The media debunk McCain smears, then promote them

One of the dominant themes in media coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign was that Al Gore was a liar. That theme was itself a lie; media outlets invented quotes Gore never said in order to accuse him of dishonesty, all while virtually ignoring actual lies from George W. Bush. Inaccurate and imbalanced as that media coverage was, it reflected at least one assumption that seems inarguably true: It is significant, and newsworthy, when a presidential candidate and his campaign repeatedly make false claims.

But it seems reporters throw that assumption out the window when the presidential candidate making the false claims is one the media have long praised for his "straight talk" and his opponent is one the media have begun accusing of being "arrogant" or "presumptuous."

Over the past few weeks, and especially the past week, numerous news organizations and other neutral observers have debunked a series of false claims made by John McCain and his campaign.

FactCheck.org, for example, has called one McCain attack ad "false," said another contains a "false" insinuation, described another as misleading, called another "ridiculous" and added, "That's absurd, and McCain knows it." FactCheck said the attacks in yet another McCain ad are "oversimplified to the point of being seriously misleading," noting that by the standards of evidence the McCain campaign used in the ad, the Arizona senator himself could be criticized precisely the same way. FactCheck called criticisms McCain has leveled against Obama's tax plans "bunk," adding, "He's wrong," and stating that McCain is using a "false and preposterously inflated figure" to attack Obama. They called another McCain attack "simply wrong" and "not true." They said yet another McCain ad "gets nearly all its facts wrong. ... [E]very number in the ad is wrong, except one. ... And even that number is rounded upward so generously as to flunk third-grade arithmetic." And FactCheck called yet another McCain attack "trickery" based on an "inflated and misleading" number that was the result of "Double, Triple and Quadruple Counting."

And that's just in the past month.

The Washington Post has reported that "McCain and his allies" are accusing Obama of "snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true" and noted that the evidence the McCain campaign provided to back up the claim did not do so. The New York Times reported that McCain's recent offensive against Obama has been based on claims that have been "widely dismissed as misleading," which is actually an understatement -- they've been widely dismissed as false. A St. Petersburg Times editorial denounced McCain's "nasty turn into the gutter," adding that he "has resorted to lies and distortions in what sounds like an increasingly desperate attempt to slow down Sen. Barack Obama. ... [T]hese baseless attacks are raising more questions about the Republican's campaign and his ability to control his temper." The New York Times editorial board called another McCain attack "contemptible" and "ugly." On MSNBC, Time magazine Washington bureau chief Jay Carney called a McCain ad "reprehensible." MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell reported that a McCain ad is "completely wrong, factually wrong" and that it "literally is not true." The Cleveland Plain Dealer rated a McCain campaign ad a "zero" on its 0-to-10 scale of truthfulness.

All that -- and much, much more -- has come in just the past week.

In short, nearly every recent attack by the McCain campaign on Obama -- and there have been many -- has been debunked by at least one news outlet and in most cases by several.

So what's the problem? Sounds like the media are doing their job, right?

Wrong.

All week, McCain's attacks have been driving news coverage. Those same news organizations that have declared McCain's charges false have given them an extraordinary amount of attention, repeating them over and over. They have adopted the premises of the McCain attacks even as they acknowledge the attacks are based on false claims. The media narrative of the week has not been, as you might expect, that John McCain's apparent dishonesty may hurt him with voters. Instead, the media's basic approach has been to debunk McCain's attacks once, then run a dozen stories about how the attacks are sticking, how the "emerging narrative" will hurt Obama.

But attacks don't just stick and narratives don't just emerge. The only reason that the topic of the week was whether Obama is presumptuous instead of whether McCain is a liar who will do anything to get elected is that the news media decided to make Obama's purported flaws the topic of the week -- even after debunking the charges upon which the characterization is based. It's as though the news media -- so concerned about lies (that weren't really lies) in 2000 -- have suddenly decided that it doesn't matter that the McCain campaign is launching false attack after false attack. That it's the kind of thing you note once, then adopt the premise of the attack.

Examples from the past week are so numerous, it's difficult to even know where to begin. So let's start with Andrea Mitchell's interview of McCain campaign manager Rick Davis yesterday. Why start there? Because Mitchell has been widely praised for holding Davis' feet to the fire. But Mitchell's performance was actually quite bad; it is only because the rest of the media have been so bad that people thought Mitchell was good.

First, some background: Late last week, McCain and his campaign began claiming that Barack Obama canceled a visit to wounded troops because "the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras." Andrea Mitchell knows that this is a false claim; she has said so herself several times. Among other examples, she said on July 28 that "the McCain commercial on this subject is completely wrong, factually wrong" and that it "literally is not true."

So on July 31, Andrea Mitchell interviewed McCain campaign manager Rick Davis for more than 13 minutes -- and she didn't ask a single question premised on the McCain campaign's false attacks. Didn't say a single word that so much as hinted at what she knows to be true -- what she has said repeatedly: that McCain's attack on Obama was false.

Mitchell started things off by inviting Davis to elaborate on an attack he had leveled on Obama earlier that day. Next, she brought up the McCain campaign's ad comparing Obama to Paris Hilton:

MITCHELL: Well, let's talk about the celebrity ad. Now, the Obama campaign is responding to that, of course, because their take on it is that you are comparing him to two people, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, who are famous basically, for doing nothing. Whereas, he is a United States senator and the Democratic nominee. You know, how do you defend the ad?

Hardly a tough question; it once again boils down to an invitation to Davis to elaborate on the McCain campaign's criticisms of Obama.

Finally, after several minutes of bickering about the ad, Mitchell did ask a reasonably tough question, asking Davis to respond to criticism by longtime McCain confidant John Weaver that the ad is "tomfoolery" (though Mitchell omitted Weaver's strongest condemnation of the ad).

Next, Mitchell asked about the McCain campaign's criticism of Obama for not visiting the troops and Landstuhl -- sort of:

MITCHELL: OK. And were you guys ready, by the way, on the whole subject on visiting the troops, not visiting the troops at Landstuhl (INAUDIBLE)? Were you ready with an advertisement as some has suggested, in case he had visited the troops, to criticize him for doing it while on a political trip?

Incredibly, Andrea Mitchell, who knows the McCain campaign's Landstuhl allegations are false, who has said they are false, brought Landstuhl up during an interview with McCain's campaign manager -- and she didn't say a single word that so much as hinted at the fact that the McCain camp's allegations are false!

If you're Andrea Mitchell, and you've been saying repeatedly that the McCain campaign is making false claims about Barack Obama, and you get 13 minutes to interview John McCain's campaign manager, the single most important -- and obvious -- question you could ask would be one about McCain's honesty, one that points out the false claims you know he has been making. But Mitchell couldn't bring herself to commit such a flagrant act of journalism.

And this is an interview that has won Andrea Mitchell praise! That should tell you everything you need to know about how fundamentally broken the media are.

When Davis was done attacking Obama for not going to Landstuhl, Mitchell politely moved on -- and her next question suggested Barack Obama is just as culpable for the campaign's negative turn as John McCain is. Later, she again drew equivalence between the negativity of the two campaigns. Rather than asking John McCain's campaign manager a single question about the falsehoods she knows McCain is spreading, Mitchell instead told him that Obama is just as bad.

Finally, Mitchell asked Davis about a memo the McCain campaign distributed that mocks Barack Obama for drinking iced tea and eating protein bars for energy (no, I am not making this up). Here's how Mitchell phrased the question: "So, is that your campaign, you know, shtick right now? That he is sort of out of the mainstream, elite...?"

Now, a tough question about the McCain campaign's attempts to portray Obama as an "out of the mainstream elite" might have mentioned that we learned just this week that John McCain wears $520 shoes. Or it might have mentioned that he and his wife have somewhere around a dozen homes. Might even have mentioned that McCain and his wife would save nearly $400,000 under McCain's tax plan.

Andrea Mitchell didn't ask anything like that. Didn't give the slightest indication that it might be a tad hypocritical for the fantastically wealthy admiral's son in the $520 loafers to portray Barack Obama as an elite. Instead, she just asked if that's what the McCain campaign was doing. When Davis responded by claiming "honestly I don't think we are focusing on it. You're the one bringing it up, today," Mitchell for some reason chose not to point out that she brought it up because Rick Davis brought it up in a memo he released the day before.

Again, this is a performance for which Mitchell has been praised as one of the better examples of journalism this week.

But it's really little more than one of countless examples this week of the fact that the political media simply don't care about falsehoods and lies -- at least when they are coming from John McCain and his campaign. Sure, they'll (sometimes) note the falsehoods, as detailed above. But they don't treat the falsehoods as though they are important. They don't devote articles and television segments to McCain's growing credibility problem or to detailing the growing pattern of bogus claims. Instead, they debunk the details of McCain's claim, then proceed to accept the underlying premise and devote their segments and articles to that.

Incredibly, Mitchell's interview of Rick Davis was the second time in slightly more than two days that an MSNBC host interviewed Davis without asking him about the Landstuhl falsehood; Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski did the same thing on July 29.

Yesterday, The New York Times ran an article about McCain's "newly aggressive campaign to define Mr. Obama as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency." Ten paragraphs into the article, the Times finally got around to acknowledging -- in a secondary clause of a sentence -- that McCain's attacks have "included some assertions from the McCain campaign that have been widely dismissed as misleading." Not only was this acknowledgement buried, as though it is a trivial detail, it understated things considerably -- the assertions have been dismissed by many as false, not merely misleading. The Los Angeles Times ran a front-page article that portrayed McCain's troop snub charge as a he-said/she-said, despite the fact that separate article in that same edition of the newspaper noted -- as many others have -- that the McCain charge is false.

Instead, the media spent the bulk of the week discussing Barack Obama's purported "presumptuousness" and "arrogance" -- even though they (occasionally) acknowledged that the examples upon which the charge is based are bunk. There is simply no good reason for this.

Confronted with a situation in which Candidate A is making false claims to portray Candidate B in a negative light, logic, reason, a basic respect for truth, and an interest in quality journalism all suggest that the media should focus on Candidate A's dishonesty rather than whether Candidate B does indeed have the negative qualities Candidate A is using false claims to establish. How can that possibly be a controversial proposition?

The excuse reporters will offer is that the "narrative" is "emerging." But these narratives don't emerge on their own. They emerge because the media keep asserting them, without evidence. If the cable news shows asked every guest this week whether John McCain's repeated false claims will undermine his credibility rather than whether Barack Obama's presumptuousness will hurt him, the "emerging narrative" would be quite different.

And that's what they should be asking -- there is evidence that McCain has been making false claims. These very same news organizations know there is evidence; they have reported it. Yet they ask questions and host discussions based on the claims they know are false rather than on the truth they have reported. There is simply no valid reason for this. None.

It isn't that the "narrative" is out there -- the narrative doesn't get out there without the media putting it out there. Based, in this case, on a bunch of claims they know are false. (The "it's out there" excuse extends beyond narratives: Yesterday, MSNBC's Tamron Hall introduced yet another clip of a McCain ad -- for much of the week the cable channel has seemed to exist solely to give free air time to McCain ads so he doesn't have to spend his own money on them -- by saying "it is certainly getting a lot of attention." No, it isn't "getting" attention; there's no reason to hide behind the passive voice. MSNBC was giving it a lot of attention.)

And don't let reporters tell you they're covering the "narrative" that Obama is "arrogant" because he has a problem with being perceived that way. He doesn't (yet: a week of media focus on this garbage could change that, at which point, they'll claim credit for prescience rather than acknowledging their own role in the smear). CNN released a poll this week that asked whether people find the presidential candidates "arrogant." There was basically no difference between Obama and McCain on this question. Much of the alleged "evidence" that Obama is presumptuous applies to McCain as well. (Travels abroad? Check. Meets with foreign leaders? Check. Has slogan on campaign plane? Check.) And the public view of the two is similar. But how often do you hear the media talking about McCain's presumptuousness and arrogance? Roughly "never"? Why not?

Because the journalists responsible for coverage of political campaigns simply don't give a damn about the truth, or about balance, or about what is important and what is not. They're thrilled to spend three days talking about a substance-free attack because it amuses them that the attack used Paris Hilton's image. (Assuming John McCain is leveling the attack rather than the subject of it: Try talking about how much money Paris Hilton and John McCain will save under John McCain's tax plan, and see if you get as much attention.) And they'll enthusiastically repeat a bogus Republican attack over and over, stipulating to the premise, even if they know it's factually incorrect or illogical nonsense.

On Wednesday, MSNBC's Contessa Brewer provided an example that would be hilarious, if it weren't so horrible. Interviewing Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) about an unsubstantiated quote that had been attributed to Obama, Brewer acknowledged that there were indications that the quotation was wildly misleading -- that, in fact, Obama had said the opposite of what he was purported to have said. Jackson Lee had actually been in the room for Obama's comments and said the quotation was wrong. At which point, Brewer asked if it would have been presumptuous for Obama to have said what he didn't say. Sounds crazy, right? See for yourself:

BREWER: Do you think if he had just said -- if he had just said -- "I have become the symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions," that sentence in and of itself, do you think that that is presumptuous? Do you agree if that had been the only sentence without the context, that it would have been enough for people to think, well, who does he think he is?

If he had said it, would it be presumptuous? Well, maybe. And if John McCain announced that he is the walrus, it would be a bit strange, too. So what? There's no reason to believe he said it. But this is how low our political media have sunk: questioning members of Congress not about the Iraq war, or the economy, or executive power, but about hypothetical situations in which Barack Obama says something that there's no reason to think he said, and whether it would be presumptuous of him to make these comments. Hypothetically.

One final example -- a small one, but illustrative of the way the media behaves. Yesterday, The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder wrote:

[T]he Republican echo chamber has been sounding full tilt about Barack Obama's Jimmy Carter-esque turn as advice columnist to Americans about energy. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity spent part of their broadcast mocking Obama for urging Americans to inflate their tires to help conserve gasoline.

Obama had a point, and the auto industry recommends the same thing as do governors Schwarzenegger and Crist, but nevermind; the ridicule fix is in. An effective GOP shot.

Ambinder doesn't address -- or even raise -- the question of why this is "an effective GOP shot," but the answer is simple: Because the media, Marc Ambinder included, treat it as such.

As Ambinder's Atlantic colleague Matthew Yglesias wrote in response:

The upshot is deemed to be ... success for the echo chamber, "an effective GOP shot." But why? Maybe the attack will be reported in a way that's helpful to Republicans. But why should it be reported that way? Why should slamming Obama for offering sound, bipartisan, industry-endorsed advice by [sic] an effective attack?

Yglesias is right, but he could have gone further by pointing out the other ways the media could cover the attack.

They could cover it by pointing out that it is a bogus attack, that Obama is right and that the GOP is either ignorant or dishonest. If they covered it that way, surely it wouldn't be an "effective GOP shot" -- it would blow up in the Republicans' faces. And why not cover it that way? Covering it that way would clearly be better journalism than simply repeating the GOP's bogus ridicule as though it has some basis in fact.

Or they could cover it the way they would probably cover it if the situation were a little different. Imagine that during the 2004 campaign, George W. Bush suggested people increase their fuel efficiency by keeping their tires properly inflated and John Kerry dismissed the idea. It isn't at all that difficult to imagine the media seizing on Kerry's dismissal as evidence that the wealthy coastal elite doesn't understand cars the way rugged Midwestern guys do, as an example of him being out of touch and incapable of relating to regular people. Honestly, is there anyone who thinks Maureen Dowd or Dana Milbank wouldn't write that column?

Well, John McCain is a very wealthy guy with $520 shoes and more homes than most men have shoes, thanks to his heiress wife. Dowd and Milbank and the rest of the media could easily respond to McCain's mockery of Obama's comments by portraying McCain as an effete aristocrat who can't relate to regular people. Such coverage would be inane -- but just the kind of coverage we saw when the candidate was John Kerry rather than John McCain.

So why is this an "effective GOP shot"? Because reporters like Marc Ambinder treat it as such rather than making clear that it is a bogus GOP shot. There's nothing inherently "effective" about an attack like this. Reporters have a choice: They can simply repeat the GOP claims, in which case the shot is effective. Or they can do their jobs and give their readers and viewers an accurate understanding of the situation, in which case the attack will be ineffective -- and, in fact, counterproductive, since it will make the attackers look ignorant or dishonest.

There's nothing magical about the criticism that makes it an "effective GOP shot" -- it is effective because reporters choose not to do their jobs. Narratives that are based on false examples don't just "take hold" -- reporters choose not to do their jobs. It's really that simple. And it isn't the difference between good journalism and bad journalism. It's the difference between journalism and something else entirely. A journalist doesn't simply repeat false claims the Republicans make. A journalist doesn't adopt the underlying premise of an attack when the evidence in support of it is false. Whatever you call the people responsible for this nonsense, don't call them journalists.

During the July 31 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Fox News contributor and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) repeatedly mischaracterized Sen. Barack Obama's energy policy, falsely suggesting that Obama's only "energy strategy" was to encourage people to keep the tires on their vehicles properly inflated and asserting that Obama "suggested if we all inflated our tires, that we would solve the problem." He said to guest co-host Kirsten Powers, "[D]o you really think that inflating your tires is a rational energy strategy?" Later in the show, Gingrich also suggested that Obama's energy policy was limited to "inflate here, inflate now, avoid reality" and "inflate here, inflate now, pretend it doesn't exist," a takeoff on a petition called "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" promoted by American Solutions for Winning the Future, a group for which Gingrich serves as chairman.

In fact, during the July 30 campaign event in which he told the audience that "there are things you can do individually to save energy" such as "making sure your tires are properly inflated," Obama also mentioned proposals such as "help[ing] incentivize consumers" to transition to more fuel-efficient cars, developing new technologies, "work[ing] with the auto industry in developing some of these new technologies and plug-in hybrids," and "put[ting] people back to work building windmills and setting up wind turbines." Moreover, Obama's "Plan for a Clean Energy Future" on his campaign's website includes proposals to "invest $150 billion over 10 years in clean energy," "improve energy efficiency 50 percent by 2030," "support next generation biofuels," "double fuel economy standards within 18 years," "investigate market manipulation in oil futures," and enact a windfall profits tax on oil companies, the revenue from which "will be invested in a number of measures to reduce the burden of rising prices on families."

Gingrich's ridicule of Obama's suggestion aside, fueleconomy.gov, a website maintained jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, states: "You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure. Under-inflated tires can lower gas mileage by 0.4 percent for every 1 psi drop in pressure of all four tires." It further calculated a fuel economy benefit of 3 percent, or a savings of up to 12 cents per gallon, with properly inflated tires.

Moreover, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL), supporters of presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain, reportedly encouraged citizens to properly inflate their tires. The Los Angeles Times reported on June 26: "Both governors appealed to those with the real power to make change -- average citizens -- to drive slower, keep engines tuned and tires properly inflated, to buy hybrids and lower overall consumption."

From the July 31 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

GINGRICH: See, here's a simple proposal: Senator McCain ought to challenge Senator Obama to a debate in the next two weeks on energy. Senator Obama's profoundly wrong on energy. He has a position that's anti-drilling. He has a position that is frankly ludicrous. If you saw him yesterday, he suggested if we all inflated our tires, that we would solve the problem. Think about it. You ought to take that clip. I think that clip is far more devastating than today because it's looney tunes.

[...]

GINGRICH: Let me ask you a question -- let me ask you a question, Kirsten.

POWERS: OK.

GINGRICH: Since you're a devout defender of the one for whom we've all been waiting, I just have to ask you: Do you really think that inflating your tires is a rational energy strategy? I mean, I just want to --

POWERS: I don't -- you know, I think you know that that's not his entire energy strategy, for -- with all due respect.

GINGRICH: Didn't you think -- I mean, didn't you flinch --

POWERS: Yeah.

GINGRICH: As a real professional, didn't you flinch when you saw that coming across?

POWERS: Well, you know, it's not -- like I said, if I thought it was his entire energy strategy, yeah, it would be a problem. But we can pick this up after the break.

[...]

GINGRICH: Well, I -- look, I think a couple things. First of all, I think going to Germany and declaring yourself a citizen of the world is a pretty bad way to run for president. I think, second, that this statement he made yesterday about inflating your tires and, you know, having your car checked up -- first of all, we don't build cars the way they did 50 years ago, and the idea that the answer to America's energy policy is, you know, "inflate here, inflate now, avoid reality," probably strikes -- you know, I mean, we have a -- you know, we have petition drive called "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" at American Solutions.

But it -- but maybe MoveOn.org should put up, you know, "inflate here, inflate now, pretend it doesn't exist," because that segment yesterday looked like somebody who would be a terrific professor at the University of Chicago but make no sense running for president.

POWERS: Right. But you know that's not his entire energy policy. I mean, do you really think that John McCain's energy policy is superior? I mean, to be completely honest about it. I mean, I don't -- I don't think either of them really have that great of plans --

GINGRICH: Kirsten --

POWERS: -- to tell you the truth.

GINGRICH: Kirsten, drilling now, which McCain said in his Saturday radio address, versus don't drill at all --

POWERS: But that's --

GINGRICH: -- nuclear power versus nothing. Do I think that McCain has a much better -- yeah, there are places that I'm critical of John McCain. On energy, he is about, oh, a dollar-and-a-half gallon better.

In his August 1 column (via Google cache), Washington Times editor emeritus Wes Pruden repeated the already debunked allegation that Sen. Barack Obama released the written prayer he placed on the Western Wall in Jerusalem to Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv. Pruden wrote: "Ma'ariv says that it was the Obama campaign that wanted to get the prayer to several Jerusalem newspapers, and wanted someone, anyone, everyone, to print it."

In fact, while a spokesman for the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reportedly told other Israeli publications that the Obama campaign approved the publication of the prayer and that Obama gave copies of it to the media before he went to the Western Wall, The New Republic's Zvika Krieger wrote in an update to a July 28 blog post at The Plank: "I finally heard back from the Ma'ariv spokesman, who denied that the Obama campaign leaked the memo to them or gave them approval to print it, and who disavowed the alleged spokesman who gave quotes to at least four Israeli publications." On July 29, Krieger wrote that a Ma'ariv spokesman "told me definitively that 'the Obama campaign did not give us a copy of the letter or approve it for printing.' " Additionally, ABC News' senior national correspondent Jake Tapper reported in July 28 post on his blog Political Punch that a yeshiva student "confess[ed] that he had taken the prayer note of Sen. Barack Obama" and went on Israeli television ask for Obama's forgiveness. Tapper quoted the yeshiva student stating, "I am asking for Obama's forgiveness," and, "If he was offended by it ... of course he was, this is not a nice thing to do. It was sort of a prank. I hope he will forgive us, and we hope that he will win the presidency."

Pruden went on to baselessly claim that the Obama campaign released a commercial containing the text of the prayer on YouTube. Pruden wrote:

Collusion with newspapers or not, the Obama campaign moved smartly to collude with everybody else, putting up a campaign commercial on YouTube.com, showing footage of the senator at the wall, a holy shrine of Judaism, then poetically framed against several images of the Cross, wreathed by doves (or maybe pigeons), with the text of the prayer flashed on screen twice before dissolving into frames of the usual admonitions to vote, and repeating the campaign mantra of promising "change to believe in." All this is accompanied by a slow, tinkling version of "Amazing Grace," the iconic hymn of evangelical Christianity.

A video containing all these elements was posted on YouTube on July 25 by user 1962verbodivino. Such a video does not appear on the Obama campaign's YouTube page.

From Pruden's August 1 column:

Barack Obama is not even Jewish, but he speaks fluent chutzpah, the Yiddish word to describe "nerve," as in, "he's got a lot of nerve." Chutzpah famously described the plea of the man who killed his parents and begged the court to show mercy on a poor orphan.

The senator himself played the race card this week and accused John McCain of raising the race issue. This follows the contretemps over his written prayer at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, which someone removed from a crevice in the wall and gave to the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, which printed it, raising a storm of angry scolding of the newspaper for "sacrilege" and "invasion of privacy" and demands for a criminal investigation of the editor.

Only now Ma'ariv says that it was the Obama campaign that wanted to get the prayer to several Jerusalem newspapers, and wanted someone, anyone, everyone, to print it. Only Ma'ariv did. It's a nice prayer, covering several points on which Mr. Obama has been criticized, written on the letterhead of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in a hand that might -- or might not -- have been Barack Obama's. The campaign won't confirm or deny that it was the work of the messiah from the South Side of Chicago.

"Lord," the prayer goes, "protect my family and me. Forgive my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."

Collusion with newspapers or not, the Obama campaign moved smartly to collude with everybody else, putting up a campaign commercial on YouTube.com, showing footage of the senator at the wall, a holy shrine of Judaism, then poetically framed against several images of the Cross, wreathed by doves (or maybe pigeons), with the text of the prayer flashed on screen twice before dissolving into frames of the usual admonitions to vote, and repeating the campaign mantra of promising "change to believe in." All this is accompanied by a slow, tinkling version of "Amazing Grace," the iconic hymn of evangelical Christianity. (Someone forgot to throw in a Koran.)

Race and religion were once the twin taboos of political campaigning, no more fit for the stump than for a polite dinner party. But in the wake of the '60s, with conventions, manners and decency in retreat, religion turned out to be good politics. Something to "cling to" (along with guns). The Republicans and the conservatives got there first, with "the Southern strategy" of the Nixon era, followed by the awakening of the Religious Right. The Democrats were content to mock and jeer until it occurred to some of the smarter ones, like Barack Obama, that it was foolish to write off a winning appeal to such a large, law-abiding segment of the American public.

A campaign commercial like "Obama's Big Adventure" is something a smart Republican wouldn't touch. The reporters and pundits following the campaign were shocked -- shocked! -- last spring when Mike Huckabee was filmed against a bookcase whose shelf arrangement reminded those of offended refinement of the Cross.

But Barack Obama thinks he can get by with a lot, and for now he may be right. His injection of race was hardly subtle, though if we lived in more grown-up times his remarks would hardly be worth remarking. "Nobody thinks [George W.] Bush and [John] McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face," the candidate told a Wednesday audience. "So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, 'He's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name.' You know, 'He doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.' "

This is nice work, if you can make it work -- equating criticism of a black candidate with racism and prejudice. The McCain campaign demurred, not so nicely. "Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck," said Rick Davis, the manager of the McCain campaign. "It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."

Oh, dear. The Obama campaign was shocked -- shocked! -- to think that anyone could think the senator's allusion to race was about race. "He was describing that he was new to the political scene," a spokesman explained. "He was referring to the fact that he didn't come into the race with the history of others. It is not about race."

Of course not. It's about chutzpah.

The introduction to conservative author David Freddoso's forthcoming book, The Case Against Barack Obama (Regnery), which Media Matters for America has obtained, is titled "The Rhetoric vs. The Reality" and purports to explain "why this book needed to be written." The introduction and first few pages of The Case Against Barack Obama, however, are marked by false and misleading assertions about Obama, accompanied by dubious citations.

"Technicality"

On page xi, Freddoso writes:

Obama's ethnic pedigree understandably attracts much interest and fascination. But it is far less interesting than his unusual political pedigree. He is the product of a marriage between two of the least attractive parts of Democratic politics -- the hard-core radicalism of the 1960s era and Chicago's Machine politics. Obama plays hardball and knows when to look the other way. But he also surrounds himself with political, social, and spiritual mentors who are so far to the left that many push the envelope on ideological respectability. The interesting result of this mix is that Obama can engineer a high-minded drive to register thousands of voters in Chicago's black wards, only to turn around and throw all of his opponents off the ballot on a technicality, so that those voters have no choice but to elect him. This is precisely how he first won his state Senate seat in 1996.

In fact, Obama's opponents in the 1996 Democratic primary for the 13th district Illinois state Senate seat were removed from the ballot for failing to adhere to election laws -- the Obama campaign challenged the signatures his opponents had collected to get their names on the ballot, and the signatures were deemed ineligible for a variety of reasons. On page 2, Freddoso undermines his own claim by quoting a 1996 Chicago Weekend article explaining that some of incumbent Sen. Alice Palmer's signatures were disqualified because the voters who signed lived outside the 13th district -- something more than a mere "technicality":

With that justification, he approved the project, and he checked up on its progress nightly. One by one, Obama's "petitions guru" disqualified Palmer's signatures for one reason or another. According to one local newspaper at the time: "Some of the problems include printing registered voters name [sic] instead of writing, a female voter got married after she registered to vote and signed her maiden name, registered voters signed the petitions but don't live in the 13th district."⁵

Additionally, the Chicago Tribune reported on April 4, 2007, that one of Obama's opponents, Gha-Is Askia, "now suspects" some of the signatures his campaign collected were forged. Tribune reporter David Mendell wrote in his book, Obama: From Promise to Power (Amistad, 2007), that Palmer acknowledged at the time that her signatures had not been properly collected. From pages 109-110 of Obama: From Promise to Power:

So a volunteer for Obama challenged the legality of her petitions, as well as the legality of petitions from several other candidates in the race. As an elections board hearing on the petitions neared, Palmer realized that Obama had called her hand, and she acknowledged that she had not properly acquired the necessary number of signatures. Many of the voters had printed their names, rather than signing them as the law required.

Freddoso is presumably aware of these facts, as he cites both the April 4, 2007, Chicago Tribune article and page 109 of Obama: From Promise to Power in the first chapter of his book. On page 3, Freddoso reproduces a quotation from Askia in the Tribune article:

One of them was Gha-is Askia. He never had much of a chance of winning anyway, but he had gathered 1,899 signatures, and Team Obama took the time to challenge them as well.⁶ Askia spoke to the Chicago Tribune in 2007 about it:

"Why say you're for a new tomorrow, then do old-style Chicago politics to remove legitimate candidates?" Askia said. "He talks about honor and democracy, but what honor is there in getting rid of every other candidate so you can run scot-free? Why not let the people decide?"⁷

On page 5, Freddoso twice cites (in bold below) page 109 of Mendell's book in arguing that Obama's actions were "Rovian" and Machiavellian:

As an incumbent with the backing of the new congressman, Jesse Jackson Jr., Palmer was considered the early favorite in this contest.¹⁴ She went out and collected nearly 1,600 petition signatures in just ten days and submitted them ahead of the December 18 deadline.¹⁵ She would still need to defeat Obama and two other Democratic challengers, but as an incumbent with the backing of the popular new congressman, Palmer was the early favorite. Until Obama kept her from running, that is.¹⁶

Downtown, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley must have smiled when he learned that some "skinny kid with a funny name" had just ended Alice Palmer's career. According to contemporaneous news reports, Daley considered Palmer a serious threat, a potential mayoral rival.¹⁷ The black press had also raised the possibility of Palmer's husband running for mayor.¹⁸ Chicago was a majority-minority city with a white mayor. Both Palmers represented precisely the kind of black candidate around whom others might have united against Daley, as they had united around Chicago's first and only black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983.

By clearing the ballot, Obama had done more than just elbow his way into power without a real election-he had also erased any doubt of Daley's path to his next term.

There was nothing illegal in what Obama did in the primary. It was typical Chicago politics -- "If you can win, you should win."

And that is the point. Barack Obama promises to smooth over the bitter divides of American politics. He promises hope and an end to bitter partisanship. He frames himself as someone who rises above Clintonian or Rovian tactics. Contrast his promises today with what he did in 1996. He was not even a state senator yet, and he had already done enough to make Karl Rove, Bill Clinton, or Niccolo Machiavelli proud. He got his start in politics by denying voters a choice.

At no point does Freddoso note that two of Obama's 1996 primary opponents reportedly acknowledged that they had not complied with election laws.

"Slip of the tongue"

On page xii, Freddoso describes the effects of what he called the "Obama phenomenon":

It can drive Obama's liberal supporters, normally opponents of unilateral military action, to support military strikes within the territory of an American ally without that nation's permission. They take this position because Obama apparently made a slip of the tongue in August of last year and advocated such incursions into Pakistan.⁶

The source Freddoso cited was an August 1, 2007, Reuters article on Obama's speech that day at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., in which Obama said:

OBAMA: I understand that [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.

But Obama's comments were not a "slip of the tongue"; they were included in his prepared remarks. Indeed, according to an August 1, 2007, entry to USA Today's On Politics blog (posted at 7:58 a.m. ET, hours before Obama delivered the speech), they were among the excerpts the Obama campaign emailed to reporters prior to the actual speech:

"I understand that President Musharraf (of Pakistan) has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

That's a passage from a speech that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama will deliver today in Washington. He will also use the address to propose sending "at least two additional brigades" of troops to Afghanistan to secure that nation and hunt for terrorits.

His campaign just e-mailed us some excerpts. Among the other things Obama plans to say:

The Reuters article Freddoso cited does not characterize Obama's remarks as a "slip of the tongue," nor does it suggest that they were in any way inadvertent.

In a July 31 washingtonpost.com online discussion, Dana Milbank dismissed participants' criticisms of his July 30 column -- a "sketch" of Sen. Barack Obama's "premature presidency" -- as "whines." Indeed, Milbank began the discussion by acknowledging that "some of you have some thoughts you'd like to share about yesterday's Sketch on the premature presidency of Barack Obama," and before taking questions, wrote: "I've decided to approach today's chat as a wine writer would. ... Today, I am inaugurating the Whine Enthusiast, in which I will rate your whines."

The Washington Post itself was not quite as dismissive, publishing a correction to one falsehood (in a column rife with misleadingly cropped quotes, false insinuations, and negligent reporting, as Media Matters for America noted). Milbank falsely asserted that Obama "g[a]ve British Prime Minister Gordon Brown some management advice over the weekend." The Post ran the following correction: "This column incorrectly said that Sen. Barack Obama shared his views on how to avoid micromanagement with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last Saturday. Obama shared those views with British opposition leader David Cameron."

Referring to a July 29 meeting Obama had with members of the House of Representatives, Milbank wrote in his column: "Inside, according to a witness, he told the House members, 'This is the moment ... that the world is waiting for,' adding: 'I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.' " Milbank cited the quote in support of his thesis that Obama was becoming a "presumptuous nominee" and as evidence that Obama's "own hubris" may be his "biggest challenger." Several participants in the online discussion, apparently in reference to this quote, accused Milbank of "misquot[ing]" Obama, "omit[ting] the full context of his quote," and "intentionally butcher[ing] Barack Obama's words to sell papers."

Post staff writer Jonathan Weisman reported the quote in a blog post on the evening of July 29 and, like Milbank, said the originally reported quote "suggest[ed] that [Obama] was beginning to believe his own hype." Weisman updated the post on the morning of July 30, reporting that "House leadership aides pushed back against interpretations of this comment as self-aggrandizing, saying that ... [Obama] was actually trying to deflect attention from himself." If the leadership aides' reported version is accurate, the meeting with House Democrats would be far from the first time that Obama has expressed the view that the enthusiasm he generates "is not about" him, as Media Matters has noted.

In his column, Milbank gave no indication that he had contacted the Obama campaign for a response or that he had attempted to verify the accuracy of the quote in any way. But rather than acknowledge in the chat that he had neglected to do this basic reporting, Milbank attributed challenges to the version of the quote originally reported by the Post to "House Democratic aides['] [getting] up Thursday morning and decid[ing] that the quotes looked bad."

During the discussion, a reader from Pasadena, California, asked Milbank: "I do wonder whether or not echoing a Rovian talking point, complete with misquote, is really your best starting point." Milbank responded:

Under challenge is a quote in the story, and in an earlier post on the washingtonpost.com blog, The Trail, by my colleague Jonathan Weisman. We cite a witness to Obama's private meeting with House Democrats telling us that Obama said "this is the moment ... that the world is waiting for" and "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

House Democratic aides got up Thursday morning and decided that the quotes looked bad. While not challenging the quotations themselves, they said that the quotes were out of context. This is interesting, because our source who was among the people complaining about the quotes yesterday sent us the quotes in writing in an email Wednesday night.

Evidently no recording was made, so we'll probably never know the exact wording.

Milbank's assertion that Democratic aides were "not challenging the quotations themselves" presumes that the quote can be accurate even if Milbank omitted surrounding words that refute the interpretation he ascribed to the quote. But the very context that Milbank reportedly left out belies that presumption. Weisman's update to his blog post quoted a leadership aide saying that Obama actually said: "It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign -- that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol." By failing to note the context in which leadership aides reportedly said Obama was speaking -- "the enthusiasm ... is not about me at all' -- Milbank cited a comment that means nearly the opposite of the interpretation Milbank gave it, if the leadership aides' version is accurate.

Moreover, in a July 30 blog post, Atlantic associate editor Marc Ambinder reported that the Obama campaign offered the quote in what they said was its full context:

I asked the Obama campaign about the quote, and they provided some context that makes this particular utterance more digestible.

"It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol..." Obama said, according to the campaign.

In responding to another reader, Milbank wrote: "It should be noted, if it hasn't already, that nobody is questioning the accuracy of the Obama quotes, only the context." Again, it was Milbank's omission of the context that undermined its accuracy. As blogger Steve Benen wrote in a July 30 post at The Carpetbagger Report:

A Democratic leadership aide -- who, unlike the media, was in the room during Obama's remarks -- has been emailing reporters this morning:

"His entire point of that riff was that the campaign IS NOT about him. The Post left out the important first half of the sentence, which was something along the lines of: 'It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol...."

Andria Simckes would make a fine State Treasurer. So would Clint Zweifel. But it seems to be Zweifel snagging the endorsements. One would expect all the union endorsements, since he's a union man. But he's also been getting the media  the KC Star, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Columbia Tribune. Now, with just three days left till the voting starts, Zweifel has picked up the...

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On the July 31 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, author Jerome Corsi claimed that in his upcoming book, The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality (Threshold Editions), "I do a great deal of analysis of [Sen. Barack Obama's] autobiography." Corsi then asserted, "Obama first presents his father as a great hero, and the truth was, his father was a polygamist and a alcoholic. He had abandoned the family in Africa when he met Obama's mother in Hawaii. He married Obama's mother without disclosing that he had not divorced this African woman," falsely suggesting that Obama did not address these issues in his memoir Dreams From My Father (Crown, 1995). After making his false suggestion, Corsi asserted, "I'm first criticizing that Obama was not straightforward in how he presented, really, a deception about his father as a goatherd who got his chance to go to, come and study in the United States because of John Kennedy."

Contrary to Corsi's suggestion, on Pages 125-126 (paperback) of Dreams From My Father, Obama recounts a conversation with his mother that addressed his father's polygamy:

She stuck her head out of the kitchen. "I hope you don't feel resentful towards him."

"Why would I?"

"I don't know." She returned to the living room and we sat there for a while, listening to the sounds of traffic below. The teapot whistled, and I stamped my envelope. Then, without any prompting, my mother began to retell an old story, in a distant voice, as if she were telling it to herself.

"It wasn't your father's fault that he left, you know. I divorced him. When the two of us got married, your grandparents weren't happy with the idea. But they said okay -- they probably couldn't have stopped us anyway, and they eventually came around to the idea that it was the right thing to do. Then Barack's father -- your grandfather Hussein -- wrote Gramps this long, nasty letter saying that he didn't approve of the marriage. He didn't want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman, he said. Well, you can imagine how Gramps reacted to that. And then there was a problem with your father's first wife ... he had told me they were separated, but it was a village wedding, so there was no legal document that could show a divorce ..."

Moreover, on Pages 212-217, Obama recounts a discussion with his half sister Auma about their father's alcoholism:

"The Old Man began to drink heavily, and many of the people he knew stopped coming to visit because now it was dangerous to be seen with him. They told him that maybe if he apologized, changed his attitude, he would be all right. But he refused and continued to say whatever was on his mind.

"I understood most of this only when I was older. At the time, I just saw that life at home became very difficult. The Old Man never spoke to Roy or myself except to scold us. He would come home very late, drunk, and I could hear him shouting at Ruth, telling her to cook him food. Ruth became very bitter at how the Old Man had changed. Sometimes, when he wasn't home, she would tell Roy and myself that our father was crazy and that she pitied us for having such a father. I didn't blame her for this -- I probably agreed. But I noticed that, even more than before, she treated us differently from her own two sons. She would say that we were not her children and there was only so much she could do to help us. Roy and I began to feel like we had no one. And when Ruth left the Old Man, that feeling was not so far from the truth.

"She left when I was twelve or thirteen, after the Old Man had had a serious car accident. He had been drinking, I think, and the driver of the other car, a white farmer, was killed. For a long time the Old Man was in the hospital, almost a year, and Roy and I lived basically on our own. When the Old Man finally got out of the hospital, that's when he went to visit you and your mum in Hawaii. He told us that the two of you would be coming back with him and that then we would have a proper family. But you weren't with him when he returned, and Roy and I were left to deal with him by ourselves.

"Because of the accident, the Old Man had now lost his job at the Water Department, and we had no place to live. For a while, we bounced around from relative to relative, but eventually they would put us out because they had their own troubles. Then we found a run-down house in a rough section of town, and we stayed there for several years. That was a terrible time. The Old Man had so little money, he would have to borrow from relatives just for food. This made him more ashamed, I think, and his temper got worse. Despite all our troubles, he would never admit to Roy or myself that anything was wrong. I think that's what hurt the most -- the way he still put on airs about how we were the children of Dr. Obama. We would have empty cupboards, and he would make donations to charities just to keep up appearances! I would argue with him sometimes, but he would just say that I was a foolish young girl and didn't understand.

"It was worse between him and Roy. They would have terrific fights. Finally Roy just left. He just stopped coming home and started living with different people. So I was left alone with the Old Man. Sometimes I would stay up half the night, waiting to hear him come through the door, worrying that something terrible had happened. Then he would stagger in drunk and come into my room and wake me because he wanted company or something to eat."

Further, on Pages 343-344, Obama recounts a discussion in which his half brother Mark called their father "a drunk":

The following week, I called Mark and suggested that we go out to lunch. He seemed a bit hesitant, but eventually agreed to meet me at an Indian restaurant downtown. He was more relaxed than he had been during our first meeting, making a few self-deprecatory jokes, offering his observations about California and academic infighting. As the meal wore on, I asked him how it felt being back for the summer.

"Fine," he said. "It's nice to see my mom and dad, of course. And Joey -- he's really a great kid." Mark cut off a bite of his samosa and put it into his mouth. "As for the rest of Kenya, I don't feel much of an attachment. Just another poor African country."

"You don't ever think about settling here?"

Mark took a sip from his Coke. "No," he said. "I mean, there's not much work for a physicist, is there, in a country where the average person doesn't have a telephone."

I should have stopped then, but something -- the certainty in this brother's voice, maybe, or our rough resemblance, like looking into a foggy mirror -- made me want to push harder. I asked, "Don't you ever feel like you might be losing something?"

Mark put down his knife and fork, and for the first time that afternoon his eyes looked straight into mine.

"I understand what you're getting at," he said flatly. "You think that somehow I'm cut off from my roots, that sort of thing." He wiped his mouth and dropped the napkin onto his plate. "Well, you're right. At a certain point, I made a decision not to think about who my real father was. He was dead to me even when he was still alive. I knew that he was a drunk and showed no concern for his wife or children. That was enough."

From the July 31 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

HANNITY: Walk us through those three phases, from his family, to his radical associations, to his views today.

CORSI: Well, even in his family, I do a great deal of analysis of the autobiography.

HANNITY: That's his father, right there.

CORSI: That's his father, and his father -- you know, Obama first presents his father as a great hero, and the truth was, his father was a polygamist and a alcoholic. He had abandoned the family in Africa when he met Obama's mother in Hawaii. He married Obama's mother without disclosing he had not divorced this African woman.

HANNITY: And by the way, in fairness, you don't, I would never hold it against him --

CORSI: I don't either.

HANNITY: -- the actions of his father, but you are giving it historical perspective.

CORSI: Well, first of all, Obama put the issue on the table in analyzing it and making it the core of his autobiography. And I'm first criticizing that Obama was not straightforward in how he presented, really, a deception about his father as this goatherd who got this chance to go to -- come to study in the United States because of John Kennedy. John Kennedy had nothing to do with his father coming to Hawaii. It was Tom Mboya.

At a time of great uncertainty in the economy, millions of Americans of all ages, working and retired, are worried about their economic future -- before and after they retire. That's why voters want to know more about John McCain's plans for Social Security.

It turns out, they won't get them.

John McCain, whose support for privatization of Social Security is well known, refuses to provide the details of his plan because it would, according to one senior adviser, "politicize the debate."

Consider McCain campaign senior adviser Taylor Griffin’s description of his candidate's plan for fixing Social Security:

"The history of the Social Security debate has taught that too many specifics, especially during a presidential campaign, has polarized the debate," he said of the program that McCain called "an absolute disgrace [that's] got to be fixed."

Will he contrast his plan to that of his opponent? "Sen. McCain believes this is so important that we do not politicize this debate during an election season."

This explains why John McCain's "Jobs for America" economic plan is only thirteen pages and economists widely criticized as thin on the details. It is not that John McCain wants to hide his massive tax cuts for the rich, and massive corporate tax breaks, he just does not want to politicize the debate.

And really, who needs to discuss policy details in a presidential campaign? John McCain doesn't want to cause a distraction from talking about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton -- you know, the things that matter.

John McCain's "Low Road Express" garnered quite a few headlines across the country for the campaign's dishonest and dishonorable attacks rife with factual inaccuracies:

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "'Straight Talk Express' takes the low road"

Of late, sadly, McCain is saying goodbye to all that. The once bullish optimist is starting to come across as a churlish naysayer.

McCain's presidential campaign is evolving into nonstop attacks on Sen. Barack Obama, salted with distortion and innuendo. After years as a media darling, the candidate has taken to complaining about his opponent's press coverage.

What's happened?

Dallas Morning News: "Editorial: McCain off the mark in over-the-top ads"

Mr. McCain's tactics certainly aren't new to politics. But such negativity is disconcerting at this early date. The summer months usually afford presidential candidates the opportunity to delve into issues and ideology.

The bewildering debut of the politics-meets-Paris Hilton ad suggested that the clock suddenly had struck October.

Mr. McCain does voters a disservice by creating a caricature of his opponent instead of explaining their many differences on issues. Even some Republican strategists are troubled, saying that Mr. McCain appears to be swinging wildly.

Find the facts the McCain campaign continues to distort at LowRoadExpress.com.

We released the following web ad highlighting John McCain's pride in his widely-panned advertisement that features Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

In that same Q&A, John McCain claimed his campaign is talking about the issues:

"What we're talking about here is substance, not style."
-- John McCain

According to John McCain, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are "substantive" issues in this campaign.

While he takes his campaign down the low road of "childish" television ads with dishonest and dishonorable attacks, Senator Barack Obama is talking about the issues that matter, like energy prices, and turning around the sluggish Bush/McCain economy after eight years of failed policies.

During the July 31 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs claimed, "Well, over the past 50 years, members of Congress have been convicted of at least 16 different felonies, including fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, extortion, drug possession. One member was even convicted of manslaughter." Dobbs continued, "Former Congressman Bill Janklow, a Democrat from South Dakota, was convicted of striking and killing a motorcyclist with his car in 2003. He was sentenced to 100 days in prison." In fact, Janklow was a Republican member of the House of Representatives who resigned from Congress after being convicted of manslaughter.

From the July 31 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight:

DOBBS: Senator Ted Stevens today pleaded not guilty to federal corruption charges. The Republican from Alaska accused of lying about accepting more than a quarter of a million dollars worth of gifts, renovations to his Alaskan home, and not reporting them. The 84-year-old Stevens is the Senate's longest-serving Republican. If convicted, he faces five years in prison for each of the seven counts.

But even if convicted of all charges, Senator Stevens will likely still keep his congressional pension. According to the National Taxpayers Union, that pension would pay the senator at least $122,000 a year in retirement. Senator Stevens, if convicted, wouldn't be the only congressional felon to keep his pension. Many convicted congressmen are now collecting their pensions, and you're paying for them. The new congressional ethics bill tried to change that, but apparently it didn't go far enough, as Lisa Sylvester now reports.

SYLVESTER: Former congressmen Dan Rostenkowski [D-IL], James Traficant [D-OH], Duke Cunningham [R-CA], and Bob Ney [R-OH] -- what do they all have in common? They all are convicted felons who are still receiving generous pensions paid for by you, the taxpayer. Together their pensions total more than $250,000, every year, for the rest of their lives.

REP. MARK KIRK (R-IL): When we get elected to Congress, we should be held to the highest standard. And I think that that means that if you are convicted of a public integrity felony, you should not have a right to your pension.

SYLVESTER: Since 1980, 20 lawmakers have been convicted of serious crimes, and are still collecting taxpayer-funded pensions. Last year, Congress passed a law banning lawmakers convicted of certain felonies from receiving their pensions, but the law doesn't apply retroactively, and it includes only 11 types of felonies and leaves off many others, like income-tax evasion.

Prosecutors say Senator Ted Stevens made false statements regarding $250,000 in gifts and house renovations he received from corporate executives. He pleaded not guilty, but if convicted, he would still be eligible to receive his pension.

MELANIE SLOAN (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington): Here we are in a situation where the very first time out of the box that this law applies, and it doesn't apply to Ted Stevens, because this particular crime, committing false statements, doesn't count. It's not one of the crimes for which you'll lose your pension benefits.

SYLVESTER: Representative Mark Kirk has introduced legislation to close the loopholes. It would broaden current law so that any federal lawmaker who commits a felony that violates the public trust would not get to retire on the taxpayers' dime.

Senator Ted Stevens is the Senate's longest-serving Republican, and the National Taxpayers Union calculates that if he left office this year, he would be eligible to receive $122,000 pension every year for the rest of his life. Lou.

DOBBS: Lisa, thank you very much. Lisa Sylvester.

Well, over the past 50 years, members of Congress have been convicted of at least 16 different felonies, including fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, extortion, drug possession. One member was even convicted of manslaughter. Former Congressman Bill Janklow, a Democrat from South Dakota, was convicted of striking and killing a motorcyclist with his car in 2003. He was sentenced to 100 days in prison.

A Political Fix posting about Byron DeLear's new TV ad reminded me that Post-Dispatch writers and Show Me Progress writers live in parallel, but alternate, realities. Jake Wagman seemed bemused at Byron's tilting at windmills. One of [the five Democratic nominees foolish enough to challenge Akin] - Byron DeLear - even has a commercial out. (Who? Yes, I had to look him up, too.) Wagman is...

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John McCain says the "fundamentals" of the economy are strong. But, in the real world, 51,000 Americans lost their jobs last month as the jobless rate hit a four-year high. Associated Press:

The nation's unemployment rate climbed to a four-year high of 5.7 percent in July as employers cut 51,000 jobs, dashing the hopes of an influx of young people looking for summer work.

The numbers for July continued the troubling effects of Bush/McCain style economic policies.

July's reductions marked the seventh straight month where employers eliminated jobs. So far, this year, the economy has lost a total of 463,00 jobs.

Young people are heading back to the classroom in a few weeks, but many of them will be doing so a little lighter in the wallet than in the last sixteen years, as the economic downturn kept many of them out of work this summer.

This year, however, fewer of them were able to find work, the government said. The unemployment rate for teenagers jumped to 20.3 percent, the highest since late 1992.

Like George Bush's economy? Hire John McCain. He's too busy talking about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Meanwhile, Senator Barack Obama is talking about what's on the minds of Americans: how we can turn our economy around.

Sarah jo has an excellent diary, "A Hug from Barack", about her encounter with Barack Obama at the bbq in Union, MO on Wednesday. I read it right after reading this letter that a Democratic friend of mine had received online and forwarded to me: Hello everyone, As you know I am not a very political person. I just wanted to pass along that Senator Obama came to Bagram Afghanistan for about an...

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There are a number of campaign radio ads running in the 121st Legislative District market. One such set of ads promoting the generic republican game plan and the anointed republican candidate recently aired, paid for by the "Missouri Club for Growth Committee". The Missouri Ethics Commission has the latest filings for the "Missouri Club for Growth Committee": Detailed Summary of Expenditures...

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As you may know, Barack Obama visited four towns in outstate Missouri yesterday.  I was one of about 25 volunteers at the Union bar-b-que assigned "credentials" (a name tag with "volunteer" on it.)  The Obama campaign staffers are all VERY polite and highly organized.  The young woman organizing the pavilion and agenda for our event recognized my superior talents right away and...

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On the July 30 broadcast of ABC's World News, both anchor Charles Gibson and ABC News correspondent David Wright suggested that Sen. Barack Obama's and Sen. John McCain's presidential campaigns were equally guilty of "negative attacks." However, Wright provided no evidence that Obama had engaged in negative attacks, stating only that Obama is "constantly comparing McCain to President Bush."

Introducing Wright's reports on "negative attacks" in the presidential campaign, Gibson stated: "It is a pledge made by every candidate in every campaign: to run on the issues and avoid negative attacks. Just last month, John McCain pledged that throughout the campaign, he would 'show my admiration and respect for Senator Obama.' As for Obama, he pledged to 'run a different campaign, run a positive campaign.' Well, that was then. Today, the attacks were flying so fast and furious, it was sometimes hard to keep up." Wright then reported: "The mud has indeed been flying, with Obama constantly comparing McCain to President Bush, and today McCain comparing Obama to empty celebrities: all sizzle, no substance."

Wright offered no justification for suggesting that Obama's comparison between Bush and McCain is an "attack" comparable to McCain's "comparing Obama to empty celebrities." Indeed, Bush and McCain agree on several major policy issues, including taxes and the Iraq war. As Media Matters for America has noted, the nonpartisan publication Congressional Quarterly found that McCain was the Bush administration's most reliable vote in 2007: "Repeated votes on immigration and the Iraq War also helped elevate Republican John McCain of Arizona, one of Bush's chief adversaries in the Senate in 2005, to be one of his biggest supporters in 2007. McCain's 95 percent support score for last year was the highest in the chamber." Moreover, Bush endorsed McCain's candidacy in a joint appearance at the White House, and McCain has reportedly said he was "not trying to separate myself" from Bush on the campaign trail.

Wright went on to note other attacks McCain has made on Obama, reporting: "McCain has recently said Obama would rather lose a war to win an election. He's called him 'Dr. No' on energy reforms and run ads blaming Obama for high gas prices. ... Today, McCain unveiled a new ad in 11 states flashing images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, suggesting Obama is just another vapid celebrity." Wright noted that the "Obama campaign dismissed the ad as more of McCain's 'steady stream of false, negative attacks' " and that "Obama told an audience in Missouri the Republicans are just trying to scare voters." He later added:

Today, the McCain side released a memo noting, among other things, Obama's fondness for chocolate protein bars, Black Forest Berry Honest Tea, and arugula. In other words, high maintenance, like any big star.

But Obama supporters are having none of it. Today, they called attention to the shoes McCain has worn on stops throughout the Rust Belt -- Italian calfskin loafers that retail for $520 a pair.

But while Wright reported that "Obama supporters ... called attention to the shoes McCain has worn on stops throughout the Rust Belt," the on-screen text that accompanied Wright's report attributed the assertion to an "Obama campaign memo":

Wright did not produce any evidence that the Obama campaign released a memo attacking McCain for his choice of footwear or explain the contradiction between his reporting and the on-screen text. On July 30, The Huffington Post first reported on McCain's shoes, noting that McCain "has worn a pair of $520 black leather Ferragamo shoes on every recent campaign stop -- from a news conference with the Dalai Lama to a supermarket visit in Bethlehem, PA." By contrast, the Politico's Jonathan Martin reported in a July 30 blog post that the McCain campaign released a memo that stated, in part:

Only a celebrity of Barack Obama's magnitude could attract 200,000 fans in Berlin who gathered for the mere opportunity to be in his presence. These are not supporters or even voters, but fans fawning over The One. Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand "MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew -- Black Forest Berry Honest Tea" and worry about the price of arugula.

From the July 30 edition of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:

GIBSON: Good evening. It is a pledge made by every candidate in every campaign: to run on the issues and avoid negative attacks. Just last month, John McCain pledged that throughout the campaign, he would "show my admiration and respect for Senator Obama." As for Obama, he pledged to "run a different campaign, run a positive campaign." Well, that was then. Today, the attacks were flying so fast and furious, it was sometimes hard to keep up. ABC's David Wright is in Washington tonight. David.

WRIGHT: Good evening, Charlie. The mud has indeed been flying, with Obama constantly comparing McCain to President Bush, and today McCain comparing Obama to empty celebrities: all sizzle, no substance.

[begin video clip]

WRIGHT: John McCain has been trying to raise doubts about his opponent. Today in Colorado, he was at it again.

McCAIN: The bottom line is that Senator Obama's words, for all their eloquence and passion, don't mean all that much.

WRIGHT: McCain has recently said Obama would rather lose a war to win an election. He's called him "Dr. No" on energy reforms and run ads blaming Obama for high gas prices.

NARRATOR: He's the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?

WRIGHT: Today, McCain unveiled a new ad in 11 states flashing images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, suggesting Obama is just another vapid celebrity.

NARRATOR: Higher taxes. More foreign oil. That's the real Obama.

STUART ROTHENBERG (editor and publisher of The Rothenberg Political Report): Nobody is going to confuse Paris Hilton with Senator Barack Obama. But over time, the attempt to raise questions about his substance, that could very well work.

WRIGHT: The Obama campaign dismissed the ad as more of McCain's "steady stream of false, negative attacks. Or as some might say, 'Oops, he did it again.' "

OBAMA: We don't need the same old tired answers. What we need is something new.

WRIGHT: Obama told an audience in Missouri the Republicans are just trying to scare voters.

OBAMA: The argument is, "I know you don't really like what we're doing, but he's risky."

WRIGHT: McCain's spokesman shot back: "This is a typically superfluous response from Barack Obama. Like most celebrities, he reacts to fair criticism with a mix of fussiness and hysteria."

Today, the McCain side released a memo noting, among other things, Obama's fondness for chocolate protein bars, Black Forest Berry Honest Tea, and arugula. In other words, high maintenance, like any big star.

But Obama supporters are having none of it. Today, they called attention to the shoes McCain has worn on stops throughout the Rust Belt -- Italian calfskin loafers that retail for $520 a pair.

Late today, the Obama campaign responded to McCain's "Celebrity" ad, with a new ad of their own.

NARRATOR: "False." "Baloney." "The low road." "Baseless." John McCain: Same old politics. Same failed policies.

[end video clip]

WRIGHT: It's getting ugly early, and some Republicans are expressing concern about McCain's tone. In particular, one former McCain aide calling the new "Celebrity" ad "childish." Well, the McCain campaign insists that Obama went negative first. Charlie?

In his July 30 online column, Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto wrote that July 27 remarks Sen Barack Obama made at the UNITY '08 Convention "seem[ed] to be something of an endorsement of the idea of 'reparations for slavery,' which is usually taken to mean cash payments." Taranto referenced a July 28 Honolulu Star-Bulletin article, which quoted Obama as saying at the UNITY Convention: "I've consistently believed, when it comes -- whether it's Native American issues, whether it's African-American issues and reparations, that the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just to offer words, but offer deeds." After noting Obama's comments, Taranto wrote: "Exactly what Obama is advocating here cannot be determined, but it seems to be something of an endorsement of the idea of 'reparations for slavery,' which is usually taken to mean cash payments." However, when specifically asked moments later by CNN correspondent Suzanne Malveaux whether he supported "offering reparations to various groups," Obama replied: "I have said in the past, and I'll repeat again, that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed. And I think that strategies that invest in lifting people out of the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, but that have broad applicability and allow us to build coalitions to actually get these things done, that, I think, is the best strategy."

Indeed, as Obama noted at the UNITY Convention, he has made similar comments "in the past" when asked about the issue of reparations. During the July 24, 2007, CNN/YouTube debate, Obama was asked by CNN's Anderson Cooper for his "position on reparations." Obama replied:

I think the reparations we need right here in South Carolina is investment, for example, in our schools. ... I did a town hall meeting in Florence, South Carolina, in an area called the corridor of shame. They've got buildings that students are trying to learn in that were built right after the Civil War. And we've got teachers who are not trained to teach the subjects they're teaching and high dropout rates. We've got to understand that there are corridors of shame all across the country. And if we make the investments and understand that those are our children, that's the kind of reparations that are really going to make a difference in America right now.

Of the Democratic presidential candidates present at the CNN/YouTube debate, only Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH) answered in the affirmative when Cooper asked, "Is anyone on the stage for reparations for slavery for African-Americans?"

In addition, The Chicago Tribune reported in an October 18, 2004, article (accessed through the Nexis database) that "Obama opposes giving reparations to descendants of slaves" and "the Democratic nominee thinks that the residual damage done by slavery cannot be repaired with money":

Campaigning in the nation's first U.S. Senate race between major-party African-American candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Alan Keyes present widely different approaches to civil rights and minority empowerment.

Obama considers education to be the most important civil rights issue facing America today; Keyes believes it's abortion. Obama opposes giving reparations to descendants of slaves; Keyes supports the idea.

Obama supports laws protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in employment and housing.

Keyes believes such laws afford gays and lesbians "special rights or special status in society based on their sexual behavior."

The stances of the two were gleaned from answers they gave to a Tribune questionnaire on civil rights, affirmative action, housing and other matters. They were also taken from public comments and interviews.

The men are vying to replace Republican U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, who is retiring.

Keyes said he supports lifting federal taxes on "a generation or two" of African-Americans as a form of slavery reparations.

The Republican nominee says his stance is part of his overall position supporting the abolition of the federal income tax, which he thinks should be replaced by a national sales tax.

"So, really what I'm talking about is making black Americans who are descendants of slaves first on that list of appropriate tax relief," he said in his questionnaire.

But the Democratic nominee thinks that the residual damage done by slavery cannot be repaired with money.

"Rather we should focus on ensuring that our anti-discrimination laws are vigorously enforced, and that we continue to invest in education, job training and other programs that lift all people out of poverty and improve their opportunities in life," Obama said.

From Obama's July 27 question-and-answer session at the UNITY '08 Convention:

BULL: Senator, I am Brian Bull from Wisconsin Public Radio and the Native American Journalists Association. Last February, the Australian prime minister apologized for the past treatment of its indigenous people. Last month, the Canadian prime minister also issued an apology for its treatment of its indigenous population. Would your administration issue an apology to Native Americans for the atrocities they've endured for the past 500 years?

OBAMA: You know, I personally would want to see our tragic history or the tragic elements of our history acknowledged. And I think that there's no doubt that when it comes to our treatment of Native Americans, as well as other persons of color in this country, that we've got some, some very sad and difficult things to account for.

What an official apology would look like, how it would be shaped, that's something that I would want to consult with Native Americans tribes and councils to talk about. And because obviously, as sovereign nations, they also have a whole host of other issues that they're concerned about and that they've prioritized. One of the things that I said to tribal leaders is, I want to set up a annual meeting with them and make sure that a whole range of these issues are addressed.

But I've consistently believed, when it comes -- whether it's Native American issues, whether it's African-American issues and reparations, that the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just to offer words, but offer deeds. And when you look at the situation on tribal lands, the fact that by every socioeconomic indicator Native Americans are doing worse than any other population on health, on education, on substance abuse -- their housing situations are deplorable, unemployment is skyrocketing -- you know, I have to confess that I'm more concerned about delivering a better life and creating a better relationship with the Native American peoples than anything else. And that's what I want to engage tribal leaders in making sure happens.

MALVEAUX: When it comes to reparations, would you take it a step further, in terms of apologizing for slavery or offering reparations to various groups?

OBAMA: You know, I have said in the past, and I'll repeat again, that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed. And I think that strategies that invest in lifting people out of the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, but that have broad applicability and allow us to build coalitions to actually get these things done, that, I think, is the best strategy.

You know, the fact is, is that dealing with some of the, some of the legacy of discrimination is going to cost billions of dollars. And we're not going to be able to have that kind of resource allocation, unless all Americans feel that they are invested in making this stuff happen. And so, you know, I'm much more interested in talking about how do we get every child to learn, how do we get every person health care, how do we make sure that everybody has a job, how do we make sure that every senior citizen can retire with dignity and respect. And if we have a program, for example, of universal health care, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because they're disproportionately uninsured. If we've got an agenda that says every child in America should get -- should be able to go to college, regardless of income, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because it's oftentimes our children who can't afford to go to college.

From Taranto's July 30 column:

One of the most appealing features of the Barack Obama candidacy is the idea that Obama is "postracial" -- that he is a candidate who is black and does not practice the adversarial politics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. This is why his 20-year association with the racist anti-American crackpot Jeremiah Wright was potentially so damaging to him, and why Jesse Jackson's lurid fantasies of sexually mutilating Obama were such a great stroke of luck for the candidate.

But a story in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin raises serious questions about Obama's postracialism. The paper describes an Obama appearance at Unity '08, "a convention of four minority journalism associations":

"I personally would want to see our tragic history, or the tragic elements of our history, acknowledged," the Democratic presidential hopeful said.

"I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds."

Exactly what Obama is advocating here cannot be determined, but it seems to be something of an endorsement of the idea of "reparations for slavery," which is usually taken to mean cash payments. In this view, the following deeds are insufficient to balance the ledger between America and the descendants of slaves: the Civil War, the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the continuing practice of racial preferences.

The idea of reparations is highly unpopular, and with good reason. Unlike the Japanese-Americans who in 1988 received compensation for their internment by a Democratic administration in the grips of wartime hysteria, no one alive today has ever been a slave. The idea of the government cutting checks to compensate people for a wrong that they did not personally suffer is unlikely to appeal to anyone except perhaps those who stand to receive those checks.

The politics of this are rather odd. There is little for Obama to gain by endorsing reparations. If ever there was a candidate who has no need to pander to the descendants of slaves, it is Barack Obama. Democratic presidential candidates can usually count on upward of 90% of the black vote, and Obama racked up similar percentages in a hard-fought primary battle.

On the other hand, in order to attract votes among nonblacks, Obama needs to guard carefully his postracial credentials. It's one thing to endorse racial preferences, a conventionally liberal if unpopular view. But reparations remains a fringe idea--the sort of idea a presidential nominee would normally be careful to stay away from.

New Yorker, 2/2/02:

McCain comes from the military aristocracy-he's John Sidney McCain III, the son and grandson of admirals, third-generation Annapolis-but New York is outside that group's ambit, so he can think of a trip there as a country boy's sojourn in the big city. It added to the little-boy feeling that McCain takes an unconcealed pleasure in being fussed over, which he had been, and in mingling with celebrities, which he had done." [...]

"On the way, McCain reminisced about his evening in New York. 'Bette Midler was great last night,' he said. 'Tony Bennett was marvelous. Natalie Cole did that thing where she sings the duet with her father on a screen. Joel Grey sang "Yankee Doodle Dandy." I loved what Bette said about Rudy Giuliani.'"

On his nationally syndicated radio program, Sean Hannity repeated the already debunked allegation that Sen. Barack Obama leaked a written prayer he placed in the Western Wall during his visit to Jerusalem. On the July 30 broadcast of his radio show, Hannity asserted of Obama: "[E]verything was well orchestrated, all the timing -- you know, for example, even the release of the note that he put at the Western Wall, that was all leaked to the press, and that was a big deal as well." In fact, while a spokesman for the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reportedly told other Israeli publications that the Obama campaign approved the publication of the prayer and that Obama gave copies of it to the media before he went to the Western Wall, The New Republic's Zvika Krieger wrote in an update to a July 28 blog post at The Plank: "I finally heard back from the Ma'ariv spokesman, who denied that the Obama campaign leaked the memo to them or gave them approval to print it, and who disavowed the alleged spokesman who gave quotes to at least four Israeli publications." On July 29, Krieger wrote that a Ma'ariv spokesman "told me definitively that 'the Obama campaign did not give us a copy of the letter or approve it for printing.' "

Hannity also again repeated the false claim that Obama did not visit wounded troops at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany because he could not bring cameras. Hannity said: "Now, I think that suggests that John McCain is right, that he was wrong not to visit the troops, there's never an excuse not to visit them, and if he wants to be commander in chief, that should have been his top priority, not whether or not he can get a photo op out of this thing." As Media Matters for America has