E Pluribus Unum

• Sounds like McCain thinks the Secret Service causes more problems that it solves -- and he'd eliminate much of it if he becomes president. "Why do I need it?" says he. I'll tell you why: because the office is bigger than you, you macho s*@thead.

• John Edwards confuses going on offense with going on the attack. Reed Hundt, on the other hand, knows exactly what the difference is.

• Optimist's view of Iraq: US keeps 80,000-100,000 troops in country for the next twenty to thirty years. Meanwhile when the Brits left Basra, violence dropped by 90%. Draw your own conclusions.

• Rove on How To Beat Hillary. Ara on How To Beat Any Republican Who Wants To Beat Hillary (or any other Dem).

• In the context of today's writers' strike, screenwriter John Rogers (aka Kung Fu Monkey) recalls his essay wherein he draws a brilliant parallel between 4th generation warfare and 4th generation media. The guy is good -- read today's Re-arranging the Deckchairs as well as yesteryear's 4th Generation Media.

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Categories: 2008 Presidential Election , Democrats , John Edwards , John McCain , Media , Odds & Sods , War in Iraq

[Cross posted, with poll, at Daily Kos]

Yaakov Kirschen's cartoon goes like this: "The optimists think that the US Presidential campaign will be about the war in Iraq, while the pessimists think it'll be about the war in Iran." Substitute "Democrats" for "optimists" and "Republicans" for "pessimists" and I think you have a prescription for Democratic electoral disaster.

Hear me out...

Flash forward 6-12 months: tensions are high with Iran; maybe we've had some cross border skirmishes (like the Turks vs. the PKK). Maybe we've concentrated more ships, planes and bombs into the Gulf region. I'm not a betting man but the odds seem pretty strong we'll see that, or worse, in the immediate future. Who's going to stop it? Congress? Riiiiiiight. This is the same bunch that couldn't even compel Harriet Miers to comply with a crappy subpoena.

So now tensions are high. Very high. We're talking 24/7 war mania. Of course, the media is no help. In fact, Murdoch's new WSJ business channel bangs the drums louder than anyone -- whatever is good for the corporation is good for America. Blackwater stock goes stratospheric.

Who do you think this help the most -- Democrats or Republicans? Or more to the point: which candidates does this help most? Don't shoot the messenger, but I'm here to tell you it's short list -- and it has more Republicans on it than Democrats:

• Giuliani -- Death to Islamofascism. No more 9/11's.
  
• McCain -- The son and grandson of Navy admirals, blah blah blah.
  
• Clinton -- Stood (and will stand) shoulder-to-shoulder with the Commander in Chief

The rest of the field are (rightly or wrongly) perceived as lightweights. Not only that: the press will cast the story that way as well. Romney? Edwards? They cancel each other out as pretty boys. Obama bet on Iraq (being the optimist, see above, that he is) but he has no cred on Iran. Thompson? Compared to McCain and Giuliani, he's about exciting as a plate of grits. Dodd & Biden? I'd like to think they could stop Bush/Cheney via the Senate but I'm not counting on it. Richardson? His strength is his weakness -- he's a diplomat.

For those of you who were electoral optimists (see above) this is not good, my friends: McCain and Giuliani already poll relatively well against Clinton. A looming war with Iran helps them more than it helps her. Whichever one of them gets the nomination, all bets are off for an easy Dem takeover in the White House.

One bit of good news: I think Hillary Clinton intuitively sees these pieces on the chess board and is thinking several moves ahead. The others either don't -- or can't -- deal with it as it stands now.

Am I missing something here? I don't think so.

Bottom line: the worse the situation with Iran, the better it is for the Republicans in November 2008.

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Categories: 2008 Presidential Election , Democrats , Hillary Clinton , Iran , John McCain , Republicans , Rudy Giuliani , War

by Mark Adams

From his lust for Kralizec to his desire to privatize Social Security, Rudy unites left and right, by his stupidity.  Seriously, the guy is absofreakinglutely bat-shit crazy.

Obama figures out he's just not that good at the 30 second sound-byte debate format -- cuts and runs from attending any more debates than those already scheduled.  I assume that means there will be a hard limit of no more than 47 more until we begin voting -- probably right after Thanksgiving.  Hopefully, there will be lots of arugula.

After watching some TPMtv, spotlighting Mitt Romney's profound ignorance of anything east of Boston Harbor, Raising Kaine concludes "Multiple-Choice Mitt" is a "Giant Foreign Policy Goofball."  News Hounds gets the hypocrisy of Romney's schpeel, but you really need to watch Josh Marshall put it all together to understand how profoundly delusional Romney is. 

Meanwhile, Eleanor Clift has a question for Mitt & Co. that might stop some of the GOP hopefuls in their tracks -- since of course, they'd have to think instead of regurgitating their 30 year-old talking points or trying to remember whether they we talking to an audience that preferred the flip to the flop.

Stop asking Romney and the other Republican front runners about abortion and start asking them where they stand on family planning.

Shorter Elly C.:  "Please stop talking about this wedge issue that is destined to lose the election for us.  Our candidates suck eggs on this."

Fred Thompson, who turns 65 today (thus eligible for all the entitlements he vows to abolish), is the only candidate who needed to have his fat, lazy ass trucked around the Iowa State Fair in a golf cart. 

Actually he looked kinda gaunt.  He'll need to scarf down a few more elephant ears to be the right's answer to Michael Moore. 

She really ought to take it easy on the old guy.  How many little blue pills can one man take?

I noted before that Mike Huckabee was kind spoken towards the Clintons, to the point where he would sound almost gushing if he weren't a Republican.  Rights Field's David Dayen thinks these remarks point to where Huckabee first got the idea that cars and buses were lame, that his super-coolness would be enshrined forever once his Harley cleared the shark tank.

This kid came from a dysfunctional family — alcoholic abusive father. And yet he didn't just aspire, he was elected president of the United States not once, but twice. That is an affirmation of the system. And it's a wonderful testament to give to every kid in America that no matter where you've come from, you've got an opportunity to do something extraordinary.

John Edwards gets ahead of the "gotcha" game and David Sirota approves, he rejects right wing framing of the "war on terra" in the same way that former Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Meyers approved, connects with ordinary folks and David Brooks approves, talks the talk and walks the walk in a way RFK and MLK would approve, calls Coultergeist a "She-Devil," and I approve.  Atrios insults Instalinker and FU by comparing them to Annie Sunshine -- Digby approves.

Wingnuttystan still says, "Gotcha," cuz that's all they got.  I mean, what are they gonna do?  Buy into McCain trying to be the anti-war candidate?  Puh-Leeze.

More Wingnut News...

Vice President Cheney is a dildo, what else to you call a dick substitute? (Do not Click if you are under age ... 40.)  Doctor BooMan advises us to use a condom anyway.

Speaking of nuts and other guilty pleasures of the alternate universe ... you know you just gotta click on a link that says Ron Paul teams up with Dennis Kucinich.

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Categories: 2008 Presidential Election , Ann Coulter , Barack Obama , Dick Cheney , Fred Thompson , Hillary Clinton , John Edwards , John McCain , Mitt Romney , Politics , Rudy Giuliani , Social Security , War in Iraq

FactCheck.org calls BS on Republican talking points at last Sunday's debate:

• Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney falsely claimed U.S. job growth had been nearly 17 times faster than Europe's. Actually, European Union employment grew faster than that of the U.S. last year. Romney's source for the information told FactCheck.org that he himself would no longer use the figures.
  
• Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani accused Democratic candidates of "appeasement" toward Islamic terrorists. In fact, leading Democratic candidates have spoken out strongly against terrorism.
  
• Sen. John McCain claimed American families spend $140 billion of their income preparing federal income tax returns. We find no support for that figure, which the Internal Revenue Service puts at $19 billion.
  
• Rep. Tom Tancredo claimed illegal immigrants "are taking a large part of our health care dollars." But the independent Rand Corp. estimates that undocumented immigrants account for 1.5 percent of health care spending or less.

This kind of stuff should come as no surprise: it is well-known that viewers of Republican-friendly Fox News rank nearly dead-last for knowledge of national and international affairs of any newscast on broadcast or cable TV. Best informed are the viewers of the fake-news Daily Show and Colbert Report.

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Categories: 2008 Presidential Election , John McCain , Mitt Romney , Republicans , Rudy Giuliani

FactCheck.org:

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has said that the major tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 have "increased revenues." He also said that tax cuts in general increase revenues.

That’s highly misleading.

In fact, the last half-dozen years have shown us that we can't have both lower taxes and fatter government coffers. The Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury Department, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and a former Bush administration economist all say that tax cuts lead to revenues that are lower than they otherwise would have been – even if they spur some economic growth...

Capital gains tax receipts did increase greatly from 2003 to 2006, but the CBO estimates that they will level off and decrease in the next few years. The growth overwhelmingly resulted from a sharp rise in corporate tax receipts, the cause of which is a topic of debate.

Read the rest.

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Categories: 2008 Presidential Election , Economics , John McCain , Republicans

If McCain gets the nomination (which I doubt he will) his appearance on Tuesday night's Daily Show should be required viewing for the Democratic nominee because Jon Stewart hammered the Senator on the war like no one -- in or out of politics or the media -- has before.

To begin with, the audience gave the Senator an icy welcome -- unlike his past appearances where he was a crowd favorite. And I'll give McCain credit for knowing that he's been the butt of a lot of jokes on the show recently. But he made an unfortunate crack about bringing Stewart a gift -- an IED for his desk ("That's why we keep the dogs here," replied Stewart). [Update: Murtha, on the other hand, was not amused.]

It went downhill from there -- for McCain.

Stewart punctured McCain's talking points swiftly and finally every time the Senator brought them out. McCain hung in there, but the longer the interview went the more ridiculous he sounded. Stewart didn't budge an inch and gave more than he got.

All the Democratic candidates should take notice: this is how you talk about the war.

Update: Here's Part Deux of the interview:

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Categories: 2008 Presidential Election , John McCain , Republicans , Television , Video