Scarecrow

Senator Clinton hopes to portray Obama as condescending towards rural voters who care about guns and God, but Republicans are probably more concerned about what Obama could do if he pursued the notion that the Republicans have conned Americans into voting against their interests. Anyone with his political skills to educate voters on how this happened could convince them they don't have to accept it for four more years.

Four stories yesterday illustrate the pervasive dishonesty of the Bush/Cheney regime. Apparently there is no subject on which the President can be honest with the American people, even when he's talking to US soldiers and their families.

John McCain's supporters are working hard to make sure the media explain what McCain meant about his willingness to leave US troops in Iraq for 100 years, but the more McCain and his supporters interpret his words, the more muddle headed McCain sounds. McCain thinks the US in Iraq can become like the US in South Korea, but the more apt comparison is Israel's 60 year war with Palestine.

In 1986, Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner committed an error at a crucial moment in a World Series game that became a symbol of the notion that there are just some things for which one can never atone. A squirting ground ball slithered underneath Buckner's mitt as the winning run scampered home, ensuring a World Series loss for the long accursed Red Sox.

This week the media will focus on the Congressional appearance of Ambassador Crocker of General Petraeus as though the nation's security interests hinged on what they have to say. They do not. Our security interests have already been set in concrete by the Bush regime's strategic blunders. All Crocker and Petraeus can do is to spin the Basra fighting as "at least our side didn't completely lose."

How do you know when an Administration has utterly failed and driven the country into a ditch? Just ask the American people, who say they're more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s.

In responding to journalism expert Jay Rosen, Digby discusses what we might call the "media problem." Democrats aren't just running against the Republicans; they running against a media framing of the parties and especially John McCain that could put McCain in the White House.

The White House today announced prior to his leaving for his victory tour of NATO, the President issued a signing statement announcing that he was not bound by the Constitution's term limits and that, as a result of overwhelming public demand, he would seek a third term as President.

Two contrasting stories on CBS' 60 Minutes illustrated for the hundredth time why selecting the right person for President matters. In 2000, the American people made the right choice in voting for Al Gore over George Bush, but five conservative justices of the Surpreme Court overruled the people and instead installed perhaps the most lawless regime in American history.

Obama's economic speech yesterday was not the usual campaign stump piece but instead a serious policy address, delivered [near] the heart of New York's financial district. It included an historical overview of the role of government in the economy, the rationale for economic regulation, where it got off the track and what we need to do to fix it.