The Operative Budget

Ron Ziegler, Richard Nixon's press secretary, once had the thankless job of telling the White House press corps that his boss had lied like a cheap rug. "This is the operative statement," he said in 1973 as he told the assembled reporters to ignore whatever he had said in the past. "The others are inoperative.''

The Republican Party now seems to be having seances with Ziegler's ghost for inspiration.

Last week, the party leadership staged a disastrous "budget unveiling" which did not feature any actual budgeting. In the chorus of boos and catcalls which followed, the GOP hastily explained that the stunt was never actually intended to present a budget (suuuure it wasn't) but was merely a warm-up for the actual budget unveiling. And so, the supposedly best and brightest of the GOP assembled this morning to present what Ziegler might have called their operative budget.

No one in the party seems to have realized that this shindig took place on April Fool's Day. So as expected, their budget is a joke. Less amusingly, it's a disaster for anyone who doesn't have gobs of money - in other words, 99.99% of us.

The proposal brings back the good old days of supply-side tax cuts, dropping the top tax rate to 25% for anyone making over $50,000 a year ($100,000 for joint filers). Everyone else pays a 10% rate.

So let's do some math. Let's suppose Bob and Carol Moneybags earn a combined $400,000 annually, so they currently pay 35%, or $140,000, in federal income taxes. (For simplicity's sake, let's assume they have no kids and no deductions.) Under the Republican proposal, their rate would be cut to 25%, or $100,000, for a tax savings of $40,000.

Now let's look at Ted and Alice Worker, who together make $56,000 a year. Their current tax rate is 15%, so they pay $8400 in tax. The GOP plan cuts that to 10%, or $5600, for a tax savings of $2800.

So let's compare. The Moneybags' tax savings are more than fourteen times that of the Workers, despite the fact they make only seven times as much, so the budget proportionally gives far less in tax savings to the people who need it the most.

But wait, there's more. The GOP plan also "eliminates nearly all existing tax deductions, exclusions, and other special provisions" - mortgage interest, child care, medical care, job hunting, et cetera - that have made it possible for the middle class to retain some fiscal viability even in the current economy. The upshot of this is that a full third of lower- and middle-class taxpayers (that is, those of us in the bottom 60% of the income scale) would actually pay more under the GOP plan than they do now.

So in other words, Bob and Carol would royally screw Ted and Alice.

And if all that weren't bad enough, the GOP budget would impose an across-the-board freeze for all non-military spending (the Pentagon budget would increase to $714 billion by 2019) just when we need it the most. More money for schools? Too bad. More money to fix roads and bridges? Buy a Learjet and fly above them. The economic stimulus? Gone.

But holders of Treasury bonds and other forms of public debt would do just dandy, thank you very much. The GOP envisions the annual interest paid on the national debt to increase from $170 billion in 2009 to $643 billion in 2019 - a 278% increase with absolutely nothing to show for it.

And in a truly bizarre example of how to pull numbers out of one's hindquarters, the GOP offers this graph as "proof" that they know best:


Yes, the Republicans insist they know how their budgeting will affect government revenue in seventy years. The party must have an official Bureau of Making Crap Up in order to get something like this.

The actual legislation text says that "within ten years of enactment of this legislation, individuals would choose one of the two tax systems: the current tax code or the simplified system." So the GOP is openly admitting that their plan would make the existence of one tax system for the rich and another for everyone else de jure rather than de facto.

Furthermore, the GOP's insistence that their budget plan will work is based on the assumption that everyone is willing to pay a higher tax rate rather than go for the lower one. Of course, no one will do that; everyone will naturally go for the lower rate, which blows the party's rosy scenario right out of the water.

Anyway, with the stimulus scrapped entirely, the Republicans are betting that any economic recovery will occur purely due to tax cuts, which has been proved time and again to be fallacious. Tax cuts by themselves don't have any significant economic effect, particularly not such trickle-down cuts as the GOP is proposing.

So rather than come up with solutions to fix our economic woes, the Republicans have delved into the all-too-recent past to dredge up George W. Bush's tax policy - exactly the sort of nonsense that got us into this mess in the first place.

The GOP really is a broken record, condemned to repeat the same twaddle endlessly. Congress should send this supposed "alternative plan" packing until the Republicans show they have some connection to reality.

Aaand It's Gone

Last week's South Park episode "Margaritaville" turned its harshly satirical light on the current global financial crisis as only Trey Parker and Matt Stone can. In a scene which speaks volumes, Stan goes to the bank to deposit $100 only to have the bank lose it within a few seconds:

Bank teller: We can put that check in a money market mutual fund, then we'll reinvest the earnings into foreign currency accounts with compounding interest aaand it's gone.
(long pause)
Stan: Uh, what?
Bank teller: It's gone. It's all gone.
Stan: What's all gone?
Bank teller: The money in your account - it didn't do too well, it's gone.
Stan: What do you mean? I have a hundred dollars.
Bank teller: Not anymore you don't. Poof.

And so on. In a case of life imitating art imitating life, we now have a story which should get anyone's blood boiling. When most American companies moved away from traditional pension plans, they set up 401(k) retirement plans instead and invested the money in the stock markets. 401(k) holders have thus been particularly savaged by the Wall Street plunge, but if you have an old-fashioned pension, your retirement fund is safe, guaranteed by the federal government - right?

Wrong. The Boston Globe reported yesterday that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federal agency tasked with insuring pension plans, made some rather unorthodox investment decisions. The PBGC has traditionally invested very conservatively in bonds, with an emphasis on long-term stability and security rather than short-term gains.

But in early 2008, as economists the world over were shouting warnings that the housing bubble was popping and that Wall Street was about to crater, the PBGC board signed off on a plan to change its investment model. The agency thus moved more than half of its $64 billion fund to more speculative ventures, including emerging foreign markets, real estate, and private equity funds.

Aaand it's gone.

The PBGC won't say just how much of the fund has vanished, but they admit that at the end of its last fiscal year, the fund was down by 6.5% and its stock investments were down by 23%. But the last fiscal year ended in September 2008, before the worst of the market carnage, and the agency has so far refused to give figures for this year. That doesn't sound good.

So who's responsible for what sure looks like a case of outright criminal negligence? Charles E.F. Millard, who headed the agency until the Obama Administration took over in January, just happens to be a former managing director of Lehman Brothers - which invested heavily in subprime mortgages and then went under last fall when the subprime market collapsed. At the time the strategy was changed, he claimed that "the new investment policy is not riskier than the old one."

Uh huh.

After the market collapsed, Millard was asked whether his strategy might have been, well, stupid. "Ask me in twenty years," he replied dismissively. "The question is whether policymakers will have the fortitude to stick with it."

Um, Chuckie, the retirees who are now broke because of your greed-fueled shortsightedness don't have twenty years. They're too busy trying to survive to "stick with it."

If there's anyone who deserves to go to jail in this whole miserable economic crisis, it's Millard and whoever else is responsible for this.

GOP Underpants Gnomes

Ever since President Obama was inaugurated back in January, the Republican Party has done nothing but say "no" to anything he has suggested. No plans, no alternatives, no nothing. It got so ludicrous that in his press conference this week, Obama chided the Republicans for their incessant carping yet never proposing anything else.

Eventually, the GOP realized they really don't want to be known as the Party of No and so loudly went before the cameras yesterday to unveil their budget. Except they didn't.

Rather, what they presented was a 17-page (19 if you count the front and back covers) pamphlet called "The Republican Road to Recovery" which contained precisely zero budget numbers. Instead, it spends all its time complaining about the president's proposed budget with a few cheap shots thrown in for effect:

According to Senator Kennedy's campaign website, the [wind farm] project [off the coast of Massachusetts] would undermine "the ecology of the Sound and will jeopardize the public interest." The Senator once remarked, "Don't you realize - that's where I sail!"

In fact, the only thing even approaching a budget number is yet another big tax cut for anyone making over $100,000 a year. Yes, another one.

In a nutshell, the pamphlet is, shall we say, light on details. For example, this is how the GOP proposes to fix the nation's housing crisis:


That's it. No details, just a feel-good graphic.

The rollout was a disaster, with media, pundits and bloggers all complaining that the supposed "big announcement" was little more than a bait-and-switch scam. Even the conservative National Review blasted the party, saying that the stunt was "a bottle full of air."

In their defense, the GOP claimed they would introduce their actual budget - with real numbers, no less! - in Congress next Wednesday.

Has anyone else noticed that next Wednesday is April Fool's Day?

This whole fiasco reminds me of the Underpants Gnomes from South Park, who also claimed to have a terrific plan:

Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit!

That's the standard GOP operation right now: offer meaningless platitudes, skip whatever actual work needs to be done, and just say that everything will be fine.

And they wonder why no one trusts them.

Holy Disgusting

For years, the Catholic Church has been trying to put the horrors of the sexual abuse scandals behind them and bring the Church into something resembling the present.

And then they blow themselves all the way back to the Middle Ages.

A man from Brazil, who had been raping his two stepdaughters for years, was arrested after it was discovered that one of them was four months pregnant.

She is nine years old. Her sister, who is "only" fourteen, is physically handicapped.

Brazil has some of the world's most restrictive abortion laws, barring the procedure in all cases except those involving rape and danger to the mother's life. With both conditions having been met in spades, the procedure was performed and the the girl's life was saved. The stepfather is now in jail where he belongs, and I for one hope he never gets out.

And then Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho excommunicated the mother and the girl's doctors for performing the abortion, telling a Brazilian TV network that "the law of God [is] above any human law." Attempting to show that he is not a complete jerk, the archbishop graciously did not excommunicate the rape victim herself.

With Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva condemning the Church's outrageous take on the tragedy, it was noticed that the stepfather was not excommunicated.

That was not an accident, Sobrinho said. "It is clear that he committed a very serious sin," he said as he defended the Church's actions, "but worse than this is the abortion."

Let me get this straight: a monster who rapes children and gets a nine-year-old girl pregnant is actually better than the girl's mother and the doctors who save her life?

According to the Vatican, yes. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the head of the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation for Bishops, weighed in over the weekend. "It is a sad case," he told the Italian newspaper La Stampa, "but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated."

And the Church hierarchy wonders why Catholics are leaving in droves. It's only a matter of time before the Church's medieval outlook on life ensnares them as well.

Capitol Hill, Den of Marxists

Years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget, the Capitol Visitor Center has finally opened, presenting a thumbnail view of the Capitol Building's history and what Congress does.

But it wouldn't be America if someone didn't like it.

Jim DeMint, a Republican (naturally) senator from South Carolina, issued a statement on his website blasting the new visitor center for rampant leftism and insufficient fealty to religion:

The current CVC displays are left-leaning and in some cases distort our true history. Exhibits portray the federal government as the fulfillment of human ambition and the answer to all of society's problems. This is a clear departure from acknowledging that Americans' rights "are endowed by their Creator" and stem from "a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence." Instead, the CVC's most prominent display proclaims faith not in God, but in government. Visitors will enter reading a large engraving that states, "We have built no temple but the Capitol. We consult no common oracle but the Constitution." This is an intentional misrepresentation of our nation's real history, and an offensive refusal to honor America's God-given blessings.

DeMint appears to see his job not as representing his constituents, or making policy, but rather to ensure that Americans have the correct religious viewpoint. He is apparently ignorant of the simple fact that not all of us share his religious beliefs. Nor does he know (or care) that in America, church and state and kept separate to protect each from encroachment by the other.

The senator needs a refresher course.

God, Head of Security

People from Appalachian states like Kentucky have an image of being ignorant, inbred yahoos who substitute pithy slogans for actual thinking, while people who live in these states wonder why they can't shake that image.

Well, maybe it's because of things like Chapter 39G, Section 10, Paragraph 2(a) of the Kentucky Revised Statutes. Section 10 in effect presents the job description of the state Homeland Security director, and includes such duties as coordinating with the federal Department of Homeland Security to protect the state against various threats.

So far so good. But before all that mundane stuff comes a paragraph detailing the director's prime duty:

Publicize the findings of the General Assembly stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth by including the provisions of KRS 39A.285(3) in its agency training and educational materials. The executive director shall also be responsible for prominently displaying a permanent plaque at the entrance to the state's Emergency Operations Center stating the text of KRS 39A.285(3);

In case you're wondering, Chapter 39A, Section 285, Paragraph 3 reads as follows:

The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God as set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents, including Abraham Lincoln's historic March 30, 1863, Presidential Proclamation urging Americans to pray and fast during one of the most dangerous hours in American history, and the text of President John F. Kennedy's November 22, 1963, national security speech which concluded: "For as was written long ago: 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.' "

Yes, the main job of the state Homeland Security director, even before he gets to all that stuff about, you know, security, is to praise God.

Proving that some people in the state government rise above the prevailing gene pool, neither the department's website nor its mission statement give the legally required credit to the Almighty. State Rep. Tom Riner, who inserted the God Clause back in 2002, is having a hissy fit over this minor oversight.

Perhaps the state government expects a tent revival to ward off terrorists. What next? Will all state residents receive crosses, garlic and holy water? (And do crosses even work to ward off Muslims anyway?)

This is why people think states like Kentucky are filled with ignorant hillbillies.

The Circular Firing Squad Assembles

With the election over, the knives have come out. Yes, open warfare has broken out between the staffers of John McCain and Sarah Palin, each one blaming the other for Tuesday's loss.

McCain's people let slip to the media that Palin was rather fuzzy on some basic facts. For example, she thought Africa was a country rather than a continent and she didn't know which countries are party to the North American Free Trade Agreement. (Answer: the United States, Canada and Mexico.) They also said that her now-infamous shopping spree was far more expensive than previously disclosed and that many of the clothes have mysteriously disappeared.

Even Fox News - Fox News! - has found it hard to defend her.

In retaliation, Palin's people have gone crying to Rush Limbaugh and the nuttiest of the wingnuts, complaining that all the people saying bad things about this poor helpless woman are just a bunch of sore-loser poopyheads. And the real wingnuts in the GOP have vowed not only to boycott Fox News, but to push all the insufficiently pure out of the party, leaving only the true believers behind.

Yes, they're serious. The American people rejected on Tuesday a Republican Party controlled by the crazies, so the solution is quite simple: more crazies!

I, for one, welcome a GOP controlled by people who are firmly dedicated to denying reality. After all, that's a sure-fire recipe for permanent Democratic control of our government.

The Morning After

Wow.

Just - wow.

What a night. After eight years of disastrous government, of endless and useless war, of a completely preventable economic collapse, the grownups finally got elected last night. The American people soundly rejected the fear-and-smear politics that has marked the GOP for the last twenty years, and told Karl Rove and his acolytes to go back to their caves.

As John McCain made his concession speech last night, you could see it in his face - the crushing realization that had he not jettisoned his principles and caved in to the God-guns-and-gays wing of the party, he might well have won the election. But no, he allowed Sarah Palin to be foisted onto the ticket and handed control of the campaign over to the crazies.

And now we have the results.

Barack Obama gave us real-world solutions to our domestic and international crises, while McCain could only mumble about Joe the Plumber and Bill Ayers.

The GOP sneered at Obama's Ivy League education as "elitist," portraying Palin's six-schools-in-five-years college career as something to be emulated. What they never figured out is that when it comes to important things like government, we want our leaders to be not just good, but the best.

Let's suppose you get very sick and have to be rushed to the hospital. What sort of doctor do you want working on you? Do you want someone who went to Harvard Medical School, been board-certified in numerous specialties, keeps up with the latest research, regularly takes refresher courses, and generally makes sure that she's the best damn doctor around?

Or do you want someone who graduated at the bottom of her class from some fourth-rate school, barely passed her medical boards, and just manages to avoid losing her license every other month?

The tale of the Regular Joe solving everyone's problems with some down-home common sense makes for a good story, but in the real world we see what that gets us - a government that lurches from disaster to disaster, consumed by the arrogance of power.

With the Democrats taking control of the White House as well as both houses of Congress, we now have a real chance to restore economic and social justice to America. No more trickle-down economics that ends up trickling on the people who need help the most. A strong middle class makes it better for everyone. And even though there are bumps along the way (e.g., California's apparent passage of the ballot initiative banning gay marriage) it's time to treat all Americans as first-class citizens.

So let's roll up our sleeves and get to work. We've come a long way, but we've got a long way to go.

One Day to Go

Election Day is tomorrow, and that means both campaigns are pulling out all the stops. It is said that the final few days of any campaign tells you far more about the person running for office than all the speeches and debates can possibly do. Let's compare:

• Barack Obama bought thirty minutes of prime time television to tell America in plain English how he will rework the nation's tax policies, work to fix the economic crisis, and rebuild our shattered international image while dealing with potential threads.
• John McCain sent out his surrogates to call Obama disloyal.

Quite a difference, no?

But now it's all up to you. No matter who you support, get out to the polls tomorrow and cast your ballot. Make a difference. Exercise your right to steer our nation's future.

Vote!

Go to Hell. Go Directly to Hell. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.

It had to happen. With just one week left before Election Day, the GOP wingnuts have gone completely insane. They are throwing anything and everything they can think of at Barack Obama in a last desperate attempt at scaring people into voting for John McCain.

To wit, see Christian talk-radio host Janet Porter's latest column, in which she claims in stark us-versus-them tones that "You Cannot Be a Christian and Vote for Obama:"

[T]his election is not about race. It's not about the economy. It's about obeying God...

Be forewarned: If you willfully disobey God on life and marriage because of race or false hope for the economy, you will usher in the kind of change that brought the Soviet Union to collapse.

But the warning goes far beyond that. To those who think that God's grace gives them license to willfully disobey Him without consequences – think again:

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!' (Matthew 7:21-23)"

Yes, the GOP's God-guns-and-gays wing really is threatening Americans with hellfire and brimstone should we vote for Obama. Promising mayhem for voting the "wrong" way is nothing new for the Republicans, but I think this is the first time they have actually threatened us with eternal damnation.

And then she goes even further, saying that anyone who does not vote for McCain cannot be a Christian: "[O]bey Him in the voting booth and out of it. If not, do us all a favor and quit calling yourself a Christian."

Last I heard, God hasn't endorsed anyone this year.

Religious hatred has no place in American elections or anywhere else, and it only goes to show how desperate they are that they would stoop to these methods.

McCain is toast and they know it, so the Republicans have nothing to lose. But regardless of how McCain may go down in flames next week, such tactics may well ensure that the party goes down in flames with him.

Mud Will Be Flung Tonight

With eight days to go, John McCain's campaign clearly realizes it's over. Staffers have begun circulating their resumés, a senior McCain aide accused Sarah Palin of "going rogue," and the finger-pointing is rampant over at campaign HQ.

McCain and Palin have absolutely nothing positive to say on their own behalf - and that was before the story of Palin's $150,000 luxury shopping spree (paid for by the Republican Party) broke.

Remember John Edwards' infamous $400 haircut, about which the GOP spent weeks fulminating? The McCain campaign outspent him by 37,500%.

And the wretched excess for this supposed "plain folk hockey mom" just keeps on going - during just the first two weeks in October, the party shelled out $22,800 on Palin's makeup and another $10,000 on hairstyling. With Newsweek reporting that many GOP donors are "furious" over how their contributions were spent, the party seems in real danger of alienating their most deep-pocketed backers.

So the campaign has gone all-in on the mudslinging.

Palin's appeal last week to the "pro-America" parts of the country blew up in her face and she was forced to apologize, but the campaign continues to depict Barack Obama as a threatening Other. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who last distinguished herself by bragging that her Minnesota constituents have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, even called Obama "anti-American" and demanded a media exposé of similar senators and representatives.

A few weeks ago, Obama told the much-exploited "Joe the Plumber" that he wants to "spread the wealth around" rather than have it concentrated in only a few hands. So naturally, the McCain campaign seized on Obama's comment to paint him as some sort of secret Communist. The usual suspects (Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc) did their jobs admirably, parroting GOP talking points ad nauseum. Orlando TV reporter Barbara West even quoted Karl Marx's famous definition of Socialism ("from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs") and asked Joe Biden on Thursday, "how is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?" (Biden's response was to laugh and ask, "Is this a joke? Or is that a real question?")

So now we see what the GOP really boils down to. With all their usual wedge issues (terrorism, gay marriage, etc) having failed, with a barely-there candidate and a loose-cannon running mate, and with an economy in which income inequality in some major American cities is at third-world levels, all they have left is hate and fear. But the more hate and fear the GOP unleashes at Democrats, the more the American people turn away in revulsion.

Of course, the Republicans haven't yet figured that out. And the longer they take, the bigger the Democratic victory next week will be.

It's Over

Twenty years ago, Michael Dukakis blew his chance at being elected president when he was asked whether he would support executing someone who (theoretically) raped and murdered his wife Kitty. Already seen as so mild-mannered to be almost comatose, his response was to launch into a dry spiel on why he opposed capital punishment. His campaign promptly went into a death spiral from which it never recovered.

We may have seen John McCain similarly self-destruct during last night's debate. Smirking and snickering, giving his rictus-like grin, blinking furiously as he clearly struggled to hold his temper, the Republican nominee came across as little more than a cranky old man. One half expected him to jump up from his chair and yell at Barack Obama to get off his lawn.

From his relentless invoking of a supposedly undecided "Joe the Plumber" (who, as it turns out, is neither undecided nor a plumber) to his insulting "air quotes" when rejecting health-based exceptions to an abortion ban, McCain all but poured gasoline over himself and lit a match. (And let's not even get into his exploiting his Bangladesh-born daughter to bash Obama over abortion. As a parent via adoption myself, I find that crass and tacky at the very least.)

The real John McCain was on display last night for all to see - someone who is painfully out of touch with the real world and has no real interest in finding out about it. Safely ensconced within one of his dozen or so homes, he has no clue that there is a whole country outside his little bubble where people agonize over how to pay the mortgage and parents go hungry so their kids can eat. And since he has absolutely nothing to offer apart from yet another budget-busting tax cut for the rich, he has no choice but to try and distract people with manufactured non-issues.

When he once again brings up one-time radical William Ayres, no one outside the rabid GOP wingnuttia cares. Even fewer people are at all sympathetic when he whines about being criticized for the anti-Obama shouts of "Terrorist!" and "Kill him!" at his rallies.

And when he does nothing but throw tons of mud at Obama, blame the target for fighting back and then immediately claim that "of course, I've been talking about the economy," he comes across as confused and bitter.

With McCain's campaign now sagging into a nosedive, his staffers are predictably turning on each other. Some are blasting the candidate's reckless selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate and letting her run wild, calling her an "albatross" and a "total disaster." Every time she accuses Obama of "palling around with terrorists," McCain's poll numbers drop ever lower.

Too late, they realize that ignoring the real issues which confront Americans and instead running the campaign from a sewer is the contemporary equivalent of Pat Buchanan's "culture war" speech at the 1992 GOP convention. It's something that may fire up your core supporters but leaves the rest of us aghast.

The McCain campaign is toast. It's over.

McCain's Señor Moment

After all these months on the campaign trail, it is painfully obvious that John McCain is a spin doctor's worst nightmare. His constant confusions, misstatements and gaffes have dogged him all the way, and while the press has largely given him a pass on it, they're piling up to the point where they can no longer be ignored.

But he really outdid himself this week. Interviewed for the Spanish-language radio network Union Radio, McCain was asked whether he would meet with Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero if elected.

"I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion," he said. So far so good.

But then he went off the rails.

"And by the way," he continued, "President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very, very tough fight against the drug cartels. I am glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan. And I intend to move forward with relations and invite as many of them as I can, of those leaders to the White House."

The question was not about Mexico.

Asked again whether he would invite Zapatero, McCain dug himself in deeper. "All I can tell you is I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region."

Spain is not in Latin America.

At this point, the candidate was so clearly lost that the interviewer took pity on him and tried explicitly to get him back on track. "Okay, what about Europe?" she said. "I'm talking about the President of Spain."

"What about me what?" McCain replied.

Oh, dear God. The man seems to have no idea where he is or what he's talking about. I can excuse his not knowing the name of the Spanish president, but he really should have boned up on it beforehand - after all, he was going on Spanish-language radio.

But does he really not know where Spain is?

The campaign went into full panic mode, rolling out its talking heads to insist that McCain is not suffering from dementia but he actually intended to call Zapatero a dictator. (For the record, Zapatero was democratically elected and is committed to democratic government in Spain.)

Both explanations are dreadful. If you believe the first one, then the GOP nominee is clearly not playing with a full deck and would be a disaster as president. But if you believe the second one, then McCain is dedicated to continuing the Bush policy of ticking off every ally we have in the world, meaning he'd still be a disaster as president.

There is, of course, a third explanation - that McCain simply misheard the question (although the interviewer repeated it more than once) or got confused because previous questions had concerned Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and other South American leaders who disagree with the United States. But that's not very reassuring either, because one expects the president to know one country's leader from another. Which brings us back to the same question of whether McCain is firing on all cylinders.

In any event, rather than simply admit that McCain got it wrong, his handlers instead created a diplomatic kerfluffle by claiming that he deliberately snubbed the president of Spain. The Spanish embassy released a statement saying, "The only plausible explanation for McCain not wanting to meet with Zapatero, is that, like Bush, he is still angry about Spain pulling its troops out of Iraq in 2004. If McCain carries that much of a grudge then how in the world will he rebuild our relationship with Europe, as he has said he would do."

Great choice, guys.

With six and a half weeks left until the election, only God knows what else he will come up with.

Big Bad Maverick

It appears that the Maverick™ is having a tough time of it lately. Whether it's his claim that only people who make more than $5 million a year can be called "rich" or his insistence that our economic problems are merely "psychological," John McCain seems to be a little, well, out of touch with what's going on in the world.

Over the weekend, the venerable investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed into bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch almost went the same route only to be assimilated by Bank of America. Wall Street responded by sending the Dow down by more than 500 points.

And McCain's reaction to all this was to proclaim that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

One might suspect that he hasn't been taking his Geritol.

Barack Obama immediately pointed out that McCain is clearly and "disturbingly out of touch with what's going in the lives of ordinary Americans."

McCain struck back, and he did it mostly by whining.

"This economic crisis is not the fault of the American people," he said. "Our workers are the most innovative, the hardest working, the best skilled, most productive, most competitive in the world. My opponents may disagree, but those fundamentals of America are strong. No one can match an American worker. Our workers sell more goods to more markets than any other on earth. Our workers have always been the strength of our economy, and they remain the strength of our economy today."

Translation: that mean Negro is saying bad things about the people who actually do the work.

Where did the straight-talking McCain go? The John McCain who was always eager to stand up for what's right, even if that meant going against his own party, is dead and gone. In his place is someone who refuses to accept criticism and take his lumps when he deserves it. Instead, this new and definitely not improved McCain always hides behind something or someone.

You can't say anything about him because he was a POW. You can't say anything about Sarah Palin because that's sexist. You can't say anything about the Iraq or Afghanistan wars because you're not supporting the troops. And you can't say anything about the economy because you're attacking the working class.

Meanwhile, his lying has gotten so egregious that Karl Rove - Karl Rove! - called him on it.

It appears that the Straight Talk Express has broken down, and it ain't moving again.

Book-Banning Experience

As the GOP faithful rallied round Sarah Palin this week, accusing the media of sexism for daring to question her qualifications and background, yet another in a very long line of disturbing stories emerged from her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

It appears that once she got elected, Palin asked the town librarian if she would purge the library of supposedly inappropriate books. Aghast, Mary Ellen Emmons immediately rejected the demand and Palin responded by firing her. But since Emmons was a popular figure in town, there was a backlash and Palin backed down, reinstating her.

And so the tale of Sarah Palin, caribou hunter and would-be book banner, becomes just a little more sordid. Last month, her church hosted the leader of Jews for Jesus, which would have been blared on Fox News etc. for months on end had it been Barack Obama's church. Add to that the mess over her firing the head of Alaska's state police in retaliation for his refusing to fire her sister's ex-husband, her claim that the Iraq War is a "task that is from God," and more. It just seems to get worse and worse.

(The McCain campaign knows they've got a potential time bomb on their hands in Palin. That's why they have barred the press from asking her any questions in interviews or Q&A sessions. Instead, reporters will be restricted to receiving talking points via the same scripted, choreographed, spoon-fed pabulum that the rest of will receive - i.e., speeches.)

Of course, her nasty and condescending speech Wednesday night only went to show why she was the pick of the Christian Right. Whether it was her sneering references to Barack Obama as a community organizer or her scornful description of the Democratic nominee "turning back the waters and healing the planet," she displayed the mentality that defines the Republican Party. Can't think of a good reason why people should vote for you? No problem! Attack the other guy as an uppity Negro who hates decent white God-fearing Americans.

And considering how the McCain campaign can't seem to get anything right - for example, their confusion of Walter Reed Middle School in California with Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington - it will only get dirtier right up to Election Day.

Better stock up on soap now.

Eagleton Redux?

Back in 1972, George McGovern announced the picking of Thomas Eagleton as his running mate to widespread press coverage. Two weeks later, Eagleton was unceremoniously dumped from the ticket - also to widespread press coverage - once it was revealed that he had undergone electroshock therapy and been hospitalized numerous times for psychiatric problems. McGovern never recovered from the fiasco and went on to get creamed in November.

Are we seeing the same pattern here?

Ever since John McCain announced his VP pick of Sarah Palin on Friday, unpleasant facts have been coming out of the woodwork:

• Palin and her staff pressured public safety commissioner Walt Monegan to fire a state trooper who just happened to be in a bitter divorce and custody fight with Palin's sister. When he refused, Palin fired Monegan and replaced him with a known sexual harasser who lasted only two weeks before being pushed out himself.
  
• Vetting was at best minimal - the McCain campaign knew nothing about the trooper scandal even though it had been big news in Alaska for weeks, and the vetting process seems to have consisted only of a single chat between McCain and Palin.
• She has no foreign-policy experience at all, with Cindy McCain and Fox News being reduced to claiming that she does know about foreign policy because Alaska is right next to Russia.
• As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she fired the town police chief for supporting her opponent in the 1996 election, then was almost recalled in the ensuing uproar.
  
• She publicly said she has no idea what the vice president's job is.
• She admitted that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant. (Ironically, Palin opposes actual sex education in schools in favor of "abstinence education," which has repeatedly been shown not to work.)
  

And if all that wasn't enough, there are also widespread rumors that Trig, the family's youngest child, is actually Bristol's, but was passed off as Sarah's.

So with signals of a looming train wreck all around us, just why was Palin selected? Putting aside all the beauty-queen and May-December wisecracks, it appears she was picked for two reasons and two only.

1. She is a woman (or, as Samantha Bee nailed it on The Daily Show, a "vagina-American") whom the GOP hopes can win the support of former Hillary Clinton voters despite having positions completely opposite to Clinton's.
   
2. She is a faithful devotee of the Christian Right, falling into line on everything from banning abortion to opposing gay marriage to teaching creationism as science in public schools.
   

Indeed, there are rampant murmurings that McCain actually wanted Joe Lieberman or Mitt Romney as his running mate, but both of those were nixed by the Christian Right, without whose support he cannot win in November. In other words, she was picked to convince the jihadist wing of the GOP that he will do whatever they want as long as they vote for him.

Not only that, the contempt shown for women embodied in the Palin pick is staggering. The Republicans genuinely believe that women are so dumb that they will automatically support anyone with two X chromosomes, regardless of her actual positions on anything. Poll results show that women realize this, and are not pleased.

So yes, McCain got some momentary good press out of the Palin announcement. But this seems to be turning into a nightmare very very quickly.

VPILF

John McCain has successfully (at least for the moment) stolen Barack Obama's post-convention thunder by naming Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. But seeing as how she's held elective office for less than two years, has zero foreign-policy experience and is even under investigation in her home state for firing the head of the state police when he wouldn't fire her ex-brother-in-law, she may be more trouble to the McCain campaign than she's worth.

But someone didn't wait for the announcement to start sounding off on her. On August 4, someone registered a website domain at http://www.vpilf.com touting Palin for the VP job. Now it just so happens that Palin is a former beauty-pageant contestant, and "VPILF" stands for "Vice President I'd Like to F***."

Really.

Now I started wondering who was behind the website, so I did a little digging. It seems that according to the registration info, it was set up through a masking company in Arizona:

Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.

DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: VPILF.COM
Created on: 04-Aug-08
Expires on: 04-Aug-09
Last Updated on: 04-Aug-08

Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration VPILF.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598

Technical Contact:
Private, Registration VPILF.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2598

Domain servers in listed order:
NS47.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS48.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

Domains by Proxy is a company whereupon anyone can register a website and keep their personal details private. So with the domain registered in Arizona, and the GOP nominee being from Arizona, is it too outrageous to wonder whether this is an arms-length ploy by the McCain campaign to "sex up" their VP candidate?

Considering that Karl Rove's winged monkeys are running the McCain campaign, that certainly doesn't seem out of the question. On the other hand, it seems remarkably shabby for even McCain's own handlers to treat Palin as just another pretty face.

On the other other hand, they've pulled stuff like this before. Is there more to this story?

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't

For what it's worth, I never thought Barack Obama would pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate in the fall election, not after all the bad blood during the primary season. But now that Obama has tapped Joe Biden, John McCain has jumped in with both feet. Yes, he quickly unveiled a campaign ad accusing Obama of telling Hillary's supporters to go jump in the lake.

"She won millions of votes but isn't on his ticket," the ad's voiceover says. "Why? For speaking the truth." The way McCain makes it sound, Obama is a thin-skinned elitist who couldn't handle her criticism of him. And he probably hates women to boot.

This is, of course, a crock. If Obama had picked Hillary as his VP, McCain would doubtless have run a different ad reminding voters of all the supposed "Clinton scandals" back in the 1990s, questioning Obama's judgment at selecting such a person to be his running mate.

This is not the first time the McCain campaign has played this game. Back when Obama made his tour of the Middle East and Europe, McCain ran an ad accusing Obama of dissing wounded soldiers in a military hospital in Germany because he didn't meet with them. Only after the ad ran - and it was shown that the Pentagon had advised Obama not to visit the soldiers - was it revealed that the GOP had prepared another ad just in case.

You see, if Obama had visited the troops, McCain would have run an ad accusing Obama of doing so purely for political purposes.

Visit the troops: get accused of using them as props.

Don't visit the troops: get accused of dissing them.

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

And Everybody Hates the Jews

Rep. Steve Cohen is a Democrat who represents Memphis, Tennessee in Congress, and is doing a pretty good job of it. He is so popular that the GOP isn't bothering to run a candidate this year, not even a sacrificial one. But he does have a primary election today, and one of his opponents has run what just may be the nastiest ad of the year:



"Our churches?" "Our churches?" Nikki Tinker is saying in code what is impolite to say openly: "That Jewish guy doesn't represent us. Vote for an honest Christian instead."

And this is a Democrat speaking. Imagine what a Republican would say.

Take My Wife - Please!

John McCain has a sense of humor which can be charitably called odd. Whether it's singing a let's-bomb-Iran ditty to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann," joking about killing Iranians with American cigarette exports, or his jest about a woman being raped by a gorilla, his attempts at humor tend to backfire messily.

And now we have another example.

McCain was in Sturgis, South Dakota yesterday, campaigning at the annual Buffalo Chip biker rally. Now, it is admittedly odd for a 71-year-old man to proclaim kinship with a bunch of big Harley riders, but stranger things have happened. In the midst of the flesh-pressing and speech-making, he made a rather interesting comment about his wife Cindy, who was standing right next to him: "I encouraged Cindy to compete. I told her with a little luck she could be the only woman ever to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip."

A little explanation is needed here. Every year, one of the high (?) points at the Sturgis rally is an event which ESPN described far better than I can:

Buffalo Chip has a reputation for that sort of thing. It holds a Miss Buffalo Chip contest every night, which is essentially a topless beauty pageant. And occasionally bottomless, too. During a drenching rain Wednesday night, the contest broke up into smaller groups and one woman wound up dancing naked on a bar top. Her boyfriend/husband saw her and angrily dragged her away as she struggled to put her pants back on and muttered something about how, "It's only this one week a year."

So was McCain really volunteering to put his wife on display? I would call it just another of his off-the-cuff attempts at cracking a joke, except the video clearly shows him reading from a prepared text.

If Barack Obama had offered Michelle up like this, the media would roast him for weeks on end - assuming, that is, he survives whatever Michelle would put him through. She's no dummy, and she sure looks tough as nails.

So McCain may have won the biker vote by showing up at Buffalo Chip, but he might have lost the women's vote with his rather crass comment. And there are a lot more women than bikers.