ZED?

When, McCain winds up talking crazy, we need to remember it’s not the Real McCain talking, but rather the Ambien (R).

Just the thing you don’t want, when he’d be the guy getting the 3 AM phone call.

Hey Pups when you get here Digg this fine Post!

often wrong but never in doubt

Obviously, McCain is using this strategery to reach out to the 28%ers that make up Bush’s base.

Yet the press treats McCain like he’s at 88%.

Good afternoon folks. I see a segment of McCain’s speech was just on CNN; says we shouldn’t be sending $700 billions to oil producing countries. He did not mention that if we follow his energy plans, 10 years from now we would be sending more than that amount to oil producing countries, since the off-shore drilling would make less of a dent in meeting demand than the increase in demand.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrinch was arguing on Fox News that since some gas stations charge to use tire pressure pumps, they make more profits on filling your tires than selling you gasoline. He just made it up, as stupid as it was, and no one on Fox even blinked. The Republicans truly do think we’re idiots.

Hey Scarecrow, thanks for the keen-eyed recap

The Republicans truly do think we’re idiots.

GOP: Grand ‘ol projection

Bomb Bomb McSame. Hee hee.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrinch was arguing on Fox News that since some gas stations charge to use tire pressure pumps, they make more profits on filling your tires than selling you gasoline. He just made it up, as stupid as it was, and no one on Fox even blinked.

I don’t have a link but recall reading in the last couple of months that most of the profits at gas stations now come from the “quik mart” deals.

A far cry from the days of old when “Service Stations” pumped the gas, checked the oil and tires, cleaned the windshield, and there was even one place where they’d ask you to step out of the car and use a whisk broom to brush out the carpet on the driver’s side. And the gas was about $.25 per gallon.

The Repubs are accustomed to dealing with idiots so they think we are just like them.

I am glad your watching this crap I don’t have the stomach for it! I mean one bullshit statement after another they really must think that our school system is so bad we can’t tell the truth from their bullshit!

If it is true that McCain won the week, as at least some of the half-wits
that are paid to bray in the Village have opined, it was a Pyhrric Victory.
I did not see his bellicose performance last week as winning. It seemed like the kind of grumpy and misinformed commentary one might expect from one of the two old men that sit in the balcony of the Muppet Show.

How does that guy retain any foreign policy legitimacy at all? He wanted to do everything that Bush did after 9/11 plus the (to date) unrequited attacks on Iran and Syria.

yeah, remember the Texaco ads, when four guys come out for full service? Or the UnionOil 76 jingles for the LA Dodgers games? I remember “gas wars” when prices were under 20 cents/gallon.

From Think Progress Mc Pain’s take on President Pervez Musharraf

Throughout Musharraf’s reign, Pakistan’s woes grew, including an abysmal economy and a growing al Qaeda, to name a few. McCain, however, stood by Pakistan’s dictator:

– Called Musharraf a “personally scrupulously honest” man who deserved “the benefit of the doubt” on uniting Pakistan. [12/29/07]

– “I continue to believe Musharraf has done a pretty good job, done a lot of the things that we wanted him to do … I would like to give Musharraf some credit for taking the measures that we asked him to do.” [12/28/07]

– “Prior to Musharraf, Pakistan was a failed state. … They had corrupt governments and they would rotate back and forth and there was corruption, and Musharraf basically restored order. [12/28/07]

I remember when oil was $32.19 / barrel, but that was January 22, 2001.
Why can’t Democrats make voters understand how bad it’s been under Bush
and how bad it will be under McCain?

and gave you glassware

Oh, and here’s Lou Dobbs complaining about teachers, arguing they should be paid for performance. If anchors were paid for intellectual honesty and jounalistic professionalism, Lou Dobbs would be on the streets.

Yeah, we’d even get the prices down to 15 or 16 cents a gallon occasionally with the gas wars. That was usually when there were three stations out of the four corners at a particular intersection. Then the price would go back up to the 25/26 cent per gallon level

The proprietor of the service station that used the whisk broom wound up posing for Chevron Regional Maps with a kid on his shoulders. Imagine! A friendly big oil station!

The Republicans know that their base is full of idiots. This is their target group. Anyone who can see through their rhetoric is not on the list of likely Republican voters and they just don’t care what you think.
oldswede

The Beltway pundits argued it was a good week for McCain, and for a couple of days, his Gallup numbers closed on Obama, but today it’s back to a 3 point Obama lead. I’m beginning to wonder if any of this stuff is really making any difference.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/109.....in-43.aspx

Strong, cool, and smart, is how Bayh comes across in that exchange. I don’t know much about Bayh and what I do know doesn’t excite me, but if he can consistently and evenly deliver like this, he could become a real asset in some greater capacity.

.

And Bill Kristol would be living in a cardboard box underneath a highway.

Watching the polls will make you crazy. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by this until after the debates.

Over time, it has to because the pundits and MSM so gleefully report any hint of good news for McCain. It becomes the narritive.

I’m expecting to see lots of videos with before/after comparisons like that throughout the Demo convention.

No, he could be a ranch hand on the Bush Brush Ranch.

liked to put that tiger in my tank.

The Pelosi Premium — it’s all marketing (the hidden persuaders)

Or beat the brush for Cheney while Cheney hunts quail

Don’t the commercials need to start now? McCain is controlling the dialog because the MSM still adores him.

If that was the case everyone would still be driving GTOs and 409s

i just spent most of my spare time today sending letters–through spotlight lists given under each post at firedoglake nad individual emails i have and through websites for ones that aren’t in spotlight or i didn’t have yet…

questions to shows for upcoming guests and auewstions why noone is mentioning self-proclaimed christian mccain’s lying in a church straight-faced to a pastor about his latest plagiarism..his ’cross’ story–this is the most offensive thing to me to date.

and why saaaaaaaaaaak(ass)vili is the newest correspondent on national tv. is he pulling a salary? is it commentary?where’s his counter-point commenter?

bonus question for larry king to ask pastor rick tonight—he made it sound as if obama and mccain had a coin toss to see who would go first–how can that be if mccain didn’t arrive until after obama’s segment had started? i won’t even get started about the ’cone of silence’….

I still have some Shell steak knives…

that could be his karmic destiny ya know

Obama statement from a fundraiser in California today:

“I don’t need to convince this room of the nature of the changes that are needed. … We’ve got an economy that is not working,” an energy policy that is “killing the budgets of American families” and “a foreign policy that has been based on bluster and bombast.”
“We are going to go out there and run the best presidential campaign that you have seen. …We are going to win this election.

I have to agree — this is impressive stuff from an unexpected source.

Great post, Scarecrow.

*sigh”
altho, srsly, don’t take your driver’s license test in a GTO, you’ll just knock down all the pylons, just busting the troopers gut. He won’t pass you.

And Thomas Friedman would be sentenced to at least one Friedman Unit in said box.

and today was a record, maybe 600. i lost count.
and if each one of you would just send ONE letter to someone in the media about any of this mccain crappola, it would make my day.

bomb larry king, lots of people are going to be watching pastor rick tonight.

every morning i make a few phone calls and send off a few letters to media. but today, well, mccain deserved my special attention today.

sh!t, i forgot freidman, how could i forget him…….remembered broder though.

Hear, hear. I think the spotlight tool is also very handy for moving our messages to the media. Having the e-mails of dozens of journalists built in is very helpful. You can send a post to 10 journalists in just a couple of minutes.

It’s a good thing Obama won the coin toss. Had McCain won, there would have been an awkward few minutes waiting to start.

I really don’t want to be disagreeable but I think that the Democrats suffer from a case of TDS - too damn sophisticated.

Please Mr. Bayh, just say it plain. “That’s what we need in difficult times.” “Difficult times?” - Saying these are difficult times is soft selling just how screwed up things really are.

The Obama people don’t have to convince me, they have to convince the folks who are so terribly under informed that they would even consider four more years of McSame. Does anyone really think these people can be reached with phrases like “difficult times”? Why not say this instead “in these times that are less than perfect”. For the love of God - what a bore.

OK, Stop already. Don’t try to convince me - go after the fence sitters. Using senatorial language like that ain’t going to do it.

Say it short. Say it direct. Say it often.

Listening to NPR is maddening! They give McSame coverage with extended comments and generally treat him as the heir apparent. Mara Liasson gives commentary in her generally right leanning fashion. Same old same old. Anyone that gives 1 cent to NPR is throwing their hard earned money down the drain and into Republican pockets.

i took mine in a carman ghia and stalled at every stop sign, then jerked the trooper into a neck brace accelerating. parked just fine. he passed me.i couldn’t believe it–he was the old grouch who failed everyone.

tiger in your tank remark–and my brother’s youth baseball team was the ‘tigers’ and the rival team would yell “put a tiger in your tank-meow meow!” just made them so mad that they crushed them.lol

ROFL

I thought Obama was pretty succinct on a radio show today. He called those who were smearing him on the partial birth issue as liers.

The pundits, newsreaders, editors et al of the corporate media have a vested interest in preserving the status quo, their celebrityhood and their fat paychecks. Of course they want McCain. When Obama wins I hope his first move is to freeze out the conventional corporate MSM gasbags. Matthews, Gibson, Stephanopolus, Schieffer, Williams, Hume, et al really need to find new careers or retire to their gated communities.

You have a point. I see this played out on the “balanced pair” discussions on CNN, MSNBC, PBS. You have a Republican attack dog pulling no punches in slamming Obama and then we get a “Democratic strategist” trying to be “fair and reasonable.”

I don’t have a strong preference for/against any particular Obama VP pick except I hope he picks someone who’s a tough campaigner who won’t hold back on blasting the Republicans for the last 8 years, and i don’t really care about the VP’s prior ideology.

In the name of sanity, when are the Democrats finally going stomp the heart of the successful-surge lie? Bayh let it slide unchallenged. They’ve got to stop doing that.

wow!!!!!!!

mark this day down–mccafferty and wolf are attacking the integrity of the forum AT LENGTH, specifics, quotes from mccain..actually said did pastor rick mislead the american public!!!!!..candy crowley kissing someone’s butt offscreen-wonder who?

this clip is worth finding on cnn.com, glad i taped it, they are continuing after the break about vp’s.

i hit cnn hard today–spotlighted, with different letters to different people, and hit their website and snet more to the individual shows.

i mentioned earlier that is is helpful to include a ‘rival’ in the group of ten on spotlight., –don’t know if spotlight shows the group sent to, if they do, they’ll see it.

It’s pretty easy to smack back the gimmes from McCain, so let’s strike back

In the name of sanity, when are the Democrats finally going stomp the heart of the successful-surge lie? Bayh let it slide unchallenged. They’ve got to stop doing that.

As I have often said, the surge was a great success, except for the success part.

I agree on the surge, but I think it’s very difficult to argue the point if you only talk about Iraq. I’ve suggested that McCains vulnerabilty wrt the surge relates to what it meant for what we didn’t/couldn’t do here, or in Afghanistan/Pakistan, or . . . our inability to respond if something unexpected somewhere else. The surge decision had an opportunity cost, and we’re paying that everywhere else, but I never see the media making this connection.

she’s listed in the spotlight list a couple of places–fox news and npr.write her a little love letter.

You are correct Mike, this time. But if you look at the usual, general tenor of Democratic responses and statements they are sorely lacking in the visceral sense.

As I said - the undecided who will give McSame a second listening to is not keying in on wordsmithing, that voter was convinced a few months ago. If a candidate or his/her representative is so intent on demonstrating verbal superiority as opposed to getting to the friggin’ point, then that candidate doesn’t deserve the vote. The voters want to hear a message and they want it to be direct. They don’t want to sit around and dissect sentences. They aren’t voting for class president they are voting on someone who will roll up his or her sleeves and go out hunting for some butt to kick.

The voters in this country want butt kicked and they want it kicked hard, now, and often.

Thank you. And God Bless America.

BTW Andrea Mitchell and NBC are saying that Obama is going to pick Biden for VP. Yes, I know, add your own caveats.

More please — I just switched channels.

Maybe Biden will give us a new line on McCain: “A noun, a verb, and an POW story”

And I only caught a few seconds of it but on NPR there was a report Cindy’s dad apparently had another child (outside of his marriage?) that Cindy cut off cold at his death. As I said, only caught a couple of seconds so I don’t have the whole story.

thanks–i wish it would do more than 10, and that you had an option to go back to the opening page with the media list you’re working on. having to constantly reload it is a pain.

Maybe Biden will give us a new line on McCain: “A noun, a verb, and an POW story”

I think POWs are deserving of a great deal of respect and I hate seeing McCain using it as fairy dust to protect him from corruption charges, dubious dealings, lobbyists’ influence, and to confer on him omniscience in foreign affairs no matter how bellicose and wrong his record.

ummm, his conciseness in his answers, his saying during the forum he wasn’t listening through the wall, when he wasn’t even there, crowley said pastor probably had no way of knowing mccain wasn’t there yet–pooh poohed–about mccain bringing up his first marriage, lots–was half-listening, let me rewind, or find the link…..bback.

Of the three on the supposed short list (Bayh, Biden, and Kane), I think Biden would be the best pick. (But there are lots of others not on that list, whom I’d prefer to him.)

This “War Hero” shit is forty years ago. Mc Pain should be held accountable for the cover ups and such while he was a Senator… They went after Randy Cuningham for corruption didn’t they???.. Pixie dust my ass call it like it is he is nothing but a lobbyist’s shill who protects the good ole’ boys.

Yes please on Biden.

And I’m happy to have Evan Bayh continue his Obama surrogacy, although I too would like him to be more direct and less complex: these aren’t “difficult times,” times are hard. McCain’s isn’t “bellicose rhetoric,” he’s a warmonger.

But not on the ticket, please.

Bayh, I read elsewhere, also cleverly turned Pawlenty’s attack on Obama about the Surge back on him by saying, “But Tim, you opposed the Surge, too! I read about it in your hometown paper.” Got him spluttering, I saw.

But not on the ticket, please. (Bears repeating)

First marriage, cut out of the will (practically) and unacknowledged when Cindy calls herself “an only child:” here

Just judging ONLY on who would be a good kick ass campaigner, I’d put Clinton, Wes Clarke and then Biden on the list; lower on that scale would be Richardson, Bayh, Kaine. If the criterion were who would be best at hitting the economic issues, it would be Clinton. Interesting dilemmas.

Re that NPR story:

Documents show Kathleen Anne Hensley was born to Jim and Mary Jeanne Hensley on Feb. 23, 1943. They had been married for six years when Kathleen was born.

Jim Hensley was a bombardier on a B-17, flying over Europe during World War II.

He was injured and sent to a facility in West Virginia to recuperate. During that time, while still married to Mary Jeanne, Hensley met another woman — Marguerite Smith. Jim divorced Mary Jeanne and married Marguerite in 1945.

Cindy Lou Hensley was born nine years later, in 1954.

Jim Hensley also provided credit cards and college tuition for his grandchildren, as well as $10,000 gifts to Kathleen and her husband, Stanley Portalski. That lasted a decade, they say. By then, Jim Hensley had built Hensley and Co. into one of the largest beer distributorships in the country. He was worth tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.

When Hensley died in 2000, his will named not only Portalski but also a daughter of his wife Marguerite from her earlier marriage. So, Cindy McCain may be the only product of Jim and Marguerite’s marriage, but she is not the only child of either.

She was, however, the sole inheritor of his considerable estate.

Kathleen Portalski was left $10,000, and her children were left nothing. It’s a fact Nicholas Portalski says his sister discovered the hard way.

“What she found in town — on the day of or the day before or the day after his funeral — was that the credit card didn’t work anymore,” Nick says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/s.....d=93708729

That Cindy the soul of generosity I tell you. She couldn’t even pry loose one or two of those millions for her half sister. It brings a tear to my eye it does. Oh and her dad being a flier and dumping wife one in a war for wife number 2. Can you say deja vu? Or Freud?

Yeah, that’s a laugh. I was watching in the gym with the sound turned off. Didn’t need it, as his take is so predictable. My internal response: what the f*ck have you ever done that takes work. Your nothing but a talking head — a lip syncher. These guys all think the rest of us deserve to be nothing but valets to their town and country houses.

Cindy must be attracted to those men who cheat - just like dear old dad. They are all disgusting. Not a REAL person among them.

“Often wrong, but never in doubt.” What Prez does that sound like? LOL

I thought Tim Kaine did a pretty decent job on MTP yesterday, too, particularly when he responded to some comments by Karl Rove.

I think putting Kaine on the ticket would confuse the very low information voter; Obama/Kaine rhymes with McCain.

From Democratic Underground Philip Butler on John Mc Pain as a POW:

John was offered, and refused, “early release.” Many of us were given this offer. It meant speaking out against your country and lying about your treatment to the press. You had to “admit” that the U.S. was criminal and that our treatment was “lenient and humane.” So I, like numerous others, refused the offer. This was obviously something none of us could accept. Besides, we were bound by our service regulations, Geneva Conventions and loyalties to refuse early release until all the POW’s were released, with the sick and wounded going first.

Read the whole post here

Hugh @ 71,

Yep…guess daddy couldn’t say much when ol’ John came a callin’.

Fascinating. How much is under other rocks?

For that think McSAme is gaining in the polls…not according to the CNN combined four polls http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/ Obama 47% McCain 41%
Please update what is a later fugure?

Jim Webb needs to stand up and speak out about McCain’s appropriation of his GI Bill of Rights. As happy as I am that it passed and AWOL signed it into law, I also wish it was still an issue for this fall’s campaign. Now, the GOPs just lie about having supported it, and no one answers their lies.

bigbro — looks like some of the polls in that CNN average were done before most of the Georgia story. I was interested in whether the Georgia = good week for McCain was having any lasting effect, and so far it doesn’t seem so.

Oh yes, the air pumps at a gas station are used 1,000 times a day which makes it soooooooooooooooo profitable.

Faux Spew knows it can get away with pulling facts out of it’s ass because their viewers are the same way. None of them know what’s really going on day to day and if they do know, they’ll say, “Damn liberals! They’re lying!”.

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/situation.room/
page for clips and transcripts for the situation room

here’s the gist of it….

with typos.

6:30

opening reporter–clips
who would they consult
obama-personal-wife

mccain-on message, campaign.
petraeus

obama hesitant on moral failure answer.

mccain to the point.
first marriage.
===
cilizza–mccain, rigid, stump lines

obama won’t approach debates the smae as the forum.
===

friendlier audience to mccain.
==
candy
jack
’steve hayes weekly standard

jack–too thoughtful? overshadowed by cont of cone of silence-serious questions raised-mccain said i was trying to listen through the wall, what wall? he was in a car….controversy and credibility of the entire event has suffered

wolf-anger on the left steve–whether pastor misled the entire audience that mccain wouldn’t have an advantage–
steve-there is no actual evidence that he did actually–that the ‘lliteral’sealed cone of silence that he was surrounded by secret service, he was surrounded by his staff you take him at his word…

candy–warren said mccain was in a room where he couldn’t hear, can’t imagine don’t believe that warren lied again we don’t have proof that mccain heard anything–blogs, blah blah, because he knew all the questions, i talked to them told them the sorts of questions….if he did hear we will know, someone will tell us…..

the three debates–different styles, foreshadowed by the forum..
jack–but again we don’t know if someone had an unfair advantage advantage–crisp quick and to the point on the other hand, left wanting more, moral failure first marriage, tell us what you mean!

obama/hill both seemed to look inside themselves and how they relate to things….mccain, too pat, why a moral failure?

steve–mccain military family etc.,not open, remarkable he opened that much…

mccain won the night, virtually everyone agrees…….obama’s team telling people concerned mccain heard answers….does him a disservice….

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRA.....troom.html
transcripts page, this segment not up yet.

Now, the GOPs just lie about having supported it, and no one answers their lies.

This has been the case for many years. That’s why Media reform should be one of the top issues of our time IMO.

I wonder if a movement could be started to have people cancel their cable/dish service and/or newspaper and magazine subscriptions, and then use that money to support your favorite New Media outlets like FDL. Sure, a bunch of people will say, “I can’t live without my People Magazine or my ESPN!!” but we’re going to need some massive changes in behaviour to loosen the grip that Conglomerate Media has on our national discourse.

My local paper goes for about $20/month (don’t have it), and what does cable go for nowadaze, $50/mo? (don’t have that either). Imagine what FDL could do with a couple thousand people donating $10, $20, or more each month. And most people would have a bunch of money left to give to Blue America. Win-win all around!

Seems like this is one of the few ways we’ll be able to make Ruturd Murdoch shake in his $1,000 loafers.

I’d pretty much written Bayh off as another pretty boy politician lacking any substance. But maybe I was wrong. If Obama can tell him, “Sic’em” and get him to go after McLame like this, maybe that would be good. However, his voting record is pretty lame. Progressive Punch rates him 44th, which is down in Blue Dog territory. In fact, only two Senate Democrats rate lower than Bayh.

Bob in HI

“Often wrong, but never in doubt.” What Prez does that sound like? LOL

Nearly all of them?

Thanks for that link, Bob. Good stuff.

I agree. Cool-headed, circumspect-in-a-sage-way Obama v. bellicose, pitbull-headed, emotionally unstable, nuke-happy McCain is an excellant frame. I wish Obama’s camp would pitch that frame to the max, and there’s plenty of footage that backs this up (re: McCain singing bomb, bomb Iran, etc.)