Why I Support John McCain

Don't know about you, but I work with academics all day long and I can say unequivocably, that the smartest folks usually make the poorest leaders.

Don't know about you, but I work with academics all day long and I can say unequivocably, that the smartest folks usually make the poorest leaders.

I can't help but be amused that you so quickly resort to accusations of racism, despite not knowing me from Adam or even if I'm white, black, asian or middle-eastern. Simply shows the shallowness of your reasoning.

'Frontline' takes hard look at Cheney's influence on power
Updated 10/16/2007 2:49 PM The vice president ran a secret campaign to give Bush unlimited war power, Frontline says.

By Charles Dharapak, AP
Hidden hand?: The vice president ran a secret campaign to give Bush unlimited war power, Frontline says.

By Peter Johnson, USA TODAY
For the past six years, Michael Kirk has produced 10 Frontlines for PBS on behind-the-scenes moves in the Bush White House.

In each case, Kirk says, a common thread has emerged: When it comes to "what goes on behind closed doors, it always leads to the vice president."

Tonight at 9 ET/PT (check local listings), Frontline's season premiere describes a secret campaign by Dick Cheney to give President Bush unlimited wartime power. It reports that Cheney's fixation with executive privilege began more than 30 years ago when he felt Congress was overstepping its authority and trying to assert its power over the presidency.

Tonight's edition is the story of the man behind what some people view as the most ambitious project to reshape the power of the president in history, Kirk says.

Frontline reports that Cheney and David Addington, his former legal counsel and current chief of staff, have orchestrated a number of controversial legal decisions that granted Bush the power to detain, interrogate, torture, wiretap and spy without congressional approval or judicial review.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: George W Bush | Congress | Justice Department | Dick Cheney | Rwanda | Bush White House | Project for Excellence | Journalism | Whitewater | Tom Rosenstiel | Jeff Fager | David Addington | David Fanning | Jack Goldsmith | Michael Kirk

Cheney would not talk to Frontline, and his office declined to comment on the program Monday.

Most of the details in tonight's edition have been reported in detail by other news outlets, says Frontline chief David Fanning. "We've pulled together threads" into a more comprehensive report. "This is an exercise in civics, an example of how individuals in government have affected profound decisions in the nation's history."

In one of his most extensive interviews since leaving the Justice Department, former assistant U.S. attorney general Jack Goldsmith describes his initial days at Justice in 2003 when he learned the extent of the government's operations. He tells Frontline he was shocked by the administration's assertion of expansive power.

Cheney opponents may point to tonight's Frontline as proof that he has exceeded his authority, while the vice president's supporters may largely approve of what Frontline reports about him, Kirk says. "It's in the eye of the beholder. If you remember the fear we all felt right after 9/11, you understand (Cheney's) impulse to cut through the red tape and get on with it. The question is, how long should you keep pushing the envelope?"

Cheney opponents may point to tonight's Frontline as proof that he has exceeded his authority, while the vice president's supporters may largely approve of what Frontline reports about him, Kirk says. "It's in the eye of the beholder. If you remember the fear we all felt right after 9/11, you understand (Cheney's) impulse to cut through the red tape and get on with it. The question is, how long should you keep pushing the envelope?"

Today, the New York Times published an article in which it examined the lobbying record of Rick Davis, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign manager. Based on interviews with current and former officials at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and public records, the Times found that over a period of five years, Davis made nearly $2 million lobbying for the two mortgage giants:

Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

The McCain campaign’s response to the article was surprisingly vicious. On a conference call with reporters, McCain campaign strategist Steve Schmidt called the New York Times a “pro-Obama organization” and said, “it is not today " by any standard " a journalistic organization.” Davis claimed, “I never lobbied a single day.” Listen to a TPM Election Center recording here:

[see video at]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/22/mccain-wants-davis-vetted/

But just yesterday, in an interview with McCain, CNBC’s John Harwood said he’d be “glad to have [Davis’s] record examined.” In a portion of the interview that does not appear to have been broadcast by CNBC, Harwood asked McCain about his campaign manager’s former lobbying activities:

HARWOOD: You mentioned cronyism and corruption on Wall Street and in Washington. … How do you square that with the fact that your campaign manager, Rick Davis, was involved in some lobbying activities on behalf of Fannie Mae? […]

MCCAIN: My campaign manager has stopped that, has had nothing to do with it since, and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.

Examined by anybody…except journalists at the New York Times.

[source is the same link as above]

McCain’s ‘team of mavericks’ run by ‘old Bush hands.’

The Washington Post observes that many of the advisers on the McCain-Palin campaign are not “a group of outsiders to the Republican Party power structure,” but rather “skilled operatives who learned their crafts in successive Bush campaigns and various jobs across the Bush government over the past eight years“:

[O]thers, including some sympathetic Republicans, have begun to quietly question whether McCain and Palin are well served by strategists so firmly anchored in the Bush establishment when the candidates are presenting themselves as a “team of mavericks” and agents of change. One Republican with long-standing ties to the Bush administration described the situation as a paradox in which Palin is especially vulnerable.

One “Republican loyalist” noted that since Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) chose Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) as his running mate, “every single one of the senior aides that she’s brought on board had prominent roles in Bush’s White House or on his campaigns, or both.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/22/old-bush-hands/

Candidates spend a lot of time talking, and they all misspeak sometimes. But did anyone else notice this, from Wednesday's much-covered McCain-Palin Town Hall event in Grand Rapids, Mich., where Palin answered questions from people in the audience? McCain said this near the end of the clip below, as he's talking up Palin's foreign policy/national security credentials:


"I also know, if I might remind you, that she is commander of the Alaska National Guard. In fact, you may know that on Sept. 11 a large contingent of the Alaska Guard deployed to Iraq and her son happened to be one of them. So I think she understands our national security challenges..."


The ceremony Palin attended at Fort Wainwright last week didn't involve the Alaska National Guard. Palin's son is in the Army, and his unit - 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division - deployed to Iraq.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/giant-gaffe-mccain-confus_b_127918.html

The Bailout Plan: Welcome to Economic Shock and Awe

A. Huffington

See if this sounds familiar:

There is a gathering threat to the safety of the United States. We must take immediate action. Congress must quickly grant the President and the Secretary what they want and also give them full and unfettered authority to execute the plan.

Welcome to Economic Shock and Awe (or as some have dubbed it, according to Paul Krugman, "the Authorization for Use of Financial Force").

Even the amount of taxpayer money being bandied about -- $1 trillion -- is similar. Think you got your money's worth for the Iraq war? Congratulations -- you're about to buy another pricey debacle.

We've seen how negligent the Bush administration is with our money -- flushing billions on wasteful, mismanaged Iraq reconstruction and Katrina recovery projects.

Now the same folks who brought us those no-bid, profit-guaranteed, crony-friendly, war-and-disaster-profiteering boondoggles want us to hand them control of a $700 billion Wall Street slush fund -- with no strings attached. How dumb -- or frightened -- do they think we are?

This is, as Matt Yglesias calls it, "a crisis point for American liberalism." The battle lines are already clear: Paulson and Bush and the Republican Party want a license to reward the worst actors in the financial industry and do nothing for American families suffering the consequences.

Remember a few years ago when lawmaker after lawmaker -- mostly Democrats, but a few Republicans -- said of Iraq, "If I'd known then what I know now, I'd have voted differently."

Now the same folks who brought us those no-bid, profit-guaranteed, crony-friendly, war-and-disaster-profiteering boondoggles want us to hand them control of a $700 billion Wall Street slush fund -- with no strings attached. How dumb -- or frightened -- do they think we are?