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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Crooks and Liars' LiveJournal:
| Sunday, September 7th, 2008 | |
| 8:00 pm | Mid-Day Open Thread
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| 7:00 pm | Daily Show: “John McCain: Reformed Maverick”
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| 6:00 pm | FNS: Davis Defends Palin’s Massive Earmarks
Maybe…just maybe…Chris Wallace had enough of McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis’s ridiculous spinning on Sarah Palin that he wasn’t about to let Davis get away with the standard campaign glossing over of her “executive experience.” Who knows, maybe Wallace is nursing a grudge for not being able to book Palin this Sunday and having to settle for the unctuous Davis. Whatever the reason, Wallace was uncharacteristically hard on Davis’s attempt to bolster Palin’s reputation for being a reformer. But honestly, I think that all of this sturm und drang about Palin is EXACTLY what the McCain campaign wants. Suddenly the campaign has become all about Palin vs. Obama, shunting off McSame into the shadows, where he gets to spend less time trying to refute that his will be a third term of proven failed Bush policies. Palin’s aggressive stance in getting federal money is the same thing that every governor does (although as a Californian, who pay more taxes than we get back, the per capita federal funding makes me a little ill–think of how much better our infrastructure would be here in Cali, if we didn’t have states like Alaska sucking us dry). I don’t think that there should be that much focus on it other than to point out that Palin herself was named THREE TIMES by none other than McCain as a Pork Barrel Princess. So doesn’t this go more towards the poor and reckless judgment of McCain, who picked someone as a running mate that he personally has castigated in the past for her fiscal irresponsibility? So are they trying to tell us that this kind of hypocrisy is acceptable? transcripts below the fold </p>WALLACE: But aren’t you vastly exaggerating her record as a reformer? Take a look: as Mayor of Wasilla, she hired a Washington lobbyist and got $27 million in earmarks. And in her less than two years as Governor, Alaska has asked for $589 million in pork barrel projects. Her record, as a reformer, particularly on the issues of earmarks, is far from clean. DAVIS: Well, well, let’s be clear about this. When she was Mayor of Wasilla, there were already people in place who were getting those grants from the federal government. And small towns do a lot of that kind of activity, because mayors… WALLACE: She hired a Washington lobbyist [crosstalk-inaudible] close to invited senator… DAVIS: ….She was already involved in that… WALLACE: No, she did hire…she did hire a lobbyist… DAVIS: …And so, let me also point out these pork barrel projects that you talk about. These were not projects that she tried to get. These were projects that the Republican establishment in Alaska, who she campaigned against, and beat many times over, were the ones picking those grants up. Let me remind you, she vetoed more bills. She cut back on more pork barrel spending in the state legislature than any previous governor. She converted that legislature into reform, because she passed ethics reforms and corruption reforms. She railed against the establishment in Alaska and was able to accomplish great things by passing a significant energy bill that allowed them to create a natural gas pipeline. These are all things that a true reformer is able to accomplish. So, you know, I don’t disagree with the fact that these…there were…there were pork barrel projects coming to Alaska, but not from her. Within the state legislature she beat back those efforts. WALLACE: Wait a minute, first of all… DAVIS: She’s not a federal… WALLACE: As governor, Alaska, during her year and a half, two years as governor, Alaska continued to get more federal money for pork barrel projects per capita than any state in the country… DAVIS: Yeah, that’s Ted Stevens…that’s Ted Stevens… WALLACE: and, and…let me, it just works better if I get to ask the question. DAVIS: Okay. WALLACE: And she supported the “Bridge to Nowhere” and it was only after the federal government dropped it out and killed it - the Congress killed it - that she then opposed it and in fact, she still got the money for the approach, the ramp to the bridge to nowhere. DAVIS: Congress didn’t beat back the Bridge to Nowhere. WALLACE: Yeah, but she accepted the money. DAVIS: That funding…that funding was in the grant and she said, “I’m not spending that money.” And what they did? They took a $500 million bridge and she turned it into a $2 million ferry. And that’s what she did on her own, without any help from anybody else. WALLACE: Well, actually, it was Congress that killed the money for the Bridge to Nowhere, but let me move on to something else. |
| 5:00 pm | Fox News Sunday: Rick Davis Tells Voters To Forget His Lobbyist Ties, Calls Them “Ghosts Of The Past
Republicans ought to thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Fox News Sunday. Where else could you get away with this laughingly lame deflection? When Obama Campaign Manager David Axelrod reminded viewers in an earlier segment that McCain’s “reformer” claims are at odds with the people with whom he chooses to staff his campaign–a whole bunch of connected lobbyists, led by uber-lobbyist (allegedly retired) Rick Davis, Davis dismisses the charge by saying that the Obama campaign has nothing left but to chase after “ghosts of the past.” The past, you say? Oh really? Only if you consider “the past” to be just a few weeks ago. Transcript below the fold </p>
WALLACE: Well, as a matter of personal privilege, I’m going to give you the opportunity to respond to David Axelrod, who said, you know, for all the talk about wait ‘till we come in and shake up the lobbyists that the campaign team of McCain is filled with lobbyists, or in your case, former lobbyists. Hopw do you respond? DAVIS: Oh, I think that you know, this is just more of the same from David Axelrod. I mean, they’ve been running against ghosts of the past all along. And I think it just shows that they don’t really have anything to talk about. If they want run against Rick Davis or our campaign staff, let ‘em. I think it’s hilarious! It’s a wonderful distraction from the real issues that we’re trying to debate. It’s a classic example of a campaign that doesn’t have anything else to say so they pick on staff. |
| 4:00 pm | Cheney, McCain and The New Cold War
Dick Cheney may be the least introspective man in history.
Form anyone else, the hypocrisy would be breathtaking - as Bush’s administration continues to push its military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq and neo-whatevers calls for more wars with Iran, Syria, Russia … to say nothing of any “humanitarian” excuse they can come up with for armed intervention. For Cheney its par for the course and everyone expects it.
From all we’ve heard so far a McCain-Palin administration would simply repeat all the mistakes of the Bush-Cheney one and America’s reputation would continue it’s downslide as foreign policy failure piled on failure.
For a start, John McCain seems to be just as tone-deaf to his own words as Dick Cheney. Talking about the conflict in Georgia, he told an audience in Aspen back in mid-August:
Perhaps John forgot about the first Gulf War, Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq that he personally did so much to pave the way for. After all, he’s 72. But it’s significant how easily he glosses over the facts of Georgia - that his own “close friend”, Georgian president Mikheil Shakashvili, was the one to send the bulk of his nation’s armed might into its own ethnic minority region while Russia had a peacekeeping role there. A role, moreover, that Georgia had signed up to. In Britain, we’d diplomatically call it “being economical with the truth”. Then there was McCain’s nomination acceptance speech. He said:
However, all of McCain’s policy plans suggest a return to the Cold War is exactly what he’s after - and good relations with Russia (or anyone else) be damned. Even before the Georgia crisis, McCain wanted to throw Russia out of the G8 group, depriving it of valuable trading opportunities and depriving every member of a valuable forum for diplomatic dialogue with the Bear. Fortunately, while Britain might go along with such a plan, other G8 nations like Germany and France almost certainly wouldn’t - they need Russian trade, and energy supplies, too much. And according to McClatchy:
So, like Dick, more rhetoric than reality, but the kind of “tough talk” that creates problems rather than solving them. Then there’s his plan to create a League of Democracies and exclude nations like Russia. That’s a bust too, as several leading democracies have said they wouldn’t join any such group. Still, here again McCain reveals his fellowship with extremists from the Bush administration like Cheney and John Bolton. Charles Krauthammer, co-originator of the League idea, says it’s a blind for a long-held neoconservative wish.
Such a plan, if it ever came to fruition, would usher in a new age of America and it’s closest friends against everyone else. And it’s not at all certain that it’s strongest allies would still count as among its closest friends. Then there’s the idea being touted by McCain camp adviser Fred Kagan to turn the Baltic states into US-armed “porcupines”, with the spines aimed at Russia. Does that sound like working ” to establish good relations with Russia” to you? How about McCain’s insistence that Georgia and other nations in what Russia terms its “near foreign” region should be fastracked into NATO? The very fact that everyone saw a possible conflict in the wind was cited by both Germany and France as a reason to veto Georgia’s membership last time the Bush administration tried to railroad it through - because NATO membership would obligate other members to come to Georgia’s defense if asked. No, McCain’s rhetoric on Russia has been, without fail, idiotically belligerent and incredibly tone deaf. His polices are designed to usher in what he says he doesn’t want - a new Cold War. As the European Commission’s Barroso indicated, no-one expects the Bush administration to practise effective diplomacy any more and no-one is waiting for them to solve problems rather than make them worse. Other nations are getting on with doing it despite America right now. McCain-Palin foreign policy would be another four years of the same and ensure that American prestige was deader than a moose in Sarah Palin’s sights. |
| 3:00 pm | Mike’s Blog Roundup culturekitchen: A lipsticked pitbull that’s afraid of our lap dog press, but ready to be vice president? These culture warrior asshats like to talk tough, but like all phonies, they got no guts. Go sign the Release Sarah Palin to Journalists, petition MyDD: Senate Republicans are pulling up the stakes Majikthise: The fascist thug behind the mass arrests and detentions of protesters and journalists in St. Paul Angry Bear: Is Sarah Palin a fiscal conservative? onegoodmove: Mommy And Me The Opinion Mill’s Weekend Bookchat: Is Amy Goodman cool or what? Is religion really the basis for a moral society? Is political analysis dead, or just sleeping? Is the war on crime also a war on something else? The Democratic Daily could use a little help |
| 1:30 pm | Palin getting tutored in Neocon 101 by Professor Lieberman
WaPo:
Yes, let someone who knows nothing about foreign affairs learn about the world from the same people who have been wrong about every major decision in the past eight years. Change we can believe in! |
| 12:00 pm | Sunday Morning Bobblehead Thread Silent Lune - She’s Hiding This morning’s line up is more notable for who it does not include than who will appear. Because depending on your particular taste, you may watch Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama on This Week, Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate Sen. Joe Biden on Meet the Press (watch out for Brokaw and the GOP framing he loves, Joe) or if you’re especially masochistic, Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain on Face the Nation. But the newest GOP rock star (notice it’s not a bad thing if you’re a Republican) and Veep Candidate Sarah Palin is not quite ready for primetime and is being kept off the shows. How convenient.
So what’s catching your eye this morning? |
| 3:30 am | |
| 3:00 am | C&L’s Late Night Music Club with Blue Oyster Cult If all the seeds from all the weedy dime-bags ever cleaned on this album cover were ever gathered together and sown simultaneously, side-by-side, from space the surface of the Earth would look like a Chia Pet. Blue Öyster Cult — “Fire Of Unknown Origin” |
| 2:00 am | |
| 1:30 am | Our condolences to Jack Cafferty Sad news to report, as Jack Cafferty’s wife of 35 years, Carol, passed away unexpectedly. CNN has a touching tribute to Carol, but the team here at Crooks and Liars just want Jack to know that our thoughts and prayers are with him. We wish him the very best. |
| Saturday, September 6th, 2008 | |
| 11:55 pm | Pakistan reserves right of retaliation against US
Growing Pakistani hostility to their nation’s role in the US-led “war on terror” isn’t just confined to the military, and may well be the reason behind a hurried top-level conference aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday. Participants included Admiral Mullen, General Petraeus and Pakistan’s military chief, General Kiyani.
I find myself wondering if the threat to retaliate caused that new, less confrontational, tone. The Pakistani threat to take up arms against it’s allies - and that really is a shocking development - should change everyone’s gameplan, and it will be interesting to see if that filters through to the policy statements of the presidential candidates. (Meanwhile, Condi Rice is hailing the election of a mad, corrupt politician with with no previous executive experience as the new Pakistani president. She told reporters “I’m looking forward to working with him”. Go figure.) CNN’s Becky Anderson leads a roundtable discussion about security on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. |
| 10:45 pm | McCain surrenders GOP Party Platform. Includes Palin’s hard lined stance on Abortion
That result was to be expected. During a July 30 interview, John McCain admitted he had “not gotten into the platform discussions.” And it shows. Unlike Barack Obama, who personally intervened to help create a new abortion plank in the Democratic platform, John McCain left the GOP committee to its own devices in producing a document that is far more radical than even McCain’s own draconian anti-abortion stand. </p>In reaching out to his party’s religious right, John McCain famously reversed course on overturning Roe v. Wade. But as the Washington Post noted Monday, McCain in a May interview still claimed to support exemptions for abortions in cases involving rape, incest or the life of the mother:
As it turns out, not so much. As predicted, McCain flip-flopped on his position in 2000 that the Republican platform should allow the abortion exemptions. His hands-off approach resulted in a hard line GOP abortion platform that not only did away with those most minimal of protections for women’s health, but called for that total abortion ban to be enshrined in the United States Constitution:
While the Republican Party apparently added fetal due process rights during the process of creating the 2008 GOP platform, John McCain played no part in the process at all. An astonished Chuck Todd of MSNBC Tuesday described McCain’s abdication of the platform-writing to radicals in his own party:
And McCain’s detachment from the platform of his party hardly ends there. On same-sex marriage, immigration and stem cell research as well, the GOP bucked McCain each and every time. As it turns out, McCain’s acquiescence doesn’t merely reflect his weakness (which it surely does) as much as his disinterest. As McCain himself admits, he just doesn’t care about details of policy; his campaign is about putting winning, and not country, first. |
| 8:48 pm | Daily Show: 2008 McCain = 2000 Bush: A case of amnesia.
John Amato: McCain wants us to forget that if he wins the election—America will be controlled by the Republicans for four more years that have produced such disastrous results. And the media will only help make this election about personalities instead of issues and then use Palin to distract us from those issues. Arianna has a great post about this: Listening to McCain, you’d think it was the Democrats who occupied the White House the last seven-plus years and it was time to throw the bastards out. Given that 82 percent of voters believe we are heading in the wrong direction, it’s a logical position to take. But for the American people to buy into the notion that McCain, who has raced to Bush’s side on tax cuts, on offshore drilling — even on torture — is this campaign’s agent of change, it’s going to require an incredible suspension of disbelief. Or a serious case of amnesia. And this is clearly McCain’s campaign strategy: inducing amnesia about the past and confusion about the future, attempting to hoodwink the American people about what he has become. Which is where Sarah Palin comes in. As a major distraction. In the effort to divert attention from the matter at hand — McCain’s embrace of all things Bush — Palin is the perfect storm…read on |
| 7:30 pm | Surge success “beyond our wildest dreams?”
But how close to reality are McCain and Obama’s positions? Well, for a start it’s unclear that it’s actually the Surge that has been instrumental in lowering Iraqi violence (to parity with some of the world’s bloodiest conflicts instead of being in a class of its own). The Sunni Awakening and a ceasefire by the Shiite Sadrist movement must also take a large part of the credit and, despite McCain’s attempt at rewriting history, both pre-dated the Surge. Indeed, even General Petraeus admits the possibility that, due to these entirely local developments, violence in Iraq might have fallen just as much even without the Surge. Paying the Awakening movement some $30 million a month to not attack US troops wasn’t originally a part of the Surge plan that McCain backed and it’s unlikely he would have supported such a move in any case. John McCain has made much of Barack Obama’s supposed wish for “appeasement” of terrorists in negotiating with Iran or Hamas - how much worse is it then to bring terrorists onto the payroll? Many of the Awakening’s so-called Sons of Iraq were previously members of the insurgency. </p>Now that both Maliki and the established Sunni political elite feel they are becoming a threat to their Green Zone based power, while the US is stopping bribing them not to attack US forces, the Awakening is in danger of being dropped like a hot potato - and at least a portion of the 100,000 strong movement will return to violence. Likewise, the Sadrist movement has been described as a terrorist outfit by American hawks yet General Petraeus was generous in his praise of Sadr when he needed the ceasefire renewed. Is Petraeus an appeaser too? Then there’s the purpose of the Surge - which wasn’t just to reduce violence but also to give a window of opportunity for Iraqi reconcilliation. That simply hasn’t happened. No oil law has yet been passed and if the Kurds get their way it never will be. No law on provincial elections has yet been passed and it’s now unlikely it will be before the end of the year. The Powers That be intend using that haitus to make sure the Powers That Aren’t stay that way and this is another possible flashpoint for renewed violence. De’baathification is stalled and fairly much window dressing in any case- and the head of the committee that oversees it has been arrested on suspicion of involvement with Shiite terror groups. (Which, if true, puts McCain and his top foreign policy adviser just one degree of separation away from murderers of US troops.) The Sadrists are reorganising and probably biding their time. Goodly portions of the Awakening, as we’ve seen, are threatening a return to insurgency. The latest news is that even the ruling powers in Iraq are in an armed face-off. Iraqi troops and Kurdish peshmerga forces are bracing for conflict in the disputed city of Khanaqin, in Diyala province. “The Iraqi army still wants to enter, and the peshmerga is present,” said Ibrahim Bajelani, a Kurd who heads the provincial council. “Everyone is on edge. If the Iraqi army tries to enter without prior agreement, we can’t be held responsible for the consequences.” This isn’t reconciliation. Iraq is looking more and more like a bad spaghetti western, everyone in a circle, hands twitching, waiting for someone to blink - and Maliki seems to think he’s Clint Eastwood. Developing tensions between Iraq’s religious and ethnic groups are actually being fuelled by Maliki, who seems to relish his new-found perception of himself as a “strongman” figure. As a consequence, the White House is ready to accept military recommendation that significant troop withdrawals be paused until early 2009, despite the possibility of this hurting Republicans at the polls, as a hedge against the very real threat of Iraq exploding again. So, to recap - the Surge didn’t succeed in reducing violence alone, not even by half; it didn’t help one iota in repairing the divisions between Iraqis and instead various Iraqis including the Prime Minister took the opportunity to widen those divisions (and by the way, allegations that the US spied on Maliki are unlikely to put him in a mood to listen to the White House) … now it looks increasingly likely that violence will explode again. Obama should have stuck to his guns and media pressure be damned. |
| 6:15 pm | Blue America Breaking: DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen’s 5K Matching Offer: Jackson Browne tickets We don’t know who the winner will be yet. It’s a virtual see-saw dead-heat between Russ Warner (D-CA), Annette Taddeo (D-FL), and Debbie Cook (D-CA) and both Sam Bennett (D-PA) and Dennis Shulman (D-NJ) are still in range of winning. And winning means more than just the $5,000 we announced here at Crooks and Liars last week. DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen just sent us this letter and kicked in a $5,000 match for our winner. (You can still vote.)
And don’t forget, if the Blue America PAC matches the $1,250 contribution we got yesterday, there will be a $2,500 runner-up prize– and there’s even something in this for donors– besides helping to make sure there are solid progressives in Congress: anybody who contributes at least $25.00 before 1PM (PST) will be entered in a drawing to win two (2) fourth row center tickets to the Jackson Browne concert at the historic Orpheum theatre in Los Angeles on October 5th. |
| 5:30 pm | The Hollow Men
Andrew Sullivan pointed out that few at the Republican conference - and certainly not George Bush or Fred Thompson - seems to have been able to bring themselves to say outright that John McCain was tortured. Lots of descriptions of what McCain went through but no actual T-word, because Republican policy right now is that none of it is “torture”. And that sad fact made me think of this.
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| 4:15 pm | Palin Asked For Specifics On Her Whine Of Mean Obama/Biden Democrats; Can’t Answer
This whole Culture of Victimization of the Republican Party makes me ill. As Tapper points out, McCain said heartless things about the adolescent Chelsea Clinton but any little scrutinization on them has them crying like WATBs. |
| 1:45 pm | Steinem: Sarah Palin “Shares Nothing But A Chromosome” With Hillary
John McCain chose party over country by selecting Palin, a move that eerily reflects George Bush’s reckless style of governing. The McCain camp may think they can fool women voters, but Steinem does a fantastic job of shredding the idea that Hillary Clinton supporters would automatically be wooed into voting for a woman who is her polar opposite and unfit to serve. Quite simply put, Palin isn’t qualified to carry HRC’s briefcase, let alone be considered her political equal. Lets break this down in the most basic of terms — Sarah Palin is a Bush Republican — say it loud and say it often. I grind my teeth every time I hear someone in the corporate media tout Palin as a candidate of change. A change of gender does not equal a change in policy or direction for America. John McCain may consider Palin to be his “political soul mate,” but unfortunately for him, her heart belongs to George W. Bush. |
Jon Stewart traces John McCain’s evolution from a straight-talking maverick to a shameless panderer who now embraces all the things he used to condemn.
Jon finds some eerie similarities between John McCain’s convention speech and the one given by George W. Bush eight years ago.
