Blagojevich's show is his own

Steve Bennen knocks down the mainstream media's pursuit of the non-story of Obama and the "scandal ... threatening to dog him".

Writes Bennen,

Is Obama connected to Blagojevich's scandal? No, but the scandal is 'threatening to dog him.' Has Obama done anything wrong? No, but Republicans are going to 'try to link him to the scandal.'

Well, yes, of course they are. That's what political opponents do. We're supposed to have an independent, professional press that helps the public cut through the nonsense and explain why baseless attacks are wrong. Instead, we get an 'analysis' piece like this one.

Obama's 30-Minute Spot Enrages Republicans

Let them whine.

From the Washington Monthly:

On MSNBC yesterday, far-right pundit Willie Geist said Obama's ad reminded him of 'the Soviet invasion,' because it 'take[s] over the airwaves.' Yesterday afternoon, Elisabeth Hasselbeck called the Obama ad 'repulsive.'

Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, said, 'John McCain's only chance is to disqualify Barack Obama. He has seven days. Every day that people are talking about Barack Obama's infomercial is a day that John McCain isn't getting his message out.'

Paul Krugman v. Cokie Roberts

The Washington Monthly has a piece illustrating nicely the analytical brilliance of Paul Krugman and the vacuity of Cokie Roberts, the facile and smug D.C. pundit who was all over the Clintons during the rightwing silly season of Clinton's second term.

In a second piece, Steve Benin notes Krugman's receiving the Nobel Price:

A WELL-DESERVED HONOR FOR PAUL KRUGMAN.... Nearly six years ago, Nicholas Confessore had a fascinating profile of Paul Krugman for the Monthly, noting, among other things, that Krugman has never been part of the in-crowd when it comes to the political establishment. Conservatives had no use for his accuracy and dependence on evidence ...

Watch the video of Roberts and Krugman at This Week included in the exchange captured below in the Monthly.

Today's stupid fake equivalency comes from Cokie Roberts on ABC'S This Week (video). The exchange that follows comes from 3:36 before the end:

Krugman: This is not just about McCain and what he did. The fact of the matter is, for a long time we have had a substantial fraction of the Republican base that just does not regard the idea of Democrats governing as legitimate. Remember the Clinton years. It was craziness, right? They were murderers, they were drug smugglers, and the imminent prospect of what looks like a big Democratic victory would drive a lot of these people crazy even if Sarah Palin wasn't saying these inflammatory things. It's going to be very ugly after the election.

Roberts: On both sides that's true. I think that you've also had a huge number of Democrats who think that the Republicans are illegitimate, and that was particularly true after the 2000 election, and to some degree after 2004. And so you really do have at the core of each party people who are not ready to accept the verdict of the election.

Krugman: I reject the equivalence."

McCain Would Be a Weak Nominee

Update II: McCain Maverick, War Hero, Amnesty Supporter, John McCain

Update: McCain: "simply loathed by many fellow Republicans"

Democrats are looking forward to a John McCain GOP nomination for president.

McCain faces the impossible task of disentangling himself from George W. Bush and presents the close-to-impossible task of bringing along the religious right.

John McCain — "Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," said James Dobson. Few religious right leaders have forgiven McCain for his wildly unpopular (in Republican circles) McCain/Feingold bill, and his April 9, 2000 speech trashing the religious right (that’s the Robertson/Falwell “agents of intolerance” speech).

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly has a column laughing at the contortions McCain performed on taxes and obeying GOP orthodoxy at last night's debate.

Benen writes:

.... In 2001 and 2003, Bush pushed two massive tax-cut packages through Congress, with near-universal Republican support. Indeed, it was something akin to a GOP fealty test -- to vote for the White House taxes cuts was to be a good Republican.

In the Senate, two GOP lawmakers balked -- Lincoln Chafee, who later left the party, and John McCain, who no longer wants to talk about his votes.

When pressed, McCain usually argues that he rejected Bush's tax cuts because there were no accompanying spending cuts to prevent massive deficits. The defense has always been largely incoherent, for at least two reasons. First, McCain now believes tax cuts can pay for themselves (aka, the "Tax Fairy" theory), so there was no need for spending cuts. Second, McCain, at the time, said quite clearly that his opposition to the cuts had nothing to do with spending, and everything to do with Bush's policy being excessively skewed to the wealthy.

At last night's Republican debate in Simi Valley, the LAT's Janet Hook asked for an explanation. McCain responded:

"I was part of the Reagan revolution. I was there with Jack Kemp and Phil Graham and Warren Rudman and all these other first that wanted to change a terrible economic situation in America with 10 percent unemployment and 20 percent interest rates. I was proud to be a foot soldier, support those tax cuts, and they had spending restraints associated with it.

"I made it very clear when I ran in 2000 that I had a package of tax cuts, which were very important and very impactful, but I also had restraints in spending. And I disagreed when spending got out of control, and I disagreed when we had tax cuts without spending restraint. And guess what? Spending got out of control.

"Republicans lost the 2006 election not over the war in Iraq; over spending. Our base became disenchanted."

Does this make any sense at all? The question was rather straightforward: what McCain said in 2001 and 2003 doesn't match what McCain is saying now. He had one rationale for his position then, and a different rationale for his position now. That's not necessarily the end of the world -- candidates can change their mind -- and this was a chance for McCain to explain the pretty obvious inconsistency.

But he responded with a garbled and incoherent mess. Noam Scheiber said McCain's answer was "one of the most incoherent answers I've heard at a presidential debate this campaign season." I'm hard pressed to disagree.
The point I can't get around, though, is that McCain had to realize a question like this was coming. Indeed, after a year of campaigning, he's probably heard it before.

Maybe McCain's vaunted political skills have been exaggerated a bit?

And for sure, McCain straight-talk express that he BSs about has also been exaggerated a bit.

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