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(Mildred Younger campaigned for California State Senate - Doing it the old Fashioned way)

Coming up on the off-year elections in 2010 I ran across a documentary produced in 1954 about the off-year elections of that particular year.

Alben Barkley(former Vice-President to Truman): “Finally I said to him ‘how’s politics?’ – ‘well, he said, ‘it’s pretty badly mixed’. That created some suspicion in my mind, well I said ‘well, how am I running?’ ‘Well, he said ‘it’s gonna be pretty close’. Well I said ‘you’re for me aren’t you?’ Well, he said ‘I thought I’d vote for Chandler’. Well, I said ‘my friend, how can you do that? Now don’t you remember that when you couldn’t get your allotment fixed up that I did it? ‘ He said, ‘yes you did’. ‘And when you couldn’t get your insurance I got that straightened out”’ He said ‘yes, you did’. And I said ‘and when you were injured over there in France didn’t I sit on the bed with you for an hour?’ And he said ‘yes, and I never enjoyed a mans visit in my life like I did yours.’ And I said ‘ when I came home and the Armistice came didn’t you want to get home at once and didn’t you write to me and didn’t I write General Pershing and weren’t you on your way home in a month?’ And he said ‘yes, you did that.’ And I said ‘didn’t you want a loan on your farm, and didn’t I help you?’ And he said ‘yes.’ ‘Didn’t you have a loan on your property when the flood washed it away?’ He said ‘yes, you did that’. I said ‘well, how can you vote against me?’ Well he said ‘my friend, what in the thunder have done for me lately?’

Seems the styles have changed, the methods, the dirt - but then as now, it's all about politics and the art of the horse race.

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The Republican congressman who shouted "You lie!" during President Barack Obama's address to a joint session of Congress told Fox News' Chris Wallace that he won't apologize again. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has expressed support for a "resolution of disapproval" if Rep. Joe Wilson refuses to apologize to his colleagues in the House.

"I've apologized one time. The apology was accepted by the president, by the vice president who I know. I am not apologizing again," said Wilson.

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North Korea found two U.S. journalists it has held since March guilty of illegal entry and sentenced them to 12 years hard labor, its official KCNA news agency said on Monday.

The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, of U.S. media outlet Current TV, were arrested while working on a story near the border between North Korea and China. Their trial opened on Thursday.

"The trial confirmed the grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing as they had already been indicted and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labor," KCNA said in a brief dispatch.

There just aren't words to express my anger and frustration for Lee and Ling. Al Gore, whose CurrentTV has remained curiously silent on Lee and Ling's plight, may go to Pyongyang to negotiate for their release:

The United States might send former US vice president Al Gore to Pyongyang in order to negotiate the release of two American journalists on trial in North Korea for illegal entry.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly did not rule out such a possibility when asked if it would make sense to send Gore, who is chairman of the California station Current TV, which employs the two journalists.

"It's a very, very sensitive issue, I'm not going to go into it," Kelly told reporters who pressed him on the matter.

"This is such a sensitive issue, I'm just not going to go into those kinds of discussions that we may or may not have had," he added when asked whether Gore himself had raised the matter with the State Department.

"The bottom line is that these two young women should be released but I'm not going to go into any kind of details on what we will or won't do," Kelly said when asked again if it would help to send Gore.

The Petition Site has a petition you can sign (and a Facebook group you can join) to ask the State Department to bring Lee and Ling home.

Oopsie, I guess we really can't count this as a mark for "out of the mouth of babes", but Liz Cheney, perhaps inadvertently, admitted that part of the reason we've seen Dick Cheney more in the last two months than we did in the eight years of the Bush administration is that he is very nervous that there will be investigations and prosecutions in his future:

(M)any in the media have asked why Cheney — someone who had avoided the media at all costs during his eight years as vice president — would be airing his opinions in such a forceful and public way. Indeed, Cheney himself has answered this question, claiming he is speaking out because he believes that torture and other Bush administration anti-terror policies — many of which Obama is abandoning — were “exactly the right thing to do” and that “there isn’t anybody there on the other side to tell the truth.”

In turn, media figures have answered the question in much the same way. “I think he genuinely believes we are threatened now more because of what Obama is doing,” MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan has said. CNN’s David Gergen said, “I think Dick Cheney almost has a Churchillian view of this, and that is somebody has got to stand up and be the voice in the wilderness.” But while the narrative of Cheney’s motives focuses mainly on the righteous, it has all but ignored the selfish — that Cheney is trying to muddle the public debate with the goal of reducing public support for a criminal inquiry into the torture regime that he authorized.

Last night on CNN, however, Cheney’s daughter Liz revealed that fear of prosecution is indeed a motivating factor in the former vice president’s current media campaign:

L. CHENEY: I don’t think he planned to be doing this, you know, when they left office in January. But I think, as it became clear that President Obama was not only going to be stopping some of these policies, that he was going to be doing things like releasing the — the techniques themselves, so that the terrorists could now train to them, that he was suggesting that perhaps we would even be prosecuting former members of the Bush administration.

Sad that this "Get Daddy Out Of Jail Free" ploy seems to have all the news outlets lapping it up with nary a word on what the motives might be for a former Vice President to break with protocol and criticize a sitting President (and by doing so, implicitly admitting that Cheney--not Bush--was in charge). Can you imagine how the right wing noise machine would have gone into overdrive if Clinton had started criticizing Bush for not taking the al Qaeda threat seriously at the beginning of his presidency? By all reports, that's what happened. Richard Clarke was demoted, his reports ignored, and then 9/11 happened on their watch. And now terrorism has increased worldwide four-fold. However, even with this miserable track record (kept from the public by these media outlets eager for a Cheney appearance), Cheney thinks his opinion has any value to the discussion?

Heather has put up the larger Anderson Cooper interview at VideoCafe.

Steve Benen wonders if there isn't a more pecuniary motive to Cheney's sudden appearances (twelve in nine and a half days over four networks). Of course, Liz Cheney may also be trying to establish herself as a credible candidate in 2012 too:

The hottest Republican property out there isn't former Vice President Dick Cheney but his daughter Liz, who has taken to the airwaves to defend her dad and the whole Bush administration on national security and Guantánamo Bay issues. Liz Cheney, who followed the former veep's hard-hitting speech criticizing President Obama's policies with a CNN appearance, is becoming so popular in conservative circles that some want her to run for office. "She's awesome. Everyone wants her to run," said a close friend.

Bill Moyer talks to Mark Danner and Bruce Fein on last night's Journal:

The President had a press conference on Wednesday night in which he was asked two questions about torture. If you'd been there, Mark, what would you have asked him?

[...] BRUCE FEIN: I would have asked him, since he's agreed that what was done was torture, and that the United States criminal code makes torture a crime. And there's no national security exception, no exception if you get useful information. And because we had impeached, in the House Judiciary Committee, a former President, called Richard Nixon, for failing faithfully to execute the laws. How he can justify not moving forward with an investigation when we have a former President and Vice President openly acknowledging they authorized water boarding, what he has described as torture, is a crime.

Or in the alternative, if he thinks that there are mitigating circumstances, and there's body language suggests that, then he should pardon them like Ford did Richard Nixon. And the reason why the difference between a pardon and non-prosecution is important, is because a pardon requires the recipient to acknowledge guilt. That there was wrongdoing. There was a crime. Just forgetting and sweeping it under the rug suggests this wasn't illegal.

BILL MOYERS: But he is clearly trying to move, as he says, beyond the past. He's closing Guantanamo. He doesn't countenance torture. He says it won't happen on his watch. I mean, shouldn't that settle the issue?

MARK DANNER: This is an issue that, as he has put it, divides the country. But because it divides the country, in my opinion, is one reason we have to confront it. The idea that this is about the past is simply wrong. It's not about the past. It's about our present politics.

Fein is exactly right. As long as we act as if a crime wasn't committed, we undermine the rule of law.

January 20, 2009 C-SPAN

There were no game changers in last night's Vice Presidential debate, but the American people were treated to more rambling, incoherent non-answers from Republican Sarah Palin.

Among the head scratching moments was this rant about nuclear weapons. Palin starts off on one of her "US Americans -- such as" answers about how America uses nukuler weapons safely, yadda, yadda, yadda. Here's the money line:

" Uh, nukuler weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people and too many parts of our planet so those dangerous regimes again cannot be allowed to acquire nukuler weapons, period."

Huh? Notice how once she realizes she's not making any sense and talks herself into a corner, she changes the subject. One need look no further than this clip to see that she is the most unqualified, unfit candidate to run for Vice President in modern U.S. history.  The thought of this person being anywhere near our nukes scares the living daylights out of me. How about you?

  In one of his strongest responses of the night, Joe Biden lists all the issues where McCain has proven himself to be the complete opposite of a "maverick."

Download | play   Download | play   (h/t Heather)

Transcript via CNN:

Look, the maverick -- let's talk about the maverick John McCain is.  And, again, I love him. He's been a maverick on some issues, but he has been no maverick on the things that matter to people's lives.

He voted four out of five times for George Bush's budget, which put us a half a trillion dollars in debt this year and over $3 trillion in debt since he's got there.

He has not been a maverick in providing health care for people. He has voted against -- he voted including another 3.6 million children in coverage of the existing health care plan, when he voted in the United States Senate.

He's not been a maverick when it comes to education. He has not supported tax cuts and significant changes for people being able to send their kids to college.

He's not been a maverick on the war. He's not been a maverick on virtually anything that genuinely affects the things that people really talk about around their kitchen table.

Can we send -- can we get Mom's MRI? Can we send Mary back to school next semester? We can't -- we can't make it. How are we going to heat the -- heat the house this winter?

He voted against even providing for what they call LIHEAP, for assistance to people, with oil prices going through the roof in the winter.

So maverick he is not on the important, critical issues that affect people at that kitchen table.

WaPo:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman is among several national security experts helping brief Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on foreign policy issues as she prepares to hit the campaign trail while cramming for a debate with her Democratic opponent, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), in less than a month, according to officials from Sen. John McCain's campaign.

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!

  Has it really come to this? A presidential nominee citing the geographic proximity of Alaska in relation to Russia in order to defend his VP choice and argue that she has relevant foreign policy experience? John and Cindy must be drinking the same kool-aid.

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GIBSON: Can you honestly say you feel confident having someone who hasn't traveled outside the United States until last year, dealing with an insurgent Russia, with an Iran with nuclear ambitions, with an unstable Pakistan, not to mention the war on terror?

MCCAIN: Sure. And one of the key elements of America's national security requirements are energy. She understands the energy issues better than anybody I know in Washington, D.C., and she understands. Alaska is right next to Russia. She understands that.

As it that weren't enough, John McCain offers one of the most deceptive lines of his entire campaign, stressing four times that Alaska is America's "largest state." Geographically speaking, yes, McCain is right. But in real terms -- such as population (683,478) and nominal GDP ($44 million) -- Alaska ranks near the very bottom, at 47th and 45th, respectively. These semantic games are laughable. I wonder if the campaign realizes how foolish he sounds.

Another amazing quote:

"So she is experienced. She's talented. She knows how to lead and she has been vetted by the people of the state of Alaska. But most importantly, people in America want change. They don't want somebody from inside the beltway."

If the American people want change -- which is the one thing in the entire interview John McCain actually gets right -- why the hell would they elect someone who has been part of the Washington establishment for 25 years?!?!!!? Does he even hear the words that are coming out of his mouth?

But wait, we're not done. Check out this one:

GIBSON: But you criticized, for a long time, Sen. Obama based on his lack of experience. [...] Jan. 6, I'm quoting you, "Sen. Obama does not have the national security experience and background to be president."

<!-- page --> MCCAIN: I said he didn't have the judgment.

GIBSON: Sarah Palin does?

MCCAIN: I said that he didn't have the judgment. He doesn't have the judgment. He didn't have the judgment on Iraq. He still refuses to acknowledge that the surge has succeeded. Gov. Palin knows the surge has succeeded. She's the commander of the Alaskan National Guard. He said that Iran was a tiny problem. He's never visited south of our border. He has no experience on these issues.

Leave aside for the moment the fact that John McCain is just spitting out nonsensical one-line lies, and focus on the two bits I highlighted. John McCain seems to believe that the history of our involvement in Iraq begins in January 2007, when the surge began. Because if we go back to the real start of the war in 2002, he would look like a fool saying Obama doesn't have the judgment on Iraq considering he predicted exactly what the consequences of an invasion would entail. Secondly, and this is a talking point that needs to be forcefully blown out the water, Sarah Palin has NOTHING/ZERO/ZILCH/NADA to do with "commanding the Alaskan National Guard." It's a nice-sounding talking point, but it is a bald-faced LIE.

Either John McCain is dumb, or he thinks we are. Either way, he and Sarah Palin are unfit to serve.

Joe Klein unloads on the McCain campaign for getting testy with the press for having the audacity to do their job.

Swampland:

The second thing is more insidious: Steve Schmidt has decided, for tactical reasons, to slime the press. He wants the public to believe that there is an unfair--sexist (you gotta love it)--personal assault going on against Palin and her family. This is a smokescreen, intended to divert attention from the very real and responsible vetting that is taking place in the media--about the substance of Palin's record as mayor and governor.

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

The Politico's Roger Simon joins him: 

On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.

We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.

We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?

We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?

Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.

It is not our job to ask questions. Or it shouldn't be. To hear from the pols at the Republican National Convention this week, our job is to endorse and support the decisions of the pols.

One of Sarah Palin's major selling points is her supposed reputation as an anti-wasteful-spending reformer who will clean up Washington. Well, the only problem with that is her records from back when she was mayor have surfaced, and in those records she boasts about getting, you guessed it, federal money for pork barrel projects.

click for full size

And the most ironic part of it all? I'll let The Washington Independent sum it up:

As Laura pointed out earlier, John McCain didn’t think so. Indeed, The LA Times reported that McCain was criticizing Palin’s earmarks at the time that his now-running mate was securing them. It’s revelations like these that can quickly erode candidates’ maverick reputations.

When will the media start scrutinizing Palin's real record? The McCain campaign is going to attack them as being unfair/sexist/liberal/etc. no matter what they do. Might as well report the real story.

(HT: Josh)

You gotta be kidding me:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was not subjected to a lengthy in-person background interview with the head of Sen. John McCain's vice presidential vetting team until last Wednesday in Arizona, the day before McCain asked her to be his running mate, and she did not disclose the fact that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant until that meeting, two knowledgeable McCain officials acknowledged Tuesday. 

In the first and most telling executive decision of his potential presidency, John McCain makes a rash, reckless decision that, God forbid he falls ill while in office, will be disastrous for this country. Is that the kind of judgment we need in the White House for another four years?

Heather caught this video last night from MSNBC of Rachel Maddow blasting Buchanan for praising Palin... after, of course, he said her nomination would be disastrous.

Download | play   Download | play  

John Cole makes a great point:

McCain had three months free to do whatever- to fund raise, to campaign, to make the case for himself, to shore up the base, to work on the platform, and, presumably, to begin vetting his running partner.

What, then, did the McCain team do with the extra three months they had to choose their candidate? Beats me, but it sure as hell was not a careful examination of Sarah Palin.

Who do you want as Commander In Chief? An intemperate flyboy, or a cautious thinker?

What's even worse is that despite all the evidence proving the McCain did a piss-poor job of vetting Palin, McCain still insists that the background check was thorough and he's pleased with the results. Wow. Just wow.

To me, the question is no longer whether or not Sarah Palin is ready to be VP; it's whether or not John McCain has the temperament and judgment to be President. His choice of the eminently unqualified Palin pretty much answers that question.

Early Friday morning, when Sarah Palin's name was floated as a possible VP pick, Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough couldn't have been any more against it: Scarborough compares Palin to Harriet Miers, saying it would be "condescending" towards women and a huge "political faux pas," while Pat Buchanan says the pick could be spell potential "disaster."

"I will say this, and let's just be really blunt about it, if John McCain's campaign thinks that by simply appointing a woman they are going to get Hillary Clinton's voters, that is condescending and insulting to women and it is a terrible terrible political faux pas. This will be a mistake." [...]

"You know, it sounds, and I know I'm going to get blasted for this, it sounds like a Harriet Miers decision, 'let's get a woman, whether she's experienced or not'..."

Well, John McCain did make the irresponsible choice of Palin for VP, and in the second half of this mashup Heather so graciously put together, Pat Buchanan makes a complete reversal and begins to extoll the virtues of a Palin vice-presidency, going so far as to even proclaim that she and her husband were members of the "Buchanan Brigade," something the McCain campaign, for obvious reasons, vehemently denies.

We're still awaiting Scarborough's flip flop. I can't be too far off.

(h/t Heather)

On August 10, Karl Rove went on "Face The Nation" to argue that Senator Obama would make an "intensely political choice" for Vice President without regard for the "responsibilities of president." At the time, Rove believed Obama would choose Tim Kaine, and argued against him by saying this:

Download | play   Download | play  

With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he's been a governor for three years, he's been able but undistinguished. I don't think people could really name a big, important thing that he's done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it's smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It's not a big town. So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I'm really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States?

As we now know, Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his VP, probably the least political choice he could have made, and probably the best governing choice he could have made. John McCain, on the other hand, is the one who made the "intensely political choice" by choosing Sara Palin -- a political newcomer and self-described "hockey mom" who has less than two years of governing experience and ZERO foreign policy experience -- all because the political winds dictated that "change" was going to trump "experience" this election.

Rove argues that Kaine's mayorship of Richmond (pop. 200,000+) is insignificant and that his 3 years as Governor of Virginia (pop. 7,712,091, GDP $383 million) has been "indistinguisahable." If Rove was intellectually consistent, wouldn't that mean Palin's mayorship of Wasilla (pop. 8,000+) and 20 months as Alaska governor (pop. 683,478, GDP $44.5 million) makes her even less qualified than Kaine?

Barack Obama chose Joe Biden because he knows his way around Washington and knows how to get stuff done. His selection mollifies virtually no voting block or constituency.

McCain, on the other hand, chose someone eminently unqualified for the job (seriously, can you see Sara Palin sitting down with Maliki or Karzai or any other world leader?) for the sole reason of appeasing the right-wing lunatic fringe and hoping to pick off a few die-hard Hillary holdouts, as well as assuaging voters' concerns about his septuagenarianism.

So, Karl, who made the "intensely political choice"?

What can we take away from this episode? When Karl Rove suggests something -- in this case, Obama would make an "intensely political decision" -- always assume the opposite will happen. Remember, Rove predicted, according to "the math," that the GOP would pick up seats in 2006.They of course were swept out of power in an historic landslide.

Remind me again why the punditocracy heralds this guys as some sort of political genius?

Full transcript below the fold:

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