well what was she going to say? if she agrees with kristol it undercuts the entire mccain campaign. she threw him under the mccain train.

usually Pfotenhauer wears a nice plunging neckline to help distract us boys from the facts. she needed to go on Fox topless today.

Skimming over Kristol's piece this morning, it occurred to me that his underlying point is that McCain is a horrible manager who's hired lots of incompetents who are bad and their jobs and who has overseen a spectacularly dysfunctional, inept, bankrupt and disorganized campaign, whereas Obama is a great manager who has appointed competent people and oversees a well-running and well-funded campaign, and therefore we should....vote for John McCain.

Huh. If McCain can't even run his own campaign, how can he be expected to run the vastly more complicated United States government?

Me thinks the McCain team is taking Bush's "we create our own reality" thing waaaaay too far...

Or maybe someone dosed the water cooler at campaign headquarters.

Talk about no clear message, no clear direction--the McCain campaign has lost all of the 'straight talk wheels' off their bus and they're simply burning rubber now.

"Just when I thought this year couldn't get any stranger...."

Hey, there's still three weeks left. McCain should be able to squeeze in at least 10 flip-flops on the economy in that time. And threaten the invasion of at least five countries. And that's not even counting whatever weirdness the Palin family will put out. And Todd's looking pretty damn weird these days. If you don't think it's going to continue to get weirder, just wait until tomorrow. At this point, I'll be surprised if McCain doesn't punch Obama at the next debate.

This is supposed to be further evidence of McCain's maverick-nature or something. The ship is going down and they are still polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Saying that Kristol is sometimes not brilliant is the closest she has come to making an honest statement in six months.

The first dude is scheduled to hit northern Minnesota later this week. Maybe he'll follow that with a trip to Nome.

Billy is mad because he thinks that McCain would be fine if he would just do what Billy the Genius tells him to. Totally oblivious to the fact that McCain has already done pretty much everything Billy has suggested and it hasn't worked.

And McCain's people immediately leap to the standard defense: Anyone who disagrees with us in any way is an islamofascist commie Obama supporter.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Modern far-right Republicanism is not a political philosophy, it is a mental disease. Just go to a McCain/Palin rally and see for yourself. Or watch Fox News. Same thing.

These people are running the most comically incoherent, message-conflicted, schizophrenically-managed campaign in the last 100 years of American Presidential politics. As such it perfectly mirrors the unhinged and ideologically bankrupt condition of the contemporary "conservative" movement that controls the lurching, zombified GOP.

@Stefan - Right On

While a campaign is not a Presidency how canidates manage their campaigns can tell us something of how they will govern and their management style.

McCain seems to hire a lot of 'cronies', is a very reactive manager who lets events dictate his strategy, does not plan ahead (no transition team in place) and relies on his own instincts (even when proven wrong).

Obama by contrast seems to try and find smart people for his campaign, has incredible message discipline, modifies but does not abandon strategies in response to short term events, thinks strategically (he predicted McCain's current strategy near perfectly 3-4 months ago) and seems to listen to the smart people around him.

Kristol thinks The Maverick is running a bad campaign? Oh no! Cats and dogs living together!

Actually, to Republicans, a losing campaign is by definition a bad campaign, even if the campaign is doing its best but the candidates are proving themselves unelectable. It's accepted dogma for Republicans that they can run anyone with a pulse and win by throwing a sufficient quantity of mud.

These people are running the most comically incoherent, message-conflicted, schizophrenically-managed campaign in the last 100 years of American Presidential politics.

And yet 40-45% of the voters seem to find this appealing.

Not terribly surprising, given how surreal the campaign has been thus far. Besides, we all know they eat their own...

A bit off topic from this thread, but it strikes me so clear that if folks who were for Hilary and not for Obama at this juncture, then they are utterly racist.

Some indeed interpret that Hillary's health care policy proposal was much more socialist in nature than Baracks'. Elizabeth Edwards sure favored it over Obama's plan.

The fact that Hilary and Barack are actually very much on the same page with policy (and that in some instances, Hilary is more leftist) is not brought out nearly enough by journalists on these cable networks who are interviewing and giving solid time to these so called: 'Democrats for McCain'.

McCain doesn't know he's lost yet...

Ass Meet Hole in Ground

Mainstream neocons, like Kristol and Brooks, have been hedging their bets for some time. They are not as committed to conservative ideology as they seem, they just left their political home in the pragmatic center for the party that will be most likely to kill Arabs.

Neocons, like Brookings fellows and NYT/WashPost writers and editors, first hedged their bets with tepid support for Hillary (she was the more hawkish in Middle East policy). Now they are forced to see what kind of influence they can bring to bear on a Barack Hussein Obama administration.

They are rats, swimming in the open ocean, as their ship sinks on the horizon. Push them off, and let them die.

Nancy Pfotenhauer -- now there is one more person who I will feel relieved in not seeing for a long time after Nov. 5. Jesus! McCain picked some of the very worst spokespeople for his campaign. All these people knew was spin, taking the very worst lessons from the Bush years. I mean there can be smart spin, but the McCain campaign's spin was so damned stupid that it didn't take much thought to see through any of their bullshit. These peoples' heads should be hanging very low right now. To think that McCain would be using these same people to help reform Washington is a very, very sick joke.

And yet 40-45% of the voters seem to find this appealing.

40% of voters in this country would vote for a houseplant if it had the right letter next to his name. The houseplant wouldn't even have to campaign. (That's a party-neutral statement, BTW - 40% is about the floor for a Democratic Presidential candidate as well).

If George W "Miserable Failure" Bush were running this cycle, he'd STILL probably get a minimum of 40% of the vote. Despite his 25% approval rating and 60+% disapproval rating. Because that's how we roll in the US of A.

If McCain manages to push his floor below 40% on election day, I'll be shocked. Happy, but shocked.

I always knew Bill Kristol had to be a manchurian liberal just waiting for when he destroyed conservatism to show himself. That would explain all the crap he's been spouting for the last decade or so.

That would explain all the crap he's been spouting for the last decade or so.

At least twice that. He was Dan Quayle's "idea man".

First rule of the Kool-Aid:

If you are not with us, you are our enemy.

But it was following Kristol's advice that got McCain campaign in this situation to begin with. Just a week ago Kristol said exactly the opposite of what he says now. Blame damage rules.

Mainstream neocons, like Kristol and Brooks, have been hedging their bets for some time. They are not as committed to conservative ideology as they seem, they just left their political home in the pragmatic center for the party that will be most likely to kill Arabs.

Guys like Kristol and Brooks are committed to one simple overaching goal at heart: the protection of their celebrity status. And, like any fame-seeking celebrity, they therefore care far more about protecting and promoting their personal position than they do about any ideology. If (actually, when) McCain loses, look for a string of "he'd have won if only he'd listened to us we were right all along despite all written evidence to the contrary" articles from them.

Bill Kristol is on NPR's Talk of the Nation right now talking about McCain's campaign. Why does NPR give these Weekly Standard guys a forum? Please people, everybody who contributes to public radio, please send an email to NPR complaining about who they give Kristol and the Weekly Standard guys so much air time.

It's been pretty clear for some time now that Bill Kristol is in the tank for Obama. He refuses to bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's name more than three times per column.

Now exactly WHY would the Obama campaign WANT to have McC^nt fire everybody in HIS campaign?

Other than giving them another data point for the 'erratic' argument.

I read recently that Kristol was one of the driving forces behind the Palin nomination. Should he be complaining about McCain's actions?

Does anybody know if Dana Perino and Nancy Pfotenhauer were in the same AEI clone batch?

Same old repub response. You must love them, or they hate you.