That is one STRANGE interview! All he had to do was say something innocuous like "honor is serving your country, putting your country first before your own interests, like I did when I was a POW in Vietnam."

See how easy that is? He gets to slip "POW" into the sentence naturally.

I wonder how the lack of sleep and pressure on the campaign trail is getting to McGrumpy.

He really IS too old to be President! God forbid that he would ever be in the oval office and start making irrational decisions because he was tired and cranky because damn Russians were causing problems right when he wanted to take a nap!

Posted at August 28, 2008 11:18 AM in response to Prickly McCain Refuses To Define "Honor" In Interview

The Newsweek pollsters use demographic factors and do NOT weight their polls by Party ID. That's why their last poll had 52% Democrats and only 28% Republicans. This poll somewhat oversamples Republicans.

There are separate problems with weighting a poll by party ID, i.e. what exactly IS current Party ID, we don't know what it is! But the data then don't jump around like a lizard on a hot plate from poll to poll!

Posted at July 11, 2008 11:51 PM in response to Poll: National Race Tightens; Majority Says Obama Flip-Flopped On Key Issues

Typical right-wing cant! "ooh! Moveon.org dared call our St. Petreus a liar! The dastards!"

Well Gen. Petreus is a lying whore! And that's not just MY opinion, that's the opinion of his superior Admiral Fallon, who said FAR worse things about Petreus than anybody on the "left" ever dared!

"Fallon told Petraeus [in March] that he considered him to be“an ass-kissing little chickensh*t” and added, “I hate people like that”

Admiral Fallon knows the type! Petreus is a nasty little brown-noser who made his way to the top by ass-kissing Cheney and Rumsfeld and the neo-cons. His spin and coverups for the real situation in Iraq is exactly like that of Gen. Westmoreland in Vietnam, a new version of the "Five O'Clock Follies."

Then he puts on all his ribbons, goes to Congress and pulls a Col. Ollie North and suddenly he's a "hero" and everyone is supposed to worship him and bend down to his mighty judgment that -- despite every indication to the contrary, "the surge is working" -- and we'll all get a pony!

Well, he's no hero. He's a nasty little liar whose nothing more than Dick Cheney with a uniform.

Posted at July 1, 2008 1:29 PM in response to Clark Ridiculed McCain and the Left Doesn't Get It: What's Up With That?

Obama looks weak and McCain looks strong. There was nothing wrong with the Times assessment at all. It perfectly captured the capitulationist week that Obama has had, from folding on FISA and offering a terribly weak defense of that, to repudiating Gen. Clark and throwing him immediately under the bus, the minute the right-wing started to criticize him.

It's just outrageous that Obama is caving in like this. He deserves all the bad press he's getting because he's just letting McCain walk all over him with this stuff!

He should have escalated Clark's attack and supported him, not renounced him giving McCain a needless victory that will prove very troubling the rest of the campaign.

McCain was a lieutenant commander in the Navy, got shot down and was a POW. That does not make him an expert on foreign policy and there's nothing wrong with saying it. It's just a LIE that Clark was attacking McCain's patriotism, but Obama backing down like this gives McCain WEEKS more publicity on this.

He'll be demanding an apology, insisting that Obama's apology isn't good enough, attacking Obama for "smearing" his record, etc. There is NO way to "defuse" this. The only thing to do is to ATTACK and that just seems to be the one thing Obama can't manage to do!

It's just pathetic weakness on his part and if he keeps this up he's going to lose the election!

Posted at June 30, 2008 7:26 PM in response to NY Times: McCain On Offense, Obama On Defense

These cases are a complete annoyance, but every single one of them can be undone by federal legislation.

For instance, all Congress has to do to reverse Chamber of Commerce v. Brown for instance is to amend federal labor law to state explicitly that state labor law is explicitly NOT preempted if the states wish to regulate in this area.

The problem of course is that it will take years to undo all the extremist opinions of the Supreme Court and meanwhile they go on blithely adding new outrages to their previous decisions.

But, none of this stuff is like their Constitutional rulings -- ex: the 2nd Amendment case, that CANNOT be undone without a Constitutional amendment. Those are more serious and permanent unless a future liberal S.Ct. revisits the case and reverses it. That could take decades rather than years.

Congress better get active starting in January 2009. They ought to compile a list and perhaps pass an omnibus bill to reverse everything the Supreme Court has done. They could even call it the "Omnibus Supreme Court Reversal Bill" and explicitly attack the Court for the outrageous rulings.

Such an attempt would attract massive lobbying from business interests opposed to the repeals though and it would take a firm effort from President Obama to have any chance of passage.

Posted at June 30, 2008 7:18 PM in response to At Supreme Court, States Lost Big Against Corporate Interests

For God's sake people! How many times do we have to say it! "DON'T FEED THE TROLL!"

Posted at June 30, 2008 4:31 PM in response to Obama's Patriotism Speech Stresses Life Story, Criticizes MoveOn

Admitting your opponent's chief narrative is always a horrible idea!

Truth: McCain was a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy. flying a Jet off a carrier when he was shot down. That means he wasn't doing ANYTHING that demonstrates ANY foreign policy expertise.

It's dangerous work and he's Patriotic. That's the difference between PATRIOTIC and EXPERIENCED!

That difference needs to be hammered home again and again! And Obama just TOTALLY BLEW HIS CHANCE TO DO IT!

STUPID!

Posted at June 30, 2008 3:34 PM in response to Obama Campaign Condemns Wes Clark's Comments About McCain

100% right! There's NEVER an advantage in being perceived as weak and folding in the face of attacks.

Clark was dead-on right! Obama needs to go right after McCain's perceived strength, his military service, exactly the way that Bush went right after Kerry's.

Clark was perfectly poised to do just that! He made the distinction between PATRIOTISM and EXPERIENCE.

McCain has ZERO executive experience. Yet he's posing as having the "experience to lead our nation in troubled times" and attacking Obama for NOT having that experience!

Obama should have jumped in and defended Clark and started a debate about whether McCain HAS any experience.

If McCain wants to argue "I was on the Senate foreign relations committee so I know about foreign policy." that's fine! But, voters aren't likely to be impressed. What he's trying to do is say that "I'm a war hero, so I have the relevant experience to lead. Obama isn't so he doesn't."

If he can build on that narrative he will WIN in November! Obama has to take him down right now and Clark was the perfect person to do it.

This is just a HUGE, HUGE BLUNDER by Obama. It basically gives up and says "o.k. McCain DOES have the experience and I don't!" That's fatal!

Of course, McCain isn't going to let this die! He's going to continue to attack Obama for "impuning my patriotism!" And make Obama look weak by having to further apologize and surrender!

Never apologize when you're right! Republicans never apologize period. But, at least be strong when you're right! DAMN! I HATE THIS NEW WEAK-KNEED SCARED OBAMA!

That's exactly how Kerry and Dukakis and Gore lost! They got rolled and forced into a crouch to defend themselves against endless attacks and they appeared weak and "flip-floppers!" And they lost. Obama is now starting to do the same damn thing!

Posted at June 30, 2008 3:25 PM in response to Obama Campaign Condemns Wes Clark's Comments About McCain

Republicans HAD the September Surprise in September 2006, remember? The Bin Laden tape? That was supposed to remind voters to be very afraid!

Bush may attack Iran between now and January 2009, but he's doing it more for his OWN legacy than to get McCain elected. He wants a continuation of his policies, but he's not taking any chances. He's trying to lock in his successor even if it's Obama. That's the SOFA with Iraq, the surge, and a basket-load of pardons for everybody connected with the Bush crime-family as they leave town.

It's unclear what the American people will think of $10 a gallon gas. They're not happy with $5 a gallon right now. Doubling the price of oil won't make them happier.

McCain might lose in a landslide if this rebounded against the Republicans. It would be the ultimate in cynicism to start another war at the very end of your term and leave an even bigger mess for the next President. That would be hard even for the slavish boot-licking media to explain away.

Posted at June 29, 2008 11:15 AM in response to October Surprise?

I'm sorry but the facts get in the way of this thesis. I notice that you (like me) don't practice in the area of telecommunications law or Constitutional law. But,

A couple of points:

1. The Telecoms were not at all worried about obeying the government "order" to cooperate with this spying program. In fact, they cut off the Feds completely when the government fell behind on their payments, just like they turn off your phone when you don't pay your bill.

Clearly, they weren't feeling terribly compelled.

2. Obviously, they must have gotten hold-harmless and indemnity agreements from the Government. It would be malpractice for their attorneys NOT to get such agreements if at all possible. And in this case the government BADLY wanted their cooperation without a lot of hassles or the possibility that all this would become public knowledge.

3. The existence of an indemnity agreement does nothing to vitiate the usefulness of the lawsuits going forward. Money was never any significant part of the point of these suits. First of all, the damages would be trivial to companies like AT&T. It's clearly NOT going to inhibit their behavior going forward.

4. I'm not at all sure that a suit of the government or the responsible officials in the Bush administration would lie. I certainly haven't researched this issue but Plaintiff's lawyers certainly did and they obviously concluded not. Just the impossibility of getting past national security restrictions for one thing must weigh heavily. I'd say offhand they were right.

5. The "Nuremberg Defense" doesn't just apply to "extreme" cases. We aren't Nazi Germany. The government cannot order you to break the law. Legally. There are of course some practical limitations to this, but not for Telecom Giants.

They cooperated NOT because they thought it was legal, their own legal departments must have told them of the order's questionable legality (as Qwests' obviously did), but they went along for what amounted to government bribes (multi-million contracts to make it worth while to them).

Conclusion: There's no reason to think these suits would all be dismissed BEFORE discovery, and it's certainly worth a shot. A governmental indemnity agreement DOES NOT absolve the tortfeasor from wrongful conduct, it merely results in the government being a potentially responsible party and having to indemnify the companies for any award -- which is a trivial aspect of the case.

We WANT TO KNOW WHO WAS SPIED ON! What were they up to? That's all. That's why this is a big deal.

Posted at June 25, 2008 10:45 PM in response to Obama On FISA: Telecom Immunity Issue Doesn't Override National Security