Permanent link to MTA daily media news

From the debate: A ‘look’ at the candidates’ words (On Politics, USA Today)
Courtesy of Janet Harris at Upstream Analysis, here are tag clouds that take the words used by the candidates at last night’s debate in Nashville and “show” which ones they emphasized most:

Janet looks at the clouds and says McCain’s “is full of nationalist/patriotic terms” while Obama’s “seems mild by comparison, reflecting its mild-mannered speaker.”

So, how many times did Obama reinforce the brand by mentioning the word “Democrat” in the debate? (by lambert at Corrente)
See the transcript. The answer: Zero times. Just like last time.

Consensus On The Need For HOLC (by Big Tent Democrat at Talk Left)
A few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton said: “[W]e need a government entity, a modern-day Homeowners Loan Corporation, referred to as HOLC — H-O-L-C . . . Now, I personally believe and was among the very first to suggest that a HOLC, a Homeowners Loan Corporation, could be a preferable way of unfreezing and beginning to fix our struggling mortgage market.”

Last night, Barack Obama said: “The middle-class need a rescue package. . . . It means help for homeowners so that they can stay in their homes.”

Last night, John McCain said: “As president of the United States . . . I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes — at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those — be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.”

So now that we have all agreed, it is time to move to implementation of a new HOLC.

Obama in debate: “I think health care should be a right for every American.” (by lambert at Corrente )
Good. One question: Why are you treating a right like a commodity? “Trella: Senator, selling health care coverage in America as the marketable commodity has become a very profitable industry. Do you believe health care should be treated as a commodity?” Fight your way through Obama’s word fog in answer, and you’ll see he doesn’t answer the question.

Frustration mounts over prez “debates” (County Fair, Media Matters for America )
Paul Reiser didn’t see a lot of “town” in Tuesday night’s town hall debate, just ”a couple dozen of over-lit, underwhelmed people who got free tickets.” And Greg Mitchel notes, “We’ve come to lower our expectations for real debates in the “debate” process, but this one was terrible.” The selected questions were weak, he said, and the follow-up’s non-existent. Mitchell suggests even bloggers could do a better quizzing the candidates. Agreed. Given the media and technology revolution we’ve seen in recent years, which has forever altered the way  candidates can communicate to voters, this staid, MSM-driven format feels very 1984/1988.
EVEN bloggers?  I’d say ESPECIALLY bloggers.  But only if right-leaning bloggers get to question Obama and left-leaning ones get to question McCain.

Candidates’ arguments are familiar — and so are mistakes (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — In their second debate, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain settled for familiar arguments and made some familiar mistakes and exaggerations.

McCain vs. Obama, Round Two: Many punches but no knockdowns (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — John McCain and Barack Obama punched and counter-punched on issue after issue throughout their second debate Tuesday night, but neither man knocked the other one down, much less out.

Instant Polls Find Obama Won Debate (Political Wire)
CNN poll of debate viewers: Obama 54%, McCain 30%
CBS poll of uncommitted voters: Obama 39%, McCain 27%

Wednesday: His penis didn’t drop off (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
I didn’t hear Barack Obama go out on a limb for anything.  His healthcare proposals are better than McCain’s but that’s because they are rip offs of Hillary’s.  McCain copied Hillary on the HOLC proposal.  I give McCain points but not Obama because McCain really *is* bucking his party’s position on HOLC where Obama is not taking a risk on healthcare.  For Obama, it’s a safe position to take.  Healthcare is not likely to get addressed in the next administration anyway.  Why is that?  Because there’s no money.  At least John McCain is putting  the horse before the cart by trying to solve the economic crisis at it’s roots…

But it hardly matters that McCain’s approach seems to be more practical especially given the parameters he will be working with.  Obama has a penis and it did not fall off.  It stayed attached and that’s all that matters.  We will lower the standards for him like we have done all primary season like a game of bumper bowling… [I]t is the spirit of Hillary Clinton hovering over both candidates that I feel most acutely… Yes, she would have made a better debater, policy maker and president. Alas, she did not have a penis.

Here is the candidate I’ll be voting for.
“Where’s Kenny Rogers When You Need Him?” (by Cynthia McKinney, writing at the Black Agenda Report)
“It should now be clear that the Democratic leadership in Congress must be removed and a political party that reflects the people’s values must be built,” says the Green Party presidential candidate. “Everyone can see that the system is broken: a system that was not created to serve the people of this country.” The Democrats’ betrayal in the Wall Street bailout joins the ongoing failure to protect the voting rights of its Black constituency, as compelling reasons to dump the party, once and for all. “Even while in control, the Democrat leadership has done nothing to prepare the way for election integrity in this election.”

Kick ‘Em While They’re Down, Hit ‘Em While They’re Bleeding (by Tom Watson)
I know we’re all supposed to be singing from the same hymnal on the left these days – the positive plans of the Obama-Biden juggernaut and all that , the change brand – but I’m breaking ranks. To this Democrat, used to suffering through disastrous election nights in the full knowledge that the results will further ruin his country, Obama’s instinct to go for the vicious final punch, the head-snapping lights out political blow, is a thing of beauty.
Democrats can be SO proud.  They are now equal opportunity violence advocates.

And equal opportunity ballot box stuffers:
ACORN office in Vegas raided in voter-fraud probe (AP)
Nevada state authorities are raiding the Las Vegas headquarters of an organization that works to get low-income people to vote. A Nevada secretary of state’s officespokesman said Tuesday that investigators are looking for evidence of voter fraud at the office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN. No one was at the ACORN office when state agents arrived with a search warrant and began carting records and documents away. Secretary of State spokesman Bob Walsh says ACORN is accused of submitting multiple voter registrations with false and duplicate names.

But maybe not:
GOP’s ACORN ‘Voter Fraud’ Lie Ramped Up; State Police Raid ACORN Office in Vegas (The Brad Blog)
With prospects looking bleak for the Republicans this November, pulling out the old ACORN lie — in hopes of scaring people away from the polls, causing chaos in November by challenging voters when they show up to vote, and putting in place baseless grounds to contest close results later on (when the GOP become “sore losers”) — is just about all they have left at this point.

But maybe so (got whiplash yet?):
Officials heading probe of ACORN are both Democrats (On Politics, USA Today)
The news that Nevada authorities yesterday raided a group that aims to register low-income voters because it might have put some bogus names on the state’s election rolls has caught attention because the organization — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) — is the nonpartisan arm of a group that supports Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. It’s worth nothing, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal points out, that “the Nevada authorities spearheading the investigation, (Secretary of State Ross) Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, are both Democrats.”
Note to the age impaired:  There was a time in our ancient history when you did not need to know the party that investigators belong to, to believe that they were mounting a legitimate inquiry.

Democrats are now equal opportunity raisers of illegal funds:
Obi the crook — or: Barack Obama, meet Dahsudhu Hdusahfd (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
Strange donors: CBS News has found some Obama donors with obviously fake names… “CBS News has learned that two donors to the Obama campaign that gave a total of $7,722 appear to have made their contributions under fake names that look like they were written by a mouse running across a keyboard: Dahsudhu Hdusahfd of Df, Hawaii with the following employer CZXVC/ZXVZXV and Uadhshgu Hduadh listed as living in Dhff, Florida listed their employer as DASADA/SAFASF.” I hear the waves are bitchen in Df. Didn’t Dahsudhu Hdusahfd play Russell Crowe’s pal in Gladiator? And isn’t $7,722 over the limit? Whoever thought he could get away with this one was pretty damned audacious!

Democrats are now equal opportunity invaders of opponents’ privacy:
Tenn. student indicted for allegedly hacking into Palin’s e-mails (On Politics, USA Today)
Twenty-year-old University of Tennessee student David Kernell has been indicted by a grand jury in Knoxville, Tenn., for allegedly “accessing without authorization the e-mail account of Alaska governor Sarah Palin,” the Justice Department just announced. As the News Sentinel in Knoxville writes, Kernell is the son of Memphis Democratic state Rep. Michael Kernell. The senior Kernell has previously said he knows nothing about the hacking into Palin’s e-mails.

Democrats are now turning their backs on the people who have helped them for many years, generations, even.
Obama and the Funding of Black Community Turnout (by Ron Walters at the Black Agenda Report)
The Obama campaign is repeating the Democrats’ behavior in 2004, when party money bags bypassed Black churches and community organizations in get out the vote campaigns. “Again in this election cycle, I have heard stories of young Whites showing up in Black communities to register Black voters.” Out-sourcing Black voter turnout robs the community of a vital component of political power. “The power of the Black community in elections has always resided not only in its turnout but in the fact that the turnout was controlled by Black leadership.”

Democrats can be especially proud that they are now the party of destroying your opponent by lying about him or her—especially a her.
Palin’s negatives reach record levels in Alaska (Hot off the Trail, McClatchy)
A new survey by Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore Tuesday contains more bad news for Sarah Palin. As McClatchy’s Chris Adams reported last week, Palin’s popularity has been on the slide among Alaskans since she was named McCain’s running mate. Moore’s new poll shows that trend’s continued — with those holding a favorable opinion of her slipping another 3 points to 65 percent. But Moore says the more interesting number is the number of Alaskans who now say they view her negatively — 30 percent. That’s a record high.

Democrats are now using sexist hatemongers to campaign for them.
Jay Z Stumpin’ For Prez? (by Paul Scott at the Black Agenda Report)
Jay Z is stumping for Barack Obama, “via free rap concerts,” but the author wonders “who is out there promoting Obama-ism, the Jay Z who was just another black kid with big dreams from the hood 20 years ago or the multi-millionaire business man, former CEO of Def Jam Records and part owner of the NJ Nets, Shawn Carter?”  Nowadays, “Hip Hop artists are business men and the only presidents that they are concerned about are the dead presidents that are on the face of dollar bills.” Hip Hop “is now the voice of Wall Street.”
Never forget that Obama played Jay Z’s “99 Problems and a Bitch Ain’t One” at his Iowa victory party.

McCain Camp Won’t Let Press Near Palin Supporters (Tampa Tribune)
The media wasn’t permitted to talk to Sarah Palin supporters at a rally yesterday. When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head toward the bleachers where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out of nowhere and confront him or her and say, “Can I help you?” and turn the person around. When one reporter asked an escort why the press wasn’t allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written.
Or maybe the campaign is PROTECTING the reporters.  See below.

Palin’s attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness (Poynter)
Reporters covering Sarah Palin in Clearwater were greeted with taunts by a crowd of about 3,000, reports Dana Milbank. When Palin blamed Katie Couric’s questions for her “less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media,” her supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks, shouting abuse and hurling obscenities. Milbank says one supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, “Sit down, boy.”
Or maybe it’s the media’s attacks on HER that have caused the ugliness.

Cleveland Plain Dealer (pdf)

There is a bridge to somewhere, but can we cross it?
Or instead, prop-politics?  Paperdollitics?
The voting booth is a very private place.
It’s been said that this is not a race about race.
But of course it is, and it’s about our bodies,
our partners, the earth and our faiths (plural),
As well, or are those just props, too?
Is the flag an accessory?

Reaction to Plain Dealer’s visual op-ed “was stunning in its ferocity” (Poynter Online)
Ombud Ted Diadiun calls this op-ed [see above] “a thoughtful, fascinating piece of work by one of the most thoughtful, fascinating people who work here” at the Plain Dealer. He adds, though that “people called it deplorable, degrading, offensive, disgusting. Some canceled subscriptions and others threatened cancellation unless the paper apologized.”

Press pundits remain silent about sexist coverage (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Over the weekend The New Yorker held its annual talking heads festival and one of its panels featured Bill Keller, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Peggy Noonan, Jack Shafer and Ken Auletta who discussed the media and the campaign. One of the questions from the audience came from a Hillary Clinton supporter who asked about sexism in the coverage during the primary season. Go to 3:00 in the HuffPost video to hear the complete non-answers offered up by Shafer and Noonan who pretty much refuse to even address the premise of the question, which continues to be the Issue That May Not Be Discussed Inside the Beltway Press Corps. Maybe this would have helped them form a response. It’s installment #104 in Shakesville’s Hillary Sexism Watch which ran during the primaries.  

Dow dips more than 500 on worries about financials (AP)
NEW YORK – The misery worsened on Wall Street Tuesday, with stocks piling on losses late in the session and bringing the two-day decline in the Dow Jones industrials to more than 875 points amid escalating worries about credit markets and the financial sector.

Federal Reserve cuts rate 1/2 percent before markets open (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve cut a key interest rate by half a percentage point Wednesday to steady an economy teetering on the kind of financial collapse that America suffered in 1929.

U.S. debt grows too big for National Debt Clock. (Think Progress)
The National Debt Clock in New York’s Times Square — first erected in 1989 when the debt was less than $3 trillion  — cannot keep pace with the growing national debt, now at more than $10 trillion. NBC’s Brian Williams reported last night that “the debt has been piling up so fast lately they had to drop the dollar sign to make room for an extra digit.” A new clock with two extra digits will go up next year… Recall in September 2000, during President Clinton’s last year in office, the National Debt Clock had the reverse problem. It was shut down because “it started ticking in the opposite direction, shaving off roughly $30 a second.”
Click through to watch the video.

A morning thought (by Paul Krugman)
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Fear and negative equity … The two things we have to fear are fear itself and negative equity, and the depleted capital of financial institutions … Amongst the things we have to fear are fear itself, negative equity, and the depleted capital of financial institutions. Full text here.

How does CNBC’s Cramer keep his job? (Poynter)
That’s what Eric Deggans asks after watching Jim Cramer’s “non-apology apology” for delivering a hysterical, get-out-of-the-market message on Monday’s “Today” show. Deggans adds: “That the ‘Today’ show has turned Cramer into some percolating sage of financial wisdom during the country’s increasingly frightening economic meltdown is grounds for journalistic malpractice charges.”

Statement on Congressional Approval of Bailout (by Dean Baker)
This is the first time in the history of the United States that the president has sought to provoke a financial panic to get legislation through Congress. While this has proven to be a successful political strategy, it marks yet another low point in American politics… This effort to promote panic is especially striking since the country’s dire economic situation is almost entirely the result of the Bush Administration’s policy failures. 

YouTube: Rep. Sherman says some Congressmen threatened with martial law if bailout bill did not pass (by lambert at Corrente)
[Click through to listen.] Now, that’s news, I would say. So, who did the threatening? And did Obama know about it, when he was working the phones for the Bush + Reid + Pelosi + Obama + Paulson bailout?

With bailout, socialists say Bush is now `a fellow traveler’ (McClatchy)
CARACAS, Venezuela — They don’t call him President Bush in Venezuela anymore. Now he’s known as “Comrade.” With the Bush administration’s Treasury Department resorting to government bailout after government bailout to keep the U.S. economy afloat, leftist governments and their political allies in Latin America are having a field day, gloating one day and taunting Bush the next for adopting the types of interventionist government policies that he’s long condemned.

Treasury Moves Quickly to Recruit Private Bailout Managers (Washington Post)
The Treasury Department this week plans to start outsourcing the management of up to $700 billion in troubled securities, using special contracting authorities that enable it to retain private portfolio managers, custodians and other financial services consultants without following standard acquisition procedures.
As Lambert asks, what could go wrong?  These are the same people who got us into this mess.  Wouldn’t they be the ones most knowledgeable about getting us out of it?  Why, like the Red Queen, I believe six impossible things before breakfast.

AIG executives went on luxurious retreat one week after receiving $85 billion bailout. (Think Progress)
Today, the House Oversight Committee discovered that, just one week after the federal governmentbailed out insurance giant AIG, company executives went on a retreat to a luxury resort. The executives spent nearly $500,000 on manicures, facials, pedicures, and massages, among other things. During a hearing [Tuesday], Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) asked, “Have you heard of anything more outrageous?”
Click through to watch the video.

Vicky Ward Takes a Swing at Lehman Bros’ Fuld (Vanity Fair)
Vanity Fair contributing editor Vicky Ward breaks the news on CNBC that some guy apparently clocked Lehman Bros. C.E.O. Dick Fuld in the face at a gym a coupe of weeks ago. Following his less-than-contrite testimony today, she admits she would have done the same: “He blamed everybody but himself…. I’m with the guy who apparently, the day before Barclay’s had announced they were coming in and Lehman had already filed for bankruptcy, went over to him in the gym and punched him!” (Start watching clip at 1:37 minutes in.)
He’s lucky.  In India, they beat them to death.

What a Tangled Web They Weave (by Anglachel)
Click for a very large (I mean huge, you’ll scroll all directions) and fascinating graphic from the NYT on who is connected to whom in these financial deals… [T]his is a very small circle of people who are involved in these meag-deals. No doubt there are armies of lawyers and analysts behind them, but, in the end, it is fewer than 30 people who are creating the majority of the conenctions between these firms… Click here for a timeline of major financial company mergers, also from the NYT… Hmm, big bank maneuvers ahead of presidential elections in 2000, 2004 and now again in 2008. I look at this and think there are fewer and fewer people in command of more and more money.

Crisis Will Test American – and African American – Social Compact (by Glen Ford at the Black Agenda Report)

Black and progressive forces are not holding up well as the current, acute crisis of capitalism unfolds. The Democratic Party has proven itself useless, including the Congressional Black Caucus, whose “progressive wing” collapsed in the second Wall Street bailout vote. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi try to out-Republican Bush’s party. “It is difficult to envision how American society will weather the coming storms, when the Gods of Capital – who left no social space for any gods but themselves – have so utterly failed.” With very little social safety net, and a weak social compact, the American people are in trouble.

Freedom Rider: The Other Bailout (by Margaret Kimberley at the Black Agenda Report)
It’s hard to keep track of two mega-thieves at the same time. “The defense bill is every bit as wasteful and just as much a harbinger of doom as the much discussed Wall Street bailout, but has elicited hardly any debate, even from progressives.” And, just as with the bailout bill, Democrats in Congress are ever ready to run up the white flag. “The collective popular revulsion at the very presence of Bush in the White House has never stopped Democratic party capitulation.” War begets war. “Not only is military spending completely unproductive, but it increases the likelihood of further American acts of aggression.

Obama and McCain on Iraq: Imperial Double-Talk (by Glen Ford at  at the Black Agenda Report)
Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama have any intention of leaving Iraq. McCain is a more honest imperialist, while Obama “plays word games to mask the same ambitions.”

The Wounded Shark: ‘Good War’ Lost, But the Imperial Project Goes On (by Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque)
Don’t tell Obama and McCain, but the war they are both counting on to make their bones as commander-in-chief — the “good war” in Afghanistan, which both men have pledged to expand — is already lost. Their joint strategy of pouring more troops, tanks, missiles and planes into the roaring fire — not to mention their intention to spread the war into Pakistan — will only lead to disaster.
Who says so? America’s biggest ally in the Afghan adventure: Great Britain. This week, two top figures in the British effort in Afghanistan — Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, UK ambassador to Kabul, and Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the senior British military commander in Afghanistan — both said that the war was “unwinnable,” and that continuing the current level of military operations there, much less expanding it, was a strategy “doomed to fail.”

AFRICOM:  America’s Military Foot in Africa’s Doorway (by Bruce Dixon at the Black Agenda Report)
On October 1 the US launched AFRICOM, the Pentagon’s outpost in Africa. Commanded by a Black American general and incorporating State Department and other civilian personnel from top to bottom it is billed as a “new kind” of US military command. But its aim is to pursue great power rivalry with China on the African continent, and to ensure that African energy and mineral resources continue to flow to the West, instead of being harnessed to benefit African societies.

Missing Bin Laden (by Larry Johnson at No Quarter)
A retired Delta Force Major writing under the name of Dalton Fury (not his real name) provides further corroboration that the Bush Administration failed to support military units and intelligence officers in Afghanistan who had cornered Osama Bin Laden.Fury’s book, Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander’s Account of the Hunt for the World’s Most Wanted Man, corroborates Gary Berntsen’s account published two years ago, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA’s Key Field Commander.
Click here for a link to the 60 Minutes video.

FCC Probes Role Of Military Analysts In War-Related Broadcasts (USA Today)
Federal regulators are looking into allegations that a number of military analysts failed to disclose their ties to the Pentagon when they appeared on television to discuss the Iraq war.

So much for the idea of ever privatizing “retirement security” (by lambert at Corrente)
As Obama likes to call it. Because if a downturn happens when you want to retire, what do you do? Assuming thieving brokers haven’t eaten your money, of course. AP: “Americans’ retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months, Congress’ top budget analyst estimated Tuesday… ‘Some people will delay their retirement. In particular, those on the verge of retirement may decide they can no longer afford to retire and will continue working…” Thank God we never privatized Social Security! Then we’d all be totally fucked. Work harder, little people! The infestment bankers need your money! And you should be grateful to give it to them!

Well, fuck the WTO and the Chamber of Commerce, then (by lambert at Corrente)
If an elite hands away the country’s sovreignty to the WTO so that the country’s citizens can’t get health care (and then they, er, die) then what good is the elite? From a nice roundup by Stoller today: “…Obama’s health care and climate change proposals are going to be subject to WTO rules, which means that corporations can sue the US government and dismantle his carbon reduction laws or health care reforms as ’trade barriers’…”… And since Obama’s already starting out from a weak position on health care, a compromise with the Chamber on health care — the whole mad negotiating skillz thing — is going to be even weaker. And gosh, I know it’s “mean” to mention this, but that means that people are going to, er, die.
And all the money in the treasury gone to buy more Picassos for the big spenders on Wall Street.  Why, Obama won’t even need to lift a finger if he manages to sneak into the White House.

In which I am gauchely honest to the “Bold Progressives” (by vastleft at Corrente)
In this essential election, those who could have held Obama’s feet to the fire or gotten us an alternative who gives a damn about progressive issues were either Kool-Aid besotted or too timorous to buck the Kewl-Kidz trend. The deed is done. What is that charming phrase Obama supporters keep uttering, like Bush supporters before them? Oh, yeah, “get over it.” To the extent that’s possible, that’s likely to be the only thing we — progressives and those who rely on progressive policies — are likely to get from this next administration, based on every action we’ve seen from the presumptive 44th president. What leverage do we have once he’s elected? Please explain how that answer is >0….

[T]he theory seems to be:
1. Vote for Obama
2. ?
3. Progressive future

Chi. Tribune columnist and Ayers critic says McCain should answer for Liddy (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman has gotten some media attention for criticising Barack Obama over his association with Bill Ayers.  Odd, then, that Chapman’s repeated criticism of John McCain for his cozy relationship with Gordon Liddy hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention.. “Liddy, now a conservative radio host, has never expressed regret for this attempt to subvert the Constitution. Nor has he developed any respect for the law. After the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, he endorsed the shooting of federal agents: ‘Kill the sons of bitches.’”
Yes, they’re equally despicable.  But the same bloggers who have lambasted Liddy over the years have no problem with Ayers.

What Would Stick? (by Pat Racimora at No Quarter)

It has been almost 6 months since I created my first cartoon, THIS cartoon, for No Quarter. I was campaiging hard for Hillary Clinton at the time, and it seemed clear that there was absolutely no way Obama could survive his razor-thin relevant experience, the fact that we still knew too little about him, and yet what we were beginning to learn about him and his scary friends was mighty disturbing. How could any of this not stick? Over 40 No Quarter cartoons later, Hillary is out, Obama is in, and I am still asking the same question!

Obama is Hiding a Radical Past! (by Matthew Weaver at No Quarter, from his blog, The Independent View)
Did you know that Barack Obama was affiliated with a leading national socialist party? Barack Obama didn’t include in his 2008 resume that he entered politics in the mid-1990s endorsed by Chicago’s leading socialists. This just keeps getting better and better. Barack Obama was an active participant in the 1990s, and a direct political beneficiary, of the Chicago New Party and, importantly, the Chicago DSA, a group of socialists affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.
If I thought Obama were a socialist, rather than just a plain old opportunist, willing to get in bed with anyone in the world who could help him advance his career, I’d be more inclined to take another look at him.

Hypocrisy Doesn’t Begin To Describe It (Jennifer Rubin, Commentary, a conservative magazine, thanks to LisaB at No Quarter)
Ross Douthat writes: “Obama’s obfuscation regarding Ayers is, in a sense, the homage that vice pays to virtue – a tacit acknowledgment of the fact that the political culture of Chicago, and especially of Hyde Park, is more accommodating than perhaps it should be to a morally dubious figure like Ayers, and that having accommodated himself to those accommodations Obama now recognizes the need to behave as if he didn’t.” But this is true of Obama’s entire circle of comrades and associates, of course. He didn’t know who they were, or wasn’t all that close to them, or never happened to be there when their life-long habit of excoriating evil America was demonstrated. It is all of a piece.

But more than hypocrisy is at work here. It is not just far Left, American-hating radicals he now disowns. You get the sense that he believes everyone can be played. Rashid Khalidi can believe that Obama finds no one suffers more than the Palestinians. Jews can buy that he was moved by the Holocaust from a summer camp experience. Voters in his Congressional race in 1990 can be told that there is no difference ideologically between him and 100% ADA-rated Bobby Rush, but the rest of the state in 2004 (and eventually the country) can buy that he’s a post-partisan reformer. Terrorists come to believe he shares their scorn for America, but Iowa voters hear him talk about his appreciation that only in America could his story have happened. Primary voters in Ohio are coddled with protectionist promises  – and then privately scorned while he is talking to San Fransciso liberal donors.

There is no end to it — everyone gets the version of Obama that perfectly fits his own world view. It is not hypocrisy. It’s fraud.

Just in case age-ism is OK with you as a political tactic (by lambert at Corrente)
It’s lethal: “Now studies are finding that the insults can have health consequences, especially if people mutely accept the attitudes behind them, said Becca Levy, an associate professor of epidemiology and psychology at Yale University, who studies the health effects of such messages on elderly people. ‘Those little insults can lead to more negative images of aging,’ Dr. Levy said. ‘And those who have more negative images of aging have worse functional health over time, including lower rates of survival.’…” Just saying that there are some who don’t find “McOld” all that funny.

Americans’ satisfaction drops to all-time low of 9 percent. (Think Progress)
A new Gallup poll finds that just nine percent of the American public are “satisfied with the way things are going in the United States — the lowest such reading in Gallup Poll history. … The previous low point for Gallup’s measure of satisfaction had been 12%, recorded back in 1979, in the midst of rising prices and gas shortages when Jimmy Carter was president.”

Obama Dramatically Outspending McCain (Political Wire)
Sen. Barack Obama is outspending Sen. John McCain “at nearly a three-to-one clip on television time in the final weeks of the presidential election, according to ad buy information obtained by The Fix, a financial edge that is almost certainly contributing to the momentum for the Illinois senator in key battleground states. The spending edge enjoyed by Obama has been used almost exclusively to hammer McCain as both a clone of the current president and someone who is out of touch on key domestic issues — most notably the economy.”
So why isn’t Obama farther ahead?

FactCheck: One thing the candidates tell the truth about is each other’s lies (On Politics, USA Today)
Sadly, say the nonpartisan folks at FactCheck.org, they can say the major presidential contenders did a pretty good job this week in ads that accuse the other guy of telling lies. Of course, the ads don’t admit any wrong-doing.

New McCain TV Ad Calls Obama a Hypocritical Liar (Political Punch, ABC News)
“Who is Barack Obama?” asks the narrator in Sen. John McCain’s latest attack ad. A TV within the ad then shows a local Missouri TV report, that the reporter has since backed away from.

New Obama TV Ad Hits McCain for Trying to Change the Subject (Political Punch, ABC News)
It’s called “Subject” and it’s all the stronger for that ill-conceived quote an unnamed McCain senior adviser gave the New York Daily News. The script reads: ANNOUNCER: He’s out of ideas. Out of touch. And running out of time.

Man shot three times for wearing an Obama t-shirt (by John Amato at Crooks and Liars)
The hate is world wide. “A man told today [Tuesday] how he was shot three times in a London street for wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt. Dube Egwuatu was buying a mobile telephone top-up card in an off-licence when the gunman confronted him and glared at the top, which carries an image of the Democrat US presidential candidate underneath the legend ‘Believe’. The man then launched into a tirade of racist slurs, shouting ‘I f***ing hate n*****s’ and urging 36-year-old Mr Egwuatu to leave the shop with him.”

Kenya deports writer who wrote anti-Obama book (McClatchy)
NAIROBI, Kenya — Jerome Corsi, the controversial author of a much-criticized book slamming Sen. Barack Obama, was detained in Kenya on Tuesday for an immigration violation as he arrived for a press conference to promote his book.

McCain Looking to Patch Things Up With Letterman (New York Post)
David Letterman and Sen. John McCain are talking about making up. McCain representatives and Late Show executives are negotiating an appearance on Letterman’s show sometime around the final presidential debate on Oct. 15, according to knowledgeable sources. McCain is expected to be in the New York area that week for the debate at Hofstra University on Long Island.

Palin visits back of the plane (Hot off the Trail, McClatchy)
Sarah Palin did a surprising thing Tuesday. She went to the back of her campaign plane and took questions from the reporters traveling with her… [CBS's Scott] Conway reports that Palin took questions about her attacks on Barack Obama as well as the investigation of her role in the dismissal of an Alaska official, allegedly because he wouldn’t fire her brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper. One new thing there: she has a new name for the affair called “troopergate.” She calls it “tasergate,” an apparent reference to the reports that her brother-in-law tasered his son, her nephew. She also visisted with the traveling press corps, saying she’d “love” to go on Saturday Night Live and sharing hockey memories with one journalist.

Despite Palin resistance, ‘troopergate’ report to come Friday (McClatchy)
With his “troopergate” report due Friday, legislative investigator Steve Branchflower appears to have the makings of a fairly complete account, despite weeks of resistance from the Palin family and administration.

Security Expert: Diebold Voting Machines Desigined To Be Hacked (Black Agenda Report)
Stephen Spoonamore is a registered Republican, leading cybersecurity expert, and a whistleblower. In early September he gave an explosive deposition on the means and methods by which the 2004 presidential election in Ohio was stolen, and identified specific individuals with first hand knowledge of who carried out these thefts. Black Agenda Report here reprints his deposition, along with links to an extensive interview Spoonamore gave to questioners at Velvet Revolution in which he details how electronic voting machines not only can be hacked, but appear to have been designed to be hacked.

House Gives Thumbs-Up to Members’ Web Videos (Washington Post)
Members of the House, relax. You will still be allowed to post YouTube videos of yourself on your official congressional Web sites, so all your interested constituents can click and see you pounding the podium and championing a bill for your district. A low-profile House committee adopted rules last week that permit members to use video material from Web sites such as YouTube on their own official sites.

Louisiana lawmaker stripped of health committee post for proposing to sterilize low-income women. (Think Progress)
Last month, Louisiana state Rep. John LaBruzzo (R) announced a plan “to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied,” along with “tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children.” He predicted that people would “get excited” about his idea. After intense public backlash, however, he was removed yesterday from his position as vice chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee. House Speaker Jim Tucker (R) said Labruzzo’s comments “impeded his abilities to help lead critical health-care reform.”