Today’s opining on the public discourse.

I just got off the phone with my best friend, who floored me with the news that he’s decided to vote for Obama. At this rate, I won’t have any staunch conservatives left in my life.

He’s not the only one who’s jumped ship and struck out for happier shores this week:

Author Christopher Buckley, the son of William F. Buckley, offered a hearty endorsement of the Democratic candidate today. Given that Christopher Buckley remains a columnist for the National Review, this was not at all expected.

What’s more, Buckley has known McCain personally for more than a quarter century, has defended him, and has even worked for him. But he’s seen enough to know that Candidate McCain hasn’t earned his support.

[McCain] 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?

What’s more, Buckley seems to think highly of Obama, too, lauding this “first-class temperament” and a “first-class intellect.”

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.

Indeed, sir. Welcome aboard. We’ll keep you safe over here until the anti-intellectual, neo-theo-con, mouthbreathing fundamentalist lackwits have completely self-destructed, at which time you’ll be able to reconstruct a true conservative Republican party upon the old one’s smoldering foundations. While you’re over here, you’ll have plenty of company.

Conservatives, it seems, want nothing to do with McCain, and are starting to find Obama’s ideas and attitude attractive. McCain, in fact, is becoming so poisonous that even blood-red Republicons are fleeing his vicinity:

John McCain was in Minnesota yesterday, home to a very competitive U.S. Senate race. Given the attention that comes with a visit from a presidential candidate, one might assume that Sen. Norm Coleman (R) would want to travel alongside his Republican colleague.

But Coleman apparently concluded he was better off without McCain.

Coleman told reporters that he would not be appearing at a planned rally with McCain this afternoon. Could it be McCain’s sliding polling numbers in Minnesota? His attacks on Obama? Coleman said he needs the time to work on suspending his own negative ads.

“Today,” he said, “people need hope and a more positive campaign is a start.”

What an interesting response. If Coleman wanted to quietly snub McCain, he could have told reporters he had a scheduling conflict and just couldn’t make it to McCain’s event. Instead, Coleman made it clear he was deliberately snubbing McCain, siding with “hope” and “a more positive campaign.”

Hope… more positive politics… now, who does that remind me of? Oh, yeah: Obama.

And it could also have a wee little bit o’ something to do with the fact that the McCain/Palin team is truly unique in our nation’s history:

Now that Sarah Palin has been found to have abused her powers, violated state ethics, and lied about it, I did a little digging and found an interesting historical footnote.

The McCain/Palin ticket is the first in American history in which both candidates were found to have violated ethics standards before a national election.

McCain, of course, was admonished by Senate Ethics Committee “for exercising ‘poor judgment’ for intervening” with federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, as part of the infamous Keating Five scandal.

And now McCain’s running mate has also been found to have violated state ethics laws and abused the powers of her office, as part of the “Troopergate” scandal.

What a claim to fame. Here, I think, we begin to see why it is that the McCain/Palin nightmare dream team isn’t winning friends and influencing people among the “those capapable of basic cognition” set. It’s one thing for your record not to match your rhetoric. It’s another thing entirely for your record to point to your rhetoric and dissolve into hysterical laughter:

Just moments ago at a townhall rally in Davenport, IA, John McCain delivered this statement:

As a Senator, I’ve seen the corrupt ways of Washington and wasteful spending and other abuses of power, and its corruption. We now have former members of Congress residing in federal prison. That’s how bad it’s gotten. As President, I’m going to end these abuses whatever it takes.

Does he realize that every time he opens his mouth, he insults the intelligence of the American people? Oh, right. He surrounds himself with buffoons, neocon opportunists, lobbyists, and the last fragments of the Republicon base that have given up thinking entirely in favor of knee-jerk jingoism and hate. That might explain why he tells transparent lies and makes utterly unbelievable statements. Look at his sounding boards.

Of course, he and his campaign are working desperately to spin the conclusions of the Troopergate report so as to retain some infintesimal shred of credibility. How’s that going, there, Johnny?

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

I see commiserations congratulations are in order. Gays in Connecticut now have the right to throw their lives away get married:

As of this morning, the number of states allowing adults to get married, regardless of sexual orientation, went up by one.

The [Connecticut] Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry swept through the state with the force of a cultural tidal wave.

While lead plaintiff Beth Kerrigan and her partner — soon to be wife — embraced and sobbed after learning of the ruling, opponents vowed to pursue a long and complicated route to change the constitution to ban gay marriage.

The Supreme Court released its historic ruling at 11:30 a.m. Citing the equal protection clause of the state constitution, the justices ruled that civil unions were discriminatory and that the state’s “understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection.”

Seriously, congratulations. As much as I despise weddings, I hope that someday soon, I get to watch all of my friends – gay and straight alike – tie the knot. Those as wants to, anyway. Some, like me, will prefer the gloriously single life for a few decades more, thanks so very much. There’s no reason on earth (and I mean reasonable reason, not bullshit religious reasons) why all of us shouldn’t be able to follow our hearts.

Let no howling right-wing mob get in our way.

Speaking of howling right-wing mobs, looks like McCain and Palin have unleashed a juggernaut they’re incapable of controlling:

In the latest example of Republican rage, a woman screamed “traitor!” in reference to Barack Obama, during one of John McCain’s tirades about his Democratic opponent. McCain looked in the woman’s direction, said nothing, and continued on with his speech. It came a half-day after another Republican yelled “bomb Obama!” during a debate for Senate candidates in Georgia, and it’s obviously part of a pattern.

This, unlike Reaganomics, is definitely trickling down. When the same rabid rioters start to infest down-ticket rallies, you know you’ve unleashed far more hate than is healthy for the body politic.

An avalanche of criticism from both right and left has rightfully ensued. The McCain campaign’s response? Predictably fucking ridiculous:

Sam Stein reports that the McCain campaign has come up with a defense for the Republican ticket’s efforts to create an angry mob.

“Barack Obama’s attacks on Americans who support John McCain reveal far more about him than they do about John McCain. It is clear that Barack Obama just doesn’t understand regular people and the issues they care about. He dismisses hardworking middle class Americans as clinging to guns and religion, while at the same time attacking average Americans at McCain rallies who are angry at Washington, Wall Street and the status quo,” reads a statement from spokesman Brian Rogers.

Got that? McCain/Palin supporters have thrown around words like “treason” and “terrorist,” while others have literally called for violence, and if Obama points this out, he’s launching “attacks on Americans.”

Right after that supreme idiocy, though, McCain seemed to wake up to the fact that if crazed wingnuts started rampaging through America murdering liberals, minorities, and presidential candidates, he would shoulder the blame. That, or he looked at his poll numbers and realized it’s merely frothing insane rabid right fuckwits who cheer this stuff, while the independents and moderates stampede away from it in droves. Whatever changed his mind, he decided to start doing the responsible thing and dialing down the rhetoric. The base was not impressed:

John McCain was booed by his own supporters during a rally on Friday after he described Barack Obama as a “decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.”

McCain was responding to a town hall attendee who claimed he was concerned about raising a child under a president who “cohorts with domestic terrorists such as [Bill] Ayers.” Despite the fact that McCain and his campaign have repeatedly used Ayers to hammer Obama in recent days, the Arizona Senator tried to calm the man.

“[Senator Obama] is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared about as President of the United States,” he said, before adding: “If I didn’t think I would be one heck of a better president I wouldn’t be running.”

The crowd groaned with disapproval.

Later, McCain was again pressed about Obama’s “other-ness” and again he refused to play ball. “I don’t trust Obama,” a woman said. “I have read about him. He’s an Arab.”

“No, ma’am,” McCain said several times, shaking his head in disagreement. “He’s a decent, family man, [a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about.”

At another point, McCain declared, “If you want a fight, we will fight. But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments.” Supporters booed then also.

Johnny, when you’ve let the monster out of the cage, it’s damned hard to lock it up again. Good fucking luck with that. Just remember: you brought it on yourself. It’s the good people in this country who now have to deal with the hate you’ve unleashed.

And lest the rest o’ ye get any misty-eyed ideas that McCain’s finally come to his senses, repented of his hatemongering ways, and will now run the respectful campaign he promised: wake the fuck up. Two words: political expediency. Don’t get suckered.

McCain’s despicable campaign tactics are the most obvious symptom o
f the disease in this country. The paranoia and police state has gotten so bad that even nuns are now painted as terrorists:

Sisters Carol Gilbert and Ardeth Platte have been “secretly branded by Maryland State Police as terrorists and placed on a national watch list” due to their participation in anti-war protest activities. They were added to the list after Maryland state police spied on them:

“This term terrorist is a really serious accusation,” Sister Ardeth, a nun for 54 years, told The Washington Times on Thursday in the first interview that the women have given since being informed they were among 53 people added to a terrorist watch list in conjunction with an extensive Maryland surveillance effort of antiwar activists.

You know that religion doesn’t get any special dispensation from me, but for fuck’s sake. A couple of white-haired elderly nuns peacefully protesting war are now considered terrorists? What the fuck is wrong with this country?

Oh, yeah. The rabid right got their insane little hands on power.

But a sea change could be coming. There’s only so much crazy a nation can take, and there are signs that America might be getting a mite fed up with the insanity. The most recent sign: despite GOP efforts to shut the probe down, the Troopergate investigation marched on, and the Alaska legislative panel reviewing it voted 12-0 to release the resulting report late this afternoon. Sarah Palin is going down:

Lo and behold, Palin was found to have abused the powers of her office and, despite her claims otherwise, fired the state public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, in because he refused to fire the governor’s ex-brother-in-law.

Gov. Sarah Palin abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired, a investigation by the Alaska Legislature has concluded.

A report on the bipartisan inquiry that was released Friday by lawmakers in Anchorage, concluded, however, that she was within her right to dismiss her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, the trooper’s boss.

The public portion of the report concluded that Ms. Palin violated the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act by allowing pressure to be exerted to get Trooper Michael Wooten, her former brother-in-law, dismissed.

In the 263 pages that were released, the independent investigator, Stephen E. Branchflower, a former Anchorage prosecutor, said that Ms. Palin wrongfully allowed her husband, Todd, to use state resources as part of the effort to have Trooper Wooten dismissed.

The report says she knowingly “permitted Todd Palin to use the governor’s office and the resources of the governor’s office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired.”

Further, it says, she “knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda.”

It really doesn’t matter that the report states that firing Monegan was within her constitutional right as governor. Not with this flood of ethics violations. This is the icing on a very rancid cake. Sarah Palin is manifestly unfit to serve in public office, and the McCain campaign will suffer for having chosen her as their #2. They’ll really suffer for that stupid stunt of pre-emptively releasing their own foolish report exonerating her in the face of this.

Most of us are still sane. We’re not going to accept another four years of lawless, selfish, religious nutcases in the White House.

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

The McCain campaign’s habit of telling easily-debunked lies is getting extreme:

Last night on Fox News, host Sean Hannity interviewed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) and asked McCain what Palin’s role would be in his administration. McCain said Palin would be useful on energy issues — presumably because, as he has said before, “she knows more about energy than probably anyone else” in the U.S. As evidence, McCain claimed that Palin “was responsible for…a pipeline, the $40 billion pipeline bringing natural gas from Alaska down to the lower 48.”

[snip]

In fact, there is no $40 billion dollar pipeline from Alaska bringing natural gas to the lower 48 states. As the New York Times explained last month, “the pipeline exists only on paper” —

The first section has yet to be laid, federal approvals are years away and the pipeline will not be completed for at least a decade. In fact, although it is the centerpiece of Ms. Palin’s relatively brief record as governor, the pipeline might never be built, and under a worst-case scenario, the state could lose up to $500 million it committed to defray regulatory and other costs.

Palin initiated the project by giving $500 million in Alaska state funds to TransCanada Corp. for the pipeline. However, the Canadian energy company “is not obligated to build it” and has
made no promises to do so.

I really hate to tell them this, because they seem to be having so much fun with their blatant lies, but the key to a successful lie is to tell one that’s difficult to disprove. Lies that a five-year old with an Internet connection can debunk don’t fit that criteria. Repeating lies that have been debunked hundreds of times is also ill-advised. And there’s going to come a time when the American electorate gets thoroughly sick of being treated as outrageously stupid.

But the campaign just keeps on lying:

One of the things that has annoyed me during this campaign is how easy it has been for candidates to simply make things up about one another’s records, even when they are talking about topics that are relatively easy to check. Last spring, people kept saying that Obama had no real accomplishments in the Senate, even though that was not true. More recently, McCain has said that Obama has not reached across the aisle to work with Republicans. That’s not true either: he has worked with Dick Lugar on securing Russian loose nukes and small arms, and on avian flu, with Tom Coburn on ethics reform and openness in government, and so on.

The latest charge is this:

“Sen. Obama has never taken on his leaders of his party on a single issue.”

Oh, really?

“Part of the Senate’s ethics reform bill deals with earmarks — lawmakers’ often abused practice of inserting items in legislation to direct funds to special interests (a la Duke Cunningham). According to current rules, lawmakers can attach earmarks anonymously, a state of affairs inviting abuse. Reform efforts have sought to change that. Republicans and good government types have criticized Reid’s version of earmark reform legislation, which is weaker than the version passed by House Democrats, saying that it doesn’t go near far enough in terms of disclosure. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) offered an amendment today that mirrored the tougher legislation passed by House Democrats.

According to Craig Holman of Public Citizen, Reid’s version, if it had been applied to earmarks as part of legislation passed last year, would have disclosed the sponsor of only approximately 500 earmarks. DeMint’s amendment would have forced sponsors to be known of roughly 12,000. (…)

But Democrats sought to block DeMint’s amendment, with an effort led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). They failed, due mostly to nine Democrats, including Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and freshmen Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Jim Webb (D-VA), who crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT).”

And guess what? It worked.

So much for that lie. So how about the whole “McCain isn’t going to bring up Ayers” schtick from yesterday? What a shock – that was a lie:

It’s official: John McCain has now fully embraced the assault on Obama’s association with William Ayers — and he’s evoking Hillary to do it.

From a McCain-voter exchange at a town hall meeting today, as reported by The Politico…

“We’re all a product of our association. Is there not a way to get around this media and line up the people that he has hung with?” the man asked.

Mc
Cain responded:

“Well, sir, with your help and the people in this room, we will find out. Just as Senator Clinton said in the primary that we should find out about this association.

“Look, we don’t care about an old washed-up terrorist and his wife, who still, at least on Sept. 11, 2001, said he still wanted to bomb more. That’s not the point here. The point is Senator Obama said he was just a guy in the neighborhood. We know that’s just not true. We need to know the full extent of the relationship because of whether Senator Obama is telling the truth to the American people or not. That’s the question.”

Looks like Ayers isn’t off the table after all: The rub here is that it was basically McCain who brought up Ayers, and he was very clearly primed to say what he said, since the attack dovetails perfectly with the campaign’s talking points.

And bringing Hillary into it? What a shock, they’re misrepresenting her comments:

McCain, incidentally, appears to be misrepresenting what Hillary said about Ayers during the primary in order to legitimize his smear. McCain said today that Hillary had asserted that Ayers “should” come up.

While Hillary did point to Ayers as something Obama might have to deal with in a general election, to the best of our knowledge, Hillary only said that Republicans would bring it up, and lamented that fact.

Is there a single fucking word these people say that isn’t a lie?

No?

I didn’t think so.