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Has Todd Noticed that McCain’s Still Leering at Sarah?

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Turns out it was the First Dude who decided he and the family would be sitting in on Sarah’s debate prep this week. 

For his part, Mr. Palin has worried about the frequent separation of his wife from her family, friends and Alaska staff, an adviser said. Accordingly, her family will be with her in Sedona during this week. Also, a key Alaska staffer joined the Palin operation Sunday.

In fact, the First Dude just decided that Sarah needed him around–she’s already been traveling with Willow.

You think maybe this or this had to do with Todd’s worries about his wife?

McCain Says He’s Responsible

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From ThinkProgress:

“[T]his bill would not have been agreed to had it not been for John McCain. … But, you know, this is a bipartisan accomplishment, a bipartisan success. And if people want to get something done in Washington, they just watch John McCain.” — Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, 9/29/08

“Earlier in the week, when Senator McCain came back to Washington, there had been no deal reached. … What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all the parties to the table, including the House Republicans.” — Senior adviser Steve Schmidt, 9/28/08

“But here are the facts, and I’m not overselling anything. The fact is that the House Republicans were not in the mix at all. John didn’t phone this one in. He came and actually did something. … You can’t phone something like this in. Thank God John came back.” — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), 9/28/08

“Before John McCain suspended his campaign yesterday, the situation that we’re looking at today looked very different then. After he showed leadership and called for bipartisanship, for us to partisanship aside and tackle this solution head on, here we are.” — Spokesman Tucker Bounds, 9/25/08

Great work, McCain!! Here we are, thanks to McCain.

Update: Meanwhile, McCain’s hiding in the front of the Straight No Talk Express trying to figure out what he can say about this.

After bragging today about his role in shaping the economic bailout package, Sen. John McCain has made no statement to the press since the defeat of the bill, in part at the hands of House Republicans. McCain boarded his Straight Talk Air charter plane a few minutes ago, but the plane has not taken off yet. McCain is in the front of the plane, separated from reporters by a brown curtain

The Klan Was in the Audience

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Reading Pat Lang’s discussion of the possibility that McCain’s studied contempt for Obama the other night was crypto-racist reminded me of something I read before the debate. The Klan was in the audience for the debate–or at least they announced publicly beforehand they planned to be there:

The Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan plan to be on campus for the face-off between Republican nominee John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, the first African-American nominee of a major party, according to a Friday report in the university’s student newspaper.

University officials haven’t commented. But, since winning the bid as host a year ago, they have used the attention to promote the university’s efforts toward racial reconciliation.

The university newspaper, the Daily Mississippian, first reported earlier this month that the white supremacist group planned to appear among the throngs expected on the Oxford, Miss., campus. The emperor of the White Knights group, whose identity was withheld as a condition of the interview, said his members would be “invisible … Our people won’t be in regalia or demonstrating. So, I guess you’ll just have to guess which of the people present are Klansmen.”

Frankly, I don’t think McCain’s refusal to look at Obama was racism. McCain treats everyone who does not treat him as America’s savior with performed contempt. And I agree with the primate scientists weighing in to note that McCain’s behavior had the mark of fear and subordination, not dominance.

Nevertheless, I thought it worthy to recall this detail, as we continue to discuss the dynamics of the debate last Friday. 

The conventional wisdom about the debate seems to have solidified around the conclusion that McCain came off as angry while Obama seemed sane and presidential, particularly by contrast. Given how unbalanced McCain is right now, that doesn’t so much surprise me–the contrast between the two was bound to elevate Obama by comparison.

But I do think it remarkable that Obama achieved precisely that effect–upending years of racial stereotypes about angry black men–in the presence of those trying to use intimidation to sustain those stereotypes.

Playing Pakistan

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The NYDN captured both aspects of McCain’s mistakes last night on Pakistan (Update: here’s a much better article from Strobel and Landay).

The one that leapt out was McCain, kinda like George Bush in 2000, getting the name of Pakistan’s president wrong. (Bush didn’t know it.)

“Now, the new president of Pakistan, Qadari (it’s actually Asif Ali Zardari), has got his hands full,” McCain said.

He also said, “I don’t think that Sen. Obama understands that there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power,” referring to former President Pervez Musharraf, who took power in a coup 1999. Although Pakistan sure had problems, many people didn’t regard the country, then a nuclear-armed one, as a failed state.

Admittedly, I once starred as the villain of a Matt Bai novel because of my obsession with Pakistan, so I’m surely biased. 

But unlike McCain’s mangling of Ahmadinejad’s name, I think these two mistakes ought to qualify as a significant issue.

Central to the debate over who has better judgment in foreign affairs, after all, is whether or not it was correct to draw troops away from Afghanistan in 2002 and dump them into Bush’s war of choice. McCain maintains that was a smart decision, whereas Obama has been saying we should have–and still have to–focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan for some time. 

McCain botching the name of a guy who just became Pakistan’s president–that I don’t so much mind (though someone following closely enough to understand Benazir Bhutto’s role in the country would have known Zardari’s name from his time as First Gentleman). 

But for someone running on a neocon platform of supporting the spread of democracy to explain away Musharraf’s coup by claiming Pakistan was a failed state is just inexcusable. If you don’t even know which countries have democratic elections and which don’t, after all, you’re bound to find yourself invading Venezuela in the name of democracy (heh). Furthermore, if Pakistan had been a failed state at any time since 1998, when it tested nukes, it would completely undermine the logic behind McCain’s myopic focus on Iraq and Iran at the expense of Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

In other words, McCain’s mistakes on Pakistan last night ought to be definitive proof that Obama’s claim–that McCain has focused unwisely on Iraq to the detriment of the more urgent central Asian war–is correct.

And while we’re talking about Pakistan, it’s worth looking at how well Eliza Doolittle learns. Read more →

Time to Revisit McCain’s Love of Craps

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craps.jpgGiven events of the last few days, I thought it was time to revisit one of the most interesting articles of this election season, comparing McCain’s big money, showy love of craps with Obama’s cerebral love of poker.

The casino craps player is a social animal, a thrill seeker who wants not just to win but to win with a crowd. Unlike cards or a roulette wheel, well-thrown dice reward most everyone on the rail, yielding a collective yawp that drowns out the slots. It is a game for showmen, Hollywood stars and basketball legends with girls on their arms. It is also a favorite pastime of the presumptive Republican nominee for President, John McCain.

The backroom poker player, on the other hand, is more cautious and self-absorbed. Card games may be social, but they are played in solitude. No need for drama. The quiet card counter is king, and only a novice banks on luck. In this game, a good bluff trumps blind faith, and the studied observer beats the showman. So it is fitting that the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, raked in so many pots in his late-night games with political friends. [my emphasis]

Mostly, though, I’m amused by reading about McCain’s staffers’ desperate attempts to prevent McCain from caving to his addiction to gambling.

Only recently have McCain’s aides urged him to pull back from the pastime. In the heat of the G.O.P. primary fight last spring, he announced on a visit to the Vegas Strip that he was going to the casino floor. When his aides stopped him, fearing a public relations disaster, McCain suggested that they ask the casino to take a craps table to a private room, a high-roller privilege McCain had indulged in before. His aides, with alarm bells ringing, refused again, according to two accounts of the discussion.

"He clearly knows that this is on the borderline of what is acceptable for him to be doing," says a Republican who has watched McCain play. "And he just sort of revels in it."

Maybe if McCain’s staffers had just allowed him to enjoy that private room high-roller game he wanted, McCain wouldn’t be gambling the US economy along with his buddies from the hard right.

Photo by Phil Romans.

I Guess Keeping Haley Barbour Happy…

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Is more important than staving off total economic collapse.

Oh, sure, McCain might just have flip-flopped and decided to debate tonight when he realized his gambit had failed.

But I think something else happened. I think Mississippi governor and big-time GOP lobbyist Haley Barbour made it clear to McCain that he would be rather unhappy if the debate–in which Mississippi has already invested millions–didn’t go off as planned.

After all, McCain’s is the campaign run by and for big-time lobbyists. McCain would rather lose a debate and crash the economy than lose the goodwill of a lobbyist like Haley Barbour.

McCain Out-Hoovers Hoover

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Sure, the comparisons between Herbert Hoover and McCain were inevitable ever since McCain asserted "the fundamentals of the economy are strong."

But if you think about it, McCain’s about to do Hoover one better. After all, Hoover didn’t fuck up the response to a financial crisis until after he was President. McCain’s little photo op seems to have scuttled the Paulson deal, just as it was almost finalized.

Democrats complained of being “blindsided” by a new conservative
alternative to the plan first put forward by Treasury Secretary Henry
Paulson. And the outcome casts doubt on the ability of Congress to move
quickly on the matter, even after leaders of House and Senate banking
committees reached a bipartisan agreement Thursday on the framework for
legislation authorizing the massive government intervention.

It was McCain who urged President Bush to call the White House
meeting attended by House and Senate leaders as well as Obama, his
Democratic rival. But the candidates left without commenting to
reporters outside, and the whole sequence of events confirmed
Treasury’s fears about inserting presidential politics into what were
already difficult negotiations.

[snip]

At the same time House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney
Frank (D-Mass.) said he feared McCain was undercutting Paulson by
appealing to conservatives in the House.

“McCain and the House Republicans are undercutting the Paulson plan,
talking about a wholly different approach,” Frank said prior to the
meeting. “This is the presidential campaign of John McCain undermining
what Hank Paulson tells us is essential for the country.”

What is it that I saw on those signs, again? "Photo Op First"?

Did McCain Blow Off Letterman to Pre-Empt Sarah and Katie?

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Help me with the timing on this.

Sometime–either earlier today or earlier this week–Sarah Palin sat down and taped an interview with Katie Couric. The first part of that interview airs this evening.

Then instead of showing up for a scheduled interview with David Letterman, and at a time when he said he had to run back to DC for emergency work to save the American economy, McCain did an interview with Katie Couric. In other words, after the McPalin campaign assessed how the Palin-Couric interview went, they put together a last minute interview between McCain and Couric.

As of this moment, CBS News has, as its lead story, McCain’s debate cancellation stunt. Not Sarah Palin’s second interview with a straight reporter. McCain has effectively pre-empted the interview with his running-mate. 

I get the feeling that Palin-Couric interview went even worse than the Charlie Gibson one.

And perhaps not coincidentally, McCain is now trying to postpone the VP debate.

Bush Failure > Obama Leadership > McCain Stunt

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Let me just clarify what seem to be the underlying issues behind McCain’s latest gimmick.

First, the bailout is in deep trouble. There are several reasons why the bailout is in trouble. It’s a crappy plan that, experts believe, does not really fix the crisis. So for those assessing the plan rationally, there is great skepticism about it.

In addition, Democrats are rightly suspecting this is another case of the boy-Bush who cried wolf. At the very least, the Bush Administration is springing this bailout in a irresponsibly political manner.  Add in Paulson’s dishonesty about the bailout, and the Administration simply can’t be trusted as honest partners in trying to solve this problem.

Meanwhile, Republicans are unwilling to accept what this crisis clearly proves: their ideology is dead. Rather than deal with the crisis the country is in, they are instead trying to turn the crisis into a campaign gimmick–an opportunity to distance themselves from Bush.

All of these things: the problems with the plan, Bush’s lack of credibility with Democrats, and Bush’s inability to get his own party to put country over campaign gimmicks, demonstrate the depth of Bush’s leadership failure.

At the same time, Republican promises to politicize this issue–along with Paulson’s promises–made McCain the key political stumbling block to crafting a deal.

So Obama did the right thing–showed leadership. At 8:30 AM, Obama reached out to his rival to propose they come up with a bipartisan statement. By making this effort, Obama gave up the opportunity to show just how much better he and his team are responding to this issue and instead prioritized finding a solution that would work.

McCain received that offer.

And he sat on it.

For six hours.

Finally, at 2:30 PM, McCain accepted the offer to put country ahead of politicking.

Only McCain couldn’t afford to do that. It seems that, during those six long hours when McCain was mulling Obama’s proposal, McCain was inventing a way to turn this into yet another political gimmick. Twenty minutes after accepting Obama’s proposal, McCain pulled this stunt of calling for a suspension of the campaign and postponement of the debate.

Bush’s failure of leadership, Obama’s assumption of that leadership, followed by McCain’s empty stunt. That’s the state of our country right now.

And as for the guy whose failures got us into this mess? Read more →

Obama’s Getting Into McCain’s Contemptuous Head

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Both Jonathan Chait and Daniel Larison have great columns noting the how his contempt for his opponents always fuels John McCain’s campaigns. Jeebus–Larison sounds like bmaz at his crankiest:

McCain exploits the concept of honor and frames every disagreement in terms of honor and dishonor, so it is particularly revealing that he is willing to launch dishonest and dishonorable attacks, because this drives home how much his concept of honor is intertwined with his own visceral reactions to opponents and with his self-interest.  Contrary to the conventional pundit interpretation that McCain has “sold his soul” and abandoned his once-honorable former self, the thing to understand about McCain’s lies in this campaign is that he invests these misrepresentations with his utter contempt for his opponents.  From McCain’s perspective, this infusion of contempt seems to transform shoddy, baseless attacks that disgrace him into indictments of the other politicians (e.g., Romney wants to surrender in Iraq, Obama would rather lose a war than lose an election).  If McCain thinks he is always honorable, resistance to him and his ideas must ultimately be villainous and vicious, and we have seen him deploy his perverse, solipsistic ends-justify-the-means concept of honor against Romney and now against Obama.  McCain’s admirers have largely missed this either because they happened to agree with McCain on policy or because they have mistaken his language of honor and principle to refer to the meanings that they attach to these terms. 

In any public confrontation that McCain has, he strives to show that he has kept faith with the public and his opponents have betrayed the public trust.  This isn’t because McCain is actually some devoted servant of the public interest, but because he has an irrepressible self-righteous streak that he thinks permits him to impugn the integrity of anyone who gets on his nerves or gets in his way.  Hence it was not enough for him to find fault with action or inaction by the SEC–Chris Cox must have betrayed the public trust.  Because McCain’s views are visceral, not intellectual, and he is not interested in policy detail, everything is a morality play, and it goes without saying that he thinks he is the hero. 

[snip]

The important thing about McCain’s lying about Obama and his positions, which he has been doing on and off for months, is not that it marks some great break with a previously honorable campaign style, but that it reveals the completely opportunistic approach to campaigning–and policymaking, for that matter–that McCain has embraced his entire career. [my emphasis]

Read more →