Month: October 2008

Palin: “Let’s Not Talk About the Past” Unless It’s Obama’s

Trish

During her debate with Sen. Joseph Biden, Gov. Sarah Palin took an interesting stance: she claimed that any mention of Sen. John McCain’s record, particularly of supporting the Bush administration, was off topic, since the debate should be about the future.

Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future.

Since then, both she and the McCain campaign seem to have had a change of heart. All they want to talk about is the past. More specifically, doggone it, their twisted, out of context version of Sen. Barack Obama’s past.

  • John McCain’s campaign released a new ad Monday that targets year-old comments from Barack Obama about the conflict in Afghanistan, calling them flat out “dishonorable.”
    Palin: “Say it ain’t so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. Now doggone it, let’s look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future.”

    …The ad refers to an answer Obama gave at an August 2007 town hall meeting with New Hampshire voters, during which the Illinois senator was asked whether he had plans to shift U.S. troops out of Iraq to other terrorist hotspots like Afghanistan.

    “We’ve got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there,” Obama said of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

    Those comments were immediately seized by GOP critics. The Republican National Committee sent out a press release shortly after the remarks calling them “offensive,” and demanding he apologize. The McCain campaign has also highlighted the comments several times this campaign season. An AP Fact Check later reported Western forces had been killing civilians at a higher rate than insurgents.

    • […]

Poll: Palin Pushed Undecideds to Obama

Buck Banks

Sarah Palin’s performance in the vice presidential debate did have an affect on undecided voters — just not the one the McCain campaign had expected or hoped for. The McClatchy/Ipsos poll found:

If they had to vote immediately after watching the debate between Republican Palin and the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, 52 percent of the 456 undecided voters who were surveyed would vote the Obama/Biden ticket, the poll found.

It also found that Palin’s performance in the debate did nothing to clinch undecided votes for her running mate, Arizona Sen. John McCain. Before the debate, those same undecided voters were leaning 56 percent to 44 percent for McCain. The day after the debate, the numbers tilted 52 percent to 48 percent for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Keating Economics Exposes McCain’s Role in Deregulation

Trish

This is the Obama mini-documentary about the Keating Five scandal, also available at KeatingEconomics.com.

The film is 13 minutes, and my first reaction was, “Couldn’t you make it shorter?” but as usual, the Obama folks are smarter than me. I think the 13-minute length will create its own novelty, and I know the subject deserves two hours on the networks (fat chance) so what the heck.

If you aren’t up to speed on what happened when McCain improperly pressured to deregulate the financial services industry back then, surely you know what the results of his efforts are today. When you consider how much damage this guy has done just being a senator, you have to shudder about what kind of messes he could get us into as president.

McCain Seven Months Ago: We ‘Don’t Need Any Impugning of Character, Integrity’ in Campaign

Jon Ponder

In March 2008, John McCain said:
“Throughout his life John McCain has held himself to the highest standards and he will continue to run a respectful campaign based on the issues.”
— McCain campaign manager Rick Davis in March

I can’t prevent or control rhetoric that people use — that are members of my party. But I have been very, very clear that we need a respectful campaign and the American people want it. We certainly don’t need any impugning of character, integrity or anything else in this campaign. So I again urge Republicans and anybody else, to just — let’s show respect and make Americans proud of this campaign … frankly, it will enhance our chance of winning if people say, “look, those people are running a respectful campaign.”

McCain was reacting to spurious attacks launched by his supporters against Barack Obama, including one from Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King, who said Islamic terrorists would be “dancing in the street” if Obama were elected.

McCain’s statement came days after his campaign manager, Rick Davis, sent out a memo calling on supporters to “follow John’s lead and run a respectful campaign focused on the issues.” Davis also wrote:

Overheated rhetoric and personal attacks on our opponents distract from the big differences between John McCain’s vision for the future of our nation and the Democrats. This campaign is about John McCain: his vision, leadership, experience, courage, service to his country and ability to lead as commander in chief from day one. Throughout his life John McCain has held himself to the highest standards and he will continue to run a respectful campaign based on the issues. We expect that all supporters, surrogates and staff will hold themselves to similarly high standards when they are representing the campaign.

The noble maverickistic John McCain — if he ever existed — has apparently now been supplanted by a snarky, snarling double-talking misinformer, who will do or say anything to get elected.

Sourcing: Quotes from McCain and Davis can be found on the Fox News website.

AP Calls Palin ‘Palling with Terrorists’ Attack ‘Racially Tinged’ – Obama Lobs Counter-Attack with Keating 5 Documentary

Jon Ponder

Over the weekend, GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin, the self-described attack dog in lipstick, began what she and McCain have referred to as “taking the gloves off” — which is apparently Republican-speak for “telling even bigger lies” — with an attack on Barack Obama’s superficial association with 1960s radical, William Ayers:
Obama was only eight years old when Ayers used violence to protest the war in Iraq, but when John McCain entangled himself in the Keating Five scandal he was 58.

“Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

The Associated Press, which got a lot of press over the summer for the promotion of Ron Fournier, an apparent fellow traveler with Karl Rove, to head its DC bureau, released an analysis written by Douglass K. Daniel on Sunday that suggested that the Palin attack was “unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.” Daniel’s rationale goes like this:

Palin’s words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee “palling around” with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn’t see their America?

In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers’ day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as “not like us” is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.

Sean Hannity has been beating this tired drum for months. There simply is no “there” there. (We published an overview of Obama’s dealings with Ayers in March.) Obama said this about Ayers in a Democratic debate:

[…]

Sykes: Don’t Blame Gays for Your Marriage Being Effed Up

Trish

Florida has a ridiculous proposition on its ballot this November, amending our state constitution to bar gay marriage. Since gay marriage is already illegal by statute in the Sunshine State, one might wonder about the purpose of introducing a constitutional amendment. Most people surmise that the initiative was intended to turn out the base, a previously no-fail tactic to manipulate support from the far right and ensure an enthusiastic wingnut presence at the polls on election day.

Wanda Sykes cuts to the chase on gay marriage: “Government shouldn’t be involved in this because it’s very simple. If you don’t believe in same-sex marriage, then don’t marry someone of the same sex.”

What can we add to that? Just a warning that this video gets a little graphic at the very end.

H/T to Jacksonville Confidential

Facts Were the First Victims at the Debate

Buck Banks

According to the Associated Press, neither veep candidate showed much reluctance to stretch the truth in last night’s debate:

PALIN: Said of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama: “94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction.”

THE FACTS: The dubious count includes repetitive votes as well as votes to cut taxes for the middle class while raising them on the rich. An analysis by factcheck.org found that 23 of the votes were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all, seven were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, 11 would have increased taxes on only those making more than $1 million a year.

BIDEN: Complained about “economic policies of the last eight years” that led to “excessive deregulation.”

THE FACTS: Biden voted for 1999 deregulation that liberal groups are blaming for part of the financial crisis today. The law allowed Wall Street investment banks to create the kind of mortgage-related securities at the core of the problem now. The law was widely backed by Republicans as well as by Democratic President Clinton, who argues it has stopped the crisis today from being worse.

PALIN: “Two years ago, remember, it was John McCain who pushed so hard with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform measures. He sounded that warning bell.”

THE FACTS: Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska led an effort in 2005 to tighten regulation on the mortgage underwriters — McCain joined as a co-sponsor a year later. The legislation was never taken up by the full Senate, then under Republican control.

BIDEN: Warned that Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s $5,000 tax credit to help families buy health coverage “will go straight to the insurance company.”

THE FACTS: Of course it would, because it’s meant to pay for insurance. That was like saying money for a car loan will go straight to the car dealer.

PALIN: Claimed she has taken on the oil industry as Alaska governor.

THE FACTS: Palin pushed to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies and distributed the proceeds to the state’s citizens to offset rising energy costs. However, she has also sided with the industry on a number of issues. She sued the Interior Department over its designation of polar bears as an endangered species. That puts her on the same side as the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s chief trade association. She also supports the industry’s desire to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — a position at odds with McCain.

BIDEN: Said McCain supports tax breaks for oil companies, and “wants to give them another $4 billion tax cut.”

THE FACTS: Biden is repeating a favorite saw of the Obama campaign, and it’s misleading. McCain supports a cut in income taxes for all corporations, and doesn’t single out any one industry for that benefit.

PALIN: Said the United States has reduced its troop level in Iraq to a number below where it was when the troop increase began in early 2007.

THE FACTS: Not correct. The Pentagon says there are currently 152,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, about 17,000 more than there were before the 2007 military buildup began.

P. Diddy’s Wasilla Witch Project

Trish

Diddy does it again, with what we might call the Wasilla Witch Project (except Sarah Palin really does believe in witches). Puff Daddy has declared a state of emergency, because Monday, Oct. 6 is the deadline to register to vote.

Puffy recommends these sites to register, if you haven’t yet:

Listen to Diddy, boys and girls.

Register.

Then vote.

For Obama.