John McCain’s Truth Squad

Posted by on June 30, 2008 at 12:16 pm. NO Comments :

On Face the Nation this weekend, Gen. Wesley Clark made the obvious observation that John McCain’s captivity in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp was not a qualification to be president. McCain’s ordeal was certainly horrific, but not leadership training. Clark’s comments will no doubt be controversial, but the reality is that living in a hut for five years, far removed from any management or policy development responsibilities, does not prepare one for executive leadership positions. McCain has other experience to promote, like his tenure in the Senate, but if he is considered to be qualified to be president solely on the basis of his time spent in jail, then Martha Stewart is qualified to be his Attorney General and Snoop Dogg his Secretary of State.

McCain’s response to the matter is to set up a “Truth Squad.” Leaving aside for the moment that nothing Clark said was untrue because it was merely his opinion, there are serious problems the new McMod Squad. The principle members include folks like Orson Swindle and George “Bud” Day.

Lt. Col. Swindle has a long and infamous resume. He is the McCain campaign’s veterans liaison as well as a board member of Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), an independent advocacy group that has long backed McCain. CAGW has also been associated with unethical, if not illegal, activities on McCain’s behalf, and is tied to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Swindle himself is also a Senior Policy Advisor at the big DC lobbying firm of Hunton & Williams. All of these duties violate McCain’s own policy of not allowing people working for “independent entities” from serving on his campaign staff.

Col. Day was a member of another organization that misused the word “truth” in their name, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth. He is now the director and president of the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation, a group comprised of former swiftboaters and the owner of the rights to “Stolen Honor,” the crocumentary featuring the swiftboat liars. It is interesting that McCain now employs Day to speak on his behalf. In 2004 he called Day’s slandering of John Kerry “dishonest and dishonorable.” Apparently those qualities are required by the McCain of 2008.

Now McCain is criticizing Barack Obama for comments made by Wes Clark. Obama has already rejected Clark’s statements, but that hasn’t stopped McCain from demagoguing the character issue. McCain himself, not a surrogate, said Saturday that “Obama’s word cannot be trusted.” Will McCain now condemn himself for engaging in dirty politics?

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Bill O’Reilly: No Peabody For You

Posted by on June 28, 2008 at 10:33 am. 1 Comments :

Little Billy O’Reilly is poor loser (or just a loser, period). The delusional narcissism that prompted him to falsely claim that he had won two Peabody awards a few years ago has swelled to consume an ever greater portion of his diseased ego. For the record, O’Reilly has won precisely zero Peabody’s. He later claimed that he meant Polk Awards, but he never won of those either. Inside Edition, which O’Reilly hosted for a spell, did win a Polk Award, but that was two years after O’Reilly had left the program.

[For more on O’Reilly’s dementia, see The O’Reilly Fear Factor: Collected Verses]

A few weeks ago, the most recent collection of Peabody honorees were announced and O’Reilly was, of course, not on the list. Why would he be? The purpose of the Peabody’s are to…

“…recognize distinguished achievement and meritorious public service by TV and radio stations, networks, producing organizations, individuals and the World Wide Web.”

Nope. Nothing in there describes Bill O’Reilly. So, consistent with the nature of his personality disorder, he is now striking back at the offending academics who fail to recognize his superiority.

The envy is so thick it could be smeared with a loofah. O’Reilly has used his “Reality Check” segment to advance his fantasies. He no doubt gets great pleasure from disparaging his nemesis, Bill Moyers, who has won ten Peabodys. But he goes further in attempting to discredit the entire enterprise by asserting that it is a bastion of liberalism. Unfortunately, O’Reilly just ends up providing more evidence for why he is unqualified for this award.

In labeling the program’s director, and nine other board members, as liberals (he says two are conservative), O’Reilly offers no evidence for the claim. However he does mangle the facts related to the board’s composition. There are sixteen members, not twelve, as O’Reilly says.

Now we can add the Peabodys to the growing list of O’Reilly’s enemies: Al Franken, Keith Olbermann, NBC, MSNBC, GE, Jeff Immelt, Newsweek, San Francisco, DailyKos, CNN, Paul Krugman, Brian De Palma, Cindy Sheehan, Ludacris, Howard Dean, Ariana Huffington, Dumbledore, plus those inducted to his fearsome Hall of Shame.

What must really hurt is that amongst the winners this year was an upstart from Comedy Central, Stephen Colbert. So the guy who plays a character mocking O’Reilly is honored with the most prestigious award in journalism, and O’Reilly is reduced to mocking the institution:

“”[W]e’re sure the judging is fair and balanced. Party on, Peabody guys.”

Party on, Bill.

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Clear Channel Bans Bushmen Ad

Posted by on June 27, 2008 at 10:50 am. 2 Comments :

Harry Shearer BushmenAuthor, satirist, and the voice of innumerable Simpsons characters, Harry Shearer, has a new CD coming out that typically skewers politics and culture. The title of the project is Songs of the Bushmen and features a debut single about the “935 Lies” told by the Bush administration in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.

Clear Channel, however, despite being an avowedly conservative media enterprise (they gave 77% of their $300K+ PAC contributions to Republicans in 2004), is demonstrating their opposition to free speech and markets by refusing to allow ads for Shearer’s work to appear on their billboards.

This is consistent with Clear Channel’s history of partisan censorship. They have previously refused ads for VoteVets and they nixed the Dixie Chicks from their radio network. And let’s not forget their ludicrous list of banned songs post-9/11.


Who Is Snubbing Muslim Americans?

Posted by on June 25, 2008 at 1:55 pm. 9 Comments :

At a recent campaign rally for Barack Obama, an event volunteer had the poor judgment to tell two women wearing head scarves that they could not be seated behind the stage where Obama was speaking. The concern was that the pictures would add fuel to the false assertions circulating about Obama being a stealth Muslim. Obama apologized to the women publicly and personally, but that did not stop the New York Times from publishing a front page story on the controversy and how it may be affecting his support in the Muslim community. The Times also accused Obama of ignoring Muslim voters:

“While the senator has visited churches and synagogues, he has yet to appear at a single mosque.”

That statement could apply with equal accuracy to John McCain, but the Times has not seen fit to address that. Not surprisingly, Fox News has also weighed in with those worried about the beleaguered voters of Islamic heritage.

Obama & MuslimsThis new found advocacy on the part of the media for respect for Muslim Americans is encouraging, if not mysterious. Since when has the press been known to stand up for Muslim rights? Yet here are just a few examples of media outrage due to the Obama campaign’s alleged insensitivity and struggles with Muslim voters:

[Note: The New York Post’s headline actually used all caps and a fabricated quote that appears nowhere in the story]

The New York Times Times article is also not alone in criticizing Obama for not visiting mosques in the course of his campaign. But neither the Times, nor any other major news outlet, has held John McCain to the same standard. How many mosques has McCain visited? So far as I can tell, none.

While the media is awash in analyses of Obama’s support from Muslim Americans, they don’t seem to have the same concern for McCain. Perhaps there is an unstated assumption that Muslims are a more natural fit for Obama than McCain; that an African American candidate with a Muslim father and the middle name Hussein would all but lock up the Muslim vote. But that assumption would require the dismissal of all of the anti-Saddam, pro-Iraq war, Muslims that ought to be flocking to the campaign of the war-mongering architect of the “surge.” It would also demonstrate ignorance of the fact that George W. Bush carried a plurality of Muslims in 2000.

So why is the media curious only about the state of Obama’s relationship with Muslims? Why is there this sudden outpouring of empathy for how Muslims are treated by the Democratic candidate for president, but not the Republican, whose party’s support amongst Muslim’s has cratered in just a few years? Could it be that it allows the media a pretense of tolerance of minorities while they bash the first African American to become the nominee of a major political party?

If the the New York Times wants to question the depth of Muslim support for Obama, they ought to also ask the same questions of McCain. Otherwise it is just an exercise in hypocrisy. And it wouldn’t hurt if both candidates took time from their schedules to visit a mosque or two.


John McCain Says Terrorists Threaten Our Very Existence

Posted by on June 23, 2008 at 3:02 pm. NO Comments :

Struggling in recent election polls, John McCain is resorting to the old and familiar Republican campaign motivator – unrelenting fear. When asked in an interview with Fortune magazine what he sees as the gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy, McCain answered…

“Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we’re in against radical Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence.”

You have to give him credit for finding a way to evade a question on the economy by turning it into a national security issue. But his answer elevates the destructive force of a band of cave-dwelling fanatics into an awesome superpower capable of annihilating America. Does McCain really believe that Al Qaeda is capable of doing something that Germany, Japan, Russia, and China have never been able to do? Probably not. What he does believe is that terrorism can be used to instill fear in the minds of Americans. His purpose being to distract them from the economic crisis that they currently regard as the most important issue of the day – an issue he has admitted he does not understand – to the frightful specter of imminent doom at the hands of the Islamo-fascists (or whatever he’s calling them this week).

To drive the point home, McCain’s chief strategist, Charlie Black, in the same article, gave a surprisingly candid answer when asked if a new terrorist attack on American soil would benefit McCain’s campaign. Black said…

“Certainly it would be a big advantage to him.”

[Note to idiotic politicians: When asked if a terrorist attack will help your campaign, the answer is always “NO! A terrorist attack will only hurt America and all Americans.”]

Black is saying outright that a terrorist attack would be good for McCain. McCain agrees as he tries to shift the debate from economics to terrorism because he perceives that as an issue that favors him. And while Black’s remarks are disgusting and stupid, the media has all but ignored the remarks of McCain himself. Isn’t McCain the candidate? Why is it appropriate for him to exalt our enemies by declaring that they are powerful enough to threaten “our very existence?” If that’s an example of McCain’s foreign policy expertise, America can do without it.

If you think that this is repulsive, just wait until election day nears and McCain is still trailing. Look for this sort of coordinated message to continue and sink further into the muck.


The Fox Frame: Seven Dollar Gas

Posted by on June 22, 2008 at 11:52 am. 2 Comments :

To the surprise of no one, Fox News has been promoting the notion that the rise in gas prices is the fault of Democrats. Neil Cavuto posited that very theory a couple of months ago in a segment subtly titled, “Democrats to Blame for High Gas Prices?” The introduction to the piece referenced the GOP talking point that current rates are the consequence of the “Pelosi Premium.”

$7.00 GasYesterday, the Fox business program “The Cost of Freedom” featured a segment that stretched even further to predict that Al Gore’s endorsement of Barack Obama would send gas prices soaring to seven dollars a gallon. Nothing in the broadcast explained how a political endorsement could have such a profound impact on the price of gas, but a lack of intelligent analysis never stopped Fox before.

In addition to misleading discussions and graphics, the Fox News Ticker often articulates the right-wing view that fuel costs only became a problem with the advent of the Democratic Congress. The problem for Fox is that, despite their best efforts, the availability of facts persists, and they contradict the Fox propaganda. Indeed, gas prices have increased 78% since January 2007, when the new Congress was sworn in. What the Fox Ticker does not tell you is that prices increased 54% from the Bush inauguration until the January 2007, and 174% throughout the Bush administration. Neither does it tell you that Republicans in Congress and the President, whose signature is required to pass legislation, have worked to stifle every Democratic proposal.

In case you didn’t know, you can correspond with the Fox News Ticker. So if you want to tell the Ticker off, write theticker@foxnews.com

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John McCain: I Didn’t Really Love America Until…

Posted by on June 19, 2008 at 9:48 pm. 16 Comments :

Dan Abrams has uncovered a video of John McCain saying…

“I really didn’t love America until I was deprived of her company.”

This has the potential to upend this campaign. Given the criticism of Michelle Obama’s remarks about pride, how can the right still press the patriotism of the Democratic candidate’s wife when the Republican candidate himself has made remarks that are arguably much worse?

The quote of McCain came from an interview with Sean Hannity:

Hannity: You spent two years of this five-and-a-half-year period in solitary confinement. What does that do to a person, to spend that much time in solitary confinement?

McCain: I think it makes you a better person. Obviously, it makes you love America. I really didn’t love America until I was deprived of her company, but probably the most important thing about it, Sean, is that I was privileged to have the opportunity to serve in the company of heroes.

Is anyone surprised that Hannity didn’t challenge McCain’s statement?

It doesn’t matter what McCain meant to say in these comments. What matters is that he and his surrogates have to cease their despicable slander of Michelle Obama’s patriotism. After all, If Cindy McCain can get away with saying, “All I know is that I have always been proud of my country,” can’t Mrs. Obama just as rightly say, “All I know is that I have never stolen from a charity to satisfy my drug habit.”

This crap has to stop. And if there is a silver lining to the new McCain dialog, it is that this might lead to the end of these childish attacks.


Bill O’Reilly Wants ALL Of Iraq’s Oil

Posted by on June 19, 2008 at 2:51 pm. 2 Comments :

As if Bill O’Reilly hasn’t given us enough evidence of his stupidity, he is now advocating a plan of his own design that, in effect, calls for Iraq to turn over 100% percent of its oil production to the United States.

“So far, the American taxpayer has forked over more than $500 billion – $500 billion – to give the Iraqi people a chance at freedom. That country’s now pumping 2.5 million barrels of oil a day. So why isn’t Iraq giving the USA an oil price break?”

OK, pay attention Bill. The U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day. So if Iraq sent ALL of its oil to the U.S. for FREE, it would only meet about 10% of our needs. So how will a mere price break on just some of their oil impact prices? Obviously it would be insignificant. And that says nothing about the need for Iraq to use the revenue from their own natural resources to rebuild the nation that we destroyed. Without that revenue, who do you think will pay for that reconstruction? American taxpayers, of course, who have already footed the half trillion dollar bill that O’Reilly is so outraged by.

The media, as usual, is failing to provide context to this story. They continue to confuse rebuttal with balance. Juxtaposing facts with lies does not advance the practice of balanced journalism. So when it is factually reported that all of the untapped domestic offshore oil reserves would produce only 18 billion barrels of oil, and that that amount would last for just two and a half years, and wouldn’t even come to market for twenty years, it is irresponsible to counter those facts with the partisan statement of an ignorant president who asserts, without foundation, that new offshore drilling will result in immediate relief from our current gas price dilemma.

Plainly the media has no problem being irresponsible. And O’Reilly is the poster child of The Misinformation Generation.


John McCain’s Global Warming Plan Makes The Globe Warmer

Posted by on June 17, 2008 at 2:02 pm. 2 Comments :

In what is billed as a major policy speech on energy and the environment, John McCain has introduced a plan that just makes things worse. His proposals only benefit the big oil companies that are amongst his biggest supporters and who are well represented on the staff of his campaign. In the advance text of his speech he says:

“In the face of climate change and other serious challenges, energy conservation is no longer just a moral luxury or a personal virtue,”

I wonder when energy conservation stopped being just a moral luxury or a personal virtue. Last week? Last year? Whenever it was that McCain decided to take up the issue? And is there anyone who has ever referred to in that way other than Vice-President Dick Cheney?

McCain claims that his plan will reduce harmful emissions 50% by 2050. Contrast that with Barack Obama’s plan to cut emissions by 80%. However, a key part of the McCain plan is to increase oil exploration and permit offshore drilling in environmentally sensitive coastal areas. How does increasing oil production lead to emissions reductions? McCain doesn’t say. That doesn’t stop the National Review’s Noel Sheppard from promoting offshore drilling as a campaign issue that he says will help McCain. Sheppard cites a Rasmussen poll that finds that 67% of voters believe that drilling should be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states. There are couple of problems with this poll. First, the actual question asked began with a leading preface:

“In order to reduce the price of gas, should drilling be allowed in offshore oil wells off the coasts of California, Florida, and other states?”

The question intentionally leads the respondent into a supposition that such drilling would reduce gas prices. There is no evidence to that effect offered by the pollster – or by economists. The survey results would have been very different had they prefaced the question by saying, “Despite having no impact on reducing the price of gas…”

Secondly, this is a national poll. It would have been more enlightening to include survey results of just the residents of California and Florida, who will bear the brunt of the policies under discussion. Before assuming that this is a winning issue for McCain, Sheppard might want to take into account that the voters of a swing state like Florida are overwhelmingly opposed to offshore drilling. And nationally voters give Obama a 20 point lead on the question of who will better deal with high oil prices.

McCain’s other big energy initiative is his proposal for a gas tax holiday. The absurdity of this as an approach to lowering either prices or pollution is glaringly evident. Oil companies will quickly fill the gap made by any temporary tax break. In fact, the price of gas has already increased by a larger amount than the federal tax in just the days that have transpired since McCain first proposed his holiday. What’s more, Saudi oil producers have come out in favor of tax cuts for petroleum products. Surprise! They know that lower prices will stimulate sales that fatten their wallets. And more sales produces more use which produces more pollution. It also exacerbates dependency on fossil fuels.

It ought not to be surprising that McCain is articulating the philosophy of his advisers, at least fifteen of whom have lobbied for Big Oil. McCain is firmly on the side of the Bush administration and the Saudi oil barons on matters of conservation, climate change, and petronomics. If Republicans want to make this a campaign issue, I say bring it on.


Lanny Davis Lands At Fox News

Posted by on June 16, 2008 at 1:57 pm. NO Comments :

Hyperactive Hillary Clinton surrogate, Lanny Davis, is the newest Fox News contributor. He joins recent hires Like Karl Rove, Laura Ingraham, and Mike Huckabee. I guess that’s what he considers good company.

Davis will follow comfortably in the footsteps of other Foxocrats (Democrats who happily bash fellow Democrats for the edification of Fox viewers): Alan Colmes, Kirsten Powers, Geraldine Ferraro, etc.

This election season will see the Foxocrats joined by the McRats. This hilarious concatenation of McCain and Democrats results in the inadvertent, yet appropriate, branding of these turncoats as rats. The McRats are led by King Rat, Joe Lieberman, and their ranks range from such influential figures as a former Highlands County, FL, sheriff, to a former member of the Palmyra, ME, Budget Committee.

Between the McRats and the Foxocrats, Barack Obama must be shaking in his Birkenstocks.