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A vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for hate.

Be sure to watch the video there -- but not right before bed.

McCain Advisor Calls Palin a "Whack Job"

Better late than never to wake up, I suppose:

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, on a “demoralized” McCain campaign: “Palin is going to be the most vivid chapter of the McCain campaign's post-mortem. … Those loyal to McCain believe they have been unfairly blamed for over-handling Palin. They say they did the best they could with what they got.”

***In convo with Playbook, a top McCain adviser one-ups the priceless “diva” description, calling her “a whack job.”

November 5th is going to be fun. And nobody deserves it more than the GOP.

Unsung Heroes: Americans with Principle Refuse to Engage in Smear Calling

It's nice to see some of the "soldiers" in the McCain slime war no longer willing to "just follow orders":

Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Williams' daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it's located in Hobart, IN.

...

"We were asked to read something saying [Obama and Democrats] were against protecting children from danger," this worker said. "I wouldn't do it. A lot of people left. They thought it was disgusting."

This worker, too, confirmed sacrificing pay to walk out, saying her supervisor told her: "If you don't wanna phone it you can just go home for the day."

There is still hope for the nation.

Not Just a Warmonger -- A Hatemonger

John McCain has descended fully from someone who was once better than the average politician in terms of character, to arguably the most dangerous major party candidate in history.

His campaign is, tragically, becoming all too reminiscent of how fascist dictators have gained power
in decades past.

Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan echoes the disgust being felt by everyone but McCain's fellow mobsters:

There was always going to be a point of revolt and panic for a core group of Americans who believe that Obama simply cannot be president - because he's black or liberal or young or relatively new. This is that point. As the polls suggest a strong victory, the Hannity-Limbaugh-Steyn-O'Reilly base are going into shock and extreme rage. McCain and Palin have decided to stoke this rage, to foment it, to encourage paranoid notions that somehow Obama is a "secret" terrorist or Islamist or foreigner. These are base emotions in both sense of the word.

But they are also very very dangerous. This is a moment of maximal physical danger for the young Democratic nominee. And McCain is playing with fire. If he really wants to put country first, he will attack Obama on his policies - not on these inflammatory, personal, creepy grounds. This is getting close to the atmosphere stoked by the Israeli far right before the assassination of Rabin.

For God's sake, McCain, stop it. For once in this campaign, put your country first.

Thoughts on the Second Debate

I decided to just watch last night rather than blogging. (I don't think many people read my blog during live events anyway -- there are many more reputable people live blogging. :) )

Anyway, after watching and thinking on it, a few random thoughts:

1. The town hall format sucked. This wasn't a debate, it was like two separate but interwoven press conferences. The lack of interaction between the candidates made this a complete bore, even worse than their first debate. And of the 60,000 or millions or whatever of questions that were supposedly asked, Brokaw (or whoever) chose some rather remarkably unremarkable ones.

If this is what McCain had in mind with all his whining about Obama wanting to do town halls, I'm glad Obama refused.

2. Like the first debate, there was no clear cut winner here in terms of content. But Obama was far more commanding as a stage presence. This was a gross miscalculation on the part of the McCain camp in their assumption that McCain would beat Obama in a town hall style forum -- his body lanuage compared to Obama's makes him come across as small, frail and impatient. His pacing and wandering also didn't help him.

3. Tie goes to the leader. Obama didn't really hit the ball out of the park but he didn't have to. McCain did, and he wasn't close on anything approaching a knockout punch, just like the first debate.

4. All the people who thought McCain was going to really come out attacking Obama forgot how difficult it is to get away with this when your opponent is sitting right there and there's a live audience. McCain was wise not to try.

5. The "that one" comment was the only faux pas of the evening. And I'm not just reacting to what pundits have said about it -- I was rather surprised at the moment it happened. I don't see any racist undertones to it as some have suggested, rather, it just underscores McCain's lack of respect and consideration for his opponent.

6. McCain wants to let everyone refinance their mortgages? What happened to the party of personal responsibility and fiscal responsibility? Where are the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to do this going to come from?

7. Obama's answer on Russia was his low point of the evening. He was rambly and uninspiring.

8. Asking if something is a "right, a privilege or a responsibility" is nonsensical.

9. Obama should have responded directly to McCain's accusations about the former wanting to "fine" people with respect to his health care plan. I just assumed that was a distortion but Obama didn't clarify it, which left me thinking that McCain must have hit a nerve.

10. Every time McCain says "I know how to get bin Laden", more people ask the obvious question: "If you know, why haven't you helped the current administration get him now?"

"Dishonorable?" John McCain's Picture Should Be Next to the Word in the Dictionary

John McCain's latest ad contains not just his usual exaggerations but a flat out lie made by chopping a sentence of Obama's in half and making it seem the opposite of what it really is.

The ad has the announcer begin a sentence with a quote from Obama in the middle:

(Announcer) "He says our troops in Afghanistan are..." (Obama) "...just air-raiding villages and killing civilians..."

The announcer then says "How dishonorable" (using the same whiny voice that makes me cringe whenever I hear it).

What did Obama really say? This:

"We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there"

He wasn't saying we are JUST air-raiding villages, and he wasn't criticizing the troops at all so much as saying they needed more help.

McCain knows this. He's a liar and the one who really is dishonorable.

McCain is unfit to be president and unfit to even be a U.S. senator. Worse than that, he's a loathesome scum-sucking piece of shit of a human being. And so is anyone who supports or condones his behavior.

The "D" Team

When is Obama going to make a bigger issue of McCain's woeful record on supporting our military men and women?

Gut Feeling

McCain will do decently tomorrow night and narrow the widening gap between himself and Obama, even if slightly, over the following week.

McCain: "Who Is The Real Barack Obama?" McCain Supporter: "Terrorist!"

What little remains of John McCain's claim to decency or honor is disappearing on a daily basis.

Oops, I Overestimated the Competence of the McCain Campaign Again

Last night I mentioned Obama's raising of the Keating Five scandal, and predicted the "response from McCain: a combination of his usual fake indignation, and an attempt to tug at the heartstrings of the stupid by talking about how that was all "in the past" and that it helped shape McCain's current "maverickitude"."

That would have been the sensible approach, but it appears that sense has now completely fled from his entire crew. Instead of playing this down and trying to turn it into a strength, they have chosing to lie about the matter, pretending that it wasn't really that important, it was a political smear job and that McCain did nothing wrong.

Of course, by doing this, they have:

• Directly contradicted McCain's own well-documented words;
  
• Undercut much of McCain's image as a "maverick" who became a reformer because of past transgressions; and
• Worst of all, made this old scandal into news by trying to rewrite history, thereby ensuring thousands of more people learn about it.
  

When this campaign is over, Schmidt and his goons will be lucky to get hired by a high school junior running for student body president.

Dismantling McCain's War Hero Mythos

Better late than never:

John McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider on an overcast Texas morning in 1960 when he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the skin off his plane's wings.

McCain recounted the accident decades later in his autobiography. "The engine quit while I was practicing landings," he wrote. But an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure.

The 23-year-old junior lieutenant wasn't paying attention and erred in using "a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn," investigators concluded.

The crash was one of three early in McCain's aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials.

In his most serious lapse, McCain was "clowning" around in a Skyraider over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires, causing a blackout, according to McCain's own account as well as those of naval officers and enlistees aboard the carrier Intrepid. In another incident, in 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia.

...

In today's military, a lapse in judgment that causes a crash can end a pilot's career. Though standards were looser and crashes more frequent in the 1960s, McCain's record stands out.

"Three mishaps are unusual," said Michael L. Barr, a former Air Force pilot with 137 combat missions in Vietnam and an internationally known aviation safety expert who teaches in USC's Aviation Safety and Security Program. "After the third accident, you would say: Is there a trend here in terms of his flying skills and his judgment?"

Lots more at the link.

Phony "Maverick" McCain Can't Even Run His Own Presidential Campaign

He doesn't make the big decisions, Steve Schmidt does. And this is why McCain is no longer the man he used to be -- he has put winning the election as his only priority, and sold himself out to a fairly evil man to try to do it:

Retained in a summer shake-up intended to right McCain's faltering campaign, Schmidt, 38, quickly put his stamp on the operation, aggressively attacking Democratic nominee Barack Obama, often with biting ridicule, and vying to dominate every day's news cycle.

...

The effort peaked with the choice of Palin as McCain's running mate. Convinced that McCain needed a dramatic gesture to make the race competitive, Schmidt pressed McCain to pluck the Alaska governor from obscurity.

Other than the candidates, no one in the operation has more riding on that decision than Schmidt. And no one has worked harder to turn the decision into a success.

...

Under Schmidt, the campaign is a tightly run operation. Previously, McCain allowed reporters almost unfettered access. Under Schmidt, the candidate went 40 days without a news conference.

Schmidt's hard-nosed determination to control the slightest detail is irksome to some members of McCain's staff. One senior aide referred to Schmidt as "message Nazi."

Americans are tired of puppet leaders like John McCain who are controlled by "message Nazis". And that's why McCain is going to lose.

Obama Goes Right at McCain on Keating Five

He has a new website and everything.

This should be interesting. I remember some months ago when Obama said that if McCain and company wanted to start in with the past associations thing that the Keating Five would be raised, and here it is.

I can already predict the response from McCain: a combination of his usual fake indignation, and an attempt to tug at the heartstrings of the stupid by talking about how that was all "in the past" and that it helped shape McCain's current "maverickitude". Shyeah.

Edit: I have no doubt whatsoever that the timing of this, right before the next debate, is intended to try to goad McCain into losing what's left of his temper.

Ken Burns: This is not the John McCain New Hampshire Once Loved

I'm a resident of Vermont; my state and New Hampshire are neighbors. While VT and NH have a surprising number of political differences, they have enough similarities that I never for a moment have believed McCain would carry the state (despite his history there). Here's another view -- one being echoed in more and more circles -- this time from renowned documentary filmmaker Ken Burns:

What happened to John McCain? What happened to the man so many of us in New Hampshire have admired and respected for so long? The fierce bipartisan warrior, the straight talker, the maverick whose ideas nearly everyone found some common ground with now seems missing in action. He seems to have betrayed the very attributes that originally commended him to us and earned our earlier trust and support.
...

This is a man who once denounced and purposefully avoided the politics of personal destruction, having felt firsthand its painful consequences in 2000 in South Carolina, but who now wants to win at any cost. By ridiculing his opponent's commitment to public service, he has undermined the very reason we were drawn to McCain in the first place.

...

Even the most ardent true-believers among us must be privately shaking in their boots contemplating a heart-beat-away Palin presidency during these difficult times. When Putin acts up, who do you want whispering in your President's ear: Joe Biden or Sarah Palin?

...

We in New Hampshire bear some responsibility, I suppose. Thinking we had the old McCain, we gave him a decisive victory in our primary that permitted him to vanquish those challengers. But he betrayed us. If you have to say you're a maverick in your ads, it's clear you're not. The real maverick turns out to be Barack Obama, who bucked his party's establishment and whose once-lonely positions have been adopted by nearly everyone including even the Bush administration. Nearly everyone, that is, except John McCain. So what happened to him?

That's what Granite State citizens have been asking the last few months. The answer is enough to turn us blue.

The Last Resort of the Desperate -- Character Assassination

John McCain has clearly lost this election on the merits. Arguably, he never really tried very hard, because it's been abundantly obvious that he really offers nothing to entice people to vote for him, so much as an option to vote against Obama. But now he seems ready to give up even any pretense of offering himself as a positive choice. He's just going to spend the last month of the campaign trying to tear down Obama.

Just one more way that Americans are being given a clear opportunity to either accept the destructive politics of the past, or to move forward. The history of this campaign, I'm pleased to say, suggests that this will be McCain's final shark-jumping. Having the silly lightweight Sarah Palin launching attacks on Obama will, I think, backfire especially badly.

For his part, Obama is pre-emptively launching ads trying to illustrate this contrast, even showing an image of the top of the article referenced above.

Make-Believe Maverick

This very long bio from Rolling Stone dispels many of the myths of John McCain. Worth at least a skim, if not a complete read.

John McCain -- Shameless, Unrepentant Liar

In this clip you can see McCain brazenly justifying his distorted ad about Obama's support for a sex education bill, and even trying to defend the infamous "lipstick on a pig ad" despite the fact that he himself has admitted that he knew Obama wasn't referring to Palin.

Sad to see what a despicable, loathesome creature John McCain has devolved into. He deserves to lose this campaign -- by a lot.

McCain Gives Up Home Field Advantage

As I surmised last night, McCain risks a very hostile reaction from what was previously likely to be a favorable audience.

Dishonest Lunatic McCain Already Has Ads Claiming He "Won" the Debate that He Wasn't Going to Attend

McCain told the American people he was suspending his campaign to help negotiate the bailout and didn't want to go to the debate tonight. Yet it turns out he already has ads prepared declaring himself the "winner" of the debate he didn't want to go to!

I've run out of adjectives to describe just how bizarre this all is. Or just how stupid one would have to be at this point to actually believe that McCain didn't plan this entire stunt purely for political purposes.

John McCain could well be the most dangerous man to ever run for president.

McCain's Mental Unfitness for the Presidency is Clear: We Need to See his Full Medical Records

I was one of the first, a few weeks ago, to see the growing pattern of erratic behavior on the part of John McCain, and to wonder if there was some sort of mental issue involved. After his truly bizarre behavior over the last two weeks, though, there can be no doubt in my mind that McCain has lost his.

We need to see his medical records NOW. And if he won't provide them, that should be made a major campaign issue. This nation cannot afford an unstable president with a brainless vice-president for four years.