KINGSPORT, Tenn. (AP) - State Rep. Nathan Vaughn says campaign literature mailed by Tennessee Republicans was meant to inflame racial hatred and contributed to his re-election defeat.
Vaughn, a Kingsport Democrat who became northeastern Tennessee’s first black lawmaker when he was elected in 2002, lost to Republican Tony Shipley by 326 votes earlier this month.
Vaughn was the subject of heavy political attacks during the campaign, including a Tennessee Republican Party direct mail piece that pasted a picture of his head on a black bird.
Vaughn says that depiction “indicates either a large degree of insensitivity, at best, or just racial hatred.”
State Republican Chairwoman Robin Smith says there was nothing racial in the mailer.

Bluebirds wouldn’t have quite made the same point, would they?

I think it should be a general rule of thumb to not have your campaign put your opponent’s face on top of a member of the animal kingdom.

Just saying.

Now that the dust has settled, what do you think?

Is it still appropriate to infer that part of Bill Ayers “rubbed off” on Barack Obama?

Let me know what you think in the comments section!

Above: Fox News’ Carl Cameron has an inside tip from a McCain staffer that Sarah Palin

a. Couldn’t name the countries in NAFTA

b. Didn’t realize Africa was a continent, not a country

c. Repeatedly threw temper-tantrums at bad press clippings, &

d. Did not adequately prepare for the now infamous Katie Couric interview.

The New York Times has more here.

While this does conform with other stories about Sarah Palin’s lack of ‘knowledgeability,’ & it definitely adds weight to the story that it’s leaked to Fox News, it’s worth pointing out that post-election revealed internal strife is a common occurrence in a losing campaign.

I would hesitate to call these allegations true until we have a face to put behind these allegations.

Regardless of whether they’re true, I still believe Sarah Palin was an astoundingly poor choice for John McCain. While she provided a temporary boost in the polls, the transparency of this cynical pick on John McCain’s part revealed to voters that he was far more concerned with winning an election than with picking the right person. & that’s a quality -putting winning above all else- we have seen far too often in the current administration, much to the detriment of this country.

& Palin defenders, you need to ask yourselves: how would you have treated a pick like this if it came from the Democrats?

What do you think?

Click here to view the embedded video.

above: the View’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck introduces Palin.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Palin addresses the clothing issue.(read more about it here)

This quote from that story linked above is telling:

“A senior adviser to John McCain told CNN’s Dana Bash that the comments about her wardrobe “were not the remarks we sent to her plane this morning.”

She’s going what’s known as “off the reservation.”

I understand her desire to ‘go there’ - it’s been the hot topic for several days now, & I’m sure she’s chomping at the bit to address it. But addressing it has its downside - mainly, that it dominates the news for another cycle, with just 9 days to go.

I suspect the McCain campaign is not very happy with her right now.

What do you think?

Is she the victim of sexism?

Or a hypocrite?

Post a comment & share your viewpoint!

UPDATE:

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Sarah Palin wore jeans Sunday night at an event in North Carolina.
The Republican vice presidential candidate has been dogged for days by a brouhaha over $150,000 in clothes and accessories bought for her by the Republican National Committee.
Palin says the clothing flap is “so ridiculous,” arguing that she and her family live frugally.
She insists the high-priced wardrobe is for campaign rallies, “just like the lighting and the staging and everything else the RNC purchased.”
She says since the clothes don’t belong to her, she won’t be taking them with her. Instead, Palin says she’ll go back to wearing her old clothes from her “favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska.”
In Asheville, North Carolina, Sunday night, Palin was joined by country artist Gretchen Wilson, who performed her song “Redneck Woman.”
Earlier, Palin spoke in Florida.

Again: want Palin to win? Then you should hope she gets off this subject as quickly as possible.

(yes, that’s her as a kid. I love this photo. & wonder why we haven’t seen it more)

TODAY’S EPISODE: An interview with NBC’s Brian Williams…She’s “proud to be a redneck”…the Wall Street Journal says she’s being picked on…some humorous ’spin’ on the clothing story..& a defense of it from a co-worker

Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: an interview by Brian Williams.

Below: analysis of the interview by Williams & Chuck Todd.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Todd seems to notice some “tenseness” among the two candidates:

“I couldn’t see chemistry between John McCain and Sarah Palin. I felt as if we grabbed two people and said ‘here, sit next to each other, we are going to conduct an interview.’ They are not comfortable with each other yet.”

Do you think that’s fair? Let me know in the comments section.

Below: three clips from a rally in Henderson, Nevada.

Also on the stump: Palin says she’s proud to be a redneck.

The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger comes to Palin’s defense:

“By not bothering to look very deeply at the details beneath either candidate’s governing proposals, the media have created a lot of downtime to take free kicks at Gov. Palin. My former colleague, Tunku Varadarajan, has compiled a glossary of Palin invective, and I’ve added a few: “Republican blow-up doll,” “idiot,” “Christian Stepford wife,” “Jesus freak,” “Caribou Barbie,” “a dope,” “a fatal cancer to the Republican Party,” “liar,” “a national disgrace” and “her pretense that she is a woman.”

If American politics is at low ebb, it is because so many of its observers enjoy working in its fetid backwash.”

Former (2000) McCain strategist Mike Murphy takes a humorous look at possible ’spin’ for the revelation that the McCain campaign has spent $150,000 on Palin’s wardrobe in September:

“1.) What you sneering critics in the liberal MSM fail to see here is… a Jobs Program! Saks floorwalkers, cashiers, a team of sweating porters to haul the merchandise from the store to the motorcade… chiropractors to treat those porters. Sarah Palin knows how to create jobs!

2.) What’s the difference between a Pit Bull and a Hockey Mom? You can feed a pit-bull for 483 years with 150 grand.

3.) Still cheaper than Mitt Romney’s hair products. We’re saving money here…

4.) William Ayres is a terrorist!

5.) New ad slogan: “Clothes for Gov. Palin? $150,000. Time machine to go back two months to late August and ask what the Hell were Schmidt and Davis thinking when they cooked up this idea and sold it to McCain? Priceless.”

A co-worker offers this defense of the clothing story:

Hillary Clinton has never detailed how much was spent on her appearance
though one suspects it was not a small sum judging from recent appearances
— Clinton still looks fine but the reduction in coiffing is definitely
noticeable. At The New Yorker Festival earlier this month Peggy Noonan
remarked that she often feels sympathy for woman politicians because of the
amount of attention they have to devote to their appearance: “Hillary had
to face the requirements of appearance. Men don’t have to put that extra
hour in. Yes, it’s harder to be a woman.” Still, considering the extent to
which Obama is outspending McCain, probably there were better uses for this
money.

What do you think?

TODAY’S EPISODE: An interview on CNN…How Palin channels her inner John Edwards…

CNN Interview

A ‘Marie Antoinette’ Moment

John Edwards was mocked for the “$400 haircut” story. So it’s understandable that Palin (& the enabling RNC) deserve a little ribbing for this story in Politico today:

“The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

This is more spent on clothes & makeup in the past month than the average American family spends on its wardrobe over the course of 80 years.

As Marc Ambinder points out, the heat from this story will likely be generated more by Republicans than Democrats:

There is already an attempt to blame the media — as in, the liberal media would have looked askance at Palin if she wasn’t clad in Neiman Marcus, but this won’t wash. Republicans, RNC donors and at least one RNC staff member have e-mailed me tonight to share their utter (and not-for-attribution) disgust at the expenditures.

Oh, & by the way - that Palin makeup figure? Half as much as spent on makeup for John McCain.

What do you think?

From the AP:

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) - A Republican group in San Bernardino, California, has distributed a newsletter picturing Barack Obama on a $10 bill adorned with a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken.
The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports that the apparent linking of Obama to racist stereotypes drew denunciations from various GOP officials after the illustration appeared in the group’s October newsletter.
The president of Chaffey Community Republican Women says there was no racist intent. She says it was just food, to her.
She says she’d received the illustration in e-mails and decided to reprint it to poke fun at a remark by Obama that he doesn’t look like other presidents.
The Obama campaign says it doesn’t respond to such attacks.

More:

Sheila Raines, an African-American member of the club, was the first person to complain to Fedele about the newsletter. Raines, of San Bernardino, said she has worked hard to try to convince other minorities to join the Republican Party and now she feels betrayed.

“This is what keeps African-Americans from joining the Republican Party,” she said. “I’m really hurt. I cried for 45 minutes.”

&

Acquanetta Warren, a Fontana councilwoman and member of the women’s group, said the item is rude and requires a public apology.

“When I opened that up and saw it, I said, ‘Why did they do this? It doesn’t even reflect our principles and values,’ ” said Warren, who served as a Republican delegate to the national convention in September and is a regional vice chairwoman for the California Republican Party. “I know a lot of the ladies in that club and they’re fantastic. They’re volunteers. They really care — some of them go to my church.”

The Republican party I know never stands for this crap. Honorable Republicans that I’m acquainted with would denounce something like this, even though they know that saying nothing or refusing to confront something like this might, just might help their candidate get elected.

There are many reasons not to vote for Barack Obama. Saying he’s “Muslim” (untrue), “not a US citizen” (untrue) or even “the Anti-Christ” (way untrue) only makes your own side look bad.

Having your side lose is bad enough. But encouraging people to feel like it’ll be the Cuban missile crisis or 9/11 all over again if your side loses is un-American.

What do you think?

Troopergate Investigation Released

WASHINGTON (AP) - Alaska’s ousted public safety commissioner is arguing that a state legislative report damages Gov. Sarah Palin’s image of being an upfront and open political figure.
Investigator Stephen Branchflower concluded in a report late Friday that Palin abused her powers as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper. But there was no recommendation in that report for any action against Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee.
Former public safety commissioner Walter Monegan told NBC’s “Today” show in a telephone interview from Alaska on Monday morning that he was “relieved” the legislative report has been completed. But he did not say what legal options he might be considering.
Monegan did say he believes Palin “took a big blow to her credibility, and more significantly to her promises of being open and transparent.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Sarah Palin says she has mixed feelings about the results of the report from the so-called Troopergate controversy, which were released by Alaskan lawmakers Friday.
Palin says she’s happy the report affirmed her right to fire public safety commissioner Walter Monegan. But Palin says she still doesn’t think she abused her power like the report says she did.
In a brief conference call with reporters from Alaska, Palin says she thinks the investigation “did turn into a partisan circus.”
The largely toothless report says Palin violated state ethics laws, though lawmakers had no power to dole out any punishment.
That’s up to the state Personnel Board, which is running a parallel investigation that Palin is cooperating with.

Read the entire “Troopergate Report” here. (pdf file)

ABC’s Jake Tapper fact-checks Palin’s recent statements about the report here.

Above: Palin “throws out the first puck” at Philadelphia Flyers game over the weekend, to a crowd that to my ears doesn’t sound entirely supportive.

Above: Palin at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio (AP) - Sarah Palin continues to fire up Republican crowds but has apparently dropped some of the more inflammatory Barack Obama character attacks from her stump speech.
The veep candidate addressed a crowd in an economically depressed community in Ohio Sunday, with a barn as her backdrop. And instead of character issues, she talked about the economy, declaring there’s “a lot of anger” all across America right now. “Anger,” said Palin, “about the insider dealing of lobbyists. And anger at the greed of Wall Street. And anger about the arrogance of the Washington elite.”
Palin added that she loves “Small Town USA” with its hardworking, good American families; places, she said, that Barack Obama doesn’t understand.
Turning to Obama’s record on abortion rights, Palin said it’s “not being negative” to ask people to check out his record. At which point, a man in the crowd shouted “killer.”

Palin Mistakenly Thinks Supporters are Protesters

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin accidentally mistook some of her own fans for protesters Monday.
A massive crowd of at least 20,000 spread across the parking lot of Richmond International Raceway. Many on the outer periphery, more than 100 yards from the stage, couldn’t hear.
They started chanting, “Louder! Louder!” Palin thought they were protesters, looked toward them and said, “I hope those protesters have the courage and honor to give veterans thanks for their right to protest.”
Some in the crowd had stood in place for more than three hours on a sunny day without shade.

TRIGONOMETRY

Click here for an earlier Vote08 post that features a YouTube tribute to Trig Palin, Sarah & Todd’s newest family member. Palin has drawn widespread praise from her supporters for giving birth to a child who has special challenges (Down Syndrome).

The clip got me to wondering:

How many votes for the McCain-Palin ticket will Trig Palin be solely responsible for?

Any guess would of course be speculative, but there’s no denying that he will definitely drive some votes, that would have not been there otherwise.

It also got me thinking about the last time the offspring of a candidate was a major factor in electoral turnout in a presidential race.

& that would have been, by my reckoning, the contentious campaign of 1884, between Grover Cleveland & NY Governor James Blaine.

From Wikipedia:

Each candidate’s supporters cast aspersions on their opponents. Cleveland’s supporters rehashed the old allegations that Blaine had corruptly influenced legislation in favor of the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad and the Northern Pacific Railway, later profiting on the sale of bonds he owned in both companies. Although the stories of Blaine’s favors to the railroads had made the rounds eight years earlier, this time Blaine’s correspondence was discovered, making his earlier denials less plausible. On some of the most damaging correspondence, Blaine had written “Burn this letter,” giving Democrats the last line to their rallying cry: “Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine, ‘Burn this letter!’”

To counter Cleveland’s image of purity, his opponents reported that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer in Buffalo. The derisive phrase “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!” rose as an unofficial campaign slogan for those who opposed him. When confronted with the emerging scandal, Cleveland’s instructions to his campaign staff were: “Tell the truth.” Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin, the woman who claimed he fathered her child named Oscar Folsom Cleveland. Halpin was involved with several men at the time, including Cleveland’s friend and law partner, Oscar Folsom, for whom the child was named. Cleveland did not know which man was the father, and is believed to have assumed responsibility because he was the only bachelor among them.

The Cleveland & Palin children are different in that the former was an attempt to drive votes away from the ticket, whereas the latter is an attempt to drive votes towards the ticket.

McCain Campaign Releases Own Findings Ahead of Friday’s Troopergate Announcement

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska lawmakers have begun reviewing a lengthy and politically sensitive report that could prove embarrassing to Sarah Palin when it’s released later today.
The report focuses on whether the first-term Alaska governor abused her authority by firing a state official. Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan says Palin and her husband pressured him to fire Mike Wooten, a state trooper involved in a nasty divorce and custody dispute with the governor’s sister. When Monegan resisted, he says, he was fired.
The inquiry, approved by a legislative committee’s bipartisan vote, began before John McCain named Palin his running mate.
The McCain campaign has conducted its own review of the case and has found Palin free of any wrongdoing.

Read the McCain campaign’s own findings on the matter here.

UPDATE/1:35pm:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska lawmakers are meeting behind closed doors to discuss a politically charged ethics report into Gov. Sarah Palin’s firing of her state public safety commissioner.
The Republican vice presidential nominee has been accused of firing the commissioner to settle a family dispute. An investigator’s report was expected to be released later Friday.
Palin supporters have called the investigation politically motivated. Protestors wearing clown noses and carrying balloons greeted lawmakers with cheers that the circus was in town.
The investigation focuses on Palin’s firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan. Monegan says it was retribution for resisting pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with the governor’s sister.

What do you think?

A Question about Sarah Palin’s “Hacker”

Scott Horton, Harper’s:

“Why does it mean nothing to the feds when Joe Six-Pack is the victim of Internet identity theft, but the house falls in when a prankster wants to embarrass Sarah Palin? Do you think there might be just a bit of politics lurking behind the scenes?”

Troopergate Investigation Continues

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska’s Supreme Court has refused to shut down an ethics investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee.
The decision Thursday sets the stage for state lawmakers to release a report on their investigation Friday. The report could prove to be an embarrassment for Palin and a distraction for John McCain’s presidential campaign in the final weeks of the race.
Lawmakers are investigating whether Palin abused her power to settle a family dispute. Her former public safety commissioner says he was dismissed after resisting pressure to fire a state trooper who had gone through nasty divorce from Palin’s sister.
Republican lawmakers had sued to block the report, saying it had become politicized.

Today there was a kerfuffle over a photo of Palin’s legs got discussed on Fox News:

The final 10 seconds are quite classy.

Tina Fey’s not helping:

“About 33 percent of independents said the “Tina Fey effect” is hurting the McCain-Palin ticket, compared with 9 percent who said it was helpful, a Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports survey says. The figures were nearly identical among independents in the survey.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Above: Palin appearing with Senator & Mrs. McCain in Pennsylvania today.

Troopergate to Come to a Head Friday

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska’s Supreme Court says it will rule quickly on whether to shut down an abuse-of-power investigation into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Friday is the deadline for lawmakers to receive an investigative report into whether the Alaska governor abused her authority by firing her public safety commissioner. Critics claim she fired him because he wouldn’t dismiss a state trooper who had gone through a nasty divorce with her sister.
In court Wednesday, an attorney for five Republican lawmakers said the probe is a front for politicians trying to embarrass Palin.
Palin is a party to the lawsuit. Her husband and top aides recently agreed to cooperate with the probe.

My take: this story, while worthy of investigation, is not all that. I think there are many reasons to choose to vote or not to vote for McCain-Palin that are more important.

Look for an update on this story here tomorrow, though.

On McCain’s blog: A supporter made this YouTube video honoring Sarah & her son Trig:

Fact-Checking Obama’s Relationship with a Domestic Terrorist

The New York Times goes in-depth on Barack Obama’s relationship with the man pictured above, William Ayers, a relationship the McCain-Palin campaign tried to magnify on Saturday:

“A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.””

See what Obama strategist David Axelrod had to say about the Obama-Ayers relationship here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(from October 3rd)

From Jake Tapper’s Political Punch blog at ABC News:

In 2007, Wall Street’s five biggest firms– Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley - paid a record $39 billion in bonuses to themselves.

That’s $10 billion more than the $29 billion loan taxpayers are making to J.P. Morgan to save Bear Stearns.

Those 2007 bonuses were paid even though the shareholders in those firms last year collectively lost about $74 billion in stock declines –their worst year since 2002.

If split equally among the approximately 186,000 workers at the former Big Five Houses, that bonus money means an average of $201,500 per person — more than four times the $48,201 median household income in the U.S. last year.

Are you mad yet?

If you aren’t, you’re not paying attention.

& I’m not just doing a class warfare riff here. These people were genuinely incompetent! Investors & shareholders certainly didn’t get their money’s worth.

What do you think?

Whither Republican ideology in these changing times?

I’d like to urge all of those who consider themselves “Red-Staters” to read this da(rn)ing piece from Hale Stewart, called “the Death of Republican Philosophy,” & come back to give me your thoughts.

An example:

We are the party of small government

Actually, this week simply added to the the end of this claim. Under Bush II, discretionary spending has increased from $640 billion to $1.040 trillion dollars. Also remember that Bush had a Republican controlled congress for 6 of those years. However, Paulson will send a package to Congress which totals $800 billion. The Treasury will create a new agency to buy bad debt (which the WSJ’s Marketbeat blog has called the Treasury Garbage Machine). In short, when the Republicans control all branches of government they spend like drunken sailors.

What do you think?

In many ways the financial crisis is complicated.. but in some ways it’s so easy a child could explain it:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now the omelet making continues..

BANK CHANGE

Last two major investment banks get change OK

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Reserve has stepped in again to help Wall Street.
The Fed’s board has voted unanimously to give the last two major investment banks a status change that will let them get into the commercial banking business. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will become bank holding companies.
There were concerns about their ability to survive following last week’s collapse of Lehman Brothers and the forced sale of Merrill Lynch.
Goldman and Morgan Stanley will be able to set up banking subsidiaries to take deposits and also get access to the Fed’s emergency loan program. They’ll also be able to get short-term loans from the New York Federal Reserve Bank during a transition.
The change also means the two investment houses will fall under the direct regulation of the Fed, not the Securities and Exchange Commission.

FINANCIAL MELTDOWN-BUSH

Administration seeks quick action on rescue plan

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush is pushing Congress for speedy passage of a financial industry bailout.
The plan would give the Treasury broad authority to buy up to 700 billion dollars in bad debt — a massive intervention the president hopes lawmakers can approve this week.
Democrats also see the need to move quickly but say the deal should include more protections for homeowners and taxpayers and if it takes a few extra days to negotiate, so be it.
They also want more oversight of which bad loans get bought up, and limits on executive payouts.
The president heads to New York today for the annual U.N. General Assembly session, but aides say he’ll be getting regular updates on the financial rescue between meetings with world leaders.

WORLD MARKETS

Asian rally continues

HONG KONG (AP) - The rally on overseas stock markets has continued today, a positive reaction to the 700-billion-dollar U.S. plan to shore up the financial system.
Congress is working on a Bush administration proposal to wipe out the financial industry’s credit crisis by buying up bad mortgage debt.
Japan’s Nikkei index finished the day 1.4 percent higher. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.2 percent
The benchmarks in Australia and Taiwan also advanced strongly. And in China, the Shanghai Composite Index soared nearly eight percent. Investors were buoyed by Beijing’s efforts to stabilize China’s market.
Even so, stock index futures in the U.S. are down, suggesting Wall Street may open lower this morning.

Is this a time for partisanship? Let’s hope it can be held to a minimum.

But this is a time for anger. You have a right to be mad. This is your money!

There is lots of blame to go around.

As a voter for president in 2008, your duty is to do your homework to find out who got us in the current financial mess, & why, & vote accordingly.

You also have a right to demand that both the government & financial institutions be more transparent & accountable.

Part of the problem with these financial institutions right now is that no one knows exactly how much money is owed, & to whom.

We will be stuck in this mess for as long as it takes for that entanglement to sort itself out.

What do you think?

From Saturday’s New York Times:

“…while economists and other experts say there are plenty of culprits — Democrats and Republicans in Congress, the Federal Reserve, an overzealous home-lending industry, banks and also Mr. Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton - they do agree that the Bush administration bears part of the blame.

These experts, from both political parties, say Mr. Bush’s early personnel choices and overarching antipathy toward regulation created a climate, that, if it did not set off the turmoil, almost certainly aggravated it.”

&:

“To his credit, Mr. Bush accurately foresaw the danger posed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and began calling as early as 2002 for greater regulation.’”

but:

“…experts say the administration could have done even more to curb excesses in the housing market, and much more to police Wall Street, which transmitted those problems around the world.

Today, even some sympathetic to Mr. Bush say he cannot disentangle himself from a home-lending industry that ran amok or a banking industry that mortgaged its future on toxic loans.

“The crisis definitely happened on their watch,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard who advises Mr. McCain. “This is eight years into the Bush administration. There was a lot of time to deal with it.””

[Disclaimer: the views expressed in this post are completely my own & do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone else at WTVC NewsChannel9 or Freedom Communications]

Vice President Dick Cheney is visiting the Chattanooga area Friday; he will be present at the commemoration of the 145th anniversary of the Battle of Chickamauga.

So please join me in welcoming America’s worst-ever Vice President.

I believe he is a man who, while in office, has done far more damage to the United States than any terrorist ever has or will in the future.

At the risk of displaying a less-than-flattering view of me, I want to show you that I am an Eagle Scout. That’s me at age 14. I was a Cub Scout & a Boy Scout, & in my teen years I worked summers at a Boy Scout camp as a swimming instructor.

This is my stepson in 1997, at the very beginning of his Scouting career. Just this past month, he achieved his Eagle rank - an honor only 4 out of 100 boys who join Scouting can claim. His achievement this past month is something that fills me with immense pride. Throughout his 11-year Scouting career, I have been deeply involved in his troop, & that includes spending an occasional week in the summer at Skymont, attending campouts, & helping the boys in the rest of the troop.

I’m getting biographical here because Scouting taught me values that have been near & dear to my heart. Those values are expressed in the Scout Oath:

“On my honor, I will do my best, to do my duty, to God & my country, to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, & to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, & morally straight.”

The “Scout Law” mentioned in that oath contains 12 values that I consider part of my core.

The Scout Law:

“A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, & reverent.”

You don’t have to be a Boy Scout to subscribe to these values. In fact, it’s my view that following them makes for good character, no matter who you are.

As Vice President, it is my view that Dick Cheney has failed to live up to these values, & I’d like to demonstrate that now.

It is my hope that we elect a president & vice president that lives up to them, & I urge you to consider them when making your choice on November 4th.

.

Dick Cheney has not been trustworthy.

Dick Cheney helped mislead the American people into thinking that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But don’t take my word for it.

Here’s what the former House Majority Leader, Dick Armey, a Republican, had to say about it recently:

“Did Dick Cheney … purposely tell me things he knew to be untrue?” Armey said. “I seriously feel that may be the case…Had I known or believed then what I believe now, I would have publicly opposed [the war] resolution right to the bitter end, and I believe I might have stopped it from happening.”

.

Dick Cheney has not been loyal.

In August 2007, at a rally in Alburquerque, New Mexico, Cheney demanded that those attending the rally sign a loyalty oath before he set foot in the building.

The disloyalty here, is to democracy.

.

Dick Cheney has not been helpful.

Early in the Bush administration, Dick Cheney held an “energy task force” meeting that was largely comprised of oil executives & other industry bigwigs to essentially write the government’s energy policy, one that would consider the interests of those executives first & environmental & public interests last, if at all. Cheney fought tooth & nail to keep the results of that meeting under wraps, something which a federal judge & the General Accounting office ordered him to turn over. For vice president Cheney, being helpful is a relative term.

.

Dick Cheney has not been friendly.

Look at how he treated the covert identity of Valerie Plame, who worked for the CIA, shortly after her husband penned a piece in the New York Times that questioned President Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium from Niger. Outing a CIA agent is treasonable; doing it for political reasons is reprehensible. As the first President Bush once said, ““I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.”

.

Dick Cheney has not been courteous.

As Vice President, Cheney is president of the U.S. Senate. Posing for a “class photo” in 2004, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy questioned him about his ties to Halliburton, the company which he presided over as president before he was called to public service, & the company which has profited enormously since the invasion of Iraq. Cheney’s reply to Leahy was something I can’t reprint here.

.

Dick Cheney has not been kind.

There’s no question that we have lost a lot of precious treasure thanks to the sacrifice of the men & women of the U.S. Armed forces. But have they (& their families) been the ones who have borne “the biggest burden,” according to Dick Cheney? No:

“The president carries the biggest burden, obviously,” Cheney said. “He’s the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans.”

&, from the same interview:

“When you talk about an all-volunteer force, some of these soldiers, airmen, Marines have been on two, three, four, some of them more than that, deployments,” Raddatz said. “Do you think when they volunteered they had any idea that there would be so many deployments or stop-loss? Some of those who want to get out can’t because of stop-loss?”

“A lot of men and women sign up because sometimes they will see developments,” Cheney said.

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Dick Cheney has not been obedient.

Not even to his own president:

Just after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney refused President Bush’s request to head up a “cabinet-level task force” aimed at speeding the recovery effort, writes the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman in a still-embargoed section of his new book, “Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.”

When asked by Bush if he would “at least go do a fact-finding trip for us,” Cheney responded saying, “That’ll probably be the extent of it”:

Days after the storm had passed, when he finally returned to Washington from Crawford, Bush assembled his senior staff in the Oval Office. He was going to set up a cabinet-level task force, he said.

“I asked Dick if he’d be interested in spearheading this,” Bush announced. “Let’s just say I didn’t get the most positive response.” Bush nodded ironically toward the vice president, putting on a show for the others: Card, Rove, Bartlett, Condi Rice. His expression, the tone of voice, had a hint of edge. Can you believe this guy? […]

“Will you at least go do a fact-finding trip for us?” Bush asked.

“That’ll probably be the extent of it, Mr. President, unless you order otherwise,” Cheney replied.

Gellman writes that White House counselor Dan Bartlett “came to see Cheney’s demurral ‘quite frankly as pretty good judgment.’ Cheney ‘doesn’t do touchy-feely,’ Bartlett said.”

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Dick Cheney has not been cheerful.

Click here to view the embedded video.

…

OK, you got me here.

Dick Cheney is one of the most cheerful people in Washington.

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Dick Cheney has not been thrifty.

“If there’s anything about the economy that keeps Dick Cheney up at night, it’s the prospect of sabotage aimed at disrupting the oil market, he told FORTUNE.

“Clearly the world depends on a global supply of oil, and that will continue to be true for some considerable period of time. Efforts to shut down the flow of oil could conceivably have a significant impact.”

So when President Bush’s 2008 budget was coming together, with the goal of balancing the budget in five years, Cheney nevertheless insisted on a $947 million line item: a speedup of the flow of crude into the Texas and Louisiana salt caverns housing the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The budget guys pushed back: Can’t we wait until crude prices level off? No, the word came back from Cheney, this was urgent. That was all it took. “He doesn’t weigh in on a ton of issues,” said a person close to those negotiations. “But when he does . . .”

When he does, the Vice President tends to get his way.

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Dick Cheney has not been brave.

From Cheney’s Wikipedia page:

“When Cheney became eligible for the draft, he was a supporter of the Vietnam War but did not serve in the military. Instead, he applied for and received five draft deferments. In 1989, the Washington Post writer George C. Wilson interviewed Cheney as the next Secretary of Defense; when asked about his deferments, Cheney reportedly said, “I had other priorities in the ’60s than military service.”

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Dick Cheney has not been clean.

In 2000, Dick Cheney was the head of the Vice-Presidential vetting team for George W. Bush. He ultimately told Bush that he was the best candidate. But he did not subject himself to the same strenuous vetting process he forced others to undergo; in fact, he never filled out his own questionairre.

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Dick Cheney has not been reverent.

“Reverence” often means matters of faith, but in my view, it also applies to the U.S. Constitution. It has been evident throughout his Vice Presidency that Cheney holds that most hallowed of American documents in contempt; he has tried at every turn to expand the powers of the executive branch & reduce the powers of the legislative & judicial branch. This is a topic of major concern; this link makes the case far better than I can.

You may want to tell me that this involves the outgoing administration, & that I should stay focused on the one arriving on January 20th of next year.

I happen to think that I am.

If nothing else, I want a president & vice president who uphold the values that shape my moral center.

I believe there’s little else that matters more when you cast your vote.

For me, it’s a matter of honor.

I’d love to hear what you have to say about any of this.

FURTHER READING: Barton Gellman of the Washington Post has chronicled Cheney’s role in the Bush administration quite expertly here, in a series called “Angler.”

p.s. [Presidential trivia: the only U.S. president to fight at Chickamauga was James A. Garfield, for the Union. He was 34 at the time of the battle, & later became the 2nd United States president to be assassinated.]

(image by Matt Brunson)

MIAMI (AP) - Al Gore may lay claim to the Internet, but John McCain may have a high-tech achievement of his own.

A top McCain policy adviser says the Republican presidential nominee helped create the BlackBerry.
Waving his BlackBerry personal digital assistant, Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters, “You’re looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create.”
McCain has acknowledged that he doesn’t know how to use a computer and can’t send e-mail — one of the primary functions of a Blackberry.
Holtz-Eakin claims McCain’s service on and leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee put him at the intersection of a number of economic interests, including the telecommunications industry.
The argument is similar to one advanced by Gore. The 2000 Democratic presidential nominee once boasted about “taking the initiative to create the Internet” through technological and educational policies.

Oh, no! Why is this terrible news? Because if history is any guide, a member of Congress claiming to have helped “invent” something in the field of technology will only open himself up to ridicule from the right wing!

To wit:

Please go easy on McCain, GOP. After all, remember: he’s your nominee!

UPDATE: According to a McCain campaign pool report, senior aide Matt McDonald said that McCain “laughed” when he was told about Holtz-Eakin’s comment. “He would not claim to be the inventor of anything, much less the BlackBerry. This was obviously a boneheaded joke by a staffer,” McDonald said.

UPDATE #2: The Blackberry was, in fact, invented by a company based in Canada.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - The investigator looking into whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power in trying to fire her former brother-in-law is asking state lawmakers for the power to subpoena Palin’s husband, Todd.
The probe has taken on new significance since Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked Palin as his running mate.
Retired prosecutor Stephen Branchflower asked the state House and Senate judiciary committees for power to subpoena 13 witnesses, including Todd Palin. The committees were expected to grant the request.
Branchflower said he wants to interview Palin herself, but did not ask for a subpoena for her.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You gotta have Heart, or at least the GOP did on Thursday night. Shortly after the balloons began to fall, the band’s 1970s rock song ‘Barracuda’ blasted Invesco Hall, in honor of Sarah Palin’s high school nicname.

But that did not sit well with Heart.

“Sarah Palin’s views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song ‘Barracuda’ no longer be used to promote her image. The song ‘Barracuda’ was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The ‘barracuda’ represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there’s irony in Republican strategists’ choice to make use of it there.”

Read more about it here. (salty language alert)

I understand how the GOP may have thought the song was appropriate, but 3 minutes in, during the guitar solo, when we saw a shot of John McCain’s mom, it felt a bit.. awkward.

& speaking of awkward, did the GOP parse over the lyrics to decide if it applied to their message? A reading of the song’s lyrics would suggest otherwise:

“So this aint the end -
I saw you again today
I had to turn my heart away
Smiled like the sun -
Kisses for real
And tales - it never fails!

You lying so low in the weeds
I bet you gonna ambush me
Youd have me down down down down on my knees
Now wouldnt you, barracuda?

Back over time we were all
Trying for free
You met the porpoise and me
No right no wrong, selling a song-
A name, whisper game.

If the real thing dont do the trick
You better make up something quick
You gonna burn burn burn burn it to the wick
Ooooooh, barracuda?

Sell me sell you the porpoise said
Dive down deep down to save my head
You…i think you got the blues too.

All that night and all the next
Swam without looking back
Made for the western pools - silly fools!

If the real thing dont do the trick
No, you better make up something quick
You gonna burn burn burn burn it to the wick
Ooooooohhhh, barra barracuda.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh.”

What do you think?

EARLIER ON VOTE08: Dude, That’s My Song! The Huck Draws Feedback from 70s Rockers (February 15th)

ABC News has exclusively learned that Alaska Senator Hollis French will announce today that he is moving up the release date of his investigation into whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her office to get the Alaska public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, fired. The results of the investigation were originally scheduled for release Oct. 31 but will now come almost three weeks earlier, according to sources.

The announcement is set for 9 a.m. AKDT time.

The Alaska state senator running an investigation of Gov. Palin had accused the McCain campaign of using stall tactics to prevent him from releasing his final report by Oct. 31, four days before the November election.

“It’s likely to be damaging to the Governor’s administration,” said Senator Hollis French, a Democrat, appointed the project manager for a bi-partisan State Senate Legislative Counsel Committee investigation.

Palin, who has denied any wrongdoing and has said she has nothing to hide, has hired private lawyers to represent her in the matter.

Get more details on what’s known as “Troopergate” here.

Above: John McCain giving a speech on June 3rd, 2008, in front of a green screen that was universally panned, especially among Republicans, who may have seen their greatest moment of worry on this date.

In addition to the fact that the crowd was sparse, & McCain’s speaking style was flat, the color green rarely makes anyone look good.

You may be aware of this, but a green screen is what the Storm Track 9 team uses here at the NewsChannel to help deliver their weather report. It’s a green wall, & the weather maps are magically ‘projected’ behind the meteorologist.

That technology provided a ton of parodies of the McCain speech, especially after comedian Stephen Colbert called for viewers to submit their ideas:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You get the idea. Yes, many of them are funny. There are hundreds, maybe thousands more by searching the terms “green screen challenge” at the YouTube site.

But obviously this is not something the McCain people should never let happen again.

Which makes the 1st ten minutes of McCain’s speech last night so perplexing - make that mystifying. Scroll down to the speech clip two posts down & watch for yourself. An entirely green background, opening the candidate up for more parodies. The Stephen Colbert show staff must have been ecstatic.

It’s because of the (in my view, amazing) huge TV screen that for most of the week provided some pretty stunning backdrops of American scenes.

As you can see from the wide shot above, the picture is of a large home, & the green was from the grass at the bottom of the picture. Unfortunately this made the tight shot of McCain look, frankly, awful. Green reared its ugly head.

What’s the picture of? You suspect that some in the TV audience suspected it was one of McCain’s mansions.

Talking Points Memo says it’s of Walter Reed Middle School, in Los Angeles.

But consider this, from the same site:

“several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that’s ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they’re quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this school being behind McCain and the fact that it has ‘Walter Reed’ in its name, I’m really not sure you can discount this possibility.“