, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis -- or even to Mr. Ayers -- is a vile smear [...]

Perhaps unsurprising for a member of academia, Mr. Khalidi holds complex views. In an article published this year in the Nation magazine, he scathingly denounced Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and U.S. Middle East policy but also condemned Palestinians for failing to embrace a nonviolent strategy. He said that the two-state solution favored by the Bush administration (and Mr. Obama) was "deeply flawed" but conceded there were also "flaws in the alternatives." Listening to Mr. Khalidi can be challenging -- as Mr. Obama put it in the dinner toast recorded on the 2003 tape and reported by the Times in a detailed account of the event last April, he "offers constant reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."

It's fair to question why Mr. Obama felt as comfortable as he apparently did during his Chicago days in the company of men whose views diverge sharply from what the presidential candidate espouses. Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position. To suggest, as Mr. McCain has, that there is something reprehensible about associating with Mr. Khalidi is itself condemnable -- especially during a campaign in which Arab ancestry has been the subject of insults. To further argue that the Times, which obtained the tape from a source in exchange for a promise not to publicly release it, is trying to hide something is simply ludicrous, as Mr. McCain surely knows.

Which reminds us: We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over." That's good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign's increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.

In other words, Khalidi actually listens to and comprehends multiple sides of a debate, which in conservative politics is strictly verboten. This is nothing more than slander toward a man who is being singled out for little more than, yes, the color of his skin. It's shameful and reminiscent of some of the worst eras of American politics. And it's sadly typical in this campaign for John McCain, who as Ezra Klein notes is "a leader who decided to stop leading."

Imagine, then, what would have happened if Barack Obama had ended up running against the senator who brought the first cap-and-trade bill before the Congress, passed one of the most important campaign finance reform bills in history, voted against Bush's tax cuts, championed the Patient's Bill of Rights, fought for comprehensive immigration reform, and was the Senate's most effective opponent of torture. Catastrophe, right?

Luckily, Obama didn't run against that guy. John McCain, who did all that, spent this election refusing to mention any of his accomplishments. He argued the virtues of experience without pointing to its fruits. He bragged of being a maverick without explaining how his independence had resulted in tangible achievements. The reality of his record is that he was an ineffective Senator until the aftermath of the 2000 election, when his anger with the Republican Party led him to construct odd-bedfellows coalitions with Democrats and his national celebrity -- yes, celebrity -- helped him pass the legislation, or at least get press for breaking with his party. The resulting achievements proved deeply unpopular with the conservative base. So when he ran as the Republican nominee, he clammed up about global warming and flip-flopped on immigration. He stopped talking about campaign finance reform and started supporting tax cuts. His resulting criticisms of Obama fell flat: Unable to detail his own record, he couldn't connect with his critique of Obama's history. Unable to explain why it was good to be a maverick, he came off like a pro-wrestler trying to promote his new nickname.

And so he resorted to baseless smears and insults, without giving one voter a compelling reason to choose him rather than reject his opponent. And at a time of such tremendous challenges, small-ball like that falls flat.

I also agree with Ezra that you should maybe buy Khalidi's book and decide for yourself what you think of his scholarship.

Kitchen Sink Employed In Last-Minute Smear Strategy

This is the final primal scream for John McCain and the right. After decades of feeling entitled to the levers of power, of shrugging off responsibility and accountability, they are having to deal with the consequences of the failed policies of the conservative era. So as a result, they are going heavily on the attack.

There are the new set of nasty robocalls, now being employed in McCain's home state of Arizona, where multiple polls have now shown the race to be close and where Obama is mounting a last-minute surge.

There's the latest deliberate misinterpretation of Obama's tax policies, pretending not to understand that "over $250,000 gets an increase" and "under $200,000 gets a cut" can both be right at the same time.

Obama has said throughout the campaign that families making less than $250,000 a year will not see a tax increase. Those making less than $200,000 will get a tax cut, he says. "If you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year, you will not see a single dime of your taxes go up," Obama said during an October 7 presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee. "If you make $200,000 a year or less, your taxes will go down."

The campaign ad McCain refers to, titled "Defining Moment," does have a graphic appear on the screen that says, "Families making less than $200,000 get tax cut." Obama says, "If you have a job, pay taxes and make less than $200,000 a year, you'll get a tax cut," which is, again, consistent with the plan he has
laid out.

Biden was speaking Monday, October 27, in an interview with WNEP in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He said, "(An) $87 billion tax break doesn't need to go to people making an average of $1.4 million. It should go like it used to. It should go to middle class people — people making under $150,000 a year." Biden never says that tax breaks should "only" go to such people. The Obama campaign says he was merely using that figure as an example and that the statement does not represent a change in policy.

The Verdict: False. What McCain is doing here, in part, is comparing apples and oranges. He compares two different aspects of Obama's tax plan as if they were the same. And Biden never said people making less than $150,000 are the "only" people who would get a tax cut under Obama's policies.

There's the latest attack ads basically calling Obama a Marxist-Leninist committed to handing out "welfare," one of which is so rushed that it includes a misspelling and the other clearly spelling out the word "blacks" to answer the question, I assume, of where the money goes.

There's this latest crusade against the media, attacking the LA Times for publishing a story friendly to him several months ago that he apparently just noticed. And by the way, the attacks on Rashid Khalidi are ridiculous, especially considering that McCain and Khalidi have worked together:

Of course, Khalidi has been involved in Palestinian causes. McCarthy ought to ask John McCain about that, because McCain and Khalidi appear to have some joint interests, and that fact speaks very well of both of them. Indeed, the McCain–Khalidi connections are more substantial than the phony Obama–Khalidi connections McCarthy gussies up for his article. The Republican party’s congressionally funded international-networking organization, the International Republican Institute–long and ably chaired by John McCain and headed by McCain’s close friend, the capable Lorne Craner–has taken an interest in West Bank matters. IRI funded an ambitious project, called the Palestine Center, that Khalidi helped to support. Khalidi served on the Center’s board of directors. The goal of that project, shared by Khalidi and McCain, was the promotion of civic consciousness and engagement and the development of democratic values in the West Bank. Of course, McCarthy is not interested in looking too closely into the facts, because they would not serve his shrill partisan objectives.

And of course, at the end of the campaign we are getting the full Jeremiah.

The National Republican Trust PAC, which has been airing an ad attacking Barack Obama's association with Reverend Wright in three battleground states, has now put down for a national buy on five networks that will last from now through election day, a consultant with the group confirms to me.

The ad will run nationally on Fox, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC for the next five days, the consultant, Rick Wilson, says -- "all the way until election day."

The ad, which you can watch here, features the now-infamous footage of Wright's livelier sermons, and intones that Obama "never complained" about Wright "until he ran for President," adding that Obama is "too radical, too risky."

The Democratic Web presence has done a good job smacking down and ferreting out these attacks, but it seems like lately there are almost too many to chronicle. The conservative attack machine still has a pulse and they're still going to try and smear Barack Obama. We'll see if it works.

Here Come De Sludge, Here Come De Sludge

It's actually no different from how the Republicans have run this entire campaign - using smear campaigns to make the case that Barack Obama is somehow risky, radical, a terrorist, a Muslim, exotic, not like you or your family. The latest is that they're planting these stories in the newspaper - literally:

Citizens United, the conservative group headed by notorious Whitewater scandalmonger David Bossie, is distributing hundreds of thousands of DVDs attacking Barack Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers in newspapers in Ohio, Nevada, and Florida this week, a group spokesperson confirms to us.

A reader in Ohio reports to us that she received a copy of the DVD, called "Hype: The Obama Effect," in her copy of the Columbus Dispatch this morning.

We checked in with Citizens United spokesperson Will Holley, who confirmed to us that the DVD was distributed in the Dispatch today, and will be disseminated in copies of the Cincinatti Enquirer and Plain Dealer tomorrow, followed by the Palm Beach Post and the Las Vegas Review Journal on Friday.

The wingers tried this before by shipping Obsession, a DVD designed to stoke fears about radical Islam. But this one is directly focused at Obama.

However, as ridiculous as the smears against Obama have been, some of the sludge being shoveled in the downticket races is even worse. Elizabeth Dole's desperate attempt to save her career is downright slanderous, not just to Kay Hagan but to atheists.

Dole's campaign has been calling attention to a Sept. 15 fundraiser that Hagan attended in Boston with author Wendy Kaminer and her husband, Woody Kaplan, who was on the advisory board of the Godless Americans political action committee and active in a group that promoted "secular" ideas.

The ad featuring Hagan airs a comment from one the organization’s leaders saying "There was no Jesus."

The announcer says "A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan’s honor."

"Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?"

The best part of that story is the last line, "Recent polls have shown Hagan with a narrow lead over Dole." Well of course!

Kay Hagan is fighting back. She's a Sunday school teacher, for cryin' out loud. And the attack on "godlessness" evokes nothing so much as the 1940s. Apparently Liddy thinks she's running against Helen Gahagan Douglas.

Then there's outright assault.

On Friday, two Feder staffers approached Congressman Wolf in a public location to ask him some questions. Two different individuals who were accompanying Congressman Wolf (staffers? relatives? friends?) assaulted the Feder staffers, as you can see quite clearly in the video. The first Feder staffer was hit with a cane and then punched. The second staffer (as you will see on the video) was pinned to a wall and forcibly held there. All of this took place in the presence of Congressman Wolf, who stood by and did nothing to intervene.

The thug life has come to McCain-Palin rallies as well, but you knew that.

Fortunately, these clowns are suffering for their own attacks. Michelle Bachmann had almost a million dollars tossed at her from the netroots after her neo-McCarthyite rant. Robin Hayes in North Carolina said almost the same thing ("Liberals hate real Americans") and now he's losing to Larry Kissell. Scott Garrett connected his opponent, a RABBI, to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and now Mike Bloomberg endorsed Rabbi Dennis Shulman. Every attack is having an equal and opposite reaction.

And us progressives have long memories. In 2002 Saxby Chambliss ran one of the most disgusting ads in recent memory, making a connection between Sen. Max Cleland (a war hero who left 3 limbs off the battlefield) and Osama bin Laden. Now, six years later, Chambliss is threatened in a race against progressive Jim Martin, and VoteVets is hammering him.



Payback's a bitch.

Dirty Tricks Watch

Every year the Republican Party sends a flier into minority or poor neighborhoods telling people to vote on the wrong day. This one is even more efficient, because it claims that Virginia modified their laws to have Republicans vote on November 4 and Democrats on November 5. That way, they don't lose one vote! Good work, Virginia GOP! There's a copied logo from the Commonwealth of Virginia on the flier, too, making it look all official-like.

But as far as crude fliers go, this one from Wisconsin, distributed in a heavily white area, wins the prize.



"Change means...BLACK!" Mmm, that's some delicious ratfucking!

And then there's this, a pretty novel case of ballot-stealing.

Three Hialeah voters say they had an unusual visitor at their homes last week: a man who called himself Juan, offering to help them fill out their absentee ballots and deliver them to the elections office.

The voters, all supporters of Democratic congressional candidate Raul Martinez, said they gave their ballots to the man after he told them he worked for Martinez. But the Martinez campaign said he doesn't work for them.

Juan "told me not to worry, that they normally collected all the ballots and waited until they had a stack big enough to hand-deliver to the elections department," said voter Jesus Hernandez, 73. "He said, 'Don't worry. This is not going to pass through the mail to get lost.'"

Hernandez said he worries his ballot was stolen or destroyed. He and two other voters told The Miami Herald that the man was dispatched by a woman caller who also said she worked for Martinez. But the phone number cited by the voters traces back to a consultant working for Martinez's rival, Republican congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

Martinez's campaign manager, Jeff Garcia, has asked the Miami-Dade state attorney's office to investigate.

Wow. That's breathtaking criminality.

The Republicans are going to do everything they can to make sure that if you're a Democrat, you don't vote this year. Not all of it will work - the stories of young workers who probably need the money walking off the job at call centers rather than read smear call scripts against Barack Obama are inspiring. And the GOP is consistently losing in the courts. But they clearly have other means, as you can see above, and some will be effective. The best way to stop it is to bring them out into the sunlight.

Audition Tape

This Barbara West lady put together quite the comedy show with Joe Biden, hasn't she? Apparently she gets all her questions from email forwards and Free Republic comment threads. I mean, this is unbelievable.



What bothers me, from the standpoint of Joe Biden's judgment, is that it's clear he went on this crackpot's show TWICE. Joe, no subset of the electorate is worth it!

As for the "Marxism" comments, which I dealt with earlier, I think Jon Chait's headline says it best:

McCain: Obama Wants to Have a GOVERNMENT in WASHINGTON!

If you want to espouse the hardcore libertarian argument that roads aren't worth building and cops aren't worth paying and there is nothing that ought to be created for common purpose in America, well go ahead. It'd sure be a lot more honest than this deceptive "the poor luckie duckies are taking your hard-earned money from your wallet" nonsense.

And if you want to ask Barack Obama what his policies are, he'll tell you.

Look - we've tried it John McCain's way. We've tried it George Bush's way. Deep down, Senator McCain knows that, which is why his campaign said that "if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." That's why he's spending these last weeks calling me every name in the book. Because that's how you play the game in Washington. If you can't beat your opponent's ideas, you distort those ideas and maybe make some up. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run away from. You make a big election about small things.

Ohio, we are here to say "Not this time. Not this year. Not when so much is at stake." Senator McCain might be worried about losing an election, but I'm worried about Americans who are losing their homes, and their jobs, and their life savings. I can take one more week of John McCain's attacks, but this country can't take four more years of the same old politics and the same failed policies. It's time for something new [...]

Now, I don't believe that government can or should try to solve all our problems. I know you don't either. But I do believe that government should do that which we cannot do for ourselves - protect us from harm and provide a decent education for our children; invest in new roads and new science and technology. It should reward drive and innovation and growth in the free market, but it should also make sure businesses live up to their responsibility to create American jobs, and look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road. It should ensure a shot at success not only for those with money and power and influence, but for every single American who's willing to work. That's how we create not just more millionaires, but more middle-class families. That's how we make sure businesses have customers that can afford their products and services. That's how we've always grown the American economy - from the bottom-up. John McCain calls this socialism. I call it opportunity, and there is nothing more American than that.

Understand, if we want get through this crisis, we need to get beyond the old ideological debates and divides between left and right. We don't need bigger government or smaller government. We need a better government - a more competent government - a government that upholds the values we hold in common as Americans.

Strong closing argument speech from Barack Obama.

Down To Pennsylvania

Now I'm going to have to call all my relatives. Thanks a lot, McCain campaign!

Pennsylvania will see a lot of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin next week.

The scheduling reflects McCain's tough electoral math. With some -- though by no means all -- advisers all but conceding Colorado, McCain would be forced to win a blue state in order to recoup the electoral votes. New Hampshire wouldn't give him enough, and Pennsylvania, the McCain campaign believes, is the most brittle of the remaining states. Public and private polls give Obama a double digit lead in the state, but McCain advisers believe that Obama is underperforming in the suburbs and exurban counties around Pittsburgh. Tensions between the two campaigns in the state is acute.

Pennsylvania doesn't have early voting, meaning that the McCain campaign is not starting from a deficit like in other states, and it's 82% white, a fairly high percentage, as well as one of the older states in the union (15%-plus over 65).

And so the dirtiest of dirty tricks are all manifesting themselves in Pennsylvania. The "B" lady who failed in her race-baiting effort to blame an assault on an African-American Obama supporter was in Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania GOP - not an outside group, but the state REpublican Party - sent out this mailer aimed squarely at my grandparents:

"Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008," the e-mail reads. "Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let's not make a similar one this year!"

A copy of the e-mail, provided by Democratic officials, says it was "Paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of PA - Victory 2008."

It warns "Fellow Jewish Voters" of the danger of a second Holocaust due to the threats to Israel from its neighbors and touts Republican presidential candidate John McCain's qualifications over those of Obama.

The same spokesperson who's distancing himself from this mailer is the one who was feeding reporters the story of the campaign worker mugging.

And then, in the furthest stretches of Outer Wingnuttia, there's this:

A federal judge in Philadelphia last night threw out a complaint by a Montgomery County lawyer who claimed that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was not qualified to be president and that his name should be removed from the Nov. 4 ballot.

Philip J. Berg alleged in a complaint filed in federal district court on Aug. 21 against Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya.

Berg claimed that the Democratic presidential standardbearer is not even an American citizen but a citizen of Indonesia and therefore ineligible to be president.

He alleged that if Obama was permitted to run for president and subsequently found to be ineligible, he and other voters would be disenfranchised [...]

Surrick ruled that Berg's attempts to use certain laws to gain standing to pursue his claim that Obama was not a natural-born citizen were "frivolous and not worthy of discussion."

This guy was all over the map. He said Obama was born in Kenya AND an Indonesian citizen.

And previously, the state GOP sued the Secretary of State and ACORN, claiming that a clean election cannot be assured.

If you're looking for the trends reflecting the worst of the Republican Party, check out Pennsylvania for the next ten days.

... Nate Silver thinks McCain should abandon Pennsylvania as he has no shot there. Which would of course mean that he has no shot. Silver's advice is to hit New Mexico and New Hampshire hard, and defend Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio and North Carolina. The rest of the states he needs would presumably rise if his national poll numbers rose.

Falling Flat Because They Were Never Inflated

It's something of an interesting question why the Swiftboat-style attacks on Barack Obama have gotten no traction this year. Ari Berman does a scholarly analysis in The Nation. It could be the general lack of desire for irrelevant attacks at a time of financial crisis; it could be that the implosion of the conservative movement has fractured the message; it could be that the money simply isn't there to back John McCain; it could even be that the Obama campaign counter-punched effectively and refused to allow these attacks to get traction.

I think it has something to do with the utter stupidity of this year's attacks. Jon Swift, the reasonable conservative, has the definitive list of election-year blogging from conservatives. Bloggers are pretty important in amplifying attacks, and look what they've gone after this year:

During Obama’s dark, mysterious years at Columbia, he was involved in domestic terrorist bombings

Although some mainstream media sources have alluded to Obama’s mysterious years at Columbia, only one intrepid reporter, Tom Maguire of Just One Minute has made the cognitive leap required to connect all of the dots. Noting that Obama admitted in his book Dreams of My Father that he was “interested in South Africa divestment,” Maguire does some digging and discovers that some protests against the 1981 tour by the South African Springboks rugby team resulted in violence and even some bombings. Guess who “was involved in some fashion” in these bombings? The Weather Underground! “These are just dots and it may be impossible to connect them,” says Maguire, modestly, “but we have Barack Obama at Columbia working on South African divestment (as were many peaceful protestors) while other radical elements with a Weather Underground flavor are setting bombs, killing cops, and working on South African divestment. As a bonus, Bill Ayers is studying at Bank Street College a quarter mile from Columbia.” Wow! How can the mainstream media possibly ignore the fact that Obama must have been “involved in some fashion” in domestic terrorism because he was “interested in South African divestment.” “Tom Maguire steps pretty far out on a limb with this bit of speculation,” says CPAC Blogger of the Year Ace of Spades, who links to the story. “But it would explain why Barack Obama's ‘lost years’ at Columbia have remained so very very secret.” It makes me wonder how my friend Tom Watson, who was at Columbia at the same time as Obama and was also “interested in South African divestment,” was connected to the Weather Underground, not to mention hundreds of other former Columbia students who today freely walk the streets despite their terrorist connections. I wonder if Tom has mentioned his radical connections in his upcoming book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World, or if like Obama, he mysteriously left it out.

That's just one of them. It's must reading and really a seminal document. Americans may not have the smartest bullshit detector, but they can ferret out complete ridiculousness. And that accurately describes the conservative movement in 2008.

They Need To Come Up With Something Bigger Than "FAIL" To Describe This

OK, so now it comes out that the McCain campaign was feeding reporters that now-discredited story about the campaign staffer attacked by an Obama supporter because of her bumper sticker.

John Verrilli, the news director for KDKA in Pittsburgh, told TPM Election Central that McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director gave one of his reporters a detailed version of the attack that included a claim that the alleged attacker said, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."

Verrilli also told TPM that the McCain spokesperson had claimed that the "B" stood for Barack. According to Verrilli, the spokesperson also told KDKA that Sarah Palin had called the victim of the alleged attack, who has since admitted the story was a hoax.

The KDKA reporter had called McCain's campaign office for details after seeing the story -- sans details -- teased on Drudge.

This is just a disaster for the right wing. They lived by these B.S. stories for so long and now they're dying by them. It's extremely appropriate.

And hopefully, this signals the end of Matt Drudge and the ushering in of a new sobriety where people desire actual news and information instead of nonsense links to irrelevant gotcha stories. Indeed, just today Eric Boehlert writes:

Was Drudge just trying to prove our point?

About how his influence has cratered during his campaign cycle? And how, since the Wall Street meltdown began six weeks ago, his brand of shallow, partisan, GOP gotcha attacks have been completely ineffective?

Well, yesterday he went all in on the very hard-to-believe tale from Pittsburgh about the McCain supporter who was mugged and whose assailant carved a "B" in her face after becoming enraged about her GOP loyalties.

It was The Drudge Report that posted blaring headlines about the story, and it was The Drudge Report that tried to push the story into the mainstream media, perhaps in one last attempt to leave its mark on the campaign.

Well, Drudge did leave a mark. Just not the one he wanted.

It's hard not to feel schadenfreude over this. I can't say that I've ever read Drudge more than once or twice in my life, but the way that the traditional media follows his every utterance is disturbing. Maybe not so much anymore.

The Myth Of A Maverick

Matt Stoller has scored an incredible interview with a staffer from John McCain's 2000 Presidential campaign. It might not surprise you, given the sludge that his campaign is currently running, that the style is virtually unchanged from those days, when he was this supposed straight-talking honorable maverick. John McCain hasn't changed a bit.

McCain 2000 staffer: Yes, in South Carolina he had the Quinn's running his campaign out of their office. McCain did very well with establishment Republicans in NH... they helped him get his big win there along with independents. The Quinn's (Rick and Richard) are notorious.

Matt Stoller: For what?

McCain 2000 staffer: Well, they are probably one of the few consultants in SC that everyone would want. But... They also publish the Southern Partisan magazine. Which is extremely racist.

McCain 2000 staffer: McCain had their support and they were our consultants there. A good get for a Republican in the primary.

Matt Stoller: Wow

McCain 2000 staffer: He also had the support of some state officials and legislators that were important. Not to mention Graham and Sanford who at the time were both US Reps. Now one is a Senator and the other is Governor

Matt Stoller: The general consensus among pundits is that McCain in 2000 was destroyed by George Bush's dirty tricks (masterminded by Karl Rove). These tricks included claims he fathered a black child and attacks on his record in Vietnam.

McCain 2000 staffer: Had the Quinn's won SC for McCain he would have been the nominee in 2000.

Matt Stoller: But that McCain himself ran an honorable campaign.

McCain 2000 staffer: Ha! Again, the story is more detailed than that. Rove ran a Rove campaign. So yes, they were dirty. But we were too. I remember the week after NH, we surged in SC polls from something like 10pts behind Bush to 10pts ahead. After a little slipping because Bush was letting surrogates go after McCain's military history, we went up with an ad that said Bush twisted the truth just like Clinton. The ad aired for one day. The press said McCain was going negative, the Bush people screamed bloody murder, and our campaign went into a tail spin. Had that ad not run, I'm convinced, and if you spoke to people from the SC campaign or Weaver or Davis and they were honest with you they would agree, that ad sank the campaign.

Matt Stoller: What were some of the rumors the campaign was pushing about Bush?

McCain 2000 staffer: I remember talking with reporters after events about Bush's DUI. I remember senior press staff doing that. I remember them talking about Laura Bush's horrible car accident, saying that she may have been drunk when it happened. On a funny side note, during a debate Bush held up this flyer we were handing out door to door and at events that said Bush would hurt seniors... it was a really nasty flyer aimed at scaring the elderly. So Bush holds it up and asks McCain about it. McCain looks at Bush and says it isn't from his campaign. Bush points out that it says McCain's campaign paid for it. McCain then says well we have stopped doing that. Keep in mind, McCain swore off negative TV ads after the Clinton one failed so badly. So I'm watching the debate and I'm like... is he crazy? We have people in the field handing that out TONIGHT. He blew up at the staff that night over the flyer. Vintage McCain. He doesn't mind getting deep in the mud when it works for him. But if he gets caught? Hell-to-pay. And then he plays the straight-talking martyr.

Matt Stoller: Was he responsible for the flyer, or was it some sort of rogue operation within the campaign? What kind of tone did he and his senior advisors set?

McCain 2000 staffer: Ultimately McCain signed off on everything. That's how he operated. Very military minded, chain of command so to speak. The tone? Well, I think a story illustrates that better. On the campaign we had this right of passage called being WOW'd. It stood for Wrath of Weaver. If you ever experienced his wrath you essentially made it to the in-team. McCain on the other hand, being on the receiving end of his temper was NEVER a good thing. It wasn't something you bragged about over drinks with co-workers like you did with Weaver. It could be brutal. It's sort of funny in retrospect. At the end of ads these days, candidates have to say 'I'm so and so, and I approve this message." McCain is the guy who made that law. To see the filth he's been approving is pretty sick, but not unexpected.

This would be a nice story to fax to David Broder and Chris Matthews and Joe Klein, these pundits who did somersaults any time McCain was in their general orbit for years, and who think that this dive into the muck is only of recent vintage. McCain has been saying and doing anything to get elected for a long, long time. The gasbags became so impressed by this military man and his presumed honor that they made up a story about him, created an image basically out of nothing, an image that until this year made him the most respected Republican politician in America. Now a few of them are seeing the error of their ways, but they're replacing it with another story - John McCain's changed. He had to go to the dark side in this election. He didn't even want to, it's those Rove protégés around him that are pushing this noble warrior into it.

Wrong. All wrong. McCain lives for knifing his political enemies. He just wants deniability for it, which so many in the media are willing to give him thanks to this carefully cultivated image. The great axiom of modern politics is that if someone on television is telling you how honorable a politician is, well, just turn the sound off, because it's nothing but inauthentic flattery. Cocktail parties don't have this much gladhanding at them.

The Bee Lady

This election has been a carnival of stupid, so it's fitting that the "October Surprise" is unbelievably stupid as well.

A Pittsburgh police commander says a volunteer for the McCain campaign who reported being robbed and attacked near a bank ATM in Bloomfield has confessed to making up the story. Police say charges will be filed. More details to follow.

This was the woman who claimed that an Obama supporter - a black man - mugged her and beat her up because he saw her McCain bumper sticker. And that he carved a "B" into her skin. Only the "B" was perfectly situated, not jagged in any way, and it was backwards, as if it was carved while using a mirror. Turns out that she immediately started changing her story, and it looked bogus to anyone who spent more than two seconds with it.

And, you know, it was.

Didn't stop half the conservative blogosphere from running with it - and I say only half, because Michelle Malkin and some others were sleptical.

FAIL.

Total Sleaze - Not Just For John McCain Anymore!

I've been focused on the ugliness of the McCain campaign and their attack ads, mailers and robocalls. But I don't want to discount the efforts of any of his GOP allies.

Like Rep. Tom Feeney, who claims that his opponent Suzanne Kosmas basically let Mohammed Atta into the country in his latest ad ("She wanted driver's licenses for illegals and terrorists.")

Or Rep. Scott Garrett, who connects his opponent, Dennis Shulman, to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Please note: Shulman is a RABBI.

Or Sen. Elizabeth Dole, whose latest mailer claims that her opponent Kay Hagan will force the Boy Scouts to go all gay.

I don't think there isn't a place for contrast advertising. Here's a very tough one - and a good one - from Judy Baker:



The difference is that Baker's ad connects her opponent to the very real consequences of his policies, whereas these other mailers simply use fear to distract and divide - fear of terrorists, fear of Muslims, fear of homosexuals.

I guess that when you're bracing for a blowout, fear is all you've got left.

Voter displeasure with the war and economy, coupled with Sen. Barack Obama's popularity, has the House GOP running for cover. Even though polls have shown that Americans don't like congressional Democrats any more, a new internal GOP tally of House races suggests a Democratic rout that could keep the Republicans in the minority for decades. A document provided to Washington Whispers from a House GOP official shows that they could lose a net 34 seats. That means the Democrats would have a 270-165 advantage in the 111th Congress. In the Senate, Republicans expect to lose also but to keep up to 44 seats, ensuring their ability to stage a filibuster.

Won't Shovel The Sleaze Anymore

One lady has had it.

Chaylee Cole, a student at Fairmont State University, lost her part-time job in Weston last Friday after refusing to make telephone calls attacking Barack Obama.

McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee were paying for the calls, according to a "work paper" handed to Cole and her co-workers at the Weston offices of 1.2.1 Direct Response, a company based in Philadelphia.

"I was working at the call center," Cole said. "We got a campaign ad talking about how Obama had been part of terrorist attacks on the Capitol, the Pentagon and a judge's home and had ties with Bill Ayers.

"Last Thursday, I told them I did not want to read it," Cole said. "They said, 'Either you read it or you go home.'

"I told them I wasn't going to read it. They made me go home without pay for the rest of the day."

The most notable part of this, actually, is that McCain's hiring phone callers. The Obama campaign is entirely volunteer-driven.

There are also the robocalls, of course. And in the latest, Rudy Giuliani makes an appearance (as if his Presidential campaign didn't sap every ounce of his credibility) claiming that Barack Obama opposes jail time for murderers.

Hi, this is Rudy Giuliani, and I'm calling for John McCain and the Republican National Committee because you need to know that Barack Obama opposes mandatory prison sentences for sex offenders, drug dealers, and murderers.

It's true, I read Obama's words myself. And recently, Congressional liberals introduced a bill to eliminate mandatory prison sentences for violent criminals -- trying to give liberal judges the power to decide whether criminals are sent to jail or set free. With priorities like these, we just can't trust the inexperience and judgment of Barack Obama and his liberal allies. This call was paid for by the Republican National Committee and McCain-Palin 2008 at 866 558 5591.

He opposes mandatory minimum sentences, and I think only in nonviolent cases. That's been spun out to "the blacks will be roaming the streets and out of jail free!"

Also, the McCain campaign is smear texting.

Know the facts: Call 641-715-3900 ext. 83682
Then please fwd this 2 your phonebook they need 2 know.
You will Lose your freedoms this November 4th if you don't know!!!!

The phone number leads to the Bill Ayers robocall. It's reverse smearing!

I guess when human beings not named Rudy Giuliani won't do your dirty work, you have to bring the callers to you instead of going to the callers.

Pathetic.

UPDATE: There are now four Republican Senators on the record denouncing these robocalls and asking them to stop in their home states. Talk about a FAIL.

UPDATE II: The last refuge of a scoundrel, etc.: Elitist Obama will take your guns away. It was inevitable.

Some Fight Back

With the election 15 days away, you're starting to see the smears bubble up from the McCain campaign to the surface in the most odious ways. Republicans are spray-painting signs reading "Vote for a Terriost" (missing a spellchecker there, buddy). Early voters in North Carolina are being heckled for supporting Obama, and Obama supporters are finding their tires slashed after rallies. It's really pathetic what John McCain has unleashed.

But there are rare moments when people take their dignity back and do something right for a change. These are Republicans saying no to fear, and I think that's great.



There's going to be a major fallout after this election from inside the Republican Party. They ran their smear and fear campaign, and if it doesn't work, they'll have to figure out what to do. I don't hold hope that they'll chart any meaningfully different course, but they certainly could, if they exhibited the same behavior these folks did in driving out hate.

...by the way, great line from Obama dismissing the negative campaigning coming his way.

It's getting so bad that even Senator McCain's running mate denounced his tactics last night. As you know, you really have to work hard to violate Governor Palin's standards on negative campaigning.

Robo Smear

I think it's kind of stupid to invest in mass robocalls. I don't think they're nearly as effective as a human being, and while they're a good way to sneak in a negative attack, I'm not sure people invest a lot of credibility in a recorded voice. Certainly the anecdotal reaction to the highly negative calls coming from the McCain campaign in recent days suggest that they are backfiring. Worse, the dishonorable McCain hired exactly the same organization to make these robocalls that slimed him in South Carolina in 2000.

Well, it turns out FLS, which has offices in Phoenix and St. Paul, is basically the same outfit that George W. Bush hired to robo-slime McCain during the 2000 South Carolina primary, something that McCain repeatedly denounced with great outrage.

In 2000, the Washington Post reported that the Bush team's phone operation was conducted by a firm called Feathers, Hodges, Larson and Synhorst. A press release in 2003 (via Nexis) indicates that this firm had by then become Feathers, Larson and Synhorst, or FLS for short.

On February 20, 2000, McCain thundered that the robocalls hitting him -- done by this outfit -- were "hate calls" that had "inundated" him. Now, if Schoff is right, McCain appears to have enlisted the same outfit for his robo-slime campaign.

How perfect! No one could have made this one up if they'd tried.

Maine Senator Susan Collins, in a re-election fight of her own, asked McCain to stop making the calls into her own state. And the traditional media is beginning to see this for what it is, leading to more bad publicity.

But I just think they aren't effective. They're a band-aid for an inferior volunteer organization with little chance of matching Sen. Obama in voter contacts. That should frighten Republican stalwarts.

UPDATE: McCain addressed this through lying today:

WALLACE: But Senator, back — if I may, back in 2000 when you were the target of robo calls, you called these hate calls and you said...

MCCAIN: They worked.

WALLACE: ... and you said the following, "I promise you, I have never and will never have anything to do with that kind of political tactic."

Now you've hired the same guy who did the robo calls against you to — reportedly, to do the robo calls against Obama and the Republican Senator Susan Collins, the co-chair of your campaign in Maine, has asked you to stop the robo calls. Will you do that?

MCCAIN: Of course not. These are legitimate and truthful, and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that — things that this is — this is dramatically different, and either you haven't — didn't see those things in 2000...

WALLACE: No, I saw them.

MCCAIN: ... or you don't know the difference between that and what is a legitimate issue, and that is Senator Obama being truthful with the American people.

He's going to have to live with himself after this election is over. But let's face it- he's lying about this. The call has nothing to do with Obama being truthful about Bill Ayers. It asserts that Obama and Ayers were basically good friends. Others insinuate similar garbage. He's lying. He knows he's lying. And he has no honor.

As for the whining that Obama's raising too much money and it's going to lead to a scandal, you mean like using a front group for lying about your opponent?

Running A Respectful Campaign

Robocalls are cheaper and less labor-intensive than having volunteers man phonebanks. They are also more controllable in terms of message - what you want to communicate to the voter is communicated, every single time.

They're also extremely annoying, ask anyone who's been on the receiving end of them. And they are typically used to deliver the ugliest messages of a campaign.

So can you be at all surprised that this is what John McCain has been reduced to?

A harsh new robocall (above) — at least the third in a series — attacks Obama for having "worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers" whose group "killed Americans."

The script:

"Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500."

They're not even trying to hide this. The McCain campaign and the RNC are explicitly paying for these, not some front group.

Another one claims that Obama denied babies medical care.

I'm calling on behalf of John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in the Illinois Senate opposed a bill requiring doctors to care for babies born alive after surviving attempted abortions -- a position at odds even with John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama and his liberal Democrats are too extreme for America. Please vote -- vote for the candidates who share our values. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202 863 8500.

If Barack had only agreed to town hall meetings, this could have all been avoided!

I mean, this is the obvious manner for what's left of McCain's message. Angry candidate, angry robocalls. But I should note that in 2006, when the Republicans flooded Democratic voters with waves of spoof robocalls meant to seem like Democrats were sending them, one lawmaker stood up and demanded action. He introduced legislation called the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2006 which would have prevented this type of nonsense.

His name was Barack Obama.

You Fell For "African Press International"?

Really, right-wing blogosphere? Are you that gullible? Michelle Obama has nothing better to do than call up random BLOGGERS and berate them for the coverage nobody heard about in the first place?

I want to see if I can get them to swing at something. It's a challenge!

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EXCLUSIVE! MUST CREDIT D-DAY BLOG!!!eleventy!1!!!

Barack Obama just rolled up to my house in a Bentley with 22" rims, tore out of the car wearing a cape, and threw me against a wall, screaming "Why did you suggest that I would raise the capital gains tax? Are you asking to be cut?"

He then ADMITTED HE WAS A TERRORIST! NO RLY!!!! He showed me his real birth certificate and he's actually from Yemen and related to bin Laden by fourth cousin! I thought it was weird that he would divulge such sensitive information to a guy he was in the midst of beating up, but you know, no tellin'!
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OK, it's out there, wingnuts, link away!

Ladies And Gentlemen, Your California Republican Party

They're not just economic royalists and Yacht Tax Loophole lovers anymore, they have graduated to out and out eliminationist status:

Sacramento County Republican leaders Tuesday took down offensive material on their official party Web site that sought to link Sen. Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden and encouraged people to "Waterboard Barack Obama" – material that offended even state GOP leaders.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has pushed the party to try to broaden its appeal, took issue with the site. "In the governor's view, it's completely and totally inappropriate," said Julie Soderlund, a Schwarzenegger spokeswoman [...]

Taking credit for the site (sacramentorepublicans.org) and its content was county party chairman Craig MacGlashan – husband of Sacramento County Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan.

The Bee asked MacGlashan about the content after seeking his reaction to hate-filled graffiti that was spray-painted over an Obama display on a fence at Fair Oaks Boulevard and Garfield Avenue.

In recent weeks, MacGlashan, an attorney, joined local Democratic party officials in condemning vandalism to political displays.

The vandalism to the Obama display appeared to have been done overnight Monday. A racial epithet, profanity, "KKK" and the words "white power" were clearly visible from the roadway. Six of the nine fence panels were defaced.

"What you are describing to me is not free speech, it's vandalism. We don't condone it," MacGlashan said.

But he defended his Web site. "I'm aware of the content," he said. "Some people find it offensive, others do not. I cannot comment on how people interpret things."

Republicans have been taught for 30 years that the Presidency is their divine right and any Democrat who accedes to the office must be illegitimate. Compounding this is the fact that this next President is a black man. The hatred is welling up from everywhere and the resultant anger will make the Clinton Years look like the Era of Good Feeling.

Alternatively, the Sacramento GOP might have gone with "Waterboard Obama" just to follow the lead of their current President's explicit approval of torture.