* And finally, it's not nearly as bad as the house flap, but it's not encouraging that John McCain doesn't know what kind of car he drives.

Well no wonder. It took him 9 cars to go out for a Starbucks.

McCain, the 'kept' man...

Greenwald has more, doing a compare/contrast with various right-whingers' treatment of Kerry in 2004:

Rush Limbaugh Online, "John Kerry's Resume":

[Kerry] has lived the life of a millionaire living off the inherited wealth of his two wives. As an Ivy League educated millionaire who did not have to work for his fortune, Mr. Kerry never had to worry about the money he earned..

And this from TNR is interesting as well:

McCain was a relative nobody when he married Cindy Hensley--a middle-aged divorcé working a mid-level job in a far-off bureaucracy. It was the Hensleys who would breathe life into his prospects and provide a springboard for his ascent. Their ambitions burned every bit as brightly as his did. Except that, unlike McCain, they'd long since hidden their motives from public view.

Can't resist reposting. Apologies...

Yes. Ahem. I will be able to further judge your writing and reporting and debating and other such mad skillz if I first see a picture of your cat, so I can judge your FCB abilities. Just sayin'.

Otherwise, you seem to be doing a bang-up job. Where's the tip jar? ;)

Welcome to WaMo, sir, and have a good weekend. See you next week.

So Steve: Kevin says you have a cat... and since we're all a bit giddy after Robin Leach's spirited defense of McCain, I'd say it's time to hoist a beer and look at a picture of a cat.

The pundits are looking up the wrong tree. Obama's VP selection will be . . . . . . Bill Richardson! -Kevo

Yes, Steve, THE CAT!!!!! I told my four they'd finally be able to see him/her, and now they won't talk to me -- except at mealtimes, of course.

Please, for peace in my family...

THE CAT!!!!

Mudcat Saunders is as authentically southern as HeeHaw.

Wow, Steve. The move certainly didn't slow you down. Great job today! This had to be one of the most prolific Friday's ever.

Huzzah!

The thought of McCain driving is terrifying. I can just see the old fart checking the on-board map as he plows through a bus stop.

Excellent first day, Steve and Hilzoy. And you don't have to post any photos unless you want to. It's your blog now and you should set your own style and traditions.

Did the MudCAT Saunders reference qualify as your inaugural FCB?

I'm still wondering why no love for canines...

Congrats on the move here Steven. I have one request - can you change your RSS feed here so that it uploads your entire post? Right now its only uploading the first couple sentences.

"The pundits are looking up the wrong tree. Obama's VP selection will be . . . . . . Bill Richardson!" -Kevo

I'd be inclined to agree with you except that 11% of the U.S. electorate are Clinton supporters...
... still!

Bill R would be better than Hillary as V.P., but Hillary might be better than Bill R as a V.P. candidate.

This is call hedging. No one else really appeals, because...
... YOU CAN'T HAVE WEBB!

And I don't want Kaine replaced by our Republican't Lieutenant Governor.

Orange

I'm sure American automakers, begging for handouts from the government, are delighted to hear that McCain announced proudly that he bought his daughter a Japanese car.

I agree with shortstop. FCB was Kevin's gig. Should you choose to continue it, that's fine.

You could invent a whole new tradition!

Perhaps Tuesday flower blogging. Or Thrusday bug blogs :)

Welcome to the new digs!

Marc Ambinder is reporting that a charter flight has left Chicago Midway and is in transit to Delaware. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/EJA863

Obama going to meet with Biden and make the VP announcement? Interesting.

to borrow from Tuesday Morning Quarterback, fact of great significance, I just don't know what it means: the charter from Midway to Delaware began the day in Des Moines, Iowa. Interesting.

Steve, a wonderful start over at the new place. In moving, you didn't miss a beat. For those wondering, Steve briefly did an FCB; Steve, don't give in!

TuiMel, I'm with you: dogblog even sounds better!

If anyone gets the magic e-mail, hit the open thread right away!

If you can guess your net worth within a million dollars, you are a pauper and good for nothing but canon fodder.

@ Grapecrush: Hehe, I see TNR's fact checking never recovered from Steve Glass. McCain was still married when he met Cindy Hensley.

We're a strange bunch here. If we don't get to see a picture of your cat, we'll find another blog, got it?

Friday House Blogging in honor of McCain. That should cover it for a few weeks.

I think it's harder NOT to see a cat than it is to ignore a cat. So post the freaking cat. :-)

The Cat

Machiavelli was not a political operative.

I gotta wonder how McCain really feels about the rightwing crazies dredging up the Obama/Ayers connection. Does he want leftwing crazies dredging up the McCain/Keating connection?

Lets see, Obama gets to know a 60ish university professor that sits on a community board with him now but 40 years ago he was involved in some radical crap when Obama was about 6 or 7 years old, that about right? And McCain takes big bucks from a high roller to plead for special favors for him before he is a convicted criminal, but through great luck manages to escape with his career intact...that about cover it?

Remember this line from The American President:

Let me see if I got this. The third story on the news tonight was that someone I didn't know thirteen years ago when I wasn't president participated in a demonstration where no laws were being broken in protest of something that so many people were against, it doesn't exist anymore. Just out of curiosity, what was the fourth story?

That's about how I feel about the Ayers thing. And McCain has already gone after the Rezko story, so I really think it's time to take off the gloves on the Keating story.

@Prup

Only 4? Piker.

5 cats and a dog

I tell people I have to keep them fed before they all realize I'm made of meat.........

It won't be Richardson. Yes, he'd make a great VP (and maybe Pres. -- he was my original choice) but do we really want a black/Hispanic ticket. That might really trigger the racists -- and the anti-immigrant (read anti-Hispanic) racists are much stronger and more 'respectable' than the anti-black ones -- see Lou Dobbs and the "English-only" crowd.

And we don't want Webb, who, like Bayh, voted for the Protect America Act of 2007, AND voted for telecom immunity in the FISA fight. (I agree that Obama was right on FISA, and shouldn't have let telecom immunity keep him from supporting a good bill -- despite the paniced misreading of it -- but voting for telecom immunity -- which had nothing to do with telecoms but was about being able to force Bush officials to testify about what they told the telecoms -- who already had immunity -- was wrong.)

But the PAA was what some of you imagined the FISA bill was, and no one who voted for that should be considered. That includes Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, and Evan Bayh.

We've had as many as 5, but, while every cat we've had has made it at least to 16 years old, we have lost two and added 1 in the last year. (Sprout, our current senior passed his 17th Birthday in May and -- thanks to daily thyroid medicine -- is still thriving.)

And thank you Dale, they are talking to me again. And hello to Smithers, despite the fact that -- unlike Sprout and my wife -- he isn't

orange

VOTE DIGBY-CLARK-2008---VOTE THE INTERNET they know where they live and what they drive.

"How do you know a right-wing ad is way too over the top? When Fox News declines to run it. (Except, as it turns out, Fox News ended up running the ad it had rejected.)"

In Battleground Michigan, Flint's WJRT 12--an ABC owned station--is running it as well, but they tend to have the ethics summarized by the word "Disney".

The funny thing is that the wind-up to the pitch is worst than a Star Wars prologue--you could be forgiven for thinking it's the fourth season wrapup to "Desperate Housewives".

Be funny if Ayers decided to sue ABC now.

Heh, first Drudge hinted at Biden (and Andrea Mitchell surely has the hots for him and dropped his name before a few times, including tonight - NBC is pitching Biden re e.g. his special gov students in DE being told they might have a sub tomorrow (?) morning.) Now Drudge thinks a bumper sticker pic etc. shows Bayh as the second One. My mother and I want Biden to get it and think he's the best choice in ability and to win. She came up with two names for the ticket combo: Bariden and Jobama.

McCain may not know what he is driving, but he should have nixed his daughter's choice of car? Or did he buy it for her?

It's a Toyota. As seen in the video she was clever enough to post on YouTube when the press went Tire-swinging over at Daddy's Ranch.

Until I can say Bayh to speculation and start raisin' Kaine for the ticket, I'm Biden my time listenin' to Finnish Classical Music and hopin' it is the right tune.

Don't you guys remember seeing Steve's cat? See right here!
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_07/011643.php

It's funny how potential running mates, like Biden, say they don't want it.

They tried to make me go to veephab but I said "no, no, no"

BTW I heard that the Drudgeyhooed Obama-Bayh bumper stickers "were in the wrong font" to be "authentic" - not "Gotham" (a font?) or whatever - does anyone around here get that, or care? Oh, but there's a flight to Delaware from Chigo, you may have heard of around here ...

I just got the text: Colin Powell!

*

to further the fun with the chartered flight from Midway to Wilmington that has everyone so sure it is Biden. . .

on FlightAware you can see the last three legs the plane in question flew.

yesterday, the plane was in Lincoln, NE (Hagel?)

It flew from Lincoln to Des Moines, Iowa then this morning from Des Moines to Chicago Midway. Who was in Des Moines last night that would be leaving today? Who could the plane have picked up in Des Moines and taken to Chicago?

Why, Gov. Sebelius just happened to do 4 events in central Iowa yesterday and last night. Hmmm. Why else would a plane rented by the Obama campaign have stopped in DSM on the way to Midway?

Speaking of cars, the fundamentals of my family's economy is so strong that both of our vehicles are 15-years-old and have over 200K miles each. Thank goodness they are high quality or they wouldn't have lasted so long.

Also on the car front, Obama's tire inflation promo is still on people's minds. My kid just filled up one of the vehicles and noticed there were 4 cars waiting to use the air station. Something I never used to see around our town.

Hey, y'all,

Stop peering under Benen's skirt, trying to see his kitty! There's enough for us -- TCBR exiles -- to get used to here as is (always harder to move from a mansion to a tenement basement than the other way around)

The official grand opening of the Dem headquarters went fine. Lots of people showed up and we even had some strays off the street come in and leave their names and addresses to be called if volunteers were needed. The Obama gang's headmen (we share the HQ with the county and with them; times are tight and rent is high, even in our little -polis), whose combined ages are still less than mine, came up for a hug (and a cookie - gingerbread, taken out of the oven about 15 minutes before I showed up at the "do").One asked if I lived on X street and had a white car. Yup.""We were canvassing your way last weekend" he says. "Why didn't you stop?" I ask. "We saw the bumper sticker, figured we wouldn't waste the time".

The HQ, although lodged in a commercial property, is in a non-commercial neighbourhood (cemetery next door, family homes across the street).The house directly across the street is called "Harmony" but its occupants aren't harmonious at all. About half way through the party (16:00-18:00; full daylight. *And* quiet, being inside, with no music or anything.), Harmony's occupant got so ticked off with the growing crowd, he planted a McCain yard sign in front of the house, blocking the "Harmony" board. Sigh. Idiots are always with us. Hope he's ready to face the music.

The "Vote for change/Obama '08" buttons took two full weeks to reach me but arrived just in time. Community Festival tomorrow and the buttons they ordered from the Dem Store (last minute, paying through the nose for the shipping. Someone needs to get better organized there. Too bad I've had it with organized party love growing up in commie Poland)had not arrived. So mine, all 99 of them (I reserved one for myself), were like manna from heaven. According to the city Dem-head, this was the best contribution I could have made, better than a check. We sold about 30 of them right there and hope to peddle the rest tomorrow.

Lemon

Well I hope that all the "new" people here are impressed with the awesome array of McCainBloggers we have assembled to post here.

mhr is not one of our brighter McCain bloggers because the story on BHO's half brother was already reported here. But he tries. So you have to give the little fellow that.

Oh, I almost forgot please consider voting for John McCain, everyone.

Thank You

McCain Blog Outreach Coordinator

Kevin: "Russia doesn't appear to be in any kind of rush in Georgia."

And as far as I'm concerned, the Russians can do what they want with it - it's full of Confederate Flag-wavin', Dueling Banjoes-playin' white trailer trash, a bunch of racist hicks and ignorant hillbilly crackers who ... oh, I see. Wrong Georgia. My bad. Never mind.

Gov. Sebelius just happened to do 4 events in central Iowa yesterday and last night. Hmmm. Why else would a plane rented by the Obama campaign have stopped in DSM on the way to Midway?

She is back in Topeka today, being irascible and tight-lipped with reporters who are trying to get a scintilla of a hint of a clue out of her.

I think they are getting their jollies throwing up smoke-screens.

mhr

Not to stress a point too much, but if you are going to blog for team McCain, you really need to stick to our approved script.

We really don't have room for freelancers. And I had to call in a favor to get your unhelpful comment moderated.

Remember if you are going to post for John McCain using your own materials the rules are Stay Positive - Be Positive.

Thank You

McBOC

How does he find his car again after coming out from the store he parked in?

"Machiavelli was not a political operative." - Tommy on August 22, 2008 at 6:48 PM

In days of yore, such people were called palace courtiers.

Awesome day, Steve-- glad to have you and Hilzoy here!

Prup wrote: "It won't be Richardson. Yes, he'd make a great VP (and maybe Pres. -- he was my original choice) but do we really want a black/Hispanic ticket. That might really trigger the racists -- and the anti-immigrant (read anti-Hispanic) racists are much stronger and more 'respectable' than the anti-black ones -- see Lou Dobbs and the "English-only" crowd."

Really, trigger the racists? Other than McC*nt picking Jindal (or whatever his name is) how exactly are we going to get the racist vote? We could get the "Damn I'm tired of White Guilt and Voting for Barry means I don't have to tiptoe around African-Americans anymore" vote, but we've lost the racist vote. And no one has a right to question the immigration status of Bill Richardson. He's an American!

Orange

Remember if you are going to post for John McCain using your own materials the rules are Stay Positive - Be Positive

Must be why I cant post for McCain, I have no idea what he stands for and just cant find that positive feeling. Perhaps MHR is having the same problem.

Congrats on the new digs, CB.

peace

This whole text-message gimmick is juvenile. Either that, or Obama just found out that his pick owns ten houses.

Didn't you forget something, Steve?
It's friday!
Now, where's the cat picture???
:D

OK, I have just the ticket, heh, for what to call the team of Barack Obama and Joe Biden (Andrea Mitchel's smirk proves that's what's coming; hubby Greenspin knows everything and she clearly has the hots for "Mr. MBNA" but I have confidence in Joe's proletarian sympathies.): BOJoe.

tyrannogenius

Did you guys see this video? IT ROCKS! Tell me if you got chills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVi4rUzf-0Q

Okay, okay. Post an orange cat and be done with it. We've got the free world to save, people.

Brick Oven Bill -- Agree the text message bit seems a bit juvenile, especially given the exceedingly long drum roll.

While I admit to being a bit jaded and old-school, the younger Obama supporters I know are very much into it. If it helps make them feel they're as "in" as any pundits, and bolsters and grows grass roots support, is that really so bad?

Yes, there's a bit of new media vs. old media kabuki going on here. But if nothing else, the sight of Blitzer asking everyone to stay tuned so he can report on a text message that will be broadcast to zillions (who'd rather hear it direct than hear it from him), and who will know the answer before he manages to get on the air with it, is worth a laugh if nothing else.

sorry, that 10:02 PM post was mine.

"Agree the text message bit seems a bit juvenile"

You miss the point. It was yet another opportunity to add more people to their lists for potential contributors and campaign workers. As for the delay--it has everyone talking about Obama. Nobody's talking about McCain today except regarding the number of houses he has (and that is only because Obama wants that to be the topic of conversation). Obama wins news cycle after news cycle before he even announces anything.

The only way I want McCain in the Oval Office is if I can tell him to go piss in a corner.

Ron Chusid: You miss the point.

As I stated, the "text message bit seems a bit juvenile" (emphasis added). I obviously believe it is not, and a well designed grass roots strategy, as you might understand if you bothered to read beyond the first sentence of my post.

Moreover, the fact that everyone is talking about "the number of houses he has", is opportunistic and tactical, and has zero to do with communications strategy.

The development of the VP announcement text message strategy was obviously designed some time ago, and suggests a potential sea change in how communications channels are used by the campaigns, and the role of "old" vs. "new" media.

This is about strategy, not tactics, and the Obama campaign appears to be ahead of the game. Or at least willing to test the waters in using new channels to connect directly with supporters.

Get it?

Thanks for doing pretty much the same thing as at The Carpetbagger.

Bayh out of the running

Brick Oven Bill's comments are being reviewed, and any that are determined to possibly give him McPoints for trolling liberal sites (WaMo was on McCain's list of recommended blogs) to earn him a crappy t-shirt made in China are being deleted. -Mod]

Rumor at Wonkette that Obama's VP pick will be Sen. Jack Reed. He would be a very good one if true!

anon on August 22, 2008 at 6:29 PM: Hehe, I see TNR's fact checking never recovered from Steve Glass. McCain was still married when he met Cindy Hensley.

Er, yes, anon...that's what it said in the article, specifically the part I excerpted...McCain was still married when he met Cindy Hensley in Hawaii and began courting her.

McCain was divorced for a month when he remarried.

You were overeager to take a poke at TNR and didn't actually read the article, did you?

Nice Job CB..oh yeah you're not CB anymore. Congrats Steve.

Ronald

I’d like to vent on energy, which is the reason Russians are still in Georgia tonight. Liquid fuels power the vast majority of our transportation infrastructure. If Putin was to cause the Strait of Hormuz to be blocked and hit two Saudi pipelines (hello Iran), Western economies could collapse.

The answer is not windmills and solar. These are intermittent power sources and could only power perhaps 25% of our current electrical grid. The balance would have to be coal and nuclear.

Transportation will have to be switched from liquid fuel to electricity. This could be in the form of either fuel cells (electricity > hydrogen > fuel cell) or electrified transportation corridors, starting with the railroads.

Those 68 billion barrels of off-shore oil will last about twelve years at current consumption rates.

Bottom line is that, other than preparing for WWIII, our response to Russia seizing the Georgian land-bridge should be fast-tracking nuclear power plants and new electrical transmission capacity. We will either change, or change will be imposed upon us.

I’m new here, thanks for providing the outlet to vent, and congratulations to the new hosts.

Dammit! I didn't get the news first! MSNBC did!

It's Biden!

Oh, MsMuddled. I see you're an insomniac too. So, NY times is already spinning Biden choice as a "lack of confidence" rather than a good balance for what the country needs right now. Sigh...

Hey Frak. Yeah it's West Coast Friday night and I've been steadily staring at my cell phone! Now I can rest.

I'm OK with Joe. No real controversy there. But they'll make something up soon enough.

Biden balances the ticket well with his experience, but he might be a tad bit too liberal..

I've been depressed about Senator Obama’s chances for sometime because he did not go on the offensive against Senator McCain. Obama hitting back now is to little and way to late. Why didn’t anyone learn from the smears against Gore & Kerry? It looks that if the Dems ever want to win in the current system they have to fight as nasty and as dirty as the Repubs. Now I fear that it is too late to convince low info voters that Obama will fight for what is right, and for the little guy. With a pick of Senator Biden, a semi-decent senator, semi-reliable liberal but another Washington insider rather than someone to help Obama continue to sell the idea of change and throw the bums out I am heartsick because the election is in my opinion lost. Young voters will be turned off and those who care about kicking corporate cronyism out of DC will be disappointed by Biden. With the election of McCain this country will be completely destroyed. And that is sad beyond belief for all of humanity.

Orange

I loved the creepiness of the Foz "mistake" in viewing the Ayers attack ad on Obama. It was like a horror movie in which the cute young blond correspondent starts to realize that she is really working with scaries: "This is not the right ad." (confused and contrite tone) Mean newshost: "It was an ad." (threatening tone). Then she regains her bubbly demeanour and the meaness is swept under the rug for the present.

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Ñòîèëî ëè âîîáùå âñþ ýòó êàøó çàâàðèâàòü, çàìàþòñÿ îíè òàêîé ïîòîê ñêàíîâ ïàñïîðòîâ îáðàáàòûâàòü..