From "Nuanced" to Principled: The Lessons of Pastor Rick, and Why and How Obama and the Democrats Should Make Abortion a Voting Issue
August 19, 2008 5:50 pm

Drew Westen

......It isn't hard to come away with the central theme, because it's offered in both the opening sentence and at the end: That as long as we do not all share the same religious beliefs, the government has no business forcing one person to live by another person's faith. It speaks to religious freedom and government intrusion, two themes usually associated with narratives on the right but that should be central to a progressive narrative on abortion. It recognizes, as Obama did in his actual answer, that this is a moral issue, and it builds on common ground, emphasizing themes like reducing teen pregnancies and instilling values that are shared by both the left and right and hence are likely to be compelling to people in the center. And it re-enfranchises males by reminding men that they have a stake in this, too: that although ultimately the decision to abort or not to abort resides with the mother, women usually make these decisions together with their husbands or boyfriends, and that a woman or couple, not the government, should make these kinds of intensely personal decisions.......

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Has the Worm Turned at CNN?
August 19, 2008 6:07 pm

Jack Cafferty

It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president.

and

I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin's eyes and see into his soul.

George Bush's record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself.

He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.

I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.

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Who Was the First Christian President?
August 19, 2008 7:31 pm

Jonathan Rowe, Talk2Action

The bottom line is that evangelicals and traditional Catholics define "Christianity" fairly narrowly according to its orthodox doctrines. How many times have we heard evangelicals (and some Catholics) say "Mormons are not Christians" even though Mormons claim to be Christian.

According to the way evangelicals define Christianity it's not at all clear that we had a "real Christian" President until Andrew Jackson.

Christian Nationalists are largely comprised of conservative evangelicals. Understandably, they have a hard time accepting the first half dozen Presidents weren't Christians (it doesn't bode well for a "Christian America" reading of history).

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How Many Houses Does McCain Own?
August 21, 2008 11:49 am

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CNN Talks With McCain About His Extramarital Affairs
August 21, 2008 12:21 pm

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Obama Smackdown of McCain
August 21, 2008 12:26 pm

That's what we're talking about!

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McCainopoly
August 21, 2008 12:36 pm

I will not stand by and watch the Obama camp try to claim McCain owns seven homes when he owns at least ten.

--Josh Marshall

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McCains buy second beach condo in the same building at the same time McCain advises Americans to skip their vacation to make their mortgage payments
August 21, 2008 5:14 pm

From TPM Election Central:

Cindy told her interviewer that the reason they needed a second beach condo in the Coronado building was that the first was too crowded because her kids were staying there and as a result she "couldn't get in the place."

Cindy continued: "So I bought another one."

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Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes
August 22, 2008 9:30 pm

Mary Pat Flaherty, The Washington Post:

"A voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the manufacturer acknowledges. The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years, said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold."

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Now That's Rich
August 22, 2008 9:38 pm

Paul Krugman, The New York Times

Last weekend, Pastor Rick Warren asked both presidential candidates to define the income at which "you move from middle class to rich." The context of the question was, of course, the difference in the candidates’ tax policies. Barack Obama wants to put tax rates on higher-income Americans more or less back to what they were under Bill Clinton; John McCain, who was against the Bush tax cuts before he was for them, says that means raising taxes on the middle class.

Mr. Obama answered the question seriously, defining middle class as meaning an income below $150,000. Mr. McCain, at first, made it into a joke, saying "how about $5 million?" Then he declared that it didn’t matter because he wouldn’t raise anyone’s taxes. That wasn’t just an evasion, it was a falsehood: Mr. McCain’s health care plan, by limiting the deductibility of employer-paid insurance premiums, would effectively raise taxes on a number of people.

The real problem, however, was with the question itself.....

.....The trouble with Mr. Warren's question was that it seemed to imply that everyone except the poor belongs to one of these two categories: either you’re clearly rich, or you’re an ordinary member of the middle class. And that’s just wrong.

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A Detailed Analysis of Lieberman Speaking at the GOP Convention in Cartoon Form
August 22, 2008 9:48 pm

Lee Camp, 236.com

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Some Christians actively seek out ridicule
August 22, 2008 9:58 pm

Austin Cline

....Some Christians actively seek out ridicule and contempt through deliberately obnoxious behavior. But for them, that's just being good Christians ......

Brian Elroy McKinley, a Christian, writes about an encounter he had with a couple of Christians who objected to McKinley's earring:

"How do you feel yelling at people on a street is going to help further God's Kingdom?" I asked.

"People need to hear the word of God and change their ways," said the cross holder.

"I agree, but these people only think you, and your God, are fools. How can that be good?" I said.

"These people aren't rejecting us; they're rejecting God. Plus, the more people scoff at us, the more God will bless us for being fools in the sight of the world," said the cross holder.

"Uh, how's tha...."

"Christ said, 'Blessed are those who are persecuted in My name'" said the other.

It suddenly dawned on me that these two guys were seeking a form of martyrdom in order to feel they were truly Christians.

"So by yelling at people, and having them think you are fools, you set yourself apart from the world, prove your love to Christ and receive greater blessings in your life as a result?" I asked, bordering on sarcasm with that one.

"Christ said we must reject the world and publicly proclaim the world's need for salvation. People can't deal with that because their hearts are sinful. If we truly love God, then we must be willing to be called fools for His name's sake," said the non-cross-holding man. "Is your love for Christ so shallow that you're not willing to do that?" [emphasis added]

If you look again at the emphasized text, you'll notice that the speaker doesn't seem to care if they actually convert anyone — changing people's minds so they become Christian seems to be less important than becoming more "holy" in the eyes of God. This confirms something I've long wondered about and strongly suspected: that many Christians proselytize not so much in the real desire to convert us atheists, but rather because they are trying to earn brownie points from their god......

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Having Obama's Back
August 23, 2008 11:57 pm

BagNewNotes

1a. You get the feeling that Biden can do for Obama what the guy in the backpack is doing for him. Too bad American politics -- especially the way the GOP plays it -- is so much about manhood, but that's the game.

1b. Biden is one of the few liberals that could pull off a scene like this.

2. He's been to Iraq eight times. In February, he was in Pakistan and Afghanistan (above). And he just returned from Georgia where he met with Saakashvili. Biden is so deep in foreign policy, a shot like this seems more generalized than specific.

3. Biden also looks like the senior statesman, especially in contrast to the skinny kid with the glasses. Offers some real contrast to McCain in that Navy hat.

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Last Call for Change We Can Believe In
August 24, 2008 1:36 pm

Frank Rich, NYT

.......What we have learned this summer is this: McCain’s trigger-happy temperament and reactionary policies offer worse than no change. He is an unstable bridge back not just to Bush policies but to an increasingly distant 20th-century America that is still fighting Red China in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in the cold war. As the country tries to navigate the fast-moving changes of the 21st century, McCain would put America on hold.

What Obama also should have learned by now is that the press is not his friend. Of course, he gets more ink and airtime than McCain; he’s sexier news. But as George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs documented in its study of six weeks of TV news reports this summer, Obama’s coverage was 28 percent positive, 72 percent negative. (For McCain, the split was 43/57.) Even McCain’s most blatant confusions, memory lapses and outright lies still barely cause a ripple, whether he’s railing against a piece of pork he in fact voted for, as he did at the Saddleback Church pseudodebate last weekend, or falsifying crucial details of his marital history in his memoirs, as The Los Angeles Times uncovered in court records last month........

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Bill Maher on his new movie, "Religulous"
August 24, 2008 3:10 pm

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Once again, the words of "regret" - after days of denial
August 24, 2008 8:18 pm

This week – once again – a US air strike killed a large number of Afghan civilians. The numbers are indefinite, somewhere between 76 and 90; the precise details still being filled in by various investigations. But again, again … bombs fell and famiies were destroyed.

Today our White House issued a statement:

"We regret the loss of life among the innocent Afghanis who we are committed to protect," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Once again, the words of “regret” – after days of denial. How many times have we read the same words – following the same air strikes in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Regret – but we have not once seen an example of accountability.

Excuses are made – “insurgents” were gathering, firing, or “gathering” in the vicinity - and after the fact, there are always "investigations" but the strategy of bombing without regard for civilian homes and lives never seems to change.

With today’s news of our “regret” there was also news of at least one effort at accountability. Afghan president Karzai condemned the strikes and:

Major General Jalandar Shah Behnam, commander of the 207th Corps, based in Herat, and Major Abdul Jabar, commander of a special forces battalion, were removed from their posts for negligence and for "concealing the truth," a statement from the presidential office said.

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"For a vet, McCain's record sorely lacking"
August 24, 2008 8:27 pm

Disabled American Veterans is an organization that was founded following World War I, and today has 1.4 million members.

It not only tracks this legislation, but tracks how politicians vote. John McCain is documented as having voted with DAV-supported legislation 34 percent of the time. Barack Obama has voted with the DAV 89 percent of the time.

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