Thursday Bonus Cartoon Fun: F#ck John McCain Edition

Friday Bonus Cartoon Fun: Lying A-hole Edition

Olbermann's Plea (Especially Now, U of K)

I believe that you feel as I do, as Clarence Darrow said in a different time and a different context, "I am pleading for the future. I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by reason and judgment and understanding and faith." Sometimes, Senator McCain, it is as if we are almost there. And then some unthinking act like the one by that Ashley Todd throws us back against the rocks and we barely escape with our ship intact. In that time of foundering, Senator McCain, far too few of us have a chance to personally right the ship. To heal instead of to stand idly by. To make a difference in this oldest and most wearying of our struggles as a nation. This chance, sir, is yours. Say something. Or better yet, say something with Senator Obama, about race and how we live with one another and how we can. Let this last week of the campaign be remembered, no matter how it turns out next Tuesday, as something other than the time Ashley Todd lied, and the John Moodys threatened, and you said nothing. Senator McCain, once again, grab the microphone. Thank you.

Transcript available here:

OLBERMANN: Finally, a "Campaign Comment" about the fraudulent race attack claim since acknowledged and recanted by a John McCain campaign volunteer in Pennsylvania. You know the story well, by now. It's a sad and demoralizing tale of a woman who could be summarized by the awful term B actress. Ashley Todd was not sexually assaulted by a big black man. He did not carve the letter B on her face to punish her for supporting John McCain.

It apparently never dawned on her it resembled less a cut than an abrasion done by a weapon no more sinister than a nail file. She was not even at the ATM where she claimed the attack took place. It apparently never dawned on her that the machine had security video and she would not be on it. And clearly, somewhere in her mind was a calculation that a story like this one with layer upon layer of racial threat could be some kind of game changer for the presidential candidate she worked to get elected in at least two states for at least two months. Her saga is pathetic. She now claims mental illness. If this too is not true, Miss Todd might think she's pulling another fast one over on the rest of us. In fact her claim seems to be accurate, whether she knows it or not.

And much more disturbingly, so was her calculation. At least until her story, in retrospect a ludicrous confection, fell apart and she had to confess her crime. She had inspired dozens, perhaps hundreds of journalists and bloggers and all those in between on both political sides to stand over this nation's ever present tinderbox of racial prejudice and racial fear and racial hatred. And she had brought them all matches. We already know what the executive vice president of Fox News had written while his organization was perched next to that tinderbox waiting for the slightest excuse to light it and our nation ablaze. The over the top, caveat thrown in for window dressing balance with not the slightest intention that it ever be taken seriously. Quote, "If the incident turns out to be a hoax Senator McCain's quest for presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting." That is the well-known part of what John Moody wrote. What preceded it was far less publicized and far more important. "Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama's campaign," he wrote, "is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party's presidential nomination. That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.

If Ms. Todd's allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists, with due respect to Representative John Murtha, but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee."

Moody wrote that. It wouldn't be racism to suddenly blame Barack Obama for an attack on a white woman by a black man intending to punish her for not supporting another black man. It would instead by a watershed moment because it somehow meant, "They suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee." Its only connection would have been racial. But the response would not be racism. The tinderbox again, and a very large match provided by John Moody. I know that man. He is not stupid. Not careless. He has in fact an education background identical to my own, right down to the same college radio station. He knew what he was writing. A rationalization for racism. That Moody should be fired goes without saying. But if not fired that he should resign in shame is also obvious. Neither will happen because there is no one of sufficient authority to reproach him. And the others, who but for Ashley Todd's inability to maintain her inner hoaxster for more than two days would have solemnly and grimly and some secretly, happily set this presidential campaign on its ear and knocked this nation's tenuous grip on the relationship between the races off its axis. Because there was nobody to say, "No. Don't." This is where you come in, Senator McCain. No histrionics from me to you this time, Senator. No yelling. Just a plea. Say something about this. Now. Say something strongly and succinctly about the unacceptability of what happened, and how some of your supporters tried to exploit it. I am not asking you to assume the responsibility for this. No matter how your campaign pushed this story, I have no doubt that in the mirror image scenario many of Senator Obama's supporters would have done the same. But I also have no doubt that by this point in that mirror image scenario, Senator Obama would have said something to try to stop the next Ashley Todd, or the next John Moody. Senator, of all the things I don't like about you or your campaign, I have never thought you a racist. As imperfect as was your moment with that Minnesota woman mumbling about Arabs, I thought it was the finest moment of your campaign. I believe that you feel as I do, that racial prejudice and hatred have no place in this campaign, nor in this country. I believe that you feel as I do, as Clarence Darrow said in a different time and a different context, "I am pleading for the future. I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men. When we can learn by reason and judgment and understanding and faith." Sometimes, Senator McCain, it is as if we are almost there. And then some unthinking act like the one by that Ashley Todd throws us back against the rocks and we barely escape with our ship intact. In that time of foundering, Senator McCain, far too few of us have a chance to personally right the ship. To heal instead of to stand idly by. To make a difference in this oldest and most wearying of our struggles as a nation. This chance, sir, is yours. Say something. Or better yet, say something with Senator Obama, about race and how we live with one another and how we can. Let this last week of the campaign be remembered, no matter how it turns out next Tuesday, as something other than the time Ashley Todd lied, and the John Moodys threatened, and you said nothing. Senator McCain, once again, grab the microphone. Thank you.

Charlie Crist Extends Voting Hours So Obama Will Win!

Crist extends voting hours

This is a very big deal: Florida Governor Charlie Crist, to the shock and dismay of Florida Republicans, just moved to extend early voting hours, a move likely to widen the Democrats' lead under a program on which the Obama campaign has intensely focused.

"He just blew Florida for John McCain," one plugged in Florida Republican just told me.

The Buzz reports:

At a hastily arranged news conference, Crist said the right to vote is sacred and that "many have fought and died for this right." He said he consulted a leading Democratic legislator, Rep. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, before issuing his order, and that Gelber knew of a similar order issued by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2002 that dealt with helping voters deal with new equipment.

As to the perception that more early voting helps Democrats, Crist said: "This is not a political decision. This is a people decision."

Democrats had urged the extension, which means that votes will be cast 12 hours a day, not eight hours a day.

McCain's Chappaquiddick?

Plus a cover up? Check it out.

For the past two months, a major American magazine and an allied news service have been engaged in a legal battle with the United States Navy over records that they believe show that John McCain once was involved in an automobile accident that injured or, perhaps, killed another individual.

Vanity Fair magazine and the National Security News Service claim to have knowledge "developed from first-hand sources" of a car crash that involved then-Lt. McCain at the main gate of a Virginia naval base in 1964, according to legal filings. The incident has been largely, if not entirely, kept from the public. And in documents suing the Navy to release pertinent information, lawyers for the NS News Service allege that a cover-up may be at play.

McCain Surrogate: We Will Invade Iran!

Well, almost....

McCain Surrogate -War With Iran Is Certain

By Cernig

Republican William Grayson, president of a San Francisco hedge fund company and former general counsel for the San Francisco Republican Central Committee - and "cleared by the McCain campaign to serve as a McCain surrogate":

"Let me assure you of this," Grayson said after the student presentation on foreign policy. "The next president, whether it is Senator Obama or John McCain, will go to war, and he will go to war with Iran.

"They are very busy developing nuclear weapons. They will use those nuclear weapons against Israel or any of its allies, and that is a war that we're going to fight," Grayson said.

This in a speech to students at Dominican University, CA.

His opposite number, Tony West, there as a representative of the Obama campaign said simply:

"I do not believe it is a foregone conclusion that this nation will go to war with anybody in the next four or eight years."

Well no, it isn't - at least not if McCain and his couterie of angry neocon nutters are kept out of the White House.

h/t Newshoggers

Quote Of The Day

"You go your whole life desperately clinging to this 'sense of honor' thing, and sure, sometimes you fail, in fact sometimes you fail miserably, but you're pretty much as honorable as the next guy. Then the election comes up towards the end of your life and you do and say literally anything to get elected... AND you lose. If you win, you get a chance to reshape your legacy, people talk about the things a president did during his presidency. But when you lose, that's all anyone's ever going to remember about you: the guy who was a stone cold war hero in his youth and then turned into a two dollar whore to try to win an election. Then he died."

h/t LG&M

How Mavericky Is The Maverick?

Pretty mavericky, it seems. Here is a study that shows the history of maverickiness in American politics. It shows McCain is less mavericky than Chafee, and Obama is less liberal than McCain says! To sum it up, politicians lie!

Mccain Maverick - Upload a Document to Scribd

h/t crooked timber

Colombia, Colombia!!

Hertzberg on McCain's Columbia fetish...

As you may remember, this is not a new obsession for McCain. Puzzlingly, the first thing he did after he clinched the Republican nomination, at the beginning of July, was to get on a plane and go to…Colombia. That’s where he chose to spend the Glorious Fourth. Or maybe not so puzzlingly. In the second paragraph of the New York Times story previewing the trip, Larry Rohter wrote:

Since 1998, the lobbying firm headed until recently by Charlie Black, one of Mr. McCain’s closest confidants, has earned more than $1.8 million representing the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, the leading foreign producer of gas and oil in Colombia. The lobbying firm, BKSH & Associates, has also represented Colombian textile and apparel manufacturers and a former foreign minister and presidential candidate who is also a prominent businesswoman.

Read it below...

Hail, Hail Colombia

Barack Obama may have gone to Colombia, but John McCain went to Colombia. Therein lies a tale.

One of the most curious, and little-remarked, features of this week’s Presidential debate was that the only foreign country to get more than cursory treatment was Columbia, known to most television-watching, non-García Márquez-reading North Americans as a land of rich drug lords, leftist guerrillas, rightist death squads, and ubiquitous coca plantations.

It was McCain who brought the subject up, after he and Obama had traded barbs about NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement:

McCAIN: let me give you another example of a free trade agreement that Senator Obama opposes. Right now, because of previous agreements, some made by President Clinton, the goods and products that we send to Colombia, which is our largest agricultural importer of our products, is—there’s a billion dollars that we—our businesses have paid so far in order to get our goods in there.

Because of previous agreements, their goods and products come into our country for free. So Senator Obama, who has never traveled south of our border, opposes the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The same country that’s helping us try to stop the flow of drugs into our country that’s killing young Americans….

Free trade with Colombia is something that’s a no-brainer. But maybe you ought to travel down there and visit them and maybe you could understand it a lot better.

OBAMA: Let me respond. Actually, I understand it pretty well. The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions.

And what I have said, because the free trade—the trade agreement itself does have labor and environmental protections, but we have to stand for human rights and we have to make sure that violence isn’t being perpetrated against workers who are just trying to organize for their rights, which is why, for example, I supported the Peruvian Free Trade Agreement which was a well-structured agreement.

But I think that the important point is we’ve got to have a President who understands the benefits of free trade but also is going to enforce unfair trade agreements and is going to stand up to other countries.

Obama then talked for several minutes about the need to strengthen the U.S. automobile industry and induce it to build fuel-efficient cars. But McCain still wanted to talk about Colombia. As soon as he got the floor back, he returned to his strange preoccupation:

McCAIN: Well, let me just said that that this is—he—Senator Obama doesn’t want a free trade agreement with our best ally in the region but wants to sit down across the table without precondition to—with Hugo Chavez, the guy who has been helping FARC, the terrorist organization.

Free trade between ourselves and Colombia: I just recited to you the benefits of concluding that agreement, a billion dollars of American dollars that could have gone to creating jobs and businesses in the United States, opening up those markets.

As you may remember, this is not a new obsession for McCain. Puzzlingly, the first thing he did after he clinched the Republican nomination, at the beginning of July, was to get on a plane and go to…Colombia. That’s where he chose to spend the Glorious Fourth. Or maybe not so puzzlingly. In the second paragraph of the New York Times story previewing the trip, Larry Rohter wrote:

Since 1998, the lobbying firm headed until recently by Charlie Black, one of Mr. McCain’s closest confidants, has earned more than $1.8 million representing the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, the leading foreign producer of gas and oil in Colombia. The lobbying firm, BKSH & Associates, has also represented Colombian textile and apparel manufacturers and a former foreign minister and presidential candidate who is also a prominent businesswoman.

The Times went on to note that human rights groups have accused Occidental of complicity in the killing of peasants and labor leaders believed (erroneously, in the case of the labor leaders) to be affiliated with guerrilla groups.

The week before McCain left for Colombia, Carl H. Linder, Jr., who made billions as the C.E.O. of Chiquita Brands International, hosted a fundraiser for McCain at his home in Cincinnati, Ohio. It raised $2 million—a lot of money, though not much compared to the $25 million fine Chiquita paid for paying, under Linder’s leadership, more millions to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a bloodthirsty paramilitary group which the State Department officially classified as a terrorist organization. But, as Nico Pitney pointed out at the time in a well-documented report at the Huffington Post, Chiquita was an equal-opportunity terror funder in Colombia: it also made payments to leftist guerrilla groups, including the notorious FARC. Nothing to do with ideology, of course. Just a routine business expense.

Besides Black, at least four other McCain staffers or major fundraisers, including the campaign’s finance director and a former national finance chairman, have earned tidy sums lobbying for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

But John McCain is an honorable man. Therefore, it is inconceivable that any of these “associations,” to use one of his favorite words, had anything to do with the Republican nominee’s extraordinary solicitude for the Colombia trade pact, let alone the way he rolled his eyes when Obama spoke of the murder of Colombian labor leaders.

Quote Of The Day: Yglesias

When John concluded by reflecting on the “long line of McCains” that have served the country, I thought he was finally going to bust out the big guns — “my dad was an admiral, his dad was a Muslim” would, unlike most of what he says, actually true.

What? McCain's grandpappy was a Muslim? Do the research someone and comment!

Update: It's tough being stoopid. I oughtta know!

McCain Takes Pride In Mob Hate

McCain is proud of his mob?!

It was kind of strange, dintcha think, that John McCain came to the defense of his supporters last night after Barack Obama pointed out that people at McCain/Palin rallies were shouting out "terrorist" and "kill him!" in reference to Obama.

Now an Al Jazeera camera crew caught the honest sentiments of McCain/Palin supporters at an Ohio rally:

“I’m afraid if he wins, the blacks will take over. He’s not a Christian! This is a Christian nation! What is our country gonna end up like?”

“When you got a Negra running for president, you need a first stringer. He’s definitely a second stringer.”

“He seems like a sheep - or a wolf in sheep’s clothing to be honest with you. And I believe Palin - she’s filled with the Holy Spirit, and I believe she’s gonna bring honesty and integrity to the White House.”

“He’s related to a known terrorist, for one.”

“He is friends with a terrorist of this country!”

“He must support terrorists! You know, uh, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. And that to me is Obama.”

“Just the whole, Muslim thing, and everything, and everybody’s still kinda - a lot of people have forgotten about 9/11, but… I dunno, it’s just kinda… a little unnerving.”

“Obama and his wife, I’m concerned that they could be anti-white. That he might hide that.”

“I don’t like the fact that he thinks us white people are trash… because we’re not!”

Yep, McCain must be so proud.

The rest of us, well ... let's just say those polls should tell the story.

H/T C&L

Joe The Plumber And Keating

From Hullabaloo:

Oh. My. God.

by tristero

We can't be this lucky:

Joe the Plumber, the star of tonight's debate, may have a very interesting connection to John McCain. In fact, Joe the Plumber (Joe Wurzelbacher) of Cincinnati, Ohio may be related to one Robert Wurzelbacher of Cincinnati, Ohio, who happens to be Charles Keating's son-in-law.

Robert Wurzelbacher was implicated in the Keating 5 scandal, and sentenced to 40 months in prison in 1993.

Wurzelbacher is also a huge Republican donor.

So, let's find out a bit about Joe Wurzelbacher.

Whoa.

Update: Nope!

Hate Speech Almost Killed TR!

The Edge Of The American West is a great blog. The post below is a great example of why. I mentioned how dangerous the words McCain and Palin have been using are, and then Eric Rauchway provides the following...

“I am all right, and you cannot escape listening to my speech either.”

On this day in 1912, outside the Hotel Gilpatrick in Milwaukee, a would-be assassin rushed up to Theodore Roosevelt, then campaigning for the presidency on the Progressive Party ticket, and shot him on the right side of his chest.

Slowed by passing through the manuscript of the speech Roosevelt was to give that night, the bullet nevertheless pierced his flesh, and blood covered his shirt.

But he went to the hall and gave the speech anyway, going on for almost an hour.

Because Theodore Roosevelt was entirely made of top-grade triple-refined USDA-inspected 100 percent purest awesome.

And this is what he said:

Now, I would not speak to you insincerely within five minutes of being shot. I am telling you the literal truth when I say my concern is for many other things. It is not in the least for my own life….

I don’t know who the man was who shot me to-night…. He shot to kill me. He shot the bullet. I am just going to show you (Col. Roosevelt then unbuttoned coat and vest and showed his white shirt badly stained with blood)….

Now, I wish to say seriously to the speakers and newspapers representing the Republican and Democratic and Socialist Parties that they cannot, month in and month out, year in and year out, make the kind of slanderous, bitter, and malevolent assaults that they have made and not expect that brutal and violent characters, especially when the brutality is accompanied by a not too strong mind; they cannot expect that such natures will be unaffected by it….

Don’t you pity me. I am all right. I am all right, and you cannot escape listening to my speech either….

I wish to say that the Progressive Party is making its appeal to all our fellow citizens without any regard to their creed or to their birthplace….

In New York, while I was Police Commissioner, the two men from whom I got the most assistance were Jacob Riis, who was born in Denmark, and Oliver von Briesen, who was born in Germany, both of them as fine examples of the best and highest American citizenship as you could find in any part of this country….

At one time I promoted five men for gallantry on the field of battle…. two of them were Protestants, two Catholics, and one a Jew. One Protestant came from Germany and one was born in Ireland. I did not promote them because of their religion, it just happened that way. If all of them had been Jews, I would have promoted them, or if all had been Protestants I would have promoted them, or if they had been Catholics….

I ask that in our civic life that we in the same way pay heed only to the man’s quality of citizenship—to repudiate as the worst enemy that we can have whoever tries to get us to discriminate for or against any man because of his creed or his birthplace…. in the same way I want our people to stand by one another without regard to differences of class or occupation. I have always stood by the labor unions…. It is essential that there should be organization of labor…..

Now, the Democratic party in its platform and through the utterances of Mr. Wilson has distinctly committed itself to the old flintlock, muzzle-loaded doctrine of States’ rights, and I have said distinctly we are for people’s rights. We are for the rights of the people. If they can be obtained best through National Government, then we are for national rights. We are for people’s rights however it is necessary to secure them.

Mr. Wilson has made a long essay against Senator Beveridge’s bill to abolish child labor. It is the same kind of argument that would be made against our bill to prohibit women from working more than eight hours a day in industry. It is the same kind of argument that would have to be made; if it is true, it would apply equally against our proposal to insist that in continuous industries there shall be by law one day’s rest in seven and three-shift eight-hour day….

I ask you to look at our declaration and hear and read our platform about social and industrial justice and then, friends, vote for the Progressive ticket without regard to me, without regard to my personality, for only by voting for that platform can you be true to the cause of progress throughout this Union.

Roosevelt recovered from the shooting, and his campaign lumbered to the most respectable losing third-party finish in presidential history.

He was right about the man who shot him. John Schrank probably was of weak mind, and influenced by the strong language common in 1912 casting Roosevelt as a messianic madman reaching for an unprecedented third term (Roosevelt had served almost all of McKinley’s second term; you can of course read more about this here).

Such people—such violent and pliable people—were out there, Roosevelt supposed; the thing to do was to conduct politics so that they did not think their violence wanted in the nation’s public affairs.

Not too long ago the Exceptional Case Study Project of the Secret Service compiled data on assassination and attempted assassinations in the United States; you can find it here. They defined “principal incidents”—assassination, attack, or approach with a lethal weapon—as the primary unit of analysis. They found 25 cases, or around one every two years, in which such an incident occurred involving the president.

Assume, as Roosevelt did, a population in which there are some weak-minded people, prone to violence. What makes such people fixate on a public figure? Roosevelt thought it could only be the language, bordering on incitement, with which it had become acceptable to attack public figures.

McCain's Guy Helped Saddam

Jay McDonough has the goods on McCain's transition cheif, William Timmons, who apparently helped Saddam Hussein. Glorious! Read it below...

McCain transition chief aided Saddam Hussein lobbying effort

by Jay McDonough

Following up on Cernig's post below:

It's no big secret John McCain has filled his campaign with lobbyists, and some have engaged in peddling influence for some pretty nefarious foreign entities. But the individual John McCain chose to head his transition team may take the prize.

William Timmons, along with two other lobbyists, worked on behalf of former Iraq president, Saddam Hussein, to ease international sanctions levied against the Saddam regime.

The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government.

During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.

A U.N commission headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker conducted an exhaustive investigation of the oil-for-food program, in which various individuals were found to have paid illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein. The findings of the Volcker Commission detail the roles of Vincent, Park and Timmons in trying to ease the sanctions.

...when Timmons pressed the case even more aggressively that sanctions against Saddam's regime be eased, he, Vincent and Park hoped to profit as well, according to the Volcker report. "Continuing through 1994 and 1995, Mr. Vincent and Mr. Park, along with Mr. Timmons and others, persisted in their efforts to establish a foothold in the Iraqi oil business," the report stated.

At one point, Timmons even boasted to investigators that it was his ideas that later became the basis for the United Nations' oil-for-food program. (Link)

John McCain has hired William Timmons to work on his campaign staff. John McCain has hired a number of lobbyists with questionable work histories. John McCain casts a blind eye towards lobbyists who have been employed by some vile characters.

Kind of puts the whole William Ayers thing in a different perspective, doesn't it?

McCain And Liddy: They Share Principles

I think I mentioned this before, but McCain actually does pal around with terrorists. G. Gordon Liddy is a domestic terrorist and McCain joined him on his show in May of 2007 (not when McCain was 8, which is pre-history). Go read Carl Bernstein's post.

LIDDY: Your experience in the Hanoi Hilton is remarkable. I mean, I put in five years in a prison [for masterminding the Watergate burglary, and associated crimes], but it was here in the United States, and they didn't torture - the only torture that I had was being forced to listen to rap music from time to time.

McCAIN: Well, you know, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of your family. I'm proud to know your son, Tom, who's a great and wonderful guy. And it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon. And congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.

Care to expand on these principles and philosophies, John?

TNR Comment Of The Day

stanmvp48 said:

In the last week of the 1860 election; Stephen Douglas essentially conceded the election to Lincoln and went South to try to talk the idiots out of seceding. History praises him for it.

McCain Acts Decent

Well bless my soul! John McCain, who, by the way, shares his name with serial killers, murderers, pedophiles, Senators, Presidents, kids, Jews, Muslims, jerks, Nobel Laureates and celebrities, decided today that allowing his lynch mobs to continually call for the removal of the terrorist Obama's head is not okay. Better late than never. Read it

McCain Denounces Pitchfork-Wavers
Here in Lakeville, the traveling press was pretty sure we'd see more of the kind of vicious anti-Obama attitude that's becoming a hallmark of McCain rallies of late.

As the town hall started, McCain was off with more pep than usual. Making the same old jokes, but with energy that reminded us of "the old McCain." But would he use his power for good or evil? An audience member teed up a great big softball that could totally hit a dark side home run, asking, "We want you to fight at your next debate... we want to see s REAL fight at the debate, we want a STRONG leader for the next four years." That is Minnesota nice for "RevWrightACORNAyers," etc.

But then something weird happens: He acknowledges the "energy" people have been showing at rallies, and how glad he is that people are excited. But, he says, "I respect Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." People booed at the mention of his name. McCain, visibly angry, stopped them: "I want EVERYONE to be respectful, and lets make sure we are."

The very next questioner tried to push back on this request, noting that he needed to "tell the American the TRUTH about Barack Obama" -- a not very subtle way, I think, to ask John McCain to NOT tell the truth about Barack Obama. McCain told her there's a "difference between record and rhetoric, and I plan to talk about his record, respectfully... I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity, I just mean it has to be respectful."

And then later, again, someone dangled a great big piece of low-hanging fruit in front of McCain: "I'm scared to bring up my child in a world where Barack Obama is president."

McCain replies, "Well, I don't want him to be president, either. I wouldn't be running if I did. But," and he pauses for emphasis, "you don't have to be scared to have him be President of the United States." A round of boos.

And he snaps back: "Well, obviously I think I'd be better. "

Of course, this is kind of the best of both world: Crazy base-world gets to bring up Ayers and whatever else, really, and he gets to say, "Be respectful." But I think he means it.

UPDATE: Indeed, he just snatched the microphone out the hands of a woman who began her question with, "I'm scared of Barack Obama... he's an Arab terrorist..."

"No, no ma'am," he interrupted. "He's a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements."

Rich, Elite, Trust-Funders

Robert Scheer on McCain and Bush:

McCain evidences the underlying motivator attributed to Bush in Stone’s movie: the distorted priorities of a son of privilege doing battle with the legacy of more gifted and responsible family ancestors. Both grew up as spoiled screw-ups repeatedly bailed out of trouble by their highly accomplished fathers, in McCain’s case an admiral, and both assume, as a matter of legacy, that they have a right to rule. What they ignored in their legacy was a Christian’s obligation to make the economic system that handsomely rewarded their kin at least minimally responsive to the needs of ordinary folk.

Go read it.

John McCain Is Responsible For The Voting Rights Act Of 1965

Seriously:

Presidential hopeful John McCain has a connection to a former Alabama state trooper charged with the murder of a man at the height of the civil rights movement, according to documents obtained by The Star.

In the early 1990s, Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., wrote a letter to the State Department regarding James B. Fowler, who was at the time imprisoned in Thailand on narcotics charges.

McCain's State Department letter was dated Nov. 15, 1991. It briefly explains Fowler's situation and asks Assistant Secretary Elizabeth Tamposi of the Office of Consular Affairs to look into his case.

In 2005, The Star published an interview with James B. Fowler who admitted publicly for the first time that he shot Jimmie Lee Jackson, during a melee in February 1965 in the west Alabama town of Marion. Fowler insisted it was in self defense.

Jackson's death a few days after the shooting proved pivotal for organizers of the civil rights movement, leading indirectly to the Selma-to-Montgomery march and, many historians argue, the passage by Congress of the landmark Voting Rights Act in August 1965.

You must go read it.
h/t Sully

The Election Gets Really Ugly

I think the McCain campaign should just go away. I fear that if they don't, someone might get hurt! Two examples of this happened today. One each for McCain and Palin.

They were giving speeches, trying to get anyone to vote for them. Because of who they are and what they stand for, their crowds are filled with assholes. Dangerous assholes.

One shouted that Obama is a terrorist, and McCain said nothing.

Palin had a guy shout out "kill him" in reference to Obama.

Now, I am no shrinking violet, and I usually don't put much weight on stupid statements by morons. But these morons are different because they are motivated by hate and fear. We all know what hate and fear will get you.

So, McCain: Get it together and denounce these statements. Do it publicly, and do it in the morning. Remind everyone that anyone who foments that kind of hate and fear is an accessory to anything bad that may befall Obama. And if you don't, you are also an accessory. Indeed, you are an accessory right now, and your silence is as good as an endorsement of the two statements. I think you agree with them because I have not heard otherwise. Prick.

Video Update:

h/t TP