October 09, 2008

Nader: Will Send Hummus Recipe For Cash

With fewer than four weeks remaining until election day, it's grown clear that Ralph Nader is not likely to impact the 2008 presidential race to the degree he did the 2000 contest. But a fundraising appeal issued from the candidate today made his campaign appear not just peripheral but decidedly wacky. It came in the form of an essay about the global hummus trade. Nader writes:

“I've had a lot of hummus. Hummus is nutritious. And delicious. It makes you stronger and healthier. So, Bloomberg's report on the Lebanese claim to hummus got me to thinking about an idea that would help us raise funds to push our substantive agenda onto the front burner of American politics. If you donate to Nader/Gonazlez by midnight tonight an amount that has the number three in it (three being the number of lemons in my mom's hummus recipe), we'll e-mail to you Rose Nader's hummus recipe tomorrow.”

Check out the entire letter, including Nader's helpful list of numbers that end in three, here.

I love hummous and I like Ralph Nader, but I think I'll pass ...

Nice to see the McCain campaign is keeping it klassy!

McCain's brother says N. Va. 'Communist country'

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain's brother made an apparent joke at a campaign rally this weekend that might not play well in parts of newly competitive Virginia.

Joe McCain, speaking at an event in support of his brother, called two Democratic-leaning areas in Northern Virginia "communist country," according to a report on The Washington Post's Web site.

"I've lived here for at least 10 years and before that about every third duty I was in either Arlington or Alexandria, up in communist country," Joe McCain, a Navy veteran, said at an event in Loudoun County, Va.

Oh, say it ain't so, Joe!  I guess the Democrats = Communists line is just another one of those new tactics the campaign is using to whip people into a hate-soaked frenzy.  This, from a Palin rally yesterday, is downright chilling.

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Penatgon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

 If Gov. Palin had actually read the New York Times article she was referring to, she would have maybe noticed this:

But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

The tagline for the McCain/Palin campaign is "Country First," but this seems more fitting:  "McCain*Palin - How Low Can You Go?"

A commenter on Daily Kos wrote:

Biden's killing blow on Palin came at the end

Biden's emotion about his deceased wife and daughter was the tipping point in this debate - when he choked up, the focus dials went to the maximum. A brilliant, beautiful rebuttal to Palin's snarky attacks on Biden for not understanding what it's like to raise a family.

I absolutely agree.  Right after that moment, G became all emotional and misty-eyed and said that that put Biden over the top. 

But, in response, what does Palin do?  Offers some more twisted gibberish about how John McCain is a maverick. 

For the last time, John McCain is not a maverick!  This is a Maverick!

Maverick

And PS:  James Garner (aka the real "Maverick") is a Democrat!

Reform Prosperity Peace

I went to the McCain website because he claims that the "facts" behind his lying anti-Obama ads are all set forth on his website (they're not).  I couldn't get past the banner. 

McCain*Palin.  Reform (whatever), Prosperity (yeah, right) ... PEACE (Huh?)???  McCain and Peace go together like Palin and Ethics!!!   Yeah, when John McCain sang "Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran," it really made me think of peace!

On a related note, Richard Cohen has a wonderful column in today's Washington Post.

The Straight Talk Express is now just a brand, an ad slogan like "Home Cooking" or "We Will Not Be Undersold." Until then, it was possible for McCain to say that he had not really known about the ads, that the formulation "I approve this message" was just boilerplate. But he didn't.

"Actually, they are not lies," he said.

Actually, they are.

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though.

I could cry when I hear another out-of-touch, delusional politician claim that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are strong, but then I have to smile when I hear Joe Biden on the smack down!

Note to John McCain:  The U.S. economy is in crisis. Maybe you've been spending too much time with Phil Gramm.

So as we settled into our seats around a table with McCain, I asked about the fact that his campaign co-chair and economic adviser, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, was co-sponsor of the 1999 law that allowed commercial banks to get into investment banking. And the fact that Gramm was a prime architect of a 2000 bill that kept regulators' hands off of "credit default swaps," an exotic financial tool which helped enable the bundling and selling of crappy subprime mortgages to investors.

 

Charlie Gibson of ABC World News will conduct the first media interview with Sarah Palin later this week.  Suggested questions for Governor Palin can be submitted at this link.  Let's hope Charlie Gibson employs the same journalistic integrity he displayed at the ABC Presidential Primary debate last April (note the dripping sarcasm). 

Senator McCain:

Might I suggest some Ginkgo Biloba?

McCain at Sturgis Rally

McCain joked that he had encouraged his wife to enter the annual Sturgis beauty contest, one in which nudity is not uncommon. The engines roared again.

"I told her with a little luck she could be the only lady to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip," he said with a broad grin.

Ugh! 

Obama in Berlin

Overall, though, the mood was warm, even joyful, a sign perhaps of just how deep the yearning outside the US is to end the current era — and to have an America non-Americans can believe in again.

Obama visited Berlin and a few people showed up