With Sources Like These…

The NYT has a hilarious, if utterly terrifying, profile today of Andy Martin, the guy who launched the web whisper campaign about Obama being a closet Muslim. What disturbs me most isn't that Martin was once barred from joining the Illinois state bar because of a psychiatric finding of "moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character." Nor is it that Martin has such a history of filing frivolous lawsuits that he has been banned from filing suit in any federal courthouse without prior approval. It's not even that Martin has a long, proud history of anti-semitic slurs including court filings featuring such jewels as: "Jews, historically and in daily living, act through clans and in wolf pack syndrome," and, even more colorfully, "I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did."

No, what troubles me most is this is the kind of political source Fox News is now showcasing in its election reporting. 

They report. You decide. 

–Michelle Cottle

 

Sphere: Related Content

Busted!

Last week, TPM and other news outlets were looking into whether McCain campaign manager Rick Davis had really cut his ties to the mega-lobby shop, Davis Manafort -- of which he is a part owner. Even though Davis insisted he was no longer drawing any salary from the firm, what David Kurtz and I were wondering was whether Davis had somehow redirected his salary to some other entity from which he could later profit from it or draw it back. Well, it seems Newsweek has finally caught up with Davis's flimflam ... Read more

Did McCain’s Attacks Work?

It is worth drawing a distinction between two lines of attack that John McCain pursued in last night's debate. Read more

Palin’s mysterious trade missions

As John McCain reminds us, "Russia is right next to Alaska; Sarah Palin understands that." But when pressed by Katie Couric about what, exactly, that understanding lent her in the way of foreign policy savvy, the Republicans' vice-presidential nominee couldn't come up with a lot of specifics: Read more

The Peril for Democrats

The politics of this bailout bill are as fascinating as anything in Congress since the fall 2002 Iraq war vote. And I sense that, after a period where McCain's neck was on the line, things are now getting dodgy for Democrats. Here's why: Read more

How McCain’s Gambit Could Work

Everybody here is saying McCain's bailout gambit was a failure. (When I offered the observation "It does seem to have gone badly" in a colleague's office this afternoon, I was guffawed out of the room on account of understatement.) The whole thing definitely seems ridiculous to me. But here's the new spin on it that Minority Whip Roy Blunt just gave on CNN (transcribed approximately): Read more

Does Palin Know She’s in Too Deep?

Chris, I have a different theory about why Sarah Palin has gotten more, not less, rattled in the spotlight. In a backhanded way it may even be a compliment. The theory is that Palin is actually astute enough to realize just how far in over her head she is.

Read more

McCain’s Nonsensical Reversal

Announcing that he'll be going to the debate tonight, McCain issues a statement saying "[h]e is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations, including Representative Blunt as a designated negotiator for House Republicans." Jeez. To the distant observer there appears to be a lot more rancor than there was before McCain arrived in Washington. And a "framework" for "negotiations" is a far cry from what McCain's Wednesday statement Read more

McCain’s ‘Dukakis Moment’?

Wall Street Journal columnist Kim Strassel, writing for an opinion section that has always eyed McCain warily--the WSJ edit board reently attacked for not ruling out a tax hike as part of a Social Security reform deal--is not impressed with his role in the bailout battle:

Presidential campaigns live in fear of a Dukakis-in-the-tank moment. The question is whether John McCain just had his.

Read more

Palin qualms

Generating a lot of traffic on the right today is Kathleen Parker's more-in-sadness-than-in-anger suggestion in National Review that Sarah Palin drop out of the race. Read more

Has the McCain Campaign Broken Sarah Palin?

Ezra Klein (and pretty much anyone else who's watched the Palin-Couric interviews) asks, "What's happened to Sarah Palin?"

The fact that Palin's responses to questions are becoming increasingly incoherent rather than rapidly more polished is interesting. Rote memorization should have all but eliminated the overlay of nonsense in her answers by now.

I don't pretend to have any first- (or second- or third-) hand knowledge of why it is that Palin's performance in the Katie Couric interviews was so much worse than her performance with Charlie Gibson just a couple of weeks ago. But I've been wondering for a while now just how Palin would hold up under what amounts to a constant, emphatic vote of no confidence from the McCain campaign. Read more

What Actually Happened Yesterday–Sept. 25 Edition

The New York Times has an excellent account of the impact of John McCain's bailout freakout on the actual work of negotiating a compromise. There are several stunning revelations here. First, House Minority Leader John Boehner's top aide pretty much conceded that among the motivations for the House Republicans' refusal to go along with the plan was to save face for McCain:

The aide, Kevin Smith, said Republicans revolted, in part, because they were chafing at what they saw as an attempt by Democrats to jam through an agreement on the bailout early Thursday and deny Mr. McCain an opportunity to participate in the agreement.

This is patent nonsense of course Read more

Turning Point: Dems Can Go In For The Kill Now

Read more

McCain denounces all sides

John McCain's campaign put out an extraordinary memo just now, denouncing a proposal that, by all accounts, was supported by all parties but the House Republicans, promising to return tomorrow, and casting the debate in serious doubt. Read more

A bad night for McCain/Palin

John McCain, Barack Obama and Sarah Palin all had a chance to score some points with a national audience on Thursday night. More often than not, though, McCain and Palin came up badly short, leaving plenty of space for Obama to win the night. Read more

Depends on the Meaning of “Close”

Yesterday afternoon, I went to CNN to talk about bailout politics. When I arrived, I was surprised to learn from the other two panelists -- CNN's Gloria Borger and the Washington Post's Dana Milbank -- that a deal on an amended version of the Treasury Department's $700 billion bailout plan was close. I was surprised because I had been hearing the opposite -- that House Republicans were increasingly opposed to a deal and that such a deal seemed less likely yesterday than it was when the plan was originally proposed. But others, including the Associated Press, were reporting that a deal was imminent. Then, earlier today, the AP reported that such a deal had, in fact, been reached. Read more

McCain hopeful he can attend debate

John McCain said in an interview tonight that he's hopeful can attend Friday night's debate but conceded there is not yet an agreement on the massive Wall Street bailout being crafted on Capitol Hill. Read more

McCain Doubling Down on Debate?

A somewhat contrarian view: I really can't imagine John McCain not attending the debate tomorrow. Although it's hard to know exactly how the spectacle would play out -- Obama fielding questions from Jim Lehrer by himself? -- as I opined last night, I think Americans would largely not excuse McCain for failing to show up. Read more

Next Page »