Have they forgotten that Stephen Colbert already told us that the truth has a liberal bias?

I predict that "in the tank" will now supplant "thrown under the bus". Well, it was time for something new.

There's only one word that comes to mind when I think of that phone call:

Sloppy

As has been pointed out, there are plenty of ways Schmidt could have made the points he wanted to without lying, but he was too lazy to do so.

They have absolutely zero respect for the press and even less for the truth.

Obama's new bumper sticker: Obama08 - in the tank for truth

>The McCain campaign worldview summarized in just five words -- if you care about reality, you're necessarily biased.

I assume the five words are "You are in the tank", but the above sentence reads a little awkwardly.

Just be careful. Remember what being "in the tank" did to Michael Dukakis.

How about a perfectly good fantasy metaphor that George Carlin loved - "down the tubes" - (Carlin: "Where are these tubes? And why always down the tubes, never up the tubes?") like where the McCainPalin ticket is going now through November?

Schmidt hates talking to the media. Guess it's easier to crank out the Playdoh Fun Factory lies when you not under scrutiny. For all he disavows being Rove, he is Rove Jr. Wonder how many cars he has?

America, for the most part is tired of being lied to. We've had 8 years of that already. We have used car salesman running the country. ENOUGH!

So, we've got McCain/Palin who will not speak to the press or even a bipartisan group of citizens and is increasingly unwilling to face scrutiny of any kind. We've got Davis and Schmidt, campaign surrogates who lie habitually and then readily admit that, if you see past their lies and uncover the truth, it's the result of some sort of liberal bias. And you've got a Republican base who absolutely refuses to accept that fact is truth, but insists that message is truth instead. As long as they've got a weak but plausible talking point to repeat, they are happy to vote for an emperor who has no intention of wearing clothes, real or imagined.

What is this? High school? Or the fall of the Rome?

It's the laager mentality taking over the tiny conservative brain. They sense impending loss, so they are circling the wagons and fervently inventing fantasies of persecution.

Look shortly for occasional witch-hunts within their ranks -- enemies discovered within who are insufficiently pure, or who are accused of consorting with the numerous and awful enemies without (that's us) -- followed by ceremonial damnations and castings-out. Congresspersons who lose their races (obviously insufficiently pure, and possibly the objects of the sky-god's wrath, very bad to have around), commentators who utter blasphemies, apostates who seek compromise -- all will be thrown to the wolves (us again) as the True Believers re-purify the party in the flame of perdition.

Damning the media is just a standard invocation. Worse is to come.

Questioning the candidate

Enemy of the candidate

Enemy of the state.

I think WaPo got the message and decided to comply. In "factchecking" Obama's ad about how McCain wants to deregulate the healthcare industry like "we" did with banking, WaPo points out that the McCain quote referenced was in the "obscure journal Contingencies". Then when the ad quotes "prescription for disaster" from the Boston Globe, WaPo feels the need to tell us it is actually from their "liberal editorial page:. Beyond that WaPo simply feels that since McCain's quote is "subject to interpretation", Obama has an obligation to make assumptions in a light most favorable to McCain.

What is this? High school? Or the fall of the Rome?

Fall of Rome, but less fun.

Re: above

What is this? High school? Or the fall of [the] Rome?

[sigh]

I see a scant sliver of TV campaign advertising. One ad portrays McCain as "the same" as Bush, an extension of his reign. It wraps with an image of Bush and McCain beside each other (on the White House grounds somewhere?) waving to the press and assembled crowd. One image I never see used is the iconic picture of McCain with his arms wrapped around Bush, seemingly holding on for dear life, reminding me of a confused, panicked little boy that's just been reunited with Daddy after having been separated in the local mall. It also portrays McCain as a pathetic toady, not wanting to appear as anything but nearly conjoined with Bush. Why isn't this image used in Obama's advertising? Is it but it's in ads I don't see? Anyone see it used?

Well, since history repeats itself only as a farce - it's the farce of the fall of Rome.

Yet still a fall.

Keep those lies and innuendoes coming McAce. You to "Snowjob Squareglasses" (lifted, but quoted as such). No news reporting will tear their lemming-lioke supporters and the closeted bigots, but at very least, the news will remember , if they win, that America elected a bunch of liars. Too bad they didn't bring the last election to this level of scrutiny. Better late than never, but by turning a blind eye last time has cost this Republic much, maybe too much.

You know a country is in trouble when they place hope with a clueless VP who when she opens her mouth, and id not lying, challenges her constituents to "stump the P" but never allows it to happen.

Obama and Biden should hold a joint news conference and call them what they are: both liars and panderers who have placed the security of this nation second to their own blind ambitions. Then ask for questions from the assembled press.

Worse is to come

Damn straight, the fever pitch is but a weary warning; all manner of ugliness has just been declared viable material for the McCaniac campaign. So much for any honesty and integrity but I must also state, Congratulations President Barack Obama! In the real world there is no time or stomach for feigning petty grief or pouting over soft glove attacks when your constituents and general citizenry are losing their ass(ets/es).

Where is Jeff Gannon when you need him?

"Perfect. The McCain campaign worldview summarized in just five words -- if you care about reality, you're necessarily biased. You are either with McCain or against him, and if you notice McCain's campaign straying from the truth, you're obviously the enemy.:

George Will (of all people!)has some very interesting observations about the McCain worldview in his column this morning. Apparently McCain has become too scary for Will to condone any longer.

http://tinyurl.com/4fqsn9

One image I never see used is the iconic picture of McCain with his arms wrapped around Bush, seemingly holding on for dear life, reminding me of a confused, panicked little boy that's just been reunited with Daddy after having been separated in the local mall. It also portrays McCain as a pathetic toady, not wanting to appear as anything but nearly conjoined with Bush. Why isn't this image used in Obama's advertising? Is it but it's in ads I don't see? Anyone see it used?

They might be saving it for the home stretch.

It's been a consistent pattern with the McCain campaign -- these guys lie, even when the truth is just as good.

Well, sure. That way they can tell right away which media outlets (*cough*Faux*cough*) are friendly to Republican propaganda and which show "liberal media bias" -- i.e., a willingness to identify an obvious lie. They then reward the former with "access" and punish the latter.

Shorter GOP: But you've bought our lies for years! This is so unfair!

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias". S. Colbert.

I don't agree that the truth could have worked just as well here because the truth really isn't such a big deal. Does it really matter that Biden's son once worked for a bank? Is that supposed to be damaging information? Is the fact that Obama held a meeting at Ayer's house 13 years ago (a factoid which has actually been reported fairly extensively) supposed to amount to some incredibly damning charge?

No. Schmidt went to lies because the truth does him no good. Despite the idiotic howlings of right wingers and the Noquarter bunch, a lot of reporters have spent a lot of time and ink to basically discover that there really is nothing there with Ayers and Rezko. Biden's ties to the banking industry are pretty run of the mill relationships for a Senator in a state that has a lot of banks. If they want to go after them for this kind of stuff, more power to them.

Editor and Publisher cites this statement by McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt in response to an NYT article exposing the lobbying background of McCain campaign manager, Rick Davis:

Schmidt: "We are first amendment absolutists on this campaign and the press and everyone who wishes to cover this race from a blogosphere and media perspective is constitutionally protected to write whatever they want. But whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization.

"It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Gov. Palin and excuses Sen. Obama. There is no public vetting... there is no level of outrage directed at his deceitful ads... This is an organization that is completely and totally 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate.... Everything that is read in the New York Times should be evaluated by the American people from that perspective.

"That, it is an organization that has made a decision to cast aside its journalistic integrity to advocate for the defeat of one candidate, in this case, John McCain, and the election of another, Barack Obama."

Everyone, everyone is against them.

You know its bad when Steve Schmidt has to get out of his crypt and address the unwashed. Their internals must be screaming.

By the way, I am so in the tank. Obama/Biden 08

And you've got a Republican base who absolutely refuses to accept that fact is truth, but insists that message is truth instead. As long as they've got a weak but plausible talking point to repeat, they are happy to vote for an emperor who has no intention of wearing clothes, real or imagined.

Word. Just look at the jackasses who paraded in here with the "CRA is repsonsible for the financial meltdown" talking point -- merely repeating the talking point on the same thread that debunked it!

After working the refs (and revving its know-nothing base) with whining about "liberal media bias," the Republican Party is now making it official that if you acknowledge a blatant lie, you're "in the tank" -- i.e., biased. We've seen this for some time -- Rush Limbaugh, Faux News, the conservative blogosphere -- but the modern conservative movement demands that the media be nothing but a propaganda outlet for the talking point of the day, regardless of its relationship to facts or yesterday's talking point.

The Soviet Union fell because they couldn't keep pretending that 2+2==5, that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia and that the last Five Year Plan was overfilled. The modern Republican Party will always have its hard core of faith-based cranks, but it'll fall for the same reason.

I guess Davis is trying to stay away from the Keating scandal by diverting the lies elsewhere.

What's simultaneously scary and discouraging is that for so many people the Republican lies are perfectly fine. Conservatives don't want to be troubled by anything that upsets what they already know, even if what they know isn't real.

Tell Republicans their party has socialized the capital markets and they say Democrats forced them to do it. Tell them the commander of our forces in Afghanistan is calling for a new approach for defeating the resurgent Taliban ("we can't kill our way out of this struggle") and they say Democrats are soft on terrorism. Tell them Republican-led spending and tax cuts have driven deficits to record levels and they say the economy isn't performing up to its potential because of Democratic-backed regulations. Of course, it goes without saying that creationism and ID must be taught in the schools, which may explain the Republican aversion to empiricism. Empiricism is treated like a liberal plot, which probably explains why they don't want it in the schools.

Even in the face of the trillion dollar capital market failure half of America's population vehemently clings to this flag-free-market-and-Jesus economic and social ideology. What does that say about us? If Obama manages to win, it's still just a start.

Shorter GOP: But you've bought our lies for years! This is so unfair!

Schmidt definitely ran things with the confidence of someone who figured he could be like Bush: point blank lie and never get called on it. I think that he missed a lot of lessons of Bush, however-- first, Bush would be dishonest and abusive of the press, and then be their best friends. This created a feeling of "learned helplessness" within the press corps and a desperation among them to attempt to "get on his good side." Next, Bush was able to convince himself of a lot of the BS he was peddling. Schmidt knows he's lying, and it comes across that way, and the press can't help but call him on it, because they know he'll feel the sting.

I think that he missed a lot of lessons of Bush, however-- first, Bush would be dishonest and abusive of the press, and then be their best friends. This created a feeling of "learned helplessness" within the press corps and a desperation among them to attempt to "get on his good side."

I've speculated before that the flailing desperation of McCain's campaign indicates that his own internal polling must be grim indeed.

I wonder if the media growing a tiny bit of spine -- enough to call McCain on obvious lies, at least -- is an indication that the press knows he's a sure loser come November, and therefore he doesn't have the carrot of "access" to offer. The media knows the Democrats will be serving the cocktail weenies in 2009.

When [Ben] Smith asked about the conference call's errors, McCain campaign spokesperson told him, "You are in the tank."

McCain's campaign is accusing Ben Smith of being biased towards Obama?

Holy carp! How bad are those internal numbers?

I wonder if Steve Schmidt is so damn cranky because he knows he can't win. If McCain loses, he goes down as a big loser. If McCain wins, the win will be chalked up to a racist electorate because hot damn how else can you explain it? Either way, Schmidt himself won't be taking credit for the victory and will never be revered in the same loving tones as Karl Rove.

(Schmidt seems to be one of those foolish conservatives who actually believe the propaganda around the party. Note that even though Rove would do the "attack the media" thing, it was kind of subtle. It was just enough to push the media to be slightly biased towards Rove's pet project. And that's because Rove never actually believed that the media was the enemy - he just knew that he needed to posture the right way to get them to react to him like a dog obeying his master. Schmidt seems to think that the media actually IS the enemy, so he's lobbing rocks at it. Dumb move - Rove could make those journos sit up and beg. Schmidt is getting bit in the ass.)

"What is this? High school? Or the fall of the Rome?"

While Rome burned Nero could be found field dressing a moose.

Palin will meet world leaders at the UN. Don't you think the press will be asking about their impressions of Palin?

The proper response from Ben Smith and others put to the same challenge is: "No, I'm just not in the tank for *your* guy, and that's what you can't stand, isn't it?

tyrannogenius

Coda:

It's as if Republicans are threatened by the prospect of people having enough information to decide for themselves. The McCain campaign knows full well that whatever public assertions they make will be covered extensively by the press. They just want people to take their assertions at face value with no critical thinking.

Republicans act like information gatekeepers, autocratic information controllers. Question them and you are disrespectful, which for Republicans is contemptible. Citizens are supposed to "know their place." Just like in the military Republicans believe you're not supposed to question the senior officer. In that respect they are militarizing society, trying to break down individuality even when individual rights are the core of American democracy. We have forgotten our civics lessons in the face of waving "Country First" signs and choruses of "Freedom isn't free." McCain's "maverick" schtick is just a veneer of rebelliousness, not the real thing.

Republicans have become afraid of choice, individuality, weighing evidence, the will of the majority. Their philosophy has become "go along to get along." I think this partly explains why no one questioned Phil Gramm and his de-regulation supporters in the banking industry -- people were scared about upsetting the arrogant, haughty high priests of finance.

Next step: Throwing reporters off planes in mid-air.

Re Palin's UN visit: Surrounded by people from all over the world! The possibilities for osmosis are unlimited!!

The New York Times is trying to kiss and make up. McCain has "a scrappy style". Obama has "an uneven record".

Side by side, how sweet of them.

Who knew that George Will was totally in the tank for Obama?

Steve, does this get George admitted into the "Enough Club"?

Well it looks like the McCain people have finally taken the first step towards realizing that they can't lie with impugnity. These guys always hated the media and don't realize how much they screwed up by destroying McCain's goodwill with the media. And what's ironic is that it was because the media loved McCain so much that they believed they could get away with a all-lie campaign, and kept notching it up with every lie.

But even now, they still don't get it. They think they just need a stronger pushback and everything goes back to normal. But they've already burned that bridge and every pushback will just make the media push them harder. That's the thing about Republicans: The one tool in their toolbox is a hammer and when a problem arises, all they can do is just hammer harder and hope that it works. And while it often has in the past, this time, every swing just breaks the thing they're trying to fix.

Next step: Throwing reporters off planes in mid-air.

I nominate Kit Seelye, Nedra Pickler, Ron Fournier and John Solomon.

Where is Jeff Gannon when you need him? -chrisbo

Did you check under the Oval Office desk?

NYT had a decent response to McCain camp's crap attack:

"The New York Times notes that Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, "responded in a statement: 'The New York Times is committed to covering the candidates fully, fairly and aggressively. It's our job to ask hard questions, fact-check their statements and their advertising, examine their programs, positions, biographies and advisers. Candidates and their campaign operatives are not always comfortable with that level of scrutiny, but it's what our readers expect and deserve.'"