McCain's Gift

Senator John McCain should never be forgiven for selecting Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate and thereby providing her with national prominence. That McCain still holds her in high regard is testament to his enduring stupidity.

Happy Anniversary Jack Johnson

There is an interesting New York Times editorial on the occasion of the 4th of July also being the 99th anniversary of Jack Johnson's stunning knockout of the "Great White Hope" Jim Jeffries in Reno, Nevada in 1908. The editorial notes:

This landmark moment in the struggle up from slavery still has not been set right in history. Jack Johnson fearlessly personified a kind of uncivil disobedience — an outspoken contumely toward the nation’s racist taboos. He had a gift for taunting hypocrites from outside the ring and inside, where shouted racist slurs only galvanized his boxing arts. His was an amazing form of resistance when Jim Crow lynchings and pro-white sports reporting were standard Americana.

Johnson paid the price three years later when vindictive authorities twisted the Mann Act’s strictures against prostitution to convict him before an all-white jury for having dared to travel with a white woman across state lines. He did a year in prison.

Interestingly enough, Senator John McCain, who could not find it within himself to support the Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday, is one of the chief sponsors of legislation to pardon Johnson for his misdeeds. Don't want to appear ungrateful but there is a helluva difference between supporting legislation in recognition of MLK and pardoning a former heavyweight champion that the average American never heard of.

Unforgivable Blackness

Sen. John McCain has introduced legislation to posthumously pardon Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, for violation of the Mann Act, i.e., the transportation of white women across state lines for immoral purposes.

Bad Analogy

A McCain political advertisement, questioning Obama's experience and readiness to be Commander-in-Chief, asks would you get on a plane piloted by somebody who has never flown before. Given McCain's record of having crashed four U.S. Navy aircraft during his career, this isn't exactly the analogy he should be using.

Joe, Where Art Thou?

"Joe's with us
today - Joe, where
are you? Where is
Joe? Is Joe with us
here today? Joe, I
thought you were
here today. All
right, well, you're
all Joe the
Plumber, so all of
you stand up!"

Thus spoke John McCain about his poster boy at a rally in the aptly named Defiance, Ohio. That missing mofo Joe was probably out conferring with his publicist in an effort to cash in on his proverbial 15-minutes of fame. Let's hope the numbnut pays off his tax debt to the state of Ohio before he inevitably sinks back into anonymity.

Obama the Better Choice

The Financial Times, in its lead editorial, makes the argument that Obama is the better choice:

Mr Obama fought a much better campaign. Campaigning is not the same as governing, and the presidency should not be a prize for giving the best speeches, devising the best television advertisements, shaking the most hands and kissing the most babies.

Nonetheless, a campaign is a test of leadership. Mr Obama ran his superbly; Mr McCain's has often looked a shambles. After eight years of George W. Bush, the steady competence of the Obama operation commands respect.

Nor should one disdain Mr Obama's way with a crowd. Good presidents engage the country's attention; great ones inspire. Mr McCain, on form, is an adequate speaker but no more. Mr Obama, on form, is as fine a political orator as the country has heard in decades. Put to the right purposes, this is no mere decoration but a priceless asset.

Joe the Plumber is a Fraud

The McCain campaign probably thought they had seized on something significant by having its candidate repeatedly invoke the name of Joe the Plumber in Wednesday night's final debate with Barack Obama. But Joe the Plumber is a fraud. Had they done their homework, the campaign would have discovered that the dude's first name isn't even Joe, it's Sam; that 95% of all small businesses don't earn $250,000 annually; that Joe Wurzelbacher's total earnings last year was $40,000 (which means that he would benefit from Obama's tax proposal); that he isn't licensed to practice plumbing in Ohio; and that he owes the state of Ohio $1,200 in back taxes, resulting in a lien against his property.

Another Hail Mary

Weekly Standard editor and New York Times columnist William Kristol advises John McCain, with about three weeks to go, to jettison his campaign and return to the happy warrior he was in 2000 (which is odd, given that George W. Bush after punking McCain, emerged as the GOP standard bearer). Kristol's advice amounts to another Hail Mary, which in football parlance is the last desperate gasp to wring victory from the jaws of defeat. Kristol, and perhaps McCain, suffers from a confusion of sports metaphors, in that he apparently believes that Hail Marys come in threes like the proverbial three strikes associated with baseball. First, it was his selection of the unremarkable Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate - a not so thinly veiled attempt to appeal to the voters who supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primaries. Then there was the self-serving suspension of the campaign to return to Washington amid the greatest financial crisis since the depression to assist in the bailout talks. In both instances, the calculation never really produced the desired effect. Thus there is no reason to believe that it won't be any different this time, as the clock is running out.

McCain's Latest Straight Talk

In John McCain's latest stump speech unveiled today in Virginia Beach, Virginia, the Republican presidential nominee and self-declared straight talker said:

We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent the last eight waiting for our luck to change. The hour is late; our troubles are getting worse; our enemies watch. We have to act immediately. We have to change direction now.

The McCain campaign has always had a surreal quality: at once labeling itself as the reformers while being part of the political party that was in power for the last eight years and largely responsible for the mess the nation finds itself in. Which raises the question, is he suggesting that the Bush Administration, which he supported more than 90% of the time, spent two terms in the White House "waiting for our luck to change"? And given his record, isn't it somewhat incredulous that he casts himself and Palin as agents "to change direction now"? Obama was right: a wheel has come off of the straight talk express.

Gotcha Journalism

John McCain complains that his sequestered vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin has been victimized by the media practicing "gotcha journalism." McCain's charge has about as much credibility as, say, Alaska's proximity to Russia imbuing Palin with foreign policy experience. Witness this pathetic exchange between Katie Couric and Palin on the mundane matter of reading material:

COURIC: What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this -- to stay informed and to understand the world?

PALIN: I've read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media --

COURIC: But what ones specifically? I'm curious.

PALIN: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.

COURIC: Can you name any of them?

PALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.

McCain Gets Desperate

Sen. John McCain's decision to suspend his campaign and call to postpone Friday's night debate with Barack Obama to participate in the bail-out negotiations in Washington strikes me as little more than acts of a candidate desperately trying to redirect the discussion. And Obama is correct in calling for the debate to proceed as scheduled; after all, the whole idea supposedly behind the debates is to provide a forum for the candidates to articulate their positions on the issues, which includes the current financial crisis.

Leadership Question

The reaction of Barack Obama and John McCain to the Bush Administration's move to bailout a financial system in crisis is instructive and telling on the question of leadership. Obama's message both in substance and tone was measured and thoughtful; McCain's, pointedly partisan and risibly absurd in blaming Obama for profiting from the crisis.

A McCain Endorsement

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a high profile supporter of Hillary Clinton and member of the Democratic National Committee's Platform Committee, will endorse Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain today. Rothschild's endorsement of McCain apparently stems from her intense dislike of Barack Obama. “This is a hard decision for me personally because frankly I don't like him. I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.” The proletarian Forester, who is married to international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, is chief executive officer for El Rothschild, a holding company with businesses around the world. She splits time between her homes in London and New York.

Lipstick and Pigs

Barack Obama rightly calls the McCain campaign's response to his "lipstick on a pig" comment exactly what it is: "phony outrage." A point that is underscored by footage of Sen. McCain dismissing Sen. Hillary Clinton's health care proposals on three separate occasions as "lipstick on a pig."

McCain's Retreat

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, in the oped Running From Reality, examines John McCain's retreat from reality as he recasts himself as the maverick reformer and outsider, despite supporting the Bush Administration 90% of the time:

If there was one pre-eminent characteristic of the Republican convention this week, it was the quality of deception. Words completely lost their meaning. Reality was turned upside down.

From the faux populist gibberish mouthed by speaker after speaker, you would never have known that the Republicans have been in power over the past several years and used that titanic power to lead the country to its present sorry state.

In his acceptance speech on Thursday night, Senator John McCain did his best Sam Cooke imitation (“A Change is Gonna Come”) and vowed to put the country “back on the road to prosperity and peace.”

Mr. McCain spoke at the end of a day in which stock market indexes plunged. The next morning the Labor Department gave us the grim news that another 84,000 jobs had been lost in August, and that the official unemployment rate had climbed to 6.1 percent — the highest in five years.

McCain's Lack of Respect

Sam Harris argues, quite correctly, that John McCain, by selecting the unqualified Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, demonstrates a lack of respect for the office of the presidency of the United States:

Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the "Who would you like to have a beer with?" poll question in 2004, and won reelection.

This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism. Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages -- and loses -- both necessary and unnecessary wars.


McCain has so little respect for the presidency of the United States that he is willing to put the girl next door (soon, too, to be a grandma) into office beside him. He has so little respect for the average American voter that he thinks this reckless and cynical ploy will work.

Missing in Action

Thanks to hurricane Gustav bearing down on the Gulf Coast, yesterday President Bush was forced to forgo an opening night appearance at the Republican National Convention while he stayed in Washington to monitor the situation, something he manifestly failed to do three years ago for Katrina. So with poll numbers the lowest ever for an incumbent president, John McCain was probably grateful for Bush's absence, notwithstanding the flak generated by his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate. Tonight with the threat of Gustav diminished, Bush will be speak to the convention via satellite for about eight minutes and, clearly by design, before the networks begin televising the proceedings. In prepared remarks, Bush praises McCain as a worthy successor:

Some told him that his early and consistent call for more troops would put his presidential campaign at risk. He told them he would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war. That is the kind of courage and vision we need in our next commander-in-chief.

When the debates have ended, and all the ads have run, and it is time to vote, Americans will look closely at the judgment, the experience, and the policies of the candidates — and they will cast their ballots for the McCain-Palin ticket.

Sarah Palin, Hockey Mom

Hard to argue with the Financial Times Gideon Rachman's characterization of John McCain's selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, the title says it all: Bold, exciting - but also stupid. McCain staked so much of his campaign on the experience factor - ready to hit the ground running as a commander-in-chief on day one, unlike the inexperienced Barack Obama. But by selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate, he has effectively ceded away whatever advantage he might have by picking someone even younger than Obama, less experienced in both in national and international affairs, and more of an unknown entity than Obama, who at least has been vetted through a hard fought, bruising Democratic presidential campaign. It is also an amazing choice for a septuagenarian with several bouts with skin cancer and, if elected, would be the oldest man to assume the presidency.

A Speech We All Can Believe In

Barack Obama's acceptance speech addressed two critical points that had been sorely lacking in the campaign, especially over the last 3 or 4 weeks: policy specifics and sharp criticism of John McCain.

Now, now, let me -- let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and our respect.

And next week, we'll also hear about those occasions when he's broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need.

But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time.

Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but, really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than 90 percent of the time?

Thriller

At 50, everyone has the face he deserves.
George Orwell

Michael Jackson, the self-proclaimed "King Of Pop," turns 50 years old today. Happy birthday, Michael. Coincidentally, he shares the birthday with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Whatever that means, I am not sure, so I'll leave it at that. But one thing is certain: Jackson's seemingly endless talent is rivaled only by his strangeness.