I don't want to write too much about this, but it was stupid of Obama to deliver the line about not looking like the guys on the dollar bills.
As Josh Marshall argues, the McCain campaign's plausible deniability on the Spears/Obama/Hilton ad isn't actually all that plausible. But as the occasion for Obama himself to make a fresh accusation that the McCain campaign is exploiting racism, it's pretty thin gruel.
Obama was definitely talking about the black thing with the dollar bill remark, but a prominent spokesman tried to walk it back afterwards by arguing he wasn't. That compounds the error by lying about it. Ramesh Ponnuru is right to point out that Obama has said basically the same thing before, and he knows he's got a good case because he's sending his NRO hordes over to the Washington Post site to make a big deal about it.
Now, predictably, the McCain campaign is turning around accusing Obama of being the one making race an issue, and I don't know why the Obama camp would want to have this out right now. The ad was getting panned or ridiculed by pretty much everybody already.
Sen. Lindsey Graham: The whole ad is about the idea of fame without portfolio. Paris Hilton is famous for being famous. She draws a crowd for no apparent reason. Well, I think he has, you know — in Senator Obama's case, is the effort to be commander in chief and the leader of the free world about portfolio?
I would have been really unhappy if Manny Ramirez had ended up with the Marlins, as the rumor mill was hinting. The Mets have nine games left against them, unbalanced schedule and all, and none against the Dodgers, so the difference could be meaningful.
It's not as good as, say, the Mets getting Manny for Anderson Hernandez or something but it's better than letting a division rival get him.
C'mon Omar. Do something. Get Marcus Thames just to let us know you show up for work every day.
Glenn Greenwald gives the long form treatment to the relentlessly awful Dana Milbank and marvels at the press corps' ability to take what Karl Rove tells them and actually believe that he is describing a real phenomenon that only sophisticated analysts can see, when in fact he's clearly just calling Barack Obama an uppity negro.
Attaturk looked up "uppity" at Thesaurus.com and found a ton of words that have been getting thrown around a lot recently, including of course "presumptuous." As in the lead of Milbank's smarm-fest: "Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee."
Clever, Dana! Did you think of that yourself? No of course not, you smirking, wire-rimmed monkey.
I'm 100% certain that had Obama not gone abroad and met with world leaders and given a speech in Germany that attracted 200,000 people, he would have been presumptuous/uppity for thinking he didn't need to go see other countries first hand to be prepared for the presidency. In fact that's what McCain was saying before Obama went. They were going to say he should mind his place one way or the other.
The song is a little bit ridiculous and, uh, more than a little bit "edgy" but also kind of awesome. Calling Hillary a bitch and talking about McCain being paralyzed are going to make it a headache for Obama. The campaign has already sent out a response, giving it the full Maude Flanders:
"This song is... is offensive to all of us who are trying to raise our children with the values we hold dear. While Ludacris is a talented individual he should be ashamed of these lyrics."
I dunno. Obama's already 'fessed to having a little Luda in his iPod, and you can pretty much pick a song of his at random and find equally or more objectionable lyrics in it. Sure, they're clearly beyond the pale by campaign literature standards, but by rap standards they're not so bad. My gut tells me it's a net negative for Obama politically, but dammit we need more rappers dissing Republicans and Hillary Clinton, not fewer. Then Andrew Breitbart can tell the heartbreaking tales of ostracized conservative rappers.
Having read Dylan Matthews' case against Tim Kaine, I've downgraded my outlook on his possible selection as running mate from unexcited to somewhat nauseous:
[In addition to his horrendous record on women's and gay rights] Even Kaine's Iraq position is questionable. While he was not in Congress in 2002, and thus not on the record about the war, he went out of his way during gubernatorial run to say that it would send "a horrible message" to "cut and run", and used his inaugural address to compare the war in Iraq to the American revolution, saying that Patrick Henry andThomas Jefferson "stood here at a time, just as today, when Virginians serving freedom's cause sacrificed their lives so that democracy could prevail over tyranny."
Using the phrase "cut and run" even once does it for me. It may make sense politically to have him on the ticket, and Team Obama clearly knows what it's doing, but I don't see why we should have to have anyone who ever said anything that stupid one heartbeat from the presidency. Also, his State of the Union response ("There's a better way!") was terrible... almost but not quite as bad as the one delivered by fellow short-lister Kathleen Sebelius.
Update: A propos of Kaine's SoTU response, Brendan Nyhan (who despite the blurbs he displays on his site is neither invaluable nor indispensable) focuses on another consideration: apparently in addition to having weirdly square hair he also has a crazy left eyebrow.
It turns out the AP's man in Washington, in addition to telling Karl Rove to "keep up the fight" and all the rest of it, was in talks with the McCain campaign to join it in a "senior advisory role."
I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with this, except that it fits the profile of a guy who is at a stage in his career where he's not sure if he wants to be a news editor or a Republican operative, and there's a lot of evidence to suggest that he's resolved the conflict by effectively doing both, which ain't right.
Just to get an idea of how dishonest McCain's free-media ad on the canceled troop visit was, today the Washington Post is running a story entitled "McCain Charge Against Obama Lacks Evidence." Not "Obama Camp Cries Like a Bunch of Little Girls Over Attack Ad" or "Liberals Insist Obama Doesn't Hate Troops", but basically "McCain Full of Shit."
The McCain campaign doesn't have a lot to work with except their candidate's reputation among the press as a straight-talking maverick who's all about personal integrity and who disdains political attacks. Sure, they have to make attacks anyway, but there are a million ways to do that while staying more or less in bounds. Their opponent is young and inexperienced, after all.
I'm not accustomed to playing Republican concern troll, and there are plenty of actual Republicans who have expressed worry about damaging the McCain brand, but I still would like to know whose idea it was to cut an ad that was so nasty and bogus that even Andrea Mitchell felt compelled to call the foul.
Remember when it was folly to predict any team but the Braves to win the NL East... because the Braves always won the NL East? Well with the trade of Mark Teixeira, close on the heels of news that Tim Hudson may be done for the season, the Atlanta Braves officially suck.
In all the excitement of the Mets' stirring turnaround I hadn't noticed, but the Braves had already been looking sickly at 49-56, and that was with one of the best first basemen in baseball and a Cy Young candidate in Tim Hudson. When Hudson went down, the Braves probably figured there was no sense in waiting to trade Teix.
What major league talent did they get back in the deal? Casey Kotchman? Good luck with that. When you're ready to field a competitive team again, come back without that stupid chant, you goobers.
I'm just going to tell myself that this is just a well-wishing New York press corps helping Omar and company maintain negotiating leverage over the Red Sox, because the alternative explanation is that my beloved team is being run by a bunch of clowns.
Newsday reported yesterday that "Team officials don't see Ramirez as a fit because of his behavioral issues."
Now this kind of thing is common enough in all professional sports that I should be able to read that sentence and not freak out, but I can't. Behavioral issues? You mean behaviors like hitting for power and average? No, they're referring to Manny's lack of hustle (home to first in about an hour) and antics (like this).
To that I say: "Give me all the laziness and clubhouse distractions a .300/.400/.540 hitter could possibly bring to Shea's left field."
A friend emailed today that he heard a Beltran for Manny and Ellsbury deal. That sounds a little too good to be true, but it's something to wish for. There's no way Omar really doesn't want Manny Ramirez. He's not my favorite GM but he's better than that.
Update: To elaborate a bit on the scenario involving a trade of Beltran: it's not that I think Manny would be that much of an upgrade on Beltran, all things (especially speed and defense) considered, but I'm a Jacoby Ellsbury fan. Through May this year his OPS was over .800, and sure, it's gone south quickly, but he's still 24.
So it turns out that when Robert Novak hit that pedestrian in his black Corvette and drove off, and later claimed he didn't know he hit anyone, it wasn't just that he's a bad person. It's actually something that happens to people with brain tumors like the one he recently learned about. Not just that they drive badly, but that they hit things with their cars and aren't aware of having done so.
Crazy stuff. I'm just glad I didn't get around to kicking the guy when the most likely explanation was pure evil.
Jamie Kirchick, TNR contributor and Marty Peretz's pet monkey, was completely wrong about Straight Flushing fave Robert Wexler's willingness to accept the endorsement of J Street (the recently spawned left-leaning alternative to AIPAC). He guaranteed Wexler wouldn't accept, and yesterday Wexler accepted.
It's nice when people who are so wrong about so much big picture stuff decide to make a small-bore binary prediction that proves wrong in less than a week.
It worked for about four hours, and then it started telling me that there was no SIM card installed, which clearly there was or it wouldn't have worked during those few precious hours of total functionality. It just wasn't all that durable, I guess.
Fortunately in the apartment it can connect to my home network and use the Apps store (I got Bloomberg, which is very nice looking, and Yelp both free). It took my mind off the beating the Mets took from the Marlins. Hopefully there's nothing too wrong with John Maine. If he was pissed at the coaching staff, that's a good sign. It's just too bad the bullpen turned in another wretched performance after getting the night off entirely. Scott Schoenweis must have thrown some good innings for his ERA to still be about 3.00, but I can't remember ever seeing one.
Not much new in the horserace, if you ignore the national poll showing McCain ahead and the "short short list" story on Tim Kaine, which I'm doing because I find them terrifying and unexciting, respectively.
Tomorrow after another trip to the AT&T store maybe the Jesus Phone will round out its feature set by actually making and receiving calls.
About 2/3 of the way through a guy tries to crowd surf or whatever these rowdy white kids do, and a security guard in a backwards baseball hat comes over and tries to bring him down. Somehow he ends up taking the guy's entire weight which he's obviously not prepared for and he goes down hard. Funny.
"Why would you ever want to let that guy extend his arms like that?" - Keith Hernandez
Carlos Delgado just hit his second home run of the evening and 15th of the year, continuing a ridiculous tear that I did not see coming at all when I was making fun of him a few weeks back. Shame on me. Still one more run needed to tie.
AP story on the front page of the WSJ: "McCain Blasts Obama on Troop Visit"
Obama's campaign called the accusation "wildly inappropriate." His spokesman has claimed that the visit to a military hospital in Germany was scrapped after the Pentagon raised concerns about political activity on a military base. Earlier, though, the campaign had said Mr. Obama decided the visit might be seen as inappropriate politicking. However, the Pentagon said the senator was never told not to visit.
The story reads like a companion piece to McCain's web ad:
The Pentagon spokesman the AP finally mentions by name in the last graf is also quoted on the subject by WaPo's Dan Balz, and at more length.
"The Senator's staff was informed of the limits on what the military can do with respect to a political campaign and how we could support a senator's visit to Landstuhl and, quite frankly, I expected them to have the visit."
Quite frankly? Hmm... I can't help but think that's the kind of statement the Pentagon's spokesman would make if he were under the impression that having Barack Obama catch heat for this wouldn't be such a bad thing.
As the Post, but not the AP piece explains, Obama's Europe stops were not part of his official congressional trip, and is funded by his campaign. Had Obama and his entourage descending on a military hospital in Germany, he would at least been at risk of violating some (or all) of the regulations separating the military from political campaigns.
I don't know what the restrictions were that the Pentagon would have placed on an Obama visit. Would he have had to travel without any expressly campaign-oriented staff? I like the idea of rules like that, personally, but if they're at all onerous it's absurd to expect a candidate to make the trip anyway.
As for the larger point, this is a totally chickenshit ad by John McCain. The guy solicits (and receives) credit for not trading on his military record, even though he does it every chance he gets. This isn't even a legitimate opportunity to play "I love the troops more than you," but there he is, making an asshole out of himself.
Update: Ah, yes. I knew I read somewhere that this attack is being made in completely bad faith. TPM got confirmation from the Pentagon that they told the Obama campaign, after they had left for the trip, that he couldn't come to the base in Germany with campaign staff (as opposed to Senate staff). So the Pentagon effectively cancelled the visit, unless you expect him to go anywhere without his campaign staff, which is just naive.
Brandon Knight is not a prospect. He's 32, and hasn't pitched in the bigs since 2002. Before his debut tonight he had been tearing up the PCL for New Orleans. They're saying he's headed for the Olympics, where hopefully he'll be more effective than he has been against the Cardinals. It's 4-0 with one out in the first.
Now they're saying he'll stay if the Mets want to keep him in the rotation. "No, that's okay Brandon. Really. Go chase your Olympic dreams."
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