Another Dead Canary

Can it really be less than two months since the New York Times told the world how political strategist Steve Schmidt had transformed the McCain campaign into “an elbows-out, risk-taking, disciplined machine”? At the time, I remember having a visceral reaction to its description of Schmidt’s “brillilance.” It bothered me that McCain’s surge in the [...]

For me, the crystal-clear difference between Barack Obama and John McCain came down to one moment in Tuesday night’s debate — when Tom Brokaw asked the candidates to rank their priorities between health care, energy and reform of the social security and medicare systems. McCain played it down the middle, saying all three issues were [...]

Keith Olberman at his best. He goes to town on Palin. Does Sara Palin really want to go there? Does she really want to throw stones when it comes to someone’s association with seditionists and religious nut jobbers? She’s got a domestic terrorist and witch doctor of her own in her closet, as Olberman so [...]

Now it gets exciting. Sources in John McCain’s camp spent the last several days telling reporters that the campaign was about to go hard negative against Barack Obama on the character issue. It was the best way, they said, to move the national discussion off of the economy. And true to their word, VP candidate [...]

So which John McCain story line do you believe? The carefully crafted legend about the hero whose character and convictions were forged in the fires of hell, a tale perpetuated in today’s Washington Post story by Michael Dobbs? Or the narrative spun in Tim Dickinson’s Rolling Stone piece that questions McCain’s bravery, his honesty and [...]

Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard this one before except with George W. Bush, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama’s name in the place of Sara Palin. You’ve got to admit, however, this version is pretty damn funny. And if you haven’t seen Palin’s “Little Miss Sunshine” performance at the 1984 Miss Alaska contest, the HuffPo has the [...]

John McCain obviously doesn’t understand. Or wait, maybe he does understand but only when it comes to him not being Miss Congeniality. Because, you know, it’s a well-known fact that he’s a maverick, who also happens to be a sheriff but not the new sheriff in town because, well, he’s old. And cranky. Lucky for [...]