“My friends” ;) ;)

Believe me, I used to believe the religious type were very dangerous, but now I need their vote, so “my friends”, now, in this time of fundamental assaults on the American Way of life, now is not the time to question what my personal views on anything are, what does that matter when there is so much evil in the world, believe me, I have looked into the eyes of Putin and saw only KGB, “my friends” those evil Russians still threaten everything we stand for, and bin-laden is still on the loose, and I, only I “my friends” know how to catch and kill him, but I will not tell you how unless you elect me first.

“My friends” it is time to put country before politics as usual, that is why I picked Sarah Palin as my VP b/c she can see Russia from Alaska and her foreign policy credentials rival perhaps even my own, and while I know we must not suffer witches to live, “my friends”, that is only religious gobbledygook, and I need this witch to win b/c she provides the perfect ointment to apply to the wounds of people who take their religion seriously, and anyway, we have all seen Palin exorcised of her witchy ways by that esteemed black witch doctor pastor Muthee. See “my friends” she even wears an Israeli flag pin from time to time, and isn’t she just so pretty anyway (if you saw her beauty pageant video you know what I mean!!!) and I know ya’all joe sixpacks know what I mean ;) ;).

Gosh darn “my friends” we simply cannot let those Georgetown cocktail party goers ruin this country even more than they have, I mean look at this financial crisis those doughfaced liberals have unleashed upon this nation. “My friends” we will also end the greed and corruption that made those money-grubbing Wall Street speculating jerks, who have colluded with those evil democrats, so rich at our expense. For the past thirty years, I allowed this evil greed to flourish, but now my friends, to coin an Obama, “enough”! Charles Keating has even volunteered to come out of retirement to eradicate this evil that pollutes the halls of Washington D.C. and Wall Street.

“My friends”, “my friends”, we cannot allow “that one” to smooth talk his way to our white house ;) ;)! Hockey moms of the world unite and let us destroy the evil in our midst as well as over there, in Irag, and Afghanistan, and North Korea, and Iran, and Russia, and . . . .

“My friends” now is not the time for universal health care, only privileged people like me get taxpayer funded health care their entire lives. We must fight, “my friends”, fight, and we can not afford those Marxist programs of those evil democrats, so after I buy up all of those bankrupt loans “my friends” we shall go to war, because only war can stimulate our economy, while it also promotes industry . . .

“My friends” bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Pakistan, come on “my friends” you too can sing with me just insert you country of choice!

“My friends” ;) ;)

:D

Revised version!

“My friends” ;) ;)

Believe me, I used to believe the religious type were very dangerous, but now I need their vote, so “my friends”, now, in this time of fundamental assaults on the American Way of life, now is not the time to question my lack of economic, domestic, or religious knowledge: knowledge and wisdom matter little when there is so much evil in the world! Believe me “my friends”, I have looked into the eyes of Putin and saw only KGB, and this evil must be destroyed! “My friends” the evil Russians threaten everything we stand for, and bin-laden is still on the loose, and I, only I “my friends”, know how to catch and kill him, but I will not tell you how unless you elect me first.

“My friends” it is time to put country before politics as usual, that is why I picked Sarah Palin as my VP b/c she can see Russia from Alaska and her foreign policy credentials rival perhaps even my own, and while I know we must not suffer witches to live, “my friends”, that is only religious gobbledygook, and I need this witch to win b/c she provides the perfect ointment to apply to the wounds of people who take their religion seriously, and anyway, we have all seen Palin exorcised of her witchy ways by that esteemed black witch doctor pastor Muthee. See “my friends” she even wears an Israeli flag pin from time to time, and isn’t she just so pretty anyway (if you saw her beauty pageant video you know what I mean!!!) and I know ya’all joe sixpacks know what I mean ;) ;).

Gosh darn “my friends” we simply cannot let those Georgetown cocktail partygoers ruin this country even more than they already have; I mean look at this financial crisis those doughfaced liberals have unleashed upon this nation. “My friends” we will also end the greed and corruption that made those money-grubbing Wall Street speculating jerks, who have colluded with those evil democrats, so rich at our expense. For the past thirty years I allowed this evil greed to flourish, but now “my friends”, to coin an Obama, “enough”! Charles Keating has even volunteered to come out of retirement to eradicate this evil that pollutes the halls of Washington D.C. and Wall Street.

“My friends”, “my friends”, we cannot allow “that one” to smooth talk his way to our white house ;) ;)! Hockey moms of the world unite and let us destroy the evil in our midst as well as over there, in Irag, and Afghanistan, and North Korea, and Iran, and Russia, and . . . .

“My friends” now is not the time for universal health care, only privileged socialists like me get taxpayer funded health care their entire lives. We must fight, “my friends”, fight, because we can not afford the Marxist programs of those evil democrats, so after I buy up all of those bankrupt loans, “my friends”, we shall go to war, because only war can stimulate our economy, while it also promotes industry . . .

“My friends” bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Pakistan, come on “my friends” you too can sing with me just insert your country of choice!

My admiral daddy and granddaddy said honor and glory comes from war only, so I vow “my friends” to wage wars for a hundred years and beyond: make war not peace “my friends” ;) ;)

At a McCain/Palin rally in Strongsville, Ohio yesterday people were caught on tape calling Obama a "one man terror cell" and many who were asked if they thought he was a terrorist replied in the affirmative. The ignorance and hatred are palpable in this video clip. A MUST SEE!

Tim Russo at Blogger Interrupted captured the breathtaking ignorance that presides over most McCain/Palin rallies.

http://bloggerinterrupted.com/2008/10/video-the-mccain-palin-mob-in-strongsville-ohio

The base is in rare hate-filled form. Tim captures it like no other blogger in Ohio does. There really is no wonder the crowds have turned into near lynch mobs. Between the rhetoric of the two candidates and the ignorance of the crowds, it would only take the slightest match to set off this powder keg of racial intolerance and religious fear mongering.

Unreal:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E

"McCain and Keating [...] To what extent is it right or wrong to judge candidates by the company they keep?"

Wrong framing of the question. This sort of ignorance is mainly driven by the media's tendency to report equivalences.

In invoking Keating now, the Obama campaign is pushing back against McCain's “guilt-by-association” tactics.

This is (/should be, in a fair world) damaging because the story of McCain and Keating is not guilt by association; it's guilt by guilt.

McCain's problem isn't that he knew Keating in activities unconnected to his wrongdoing; it's that Keating, in the course of his wrondoing, gave McCain money and tried, with a bit of success, to use him to influence regulators. It's also part of the case Obama's making that McCain has opposed necessarily financial regulations.

See: KeatingEconomics.com

McCain may have done no more than many lawmakers do for many constituents, and there's no evidence he knew Keating was a felon. But this isn't guilt by association either.

The case for Keating being less relevant or "ancient history" as some commentators put it in the traditional media, is that McCain hardly hides the affair. He called it, in his 2002 autobiography, "the worst mistake of my life." He remade himself as a reformer in reaction to the scandal. McCain's case isn't that you should ignore his sin, or that it isn't a sin; it's that he's expiated it.

With McCain's poll numbers tanking, his campaign has been forced to change the subject.

McCain's new direction: William Ayers, the Weathermen bomber who happens to live in the same neighborhood as Obama.

Why is knowing Ayers so bad? To quote John McCain, "How can you countenance someone who was engaged in bombings that could have or did kill innocent people?"

It's a great question -- for John McCain. One of his senior foreign policy advisors (as we were reminded at length in the debates) is Henry Kissinger, the man who engaged in bombing innocent people in North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia, and anywhere else he could get Nixon to send bombers to.

The Weathermen bombed the FBI and the Pentagon, as a radical anti-Vietnam-war protest, but tried to get everyone out of the building first so that no one was hurt. Kissinger, on the other hand, took the bombs straight to people's houses. And thanks to Nixon's fetish for taping everything, we actually have Kissinger's exact orders: "a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flys on anything that moves. You got that?"

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB123/

Why isn't Kissinger in jail for genocide? After all, it's pretty rare you have tape recordings of mass murderers issuing their orders. But, of course, Kissinger isn't a public enemy -- he's a powerful, well-connected person, so Interpol has refused demands to arrest or detain him, no matter how strong the evidence.

And why is Ayers a Chicago professor instead of behind bars? After all, you'd think the least our government could do was arrest a confessed terrorist. But no, the FBI spent all their time doing infiltration and illegal wiretapping instead of real policework, so all their cases got thrown out of court. (I guess this is why Bush refuses to have 'his' terrorist trials in real courts.)

If John McCain wants to make this campaign about Obama living down the street from a political activist, someone ought to point out how he's being advised by a genocidal maniac.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:

"Alaskan Independence Party: The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel"

In 2004, America's malleable mainstream media allowed itself to be manipulated by artful Republican operatives into devoting weeks of broadcast attention and drums of ink to unfairly desecrating John Kerry's genuine Vietnam heroics while obligingly muzzling serious discussion of George W. Bush's shameful wartime record of evasion and cowardice.

Last week found the American media once again boarding Republican swift boats against this season's Democratic candidate armed with unfair and hypocritical attacks artfully designed by GOP strategists to distract attention from the cataclysmic outcomes of Republican governance. Vice Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin has taken to faulting Senator Barack Obama for his casual acquaintance with a respected Illinois educator Bill Ayers, who forty years ago was a member of the Weathermen, a movement active when Obama was eight and which he has denounced as "detestable." Palin argues that the relationship proves that Obama sees "America as being so imperfect that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

The Times dedicated a page one article to Obama's relations with Ayers and CNN's Anderson Cooper obliged Palin by rewarding her reckless accusations about Obama's patriotism with a major investigative report. Fox, meanwhile, is still riveting its audience with wall to wall coverage of this pressing irrelevancy.

But if McCarthy-era guilt-by-association is once again a valid political consideration, Palin, it would seem, has more to lose than Obama. Palin, it could be argued, following her own logic, thinks so little of America's perfection that she continues to "pal around" with a man--her husband, actually--who only recently terminated his seven-year membership in the Alaskan Independence Party. Putting plunder above patriotism, the members of this treasonous cabal aim to break our country into pieces and walk away with Alaska's rich federal oil fields and one-fifth of America's land base--an area three-fourths the size of the Civil War Confederacy.

AIP's charter commits the party "to the ultimate independence of Alaska," from the United States which it refers to as "the colonial bureaucracy in Washington." It proclaims Alaska's 1959 induction as a state "as illegal and in violation of the United Nations charter and international law."

AIP's creation was inspired by the rabidly violent anti-Americanism of its founding father Joe Vogler, "I'm an Alaskan, not an American," reads a favorite Vogler quote on AIP's current website, "I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." According to Vogler AIP's central purpose was to drive Alaska's secession from the United States. Alaska, says current Chairwoman Lynette Clark, "should be an independent nation."

Vogler was murdered in 1993 during an illegal sale of plastic explosives that went bad. The prior year, he had renounced his allegiance to the United States explaining that, "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government." He cursed the stars and stripes, promising, "I won't be buried under their damned flag...when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." Palin has never denounced Vogler or his detestable anti-Americanism.

Palin's husband Todd remained an AIP party member from 1995 to 2002. Sarah can be described in McCarthy-era palaver as a "fellow traveler." While retaining her Republican registration, she attended the AIP's 1994 convention where the party called for a draft constitution to secede from the United States and create an independent nation of Alaska. The McCain Campaign has reluctantly acknowledged that she also attended AIP's 2000 Convention. She apparently found the experience so inspiring that she agreed to give a keynote address at the AIP's 2006 convention and she recorded a video greeting for this year's 2008 convention. In other words, this is not something that happened when she was eight!

So when Palin accuses Barack of "not seeing the same America as you and me," maybe she is referring to an America without Alaska. In any case, isn't it time the media start giving equal time to Palin's buddy list of anti-American bombers and other radical associates?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/alaskan-independence-part_b_133261.html

BarbinMD/dkos: John McCain: Coward

John McCain is such a coward.

"John McCain’s campaign released a new 90-second web ad Thursday on Barack Obama’s relationship with 1960s radical William Ayers.

Ayers is referred to as a terrorist throughout the ad, as is his "friendship" with Obama." [Politico]

McCain didn't have the guts to mention Ayers name while face-to-face with Obama, instead waiting until he was safely back in his cocoon of race-baiting rallies and Fox News interviews before going with his latest lie and smear campaign. Pitiful.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/9/8584/50670/595/624854

***

Devilstower/dkos: Pitiful

Really?

Barack Obama once sat on the same school board with a man who had done bad things when Obama was eight years old, and that means Obama hates America. Do I have that straight?

So, my only question for John McCain now: Is this the best you can do?

Twenty one years in the Senate, two terms in the House, twenty two years in the Navy, and lest we forget five years as a POW, and this is it? This is the way that John Sidney McCain III, son and grandson of admirals decides to exit stage far, far right?

Unable to defend his stance on the issues, unwilling to follow the rules of honor he claimed, undone by his own anger and shadows his past, this man, this self-proclaimed maverick goes for the sidelines with the most embarrassing series of schoolyard taunts and sophomoric smears in modern times. How crass. How despicable. How utterly and deeply 'pathetic'.

Pitiful is the word, really, both in the sense of contemptible and in arousing a kind of sick feeling of concern. To have done and seen so much, to have had so many opportunities, to have been given a second chance long after most men had given up the game. And then to spend it this way.

Pitiful.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/9/10621/8116/559/624914

"Discussing Ayers' rehabilitation as a member in good standing of the education policy-wonk community, former state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson said:

"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier ... It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/07/former-illinois-gop-repre_n_132741.html

Perhaps Obama felt drawn to Ayers in order to teach the elder Ayers a better way of doing things?

Sometimes that sort of thing happens.

McCain is a coward

John Cole:

"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."

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=12056

________

Obama challenges McCain to say it to his face:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDz7iJYJXmE

______

And Biden backs him up:

"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."

http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/10/09/biden-mccain-has-something-to-say-say-it-to-our-face/

Kos: Apparently, that's not how it's done in McCain's neighborhood. Or neighborhoods.

Anyone who's ever served on a board of anything knows you don't choose the other board members, and often enough they don't become your friends as you get to know them. You work to get along with people. Where you can't do that, you try to make a neutral connection, if possible. This is so everyone can carry out the board's responsibilities.

If Obama were really connected with Ayres, they'd hang out together frequently -- remember, they're close neighbors. So nothing stands in their way of being actively-close friends, except mutual hidden dislike, disrespect, disregard, or pure neutrality. That Obama doesn't hang out with Ayers is enough to acquit him of anyone's idea that he and Ayers are pals.

It's so weird -- when we live our own lives, we know how the signals of society and connections work. But when we allow media junk to filter into our minds, we forget that politicians are people, and that the same signals we recognize in our own lives apply to them, too. We start thinking things must be different for them, we make conspiracy theories up in our minds and give them credence...

Ref. 10 HuffPo article:

"You can read the full NPR report here.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95442902&ft=1&f=1001

The relevant segment has also been posted to YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcjwMh-LV5U

**********

Uh-oh...so some republicans from Chicago are saying what most of us knew all along. Bill Ayers was a commonly acceptable figure in Chicago by everyone--Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. Are they all America hating, terrorist loving traitors to America?!

In fact, this NPR piece speaks to the Republican funded cause that Obama and Ayers worked on together. And that:

"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier," said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. "It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."

Couple of days ago, NPR did a short piece on Obama and Ayers. Fortunately for many, they made news. But unfortunately -- small things like facts and truth -- won't stop the smear campaign.

First, Obama began working with Ayers and others (Republicans, Independents, and Democrats) at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Well, what is the Anneberg Challenge? Who is Annenberg? Well according to NPR,

"The Obama campaign says he first met Ayers in 1995, when Obama became chair of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $50 million fund that awarded grants to groups trying to implement new programs to improve inner city education in Chicago.

Walter Annenberg, a lifelong Republican and former ambassador who was appointed by Presidents Nixon and Reagan, funded an ambitious program to reform urban education in many cities in the mid 1990s. Ayers was an important member of the group that developed and wrote the grant proposal to the Annenberg Foundation."

Second, there were people of all political persuasions working on this effort with this "terrorist" Ayers and who saw him as acceptable and Obama was no closer than any of the others.

"...no one on the board or on the Annenberg Challenge staff remembers Obama being any closer to Ayers than to any other member of the board. The Annenberg board also included several civic, business and education leaders, many of them Republicans..."

In fact one person close to the issue states:

"I don't remember ever hearing anyone raise concerns or questions or concerns about [Ayers'] background," says Anne Hallett, who has worked closely with Ayers on the Annenberg Challenge grant and with Obama on education and other community and legislative matters. "And that included everybody I was engaged with," including prominent Republicans, and corporate and civic leaders in Chicago, Hallett adds."

Oh, really?!

So not only was Obama working on a Republican funded initiative, but prominent Republicans were involved on the board with Ayers. Do they all hate America so much that they are "palling" around with terrorist? He had been in their midst for years, why did not the republican's run him out of town.

Obama was new to Chicago. He hadn't been elected to anything. He really didn't even know where the bodies where truly buried in Chicago (evidenced by the thumping defeat he received when he ran for the state senate against a former Black Panther Bobby Rush). He wanted to serve the community and do good work. However, Ayers had been there for years, building a reputation that was so mainstream that a life long Republican, who was a former Ambassador appointed by Nixon and Regan, allowed the release of $50 Million to let him, prominent Republicans, corporate, civic leaders, and a Harvard trained community organizer form a board to oversee the disbursement of these funds related to school reform.

And finally, the author notes:

"Hallett calls this attack on Obama's association with Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge by further association, "a smear campaign. It's a political diatribe that has no basis in fact. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was an extremely positive initiative. It was well-vetted, thorough, and the fact that it is now is being used for political purposes is, in my opinion, outrageous."

And as noted earlier a former Illinois Republican state representative states:

"It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier," said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. "It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly."

Now, not only, can one fight this smear campaign with an emotional and logical appeal of the unfairness of guilt by association, but also with factual appeal that no one including Obama (Democrats, Republicans, or Independents) who all love this country like Obama does, saw Ayers for his acts 30 plus years earlier, but as another person trying to do God's work to better the future of children from some of the toughest meanest areas of Chicago.

Ben Smith at Politico reports:

'In an interview with the sympathetic conservative talk radio host this afternoon, Obama offered the clearest explanation yet of how an extremely careful politician allowed himself anywhere near a former '60s radical who would become a Republican target in this year's presidential campaign.

________
Interview:
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/opinion/20081009_Michael_Smerconish__Obama___Ayers__Guilt_by_association_.html
________

Obama "had assumed" from Bill Ayers' stature in Chicago, he told the Philadelphia-based Michael Smerconish, that Ayers had been "rehabilitated" since his 1960s crimes.

_______
Audio:
http://share.ovi.com/media/thepolitico.public/thepolitico.10082
_______

In the interview, which was taped this afternoon and will air tomorrow, and which you can listen to above, Obama recalled moving back to Chicago after law school, and becoming involved in civic life there.

"The gentleman in question, Bill Ayers, is a college professor, teaches education at the University of Illinois," he said. "That's how i met him -- working on a school reform project that was funded by an ambassador and very close friend of Ronald Reagan's" along with "a bunch of conservative businessmen and civic leaders."

"Ultimately, I ended up learning about the fact that he had engaged in this reprehensible act 40 years ago, but I was eight years old at the time and I assumed that he had been rehabilitated," Obama said.

That may not have been an unreasonable assumption for Obama in the 1990s. Though Ayers never repented his part in the Weather Underground bombings, he had not yet become notorious for advertising them. That notoriety returned in 2001, when he published his memoir, "Fugitive Days," and reminisced about the bombings in a New York Times interview that happened to appear September 11 of that year. [Preity: WHAT COINCIDENCE!]

"This guy is not part of my inner circle, he doesn't advise my campaign, he's not going to advise me as president," Obama assured listeners.

Obama also lashed McCain for focusing on Ayers on a day of dramatic economic turmoil, calling the issue a "red herring."

"The fact that Senator McCain wants to make this the centerpiece of his campaign is pretty remarkable," he said. "We are going through an enormous challenge right now. "

"Senator McCain surely doesn't believe that I've endorsed any of the actions that [Ayers] has taken," he said. "They're trying to distract from the economy."

"We've got the biggest economic crisis on our hands since the Great Depression and Senator McCain's team has said in the newspapers, they've said it publicly, 'If we talk about the economy, then we lose the election,'" Obama said.'

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/

In Tuesday's debate, John McCain had a very "senior" moment -- or perhaps a deliberate lie. The gory details have been posted at ProPublica--America's largest investigative newsroom.

What Letter was McCain Referring To?

by Jesse Nankin, ProPublica

Both John McCain and Barack Obama took turns during the second presidential debate on Tuesday night claiming credit for having warned of an imminent economic crisis.

Obama has referred frequently to his 2007 letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. But Sen. McCain countered by saying that he had written a letter "warning of exactly this crisis." As far as we can tell, this was the first reference McCain has made of such a letter, and we couldn't find it. Despite multiple requests, the McCain campaign did not provide comment or the letter.

Obama likes to bring up the letter he wrote to Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Dated March 22, 2007, about six weeks after he'd declared his candidacy for the presidency, the letter stressed the need for immediate intervention to curb the "rising rates of home foreclosure in the subprime mortgage market":

"And while neither the government nor the private sector acting alone is capable of quickly balancing the important interests in widespread access to credit and responsible lending, both must act and act quickly."

[...]

Adding to the confusion is a statement [McCain] made during a November 2007 interview with the New Hampshire Keene Sentinel, which touched on, among other topics, the subprime mortgage crisis:

"I don't really know of hardly anybody who, with the exception of a handful, that said, wait a minute this thing is getting completely out of hand and is overheating. So, I'd like to tell you I did anticipate it, but I have to give you straight talk. I did not."

Full Article:
http://www.propublica.org/article/what-letter-was-mccain-referring-to-109/

In a surprising/interesting letter to the editor published in today's NY Times, the man who led the prosecution on Weather Underground is "Amazed And Outraged" at attempts to link Obama to Ayers

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/l10ayers.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

"I am amazed and outraged that Senator Barack Obama is being linked to William Ayers’s terrorist activities 40 years ago when Mr. Obama was, as he has noted, just a child.

Although I dearly wanted to obtain convictions against all the Weathermen, including Bill Ayers, I am very pleased to learn that he has become a responsible citizen.

Because Senator Obama recently served on a board of a charitable organization with Mr. Ayers cannot possibly link the senator to acts perpetrated by Mr. Ayers so many years ago."

Also, he clarifies something that Preity got right in #7 but the NY Times got wrong:

"I do take issue with the statement in your news article that the Weathermen indictment was dismissed because of “prosecutorial misconduct.” It was dismissed because of illegal activities, including wiretaps, break-ins and mail interceptions, initiated by John N. Mitchell, attorney general at that time, and W. Mark Felt, an F.B.I. assistant director. "

Christopher Buckley, son of National Review founder William F. Buckley, is voting for Obama.

It sounds crazy. Insane. Some alcohol-induced delusion.

It's not.

Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama
by Christopher Buckley

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-10/the-conservative-case-for-obama

"Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.

Or would they? But let’s get that part out of the way. The only reason my vote would be of any interest to anyone is that my last name happens to be Buckley—a name I inherited. So in the event anyone notices or cares, the headline will be: “William F. Buckley’s Son Says He Is Pro-Obama.” I know, I know: It lacks the throw-weight of “Ron Reagan Jr. to Address Democratic Convention,” but it’ll have to do.

[...]

As to the particulars, assuming anyone gives a fig, here goes:

I have known John McCain personally since 1982.[...]

McCain rose to power on his personality and biography. He was authentic. He spoke truth to power. [...]

But that was—sigh—then. John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

All this is genuinely saddening, and for the country is perhaps even tragic, for America ought, really, to be governed by men like John McCain—who have spent their entire lives in its service, even willing to give the last full measure of their devotion to it. If he goes out losing ugly, it will be beyond tragic, graffiti on a marble bust.
As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. [...]

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves.[...]

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America."

Devilstower at daily Kos writes:

This Has To Stop

"There's something happening here, and what it is, is all too clear. McCain - Palin rallies over the last few days have disintegrated into festivals of hate, and the two candidates at the center of this are encouraging it."

"McCain and Palin are soaking in the crowd's anger, amplifying it, and feeding it back."

"And McCain is promising more than anger. He's promising that he will name names. He's promising a new economic black list for Wall Street -- and for Capitol Hill."

"Two weeks ago, John McCain suspended his campaign and trotted back to Washington, claiming he had to help shepherd in the bailout agreement. Two days ago he was bragging about it. Yet here he is saying that the people "claiming credit" for this agreement need to be prosecuted.

The language McCain and Palin are using: "radical," "palling around with terrorists," "willing co-conspirators" is growing more heated by the day. It's language that's compounded by the "dangerous" commercials McCain is running across the country. It's the kind of language that you use in describing an enemy in wartime. It's the kind of language that not only excuses violence, but encourages it. More and more it sounds as if McCain has inhaled the ghost of Joseph McCarthy and is exhaling the fevered rancor of Charles Coughlin.

The "Straight Talk Express" long ago left the station. "Country First" is the last thing on their minds. Nothing remains of John McCain's campaign but a tight little ball of festering hate. Considering the volatile nature of the country at the moment, and the fear so many are facing as they watch their life savings evaporate, that hate is all too easy to spread. There are millions of Americans looking for someone to blame for this disaster, and McCain is desperate to give them a target. He's said many times that he wants to reach across the aisle, and he's doing that, but he's holding a knife in his hand.

Maybe it's guilt over McCain's decades of voting for and evangelizing for the deregulation that brought on the crisis. Maybe he's desperate that the mob not look at his own record for the source of their troubles. Maybe he's simply angry because he sees his chance slipping away. Whatever it is, it's ugly. And getting uglier. Any decent candidate -- any decent human being -- would be working now to tamp down that ire, not raise it.

What John McCain is doing is no more responsible than tossing lighted matches into a tinder dry forest. Someone is going to get burned."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/10/12151/472/626/625840

John Kerry posts on his anti-"smear" site:

"The reports are piling up of ugliness at the campaign rallies of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Audience members hurl insults and racial epithets, call out "Kill Him!" and "Off With His Head," and yell “treason” when Senator Obama’s name is mentioned. I strongly condemn language like this which can only be described as hate-filled."

http://www.truthfightsback.com/page/content/smearpolitics