Month: August 2008

Breaking Out Of Bush’s Orbit

Poulos mulls over McCain’s veep choices in his column. This is a frightening visual:

McCain must pick Lieberman to show he isn’t Bush because, if he picks Romney, his body will be colonized and exploded by parasitic Bush breeders leaving their now-dead former host. McCain will wake up one morning with Romney standing beside him holding up a mirror and McCain will look into the mirror and see George W. Bush and then look past his new reflection at the guy holding it and see that Romney, too, is also Bush.

Yet, Poulos still thinks McCain can win with Romney. I don’t see it.

The Bestest Ad Ever

I can hardly wait:

…this is a historic ad. I think this is the first of its kind. Senator McCain is going to speak direct to camera to Barack Obama. I’m not going to give away many more details than that. But suffice to say it’s going to be a very exciting ad, and I think it’s going to get a lot of attention…I’m going to keep a lid on it. But I think it’s newsworthy to note that Senator McCain is going to have an ad that’s going to air in battleground states around the time that Senator Obama is speaking tonight. And he’s going to be talking directly to his opponent. So, I’m going to leave it there, but it’s going be very exciting and a lot of people are going to focus on it.

Stepping On Obama?

I guess some of the McCain team believe that announcing his veep choice tonight as a way to step on Obama’s acceptance speech is brilliant politics. I’m not sure that denying the first black candidate a clear shot at making his case on the anniversary of the March on Washington is such a great idea. It just looks cheap and a little desperate; and it robs the next morning of any real drama. But it wouldn’t surprise me, given the immature mood-swings of the McCain camp so far. McCain is not acting like a statesman these days – more like a Yaffer of old.

Obama’s speech will be the story tonight regardless. Smarter not to step on it. Unless McCain’s polling is showing a bigger Obama bump than we are currently aware of.

Hillary’s Biggest Fan

Christopher Beam spends a day with Lanny Davis:

2:30 p.m.—We notice the anti-Lanny himself, Dick Morris, in a booth for Sky News, the British network owned by News Corp. Davis pulls me aside. "This is the most hateful person to Hillary in the world," he says. "I try to tell him it doesn’t help to hate so much—that it hurts his credibility—but he doesn’t listen." Morris, as if aware of a disturbance in the Force, comes alive. "I thought I told you to be more positive," Davis says, extending his hand. "Oh, I’m all pro-Hillary today," Morris says. He laughs and ducks out. "We’ve been friends for a long time," Davis explains.

Banning Private Science Research

More on the radicalism of the GOP’s platform on embryonic stem cell research. The party is now formally committed not just to forbidding government from funding research, but also to banning private funding for such research. I’m unaware of any previous commitments to banning private scientific research because it violates Christianist doctrine. But this assault on scientific inquiry is of a piece with the logic of Christianism. Why isn’t McCain asked about this? Why is this not a major story? Not as vital as whether a campaign set is Greek or Roman or just, well, columns for large TV screens?