Palin Talks With Katie Couric About Russia

Sarah Palin was not ready to speak with Katie Couric last night, she is not ready to be Vice President, and she is definitely not ready to lead this country.

In the video below, Katie Couric asks Sarah Palin to explain why Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her any foreign policy experience. It is almost sad to watch Sarah Palin grasp at an answer. She does not understand why her answer that you can see Russia from Alaska is being mocked, which is just sad. How has she not improved her answer since she was asked the same question by Charlie Gibson?



LibertyAir Blog

Campaign Suspended?

I just heard about 5 minutes of CNN on a break room TV, and in that time I heard Wolf Blitzer again and again say that the McCain campaign had been suspended. But what does that mean?

Just this morning, in New York, John McCain was pretty straightforward about his perspective on the campaign: "I cannot carry on a campaign as though this dangerous situation had not occurred, or as though a solution were at hand, which it clearly is not. As of this morning I suspended my political campaign."

Yet his suspended campaign looks pretty much like his active campaign.

* McCain campaign offices in battleground states are open and operating, just like yesterday.
* McCain's television ads are on the air, just like yesterday.
* McCain media flacks are all over the news networks, just like yesterday.
* McCain's campaign staffers are working, just like yesterday.
* McCain's campaign website is up, soliciting contributions and promoting McCain's message, just like yesterday.
* For the big White House meeting today, Barack Obama was told not to bring any campaign aides, so he brought a legislative assistant from his Senate staff. John McCain was seen bringing a campaign advisor.

Nothing has actually changed at McCain Campaign HQ. Just one more bit of proof that McCain is no longer the honorable maverick he once claimed to be.

$700 billion?

Ever wonder how they came up with the $700 billion number? Forbes is reporting that there was no secret formula or mathmatical construct that helped the Treasurey Department to reach that figure.

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

So basically they threw a dart at a wall to get the number. That makes me feel so much better.

Doesn’t this seem like a very strong argument for a much smaller appropriation designed to last for another couple of months? There’s nothing to stop congress from appropriating more money in mid-November if the situation seems to warrant it.

McCain Disses Letterman, Letterman Has Last Laugh

As part of John McCain's "I'm Suspending My Campaign for the Good of the Country" head fake, he canceled his scheduled appearance on CBS's "Late Show with David Letterman". This was one more opportunity where his campaign rather badly mangled the suspension of his campaign.

First Letterman mocked McCain throughout the show's taping, saying that the whole thing did not "smell right." Letterman kept saying, "You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." And he joked: "I think someone's putting something in his metamucil." These are the kind of quotes that could stick.

Then in the midst of taping, Letterman got word that McCain was, in fact just down the street being interviewed by Katie Couric. Dave even cut over to the live video of the interview, and said, "Hey Senator, can I give you a ride home?"

"He can't run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sarah Palin. Where is she?"

"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"

Letterman is watched by a lot of people. This could be very bad for McCain.

Oops! McCain team leaks talking points on suspending campaign

The Daily Kos has a post that reveals that the McCain campaign accidently leaked their talking points on the suspension of the campaign. They have linked to the Colorado Independent:

The regional spokesman for John McCain in Colorado accidentally sent the campaign’s internal talking points on the candidate’s plans to suspend his campaign to its entire Colorado media list, instead of a list of key volunteers, Wednesday afternoon, PolitickerCO’s Jeremy Pelzer reports.

The memo, titled “TALKING POINTS: SUSPENDING THE CAMPAIGN,” includes a list of points the campaign wants emphasized, and includes this warning from Kise: “Please do not proactively reach out to the media on this.”

Palin's Third Interview

And it's not pretty. Sarah Palin was interviewed today by Katie Couric. Now Couric is probably a very nice lady, but she has not been known as a tough interviewer. She asks good questions, which should have been expected. It starts out bad when Palin gives pretty much the same answer to Couric's probing about Rick Davis. It gets worse though, Palin is in so far over her head, it isn't even funny. Watch especially at 4 minutes 30 seconds into the interview (video is below)

Watch CBS Videos Online

Could interviews like this be the reason that the McCain Campaign is trying to postpone Friday's debate, and possibly short circuit the VP debate. CNN's Dana Bash revealed the McCain Campaign's suggested strategy of pushing the first Presidential debate back to October 2nd, the date of the VP debate. The VP debate would the be delayed until another time. Could they be attempting to have no VP debate.


LibertyAir Blog

President Bush Invites Obama and McCain to the White House

Breaking: They are reporting on Countdown with Keith Olberman that President Bush has invited both Senators Barak Obama, John McCain, and Congressional Leaders to the White House tomorrow to discuss the financial crisis. Word is that Barak Obama has accepted the invitation.

Flash Poll: 86% of Americans say debate should take place as scheduled

America's 1st Reaction -- Friday's McCain-Obama Debate Should Still Be Held On Friday, But Perhaps with New Focus: Immediately after John McCain's announcement at 3 pm ET today, Wednesday 09/24/08, that he was suspending his campaign and seeking to postpone Friday's scheduled presidential debate, SurveyUSA interviewed 1,000 adults nationwide.

Key findings:

A majority of Americans say the debate should be held on Friday. Just 10% say the debate should be postponed. A sizable percentage of Americans, 36%, think the focus of the debate should be modified to focus more on the economy. 3 of 4 Americans say the presidential campaigns should continue. Just 14% say the presidential campaigns should be suspended. If Friday's debate does not take place, 46% of Americans say that would be bad for America.

Obama: ‘It is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.’

Think Progress has Barak Obama's response to John McCain's hail Mary pass.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) just gave a press conference responding to Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) suggestion that they both suspend their campaigns, postpone Friday’s debate in Mississippi, and return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis. Obama said that he would like to the debate to go forward as planned because “it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once”:

With respect to the debates, it’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. And I think that it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once. I think there’s no reason why we can’t be constructive in helping to solve this problem and also tell the American people what we believe and where we stand and where we want to take the country.

Watch it:

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Cafferty: They should have the debate

Cafferty is again the voice of reason. McCain's decision to cancel the debate doesn't make sense.

LibertyAir Blog

McCain Proposes Suspending Campaign To Focus On Financial Crisis

Okay, I'm torn, on one hand I think this is stupid, boneheaded, and entirely a political stunt, however it might be a great political stunt.

John McCain claims he is going to suspend his campaign because of the financial crisis. McCain's abrupt announcement came in an email that was sent out at 2:56 PM today. The timing of this e-mail appeared designed to pre-empt Barak Obama, who, according to aides, had already initiated efforts to seek a bipartisan solution.

At 3:09 PM, just 14 minutes after the McCain email, Bill Burton of the Obama campaign sent out the following statement:

"At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal. At 2:30 this afternoon, Senator McCain returned Senator Obama's call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement. The two campaigns are currently working together on the details."

Obama rejected McCain's proposal to postpone the first debate.

"This is exactly the time the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess," Obama said. "What I've told the leadership in Congress is that if I can be helpful, then I am prepared to be anywhere, anytime. What I think is important is that we don't suddenly infuse Capitol Hill with presidential politics."

If this was so important, why didn't McCain suspend his campaign NOW and head back to the Capitol ASAP? Instead, he's waiting til tomorrow -- and, not just tomorrow, but tomorrow after he speaks at the Clinton Global Initiative. He canceled an appearence on David Letterman because, he claimed, that he had to focus on the financial crisis, but then it turned out that he was at another CBS studio taping with Katie Couric.

Count the Lies

McCain still lying.

The McCain Lie Counter is here.

Maliki: Bush Pushed For Later Withdrawal Date To Help McCain

And now for News in time of War. Think Progress reports that the Bush administration have been playing politics with Iraq withdrawal plans, pressuring the Maliki government to delay the agreed upon withdrawal date by at least a year because the White House was concerned that Maliki’s endorsement of a 2010 time line would damage Republican John McCain’s presidential bid. The revelation came in an al-Iraqiya interview with Maliki last week:

MALIKI: Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they [the Bush administration] asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the domestic situation [in the US] so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date. Agreement has been reached on this issue. They are willing to respond positively because they, too, are facing a critical situation.

Got that? The White House is willing to keep American's, our soldiers, in harms way for another year, just to help McCain win an election.

Support the troops?

Matt Duss of the Wonk Room has more and asks the question: “What did McCain know about this, and when did he know it?”

Paul Krugman says "I'd blame Alan Greenspan and Phil Gramm"

Paul Krugman has really put himself out there against this bailout. He is really against Paulson's plan. Here he is on Race to the White House explaining why.

LibertyAir Blog

Paul Krugman on the arrogance of Henry Paulson

Paul Krugman on Countdown with Keith Olberman explains why Paulson's package is not something the American people should want.

LibertyAir Blog

Paulson Blames Congress His Non Oversight Suggestion

Henry Paulson Lied Yesterday. He bold faced lied. Paulson claims he didn’t ask for oversight on our 700 billion dollar bail out of Wall Street because it would have presumptuous of him. This is a crock. If this was the case he would have stated in his proposal that oversight would be negotiated with Congress, or would have suggested examples of oversight, or would have left no reference of oversight.

You can view his statement to the Senate here:


Paulson's claim is laugable. His indignation is a lie. He claims that he was actually looking for oversight, but this is not what Henry Paulson did. He instead put the infamous Section 8 into his proposal.

Section 8 reads:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

This is not a statement by someone who has not thought about oversight, or wanted Congress to come up with an oversight plan. This is what is put in by someone who wants complete control. This is a clause that is put in by someone who wants all decision-making power to be consolidated into the Executive Branch, unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by Congress.

Why $700 billion? Why not $150 billion?

This was a great question by Senator Chuck Schumer. He asked Secretary Paulson at yesterday’s hearing how the 700 billion dollar figure was arrived at. He asked for an explanation as to why Congress shouldn’t give them only a fraction of that. While $150 billion is nothing to sneeze at, but it is a lot better than $700 billion. Would it not be better to give some for immediate needs and keep the rest contingent upon the situation.

Paulson doesn't think so. I made a mistake last Friday when I was complimentary of Henry Paulson.

LibertyAir Blog

Campbell Brown of CNN Goes After McCain Campaign

Yesterday Campbell Brown went after the McCain Campaign for their handling of Sarah Palin. She actually called them sexist. I think the McCain's strategy of hiding Palin is beginning to backfire. We'll see if they change course.


LibertyAir Blog

Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance.

Paul Krugman referenced this line from Daniel Davies today. It was a key line from one of the great blog posts of this era, and it laid down a key principle I have often thought about when it comes to today's Republican leadership, and many of the so called voices of conservatism.

Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance; lies do.

Davies was talking about the selling of the Iraq war, but it applies pretty much to the entire Bush Administration. It was true about the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, Unauthorized surveillance of the American public, Katrina, the list goes on. It should be the rule that we keep in mind as we listen to the debate going on over the Treasurery Bailout.

Paul Krugman points out that this morning Hank Paulson told a whopper:

We gave you a simple, three-page legislative outline and I thought it would have been presumptuous for us on that outline to come up with an oversight mechanism. That’s the role of Congress, that’s something we’re going to work on together. So if any of you felt that I didn’t believe that we needed oversight: I believe we need oversight. We need oversight.

This was a lie by Henry Paulson. If he was telling the truth, then there would have been no reference to oversight, or that it would be worked out with Congress. This is not what Paulson proposed, what his proposal actually did, of course, was explicitly rule out any oversight, plus grant immunity from future review:

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Krugman then states that he is not playing gotcha here, buthis is telling: if Paulson can’t be honest about what he himself sent to Congress — if he not only made an incredible power grab, but is now engaged in black-is-white claims that he didn’t — there is no reason to trust him on anything related to his bailout plan.

McCain’s 5 Stages of Grief over the Economy

Crooks and Liars has a great post by Jon Perr on John McCain’s 5 Stages of Grief over the Economy

The implosion of Wall Street last week resulted in a near-death crisis for John McCain’s presidential campaign. His post-Palin bump eviscerated, McCain was staggered by the re-emergence of the economy as the dominant issue in the 2008 election. His daily-changing positions revealed that McCain, a man who has repeatedly admitted his ignorance of economics, is struggling to cope with his diminished presidential prospects. Armchair psychologists might call the process John McCain’s five stages of grief over the economy.

Denial. McCain’s refusal to confront the realities of the failing Bush economy has long roots and was again on display last Monday. McCain, who has frequently described the economic slowdown as “psychological,” for at least the 18th time proclaimed the “fundamentals of our economy are strong.” As the Dow plummeted over 500 points, McCain reacted to the white-hot crisis on Wall Street by comically announcing his support for a 9/11-style commission to study the causes of and make recommendations to address the meltdown. Willing to kick the can down the road with his since forgotten 9/11 panel idea, McCain also took a head-in-the-sand position in opposing the government rescue of teetering insurance giant AIG:

“We cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else.”

Anger. Sadly, McCain’s denial of the obvious produced an immediate backlash from the press and the public alike. Literally within hours last Monday, McCain reversed course on the underlying strength of the American economy and declared the fundamentals of the economy to be “at great risk.”

Then John McCain did what he does best - he got mad.

(Unsurprisingly, McCain also launched a furious tirade in response to accusations 20 years ago about his Keating Five role during the last U.S. financial catastrophe.) Redefining “economic fundamentals” to refer the U.S. work force, McCain blasted his “opponents” for slandering American workers. By mid-week, McCain found a convenient - if unconstitutional - target for his rage, SEC chairman Chris Cox.

Bargaining. His response mocked as incoherent at best, McCain then proceeded to the third textbook phase of grief over the economy: bargaining. As the Kubler-Ross model describes the bargaining stage, “Now the grieving person may make bargains with God, asking, ‘If I do this, will you take away the loss?’”

So, fast and furious, McCain started to bargain. Acknowledging that as President he couldn’t fire the SEC’s Cox, McCain instead called for his resignation. (This morning, McCain cynically offered up New York Democrat Andrew Cuomo as a replacement.) Within 24 hours, he changed his tune on AIG, now supporting the bail-out package he opposed just the day before:

“The government was forced to commit $85 billion…The focus of any such action
should be to protect the millions of Americans who hold insurance policies,
retirement plans and other accounts with AIG.”

And to be sure, McCain bargained economic surrogate and serial embarrassment Carly Fiorina right out of his campaign. When the details of her massive $42 million severance package from HP became public, the woman who deemed McCain incapable of running a company found herself on the sidelines.

Depression. By last Thursday, a pall of gloom hung over McCain as he entered the fourth stage of grieving, depression. In a move that could only draw attention to his own checkered past in the savings and loan scandal of the 1980’s, McCain meekly proposed the creation of a Mortgage and Financial Institutions (MFI) trust to help the failing firms of Wall Street fend off insolvency. Ironically, McCain had repeatedly opposed the Resolution Trust Corporation in the past, an institution that ultimately poured $400 billion into bailing out the S&L’s, including the $3 billion lost by McCain sugar daddy Charles Keating’s Lincoln Financial.

That same day, McCain tried to fight back, but his heart wasn’t in it. In a foreboding ad fraught with racial overtones, McCain tried to link Obama with former Fannie Mae chairman Franklin Raines. While the Washington Post quickly debunked the spot by noting that Raines is not an adviser to the Obama campaign, Time suggested McCain was playing the race card.

Acceptance. By today, it was clear that John McCain had reached the fifth and final stage of grieving over the economic issue. Just one week after proclaiming the “fundamentals of our economy are strong,” McCain said on the Today Show this morning:

“We are in the most serious crisis since World War II.”

That clarity is letting McCain do what McCain does best - attack. In a cynical attempt at misdirection the Politico’s Jonathan Martin deemed “tossing more chum overboard,” the McCain campaign aired a new ad once again trying to connect Barack Obama to Chicago dealmaker Tony Rezko. And on Sunday, McCain ignored his own week of dizzying incoherence on the economy and thundered at Obama:

“At a time of crisis, when leadership is needed, Senator Obama has simply not provided it.”
Apparently, John McCain’s new-found acceptance of the dismal state of the economy lets him rage against the Obama machine without embarrassment. After all, McCain’s transition manager William Timmons was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This morning, the New York Times revealed that McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis pocketed $2 million in lobbying fees from the failed home mortgage giants. And on Sunday, McCain refused to rule out that his adviser and UBS vice chairman Phil Gramm, of “nation of whiners” fame and himself a possible bailout recipient, as Treasury Secretary in a McCain-Palin administration.

To be sure, watching John McCain wrestle with his demons - and ignorance - over the troubled economy has been painful to watch. As crypto-conservative columnist George Will put it:

“John McCain showed his personality this week and made some of us fearful.”

But with his 11 houses and 13 cars, John McCain can afford to work through his cognitive breakdown over the state of the broken economy. Unfortunately, the rest of us can’t. While Americans are mourning the loss of their homes and savings, John McCain is apparently grieving over his potential loss of the White House.

(This piece was crossposted from Perrspectives.)