Here’s a fresh headline out of the New York Times:

McCain Goes Negative, Worrying Some in G.O.P.

SPARKS, Nev. — In recent days Senator John McCain has charged that Senator Barack Obama “would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign,” tarred him as “Dr. No” on energy policy and run advertisements calling him responsible for high gas prices.

The old happy warrior side of Mr. McCain has been eclipsed a bit lately by a much more aggressive, and more negative, Mr. McCain who hammers Mr. Obama repeatedly on policy differences, experience and trustworthiness.

“In recent days”? Where has this reported been? Does he publish a new story only once every three months? McCain has gone negative on Obama since day one, he was negative since before Obama won against Hillary. But he really laid into Obama since the wrap-up of the nomination, going negative immediately.

McCain started in early June by claiming Obama didn’t know squat about Iraq, challenging Obama to the Middle East trip (oops); in that attack, he accused Obama of being so wrong he’d lose the war, hand victory to Iran, and waste U.S. soldiers’ lives. Then he ripped Obama as being another Jimmy Carter. Then he accused Obama of being a serial tax-hiker who would raise everybody’s taxes. Then he seared Obama for not taking public financing. Then he faked indignation after Wes Clark spent five minutes calling McCain a hero but suggested that getting shot down is not experience which qualifies you as president, attacking the Obama campaign for “swiftboating” McCain.

And then McCain got nasty.

He linked Obama to Fidel Castro, echoing the attack that Obama was the poster boy for Hamas. He chimed in on Bush’s claim that Obama was an “appeaser,” generally blasting Obama for being clueless on foreign policy. He accused Obama of bailing on his Senate responsibilities, and of voting against funding for the troops (Obama voted for more funding more often than McCain did). He even released an attack ad when Obama used a version of the presidential seal (something a lot of Republican candidates do).

He attacked Obama two weeks ago, saying that Obama had no ideas about energy policy, calling Obama “Dr. No.” He later incredibly blamed Obama for higher gas prices, acting as if Obama’s opposition to increased offshore drilling (which McCain himself opposed just a few months back before he flip-flopped) was the reason prices are high at the pump. He accused Obama of flip-flopping on Iraq, when Obama was in fact being consistent (this just before McCain flip-flopped and adopted Obama’s plan). He accused Obama of deliberately trying to lose the Iraq War in order to win the election. He had the chance to publish a foreign policy piece in the NYT, which actually had the good judgment not to run it, as it was little more than an extended attack against Obama, and not a foreign policy piece, which had been asked for. After whining about Obama’s trip to Iraq for about a week, he then released a horrifically false ad claiming that Obama snubbed wounded soldiers because the press wasn’t around, and “went to the gym” instead (showing footage of Obama in a gym… with soldiers). And now, McCain is attacking Obama for being popular, likening him to self-centered celebrities like Britney Spears.

McCain’s ads have been getting nastier and uglier, but recent ads have been relatively negative, not contrastively. If McCain had any positive ads, it’s easy to forget as they were drowned out by all the negative ads. So, why is the NYT publishing a story that seems to suggest that McCain has only started getting negative in the past week or two?

I’m still pretty blind to media focus in some ways back in the U.S. in that if it’s not highlighted in media coverage or part of the shows I’m catching on podcast, I don’t often see it; could someone tell me, what is the general reaction to McCain’s petty whining about Obama’s trip, especially in regards to the latest series of vicious attacks claiming Obama only visits troops if there are cameras around?

It’s been made pretty clear that Obama canceled the trip because Pentagon officials told his campaign that not only were reporters and cameras unwelcome, but that no visit could be allowed if campaign staff were present, and Obama decided that the visit would just look too much like a campaign event whether cameras were present or not. It has also been made clear that Obama has made several visits to wounded soldiers without cameras (like he did quietly just a month ago, with the most recent visit being the day before in Baghdad), and that McCain has canceled similar visits for similar reasons, just as recently as April (“We follow the rules” was a good enough excuse when he did it).

And yet McCain continues to run slimy attack ads claiming that Obama only wanted to use the troops as a PR backdrop, as if he doesn’t give a damn about the troops (tell us again, McCain, about how you fought tooth and nail to kill the new G.I. bill because it was “too generous”?). This after repeatedly claiming that Obama wanted to lose the Iraq War in order to win the campaign, just one step short of calling Obama a traitor outright.

Now, we all have seen unmistakable proof that the media is actively covering for McCain, but really–how far does McCain have to go, how outrageous do his lies and attacks have to become before enough dissent filters through the media wall protecting him to make an impact on public perception?

Also, why hasn’t the media focused on the fact that McCain’s campaign has been strongly negative since day one? They usually make a big deal of such things, but not this time, for some strange reason….

And though it could be the boost from Obama’s overseas trip, maybe it could be McCain’s implosion which has caused Obama to shoot ahead in the daily tracking polls.

This is a huge flip-flop, and no amount of backpedaling by those on the right can make it not so. McCain, who has always said that Obama is near-traitorous for wanting to withdraw troops, now approves of Obama’s timeline, but tries to waffle in ways to make it seem he’s not taking on Obama’s position.

…asked why he thinks Mr. Maliki had called 16 months a pretty good timetable, Mr. McCain gave his enigmatic answer.

“He said it’s a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground,’’ Mr. McCain said. ”I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground. This success is very fragile. It’s incredibly impressive, but very fragile. So we know, those of us who have been involved in it for many years, know that if we reverse this, by setting a date for withdrawal, all of the hard-won victory can be reversed.’’

Democrats exulted, sending around the statement to reporters to suggest he was coming around to Mr. Obama’s way of thinking. The McCain campaign did not explain the timetable remark, but said that Mr. McCain’s position remained that he wants the troops to withdraw based on conditions on the ground.

There’s a lot here. First of all, we see the transparency of “time horizon” vs. “time table” or “time line,” that they are pretty much interchangeable. He focuses on Maliki, not Obama, of course–though it’s pretty interesting that just a few days ago, he claimed he knew better than Maliki what Maliki wanted, and Maliki didn’t want a withdrawal in 16 months to two years–and now McCain has completely reversed himself, not only admitting that Maliki wants that timeli–er, “time horizon,” but that McCain himself now thinks it’s “pretty good.” I guess McCain does want to lose the war in order to win the campaign, eh? And what’s with the NYT calling his answer “enigmatic”? Seems pretty clear to me.

But here’s the kicker: McCain claims that the whole difference is that his time-whatever will be based on conditions on the ground, and Obama never said he’d do that! And that makes all the difference! Got it? McCain wants to withdraw in 16 months based on conditions on the ground, but Obama is stuck tight to the timeline without adjusting for ground conditions. Obama wants to ignore conditions on the ground.

A few weeks ago, however, the RNC released a statement in which they criticized Obama for saying this:

I’ve always said that I would listen to commanders on the ground. I’ve always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed. And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.“ (Sen. Barack Obama, Press Conference, 7/3/08)

So we have Obama saying he’d pay attention to conditions on the ground just three weeks ago! Now, the RNC released that statement as a way of criticizing Obama, claiming that he’s flip-flopped, and that he had never before said he’d withdraw based upon conditions on the ground.

Except…

”The precise size of the residual force will depend on consultations with our military commanders and will depend on the circumstances on the ground, including the willingness of the Iraqi government to move toward political accommodation. But let me be clear on one thing: I will end this war, and there will be far fewer Americans in Iraq conducting a much more limited set of missions that include counterterrorism and protection of our embassy and U.S. civilians.“ [Washington Post, 3/2/08]

And:

”According to all the reports, we should have been well along our way in getting the Iraqi security forces to be more functional. We then have another 16 months after that to adjust the withdrawal and make sure that we are withdrawing from those areas, based on advice from the military officers in the field, those places where we are secured, made progress and we’re not just willy-nilly removing troops, but we’re making a determination – in this region we see some stability. We’ve had cooperation from local tribal leaders and local officials, so we can afford to remove troops here. Here, we’ve still got problems, it’s going to take a little bit longer. Maybe those are the last areas to pull out.“ [New York Times, 11/1/07]

There are more statements to that effect as well. But you get the idea.

So, in the end, we have John McCain flip-flopping on Afghanistan and Iraq, now saying he wants to do pretty much exactly what Obama has said for a long time should be the plan–even though just a few days ago, McCain claimed that this exact same Iraq policy was a recipe for losing the war and that John McCain would never do that!

Now, to sit back and watch conservatives contort themselves into pretzels to try to explain this one off.

McCain’s flub about the Surge being responsible for the Anbar Awakening was bad enough, but wait until you hear his exquisitely contorted backpedaling on why he didn’t misspeak–it’s gotta be a prize-winner, for sure.

First of all, a surge is really a counterinsurgency strategy, and it’s made up of a number of components. And this counterinsurgency was initiated to some degree by Colonel McFarland in Anbar province relatively on his own. When I visited with him in December of 2006, he had already initiated that strategy in Ramadi by going in and clearing and holding in certain places. That is a counterinsurgency. And he told me at that time that he believed that that strategy, which is, quote, the surge, part of the surge, would be successful. So then, of course, it was very clear that we needed additional troops in order to carry out this counterinsurgency.

Prior to that, they had been going into places, killing people or not killing people, and then withdrawing. And the new counterinsurgency — surge — entailed clearing and holding, which Colonel McFarland had already started doing. And then of course later on there were additional troops, and General Petraeus has said that the surge would not have worked and the Anbar Awakening would not have taken place successfully if they hadn’t had an increase in the number of troops. So I’m not sure, frankly, that people really understand that a surge is part of a counterinsurgency strategy, which means going in, clearing, holding, building a better life, providing services to the people, and then clearly a part of that, an important part of it, was additional troops to help ensure the safety of the sheikhs, to regain control of Ramadi, which was a very bloody fight, and then the surge continued to succeed, and that counterinsurgency.

Got that? The Surge™ really happened months before we ever heard of it, executed by General McFarland, who confided this secret Surge™ to John McCain personally; the “Surge™” is not a “surge” in the number of soldiers, which is what everyone, including President Bush, has been saying it was, instead it was short for “counterinSURGEncy,” which one can only suppose we WEREN’T doing until late 2006, and it was this special McCain-McFarland McSurge™ which was responsible for everything coming up McRoses™.

If that ain’t the most twisted, frakked-up, sorry-ass excuse for a cover-your-ass rationale to explain off a huge gaffe, then I don’t know what is.

Well, there was McCain just a few days ago claiming that he knew what Maliki and the Iraqis wanted better than Maliki and the Iraqis, and that their repeated statements about endorsing Obama’s withdrawal plan was just confusion as McCain knew what they really wanted, which was what McCain has been pushing for, of course. Silly Iraqis.

There is just so much wrong with McCain’s Surge™ obfuscation that it’s not funny. He claims the surge helped in Anbar, when the counterinsurgency actions he described took place primarily in Baghdad, and claims that the Surge™ was what protected the sheiks who started the Anbar Awakening, though the sheik most responsible for starting the Awakening, Abu Risha, was assassinated at the height of the Surge™ (the Surge™ we all know about, not the surge before the Surge™).

American MSM’s reaction: we’ll have to see, but I am guessing it will be the same old usual “nothing to see here!”

John McCain said that he knows, better apparently than Maliki himself, what Maliki and the Iraqis want. Forget the multiple times Maliki has said he wants almost exactly what Obama is proposing. Forget the fact that Maliki has made a few more trips to Iraq than McCain and so maybe knows a bit more about what Iraq–not to mention Maliki himself–wants. No sirree, McCain has made so many PR jaunts to Iraq, has been babysat by enough G.I.s and has done enough P.R. photoshoots with Iraqi officials that he knows what Maliki and the Iraqis want better then they do themselves.

After all, he’s the expert: he knows that there’s a very hard struggle going on along the Iraqi-Pakistan border. I believe that will be the venue of his next Middle East trip, in fact.

Meanwhile, here’s a concise summary of how the media glosses over McCain’s “expertise.” After all, the man is solid–he never flip-flops.

Americans are making less while working harder than ever, when they can find the work, that is. Bush’s tax cuts have gone mostly to the rich, and what scraps the middle and lower classes have been tossed have been wholly eaten up by other costs–just the price of gas alone has eaten up every non-gazillionaire tax cut, many times over. We’re hemorrhaging jobs, suffering from fuel-driven inflation, and Americans are hurting–bad.

So what does John McCain’s chief economic advisor have to say to Americans?

“You’re all whiners!! This isn’t a recession! You’re just imagining it!”

And sadly, that characterization is not an exaggeration:

“You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” Gramm was quoted as saying.

He goes on to say that the United States has “never been more dominant” and has “benefited greatly” from globalization.

“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “Misery sells newspapers,” [Former Senator Phil] Gramm added. “Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day.”

If Americans were just reading about it in the newspaper, then things wouldn’t be so bad. The trouble is, most Americans are living this horror show of an economy. Perhaps Gramm, living large as he is, simply has no clue as to what actual Americans experience.

Now, the question has already come up: Obama caught hell for a full month or more for saying that some Americans are “bitter.” Now McCain’s top advisor has called all Americans “whiners” who don’t know what their own economic conditions are like.

Is this far enough from McCain that the media might actually give it some air time? Somehow I doubt it. But you can be certain of the fact that if an Obama surrogate had said this, it’s be “Breaking News” 24/7 for the next week or more.

The McCain Campaign reaction?

A McCain official said: “Phil Gramm’s comments are not representative of John McCain’s views.”

Um, then you shouldn’t be hiring this guy to be McCain’s chief economic advisor then, dude.

Josh Marshall has an excellent rundown on why McCain’s promise to balance the budget is an empty sham. Short version: he has no numbers because there is no way to draw up any plan–even a fuzzy, shoddy one–that could possibly achieve what he’s promising. So instead, he’s just saying that (a) he will cut wasteful spending which he won’t currently identify save for limited examples, (b) he will magically win the war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, apparently using secret plans he will not reveal to us or even to the White House but they will work and save us money, and (c) the economy will have “reasonable growth,” apparently for no reason other than because McCain will magically imbue them with confidence despite all indicators to the contrary.

All this will happen despite the fact that McCain promises another layer of tax cuts mostly for wealthy people which will cost $3.6 trillion over the next ten years, and he promises to increase military spending.

Now, let’s see… cutting taxes significantly and mostly for wealthy people, growing the military, cutting waste, and promising to magically balance the budget… hmmm, where have I heard that before? Oh yeah! Every Republican presidential candidate for the past few generations!

And how has that worked out? Let’s see… Reagan: started massive deficits; Bush: continued massive deficits; Bush Jr.: after Democratic Clinton balanced the budget, Bush Jr. brought us back to massive deficits again. Did any of them cut waste? Not really–they tried to cut Medicare and other programs most Americans approve of and want, but certainly under the last Bush, who had the Congress doing whatever he wanted, waste exploded.

Essentially, we’ve seen exactly what these promises will bring. McCain would cut taxes, mostly for the wealthy (as he has laid out), and I don’t doubt that he’d increase military spending (as Obama probably will as well). He might even try to carry out his promise to veto pork, except that (a) there’s not nearly as much cuttable pork as he suggests (but somehow never fully identifies), and (b) Congress would probably override his vetoes anyway.

But as for balancing the budget? Forget it; the budget will simply explode even more; that’s pretty much a foregone conclusion. Even if he did everything he promised, he could never even come close to balancing. Especially if he did everything he promised, in fact. Even in McCain’s Super-Duper Magic-Pony 2013 Ultra Fantasy World™.

McCain throws a hissy-fit on his bus when a reporter has the temerity to ask him a pertinent question:

McCain bristled at the comments on "Face the Nation" last weekend by an Obama supporter, retired general Wesley Clark, who belittled the relevance of McCain’s wartime experience as a qualification for the Presidency.

"I think it’s up to Sen. Obama now not only to repudiate him but to cut him loose," McCain said.

McCain became visibly angry when I asked him to explain how his Vietnam experience prepared him for the Presidency.

"Please," he said, recoiling back in his seat in distaste at the very question.

McCain allies Sen. Lindsey Graham stepped in to rescue him. Graham expressed admiration for McCain’s stance on the treatment of detainees in US custody.

"That to me is a classic example of how his military experience helped him shape public policy in a way no other senator could have done,’’ Graham said.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, also traveling on the trip, expressed admiration for McCain’s wartime service as well.

McCain then collected himself and apologized for his initial reaction.

"I kind of reacted the way I did because I have a reluctance to talk about my experiences," he said, noting that he has huge admiration for the "heroes" who served with him in the POW camp and said the experience taught him to love the U.S. because he missed it so much.

"I am always reluctant to talk about these things," McCain said.

Um, yeah. The service he wrote his memoirs about, that he bases his campaign ads on, that he constantly makes opportunistic jokes about, and that he talks about all the time. That’s the thing he’s so “reluctant” to talk about.

Look at his campaign logo: see the military star? Even the Optima font is reminiscent of military style–it’s the font used on the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial, for example. McCain’s campaign is based upon his military service, and upon playing it up, all the way up to the hilt. This latest round of tantrums about Clark is simply the latest salvo in this long-running military campaign.

And, oh yeah, didn’t he vote for torture, in yet another of his long list of flip-flops policy “evolutions”?

I had to stop listening to the podcast for Meet the Press just now. Yes, some time ago, Barack Obama said that he would “aggressively pursue” talks with McCain to work out a system that was free of big money; the worst you could say is that he didn’t pursue it as aggressively as he suggested. That’s the worst you can honestly say about what he did. But his campaign financing is cleaner than McCain’s. Obama’s campaign is not riddled with lobbyists like McCain’s is. Obama has shut down federal lobbyists, PACs, and 527’s not only for his campaign but for his party as well, in a way that John McCain refuses to do. While he may have violated the letter of his pledge, he has more than upheld its spirit, and he has done nothing even remotely illegal–not even remotely reminiscent of corrupt.

On the other hand, as a matter of legal fact, John McCain is in direct violation of campaign finance law, on two counts. He took out a loan with public financing as collateral and then unilaterally pulled out of the system–both illegal acts. He. Broke. The. LAW. And with every dollar he spends, he continues to break the law.

And yet these yapping heads continue to rave on about how Obama is disgracing himself, and are not uttering a word about McCain’s continuing violation of the law. Instead they whine about how Obama is breaking an otherwise great system. A system that allows for millions in corporate, lobbyist, and special interest money to be spent on behalf of a candidate who is then beholden to them, spent in a way that allows them to do it anonymously and without accountability.

You want corruption? How’s this: The FEC, which is supposed to police campaign finance, has been hobbled because Bush wanted to nominate to the commission an absurdly partisan member, and the Republican Party has filibustered any other nominations until this partisan spoiler was approved; as a result, the FEC, without enough members to act, has been powerless to do anything.

Regardless of this, David Mason, the Republican chairman of the FEC, spoke out earlier this year, challenging McCain about both of his illegal acts–in essence announcing that McCain may not unilaterally withdraw from public financing and that his using public financing as collateral must be reviewed by the FEC. Now, that actually speaks well of the public financing system–that a Republican FEC chair takes his own party’s candidate to task.

However, Mason will never get that chance: Bush has fired him.

Now tell me about how public financing is not corrupt.

Obama is the clean one here. McCain is not only corrupt, he is literally and demonstrably criminal. That is not a partisan rant, not a legal theory–it is fact. So naturally, Obama is eviscerated in the media on campaign financing, while McCain is lauded.

People, I make a lot of satirical references to the “Liberal Media™” in this blog, but I mean this for real: the media is so biased in favor of McCain this election season that it is not even close to being funny. That this can happen–again–and not make a public stir is only evidence of how conventional wisdom is still dependent upon what the media is willing to accept. If the media doesn’t pick up on a story, it dies, and no amount of blogging can give it power.

In the meantime, McCain is pushing for further media consolidation, allowing fewer and fewer people to own more and more of the media–single ownership of television, radio, and newspapers in multiple markets.

Gee, I wonder why.