Here’s a compilation of McCain clips which demonstrates a slightly less-than-desirable level of consistency in the candidate.

Some of the stuff, I am sure, anybody could get caught in (like forgetting he said something), and some of the stuff might be inaccurate on details (some but not all of his “tax cut” comments may have been talking about different tax cuts), but the majority of clips here show true examples of McCain talking out of both sides of his mouth, or just straight-out lying.

I’d be interested to see what kind of a video could be constructed about Obama. I tried looking on YouTube and viewed more than a dozen videos, but none did what the McCain video above does–show the candidate’s own words in direct conflict with his own words. The Obama videos either depend on opinion, accusations, parsing, and even attacks by opponents, but not his own words against himself. Except, of course, by taking words out of context and using creative editing.

For example, the only one that came close to finding an internal contradiction so clearly cut off an explanation by Obama why it was not that it was rather laughable. The clip shows an ABC debate where they get Obama to pledge not raising taxes on the middle class, Obama categorizing that to be up to $200,000 or $250,000, then they “catch” him with an increase on the payroll tax cap, cutting him off just when he says, “let me finish my point here.” After that, he explains that he could exempt people between $97,000 and $200,000, but this is not included in the “double talk” video..

If anyone knows of a video where Obama is captured in a true example of double-talk, please let me know.

For those conservatives who think it’s no big deal that Bush made a domestic political jab on foreign soil, remember that the Dixie Chicks were absolutely deluged with hateful criticism when they criticized Bush. The hatred gushed not simply because they said they were embarrassed by Bush–but because they did so on foreign soil (in London, to be specific).

That’s the protocol that Bush violated: prominent Americans traveling abroad are not supposed to criticize their own while on foreign soil. Doing so at home is okay–but not when abroad.

McCain’s direct statement:

“Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain,’’ Mr. McCain told reporters on his campaign bus after a speech in Columbus, Ohio. ”I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.’’

Then, McCain’s policy adviser announced:

SHUSTER: Nancy, does the McCain campaign believe that talking to our enemies is the same as appeasing them?

PFOTENHAUER: We have never used the term appeasement and you know that.

SHUSTER: But the president did. […]

PFOTENHAUER: We have specifically not used the term appeasement.

Um… OK. So, Pfotenhauer either doesn’t know what she’s talking about, or she’s lying. Great.

But here’s my question, relating to McCain’s statement that “it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.”

The hostages came home at the exact moment Reagan was taking office; Reagan was never president at a time when negotiations could have taken place. McCain seems to be suggesting that Reagan’s negotiation policies were so amazingly tough, that the Iranians released the hostages before Reagan had even said a word.

He also seems to forget that when hostages were taken on his watch, Reagan not only talked with Iran, but he in fact directly appeased them, selling them weapons and supplies, in direct violation of his own stated policy, in exchange for hostage releases. Reagan continued his secret policy of appeasement for years, in fact, probably causing more hostages to be taken, while he continued to supply Iran with arms.

So, why isn’t the media challenging McCain’s romanticization of Reagan’s actions? It’s a clear lie–McCain was in Congress during the Iran/Contra hearings, he could not have forgotten about it. But after immediately recognizing this lie, I did a search, and found no media attention to it whatsoever. Only the Democratic party and other blogs picked up on it.

The Liberal Media™ at it again!

Update:

Here is Obama’s response to McBush’s “Appeasement” accusation, in which Obama hits on all the high points, all the lies and errors. It’s quite measured, methodical, and comprehensive, and well-delivered… so naturally, McCain called it a “hysterical diatribe.” Presumably McCain used those word because he wanted to engage in civil, high-minded debate like he promised.

As much as Bush & McCain made fools of themselves in the last week, nothing they did could touch the inappropriate, hypocritical, bullying remarks Bush made addressing the Knesset to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary of nationhood. Bush not only violated the general protocols that say you don’t use foreign podiums nor official appearances at major events to toss out political attacks, he also got his facts wrong and made a baldly hypocritical accusation against Barack Obama:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ”Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.“ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Oh, where to start. First of all, Bush apparently is not aware of what the word “appeasement” means. In short, it means to “pacify or placate someone by acceding to their demands.” Not talking to them–giving in to them. If Bush thinks that talking to someone is the same as appeasing him, then he has just accused Ronald Reagan, not to mention countless other American leaders, of being filthy appeasers.

Second, Bush is clearly trying to attack Barack Obama here. There is no parsing necessary to figure that out: Bush uses the weasel words “some seem to believe,” which he routinely uses when he wants to refer to Democrats without being held responsible. It is clear who he is talking about–Obama is the only prominent politician currently in the spotlight for talks with countries like Iran and Syria (though he balks at Hamas). Bush claimed he was not attacking Obama specifically, but with Obama the only prominent voice, and with the White House press secretary letting slip that she was “not going to get into ’08 politics” in reference to Bush’s remarks, it appears clear to just about everyone on the planet that this is exactly what Bush was trying to do. If, by some wild chance, Bush’s remarks had no relation at all to Obama, the remark was still incredibly inappropriate because any rational observer would have instantly made that connection–as just about every observer, including most right-wingers gleeful at high-level Obama attacks, immediately saw.

Not to mention that, as Laura Rozen points out, Bush has–by his own definition–been a serial “appeaser”:

Beyond the fact that Bush’s own administration has repeatedly offered to negotiate with Tehran should Iran suspend uranium enrichment, and that his top diplomat in Iraq has talked with his Iranian counterparts, as well as his former ambassador to Afghanistan, both with the White House blessing, as well as the ongoing negotiations with Pyongyang, Libya, and the Syrian deputy foreign minister’s visit to Annapolis; beyond those recent demonstrated exceptions in action to Bush’s rhetoric (I guess the word for it is “hypocrisy”): It’s also worth pointing out, as several Israeli security officials and political observers have recently done to me here, a bit of recent history Bush neglected to mention at Israel’s parliament. That Israel and the Palestinian Authority have chiefly him to thank for Hamas having a degree of political legitimacy it otherwise would not have had. After all, they point out, it was the Bush administration that “twisted the arm” of Israeli and Palestinian leaders against considerable resistance and skepticism on their part to allow the Palestinian militant group Hamas to run in 2006 Palestinian elections that Hamas won — an outcome to its policy interventions that the Bush administration once again failed to anticipate.

So, not only did Bush approve of “appeasement” with many “terrorist and radicals,” but his own ham-handed and actual appeasement to Hamas in 2006 allowed them to win their current place in power.

Apparently fearing that he would be left out of the publicity that Bush generated, McCain took the opportunity to take an “unrelated” potshot at Obama:

Meanwhile, in Columbus, Ohio, McCain said he took the White House at its word, but then he weighed into the spat himself, saying: “This does bring up an issue that we will be discussing with the American people, and that is, why does Barack Obama, Senator Obama, want to sit down with a state sponsor of terrorism?”

Asked if Obama was an appeaser, McCain said Obama must explain why he wants to talk with leaders like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and added that Obama’s position was a serious error. “It shows naivete and inexperience and lack of judgment to say that he wants to sit down across the table from an individual who leads a country that says Israel is a stinking corpse, that is dedicated to the extinction of the state of Israel. My question is, what does he want to talk about?”

The hypocrisy: Not only has Obama insisted that he would not speak to Hamas, John McCain has said that he would. While McCain seems to have forgotten that he favored talks with Hamas, the reporter who interviewed him has not:

RUBIN: “Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?”

McCAIN: “They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.”

APPEASER!!! So, is this a flip-flop? Or hypocrisy? Could be both. Video of the interview:

It is the height of hypocrisy for John McCain to deliver a lofty speech about civility and bipartisanship in the morning and then embrace George Bush’s disgraceful political attack in the afternoon. Instead of delivering meaningful change, John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s irresponsible and failed Iran policy by refusing to engage in tough, direct diplomacy like Presidents from Kennedy to Reagan have done.

McCain’s lapdog Leiberman later joined the fray, backing Bush and McCain, making for a perfect McBush day.

UPDATE: CNN has the story, that White House officials privately confirmed Bush’s statements were about Obama:

The president did not name Sen. Barack Obama or any other Democrat, but White House aides privately acknowledged to CNN that the remarks were aimed at the presidential candidate and others in his party.

Just confirming what we all already knew.

Okay, let’s plumb the depths of McBush over the past few days.

First, an appetizer: Bush claimed, in an interview, that while our own brave young men & women fought and died in Bush’s unnecessary, politically-motivated, wasteful, al-Qaeda-boosting, and horribly mismanaged war in Iraq, Bush himself was paying a terrible, unthinkable price: he gave up golf. In an interview with The Politico, Bush said:

Q: Mr. President, you haven’t been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?

Bush: Yes, it really is. I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.

Q: Mr. President, was there a particular moment or incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?

Bush: No, I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life. And I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it’s just not worth it anymore to do.

This absurdly outrageous question was just as offensive to soldiers as anyone imagined:

Brandon Friedman, a veteran US infantry officer who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, told the Press Association: “Thousands of Americans have given up a lot more than golf for this war. For President Bush to imply that he somehow stands in solidarity with families of American soldiers by giving up golf is disgraceful. It’s an insult to all Americans and a slap in the face to our troops’ families.”

The real slap in the face: Bush was lying–he hadn’t given up his golf game, not for de Mello:

The problem is that Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. envoy in Iraq at the time, was killed Aug. 19, 2003. Bush, according to news reports, was still playing two days later, when he teed off at the Crosswater Golf Course in Sunriver, Ore., during a two-day visit to the Pacific Northwest.

He also played Sept. 28 with friends at Andrews Air Force Base course and again there on Oct. 13, in honor of Columbus Day. It appears that he didn’t golf after that — at least judging from a review of media coverage since then.

Keith Olbermann had a few sharp words for Bush on this.

Not to be outdone, McCain gave a major policy speech today which could quite legitimately be called the “Magic Pony” speech. In it, McCain fantasized about ending his first term in January 2013:

By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy… The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants. There is no longer any place in the world al Qaeda can consider a safe haven. … There still has not been a major terrorist attack in the United States since September 11, 2001. The United States and its allies have made great progress in advancing nuclear security. … The size of the Army and Marine Corps has been significantly increased, and are now better equipped and trained to defend us. … the United States, acting in concert with a newly formed League of Democracies, applied stiff diplomatic and economic pressure that caused the government of Sudan to agree to a multinational peacekeeping force, with NATO countries providing logistical and air support, to stop the genocide….

The United States has experienced several years of robust economic growth, and Americans again have confidence in their economic future. … Congress has just passed by a single up or down vote a tax reform proposal that offers Americans a choice of continuing to file under the rules of the current complicated and burdensome tax code or use a new, simpler, fairer and flatter tax, with two rates and a generous deduction. … Congress has not sent me an appropriations bill containing earmarks for the last three years. … New free trade agreements have been ratified and led to substantial increases in both exports and imports. … The world food crisis has ended, inflation is low, and the quality of life not only in our country, but in some of the most impoverished countries around the world is much improved. … Public education in the United States is much improved thanks to the competition provided by charter and private schools…. Test scores and graduation rates are rising everywhere in the country.

Health care has become more accessible to more Americans than at any other time in history. … The reduction in the growth of health care costs has begun to relieve some of the pressure on Medicare; … Their success encouraged a group of congressional leaders from both parties to work with my administration to fix Social Security as well, without reducing benefits to those near retirement. … The United States is well on the way to independence from foreign sources of oil; progress that has not only begun to alleviate the environmental threat posed from climate change, but has greatly improved our security as well. … Scores of judges have been confirmed to the federal district and appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, who understand that they were not sent there to write our laws but to enforce them….our southern border is now secure. Illegal immigrants who broke our laws after they came here have been arrested and deported. Illegal immigration has been finally brought under control…. A sense of community, a kinship of ideals, has invigorated public service again.

As I said before, winsome fairies and prancing unicorns would not have been out of place in this speech. I have extravagant hopes for the achievements of an Obama administration, but not only do I keep them to myself, none even come close to the massive self-indulgent, massively overreaching self-gratification McCain wallowed in with this speech; he must think he’s the freakin’ second coming or something.

Had he given the speech in terms of goals, that would be one thing–but to try to convince people that in four years he could solve virtually all the world’s problems single-handedly and accomplish more than all other presidents combined… it comes across as absurdly arrogant, self-aggrandizing fantasy.

Fortunately for McCain, he did not have much time to suffer the ridicule that naturally follows such inanity: Bush stole the limelight and made an even bigger fool of himself soon after… with McCain quickly jumping on Bush’s brainless bandwagon. More on that in Part II.

Man.

I’m going to blog more on this later, but Bush & McCain really outdid themselves today with sheer idiocy and hypocrisy.

Really. Imagine Bill Clinton, in mid-2000, going to Israel and comparing then-Governor Bush with Hitler appeasers. Republicans would have gone nuclear with rage, not the least of which would have been at the idea of an American president going overseas and using a foreign podium to slam another American politician.

And then there’s McCain, whose big day was trounced on by Bush’s speech. Personally, I think Bush did McCain a favor by eclipsing his “Magic Pony” speech, in which he’s finishing his first term in office and he presides over a world of winsome faeries and prancing unicorns. All McCain could do in Bush’s shadow was to agree that that nasty Obama man was indeed an appeaser.

And then the wingnuts, apparently attracted to stupidity light moths to flame, chimed in. Reserving further comment for later, I will simply let you watch Chris Matthews utterly annihilate the right-wing talking head as an unimaginably blustering moron. It is literally breathtaking.

Some days you can be so thoroughly stupid that even your pals in the media come out and call you a laughable moron.

Obama and Clinton are just winding down from five months of bashing each other, while McCain has had the luxury of being the party nominee for two and a half months, campaigning and raising money without opposition, with his former rivals lauding him, taking potshots at the Democrats at leisure. The media has been incredibly kind to McCain, courting him in his “Straight Talk” barbecue media love-fest, playing down his scandals and even actively defending him (as they did when the lobbyist affair story came out), refusing to ask him questions or report on stories that could give him a bad rep–all while piling on the Democratic nominees aggressively, especially Obama with the Wright story, which ran for weeks and weeks and weeks, with an endlessly-playing video loop of “God Damn America.”

With all of that and much more in McCain’s favor, one would imagine that McCain would be leading in the polls. And yet, despite a brief bump a few weeks ago, McCain has been trailing both Clinton and Obama most of the time. Today, a Quinnipiac poll put Obama ahead of McCain by 7 points, Hillary by 5. Rasmussen, which polls more favorably for Republicans, has Obama leading McCain by one point and Clinton leading by two. CBS, which often swings the other way, Has Obama over McCain by 12 points. ABC has Obama winning by 7, Gallup by 4, Times/Boomberg by 6, the AP by 4.

If McCain is doing so poorly against Obama now, after Obama has been bashed so heavily and McCain given the buddy treatment, that is not a good sign for McCain. McCain should, by all rights, be ahead by a touchdown or two. Instead, he’s lagging behind.

Helping to explain, perhaps, is the major GOP loss in Mississippi’s first district. Democrat Travis Childers beat Republican Greg Davis 54-46. Doesn’t sound like a big margin, except for one small detail: MI-01 is a Republican district–a strong Republican district. Bush won the district in 2004 with a 62% majority, a 25% lead over Democrat John Kerry.

Keep in mind that Davis was not beset by scandals; he simply lost the race fair and square. And this is the third time in three races that a Democratic candidate has won a special election to fill a vacated House seat in a Republican district–the first was in Dennis Hastert’s district–Hastert having been the Speaker of the House.

After seven years of Bush and almost as many years of a Republican Congress, the Republican Party name has been dragged through the dirt. Given the chance to lead, they have not only failed, but failed spectacularly. The number of people who identify themselves as Republicans has dropped to 27%, while Independents and Democrats both claim 36%; and of Independents with a preference for one party over the other, 60% lean Democratic. Compare that with 2004, when Republicans had 33%, Dems had 35%, and Independents, at 33%, were split almost evenly between the two parties. That allowed Bush to win the race, as party identification was within just a few points (the margin of error) of Bush’s win. Now, however, Democrats look to have more than a 10-point advantage over GOP’ers in party affiliation or preference.

And that helps explain why, after Obama getting trashed and McCain getting feted for the past few months, Obama still leads in national polls. Had the media treated the two candidates equally, Obama would probably lead by an average of 10~12 points, instead of 4~6.

Unless something unexpected happens, expect Obama’s lead to hold or strengthen.

Meanwhile: since the Indiana/North carolina elections last week, Obama has picked up 31 superdelegates to Hillary’s 1.5. Hillary got 20 pledged delegates from West Virginia to Obama’s 8, giving her a 12-delegate gain. Offset that by superdelegate pickups, and Obama has jumped ahead by 17.5 delegates. Having picked up John Edwards now Obama’s lead can only continue to grow; Edwards brings 18 pledged delegates with him, though those are not counted in Obama’s column quite yet. However, if Obama continues to get 4 new supers a day like he has for the past week, he’ll be another 30 delegates ahead when Kentucky and Oregon come–and Hillary’s win in Kentucky will be offset by Obama’s win in Oregon.

Maybe now I understand why gun-rights supporters fear gun control laws so much: they believe that gun control advocates will act the same way that right-wingers act, taking a legal victory and using it to try to go to ludicrous extremes. Even I did not see this shameful act of vote-stealing coming, and I have a low opinion of these people:

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

The measure would allow far more rigorous demands than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card.

Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting the political process. Critics say the measure could lead to the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship.

As if thousands of illegal immigrants have been flooding the polls in Missouri and stealing elections.

I shudder to think of what they’d do next if they actually got away with this. Require genetic scans to prove you are really you? Submit transcripts of your school records from kindergarten to high school? Take a language test?

Don’t laugh–the idea of needing special proof of citizenship at the polls is so ridiculous I don’t think many saw that coming. And lord knows what they’ll require as proof. You can bet it’ll be the thing least likely to be easily available to the elderly and poor.

We have already seen a number of voters-including a dozen or so elderly nuns–denied their right to vote in Indiana because of the Voter ID law that is denied to deny exactly such people their votes, instead of the imaginary voter fraud that is claimed as the “real” threat.

H/t to C&L.

Why not? Because in the one week since the last primary round, Obama has picked up 27 supers and an additional pledged delegate from North Carolina, while Hillary’s delegate count has remained virtually flat. West Virginia has 28 delegates, total. Hillary could win in that state 100% to 0%, and Obama would still break even for the week.

The following week has Kentucky and Oregon. Kentucky has 51 delegates, Oregon has 52. Hillary will win Kentucky stronger than Obama will win Oregon, but the net gain by Hillary will probably be relatively minor, maybe only a dozen or so. In the week between now and then, Obama will probably pick up double that amount in superdelegates, if not more, further eroding Hillary’s lead.

Hillary, despite commanding huge leads in two of the next three states, will end up losing ground, not gaining it. Even now, she trails Obama by about 170 total delegates. That could be as many as 200 by June.

Even if Hillary gets all her delegates from Florida (50% of 211) and Michigan (55% of 157), and Obama gets zero from Michigan (not even the 40% “uncommitteds” who were clearly voting for him–Hillary doesn’t want those votes to count) and only 33% in Florida, Hillary still wouldn’t catch up with Obama (it would probably only give Clinton 120 new delegates or fewer), even assuming Obama doesn’t get even more and more superdelegates from now on.

Hillary supporters who still think she has a chance–which is fewer and fewer these days–literally have no mechanism for Clinton winning the nomination short of Obama self-destructing in a huge ball of flame.

Clinton should take the two big wins, in West Virginia today and Kentucky next week, claim a symbolic victory, and call it quits on a high note. Maybe by that time she’ll have gotten a power handover and debt payoff she can live with, and she can get to work half-heartedly campaigning for Obama.

This is starting to become a habit within the GOP: see if you can take words spoken by Obama, take them out of context, claim they mean something they clearly did not, then smear him with it. Nothing new; they did it all the time with Gore. But they hadn’t done i as much, while Hillary was there to do it for them. Now that Obama’s the nominee in all but name, they’re starting the drumbeat of lies and smears. In just the last few days, McCain did this with Obama’s remark that McCain had “lost his bearings” in terms of McCain’s breaking his promise to keep a clean campaign; they claimed that Obama had made a crack about McCain’s age, which he clearly did not.

Now they’re at it again. Obama made a remark about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling it “a constant wound, a constant sore,” noting that the conflict “infects our foreign policy.” Republicans very dishonestly interpreted it to mean that Israel is a “constant sore.” Here is the exchange:

JG: What do you make of Jimmy Carter’s suggestion that Israel resembles an apartheid state?

BO: I strongly reject the characterization. Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and there’s no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like apartheid into the discussion doesn’t advance that goal. It’s emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe.

JG: If you become President, will you denounce settlements publicly?

BO: What I will say is what I’ve said previously. Settlements at this juncture are not helpful. Look, my interest is in solving this problem not only for Israel but for the United States.

JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that, and some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I’m not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that’s the safest ground politically.

Right-wingers are very dishonestly “misunderstanding” Obama, with GOP leaders attacking Obama over the imagined slight, bloggers insisting that he’s flagrantly insulting Israel:

Obama partisans are claiming that he said that the Midle East [sic] conflict is a constant sore. But quite clearly the antecedent to “this constant wound, that this constant sore” in the question is “Israel.” Perhaps the Harvard-trained lawyer who tells us that words are important wants us to believe he was just sloppy. Or maybe words don’t matter when he doesn’t want them to?

What dishonesty. In their quotes, they only cite the one paragraph by Obama, completely omitting the preceding paragraphs which lay down the understood subject as the conflict; as the Washington Post pointed out:

It is pretty clear from this passage that Obama is not calling Israel a “constant wound.” Indeed, he specifically says “no, no, no” when asked if Israel is a drag on America’s international reputation. He is referring to the overall Israeli-Palestinian problem, including continued Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

Goldberg describes Boehner’s characterization of his interview with Obama as “mendacious, duplicitous, gross, and comically refutable.”

The thing is, this is so easy to understand it’s not even funny. Just look at the one paragraph in context; pay attention to the words I have highlighted in bold:

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable.

If you truly believe that the “constant wound, constant sore” is in fact the state of Israel, then you get in trouble in the very next sentence, where Obama says the very same thing is a problem that “Israel has a security interest in solving.” If, as the bloggers and Republican leaders Boehner and Cantor claim, Obama was referring to Israel itself as the “constant sore,” then the trailing sentence spoken by Obama would have to be read as, “Israel has a security interest in solving Israel.” Which is a stupid assertion to make.

Fortunately, the media seems more inclined to note that this obvious lie is indeed a lie.

So, what’s next? Probably won’t have to wait long.

Hillary got a big boost quoting a Saturday Night Live skit when it parodied the media having an Obama love-fest. I wonder if she’ll be quoting this SNL bit:

Yes, it absolutely savages Hillary in a totally unfair manner. If you’re a Hillary supporter and don’t like it, then just join the club. Maybe the media can get you a pillow or something.

Another tack Obama should take: deconstructing McCain’s image as a campaign finance reform champion. With all the campaign finance laws and rules McCain has twisted and broken (not to mention breaking many of his own policies), from using his wife’s corporate jet while she steadfastly refuses to make her tax returns public, to violating federal law on withdrawing from public financing without FEC approval and after having used public financing as collateral on a loan and Bush’s attempt to re-staff the FEC to ignore McCain’s violations, Obama could have a field day with McCain on what is supposed to be one of McCain’s strongest issues.

And that’s before we even get to the fact that McCain has surrounded himself with lobbyists. Consider today’s news: a second McCain aide had to resign because he’s a lobbyist for the brutal regime in Myanmar. Think about that: McCain had not one, but two campaign aides who were paid lobbyists for the same small foreign power. McCain has so many lobbyists working for him that two are significantly connected with a relatively unknown southeast Asian ruling junta. You could probably throw a dart at the issues board and be assured of hitting something connected to more than one lobbyist working for McCain these days. After getting all that laid out in public view, we can move on to the many instances of McCain exerting his official influence to pay back lobbyists who have him in their pocket.

Of course, with this issue and the issue of McBush/McSame, the problem lies in getting the media to recognize it. But there should be an easy way: somebody at SNL should write a skit where the media is ignoring every single McCain misstep while jumping down Obama’s throat on the irrelevant stuff. It’d be a funny skit, and if the media responds to it like they did to the skit which had them loving Obama, then there should be an immediate dumping on John McCain like never before.

Obama should continue striking this theme. Remember how the Republicans successfully hung Clinton on Gore in 2000; Gore’s big mistake there was to distance himself from Clinton, whose popularity was high at the time–more than twice Bush’s rating now, Clinton was in the 60% range. Obama could easily hang McCain with 28% Bush, seeing as how McCain’s policies are very, very close to the current president’s, whose unfavorables are higher than Nixon’s just before he was forced to resign.

The beauty of this tactic is that it’s policy based, not distraction based, and draws upon huge dissatisfaction not only in the country in general, but from within the Republican ranks as well. Bush is not only divisive for the country, he is also now divisive within his own party. And while McCain and his supporters have tried to distance themselves from Bush, they find that when pressed, they cannot–and more importantly, do not want to–draw that distinction. A prime example, via My DD:

BLITZER: You just heard Congressman Van Hollen say that he represents a third Bush term. You know how unpopular the job approval numbers are right now.

[HOUSE GOP WHIP ROY] BLUNT: I don’t think anybody believes that. I think everybody does believe from his record that here is somebody who has always been willing to complain about the way business was done in Washington. And, frankly, people want to see that…

BLITZER: When it comes to domestic economic issues, what is the major difference between President Bush’s policies, what he wants to do, and what John McCain would do if he were president?

BLUNT: Well, I think what John McCain wants to do is continue these pro-growth tax policies that our friends on the other side have been talking…

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: But that’s what President Bush wants to do too.

BLUNT: And there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that.

BLITZER: So it would be in effect a third Bush term when it came to pro-growth tax policies?

BLUNT: It would be. I think it would be. And I think that’s a good thing.

Emphasis mine. Rather amazing, isn’t it, how Blunt morphs from “Nobody believes that” to “I believe it, and it’s a good thing” so quickly. It’s pretty laughable when you know what to look for.

And that’s the key: McCain doesn’t want to be seen stating emphatically that he’s no George W. Bush, that he thinks Bush is a failure. McCain will spout on about how he’s criticized this president, how he was the first and the loudest out there to say Bush made mistakes–but when it comes down to it, he’s not gonna say that Bush was a bad president. McCain is in bed with Bush in terms of policies on the economy, Iraq, energy, taxes, abortion, foreign policy, gun control, health care, corporate welfare, deregulation, stacking the Supreme Court with right-wing constructionist judges, the list goes on. Ironically, McCain is also the same as Bush, from the right-wing perspective, on immigration, which will hurt him with Republicans. Hell, McCain even voted with Bush on torture, when it came down to it. The biggest contrast with Bush is supposed to be campaign finance reform, but with McCain violating campaign finance laws and ripping the laws’ spirit to shreds, there’s really not much of an actual difference there, either.

With this line of attack, Obama can (a) be telling the truth, (b) stick to policy debates instead of trivial distractions, and (c) go way negative on McCain without actually going negative–and McCain would have a hard time saying how being equated to Bush is a “negative” attack without alienating his core base.

From Maureen Dowd:

Now Barack Obama faces a true dilemma: how best to punish Hillary Clinton. …how does Obama repay Hillary for running a campaign designed both to unman him and brand him as an unelectable black?

Like asking whether an irresistible force or an immovable object wins in a face-off, it’s the question itself which is flawed. Obama would have to be an egomaniacal idiot to think it was necessary to “punish” Hillary. I happen to think that he’s a wee bit better than that. He won’t seek to punish Hillary, he’ll try to figure out what’s the best way to push on in his campaign. If he addresses Hillary, it’ll be out of necessity, not spite.

Either that, or else Obama’s not the man I believe him to be.

During the 2000 election, Bush repeatedly attacked Clinton for cutting military spending and allowing the armed forces to weaken, primarily because of deployments in the Balkans:

“If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report …, ‘Not ready for duty, sir.’”

But Maj. Thomas Collins, an Army spokesman, told CNN: “All 10 Army divisions are combat-ready, fully able to meet their war-fighting mission.”

The ten divisions included the two that Bush claimed were not ready–a claim clearly recognizable as false, as the two divisions were at that time deployed, therefore obviously ready to report for duty. That didn’t stop Bush, of course. He claimed that the Clinton administration was responsible for the cuts in military spending–ignoring the fact that Bush’s father (with Dick Cheney at his side) started the cuts as part of the post-Cold-War “Peace Dividend,” that Bush 41 cut more funding than Clinton had, and that Clinton was actually reversing the trend of cuts and was starting to increase military spending.

Bush has increased military spending to levels higher than at the end of the Cold War, a tragic irony considering that despite the expenditures, Bush has broken the military and made it less ready to fight a war than it has been since after Vietnam. Clinton’s military was positively buff in comparison.

Today, the U.S. military has been stretched far too thin. Think that’s a convenient liberal myth? Then think again–that’s what “3,400 active and retired officers at the highest levels of command”–that means officers of the rank of Major or higher–said in a recent survey (PDF). 88% reported that the Iraq War has “stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin.” Not just thin, but dangerously thin. 52% of all interviewed said they “strongly agreed” with that assertion.

And that’s not the only opinion they have: 60% say the military is weaker now than it was 5 years ago; the three most important reasons were cited as the pace of troop deployments and rotations, civilian leadership/oversight, and wars in Iraq/Afghanistan, according to 76% of those who thought the military is weaker. Only 2% of the one-quarter minority who thought the military is stronger cited civilian leadership as the reason (53% said it was “personnel with more experience, education, and training”).

80% said it would be unreasonable to expect the U.S. military to successfully wage another major war somewhere else in the world today. 50% said “very unreasonable.” Only 3% said “very reasonable.” So, what was that Bush was saying in 2000 about two of ten divisions reporting “not ready” if called on for duty?

74% said that the Bush administration set unreasonable goals for the military in post-war Iraq. Only 7% approved of using criminal and health waivers to beef up the military–the least-approved of measure, which is exactly what the Bush administration is resorting to now.

52% said that the military is weaker than it was 10 years ago, under Clinton, as opposed to 35% who said it was stronger; this coming from a strongly conservative military community–so much for Bush’s claims. Almost the exact same number–51%–said the military is weaker today than it was in 1993, when Bush 41 handed it over to Clinton. Again, a sharp blow to the idea that Clinton was the one who weakened the military somehow.

After five years and endless reports that our soldiers are not being equipped properly, 45% still report that the administration is still equipping soldiers “inadequately,” as opposed to 34% who said the equipment was “adequate.”

37% said that Iran has gained the greatest strategic advantage from the war in Iraq; China came in second at 22%, and the U.S. third at 19%. Heckuva job, Bushie!

95% of those who responded to the survey had served at least 16 years; 81% had served 21 or more years.

After understanding all of that, consider that John McCain wants to keep our troops in Iraq for another fifty to one hundred years.

While Hillary is making a huge deal out of the fact that more uneducated but hardworking white voters in Indiana and North Carolina are voting slightly more for her than they were before, is she also going to recognize that her 10-point win in California has changed into a 6-point loss to Obama, with men and women, not to mention white voters in general, surging in Obama’s favor? This (PDF) from SUSA, one of the most accurate polling outfits.

Or does California also not matter any more?

The answer: it depends. It depends on how you count superdelegates. You may have noticed that almost every news organization has a different tally. Many are reporting that Obama has taken the lead, primarily based upon the reports out of ABC and the tendency of people leaning towards Obama to favor the first report to say so. But not everyone is in agreement.

As of this moment, CNN has Clinton ahead by four, 272 to 268. Fox has Hillary retaining a lead at 271.5 to 267. The AP has it close, with Clinton at 272.5 to Obama’s 271. USAToday has Clinton ahead by a hair, 271.5 to 271, a count which MSNBC agrees with. CBS has a slightly larger lead for Clinton–271 to 270.

The New York Times just tipped from one to the other, with Obama taking the lead 265 to 264. The Politico has Obama with a wider lead, 271 to 207.5. But ABC was the first to give Obama the lead, now counting his delegates at 267 versus Hillary’s 265.

You might think that such a count would be straightforward, with superdelegates either being for one candidate or not, but apparently it’s not so simple. The Politico ran a story explaining why about a month ago. Apparently, each news organization has different rules about who to count and who not to. First, everyone seems to have different sources; some rely on claims by the campaigns, others do not. It is up to each news office to decide whether to count only official announcements, which leaners to take how seriously, whose word to take, or what technicalities to observe. For example, one superdelegate voiced support for Obama, but had to take it back because of state party rules; the NY Times doesn’t count her, but the Politico does.

You might also wonder how candidates can have half a delegate, as many tallies show; this is because of Democrats Abroad, who have eight supers, but each only counts as half a delegate. That’s where those halves come from.

Only one thing seems for sure: as Obama picks up close to a dozen superdelegates in just a day or two, while Hillary gained one while having another switch to Obama, it seems pretty inevitable that within a day or two, everyone will have Obama in the lead. And with that in Obama’s column, Hillary has pretty much nothing left. Obama has pledged delegates, superdelegates, the popular vote, the most states won, so forth and so on.

The only way Hillary can claim the lead in any way is by using baseball stats–you know, where announcers tell you that a player leads the league in triples scored in away games when it’s raining and the opposing team is wearing their white shoes. Hillary sent out a PowerPoint presentation saying that she’s ahead in winning “competitive” districts, in other words, 20 districts where freshmen Democrats won elections in Republican-leaning areas. That’s spiffy and all that, but when you get to such specific breakdowns, you could probably make a convincing argument that John Edwards should get the superdelegates’ votes. It’s just playing with the numbers.

A lot of people not only figure Hillary will not give up, but that she should stay in the race–provided that she tones down the mudslinging and becomes as civilized and conciliatory as Obama has become.

Clearly, Hillary is having none of that. Not only has she sent out that presentation, she made a claim that has made more than a few people upset–that AP exit polls “found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me. There’s a pattern emerging here.”

Aside from the unfortunate wording that makes her sound like she’s saying that black Americans are not hard-working, there remains the fact that she is emphasizing racial lines, and doing so selectively, and in a divisive way. I mean, really, whites in Indiana and North Carolina who had not completed college were edging in her direction? The numerical consequence of such a swing is insignificant considering the difference between party and general elections taking place six months apart; it’s almost like she’s trying more to draw Obama or his supporters into making “hillbilly” comments than actually making a case that she deserves to win.

Update: In Kentucky, Clinton goes on about how Obama is unelectable, that he will lose to McCain, and that he is disregarding the people of that state and others like it.

However you slice it, Hillary is not changing her tactics, and more and more people have got to be wondering: what is her end game here? The most conspiracy-theory minded have Hillary intentionally throwing the election to McCain so she can retain party control and have a shot at winning in 2012; the more charitably-minded simply say that she’s got nothing to lose, that an argument could be made for promoting party registration and that while she may not win, she still has a chance if Obama does anything between now and the convention to make him unelectable. An incredibly long shot, at best, but personally, she has little if anything to lose.

Then there is the negotiation theory: that Hillary is trying to angle herself, if not for the nomination, then for the best consolation prize she can get. Many say she wants the VP slot (perhaps with other concessions, like say over cabinet appointments), giving her influence and a guaranteed shot at the 2016 race (she’d be 69 then, however); others think she wants a top party leadership spot; many believe she is holding out for Obama to pay off not only her campaign debt, but the $11 million she and Bill spent on the campaign as well.

Obama has rather clearly switched to the high road here, saying only nice and/or respectful stuff about Hillary, focusing his criticism on McCain, and otherwise acting the part of the party nominee without making that actual claim.

What happens next? Stay tuned.

McCain has been riding a smear against Obama for some time now, attempting to link Obama to Hamas, a terrorist organization. This started when, about a month ago, an political advisor for Hamas approved of Obama:

Hamas’ top political adviser, Ahmed Yousef, embraced the Obama campaign Sunday in an interview on WABC radio, saying, “We like Mr. Obama. We hope he will [win] the election.”

He compared the Illinois senator to President John F. Kennedy, saying he was a “great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance.”

Obama immediately rejected the unsolicited approval by that organization, denouncing Hamas and criticizing former president Carter’s meetings with them. His campaign released this statement:

Senator Obama has repeatedly rejected and denounced the actions of Hamas, a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of many innocents, that is dedicated to Israel’s destruction. As president, Obama will work with Israel to isolate terrorist groups like Hamas, target their resources, and support Israel’s right and capability to defend itself from any attack.

McCain, however, pounced on the chance to associate Obama with terrorists. On a call with conservative bloggers in late April, McCain said:

I think it’s very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas’s worst nightmare… If Senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly.

McCain continued this attack, repeating it again and again over the past two weeks. Obama responded by criticizing McCain for running a smear campaign, after McCain had repeatedly claimed his campaign would take the high road:

Yeah, this is offensive.

And I think it’s disappointing, because John McCain always says, well, I’m not going to run that kind of politics. And then to engage in that kind of, you know, smear, I think, is unfortunate, particularly since my policy towards Hamas has been no different than his.

I’ve said that they are a terrorist organization, that we should not negotiate with them unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and unless they’re willing to abide by previous accords between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And, so, for him to toss out comments like that, I think, is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination.

The McCain campaign responded to this not by defending the accusation that Obama is bad because Hamas likes him, nor by explaining how such a charge is somehow compatible with a “clean” campaign; instead, they focused on the comment by Obama that McCain had “lost his bearings.” Obama, with that remark, in the context of just having pointed out McCain’s promise not to practice “that kind of politics,” had clearly and plainly meant “losing his bearings” to mean “straying from his stated principles.” There is no parsing or equivocating here; Obama’s remarks were without any doubt whatsoever a reference to principles, and not age.

The McCain campaign, however, in the grand tradition of Republican political strategy (e.g. “inventing the Internet”), twisted the statement to be an attack on McCain’s age:

McCain senior adviser Mark Salter shot out a memo saying the ”bearings” crack was ”not a particular clever way” of making an issue of McCain’s age. Obama’s ”new brand” of politics, said Salter, was really an attack, and that ”is called hypocrisy.”

Salter said McCain was raising ”legitimate questions” about Obama’s ”judgment and preparedness” to be president. Salter said they won’t be scared off by an Obama team tactic to call ”ANY criticism on ANY issue” — Salter used capital letters — ”negative, personal attacks.”

Now, here’s where the startling bias comes in: the media is not only buying McCain’s complete and utter misrepresentation of Obama’s remark, but they are actually ignoring the complete context of the “bearings” comment. CNN, the very network where Obama first made the comment, carried this exchange:

BANDERAS: Meantime, McCain’s likely opponent, Barack Obama, made what some are calling a dig at John McCain’s age. So, will this be an issue in the general election? We’re talking now to Wendy Schiller, associate professor of political science at Brown University, also a regular guest on The [O’Reilly] Factor. Thank you so much for talking to us.

SCHILLER: Good morning.

BANDERAS: Let’s first address Obama’s comments by basically saying, or possibly bringing up the age issue by saying that McCain is losing his bearings. He has been around. He’s 71 years old. He’s been in the Senate for more than 21 years. He knows how to stand up to a guy like Obama. What do you think?

SCHILLER: Well, I think just like you said — he’s been around for a long time. And I think every time Obama says “age,” you know, McCain says “experience.” And so, it’s a risky strategy for Obama, I think, to go after McCain on his age. Also, let’s not forget: Who votes the most frequently? What’s the biggest turnout rate, highest turnout rate? People over 65 in this country. People are living longer, more active. Nobody over 70 wants to be told that they’re irrelevant. So I think on a double level, I think Obama’s taking a risk here. And I don’t know that it’s going to pay off for him.

Completely ignored the Hamas smear. Completely ignored the context of the statement. Completely misrepresented it’s plainly obvious meaning, and accepted with only the mildest of non-specific caveats the unmistakable re-imagining of its meaning.

Consider: while the statement “losing one’s bearings” can refer to losing one’s faculties, it depends completely on the context. If you are navigating a boat, and I point out that we are off course, and say you have “lost your bearings, you need to change course” can this possibly be construed as a comment on your losing your mind? The answer: only if you force that meaning into the statement, and dishonestly so.

The word “bearings” means “the direction or position of something, or the direction of movement, relative to a fixed point.” So to say one has promised to follow the principles of clean campaigning, devoid of smears, and then has resorted to smears, and so has lost one’s bearings–well, there really is no question here. None at all.

The irony is that in so lying about Obama’s statement, McCain is digging himself even deeper into a combative, smear-based low-road campaign, further violating his own pledge not to campaign dirty. And instead of noting this, the media seems happy to essentially be a mouthpiece for the McCain campaign.

Any journalist who gloms on to McCain’s intentional misinterpretation of the statement without noting the original context is dishonest and biased–whether for political leanings or for sensationalism, either way it’s dishonest and definitely not “journalism.”

Who’d have thought that Batman was a visionary?

Of course, this explains the last eight years as well. Just replace “brass band” with “propaganda news network,” and “pretty girls” with “dirty tricks & slime campaign,” and you pretty much have it right there.

Via Andrew Sullivan, an absolutely hilarious and spot-on editorial cartoon from Spain:

Pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?