Via Andrew Sullivan (originally published in REASON):The Republican Party has exiled its Goldwater-Reagan wing and given up all pretense of any allegiance to limited government. In the last eight years, the GOP has given us a monstrous new federal bureaucracy in the Department of Homeland Security. In the prescription drug benefit, it's given us the largest new federal entitlement since the Johnson administration. Federal spending—even on items not related to war or national security—has soared. And we now get to watch as the party that's supposed to be "free market" nationalizes huge chunks of the economy's financial sector...
While I'm not thrilled at the prospect of an Obama administration (especially with a friendly Congress), the Republicans still need to get their clocks cleaned in two weeks, for a couple of reasons. First, they had their shot at holding power, and they failed.
They've failed in staying true to their principles of limited government and free markets. They've failed in preventing elected leaders of their party from becoming corrupted by the trappings of power, and they've failed to hold those leaders accountable after the fact. Congressional Republicans failed to rein in the Bush administration's naked bid to vastly expand the power of the presidency (a failure they're going to come to regret should Obama take office in January). They failed to apply due scrutiny and skepticism to the administration's claims before undertaking Congress' most solemn task—sending the nation to war. I could go on.
As for the Bush administration, the only consistent principle we've seen from the White House over the last eight years is that of elevating the American president (and, I guess, the vice president) to that of an elected dictator. That isn't hyperbole. This administration believes that on any issue that can remotely be tied to foreign policy or national security (and on quite a few other issues as well), the president has boundless, limitless, unchecked power to do anything he wants. They believe that on these matters, neither Congress nor the courts can restrain him.
That's the second reason the GOP needs to lose. American voters need to send a clear, convincing repudiation of these dangerous ideas.
I have been an Obama supporter since his 2004 speech at the DNC convention. I was one of those early zealots who turned to their spouse and matter-of-factly said, "That guy's our next president."
From James Fallows (and AMEN, brother!):
From Politico:1. On "The View," McCain claimed Sarah Palin did not take or request earmarks as governor of Alaska. "Not as governor, she didn't," McCain said. But in her first year in office, she requested $256 million in earmarks from the federal government.
2. Shortly after announcing Sarah Palin as his running mate, the McCain campaign ran an ad claiming, "She stopped the bridge to nowhere" — perhaps the most thoroughly debunked claim about the Alaska governor, who supported the bridge project before changing her position late in the game. Asked about the bridge during her 2006 gubernatorial bid, Palin replied: "I'm not going to stand in the way of progress."
3. At the Republican National Convention, McCain claimed Obama's national health insurance plan would "force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor." But according to factcheck.org, Obama's plan does not place burdens on small business, and people would have the option of keeping their existing insurance plans.
4. In a campaign ad, "Dome," McCain claimed Obama's election would result in "painful income taxes, skyrocketing taxes on life savings, electricity and home heating oil," the clear implication being that Obama wants to hike these tax rates. But factcheck.org says Obama hasn't proposed a tax on electricity or home heating oil and wouldn't raise taxes on investments for individuals earning less than $200,000 a year.
It's possible Obama's election would result in these tax rates increasing. But this McCain-Palin claim is a little like the Obama camp's misleading attack on McCain's Social Security plan, tagging his opponent with the most undesirable, unintended and far from certain consequences of his policy proposals.
5. McCain has repeatedly accused Obama of supporting higher taxes on people making as little as $42,000 a year. "Two times, on March 14, 2008 and June 4, 2008, in the Democratic budget resolution, he voted to raise taxes on people making just $42,000 per year," McCain said this week. But this is a misleading claim: Obama's votes were for nonbinding resolutions, which supported allowing certain Bush administration tax cuts to expire but didn't actually have the effect of raising taxes.
6. In a July visit to Colorado, McCain told voters: "I want to look you in the eye: I will not raise your taxes nor support a tax increase. I will not do it." Last Sunday, however, McCain acknowledged to ABC's George Stephanopoulos that his health care plan could lead to some people paying taxes on employer-provided health insurance.
"It depends on what plan they have," McCain said. "But that's usually the wealthiest people."
7. McCain's campaign claimed adviser Rick Davis had taken a leave of absence from his firm, Davis Manafort, and vigorously attacked a New York Times story suggesting that Davis had profited from Davis Manafort's relationship with mortgage lender Freddie Mac. "Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006," wrote McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb, who called the Times story "demonstrably false."
"Mr. Davis has never — never — been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac."
But Davis Manafort was receiving $15,000 monthly payments from Freddie Mac as recently as August, and while the payments didn't go to Davis personally he still stands to gain from the success of his firm.
8. McCain has boasted of never requesting a single earmark, saying in January: "I have never asked for nor received a single earmark or pork-barrel project for my state." But he has requested federal funding for special projects back home, including $10 million for a center at the University of Arizona, $5 million for a home-state water project and spending authority to purchase land around Arizona's Luke Air Force Base.
Politifact says it's a matter of debate whether these projects constitute pork-barrel spending — but clearly McCain has searched for federal help in his own backyard.
9. In last Friday's debate, McCain accused Obama of "voting to cut off funds for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan." But Obama has consistently voted in favor of war funding bills, including an earlier version of the bill McCain was discussing. The Illinois senator voted against this particular proposal because it did not push the Bush administration toward a timetable for withdrawal. McCain's comment was technically defensible — but rather too sly to be called "absolute truth."
10. In July, McCain accused Obama of skipping his visit to a military hospital in Germany because he was told he couldn't bring reporters and video cameras. McCain ran an ad saying: "Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras." But when pressed to provide evidence that Obama had canceled the visit for this reason, McCain's campaign could not support their claim — and media reports found no evidence that Obama had ever planned to bring media with him.
So, Obama calls McCain this morning about putting out a bipartisan statement re: basic principles necessary to the bail-out pact. 
This reader comment (to an excellent E.J. Dionne article) bears repeating:(You miss the) old John McCain? Which one:
1959 John: The wild man who partied like a lunatic and graduated near the bottom of his class.
1969 John: War hero. Got shot down; I'm not saying that he should have taken his training more seriously, but crashing 5 planes? Anybody can have bad luck in war, but you have to work hard first to make me feel sorry for you.
1979 John: Ditched his first wife to marrying into a powerful, wealthy, connected organized crime family so he could make a career change and go into politics
1989 John: After cavorting in the Caymans with Keating - of Savings and Loan Scandal infamy - gets caught pocketing $112,000 (and doesn't report it to the IRS). Gets off scot-free
1999 John: Uses campaign finance reform to whitewash his influence peddling sins and runs for President as a maverick
2008 John: Embraces Bush's tax cuts, the far right religious agents of intolerance, a right wing looney as VP who believes in using science to find the oil but not to clean up the mess from oil, who believes in using science to protect her personal health but not our shared planet.
McCain is a fraud who lies, cheats and steals.
Please don't tell me that the liberal writers from the WaPo can't see into the true nature of his character. I know stuff gets edited, but, please tell us that you people have the capacity to, if not write about, then at least perceive the truth.
When we've lost the ability to see and speak or write the truth, then we have lost our way.
I hope that after Obama wins the election, all the current hand-wringing over his faint damning of the GOP slurs and B.S. will seem quaint. "Why did we get so worked up? He mastered it!" I hope, I hope. For my children's sake, I hope.
From Talking Points Memo:"We've now had a week of blaring headlines and one-liners about Sarah Palin as the mavericky, pork-busting reformer from Alaska. But we seem to be witnessing the first stirrings of a backlash and a dawning realization that the 'Sarah Palin' we've heard so much about over the last few days is a fraud of truly comical dimensions.
The McCain camp has made her signature issue shutting down the Bridge to Nowhere. But as The New Republic put it today that's just "a naked lie." And pretty much the same thing has been written today in Newsweek, the Washington Post, the AP, the Wall Street Journal. Yesterday even Fox's Chris Wallace called out Rick Davis on it. (Do send more examples when you find them.)
On earmarks she's an even bigger crock. On the trail with McCain they're telling everyone that she's some kind of earmark slayer when actually, when she was mayor and governor, in both offices, she requested and got more earmarks than virtually any city or state in the country.
Think about that. On the stump, not a single word that comes out of her mouth -- or not a single word that the McCain folks put in her mouth -- is anything but a lie. I know that sounds like hyperbole. But just go down the list. None of them bear out."
FactCheck.org calls out McCain campaign's "pattern of deceit."
From Frank Rich:
This gives me a stomach ache. But kudos to Klein for calling out the GOP on their cynical B.S.So here is what Giuliani and Palin didn't know: Obama was working for a group of churches that were concerned about their parishioners, many of whom had been laid off when the steel mills closed on the south side of Chicago. They hired Obama to help those stunned people recover and get the services they needed--job training, help with housing and so forth--from the local government. It was, dare I say it, the Lord's work--the sort of mission Jesus preached (as opposed to the war in Iraq, which Palin described as a "task from God.")
This is what Palin and Giuliani were mocking. They were making fun of a young man's decision "to serve a cause greater than himself," in the words of John McCain. They were, therefore, mocking one of their candidate's favorite messages. Obama served the poor for three years, then went to law school. To describe this service--the first thing he did out of college, the sort of service every college-educated American should perform, in some form or other--as anything other than noble is cheap and tawdry and cynical in the extreme.
Via the Washington Post:
From "The Shortest Blog in the World."
In 1998 Sen. John McCain told the following joke at a Republican fund raiser:
Excerpt from an open letter from a Wasilla, AK resident, re: Sarah Palin:
From the NY Times:The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.
That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut.
Written by a former Vice Chaiman of the Federal Reserve, by the way, not by a member of the "liberal media."
The sell-out of the GOP to Big Oil is complete. Via Thomas Friedman.With his choice of Sarah Palin — the Alaska governor who has advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and does not believe mankind is playing any role in climate change — for vice president, John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to run for president to just another representative of big oil.
Given the fact that Senator McCain deliberately avoided voting on all eight attempts to pass a bill extending the vital tax credits and production subsidies to expand our wind and solar industries, and given his support for lowering the gasoline tax in a reckless giveaway that would only promote more gasoline consumption and intensify our addiction to oil, and given his desire to make more oil-drilling, not innovation around renewable energy, the centerpiece of his energy policy — in an effort to mislead voters that support for drilling today would translate into lower prices at the pump today — McCain has forfeited any claim to be a green candidate.
From Joe Klein, in TIME Magazine's Swampland blog - who's getting increasingly pissed off, thank goodness:
From the Associated Press (which, to-date, has seemed to slant rightward, imho), a decent scrub of the GOP speeches from last night. Relevant excerpts:PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate."
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
And,
FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right - change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington - throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.
What a cynical whopper from Romney. C'mooooon!!
No - not really. But it was hysterical to see GOP operative Michelle Bachman call Carville a sexist for DARING to question Palin's qualifications.
How do you claim to put COUNTRY FIRST if your VP pick was part of the ALASKA FIRST secessionist political party?
From David Frum:Can we conservatives please stop kidding ourselves about Barack Obama's "qualifications"? Yes, if I had been a Democratic donor back in 2006, I'd sure worry about whether Barack Obama had what it took to be president. That was before he took on the toughest political operation in America, before he beat Bill and Hillary Clinton, before he won 18 million primary votes.
Obama's nomination was not handed to him. He fought hard for it and won against the odds. "Qualifications" predict achievement. Once you have achieved, it doesn't matter what your qualifications are. Who cares whether the guy who built a big company from nothing didn't have much of a resume when he started? But if you are applying to run a big company built by somebody else, the resume matters ...
The worst mistake in any fight is to under-estimate your opponent's abilities. Look what happened to the people who under-estimated Reagan. If conservatives are to have any hope in the coming weeks, we should wake up to the fact that we face in Barack Obama a formidable man, who appeals to something important and deep in the American electorate. He's not a superman, he has vulnerabilities, he can be beaten. But he won't be beaten until we who are trying to beat him understand why and how he has come so far ...
From the Associated Press - the guy in head of the Alaska Natl Guard LIKES Palin, but doesn't exactly tout her CiC credentials.Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, considers Palin "extremely responsive and smart" and says she is in charge when it comes to in-state services, such as emergencies and natural disasters where the National Guard is the first responder.
But, in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, he said...Palin (plays) no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations.
This has been, by far, my favorite NYT Op-Ed of the campaign thus far. It's by Gail Collins.Most of the things Obama’s taken heat for saying this summer fall into these two familiar patterns — attempts to find a rational common ground on controversial issues and dumb-avoidance.
On the common-ground front, he’s called for giving more federal money to religious groups that run social programs, but only if the services they offer are secular. People can have guns for hunting and protection, but we should crack down on unscrupulous gun sellers. Putting some restrictions on the government’s ability to wiretap is better than nothing, even though he would rather have gone further.
Dumb-avoidance would include his opposing the gas-tax holiday, backtracking on the anti-Nafta pandering he did during the primary and acknowledging that if one is planning to go all the way to Iraq to talk to the generals, one should actually pay attention to what the generals say.
Touching both bases are Obama’s positions that 1) if people are going to ask him every day why he’s not wearing a flag pin, it’s easier to just wear the pin, for heaven’s sake, and 2) there’s nothing to be gained by getting into a fight over whether the death penalty can be imposed on child rapists.
The reality is that it's incredibly hard to be a parent; to guide our teens toward the right decisions when they spend every waking moment with thoughts of rebellion.So if Bristol Palin (Gov. Palin's daughter) is 17 now and five months pregnant, she must have gotten pregnant at age 16. When this happened to Britney Spears' sister at the same age, the Repubs and their evangelical winged monkeys ripped the girl and her family to shreds 24/7 on every cable news show, pointing out that the whole sordid affair represented bad parenting at its worst and the lowest in "liberal" attitudes about family values.
But when Palin parades her own brood in front of the cameras to show that they are the literal poster family for wholesome Republican values (like abstinence), then Dems are lambasted for simply pointing the same finger back at them when the harsh glare of the spotlight reveals an ugly truth instead of something flawless.
If the situation were reversed and this had come out in the family of Biden or Obama, is there any doubt whatsoever that Limbaugh, Hannity, and the rest of the hatemongers would call for the girl and her family to be stoned to death in front of the American flag?
Gustav gives GOP a reason to disinvite Bush and Cheney from their convention.“It just wouldn’t be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster,” Mr. McCain told Fox News Sunday in an interview to be broadcast tomorrow morning.Didn't stop ya before.
From Paul Begala, CNN contributor and Democratic pundit.
"The more I think about it, the more staggered I am by the pick. It's totally about electioneering ... and fundamentally unserious about governing.
The first criterion for a veep - and I'm simply repeating a truism here - is that they are ready to take over at a moment's notice. That's especially true when you have a candidate as old as McCain. That's more than especially true when we are at war, in an era of astonishingly difficult challenges, when the next president could be grappling with war in the Middle East or a catastrophic terror attack at home."
Under those circumstances, we could have a former Miss Alaska with two
termsyears under her belt as governor. Now compare McCain's pick with Obama's: a man with solid foreign policy experience, six terms in Washington and real relationships with leaders across the globe."One pick is by a man of judgment; the other is by a man of vanity."
She may be a fine person, but she's my age, she has zero Washington experience, and no foreign policy expertise whatsoever."
McCain has just told us how seriously he takes the war we are in. Not seriously at all."
I smell desperation."Let’s compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain.
Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral."
Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill."
Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote."
Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you’re against it."
...Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target, has morphed into candidate McCain who is using the same “Rove” tactics and the same “Rove” staff to repeat the same old politics of fear and smear."
...The candidate who once promised a “contest of ideas,” now has nothing left but personal attacks."
How insulting to suggest that those who question the mission, question the troops."
How pathetic to suggest that those who question a failed policy doubt America itself."
How desperate to tell the son of a single mother who chose community service over money and privilege that he doesn’t put America first."
Jason at DadCentric just posted a brilliant essay that aggregates all the best (read: most egregious) examples of how McCain lost all of his vaunted integrity in his no-holds-barred-(anymore) grab for the White House.An analogy: let's say your town has no restaurants.As you read the rest of Jason's post, click every link. Read every article. Puke.
One day, you and your neighbors get together and vote on which restaurant will be allowed to set up shop in your neighborhood. Applebee's wins by the tiniest of margins.
Ok, you think. Normally, I'd rather eat the ass out of a dead rhinoceros than eat at Applebee's, but I'll make do.
Eight years go by, and you and 79% of your fellow townspeople are pretty fucking sick of Applebee's. Christ, how much Nacho Cheese Smothered Chicken Fried Steak can one eat? Clearly, it's time to make a change.
The senior leadership at Applebee's, not wanting to relinquish their stranglehold on your tastebuds (the ones that haven't been seared away from years of Onion Loaf and Rhubarb Creme Pie), tries to convince you that they are actually the agents of change. They propose bringing on a new manager.
Problem is, despite the new manager's background (his character was forged in the ghastly crucible of a Denny's kitchen, and the horror he encountered there has greatly influenced his worldview), IT'S STILL FUCKING APPLEBEE'S.
"Ari Melber asked the pertinent question about how a reporter can possibly fail to call out illegal and immoral acts like wiretapping and torture for what they are, under some misguided definition of objectivity or neutrality. (The Washington Post's) Chris Cilizza answered the question honestly, admitting that they don't do a good job of it."I guess writing about the Clintonista Drama is just more fun?
As reported in the Huffington Post and other outlets, MSNBC has been beset by internal battles. A shame, in the wake of the unity they clearly felt after Tim Russert's tragic death.
I am a proud American who has struggled for eight years to explain to my increasingly-cynical children why the sins of the current Administration are not reflective of the America worth loving.
It’s been tough. My 16 year-old son has lived 1/2 of his life under this regime. He’s seen me scream at the broadcasters and so-called “pundits” on CNN, Fox News, etc., more than once. He and my daughter have seen the despair in my face as I tried to explain “what’s-gone-wrong.” I’ve seen their brows darken during these conversations; I can literally see bitter cynicism baking in their brains as I talk with them.
Watching their patriotic beliefs shrivel, I’ve always rallied with, “But this is the country that saved the world from the Nazis! This is the country that first sent a man to the moon! This is the only country where any man or woman, of any background, can rise to leadership in any endeavor.”
Luckily we have the examples of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to point to, to illustrate the latter point. But the victories of WWII and the moonshot? Well, that’s dusty stuff to my teens.
Like me – maybe because of me – they are focused on what I’ve come to call the Twelve Sins of the Bush Administration.
I once registered as a Republican so I could vote for McCain in the 2000 GOP primaries. Now I’d stop at nothing to quash his rise. To secure my kids’ future. To bring America back from the brink of irretrievable failure.
A world without the American example of days’ past would be a smaller world.
note: this catalog was helped along by reader comments I read recently at HuffPo.
