John McCain broadcast an ad taking Barack Obama's words out of context and suggesting Democrats were trying to compare GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin to a pig. The McCain campaign ran another spot erroneously claiming Obama favored comprehensive sex education for kindergarteners.Democrats have not been above reproach either. After McCain secured the GOP nomination this spring, outside groups falsely claimed the Republican supported a 1,000-year war in Iraq and therefore was not worthy of the presidency.
These misleading appeals suggest voters must remain vigilant about candidate, party, and group claims. Generally, the most misleading commercials have come from independent groups uncoordinated with the candidates.
2. AFP (No Byline) McCain, Palin Defiant in Lies Storm 9/15/2008:
Seems like AFP wants to do the right thing here, despite some of the ol' moral equivalence:
Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin stand accused Monday of trying to "lie" their way into the White House with discredited claims and advertising -- and it's not just outgunned Democrats crying foul.
Non-partisan fact-check operations, newspapers and opinion columnists are also charging McCain, once a darling of the press, of cloaking the election in sleaze and unfairly smearing Democrat Barack Obama.
With the United States locked in two foreign wars, punished by its thirst for Middle Eastern oil and with the economy plummeting, the race was consumed for two days last week by McCain camp claims Obama called Palin a "pig."
US election campaigns and hardball advertising always push the limits of truth and often amount to outright distortion -- the Obama camp has not hesitated to blur McCain's record too.
Blurring, lying, what-ever. And here's the ultimate statement from a dysfunctional, soulless press corps:
Whatever its morality, the final judgement on McCain's strategy will be dictated by whether it works.
Ugh.
3. Glora Borger, CNN Candidates of 'change' stick to politics as usual 9/15/2008
A veritable banquet of shallow insight and journalistic relativism [emphasis added]:
[Palin] was a purely political choice. It had nothing to do with governing or with who would be best able to step up to the job of the presidency should that need arise. It was about finding a woman to appeal to those disaffected Clinton supporters and finding a true social conservative to appeal to the GOP base that has been so unenthusiastic about McCain.
Not that Obama's choice of Biden wasn't political, too: Biden is a Catholic with appeal to those working-class voters in battleground states who still can't connect with Obama. [they can't? --Ed. ]And, by the way, he brings foreign policy credibility, too.
Biden's extensive foreign policy work is a substantive qualification for VP, and the #1 reason Obama picked him. Gloria spun it bass-ackwards: Biden's working-class Catholic roots are his "by the way" attribute. More:
Then Obama responds [to McCain lies], with an ad mocking McCain as an out-of-touch, computer-illiterate candidate who can't possibly understand your problems.
OK, we get it: He's old.
Here's the problem for both of these campaigns: This bickering won't sustain the rest of the campaign. You can't argue about change by saying you were there first. You can't claim that experience -- no matter how much -- is enough to lead. You can't make a blatant play for special-interest groups (and that includes women) and wind up with a united country, even if you win.
Borger should feel ashamed to collect a paycheck for such relativistic garbage. As John Stewart said about corporate media campaign coverage, "they never tell you who's right, just who's winning."
They've preached that every social ill results from individual moral failing and/or a lack of religious faith: poverty, violent crime, teenage pregnancy, terrorist attacks, substance abuse—even natural disasters.
They've insisted that so-called “liberal” values and policies —empiricism, human rights, pluralism, collective bargaining, stem cell research, comprehensive health education, environmental protection, progressive taxation, Social Security, women’s rights— caused an epidemic of moral failure, weakened national resolve, and left us first slouching, then skipping towards Gomorrah.
The nation’s problems, they claimed, were just the citizenry’s lack of
conservative religiosity writ large; their solution was to eradicate the
slightest hint of “liberalism” in governance, adopt policies based upon
“correct” right-wing ideology (found mostly in ultraconservative religious
teachings), and place ultraconservative Republicans in charge of
government.
Enter Sarah Palin, touted as the latest examplar of curative
Right Wing Values. She's a religious conservative who ascribes to the
Conservatively Correct views on social issues, notably opposing birth control,
comprehensive sex education, and reproductive choice for women. She raised her
kids according to these values, and guess what? Her unmarried teenage
daughter got pregnant.
Yes, in the best-resourced family of
hardest-core preachers of right-wing conservative values, 17 year-old Bristol
fooled around under Mom and Dad's nose (just like most other teenagers). As
if
David Vitter, Dr. David Hagar, Helen Chenoweth, Ed Schrock, Vito Fossella,
Duke Cunningham, Rev. Ted Haggert, Cardinal Bernard Law, Henry Hyde, George
Roche III, Mark Foley, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Bob
Livingstone, Jimmy Swaggert and Phil Giordano weren't proof enough, we're
reminded again that Republican claims of moral superiority are a
scam.
Right-wing conservatives are more likey --not less-- to abuse the public
trust and engage in corrupt, deviant and exploitative behavior. Their constant
sermonizing and moral attacks are just camouflage
and misdirection from their
own misdeeds.
Republicans are spinning the Palin teenage pregnancy as an act of virtue because she's agreed to marry the father and have the baby. Can you imagine the Republican reaction similarly if a teenage Chelsea Clinton or unmarried Sarah Gore got preganant? The Right would be lining-up to call them sluts, fornicators, etc. and would blame it all on their parents' "liberal" values.
Time for the media and all honest Americans to call bullshit on the Republican morality scam.
]]>7 stately pleasure domes decree:
Where Abramoff and sleazebag lobbyists, ran
Through bribes measureless to a working man
Among the elitist GOP.
He built one mansion in Sedona’s precious sands
With walls to hide Big Oil’s greedy hands:
And Wall Street cash flowed from gilded spigots;
While Kubla McCain dined with Swift Boat bigots
In Phoenix did Kubla McCain aquire more pleasure
Bought a mega-ranch with Cindy’s treasure
Where the Keating 5 would come to drink and dance
Among the pampered parasites of inheritance
Yes, pleasure domes did Kubla McCain collect
Not far from Warren Jeffs’ weird sect
In Scottsdale, Flagstaff and Cucamonga Junction
all stocked with pills for erectile dysfunction.
Then an American asked of Kubla McCain
(‘casuse Bush’s class warfare casued his country such pain):
“How many pleasure palaces, in fact, do you own,
While middle-class families work their fingers to the bone?”
”And are they all surrounded by by moat, sand or wall?”
But Kubla McCain stammered, “uh, well, I don’t recall...”
“A condo here, maybe a condo there...
but I’m a regular guy like you, I swear!”
The American replied, “I didn’t mean to cause you distress,
but I thought you rode the Straight Talk Express...?”
Said Kubla McCain, “I do!
I’m not lyin! I feel your
regular-guy pain!
And did you know Obama’s middle name is ‘Hussein’?” Yes,
That boy is black, and his wife? Even blacker!
Rush Limbaugh once said that she called me a ‘cracker!’”
“I just asked how many houses,” the American did insist
But follow-up questions get Kubla McCain pissed
“I don’t answer to you little people,” he said, extra-riled
While somewhere in hades,
Leona Helmsley smiled.
Then Kubla McCain got grumpy when his pleasure domes made news
So he stomped marbled floors in his $500 shoes
”I know “ he fumed to his servants, “how to make this all stop”
“ I’ll announce another patented McCain Flip-Flop!”
“Broder will praise it, so will Brooks no matter what,
And there’s always Jeff Gannon (though he’s kind of a slut)
Yes, the MSM loves me, tho’ I’m a pompous right-wing prick...”
Then Joe Lieberman whispered “you mean ‘original maverick’”
But the pandering must wait, here in pleasure dome number 4
Kubla McCain walks through an imported arabesque door
To his private Olympic-size pool -a Mexican just skimmed it of slime
It is 2:35 --Kubla McCain’s Nap Time.]]>Sally (Whittington) May said her father does not recall a lot of the incident, nor was he involved in how or whether information about the incident was released: "He didn't know at the time if he was going to the hospital or the mortuary." The doctors were back around Monday morning. They have mostly been concerned with injuries to his throat.
Also, CNN reported that the White House knew of Whittington's heart attack before today's press briefing, but witheld the information until after.
UPDATE #2:
The NY Times notes the legal possibilities for Cheney in the event of a fatality:
Under the law, even an accidental hunting fatality can result in criminal charges. Mr. Cheney could be charged with negligence, defined as failing to understand the dangers involved and disregarding them, or recklessness, defined as understanding the dangers and disregarding them.In the same article, they also quote the local District attorney:
In Texas, Carlos Valdez, the district attorney in Kleberg County, said a fatality would immediately spur a new report from the local sheriff and, most likely, a grand jury investigation.]]>
Abramoff Said to Claim Close Ties to Rove
Three former associates of Jack Abramoff said Monday that the now-disgraced lobbyist frequently told them during his lobbying work he had strong ties to the White House through presidential confidant Karl Rove. The White House said Monday that Rove remembers meeting Abramoff at a 1990s political meeting and considered the lobbyist a "casual acquaintance" since President Bush took office in 2001.
The article proceeds with now-predictable he-said-she-said dickering over whether or not, maybe, possibly, REPUBLICAN LOBBYIST and BUSH PIONEER Jack Abramoff mighta, coulda had some vague connection to Karl Rove and George W. Bush.
Cripes, even the accompanying photo is subtitled "disgraced lobbyist" Jack Abramoff --they just insist on concealing Republican Jack Abramoff's party affiliation.