Basically. [h/t Ezra]
Going on the Offensive. Obama and Biden finally start baring their teeth. Obama: “If you think those lobbyists are working day and night for John McCain just to put themselves out of business, well, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you up in Alaska.” Because of how truly diffuse the media has become, though, they could have a really tough time coming up with a coherent narrative. In this vein, it’s kind of amazing what McCain’s camp has done. They’ve sort of forsaken message discipline in favor of a kitchen-sink approach; they just keep throwing all kinds of liesstuff out there, hoping something will stick.* Why, just today, we learned that McCain, who doesn’t know how to check his e-mail, HELPED INVENT THE BLACKBERRY. The mind reels. And then it explodes.
Charlie Rangel is on that Wesley Snipes. First there was the furor over the grip of rent-stabilized apartments he rented. Then it was the revelation of the unpaid back taxes on the crib he owns in D.R. Charlie Rangel was defiant each time one of those pesky ethical issues popped up, but Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership in the House are starting to get worry about how this will play in November, and your boy Charlie is facing a lot of pressure to come up off his chairman’s seat on Ways and Means.
The Truth is Elastic Like That. At an Ohio campaign stop, Sarah Palin suggested that she ad-libbed parts of her speech at the Republican Convention after the teleprompter broke. Which, you know, is a lie. Also, after saying she was gonna cooperate in the Troopergate investigation, she’s changed tacks. Let’s hope Katie Couric can get to the bottom of this!
The Truth is Elastic Like That, Part 2. Okay, one more real quick rant on the lying. Elizabeth Hasselbeck disgustingly compared that Cindy McCain would be a better First Lady than Michelle Obama because McCain had “nothing to hide.” Subtle racial wink aside, that’s a damn lie. McCain has played down her very serious addiction to painkillers, which her husband didn’t know about,** and which she only came forward with in the face of a widening investigation. Also, In Ariel Levy’s solid New Yorker profile of Cindy McCain, there’s small aside in which McCain, who is constantly fussing with her BlackBerry, offers up a weird rationale for her addiction to the device: to not miss her call from her son, a Marine stationed in Iraq. ” But he returned in mid-February, and the BlackBerry remains in his mother’s hand much of the time.” Why would someone lie about something so trivial? Who cares? Lying-ass lie lady.
Who Decided on Dick Cheney? Dick Cheney. Michiko Kakutani’s review of Barton Gellman’s book “The Angler” — an expansion of the very, very, very good WashPo series about the Cheney vice presidency that you should go read right now if you haven’t already — contains this tidbit: “The book begins with the suggestion that Mr. Cheney, as head of Mr. Bush’s vice presidential search committee, maneuvered his way onto the ticket, failing to fill out the grueling questionnaire he’d prepared for other possible candidates and evading close scrutiny of his medical history. In addition, Mr. Gellman observes that “Bush — who put so much stock in his instinct for people, that knack for decoding a handshake or the quality of a gaze — did not interview a single candidate before he settled on Cheney.” Also, Bush was in the dark about the scaled of the discontent among lawyers in the Justice Department, a bunch of whom were about to quit over the Administration’s wiretap program.
An Actual Matter of Life and Death. Cara on Feministe arguing for halting the execution of Troy Davis: “This isn’t about guilt or innocence, it’s about the cornerstone of our legal system – reasonable doubt. Even if Davis were guilty, his execution on the 23rd of September would be a judicial travesty. I say that not only because of my belief that a government that willfully kills its citizens is not one that can be trusted, and that no government could ever be trusted, no matter what precautions are taken, to only execute the guilty. I say it because this case does not even meet the already shaky requirements that our system has for determining that someone ought to be put to death. Even if Davis were a coldblooded murder – and even if the State Board of Pardons and Paroles believed as much with all of their hearts – the evidence, quite simply, is not there. This case is about us having at least as much evidence of innocence as we do guilt. It’s about the unconscionable act of killing a man when we just don’t know the answer.”
Mr. Sulu Gets Married. Dopeness. “George Takei and his longtime partner, Brad Altman, have agreed to live long and prosper together. Takei, 71, and Altman, 54, were married Sunday in a multicultural ceremony at the Japanese American National Museum that featured a Buddhist priest, Native American wedding bands, a Japanese Koto harp and a bagpipe procession.”
*Dammit. It’s my blog and I can mix metaphors if I want to.
**Perhaps he was too busy revolutionizing telecommunications?
