Newshoggers.com

Getting McCain Elected

By Ron Beasley

The Bush/Cheney cabal is going to get McCain elected in November by doing the only thing they really know how to do - start a war, this time with Russia.  The LA Times reports that Cheney's man, Joseph R. Wood, was in Georgia shortly before the conflict began - surprise, surprise!  Today, after talking to a paid representative of the Georgia government and a dog and pony show, neocon scribe Michael Totten explains that it was really Russia that started the war.  James Joyner. who would really like to buy into Totten's "analysis" has to admit he really doesn't know what he's talking about.

I agree with this analysis insofar as it goes.  I’d quickly add, however, a major caveat:  Any search for blame in this matter that starts in the summer of 2008 — or, indeed, this century — is bound to fail. There’s been plenty of action and reaction going on for generations to pin the responsibility on any one person or event.

The signage pictured above, taken from Totten’s post, captures that fact rather nicely.  It’s also, shrewdly, in English and therefore aimed at an external audience.

Joyner, to his credit, then directs us to a piece by Joshua Foust that shoots holes in everything Totten said and had this to say about Totten.

Totten is being fed disinformation. And he doesn’t know enough to say so, since by his own admission he went into the country—just like his colleague Brietbart in Baku—knowing absolutely nothing about the place beforehand. He does not understand enough about the hatred in the area that exists on both sides to parse through the endless dissembling (Goltz is an amazing writer, but he is also unabashedly anti-Russian). Nor does he seem to understand the right before president Saakashvili invaded the territory, he called for a unilateral cease-fire in an attempt to roll through Tskhinvali unopposed (Russian-sponsored teenagers reportedly hurled molotov cocktails at Georgian tanks).

For example, the Georgians were still incredibly brutal to the South Ossetians, which makes the complaints about Russian brutality ring a tiny bit hollow. Totten doesn’t get at any of this, because he didn’t do a single jot of homework before heading out to these places.

Of course Totten was just doing his job - create and external threat and scare the population so they will vote for John McCain.  God knows the last thing on earth the Bush administration wants is a Democratic Attorney General.

A sense of entitlement and a temper tantrum?

By Ron Beasley

The Democratic convention is under way and like the Republican convention that will follow next week it is little more than a scripted campaign ad.  In an attempt to find a story where there really isn't one the media is trying to play up the PUMA story.  I suggested the other day that this is a non story and a talking head I'm gaining respect for, NBC's Chuck Todd agrees:

That's right, there are PUMAs in Denver and if they are the only ones you interview you can make it look like a story.  TPM also interviewed Clintonite Paul Begala who when asked about the alleged riff said this:

The classic definition of inflation is to many dollars chasing too few goods and services.  What we have here is too many reporters chasing to few stories.

Although they are far fewer than the McCain campaign and the media would like you to believe there are some PUMAs.  What drives them to this wacky and suicidal behavior?  Over at The Moderate Voice Jill Miller Zimon has an excellent post I suggest you read on the media-whipped PUMA phenom but I'm going to jump right to the comments section and this from DLS:

....there is a threat by many Clinton voters to defect to McCain because "their" candidate didn't get the nomination, and in many cases it smacks of a sense of entitlement and a temper tantrum.

That is how I have seen the PUMA movement all along.  Most of the Hillary supporters have been able to move on a few have not and they are the story.

Update

The always acid tounged Jack Cafferty weighs in:

Some of Hillary Clinton's supporters had threatened to disrupt the proceedings if their candidate wasn't shown the proper amount of respect. They're called PUMAs, an acronym for "Party Unity My Ass." They appear to be a humorless lot who cannot come to terms with the fact that the country didn't want Hillary Clinton to be president. So they have been throwing a hissy fit ever since the primaries ended.

For these people there will never be unity unless Hillary Clinton is president. For the rest of the Democratic Party, logic suggests that when it comes to a decision between Barack Obama and John McCain, they would be more inclined to stick needles in their eyes than vote to perpetuate the abysmal situation we find ourselves in courtesy of George W. Bush and his merry band of country-wreckers.

A noun, a verb and POW

By Ron Beasley

In spite of saying he doesn't like to talk about it John McCain talks about his POW experience non stop and his campaign is now using it as an excuse for everything.  When Maureen Dowd is hot she's hot - when she's not (most of the time) she's not.  Well, today she's hot as she talks about John McCain and his POW excuse. 

So it’s hard to believe that John McCain is now in danger of exceeding his credit limit on the equivalent of an American Express black card. His campaign is cheapening his greatest strength — and making a mockery of his already dubious claim that he’s reticent to talk about his P.O.W. experience — by flashing the P.O.W. card to rebut any criticism, no matter how unrelated. The captivity is already amply displayed in posters and TV advertisements.

The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, the pastor who married Jenna Bush and who is part of a new Christian-based political action committee supporting Obama, recently criticized the joke McCain made at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally encouraging Cindy to enter the topless Miss Buffalo Chip contest. The McCain spokesman Brian Rogers brought out the bottomless excuse, responding with asperity that McCain’s character had been “tested and forged in ways few can fathom.”

When the Obama crowd was miffed to learn that McCain was in a motorcade rather than in a “cone of silence” while Obama was being questioned by Rick Warren, Nicolle Wallace of the McCain camp retorted, “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.”

When Obama chaffed McCain for forgetting how many houses he owns, Rogers huffed, “This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison.”

As Sam Stein notes in The Huffington Post: “The senator has even brought his military record into discussion of his music tastes. Explaining that his favorite song was ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba, he offered that his knowledge of music ‘stopped evolving when his plane intercepted a surface-to-air missile.’ ‘Dancing Queen,’ however, was produced in 1975, eight years after McCain’s plane was shot down.”

The media is noticing and just as important so are his fellow veterans and POWs as the clip below demonstrates:

When his war hero currency becomes worth even less than the US dollar what else will McCain have going for him? Not much, and as Dowd points out it may get people to start asking the right questions.

The real danger to the McCain crew in overusing the P.O.W. line so much that it’s a punch line is that it will give Obama an opening for critical questions:

While McCain’s experience was heroic, did it create a worldview incapable of anticipating the limits to U.S. military power in Iraq? Did he fail to absorb the lessons of Vietnam, so that he is doomed to always want to refight it? Did his captivity inform a search-and-destroy, shoot-first-ask-questions-later, “We are all Georgians,” mentality?

Another question people should be asking: will he use the POW experience as an excuse when he makes a mess of things as President?

Graphic lifted from TMV

Hillary Supporters

By Ron Beasley

We see the Republicans are going after the Hillary supporters. 

McCain Tries to Rile Up Clinton Voters Against Obama

SEDONA, Ariz. -- A new television ad by Sen. John McCain aims to tap into anger at Sen. Barack Obama among the legions of Hillary Clinton supporters by suggesting that the Democratic nominee dissed his one-time rival.

Erasing any doubt that McCain has his sights set on Clinton voters, the new ad uses Clinton's own words to suggest that Obama passed her over because of the tough campaign she waged. The ad is titled "Passed Over."

"She won millions of votes. But isn't on his ticket," an announcer says. "Why? For speaking the truth."

The ad then shows Clinton criticizing Obama for speaking generalities ("You never hear the specifics); for his connections to Tony Rezko ("We still don't have a lot of answers."); and for being too negative

The announcer comes back on. "The truth hurt. And Obama didn't like it."

And of course the man who has been wrong about everything, Bill Kristol, weighs in with The Democrat's Glass Ceiling.  Well let them waste their money.  Sure there are a few bitter dead-enders but how many Hillary supporters are really going to vote for someone who is against everything they are for?  Not many I would guess.  A good example is Taylor Marsh.  It would have been difficult to find a more enthusiastic and vocal Hillary supporter a few months ago.  I became so upset with her that I dropped her from the MEJ blogroll.  But when it was over Taylor Marsh knew it was over and gave her support to Obama.  When it was announced that Joe Biden would be Obama's VP she praised the decision.  Taylor Marsh puts the country first and knows that means John McCain must never set foot in the White House.

She picks up on something I felt  yesterday as well - Biden is the McCain campaign's worst nightmare.

The truth is that Lunch Bucket Joe Biden is the biggest threat to McCain's candidacy since Hillary Clinton wasn't chosen as veep. They didn't expect Lunch Bucket Joe to come out swinging on economic populism. With roots in Scranton, PA., plus a long record of fighting for cops and firemen, as well as women, having authored the Violence Against Women Act, Lunch Bucket Joe has a natural affinity with the blue collar crowd, like me and my husband, as well as Catholics and a whole host of voters the O-Biden ticket needs in order to win. You know, HRC supporters who get the importance of this election.

If Republicans are fighting this hard to attack the Obama - Biden ticket on the first day, one thing is clear. Lunch Bucket Joe scares the McCain crowd. He's got the right kind of stuff, adding to what Obama already brings.

Picture of the Week

By Ron Beasley

This shot of a piliated woodpecker is another case of being in the right place at the right time with the right lens.  They are usually very shy but this one let me take about 20 shots before he/she took off. 

Biden

By Ron Beasley

I feel better about November than I have for weeks. the reason is below:

Very few people can follow Obama and look as good or even better but that's just what Biden did today.  Sit through the ad and Obama's speech and listen to Joe Biden.  The wingnuts are pretending they are happy - in reality they are shaking in their boots. 

Ron Fournier's ASS Press

By Ron Beasley

I don't need to quote Republican hack Ron Fournier's AP hit piece - the title says it all:

Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence

No it doesn't show a "lack of confidence" it shows Obama may recognize a potential weakness and a willingness to correct it.  After almost eight years of ego driven - I can do no wrong - supernaturally inspired - gut feeling "leadership" having a president who realizes he may have a weakness or two is refreshing.

Update:

I see Cernig beat me to it - oh well great minds think alike!

Steve Benen has a comprehensive list of Fournier's recent hackery, including his gift of donuts for McCain, his "op-ed" repeating GOP talking points on "uppity" Obama and a whole slew of AP pieces produced under his editorial control. Steve writes: "Sandy Johnson, the former DC bureau chief of the AP, was asked about Fournier and the bureau when she was forced out as part of a staff shake-up. 'I just hope he doesn't destroy it,' she said.The more I see the AP's coverage, the more I think about that quote."

VP Biden? (Update: Obama Confims Biden Pick)

By Ron Beasley

Well it looks like Obama's choice for VP is Joe Biden.  Now I have a lot of problems with Joe Biden - think bankruptcy bill for starters.  That said he is the best choice.  The overwhelming issue is not so much who occupies the White House but who doesn't.  John McCain is a dangerous angry old man who thinks war is the answer for everything. Joe Biden gives Obama strength in areas where he is lacking.  No one can question Joe Biden's experience but more important is the fact the Biden is a bull dog and at this point that's what the Obama campaign needs.

Update (by Cernig) Yep, it's Biden. Memeorandum is full of comment on Obama's choice and this is likely the only story that's going to be heard today.

I have to agree with Ron's remarks. Biden's not a perfect choice for a leftie like me - and yes, that bankruptcy bill still rankles - but since Obama isn't a leftie either it's a good choice for him. Biden is one of the very few Dems who can go on FOX and make them quake in their shoes. He's even more of a real Straight talk Express in such circumstances than McCain's myth makes "Eight Houses" out to be.

The Eisenhowers

By Ron Beasley

I'm sure the crop of neocons, theocons, fascists and hegomonists who control the Republican Party today consider President Dwight David Eisenhower a "liberal traitor".  Four years ago his son, John, endorsed John Kerry and left the Republican Party.  In February President Eisenhower's grand daughter and John's daughter, Susan, endorsed Barack Obama.  Today she followed her father and left the Republican Party.

I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican. For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency, in February of this year. This was not an endorsement of the Democratic platform, nor was it a slap in the face to the Republican Party. It was an expression of support specifically for Senator Barack Obama. I had always intended to go back to party ranks after the election and work with my many dedicated friends and colleagues to help reshape the GOP, especially in the foreign-policy arena. But I now know I will be more effective focusing on our national and international problems than I will be in trying to reinvigorate a political organization that has already consumed nearly all of its moderate “seed corn.”  And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks.

My decision came at the end of last week when it was demonstrated to the nation that McCain and this Bush White House have learned little in the last five years. They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucusus, and this has undermined U.S. national security. At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove–style political campaign. Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win?

This week, I changed my registration from Republican to independent. The two political parties as they exist today, and the partisanship that they foster, reflect the many fights of the cold war, the Vietnam era, the post–cold war and the 9/11 periods. Today we are in a different place altogether, where our security as a nation is challenged not just from abroad but also close to home. The energy, health-care and financial crises threaten our national prosperity and well-being, just as surely as any confrontation overseas or an attack by radical terrorists.

Of course this will have little impact and is largely symbolic.  Very few alive today remember the Republican President who warned us of the Military-Industrial Complex and was a more enthusiastic supporter of the middle class than Bill Clinton.  I fear that Ike will look pretty good when compared to a President Obama as well.  Although John Adams and Thomas Jefferson didn't agree on much they did agree that political parties were a bad idea because they could anticipate this:

The two political parties as they exist today, and the partisanship that they foster, reflect the many fights of the cold war, the Vietnam era, the post–cold war and the 9/11 periods.

Tribal politics have become more important than the health and security of the country.

H/T Crooks and Liars

Why does Randy Scheunemann matter?

By Ron Beasley

Now I disagree with Pat Buchanan on almost everything domestic but on foreign policy he makes more sense than many Democrats.  Today he explains why John McCain is such a dangerous man.

Who is Randy Scheunemann?

He is the principal foreign policy adviser to John McCain and potential successor to Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as national security adviser to the president of the United States.

But Randy Scheunemann has another identity, another role.

He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man.

From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000 – pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in those same 15 months from the Georgian regime of Mikheil Saakashvili.

What were Mikheil's marching orders to Tbilisi's man in Washington? Get Georgia a NATO war guarantee. Get America committed to fight Russia, if necessary, on behalf of Georgia.

Scheunemann came close to succeeding.

Had he done so, U.S. soldiers and Marines from Idaho and West Virginia would be killing Russians in the Caucasus, and dying to protect Scheunemann's client, who launched this idiotic war the night of Aug. 7. That people like Scheunemann hire themselves out to put American lives on the line for their clients is a classic corruption of American democracy.

But it wasn't just Georgia!

Not only did Scheunemann's two-man lobbying firm receive $730,000 since 2001 to get Georgia a NATO war guarantee, he was paid by Romania and Latvia to do the same. And he succeeded.

Latvia, a tiny Baltic republic annexed by Joseph Stalin in June 1940 during his pact with Adolf Hitler, was set free at the end of the Cold War. Yet hundreds of thousands of Russians had been moved into Latvia by Stalin, and as Riga served as a base of the Baltic Sea fleet, many Russian naval officers retired there.

The children and grandchildren of these Russians are Latvian citizens. They are a cause of constant tension with ethnic Letts and of strife with Moscow, which has assumed the role of protector of Russians left behind in the "near abroad" when the Soviet Union broke apart.

Thanks to the lobbying of Scheunemann and friends, Latvia has been brought into NATO and given a U.S. war guarantee. If Russia intervenes to halt some nasty ethnic violence in Riga, the United States is committed to come in and drive the Russians out.

This is the situation in which the interventionists have placed our country: committed to go to war for countries and causes that do not justify war, against a Russia that is re-emerging as a great power only to find NATO squatting on her doorstep.

It has been noted by some on both the left and the "old right" that McCain foreign policy would be like Cheney foreign policy on steroids.  I think Josh Marshall put it pretty well the other day.

Morally, the case is pretty straightforward. McCain really is a hothead. Everyone seems to agree that's true on an interpersonal level. But I don't really care about that. I don't care who he swears at. But over his time in the senate and now as would-be president, he's shown a tendency always to jump to the most confrontational and military-based responses to foreign events, often to almost ridiculous levels. And I think because of that temperament, he's fallen in with and become a useful tool of the DC neoconservatives who view acting crazy and getting people killed as a matter of principle.

I've watched the Bush presidency very closely. I've watched McCain closely for the last decade or so. And I either know or know a decent amount about a lot of the people advising him on foreign policy. And in terms of the physical safety and future of my wife and two sons, let alone the country, I would much prefer four more years of the Bush presidency to a McCain presidency.

This brings as back to why Randy Scheunemann matters.  Buchanan explains:

Scheunemann's résumé as a War Party apparatchik is lengthy. He signed the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) letter to President Clinton urging war on Iraq, four years before 9-11. He signed the PNAC ultimatum to Bush, nine days after 9-11, threatening him with political reprisal if he did not go to war against Iraq. He was executive director of the "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq," a propaganda front for Ahmad Chalabi and his pack of liars who deceived us into war.

Now Scheunemann is the neocon agent in place in McCain's camp.

The neocons got their war with Iraq. They are pushing for war on Iran. And they are now baiting the Russian Bear.

Is this what McCain has on offer? Endless war?

Yes that is what McCain has to offer - war without end.  If you like war you will love john McCain.

Infrastructure

By Ron Beasley

You haven't heard much from me this week and the reason is collapsing infrastructure.  Many would agree that one of the greatest threats to the United States is not evil foreign powers or thugs, not even imported energy, but the sad state of the infrastructure that ties this country together.  Now everyone is aware of under maintained roads and collapsing bridges but how many realize that at a time when water is becoming an increasingly precious commodity over 25% of it is lost because of leaks in old water systems.  I live in a 40 year old neighborhood.  When it was built in the late 60s they started importing galvanized pipe from Asia.  It was cheap but you get what you pay for and the sewer lines are failing.  The high pressure water lines started failing several years ago. 

But that's not why posting has been difficult.  This is one of the first areas where the electrical distribution was put underground.  After forty years the local underground electrical grid is failing.  It used to be we could go several years without a power outage.  Recently we have been experiencing several outages a year.  In the last ten days we have had three and that includes two in less than 36 hours this week, each lasting over two hours.  Unlike the roads, water and sewer the electricity is supplied by a private utility, a former ENRON company. 

Cafertty on McSame

By Ron Beasley

I have been AWOL the last couple of days not because I'm sick or particularly busy but because I'm depressed.  I am depressed because it seems that increasingly likely that John McCain will be the next President of the United States.  It part that will happen because of the media but much of the blame falls Obama and his campaign.A McCain presidency will mean that the same criminally insane people will be in charge of US foreign (war) policy.  Cernig gives us an example of what that might mean below.  But John McCain is even more like George W. Bush.  A couple of weeks ago Rex Nutting looked at the qualifications of John McCain and concluded he really didn't have any.

Like the current occupant of the White House, McCain got his first career breaks from the connections and money of his family, not from hard work. The son and grandson of Navy admirals, he attended Annapolis where he did poorly. Nevertheless, he was commissioned as a pilot, where he performed poorly, crashing three planes before he failed to evade a North Vietnamese missile that destroyed his plane. McCain spent more than five years in a prison camp. After his release, McCain knew his weak military record meant he'd never make admiral, so he turned his sights to a career in politics. With the help of his new wife's wealth, his new father-in-law's business connections and some powerful friends had made as a lobbyist for the Navy, he was elected in 1982 to a Congress in a district that he didn't reside in until the day the seat opened up. A few years later, he succeeded Barry Goldwater as a senator.

Today it's acid tonged Jack Cafertty of CNN's turn.  He asks, Is McCain another George W. Bush?

One after another, McCain's answers were shallow, simplistic, and trite. He showed the same intellectual curiosity that George Bush has -- virtually none.

Where are John McCain's writings exploring the vexing moral issues of our time? Where are his position papers setting forth his careful consideration of foreign policy, the welfare state, education, America's moral responsibility in the world, etc., etc., etc.?

John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His father and grandfather were four star admirals in the Navy. Some have suggested that might have played a role in McCain being admitted. His academic record was awful. And it shows over and over again whenever McCain is called upon to think on his feet.

He no longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the "Straight Talk Express" for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless he's reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer, John McCain is lost. He can drop bon mots at a bowling alley or diner -- short glib responses that get a chuckle, but beyond that McCain gets in over his head very quickly.

I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin's eyes and see into his soul.

George Bush's record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself.

He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.

I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.

I share that fear Jack.

Idiots

By Ron Beasley

The movement conservatives that control the Republican Party think that a majority of the American people are idiots.  The fact that they have gained control of this country leads me to believe they must be right.  Think Progress brings us a classic example.

GINGRICH: Well, I got a very funny e-mail from a retired military officer in Tampa who pointed out that most tire inflation is done at service stations and you pay for it. And it’s actually a higher profit margin than selling gasoline. So Sen. Obama was urging you to go out and enrich Big Oil by inflating your tires instead of buying gas.

Just how ridiculous is this?

This claim is absurd for a number of reasons. First, gas station owners, not Big Oil, receive the profits from selling air — if they sell air at all (presumably from mechanized air machines). Second, air is free. So of course the profit margin for selling air is going be higher than a gallon of gas. By contrast, the cost of oil accounts for a significant portion of the price of gasoline. So any profits from gasoline sales (which are actually quite small) also go to the gas station owners, after Big Oil has already been paid.

The fact is that a number of people and organizations, including Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, have pointed out that properly inflated tires can increase your gas mileage by 15%.  Would Gingrich say this anywhere else.  I would guess not - Sean Hannity viewers are the least knowledgeable Americans.  He probably couldn't get away with it anywhere else.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

By Ron Beasley

I was late to endorse Obama - late January. I was afraid that he was not up to fighting the Republican slime machine and that he was an empty suit - lots of talk and little substance.  I haven't seen anything at this point that would lead me to believe I was wrong.  This is very disturbing because the though of John McCain as president truly scares the hell out of me.  At he first sign of trouble he looks for somebody to hit.

Response to 9/11 Offers Outline of McCain Doctrine

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain arrived late at his Senate office on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. “This is war,” he murmured to his aides. The sound of scrambling fighter planes rattled the windows, sending a tremor of panic through the room.

Within hours, Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.

“There is a system out there or network, and that network is going to have to be attacked,” Mr. McCain said the next morning on ABC News. “It isn’t just Afghanistan,” he added, on MSNBC. “I don’t think if you got bin Laden tomorrow that the threat has disappeared,” he said on CBS, pointing toward other countries in the Middle East.

Within a month he made clear his priority. “Very obviously Iraq is the first country,” he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: “Next up, Baghdad!”

Now if that doesn't scare you it should.  Digby as usual says it very well:

I remember writing a long time ago that John McCain is the man George W. Bush was pretending to be, right down to the flight suit. The Real Thing is actually far more dangerous than the cheap imitation. If he wins this thing, we could find ourselves in a very, very serious crisis, of both economic stability and national security ---- and very likely of our government itself. This man is unstable.

But she also gives us a branch of hope.  The corporate types know this and they also must know that Armageddon would be bad for business.

The funny thing is that I don't think the Big Money Boyz expect the Republicans to win this election so they didn't think there was much danger in putting Buck Turgidson on the ballot. You can't help but wonder if they are having some second thoughts about allowing for even that slim possibility.

All those tax cuts and deregulation won't be worth much if the hot headed John McCain brings on a nuclear winter.  That said race still a lot closer than it should be because Obama is not connecting with the average voter and he needs to go after John McCain.  Obama already has a handicap.  We don't like to talk about it but he is a black man running for president in the US of A.  John McCain has some handicaps as well.

• His age - there is nothing wrong with making that an issue.
• He's a Republican.
• He didn't have the "right stuff' to be an admiral.
• He admits that we are worse off than we were 4 years ago but plans to continue Bush policies.
• He's a hot head.

And that's just a few.  Use them all.  I'm sorry, but nice guys usually finish last in US politics and this is too important.

Picture(s) of the week

By Ron Beasley

Getting a good photo is usually a case of being at the right place with the right lens at the right time.  Well sometimes it's simply a matter of living at the right place.  The following pictures of Mt Hood were taken from my backyard.  We have one at sunrise, one at mid day and one at sunset. Don't forget - you can click on each picture for a larger image.

What I learned today

By Ron Beasley

Today I learned that we here at Newhoggers are "well-known revolutionary socialists" who hate America.

The Newshoggers are well-know revolutionary socialists. They regularly cheer insurgent attacks on American forces in Iraq, and they routinely demonize neoconservatives who advocate mainstream foreign policy positions on war and peace. By forthrightly joining with the paleoconservative attacks on America's response to Russian aggression, they're furthering the left-right tradition of hating the Bush administration, the GOP, and the country.

I guess I should be flattered that we are "well-known".

Note:

It was in response to this post

Some Sanity From The Insane

By Ron Beasley

Eight years ago I would not have believed that I would ever think Pat Buchanan could be a voice of sanity.  But as neocons like Robert Kagan can hardly contain their enthusiasm when they see an opportunity to fire up the cold war again it is Buchanan who comes across as sane.  Now the neocons never did like the "War on Terror".  Their attempts to turn it into a "real" war have for the most part been dismal failures.  Over at LewRockwell.com Pat Buchanan describes how hypocritical the neocon's outrage over Russia's response to Saakashvili's blunder really is.

American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight – Russia finished it. People who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end.

Russia's response was "disproportionate" and "brutal," wailed Bush.

True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more "disproportionate"?

Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?

  Did Western actions since the breakup of the Soviet Union ultimately lead to this confrontation?

That Putin took the occasion of Saakashvili's provocative and stupid stunt to administer an extra dose of punishment is undeniable. But is not Russian anger understandable? For years the West has rubbed Russia's nose in her Cold War defeat and treated her like Weimar Germany.

When Moscow pulled the Red Army out of Europe, closed its bases in Cuba, dissolved the evil empire, let the Soviet Union break up into 15 states, and sought friendship and alliance with the United States, what did we do?

American carpetbaggers colluded with Muscovite Scalawags to loot the Russian nation. Breaking a pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, we moved our military alliance into Eastern Europe, then onto Russia's doorstep. Six Warsaw Pact nations and three former republics of the Soviet Union are now NATO members.

Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet.

When did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia?

The United States unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty because our technology was superior, then planned to site anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against Iranian missiles, though Iran has no ICBMs and no atomic bombs. A Russian counter-offer to have us together put an anti-missile system in Azerbaijan was rejected out of hand.

We built a Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey to cut Russia out. Then we helped dump over regimes friendly to Moscow with democratic "revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia, and tried to repeat it in Belarus.

Buchanan goes on to point out that the US would have responded in much the same way if Russia made moves in the Western Hemisphere.  Of course the neocons and the Bush administration ware their hypocrisy like a badge of honor.

Quote of The Day

By Ron Beasley

The quote of the day comes from the always quotable Digby.

This is why most people over the age of nine learn that issuing a bunch of threats and failing to carry them through --- or following through and failing to succeed --- is a recipe for people to stop taking you seriously. Bush and Cheney (and now McCain) have made a fetish out of sabre rattling for the past eight years and the results have been, shall we say, less than stellar. The US has shown that its volunteer military, while valiant, is undermanned and overstretched, its intelligence services are willing servants of political manipulators and its leadership is dishonest, immoral and incompetent. It's understandable that somebody out there would think that now is the time to make a move. That it would be Bush's soul brother Pooty-poot was entirely predictable.

Go read the entire thing

Jon for President

By Ron Beasley

This guy has a better understanding of the world than either one of the bozos that will appear on the ballot.

The new swift boat attack

By Ron Beasley

The man who helped bring us Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Speak Out About John Kerry, Jerome Corsi, is at it again with a book on Obama.  At least a few conservatives are worried about it.

Corsi’s approach to politics is both destructive and self-destructive. If Senator Obama loses, he should lose on the merits: his record in public life and his political philosophy. And while it’s legitimate to take into account Obama’s past associations with people like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright–especially for someone like Obama, about whom relatively little is known–it wrong and reckless to throw out unsubstantiated charges and smears against Senator Obama.

Conservatism has been an intellectual home to people like Burke and Buckley. The GOP is the party that gave us Lincoln and Reagan. It seems to me that its leaders ought to make it clear that they find what Dr. Corsi is doing to be both wrong and repellent. To have their movement and their party associated with such a figure would be a terrible thing and it will only help the cause of those who hold both the GOP and the conservative movement in contempt.

Peter Wehner admits that the book is basically a pack of lies but what he refuses to admit that it's really the only thing that John McCain and the conservative movement has.  They can run on their policy or philosophy which is rejected by a vast majority of voters.  Their only hope of victory is to lie enough to damage Obama.

Classic Rove

By Ron Beasley

This is classic Karl Rove and it works:

Anatomy of a smear

Anyone looking for a good reason why the mainstream media took so long to get onboard with the tabloid-sourced news about John Edwards’ affair need only look to a story that ran this week about Barack Obama and actor George Clooney.

According to the story that ran Tuesday in the Daily Mail, a notorious British tabloid, Obama has exchanged e-mails, phone calls and text messages with Clooney, who was supposedly advising the candidate on everything from body language to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Obama-Clooney story was concocted from anonymous sources. Yet it spread throughout the world within hours. It was quickly picked up by The Drudge Report and television networks ranging from Fox News to NBC. The overall result served to bolster Republican candidate John McCain’s dubious contention that his rival Obama is a vapid “celebrity” rather than presidential material.

This is why the "swiftboat" campaign against Kerry was so effective.  If people hear it often enough they will believe it.  Karl Roves's very own disinformation manager, Drudge, published it and as usual the cable tabloid networks picked it up.

Note: If the right leaning POLITICO is picking up on this it could spell trouble for Rovian politics and John McSame. 

More advice for Obama

By Ron Beasley

Yesterday Thomas Frank had some good advice for Barack Obama.  Today Steve Soto has some more that may be hard to stomach for some of us but is good advice never the less.

If Obama really wants to derail McCain's messaging that Obama isn't American enough or too green for the job, Obama will surround himself with the likes of Biden, Powell, Hagel, and even Sam Nunn. Better yet, pick your cabinet right after the convention and show the country during the home stretch what an A-Team, Democratic-led administration would look like.

Sure, those of us in center-left blogland may have heartburn over associations with the likes of Powell, Nunn, and even Biden, but this isn't about us. It's about Obama being able to sell himself as a safe choice surrounded by seasoned hands who won't repeat the mistakes of this criminal regime.

At the same time they should be pointing out that McSame is surrounded by the same lunatics that got us into this mess to begin with.

Negation

By Ron Beasley

Are you worse off than you were 8 years ago?  Are you more insecure than you were 8 years ago?  If you're not more insecure you have not been paying attention.  As Steve Soto reminds us the incident in Georgia is an example:

Closer to home, no amount of empty saber-rattling from John McCain, written by an advisor who helped steer Georgia and the Bush Administration into this mess can hide the fact that Russia has just shown the world and especially China that America has been neutered and is no longer a credible guarantor of anything. Our economy and our people are now shackled to impoverishment caused by dependence on foreign oil produced by unreliable states, priced by economic speculators unregulated by our government, paid for with money borrowed from countries that have used globalization to run up trade surpluses deployed against our interests. As a result, Bush/Cheney will leave office with this country in a far weaker position than any administration in decades.

So how can Obama best take advantage of the mess that the Republicans have made of everything?  At Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, of all places, Thomas Frank has some advice - attack conservatism not John McCain.

It sounds very nice to say, as Barack Obama has done perhaps too much, that the upcoming election is about "hope" and "change." But those anodyne words conceal what I think is the public's true desire: Negation.

Come November, voters will have a chance to rid themselves of a political order that they have come to hate. Sen. Obama's task is to help them heave it overboard.

It seems hard to believe after all the happy Republican talk a few years ago about a "permanent majority," but the public is now more unified in its antipathy toward the GOP than it has been in a long time -- maybe since Watergate, maybe since the Hoover administration.

From where I sit, the change in public opinion is striking. For the past week I've been on a tour promoting my new book, an account of the sometimes ingenious ways in which conservatives have wrecked government.

This is the second time I have written and promoted a book criticizing the conservative movement -- the other one having been published in 2004. Back then, as I recall, when I would talk on the radio and take calls from listeners, about half of the folks who phoned in just wanted to inform me that I was full of it.

This time, however, defenders of the faith are pretty scarce. Sometimes they pick up the phone to request that I go as hard on Democrats as I do on Republicans. Sometimes they want to engage me in philosophical debates about liberty, equality and justice, or the inherent problems of big government.

To my recollection, though, not one has yet tried to defend the current administration.

Go after the disaster that is the Bush administration, the disaster that is the conservative movement.  Everyone knows what side McSame is on.

If he is to prevail in November, Mr. Obama cannot allow the right to profit from the discontent stirred up by their own misbehavior. Talking about "hope" is very nice when you're leading by 20 points, but what the Democrat has to do, now that John McCain has evened up the score, is take control of public outrage. He should not recoil from the bitterness that's out there. He should speak to it.

At the very least Mr. Obama must begin to offer an explanation for why things have gone so very wrong over the past seven years. He should tell us how, say, the failures of Iraq reconstruction were made inevitable by the conservative philosophy that "government should be market-based," as Mr. Bush once put it.

Besides, attacking Mr. McCain himself is pointless. The man no longer stands for anything. He has transformed himself from a maverick into a cipher, a hood ornament on a hit-and-run machine. He has no more political content now than the constantly changing cast of cynical right-wingers aboard his campaign plane.

That's why this election must be a referendum on Republican rule and the destructive doctrines behind it. It is a contest to put the blame where it belongs.

Mythology VS Critical Thinking and Science

By Ron Beasley

This is a move in the right direction.

Judge says UC can deny religious course credit

A federal judge says the University of California can deny course credit to applicants from Christian high schools whose textbooks declare the Bible infallible and reject evolution.

Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC's review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts - not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking.

Otero's ruling Friday, which focused on specific courses and texts, followed his decision in March that found no anti-religious bias in the university's system of reviewing high school classes. Now that the lawsuit has been dismissed, a group of Christian schools has appealed Otero's rulings to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Now if people really want to live in the 16th century that's fine with me but they must recognize that their children who are taught to not question mythology and reject science will have a hard time functioning in the 21st century.

Too many Christians not enough lions!

By Ron Beasley

I'm sorry but these people are dangerous terrorists:

GOP Rep. To Environmentalists: Jesus Already Saved The Planet

We like to keep track of the, er, intriguing sayings of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, the Christian Right champion from Minnesota. But this latest is really out there -- Bachmann says we don't need pesky environmentalists like Nancy Pelosi around, because Jesus already saved the planet!

"[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she's just trying to save the planet," Bachmann told the right-wing news site OneNewsNow. "We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet -- we didn't need Nancy Pelosi to do that."

Seven years ago I was a tolerant atheist but now I realize what a threat these people are.  This is stuff that would make the Taliban proud although since the Taliban doesn't cherry pick the Bible Ms Bachman would not be allowed to speak.

Saakashvili the thug

By Ron Beasley

Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com predicted the current war in Georgia.  In The Real Aggressor he gives us some background on the conflict but most interesting is his appraisal of the "freedom loving" Saakashvili.

"Saakashvili, the great 'democrat,' is busy charging anyone who opposes him with being a pawn of the Russians (and therefore guilty of treason), but the West is calling on him to restore civil liberties – and, in an apparent effort to propitiate his Western benefactors, he has lifted some restrictions and called new elections. Widespread and growing opposition to his strong-arm tactics, even among many of his former supporters, spells political trouble for Saakashvili and his corrupt cohorts, however – and an appeal to Georgian ultra-nationalism (which was always the real ideological motivation of the Rose Revolutionaries) would bolster him in the polls and provide a much-needed distraction, at least from the ruling party's point of view."

If you love George W. Bush you'll love Saakashvili:

The Georgian strongman is a thug and an opportunist who does an excellent imitation of George W. Bush-times-10: whereas GWB merely implies his political opponents are traitors to the nation, Saakashvili comes right out and says it – then drags them into court on trumped up charges of high treason. GWB has presided over a regime that has legalized torture, but only for foreign "terrorists" (José Padilla excepted). Saakashvili, on the other hand, throws his domestic political opponents – whom he labels "terrorists" – in jail and tortures his own countrymen. Georgia's notorious prisons are chock full of political dissidents. GWB justifies his aggression by invoking "democracy" and the doctrine of "preemption," while Saakashvili doesn't bother with such theoretical niceties, denying his aggression against South Ossetia in defiance of the plain facts.

Go read the rest.

Georgia on my mind

By Ron Beasley

My old MEJ blogging partner, Jazz Shaw,  will be talking to journalist and TMV author Shaun Mullen today on the situation in Georgia on Blog Talk Radio at 12 eastern 9 pacific time.  You can also listen to an interview Glenn Greenwald did with Professor Charles King of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Experience my A$$

By Ron Beasley

My fellow pamphleteers having the war in Georgia covered by I have an observation.  The uber hawks now claim that this demonstrates that we need someone with experience in the White House, AKA John McCain.  See Ed Morrissey. 

Now excuse me but isn't St John an ideological clone of the "experienced" crew that enabled this?  When President Saakashvili of Georgia foolishly poked the bear he did so thinking that because he helped in Iraq the US would come running to his aid.  There is experience and then their is bad experience - McCain represents the latter.

Peak Platinum

By Ron Beasley

Peak oil is upon us and the search for alternatives is on.  Many of these alternatives require the use of rare elements.  I discussed peak Lithium here and how it may impact the use of Lithium Ion batteries.  Over at Peak Energy Big Gav takes a detailed look at peak Platinum and how it may impact the "Hydrogen Economy."  Bottom line: at current use levels we have a 360 year supply of platinum but if requirements should dramatically increase because of the wide spread use of hydrogen fuel cells that could be reduced to as little as 15 years.  Big Gav has all the details.

Picture of the Week

By Ron Beasley

Moon Light

Click on picture for larger image

Chris Wallace VS John McCain

By Ron Beasley

Much to my amazement FOX's Chris Wallace went after John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, on FOX News Sunday.

WALLACE: All right. We're going to — I'm asking you that because we're going to come back on McCain votes as well. Let's take a look at another McCain ad. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: Washington's broken. John McCain knows it. We're worse off than we were four years ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Does Senator McCain really believe that, that this country is worse off than we were four years ago?

DAVIS: Sure. All along the trail, John McCain campaigns around real people. He goes to town halls and he hears what they have to say to him.

You don't have to be in very many town halls, Chris, to understand that people are pinched by the increase in gas prices. They're losing jobs because of some downturn in manufacturing. And the economy as a whole has been very hard on the American family.

That's what John McCain's referring to. He doesn't have to go very far every day to find those kinds of examples.

WALLACE: Given that, I want you to respond to this clip from an Obama ad. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: The president and I agree on most issues. There was a recent study that showed that I voted with the president over 90 percent of the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: In fact, Mr. Davis, Senator McCain is understating it. Last year, he voted to support Bush legislation 95 percent of the time.

Given that, if the country's worse off, isn't both the president and John McCain — aren't they both responsible?

DAVIS: Well, look. If you want to talk about history, then you can make all the cases you want to make...

Davis was not prepared for this kind of "fair and balanced" interview on FOX and in truth neither was I.  I'm really not sure what to make of this.  Murdoch and FOX have been sending mixed signals.  For example Rex Nutting's piece in Murdoch's WSJ Market Watch yesterday.

McCain - between a rock and a hard place

By Ron Beasley

Yesterday I reported that the WSJ's Kimberly Strassel was furious that the "gang of ten", including Republicans Lindsey Graham, John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, Bob Corker and Johnny Isakson, had sabotaged the only real issue that seemed to give John McCain traction over Barack Obama - energy and gasoline prices.  This morning The Hill confirms that this may indeed be a no win situation for McCain.

McCain holds off backing ‘Gang of 10’ energy plan

Republican Sen. John McCain is not ready to embrace a bipartisan energy plan that could complicate his presidential campaign if Democrats advance the bill weeks before the November elections.

The bill is being drafted by some of his closest allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and offers a compromise on the roiling issue of offshore drilling.

Yet Tucker Bounds, a McCain campaign spokesman, said the Arizona senator is waiting to see legislative language before taking a position.

If McCain opposes the bill, it could appear that he is standing in the way of a compromise to soaring gasoline prices.

But if he backs it, McCain could cloud a clear distinction between the two parties on the issue that Republicans believe can swing the elections. (emphasis mine)

About the only thing that McCain opposed in the bill is a repeal of tax breaks for oil companies.  This is not something that will gain him any support among those who are paying $4.00 a gallon for gasoline and see record oil industry profits at the same time.

McCain in a nutshell

By Ron Beasley

Is Barack Obama fit  to be president?  That is a question we hear all the time.  But Rex Nutting of Dow Jones MarketWatch wonders why few are asking the same question about St John McSame.  He takes a look on John McCain's resume and doesn't see much that would qualify him to lead the nation.  What he does find is:

Lack of accomplishments

Like the current occupant of the White House, McCain got his first career breaks from the connections and money of his family, not from hard work.

The son and grandson of Navy admirals, he attended Annapolis where he did poorly. Nevertheless, he was commissioned as a pilot, where he performed poorly, crashing three planes before he failed to evade a North Vietnamese missile that destroyed his plane. McCain spent more than five years in a prison camp.

After his release, McCain knew his weak military record meant he'd never make admiral, so he turned his sights to a career in politics. With the help of his new wife's wealth, his new father-in-law's business connections and some powerful friends had made as a lobbyist for the Navy, he was elected in 1982 to a Congress in a district that he didn't reside in until the day the seat opened up. A few years later, he succeeded Barry Goldwater as a senator.

McCain hasn't accomplished much in the Senate. Even his own campaign doesn't trumpet his successes, probably because the few victories he's had still rankle Republicans.

His campaign finance law failed to significantly reduce the role of money in politics. He failed to get a big tobacco bill through the Senate. He's failed to change the way Congress spends money; his bill to give the president a line-item veto was declared unconstitutional, and the system of pork and earmarks continues unabated. He failed to reform the immigration system.

Every senator who runs for president misses votes back in Washington, so it's no surprise that McCain and all the others who ran in the primaries have missed a lot of votes in the past year. But between the beginning of 2005 and mid-2007, no senator missed more roll-call votes than McCain did, except Tim Johnson, who was recovering from a near-fatal brain aneurysm.

In addition he finds this:

• McCain is "shallow"
• He has shown little leadership
• He is without principles

And this perhaps is the most damning:

Living in the Sixties

McCain is still fighting the Vietnam War. But he's not fighting the real historic war, which taught us the folly of injecting ourselves into a civil war that was none of our business. We learned that, in a world where even peasants have guns, explosives and radios, a determined and popular guerrilla force can defeat a modern army equipped with the mightiest technology if that army has no vital national interest to protect.

Instead, McCain is fighting an imaginary Vietnam War, where a sure victory could have been achieved with just a little more bombing, just a little more "pacification," just a little more will to win at home. This fantasy clouds McCain's judgment on foreign policy.

Most of the other high-profile politicians who fought in Vietnam -- Colin Powell, Chuck Hegel, John Kerry, and Jim Webb -- aren't stuck in the past, and they don't view the Iraq War as a chance to get Vietnam right.

Nutting concludes with this:

The bottom line

Successful presidents come from two molds: visionaries, or mechanics. The visionaries -- think Reagan or FDR -- see what others can't and say 'Why not?" to inspire the country. The mechanics -- think LBJ or Eisenhower -- know the ins and outs of government and are able to harness the power of millions of humans to accomplish great things, or at least keep the wheels from coming off.

McCain fits neither style. He's neither a dreamer, nor a detail guy. His major accomplishment, in Vietnam and in the Senate, has been merely to survive.

Just surviving doesn't make you're a hero, or a decent president. America needs to do more than survive the next four years.

Remind me again - who isn't fit to lead?  A reporter working for Rupert Murdoch has come up with a better campaign ad than anyone in the Democratic Party.

Life Preserver?

By Ron Beasley

I'm really not interested that John Edwards is just like every other narcissistic politician in the world and my fellow pamphleteers have the situation in Georgia covered.  But I did find this from Murdoch's new wingnut central, The Wall Street Journal:

Republican Energy Fumble

It would seem that five Republican Senators have undermined the only issue the Republicans had going for them - energy.

It's taken time, but Sen. McCain and his party have finally found -- in energy -- an issue that's working for them. Riding voter discontent over high gas prices, the GOP has made antidrilling Democrats this summer's headlines.

Their enthusiasm has given conservative candidates a boost in tough races. And Mr. McCain has pressured Barack Obama into an energy debate, where the Democrat has struggled to explain shifting and confused policy proposals.

Still, it was probably too much to assume every Republican would work out that their side was winning this issue. And so, last Friday, in stumbled Sens. Lindsey Graham, John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, Bob Corker and Johnny Isakson -- alongside five Senate Democrats. This "Gang of 10" announced a "sweeping" and "bipartisan" energy plan to break Washington's energy "stalemate." What they did was throw every vulnerable Democrat, and Mr. Obama, a life preserver.

That's because the plan is a Democratic giveaway. New production on offshore federal lands is left to state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states. The regulatory hurdles are huge. And the bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the coast -- putting off limits some of the most productive areas. Alaska's oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still a no-go.

The highlight is instead $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables. The Gang of 10 intends to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on . . . oil companies! The Sierra Club couldn't have penned it better. And so the Republican Five has potentially given antidrilling Democrats the political cover they need to neutralize energy through November.

Obama has already indicated that he might approve the plan which will be seen by voters as a potential solution. 

Sen. Obama was thrilled. He quickly praised the Gang's bipartisan spirit, and warmed up to a possible compromise. Of course, he means removing even the token drilling provisions now in the bill. But he's only too happy for the focus to remain on the Gang's efforts, and in particular on the five Republicans providing his party its fig leaf.

And poor John McCain?

Mr. McCain, who had been commanding the energy debate, was left to explain why he, of all people, wasn't more enthusiastic about a "bipartisan" effort on energy, especially one that includes "drilling." His camp was forced to take refuge in taxes, explaining that their boss couldn't sign up for a bill that included more. If this is what Mr. McCain's good friend Lindsey Graham considers "helping," somebody might want to ask him to stop.

The majority of voters are not going to be upset about taxing Big Oil.

But it's not just the Presidential race:

Equally gleeful was Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, the Senate's most vulnerable