Is there a more polished way to message the New Democratic Creed: "Vote for me 'cause, um, heh-heh-heh"?

In their recall-election debate last night, Wisconsin Governorissimo Scott Walker says to his Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett: "I worship at the toes of billionaires and am a sniveling crook besides, and did I mention my lovely full head of naturally dark hair? Is it any wonder that voters want me, you union-coddling old coot?"

by Ken

Just as I was preparing to fulminate a little about the art and science of political "messaging," I made the mistake of glancing at the POLITICS section of this morning's washingtonpost.com e-rundown (you can click on it to enlarge, if you're sufficiently strong of stomach):


Apart from the prevailing disgustingness -- the exceptions being Vice President Biden, talking about the tragedy of the loss of his first family, and the all-around-unspeakable John Edwards -- what's interesting is that these are tales of Republican loathsomeness. On some level the electorate does register the slime factor, but somehow when it comes to GOP perfidy, the way it generally registers is in general revulsion at the political system, of the "They all suck" variety. Traditional Republican consultants don't mind this, because depressing the vote has the effect of magnifying the electoral oomph of their core voters: the hard-core deranged.

One of the few recent Borowitz Report dispatches that I didn't pass along here was Thursday's witty-as-usual "U.S. Sends Emergency Shipment of Negative Ads to Egypt Aid to Fledgling Democracy," which began:

In what it is calling a mission to support a fledgling democracy in the Middle East, the United States this week sent an emergency shipment of negative ads to Cairo.

Explaining the secret mission, a State Department official said that with its first democratic elections getting underway, "Egypt had no access to the mother's milk of any working democracy: vicious campaign ads full of lies and distortions." . . .

Actually, it was the e-blurb for the story about the Virginia GOP Senate primary that got me thinking (this time) about the paradox of political messaging. For how long now have we been talking about a November showdown between GOP former Gov. and Sen. George "Macaca Man" Allen and nominal Dem former Gov. Tim Kaine? So long and so certainly that it hadn't even dawned on me that the Macaca Man first has to get through a primary. I saw that blurb, "The recent rejection of a gay judge is among the dividing lines in the final GOP primary debate" (referring to the shocking recent episode where the state's House of Delegates allowed itself to be intimidated by rampagingly unapologetic homophobes) and realized that there are shadings to be observed even among the slime-bound, who vie to persuade GOP core voters that they've got the most suitably slimy message.

It says something about the state of our political discourse, I think, that the most honest and illuminating media voices belong to the likes of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and of course Andy Borowitz. At least there's the added benefit that for the brief moments when they're holding forth, we get to laugh at it.

Then we turn back to reality. It's always still there. It's not going anywhere except maybe down. Possible exception: As we continue to ignore looming catastrophes like climate change, it may be going where we all are: down the tubes.

Even there we can see the depressing lowering of the already-too-low-to-believe right-wing standard of attention to reality. The standard right-wing response to the climate-change issue used to be: We need more studies. Perhaps because the very idea of "studies" suggests some adherence to a "knowledge" standard, this has evolved into: There ain't no such thing, you liberal devil, and your mother wears sweat socks.

And yet, somehow, the right-wingers continue to get away with it. One of my larger frustrations with out present-day political swamp is the Messaging Gap. The true right-wing message, after all, is something like:

I'm garbage; you're worse -- it's a marriage made by God in his Hell Heaven. And did I mention that if you don't vote for me, I'll make the world blow up the world will blow up.

Yet by the time the silver-tongued right-wing messagers have worked their magic, it's all about God, country, and puppies.

It goes without saying -- doesn't it? -- that Republicans don't believe those beautifully polished fake messages crafted for them by master strategists like Frank Luntz. That all falls under the heading of "stuff we say," which may or may not having anything to do with "what we do." It occurs to me that the Incorporated Willard may be the ultimate case: The man will say absolutely anything he thinks will get him either votes or campaign cash, and gets positively indignant when he's called to account for stuff he says.

RIGHT-WINGERS HATE, HATE, HATE HAVING
STUFF THEY'VE SAID QUOTED BACK AT THEM

As I've noted a number of times, this has become an exceedingly popular right-wing response, this gut-wrenched outrage at being confronted with stuff that they've in fact said or done. Dating back at least to the mercifully unsuccessful struggle to get ultra-right-wing zealot Robert Bork confirmed to the Supreme Court, few things aggrieve right-wing dears more self-righteously than quoting back to them stuff they've, you know, said. The Bork failure-to-achieve-confirmation spectacle gave rise to the term "Borking," which entered the political language without even ironic recognition that all those dastardly things said about the victim of Borking may in fact be 100 percent true. (No, 200 percent true!)

AND IT'S NOT AS IF WE DON'T HAVE
EXPERT MESSAGERS ON OUR SIDE

And they have the added advantage that their messages are true. I was just looking back at the chunklets of wisdom from Drew Westen I've quoted in previous posts. (Do yourself a favor and lick on the "Drew Westen" label at the bottom of this post, and then do yourself an even larger favor by clicking through -- as I always urged -- to read the full sources from which the chunklets were chunked.

Drew's cases are so rigorously as well as eloquently argued that, while they're quotable as hell (almost every sentence and paragraph in a Drew Westen piece can be usefully excerpted), the quotes don't fairly represent the rigor and sensibleness of the arguments. But let me just one example, from the September 2010 pre-election period (originally quoted in a post called "Can 2010 electoral disaster be averted? Drew Westen and Mike Lux weigh in"):

What Democrats have needed to offer the American people is a clear narrative about what and who led our country to the mess in which we find ourselves today and a clear vision of what and who will lead us out. That narrative would have laid a roadmap for our elected officials and voters alike, rather than making each legislative issue a seemingly discrete turn onto a dirt road. That narrative might have included -- and should include today -- some key elements: that if the economy is tumbling, it's the role of leadership and government to stop the free-fall; that if Wall Street is gambling with our financial security, our homes, and our jobs, true leaders do not sit back helplessly and wax eloquent about the free market, they take away the dice; that if the private sector can't create jobs for people who want to work, then we'll put Americans back to work rebuilding our roads, bridges, and schools; that if Big Oil is preventing us from competing with China's wind and solar energy programs, then we'll eliminate the tax breaks that lead to dysfunctional investments in 19th century fuels and have a public-private partnership with companies that will create the clean, safe fuels of the 21st century and the millions of good American jobs that will follow.

Call me slow, but it's only gradually dawned on me that there's a perfectly good reason so many Democrats -- including the Obama White House, to pick a random example -- don't avail themselves of Drew Westen's brilliant messaging. The reason is that they don't believe in the messages, or at least are afraid to be caught publicly believing in them. Maybe there's some depressing opposite-parallelism here: Republicans who don't believe the cunning button-pushing messages crafted for them by their master messagers have no trouble spouting them, while Democrats are unable or unwilling even to pretend to believe in truth-anchored messages that offer us a possible way out.

Is it any wonder we turn to Jon S, Stephen C, and Andy B?

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"Quesadilla"? But isn't ex-Sen. George Allen's middle name "Macaca"?

Would you buy a used constitution from this man?

by Ken

From Al Kamen's Washington Post "In the Loop" column today:

Hold the salsa

Speaking of [former Virginia Sen. George] Allen, it is time once again to caution everyone about undue reliance on Wikipedia.

We went to the site Wednesday afternoon to check some information and noticed something amiss. Wikipedia had Allen's full name as George Quesadilla Allen. Was someone trying to say he was a cheesehead, or maybe of Latino heritage? Or could it be a hacker's tag line or signature? The rest of the bio seemed to be accurate.

We asked a colleague, Web producer Greg Linch, to check it out. Linch viewed the Wikipedia revision history for Allen's page and found that the errant alteration - Allen's middle name is Felix, after his mom's dad - occurred Monday. The user who made the change appears to have used a computer in the World Bank's office here in the District, according to an IP-address search. It's also possible the IP address, which is a way devices are identified on a network, was hijacked from outside the building.

Trust but verify, as Ronald Reagan used to say.

IF YOU'RE WONDERING WHY OUR PAL AL
WAS "SPEAKING OF ALLEN" . . .

Are you sitting down? It was in an item headed, rather luridly, "George Allen as Egypt's James Madison?" Does that get your attention, or what? Quick, try to imagine what James Madison and the "Macaca" Man could possibly have in common other than their home state of Virginia.

Give up? It has to do with an op-ed piece the former senator (and likely 2012 candidate for the seat being vacated by Sen. Jim Webb) contributed to Politico, in which he provided advice for Egypt on drafting a new constitution, based on his experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Now you might be hard put to imagine "Macaca" George offering anyone advice on anything except perhaps Things to Not Get Caught Doing on Some $&*%*#&%'s Camera.

Here's our pal Al again:

"Egypt's new constitution should be built upon the solid foundation of what I call the four pillars of a free and just society," Allen wrote in an opinion column Wednesday for Politico. "When I served as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I saw that these principles are at the heart of every successful free society."

"The first pillar is freedom of religion," Allen said, which we have in our First Amendment. "The second pillar is freedom of expression," he said, also in the First Amendment.

"The third pillar is private ownership of property," he advised, which is in our Fifth Amendment's due-process clause. "The fourth pillar is the rule of law," said Allen, who, if he returns to the Senate, still has a chance to be the first Jewish presidential nominee, at least according to Jewish law. (His mother was, as he found out just a few years ago, from a very prominent Tunisian Jewish family.) Allen was widely seen as a strong contender for the 2008 nomination until that unfortunate "macaca" thing derailed him in 2006.

This is all pretty fanciful. The senator's belief in private ownership of property is well enough documented, though with scant indication of consideration for the responsibilities or obligations of property owners. And again, while he seems well acquainted with the ways in which religions he approves of can insist on being allowed to abuse religious freedom in the interest of compromising, if not actually destroying, democracy, his record on supporting the freedom of religions he's not fond of is kind of dismal.

As for freedom of expression and the rule of law, like most of today's wingnut partisans, he believes in freedom of expression only for people he agrees with and doesn't believe in the rule of law at all, unless you count using the law as a weapon of the powerful against the powerless. Surely if there's anything we've learned in the wake of the economic meltdown, it's that the rich and powerful simply aren't subject to any rule of law.

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The GOP Has Many Ways To Legalize Bribery And Corruption-- I Wish The Democrats Would Fight Back With Greater Vigor

"Caught" don't mean squat if we just "move on" and they don't get punished

Yesterday Lee Fang reported that former Virginia senator and GOP ex-presidential hopeful George "Macaca" Allen has been supported, financially, by Big Oil during his traumatic Capitol Hill exile.

He was one of the largest recipients of oil industry campaign contributions, and a lead sponsor of efforts to expand offshore oil drilling, including off the east coast. He was even feted by oil billionaire Charles Koch at the 2005 secret planning meeting Koch Industries organizes to coordinate conservative and corporate influence.

Allen left the Senate after losing his reelection bid in 2006, started a lobbying business called “George Allen Strategies,” and joined the board of several companies, including an energy company called the Hillsdale Group. But Allen’s relationship with the oil industry didn’t end there. Given that Allen announced yesterday that he intends to run for Senate again in 2012, it’s worth taking note that of the role that oil and polluter industry fronts have had in propping up Allen.

Fang gets right into it, and if you want to hear the specifics about Macacawitz's total immersion in Big Oil graft and corruption... well, here's that link again. Of course, Macacawitz is, for once, swimming in the mainstream of American politics by living in a revolving-door bubble of Beltway bribery. There are virtually no Republicans who don't-- and far too few Democrats who have renounced this self-legalized criminal behavior. As OpenSecrets went on yesterday after the State of the Union, Obama, "facing a nation on edge over high unemployment, soaring deficits and the recent violence in Arizona... sounded themes innovation and extolled the American entrepreneurial spirit in his second such address. He implored the nation to rise to the challenge and 'win the future' through investments in education and infrastructure, and called on Congress to continue to work together on a responsible way to tackle the deficit." Sounds good, huh? But special-interest money doesn't allow it. Period.

[A] horde of special interest groups, who, like in years past, will seek to influence anything the president mentioned-- and far beyond. 

Expect education and health care organizations to continue to be a major part of the congressional conversation in the coming year, of course: Those sectors have already spent tens of millions of dollars to influence major reforms during Obama's first two years in office.

Transportation and high speed rail advocates have also spent big, and were probably delighted by the president's calls for further investments in their industry. Groups such as Transportation for America spent more than $270,000 on federal lobbying in the 111th Congress, and are likely already lining up outside the Capitol.

...The Obama Administration announced strong opposition to H.R. 359 on Tuesday, a bill introduced by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives that would end federal financing of presidential campaigns, according to The Hill.

Citing the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, the administration released a statement Tuesday warning that dismantling the public financing system would enhance the power of corporations and special interests.

Republicans in the House Rules Committee cited wasted taxpayer dollars as their reason for introducing the legislation, and noted the unlikelihood that a Republican and Democratic presidential candidate would even use the system in the 2012 election. 

Richard Hasen, a distinguished professor at Loyola Law School and an expert on election law, warned yesterday on Slate that with the new Republican commissioners utterly committed to gutting campaign finance laws, the FEC is as good as dead. Everything is bogged down in a 3-3 partisan deadlock.

For the past several years the three Republican FEC commissioners have blocked enforcement of much of what remains of federal campaign finance law. As we enter the 2012 election season, the FEC is as good as dead, and the already troubling campaign finance world of secret unlimited donations is bound to get worse.

Campaign finance reformers have long complained about the toothlessness of the FEC, whose rules require the appointment of no more than three commissioners from any one party at one time and the votes of four commissioners to get anything done. And yet in past years, the evidence did not bear this out. Democratic and Republican commissioners often worked together, crafting rules and voting to penalize candidate, parties, and political committees for violating federal law.

All of this changed a few years ago, when Republicans put forward the name of Hans von Spakovsky to serve as an FEC commissioner. Von Spakovsky had a controversial tenure when he worked at the Bush Department of Justice, where he was involved in overruling career attorneys (who are not political appointees) on whether the department should approve Georgia's controversial voter-identification law and the Tom DeLay-led Texas redistricting plan. When President Bush nominated von Spakovsky in late 2005, civil rights and campaign finance reform groups protested, and a new senator by the name of Barack Obama put a hold on the nomination.

For a while, von Spakovsky held a recess appointment, but the fight over him resulted in a standoff in the Senate that whittled the FEC's six members down to two. Without a quorum of four, the commission was unable to do even basic things such as approving public funding for presidential candidates. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, an ardent foe of campaign finance regulation, would not give up on von Spakvosky's nomination, but in 2008 von Spakovsky got tired of waiting for confirmation and withdrew.

President Bush quickly nominated in his stead a Republican staffer on the Senate rules committee, Matthew Petersen. That broke the logjam. The Senate quickly approved Petersen and three more FEC nominations: Cynthia Bauerly, a Democratic Senate staffer, Caroline Hunter, a reliable Republican vote during her service on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and Donald McGahn, a Republican election lawyer.

McGahn is everything McConnell could have hoped von Spakvosky would be-- a strong opponent of campaign finance regulation in an agency charged with writing and enforcing those regulations. And he is so much more. Instead of inviting controversy, McGahn is a smart, under-the-radar ringleader of the Republican commissioners. (His name gets only three hits from Google News in all of 2010.) With Petersen and Hunter, who garner even less attention than he does, McGahn is dismantling the country's campaign finance laws.

The Republican commissioners have eviscerated campaign finance law simply by resisting the enforcement of such laws. Consider the all-important topic of campaign finance disclosure. As part of the 2002 McCain-Feingold reforms, Congress required that virtually all contributions that pay for television or radio ads close to an election and feature a federal candidate must be disclosed in reports filed with the FEC. The disclosure requirement became even more important after Citizens United, because the Supreme Court's ruling for the first time allowed corporations to spend money directly in federal elections. If the corporations can spend money while shielding their activities from public view, they can avoid alienating customers.

Over the summer, the three Republican FEC commissioners blocked an investigation into whether the conservative group Freedom's Watch violated the disclosure provisions by failing to identify its donors... Earlier this month, the three Republican commissioners blocked an investigation into whether a Louisiana company, U.S. Dry Cleaning Corp., gave more than $38,000 in illegal campaign contributions to Sen. David Vitter, R-La., by laundering the money through several company executives and their spouses. They also deadlocked "on whether to investigate Robert Kirkland for allegedly spending more than $1 million for advertising to aid the campaign of his brother, of Ron Kirkland, an unsuccessful Tennessee Republican candidate for the House. Robert Kirkland's spending would be illegal if he coordinated it with the campaign-- which both he and a consultant for his "independent" effort both initially worked for.

The list of deadlocks goes on, leading up to the culminating failure last week to review FEC rules in light of Citizens United. The Democratic commissioners want to restore the disclosure rules undermined by the summer FEC vote. They also want to make clear that foreign corporations are still barred from participating financially in federal elections. The Republican commissioners will have nothing to do with any of this. The likely result is no new rules for the 2012 election cycle.

So... if you were unhappy that China and India and several other foreign powers with agendas that put American workers at a disadvantage were able to finance Republican congressional victories through the Chamber of Commerce and other shady GOP front groups, that was just the beginning. This might be a good time to mention that the Blue America PAC only supports incumbents who are co-sponsors of the Fair Election Now Act and only endorses challengers who pledge to become a co-sponsor if elected. Nicholas Ruiz from central Florida (FL-24) is Blue America's first endorsee of the 2012 cycle. He'll be the Blue America guest at Crooks and Liars on Saturday (2pm ET). This morning I asked him if he's read the bill. Had he ever! This is what he told me:

The concept of a fair election is one of the most pressing issues we face as a democratic republic. There are many ways to achieve this goal, and the Fair Elections Now Act is a worthy attempt to level the electoral playing field. When an election is a financial horse race, the spirit of democratic representation rarely prevails. This is one reason why citizens are increasingly so disconnected from the political scene-- they view it as a financial winner-take-all sham.

For a fair election, the central place to start is media access-- regardless of how much capital a candidate has raised. Political candidates, once they have been qualified by their respective state laws as an official candidate for Congress, should receive regulated free and equal media access across the media spectrum, via regulated debates and advertising spots.

It's like a boxing match-- we would not expect a featherweight to defeat a heavyweight. When one candidate receives and spends millions of dollars on media, where the opponent receives and spends only thousands of dollars on media, it's not a fair debate. It all comes down to the voter being able to fairly evaluate the policy positions of the candidates. The only way to conduct a fair debate is through equal representation in the media for evaluation by the voter.

UPDATE: House Votes Against Reform

Democrats used a debate on a motion to recommit HR 359-- the GOP bill to end voluntary taxpayer funding of presidential elections-- to propose requiring disclosure of foreign countries, companies or individuals donating to presidential campaigns and donors spending more than $100K. That failed, 173-228, with North Carolina Republican Walter Jones voting with the Democrats and corrupt and extremist Blue Dog Jason Altmire crossing the aisle in the other direction to assume the position for Boehner and Cantor. 

Later the reprehensible bill actually passed, 239-160, again with Jones the only Republican voting with the Democrats in favor of reform. But this time more corporate Democrats let their freak flags fly. Enlisting in the Boehner Boys posse today were 9 Blue Dogs and a Big Business whore who's not a member of the caucus:

Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA)
Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)
Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
Nick Rahall (WV)
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)
Adam Schiff (Blue Dog-CA)
Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)

WHY DO CONSERVATIVES HAVE SUCH CONTEMPT FOR McCAIN, WHOSE VOTING RECORD IS PRETTY MUCH STRAIGHT DOWN THE IDEOLOGICALLY RIGHT WING LINE?

Start by looking at a ranking of every member of the U.S. Senate based on their "Chips Are Down" votes on partisan roll calls involving substantive issues. Is McCain somewhere in the middle, where reactionary Democrats and moderate Republicans meet? Not even close. McCain is in the bottom 20 in terms of right-wing extremism. His voting record has been more radical right than, for example, Sam Brownback (R-KS), Larry Craig (R-ID), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Ted Stevens (R-AK)... In fact, McCain's voting record is to the right of not just every single Democrats and Lieberman but to the right of 29 of his Republican colleagues-- a clear majority of them. So what's all the bitching about?

McCain has a well-deserved reputation as someone who does not work and play well with others. His fellow Republicans have been describing him as an uncooperative show boat for years, always out for himself, never a team player. And he's nasty, even vicious, and foul-mouthed. Yesterday he came to CPAC hoping to mend fences with the extreme right of his party. He was both booed and cheered by the crowd. And in the end Republicans will rally round him. A handful of extremist nuts like Ann Coulter and Tom DeLay may refuse to vote but even Thad Cochran (R-MS), who just 11 days ago warned Republicans that the "erratic" McCain is "hotheaded," can't control his temper and that the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine," has endorsed him.

Personally, you may have noticed that we have held Willard Romney is fairly low regard here at DWT, However, he was often correct about one thing: his assessment of John McCain. I suspect this page will soon come down, so I've decided to preserve it here at DWT so people can look it over as some of these Republicans line up behind McCain's quest for a third Bush term. Here's a Top 10 of McCain's attacks on his fellow Republicans:

1. Defending His Amnesty Bill, Sen. McCain Lost His Temper And "Screamed, 'F*ck You!' At Texas Sen. John Cornyn" (R-TX). "Presidential hopeful John McCain - who has been dogged for years by questions about his volcanic temper - erupted in an angry, profanity-laced tirade at a fellow Republican senator, sources told The Post yesterday. In a heated dispute over immigration-law overhaul, McCain screamed, 'F--- you!' at Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who had been raising concerns about the legislation. 'This is chickens---stuff,' McCain snapped at Cornyn, according to several people in the room off the Senate floor Thursday. 'You've always been against this bill, and you're just trying to derail it.'" (Charles Hurt, "Raising McCain," New York Post, 5/19/07)

2. In 2000, Sen. McCain Ran An Attack Ad Comparing Then-Gov. George W. Bush To Bill Clinton. SEN. MCCAIN: "I guess it was bound to happen. Governor Bush's campaign is getting desperate, with a negative ad about me. The fact is, I'll use the surplus money to fix Social Security, cut your taxes and pay down the debt. Governor Bush uses all of the surplus for tax cuts, with not one new penny for Social Security or the debt. His ad twists the truth like Clinton. We're all pretty tired of that. As president, I'll be conservative and always tell you the truth. No matter what." (McCain 2000, Campaign Ad, 2/9/00; watch)

3. Sen. McCain Repeatedly Called Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) An "A**hole", Causing A Fellow GOP Senator To Say, "I Didn't Want This Guy Anywhere Near A Trigger." "Why can't McCain win the votes of his own colleagues? To explain, a Republican senator tells this story: at a GOP meeting last fall, McCain erupted out of the blue at the respected Budget Committee chairman, Pete Domenici, saying, 'Only an a--hole would put together a budget like this.' Offended, Domenici stood up and gave a dignified, restrained speech about how in all his years in the Senate, through many heated debates, no one had ever called him that. Another senator might have taken the moment to check his temper. But McCain went on: 'I wouldn't call you an a--hole unless you really were an a--hole.' The Republican senator witnessing the scene had considered supporting McCain for president, but changed his mind. 'I decided,' the senator told Newsweek, 'I didn't want this guy anywhere near a trigger.'" (Evan Thomas, et al., "Senator Hothead," Newsweek, 2/21/00)

4. Sen. McCain Had A Heated Exchange With Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) And Called Him A "F*cking Jerk." "Senators are not used to having their intelligence or integrity challenged by another senator. 'Are you calling me stupid?' Sen. Chuck Grassley once inquired during a debate with McCain over the fate of the Vietnam MIAs, according to a source who was present. 'No,' replied McCain, 'I'm calling you a f---ing jerk!' (Grassley and McCain had no comment.)" (Evan Thomas, et al., "Senator Hothead," Newsweek, 2/21/00)

5. In 1995, Sen. McCain Had A "Scuffle" With 92-Year-Old Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) On The Senate Floor. "In January 1995, McCain was midway through an opening statement at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing when chairman Strom Thurmond asked, 'Is the senator about through?' McCain glared at Thurmond, thanked him for his 'courtesy' (translation: buzz off), and continued on. McCain later confronted Thurmond on the Senate floor. A scuffle ensued, and the two didn't part friends." (Harry Jaffe, "Senator Hothead," The Washingtonian, 2/97)

6. Sen. McCain Accused Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Of The "Most Egregious Incident" Of Corruption He Had Seen In The Senate. "It escalated when McCain reiterated the charges Oct. 10 in a cross-examination, calling McConnell's actions the 'most egregious incident' demonstrating the appearance of corruption he has ever seen in his Senate career." (Amy Keller, "Attacks Escalate In Depositions," Roll Call, 10/21/02)

7. Sen. McCain Attacked Christian Leaders And Republicans In A Blistering Speech During The 2000 Campaign. MCCAIN: "Unfortunately, Governor Bush is a Pat Robertson Republican who will lose to Al Gore. ... The political tactics of division and slander are not our values... They are corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party and our country. Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right." (Sen. John McCain, Remarks, Virginia Beach, VA, 2/28/00)

8. Sen. McCain Attacked Vice President Cheney. MCCAIN: "The president listened too much to the Vice President ... Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and, most of all, the Secretary of Defense." (Roger Simon, "McCain Bashes Cheney Over Iraq Policy," The Politico, 1/24/07)

9. Celebrating His First Senate Election In 1986, Sen. McCain Screamed At And Harassed A Young Republican Volunteer. "It was election night 1986, and John McCain had just been elected to the U.S. Senate for the first time. Even so, he was not in a good mood. McCain was yelling at the top of his lungs and poking the chest of a young Republican volunteer who had set up a lectern that was too tall for the 5-foot-9 politician to be seen to advantage, according to a witness to the outburst. 'Here this poor guy is thinking he has done a good job, and he gets a new butt ripped because McCain didn't look good on television,' Jon Hinz told a reporter Thursday. At the time, Hinz was executive director of the Arizona Republican Party. ... Hinz said McCain's treatment of the young campaign worker in 1986 troubled him for years. 'There were an awful lot of people in the room,' Hinz recalled. 'You'd have to stick cotton in your ears not to hear it. He (McCain) was screaming at him, and he was red in the face. It wasn't right, and I was very upset at him.'" (Kris Mayes and Charles Kelly, "Stories Surface On Senator's Demeanor," The Arizona Republic, 11/5/99)

10. Sen. McCain "Publicly Abused" Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL). "[McCain] noted his propensity for passion but insisted that he doesn't 'insult anybody or fly off the handle or anything like that.' This is, quite simply, hogwash. McCain often insults people and flies off the handle... There have been the many times McCain has called reporters 'liars' and 'idiots' when they have had the audacity to ask him unpleasant, but pertinent, questions. McCain once... publicly abused Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama." (Editorial, "There's Something About McCain," The Austin American-Statesman, 1/24/07)

No one in their right mind wants to see McCain's shaky finger on the nuclear button. That's what sent cold chills down Thad Cochran's back. But these guys are Republicans first and Americans second or third. Most of them have already lined up behind McCain to do what's right for their party and not give a hoot about our country.

Bush did it this morning, officially making McCain his heir. Heir to what? Sadly, No! was there and, as always, reports with great insight-- The Beast Is Red, Chapter 8: Twice Presented Him a Kingly Crown:

George W. Bush, when you get right down to it, is a fucker. That’s why I don’t like him. He’s a fucker who does fucked-up things. He’s a privileged little shit who doesn’t give a damp hell for the opinions of the people he was elected to govern. He buys into the toxic economic theories of unreconstructed capitalism, despite never having had to earn an honest living in his life, and he supports a worldview that cuts out anyone who hasn’t had his good fortune — the worldview of a murderous plutocracy stained with swaths of luck and cruelty where first is first and second is nobody. He’s stupid in the truest sense of the word: willfully ignorant and determined to surround himself with people who keep him that way, not only resistant to different ideas but actively hostile towards them. He is neurologically incapable of thinking ahead and he consigns the consequences of his actions to the status of dreams. And he forced his country into a pointless, unnecessary, unconscionably wasteful war that will poison every aspect of American life for generations.

...“Since I took office,” says the former cocaine addict, “the overall use of drugs by young people has dropped off by 24%.” Hey, he brought it up, not me. This gets a lot more applause than his next bit, where he spiels about fiscal discipline and everyone wonders who the fuck he thinks he’s talking to. Next, though, is the hottest little button of all, when he says that “human life is precious, and deserves to be protected,” as long as we aren’t talking about the life of towelheads or criminals or people who are dumb enough to live in a place that flood occasionally. The war spiel comes next, because even this dumb bastard knows that no one’s going to offer up any catcalls about the jackass war. “Afghanistan will never again be a safe haven for terrorists who wish to do us harm,” he claims, using a strange interpretation of “never again” which apparently means “at some point in the future,” since the last I heard the heirs to the Taliban were pretty much running roughshod over the joint. He offers up a little bit that’s calculated to make my blood pressure shoot up to Throbsville: he intends to sign an executive order that will force the President to explain wasteful and unaccountable spending. How fortunate that this doesn’t apply to him, and the vast financial sinkhole that Iraq has become. No fear, though: “When the history of this period is written,” says Mr. I Can Has Legacy?, “it will show that we were right.”

As of today, says the worst president in American history, “25 million Iraqis are free." A million more are beyond freedom, knowing what the dead know. At the final moment, he does what we all knew he would do: he gives John McCain the most tepid, most damaging endorsement imaginable, saying only that he hopes the crowd will support the Republican nominee for President. I’m tired and sick and burned, and I need to eat and I need to get away from all the choking self-satisfaction in the room. The whole place rises as one, roaring and chanting, calling for a repeal to the Constitution so this luckless bastard, so desperate to get the hell out of a job he never wanted to begin with and only took out of spite; and Bush stands there, holding a dripping knife – the only tool he’s ever used – just another misbegotten Mark Antony, waiting for the cheers of the crowd to die…

UPDATE: RADICAL RIGHT LOOKS FOR THE WORST POSSIBLE VP PICK FOR McCAIN

Pat Toomey was a far right extremist as a Pennsylvania congressman. He challenged Arlen Specter in a primary and had his head handed to him, as the GOP's always-principled right-wing lined up firmly behind Specter. Toomey managed to find a job at the neo-fascist Club For Growth. Today he wrote an editorial at Club For Growth's favorite propaganda sheet, the Wall Street Journal, insisting McCain look to his right for a running mate. Not counting people in prison, there aren't many people to McCain's right. Toomey's got a list. No mention of Ron Paul, of course, but why did Toomey leave out McCain's probable pick, former Virginia Senator George Macacawitz Allen?

THE TOP 10 POLITICAL VIDEOS OF ALL TIME

You know I'll take every opportunity I get to remind people about the flower of the Republican Party, George Macacawitz Allen. So when my pals at PoliticsTV.com launched their new program that starts out with the Top 10 Political Videos of All Time, I knew I had to share: