After having given the McCain campaign lots of advice during the past few months, Bill Kristol today—with only 20 days to go until elections—tells McCain that it’s time for him to fire his campaign, to “junk the whole thing and start over.”

Now, if McCain hasn’t been paying attention to Kristol’s advice, that doesn’t reflect well on Kristol’s influence with McCain. And, if McCain has been paying attention to Kristol, and his campaign is still in such a mess, that doesn’t speak well of Kristol’s political savvy.

Some of Kristol’s past “advice” that comes to mind:

When the $700 billion financial “bailout” was being discussed, Kristol was “not convinced” about the appropriateness of such a plan, and, in considering alternatives for McCain, Kristol mused in “A Fine Mess”:

Or McCain — more of a gambler than Obama — could take a big risk. While assuring the public and the financial markets that his administration will act forcefully and swiftly to deal with the crisis, he could decide that he must oppose the bailout as the panicked product of a discredited administration, an irresponsible Congress, and a feckless financial establishment, all of which got us into this fine mess.

Critics would charge that in opposing the bailout, in standing against an apparent bipartisan consensus, McCain was being irresponsible.

Or would this be an act of responsibility and courage?

As it turned out, McCain supported the bailout—sort of.

During the same period of frantic political posturing, Kristol claims in “How McCain Wins,” that

McCain’s impetuous decision to return to Washington was right. The agreement announced early Sunday morning is better than Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s original proposal, and better than the deal the Democrats claimed was close on Thursday. Assuming the legislation passes soon, and assuming it reassures financial markets, McCain will be able to take some credit.

As it turned out, McCain’s “impetuous” return to Washington (after canceling his appearance with David Letterman, and after having a leisurely interview with Katie Couric); his “suspension” of his campaign; and his threat not to show up at the second Presidential debate, did not seem to go over very well with the voters.

Whether McCain was able to “take some credit” for the bailout package, is debatable.

In the same column, Kristol urges McCain to “liberate” Sarah Palin “to use her political talents and to communicate in her own voice.”

Kristol writes:

She should spend her time making the case for McCain and, more important, the case against Obama. As one shrewd McCain supporter told me, “Every minute she spends not telling the American people something that makes them less well disposed to Obama is a minute wasted.”

The “liberated” Palin did indeed start to vilify Barack Obama, using the guilt-by-association technique and, referring to Bill Ayers, accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists.”

Well, we know how well that has worked. It has worked so well that loud, angry McCain-Palin supporters forced McCain to calm the crowds down and to reveal to them that Obama is not a terrorist, not a Muslim, not an Arab—just a decent American who differs with McCain on the issues.

Not satisfied with Palin’s use of Ayers for her guilt-by-association campaign, Kristol, in the same column, also urged both Palin and McCain to use yet another smear card:

The most famous of these is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and I wonder if Obama may have inadvertently set the stage for the McCain team to reintroduce him to the American public.

A week later, in “The Wright Stuff ,” Bill Kristol writes:

I pointed out [to Sarah Palin] that Obama surely had a closer connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than to Ayers — and so, I asked, if Ayers is a legitimate issue, what about Reverend Wright?

She didn’t hesitate: “To tell you the truth, Bill, I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that — with, I don’t know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn’t get up and leave — to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up.”

Kristol also writes, “And I guess we’ll soon know McCain’s call on whether he wants to bring Wright up — perhaps at his debate with Obama Tuesday night.”

I guess Kristol was very disappointed last Tuesday night that McCain did not listen to him—again.

And we now have come full circle to Kristol’s “junk the whole thing and start over” exasperation and desperation.

In this latest Mother of All Advice, “Fire the Campaign,” Kristol now advises McCain and Palin to drop the nastiness, ugliness and grouchiness—drop the attacks on Obama—and start “running as a cheerful, open and accessible candidate. Palin should follow suit. The two of them are attractive and competent politicians. They’re happy warriors and good campaigners.”

And, of course, Kristol regurgitates his protect-the-wildlife-sounding “Set them free.”

Kristol also advises:

“McCain should stop unveiling gimmicky proposals every couple of days that pretend to deal with the financial crisis. He should tell the truth.” (Wow, why hasn’t Kristol suggested such a novel approach before?)

And finally, the shocker:

At Wednesday night’s debate at Hofstra, McCain might want to volunteer a mild mea culpa about the extent to which the presidential race has degenerated into a shouting match. And then he can pledge to the voters that the last three weeks will feature a contest worthy of this moment in our history.

Note to Bill Kristol: McCain hasn’t paid much attention to your suggestions in the past. Don’t hold your breath on this one.

NYTimes:

Embracing the hyperlink ethos of the Web to a degree not seen before, news organizations are becoming more comfortable linking to competitors — acting in effect like aggregators. The Washington Post recently introduced a political Web site that recommends rival sites. This week NBC will begin introducing Web sites for its local TV stations with links to local newspapers, radio stations, online videos and other sources. And The New York Times will soon offer its online readers an alternative home page with links to competitors.

Soon. But not yet. That NBC link goes to a NYTimes topic page. And those of us who want outside links must go to an alternative page? Grrr.

Far be it from me, your humble blogger, to disagree with the great David Brooks, distinguished New York Times columnist and leading conservative intellectual.

On Monday, at an event celebrating the redesign of The Atlantic magazine, Brooks said this, among other things:

[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he’d rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn’t think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I’m afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

Whether or not conservative ideas are worth learning about, or lead to anything other than misery and mayhem, isn’t the point, at least not at the moment. Rather, the point is that Brooks is right about Palin (and Bush).

He is also right about Obama, whose intellectualism and keen “social perception” he praised.

We’ll have to wait to see if he’s right with his prediction that Obama will win the election by nine points.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember our invasion of Iraq without the moral or military support of our allies?

Remember the Bush administration’s snubbing and insulting our allies—one of them, Spain—because they would not kowtow to its dictates?

Remember Bush’s uncompromising, macho “you’re with us or against us.”?

Remember Rumsfeld’s “Old Europe” insult?

Remember, as a result of this and other Bush administration affronts, Europe—including Spain—distancing itself from the U.S.?

Remember Spain’s Socialist José Luis Zapatero, as part of his campaign to become Spain’s prime minister, promising to withdraw Spain’s troops from Iraq, if elected?

Remember Spain, under Zapatero, actually withdrawing its 1,300 troops from Iraq?

More recently, remember presidential candidate John McCain vowing not to sit down for talks with foreign leaders who have certain domestic and foreign policies, and demonizing his opponent, Barack Obama, for his willingness to use diplomacy first to resolve international disputes?

Also, more recently, remember John McCain refusing to say whether he would sit down for talks with the Spanish prime minister?

Well, someone who was willing to sit down with the Spanish prime minister was columnist Roger Cohen.

Cohen sat down with Zapatero for an hour and discussed issues that Bush and Condoleezza Rice should have been discussing with him all along. Issues that McCain—according to his own words—might never discuss with him, if elected. Issues that Barack Obama, if elected, certainly would discuss with Zapatero—and with many other world leaders—whether or not they kowtow to us.

In his New York Times column “Hasta la Vista, Baby,” Cohen says,

The United States is weakened when it’s feuding with its allies. The so-called coalition in Iraq has emptied that word of meaning.

Barack Obama gets this. A weakened United States, militarily stretched and economically snared, cannot be cavalier about its alliances. McCain, to judge by his refusal to say he would meet Zapatero, is still in muscle-flexing mode. That’s the last thing we need.

But, should the reader think that Cohen is enamored with Spain’s Socialist prime minister, this is far from the case. Cohen has plenty of criticism for Zapatero’s philosophy and policies.

For example:

Despite Spain’s dictatorial past under Franco, Zapatero seemed to me mealy-mouthed about totalitarianism and tyranny. Moral relativism oozed from his lawyerly repartee. He illustrates why Orwell felt compelled to say: it’s not enough to be antifascist; you must also be in principle anti-totalitarian. The European left has often had a hard time with this notion.

But “the moral to the story” is Cohen’s cry for renewed American leadership in the world; for the renewal of American foreign policy and diplomacy; and his eloquent,

… America was born as an idea and cannot be itself unless it carries that idea forward. That’s the tragedy of the Bush years: the undermining of American ideals. The United States is inseparable from the hope given Emma Lazarus’s “huddled masses yearning to be free;” it is bound to the struggle to ensure that, as Lincoln put it, “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

I totally agree with Cohen’s simple but sensible conclusion: “Obama, if he wins, should get Zapatero to the White House pronto. These are ideas worth discussing between friends.”

¡Sí, España y los españoles son nuestros amigos!

Do you repeatedly confuse words that begin with S? Such as, for example, do you say salt instead of sugar, or—to your wife, or husband—sweaty instead of sweetie? If so, you may be afflicted by the very same ailment that McCain may be suffering from.

In his Sunday New York Times column, “Pitbull Palin Mauls McCain,” Frank Rich is quite concerned about McCain’s physical and mental health.

He writes:

The second bit of predebate news, percolating under the radar, involved the still-unanswered questions about McCain’s health. Back in May, you will recall, the McCain campaign allowed a select group of 20 reporters to spend a mere three hours examining (but not photocopying) 1,173 pages of the candidate’s health records on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Conspicuously uninvited was Lawrence Altman, a doctor who covers medicine for The New York Times. Altman instead canvassed melanoma experts to evaluate the sketchy data that did emerge. They found the information too “unclear” to determine McCain’s cancer prognosis.

There was, however, at least one doctor-journalist among those 20 reporters in May, the CNN correspondent Sanjay Gupta. At the time, Gupta told Katie Couric on CBS that the medical records were “pretty comprehensive” and wrote on his CNN blog that he was “pretty convinced there was no ‘smoking gun’ about the senator’s health.” (Physical health, that is; Gupta wrote there was hardly any information on McCain’s mental health.)

That was then. Now McCain is looking increasingly shaky, whether he’s repeating his “Miss Congeniality” joke twice in the same debate or speaking from notecards even when reciting a line for (literally) the 17th time (“The fundamentals of our economy are strong”) or repeatedly confusing proper nouns that begin with S (Sunni, Shia, Sudan, Somalia, Spain). McCain’s “dismaying temperament,” as George Will labeled it, only thickens the concerns. His kamikaze mission into Washington during the bailout crisis seemed crazed. His seething, hostile debate countenance — a replay of Al Gore’s sarcastic sighing in 2000 — didn’t make the deferential Obama look weak (as many Democrats feared) but elevated him into looking like the sole presidential grown-up.

[Italics and emphasis mine]

I am no medical expert, but Frank Rich may be on to something here. The “S syndrome” may also explain why John McCain repeatedly confuses spin with substance, skullduggery with straighttalk, sleaze with statesmanship, surge with success and Sarah with Superwoman.

And, talking about Superwoman, whatever the final diagnosis is, I hope that McCain’s ailment is not contagious, or we’ll soon hear Sarah Palin confuse superstition with science, shtick with savvy and swiftboating with sense (of right, and wrong). On second thought, it may already be too late for the pitbull with (s)lipstick…

Leave it to Bill Kristol to drop names and to say the Wrong Stuff.

In his New York Times, “The Wright Stuff” column, Kristol—who met Sarah Palin once in Alaska over a year ago—pretends that he now knows her intimately. Intimately enough to give her the wrong advice on the Wright Stuff.

Kristol not only feels it is great for Palin to muck-rake, exaggerate and even lie about Barack Obama’s “palling around with terrorists,” but now he wants her to also resuscitate the sleaze and lies about Obama’s “connections” to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This is the 24/7, endless loop slime that Fox News used several months ago, but that the American people have rejected (witness the polls) in favor of discussing real issues, such as the economy, the economy, and the economy…(Witness the stock market—the Dow—just tanking to below 9,900).

But, a desperate McCain campaign might just listen to a desperate Bill Kristol and get back into the gutter. They will be doing that at their own risk. I believe that after 18 months of scrutiny, investigation, and Obama talking to the American people, they know by now “who the real Barack Obama is,” without the help of the likes of Bill Kristol, and without the winks, “doggone’s,” “you betcha’s,” and shrill exaggerations and lies by Sarah Palin.

Finally, after Sarah Palin had the temerity to tell Senator Joe Biden during the debate Thursday night, “Your plan is a white flag of surrender in Iraq,” Kristol brings up the deployment of Sarah Palin’s son, Track, to Iraq. Kristol relates how much Palin cares for and worries about her son—as she should.

But what Kristol does not mention is that the morning following the debate, Joe Biden traveled to Dover, Delaware, to bid farewell to his son, Joseph “Beau” Robinette Biden, and to his fellow 261st Signal Brigade soldiers, who were heading off to combat in Iraq. While Kristol mentions “the military mom,” he does not mention “the military dad.”

Joe Biden has never waved the white flag of surrender, nor have those who oppose this disastrous war. Beau Biden will be proudly waving the American flag in Iraq—not the white flag.

Sarah Palin was way out of line with her scurrilous remarks to Joe Biden. At the very least, Gov. Palin owes an apology to the Senator and his family–if not to the American people.

Doggone, can we expect Bill Kristol to call Joe Biden a “military dad?” You betcha, no!

I generally agree with and commend Nicholas Kristof’s very humanitarian and compassionate efforts, viewpoints and articles. But, this morning, with his New York Times column, “Racism Without Racists,” he has really confused me.

Kristof’s column starts as follows:

One of the fallacies this election season is that if Barack Obama is paying an electoral price for his skin tone, it must be because of racists.

On the contrary, the evidence is that Senator Obama is facing what scholars have dubbed “racism without racists.”

Kristof then presents statistical, scientific, and anecdotal data and “evidence” to prove such an oxymoron.

For example,

Most of the lost votes [by Obama] aren’t those of dyed-in-the-wool racists. Such racists account for perhaps 10 percent of the electorate and, polling suggests, are mostly conservatives who would not vote for any Democratic presidential candidate.

Rather, most of the votes that Mr. Obama actually loses belong to well-meaning whites who believe in racial equality and have no objection to electing a black person as president — yet who discriminate unconsciously.

And,

Research suggests that whites are particularly likely to discriminate against blacks when choices are not clear-cut and competing arguments are flying about — in other words, in ambiguous circumstances rather like an electoral campaign.

For example, when the black job candidate is highly qualified, there is no discrimination. Yet in a more muddled gray area where reasonable people could disagree, unconscious discrimination plays a major role.

White participants recommend hiring a white applicant with borderline qualifications 76 percent of the time, while recommending an identically qualified black applicant only 45 percent of the time.

And back to our presidential elections:

“In the U.S., there’s a small percentage of people who in nationwide surveys say they won’t vote for a qualified black presidential candidate,” Professor Dovidio said. “But a bigger factor is the aversive racists, those who don’t think that they’re racist.”

Faced with a complex decision, he said, aversive racists feel doubts about a black person that they don’t feel about an identical white. “These doubts tend to be attributed not to the person’s race — because that would be racism — but deflected to other areas that can be talked about, such as lack of experience,” he added.

Finally,

Still, a huge array of research suggests that 50 percent or more of whites have unconscious biases that sometimes lead to racial discrimination. (Blacks have their own unconscious biases, surprisingly often against blacks as well.)

I am no social psychologist, but when Nicholas Kristof claims that there can be “racism without racists,” that there are “well meaning” white people who “discriminate unconsciously,” who have “unconscious biases” against blacks, who are “particularly likely to discriminate against blacks…in ambiguous circumstances,” and that there are “aversive racists, those who don’t think that they’re racist,” I am truly confused. Perhaps I need to take some of Professor Dovidio’s courses.

While Bill Kristol, in a September 29 New York Times Op-Ed, compliments John McCain for being impetuous—and encourages him to continue being so—Nicholas Kristof has a different take in a recent New York Times Op-Ed.

As a former military, formerly fond of acronyms, Kristof’s use of the term “impish cubed” for “impulsive, impetuous and impatient” caught my attention. I would have used “I³” as in “C³I” ( “C-cubed-I” for Command Control Communications and Intelligence). However, when referring to McCain’s qualities—Impulsive, Impetuous, and Impatient—“impish cubed” sounds much more appropriate.

But I am digressing. As I wrote in “Bill Kristol’s Advice to John McCain: Continue to Play the “Impetuosity” Card,” Kristol praises McCain’s “impetuous decision to return to Washington” to help save our economy. According to Kristol:

The agreement announced early Sunday morning is better than Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s original proposal, and better than the deal the Democrats claimed was close on Thursday. Assuming the legislation passes soon, and assuming it reassures financial markets, McCain will be able to take some credit.

(Wow, talking about having egg on one’s face)

On the other hand, Kristof in his excellent and timely September 27 Op-Ed discusses how McCain has “in recent years…become impish cubed — impulsive, impetuous and impatient” and how “those are perilous qualities in a commander in chief.”

Some examples, according to Kristof:

While Mr. Bush has been forced to accept more sensible policies in his second term, Mr. McCain has become steadily more of a neocon in the cowboy role that Mr. Bush played in his first term, prone to solving problems with stealth bombers rather than United Nations resolutions.

Judging from Mr. McCain’s own positions, he might well revive a cold war with Russia and could start a hot war with Iran or North Korea. In those three hot spots, Mr. McCain could constitute a dangerous gamble for this country.

Kristof continues to cite specific reasons for his concern with I-cubed McCain.

On Iran and its uranium enrichment program:

…Mr. Bush, under the influence of Bob Gates and Condoleezza Rice, has realized that the best hope is diplomacy and negotiation. In contrast, Mr. McCain denounces Barack Obama’s call for direct talks with Iranian leaders and speaks openly about the possibility of bombing Iranian nuclear sites.
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So if Iran continues its policies as most expect, we might well find ourselves under a McCain presidency headed toward our third war with a Muslim country. The result would be an Iranian nationalist backlash that would cement ayatollahs in place, as well as $200-a-barrel oil, open season on Americans in Iraq, and global fury at American unilateralism.

On North Korea:

North Korea is one of the Bush administration’s greatest failures, and Mr. McCain seems intent on making it worse…

Even President Bush recognized the failure of his first term’s hard-line policy and abandoned it, instead pursuing negotiations and diplomatic solutions with North Korea. Mr. McCain fumes that this is accommodation and seems to prefer the first-term fist-waving that was emotionally satisfying but failed catastrophically.

A McCain administration would thus apparently mean no more diplomatic track with North Korea. The upshot would be North Korea’s restarting its nuclear weapon assembly line. In similar circumstances in 1994, Mr. McCain raised the prospect of military strikes on North Korea and suggested that war might be inevitable (instead, President Clinton stopped plutonium production with a negotiated deal).

And on Russia:

Russia underscores Mr. McCain’s penchant for risk-taking, theatrics and fulmination. Most striking, he wants to kick Russia out of the Group of 8.

Mr. McCain’s lead-with-the-chin approach to Russia reflects the same pugnacity that resulted in obscenity-laced dust-ups with fellow Republican senators, but it’s less endearing when the risk is nuclear war. Do we really want to risk an exchange of nuclear warheads over Abkhazia or South Ossetia? The Spanish prime minister, José Zapatero, told me a few days ago that what he fears most under a McCain administration is a revival of the cold war with Russia.

Why is McCain’s “I-Cubedness” so disturbing and dangerous?

Perhaps Kristof’s opening paragraph says it all:

Suppose John McCain had been in the White House in October 1962, facing one of the great tests of the modern presidency. If so, we might remember that period not as “the Cuban missile crisis” but as “World War III.”

Sticking with acronyms, would that be WW³?

Most provocative quotes of the day:

“It’s time to let Palin be Palin–and let it all hang out.” –Scott Reed, a Republican strategist, in the Wall Street Journal.

“McCain needs to liberate his running mate from the former Bush aides brought in to handle her–aides who seem to have succeeded in importing to the Palin campaign the trademark defensive crouch of the Bush White House.” –William Kristol, New York Times.

In what conjures up visions of Dr. Frankenstein retooling his creation in the lab, Gov. Palin is being whisked off for pre-debate work, the Journal reports:

“McCain campaign manager Rick Davis and senior adviser Steve Schmidt…plan to fly with her on Monday to Sen. McCain’s ranch in Sedona, Ariz., which they hope she will find a comforting place to prep…

Read the rest of this entry.

William Kristol, the great presidential campaigns “savior,” has some advice for John McCain on how to get off his present “course to lose the presidential election to Barack Obama.”

In his September 29, New York Times column, “How McCain Wins,” Kristol advices McCain to continue to make “impetuous decisions.” (“McCain’s impetuous decision to return to Washington was right.”)

Of course, Kristol gives McCain—who only a few weeks ago said that the fundamentals of the U.S, economy were strong, and who only a few days ago had not even bothered to read the Bush administration’s bailout plan summary—full credit for saving the economy, saving the United States of America.

Kristol advices McCain to use the fear card by—even after McCain has “just rescued the economy”—continuing to “emphasize the crisis:”

McCain can tell voters we’re almost certainly in a recession, and things will likely get worse before they get better.

With respect to his other impetuous decision (his selection of fresh, inexperienced—also impetuous—“talented politician and communicator,” Sarah Palin), Kristol advices McCain to, “free her to use her political talents, and to communicate in her own voice.” Read: To continue to make stupendous gaffes and to continue to be the butt of every comedian and late-night-show-host‘s jokes.

With respect to Palin and her upcoming debate, Kristol offers this amazing bit of insight: “McCain took a risk in choosing Palin. If she does poorly, it will reflect badly on his judgment. If she does well, it will be a shot in the arm for his campaign.” Wow, I wish that I could make such quintessential assessments.

And, of course, Kristol calls upon both McCain and Palin to continue using the “smear card” against Senator Obama, including “the most famous“ smear card, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright card. Kristol has chapter and verse of a brochure from Reverend Wright’s Trinity Church—quoted in Barack Obama’s “Dreams From My Father”—ready for such use.

Obviously, I support Barack Obama. But, even though I believe that Obama presently is ahead of McCain, I do not mind a close, clean, competitive race for the Presidency of our great country. So, if I were a sage political guru, as Kristol professes to be, my honest advice to McCain would be, “Senator, please get back on board the Straight Talk Express and get rid of the impetuosity, fear, and smear cards. You might do better that way.”

In a column published yesterday on McCain’s “fundamentals,” the NYT’s David Brooks delved into the myth of McCain and came out with all the usual drivel. “I still think of him first in the real world of governing, not in the show-business world of the election,” Brooks wrote. McCain is “a humble man,” “an unfailingly candid man,” a man of far too many accomplishments to list in a single column.

Oh, Brooks isn’t at all happy with “the foolish decision to run a traditional right-left campaign against Obama,” but he understands that “in this media-circus environment, you simply cannot run for president as a candid, normal person.” Brooks is also disappointed that “the McCain campaign is it has no central argument,” with the candidate stuck in “the contradiction between the Barry Goldwater and Teddy Roosevelt sides of his worldview.” But, no matter, McCain is “a good judge of character,” “a practiced legislative craftsman,” “a serious man prone to serious things.”

Partly in response to this drivel — and I encourage you all to read Free Ride: John McCain and the Media, by David Brock and Paul Waldman, to get a better sense of the real McCain (hint: it’s not at all Brooks’s McCain) — TNR’s John Judis, once a key liberal admirer of and apologist for McCain, argues that, in terms of the financial crisis (or “crisis”), McCain is putting country last, not first.
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In a hybrid of defense closing argument and political obituary, David Brooks in today’s New York Times comes forward as a character witness for “a serious man prone to serious things.”

Citing his candor, humility, “crusade” against corruption and, most of all, his “impressive” years as the Iraq war deteriorated, Brooks attempts to separate that John McCain from today’s campaigner “without a groundbreaking argument about why he is different” who has had to “rely on tactical gimmicks to stay afloat.”

Brooks says that failure comes “in part because of his Senate training and the tendency to take issues on one at a time—-in part, because of the foolish decision to run a traditional right-left campaign against Obama and, in part, because McCain has never really resolved the contradiction between the Barry Goldwater and Teddy Roosevelt sides of his worldview.

“One day he’s a small-government Western conservative; the next he’s a Bull Moose progressive. The two don’t add up–as we’ve seen in his uneven reaction to the financial crisis.”

Read the rest of this entry,

I feel more than justified in having been harshly-critical of mainstream media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign from the jump because I know of what I speak: This is my ninth campaign as a reporter, editor and now blogger.

But that does not explain, let alone forgive, John McCain’s war on the news media — from bristling about being called out on his serial lies to denying any and all access to Sarah Palin that is not carefully-scripted to the big guy’s own disappearing act.

Then there was the hysterical tug of war between Palin’s handlers and the networks before her meet-and-greet yesterday at the United Nations. Cameras would be permitted but not reporters because they might actually report on what this remarkably vapid woman might say.

When the handlers relented and reporters were allowed access, this is typical of the breathless encounters they wrote about:

“Ms. Palin and Mr. Kissinger sat on blue couches, separated by an end table with photographs of President Nixon and President Reagan on it. As photographers were led in, Mr. Kissinger could be heard saying that he gave someone ‘a lot of credit for what he did in Georgia.’

” ‘Good, good,’ Ms. Palin said. ‘And you’ll give me more insight on that, also, huh? Good.’ “

To which I can only add, good grief!

There is no question that the war against the media is being choreographed by Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis and their merry band of Rovian pranksters. Yes, the selfsame Davis who hurls fire and brimstone at The New York Times for not swallowing the campaign’s lies whole while lying about his involvement with failed mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

These bums understand that the news media is widely reviled by the public. They know that the war on the media is a way of diverting attention from real issues, including Palin’s inability to say anything that is not written on a cue card. And that despite rumblings about a rebellion by some of the bigger media outlets, there will not be widespread resistance.

Will the war on the media backfire? Eventually. But it will be the voters and not John McCain and Sarah Palin who will be choking on the smoke.

Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain clearly is a wartime presidential candidate, giving out signs that he’ll be a tough wartime President.

At war with the old — and now the new — news media, that is….

In the past 24 hours, McCain’s side has accused the New York Times of seeking to undermine their campaign and shill for Democrat Barack Obama. And when a reporter for the increasingly popular The Politico website sought a clarification on a few things, a McCain rep accused that reporter of also being “in the tank” for Obama as well. It’s an irony for a candidate who long had a reputation of working well with the press and whose campaign is far more diligent in informing and cultivating the new media than Obama’s.

We’ve run posts here before noting the increasingly negative line the McCain campaign has taken towards the press, essentially using the press as a wedge issue, which fires up the GOP’s conservative base. A certain amount of that can be expected in political campaigns when one side seeks to influence the press into going easy on their side and getting tougher on the other. But the McCain campaign has now taken it to a new level. And the likely outcome could be a double-edge sword. Particularly because in its latest chapter of At War With The Press the McCain campaign got some of its facts wrong when complaining about the Times.

This latest brou-ha-ha is worth looking at in some detail. Ben Smith’s piece in The Politico — the popular and growing new media website that is now apparently considered an enemy along with the New York Times — is the starting point:

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record.

But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

The errors in McCain strategist Steve Schmidt’s charges against Obama and Sen. Joe Biden were particularly notable because they seemed unnecessary. Schmidt repeatedly gilded the lily: He exaggerated the Biden family’s already problematic ties to the credit card industry; Obama’s embarrassing relationship with a 1960s radical; and an Obama supporter’s over-the-top attack on Sarah Palin when — in each case — the truth would have been damaging enough.

“Any time the Obama campaign is criticized at any level, the critics are immediately derided as liars,” Schmidt told reporters.

But as he went on to list a series of stories he thought reporters should be writing about Obama and Biden, in almost every instance he got the details wrong.

Significance: Due to accuracy problems, the press (which is not monolithic) is now cross-checking each McCain campaign assertion. Expect this press scrutiny to increase. There’s more in Smith’s piece but here is the kicker:

Asked about the series of errors, McCain aides could not provide evidence to back up Schmidt’s assertions.

One McCain aide, Michael Goldfarb, said Politico was “quibbling with ridiculously small details when the basic things are completely right.”

Another, Brian Rogers, responded more directly:

“You are in the tank,” he e-mailed.

What this suggests:

1. The campaign’s style is to try and discredit those who are questioning or interfere with its message or goals.
2. The press will likely be momentarily-cowed because reporters and editors don’t want to lose access to McCain and see the only interviews he does do appearing on Fox News.
3. If a prediction is made about how a candidate will govern based on how he runs his campaign, the attack mode style of the McCain campaign suggests that if McCain wins the country will be in for a polarizing four years where those who question or oppose will be labeled as political hacks with their motives questioned. This is in contrast to the John McCain of 2000, who is increasingly as hard to spot these days as a pay telephone booth.
4. The media’s political narratives are not always fair or accurate but often resemble type-casting done in Hollywood. This will feed into the ongoing narrative of the McCain campaign as anything but a Straight Talking Express. Anytime the campaign is proven wrong with a fact or found to distort, it will add to the accumulating negative narrative.

But not everyone agrees with this analysis by yours truly. For instance, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza writes:

The McCain campaign’s relationship with the New York Times has been, how do we say it, testy, for quite some time. That relationship (or lack thereof) is generally traced to the months long battle between the paper and the campaign over the publishing of a story regarding McCain’s relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman.

Attacking the New York Times — and the media generally — is a smart strategic move when it comes to uniting the Republican base behind McCain. While that base has never felt warmly toward McCain, they feel even less warmly toward the media in general, and the New York Times in particular. It’s the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” argument and it has worked extremely well for the McCain campaign to date.

Cillizza doesn’t think going after the media will have much of an impact on most independent and undecided voters, especially because this is a “process” story.

But, Schmidt’s tirade against the media may have a different goal. Working the referees is a common tactic in presidential campaigns and Schmidt’s remarks seem to be as much about laying a layer of guilt on the media for what he believes is an unfair approach to the coverage of the two candidates to date.

Here’s some other reaction to the McCain camp’s war with the new and old media:

–The Christian Science Monitor weblog’s headline is McCain aide blows gasket, rips New York Times and here’s part of the post:

There are many ways to get things done in the world of diplomacy. You can kill ‘em with kindness, or you can just try to kill ‘em.

On a conference call today with reporters on the topic of the New York Times, John McCain strategist Steve Schmidt chose option B.

It’s not as though Schmidt and the New York Times were once like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston – the two never took long walks in the park, giggling about ponies, gumdrops, and having kids. There’s a festering history. And today marked another chapter.

…Why’d he do it? Everyone seems to be using the sports analogy of “working the refs.” If he complains enough, the other media organizations will back down and play equalizer. You know, like a bald Phil Jackson.

Or maybe more like a bald Lou Piniella. Former Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer compares it to baseball anyway.

“I think Steve was accurately reflecting the views of his campaign,” Fleischer wrote in an email to The Vote blog. “Just about every Republican campaign feels that way about the media from time to time. Dealing with the press is sometimes a little like pitching in baseball – everyone once in a while you have to throw high and inside and hope it results in better coverage next time. Sometimes it does, most often, it does not.”

–Andrew Sullivan:

Their interaction with the press is in complete disarray. Steve Schmidt even lies when trying to point out others’ lies.

–Marc Ambinder:

A reporter asks the McCain campaign to back up some basic claims made by a senior strategist in a public conference call.

The campaign refuses, with a prominent spokesperson accusing the reporter, Ben Smith, of being “in the tank.”

As in — no, we don’t have to justify what we say, and the fact that you would question our assertions is proof-positive that you’ve absorbed the Obama campaign’s worldview.

….Perhaps we can forgive the McCain campaign for this moment of irrationality; even as they’ve turned the press into a bugbear, the McCain campaign has managed to operate a functioning press office that answers reporters questions and its officials are generally helpful and polite.

The same officials who criticize reporters to our faces and behind our backs also help us understand policy, or get in touch with a campaign official, or explain the underpinnings of their tactics and stratagems.

Here’s hoping that today’s outburst was an aberration and not a sign that the campaign will be shutting down its press shop for good.

–The New Republic’s The Stump:

The timing is interesting, if you think about it. The McCain team first came after the media hard in the early-mid summer, sneering about Obama Love in the press corps. You’ll recall how, back then, Obama had all the momentum in the race and McCain was looking for a way to change the dynamic. Sound familiar?

–The Times’ The Caucus blog:

He accused The Times of being an advocacy group for Mr. Obama — and accused the media of a litany of issues that he contended had not been pursued about Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden. In response, the Obama campaign sent out a list of articles written by this newspaper. And Ben Smith at The Politico has done a quick fact-check of nearly all Mr. Schmidt’s points today. Our own cursory checklist finds some to be exaggerations or distortions and some inaccurate — most of the issues Mr. Schmidt raised have been extensively investigated or reviewed by journalists.

Bill Keller, The Times’s executive editor, issued this statement in response to Mr. Schmidt’s attacks:

“The New York Times is committed to covering the candidates fully, fairly and aggressively. It’s our job to ask hard questions, fact-check their statements and their advertising, examine their programs, positions, biographies and advisers. Candidates and their campaign operatives are not always comfortable with that level of scrutiny, but it’s what our readers expect and deserve.”

–Josh Marshall:

The McCain camp quite touchy about being pegged as liars. Very upset at the NYT for revealing that Rick Davis got $2 million from Fannie and Freddie to help them fight off tighter regulation.

According to McCain enforcer Steve Schmidt, reporting on Davis’ Fannie/Freddie connection means the Times “is not today by any standard a journalistic organization.”

I guess Schmidt is pining for those 2002-2003 lickspittle days.

–Joe Klein on what Schmidt’s outburst is all about:

1. he’s hoping to work the refs: if he complains enough about press bias, we mainstream sorts will cower, cringe and try to seek false equivalences between the two campaigns.

2. the more time we spend covering this nonsense, the less we’ll spend on the real issues in this campaign.

Sorry, Steve. Not buying.

Make your own decision as to whether the McCain campaign is justified or not.

And if you think they’re not, well…you must be in the tank…

Bill Kristol generally and typically has a lot of ludicrous, self-serving and, at times, incredibly silly stuff in his weekly New York Times column.

However, this morning’s column, “A Heartbeat Away,” takes the cake.

Not only does he ignore and contradict everything he has ever said about Barack Obama—in order to make McCain’s choice of Palin a little less aPalin’ (sorry, that should be appalling)—but he also uses the most pathetic examples, allegories and comparisons to try to make his “unmakeable” case.

For example, this is one of the great reasons—according to Kristol—that McCain picked Palin:

McCain did not just pick a politician who could appeal to Wal-Mart Moms. He picked a Wal-Mart Mom. Indeed, he picked someone who, in 1999, as Wasilla mayor, presided over a wedding of two Wal-Mart associates at the local Wal-Mart. “It was so sweet,” said Palin, according to The Anchorage Daily News. “It was so Wasilla.”

That is really “sweet,” and smart, too. To pick a Mom that allegedly shops at a store replete with right-wing policies and ideas; a store that matches Palin’s own extreme right-wing philosophy. Of course, McCain would not have picked a “Whole Foods Mom” (God forbid, an eco-friendly store…), or a “Ben and Jerry’s Mom,” (too much of that “community organizer” and community work crap there). One must also wonder if the chic pit bull ever bought her lipstick at Wal-Mart.

More on Kristol’s brilliant piece later…after I stop laughing.

In my post, “’Right’ Convention, Wrong Country?”, I commented on how the Republican attacks on Democrats—who make up about one-half of voting-age Americans—and their selected candidates, gave me the sensation that I was watching a political “revival” in some foreign country.

I also noted that,

My feelings that this convention was not being held in the U.S.A. were reinforced when the cameras scanned over a sea of faces supposed to represent the diversity, the kaleidoscope that is the United States of America, but, instead, was 99 percent white.

After reading a couple of articles, including one from the Dutch “De Telegraaf,” I have to admit that my impression that 99 percent of the Republican delegates were white, was somewhat overblown.

In “A White Convention,” in De Telegraaf, Jan-Kees Emmer writes (translation soon available on WatchingAmerica.com):

It had already attracted my attention in the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, where Republicans convened. The audience was noticeably whiter than the one at the Democratic Convention last week in Denver. On my way to Wasilla, I came across the numbers in the New York Times. And they don’t lie. Not only was the Republican Convention indeed much whiter than that of Democrats, but also when compared against previous Republican gatherings, the attendees have become considerably “one-sided.”

Then Emmer sets me straight: “93 percent of the Republican delegation is white.”

A whopping six percentage points less than what I had estimated!

Perhaps what led me to settle on that percentage was that the cameras of the TV channel I was watching the final night of the Republican National Convention consistently, unfailingly, and repeatedly (are there any other synonyms?) kept scanning back to the same, nice-looking, somewhat senior, black man on the Convention floor.

Since we are talking about statistics and since I have mentioned the New York Times, it may be interesting to see what Patrick Healy has to say about this subject in that newspaper.

In his “Two Conventions With No Shortage of Contrasts,” he notes such “overwhelmingly white” attendance at the Republican Convention, and says “…the contrast in racial and ethnic demographics is perhaps most visible to viewers of the conventions, being held this year on consecutive weeks…” and provides the following statistics:

According to polls of delegates conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, 93 percent of the Republican delegates are white (compared with 85 percent in 2004 and 89 percent in 2000), while 5 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are black. The Democratic delegate pool in Denver, according to the survey, was 65 percent white, 23 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic, roughly the same as at other recent Democratic conventions.

Healy further comments:

Both the content of the messages and the color of the faces reflect a clear political reality. In 2000 and 2004, Mr. Bush and one of his top lieutenants, Ken Mehlman, worked explicitly to win more black and Hispanic votes. This year the Republicans are aggressively reaching out to the base of their party — white, male, conservative — while making a new appeal to women with the addition of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska to the ticket.

It appears that at least on this one issue—appealing to the white, male, conservative base, and ignoring minorities—John McCain, is definitely distancing himself from Bush.

The question is, will this particular attempt at separating himself from Bush turn out to be a wise “degree of separation?”

Finally, back to the observer from afar, Dutch journalist Jan-Kees Emmer. Emmer is on his way to Wasilla. It will be interesting to see what an independent journalist will report from the Big City. Will keep you posted here, and in WatchingAmerica.com.

UPDATE: For the translated Dutch article, “A White Convention,” click here

Well, Bill Kristol, who spent a whole afternoon “with Palin a little over a year ago in Juneau,”—probably more than McCain spent with Palin before “vetting” her last week—is excited about McCain’s “bold vice-presidential pick,” and, after having “followed her career pretty closely,” believes that she “can pull it off” in “A Star Is Born?”

After having harped for 18 months about Barack Obama’s alleged lack of experience, Kristol dismisses Palin’s real lack of experience by continuing to use the newly minted Republican benchmark that “She’s only running for the No. 2 job, after all…”, and “McCain doesn’t need a foreign policy expert as vice president to help him out.”

Kristol chimes in with what Charlie Black, one of McCain’s top advisers, is quoted as having said by the New York Times: “She’s going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years…”

Never mind that she’ll be literally a heartbeat away from stepping into the No. 1 job, considering McCain’s age, his history with skin cancer, and the uncertainties of life. Never mind, that she may not have four years, or one year, or one day to “learn at the foot of the master.”

And, by the way, the fact that Alaska has a border with Russia doesn’t really count as “foreign experience.” Nor do her stops in Ireland and Germany during what may have been her only foreign travel. She did visit Kuwait, not Iraq, during her extensive globetrotting. According to the New York Times, she didn’t even have a passport until 2007. That doesn’t mean, however, that she may not have had extensive foreign travel and gathered an impressive amount of foreign experience with vacation trips to Mexico and the Caribbean, before passports were required.

Even Kristol admits that “McCain has gambled boldly” on this “bold” pick, and asks, “But what was McCain’s alternative?”

Well, McCain’s alternatives were Lieberman, Romney, Huckabee, Hutchison, Bobby Jindal, Charlie Christ, Tim Pawlenty, Tom Ridge, etc., etc. But, of course, these candidates did not nearly have the experience of Palin.

Finally, and strangely enough, Kristol agrees with what Obama has been offering America all along, and with what the American people want by pointing out that:

…the crucial political fact is that the Obama campaign no longer has a monopoly on “the courage to change.” Facing an electorate that wants change, McCain has given himself a fighting chance to win the election.

Wow, wasn’t “change” something else Bill Kristol has been ridiculing Obama for all along?

The fact that Bill Kristol isn’t sure about anything anymore with respect to McCain is perhaps best illustrated by the question mark in the title of his piece, “A Star Is Born?”

Even after eight years of service in the Illinois State Senate, where he served as chairman of the Public Health and Welfare Committee; after almost four years of service to the nation in the U.S. Senate, where he served in several committees, including Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works, Veterans’ Affairs, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and as Chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on European Affairs; and after 18 months of the most intense and critical scrutiny while on the campaign trail, Republicans are still saying that they “don’t really know who Barack Obama is.”

Well, after four years of being a Mayor of 9,000-souls-strong Wasilla, Alaska, a stint that resulted in a calamitous $20 million debt; after one year as Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission; after 18 months of governorship of a state with fewer people than the State of Delaware; and after two whole days on the campaign trail, please indulge me when I say that we “don’t really know who Sarah Palin is.”

Of course, Republicans have had 18 months to build “their case” against Barack Obama, including tons of mud and sleaze.

Although it is only two days into Palin’s campaign for the Republican Vice-Presidency, there are already several reports and allegations that have surfaced against her:

There are reports that Palin is under state investigation for abusing her power in firing the state Public Safety Commissioner for refusing to dismiss a state trooper involved in a nasty custody dispute with Palin’s sister; and the man hired to replace the Commissioner is already charged with sexual harassment for hugging and kissing his subordinates.

She has sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.

Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.

Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.

Just about a month ago, Palin said:

But as for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.

But we are not here to probe into those reports and allegations—there is plenty of time for that. Palin’s question as to “what is it exactly that the VP does every day?” brings us back to where we started, Barack Obama’s and Sarah Palin’s relative experiences to be President of the United States.

But, wait, I thought Palin was only running for the vice-presidency.

Or, as Charlie Black, one of McCain’s top advisers is quoted as saying in today’s New York Times: “She’s going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years…”

Or, as a letter to the editor writer in this morning’s NYT said:

The Republicans’ inexperienced candidate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is No. 2 on their ticket. The Democrats’ inexperienced candidate is Senator Barack Obama, who is at the top of the ticket. That’s a world of difference.

But, what if Palin doesn’t have four years to “learn national security at the foot of the master.” What if Charlie Black’s “Master,” God forbid, is not around for four years?

And, what if, considering McCain’s age, his history with skin cancer, and the uncertainties of life, that letter writer’s “world of difference” suddenly and cruelly becomes a “heartbeat of difference” as of day one of a McCain presidency?

What has suddenly happened to the concerns Republicans had about Barack Obama: that the Presidency of the United States is not the time or the place to learn about national security, or how to be a commander-in-chief, or how to deal with an international crisis?

After months of savaging Barack Obama for his alleged inexperience, have those concerns suddenly evaporated now that Republicans are about to nominate for Vice President of the United States, a position a heartbeat away from the presidency, a person with zero national experience, zero national security experience, and zero foreign experience?

“Experience doesn’t matter.” That is exactly the case McCain and Republicans are now making.

Oh, but, as the New York Times reports: “[Ms Alaska] hunts! She fishes! She eats moose burgers! She can gut a salmon as well as dispatch an incumbent governor! She’s a rural mother of five who clings to guns and religion -– exuberantly!”

OK, you got me there.

When we get wrapped up in the news and the excitement of a significant national event, such as the Democratic Convention, some of us tend to forget that our government, with the impact it has on our daily lives, continues to “govern,” albeit as miserably as ever.

The Iraq war continues; the situation in Afghanistan worsens; Russia has its way with Georgia with impunity; the roadmap to peace in the Middle-East is in tatters; the lousy economic situation gets lousier; domestic surveillance probably continues unabated; habeas corpus continues to be trampled and torture probably continues; and your Homeland Security Team continues to waste your money and make “booboos.”

Just read what the New York Times had to say in an Editorial this past weekend.

In, “That Troubled Terrorism List,” we learn that

A half-billion-dollar emergency program to repair the nation’s main and deeply flawed terrorist watch list is “on the brink of collapse,” according to a Congressional investigation. That means that warning signs of a terrorist attack could again be lost in the chaos.
The new program, known as Railhead, is intended to fix the problems with the current outmoded program. That database — begun as an urgent priority after the Sept. 11 attacks — has been bedeviled by an array of problems, including the inability to do basic searches to find suspects’ names.

And,

Bush administration officials have been pronouncing Railhead a success. But the investigation by a House Science and Technology subcommittee found it crippled by serious design flaws, management blunders and runaway contractors. Hundreds of private contractors from dozens of companies involved were recently laid off as government managers finally ordered a fresh overhaul in the face of “insurmountable” problems.

With respect to matching the names of suspected terrorists with the terrorists themselves, we find that:

Some of the flaws discovered are mind-bogglingly basic. The Railhead database, it seems, also has fundamental problems with its search function. It failed, for example, to handle multiple word searches connected by “and” and “or,” and it could not offer matches for slight misspellings of suspects’ names.

As a matter of fact, the present database seems more prone to match the names of suspected terrorists with innocent Americans.

For example, the terrorism watch list contains the names of well-known terrorists such as retired Air National Guard brigadier general James Robinson; CNN Investigative Correspondent Drew Griffin; Dr. James Smith, a physician from Bloomington; born-in-the-USA Thomas Kubbany, whose middle name happens to be Hassan; and, let’s not forget, probably the most dangerous of them all, 8-year-old James Robinson. Fortunately, he has been on the list since the ripe age of 5.

The New York Times concludes its story with:

The Bush administration is far too focused on pushing through new ways to spy on Americans — like the terrible F.B.I. guidelines that the Justice Department appears poised to approve. Railhead’s shocking deficiencies demonstrate that the administration’s first priority should be getting the nation’s terror-fighting infrastructure in order — and analyzing the data it already has.

But not to worry Democratic Convention goers. The Bush administration is hard at work to ensure that your flight back home is uneventful. Unless, of course, your name is James–or Jim–Robinson, James–or Jim– Smith, or you have one of those “funny” names such as Hassan, Muhammad…or Barack Hussein Obama.