Desperate Times Call for a Desperate Man

Well isn't this fun. McSame the numerically-challenged suddenly finds some numbers so compelling that his instinct for service - well actually, histrionics and mock-heroics - is triggered almost like Pavlovian saliva. Deep inside, I suspect he is praying "someone" will take him prisoner and torture him with cotton swabs until mid-November. Paging Sarah! This would give him both an excuse for having his ass kicked and another plastic veneer of "heroic survivor" to add to his inflated self-image. We'll cue up Polythene Pam and Plastic Fantastic Lover.

Somewhere in the course of events though (this senility is a bitch) he got crossed up. We know it is his plummeting poll numbers that have him agitated. He has said repeatedly that he doesn't do finance and economics. And he of course either in person or through his financial "advisor" Gramm has been a central player for years in the deregulation and suspension of even playground rules that largely produced this mess.

I hope you are fortunate enough to be oblivious to the "phenomenon" of "Dancing with the Stars." We have a fan here, so start of new season this week is unavoidably an event. Interestingly, one of the contestants is Cloris Leachman, I would guess the oldest participant to date (probably by almost a decade). Reports are that she has been "entertaining," draping boobs on counter, walking through her "dances," and generally I gather exploiting op to play gritty, meanspirited comic. Rumor has it she bullied her way onto the show. And more than a few viewers are incensed that she survived the first cut.

Very low intrinsic interest/merit to this. But it occurs to me it is a danged good metaphor for McSame's presidential campaign. You read it here first.

But back to McShameful - the clodhoppered way in which his campaign does these things is increasingly being noticed. For starters, Joan Walsh climbs out of sickbed to post this:

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So I've been home with a fever watching television these last two days, and boy, this latest John McCain gambit -- calling on Obama to cancel Friday's debate -- seems crazy to me. Now, I'll admit, the last McCain decision that seemed crazy to me was his selection of Sarah Palin, and the short-term Palin bounce seemed to prove me wrong; I still believe I'll be right in the long term, and Palin's climbing negatives give me reason for optimism on that score.

Clearly McCain's gambit is political, but I think it's bad politics. I actually think a foreign-policy debate was the only hope McCain had for taking back momentum after a week in which his lifelong devotion to corporate deregulation caught up with him, despite his lying about it. Now, I trust Obama to be smart enough to tie the current financial crisis to foreign policy -- fairly, not as a stretch, given the global dimensions of the turmoil. But it would have also provided McCain with an opportunity to taunt Obama about his opposition to the so-called surge in Iraq, and to change the subject generally -- and that could potentially be good news for McCain.

McCain campaign czar Steve Schmidt apparently thinks calling on Obama to cancel the debate is another big game-changing gambit, à la the Palin choice, but I think Americans will see it for what it is, a political stunt. It makes McCain look cowardly, like he's not ready to mix it up with Obama, and like he's hiding from the perilous economic developments of the last few weeks. (I'd probably hide, too, if I'd been insisting until recently that the economy is fundamentally strong.) It looks especially bad since it comes on the heels of Obama reaching out to McCain to suggest that they collaborate on a joint proposal for principles to guide the bailout. McCain seemed to agree -- but then went out and proposed they cancel the Friday debate.

Talking to the media a few minutes ago, Obama disagreed. "It's my belief that this is exactly the time when Americans need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess," Obama said. "It will be part of the president's job to deal with more things at once. In my mind, actually, it's more important than ever that we present ourselves to the American people." That's presidential.

I'd say the numbers McCain is looking at have nothing to do with the stock market or the dimensions of the bailout proposal. The numbers motivating McCain are polling numbers, and Obama's rise this week clearly has the Republican nominee on the ropes. Obama's up by 9 points in today's ABC News/Washington Post poll, an 11-point swing in just a week. Just-released CNN polls show Obama up by 4 in Colorado, 5 in Michigan, 9 in Pennsylvania. Candidates start to do desperate things at times like this, and McCain's trying to duck the Friday debate is one of them. He will regret it.

Now, as set-up for next link, a few personal confessions on the difficulty of balancing extracurricular and work obligations. Last year I was signed up for car visit to prospective new client requiring early arrival in office on Monday morning. Who does that? It being mid-Winter, even in Seattle as it happens we get snow, in this case ever-so-inconveniently beginning in the wee hours. By alarm time, there were several inches on the ground, school closures, reports of traffic tie-ups in every direction, i.e., commute chaos. My local bus did not even appear, and there were other snafus along the way, resulting in probably a pedestrian mile or more in multiple segments. I am cell-phone-intolerant, and this was situation they are made for. The net was that I inconvenienced several co-workers, perhaps irritated eventual client, and suffered intense but brief chastising from manager. But we worked through it.

Tale two, in the "I was a lot younger then" category (or maybe "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"!). I had red-eye flight to Texas for field-test of computerized control system on Sunday night and had painfully shoehorned-in weekend in the mountains. In those long-ago days it was possible to show up 30 minutes before flight departure with carry-ons. We had we thought a fairly modest goal for weekend, but, as it turned out, not so much. We did make summit, but approach route was plagued with downed timber, and all-in-all, I arrived home something like two hours before flight departure. Somehow I scraped off big chunks and/or showered and made flight. Demands on me at start of meeting were probably pretty modest. But then I suspect adrenaline or increasing muscle revolt might have been enough to empower me.

Josh Marshall has some enjoyable tongue-in-cheek on excuses for not showing up:

Perhaps this will shine an unflattering light on my psyche. But, like many of you, I have a busy schedule, with lots of work obligations and meetings. I also end up doing a decent number of panel discussions and speeches, though I try hard to keep those to a minimum. And like everyone, sometimes I get tired or overwhelmed and I wish I could get out of this or that responsibility.

Occasionally in these moments, in a perverse kind of private entertainment, I've found myself imagining what would happen if I pawned off on someone just the ballsiest, most inane excuse for flaking on some commitment. And not something that people might buy -- nothing entertaining about that -- but just something completely off the wall and nonsensical. What would people's reaction be? Speechless, laughter, tearing me limb from limb? Would they ever speak to me again?

So, let's see, I can't moderate the panel because I've been called to Washington to give a special briefing on guerilla tactics to be used against the Taliban?

Or maybe, I want to be at the meeting, but as weird as this sounds, all the bridges and tunnels out of Manhattan have been shut for the day. Some counter-terrorism thing probably. I tried renting a helicopter but they're all booked by people at the UN.

Isn't this pretty much what John McCain tried to pull today? But actually really did it? And on a national stage? He wants to cancel the debate? And maybe also Palin's debate. Are you kidding? Why not cancel the election too? And because he has to go back to DC to solve the financial crisis? Really? The topic he knows nothing about and after he's shown up less in the senate in the last two years than anyone but Tim Johnson, the guy who had the stroke? Which of my employees is going to call from home tomorrow and say they can't come to work because of the financial crisis?

One of the advantages of running a presidential campaign is that roughly half the country is deeply committed to believing or at least saying that virtually anything you do or say makes sense. And so it is here. But, look, if you were living in the real world, if you were some hotshot young executive at a Fortune 500 company trying to rise in the ranks, and you pulled some whacked crap like this, it would probably get you blackballed permanently. People would think you were either deeply unreliable or maybe just had a screw loose. And yet here he is -- is he kidding? He can't debate Barack Obama because he's got to go to Washington and save the economy? It's like the biggest 'dog ate my homework' in history.

And as far as this martyrdom or "suspension" of his campaign, I suggest that we the media-inundated must watch closely for decline in McSame gaffe frequency - the only apparent available metric for a real suspension. Josh Marshall has a wrap-up as to what the "suspension" appears to involve:

As we've been reporting, John McCain's attack ads have remained up on the air across the country as late as this evening. And now it turns out that his campaign has instructed TV stations around the country to start airing them again starting on Saturday. In other words, McCain's ads may actually disappear from the air for a few hours on Friday.

At this point it looks like the only thing that got cancelled in McCain's much ballyhooed suspension of his campaign was the appearance on David Letterman.

I confess I have not explored that Letterman link. I hope it fully captures the DL wrath at having been stood-up by the arizonan wart-hog and all which even got play on NBC this AM. (I don't view these late-night shows, being either a-bed or here harrassing you.)

As far as the idea of cancelling tomorrow's (!) debate, the Talking Points have assembled a great assemblage of opinions. I promise you that link is worth your while.

Changing the subject only slightly, Glenn Greenwald as always is dogged when he gets a meaty subject, in this case Governor Palin. You will note his willingness to admit error. Also note he is not of the crowd fussing over what I might label people magazine/enquirer zingers, or even her lack of experience. He suspects her of having some serious cerebral capabilities. But the bottom line for Glenn is that she has been "pity-inducing," strong language, in the few cases where she has been allowed to talk without a McSame operative controlling her larynx. This is brief excerpt - please follow link and read it in toto:

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But Sarah Palin's performance in the tiny vignettes of unscripted dialogue in which we've been allowed to see her has been nothing short of frightening -- really, as I said, pity-inducing. And I say that as someone who has thought from the start that the criticisms of her abilities -- as opposed to her ideology -- were much too extreme. One of two things is absolutely clear at this point: she is either (a) completely ignorant about the most basic political issues -- a vacant, ill-informed, incurious know-nothing, or (b) aggressively concealing her actual beliefs about these matters because she's petrified of deviating from the simple-minded campaign talking points she's been fed and/or because her actual beliefs are so politically unpalatable, even when taking into account the right-wing extremism that is permitted, even rewarded, in our mainstream. I'm not really sure which is worse, but it doesn't really matter, because with 40 days left before the election, both options are heinous.

What seems most likely is that she's perfectly conversant in the exceedingly narrow and parochial range of issues she's concerned herself with as Wasilla Mayor and Alaska Governor -- oil drilling on the North Slope, specific local budget items, corruption issues inside the Alaskan State GOP, and evangelical and religious matters. She really doesn't seem to have any thoughts about anything outside of that -- or if she does, she is suppressing them -- and is thus capable of spouting little more than empty right-wing slogans. That's what makes all the issues raised by the excellent on-scene reporting by Salon's David Talbot more significant than it otherwise might be -- she could be a religious fanatic with an extremist agenda, or a power-crazed, vendetta-fueled, secrecy-obsessed Cheney-ite, or something else altogether. She may not even know what she is, and we're clearly not going to find out.

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Foreign Affairs - Put 'em Up!

Believe me, you will again see a post from me that does not revolve exclusively around politics, and I want to think possibly even before November 4. Certainly I do not lack for material, even if options were limited to those recently hinted at, but now getting a little dusty: jury experience, volcano-circuit trip, oats, peas, beans, and etc.

But this isn't that. However, as concession, I will pause to limn a few of the great dinner treats over the last few nights, ranging from lentil-sausage soup a la Ina Garten I whipped up when left unsupervised, improvised excellent pinto bean/chicken "chili" we assembled over the weekend, citrus/tamarind/ginger/garlic-marinated pork tenderloin, and ham/provolone/onion roll-ups. Oh yum, I'm getting hungry again.

And Uncle Tupelo is serenading me ("still feel gone").

There is a debate coming up Friday, on the subject of Foreign Affairs. As usual, the rovelican "machine" has managed to toss numerous bright shiny frivolous chaff in the air of late to distract us from their party's absolutely appalling oh-for-nearly-everything record in this particular venue.

Isn't it "amusing" (well, only in the most limited sense) that "domestic issues," i.e., the self-destructive down-spiral of the WS(j) and WH greedy-boys, suddenly also resembles a septic system that "Needs Work"! How's that workin' for ya, Sarah, you of the foreign affairs Black Spot on resume?

But dday at Hullabaloo has some good coaching and reminders for Lehrer and viewers as to some of the current foreign affairs hot topics. I excerpt here more than I would prefer - dday brings up numerous other quite critical international issues that also deserve attention. The link, wink, wink! The extent to which issues like these are even asserted by moderator and forthrightly addressed by the candidates may tell us volumes:

The first Presidential debate is scheduled to focus on foreign policy, and I imagine those tuning in, whose knowledge of the subject is limited, would rather hear the candidates talk about the current economic mess. But the past week or so has also revealed a series of crises in global hotspots around the world. This includes but is not limited to Iraq, and I would hope that Jim Lehrer understands the full spectrum of global decisions that the next President will have to make, and really make a sustained effort to force the candidates past simplistic slogans and into the heart of what they would do in foreign policy.

First we have the Marriott bombing in Islamabad, Pakistan, the second big suicide attack in the Muslim world in the space of the week (along with the bombing of the US embassy in Sanaa, Yemen). Given that the Marriott is typically home to international businessmen and Western dignitaries, so those similarities exist as well. This was a signal from the Taliban in response to the recent spate of US forays into the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) region. Given that the Pakistani Prime Minister was due at the Marriott, it could have been worse.

Clearly there's a real problem with Pakistan. At least 300 have died in suicide attacks just this year. We've launched something approaching a shadow war in the FATA region, without any partnership and in fact increasing resistance from elements in the Pakistani government and the military, which is actively repelling raids. It threatens a split between the Army and the leadership of Prime Minister Zardari, and that has potentially disastrous results. In short, the country is on the brink.

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My impression is that Pakistan may be Problemo Uno right now, "axis of evil" be damned. In reality, this was probably true when timmy the misfit from that sandlot in texas made his famous "speech." How could he have known? It didn't come up in his comic books (no offense Stan et al). From what Mr. Suskind writes (Way of the World), Musharruf implanted numerous zealous, ideological Muslims with axes to grind throughout his military and intelligence operations. Not to say they would all necessarily be full-on Taliban and/or terrorism supporters. Many might take any measures they could to support anti-American activities. More importantly, some in the military/intelligence established by Musharruf might be willing to actually target ideologues and terrorists and support the same-minded goals of the US of A.

If they had any reason to trust us.

And there's the rub.

To review, this administration has had at least one consistent pattern. They have lied, cheated, and bullied even when it was superfluous to what rational folks would have seen as their abberrant goals. There are a good half-dozen of them at the top who definitely deserve a "path" somewhere on their resume. The prefix for that might be "merely" socio. In a few cases I believe it is clinically "psycho." Anyone who would trust, rely on, or - deity-of-choice-forbid - trust the cheney cabal would be seen by wizened, savvy foreign policy sorts (actually no wize or sav needed, merely a working brain) throughout the world as total rubes, since they testify to their individual pathologies so routinely.

No, I'm wrong there. Pattern two is Never Admit to Any Mistake, No Matter How Small (I guess I just violated that credo). That may have proven to be a valid short-term political (or maybe just face-saving for amazingly insecure ???-paths?) strategy. However, (a) that does not make it morally or ethically right, (b) it is pathetic that these guttersnipes have so routinely suborned actual governance to politics, and (c) as a perhaps clinically optimistic sort, I am convinced they have subjected the "death to democrats and democracy - republicans rule" hegemony an extremely serious setback.

May the setback be quite serious and very long-lasting. That's where we come in. I signed up a new voter recently. One small step.

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Ehud Olmert has been forced to resign as Israeli Prime Minister resulting from a bribery scandal, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is set to take over as head of Kadima and the favorite to be the next leader. Needless to say, any turmoil in Israel impacts the greater Middle East. Livni has been the chief negotiator with the Palestinians, but if she can't form a government, there will be early elections, and a return to Likudnik power would be a disaster for any hopes for peace. Yet polls are showing that Bibi Netanyahu would be the victor if elections were held today. That's genuinely scary.

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And then there's Iraq, of course. We now have a fair bit of proof that the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad is what led to the drop in violence, not the surge. There's more to Iraq than Baghdad, of course, but there are also more explanations for the security gains in those outlying areas (the Sunni Awakening in Anbar, for example). Meanwhile the political situation remains stalemated, as legislation for the provincial elections has failed for the fifth time. And the Awakening forces are growing more violent, which will get worse if the Maliki government follows through on locking them out of the security forces. As long as the debate here is played out over whether the surge was a success, we won't be having a real argument about the future of Iraq. It's dishonest.

It's time to get serious. The belligerent Bush foreign policy is making a dangerous world more dangerous. Our shrinking moral authority and lack of cooperation with allies has enhanced this. I don't know if we're losing the war on terrorism because I have no idea what a war on terrorism is, but the public thinks we are. And the choice in this Presidential election is between the same old neocon know-nothingism or a measured approach that recognizes both the challenges we face and the best way to combat them. That is more than important enough to fill 90 minutes on Friday night. I just hope (against hope) that the debate is about the real issues.

We'll do this Emptywheel in toto:

Hidden in an article reporting that Cheney's going to go hunt up some support for the $700,000,000,000 bailout is this admission that the Bush Administration has been sitting on it for some time:

Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.

Which raises three questions for me:

A) First, as we'll discuss today in the book salon on Woodward's War Within, the Bush Administration refused to admit Iraq was FUBAR even while, for seven months, they were drumming up a new strategy because it was FUBAR. They did so because they didn't want to affect the mid-term elections. So has the Bush Administration been formulating a plan to bail out their buddies, in secret, because they didn't want to let the voters know how badly they had fucked up the American economy before November?

B) And if that is true, how much worse has the economy gotten--and how much more expensive will the bailout be--because the Bushies were trying to hide yet another colossal Republican failure?

C) Or, did they simply not tell us about their fuck-up so they could spring the $700,000,000,000 surprise on us on a Friday and demand results by Monday? The Shock Doctrine at work!

Apparently someone by the name of Max Boot has been conscripted by the McPalin/Shame campaign:

My old boss Josh Marshall notes that Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations is now an official McCain campaign surrogate. Gleefully, Josh asks:

I'd be interested in seeing a list of all the completely insane things Max has said and written over the last decade.

Why, so would I! But I'm going to be lazy and stick to the locus classicus of Max Boot batshittery: "The Case For American Empire," from the Weekly Standard's October 15, 2001 issue. I hear you objecting -- Yeah, yeah, we know all about that one. But do you? Do you? Sure, you remember this quote:

Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets.

But it's a shame, really, because the baroque foolishness of that line -- no Englishman, for instance, would be ahistorical enough to engage in such unironic empire-nostalgia -- has obscured the less-florid-but-still-barking-mad bits of the essay. For instance, let's take my favorite:

Once Afghanistan has been dealt with, America should turn its attention to Iraq. It will probably not be possible to remove Saddam quickly without a U.S. invasion and occupation--though it will hardly require half a million men, since Saddam's army is much diminished since the Gulf War, and we will probably have plenty of help from Iraqis, once they trust that we intend to finish the job this time. Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul. With American seriousness and credibility thus restored, we will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the region's many opportunists, who will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of rolling up the international terror network that threatens us.

Pretty much every clause of that paragraph has been, uh, overtaken by events. It says oh so much about John McCain that he'd pick such a paragon of insight, curiosity and sagacity as a foreign-policy surrogate.

That is stunning, in ever so many ways. I am invoking the "what he said" clause.

And I can't resist sharing this from Eli at FDL (how can you resist "too many barbs, not enough barbeque"?!!):

Steve Schmidt has achieved the impossible, something Obama could only dream of: He has actually made the media fall out of love with John McCain. He curtailed the Fauxverick's informal interaction with reporters on the "Double Straight Talk Express," and instituted a strategy of attacking the media every time they criticize his candidates or point out that they're chain-liars.

This was really not a good idea. The media's love for McCain and his phony Straight-Talking Maverick image was the best thing he had going for him, and it's falling apart at the worst possible time. McCain picked a running mate with more skeletons than substance, and he needs to look presidential and credible in the midst of a financial crisis. Both very risky propositions when you can't count on the media to report your version of reality.
T-Rex says it best:

Maybe the McSame stooges think they can run a successful campaign against the media. Somehow, I doubt that. The media carries your message as srely as the soundman in a club engineers your sound.

The media are not a filter, they're an amp... but only if they're on your side. Now that McCain has so cruelly spurned his erstwhile lovers, his shiny new running mate is getting tarnished by stories about her dodgy record as mayor and governor, and he has to explain how he can be trusted to do the right thing on the mortgage meltdown when one of his top advisers was getting $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until the government had to take it over. Not. Helping.

Schmidt and McCain will find it much harder to pull off a successful smear-and-mirrors campaign without the kind of media assist that Dubya got in 2000 and 2004. But they're going for it anyway, because it's all they know, and it's all they've got.