as I mentioned in a previous string, look at today's WaPo, David Ignatius' column: you might have another one

Chapman's no milquetoast liberal, either. He's the darling of the Reason crowd.

and the tribune will STILL endorse mcsame – just has they have every republican presidential candidate since they backed (former republican) horace greeley in 1872.

How about an ad compiling all of these blurbs....

Of course for now, it does appear to be working. Are the "dead heat" poll numbers the result of any difference in actual policy decisions taken by the candidates? Or is it the result of the Rovians being able to turn the whole thing into a personality contest?

Elitists. They can read, and write, and work for newspapers.

Real Americans get all their news from the rip-and-read at the top of the hour on the sports talk station on their car radio.

That, and junk e-mails, the water cooler, and the local preacher.

Politicians who intentionally lie to the public are engaging in a Betrayal of the Public Trust and it should be deemed an Ethics Violation and a part of the past as we move toward a more Holistic way of life here in America. And Media as the Third-wheel of Democracy should not be silent and complicit on such lies and distortion!

Great Film Exposing John McCain’s Lies — Pass it on!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH0xzsogzAk -- Are we finally pulling back the Curtin on the Wizards?

Lastly, Ground Zero is a Symbol and a message of Republicans' failed policies and a gaping Wound, that after 7 years Ground Zero is still a hole, still zero -- that we were unable to lift ourselves out of the ashes and make ourselves whole again. You see, nothing from nothing leaves nothing and that is not Change we can believe in. Enough is Enough!

And finally, Is the Bloom coming off of Palin, as Alaska Women Against Palin Rally is HUGE!

http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/alaska...

So now we have enough of a groundswell in the media that McCain's dishonesty has become a narrative, and is itself the big story that everyone is talking about.

Will it matter? Are voters influenced more by what the media sees and reports on, or the messages from the candidates themselves? Are there any examples where a presidential candidate has been punished for being misleading?

The McCain camp must have known that their ads would be exposed. They're certainly politically savvy, so you would have to think they consciously believe that the benefits of the smear campaign is greater than the consequences of being considered dishonest.

If voters don't prove them wrong, this will become conventional wisdom, and will be the template for presidential campaigns for the next 20 years.

But...but...Sarah Palin is smoking hot and can see Russia from her house!! C'mon, guys, let's keep in mind what's really important here, ok?

Ike is slowly becoming the next Katrina.

No water or MREs have been distributed yet. The locations have just been given to FEMA, just now.

Forty Percent of Galveston residents stayed behind. No water, no food, no electricity. It is an island. Most autos that were on the island are likely destroyed. No gas. No way to resupply the island.

On top of this, folks want to go home, they are trying to get back...to what? Why is FEMA allowing anyone to go back to this area?

A few more days. One republican politician said stock up on food, water and "ammo". Ammo?

A few more days and all hell will be breaking loose.

Monitor the local news, the media isn't happy.

How does a man survive five years in a Vietnamese dungeon only to allow himself to be turned into a cynical marionette by the nihilistic disciples of Karl Rove?"

Well, let's look at how he survived. By doing whatever it took. By signing confessions and starring in propaganda films for his captors.

Maybe nothing's changed after all.

John McCain's standing by his sexism charge on The View, 'Obama chooses his words carefully' has to be one of the most disgusting moments I've ever seen in a campaign. I think that is the 'one to many' lie that will do him in. Even Bubba is scratching his head at that one. What's more telling is the deafening silence of the theocons - the so-called values voters.

I think you are being way too reasonable about "The Enough Club". This is no longer a bunch of "good hearted" journalists on the right and the left finally "seeing the light". All of these people are pretty firmly lodged in the "McCain Rich Person Club" of being worth enough money to safely weather a normal recession and not giving a rat's a$$ what happens to most of America.

The real name for this club is "The Killing the Golden Goose Club". They are starting to realize that the nation is so screwed up, broke, and leaderless in every aspect imaginable after the last eight years (but starting since the "Reagen Revolution")that we are extremely close having the whole country go down the tubes i.e. kill the golden goose. And four more years of W could very well do it.

They are finally taking action, but only to save their own skins.

That is indeed a surprise. Chapman always was a tool and a fool . . . it was criminal for the Trib to give him Royko's space after he died. I find it hard to believe he has woken up, but then I haven't read one of his columns in over eight years: he was playing von Clausewitz, explaining we were surrounded in the Balkans and how thousands of Americans were going to come home in body bags. That was before he and his kind converted to pre-emption with a Republican in the White House. If he has woken up -- amazing -- but I suspect it's a temporary aberration.

Yawn! Considering that it was only just 4 short years ago that liberals in the media were describing the Bush Campaign in the same way for allowing the "swiftboating" of Kerry, which involved his fellow sailors' telling the truth about Kerry's Xmas trip into Cambodia that was "seared" into his memory, but didn't happen. Such claims seem to ring hollow this time around against McCain.

This, of course, is a standard excuse liberals in the media like to use to console them after the GOP beats one of theirs like a mule and lose an election that they believe was theirs to win. Not only were the same things said about the Bush Campaign of 2000, but also were said about Reagan's 1980 Campaign (Remember the secret deal the Reagan Campaign had with Iran to delay the release of the hostages in order to guarantee Cater's defeat). And even going back farther into history, the same things were said about "Tricky Dick" Nixon and his use of the Southern Strategy in the early 70s.

Just as many of their policies are more 30 years old and don't work anymore, so it would seem are liberals' excuses for losing elections. lol

How cute is Chico? He brings up Reagan's traitorous dealings with the Iranians (yeah, Carter arranged for the hostages to come home on the day of Reagan's inaugural - how fucking stupid do you have to be to be our Mr. Unsel?) as if it were a good thing.

Hey stupid (that would be you Chico), Reagan admitted to trading arms for hostages (no, he never admitted his treason, but how are these two that different?).

"These are old tricks we've been seeing in local elections for years."

Really? Remind me never to run for local office in Kansas City.

Honorable mention to Ross Douthat, a very early Palin cheerleader. He's changed his mind (e.g., Sarah The Unready, although AFAIK he hasn't voiced substantive criticism of McCain.

I just skimmed idiot Mr. Unsel's post so I missed the part where he praised Nixon for his racist appeals.

As Mr. Unsel points out, the Republicans haven't cared about the nation for 40 years - they've used racism, treason, lies, and whatever else they could to grab power and loot the treasury for all that it is worth.

They are, a tribe of thugs who literally hate America and its founding principles.

It will be a sad day in America if we are subjected to another four years of malice and incompetence.

The McCain camp has decided that America isn't ready for a man of color in the Whitehouse, therefore it doesn't matter what they say.

Mendacity trumps veracity.

In a way, we are going back to the days of slavery, to a time when folks believed the lie that blacks were inferior, not quite human.

When you dissect McCain's ads, this awful mindset does seem to be prevalent.

As we know, the blatant lie about blacks being subhuman was a bunch of crock.

Eating arugula also shouldn't disqualify Obama. I like the stuff.

The first member of the 'ordinarily Republican, but I hate McCain' club was probably Rex Nutting, the Washington editor of (the WSJ-owned) Market Watch.

His piece, goning back to August 8 (pre-Palin)
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/why-mccain-would-mediocre-president/story.aspx?guid=%7B4914192B%2D12AF%2D4623%2DAB18%2D5EFE91204B04%7D&dist=msr_3
Is still one of the best demolitions of McCain anywhere, and deserves being quoted repeatedly.

As for the people here who are assuming that Panicing will be an Olympic sport in 2012 and are practicing for the team, remember that
"A week is a long time in politics."

The Palin bubble only started sixteen days ago, and it is already beginning to run out of steam. There are a lot of people who pay attention to the NYT and that front-page article on her is devastating.

It's always amazing to see the lies and distortions that a formerly well-respected person and their campaign operatives, and their true believers will say in order to win an election at the expense of the actual truth:

The Clintons are racists.

Lobbyist contributions smell bad, contributions from the corporations that are the largest users of lobbyists - smells much sweeter.

Of course, by implication, Hillary is corrupt.

HRC shows of emotion are phony.

Says they'll vote against telecom immunity in FISA bill.

Obama is much more progressive even though he shares an identical senate voting record.

You've convinced me. I'm voting McKinney this time. She fights for the values that Obama supporters just give lip service to in order to win elections.

I finally "get it" about John McCain: it's not a case of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" in regard to the prevailing Republican power structure and tactics. He really does hate Bush, Rove, Christianists, etc. for the indignities he has suffered from them and for the stupid policies he criticized years ago. This is his revenge. McCain's mission is to destroy his party's brand from within. The lies, the visciousness, Palin -- these would have made sense if there had been even the tiniest sense of proportion, but the overkill gives away the game. McCain's disdain for what Republicanism has become (as well as his famous propensity for personal grudges) has led him to embrace his party's worst traits in pursuit of self-immolation.

Either that or he's senile.

I'm glad to learn of this 'enough' club, and I hope it's just not too little too late. The media needs 'to grow a couple" as bluntly stated in SNL's Hillary/Palin skit last night.

I just heard a democratic spokeswoman on CNN (in yet another stand-off between a republican talking head and a democratic one) utter another watered down, wishy washy, way too soft criticism: "Frankly" she began, "Palin just doesn't really represent what a lot of women voters want" (paraphrasing).

I had to turn the T.V. off.
Why not just SAY it?
Palin is ANTI-CHOICE!!!
As is McCain.

Why not just say she demonstrates extremist views on women's choice issues, on global warming and the like?!

Why not just stick to a few bullet points and then don't stray from there?

"Frankly, she really doesn't represent" talk belongs in a college lecture hall--not on CNN.

Nov. 5, 2008 NYTimes

Democrats rejoiced that the Weekly Standard has come out with a stinging editorial that denounces the tactics used by the soon to be President McCain to win the 2008 Presidential election.

Obama campaign issued a press release with quote from the editorial saying that they were right all along.

The Palin bubble only started sixteen days ago - Prup

The dismaying thing is that a liar with no credentials or interest in national or international policy can be associated with a bounce. To think that her son is heading to Iraq, and she was never even interested enough in the subject to know why we went to war.

It leads me to believe that either we're a nation of fools, or polls are being manipulated and used as marketing tools. My pro-Hillary and agnostic friends have certainly not added to this bubble.

So McCain is losing his 'base' in the media, I've not seen a nano's worth of evidence that these tactics are losing him support with wingnut redmeat voters.

This is EXACTLY how Bush got in the second time. He ran against reality. McCain might win this thing because Palin really pisses off Liberals, Progressives, and all the nervous nellys who care if the #2 slot is occupied by a 'qualified' person.

Really we all should be asking ourselves How do we beat the bitch?

And spare me the outrage, I'm a 50something white woman - Ms Palin is the person you never confide in, who will double cross you at the first opportunity, if there is anything at all in it for her. McCain is figuring out that all the empty celebrity stuff is really fun and so what, now the world knows his dirty secret. He betrayed his honor long ago and for many years hs just been a duplicitous opportunist with really serious power jones.

The Kansas City Star's Barb Shelly: "John McCain may win the presidency this way, but he will lose the respect he has acquired over the years."

via TPM:

Spokesman On McCain Strategy of Campaign Lies

From NBC's First Read ...

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said this to the Politico about the increased media scrutiny of the campaign's factual claims: "We're running a campaign to win. And we're not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it."

Respect has nothing to do with this. Winning uber alles. It doesn't matter what the R looks like that sits in the Oval Office. They would run a rabid bat if they thought it could win. This is the real McBush and the real RepubCo.

Check out Fiorina catapulting the propaganda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM1UuWsIbFc

Shorter Chicounsel: The GOP can't win without cheating, and I'm proud of it!

Shorter Chicounsel: The GOP can't win without cheating, and I'm proud of it!

Posted by: Gregory on September 14, 2008 at 3:03 PM

Which goes to show why you guys continue to lose elections. When the only rule is to win, there can be no "cheating" by definition because there are no rules to violate. Obviously, this would not include any illegal activity.

Besides, the GOP does not need to "cheat" to beat liberals. Simply telling the American people the truth about what it means to elect them into office is usually enough to carry the day. Just as it will be come this November.

what all this misses is the fact that obama cannot wait for the media to tell everyone in the country how full of shit mccain and palin are. if obama wants to win this election, he needs to make the case directly to the american people that mccain is blatantly lying. he needs to do it with video evidence, in ads that directly expose the lies and contradictions that mccain/palin spout every day. having newspapers do it, or even the mainstream media, just reinforces the right's sense of victimization, if they (the media) really do it in a substantial way at all. mccain is making blunder and blunder here, and obama's ads about mccain not knowing how to use email are not making him pay for it. at this rate, obama may still win, but it will be out of dumb fucking luck.

The McCain camp has decided that America isn't ready for a man of color in the Whitehouse, therefore it doesn't matter what they say.

In a way, we are going back to the days of slavery, to a time when folks believed the lie that blacks were inferior, not quite human.

When you dissect McCain's ads, this awful mindset does seem to be prevalent.

Posted by: Tom Nicholson on September 14, 2008 at 1:35 PM

That's it Tom. Nothing will bring those blue collar ethnic whites in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio to support Obama quicker than by calling them rasicts for not supporting him. lol

D'oh!! "racists"

And doncha just love seeing Ms. Palin head up to Alaska to see her son off to war (way to go kid...you make a great campaign prop) and realize that too many folks up there know the truth about her support for the Bridge to Nowhere to try and claim she was against it...so she drops it from her remarks.

But back in Carson City, NV it's right back in the text....even though the blatant lies involved have been exposed nationwide. The folks around McSame/Palin have tethered their campaign to just going flat out lies and hoping they can keep things close enough to eke out a victory.

We can only hope that the chorus of "They're lying to you!!!!" gets loud enough that suddenly every claim they make becomes tainted with the suspicion that you can't trust anything they say. We know that. Too many people don't....or choose to ignore it.

Bookman: "...and quite insulting to the intelligence of the American people." Big assumption there, Mr Bookman. In Carson City today, the crowd roared repeatedly "Drill, Baby, Drill" during Palin's appearance.

fantastic, chicounsel: you do recall that the nazis won an election, don't you? i mean a free one?

swine like you blithely pretend that al davis has settled the question of election ethics for all time, but he was talking about football, not america.

i am, of course, ignoring your poor grasp of history (you appear to know nothing of the southern strategy, for example, which is odd considering that in the 2004 election, the 13 states of the old confederacy were won by bush/rove by 5.5M votes while the other 37 states opposed the rightwingers by 2.5M) and your attempt to justify reagan's illegal actions....

EL, long ago and far away, barry goldwater won 40% of the vote in a much more liberal time: of course nearly half the country supports "drill, baby, drill:" nearly half the country will support any action that they perceive as pissing off liberals.

hence, chicounsel!

Any similar comments from CO, OH or NM? I will dig for Michigan editorials/comments. Also interested in IA, NH, MN, WI and PA for obvious reasons. Would be good to collect these put them together.

Since elections are won by the candidate who has the most newspaper columnists on his side, we have nothing to worry about.

I mean, c'mon. Isn't it obvious yet that McCan't is a front for the Palin presidency? That seating the new American antichrist on the unitary throne is less a matter of McCain's newfound soullessness than of the concretization of Cheney's shadow office? McCain, like Powell before him, will be the good soldier and take one for the team. Plus, as enfeebled as he is, he will get the title if not the power, a title he clearly wants very, very much. McCain is visibly feeble; he can barely track his day to day experience; he doesn't know Sunni from Shi'a; he publicly lies like a drug addict jonesing for a fix and then lies about lying; he's elitist, dishonest, and ridiculously out of touch with not only America, but with his own thoughts. How pathetic and frail that a person's (McCain is hardly a man) narcissistic ambitions for adulation leverage him into such a Faustian bargain with a viciously predatory neoconservative machine and its vampiric vagina dentata. Oh, well, I guess he's used to taking his orders from emasculating female overlords.

It's heartening so many pundits actually "get it" about Palin and McCain. But we may still get Sarah as President. Some articles are mentioning McCain's age and bouts with cancer, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that both his father and grandfather (those two admirals) died of heart attacks at younger ages than McCain is now. The father died at age 70 and the grandfather died in his late 60's. Medically a history of heart attacks that run in the family is significant. Heart attacks run in my family and every doctor I have had, as I moved from one state to another over a lifetime, has asked that question (i.e. has anyone in your family died of a heart attack?) when the answer is yes, the doctor is especially careful of possible signs. You might want to check with the medical profession and see just what the odds are that McCain is ripe for a heart attack. I also note the information from a fellow POW that the 600 POWs from the VietNam war are dying at a faster rate than their fellow warriors. There's something about being a POW that undermilnes health apparently. I wonder why.

I'm glad to learn of this 'enough' club, and I hope it's just not too little too late. The media needs 'to grow a couple" as bluntly stated in SNL's Hillary/Palin skit last night.

I just heard a democratic spokeswoman on CNN (in yet another stand-off between a republican talking head and a democratic one) utter another watered down, wishy washy, way too soft criticism: "Frankly" she began, "Palin just doesn't really represent what a lot of women voters want" (paraphrasing).

I had to turn the T.V. off.
Why not just SAY it?
Palin is ANTI-CHOICE!!!
As is McCain.

Why not just say she demonstrates extremist views on women's choice issues, on global warming and the like?!

"Frankly, she really doesn't represent" talk belongs in a college lecture hall--not on CNN.

Posted by: on September 14, 2008 at 2:17 PM

Okay, two questions for you -- and to make things clear, I'm in the Obama camp:

1. Why can't you say the word "abortion," instead of hiding behind the stupid euphemism "choice"? It's as inane as someone saying they're "pro-life" while backing capital punishment.

2. Why didn't you have the courage to leave your name and/or e-mail?

vincent, i can't speak for the anonymous poster, but the answer to your first question is that there is no reason to use the word "abortion:" the issue at hand is not what palin thinks about abortion, it's what she thinks about choice.

she favors it when her child is doing the choosing; she doesn't favor it in other circumstances.

the majority of american women do not agree with that.

Chapman says "So he has chosen to smear his opponent with ridiculous claims that he thinks the American people are gullible enough to believe."

And therein lies the problem....there are too many Americans who will/do believe everything McCain/Palin and the Repliars say...ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes.

Here's is a particularly strong denunciation, titled "Where has McCain's honor gone?", from a Seattle Times columnist: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2008178468_danny14.html

Seattle Times is relatively conservative by Seattle standards, so it is a delight to see their columnists waking up to reality.

Late to comment but hope others see this:

McCain would rather "start" a war than lose an election...and he almost did...would have too if he thought he could have gotten away with it. He's a real danger to America and even supporters in the media are starting to see how manipulating a character this phony is and would do anything to get elected, placing his own ego above the good of the county.

Vincent***"...1. Why can't you say the word "abortion," instead of hiding behind the stupid euphemism "choice"? It's as inane as someone saying they're "pro-life" while backing capital punishment..."

Wrong: Pro-choice menas having the right to choose...it's a "right " to "Choose". It's not pro-abortion. It is a legal right to choose which comes with a lot of responsibility for making a choice...keeping abortions legal(health of mother, incest, rape etc.), safe (because it isn't done in a alley) and rare (because that right to choose comes with education, job training, medical care,adoption, protection etc) which would not be offered if the choice of an alternative wasn't legal. Pro choice is not pro abortion since that is only one alternative. Pro-life is a republican vote getter with no basis in actuality that is not hypocritical.

CORRECTIONS...BUSH DID NOT GET ELECTED FOR EITHER TERM...APPOINTED ONCE BY THE SC....FLIPPED VOTES (we now have the evidence)AND STOLE THE SECOND TERM. HE WAS NEVER ELECTED.

He would have lost to Kerry in a fair election so quit telling us "this is how Bush got elected" crap because he was NEVER elected. Neither will McCain be elected...his only chance is to steal it which is exactly what he is in the process of doing. Poll "watchers" challenging minority voters or those likely to vote democratic should be eliminated from the scene as soon as they are observed. Time to fight back for our democracy.

I agree with bjobotts on the term abortion. I refer to myself as pro-choice, not pro-abortion, because for me it is about choice. I may not choose to have an abortion if I were pregnant, but that doesn't mean I don't want other women to have the choice. Abortion is just one option, but it should be the pregnant woman (and whomever else she deems important in the decision-making process) making the choice, not some politician.