We Love Lists

My #1 Video of the Campaign

Time: Top Ten Campaign Video Moments

A weird list. The Palin-Couric interviews get #1, that's justifiable, but "Joe Biden's One-Word Debate Answer" and Hillary Clinton's "Soprano's Video" beating will.i.am's "Yes We Can" video is ridiculous.

My top five:

1. John McCain "The Fundamentals of Our Economy Are Strong" (see above)
2. will.i.am "Yes We Can"
3. Tina Fey "I Can See Russia From My House"
4. Sarah Palin "In What Respect, Charlie?"
5. Sarah Palin "Putin Rears His Head"

Katie Couric Discusses Sarah Palin Interviews

On David Letterman Wednesday night:



"Clearly, she was struggling with some of those answers."

7-Year-Old Blogger For Obama

The blog: Report from Planet Stas'

When Obama heard about 7-year-old blogger Stas' Gunkel, he sent him a letter.

Senator Obama’s advice to me:

“Dear Stas, Thank you for your kind words and for your support. I am impressed with your interest in politics, especially at your young age. I encourage you to visit my website kids.barackobama.com to learn more about everything we’re doing to make your family’s future even brighter.

I leave you with three bits of advice that will make your life more fulfilling: Look out for other people, even when it does not directly benefit you; strive to make a difference everywhere you go; and get back up every time you are knocked down.

Thanks again for writing to me. Seeing young people like you who care about making things better inspires me and gives me great hope about the future of our country and our world. Sincerely, Barack Obama”

Here's a report from a Chicago TV station:



Here's one of his posts, from September 27th:

Here is why I'm asking grown-ups to vote for Barack Obama. I am 7 years old so I can't vote......

My mom told me that I shouldn't base my election analysis on "feelings" (I like him/her) or "beliefs" (I share his/her beliefs) but on logical arguments. She asked me to create my own rational explanations for my support of Obama. Here is one of my arguments:

McCain and Palin are not be qualified to be President / Vice President of the U.S. The President's job is to do good for the country and the world. To do good for the country, the President must make smart decisions on important situations.

Governor Palin believes the world is 6000 years old. This is absurd. This is not a rational belief. This is a mistake. Scientists, experiments and evidence have shown this to be completely false. Therefore, she is not rational. If she is not rational, she should not be allowed to be President or Vice President.

Please vote for Barack Obama.

I'm with Stas' on Palin. He nailed it.

I saw this at Brilliant at Breakfast, who found it at Mudflats

Reading List

Flickr: Election Night 11-04-08

From firedoglake, why Joe Lieberman really wants to keep his Homeland Security Committee gavel: So he can investigate Obama to death by a thousand "...gates".

Ta-Nehisi Coates, WaPo: The Man of Tomorrow
King trusted whites to stand up. Obama showed me he was right.

Frank Rich, NYTimes: It Still Felt Good the Morning After

The Newsweek series (embargoed news, stuff they've known for weeks but did not deign to tell us until after we voted) is a must read:

Hackers and Spending Sprees
Highlights from NEWSWEEK's special election project.

Chapter One: How He Did It
A team of NEWSWEEK reporters reveals the secret battles and private fears behind an epic election.

Chapter Two: Back From the Dead
By late spring of 2007, John McCain's campaign was adrift, if not sinking. Then the candidate found a new narrative: the comeback.

Chapter Three: The Long Siege
The fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama turned into a grinding stasis that played out until the very last primary day.

Chapter Four: Going Into Battle
McCain's inner circle altered the style, feel and direction of the campaign. The candidate's best hope was to bring down Obama.

Chapter Five: Center Stage
Obama's aides worried the Clintons might steal the show. McCain revved up his campaign with an impulsive choice—Sarah Palin.

Chapter Six: The Great Debates
McCain bridled at reducing his opinions to sound bites. Obama prepped as if he were taking the bar exam—nothing was left to chance.

Chapter Seven: The Final Days
Obama was leading in the polls, even in red states like Virginia. But McCain almost seemed to glory in being the underdog.

New Obama Ad: "Steel"

Strong ad, painting McCain as lying, erratic, a Bush clone, and risky.

Are You A Better Reporter Than a Fifth Grader?

I doubt it! Watch this report on a Palm Beach, Florida Joe Biden rally by fifth-grader Damon Weaver. And Biden manages to tell him what the Vice President really does (he doesn't "run the Senate", Sarah).

Don't Ask Sarah Palin What A Precondition Is

'Cause she does not know. She did not know that vocabulary was going to be a precondition for the vice presidency!

Asked what a precondition is, she tries "diplomatic strategy", which doesn't even get partial credit.



You can watch Part 1 of the Brian Williams interview (a little over 11 minutes) here. Lots of Sarah Word Salad at play.

Vote Barack!

Funny, goofy rap video:



I love it when they call Sarah Palin "Moose-olini".

I'm Loving This

Another website put up by the Obama campaign:

JohnMcCainRecord.com

It's on. Take that, Old Spice.

New DNC Ad: "Negative Attack Ads"

Great usage of McCain himself decrying negative attack ads during the 2000 Republican primary. He also looks much younger and healthier in the 2000 clip.

Vice Presidential Debate on Saturday Night Live

Tina Fey once again skewers Sarah Palin on last night's Saturday Night Live. Bonus appearance by Queen Latifah as Gwen Ifill.

Q: How would you solve the financial crisis, being a maverick?

A: You know we're gonna take every aspect of the crisis and look at it, and then we're gonna ask ourselves, what would a maverick do in this situation? And then you know, we'll do that.

Gotta Run

yahoo: A 'Palin Bingo' card sits on a counter at a debate watch party at a tavern in Seattle Thursday evening, Oct. 2, 2008. People watched the televised debate there between vice presidential candidates Republican Sarah Palin and Democrat Joe Biden and filled out game cards based on comments made by Palin.
(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

My real life keeps intruding on blogging!

Read elsewhere:

Palin screwed the pooch on the bankruptcy question last night. She said she and McCain weren't opposed to changing current bankruptcy laws regarding first mortgages. Problem? McCain does indeed oppose changing the law. Current bankruptcy law doesn't allow bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgage terms on first - primary - residences. But if you're a rich fuck like John McCain, bankruptcy judges have the power to protect your 2nd house, your 3rd house, your 4th house, your 5th house, your 6th house, your 7th house, your plane, your yacht -- but not the primary residence for millions of ordinary Americans. Palin basically adopted Obama's position in her answer, and McCain's camp is flailing. Smell the hypocrisy. Team of mavericks, my eye.

Washington Post reports that McCain has hired a new aide: Mark Buse, who was hired by Freddie Mac in 2003 and 2004 to lobby.....wait, this gets better....to lobby John McCain!

Jane Hamsher skewers Wrinkly/Winky '08:

She does not know what "achilles heel" means. Watch it. She Does. Not. Know. What. It. Means.

Forget the tight stripper skirt, forget the metallic eyeshadow inappropriate for anyone over the age of 40, forget the cloying sitcom delivery, the lies, the cruel and calculated needling of Biden by calling his college professor wife a "school teacher" and saying "she'll get her reward in Heaven" (to a man whose first wife died in a car accident) -- she's an idiot.

I cannot believe that we are seriously thinking of placing this dodo bird within reach of the Presidency.

Sarah Palin's 18 lies, from Americablog.

New Obama Ad: "The Ultimate Bridge to Nowhere" *Updated*

I jumped off the couch when Biden delivered that line last night. Great line, a huge weakness of McCain's that we need to exploit. McCain's healthcare plan would kill employer-funded health insurance -- and he has no back-up plan. We should all marry a beer heiress. Or get one of those (dwindling because of Republicans) good union jobs with good benefits.

UPDATE: My brother calls me to tell this story. He watched the debate with my three nephews last night. They all liked the "ultimate bridge to nowhere" line. The 9-year-old said, that was the best line of the debate, dad! And when said 9-year-old woke up this morning, he rolled over and said, "The ultimate bridge to nowhere."

My nephew is a political genius! The kid has a future in politics. He knows way more about foreign policy than Sarah Palin. He can name every country in Africa. I'd like to see those two debate Africa. My nephew would wipe the floor with her. Heck, he could wipe the floor with her in any debate. Being nine, he would take the cuteness factor off the table, and when you take away the winking and the folksiness, what does she have left? An empty dress, that's what.

Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink

Watched the debate tonight. Biden was great. The best I have ever seen him. I wish whoever prepped him for this debate had prepped him for the hearings on the last few Supreme Court nominations. He could have beaten Roberts & Scalito if he had been this focused and on-message.

Palin didn't have any horrible gaffes, but she was so weird. The cutesiness really puts me off. You're running for Vice President, not prom queen, for crying out loud. (I think this is why she does better with men than with women.) My mom called me after five minutes and said she just couldn't watch her any more. How can anyone take her seriously?

Jed Lewison notices the weird winking:



It was so obvious that she was just stringing together her talking points. She avoided several questions by giving answers about lowering taxes.

Biden's best moment for me was when he stated, then stated again, that what the US spends for three weeks of the Iraq War is the TOTAL of what we have spent on Afghanistan in the past seven years. While I think sending more troops to Afghanistan is insane, I think it is important to point out how far off track Bush & McCain sent the US after the 9/11 attacks, and how much money we are wasting on Bush/McCain's war of choice.

The worst moment for Palin for me was when Biden choked up talking about losing his first wife and daughter. It was the most emotional moment of the debate. And she stood there and listened to that and ignored it, went right back to her canned chirpy bullshit. A man had just stood next to her and relived a devastating loss -- his wife died, his daughter died, his two boys are near death in the hospital -- and she did not react. She did not care. To me that proved that she wasn't really there. She was reading her notes and reciting her canned answers, but she didn't even hear what Biden said. That was cold and uncaring. It made it pretty clear that Palin caring about Biden's son going to Iraq was a talking point. She didn't give a shit.

The post-debate polls are pretty uniform in giving the edge to Biden.

Debate Prep

For your debate prep, I assign you to watch this "Sarah Palin Greatest Hits" tape:



In what respect, Charlie?

Palin Is a Disaster of Epic Proportions

"I can see Russia from my house!"

If you have been watching the Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin, you must know that she is not very bright, has no background in national or international issues, and is completely unqualified to be POTUS. Reportedly CBS has more Palin clips to release today -- and they are even worse.

There will be no vice presidential debate. At least, Sarah Palin will not participate in a vice presidential debate. There will be some excuse. Some crisis. Either national (economy? Russia?) or personal (kid with flu? projection vomiting? the preggo daughter goes into premature labor? moose on the loose in the governor's mansion? something.). Ed Schultz the radio host has this on his site today:

McCain Camp insiders say Palin "clueless"
Capitol Hill sources are telling me that senior McCain people are more than concerned about Palin. The campaign has held a mock debate and a mock press conference; both are being described as "disastrous." One senior McCain aide was quoted as saying, "What are we going to do?" The McCain people want to move this first debate to some later, undetermined date, possibly never. People on the inside are saying the Alaska Governor is "clueless."

There's no way they let her get whacked around for an hour and half on her own. There will be no debate, because she will never be ready for one. It is painful to watch her struggle to answer questions that she had to know were coming.

Not much love for the not-ready-for-prime-time governor of Alaska around the web.

Kathleen Parker, Dallas Morning News: How to solve this Palin problem?

Ms. Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

Alessandra Stanley, NYTimes: A Question Reprised, but the Words Come None Too Easily for Palin

[I]t wasn’t a reassuring performance....[I]t may be hard for Mr. McCain’s running mate to recoup. It wasn’t her first interview on national television, but in some ways it was the worst.

LATimes: Palin talks to Couric -- and if she's lucky, few are listening

Her third nationally televised interview, with CBS anchor Katie Couric, found Palin rambling, marginally responsive and even more adrift than during her network debut with ABC’s Charles Gibson.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: I’m sorry — Sarah Palin is a bad joke

Palin is living, breathing proof that John McCain lies when he claims to put this country first over politics. She makes Dan Quayle look like Albert Einstein with a better haircut.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Shameless and clueless Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric provided further proof that she is a clear and present danger to the nation.

The only people who can still say with utter sincerity that she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency are those who actually haven't a clue about what a president does. Once Palin gets sidetracked from repeating her simplistic talking points about being a maverick and cleaning up Washington and not ever, ever blinking in the face of a foreign threat, she quickly reveals the shocking shallowness in her knowledge of issues a candidate for high office should have contemplated long and hard.

I don't think she's stupid, I think she is much like George W. Bush -- incurious. She really hasn't thought about this stuff. Palin insults the intelligence of the nation when she makes claims about her qualifications that are patently ridiculous....

Babbling/Blather '08

Sarah Palin, who John McSame says knows more about energy than anyone in the country, answering a question on energy today:

"Oil and coal? Of course, it's a fungible commodity and they don't flag, you know, the molecules, where it's going and where it's not. But in the sense of the Congress today, they know that there are very, very hungry domestic markets that need that oil first," Palin said. "So, I believe that what Congress is going to do, also, is not to allow the export bans to such a degree that it's Americans that get stuck to holding the bag without the energy source that is produced here, pumped here. It's got to flow into our domestic markets first."

Fucking genius, there.

John McCain is Losing His Marbles

Yesterday he apparently confused the prime minister of Spain -- Zapatero -- with long-dead Mexican revolutionary Emilio Zapata. Zapatistas!

The fact is that McCain has been stumbling and bumbling on the campaign trail for over a year and the media has been quick to excuse and paper over his gaffes. I bet I've heard cable TV hacks say at least 10 times this week that McCain didn't say we'd be in Iraq for 100 years. They keep saying he said we'd keep noncombat troops there for 100 years.

Which is complete balderdash. He didn't say anything nuanced. He said cavalierly, when asked if he was willing to stay in Iraq for 50 years, "Make it a 100." That's what he said. He never used the word noncombat. Then he began to back off and explain that we kept troops in South Korea and Japan for decades, and it would be fine for him if Americans weren't being killed. Well, that would be nice if peace had been declared in Iraq, or if we were on one side of a DMZ in the friendly part of the country.

But those aren't the facts on the ground. There has never been any time during our occupation of Iraq that there has been peace. We don't have noncombat troops in Iraq. McCain was talking about the Iraq that there is, and was willing to stay for 100 years. He and his media base have been trying to explain his statement ever since. But the statement stands.

A few days ago McCain said, with a straight face, that Sarah Palin, his completely unqualified running mate, “knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.” Climate Progress calls that statement "The Mother of All Lies".

Plus whenever he introduces Palin as his running mate, he manages to slip in that she was the point guard on her state high school basketball team. He's like your dotty uncle when he does that, proud but throwing in a non sequiter. (I think he does it because he remembers that about her. It was in the speech he read when he introduced her, a month ago).

And I think that's what's going on. He's tired, and confused. He's old, and his memory isn't what it once was. So he falls back on the lines he's used to saying, the old lines that have served him well. The fundamentals of our economy are strong.

If he can't fall back on an old speech, he has established a pattern of using long, rambling generic statements that don't really say anything but seem to answer the question. Like he said about the Spanish prime minister:

INTERVIEWER: Senator finally, let's talk about Spain. If elected president would you be willing to invite President Jose Rodriguez Louis Zapatero to the White House, to meet with you?

McCAIN: I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion.

[My note, here I think he is confusing Zapatero of Spain with Zapata of Mexico, so he turns back to Latin America.] And by the way President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very, very tough fight against the drug cartels. I'm glad we are now working with the Mexican government on the Merida Plan, and I intend to move forward with relations and invite as many of them as I can, of those leaders to the White House.

INTERVIEWER: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government? To the president himself?

McCAIN: Uh, I don't, I, ya know, I, honestly, I have to look at the situations and the relations and the priorities. But I can assure you, I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.

INTERVIEWER: So you have to wait and see. If he's willing to meet with you, would you be able to do it? In the White House?

McCAIN: Well, again, I don't -- All I can tell you is I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.

Generic blather, because he can't keep actual facts and names and places in his head. Like this extremely confused statement, picked up by Chris Kelly at HuffPo:

The Delicate Subject of John McCain's Marbles

You might think "I'll end greed" [ed. note, one of the seven deadly sins, it's been around for awhile] would be the most mortifying thing John McCain could say at one sitting. You'd be wrong. At Wednesday's town hall -- his first with Sarah Palin -- he topped himself with this explanation of her credentials:

"She has been commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard. Fact. On September 11 a contingent of the Guard deployed to Iraq and her son happened to be one of them so I think she understands national security challenges."

Which is fine except:

The governor of Alaska doesn't command the National Guard in combat overseas.

Sarah Palin didn't deploy anyone anywhere on September 11th. She was a guest speaker at an Army deployment ceremony.

Track Palin isn't in the National Guard; he's in the Army.

Sometimes it seems like it's more than John McCain can handle, just keeping all the lies about Sarah Palin straight in his head. Tomorrow he'll say she's in the Air Force herself, on a plane she bought on eBay, bombing the bridges at Toko-Ri.

All in all, it's pretty clear that a vote for doddering McCain is a vote for I Can See Russia From My House! Sarah Palin.

You Won't See This On Brain-Dead Cable TV

Joe Biden & Hillary Clinton webcast on women's issues. Well worth the 32 minutes:

Olbermann: Economic Meltdown, McCain/Gramm, Paul Krugman

Krugman in Part 1 calls John McCain the next coming of Herbert Hoover.

Part 1:



Part 2: