The racist and xenophobic bile that has flowed from the right-wing Republican base and spokesmouths like Rush Limbaugh has been unprecedented in this campaign season, and it was easy to predict that the moment Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama that he was no longer a war hero and brilliant diplomat but just another uppity Negro. If the hate-mongering of these people was not so destructive, the knots into which they tie themselves would be amusing. They slavishly support an immoral war fostered by...

(1.) The Republicans continue to confuse talk radio with reality. (2.) Barack Obama has raised an astounding $604 million to date. The bellyaching of John McCain over this record amount is sheer jealousy, while his allegation that raising huge amounts of dough is a recipe for scandal is laughable since the average Obama donation is under $100. (3.) Did the smarties running McCain’s campaign ever contemplate that Obama’s fundraising dominance would be so complete that he would be able...

It would be nice to say that while Bruce Cockburn is best known for his socially conscious songs, he also is a great guitarist. But unless you dwell at the left end of things — whether it be politics or the FM radio dial — it is unlikely that you’ve ever heard of the Canadian singer-songwriter. That is a damned shame because there is not merely a currency to Cockburn’s songs but a wonderful poetic depth, such as in these lyrics from “Pacing the Cage”: Sunset...

While you can be quite sure that as the memory fades this special moment will be nothing more than a pimple on the ass of history, but isn’t it extraordinary that a woman who declares that she is ready to be vice president can’t meet the press but can do a star turn on “Saturday Night Live”? Yes it is extraordinary, but merely symptomatic of a train-wreck of a campaign that is measured more in grimaces and red-meat speechifying than position papers. As it is, Sarah Palin’s...

With the clock running out on the 2008 presidential race and John McCain sinking like a stone, the excuses for why his campaign has come a cropper are flying fast and furious. I’ve been collecting them over at Kiko’s House in a daily feature titled “McCain-Palin Trainwreck Excuse du Jour.” Here are synopses and links to the first seven entries: Sarah Palin can’t be controlled. Leading Republicans are turning on him. Obama is getting off easy because he’s black. His...

I am a great believer in making one’s own luck, but at this point John McCain can’t catch a break. His invocation during the debate of Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher was a winner, but Joe promptly threw a wet blanket over that modest coup in telling CBS News that Barack Obama’s response to a question that he had posed about the economy had left him feeling uneasy: “I’ve always wanted to ask one of these guys a question and really corner them and get them...

Save for his concession speech 19 days from now, the third and final presidential debate was probably the last time a goodly number of voters could see John McCain in action. It was a splendid opportunity for him to go out with a bang and to make the argument that he would make a better president during a depression, which is certainly where the U.S. seems to be headed. While McCain did score some belated points on the economy and occasionally had Barack Obama on the defensive, he failed miserably...

A story by a Scranton Times-Tribune reporter that someone shouted “kill him!” about Barack Obama at a Sarah Palin rally in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Tuesday is now in doubt. The rival Wilkes-Barre Times Leader now reports that not a single person interviewed by the Secret Service heard the outburst. More here.

My father and mother were the blackest white people whom I have ever known. What I mean by that is that not only were some of their best friends Negroes, to use the painfully archaic cliche of their day, they talked the talk and they walked the walk as civil-rights activists. But despite being optimistic about most things they were unable to imagine the day that a black person could become president of the United States. Joe and Jane Mullen were never denied a hotel room or turned away at a lunch...

It was only two days ago that Joe Biden, with an assist from Bill and Hillary Clinton, appeared at a campaign rally at the Riverfront Sports Complex in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but the atmosphere could not be more different when it was Sarah Palin’s turn today: “Chris Hackett addressed the increasingly feisty crowd as they await the arrival of Gov. Palin. “Each time the Republican candidate for the seat in the 10th Congressional District mentioned Barack Obama the crowd booed loudly. “One...

A fog of pathos has settled over the McCain-Palin campaign. While the Sarahcudda continues feeding red meat to the dwindling audiences at campaign rallies, which is the only thing she has been adept at, the Big Guy keeps peeing all over those $525 Italian loafers. The Bill Ayers “controversy” is a window through the fog into McCain’s state of mind. Whenever he has met Obama face to face in recent weeks, he inevitably fails to call him out on his own campaign’s attack ad memes...

With the election looking for all the world like a Barack Obama win, would there be any hint of complacency when Joe and Jill Biden and Bill and Hillary Clinton took the stage at a rally in the Coal Country of Pennsylvania over the weekend? I stayed glued to the teevee for the entire event, nicely-planned to end before the day’s most important happening, the Eagles-49ers game, to try to suss out whether smugness and self satisfaction were in the house. They were not. In fact, the quartet on...

Is John McCain “walking it back” in his campaign’s attacks on Barack Obama? Will his remonstrations to the pitchfork brigade to chill-out continue? Do he and Sarah Palin disagree on tactics? Is he abandoning the low road? Is he trying to go out on a positive note? Which McCain will be on the stump from here on out? Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde? As far as turning around the most ethically challenged and ineptly run presidential campaign in recent memory is concerned, it hardly matters. The...

Some people seemed genuinely shocked that the world’s most famous hockey mom has joined Santa Claus and Mike Schmidt, among other celebs, in being roundly-booed by Philadelphia sports fans. Despite pleas from the scoreboard at the Bailout . . . er, Wachovia Center for fans to make nice, they predictably showed the back of their hands to Sarah Palin, and would have mooned her if they could have gotten away with it, when the vice presidential wannabe was introduced and helped drop the first...

1281: Chinese throw gunpowder bombs at charging Japanese Chinese claims that they were responsible for hundreds of mankind’s most familiar inventions — including explosives, printing, the compass, hydraulics, ceramics, suspension bridges and even toilet paper — were long viewed with skepticism by Westerners who were smugly certain that these ancient people were incapable of such advanced innovations. That was until Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham came along. The story of...

Yes, there are three and a half weeks to go until Election Day, but the news that Sarah Palin violated ethics laws and abused her power as Alaska governor has the air of a coda. It is not merely further confirmation that John McCain’s running mate is a venal incompetent and pathological liar, but that her time on the national stage should be fittingly short. As political scandals go, Troopergate is small beer. And just another instance of Palin, with a big assist from the thuggish First Dude,...

The calls for John McCain and Sarah Palin to speak out over the unhinged behavior of their campaign rally audiences are increasing, but the candidates themselves — who are directly responsible for this troubling trend — are still AWOL on the issue. Writes Jonathan Martin at The Politico: “The unmistakable momentum behind Barack Obama’s campaign, combined with worry that John McCain is not doing enough to stop it, is ratcheting up fears and frustrations among conservatives. “And...

This is a post that I write with especial care because I understand that we are all complex beings, as well as knowing that a lifetime of achievement and celebrity is no bar to weaknesses and venality. In fact, I dare you to name a single famous person who did not have foibles, if not a dark side. Then there is John McCain, a man whom I once considered voting for until his own frailties, to put it most kindly, became too big and too numerous to ignore: * A miserable record as Naval Academy midshipman...

With even many sycophants in the right-of-center punditocracy saying that the McCain-Palin ticket is toast, it was with more than the usual amount of interest that I waited for what the campaign promised would be a major announcement this morning. The major announcement: A 90-second Internet commercial beating the Bill Ayers-Barack Obama dead horse a few more times. With millions of Americans feeling like they’re being beaten, this is the best the campaign could come up with? Puh-thetic. ...

There is little question that the presidential race will tighten as Election Day approaches. It always does. But absent an apocalyptic event, Barack Obama will cruise across the finish line ahead of John McCain in the most important election since Franklin Roosevelt beat Herbert Hoover in the depths of the Great Depression. I do not make that cross-generational comparison lightly because in 1932 things were sucky in a way that none of us — excepting a precious few long-lived grandmothers and...

To say that tensions are extremely high on the Republican stump with the race slipping away is an understatement. That the hardest of the hard core are crawling out of the woodwork probably was inevitable. But there has been some pretty ugly acting out, as reported here and here, because of the way that John McCain and Sarah Palin have been baiting campaign rally audiences, and the Secret Service is now on the case. Writes Ta-Nehisi Coates: “I don’t hold McCain or Palin accountable for...

With Barack Obama finally breaking 50 percent in national public-opinion polls and John McCain sinking like a stone, the town hall face-off in Nashville last night was the Democrat’s to lose, but the feeling persisted throughout the 90 minutes (which felt more like 900) that both men understand that fixing what ails the economy is bigger than either of them. With financial markets having a nervous breakdown, the Crew Without a Clue madly rearranging deck checks in Washington and a largely...

John McCain delivers yet another invective-filled stump speech, this one at a rally in New Mexico. He asks rhetorically: “Who is the real Barack Obama?” Someone shouts: “A terrorist!” The crowd cheers. McCain remains silent. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin is doing her part in Clearwater, Florida, telling a rally where reporters are herded away from the audience by campaign workers, that: “I was reading my copy of the New York Times the other day.” The crowd boos. “I...