Comments from Left Field

Did You Really Want To Use THAT Phrase?

Kyle E. Moore — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:11:11 -0500

Parody. That is exactly what the McCain campaign has turned into; one overly long and tragically public expression of self parody. It’s almost so bad it hovers on the threshold of putting the likes of John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and even SNL out of business. But as it stands, the dynamic duo are merely making the lives of the writers for all three and many more very, very easy.

(h/t TPM)

“Abuses of power”? Palin apparently already forgot that she was found guilty of that just this last Friday. So if John McCain is going to stop the abuse of power, what’s he planning on doing? Firing his own Vice President? You can’t make this up.

Another Double Digit Lead For Obama

Kyle E. Moore — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:32:53 -0500

More bad news for the McCain campaign. With just three weeks and one day before the presidential election, McCain just can’t seem to force the polling trajectory to shift in his favor.

The latest Washington Post poll has Obama leading McCain 53-43. Now, to be fair, the WaPo’s polls seem to have favored Obama a little more than usual, and this poll is about three points higher than the aggregated average, but I also vaguely remember on the morning that McCain announced the suspension of his campaign WaPo giving Obama another big lead that some including the McCain campaign called an outlier.

That poll was quickly verified by a flurry of other polls.

In truth, this race is starting to gel with the high end of the band being about ten points and the low end being five or six. What’s even worse news from McCain is that the Obama lead has maintained itself even during a rigorous and aggressive negative campaign aimed directly at Obama and focusing primarily on tying him to terrorism.

Now, if we were to compare this to the Wright bruhaha that happened this spring primarily in Pennsylvania, what we see is that voters are simply looking past it as opposed to getting caught in the whirlwind. This bodes particularly ill for the McCain campaign because this points to how strong the support for Obama is at this point.

Momentum can shift due to an infinite number of factors, but over the course of the last two weeks I’ve been expecting at least a downturn in the support for the Democratic candidate, and it has yet to come. I continue to expect a tightening of the race, but the fact that it hasn’t tightened yet indicates to me that people have made their minds up uncharacteristically early. It also points to the possibility that, if Ayers, Wright, and Rezko aren’t changing minds, even an October Surprise level external event, one that puts the focus of the election on foreign policy as opposed to the economy, could fall short of being enough to shift the trajectory of the race. This is remarkable as some have posited that something on the order of an attack on American soil could change the race.

Further, if Obama’s lead is closer to the high end of the band that we see across a number of polls, this means that Obama would even survive a last minute break among undecideds in McCain’s direction.

(edited by DrGail)

There She Goes Again: Palin Lies About Troopergate

Kyle E. Moore — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:17:43 -0500

There’ve been many lies coming from the McCain campaign since the general election got underway; from the Bridge to Nowhere, to whether or not Palin went to Iraq, to the claim that Obama would raise taxes on the middle class. It’s been a lie-a-palooza.

But what makes this lie so bizarre is that in most of the previous lies, debunking them required, at least at their rollout, some form of research. This one, however, is nakedly false to the most casual observers.

From CNN, this is Sarah Palin regarding the Troopergate report that was released late Friday evening:

“Well, I’m very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing, any hint of any kind of unethical activity there,” Palin said on a Saturday conference call with reporters from the Anchorage Daily News, KTVA-Channel 11 and KTUU-Channel 2. “Very pleased to be cleared of any of that.”

Jake Tapper calls her out on it:

But it finds that Palin “knowingly, as that term is defined in … statutes, permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor’s office and the resources of the Governor’s office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired. Her conduct violated AS 39.52.110(a) of the Ethics Act…”

The report states: “I find that Governor Sarah Palin Abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act … Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional…

“The evidence supports the conclusion that Governor Palin, at the least, engaged in ‘official action’ by her inaction if not her active participation or assistance to her husband in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired [and there is evidence of her active participation.] She knowingly, as that term is defined in the above cited statutes, permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor’s office and the resources of the Governor’s office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired. Her conduct violated AS 39.52.110(a) of the Ethics Act…

Now, I at least understand the McCain teams initial response; they moved to highlight the portion of the report that Monegan was fired legally, and contested the finding that Palin broke ethics violations (this was the key reason for the “witch hunt” meme). I disagree strongly with that, considering that the legislative body that deliberated over the report was two to one in favor of Republicans, but at least there is some hints of intellectual honesty in the defense.

But the fact of the matter is, the Branchflower report found that Palin unlawfully abused her power and violated Alaska state ethics laws. You can dispute the finding, but you can’t dispute that the finding was in the report which is exactly what Palin is attempting to do here.

Of course, I suppose this is to be expected when the McCain Palin ticket is the first presidential ticket in American history where both candidates were found guilty of ethics violations before the election. They apparently just don’t seem to care that much for ethics.

We Were Warned

Kyle E. Moore — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:22:40 -0500

At the very beginning of this year, in New Hampshire just as the primaries were getting underway in earnest, Barack Obama warned that a “chorus of cynics” would grow “louder and more dissonant.” Throughout his own battle for the nomination he remarked upon the “silly season” of politics.

Well, we were warned.

Now that an Obama win seems as likely as it ever was, that chorus of cynics has risen to a near deafening crescendo. With a go for broke, anything to win mentality, those cynics have stirred themselves into a frenzy, throwing any and every accusation they can at the man, and launching any attack they can imagine regardless of how disingenuous or disgusting it is.

But perhaps the most vile I’ve seen to date comes from the chair of the Virginian GOP who has in recent days attempted to conflate Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden, and not in the cheap exploitation of the man’s name.

It is an attack so profoundly vile that even the McCain campaign is distancing itself from it. But, in yet another remarkable show of lacking leadership, the Republican nominee’s condemnation of the attack seems futile in stopping Del. Jeffrey Frederick from using it. He still stands by his comments.

The Obama campaign’s rebuttal:

Clark Stevens, an Obama spokesman, said Frederick’s attack on Obama’s relationship with Ayers “has been discredited and debunked time and again.”

“The Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, like so many McCain supporters,” Stevens said, “would rather lie about Barack Obama than make the case to the American people why Senator McCain’s plans of continuing Bush’s policies for another four years would be good for American families.”

Though the specifics are new, the nature of the attack isn’t. This has become the level of discourse from the McCain side of the national debate. Let’s not focus on the ideas, let’s not focus on the proposals, let’s not even necessarily focus on who would best lead this country through difficult times. Instead, let’s talk about how evil Barack Obama is. But I continue to have faith that this won’t work, and in an article I hope to have written later today, I’ll explain exactly why.

Congratulations Paul

Kyle E. Moore — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:58:20 -0500

It’s always good to kick off a week with good news, and so I’m pleased to congratulate New York Times Columnist and economics professor, Paul Krugman, for having been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. While it’s not what he won the award for, I’ve appreciated Krugman’s work because he has that rare gift of making the subject of the economy accessible. As difficult as the subject is, Krugman just has that knack of getting everything to make sense, at least for the brief period of time that you are reading his articles, and given the perilous economic times that we face today, that’s a godsend.

Sarah Palin and Abortion

Kathy — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:28:29 -0500

Yesterday, Sarah Palin ended her attempts to play down her support for forced childbirth, and gave an impassioned sermon on the gospel of Fetus Worship to an adoring crowd in Johnstown, Pennsylvania:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is the complete transcript (from the Christian Broadcasting Network, which was the only place I could find it, but that doesn’t mean I have to link to them):

“In this same spirit, as defenders of the culture of life, John McCain and I believe in the goodness and potential of every innocent life. I believe the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are least able to defend and speak for themselves. And who is more vulnerable, or more innocent, than a child?

When I learned that my son Trig would have special needs, I had to prepare my heart for the challenges to come. At first I was scared, and Todd and I had to ask for strength and understanding. But I can tell you a few things I’ve learned already.

Yes, every innocent life matters. Everyone belongs in the circle of protection. Every child has something to contribute to the world, if we give them that chance. There are the world’s standards of perfection … and then there are God’s, and these are the final measure. Every child is beautiful before God, and dear to Him for their own sake.

As for our beautiful baby boy, for Todd and me, he is only more precious because he is vulnerable. In some ways, I think we stand to learn more from him than he does from us. When we hold Trig and care for him, we don’t feel scared anymore. We feel blessed.

It’s hard to think of many issues that could possibly be more important than who is protected in law and who isn’t – who is granted life and who is denied it. So when our opponent, Senator Obama, speaks about questions of life, I listen very carefully.

I listened when he defended his unconditional support for unlimited abortions. He said that a woman shouldn’t have to be – quote – “punished with a baby.” He said that right here in Johnstown –“punished with a baby” – and it’s about time we called him on it. The more I hear from Senator Obama, the more I understand why he is so vague and evasive on the subject. Americans need to see his record for what it is. It’s not negative or mean-spirited to talk to about his record. Whatever party you belong to, there are facts you need to know.

Senator Obama has voted against bills to end partial-birth abortion. In the Illinois Senate, a bipartisan majority passed legislation against that practice. Senator Obama opposed that bill. He voted against it in committee, and voted “present” on the Senate floor. In that legislature, “present” is how you vote when you’re against something, but don’t want to be held to account.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, described partial-birth abortion as “too close to infanticide.” Barack Obama thinks it’s a constitutional right, but he is wrong.

Most troubling, as a state senator, Barack Obama wouldn’t even stand up for the rights of infants born alive during an abortion. These infants – often babies with special needs – are simply left to die.

In 2002, Congress unanimously passed a federal law to require medical care for those babies who survive an abortion. They’re living, breathing babies, but Senator Obama describes them as “pre-viable.” This merciful law was called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Illinois had a version of the same law. Obama voted against it.

Asked about this vote, Senator Obama assured a reporter that he’d have voted “yes” on that bill if it had contained language similar to the federal version of the Born Alive Act. There’s just one little problem with that story: the language of both the state and federal bills was identical.

In short, Senator Obama is a politician who has long since left behind even the middle ground on the issue of life. He has sided with those who won’t even protect a child born alive. And this exposes the emptiness of his promises to move beyond the “old politics.”

In both parties, Americans have many concerns to be weighed in the votes they cast on November fourth. In times like these, with wars and a financial crisis, it’s easy to forget even as deep and abiding a concern as the right to life. And it seems our opponent hopes that you will forget. Like so much else in his agenda, he hopes you won’t notice how radical his ideas and record are until it’s too late.

But let there be no misunderstanding about the stakes.

A vote for Barack Obama is a vote for activist courts that will continue to smother the open and democratic debate we need on this issue, at both the state and federal level. A vote for Barack Obama would give the ultimate power over the issue of life to a politician who has never once done anything to protect the unborn. As Senator Obama told Pastor Rick Warren, it’s above his pay grade.

For a candidate who talks so often about “hope,” he offers no hope at all in meeting this great challenge to the conscience of America. There is a growing consensus in our country that we can overcome narrow partisanship on this issue, and bring all the resources of a generous country to the aid of both women in need and the child waiting to be born. We need more of the compassion and idealism that our opponent’s own party, at its best, once stood for. We need the clarity and conviction of leaders like the late Governor Bob Casey.

He represented a humanity that speaks to all of us – no matter what our party, our background, our faith, or our gender. And no matter your position on this sensitive subject, I hope that spirit will guide you on Election Day. I ask you to vote for McCain-Palin on the November fourth, and help us to bring this country together in the rational discussion of compassion and life.”

When I first read about this speech, I thought maybe Palin was actually attempting to change the subject from that of inciting mob violence against Obama (I mean, after all, not very pro-life, that). But now, having read a little more, I think the timing has more to do with (a) wanting to distract the public’s attention from Troopergate, and (b) casting herself in the role of Anne Baxter in her very own remake of All About Eve.

Jim Henley thinks Palin is prepping for 2012:

Remember the perennial conventional wisdom of presidential politics: play to the base in the primaries and the center in the general election. The public’s memory is short, and attention on the primaries by the general population is light. So if you say some “extreme” stuff over the winter or early spring, you’ve got months to walk it back to where the squishy center feels okay. …

… She can be as fierce as she wants this campaign and has four years to dial it back as much as the middle requires. Meanwhile, she’s forging a lasting loyalty with the most hardcore elements of the GOP primary electorate. …

In closing, I want to highlight two specific parts of Palin’s speech:

The first is near the beginning of the transcript:

Yes, every innocent life matters. Everyone belongs in the circle of protection. Every child has something to contribute to the world, if we give them that chance. There are the world’s standards of perfection … and then there are God’s, and these are the final measure. Every child is beautiful before God, and dear to Him for their own sake.

And the second, toward the end of the transcript:

In times like these, with wars and a financial crisis, it’s easy to forget even as deep and abiding a concern as the right to life.

It seems to me that these two quotes perfectly illustrate the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of Palin’s brand of pro-lifer (as opposed to those who think abortion is wrong but don’t support overturning Roe v. Wade). For Palin, it’s not human life that’s precious — it’s innocent human life. And “innocent,” of course, is defined in this context as “not born yet,” or, stretched to the definition’s limits, just born.

This is what makes it possible for her, and others like her, to blather about the “right to life of the unborn” while ignoring or, worse, denying, the right that every human being on this planet has to their own life. Just consider, for one moment, how extraordinary it is that someone who calls herself “pro-life” could utter a sentence like the above: “In times like these, with wars and a financial crisis, it’s easy to forget even as deep and abiding a concern as the right to life.” I mean, it almost robs me of the power of speech (not quite, though). Could it be any clearer that Sarah Palin thinks of “the right to life” as a subject separate from war, unrelated to it? When she speaks of “life issues,” war is not one of those issues. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, that have taken the lives of thousands upon thousands of children, is not a “life issue.”

Palin says that God’s standards of perfection “are the final measure,” and that every child “is beautiful before God and dear to Him for their own sake.” But my religious tradition teaches me that God’s standards and God’s values are manifested in the world through human beings, and only through human beings. If we don’t get the work done, God ain’t gonna do it. God will not, and cannot, and never will, be present in the world except through what we humans say and do. So if God’s standard is perfection, and if every child is beautiful before God and dear to God for their own sake, then every time a child dies from a preventable cause, like war, or poverty, or hunger, or disease, it’s a negation of God.

Obviously, the material world is not perfect, and probably never will be. No one person can end hunger or poverty or war. But we can try to make it better, and, failing that, at the very least, do no harm. And to preach about the sanctity of innocent human life while actively supporting human actions and policies that directly cause horrendous harm to innocent human life, is truly deplorable.

Three for Obama

Kathy — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:11:34 -0500

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch endorses Obama for president. And the Toledo Blade. And the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Here is a passage from the Post-Dispatch’s endorsement — an article-length piece:

Over the past nine months, Mr. Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, has emerged as the only truly transformative candidate in the race. In the crucible that is a presidential campaign, his intellect, his temperament and equanimity under pressure consistently have been impressive. He has surrounded himself with smart, capable advisers who have helped him refine thorough, nuanced policy positions.

In a word, Mr. Obama has been presidential.

Meanwhile, Mr. McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, became the incredible shrinking man. He shrank from his principled stands in favor of a humane immigration policy. He shrank from his universal condemnation of torture and his condemnation of the politics of smear.

He even shrank from his own campaign slogan, “Country First,” by selecting the least qualified running mate since the Swedenborgian shipbuilder Arthur Sewall ran as William Jennings Bryan’s No. 2 in 1896.

In making political endorsements, this editorial page is guided first by the principles espoused by Joseph Pulitzer in The Post-Dispatch Platform printed daily at the top of this page. Then we consider questions of character, life experience and intellect, as well as specific policy and issue positions. Each member of the editorial board weighs in.

On all counts, the consensus was clear: Barack Obama of Illinois should be the next president of the United States.
[...]
John McCain has served his country well, but in the end, he may have wanted the presidency a little too much, so much that he has sacrificed some of the principles that made him a heroic figure in war and in peace. In every way possible, he has earned the right to retire.

Finally, only at this late point do we note that Barack Obama is an African-American. Because of who he is and how he has run his campaign, that fact has become almost incidental to most Americans. Instead, his countrymen are weighing his talents, his values and his beliefs, judging him not by the color of his skin, but the content of his character.

That says something profound and good — about him as a candidate and about us as a nation.

The Blade::

During the campaign, Senator Obama also has shown himself to possess steely self-control, a single-minded focus, and endearing good humor in the face of specious attacks on everything from his biracial origin to his boyhood upbringing to his acquaintances during his political career in rough-and-tumble Chicago. His calm and deliberate demeanor is particularly important because steadiness at the helm of government will be necessary to extricate the United States from its current crisis of confidence, both in politics and economics.

We have to ask ourselves: Which candidate will be better able to inspire the American people? Which will do a better job of casting off the politics of personal destruction and appealing to our better natures, calling us to service, encouraging needed sacrifices, and developing the new approaches necessary for the 21st century? Which will see the current troubles as an opportunity to shape a better future?
[...]
America needs a new direction, not just because the current administration’s economic policies - not to mention its war-bound foreign policies - have contributed to our current problems, but because we have lost our way in terms of the proper relationship between government and the people and, more importantly, the responsibility we owe each other. Americans who view the future with optimism do not - even in the face of terrorism - give up the basic freedoms our revolutionary forefathers died to secure.

Sen. John McCain, by nature, has shown himself to be incapable of providing the American people with an optimistic vision of the future. Firmly rooted in the failed politics and policies of the past, he cannot guide us on a path he does not see.

Senator Obama already has demonstrated that he is a man of the future in the way he has inspired a new generation of voters to become involved in the political process and to actively strive for a better tomorrow.

The Post-Gazette:

Despite the recent nastiness of his campaign. Sen. McCain is essentially a good man, but he is yesterday’s man. His campaign takes its core text from the “Wizard of Oz”: Don’t mind the man behind the curtain. That man is George Bush, the failed magician who cannot be spoken of lest the American people be reminded of what he has wrought and what party he belongs to.

To make their trick work, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Palin, trade heavily on being mavericks — too heavily to be believed.
[...]
That the argument about issues has been essentially won by Sen. Obama is plain from the scurrilous attacks now being launched against his character — increasingly by Ms. Palin — alleging guilt by association, unpatriotic behavior and worse.

This closing blizzard of slime is another attempt to spread the wizard’s curtain further: Don’t look at how the economy has impoverished you while a Republican has been in the White House, look at Mr. Obama’s passing acquaintance with an old radical who did bad deeds almost 40 years ago, because that is more important.

Yes, they apparently do think the American people are that stupid.

UPDATE: The National Review’s former publisher, Wick Allison, has endorsed Obama. Joe Gandelman has the details.

Country Last

Kathy — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:35:15 -0500

McCain and Palin are apparently now fighting over whether to continue inciting mobs of supporters to violence, or not. The last paragraph in the quote below (from the London Times) says it all:

With his electoral prospects fading by the day, Senator John McCain has fallen out with his vice-presidential running mate about the direction of his White House campaign.

McCain has become alarmed about the fury unleashed by Sarah Palin, the moose-hunting “pitbull in lipstick”, against Senator Barack Obama. Cries of “terrorist” and “kill him” have accompanied the tirades by the governor of Alaska against the Democratic nominee at Republican rallies.

Mark Salter, McCain’s long-serving chief of staff, is understood to have told campaign insiders that he would prefer his boss, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, to suffer an “honourable defeat” rather than conduct a campaign that would be out of character – and likely to lose him the election. Palin, 44, has led the character attacks on Obama in the belief that McCain may be throwing away the election and her chance of becoming vice-president. Her supporters think that if the Republican ticket loses on November 4, she should run for president in 2012.

Memo to Jules Cretinden:

tas — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:18:38 -0500

Why don’tcha munch on this?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Round the Bend at The Corner, Part 2

Kathy — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:18:31 -0500

Andy McCarthy has read Jack Cashill’s thoroughly incoherent but undeniably hilarious article in American Clinker Thinker which asks the question, “Who wrote Dreams From My Father?” and — being Andy McCarthy — he is alarmed:

There has been speculation about this which I’ve ignored, no doubt because there are enough policy reasons to oppose Barack Obama and I don’t want to feed into what sounds, at first blush, like Vince Fosteresque paranoia. But I’ve finally read Jack Cashill’s lengthy analysis in The American Thinker. It is thorough, thoughtful, and alarming — particularly his deconstruction of the text in Obama’s memoir and comparison to the themes, sophistication and signature phraseology of Bill Ayers’ memoir.

There is nothing in Obama’s scant paper trail prior to 1995 that would suggest something as stylish and penetrating as, at times, Dreams from My Father is. And when Obama speaks extemporaneously, one doesn’t hear the same voice one encounters in the book. Now maybe Obama has a backlog of writing fom Columbia or Harvard that signal great literary promise, but he not only hasn’t shared it, he’s assiduously hidden traces of it. And, to be sure, writing is different from speaking — in fairness, some of Obama’s off-the-cuff bumbling when he speaks is certainly due to the rigors of the campaign which would cause even the most gifted communicator to faulter from time to time. But it’s not unreasonable to expect more similarity between Obama the writer and Obama the orator.

Cashill’s “analysis” can be summed up as follows: “How could a dumb n****r have written anything as good as this?” Here are the first few paragraphs:

Prior to 1990, when Barack Obama contracted to write Dreams From My Father, he had written very close to nothing. Then, five years later, this untested 33 year-old produced what Time Magazine has called — with a straight face — “the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.”

The public is asked to believe Obama wrote Dreams From My Father on his own, almost as though he were some sort of literary idiot savant. I do not buy this canard for a minute, not at all. Writing is as much a craft as, say, golf. To put this in perspective, imagine if a friend played a few rounds in the high 90s and then a few years later, without further practice, made the PGA Tour. It doesn’t happen.

And yet, given the biases of the literary establishment, no reviewer of note has so much as questioned Obama’s role in the writing, then or now. As the New York Times gushed, Obama was “that rare politician who can write . . . and write movingly and genuinely about himself.” These accolades matter all the more because Obama has built his political persona around his presumably superior intellect, Dreams being exhibit A.

Shy of a confession by those involved, I will not be able to prove conclusively that Obama did not write this book. As shall be seen, however, there are only two real possibilities: one is that Obama experienced a near miraculous turnaround in his literary abilities; the second is that he had major editorial help, up to and including a ghostwriter.

The weight of the evidence overwhelming favors the latter conclusion and strongly suggests who that ghostwriter is. …

There is no serious way to respond to this; one can only have fun with it:

Andy McCarthy at The Corner — Did Obama Write “Dreams from My Father” … Or Did Ayers?

That’s a good one. But, y’know what? We can play this game, too. Take this sentence –

Did [name] [action] [object]?Then, choose one item from each of the lists below to fill in the blanks and make your own stupid headline!

For example, if you took the first item in each list, your headline would be

Did George W. Bush [bleep] Sarah Palin’s secret lover?Now, try it yourself!

NAME

George W. Bush

Dick “the Dick” Cheney

John McCain

Sarah Palin

The ghost of Ronald Reagan

ACTION

[bleep]

feed mooseburgers to

lie about

suppress news of

put a voodoo curse on

OBJECT

Sarah Palin’s secret lover

the doll that says “Islam is the light”

an unidentified corpse in Bill O’Reilly’s bedroom

Barack Obama’s real birth certificate

Communist agents in the State Department

Have fun!

Publius discovers that the truth is even more shocking than McCarthy thinks:

Andy McCarthy has a major scoop today — he suggests that Bill Ayers not only knows Obama, but that he actually wrote Obama’s book. I was understandably skeptical that Ayers would ghostwrite a book about growing up fatherless and black in a white community, but then I thought — when has McCarthy ever been wrong?

So, I scanned a full text of Dreams of My Father through a program I hacked up here — the iPublius © — that compares a scanned text with the existing writings of others. The program identifies ghostwriters by analyzing similar “themes, sophistication and signature phraseology.” The results from the iPublius revealed a far darker story than even McCarthy describes. It’s not merely that Obama let Ayres write a chapter of his book, he let lots of other people write other chapters. Here’s the list of authors according to the iPublius:

Preface — Barack ObamaChpt. 1 — Bill Ayers

Chpt. 2 — Jeremiah Wright

Chpt. 3 — Larry Johnson (ed. — That one surprised me).

Chpt. 4 — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Chpt. 5 — Billy Mitchell (slimy cheat from King of Kong)

Chpt. 6 — Karl Marx (posthumously)

Chpt. 7 — Darth Vader

Chpt. 8 — The gorilla from Donkey Kong

Chpt. 9 — Eric Martin

Chpt. 10 — Hamas Q. Muslimman (a Buddhist, ironically)

Chpt. 11 — the New Deal

Chpt. 12 — Gary Farber

This is an absolute outrage — and I commend McCarthy for getting to the bottom of it.

The Real Elitism

Kathy — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:00:42 -0500

Yesterday, the McCain campaign defended the rabid hatred that’s been on display at his rallies by accusing Obama of not “understand[ing] regular people and the issues they care about,” and of “dismiss[ing] hardworking middle class Americans as clinging to guns and religion, while at the same time attacking average Americans at McCain rallies who are angry at Washington, Wall Street and the status quo.”

In other words, Obama is an “elitist” for objecting to presidential candidates who incite mob violence.

We all know that the elitist narrative is a key part of the Republican strategy for winning “heartland voters.” And needless to say, in addition to being outrageously untrue, it’s a reversal of the truth: It’s McCain and the present-day Republican Party who are steeped in elitism.

Which is one reason why I’m steaming like a teakettle after reading this op-ed in today’s New York Times, by Casey B. Mulligan, a University of Chicago economics professor who says John McCain is right: The fundamentals of the economy are strong:

THE Treasury Department is now thinking about using some of the $700 billion it has been given to rescue Wall Street to buy ownership stakes in American banks. The idea is that banking is so central to the American economy that the government is justified in virtually nationalizing much of the industry in order to save us from a potential depression.

There are two faulty assumptions here. First, saving America’s banks won’t save the economy. And second, the economy doesn’t really need saving. It’s stronger than we think.
[...]
It turns out that John McCain, who was widely mocked for saying that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong,” was actually right. We’re in a financial crisis, not an economic crisis. We’re not entering a second Great Depression.

How do we know? Well, the economy outside the financial sector is healthier than it seems.

One important indicator is the profitability of non-financial capital, what economists call the marginal product of capital. It’s a measure of how much profit that each dollar of capital invested in the economy is producing during, say, a year. Some investments earn more than others, of course, but the marginal product of capital is a composite of all of them — a macroeconomic version of the price-to-earnings ratio followed in the financial markets.

When the profit per dollar of capital invested in the economy is higher than average, future rates of economic growth also tend to be above average. The same cannot be said about rates of return on the S.& P. 500, or any another measurement that commands attention on Wall Street.

Since World War II, the marginal product of capital, after taxes, has averaged 7 percent to 8 percent per year. (In other words, each dollar of capital invested in the economy earns, on average, 7 cents to 8 cents annually.) And what happened during 2007 and the first half of 2008, when the financial markets were already spooked by oil price spikes and housing price crashes? The marginal product was more than 10 percent per year, far above the historical average. The third-quarter earnings reports from some companies already suggest that America’s non-financial companies are still making plenty of money.

This all sounds impressively lovely, but what about us regular Americans out here who aren’t tenured professors at prestigious universities or owners of non-financial or financial capital? What about food, rent, car insurance, jobs, gas, bus fare?

Professor Mulligan has an answer for us:

When banks failed during the Great Depression, there were not so many foreign investors that were cash-rich (or these days, oil-rich) and appreciative of how some of the bank assets, personnel and brand names in the United States could be used to earn profits in the future. And don’t worry about foreign ownership: Americans would benefit if foreigners brought money into our economy to enable banks to continue to lend.

And if it takes a while for banks and lenders to get up and running again, what’s the big deal? Saving and investment are themselves not essential to the economy in the short term. Businesses could postpone their investments for a few quarters with a fairly small effect on Americans’ living standards. How harmful would it be to wait nine more months for a new car or an addition to your house?

We can largely make up for this delay by extra investment when the banking sector reorganizes itself. Americans waited years during World War II to begin private-sector investment projects (when wartime production displaced private investment), and quickly brought the capital stock (housing and big-ticket consumer items) back to normal levels when the war ended.

So, if you are not employed by the financial industry (94 percent of you are not), don’t worry. The current unemployment rate of 6.1 percent is not alarming, and we should reconsider whether it is worth it to spend $700 billion to bring it down to 5.9 percent.

Professor sweetheart, 94 percent of us are worrying because we’re not employed by the financial industry.

Ohio GOP Lawsuit to Challenge New Voter Registrations Loses on Appeal

Kathy — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:36:32 -0500

Excellent news for Ohio voters — and specifically new registered Democrats, since that is, of course, the electoral group that the GOP lawsuit was aimed at:

A federal appeals court sided with Ohio’s top elections official Friday in her running battle with Republicans over how to verify the eligibility of newly registered voters.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside a federal judge’s order a day earlier that Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner institute the means to verify voter registration information and make it available to Ohio’s 88 county election boards.

Brunner argued that it would take two to three days to create the necessary computer programs, and that nothing in the Help America Vote Act required her to do what the lower court ordered. A three-judge panel of the appeals court agreed in a split decision.

“With less than a month until the election, and less than two weeks until the beginning of counting absentee ballots, the secretary cannot be required to undertake the extensive reprogramming and other changes to the election mechanics without complete disruption of the electoral process in Ohio,” the majority said in its opinion. “The irreparable harm to the voting public caused by the district court’s order is equally clear.”

Harriet, meet your match

tas — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:57:19 -0500

Since I always love pointing out just how friggen smart I am, in light of Palin and Troopergate soon to explode on a Sunday paper near you I’d like to quote something I said here concerning what is now named Troopergate. From August 29, 2008, the day Palin was named to the ticket:

I’ve been blogging for a while, and I can smell big stories from a mile away. The pundits on cable news may be singing praises for McCain’s choice right now, but trust me, the old man f—–d up big time. Gov. Palin will be McCain’s Harriet Myers.

For the first month of the McCain/Palin ticket, it looked like I might have to eat those words. But the iniquities of Sarah Palin have come home to roost. This is what happens when you chose a nominee who is currently under investigation. The Troopergate report is a huge embarrassment to the McCain campaign at a time when they least needed it — it’ll be pretty tough to push those BS Ayers, Acorn, and socialist storylines now that Palin is revealed to have abused her powers as governor. After this weekend, McCain will wish the economy was on the frontpage more often.

Harriet Myers demonstrated just how inept one Republican politician was. Unfortunately, that politician was the sitting president and no scandal could eject him from office. Sarah Palin, in the otherhand, has far more power to effect the fate of another Republican politician — much to his chagrin. I’d feel sorry for him, but quite frankly, I hate the f–king guy. Screw McCain: he’s only getting what he deserves.

McCain Campaign Statement On Troopergate

Kyle E. Moore — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:28:22 -0500

TPM Muckraker has the campaign’s first statement:

“Today’s report shows that the Governor acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan,” said Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapelton. “The report also illustrates what we’ve known all along: this was a partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters and the Palins were completely justified in their concern regarding Trooper Wooten given his violent and rogue behavior. Lacking evidence to support the original Monegan allegation, the Legislative Council seriously overreached, making a tortured argument to find fault without basis in law or fact. The Governor is looking forward to cooperating with the Personnel Board and continuing her conversation with the American people regarding the important issues facing the country.”

I will discredit the whole thing in 3, 2…

Point one, and I told you in one of my updates to my first post on this that this is the tactic the McCain camp will use, the McCain campaign claims that Palin legally fired Walter Monegan. This is true, and you will find few who will dispute this. The point, and the reason why the left side of the chattersphere lit up like a christmas tree on this is because the report released also found Sarah Palin guilty of betraying the public trust. This is actually law, and Palin was found to have acted unlawfully, something that the McCain campaign does not address in its statement.

The second major point of the statement is to, no this is not an SNL skit nor is it taken from the Onion, blame it on Obama. Right out the gate the McCain campaign is attempting to paint this as a partisan witch hunt which is demonstrably false. The legislature which voted to release this report did so unanimously. It is also important to know that over twice as many Republicans voted for this than Democrats. In other words, there is simply no solid ground from which the McCain-Palin campaign can realistically claim that this was an attempt by Obama allies to sink Palin’s vice presidential bid.

Personally, this statement doesn’t even begin at damage control, and I think the spin operation that the McCain campaign has to deploy is going to be facing a near insurmountable uphill climb.

BREAKING: ALASKAN LEGISLATURE FINDS SARAH PALIN ABUSED POWER (UPDATE I + II + III + IV and a bump)

Kyle E. Moore — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:50:05 -0500

Yesterday, the McCain-Palin campaign engaged in what was a rather strange move; the Alaskan Governor essentially exonerated herself of wrongdoing in what has become widely known as the “Troopergate” scandal.

The scandal involved the firing of an Alaska state employee by the governor’s office. While Mrs. Palin and surrogates including her husband offered multiple justifications for the termination of employment, including some that were mutually exclusive, the most consistent story was that the official, Walter Monegan, was fired due to his refusal to buckle under political pressure to in turn fire a state trooper and former brother in law of the Governer.

After multiple attempts to block the investigation and delay the findings of the report detailing whether or not the governor had in fact abused her office, that report has now just been released.

You can read the entire pdf right here (I’m going to have to wait until I get home this evening as my office computer is currently having a glitch with Adobe acrobat). But the one bit of information sure to rock the political world, and most definitely have some sort of impact on an already heated and contentious presidential battle is that the probe has found that Sarah Palin “unlawfully abused her authority in firing the state’s public safety commissioner.”

As of the time of this writing, I do not know what, if any, punitive actions will be taken. Nor do I know what the political ramifications of this report will be. But there are two aspects to this alone that I think puts the McCain-Palin ticket in serious trouble.

The first is that this is not likely to put a lot of voters at ease in regards to how Sarah Palin will conduct herself as a potential Vice President. Dick Cheney, a man credited with expanding the powers of the Vice Presidential office does not find a great deal of trust among the American people for just that reason. In fact, a recent poll showed that disapproval of Cheney is in the seventy percent range. Now that Palin has been found to abuse her office, there is likely to be a Cheney backlash against the Alaska governor which is likely to hurt given that her unfavorables are already skyrocketing.

The second major thing I think that will hurt the McCain-Palin ticket is that McCain has been launching a negative guilt by association campaign for the past week now. Some polls are already showing that McCain is suffering some backlash for that, but now that his running mate has actually been implicated in wrong doing herself, not guilt by association, I think it’s far from unreasonable to believe that that backlash will only increase.

Still, there are a great deal of unknowns in this situation as the story is still breaking.

UPDATE: Mudflat’s got more detail.

UPDATE II: Justin Gardner points out, the vote to release the report was 12-0. That effectively silences any and all attempts to paint this as a partisan witch hunt. This was a bipartisan finding.

UPDATE III: Dr. Chusid nails it:

This report provides fair warning that the vice presidential candidate of the Republican Party has abused her power and is unfit to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. John McCain and the Republican Party, if they have any honor and any concern about restraining the power of government, have no choice but to remove Sarah Palin from the ticket. Should they fail to do so they will be demonstrating that the abuses of power under George Bush and Dick Cheney are not an aberration from Republican views but that abuse of power is sanctioned by the party. Should this be the case, they are unfit to govern. This will also be a good litmus test of conservative writers and bloggers as we see which support principle and which support party over principle.

UPDATE IV: This update is a clarification. As I get more information the details become clear. The actual firing of Walter Monegan was actually legal–the probe found no wrong doing in its execution. Palin still, however, broke the law, a law that is specifically worded, “betraying the public’s trust.”

This is important to pay attention to because the McCain campaign’s most feasible defense will be to cling to the portion of the report that says the firing was legal. Still, Palin did break the law.

Links for 2008-09-27 [Digg]

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Tina Fey As Sarah Palin: Katie Couric SNL Skit (VIDEO)
OMG. So funny but scary because this is really McCain's VP selection.

Links for 2008-09-24 [Digg]

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

McCain Cancels Letterman Appearance, Olbermann Replaces Him
Letterman noted, "What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!" and added that if McCain insisted, "Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sara Palin. Where is she?"

Links for 2008-09-20 [Digg]

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Maybe the Best Anti-McCain Ad Ever
Perfect. It puts it all in perspective. This needs to get on the air.
PICKENS COMPLIMENTS OBAMA ENERGY PLAN
After Obama mentioned T. Boone Pickens several times in his energy speech today, Pickens -- not kidding -- had praise for the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Links for 2008-09-18 [Digg]

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Obama's Road to Victory Goes Through Colorado
"If I had a wagon I would go to Colorado..."

Links for 2008-09-04 [Digg]

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Jon Stewart Hits Karl Rove, Bill O'Reilly, Dick Morris
You're not going to believe this! Jon Stewart lands Karl Rove and pals a knock-out punch...I swear I heard teeth drop!

Links for 2008-09-02 [Digg]

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Prediction Market Betting Palin to be pulled from ticket.
The Intrade prediction market has opened trading on whether "Sarah Palin [is] to be withdrawn as Republican VP nominee before 2008 presidential election." At 8:55 am, Tuesday morning, the market is selling the prediction at 18 a share and rising. That means 18 percent of traders think Palin will be removed.

Links for 2008-08-21 [Digg]

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

What's Wrong with Obama? [Comic]
Sigh ... my faith in the American people fades daily ...