At Least One McCain Rejects Facism

Arizona Senator John McCain would do well to get some integrity lessons from his daughter, Meghan.

The senior McCain, fighting for his political survival, has endorsed his home state's utterly fascist immigration law. The younger McCain, by contrast, knows right from wrong. From CBS News:

In a column published at The Daily Beast, Meghan McCain, who often tries to position herself a spokesperson of sorts for young Republicans, called the new law "seriously flawed" and "essentially a license to pull someone over for being Hispanic."

The new law compels police officers to question a person about his or her immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion" that person may be in the country illegally. It would also make it a crime under state law to be there illegally. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law on Friday, but some Arizona lawmakers are vowing to fight the measure.

"I believe it gives the state police a license to discriminate, and also, in many ways, violates the civil rights of Arizona residents," Meghan McCain wrote in her column, entitled "Hate the Law, Not Arizonans." "Simply put, I think it is a bad law that is missing the bigger picture of what is really going on with illegal immigration."

John McCain, who faces a tough Republican primary challenge this year, has called the measure a "good tool" for law enforcement. He acknowledged this weekend that there are some questions about whether the new measure can stand up to legal scrutiny, the Arizona Daily Star reports, but he added that lawmakers "acted out of frustration because the federal government didn't do its job."

Brit Ambassador Steps In It Again

It's a safe bet that Britain's ambassador to the United States will soon get his travelling papers.

Sir Nigel Sheinwald has had not one, but two of his confidential memos about the US presidential candidates leaked. The first dealt with Barack Obama who Sheinwald described as "decidedly liberal." That might not ruffle too many feathers but the second memo, which focused on John McCain, might. From The Guardian:

"An exasperated McCain has been telling friends in recent weeks that Palin is even more trouble than a pitbull.

"In one joke doing the rounds, the Republican presidential candidate has been asking friends: what the difference is between Sarah Palin and a pitbull? The friendly canine eventually lets go, is the McCain punchline.

"The jaws of senior mandarins dropped when they read Sheinwald's account of McCain's thoughts on Palin which the ambassador reportedly picked up from a military friend of McCain's. The telegram was restricted to an even smaller group of people than usual for fear of another embarrassing leak. "We took one look at this and hid it away," one Whitehall source said."

The Alaskan Anchor Around McCain's Neck

John McCain's blunder, also known as his veep running mate, Sarah Palin, is dragging the Old Geezer down, quite possibly permanently. The Alaska governor hasn't travelled well (as the wine folk say) and the more Americans have come to know her the less they see to like.

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll found 59% of respondents now consider Sarah Palin unfit to serve as vice-president. That's not good news with the election just six days away.

"In a possible indication that the choice of Ms. Palin has hurt Mr. McCain’s image, voters said that they had much more confidence in Mr. Obama to pick qualified people to serve in his administration than they did in Mr. McCain.

"The survey suggested that the historic candidacy of Mr. Obama, who would be the first African-American president if elected, has changed some perceptions of race in America. Nearly two-thirds of those polled said that white and black people have an equal chance of getting ahead in today’s society, up from the half who said that they thought so in July. And while 14 percent still said that most people they know would not vote for a black presidential candidate, a question pollsters often ask to try to gauge bias, the number has dropped considerably since the campaign began. "

You know, he might just smash his way through the racist vote and actually win this thing.

McCain Scores New Endorsement - al Qaeda's

McCain may not "pal around" with them but he's the president of choice for al-Qaeda.

The story surfaced a couple of days ago that a password-protected web site known as a vehicle for the Islamist terrorists has openly endorsed John McCain as their choice for the next president of the USA.

Why McCain? Because George w. Bush has been the best thing that every happened to al-Qaeda and McCain is the candidate most likely to repeat every Bush blunder. They need each other, it's as simple as that.

Nicholas Kristoff of The New York Times notes that the al-Qaeda endorsement of McCain comes as no surprise to the experts:

"...the endorsement of Mr. McCain by a Qaeda-affiliated Web site isn’t a surprise to security specialists. Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism director, and Josephy Nye, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, have both suggested that Al Qaeda prefers Mr. McCain and might even try to use terror attacks in the coming days to tip the election to him.

“From their perspective, a continuation of Bush policies is best for recruiting,” said Professor Nye, adding that Mr. McCain is far more likely to continue those policies.

An American president who keeps troops in Iraq indefinitely, fulminates about Islamic terrorism, inclines toward military solutions and antagonizes other nations is an excellent recruiting tool. In contrast, an African-American president with a Muslim grandfather and a penchant for building bridges rather than blowing them up would give Al Qaeda recruiters fits."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/opinion/26kristof.html?em

David Frum Urges Republicans to Throw In the Towel on McCain

Republican pundit David Frum is urging fellow Repugs to shift their efforts, and their money, from what he considers an already lost presidential campaign and use them instead to fight a rearguard Congressional defence.

David, son of Barbara, wrote in the Washington Post, that McCain, "is losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him."

"The very same campaign strategy that has belatedly mobilized the Republican core has alienated and offended the great national middle, which was the only place where the 2008 election could have been won.

"I could pile up the poll numbers here, but frankly . . . it's too depressing. You have to go back to the Watergate era to see numbers quite so horrible for the GOP.

McCain's awful campaign is having awful consequences down the ballot. I spoke a little while ago to a senior Republican House member. "There is not a safe Republican seat in the country," he warned. "I don't mean that we're going to lose all of them. But we could lose any of them."

Frum argues that Republicans should shift "every available dollar" to the senatorial campaign. For some reason he can't bring himself to say those dollars ought to be shifted from the presidential campaign. He also argues that Republicans should hammer home the message that the Dems are probably going to take the White House and voters can't take the risk of also handing congress to a bunch of liberals.

McCain and Palin Go For the Throat - Each Other's

The giveaway was the morning after the vice-presidential debate when Sarah Palin let slip that she had learned of the McCain campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan when she read it that morning in a newspaper. To quell any doubts, she then proceeded to criticize McCain's decision and said she and Todd could have worked the state if McCain wasn't up to it.

It was obvious that McCain hadn't consulted Palin about the Michigan decision. He hadn't even informed her. She had to find out about it from a newspaper well after his campaign had announced it to the press. Her response put McCain's wisdom, even courage into question. Ouch, ouch, ouch and ouch.

Since then, Palin hasn't minced any words about what she sees as McCain's weakness in going after Obama. She has repeatedly criticized McCain's refusal to go after the Reverend Wright issue.


Now, as reported by Canadian Press, it's come to open warfare among McCain's and Palin's insiders:

"The tattered remains of their ticket were everywhere Sunday, with both McCain and Palin insiders publicly on the attack to hold the other side responsible for their candidate's woes on the campaign trail.

"She is a diva - she takes no advice from anyone," an unnamed McCain adviser told CNN over the weekend.

"She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else ... also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

It was their decision to limit Palin's media contact to interviews with ABC's Charlie Gibson and a series of chats with CBS's Katie Couric parcelled out over several cringe-worthy days. They proved to be disastrous for both the Alaska governor personally and McCain's campaign.Wallace sent an emailed response to several news organizations over the weekend: "If people want to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most honourable thing to do is to lie there," she wrote.

In recent weeks, Palin has publicly parted ways with the McCain campaign on various fronts, leading many to speculate she is attempting to distinguish herself from the flailing Arizona senator and forge her own identity in preparation for a run for the White House in 2012."

Your Daily Giggle

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Obama Had Better Get Ready to Kick Back Hard

Just a couple of weeks left before the American elections and John McCain is running hard to narrow his Democratic opponent's considerable lead.

The McCain campaign seems to be out of ideas, nothing appears to be getting traction, and so their last-ditch effort may be to fall back on smear, the deliberate exploitation of outright lies and treacherous distortions, to make gullible American voters fearful and distrusting of Obama.

There's a pretty good analysis of this in Talking Points Memo:

"...McCain's final strategy relies on two pillars. The first is aggressively playing to voters' fears of electing a black president. Make no mistake: not just his campaign in a general sense, but McCain himself and his top handful of advisers, are banking on the residual racism in a changing America to get them over the finish line. The second is an aggressive use of innuendo to convince casual voters that Obama is in league with Islamic terrorists bent on killing Americans.
Many people have asked whether enough Americans really care any more about the cultural convulsions of the 1960s. The answer? It doesn't matter. For the McCain campaign, Bill Ayers has nothing to do with 60s radicalism. Ayers is nothing more than a tool that permits McCain, Palin and all their surrogates to use the noun "terrorist" in polite company in the same sentence as "Obama," over and over and over again. It allows them to cobble together a 'respectable' version of those Obama smear emails they can push in commercials and robocalls and surrogate talking points every hour of every day.

Stripped down to its components McCain's message to voters is this: "Don't forget. He's definitely black. And he may be a terrorist." That's the message. The nuts and bolts is a concerted effort to keep Democrats from voting -- through intimidation, by striking new voters from the rolls, which is going to happen to lots of them, clogging polling stations to create delays that keep late day (predominantly) Obama voters from voting altogether. Smears in the air and voter suppression on the ground.

Many people say, well ... all this stuff just hasn't worked. But the truth is that the really corrupt and vicious part of McCain's effort only comes now because it's only in the last couple weeks that you can pull stuff that the press won't get to call you on before election day -- after which it doesn't matter. Will it take Obama down? So far McCain's gutter campaign has hurt him more than helped. But there's no reason to be sure it will continue that way."

Obama has one advantage that will let him fight back - money and lots of it. He'll need it to wage a last-ditch media campaign of his own that just might bury McCain in his own trash.

Powell: Obama, "Transformational "- McCain, "Over the Top"

Retired 4-star general, former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama as president of the United States.

From The New York Times:

Powell, "endorsed Senator Barack Obama for president on Sunday morning as a candidate who was reaching out in a “more diverse and inclusive way across our society” and offering a “calm, patient, intellectual, steady approach” to the nation’s problems."

While Powell has been a friend and advisor to McCain for decades, he criticized the McCain campaign's attempts to smear Obama for his passing acquaintance with William Ayers. "I thought that was over the top,” Mr. Powell told reporters. “It was beyond just good political fighting back and forth.”

Powell added that McCain would simply be a new face pasted on the "orthodoxy of the Republican agenda."

I suspect we're beginning to see the Republican Party undergo a healthy re-alignment with the moderates - Powell, Chuck Hagel, even the Chicago Tribune, rejecting the neo-conservative movement of Bush/Cheney now embraced by John McCain. Sounds like they want their party back. They're drawing a line in the sand, telling the neo-cons that they would prefer to back a Dem than allow their party to languish in the far right of extremism. I wonder when progressive Conservatives will catch on.

The Republican Spectacle

To Americans who watched last night's third and final McCain/Obama debate, it seems the Illionois senator made it 3-0 over "Crash" McCain.

From what I saw of it, McCain was certainly at his best for a while until he lapsed back into default mode - frantic anger. The double whammy for McCain is that, when you get angry and you're that old, you come away looking like the scary old man who sits in his rocker on the porch yelling at the kids playing in the street. McCain's age really makes him look like an Old Geezer, furious but really wobbly, or, as Obama would call him, "erratic."

Republican pundits who were able to overlook the Geezer factor may have been right when they claimed that McCain won the debate on points but that's sort of like saying, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

McCain was clearly out to provoke an "angry black man" response from Obama. A racist ploy? Hell yes. But it didn't work. Obama didn't go for it and, in that, showed himself presidential while McCain showed himself the Old Geezer that he is.

Another thing that became apparent in the second debate and was utterly proven last night is that McCain isn't up to a 90-minute intellectual battle. He's fair enough for the first 30-minutes. After that he runs out of steam and reverts to default, angry old man mode. He just gets so wound up that he loses it.

I think last night reinforced a lot of minds that were already in Obama's camp or leaning that way. As for the Arizona senator it was sad to watch a man who has served his country all his life squander his integrity and debase his character only to come up empty-handed.

I think the White House is Obama's barring the race factor rearing its ugly head on November 4 to derail America's best hope for the future.

McCain's Worst Nightmare

Do you recognize this guy? Before the month is out you will. He's McCain buddy, former Republican senator Phil Gramm of Texas.

Phil, you might remember, was McCain campaign economic advisor until, early in the housing bubble collapse, he shot his mouth off about how America had become "a nation of whiners." That left McCain no choice but to jettison Gramm from his official post. However Gramm still often accompanies McCain on the campaign trail and remains an "unofficial" advisor on financial and economic matters.

McCain may soon come to rue the day he didn't just sling Gramm off the bus when he had the chance for, you see, Gramm's dirty fingerprints have been all over the Enron scandal and, much worse, the Wall Street meltdown.

Before the Dems regained control of the Senate, Phil had luxuriated in the chairmanship of the Senate Banking Committee. He used that position to pull off some of the most outrageous deregulation legislation to ever afflict America. One bill cleared the way for Enron to run roughshod over the state of California. Gramm's wife was on the Enron board when the company collapsed.

The best dodge, however, came in the form of two bills that deregulated essential aspects of the banking, securities and insurance industries and allowed the unregulated trade in Credit Default Swaps, the unfunded insurance policies that brought down Wall Street.

Gramm directly links McCain to the US meltdown and makes Palin's contention of Obama "palling around" with terrorists look stupidly hilarious. I suspect the American voter is going to become a lot more familiar with Phil Gramm before November 4 rolls around.

Best Phil Gramm quote: referring to Ed Whiteacre who retired as CEO of AT&T with a $158-million parachute as, "... probably the most exploited worker in American history." Can you just feel the burn?

p.s. Like our own Furious Leader, Harper, Gramm is also an economist, only he holds a PhD.

McCain Opens the Wrong End of a Can of Whupass!

McCain/Palin are running scared. They can't run on the issues because they're squarely on the opposite side of the electorate. That "maverick" BS has worn gossamer thin. McCain can't shake his Republican/Wall Street connections. After two years of free ride as the Great American Hero, people are beginning to put the spotlight on Johnny and what really happened and it looks like he's been patting himself on the back way too much.

So what are the Geezer and the Hairdo going to come up with? They decided to scrape the very bottom of their barrel and go for the last resort of all reprobates and degenerates - smear politics.

They're going to try to link Obama with a 60's radical - because that's about all they've got. Now they'll have to lie through their teeth and resort to sleazy innuendo to make something out of absolutely nothing - but when there's no integrity, they'll literally stoop to anything. Next up with be a rehash of Obama's minister. Anything, they're scared out of their wits.

Witless? Oh indeed. You see it's McCain who has the real skeletons in his closet and they're just the kind of skeletons you don't want anyone looking at right now. There's the bones of Charles Keating, the Lincoln Savings & Loan swindler that McCain carried water for back in the day when mom & pop life savings were getting - is "stolen" too strong a word? Nah.

Then there's McCain's close buddy and campaign economic advisor Phil Gramm, who did more than any other American to facilitate the Wall Street collapse by using his authority as then Senate Banking chairman to introduce and push through a bill allowing totally unregulated Credit Default Swaps, the 60 Trillion dollar scam that derailed everything.

McCain's the one who can't stand up to scrutiny and, fortunately, Obama is hitting back, reviving the record of McCain-Keating for starters. He's got a month's worth of revelations and trips down McCain's Memory Lane to fill the rest of the campaign and it's all killer stuff.

So, John, bring it on. You've already abandoned Michigan. Then you abandoned the issues. All you've got left is smear and that's a game that you can only lose.

There Are Terrorists and There Are Terrorists

McCain and his supposed sidekick Palin are, in a word, unscrupulous.

With their inability to get any traction on the issues troubling American voters, they've decided to "change the subject" to smearing Obama.

Palin, whose integrity has never been questioned if only because no one can find a sign of it, is now accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists." There's something you had better worry about, no? She's referring to one Bill Ayers, who had been a member of the radical Weather Underground during the 60's - and an education professor at the University of Illinois for two decades afterwards.

Harold Meyerson, writing in today's Washington Post, puts that despicable smear under a spotlight:

The story of Obama's interaction with Ayers is drenched in irony, since it is basically a tale of Obama being co-opted into Chicago's civic establishment. In 1995, Obama, then a young lawyer with political ambitions but as yet no office, was recruited to chair the board of a school reform organization funded and established by the Annenberg Foundation -- a group that distributes the wealth of the estate of Walter Annenberg, Richard Nixon's ambassador to Britain. It was only then that Obama met Ayers, who already was a board member and a figure in Chicago's education-policy elite. (Mayor Richard Daley, that known radical, told the Times that he had consulted Ayers on education issues for years.)

But, Meyerson notes, if we want to examine the candidates' relationship with scurrilous types who've caused great damage to America, we could always start with McCain's close pal and onetime campaign advisor, Phil Gramm:

"Gramm was always Wall Street's man in the Senate. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee during the Clinton administration, he consistently underfunded the Securities and Exchange Commission and kept it from stopping accounting firms from auditing corporations with which they had conflicts of interest. Gramm's piece de resistance came on Dec. 15, 2000, when he slipped into an omnibus spending bill a provision called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA), which prohibited any governmental regulation of credit default swaps, those insurance policies covering losses on securities in the event they went belly up. As the housing bubble ballooned, the face value of those swaps rose to a tidy $62 trillion. And as the housing bubble burst, those swaps became a massive pile of worthless paper, because no government agency had required the banks to set aside money to back them up.

The CFMA also prohibited government regulation of the energy-trading market, which enabled Enron to nearly bankrupt the state of California before bankrupting itself. "

As Steve Croft showed on 60 Minutes, it was those very Credit Default Swaps - deviously unregulated insurance policies - that brought down Wall Street because the outfits that sold them - remember Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG - never had the resources to make good on them, never, ever.

Thanks to McCain's close pals - and he and Gramm were tight, very tight - the American taxpayers for generations to come will be paying off the trillion dollar Wall Street bailout.

If clowns as disreputable as McCain and Palin can take over America's executive branch, that country is screwed beyond redemption.

Rolling Stone Outs John McCain

Like most of us, my knowledge of John McCain has been largely that of his common narrative. It's John the hero, fighter jock, POW who resisted torture at the hands of his Vietnamese captors and refused early repatriation, a man unlike other men.

It's a great story and one that seems to have become common knowledge. Now I'm no longer sure it's true.

Rolling Stone magazine, in an article entitled "Make Believe Maverick" says there's an awful lot less and a worrisome bit more to John McCain than meets the eye:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain
At one level I don't want to believe it and yet McCain has shown his cynical, manipulative and dishonest side so often this past year I believe it could all be true.

Palin's Hidden Agenda

Eureka! There it is, Sarah Palin's secret agenda.

No question that the Beauty Queen and the Old Geezer don't see eye to eye on a bunch of policies, they don't. Strangely enough, she hasn't backed down one inch to bring herself into line with the Geezer's thinking either.

So, what gives? I figured it out. Michigan is the dead giveaway.

McCain decided to cut his losses and drop Michigan from his campaign, write the whole thing off. Did he confer with his running mate on this fundamental shift? Not a chance.

Palin learned about it - get this - when she read it in a newspaper (see, she reads more than diner menus). From Associated Press:

In an interview with Fox News Channel Friday, the Alaska governor said she was disappointed that the McCain campaign decided to stop competing in Michigan. In an indication that the vice presidential candidate had not been part of the decision, she said she had "read that this morning and I fired off a quick e-mail" questioning the move.

Yeah, that's right, she fired off a quickie questioning the decision. No, she apparently didn't raise holy hell that she hadn't been consulted or even informed. You might have thought Johnny Boy would have remembered to give Palin the skinny before he spilled the beans to the press.

No she didn't complain about being kept out of the loop, she questioned the move and then - worst of all - told Fox News that she and Todd were ready and willing to carry on the campaign in Michigan that McCain had already shut down.

It doesn't get better than this folks. Sarah Palin just became Sarah Pain to her supposed boss, John McSame.

First, she admitted that he didn't even mention this change to her, showing just how much the Old Geezer values her input and - cough - partnership. Then she told Fox News that the guy who is her supposed boss, to whom she owes her fealty, was wrong, as in just plain nuts. And then she puts McCain even deeper in the dung by saying she and Todd would be happy to do what McCain can't, try to pull out a victory in Michigan.

I got it figured out. She's hoping that McCain wins. Then she consults a couple of shrinks expert on geriatric malfunction and gets the Old Bugger declared incompetent (as in "batshit crazy"). Out goes Johnny, slick as crap through a goose, and in comes Madam President Sarah and Vice-Regent Todd. They live happily ever after until she goes for the nukes and brings on the Rapture.

John, you crazy bastard, there's still time. Go for your guns! What were you thinking? Isn't this the same way she became mayor of Wasilla in the first place - by turning on the mayor who used his organization to get her on the council just a year before? She turned on the guy and turfed him out, running against the "Old Boy" network. Then she got to be governor of Alaska running against the "Old Boy" network. Now you've brought the Black Widow into your camp and, you dumb hump, who's the "Old Boy" now?

Postscript - It's bad enough that the Republican presidential nominee thinks his cynically-chosen running mate is such a Bimbo that he doesn't consult her - or even inform her - that he's abandoning the field in Michigan. It's ten times worse that he doesn't feed her a spin on it. Breathtaking, utterly breathtaking. She's left to admit - on their electronic media of choice no less, Fixed News, that she discovered it from reading a newspaper. Apparently not even one reporter could be bothered to ask her about it until the following day.

What possible reason could McCain have had to keep her in the dark? Res ipsa loquitor - the thing speaks for itself. He was afraid she'd blurt it out and bungle his already hapless explanation. He doesn't trust her. She sure as hell doesn't trust him. A marriage made in - what does she call that "special" place anyway?

Mending Fences

Whoever succeeds George w. Bush is going to have his hands full cleaning up after the Wrecking Crew. Literally everything Bush/Cheney have touched has turned toxic. The US economy, its foreign policy, its military, its environmental policies - the lot. That's why you don't let the ignorant - like Bush and Palin - into the top ranks of your government. There's simply too much damage they can cause before anyone can stop them.

The next president already had atop his agenda mending fences with America's traditional allies. Germany's Merkel and France's Sarkozy had already shown themselves amenable to American overtures. Of course that was then, this is now.

Whatever goodwill George w. Bush managed to restore in his last two years in office has been thoroughly trashed in the current economic meltdown. Read any of the English-language European papers. Read accounts of the leaders' session at the U.N.

Even America's closest allies (Boss Harp excepted) are furious with the United States. It's as though Washington had sent them shiploads of counterfeit currency. France, even Germany are feeling the sting of bogus commercial paper floated by American securities giants. Worse they see the global economy headed for a crunch caused by wantonly reckless American regulatory negligence.

America's Savings & Loan fiasco was internalized. So was the Enron/Worldcom corporate fraud scandal. The Dot.Com debacle was largely confined within the U.S. The "Made on Bush's Watch" meltdown is not only much larger but vastly more widespread and its impact reaches to the core of the global economy.

Europeans are hopping mad about this. Latin and South Americans are hopping mad. Asians are hopping mad. Everyone, it seems, except Stephen Harper, is hopping mad. That Steve stands out is kind of curious. He's not only extraordinarily silent on the subject, he doesn't even want to discuss it with Canadian voters. Better yet, he's adopted John McCain's line that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." What's the message in that, folks?

Steve, one of the core fundamentals of our economy is a strong US economy. When the US economy heads into the tank, the economy of our one and only major trading partner is in the tank. When our sole major trading partner goes in the tank, the fundamentals of our economy are no longer strong. You know that Steve so why lie about the biggest immediate threat to Canada's economy? This is no time for fanciful tales, Steve.

But I digress. Just how angry are America's friends in France and Germany? Here's the take from Spiegel Online:

"Even America's closest allies are distancing themselves -- first and foremost the German chancellor. When push came to shove in the past, Angela Merkel had always come down on the side of the United States.

...There was no mention of loyalty and friendship last Monday. Merkel stood in the glass-roofed entrance hall of one of the German parliament's office buildings in Berlin and prepared her audience of roughly 1,000 businesspeople from all across Germany for the foreseeable consequences of the financial crisis. It was a speech filled with concealed accusations and dark warnings.

Merkel talked about a "distribution of risk at everyone's expense" and the consequences for the "economic situation in the coming months and possibly even years." Most of all, she made it clear who she considers the true culprit behind the current plight. "The German government pointed out the problems early on," said the chancellor, whose proposals to impose tighter international market controls failed repeatedly because of US opposition. "Some things can be done at the national level," she said, "but most things have to be handled internationally."

The German magazine contends that America, as we've known it for six decades, is kaput:

"This is no longer the muscular and arrogant United States the world knows, the superpower that sets the rules for everyone else and that considers its way of thinking and doing business to be the only road to success.

A new America is on display, a country that no longer trusts its old values and its elites even less: the politicians, who failed to see the problems on the horizon, and the economic leaders, who tried to sell a fictitious world of prosperity to Americans.

Also on display is the end of arrogance. The Americans are now paying the price for their pride."

The author contends that the Bush Doctrine of perpetual American omnipotence is now in ashes scattered around Bush's feet. As Reagan transformed the United States from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation, Bush has completed the job, transforming his country from the sole superpower that he inherited from Clinton into a global pariah scorned even by its closest allies.

Can this be undone? Certainly not by John McCain. He still believes in an America long past. This problem is way over his head. Can Obama undo this? Perhaps in part but I doubt that there's anything in his playbook that can restore America to the pride of place it enjoyed so recently during the Clinton era. That said, he has to do as much as he can. This is a tough pill to swallow for the "We're Number One" American people. Reality won't come easy.

Round One- McCain v. Obama - Even

I expect that everybody was happy with the performance of their guy in last night's presidential debate. My assessment is that viewers saw that debate pretty much according to the leanings they had when they came into it. I can't see that it would have shifted too many voters one way or the other.

One network said Obama won their focus group of undecideds 60-40 but there's no way of knowing how reliable those numbers are, at least not until some serious polling is conducted.

McCain, as expected, took the low road and, at times, looked very much the wizened up Old Geezer, the kind who yells at the kids in the street from his front porch rocker. In my view, Obama wasn't nearly as aggressive as he ought to have been but, of the two, he alone seemed presidential. McCain didn't even look at his opponent. He couldn't look him in the eye as he told some genuine whoppers.

Then again, it was the "foreign policy" debate which the McCain camp maintains is their guy's real strong suit. On that basis it was probably up to McCain to trounce Obama - to put him away - and he didn't do it.

The McCain Gambit

America's credit crunch crisis is trouble for plenty but a golden opportunity for some - like Senator John McCain.

McCain, while he appears to be suffering in the polls due to voter discontent with the Republicans and their ways, has decided his way out may be to turn those lemons into lemonade. How? By positioning himself to claim that he is the guy who saved America's bacon in this emergency.

Forget all the Repug spin about this crisis being the fault of the Dems. The whole derivative scam was the handiwork of McCain's own cherished economic advisor, former Senator Phil Gramm, who, while chairman of the Senate Banking Committee instituted and pushed through two pet projects, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. "Commodity" "futures" "modernization" put'em all together and they spell poison for the masses.

Throughout his campaign, McCain has regularly revealed his avaricious, craven, manipulative and exploitative talents and they are powerful indeed. He's also shown a steady hand at the worst of Rovian tactics.

Credit crunch. Problem. Widespread public ignorance. Advantage. Populism factor. Enormous. Fear. Bonus.

Most Americans have a weak, incomplete or misguided understanding of just what's going on. It's hard to blame them, given the deterioration in the quality of their mass media which no longer bothers trying to understand or analyze but offers itself up as a repeating station for political messaging. What filters down are words like "greed" "700-billion dollars" "trillion dollars" "Wall Street" "bail out."

What's not explained to people is constipation. How is the American economy dependent on the free flow of credit and what risks does the economy face of America face if their country encounters credit constipation? This is a subject that doesn't have high drama. There are no heroes, no villains, no guilty faces to throw up on screen. Here's how Krugman sees it. From the New York Times:

Many people on both the right and the left are outraged at the idea of using taxpayer money to bail out America’s financial system. They’re right to be outraged, but doing nothing isn’t a serious option. Right now, players throughout the system are refusing to lend and hoarding cash — and this collapse of credit reminds many economists of the run on the banks that brought on the Great Depression.

So the grown-up thing is to do something to rescue the financial system. The big question is, are there any grown-ups around — and will they be able to take charge?

...one non-rank-and-file Republican, Senator John McCain, is apparently playing spoiler. Earlier this week, while refusing to say whether he supported the Paulson plan, he claimed not to have had a chance to read it; the plan is all of three pages long. Then he inserted himself into the delicate negotiations over the Congressional plan, insisting on a White House meeting at which he reportedly said little — but during which consensus collapsed.

The Iraq War scam shows that an awful lot of Americans don't want to know. They get stirred up and then they react. That's what John McCain is counting on to turn his pig's ear into a silk purse. When the mob hits the streets with their torches and pitchforks, McCain knows the safest place to be is right in front leading them on.

He knows that it's critical for him to ride this wave. He has to be seen to be the voice of the American public's anger and frustration. If that means killing the deal, he'll do what it takes.

McCain realizes that, with the election just weeks away, he might just pull this one off. If he wins, kills the bail out, and it backfires on the American economy, the election will have come and gone before people start pointing fingers at him. By then he'll either be safely headed for the White House or drifting off to retirement.

If, however, he loses, he can claim the mantle of champion of all those upset Americans who are being ignored "as usual" by those damned politicians in Washington, those elitist bastards. Once again, he wins.

Will the American people see through McCain's gambit? I wouldn't bet on it. With his recent shenanigans about suspending his campaign and postponing debates he might have overplayed his hand. Then again, maybe not.

McCain Tries to Duck Friday Debates

You can't blame John McCain for wanting to put as much distance as possible between his campaign and the credit meltdown now underway. He damned near went apoplectic today when The New York Times revealed this his key campaign aide, Rick Davis, was getting money from Freddie Mac almost right up to the day it got taken over by the Feds.

The economic crisis appears to have broken the stubborn deadlock between Obama and McCain. Latest results have Obama up 9% and climbing while Captain Sound Fundamentals heads for the tank.

So McCain has announced he wants to postpone the debates scheduled for Friday evening. Sure he does. McCain claims America badly needs him in Washington to sort out this mess. Sure it does. Must "man the post" and all of that. Not that a guy who's shown such a weak grasp of "fundamentals" could make any difference anyway.

It's pretty obvious that, where his political survival is at stake, McCain is as good with the old "cut and run" as they come. Oh I so hope Obama doesn't let the Old Geezer off the hook.

Barack's Next Ad

It doesn't get much better than this.

American voters are casting about trying to figure out just who to blame for the subprime mortgage/derivative/credit crunch/housing bubble scandal. The Repugs, naturally, have their spin machines in overdrive - trying to convince average Americans that both parties are to blame and their Repug followers that it's really the Dems doing.

Time for a photo montage. You can start with Reagan's "trickle down" genius David Stockman, now staring at 30-years in prison for corporate accounting fraud. Then, how about Bush Sr. and Silverado Savings & Loan. Next up, John McCain and Chales Keating and Lincoln Savings & Loan. Then George w. Bush and "Kenny Boy" Lay of Enron fame. Cheney and Haliburton. Finally a Rogues Gallery of the Republican's "look the other way" regulators and then a quick return to John McCain and Charles Keating. Fade to black.

Ouch, ouch, ouch and ouch.

Keep hammering away at four decades of Republican shenanigans that have repeatedly wiped out little folks' life savings while facilitating the skyrocketing wealth of the real elite, America's wealthiest. Bring up clip of George w. at that black tie dinner bragging about his friends, "the haves and the have-mores, my base." Close with clip of John McCain saying he's supported Bush on every important piece of legislation throughout his presidency and his pledge to even further deregulate the financial services sector.

You might have to break that down into a series of three ads. Then but the best airtime you can get and run them in successive commercial breaks.

Bingo. Bye, bye Geezer.