History is Happening Now

We’re through the third of three debates, and by all accounts Obama has won all of them–a remarkable feat.  I wanted to comment on the debate’s final exchange regarding school vouchers.  McCain made the claim that “I’ve got to tell you that vouchers, where they are requested and where they are agreed to, are a good and workable system. And it’s been proven.”  Courtesy of Ezra Klein, I direct you to this Greg Anrig Washington Monthly article on the failure of school vouchers:

[I]n recent months, almost unnoticed by the mainstream media, the school voucher movement has abruptly stalled. Some stalwart advocates of vouchers have either repudiated the idea entirely or considerably tempered their enthusiasm for it. Exhibit A is “School Choice Isn’t Enough,” an article in the winter 2008 City Journal (the quarterly published by the conservative Manhattan Institute) written by the former voucher proponent Sol Stern. Acknowledging that voucher programs for poor children had “hit a wall,” Stern concluded: “Education reformers ought to resist unreflective support for elegant-sounding theories, derived from the study of economic activity, that don’t produce verifiable results in the classroom.” His conversion has triggered an intense debate in conservative circles. The center-right education scholar Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and a longtime critic of public school bureaucracies and teachers unions, told the New York Sun that he was sympathetic to Stern’s argument. In his newly published memoirs, Finn also writes of his increasing skepticism that “the market’s invisible hand” produces improved performance on its own. Howard Fuller, an African American who was the superintendent of schools in Milwaukee when the voucher program was launched there, and who received substantial support from the Bradley Foundation and other conservative institutions over the years, has conceded, “It hasn’t worked like we thought it would in theory.”

Anrig goes on to write that:

Utimately, the voucher experiments confirmed what their critics had asserted all along. The heart of the problem with our urban schools is neither the education bureaucracies nor teachers unions, as Chubb, Moe, and many other voucher advocates have contended, flawed though those institutions may be. Instead, as the sociologist James S. Coleman found in the 1960s, a student’s family’s income and the collective social and economic background of his classmates are by far the most important influences on his academic future. Not only do lower-income students tend to score relatively poorly, children of any background who attend high-poverty schools are far more likely to produce worse test results than they would in schools with primarily middle-class students. America’s urban school systems remain almost universally dysfunctional, primarily because the country as a whole is about as segregated by race and income as at any time since the civil rights revolution.

There’s a lot more to say about vouchers, obviously, but the fundamental point remains:  the invisible hand of the market is not the answer to all our problems.  In the case of services like education and military spending and utilities, the public sector may yield the most efficient results and the market may be an utter failure.  Even the staunchest advocates of vouchers are beginning to agree.

Government is sometimes the answer.

Why do right-wing voters cheer so loudly when Gov. Sarah Palin accuses Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists”? Why does this line of attack — that Obama is sympathetic toward those responsible for murdering thousands of innocent Americans — seem to resonate so strongly with Republicans?

I believe an important clue was revealed by Republican Congresswoman Heather Wilson of New Mexico during an interview with CBS’s Bob Scheiffer on last week’s edition of Face the Nation. Scheiffer asked Wilson to comment on Sarah Palin’s recent statements:

Scheiffer: Do you agree with that line of attack, that Barack Obama does not see America as a force for good?

Wilson: He has actually, you know, he goes over to Germany and talks to the Germans about America and the need to tear down the walls between the United States and our European allies, as if it’s all America’s fault that we’ve, you know, we’re in the situation that we’re in. That’s not what we expect from our president. We expect someone to stand up for America, and to realize that America is a force for good in the world and has been for a century.

Scheiffer: Well that sounds like you’re saying that he’s somehow unpatriotic, which seems to be the underlying theme of what she said yesterday, Congresswoman.

Wilson: Well, he has talked down about America, and, you know, we’ve always had this history of saying, well, you know, politics ends at the water’s edge. And it didn’t for Barack Obama. He’s been critical not only of the president, but of American policy and has kind of a negative view of America in the world. That’s not unusual, frankly, among liberals in, kind of, post-Vietnam America, to say that America is the problem. I think Sarah Palin believes that America is part of the solution. We are an exceptional country. We are a force for good, and we need to talk about the good things we do.

Notice that Wilson made the argument that Obama is unpatriotic without once referencing Obama’s association with William Ayers. Instead, Wilson pointed to Obama’s speech in Berlin, and then questioned the patriotism of all liberals in America. “To say that America is the problem” — in other words, to be anti-American — is “not unusual … among liberals, in, kind of, post-Vietnam America.”

Wilson is expressing an idea that runs deep among rank-and-file conservatives but doesn’t get much airtime in our political analysis: that liberals are generally unpatriotic. The Ayers connection gives Palin an excuse to express a point of view that most conservatives desperately want to hear expressed more openly — that liberals are liberals because they hate this country and blame it for everything wrong in the world.

Just for the record, I’d like to quote an excerpt from Obama’s Berlin speech. In the speech, Obama describes himself as “a proud citizen of the United States.” He goes on to “stand up for America” far more effectively than John McCain ever could:

In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe’s role in our security and our future. Both views miss the truth – that Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world; and that just as American bases built in the last century still help to defend the security of this continent, so does our country still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe.

Obama also said this in Berlin:

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived – at great cost and great sacrifice – to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom – indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares. What has always united us – what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores – is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.

Obama’s gift is that he can actually go to Berlin and speak about America in powerful moral terms — and the Germans take him seriously! And I take him seriously – whereas I don’t take most displays of “patriotism” very seriously, as when an angry mob chants “U.S.A., U.S.A!” at a Palin rally to underscore an attack on Obama’s patriotism.

Of course, right-wing radio talk show hosts make a living feeding the hatred of ordinary conservatives. My favorite right-wing wacko radio pundit, Jay Severin (the most popular radio talk show host in New England, and an occasional guest on Imus in the Morning) recently suggested that he believes Obama will win in November. Then, he said this:

You have a job and I do too. My job, with your help, is to start today or to recommit ourselves today, with 29 days left in this campaign, to politically destroy Barack Obama, to undermine him in every possible legal way, to undermind his upcoming administration in advance, to destroy his ability to reach any majority, any governing majority, undermine and destroy his political ability to govern, or to have any hope of a successful administration. Because a successful Barack Obama administration equals socialism, soft-on-terrorism, the United Nations running our, the defense of our country, and our doom as a nation. Higher taxes, racial preferences, liberal judges, the end of the American way of life, and I’m not kidding. … An attack campaign against Obama is worthy of the timeless principles of all American patriots. Obama is King George. We are the minutemen and women. The United States of America will be saved only by us, and only by us opposing Obama and everything he represents, and starting to do that now. That is our duty. It is a profound task worthy of the fraternity of the patriotic one-third. Of this we are capable, and this we must do for ourselves and our family and our country. Start stopping Obama’s administration now … We must become an American government in exile. We must recognize, we must have the strength and faith to recognize that we are the patriots, not Obama, and not the people who vote for him. We are the Constitutional faithful. We must become an American government-in-exile waiting to seize, by every legal means, the rightful position of a patriotic American to the throne of president of the United States. Because Barack Obama and many of the people who are responsible for supporting him are domestic enemies of the Constitution of the United States.

Once again, Severin isn’t using Ayers at all to support his attack on Obama’s patriotism. As far as Severin (and presumably many of his listeners) is concerned, Obama and his supporters are unpatriotic because of their positions on the issues, because they are “socialists” and liberals. Like Wilson, Severin is advancing the idea that people like me are unpatriotic. Severin takes this argument a step further, saying that even if Obama wins the election, his presidency will be illegitimate.

With that in mind, check out this recent blog posting from the New York Times’ political blog, The Caucus:

Last weekend, the chairman of the Republican Party in Virginia climbed on a folding chair and addressed campaign volunteers with a rallying cry linking Senator Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden. “Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon,” said the chairman, Jeffrey M. Frederick. “That is scary.”

The comment, exaggerating Mr. Obama’s association with the 1960s radical William Ayers, was reported by Karen Tumulty in Time magazine and it set off a commotion in the blogosphere.

Contacted on Monday, a spokesman for the Virginia Republican Party offered this defense: Mr. Frederick was quoting Rush Limbaugh.

“He saw a guy with a Rush Limbaugh shirt on, and he was trying to fire up the troops,” said Gerry Scimeca, the spokesman. “He was making a larger point about who’s prepared to lead the nation. It was a vivid way to drive the point home.”

But several minutes later, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign disavowed Mr. Frederick’s remark.

“While Barack Obama is associated with domestic terrorist William Ayers, the McCain campaign disagrees with the comparison that Jeff Frederick made and believes that his comment was not appropriate,” Gail Gitcho, the spokeswoman, said in an e-mail message.

Recent polls suggest that Mr. Obama holds a lead of five to six points in Virginia.

To this scumbag Frederick, drawing a comparison between Obama and Bin Laden is just “a vivid way to drive a point home.” I’ll bet it’s not a very controversial thing to say among the Republicans Frederick hangs out with.

Apologists for these crazies like to say that they are just a few whackos and McCain shouldn’t be tainted by his association with them. But Frederick is a leader in the Republican party and he was chosen by the McCain campaign to give this speech.

If you gave Frederick a truth serum, he’d admit he thinks liberals are unpatriotic in general — and that’s what this whole Obama-Ayers baloney is all about.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board recently used the word “genius” to describe the way Obama has marketed his tax proposals to the American people. 

The “genius” part, according to the WSJ, is that Obama is proposing “tax credits,” but referring to them as “tax cuts.”

But these “credits” aren’t properly called “tax cuts,” according to the WSJ, because:

The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis estimates that by 2011, under the Obama plan, an additional 10 million filers would pay zero taxes while cashing checks from the IRS.

Get it? The WSJ believes it’s wrong for Obama’s proposed “tax credits” to be called “tax cuts” because 63 million Americans who would receive the credits don’t actually pay any federal taxes (or pay so little in federal taxes that the cuts would exceed the sum total of what they pay). 

Get it? 63 million Americans — those on the poorer side, I assume — don’t pay taxes! (They are SO lucky!) And how can you get a tax cut if you don’t pay taxes, right? 

Amazingly, the WSJ goes on the complain about why McCain hasn’t called out Obama on this issue:

One mystery — among many — of the McCain campaign is why it has allowed Mr. Obama’s 95% illusion to go unanswered.

I suppose it is possible that the WSJ editorial board is so politically stupid that it cannot figure out why McCain wouldn’t spend tons of time pointing out that 63 million Americans apparently pay no federal taxes. 

So I will address you directly, WSJ editors, and explain it to you. Just imagine if McCain tried to attack Obama’s tax cut proposals by saying, “These aren’t tax cuts! They’re handouts! It’s impossible to cut taxes for the poor and middle class in this country, because they don’t pay enough in taxes to receive cuts! If you want to cut taxes, the only people whose taxes can be cut are people who are paying more — like the rich!”

If McCain did that, it would reveal the truth about the Republican Party’s obsession with “cutting taxes” — this right-wing benefits the rich far, far more than it benefits the poor and middle class. 

If you can find one of these 63 million Americans who would (as the WSJ sees it) unfairly benefit from Obama’s tax credit, you should tell him or her that they can’t receive tax cuts because they don’t pay any taxes, or almost no taxes. Then, observe their reaction. That experience may help you understand the “mystery” of why McCain hasn’t spent more time explaining why Obama’s “tax credits” aren’t technically “tax cuts.”

I hate the political culture of personal attack — though I agree character matters in politics — but I feel an overwhelming urge to ridicule Andy McCarthy for suggesting that Bill Ayers ghostwrote Barack Obama’s Dreams of My Father.  I mean, has McCarthy gone insane?  No, really.  Is this the true face of the American right?  Are there no honest conservatives willing to debate policy with the left?  Are there or have there ever been such honest conservatives?  I’m not talking about pitchfork-wavers and bigots here.  I’m talking about our stalwart, “respectable” conservative Establishment.  Is this the best the National Review can do?  On closer reflection, in fact, McCarthy doesn’t even deserve our ridicule.  His attack is beneath contempt. 

It has recently become popular among conservative commentators to blame our economic crisis on Fannie and Freddie Mac — quasi-government entities that supposedly contributed to the rise of subprime lending, the foundation of our current financial crisis — and the Community Reinvestment Act.  This is a new version of the Reaganite cant that government is always the problem, never the solution.  Private culpability must be minimized — the market can do no wrong! — and any public entities within a plausible stone’s throw of the crisis at hand must receive all the blame.  We don’t have enough freedom in our markets, you see…

The problem with this blame-the-public-sector narrative is, in the case of the subprime lending crisis, that it’s simply false.  I direct you to an excellent and detailed McClatchy article, which debunks these popular conservative claims.  In this article, David Goldstein and Kevin G. Hall report that:

Subprime lending offered high-cost loans to the weakest borrowers during the housing boom that lasted from 2001 to 2007. Subprime lending was at its height vrom [sic] 2004 to 2006.

Federal Reserve Board data show that:

_ More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.

_ Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.

_ Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that’s being lambasted by conservative critics.

The “turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into 2007,” the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets reported Friday.

…

This much is true. In an effort to promote affordable home ownership for minorities and rural whites, the Department of Housing and Urban Development set targets for Fannie and Freddie in 1992 to purchase low-income loans for sale into the secondary market that eventually reached this number: 52 percent of loans given to low-to moderate-income families.

To be sure, encouraging lower-income Americans to become homeowners gave unsophisticated borrowers and unscrupulous lenders and mortgage brokers more chances to turn dreams of homeownership in nightmares.

But these loans, and those to low- and moderate-income families represent a small portion of overall lending. And at the height of the housing boom in 2005 and 2006, Republicans and their party’s standard bearer, President Bush, didn’t criticize any sort of lending, frequently boasting that they were presiding over the highest-ever rates of U.S. homeownership.

Read the whole thing.  This argument is further bolstered by the inconvenient fact that Fannie and Freddie were among the most sane participants in the mortgage markets thanks to — wait for it! — government regulation.  As Paul Krugman points out:

Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the explosion of high-risk lending a few years ago, an explosion that dwarfed the S.& L. fiasco. In fact, Fannie and Freddie, after growing rapidly in the 1990s, largely faded from the scene during the height of the housing bubble.

Partly that’s because regulators, responding to accounting scandals at the companies, placed temporary restraints on both Fannie and Freddie that curtailed their lending just as housing prices were really taking off. Also, they didn’t do any subprime lending, because they can’t: the definition of a subprime loan is precisely a loan that doesn’t meet the requirement, imposed by law, that Fannie and Freddie buy only mortgages issued to borrowers who made substantial down payments and carefully documented their income.

The real cause of our crisis, as far as I can tell, is unregulated global capitalism — a dismantling of regulation and a lack of regulation of new securities/derivatives and the move in financial markets toward what is called “neoliberalism,” global integration with few capital controls. 

The solution to toxic neoliberalism is not more neoliberalism.  We have a choice to make.  Will we allow the current neoliberal finance system to continue to exist as it does, without a complementary global and democratically-accountable regulatory apparatus adequate to the task of reigning in its excesses?  Or, alternately, will we decide to rebuild firewalls between our national financial systems — essentially, a sort of return to the post-WWII Bretton Woods system — to help forestall future global economic system shocks?  Or will we do nothing until the next crisis?

If we don’t let our voices be heard in the halls of power, then the finance ministers and treasury secretaries and corporate back-room dealers of the world will make this decision for us.  I’m an internationalist at heart, so I prefer the imposition of capital controls in the context of responsible and democratically-controlled global financial and economic integration.  You may disagree — you may prefer a more Bretton Woods – style system or something completely different –  but your views will not be heard if you don’t exercise your democratic rights.  The only path that seems absolutely wrong-headed to me is more of the same.

Here’s another quick example of how sloppy John McCain can be with his lies. Let’s start with this: 

During Saturday’s presidential forum at Rick Warren’s California megachurch, John McCain was asked to name the “three wisest people” he would “rely heavily on” if elected president. He didn’t cite close confidantes Phil Gramm and Randy Scheunemann, possibly because they have gotten McCain into trouble politically. Instead McCain chose Gen. David Petraeus; former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, one of his economic advisers; and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a leading figure in the civil rights movement. 

Now, let’s look at what this “wise person,” John Lewis, had to say about McCain’s campaign recently:

Civil rights icon John Lewis compared Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to George Wallace in a posting to Politico’s forum “The Arena,” accusing McCain of fostering “an atmosphere of hate” and “hostility” like the one that led to white supremacists’ 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Ala. 

Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia who has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), pointed in his posting to “the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign,” and said the senator and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, “are sowing the seeds of hatred and division.”

McCain, in a book he wrote with aide Mark Salter called “Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life,” had lauded the leadership of Lewis in the nonviolent civil rights movement. 

McCain called the accusation “shocking and beyond the pale” and called on Obama to “repudiate it.”

Brad Woodhouse of the Democratic National Committee said on Fox News: “I don’t think Sen. Obama would agree with that. … I don’t think we would agree with those comments.”

Lewis didn’t accuse McCain of imitating Wallace, but suggested there were similarities. His sharp words may be dismissed as those of a partisan Democrat in a campaign season. But the former head of SNCC and hero of Selma is somebody who McCain has lavished praise upon over the years, including in his book on courage and bravery and by repeatedly invoking Lewis’s name in public appearances.

And here’s some more:

McCain quickly fired back hard, calling the comments “a character attack against Gov. Sarah Palin and me that is shocking and beyond the pale.” 

“The notion that legitimate criticism of Sen. Obama’s record and positions could be compared to Gov. George Wallace, his segregationist policies and the violence he provoked is unacceptable and has no place in this campaign,” McCain said in the statement. “I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I’ve always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track. 

McCain also put the onus on Obama to distance himself from the remarks: “I call on Sen. Obama to immediately and personally repudiate these outrageous and divisive comments that are so clearly designed to shut down debate 24 days before the election. Our country must return to the important debate about the path forward for America.”

If John Lewis — one of the people McCain says he would rely upon most for wisdom in the White House — is now comparing McCain to George Wallace, what does that say about McCain’s judgment?

McCain shouldn’t lie to the American people about whose advice he truly respects. If McCain was telling the truth, and Lewis’ beliefs matter to him, then he should apologize for fostering hate speech, which is what he’s obviously doing when his campaign accuses Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” 

Should Obama repudiate Lewis’ comments? Why would he?

There was a time when Democrats wanted this campaign to be a referendum on George W. Bush, and Republicans wanted this campaign to be a referendum on Barack Obama. 

I guess you could say the Republicans got what they wanted. 

Now that McCain’s vice-presidential nominee has accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists,” this election is only about one thing: whether or not Barack Obama is a terrorist sympathizer. When Palin launched that line of attack, she created a media monster that will completely dominate the campaign from now until election day.

Let me give you an example: No matter what, this “palling around with terrorists” line will utterly consume coverage of the third and final presidential debate.

This is true for two reasons: First, when McCain failed to raise this “issue” during the second debate Tuesday night, the Senator was slammed by many on the right for not doing so. I’ll steal an example from Lee’s blog below quoting right-winger Andy McCarthy:

Memo to McCain Campaign:  Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn’t; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he’s qualified for public office.  You helped portray Obama as a clealy qualified presidential candidate who would fight terrorists.

If that’s what the public thinks, good luck trying to win this thing.

McCarthy is right: When Palin accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists,” she effectively accused him of being the moral equivalent of a child molester — and you can’t publicly call a man a child molester and then completely ignore the issue during a debate. (For one thing, it makes you look like you’re happy to debate a child molester, which raises questions about you.) Setting aside the child molester metaphor, McCain’s unwillingness to address the issue during a debate gives the impression that either (a) McCain doesn’t really think Obama is a terrorist sympathizer, but is only saying that to get elected, or (b) McCain does really think Obama is a terrorist sympathizer, but doesn’t have the guts to say it to Obama’s face. 

Which brings us to the second reason why the “palling around with terrorists” issue will dominate media coverage and analysis of the third debate: Barack Obama has now gone on national television and questioned why McCain wouldn’t speak these “over-the-top” attacks “to my face.” And Biden has practically dared McCain to do so, saying that “in my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to somebody, you look him in the eyes when you say it.” 

And the right-wing whackos are desperate to hear their candidate give a Senator’s voice to their hysterical pananoia. Check out this recent report from a McCain rally, as conveyed by Politico:

Working to dampen the angry crowd meme, McCain tells his Minnesota rally to take it easy, Amie Parnes reports:

At a town hall in Minnesota, McCain tried to tone down a week of raucus, angry crowds after one man stood up and said: “We want you to fight.”

“The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight. We want a strong president to lead us through the next four years.”

“I think I got my marching orders,” McCain said. But then he shifted tones.

“I am enthusiastic and encouraged by the enthusiasm and I think it’s really good,” McCain said. “We have to fight and i will fight but we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments and I want to be respectful.

“I dont mean that you have to lose your ferocity. I just mean you have to be respectful.”

A moment later, another woman stood up and urged McCain to speak up so voters “really have an understanding of who the candidates are.”

“There’s a difference between rhetoric and record,” McCain said, adding that Obama voted to raise taxes 94 times. “He has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate, even more liberal than Bernie Sanders.”

Once again, McCain repeated, “I want all of you to tell your neighbors about the difference between rhetoric and record, but let’s do it respectfully.”

Later in the event,  man in the audience stood up and told McCain he’s “scared” of an Obama presidency and who he’d select for the Supreme Court.

“I have to tell you. Sen. Obama is a decent person and a person you don’t have to be scared of as president of the United States,” McCain said as the crowd booed and shouted “Come on, John!”

“If I didn’t think I’d be a heck of a lot better, I wouldn’t be running for President of the United States.”

If it’s not the Times editorial board jeering him, it’s his own crowd. 

It is no longer acceptable in Republican politics to say Obama is a decent man that “you don’t have to be scared of.”  

So this is High Noon time. This is the sort of pissing contest that cable network news execs salivate over. In the second debate, McCain launched a bold new plan to have the federal government buy hundreds of billions of mortgages as a big loss — but nobody cares, because Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” line is just so much easier to understand and exciting to think about. The big soap opera question now on the minds of all Americans who look to politics for high drama is this: Will McCain take-the-bait/have-the-guts/be-stupid-enough to raise the question of Obama’s association with former Weatherman Bill Ayers during the third debate? 

If McCain does indeed raise the issue and Obama responds, all media coverage will focus on that exchange almost exclusively for at least several days and probably longer. In that case, the exchange will be so dramatic, so exciting, that the decision over whether to obsess over it will be a no-brainer for TV execs looking to draw an audience. 

If McCain doesn’t raise the issue, then McCain’s critics on the right and Obama’s allies on the left (strange bedfellows) will spend the next three days asking the same question: Why? Why would Senator John “Straight Talk” McCain’s campaign throw out the highly inflammatory suggestion that Obama likes “palling around with terrorists” — which sounds highly dangerous and treasonous — and then muffle it?

Is it because McCain was scared of Obama? Is it because McCain doesn’t really think Obama is a terrorist sympathizer? Either way, McCain is either a sleaze-ball or a coward, or both. (Bingo!)

And then, from then until election day, coverage and analysis on the left and the right will continue to focus on the same questions: Will McCain continue to push the terrorist sympathizer charge? Or will McCain try to dial it back? And as answers to these questions present themselves, analysts on both sides will speculate about why. 

Americans already trust Obama to handle our economy, our foreign policy, and just about everything else better than McCain. They’ve seen McCain pick a vice-presidential candidate who makes a fool of herself on television, pretend to suspend a campaign only to sheepishly return to it, and say the “fundamentals of our economy are strong” a few hours before the biggest economic crisis this country has faced since the depression. 

The American people are ready to pick Obama to be the next president. 

There’s only one question left on their minds. Is McCain right? Is Sarah Palin right? Is Obama the sort of guy who “palls around” with people who like to bomb government buildings? Is Obama the sort of guy who identifies with terrorists? 

I guess we’ll find out what the American people think on Election Day.

Americans who watched last night’s debate, including independent and undecided voters, concluded by an overwhelming margin that Obama decisively won.  Viewers of Fox News, as Glenn Greenwald notes, beheld a different reality, a wholly different debate.  For these fair and balanced viewers, by a margin of seventy percentage points (86-12%), McCain utterly crushed Obama.  These Fox Watchers must be ecstatic about the victory of their candidate.  They must believe that McCain did such an effective job of making his case to the American people that the population will now overwhelmingly vote Republican in November.  Right.

Not everyone on the right is so sanguine, of course.  Andy McCarthy writes that:

We have a disaster here — which is what you should expect when you delegate a non-conservative to make the conservative (nay, the American) case.  We can parse it eight ways to Sunday, but I think the commentary is missing the big picture.

…

Memo to McCain Campaign:  Someone is either a terrorist sympathizer or he isn’t; someone is either disqualified as a terrorist sympathizer or he’s qualified for public office.  You helped portray Obama as a clealy [sic] qualified presidential candidate who would fight terrorists.

I have to admit I don’t really understand the parallel reality many conservative extremists live in.  Ian, who listens to a lot more right-wing radio than I do, may have insights here… but c’mon people.  How can anyone, regardless of what political philosophy you embrace, convince themselves that McCain won last night’s debate?  You could argue it was a tie, but McCain certainly didn’t triumphantly defeat or crush Obama.  And while we’re on the subject of parallel realities, does McCarthy really believe that Obama is a “terrorist sympathizer”?  Does he believe that Obama has no interest in fighting terrorism?  I mean, does he want to stand behind and claim moral ownership of these arguments?  Because if he does, he reveals himself to be living in as warped a parallel reality as the abovementioned Fox Watchers.  The most generous gloss of McCarthy’s claims is that he’s a pure cynic.

Which would be all well and good.  I mean, you can dismiss political pundits for being the blowhards and cynics they often are, but when someone like McCarthy says Obama is a terrorist sympathizer doesn’t he realize that there are people out there who may believe him and take his proclamation literally, people like the Fox Watchers who have so internalized the ideological scripts handed down to them that they believe wholeheartedly McCain won last night?

If all the Fox Watchers of the world genuinely believe that Obama is a treasonous terrorist sympathizer and a pal of left-wing radicals and some sort of anti-American Manchurian Candidate determined to take down the country, despite a world of evidence to contradict such claims, I fear for our future.

Just finished the V.P. debate, and I have so say:  it turned out exactly as I anticipated. Gwen Ifill asked nothing interesting or controversial or challenging of either candidate. Biden gave reasonably poised answers to her dull questions, and had a better second half than first half. Palin has done what she needed to do and has internalized her talking points.  The most significant difference that emerged between the two candidates was their different interpretations of the role of vice president:

IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.

IFILL: Vice President Cheney’s interpretation of the vice presidency?

BIDEN: Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history. The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there’s a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he’s part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.

This is about as clear a distinction as you can get.  If you believe that the office of the vice president is simultaneously in the executive and legislative branches, contra the actual text of the Constitution, you can vote for McCain-Palin.  If you don’t believe that the office of the V.P. lives in a sort of mysterious legal/quantum superposition between these branches of government, of them and above them, you have alternatives.

What did you all think?

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An update (10/30, 4:30 p.m.) on Palin’s views on the Constitutional location of the vice presidency, courtesy of Carl Cameron at Fox News:

CAMERON: One of the things you talked about last night was the flexibility of the vice presidency (INAUDIBLE)

PALIN: Yes.

CAMERON: What do you mean by that?

PALIN: That thankfully, our founders were wise enough to say, we have this (INAUDIBLE) and it’s Constitutional. Vice presidents will be able to be not only the position flexible, but it’s going to be sort of this other duty as assigned by the president. It’s a simple thing. I don’t think that was a gaff at all in stating what the truth is.

And that is we’ve got flexibility in the position. The president will be directing in a lot of (INAUDIBLE) with the vice president does. The vice president, of course, is not a member — or a part of the legislative branch, except to oversee the Senate. That alone provides a tremendous amount of flexibility and authority if that vice president so chose to use it.

CAMERON: One of the criticisms of Vice President Cheney is that he is (INAUDIBLE) the power and influence of the office and that during the Bush/Cheney presidency, the power of the executive has been a standard beyond perhaps that which is good for a country that wants to make sure that we don’t have an imperial presidency.

Would you change any of that, (INAUDIBLE) than the Bush/Cheney administration in terms of the power of the executive?

PALIN: Well, again, as I tried to explain last night, our executive branch will know what our job is. We have the three very distinct branches of government. You know, we might be bleeding our authority over to the Legislative or Judicial branch to do our job in the Executive branch as administers.

Does anyone have any idea what Palin means by the term “flexibility”?  Just because you have a role in relation to another branch of government doesn’t mean you’re part of that branch.  I mean, the Senate isn’t in the judiciary because it confirms Supreme Court nominees, nor does doing so confer any sort of “flexibility,” whatever that means, to the Senate.  The more Palin talks about this issue, the less I understand what she thinks she’s saying.  Is a coherent answer too much to ask of a V.P. candidate?

As the V.P. debate approaches, the right-wing blogosphere has discovered a secret plot to make Sarah Palin look bad, as if anyone needed to spend even thirty seconds making such an effort.  The name of this nefarious plot?  Gwen Ifill. 

Yes, that’s right, my friends, Gwen Ifill.  Rightwing blog after rightwing blog has shrilly announced that Ifill is “in the can” for Obama.  Why?  Because she is writing a pro-Obama book.  Do you want to know the title of this literary monument to Obamalove, this undeniable evidence of disgusting bone-deep liberal media bias?  Wait for it:  Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.  Commentators who cite this book as evidence of bias have of course not read the book.  No one has, because it’s slated to be released in January of 2009.  The McCain campaign also apparently didn’t know it was forthcoming, though its publication was no secret.  (They’ve got the best research team around, as the Palin pick so clearly demonstrates.)

Apparently, according to such intellectual luminaries as NRO’s Jim Geraghty, to even write a book that has the name “Barack Obama” in its title or subtitle necessarily implies that the author of said book is so hideously and irrevocably biased in favor of the aforementioned breakthrough politician that all her professional journalistic standards will instantly go out the window when she is tapped to moderate a debate; the forthcoming publication of a book with this title is evidence of the media’s “jaw-dropping double standard” when it comes to the candidates.  It’s clearly a double standard because, well, there’s absolutely nothing historic about Obama’s candidacy, nothing at all worth writing about, no unbiased journalistic angle to be found on Obama and the new generation of post-Jackson black political leadership in this country.

Writing such a book implies, according to wise folk like Jim Treacher, that Ifill will ask the following types of questions of Palin and Biden during the V.P. debate:

Mayor Palin, Barack Obama is a handsome, charismatic demigod. How many boxes of Kleenex will you need after your crushing loss?

Senator Biden, what is your favorite color? And if you have time for a follow-up question: Why?

Mayor, you talk funny and you own a tanning bed. Why haven’t you released Trig’s birth certificate?

Senator, have you seen those pictures of Obama in his swim trunks? If not, I have them right here.

How droll!  How insightful!  What a terrific bit of satire–or should we call it prognostication?–you’ve composed, Mr. Treacher!

By this airtight logic, of course, the titles of Jerome R. Corsi’s Obama Nation and David Freddoso’s The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate evince these authors’ profound and abiding love of Obama, because, you see, Obama’s name is in the title of the books they wrote.  Corsi and Freddoso are “in the can” for Obama, and would therefore be hopelessly biased anti-McCain moderators for a nationally televised debate between Biden and Palin.

The only jaw-dropping double standard here seems to be that anyone in the national media is paying any attention to this story at all.