Month: September 2008

As Anderson Cooper put it, "Coming up — the interview everyone is talking about.  You have to see it to believe it."  You sure do:

This strikes me as a very big deal:

Pakistani and American ground troops exchanged fire along the border with Afghanistan on Thursday after the Pakistanis shot at two American helicopters, ratcheting up tensions as the United States increases its attacks against Qaeda and Taliban militants sheltering in Pakistan’s restive tribal areas.

My worry is that Bush is doing this for political, not national security reasons. I wish that suspicion were not even thinkable, but after the last eight years, I realize that this president (like McCain) does nothing that is not political.

(Hat tip: Larison)

Larison, by no means an Obama supporter, sees one difference between the candidates:

McCain will have us on tenterhooks on a daily basis wondering whether he will call for impeaching the Supreme Court or bombing Uruguay and he will denounce anyone who questions his proposal as a selfish and corrupt villain, and while Obama might adopt equally awful views he will do so more slowly and allow the rest of us time to organize opposition and rational counterarguments that might actually prevail.

Yes: one of them is deliberative and sane; the other one is impulsive and, in the evidence of the last month, borderline. My worry about Obama is that he may be too cautious. But then I look at his campaign and see one of the most daring, yet unfailingly professional and careful operation. And I feel reassured.

Jim Manzi makes the argument. Bush made it possible. Obama will make it happen. And some of us will have to return to remaking conservatism from the ground up. I can assure you this: I want Obama to win this election as much as anyone. But I will be his toughest critic if he wins, and I will criticize him on the basis of my conservative principles. First: we have to get rid of the most corrupt, incompetent, unhinged, and power-mad political machine since Nixon.

More reader reax from last night’s debacle:

It’s obvious Palin has like 10, 15 maybe 20 talking points on all the various subjects that might come up during one of these interviews. She has been directed, or has chosen, to just regurgitate them depending on the question. That part of the interview is rather entertaining…seeing her try to weave her answer into what the question was about. It’s when a follow up is asked, or a clarification is sought, that she decides to wing it. That’s when it flies off into skit comedy material. She really thinks she can pull it off. That is what makes it so cringe-inducing. She doesn’t even seem to realize what a fool she is making of herself, and of McCain. If she had any dignity she would realize she’s in way over her head and fall  back on the tried and true "spend time with the family" excuse and get out of the race.

I’ve thought from about two days after her selection that she would have to withdraw at some point.

The trouble with this is that McCain would have to concede that he didn’t vet her, made his decision impulsively based on no real knowledge of her, and that his first serious judgment as a presidential candidate was so monumentally irresponsible that it doesn’t just disqualify her for the vice-presidency. It disqualifies him for the presidency.

Hence the insane campaign since. They are improvising and gambling just to keep alive for another news cycle. No strategy; no policy; no judgment. It really should be over – and Obama should have double-digit lead.

I’ve been besieged by reader emails telling me of McCain ads blasting away on television all day. The latest:

About 11:45 am on the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia. The ad was the Angry Freddy Mac Black guy who advises Obama to burn down white people’s houses or something like that.

McCain = Liar. McCain = Rove.

Obama calls McCain’s bluff:

The Senator, the source says, is willing to make the scheduled debate a townhall meeting, a one-on-one interview with NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer, or the combination of the two in McCain’s absence.

Allahpundit wobbles:

Is McCain prepared to hand The One a 90-minute campaign commercial in front of a national audience? I’m guessing no,

in which case expect him to decide tomorrow morning that the bailout’s close enough to being done to qualify as “done,” whereupon he’ll declare victory and hop a plane for Ole Miss. The second poll on his decision to postpone the debate is just out from Marist, incidentally, and while the numbers aren’t as dramatic as yesterday’s Survey USA data, he’s still on the wrong side. 53 percent want the show to go on, including 53 percent of independents.

The latest:

He said he felt like a "patriot" to let McCain off his commitment to deal with the economy and "now I’m feeling like an ugly date." "That’s what I feel like, I feel like an ugly date," he said. "I feel used. I feel cheap. I feel sullied."

It’s what McCain does: he abuses patriotism to advance his own self-interest. I used to love him – for years. I now believe he is a despicable, lying, utterly cynical pol.

Rod Dreher bails:

Couric’s questions are straightforward and responsible. Palin is mediocre, again, regurgitating talking points mechanically, not thinking. Palin’s just babbling. She makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero.

He was in love with her last week.

Ambers reports:

The fact is that Boehner doesn’t have 100 votes from his conference — 100 votes that Nancy Pelosi really wants. And that’s not McCain’s fault. But Boehner and the White House — and McCain — if they want to get something passed — do have the responsibility to persuade these Republicans to support the bailout. After all, if not to get these recalcitrant Republicans on board, why did McCain go to Washington in the first place?

He went there as a stunt. Isn’t that now totally obvious? And is McCain honestly going to go to bat for a Bush bailout of Wall Street – against the conservatives in his own party? Is this where McCain wants to be – backing Bush’s latest massive gamble as he did the last one in Iraq?