McCain Doesn't See Lives Of Troops As Important

Once again McCain made himself look like an ass on television (probably since he is one) by talking about his supposed strong suit, the war in Iraq. If McCain wants to talk about the war and say that bringing the troops home isn't that important, then more power to him. Keep on talking Johnny boy, the American people are starting to understand what kind of scoundrel you are.



Senator, our troops stationed in South Korea, Japan and Germany aren't being shot at every single day. The reason we have those casualties is because the troops are in Iraq. We need to bring them home and John McCain is clearly against that.

The Answer Is No

The "media" talked yesterday about the run up to the war and the failure to ask the tough questions of George Bush. The NBC/CBS roundtable below suggests that the Administration threatened to cut access if they did stories the Pentagon and the White House weren't nice to them. Hindsight may be clearer for these anchors, but this is suppposed to be journalism and they failed at their jobs, miserably.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words...But How Many Points In The Polls

If you saw the Democratic debate this week you might recall when Hillary brought a chunk of mud out named Tony Rezko and flung it at Barack Obama on stage. Rezko is a Chicago slumlord being brought up on charges at the moment, and the bad news for Barack is that he fundraised for his campaigns. How Rezko might have or have not influenced Obama in seventeen years is anybody's guess. The real problem here is Hillary resorting to bringing connections up like this and playing dirty for the sake of horse race politics. Well now the mud is coming full circle.

From MSNBC:

NEW YORK - Democrat Hillary Clinton denied knowing Tony Rezko, an indicted Chicago businessman, on Friday after being told of a photograph that shows a smiling Clinton and her husband standing next to the man she called a "slum landlord" earlier this week.

"I don't know the man. I wouldn't know him if he walked in the door. I don't have a 17-year relationship with him," Clinton said, referring to her charge that Barack Obama, a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, has a longstanding relationship with Rezko.

"There's a big difference between standing somewhere taking a picture with someone you don't know and haven't seen since," Clinton told NBC's TODAY show, "and having a relationship that the newspapers in Chicago have been exploring."

Sure, it looks worse to have had money raised for you rather than one of thousands of White House photographs taken to be you standing next to Rezko. Nevertheless, the media loves to talk about mud and a simple photograph is good enough to pick up and run with it, no matter how ridiculous it is.

For the most part, the debate was about issues and policy differences and when it strayed from that discourse John Edwards helped put it back on track. After the two hours of prime-time TV is up the media is back at work trying to fill their voids with garbage like this. It doesn't matter if Obama's team fed the picture to Matt Lauer or not, the fact remains that the dirty campaigning is on and your opponent and the media will throw anything to see if it sticks.

It is a shame that Hillary's campaign resorted to this, but hey, she loves this part. She complained to Lauer that she was attacked first but that is just ridiculous. She has her husband out on full attack mode and is angering many longtime friends and party supporters.

Everyone needs to take a deep breath and get back to the issues, but that would just be my wishful thinking talking out loud.

The Gender Card?

Matt Lauer asks Obama if Hillary is trying to play the gender card after being attacked by the rest of the guys on stage during this week's debate.

Top Ten Moments Between Matt Lauer And Larry Craig

Some interesting things you might have missed from the "hard hitting" interview Matt Lauer conducted with Larry Craig and his wife:

Larry Craig, Profiling and Karma

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the Larry Craig saga continues. While Republican officials and operatives grimace at his face still being in the news, Craig won't stop defending himself to the public. He even sat down with (pretend journalist) Matt Lauer for an hour last night to prove he is innocent and not gay of course.

From RawStory:

In excerpts played on Wednesday's Today Show, Craig repeated his steadfast denial that he stepped into a Minneapolis airport restroom stall looking to get frisky, and he sought sympathy as a victim of police profiling. He also said that although he did not condone gay activity, he didn't view it as anything to be ashamed of.

Police said Craig's actions -- peering into an officers stall, tapping his foot and reaching beneath a divider -- were identical to the secret choreography engaged in by men looking for anonymous sex.

"I now know that this cop, this officer, is a profiler," Craig said. "He said looking into a stall is part of it, and then a hand gesture or a foot tap is part of it. Now I know all about profiling. I know what people feel like when they're profiled, when innocent people get caught up in what I was caught in as an innocent person, it's very angering at times."

Now all together now, awwww, poor baby. It is always amusing to see what happens to the "family values" Republicans when the shoe is on the other foot. Craig has never been against profiling in the past and even voted and argued for the re-authorization of the Patriot Act. In case you don't know, that bill condones "profiling" among other things. The only thing Larry Craig is against here is the profiling that shows how guilty he is.

Except for trying to coax Craig into admitting he was gay or at least bisexual, Lauer did his typically lousy interview. Tom Shales from WaPo has more on this. I think Lauer should resign from his post right alongside Craig for two poor and pitiful performances, one as a journalist and the other a Senator.