Your assignment, Pensito Reviewers, is to take a quick bathroom break, grab the beverage of your choice, and then settle in and read “Loving John McCain” by Eric Alterman and George Zornick in its entirety.
Until you do, you won’t understand the media’s treatment of McCain, and the damage this love affair could do to our country if it causes us to elect another dumb, affable, incompetent, corrupt, jellyfish puppet with malevolent advisers in the shadows.
The authors first explain the startling banal reasons reporters love McCain.
Media love for John McCain manifests itself in myriad ways; sometimes it involves inventing facts, other times simply ignoring inconvenient ones
In his book Politicians, Partisans, and Parasites: My Adventures in Cable News, Tucker Carlson explains the source of many journalists’ attraction to the Arizona senator: “McCain ran an entire presidential campaign aimed primarily at journalists…To a greater degree than any candidate in thirty years, McCain offered reporters the three things they want most: total access all the time, an endless stream of amusing quotes, and vast quantities of free booze.” Ryan Lizza, reporting for The New Yorker from the current Straight Talk, notes the dichotomy of McCain’s press-friendly campaign style and that of his opponents: “The Democratic candidates rarely speak to the traveling press. McCain not only packs his bus with reporters (whom he often greets with an affectionate ‘Hello, jerks!’) but talks until the room is filled with the awkward silence of journalists with no more questions.”
…McCain flatters the press in other ways as well. For instance, he is particularly adept at embracing reporters’ romantic notions of themselves as tough-minded, hard-charging opponents of power, particularly conservative power.
Yes folks, it’s that easy to get reporters eating out of your hand. And well worth it, too.
“I don’t exactly approve of a lot of the things [Barack Obama] stands for and I’m not sure we know enough about him … He’s got some bad connections, and he may be terrorist connected for all I can tell. It sounds kind of like he may be.”
Who said this? Was it a) Tom DeLay, b) Karl Rove, c) Dick Cheney or c) a member of the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party? “So, yeah, Nation, please believe that there are some people down here in Tennessee who would like to elect progressive, smart, transformative leaders. It just seems to be a Sisyphean battle at times. But we’ll keep at it.” — Alice at 10,000 Monkeys & a Camera
Sadly, the answer is d, Fred Hobbs, who in addition to sitting on the party’s executive committee is a supporter and constituent of Rep. Lincoln Davis, a “Blue Dog” Democrat, who represents Tennessee’s 4th District, which is mostly rural and white, and which Obama lost to Hillary Clinton 23 percent to 68 percent, according to Nashville City Paper.
Hobbs made this outrageous statement when asked why Rep. Davis, who reportedly hopes (hoped?) to run for governor in 2010, had not yet endorsed Obama.
These goomers dug their hole deeper when Rep. Davis’ chief of staff Beecher Frasier was asked for a response by City Paper and said that he didn’t know for sure if Obama is “terrorist connected” but assumed he was not.
Later, the Tennessee Democratic Party issued a clarification in which it attempted to blame Hobbs’ outrageous remarks on the fact that he is so stupid he actually believed Republican smears about Obama:
“The Tennessee Democratic Party is united behind our party’s nominee, Senator Barack Obama. Mr. Hobbs is obviously misinformed, and his statement highlights the perpetual efforts of the Republican Party, especially here in Tennessee, to turn Internet smears and highly offensive gossip into their party’s message against Senator Barack Obama as we head into the general election.
Instead of debating the issues, the Tennessee Republican Party continues to rely upon slanderous and salacious tall tales. They are borrowing from the playbook first written by Richard Nixon and employed in the race against Congressman Harold Ford Jr. Tennesseans of every political persuasion are tired of these tactics.”
This was followed by a clarification from Beecher Frasier, the chief of staff for Rep. Davis:
“No one in their right mind, including me, believes Senator Obama has ties to terrorism. It is truly ridiculous for anyone to try to make hay out of these comments.”
Alice at Chattanooga-based 10,000 Monkeys & a Camera spoke for thousands of sane Tennesseans when she wrote:
Has … Fred Hobbs gone completely around the bend? I have no idea what he could have been thinking when he made comments implying that Barack Obama is “terrorist-connected,” but he’s certainly an embarrassment to our state and should resign from the committee. I wish I knew why only our state’s idiots manage to get national attention.
This controversy has been roiling for a week now, and I’m not seeing anyone attempt to contain the damage that’s being done to our state’s and party’s reputation. Hobbs has since apologized, but he won’t go away, and Lincoln Davis has been annoyingly quiet through it all — if he really wants us to elect him to lead this state, it would have been a good idea for him to get out in front of this and act like a leader.
Alice followed up with a note that Rep. Davis finally condemned Hobb’s comments — even though Davis has still not endorsed Obama!
“I have no idea what happened to the state Democratic Party’s leadership on this — they seem to be satisfied to quietly sit back and watch this performance of the Keystone Cops,” Alice wrote. “Anyway, with Democrats like these, who needs Republicans?!? We’re really going to need a lot of help come November.
“So, yeah, Nation, please believe that there are some people down here in Tennessee who would like to elect progressive, smart, transformative leaders. It just seems to be a Sisyphean battle at times. But we’ll keep at it.”
The United States and Ukraine no longer seem to be in synch,
After Trump lifted Russia sanctions with a grin and a wink.
Trump coordinated it with Putin,
Who ramped up the drone shooting,
After Trump and Elon Musk throttled Ukraine’s Starlink.
“Take, for example, the French Revolution. Remember when Marie Antoinette said, ‘Let them eat cake’? Now, is that a problem of accountability and tyranny, a corrupt government? Or is it a problem of affordability and standard of living? It’s both! Authoritarianism and tyranny are extremely expensive for the people. And it’s the exact same thing when you go down the line with Donald Trump. So, are we going to go after the corruption? Yeah, you’re damn right. And are we going to go after affordability and making people’s lives easier? Yeah, you’re damn right. We’re going to do both of them.”
“Here’s the problem with the red meat: It becomes an addiction. Once you go there and you put that out there, then you’re forced to defend it. So what do they do? They double down. They triple down again.”
— Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D), quoted by the Washington Post, on Republicans relying on anti-Muslim attacks in the Michigan U.S. Senate race.
“If it wasn’t for President Trump the United States of America would not exist right now. This man saved America. He saved our military from collapse. He saved our economy from destruction. He saved our border from annihilation. He saved our country from threats at home and abroad which would have been the end of the American dream for ever.”
— Stephen Miller, quoted by The Guardian, pledging “total devotion” to President Trump.
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats, reports Florida Phoenix. Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle. Currently, women hold about one-third of state legislative seats across the country — a record level of representation but nowhere near parity.
“Prediction markets about the 2026 midterm elections have surpassed $1.4 billion in trading volume as Election Day fast approaches,” CNN reports. “This year has seen massive growth in the prediction industry, where people can bet on real-world events like sports, entertainment and the weather. While small-scale election markets have been around for a while, they gained traction before the 2024 presidential election and have seen huge numbers for the 2026 midterms.”
G. Elliot Morris: “Low-knowledge 2024 voters say they backed Trump by 8 points, according to our poll. Today they give him a net job approval of ?27, a 35-point shift. Compare that to Trump’s approval rating among voters who got both questions right: These voters backed Harris by 1 point and now give Trump a net ?24 approval, a 23-point shift. … Low-information voters have moved against Trump at a higher rate than high-information voters, by 12 points.”
President Donald ?Trump’s approval rating fell to a record low as Americans worried about high gasoline prices and appeared ready to punish his Republican Party in the November 3 congressional elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday. Some 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s ?performance in office, down a percentage point from two weeks earlier and the lowest level in ?either of his presidential terms, the four-day poll showed.
KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”
