Quote of the day, “McCain tweaks Obama on dogs” edition

Hey, libs…you started this, remember?  😆

From Sen. McCain:

So NOW McCain wants to build a fence along the Mexican border?

Wait, wait, wait. Lemme see if I’m getting this right:

Juan McAmnesty, a longtime champion of “comprehensive immigration reform” who hired an open borders shill to run his “Hispanic outreach” in 2008, once cursed people like me (and apparently like 70% of his state’s citizens) for wanting to build a (his words) “g-d-mned fence“.

But now that he’s in a dogfight in the AZ GOP primary, two years removed from being his party’s presidential nominee, he has suddenly seen the light on the importance of a border fence.  He’s running a commercial imploring the feds to “build the danged fence“!

Wow.  I mean, seriously…wow.  There’s flip-flopping, and then there’s shameless “please don’t hand me a pink slip, I’ll say anything you want me to say!” flip-flopping.  The “maverick” who has been willing to buck his party for years now suddenly finds himself “condescending” to the base, abandoning his convictions just to keep his seat on the gravy train!

I cordially invite you to self-fornicate, McCain.

Quote of the day, “McCain gets serious about border enforcement” edition

Are we talking about John McCain, aka Juan McAmnesty?  The same McCain that bellyached about having to “build the g#d#mned. fence“?

Yep, the same McCain.  Quote:

“I believe that we can convince our Republican colleagues that we have to secure the border first,” McCain said during an appearance on KFYI radio in Arizona. “There’s no point of having immigration reform unless you can have the borders secure first.”

I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the fact that his numbers in the AZ primary have begun to crater, does it?  I mean, he’s fighting a longtime opponent of criminal immigration in J.D. Hayworth, and McCain has seen his fortunes go much like those of Charlie Crist in FL: from huge primary lead, to falling massively.  McCain still leads Hayworth in the polls, but that once-insurmountable lead looks…well, surmountable now.  How humiliating would it be, for both McCain and the GOP establishment, if the party’s presidential candidate from two years ago gets whacked in a Senate primary?

Straight talk McCain: he will straight up tell you how it is, and if you don’t like it, he’s more than willing to tell you something else until he figures out what you want to hear.

Night and Day, “McCain the Maverick” edition

Juan McAmnesty on the campaign trail in 2008:

I have a long record and the American people know me very well and that is independent and a maverick of the Senate and I’m happy to say that I’ve got a partner that’s a good maverick along with me now.

Juanny Mac over the weekend:

“I never considered myself a maverick,” he told me. “I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities.”

Busted.

Thoughts from the health care “summit”

Just in case you were naive enough to think this was an actual solicitation of input from the opposition, this should kill your naiveté:

After a brief period of consultation following the White House health reform summit, congressional Democrats plan to begin making the case next week for a massive, Democrats-only health care plan, party strategists told POLITICO.

This story was put out while the “summit” was still going on, well before it ended. In other words, the Dems had their plans already lined up, and nothing that occurred in the “summit” was going to change that.

The Vice-Plagiarist feared that inviting the Republicans to the “summit” could “could end up being not good”.  Boy, how right he was!  It turned out to be a disaster…for the Democrat Party.

Opinions are coming in from around the punditry, but, to coin a phrase overutilized by the global “warming” cultists, the science is settled: the GOP scored a massive body blow to Obama and the Dems.  Jay Nordlinger:

This health-care summit was a bad idea for the Democrats for this reason: They have long benefited from a perception — a perception greatly abetted by the media: The Republicans don’t care about health care, they don’t know about health care, they are the Party of No. All the ideas and caring are on the Democratic side.

It is not so, and it has never been so. And now everybody knows it.

Indeed, everybody does now know it. David Gergen:

The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer…yeah, that Wolf Blitzer:

It looks like the Republicans certainly showed up ready to play.

The Hill’s A.B. Stoddard:

I think we need to start out by acknowledging Republicans brought their ‘A Team.’ They had doctors knowledgeable about the system, they brought substance to the table, and they, I thought, expressed interest in the reform. I thought in the lecture from Senator John McCain and on the issue of transparency, I thought today the Democrats were pretty much on their knees.

Yuval Levin:

…The Republicans seem genuinely well-prepared, seem to have thought through the question of who should speak about what rather carefully, and several of them have done quite a good job making their case against the Democrats’ approach. If we were to judge by debating points, Republicans certainly won the morning handily.

Jim Geraghty:

The Democrats are offering a lot of anecdotes about Baby Jesus, Steny Hoyer’s answering machine, and the teeth of the dead. Obama is at his least persuasive; he keeps ruling GOP arguments out of bounds for one reason or another – don’t hold up a copy of the bill, don’t cite Washington because people are angry at Washington right now, don’t ask for equal time, don’t focus on where we disagree, don’t remind me of what I said as candidate. I don’t think that transforms the skeptics into supporters.

That is my biggest takeaway of the whole thing: Republicans used charts, graphs, stats, analyses, quotes…in other words, facts. Democrats used no facts, but opted instead to use anecdotes, sob stories, and tearjerkers…the things on which you do not base good public policy!

Check out the tag line under my blog title: Why think when you can feel? The Democrats have proved me right time and time again, and this time, they do so in a way that leaves no doubt. The science is settled (how’s that tasting now, lefties?): Liberals govern on feeling, not on thinking. Thinking just isn’t their forté.

Also, McCain did a great job making B.O. look like the thin-skinned, petulant brat that he is. When McCain pointed out the shadiness of the backroom deals (e.g. FL getting exempted from ObamaCare in three huge Democrat counties) and asked why they get to keep using Medicare Advantage when the rest of the country wouldn’t be able to, B.O. looked uneasy and tried throwing him a bone: “That’s a legitimate question.” A question he wasn’t going to answer, mind you, but a legitimate question nonetheless. Other points McCain made about promises that B.O. made on the campaign trail prompted B.O. to get snippy: We’re not campaigning anymore, I won, etc. In other words, to paraphrase Miles from Risky Business when asked by Joel if everything he had said was “just bull$h!t”: That was just bull$h!t, John, I’m surprised you and America listened to me!

Anywho, let’s close with some ludicrous, and laughably so, comments:

Pelosi: This isn’t a health care reform bill, as much as it is a jobs bill. ‘Cuz the bill will create four million jobs, 400k of them nearly overnight. Or something.

Tom Harkin (D-IA): Having different insurance risk pools is akin to Jim Crow laws. Or something.

Reid: No one’s talking about reconciliation. Obama: Um, I am.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY): Here’s a sob story about a woman who was “forced” to wear her dead sister’s dentures due to lack of health insurance. Or something.

Another nugget from Slaughter: “Not nitpick, but think about all the people out there every day, the number of people that have excess deaths because they have no health insurance.” I wasn’t aware a person could have more than one death. The stuff I learn from Washington. But hey, you can’t spell “Slaughter” without “laughter”, right? 😆

American people: Hey, 59% of us want Washington to scrap the whole thing and start from scratch. Dems to American people: Screw you, Mr. and Mrs. Normal America, but we’re going to cater to the whackjob 34% who want our partisan socialist bill.

NYT sued for running fact-free innuendo-heavy McCain hit piece

What is the last thing a failing newspaper hemorrhaging readers and ad revenue leads?  This:

The 36-page complaint charges that the story implies an “unprofessional relationship” between Iseman and McCain.

Both Iseman and McCain denied any improper relationship. However, the public viewed the story as being about an affair, according to the suit, which cites the post-publication remarks of 10 different commentators across the political spectrum. In each case, their comments about the story assumed it was about an alleged affair, the lawyers noted…

The suit claims that Iseman suffered damage to her mental, emotional and physical health. The lawyers noted that she continues to work as a lobbyist in Washington, for a firm based in Arlington. They said they anticipate developing their case on damages as the matter moves forward.

Notes Allah:

…Was this really, really bad? Well, (a) other journalists looked into the charges and found nothing there; (b) not only McCain and Iseman but John Weaver, a central figure in the story, adamantly denied the perception of a romantic relationship; (c) the Times itself wavered on whether to publish it and didn’t pull the trigger until TNR pressured them into it with a behind-the-scenes story on the paper’s dithering; and (d) most damning, the paper’s own ombudsman dumped all over the piece.

Heh.  Reap what you sow, NYT!

Reason #4,154 that McCain losing wasn’t such a bad thing

The man continues crapping on the base.  From ABC News:

…McCain suggested the Republican National Committee’s calls for the Obama team to publicly release their conversations with Blagojevich and his people aren’t helpful.

“With all due respect to the Republican National Committee, we should try to be working constructively together,” McCain said.

Yes, indeed…the Blago mess is the GOP’s fault.  Notes DrewM:

I thought McCain rewrote the 1st Amendment because we had to worry about the “appearance of corruption”. Yet now that we have actual corruption on the part of a sitting governor, we must not ask any questions of Obama but rather just sit and wait for Him to tell us what He thinks we need to know.

Hopefully the party learned a lesson this year about letting buttmunches like Juanny Mac become standard bearers.  Knowing the GOP, though, they have probably learned no such lesson.

Exit prediction: Now that the Obamessiah has been safely ascended to the throne to sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty elected, the MSM will go back to liking McLame.

Washington comPost: Hey, sorry about our biased pro-Obama coverage!

Predictably, with their already anemic credibility left in tatters, the Kamikaze Media is trying to save face now that their desired result has come to fruition.  The comPost is the first to offer a belated mea culpa, but I imagine they won’t be the last.  Excerpt:

The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.

My assistant, Jean Hwang, and I have been examining Post coverage since Nov. 11 of last year on issues, voters, fundraising, the candidates’ backgrounds and horse-race stories on tactics, strategy and consultants. We also have looked at photos and Page 1 stories since Obama captured the nomination June 4.

The count was lopsided, with 1,295 horse-race stories and 594 issues stories. The Post was deficient in stories that reported more than the two candidates trading jabs; readers needed articles, going back to the primaries, comparing their positions with outside experts’ views. There were no broad stories on energy or science policy, and there were few on religion issues.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Live blogging the election

…will be done at a ton of sites.  But probably not this one.  I’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow (while I still have a job, before Obortionist kills it).  I’m not staying up late for this one, especially watching how the last two have dragged on into the wee hours of the morning.  The sun will still rise in the morning, regardless of who wins tonight.  I’ll weigh in with the post mortem tomorrow.

So check out Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, Ace of Spades, or a ton of other blogs out there for live blogging coverage.

Frank: You’re mad at me not for tanking the economy, but for being a pole-smoker

McCain criticizes Frank for his contribution to the financial mess, and Frank whips out (OK, bad choice of words!)…yep…the “gay card”!

Frank yesterday dismissed McCain’s words as “an appeal to prejudice” that he said reminded him of past Republican efforts to raise voter concerns about the prospect of congressmen Charles Rangel and John Conyers, who are black, becoming committee chairs.

“I’m flattered by this,” said Frank, who is gay. “But I don’t think I’m the single most important member of the House after Nancy Pelosi. There are also a lot of straight white men who are committee chairmen.”

McCain’s chief speechwriter, Mark Salter, shook his head when asked to respond. “We’re bringing him up for his quotes,” said Salter. “We’re prejudiced against wasteful spenders and tax hikers.”

Is it possible that we’re a little torqued that Barney Frank was bouncing Fannie Mae orbs off his chin while going to bat for Fannie/Freddie during his day job?  Maybe we’re a bit bent that he and his ilk have destroyed our economy, especially the mortgage sector?  Perhaps we detest his socialist “let’s tax the rich more and gut the Defense Dept. budget” words of wisdom?

Nah.  We’re OK with all that trivial stuff.  No, our hang-up is that he likes man-meat up his squeakhole.  Darn it, he’s got us figured out!  😆

Why polls are worthless

IBD/TIPP:  Obama by 1.1%

AP:  Obama by 1%

GWU/Battleground: Obama by 2%

al-Reuters/Zogby:  Obama by 12%

ABC/comPost:  Obama by 11%

All over the place.  McCain folks will believe the first three, and Obama folks will believe the last two.  There’s tons more out there, but I think you get the drift: right now, polls suck.

Surprise, surprise: MSM coverage of McCain more negative than that of Obama

Who knew?  From the comPost:

Media coverage of John McCain has been heavily unfavorable since the political conventions, more than three times as negative as the portrayal of Barack Obama, a new study says.

Fifty-seven percent of the print and broadcast stories about the Republican nominee were decidedly negative, the Project for Excellence in Journalism says in a report out today, while 14 percent were positive. The McCain campaign has repeatedly complained that the mainstream media are biased toward the senator from Illinois.

Obama’s coverage was more balanced during the six-week period from Sept. 8 through last Thursday, with 36 percent of the stories clearly positive, 35 percent neutral or mixed and 29 percent negative.

McCain has struggled during this period and slipped in the polls, which is one of the reasons for the more negative assessments by the 48 news outlets studied by the Washington-based group. But the imbalance is striking nonetheless.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Quote of the day, “Deathbed media” edition

Excellent short column by Jim Treacher.  Money quote:

These geniuses [the MSM – Ed.] used to be a lot better at crafting a narrative, right? There was a time when they might have worried about ruining their own reputations in the process of advancing their political views. They’d at least make an effort to seem impartial. But if their whole industry is swirling down the toilet anyway, why keep pretending?

One last chance for glory before they check out for good.

The Deathbed Media.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

LAT edits out McCain’s comments on the economy, then reports that he won’t talk about the economy

From Patterico:

Today John McCain finally began to tell the country about his own efforts to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Democrats’ incredible inaction. Yes, as many of us had urged, McCain finally talked about the economy, and the conservative blogs went nuts. Republican bloggers know that McCain has to talk about this, because the economy is the top issue concerning Americans, and McCain has a good story to tell — even if it’s one that the media has been ignoring.

Speaking of which:

How did the L.A. Times cover McCain’s stunning speech taking on this core economic concern?

By pretending McCain never said it, and by quoting Barack Obama talking about how McCain is scared to talk about the economy.
…
At which point McCain launched into the amazing speech quoted by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, during which he laid out the case, at great length, for the Democrats’ responsibility for the mortgage crisis.

Does the L.A. Times report one word of that? No. Instead, they cut the quote of McCain’s speech short there, right before he talks about the economy, and proceed to quote Obama as claiming that McCain is scared to talk about the economy…

And they wonder why they’re losing business and laying off employees?  Proverbs 11:3 tells us that “Honesty guides good people; dishonesty destroys treacherous people.”

Patterico updates that the LAT has drastically altered the story, and by “drastically altered”, I mean “dropped it completely down the memory hole in hopes that no one noticed.”  Nope…no liberal media bias!

Finally: McCain calls Obama a liar

There’s a good reason McCain is calling the Obamaliar out: because Obama is, in fact, a liar.  About freakin’ time, no?

Obama is to be rebuked for his lying.  Luke 17:3 says “Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.”  I don’t see Obama repenting anytime soon, but that’s not my call.  Also, Titus 1:13 says “This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.”  I don’t see Obama being sound in the faith anytime soon, either.  For his sake, I pray I’m wrong.

Debate recap

Thoughts from the debate:

• McCain won.  Everyone saw that.
• Notice that while McCain used the respectful “Senator Obama”, Obama frequently referred to his opponent as “John” rather than the more respectful “Senator McCain”?
• While McCain interrupted a time or two, The One interrupted much more frequently.  All that was left, I suppose, was for O to “get in his face”!
• McCain got a slam dunk when he challenged Barry O on Afghanistan: If you think Afghanistan is so darned important, why have you never visited there?  O responded with “um” and “uh” and then some blithering nonsense.
• Obama got annoyed and flustered frequently, and it showed.  He lost his cool a number of times, and he played on defense most of the time.  I thought McCain was supposed to be the one with the temper?  If true, he didn’t show it.
• When McCain challenged Obama on his “meet the dictators with no preconditions” lunacy, O lied about it and said that Kissinger supported the idea.  Kissinger says that’s ludicrous: he never said such a thing.
• McCain didn’t do everything right, of course.  He stayed on the “I’ve been bipartisan” and “I’ve fought pork and will cut wasteful spending” line way too long.  I cringed when he talked about “climate change”.
• McCain missed a golden opportunity when Lehrer asked them “With the $700 billion bailout, what spending priorities will you have to forego?”  Big O responded that depending on revenues, he wouldn’t be able to pay for everything he wanted…and then he rattled off a laundry list of stuff he’d pay for, including…broadband lines?  McCain should have said “Well, gosh, Jim!  You asked us what we would cut, and he just basically told you ‘Nothing. In fact, I’m spending more!'”  That would have really illustrated what a tax-and-spend liberal Obama truly is.
• The biggest gaffe was Obama’s true, heartfelt support for the troops.  It’s so gosh darn real that he…uh…forgot the name of the soldier on his bracelet and had to look down to be reminded of it!  Team Mac, run with this on commercials, dude!

All in all, The One got his clock royally cleaned tonight.  Of course, one debate does not an election make.  Bush fared poorly in his first debate against Gore and his first against Kerry, yet he still won the elections (memo to moonbats: yes, he really did win!).  I’m interested to see how the remaining debates go.

Obama’s “1984” approach to campaign ads

The One of Supremely Thin Skin is getting awfully Orwellian these days.  From News 4:

The Barack Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign.

Exit question: Does this mean that Obama is subject to arrest?  What about this?  Maybe this?

Dems blame McCain’s plan…or lack of plan…for bailout deal collapse

Chris “Countrywide” Dodd:

Republican presidential nominee John McCain was blamed for de-railing negotiations by blindsiding lawmakers with his support for an alternative plan.

The ‘very contentious’ meeting broke up after Republican leaders said they had to go back to their rank-and-file to discuss the new proposal…

After the hour-long White House meeting, [Dodd] said: ‘What has happened here is that we have spent seven straight days to find a rescue plan for the economy.

‘What this looked like was a rescue plan for John McCain. To be distracted for two to three hours by political theatre doesn’t help.’

Democrats said the Republicans were on board with the deal until Mr McCain intervened an injected presidential politics into the situation.

Hmmm…that’s not what Reid says:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) completely dismissed McCain’s role in the meeting, saying that he spoke last, said nothing important and had little to do with the negotiations.

So which is it?  Did McCain offer no plan, or did he offer a plan that blew the bailout deal (you know, the one that had only four House Republicans agreeing to it?) out of the water?  Geez, pick a line of attack (regardless of whether it’s another typical liberal lie) and stick with it!  You lefties can’t seem to stick to your story lines, can you?

Author of Fannie/Freddie mess ridicules McCain’s attempt to clean up said mess

Barney “Prostitution Ring” Frank, chief author of the Fannie/Freddie collapse, thought it would be a hoot to snark on Ol’ Man Mac.

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a chief author of the economic rescue package, doesn’t think much of John McCain’s late entry into the negotiations.

“McCain is Andy Kaufman in his Mighty Mouse costume – ‘Here I Come to Save the Day,'” Frank said as he left a Thursday morning caucus meeting with House Democrats, saying the Republican presidential candidate’s decision to enter the mix “is not helpful.”

“He hasn’t been involved,” Frank said. “He doesn’t know anything about it.” 

Mushmouth certainly knows something about it: it’s largely Frank’s fault that Fannie/Freddie are in the shape that they are in today!  That buttmuch’s comments would be akin to me breaking the cookie jar, then teasing you for sweeping it up.

Stick to show tunes, Barney.  Economic reality isn’t your forté.

Obama sleeps through 3 AM call

Great analysis by Ed Morrissey.  Excerpt:

It also puts an interesting light on his offer to Barack Obama to return with him [McCain] to Washington. Having been told of Paulson’s request, McCain decided to return — but then offered to have Obama return with him in order to make it an election-neutral decision.  McCain even offered to suspend the campaign.  Obama refused, and McCain went back by himself. Bush then summoned Obama back to keep Democrats from backing away from a bill they have supported over the last few days.  If McCain can succeed in getting changes in the bill with the points he has been making from the campaign trail, he can put his own stamp on this bill and have yet another example of his work as a crisis manager and bipartisan reformer.

Obama: He was against returning to Washington to do his current job…before he was for it (or, more accurately, shamed into it).  He’s just not ready to lead.

Night and Day, “Reid plays politics with America’s economy” edition

Red yesterday:

Reid specifically challenged McCain on Tuesday to take a position on the bailout package.

“I got some good news in the last hour or so … it appears that Sen. McCain is going to come out for this,” Reid announced.  (Turns out Reid was wrong. – Ed.)

Reid today:

A Democrat tells ABC News that, in a phone call late this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that it would NOT be helpful for him to come back to Washington, D.C., to work on the Wall Street bailout bill.

Reid wants McCain to come to DC…then he doesn’t.  Theorizes Ed:

He wanted McCain on the hook so that Reid could blame McCain for the political fallout.  When McCain called Reid’s bluff — and that’s what appears to have happened here — Reid did what Reid always does: retreat.

I think Reid fears more than just the idea that McCain will “risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy.”  What Reid fears is that McCain will return to lead the Republican effort to reach a compromise, and the Senate and House GOP will let him do it.  If McCain takes ownership of the bailout effort and manages to get his suggestions on limiting executive compensation and so on as part of the finished product, he will be able to trot McCain-Dodd on the campaign trail as yet another reform he’s accomplished by working across the aisle.  And in a time of crisis, no less.

And what will Obama be able to say?  He gave a couple of speeches and raised cash for himself while McCain went to work for the nation.

Democrats: Country second, party first.  Disgusting!  And you folks wonder why I’m sick of politics?

NYT can’t help herself: Another false hit job on McCain

When Team Mac refers to the Old Gray Hag as an Obama advocacy group, it’s not an exaggeration.  From the Hag:

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. (Which two? We’re not told. Yet additional unsubstantiated, “nameless” sources by the NYT! – Ed.)

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

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the two people said. …

Sounds damning.  It actually would be damning…if it were true.  Which it’s not.  And the Hag knows it. 

Team Mac responds:

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.

Again, let us be clear: The New York Times — in the absence of any supporting evidence — has insinuated some kind of impropriety on the part of Senator McCain and Rick Davis. But entirely missing from the story is any significant mention of Senator McCain’s long advocacy for, and co-sponsorship of legislation to enact, stricter oversight and regulation of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — dating back to 2006. Please see the attached floor statement on this issue by Senator McCain from 2006.  

In other words, the Times just completely made shiite up out of thin air.  With all those “multiple layers of fact-checkers” at its disposal, you would think that the Hag would know this stuff before we bloggers would.

Team Mac also notices a disparity:

To the central point our campaign has made in the last 48 hours: The New York Times has never published a single investigative piece, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, his consulting and lobbying clients, and Senator Obama. Likewise, the New York Times never published an investigative report, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson and Senator Obama, who appointed Johnson head of his VP search committee, until the writing was on the wall and Johnson was under fire following reports from actual news organizations that he had received preferential loans from predatory mortgage lender Countrywide.

Yeah, that Rick Davis cat is such a slimy heavy-hitting lobbyist that so effectively lobbied McCain that…um…McCain tried to rein in Fannie/Freddie three years ago, ultimately being thwarted by Senate Democrats in bed with Fannie/Freddie.  I’m not saying that Obama himself was successfully lobbied to stop the Fannie/Freddie regulation bill from passing…just that over a hundred grand in Fannie/Freddie money just so happened to appear in Obama’s hands, enough to make Obama the third-highest paid recipient of Fannie/Freddie money after less than four years in the Senate.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

comPost poll: Obama’s “big” lead

Wow…a 9% lead?  That’s wildly different than every other poll out there.  It’s almost as if they oversampled Democrats by 10% or something.

Actually, it’s exactly like that.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

MSM pouts, threatens to ban Palin footage despite newsworthiness

Look at the MSM, threatening to hold its breath and turn blue if it doesn’t get its way!  From ABC News blog:

It was like a miniature mutiny. Reporters frustrated by weeks of limited access to Republican presidential nominee John McCain shouted questions at him during a photo opportunity event near Cleveland this morning.
…
Reporters were being kept away from Palin’s meetings with world leaders. (Palin is scheduled to meet Afghan President Karzai and Colombia President Alvaro Uribe, among others.) Though the McCain campaign will allow a producer and camera crew to cover the event for the news networks, originally they only permitted a camera — with no editorial presence — inside the meetings. In protest of the McCain camp’s original edict to refuse to allow editorial presence in the room, the networks had voted to ban use of photographs/video of Palin’s meetings. …

The McCain camp gives in and allows a CNN reporter (not Fox News…process that, moonbats!) to tag along.  It was not even worth the MSM’s temper tantrum.  From the Washington Times:

According to the CNN producer who was let into Karzai’s hotel suite with the photographers just before noon, Karzai was talking about his son. Palin was nodding, and asked what his name is. Karzai replied his name was Mirwais and explained that it means light of the house.

The media were escorted out after about 40 seconds.

Campaign aides subsequently announced that reporters would be allowed to accompany photographers into the later sessions with Uribe and Kissinger. 

The MSM wasn’t going to do their friggin’ jobs and report the news unless they got their way: 40 seconds of access.  You try doing that at your job and see if you don’t get fired faster than Ted Kennedy wolfs down a gin-and-tonic.

Slu notices quite a difference in this lack of access and that of a certain Messiah running on the other side:

When Barack Obama had his magical mystery tour of Europe, he met with foreign leaders. Here’s an interesting nugget about those meetings from the NYTimes:

On his second visit to Israel, he sought to reassure voters of his capacity to serve on the international stage. The audience for the trip, despite a private series of dawn-to-dusk meetings, clearly was the American electorate as much as the foreign leaders.

Interesting contrast. They simply reported the meetings were private. No demand for access, no snarky blog posts about how long they were allowed into the meeting. No votes to ban coverage. When Obama met with the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the meeting was private as well. The British press even wrote a story about the privacy of the meeting with Gordon Brown.

I must have missed the part where the media pouted and stamped their feet about being cut out of that meeting.

From Newsbusters:

…A review of media coverage from Obama’s behind-closed-doors chats with European heads of state, however, shows no such complaint by the media about a lack of access.
…
Yet when Sen. Barack Obama went to Europe this summer and met with past and present foreign leaders, print media were similarly on the outside looking in. Obama met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former and current British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (respectively), and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

UMass efforts to give college credit to Obama supporters squashed

Score a point for the good guys here.  From Fox 59:

University of Massachusetts officials on Monday quashed efforts by an Amherst campus chaplain to offer two college credits to any student willing to campaign in New Hampshire this fall for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Chaplain Kent Higgins told students in a Sept. 18 e-mail, “If you’re scared about the prospects for this election, you’re not alone. The most important way to make a difference in the outcome is to activate yourself. It would be just fine with (Republican candidate John) McCain if Obama supporters just think about helping, then sleep in and stay home between now and Election Day.”

Higgins added that an unnamed “sponsor” in the university’s history department would offer a two-credit independent study for students willing to canvass — identify supporters — or volunteer on behalf of the Democratic nominee.

University officials disavowed the effort after inquiries Monday by The Associated Press. They said it could run afoul of state ethics laws banning on-the-job political activity, as well as university policy.

“We do not engage in or sponsor partisan political activity,” (other than normal day-to-day propaganda inside of classrooms, that is. – Ed.) said Audrey Alstadt, chairwoman of the history department. “We certainly do not give academic credit for participation in partisan politics.”
…
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Republican Party (you mean, there is one? – Ed.) criticized the effort.

“We’re disappointed, but frankly not surprised, that the liberal academic elite have once again decided to promote one candidate over another,” said GOP spokesman Barney Keller. “Our tax dollars pay their salaries so they can teach our children how to make up their own minds, not to advance a partisan political agenda.”

Check out this laugher:

Higgins said he never intended for the program to be limited to supporters of Obama. Regardless of the opinions expressed in his e-mail, he said he would also have been open to those students who wanted to canvass for McCain.

“The idea was there just to see if we could help with folks who want to be active with any of the campaigns in New Hampshire,” he said during an interview with the AP. “We have to be bipartisan, multilateral.”

Yeah, I can see where the average Joe would read “It would be just fine with McCain if Obama supporters just think about helping, then sleep in and stay home between now and Election Day” and think “Wow, that sounds like an apolitical, bipartisan call to arms!”  Poor form for a chaplain to lie, no?

If I didn’t know any better, I would swear that it appears as if universities are staffed with a bunch of leftist elitists who use their positions of power to indoctrinate, rather than educate, students!

comPost’s Kurtz disputes McCain’s ad based on “bad information”…which, um, was published in comPost!

Ya gotta hand it to Howie Kurtz of the Washington comPost.  He’s so knee-deep in the tank fot The One that he’s disputing the ad McCain put out about Obambi’s close ties to failed Fannie Mae exec Frank Raines.  Says Howie:

The Ad: Obama has no background in economics. Who advises him? The Post says it’s Franklin Raines, for “advice on mortgage and housing policy.” Shocking. Under Raines, Fannie Mae committed “extensive financial fraud.” Raines made millions. Fannie Mae collapsed. Taxpayers? Stuck with the bill. Barack Obama. Bad advice. Bad instincts. Not ready to lead.

Analysis: This John McCain ad is based on a disputed premise.

There’s no dispute that Obama has no background in economics — but then, neither does McCain, which makes this an odd charge for the Arizona senator to hurl.

Fannie Mae did collapse, requiring a government takeover, and Raines, its former chairman, paid $25 million in April to settle a case brought by federal authorities investigating his role in the agency’s accounting problems. But he has never been a close adviser to Obama.

Yeah, really…where on Earth would McCain get such a crazy idea?  Oh, I dunno…maybe from Howie’s own friggin’ employer?

In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae’s chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case’s D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters. (From July 15, 2008 – Ed.)

In the current crisis, their biggest backers have been Democrats such as Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (Mass.). Two members of Mr. Obama’s political circle, James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines, are former chief executives of Fannie Mae.  (From August 27, 2008 – Ed.)

Maybe Kurtz is telling us that the content contained within the pages of his newspaper isn’t worth the paper on which it is printed.  That might be one of the first times I can ever recall an MSM’er telling us that his own media source employer’s not credible.  😆

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Obama lies about Fannie/Freddie connections

McCain launches a new ad that accurately connects former Fannie Mae exec Frank Raines to the Obama campaign.  Obama retorts that McCain’s making stuff up and smearing him, asserting that Raines has never advised him in any capacity at any time.

There’s just one problem with that: Obama is, as usual, lying through his arugula-eating teeth.  Observe the following two excerpts from the Washington comPost:

In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae’s chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case’s D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters. (From July 15, 2008 – Ed.)

In the current crisis, their biggest backers have been Democrats such as Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (Mass.). Two members of Mr. Obama’s political circle, James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines, are former chief executives of Fannie Mae.  (From August 27, 2008 – Ed.)

Funny how the Obamessiah has never challenged the veracity of these stories in the comPost, but now that McCain is running commercials that simply restate the comPost stories, suddenly McCain’s lying. 

Either the comPost is wrong and McCain is simply repeating bad information, or the Obamaliar is playing fast and loose with the truth yet again.  Call me crazy, but I’m leaning towards the latter.  Either way, though, McCain can’t be lying.

Photo of the day

Night and Day, “Obama’s commissions” edition

The One in April:

Among the presidential campaigners, Sen. Barack Obama, speaking at New York’s Cooper Union late last month, blamed corporate lobbyists for carrying deregulation too far and he pledged regulatory reform, but nothing more specific than the creation of a financial oversight commission.

The One yesterday:

Today, Senator Obama said: “Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book: you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem. But here’s the thing: this isn’t 9-11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out.” 

That Wall Street Commission was such a good idea that even John McCain decided to embrace the idea…at which point, the idea stopped being a good one.  But hey, this Obama guy is gonna be the “uniter” and “reach across the aisle” for “bipartisan” efforts to find real solutions, right?

As Beckwith notes:

Perhaps the person who ghost writes his teleprompter can first do a Google search on the senator’s behalf to see whether he had opined on prior occasions on the matter of commissions. It took me about 40 minutes to track all these down.

For a campaign that seems to get awfully giddy at McCain’s lack of Internet experience, they sure do have a way of getting their tails kicked by Google searches, huh?

Obama a victim of the “gloomy” economy

Heh.

So what does Barack Obama do after a hard day of defending the common man during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

Throw a $28,500-a-head fundraising dinner, of course.

Followed by a $2,500-a-head reception featuring Barbra Streisand singing a song or two.

The Democratic presidential candidate spent the day Tuesday campaigning in Colorado, where he talked to supporters about the mortgage crisis that has reshaped Wall Street and caused many people to lose their homes.
 
Speaking a day after the stock market had its worst day since 2001, he assured a rally in the Denver suburb of Golden that he understood the impact the crisis was having from Wall Street to Main Street.
 
“Jobs have disappeared, and peoples’ life savings have been put at risk. Millions of families face foreclosure, and millions more have seen their home values plummet,” he said.
 
“These are the struggles that Americans are facing. This is the pain that has now trickled up.”
 
Then he jetted off to Los Angeles (Beverly Hills, if I’m not mistaken. – Ed.) Tuesday evening for a pair of glitzy fundraisers that could be the biggest for Democrats during this election cycle. 

Because Barry and Hollyweird are just, you know, a bunch of average American Joes and Janes, right?  But hey, don’t you go thinking he’s some kind of elitist or anything, m’kay?  Retorts J-Mac:

“(He) talks about siding with the people, siding with the people — just before he flies off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbra Streisand and his celebrity friends,” McCain told a rally in Vienna, Ohio, a critical battleground state. “Let me tell you my friends, there’s no place I’d rather be than here with the working men and women of Ohio.”