So What's The Real Story On McCain?

Is he just a garden variety political liar? Or is he seriously delusional? Before you answer, please watch the 80 second clip:



That was the short version; very much to the point, right? Joe Conason has a more nuanced analysis up at Salon, one that is no less devastating for John McCain and other Republican-- and some Democratic-- rubber stamps.

[D]espite McCain's claim to greater experience and judgment in foreign policy, he just doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. If he did, the latest developments in relations between Baghdad and Washington would dampen the Republican nominee's enthusiasm for a prolonged occupation.

Negotiations between the Bush administration and the government of Nouri al-Maliki over the presence of U.S. forces have reached an impasse that no longer seems certain to be resolved until George W. Bush has left office. If any resolution is achieved over the coming weeks, moreover, it will render McCain's hard-line position on the war null and void.

Gone are the fantasies-- if not the lies and the delusions of the seriously senile-- "of the neoconservatives, who once imagined the new Iraq as a permanent base for American troops in the Middle East, with a client government that would reflect U.S. priorities. What has come to exist instead is an Iraq much closer to Iran than to the United States, one that will countenance no permanent U.S. bases and prefers that our troops depart sooner rather than later." Tell it to McCain. He makes Bush look like a peacenik.

Will The Senate Bailout Version-- Now A Larded Up "Rescue" Bill-- Fly In The House Tomorrow? Plus Bonus Video: Has McCain Lost His Mind?

Bipartisan screwing of America: the Mitch and Chuck Show

It's going to be difficult for 12 House members-- assuming none of the YES votes turn to NO votes-- to flip flop. They're going to be closely watched in their own districts. Pressure from voters against the bill is intense. Of course, pressures from the business interests who finance their careers is also intense. I've been looking for clear indications of the leadership's strategy for how to craft a Senate bill that would win in the House. Would they appeal to the far right Republicans and make an already lousy bill even worse or would they appeal to progressives by making the bill more friendly to ordinary working families. Obviously going to far towards appealing in either direction could peel off votes from the center.

It looks like they most took a non-ideological, bipartisan approach: pork. As we discussed earlier, much of the impetus to go along with the Bush Regime Shock Doctrine tactics and pass this disastrous bill came from members of Congress-- Rahm Emanuel and John Boehner in the House and slimy bribe takers like Norman Coleman, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Max Baucus and John Sununu in the Senate.

Senators with tough re-election battles used different calculations to arrive at different decisions. Gordon Smith, who is trailing Jeff Merkley (an adamant foe of any bill that doesn't address the real financial concerns of working families) in their Oregon contest, voted in favor of the bill-- and in favor of the special interests that have showered him with "donations" for many, many years. He's using the Bush Regime's Shock Doctrine as cover-- just the way he did when he supported Bush's attack on Iraq. Smith:

“I’m hearing from small business, I’m hearing from retirees, and views on this are changing. Businesses in Oregon are being notified that their loans will not be renewed-- and these are creditworthy businesses. And if we stand by and watch the obliteration of our financial system, shame on us.”

A less seasoned senator, Mississippi's appointed replacement for Trent Lott, Roger Wicker, voted NO. He's also in a tight race and his opponent, Ronnie Musgrove, has been gaining on him. “I don’t think the sky is falling," he said. “What was the rush? Why didn’t we have hearings? Why didn’t we use regular order? We were told two weeks ago that unless we acted immediately, within hours the sky was going to fall. Well, the sky didn’t fall. Even so, we have rushed this through. $700 billion, potentially, in liabilities to the taxpayer without hearings, without the opportunity for amendments in committee… on something of this magnitude, I think, is ill-advised."

Having recently come out of the House Republican caucus himself, Wicker is far more in touch with it than most of his colleagues. Many House Republicans feel the same way he does. And they like the idea of being able to tell their voters, no matter how cynically, considering the last 8 years, that they aren't really Bush rubber stamps.

When you hear the words "fait accompli" you know Master of the Universe Rahm Emanuel has his greasy hands on the communications levers. And that's the message the House Leadership is trying to get out today, in the hopes of creating an irresistible force towards passage. I remember when he and Hoyer used that same phrase in Democratic primaries in 2006-- against Representatives Jerry McNerney, John Hall, and Donna Edwards. The "new" bill is so much more geared towards the right that the Democratic Leadership expects to actually lose some support from their own caucus, mostly Blue Dogs. That explains why Hoyer said Republicans need to deliver 35 more votes than the 65 they had Monday.

Republicans indicated that they expect support to grow in their conference, now that the AMT patch has been added to the bill along with a measure temporarily increasing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) maximum for bank deposits from $100,000 to $250,000. Aides to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he’d spoken to senators and green-lighted the plan.

Aides said GOP members were also heartened by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision to loosen “mark-to-market” accounting rules on banks.

“We hope that the new FDIC provision, as well as the SEC’s action on mark-to-market … and the inclusion of the AMT patch and other extenders will increase the appeal of this package to House Republicans,” a Republican aide said.

Blue Dogs were growling at the Senate. “I know some of them are old and stodgy. They need an opportunity to clear their heads,” said Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA). “Maybe that’s why we need to pass mental health parity. They need their meds.”

Republican conservatives were strong enough to defeat Monday’s bill only because they had enough left-of-center, anti-Wall Street Democrats vote with them.

The House Republicans who voted “no” are a majority of their own caucus (133 out of 199 total) but aren’t numerous enough to defeat, or pass, anything by themselves.

Can House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her GOP counterpart John Boehner find the dozen votes necessary to pass a “tweaked” bill?

Three crucial factors are working to Pelosi’s advantage:

• Time: House members are feeling even more restless about the economic uncertainty, the fast-approaching elections and their need to campaign back home.

• Some House Republicans are rethinking their “no” votes.

• Most of the 95 Democrats who voted “no” on Monday don't come from electorally competitive districts, so it's not risky for them to switch. And Pelosi needs to convince only a few of those safe Democrats to vote with her.

But the focus Wednesday was entirely on wooing House Republicans... Additions to the rescue plan package are designed to attract House Republican votes.

According to this morning's CongressDaily one liklely flip-flopper is reflexive rubber stamp John Shadegg (R-AZ) who opposed the bill Monday but is "leaning toward supporting it" now. "Shadegg cited the raising of the FDIC cap and a SEC decision to offer guidance on mark-to-market accounting rules that require companies to value assets at current prices, not their value when they mature." Progressives who voted NO don't see anything in the Senate bill to make them change their minds. Maybe McCain can change House Republicans minds-- once he makes up his own mind. Or is he just complete out of his mind? McCain this morning (obviously grappling with senility):

McCain Campaign: Much Ado About Nothing-- Manufactured Hysteria & Confusion Leads To McCain Backing Down And Agreeing To Debate

Yesterday was a confusing day for Americans. (Everyday is a confusing day for John McCain.) There was a bailout plan-- a version of the one the Bush Regime was asking for but with safeguards for working families inserted by Democrats-- and then there wasn't a bailout plan. McCain suspended his campaign-- but nothing changed except that he completely politicized the bailout process and wrecked any chance of coming up with a plan in the time frame Bush and Paulson said was essential. And as for "suspending" his campaign... no attack ads against Barack Obama have been pulled, none of the grisly array of lobbyists and special interests political hacks who serve as his surrogates have been pulled from the cable TV shows, none of his headquarters have stopped campaigning-- or were even aware that there's a "suspension"...

Although the irresponsible extremists on the far right ideological fringes of the Republican Party decided to let the whole system collapse rather than rescue it, McCain didn't make common ground with these people; he scurried to the head of their parade for maneuverability in making the entire process about himself-- or rather about his campaign. His is the most cynical manipulation of the political process ever witnessed. Although McCain is sure to sell the extremists and their misplaced ideals out at the first opportunity he has to make himself look like a hero, crazed fanatics like Eric Cantor (R-VA), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who blamed Clinton for trying to help minorities for the problems, Mike Pence (R-IN) and Paul Ryan (R-WI) are willing to make themselves into props in his drama.

McCain's latest desperate ploy to turn around his cascading poll numbers has confirmed his status as a political cancer on the body politic. His cynical plan to dissassociate himself from Bush-- after 8 years of unabated rubber stamping of every single policy initiative that has caused the catastrophe-- is nothing short of breathtaking. His contempt for the intelligence of the American voter is unprecedented.

President Bush scrambled Friday to bring rebellious members of his own party behind a multibillion-dollar government bailout of the financial system amid bitter political recriminations from both Democrats and Republicans over collapsed negotiations.

Bush delivered a terse statement from outside the Oval Office of the White House, acknowledging that lawmakers have a right to express their doubts and work through disagreements, but declaring they must "rise to the occasion" and approve a plan to avert an economic meltdown.

...Earlier Friday, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank declared that an agreement depends on House Republicans "dropping this revolt" against the Bush-requested plan.

The Massachusetts Democrat said leading Democrats on Capitol Hill were shocked by the level of divisiveness that surfaced at Thursday's extraordinary White House meeting, leaving six days of intensive efforts to agree on a bailout plan in tatters only hours after key congressional players of both parties had declared they were in accord on the outlines of a $700 billion bill.

Sounding very much like a Democrat-- which he used to be before he jumped the fence-- Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) said that "Basically, I believe the Paulson proposal is badly structured. It does nothing basically for the stressed mortgage payer. It does a lot for three or four or five banks." The Republicans in Congress seem to have decided to hold their own leadership's plan-- and perhaps the entire economy-- hostage to McCain's Gallup poll ratings-- and more tax cuts for the wealthy!

Even for a party whose president suffers dismal approval ratings, whose legislative wing lost control of Congress and whose presidential nominee trails in the polls, Thursday was a remarkably bad day for Republicans.

The White House summit meeting had been called for the purpose of sealing the deal that Bush has argued is indispensable to stabilizing frenzied markets and reassuring the nervous American public. But it quickly revealed that Bush's proposal had been suddenly sidetracked by fellow Republicans in the House, who refused to embrace a plan that appeared close to acceptance by the Senate and most House Democrats.

Paulson begged Democratic participants not to disclose how badly the meeting had gone, dropping to one knee in a teasing way to make his point according to witnesses.

And when Paulson hastily tried to revive talks in a nighttime meeting near the Senate chamber, the House's top Republican refused to send a negotiator.

"This is the president's own party," Frank said at the time. "I don't think a president has been repudiated so strongly by the congressional wing of his own party in a long time."

This morning Mike Huckabee seemed appalled by McCain's cynical ploys and he called his strategy of avoiding the debate a huge mistake. "Huckabee said Thursday in Mobile that the people need to hear both candidates. He said that's 'far better than heading to Washington' to huddle with senators. He said the candidates should level with the people about the financial crisis and say the 'heart of this is greed.' [Maybe he should discus that with Bachmann.] Huckabee said he still backs McCain's candidacy, but said the Arizona senator should not have put his campaign on hold to deal with the financial crisis on Wall Street. He said a president must be prepared to 'deal with the unexpected... You can't just say, "World stop for a moment. I'm going to cancel everything."'"

Nor is Huckabee the only person dismayed at how erratic, partisan and reckless McCain has been behaving. Scores of newspapers across the ideological spectrum-- and across the battleground states-- have echoed his sentiments and demanded that McCain stop politicizing the bailout and get his old white ass down to Mississippi today for the debate.

The Miami Herald, in an editorial entitled Let Debate Happen says that "McCain wants to postpone the presidential debate scheduled for Friday evening in Oxford, Miss., because, he says, the economic crisis facing the country must take precedence over politics. That's a bad call... This is no time for political stunts. By calling a halt to his campaign and flying to Washington, Sen. McCain hopes to project himself as an involved leader. President Bush invited both candidates to Thursday's White House meeting on the financial crisis. If this helps to come up with a solution, fine, but the best way for Sens. McCain and Obama to tell America how they would lead the country out of this mess is for them to engage in a nationally televised debate." The Roanoke Times has a similar perspective:

More than John McCain's poll numbers are slipping. So is his grip on leadership qualities Americans expect in their next president.

McCain must have thought he'd look maverickishly presidential when he announced he would suspend his campaign in order to rescue the economy. This, from the same man who last week was so detached from Wall Street's meltdown that he claimed "the fundamentals of the economy are sound." His actions this week confirm he remains out of touch.

McCain claims finally to get it. He said Wednesday he would cancel his ads and appearances, wriggle out of tonight's presidential debate, put his personal ambitions behind duty to country and rush to Washington, D.C. to ... what? ... save the economy?
On the way, though, he dropped by CBS to do damage control after his running mate bombed an interview with Katie Couric on his economic record, of all things, and to meet with a deep-pocket campaign supporter.

As events unfolded, McCain's arrival in D.C. was too late for him to emerge the savior. Hours before he and Barack Obama were to have a sit-down Thursday afternoon with the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., congressional leaders appeared to have struck a deal on the $700 billion bailout.
They did this by pulling an all-nighter that eclipsed a week of grueling hearings with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

McCain missed that boat. Americans need to know if he's capable of boarding any on time.

The debate that matters most today is the presidential debate scheduled for tonight. McCain can ill afford to snub Americans' interest in weighing the candidates.

The Raleigh News & Observer places the blame for the confusion directly on McCain's doorstep. "The Democratic nominee makes convincing points when he notes that presidents often must deal with multiple crises at the same time, and that the American people would benefit from hearing the next president-- either him or Republican John McCain-- discuss the nation's serious financial troubles. Thus, he says, let's proceed with the first of three scheduled debates, this one slated for 9 p.m. tonight at the University of Mississippi.

McCain, in seeking to postpone the debate, was not so convincing. It's more important, he said, for members of Congress to be in Washington working to craft a solution to the economic meltdown.

Both McCain and Obama indeed were in the capital yesterday, even attending a White House meeting at President Bush's invitation. The upshot of the day's negotiations seemed to be significant progress toward agreement on a bill bailing out financial institutions that hold bad debt, thus helping to free the economy from a potentially disastrous credit crunch. McCain may believe that he'd be at a disadvantage if he must face Obama in debate without more time to prepare, but his stated reason for a delay-- even if it might have made a certain amount of sense at first-- no longer holds up.

I was going to transcribe a dozen... from Ohio, Colorado, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire... from every battleground state. But then the "suspended campaign" started placing ads (like the one above) claiming that McCain won the debate. Chris Cillizza and Michael Shear at the Washington Post broke the story about McCain backing down. "The news that John McCain will debate Barack Obama tonight in Mississippi is a concession by the Arizona Senator that his attempt to score a quick political victory on legislation to bail out the financial sector did not pan out as he had hoped." Cillizza calls McCain's decision to buckle under public pressure, as his gimmicky ploy went down in flames, an "attempt to make lemonade out of lemons."

And while the extremist ideologues in safe Republican seats are demanding lower taxes for the rich as the solution to... well to everything, garden variety Bush rubber stamps are mostly hiding under rocks and hoping this all blows over and no one notices them. Electorally vulnerable fake moderates in swing districts, like Charlie Dent (R-PA), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Chris Shays (R-CT), Randy Kuhl (R-NY), and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) are laying low, keeping quiet... and trembling-- passive and confused victims of a developing situation that has engulfed their political careers. Progressive Democratic candidate and small businesswoman Annette Taddeo blasted Ros-Lehtinen today for her "silence" and glaring lack of leadership, pointing out that she has received more than $800,000 in contributions from the financial services industry during her 19 years in Congress and that she "votes consistently with President Bush to reward Wall Street and remove accountability." Ros-Lehtinen is starting to run to radio stations in her district and read Taddeo's press releases about how to handle the crisis, claiming them as her own! It will be hilarious if Annette ever gets her to agree to debate-- which is very unlikely.

Harry Reid and John McCain came to Washington at the same time-- 1982. Reid's assessment of McCain is absolutely devastating. "I know John McCain. John McCain does not have the temperament to be president of the United States and he has proven that in the last week. He’s wrong on the war, wrong on the economy, he’s wrong on many issues that are so important to the American people. And he is erratic." And that isn't even the worst of it. He called his interference in the bailout process worse than a distraction. It was a photo-op and it derailed the process for the sake of his floundering campaign:

Finally A Little Honesty From The McCain Campaign... But Just A Little

It's been a long time! But this morning McCain's top economic advisor-- or at least the only one that still allowed out in public-- admitted that neither Sarah Palin nor John McCain has what it takes to run a big company. Of course she's correct, although she doesn't think that it matters. All that matters to Fiorina is that they're Republican and that they will give her a job if they get elected. Watch her:



An Obama spokesperson was surprised-- not by the assessment, but by the honesty. "If John McCain’s top economic advisor doesn’t think he can run a corporation, how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis? Apparently even the people who run his campaign agree that the economy is an issue John McCain doesn’t understand as well as he should.”

Fiorina agrees that neither of the hapless, clueless Republican candidates could run Hewlett Packard, which she herself nearly ran into the ground before being fired and sent packing with tens of millions of dollars in the kind of golden parachute deal that, in a cynical bid to capitalize on the Wall Street meltdown, McCain and Palin claim they oppose. Perhaps that's why Fiorina condescendingly admitted both would be over their heads in the business world.

Unlike Fiorina, basically a failed bureaucrat with no real accomplishments other than having managed to claw her way to the top of a completely dysfunctional corporate ladder, McCain, at least invented the Blackberry. He did? I don't think so. Some Canadian did. But McCain was part of the team. He was? I don't think so but... well, according to Gawker "by being a stalwart slave to the telecommunications lobby, McCain allowed them to write their own regulatory policy and therefore create the BlackBerry, a shitty piece of limited and overpriced technology light-years behind what's available in Western Europe and Asia." Ouch! Well he did invent the savings and loan scandal and he was on the team that invented Social Security privatization, right? Or was he just a rubber stamp on that too? There's no getting a straight answer out of him on that one!

So what did McCain actually invent? A lie that he's in good health. This sonofabitch actually is going to try to stick America with Sarah Palin!

Some skin cancers are not that bad, but malignant melanoma-- the kind McCain has had in two separate places-- is not one of those. It's bad. Real bad. And unlike most cancers, it doesn't really go away, even after years in remission.

What kind of judgment? What kind of cynicism? What kind of patriotism? How about mental health?

Response To McCain's Pitiful Attempt To Address The Dregs Of The Republican Party

There was actually a genuine maverick moment in McCain's otherwise exploitive, turgid, boring speech last night: he defied the cease and desist order he got from Heart and played their song "Barracuda" when he was finished, as several men nearly as old as he is dosed off, dreaming happily of lower taxes and warm milk.

I'm speechless. I don't know what to say. His speech was the product of a confused, crumbling mind that is sure of 3 things: it's his turn, he's owed the presidency, and his lobbyists have assured him they can use self-righteous right-wing resentment to capture it for him... as long as he doesn't try sticking to any old-fashioned scruples. It made me want to hurl. There's nothing much more that I can say about it. Jesse, the son of an old college buddy IM-ed me while McCain was still spewing. He's in an Eastern European-style folk band called Which Way East that spans the cultural divide between Plovdiv and Brooklyn.

jervis03 (7:27:55 PM): this man is scary

A short time later I got an e-mail from another musician, Scott Ryser from The Units, a band that used to be on my San Francisco indie label in the late 70s. Scott felt the need to get his thoughts out:

I was having a hard time understanding the poor old codger at first …
The bad fitting dentures didn't help him any …
And of course he misplaced his reading glasses again, making it tough to see that teleprompter.
Kind of like feeling sorry for your dim witted, demented, war vet grampa …
(Sorry to break the news folks, but at my age we ALL have war vet grampas that we love … but wouldn't vote for … for fucking president)
Putting up with his grouchy bullshit ridicule cause you know he's not going to be around for long … and you don't want to piss off your mom or your girlfriend by telling the old asshole that he's lost his marbles.
But I think I get it now … I think McCane (as in walking stick) is like one of those old guys in the Indian tribes that knows that the best thing he could do for the tribe is to walk off into the wilderness and fertilize some trees … but he's not quite ready to throw in the Depends yet … so he figures if can keep telling us these campfire stories about how he was captured by that bad tribe … maybe we'll all feel bad for him … and we'll keep chewing his food for him for a while, so we can listen to his stories.  I know … it's sad.  He's really sad.  But is the personality trait “sad” a good reason to vote for the leader of the free world?
Palin's speech left me feeling like I had narrowly escaped a lynch mob.
McCane (as in walking stick) left me feeling sad … (poor old fella).
Gee … what a great ticket!
These two should really make the rest of the world envy and respect us again!

My neighbor down the street isn't a musician; her husband is the most famous drummer in the world though. She said if McCain and Palin were elected she would throw herself off Mount Rushmore. Hillary Clinton's reaction wasn't as colorful-- but it went right to the point of why McCain is going to lose in November by historic proportions:

"The two party conventions showcased vastly different directions for our country. Senator Obama and Senator Biden offered the new ideas and positive change America needs and deserves after eight years of failed Republican leadership. Senator McCain and Governor Palin did not.

"After listening to all of the speeches this week, I heard nothing that suggests the Republicans are ready to fix the economy for middle class families, provide quality affordable health care for all Americans, guarantee equal pay for equal work for women, restore our nation's leadership in a complex world or tackle the myriad of challenges our country faces.

"So, to slightly amend my comments from Denver: NO WAY, NO HOW, NO McCAIN-PALIN."

An Obama campaign spokesperson, Bill Burton went further in expressing frustration at McCain's utterly deceptive attempt to persuade Americans that he has some role in finding a solution to problems that he worked so diligently to create:

"Tonight, John McCain said that his party was elected to change Washington, but that they let Washington change them. He's right. He admonished the 'old, do-nothing crowd' in Washington, but ignored the fact that he's been part of that crowd for twenty-six years, opposing solutions on health care, energy, and education. He talked about bipartisanship, but didn't mention that he's been a Bush partisan 90% of the time, that he's run a Karl Rove campaign, and that he wants to continue this President's disastrous economic and foreign policies for another four years.  With John McCain, it's more of the same.
 
"That's not the change Americans need. Barack Obama has taken on the special interests and the lobbyists in Illinois and in Washington, and he's won. As President, he'll cut taxes for 95% of all working families, provide affordable health care to every American, end the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in ten years."

If you want to read a line by line refutation of all McCain's-- and Palin's speechwriter's-- lies, Fact Check at JustMoreOfTheSame.com lays it all out in well-documented irrefutable black and white. Political hacks like Karl Rove and John McCain count on people never bothering to read the facts-- and just swallowing whole the 30 second sound bytes and 60 second attack ads they're so good at. Two nights ago Palin spat out the nastiest speech of this campaign to date. Focus groups so far are indicating that other than the hard right dittoheads, people were mostly repulsed by her negativity. Last night McCain put the country to sleep. Oh, you'll hear insider partisan hacks who masquerade as legitimate journalists-- the David Broders, Rush Limbaughs and Liz Sidotis of the world-- paraphrasing Rove's talking points that were handed out before the speech was even given. But listen to a disappointed Michael Gerson, a former Bush speech writer: "The policy in the speech was rather typical for a Republican. Pretty disappointing. It didn't do a lot of outreach to moderates and independents on issues that they care about. It talked, about issues like drilling and school choice which was really speaking to the converted. I think that was a missed opportunity. Many Americans needed to hear from this speech something they have never heard from Republicans before. And in reality, a lot of the policy they’ve heard from Republicans before... Tonight was not particularly innovative, interesting or promising. It was the speech of someone who talked about being a past Maverick." And that's from someone defending him! David Gergen at CNN pretty much saw it the same way: "It was mostly a rerun, retread of a lot of old Republican ideas that have brought us to where we are now. I think the country is looking for fresh answers. It's hard to separate yourself out from President Bush when you essentially have the same economic policies as President Bush." Even GOP TV was making fun of him-- Chris Wallace: "It was a green backdrop behind him, it was a big lawn in front of a big house. You thought what the heck was that? It looked like it could have been one of the McCain mansions"

It's Only America At Stake As Irresponsible John McCain Plays The Wildcard

The crack McCain team-- are they on crack?-- has rushed up to Alaska to see how deep the doo doo is that surrounds Palin. One wonders why they didn't do this carefully and systematically over the last two months-- or even last week? Although Walt Monegan, the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner she fired when he refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, has already started talking, they also want to get the nitty gritty from Alaska GOP chairman Randy Reudrich, who seems to have come to the conclusion that Palin should probably be impeached. And then there's Andrew Halcro, who knows a lot-- and has written a lot-- about why Palin fired Monegan.

So why was Walt Monegan fired out of the blue? Why would Governor Palin send a surrogate to fire her Public Safety Commissioner and then not have a decent explanation for the public? And why would Monegan's replacement be telling people three days before Monegan got fired, that he was going to become the new Commissioner of Public Safety?

Walt Monegan got fired for all of the wrong reasons. Walt Monegan got fired because he had the audacity to tell Governor Palin no, when apparently nobody is allowed to say no to Governor Palin.

Monegan said no, he couldn't cut his budget because his State Troopers were already being stretched to the limit and public safety suffering. He said no, he couldn't cut his budget because fuel costs for planes, boats and patrol vehicles soaring, while crime in rural Alaska was putting more demands on the Troopers transportation system.

But more alarming than any budget battle, Monegan said no to firing a State Trooper who had divorced Governor Palin's sister because the guy was being maliciously hounded by Palin's family.

And not just that; Monegan's firing came after his Colonel had to reprimand the governor's office for meddling in department personnel affairs.

The mainstream media keeps talking about how wildly popular she is in Alaska. And maybe she is. Or maybe they're just happy she's not as overtly corrupt-- and headed to prison-- like most of Alaska's other top office holders. The Republican corruption up there goes way beyond just Ted Stevens and Don Young, even if they profited most from it. Nevertheless, Alaska newspapers don't seem as enthusiastic about McCain's choice as the TV news anchors are all indicating. Many, in fact, are now worrying that the choice has shown incompetence and unbridled willingness to put the country's best interests in jeopardy for a couple of imaginary polling points.

In an editorial, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner points out that Palin "has never publicly demonstrated the kind of interest, much less expertise, in federal issues and foreign affairs that should mark a candidate for the second-highest office in the land. Republicans rightfully have criticized the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, for his lack of experience, but Palin is a neophyte in comparison; how will Republicans reconcile the criticism of Obama with the obligatory cheering for Palin?…Most people would acknowledge that, regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation's when he created the possibility that she might fill it. It's clear that McCain picked Palin for reasons of image, not substance."

The Anchorage Daily News is the biggest newspaper in the state (by far) and they're not detecting universal celebration for their native daughter's ascension to national prominence. "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? said [State Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla]. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

More from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

Lately her reputation within the state has been bit by allegations of mixing political and family business, and by mistreating one of the state's premier marine mammals. Palin's catch-phrase of "openness and transparency" has been tarnished by revelations that staff members tried to have Palin's former brother-in-law fired from his job as an Alaska state trooper. Also, the governor of the only state with polar bears has adamantly opposed listing the animals as a threatened species, despite strong evidence that global warming has devastated their sea ice environment off Alaska's coast. Dermot Cole, a longtime columnist for Alaska's second largest newspaper, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, called McCain's choice of Palin "reckless" and questioned her credentials. "Sarah Palin's chief qualification for being elected governor was that she was not Frank Murkowski," Cole said of her enormously unpopular predecessor, who lost favor with Alaskans in part because of unpopular budget cuts. "She was not elected because she was a conservative. She was not elected because of her grasp of issues or because of her track record as the mayor of Wasilla."

Her lies and flip-flips on the notorious Bridge to Nowhere aren't going over all that well in certain parts of the state either. Kate Golden in the Juneau Empire noted that some in Ketchikan recated to the nomination with concern and ire: "In her acceptance speech as McCain's running mate Friday morning, Palin held up her opposition to the bridge from Ketchikan to Gravina-- the 'bridge to nowhere'-- as an example of 'the abuses of earmark spending.' …When campaigning in Ketchikan in September 2006, Palin promised Ketchikan residents the bridge."

And, obviously, it isn't just in Alaska, where thoughtful newspaper editorial boards are scratching their heads with dismay at McCain's bizarre choice. The Denver Post pretty much sums up how most everyone across the country is reacting:

Palin an odd choice for VP; Alaska guv's inexperience is glaring-- and a probe into the firing of her public safety chief is due just before Election Day: "I served with Hillary Clinton. I know Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of mine. You, Sarah Palin, are no Hillary Clinton." Sorry to steal Joe Biden's thunder, but we didn't want to wait for the vice presidential candidates' debate to say the obvious. Yes, John McCain, who argues with a straight face that Barack Obama's 12 years in the Illinois legislature and U.S. Senate aren't enough to qualify him to run for president, has picked a running mate who just two years ago was serving as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, population 5,470. In short, the presumptive Republican nominee, an Old Soldier in all senses of that term, drafted the political equivalent of the Unknown Soldier as his co-pilot. McCain's pick of Palin jettisons his attack that Obama isn't ready to lead and looks more like a desperate "Hail Mary" campaign tactic aimed at female voters.

Perhaps playing on McCain's gambling problem, the Detroit News calls his choice a roll of the dice-- for us. The Kansas City Star judged the pick by the same criteria that they had earlier applied to Obama's choice of Biden. "[T]he most important question in evaluating a vice-presidential pick is whether that person is prepared to step into the Oval Office. Palin, with no national political experience and only a couple years in the Alaska governor's office, is a very tough sell for the Republicans on that score. McCain's age-- he turned 72 on Friday-- certainly doesn't help. The Republican presidential candidate has emphasized the importance of military and national security issues, and taken shots at Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama the Democratic presidential nominee for having only four years of experience in the U.S. Senate. Yet McCain now suggests that someone halfway through her first term as governor is "exactly who this country needs" only one step away from the presidency." And the Tampa Bay Tribune just flat out calls it a risky choice "that stunned even some party leaders who fear that voters will have trouble imagining the former beauty queen as commander in chief, if it should ever come to that." The Bangor Daily News called it puzzling and concluded that the "pick makes no sense." What you read all over the country are descriptions like "not ready" (and here), "risky" (and here), "lack of experience," and inexcusable.

David Gergen, on CNN, pointed to McCain's stark, bare hypocrisy: "But what surprises me so much is, that John McCain again and again and again has said the transcendent issue of our times is the fight against terrorism and that we live in a dark, dangerous world. And the most important thing is to have a commander in chief that's ready. So, here to reach out-- and he's criticized Barack Obama as not being ready-- to reach out to Sarah Palin who has no national security experience, no national security exposure, and say you're my standby and I'm 72 years old and I've had some bouts with melanoma, I think that's a very large gamble and I wonder how it's going to play out with the American people."




UPDATE: MORE REPUBLICANS DISMAYED WITH McCAIN'S HORRIBLE CHOICE

The denunciations are coming in so fast and furiously that I can't even keep up with them. Right wing shill Charles Krauthammer calls McCain's pick "near suicidal" from a tactical point of view. Noah Millman, who's not even opposed to Palin says "she's totally unqualified to be President at this point in time. If McCain were to die in February 2009, I hope Palin would have the good sense to appoint someone who is more ready to be President to be her Vice President, on the understanding that she would then resign and be appointed Vice President by her successor." And Mark Halperin at Time sums it up nicely for all of America: "McCain has failed the ultimate test that any presidential candidate must face in picking a running mate: selecting someone who is unambiguously qualified to be president."

Bush Moves To Remove Iraq From The Campaign By... Adopting Obama's Position-- McCain Too Busy Counting His Homes To Realize

After a sudden and unannounced flight, Condoleeza Rice is in Baghdad this morning. She's hammering the Iraqi political leadership on the timing of the withdrawal of U.S. forces And on the issue of extraterritoriality (i.e.- the "issue of immunity for American troops from Iraqi prosecution.") The U.S. and Iraq have been haggling over this since early March and Condi said, “This agreement will be ready when it’s ready."

It's especially funny because American neoCons are yelling about Russian troops occupying a couple of checkpoints in northern Georgia near where Stalin was born just as the UN document making the U.S. occupation of Iraq legalish expires.

This morning's Wall Street Journal goes a little further than the cautious Times in terms of how the Bush Regime is trying to remove Iraq as a campaign issue without flat-out admitting that they lost the war.

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq's cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal of combat troops from the country, according to senior American officials.

The draft agreement sets 2011 as the goal date by which U.S. combat troops will leave Iraq, according to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Humood and other people familiar with the matter. In the meantime, American troops will be leaving cities, towns and other population centers by the summer of 2009, living in bases outside of those areas, according to the draft.

...Bush is almost certain to accept the agreement, according to U.S. officials. The administration believes that the deal doesn't require congressional approval and won't present it to U.S. lawmakers.

The situation is more complicated in Iraq. The draft agreement must be approved by several layers of Iraqi political leaders. Several members of Mr. Maliki's cabinet have voiced opposition to elements of the deal. The Iraqi Parliament, which also has to sign off on the deal, is in recess until the beginning of September.

The security deal came together after the Bush administration made concessions on several long-held positions. The White House softened its stance over a pullout date after it became clear that Mr. Maliki was adamant that the agreement contain at least a vague timetable for a U.S. withdrawal.

The administration also dropped its insistence that American contractors remain immune from Iraqi law. Western contractors-- especially those working for Blackwater, which is under investigation for a deadly shooting last year -- are deeply unpopular in Iraq.

One of the last remaining roadblocks had been whether U.S. military personnel would enjoy immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law. Mr. Humood, Iraq's chief negotiator on the agreement, said joint committees of U.S. and Iraqi officials will be formed to resolve such issues when cases arise.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander here, said in an interview that the U.S. already was focusing on turning control of the country over to Iraqis.

The problem for Petreus and his Republican masters is that they can't look like they're leaving while Iraq disintegrates into civil war... and that is not an unlikely scenario. "A key pillar of the U.S. strategy to pacify Iraq is in danger of collapsing because the Iraqi government is failing to absorb tens of thousands of former Sunni Muslim insurgents who'd joined U.S.-allied militia groups into the country's security forces."

American officials have credited the militias, known as the Sons of Iraq or Awakening councils, with undercutting support for the group al Qaida in Iraq and bringing peace to large swaths of the country, including Anbar province and parts of Baghdad. Under the program, the United States pays each militia member a stipend of about $300 a month and promised that they'd get jobs with the Iraqi government.

But the Iraqi government, which is led by Shiite Muslims, has brought only a relative handful of the more than 100,000 militia members into the security forces. Now officials are making it clear that they don't intend to include most of the rest.

"We cannot stand them, and we detained many of them recently," said one senior Iraqi commander in Baghdad, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue. "Many of them were part of al Qaida despite the fact that many of them are helping us to fight al Qaida."

He said the army was considering setting a Nov. 1 deadline for those militia members who hadn't been absorbed into the security forces or given civilian jobs to give up their weapons. After that, they'd be arrested, he said.

Some militia members say that such a move would force them into open warfare with the government again.

...The conflict over the militias underscores how little has changed in Iraq in the past year despite the drop in violence, which American politicians often attribute to the temporary increase of U.S. troops in Iraq that ended in July.

American military officials here have always said that the creation of the Sunni militias was at least as important to the precipitous drop in violence as the presence of 30,000 more U.S. troops, and that incorporating them into the security forces would go a long way toward bringing about the sort of reconciliation needed for long-term stability.

Kevin Drum takes a good look at the probable impact domestically and at the spin each campaign is likely to use. One thing is certain though; the war is viewed by most Americans as a mistake and it is another example of McCain's lifelong awful judgment. McCain is dazed, confused and out-of-touch. He doesn't even know how many homes he owns-- is it four? Seven? Ten? Thirteen? Do you count the million dollar parking lot he owns and call it fourteen? He can't be bothered to think about those kinds of questions (though Chris Cillizza explains why he'd better), not when he's trying to explain his latest flip flops, one on how he would promise to just be a one-term president and one on abortion. The abortion flip flop is actually serious because he has been trying to reassure women that although he opposes Roe v Wade, and will appoint judges to overturn it, he favors the right of abortion for rape, incest and to protect the life of mothers. He's had to promise his religionist fanatic supporters that he would back away from that-- and he has.

Cranky, Angry Old John McCain Wants Obama Off His Damn Lawn

The McCain campaign puts clips up on YouTube because they want people to watch them and come away thinking what a great candidate their man is. This morning I saw McCain on CNN, angry, hateful and desperate, lying his ass off about Senator Obama. I was fascinated... waiting, even after I had finished getting dressed and wanting to go downstairs, to see if he would start screeching that Obama is a damn nigger who didn't deserve the White House. McCain feels it's his due for being tortured in Iraq and being tortured again when he was caught taking bribes from family friend and crooked banker Charles Keating and for being tortured again when he had the presumption for running against George W. Bush. McCain is a tortured and angry man, filled with hatred, pent up violence and a sense of entitlement. I haven't been able to find the CNN clip today. It's filled with the mean old codger using the psychological technique of projection-- blaming Obama for all his own many failings. McCain who has always used war and the military as his political raison d'etre and used his captivity as a club against all opponents at all times, keeps accusing Obama of politicizing the Iraq War. Obama is a liar; Obama doesn't understand the war in Iraq; Obama is a flip-flopper; Obama's son learned from daddy how to profit from getting mixed up with shady banks...

Anyway, this is a clip I found on McCain's own website. It's just a straight forward stump speech-- McCain lying his ass off about Obama, what he does all day every day. It's all the campaign is about. It's why longtime GOP operative Mark McKinnon quit McCain's dishonorable and disgusting campaign and watched Rove take over and make it more dishonorable and more disgusting.

McCain's Weekly Make-Overs Won't Do The Trick

It wasn't damaging enough for McCain that Obama went overseas and has been greeted incredibly well by American troops and foreign leaders and that his ideas have been overwhelmingly embraced everywhere he goes-- as well as back home. McCain should have probably just let him have his week. Instead his campaign started carping and whining even before Obama had left about unfair press coverage. When Obama was being mobbed in Baghdad by American troops and being virtually endorsed by the entire Iraqi government, McCain was met by a part time reporter with a cell phone camera at a small airport in New Hampshire. McCain, as Joe Klein explained, then had a serious breakdown, lashing out like a vicious psychopath. Luckily poor Cindy (or even Rick Renzi) weren't around to bear the brunt of his towering rage. I heard Klein saying this, almost word for word on CNN this morning:

This is the ninth presidential campaign I've covered. I can't remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad.

He's referring to the statement about Obama wishing we lost the war. McCain has lost it entirely. He's an embarrassment and the Republicans should just put him out of his misery and nominate Ron Paul.

The media is starting to wonder if McCain is too old, which isn't really fair because there are plenty of people who are even older who have, unlike McCain, adapted to the 21st Century in fine fashion. The media is also starting to look at his gaffes, gaffes that are often not gaffes but, as Ilan Goldenberg puts it, serious examples of fundamental misunderstanding.

John McCain made a mistake this evening, which as far as I'm concerned disqualifies him from being President.  It is so appalling and so factually wrong that I'm actually sitting here wondering who McCain's advisers are.  This isn't some gaffe where he talks about the Iraq-Pakistan border.  It's a real misunderstanding of what has happened in Iraq over the past year.  It is even more disturbing because according to John McCain, Iraq is the central front in the "war on terror."  If we are going to have an Iraq-centric policy, he should at least understand what he is talking about... This is not controversial history.  It is history that anyone trying out for Commander in Chief must understand when there are 150,000 American troops stationed in Iraq.  It is an absolutely essential element to the story of the past two years. YOU CANNOT GET THIS WRONG.  Moreover, what is most disturbing is that according to McCain's inaccurate version of history, military force came first and solved all of our problems.  If that is the lesson he takes from the Anbar Awakening, I am afraid it is the lesson he will apply to every other crisis he faces including, for example, Iran.

This is just incredibly disturbing. I have no choice but to conclude that John McCain has simply no idea what is actually happened and happening in Iraq. 

McCain is fighting back by having some of the most pathetic Bush rubber stamps on his sinking ship sniping at Obama by calling him fighteningly inexperienced. Republicans in Washington are so worried that an Obama landslide-- coupled with McCain's well-proven negative coattails (every single candidate he's campaigned for has lost)-- will spell complete disaster for the GOP in November. The Rove operative who was brought in to take internal power away from some of the self-serving lobbyists and now runs the campaign, is pushing-- at Rove's suggestion-- for a complete message make-over, one totally dominated by the kind of Rovian negative messaging that McCain himself has been a victim of in the past.

McCAIN'S MENTAL HEALTH IS ONE THING-- BUT WHAT ABOUT A PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION?

McCain seems to be falling apart mentally. He apparently can't handle all the stress. But when he did his Friday document dump on the media with all his health papers I saw some reasons for his bizarre behavior. While A.P. and most of the corporate media is declaring the elderly cancer survivor "in good health," my own doctor, who never voted for a Democrat in his entire life, says McCain will be lucky to be alive before the end of his first term if he were to win the presidency.

Personally I was more concerned with the psychological problems you can see between the lines-- if you missed them in recent reports about his uncontrollable rage against Rick Renzi, Senator Obama and poor battered Cindy McCain. Anyway, that pic up top is a screen shot from the CNN report on the medications he takes daily. I know Ambien is a serious drug with serious side effects. I looked it up and found this:




Probably the most disturbing aspect of the report though is how McCain neglected to tell anyone back in February that he had cancer surgery. That seems strange... no? Do you think there's anything else he's neglecting to give us the straight talk on?

By the way, when McCain was learning to stay on a burro in his native Panama, this song I hope you'll enjoy today was a big hit for a very young Count Basie: