If Harry Reid tells him he needs to come into work during the most serious financial crisis since 1929, he'll do so.

Otherwise, he's doin' what he does best. Campaignin' for president. Talking about stuff.

Posted by: Ace at 01:42 PM | Comments (79)
Post contains 97 words, total size 1 kb.

Many seem to think this will help McCain politically.

Personally, I don't. Which doesn't mean I don't approve of his decision -- I do. This is important.

But I actually think this is a statesmanlike move without much of a political upside.

If anything, McCain needs campaigning more than Obama right now. Obama wouldn't mind keeping the campaign in stasis for a while. He's ahead. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:22 PM | Comments (107)
Post contains 524 words, total size 3 kb.

For some reason, FoxNews ran the slightly sanitized version of the smear video when Michelle Malkin was discussing it.

But that's not the video Ethan Winner & pals actually tried to astroturf -- which is actually here.

Also, the slightly-scrubbed video is now running on a site which seeks money to run smear videos as actual television advertisements.

Note: The theory that this is an Obama produced video, which was deemed too stinking of bad-faith lies to run and so was astroturfed via Winner, just got a tiny bit stronger.

Consider the second, somewhat softened dub represents an attempt to "rescue" the ad and make it less venomously dishonest.

It doesn't seem likely that famous DIY hobbyist astroturfer Ethan Winner would try to rescue this ad. What does he care about the ad's veracity? He wasn't standing behind it or labeling it as his own.

It seems more likely that this was an alternate Axelrod cut. It was still toxic in its dishonesty even in this softened incarnation, so they wrote it off as an official ad and sent over the first, worse version to Ethan Winner.

"3rd Party Producer"? Tipped the ad was submitted to the site by an unknown "3rd Party Producer."

Not Ethan Winner.

Hmmm....

Posted by: Ace at 01:03 PM | Comments (9)
Post contains 222 words, total size 2 kb.

Sullivan keeps writing Goldfarb demanding he provide proof Trig is Sarah Palin's son.

So Michael Goldfarb sent the emails to Howard Kurtz, who reprinted Sullivan's insanity for the world to see. Here are two of Sullivan's emails:

"I'm very sorry to say, it's come to this: can you confirm on the record that Trig Palin is Sarah Palin's biological son? . . . Since this is a crazy idea, it should be easy for you or someone to let me know, the most popular one-man political blog site in the world, what the truth is."

...

""I asked a simple question akin to asking whether you can confirm that the sky is blue. Here's the question in case it got lost: can you confirm on the record that Trig Palin is Sarah Palin's biological son? Can I please get a response of some sort, even if it is that you will not respond?"

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Sullivan titles his typically po-me post "The Crime of Committing Journalism."

Journalism. Since when were you ever a journalist, Sullivan? This has got to be the first story you've ever actually bothered to "pursue," in your own fashion.

By the way, Sullivan, Howie Kurtz is "committing the crime of journalism," too, by revealing your insanity to the world. That, my deranged idiot, is far more newsworthy a story than "proof" that Trig is Sarah Palin's biological son.

Insanity. Here's the Daily Dementia:

The Crime of Committing Journalism

I should reiterate two critical things: I have never claimed that Trig Palin is not Sarah Palin's biological son.

Bullshit, you have insinuated it two dozen times. Furthermore, I have seen emails in which you make it quite plain what you believe.

In fact, I have gone to enormous lengths never to say that, going silent for two days to figure it out and decided to leave it alone. Why? Because I had no proof of anything, only questions.

You went silent because gay gossip site and antisemitic conspiracy newslettter The Atlantic told you stop with the Trig Trutherism, because you were embarrassing a once-reputable magazine. So you went into a snit-- a hissy-fit strike -- for two days.

Since then, I have raised legitimate policy questions about what is undisputed in the public record, but I have not made any statements of fact I do not know to be true. That's my job.

No, it's not. Is Chelsea Clinton actually Webb Hubbell's daughter? Rumors have swirled for years, and the resemblance is uncanny. But that doesn't mean that it's anyone's "job" to constantly flog this rumor.

But I also expected the McCain campaign to do their job and at some point to provide evidence or a public statement setting the record straight, which they could persumably very easily do.

Their job has nothing to do with reassuring paranoid schizophrenics.

So I waited three weeks, watched two interviews, scanned Nexis and Google for any confirmation of actual evidence, and then privately asked Goldfarb and two other people I know and like in the McCain campaign to confirm the evidentiary truth on the record. I did not raise this issue in public.

You've raised it in public over and over again, which is why gay gossip site and antisemetic conspiracy newsletter The Atlantic told you to stop.

I asked a question in private. But it has now been made public by Goldfarb and Kurtz, and since they are now in the public domain, here are the two emails I sent Goldfarb and he got Kurtz to reprint...

[emails already quoted above.]

You're lucky, Sullivan, they didn't print one of your ALL CAPS CONSPIRATORIAL LUNATIC EXCLAMATION POINT SCREED!!!! emails.

I got no response, so I let it drop.

No you didn't. You jump at any pretext to savage the Palin children and "raise questions" about her "bizarre" behavior.

Like everyone else, I have been trying to get some answers to some factual questions from the McCain campaign but they refuse to provide them.

No, you're asking insane questions no sane person asks. If Michael Goldfarb is gaslighting a lunatic for sport, well, maybe that's not nice, but I can hardly blame him for it.

But for the McCain campaign to go to these lengths, violating core confidentiality of private good-faith questions...

Did this cocksucker just accuse someone else of violating the standards of fair play and decency?

... is something that has never happened to me before in journalism. I am also amazed that a fellow journalist would publish such emails in full. But since this is now all in the open, you deserve to know what your blogger has been trying to do in private for three weeks: just get a factual answer to a factual question on the record.

They won't. They cannot take the time to confirm on the record that Trig is Sarah's biological son, but they will try to smear the person asking. What does that tell you?

It tells me you're 1) insane and 2) the laughingstock of the political world.

Revealed! Andrew Sullivan's Email Correspondence with the Blond Guy from 80's Synth Pop Group Wang Chung: more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (118)
Post contains 1159 words, total size 7 kb.

In honor of McCain's suspension of campaigning, I'll suspend for one second too.

Robert Downey Jr. has signed on to play Holmes in a Guy (Snatch) Ritchie film which will emphasize the character's pulp-hero action-adventure side. 10% less "three-pipe mystery" cogitating, 30% more swordplay and kicking ass.

Probably no getting tail, though. Holmes never gets tail and I'm not sure they can or would change that.

Also announced is a comedy to star -- wow -- Sascha "Borat" Baron Cohen as Holmes and Will Ferrell as Dr. Watson.

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Comments (43)
Post contains 112 words, total size 1 kb.

Just announced.

Eh. Part of that Country First thing.

Update: No, McCain has announced he is suspending his campaigning, whether Obama reciprocates or not. He's returning to DC to deal with the crisis.

He wants the debate on Friday delayed.

McCain says will suspend campaign to return to Washingon Thursday to help with bailout negotiations, asks that Friday debate with Obama be postponed so bailout negotiations can continue 2:51pm EDT

Thanks to DrewM and a host of morons.

Coming in through the comments: Obama is claiming it was his idea to suspend campaigning, but also that he's not suspending campaigning.

I guess he was for the idea before he was against it.

More: McCain believes that without his advocacy -- and Obama's -- the bail-out will not pass.

Posted by: Ace at 11:01 AM | Comments (241)
Post contains 160 words, total size 1 kb.

The media gets so angry at counties that aren't voting in favor of Obama they are driven to toss unprofessional insults at them.

The campaign even ran an early ad in this market emphasizing Biden's roots here. But those roots may not cure all in a region where Obama's top campaigners, a couple of popular Lackawanna County commissioners, received hate mail during the primary just for backing the Illinois senator. More than is sometimes acknowledged, residents say, this is a region wrestling with bitterness and backwardness, the kind that Aunie Frisch, who has Chinese ancestry, sometimes finds maddening.

Compare to the women of the Upper West Side who are exhibiting truly insane reactions to Sarah Palin.

"All of my women friends, a week ago Monday, were on the verge of throwing themselves out windows," an author and political activist, Nancy Kricorian of Manhattan, said yesterday. "People were flipping out. ... Every woman I know was in high hysteria over this. Everyone was just beside themselves with terror that this woman could be our president — our potential next president."

Ms. Kricorian allowed that she was among those driven to distraction, upon occasion, by Mrs. Palin's nomination. "My Facebook status last Monday was, 'Nancy is freaking out about Sarah Palin yet again,'" the writer said.

A posting on a New York-based Web site for women, Jezebel.com, spoke of unbridled anger. "What I feel for her privately could be described as violent, nay, murderous, rage," an associate editor at Jezebel, Jessica Grose, wrote just after the Republican convention wrapped up. "When Palin spoke on Wednesday night, my head almost exploded from the incandescent anger boiling in my skull."

That's from the conservative-tilting broadsheet The New York Sun.

Question: If the Washington Post is on a hunt for "bitter," "backwards" thinking voters, perhaps they can just call up their best friends and college classmates and run a story on them.

No interest? Of course not. They're voting the right way. It's only those who do not share the media's "Obama Compulsive Disorder"* who get this sort of treatment.

Threatening to kill yourself due to Sarah Palin? Confessing a desire to kill Sarah Palin? That's normal, and not "bitter" or "backwards" at all.

Also from Gergaghty: An ARG poll finds Obama ahead 50-46 in Pennsylvania... based upon their finding that 53% of those bitter, backwards Pennsylvanians are Democrats.

When more plausible voter break-downs are assumed, the situation changes just a little bit.

* "Obama Compulsive Disorder" was coined by someone else. Forget who. It's the opposite of Bush Derangement Syndrome. OCD is a psychological defect shared by most of the media to compulsively do whatever is necessary to elect The One.

Posted by: Ace at 10:39 AM | Comments (49)
Post contains 468 words, total size 3 kb.

Gallup has Obama maintaining his three point edge, Rasmussen has Obama up by 2, a fairly big shift since yesterday's track showed them tied.

A FoxNews poll (not yet included in the RCP average) has Obama up by six -- and, oddly, McCain under 40%. They show it 45-39.

The Washington Post poll showing Obama up 52-43 had an interesting party split -- 54% Democrats, 38% Republicans (with leaners). My takeaway? Obama's underperforming even given this enormously favorable sample.

Whatever the actual numbers are, there's a genuine though possibly quite modest and evanscent trend towards Obama, and he's probably up by 3-4 points at the moment. Partly this is due to the official end of Palinmania, at least among swinging voters, thanks the media's relentless 3 week campaign against her, and partly this is due to the economy, and the public's uninformed guess that any time there's some problem with Wall Street or finance, it must be because of the Republicans helping out their buddies.

They couldn't be more wrong, of course. The election will be won or lost based on McCain's effectiveness at reversing that built-in narrative.

Official Obama Campaign Website The New York Timesblog realizes this, of course, and is claiming that Rick Davis was paid by Freddie and Fannie to lobby for them through last month, an allegation the McCain campaign denies in the strongest terms.

Meanwhile, the New York Timesblog has never heard of Penny Pritizker, the Michael Milken of Subprime Mortgages, and Obama's National Finance Chair.

Nor have their world-class blog-on-paper posters (almost as good as the posters at the Huffington Post) stumbled upon the well-kept secret that Fannie and Freddie donated hugely to Democrats.

Incidentally, I don't know why McCain agreed to allow Friday's debate to shift from the economic agenda scheduled to the foreign policy agenda it will now explore. Seems like a huge error to agree to that change. He needs to reverse uninformed public opinion on this, and he gave up his highest-profile near-term chance to do so.

Protein Wisdom vs. the New York Timesblog: Good article.

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 AM | Comments (95)
Post contains 352 words, total size 3 kb.

John McCain and the New York Times are having a spat.

The New York Times has gone on record essentially claiming that McCain combines the worst social and economic policy features of Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin combined with the personality of Caligula, while also claiming that Sarah Palin has the moral compass of a crack whore and is so lacking in intellect that she needs to be reminded to breathe. Obviously I am paraphrasing a bit.

McCain Campaign Manager Rick Davis finally called the Times out by referring to them as a Obama advocacy group and said they should drop the pretense of journalism. So they did with this story yesterday:

WASHINGTON — One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. God I love anonymous sources

The disclosure undercuts a statement by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

...

They said they did not recall Mr. DavisÂ’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. DavisÂ’s firm, Davis & Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of Mr. DavisÂ’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis & Manafortfor the presidential campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder continues to benefit from its income. No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie MacÂ’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

The McCain campaign responded this morning by essentially calling the NY Times a bunch of stinking liars:

Today the New York Times launched its latest attack on this campaign in its capacity as an Obama advocacy organization. Let us be clear about what this story alleges: The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid by Freddie Mac until last month, contrary to previous reporting, as well as statements by this campaign and by Mr. Davis himself.

In fact, the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis -- weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual -- since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.

Further, and missing from the Times' reporting, Mr. Davis has never -- never -- been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.

Though these facts are a matter of public record, the New York Times, in what can only be explained as a willful disregard of the truth, failed to research this story or present any semblance of a fairminded treatment of the facts closely at hand. The paper did manage to report one interesting but irrelevant fact: Mr. Davis did participate in a roundtable discussion on the political scene with...Paul Begala.

While it's good to see a Republican standing up for himself in the press I don't think McCain can really win this fight. The Times can print anything it wants and since it is still considered a highly reputable journalistic organization it will get greeted with the presumption of credibility by most people. Any retractions, if they are forthcoming, will be issued sometime after McCain's death. But the higher probability is that the Public Editor in his role of discerner of truth for the masses will look at the reporting and declare that while it was false it served the purpose of bringing out important questions.

At that point we will all be struggling under the yoke of Obama's mandatory universal volunteer service and living off tree bark and saw dust soup so we won't really care.

Posted by: Open Blog at 05:47 AM | Comments (134)
Post contains 780 words, total size 5 kb.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:35 AM | Comments (24)
Post contains 8 words, total size 1 kb.