These guys really do think we are stupid:

John McCain’s campaign manager says he is reconsidering using Barack Obama’s relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright as a campaign issue during the election’s closing weeks.

In an appearance on conservative Hugh Hewitt’s radio program, Davis said that circumstances had changed since John McCain initially and unilaterally took Obama’s former pastor off the table. The Arizona Republican, Davis argued, had been jilted by the remarks of Rep. John Lewis, who compared recent GOP crowds to segregationist George Wallace’s rallies. And, as such, the campaign was going to “rethink” what was in and out of political bounds.

Is there anyone out there who honestly thought these shitbirds were not going to trot Wright out the last two weeks? Anyone? And that the justification for it is what someone else said, not the Obama campaign, is just priceless.

I have said this over and over and over again- the McCain campaign is being run by wingnut bloggers.

By all means, fellows, blow the last bit of your budget in the last two weeks of advertising on Rev. Wright. Please. Thank goodness none of the clowns in the McCain campaign have heard of Diamond and Bates.

First Dude in front of a rally attendant holding a sign that says “Charles Manson was a community organizer.” Classy.

Cause:

John McCain, third debate: We need to know the full extent of Senator Obama’s relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy. The same front outfit organization that your campaign gave $832,000 for “lighting and site selection.” So all of these things need to be examined, of course.

Effect:

An ACORN community organizer received a death threat and the liberal activist group’s Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized Thursday, reflecting mounting tensions over its role in registering 1.3 million mostly poor and minority Americans to vote next month.

John McCain is so concerned about domestic terrorism, he and his campaign are trying to create a bunch of them.

(via)

Cause:

Text from McCain Robo-calls

“You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home, and killed Americans,’’ a McCain robo-caller tells voters. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country.”

“I’m calling on behalf of John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in the Illinois Senate opposed a bill requiring doctors to care for babies born alive after surviving attempted abortions—a position at odds even with John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama and his liberal Democrats are too extreme for America. Please vote—vote for the candidates who share our values.’‘

Effect:

John McCain’s respectful campaign.

Keep that in mind the next few weeks while you read right-wing blogs complain about the media treatment of Joe the Plumber, who was thrust onto the national stage by McCain. The “I am Joe” campaign may be the lamest thing, ever.

The Alaska Daily News comes out swinging:

Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Legislature’s Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.

She claims the report “vindicates” her. She said that the investigation found “no unlawful or unethical activity on my part.”

Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian.

Page 8, Finding Number One of the report says: “I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.”

In plain English, she did something “unlawful.” She broke the state ethics law.

Well, yeah. I have to admit that of all the things that have happened the last eight years, Palin’s response the other day still stands out to me. At least the Bush administration paid lip service to appearances and couched their lies in bullshit in an attempt to confuse people. Palin would have none of that- she just came out and flat out denied what the report said. It was and is stunning.

In other news, via Andrew Halcro, Walt Monegan is, as Halcro notes, returning fire:

In a bold move, former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan filed a request with the personnel board on Monday for a “Due Process Hearing To Address Reputational Harm”, inflicted by Governor Sarah Palin.

Monegan’s attorney Jeff Feldman wrote in his filing that while Monegan does not contest the goveror’s right to discharge him from his position as commissioner, the governor is not entitled to make untrue and defamatory statements about her reasons for discharging him.

You can read the request here (.pdf), and, as always, this is good news for John McCain.

Also in the WaPo, David Broder goes to some suburbs of Philly in which support for Hillary was massive, and discovers that McCain may be in deep trouble:

The striking shift in Montgomery County, often a bellwether, makes McCain’s task of recapturing Pennsylvania from the Democrats look almost like Mission Impossible.

***

Ann Marie Cutler, another Clinton primary voter, admits that she still has “some doubts about Obama in terms of experience,” but she is reassured by the fact that “he’s very bright.” She watched the vice presidential debate and was “sorely disappointed” with Palin. She “drops her g’s constantly,” Cutler said.

Said Marjorie Lukens, a registered Republican: “The thought of Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away is terrifying.”

***

Peter Wilde, a retired high school teacher who was working on his car on a sunny afternoon, said he has decided on Obama, but “I really like John McCain, and in any other election but this one, I’d vote for him. He’s a man of integrity and he speaks his mind.”

So, why Obama? “I think his tax plan is better for people like me, and after the last two weeks, my 401(k) is not in too good a shape.”

***

Debra Almack, an accountant and registered Republican, supported Mike Huckabee because “he is a person of character, not a politician.” After reading Obama’s memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” she decided that he, too, “has a lot of character. I know he has some liberal ideas, but I really think he’s pragmatic.”

At the time of the primary, Obama was fighting two foes: Clinton and the voters’ lack of familiarity with him. The Democratic National Convention and those ubiquitous ads have dealt with the latter problem, and Clinton herself was working the Philadelphia suburbs on behalf of Obama yesterday.

In early September, Obama opened a storefront headquarters not far from the library where I was interviewing voters—one of three such offices in Montgomery County alone. The day after I visited, a platoon of New York volunteers was arriving to help local supporters canvass the same neighborhoods.

It’s hard to see how John McCain can overcome these odds in Pennsylvania.

I have my hands on this secret video of a McCain campaign strategy session in Pennslyvania:

The guy you love to hate and hate to love chimes in on the McCain/Palin ticket with his usual flair:

Last week’s so-called town-hall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience. McCain occasionally remembers to stress matters like honor and to disown innuendoes and slanders, but this only makes him look both more senile and more cynical, since it cannot (can it?) be other than his wish and design that he has engaged a deputy who does the innuendoes and slanders for him.

***

I suppose it could be said, as Michael Gerson has alleged, that the Obama campaign’s choice of the word erratic to describe McCain is also an insinuation. But really, it’s only a euphemism. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out. The train-wreck sentences, the whistlings in the pipes, the alarming and bewildered handhold phrases—”My friends”—to get him through the next 10 seconds. I haven’t felt such pity for anyone since the late Adm. James Stockdale humiliated himself as Ross Perot’s running mate. And I am sorry to have to say it, but Stockdale had also distinguished himself in America’s most disastrous and shameful war, and it didn’t qualify him then and it doesn’t qualify McCain now.

The most insulting thing that a politician can do is to compel you to ask yourself: “What does he take me for?” Precisely this question is provoked by the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin. I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party’s right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama’s position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.

That will leave a mark.

The first half hour of Countdown tonight was the most fun I have had with my clothes on in years. Watching Shuster, Alter, and O’Donnell chronicle McCain’s attempted walkback of the mob, knowing full well that he once again undercut his campaign, as they just upped the ante on the crowd’s behavior by defending them, and while knowing the RNC has an ad out pushing the Ayers nonsense, was just glorious. These incompetent boobs have themselves twisted up into a knot and backed into a corner, with nowhere to go and the election two weeks out and Independents and moderates looking at the McCain campaign like they are junior brownshirts.

Then, when it was flashed across the screen that the Troopergate report has been released and it was determined Palin abused her authority, it was like David Shuster winked at me and it sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around my living room.

I need a shower and a cigarette.

*** Update ***

Reformers!:

“Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: To get Trooper Michael Wooten fired,” said the report, which was issued in Anchorage.

A break from the same old politics:

Finding Number One

For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides

The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.

Maverick!

And might I add, BUSH IN A SKIRT.

John McCain, in his interview with Charlie Gibson, hiding behind the words of yet another woman in order to advance his smears:

MCCAIN: Again, two things I’ve never been accused of lacking. And one is passion, and the other is courage. I mean, I can accept a lot of the other criticisms. It didn’t come up in the flow of the conversation. But it did come up, and I pointed out that he asked for $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in his hometown of Chicago.

And coincidentally the guy who was the chairman of that organization pledged to raise $200,000 for his campaign. His record is replete of requests for pork barrel, unnecessary, wasteful spending. And I’ll let the American people make a judgment there.

GIBSON: Do you think the relationship with Ayers is a critical issue in this campaign or factor in this campaign?

MCCAIN: I think it’s a factor about Sen. Obama’s candor and truthfulness with the American people. That’s what I think it’s about. As I say, I don’t care about Mr. Ayers who on Sept. 11, 2001 said he wished he’d have bombed more. I don’t care about that. I care about him being truthful about his relationship with him. And Americans will care.

GIBSON: And you’re comfortable that this should be a focus in the last days of the campaign?

MCCAIN: I think it’s something that needs to be examined. Sen. Clinton said it should be examined during their primary and never was.

Yeah. It is the Cindy, Sarah, and Hillary show over at McCain HQ. A real profile in political courage, this McCain fellow.

The Dow is down 380, S&P down even more, and GM shares are at a 60 year low and team McCain, in their infinite wisdom, are focusing on smears about Bill Ayers. Obama is hammering McCain on health care and the economy.

Keep listening to the NRO freaks, McCain.

*** Update ***

Down 678. Christ. How many retirements got wiped out today? How many people aren’t going to be able to retire when they want to?

But, but, but…. BILL AYERS!

Wankers.

I am glad higher profile bloggers are beginning to recognize what I have been saying for days. John McCain is a coward:

He ever swaggered on for a couple days about how he was going to ‘take the gloves off’ when he met up with Obama in Nashville. But when the two of them were there in each others physical presence … nothing. By a myriad of gestures and reactions Obama owned him.

Nor is it a matter of shifting off the tactics, because as soon as McCain made his hasty retreat from the stage at Debate #2 he was right back at it. In every other aspect of life, high and low, refined and unlovely, we have a word for that kind of behavior: cowardice.

And now Obama can lightly taunt McCain with that very cowardice, his inability to just say it to his face. And if my take on the inner workings of McCain’s mind at the moment is right that should simply unhinge him even more.

John McCain is not man enough to own his shit. John McCain will not openly confront Obama with his smears and lies and innuendo. John McCain will not come out and talk about Ayers, he has to be asked. That is why he goes to places like Fox News, so he can be asked. What a coincidence.

John McCain is a coward.

John McCain would rather hide behind his wife and Sarah Palin than say it himself.

He would rather produce 2 minute ads that his campaign will never pay to air anywhere, and hope that the tire-swinging media will bring up the topic so he doesn’t have to do it himself.

John McCain just wants to throw shit out there, and “raise questions” about Obama, and hope his supporters connect the dots, because he is too much of a coward to directly push this toxic stew. He would rather hide behind right-wing bloggers, surrogates, and scummy websites staffed with wingnut welfare recipients like the NRO and the Weekly Standard.

John McCain had 90 minutes to bring this stuff up to Obama, to his face, and passed.

John McCain is a coward.

*** Update ***

Joe Biden is right:

“All of the things they said about Barack Obama in the TV, on the TV, at their rallies, and now on Youtube and everything else,” Biden said — referring to McCain and Palin tying Obama to Weatherman bomber Bill Ayers and accusing him of “palling around with terrorists.”

“John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him,” he said to cheers. “In my neighborhood, you got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.“

Coward.

*** Update #2 ***

And the nonsense starts. No one is debating that John McCain at one time exhibited great bravery in Vienam that I don’t think I would have possessed. How that changes what he has done the past few weeks, inciting his supporters to call Obama a terrorist while refusing to engage Obama directly on the matter, hiding behind surrogates and their sleazy innuendo, not mentioning the subject even though the gloves are “off” yet hoping upon hope that someone will ask him about it, is beyond me. It was one thing with Kerry- what McCain is doing now is dangerous, and he won’t even own it. Take that 2 minute commercial you released on the web, and pay for a national airing. If you want it out there, have it out there with your name on it and with your money backing it. Say something at the next debate. Own it. McCain is acting like a coward, and what he and his campaign are doing is a disgrace. Period.

And you can take extra special pleasure in the fact that Mr. Pent Up Jammies is chucking out the phrase keyboard commando.

More McCain handiwork.

So I guess the McCain campaign has decided in for a penny, in for a pound, and has gone full wingnut with Ayers (count the number of links to the NRO):

Several good things. First, after McCain loses in November, we won’t have to listen to the scumbag right claim he just didn’t hit Obama hard enough. Instead, maybe they honestly will reassess what they have become and determine that their party and their ideology is utterly bereft of ideas. While I am rooting for Obama, believe me, I want a reality based and decent opposition party. After some soul-searching, maybe the GOP can reconstitute themselves and fill that role while they convince the American public that they deserve another chance at leadership.

Second, I will no longer have to listen to certain old friends and, in one case, a member of my family, pretend that McCain is running an honorable campaign. The McCain campaign has now sunk to the putrid depths of the Bush 2000 crowd and beyond, and it is to the point it can not be argued. Those shouts at McCain/Palin rallies of terrorist, treason, kill him, and off with his head all have a direct line back to the McCain/Palin campaign. They can not be denied. While there may still be some dim bulbs who need to see some burned effigies and more overt incitements to violence, the rest of us can clearly see the connection here. John McCain may have bear-hugged George Bush in the past, now he is passionately tongue-kissing Karl Rove.

Finally, if by some freak act of nature, the McCain campaign does win, he will be the most ineffective President ever. Remember in the primaries, when Rahm Emmanuel said the following:

“The way the loser loses,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who is close to both candidates but has made no endorsement, “will determine whether the winner wins in November.”

While that was certainly the case, it is also true that how the winner wins will help determine how effective they will be as President. If McCain wins this way, the atmosphere in Washington will be toxic. Although the country need strong leadership right now, at least we can count on a Democratic party that will strongly oppose the bad ideas and failed policies of the third Bush term that McCain will represent.

And there it is. The descent of McCain into the sewer of American politics is now complete. This is not an honorable man, this is not a decent man, this is not a good man. He may have been a war hero once, but no longer will that provide cover for his despicable behavior. John McCain is a disgrace to the country he claims to love.

*** Update ***

And don’t be confused. This is a 1:40 second web ad, and McCain has neither the money nor the balls to ad it nationally in any meaningful manner. Again, this is the guy who spent 90 minutes on stage with Obama and did not once bring it up. He is a coward. This ad has two target audiences- the first is the cable news bobbleheads, hoping that this will dominate the news cycle and the ad will get some free play. It will probably be successful in that regard, but with the DOW and S&P tanking again, will simply work against him as it advances the Obama narrative that McCain is out of touch.

The second target audience is these guys:

And they are already beyond hope.

Via Oliver, this snippet from an Obama interview with Charlie Gibson:

GIBSON: Change the subject for a moment. John McCain has unloaded on you in the last 72, 96 hours as has Sarah Palin. McCain is saying, essentially, we don’t know who Barack Obama is, where he came from. I’m an open book, he’s not.

OBAMA: Right.

GIBSON: Were you surprised, A, that he didn’t bring it up last night at the debate and use that line of attack? And, B, since you must have prepared for it, what were you going to say?

OBAMA: Well, I am surprised that, you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face.

But I guess we’ve got one last debate. So presumably, if he ends up feeling that — that he needs to, he will raise it during the debate.

The notion that people don’t know who I am is a little hard to swallow. I’ve been running for president for the last two years. I’ve campaigned in 49 states. Millions of people have heard me speak at length on every topic under the sun. I’ve been involved now in 25 debates, going on my 26th. And I’ve written two books which any — everybody who reads them will say are about as honest a set of reflections by, at least, a politician as are out there.

Actually, no, he won’t bring it up to your face. As I noted Tuesday after the debate, it really does appear that behind all his bluster and tough guy talk and promises to hunt down bin Laden and kill him with his bare hands, it turns out that McCain isn’t as brave as he wants you to think. He won’t man up and own his smears, he won’t say these things to your face, and he will not confront you. Instead, he and the mean girl will pass notes in class and write nasty things about you on the bathroom walls.

With Bush we got the brain-dead bravado of “bring it on” and “you’re either with us or against us,” and with McCain/Palin we get two schoolgirls trash-talking in the hallway behind your back. McCain is just lucky he is no longer in the Naval Academy.

Sarah Palin, today:

Survey says:

CNN:Who did the best job in the debate?
McCain® 30
Obama (D) 54

CBS: 39 percent of the uncommitted voters surveyed identified Barack Obama as tonight’s winner; 27 percent said John McCain won, while 35 percent saw the debate as a draw.

SurveyUSA (WA) Of debate watchers:
* 54% say Obama was the clear winner.

• 29% say McCain was the clear winner.
• 18% say there was no clear winner.

Delusional.

(Thanks to Jed for the video)

A quick story. When I was an undergrad a number of years ago, along with the GI Bill from active duty and the National Guard check I got for monthly drill, I also paid my way through school by being a doorman at a bar and working at a clothing store. This was around 1993-1994, and we sold a variety of stuff- Polo, Quiksilver, Birkenstocks, Mossimo, and one of the big sellers at the time was Tommy Hilfiger. Tommy was huge in a college town, even though the shirts were really expensive for the time – 42 bucks or more for a short sleeve collared Tommy. But they were the “in” clothing here in WV, and people paid top dollar for it for a while (and it was probably “in” here in WV years after it was popular in metropolitan areas).

After a while, sales of Hilfiger slowly tapered off, until the only people interested in the brand were interested in the cheaper t-shirts. The bigger ticket items didn’t sell anymore, and it was a different, more downscale clientele that were interested in the Hilfiger. By around 1996-1997, the bottom had fallen out, and the only people interested in Hilfiger anymore looked like the folks from this video that Sullivan has linked to:

It is safe to say that when these folks walk into your store looking for a Hell-fag-er t-shirt, the brand saturation of the American public is complete.

The same goes for the nonsense about Barack “Hussein” Obama at recent McCain/Palin campaign events. While it is certainly annoying, and it most definitely is not an accident, I have a hard time imagining that this nonsense will really have any impact on the race. After five million chain emails from right wing dads across the nation, thousands of blog posts by the folks like NoQuarter and the Free Republic and elsewhere, daily announcements on talk radio, everyone on the planet is pretty much aware that Obama’s middle name is Hussein. Those people who are not going to vote for Obama because his middle name is Hussein are already dressed head to toe in Tommy Hilfiger, if you will, and the market has bottomed out.

Personally, I am hoping that someone introducing McCain accidentally sees Jesse Taylor’s fake birth certificate and will call him “B-Rock the Islamic Shock Hussein SuperAllah Obama.” That would be funny. To me, the accusations of terrorist coddling and hating on the troops are a different matter, but at this point, the Hussein nonsense is accomplishing nothing but pushing the middle more towards Obama, firing up the Democratic base, and making it easier to pick out the culprits for de-licing, a hot meal, and re-education once the Obamanation Unitarian Jihad is complete on November 4th (I kid).

*** Update ***

Best comment about the above video:

Ah, the quiet dignity of small town Americans.

Heh.

“Across this country, this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners and the same standards of clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent.”