Meet Alan Simpson. He wants to gut Social Security. And he's in charge of the future of Social Security.
How's that? President Obama appointed him to lead a key Social Security commission. Why? I have no clue.

He's like that crazy uncle you see once a year at Thanksgiving, except he has his hands on Social Security.

Karoli mentioned earlier Simpson's foul-mouthed tirade against a woman who had the temerity to challenge his attacks on Social Security in a Huffington Post blog post. The thin-skinned Simpson ranted:

"I've made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Security who milk it to the last degree. You know 'em too...We’ve reached a point now where it’s like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work!"

And this isn't the first tirade against someone who publicly criticized him and the commission.

That's why we at the Progressive Campaign Change Committee are launching a new site: StuffThatSimpsonSays.com to expose the out-of-control Simpson and the commision he co-chair's attempts to gut Social Security. Visit the site and see if you can tell a real Alan Simpson quote from a fake one and share it with your friends.

This would be funnier, if what the commission of unaccountable millionaires is working on wasn't so serious.

Congress will be voting on whatever this commission recommends. They need to understand the commission is being led by Alan Simpson, a guy who's so unhinged that you literally can't tell his real utterances from fake ones, they're that crazy.

Who else is on the commission? A bunch of millionaires... multimillionaire defense contractor (David Cote), a corporate CEO (Ann M. Fudge), and only one economist (Alice Rivlin) who's claim to fame is advocating for $47 billion in cuts to Social Security. You'll never guess where the executive director behind the commission also works: Bruce Reed, the CEO of the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council.

And on top of that the committee meets in secret.

Alan Simpson - has a) no idea what he's talking about when it comes to Social Security and b) is incredibly offensive to just about everyone he talks to.

Check out StuffAlanSimpsonSays.com. Some of the actual things he said are just mind-blowing.

Enjoy and then share it with your friends so everyone gets the message we need to save Social Security, not hand it over to people like Alan Simpson.

Click here to tweet about the site or here to share it on Facebook and help get the word out!

P.S. If you like Simpson have a potty mouth, http://ShitAlanSimpsonSays.com also works.

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A lot of people are wondering where the "old John McCain" went? Stephen goes looking.

Colbert: Now, many Americans are feeling confused about the Senator, because earlier in the campaign John McCain made promises like this.

McCain: "I pledged at that time and I pledge again a respectful campaign, a respectful campaign based on this issues. People say, 'well, negative ads move numbers.' Well, they may, but do we have to go to the lowest common denominator?"

Colbert: No, we don't. McCain's ads prove we can stay below it. So what has happened to John McCain. I think I may have the answer...

Senator Obama should cut an ad juxtaposing McCain's previous promises of positive campaigning with the disgusting sleaze we're seeing today. We ought to shame him for becoming the very same despicable pol he's always denounced.

It's a big mistake to discount Palin tonight. Yeah, she's appeared as an ill-prepared, out of her league wannabe in the Couric interview, but the format of tonight's debate definitely favors her strong points--90 second responses, sitting down, etc. and the McCain campaign has been in overdrive to manage expectations no matter her performance

The word from the DNC is that they have prepped her to go nasty. That's a warning for Biden, who--if he falls in the trap--could damage himself by appearing to be patronizing or too aggressive towards her.

But this could be a make or break moment for the slowly slipping McCain campaign. As Howard Fineman says on today's Hardball, Palin's performance tonight will reflect McCain's judgment:

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Ah, the soft bigotry of lowered expectations... The McCain campaign is on overdrive to manage the upcoming vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. Over the last week, they have demanded limiting the response time to 90 seconds (perfect for the wordy but meaningless "pageant" answers she's prone to give), set up the framework that tough questions are "gotcha" questions and any of Biden's responses may be sexist and patronizing. Now they are suggesting that moderator Gwen Ifill may not be nonpartisan enough to moderate the debate, since she authored a book on politics and race, even though the McCain camp approved of her selection (you'll remember she moderated the 2004 VP debate between Cheney and Edwards) AFTER her book had been published. Media Matters' Country Fair:

The right wing is in a frenzy about the fact that Gwen Ifill is working on a book about "emerging young African American politicians," which supposedly means she cannot be neutral during the VP debate she is moderating tomorrow night. Since the right wing is in a frenzy, we can be pretty sure the establishment media is about to join in.

Two things to keep in mind:

1) The October 7 presidential debate will be moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw, who currently serves as NBC's liaison to the McCain campaign -- while spreading pro-McCain misinformation on Meet the Press. In fact, the McCain campaign hand-picked Tom Brokaw to moderate the October 7 debate[..]

2) CBS' Bob Schieffer moderated one of the 2004 debates, despite the fact that he is a longtime friend of George W. Bush who had previously acknowledged that his personal relationship with Bush made it difficult to cover him. Schieffer's brother was a business partner of Bush's before Bush became president -- and Bush made him an ambassador.

On Tuesday's Fox & Friends, McCain Sr Policy Advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer throws a subtle shot across the bow at Ifill, warning that there will be serious questions to answer for if there are too many foreign policy questions in the debate:

DOOCY: It sounds like they're stacking the deck against her, because they know...everybody knows that's Joe Biden's...you know, that's his forte. Why wouldn't they ask half and half or...the average person is more concerned with domestic stuff than foreign stuff anyway.

PFOTENHAUER: Exactly, so I think that whoever...you know, I think the moderator will have some...some serious questions to answer themselves if they do do go so heavily foreign policy.

Steve Benen:

I suspect Republicans don't really care about Ifill or her book, but are raising a fuss so that a) they'll have an excuse if Palin fails to meet expectations tomorrow night; and b) they might "work the ref" and pressure Ifill into going easy on Palin.

Regardless of whether the "outrage" is sincere or not, this is likely to be the Republican cause of the day. Joe Scaborough was all over this story earlier on MSNBC, the far-right blogs are livid, Drudge is on the case, and one assumes other outlets will soon follow.

By the way, Jezebel looked at the 2004 Vice Presidential debate and guess what? Heavily focused on foreign policy.

UPDATE: There's still a chance that McCain will do another of his patented Hail Marys to stop the debate. Media Bloodhound offers some suggestions on how he might distract the media from his running partner.

Transcripts below the fold:

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Dana Milbank's recent op-ed in The Washington Post changing its description of Barack Obama from the "presumptive" nominee to the "presumptuous" nominee has stirred not a little debate. First there's the utterly one-sided nature of the attack. Milbank criticizes Obama for acting as presidential candidates act, as if he shouldn't visit with foreign heads of state that he would likely meet if elected president and other Washington figures and for having a big security detail. Nothing Obama's done is different from what McCain has done, it's just been received better received. But Obama is presumptuous and McCain is not, even though McCain had an ad calling himself "President McCain."

Which leads into a more malevolent subtext for the choice of the word "presumptuous," which is just a few words over in the thesaurus for the more loaded "uppity."

Poor Rachel Maddow has to fight through made up quotes--because the media doesn't want to question why McCain is trying to portray Obama as messianic-- to challenge the media for selectively crying hubris. Watch her put Pat Buchanan in his place.

MADDOW: Whether or not (McCain's attack ads) are working, I think we have a responsibility to talk about whether or not they are deserved, Pat. I think when John McCain doesn‘t speak to Pat Buchanan as being presumptuous, when he calls himself President McCain, but Barack Obama speaks to you as presumptuous for doing something much less damning, that says more about you than it does about the candidate.

God, I love this woman.

Transcripts below the fold

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Well, I’ve finally seen everything. John McCain, who enjoys more media affection than any political figure in recent memory, has taken to complaining that reporters are overly fond of Barack Obama.

Honestly, hearing the McCain campaign whine about someone getting fawning media coverage is a bit like hearing Barry Bonds accuse someone getting an unfair advantage by abusing steroids.

For crying out loud, a detailed book was recently published chronicling the astoundingly biased coverage McCain has enjoyed for years.

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Stop me if you've heard this one...

A lesser-known candidate attracts a small following of dedicated supporters by the promise of being different than your usual Washington DC elected officials. Taking advantage of these supporters' talent in getting the word out over the internet, scheduling meetups of other potential supporters, raising funds and generally building up a wave of enthusiasm that carries the candidate to national prominence, that same candidate starts taking on the trappings of traditional politicians-consultants, pollsters, campaign managers from inside the Beltway-and slowly, but heartbreakingly surely, the candidate moves away from those netroots supporters that got him where he was.

Sound like anyone you know?

Well, to Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox, authors of Netroots Rising: How A Citizen Army Of Bloggers And Online Activists Is Changing American Politics this is altogether too familiar a story. Lowell and Nate are veterans of several netroots campaigns, such as Wesley Clark, Jim Webb, Tim Kaine, and Mark Warner. Netroots Rising documents instance after instance where candidates are profoundly grateful for the support and work of the netroots only to distance himself after surrounded by those desperate not to change the status quo of the power circles.
I am hosting the Book Salon discussing Netroots Rising at Firedoglake starting now 5:00 pm Eastern/2:00 pm Pacific. Come join us and let's discuss the growing power of the netroots and how we can get our voices heard.

Auto-correct can be a very helpful feature of any word-processing program. But when conservatives use it, they run the risk of embarrassing themselves.

The American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website, for example, takes its AP articles and replaces the word “gay” with the word “homosexual.” I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there.

The problem, of course, is that “gay” does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. My friend Kyle reported this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed” the article.

That means — you guessed it — the track star was renamed “Tyson Homosexual.” The headline on the piece read, “Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials.” Readers learned:

Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday.

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Stephen Colbert delineates the way that John McCain attempts to diversify and distinguish himself from George Bush: by the way he characterizes his stances.

It's no secret that one of John McCain's biggest challenges as a candidate is distinguishing himself from President Bush. I'm not sure why he's eager to spurn President Bush's supporters. I mean, that's walking away from almost 29% of the American electorate and nearly half the Bush children.

But he's so different from Bush already. The only issues they agree on are education, immigration, Iraq, abortion, Supreme Court judges, Social Security, tax breaks for the wealthy, wiretapping, trade, healthcare, the Middle East, same sex marriage and Medicare.