Good collection - thanks. There's also the new site http://www.keatingeconomics.com, documenting that particular period in his history.

Posted October 6, 2008 1:07 AM by Leslie in CA

Don't forget McCain's friendliness with convicted felon G. Gordon "aim for the head, ATF agents wear bulletproof vests" Liddy.

(1994: Liddy makes the "aim for the head" comment. 1998: Liddy hosts a McCain fundraiser. 2007: McCain appears on Liddy's radio show.)

Posted October 6, 2008 1:24 AM by Christopher Davis

Meanwhile, up in Canada, distressingly enough, we have someone in Toronto cutting the brake lines of people with Liberal signs on their lawns.

Posted October 6, 2008 1:31 AM by Marna Nightingale

http://www.keatingeconomics.com/ is (and announces itself as) an organ of the Obama campaign.

I do not say that to discredit it -- the Keating situation has been well-discussed for weeks, and I'm sure the site's facts will be analyzed in minute detail by the time I'm back online tomorrow morning.

Rather, my reaction is... yow. *That's* what campaign strategy looks like. McCain has been attempting to drop bombshells and flash campaign stunts for weeks now. Has he unleashed anything as comprehensive or well-documented as this?

Posted October 6, 2008 1:31 AM by Andrew Plotkin

Although this is making me wonder if what we have is a well-travelled nutter whose politics are strictly peripheral, and who is getting more and more vicious. Or else mass, anonymous brake-line slashing as a form of violently anti-social behaviour is way more popular than I ever thought it was.

Posted October 6, 2008 1:39 AM by Marna Nightingale

My immediate reaction when I heard of the Ayers story is that McCain's early association with Keating is a lot more dangerous to his campaign than Ayers is to Obama's. Unless, of course, they manage to paint him as the "dark skinned terrorist" which is where I think they're going.

Posted October 6, 2008 2:06 AM by Thalia

I found another "swiftboating" ad, mentioning some even more dubious connections, people Barack is in contact with on an almost daily basis.

Posted October 6, 2008 2:21 AM by p mac

What about McCain's gambling ties? What happened to the big NYT article -- it sank without a stone.

How much does McCain gamble? How often? Does he have unpaid debts? How much is he in thrall to the gaming interests? What does his gambling habit reveal about his decision-making process?

etc. etc. etc.

Clip from the 9/28/08 NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/us/politics/28gambling-web.html

As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing America’s casinos, helping to transform the once-sleepy Indian gambling business into a $26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country. He has won praise as a champion of economic development and self-governance on reservations.

“One of the founding fathers of Indian gaming” is what Steven Light, a University of North Dakota professor and a leading Indian gambling expert, called Mr. McCain.

As factions of the ferociously competitive gambling industry have vied for an edge, they have found it advantageous to cultivate a relationship with Mr. McCain or hire someone who has one, according to an examination based on more than 70 interviews and thousands of pages of documents.

Mr. McCain portrays himself as a Washington maverick unswayed by special interests, referring recently to lobbyists as “birds of prey.” Yet in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests — including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors.

Posted October 6, 2008 2:24 AM by Liz Ditz

Because look, I love John McCain. He is one of my dearest friends. But at the same time, he's also dangerously unbalanced. I mean, let's be frank, John McCain -- and again, this is a man I would take a bullet for -- is bad at his job and mentally unstable. As my mother would say, 'God love him', but he's a raging maniac. And a dear, dear friend.

Posted October 6, 2008 2:27 AM by Matthew Daly

McCain's and Palin's efforts to link Obama to "anyone you might hate" is just a desperate attempt at finding a Willie Horton, but it's poorly executed. Lee Atwater would not be proud.

Posted October 6, 2008 2:51 AM by Giacomo

I have two ideas about what they're thinking, and they both revolve around the idea that, whatever they may say or do, the Republicans knew they were never going to win this election right from the start, and so the whole campaign has had the feel of the last day of term where it doesn't really matter what you do.

The first, completely tinfoil-hat idea, which I've voiced before, is that someone on the right is going to stage and escalate some sort of incident and Bush will "be forced" to postpone the election indefinitely and declare martial law. I'm trying hard not to think about that one.

The other, more boring idea is that since they know they aren't going to win, they're just making as much of a mess as possible so that Obama has to spend the next four years just getting things back to something like where they were, by which time he will be more unpopular than Bush and they can run Palin or somebody against him in the certain knowledge that Americans will be sick and tired of having to pay for things and be responsible and so on, and ready for a little laissez-faire again. *deep breath* Thus the whole campaign is just making it look convincing before taking a dive in the eighth round. Which is more plausible if we're dealing with sane persons here.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:32 AM by Zander

The "John McCain's Sweet Ride" link is, well, somewhat fact-shy. I'm given unpleasantly creepy feelings by its language. "John McCain had good relations(!) with a working woman(!). Now, we don't know for sure that they had kinky extramarital sex..." Then it starts talking about gambling and the Mob and I can't deal with some Foucault's Pendulum shit like this in the morning without coffee.

He who fucks rats should look to it that he himself does not become a rat.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:01 AM by SeanH

Since there's a new political thread...

Scary thought: what if Palin is INTENDED as a stalking horse? That is, Palin is chosen as VP, everyone thinks that's crazy, but has to be careful in saying so so as not to come across looking sexist. Then the Troopergate judgement goes against her, she bows out "gracefully", "for the good of the country and the Republican Party" - THEN the Republicans nominate a new VP who is staid, respectable and boring (so wouldn't have been a vote winner normally) - but looks like a really nice safe pair of hands in contrast?

Any bets?

Posted October 6, 2008 4:21 AM by dcb

Pty Pln nd McCn, wh ply fr th wrng tm.

ll hl th bmtn!

Posted October 6, 2008 4:23 AM by Sten

dcb #12: We can but hope. I'm trying to think of missteps that would be worse for the McCain campaign while still remaining in the bounds of credibility. McCain uses a racial slur during a speech? McCain suffers a stroke? Sarah Palin shoots David Letterman?

McCain has to try to keep up the impression that Palin was a good pick. Anything that made her leave the ticket now makes him look completely erratic and utterly lacking in judgment. This is the way he looks already to most of America, it seems, but if he actually admits the hideous glaring mistake and jettisons Palin it'll all be over.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:35 AM by SeanH

There's a correct tense in there somewhere, but I'm buggered if I know when it is.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:35 AM by SeanH

SeanH @14/15:

It looks to me more like McCain is the stalking horse and Palin is presenting herself as the dependable far-right-wing backup in case McCain dies in office. I wouldn't put it past them to bank on her mediocrity looking safe and reliable in comparison to (as you put it) his erratic lack of judgment.

Posted October 6, 2008 5:23 AM by Lindra

Entertained by the RS article, which points out that McCain is everything Bush is, except that Bush was a much better pilot...

Posted October 6, 2008 5:29 AM by ajay

Sten? Come back and explain. What's that all about?

Posted October 6, 2008 5:48 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Marna Nightingale @ 3... In Toronto? And against members of the Liberal Party? Things have changed since I left 20 years ago. I still remember, when I was living in the Bay Area, having to disappoint a local who was excited at the Liberal Party's leader having become the Prime Minister, that it wasn't quite the Party of his kind of Liberal.

Posted October 6, 2008 5:55 AM by Serge

Serge @ 19 ... I'm still vastly entertained at my Canadian slightly-left-of-center politics being tagged as "commie pinko leftist bastard" by a gentleman from a certain part of the US...

Posted October 6, 2008 6:21 AM by xeger

Trs,

Prhps t ws nvtbl tht Mkng Lght wld b plld nt bm's grvttnl mbrc. Bt sm t rcll Ptrck tllng bm t fck ff n 2006, nd ws srt hpng tht Mkng Lght wldn't jn th rst f th ntrnt n bcmng n npd gldtrl cmbtnt n ths yr's lctrl cycl.

Nw, y mght rg tht y'r nt fr bm-Bdn s mch s y'r gnst McCn-Pln, nd 'd b prprd t ccpt tht.

Bt rlly, psts lk ths sm t ndct tht Mkng Lght s n th bm bndwgn, nd rdy t fght!

Myb m jst wstfl fr my yngr dys whn lf, nd ll my frnds nd rltvs nd c-wrkrs, wr nt sndwchd btwn th Lbrl snglrty n n sd, nd th Cnsrvtv snglrty n th thr. stll blv ll f s r pltcl mlgms, nd tht n n prty cn rprsnt s ll th tm n ll wys. Crtnly n cnddt cn d ths.

Yt r crrnt pplr pltcl ztgst prtnds tht th rtfcl blck/wht dchtmy s nt nly ntrl, bt prfrbl.

Hnc bth cnddts bcm svrly dmnzd, nd thr spprtrs bcm dmnzd n th prcss, nd thn t's hlf f th .S. lnd p lng th trnchs gnst th thr hlf. Th ntrr htng th csts. Th csts htng th ntrr. Flksy chrm vrss lrnd ntllct. xprnc vrss ttrctvnss. ld vrss yng.

Yt gt ths sck flng, thrgh th whl thng, bcs sspct t ll bls dwn t tm sprts. Trblsm. Whvr th Thm s, s gnst th s, nd whtvr th s gy hppns t b, w wll chmpn t ll csts. nd whtvr th Thm gy hppns t b, w wll xcrt t ll csts.

Sch tht McCn nd Pln r snnrs, nt s mch fr wh thy r, bt bcs thy r wh thy r whl bng prt f th wrng trb.

Dtt fr bm nd Bdn.

Mthnks r crrnt ntnl crss (plrl) r th rslt f r wllngnss t b trblzd by frcs whch stnd t xplt ths trblztn. nd n, thy r nt strctly f cnsrvtv prssn. Th Lft s s ctvly nggd n th ht-mngrng s th Rght.

Myb m flsh t wsh fr d-trblztn. Myb ppl, by nd lrg, rlly d lk t ths wy? ndlssly svgng th thr, bcs th thr bvsly dsrvs t bsd n thr flgrnt thrnss?

gn, cn lrdy hr th crs f, "THY'R WY WRS THN W R!"

Fllwd by, "W HV T GT NGRY ND FGHT BCK BCS BNG NC BT T GTS S NWHR!"

Cn rs my hnd nd pt n vt f n-cnfdnc, n th trbl mntlty? n th nd fr md prsnlts nd md prfssnls (y nd Ptrck qlfy) t dn th gldtr's hlm nd mrch nt th rn wth vryn ls?

Posted October 6, 2008 6:25 AM by Sten

Meanwhile, Palin is continuing to put her foot in her mouth, this time on the media's role in reporting the news.

Responding to a question about how she wants the media to be more "balanced" and "objective" (this is on Fox but reported by ABC), she says:

"As we send our young men and women overseas in a war zone to fight for democracy and freedoms, including freedom of the press, we've really got to have a mutually beneficial relationship here with those fighting the freedom of the press, and then the press, though not taking advantage and exploiting a situation, perhaps they would want to capture and abuse the privilege. We just want truth, we want fairness, we want balance."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/do-over-palin-a.html

The rest of her interview on Fox was used as a "do over" from the Couric interviews. NOW she can name newspapers she reads. NOW she can name Supreme Court decisions she disagrees with. Well duh, of course she can remember them NOW; she's had two weeks of intense briefing and instruction, but she still tends to have diarrhea of the mouth when asked her personal opinion, and not even Fox News can keep her from it!

Posted October 6, 2008 6:40 AM by John L

John L #22: diarrhea of the mouth

Can I recommend "logorrhea" to you? It is slightly more pretentious, but has the advantage of not inducing such unpleasant images when I'm about to eat.

Posted October 6, 2008 6:46 AM by SeanH

Sten: "Methinks our current national crises (plural) are the result of our willingness to be tribalized by forces which stand to exploit this tribalization." No, they're not. They're the result of criminal collusion on the part of a fairly small group of people to profit from the nation at any expense to the rest of us, and also (in some of their cases) to deliberately destabilize the lives of the rest of us so that in a weakened and isolated condition, we will be better subjects.

There is a tribe of people for whom this is all okay. They are Altermeyer's authoritarians, in leader and follower flavors. There are people who are confused and deceived about it, who follow any flag that captures their attention. There are people posing as alternatives who aren't. And there are a variety of overlapping but often conflicting groups interested in doing something about the malefactors.

But it does not begin with group identity in the sense you're talking about. It begins with people deciding that their gain and our loss is what they want, and being willing to work at it for decades, and getting away with it when they should have been checked long ago.

Obama has many bad features, and he listens to some people on the left side of that self-enrichment-driven conglomeration. But he also has good features. McCain, meanwhile, is hip deep among the enrichers, and has personally helped many of them, individually and in groups.

Furthermore, what exactly do you want us to say about the effectiveness of Obama's campaign, whether we agree with the specific policies or not? Are we not supposed to notice and be impressed by a well-crafted delivery and intelligent use of the net, or is it just not okay when a Democrat does something effective for a change in a contested campaign? If I look at it and think "That says something very well, and furthermore, this is something I've long thought needed to be forcefully said in public", should I be ashamed of it? It's not like it wipes out the blots of, say, Obama's FISA vote, but it's a good thing despite that.

Posted October 6, 2008 7:02 AM by Bruce Baugh

#21: Sten, so you're making the Both Sides Are Just As Awful argument?

That means you think quality and content of argument is irrelevant? A variety of reputable organizations are making credible, substantive allegations against McCain. OTOH, McCain's allegations against Obama are flimsy guilt-by-association attacks.

The logical extension to your argument is that the media should simply take every candidate at his or her word. Any sort of fact checking, or digging back into a candidate's past might expose something unsavory. And, well, that might lead to the well-researched Rolling Stone article you seem so unhappy with.

Posted October 6, 2008 7:06 AM by John Chu

Sten @ 21

While I have the advantage of having not to delve that deeply into US electoral politics, your post still moves me to write a reaction.

But since I have now browsed your other posts, I will keep it short.
You do not like the two-party-system, forcing you to choose between just two candidates, and think of staying at home since no candidate is exactly on your side. Those who support on candidate, hoping for the lesser evil keeping the catastrophical evil at bay, are un-nuanced tribalists.

This is a very high-minded and morally pure conviction, staying above the fray and all that. I sincerely hope that there will be very, very few people in the US who share it.

Posted October 6, 2008 7:10 AM by Jörg Raddatz

Sten #21, I cannot recommend any effort to persuade people not to speak out against evil; categorizing the will to do good as "tribalism" does nothing to actually solve any of the problems of the day.

Posted October 6, 2008 7:13 AM by Earl Cooley III

Regardless of "tribalism" -- which seems to me to be another version of identity politics -- I think that McCain's Keating 5 past should be closely examined particularly in light of our current financial situation and how we got here. Especially when so many of McCain's campaign staff (!!Phil Gramm!!) are arguably the architects of the disaster.

Posted October 6, 2008 7:39 AM by Connie H.

Sten's criticism of ML supposedly getting into partisan politics would be more credible if Sten had ever posted anything on ML that was not about partisan politics.

In the words of that great liberal political hero* Jack Ryan: "Not black and white, Mr President. Right and wrong."

*I could wheel out the Why Tom Clancy Is A Liberal Writer rant now but choose not to...

Posted October 6, 2008 8:00 AM by ajay

Sten #21: It is, undoubtedly, very nice to be so high-minded. The reality, however, is that the structure of the American political system impels voters to choose between two large political blocs, and all other votes at the national level are wasted.

That structure is created by

(1) The single-member district system for election to the House of Representatives.

(2) The one-at-a-time electoral system for election to the Senate (in effect a single-member district system)

(3) The fact that there can be only one president.

This creates a situation in which there can be only two viable political parties (a condition known to political science as Duverger's Law, after the French political scientist who first identified it back in 1951 in relation to the British political system). That is, only two parties capable of forming legislative majorities or winning the presidency.

It isn't a matter of McCain/Palin being evil, or Obama/Biden being agents of light. McCain and Palin promise the continuation of the past eight years of failed policies. Obama and Biden promise change, and change based on policies that have been carefully thought-through.

You may want other options, but there aren't any.

Posted October 6, 2008 8:04 AM by Fragano Ledgister

Sten,

I know Republicans, even of the evangelical Christian tribe, who are wonderful people. In fact, I usually eat breakfast with one since an odd confluence of schedules makes us the only people around that early in the office.

And for the sake of my breakfast conversation, I am looking forward to a decrease in political heat and a general smoothing out of political waters. During the primaries, we could talk politics so long as it was still a horse race on both sides. Now, though, we have to confine ourselves to other topics, such as the wrongness of turkey bacon. Frankly, we beat that topic to a pulp months ago.

So, I get it. You're uncomfortable with this direct political rhetoric implying that the choice between candidates matters enough that ML would appear to take sides. And indeed, my breakfast conversation would go much smoother if we could safely wander over to politics and comfortably agree that everyone had both good sides and bad sides. There have been some awkward silences lately.

But you know what? I do more than eat breakfast. I am not completely insulated from what policies get enacted in Washington. I have to live with whatever happens, and do strongly believe that my life will be materially different given different policies.

And, yes, Obama isn't perfect. He veered way to hard to center after getting the nomination for my tastes. He has shown repeated issues with addressing grown women he's not close to as "Sweetie". My first reaction on hearing his VP pick was "He picked Biden? Edwards was irresponsible running for President with that affair waiting to explode, but you know what Edwards wouldn't have done? He wouldn't have picked Joe Bankruptcy Biden." I still think Biden has a lot to answer for his role in shaping and supporting the bankruptcy bill.

That being said, are you surprised that our hosts and the vast majority of commenters here see the Obama/Biden ticket as far, far preferable to the McCain/Palin ticket? Are you honestly surprised that Theresa would link to sites that, while partisan, make an argument from well-documented history, (*) and condemn the tactic of guilt-by-osmosis?

What site did you think you were reading? Our hosts are very well known to be: 1) progressives, and 2) political pragmatists. They've never shown to hold with the protest-left tactic of voting third party because the Democrats are ideologically sullied. I find your surprise and disappointment - if genuine - very puzzling.

(*) Mostly. The Keating five stuff is well documented, but I concur with SeanH@11 on the quality of "John McCain's Sweet Ride"

Posted October 6, 2008 8:35 AM by Daniel Martin

Ugh. I knew about a lot of this stuff (though not that McCain broke under torture -- thanks for that), but looking at the articles on that US Veteran Dispatch site made me ill. Are you sure you want to cite articles from a publication that thinks it's OK to sell shirts reading "Osama has a crush on Barack Hussein Obama"? That kind of crap makes everything they say suspect, IMO.

Posted October 6, 2008 8:42 AM by Nora

Palin's trying to imply Obama's associated with Ayers. I think it would be fair of the Obama camp to reply with questions about her connections to Muthee as a response.

In short: He's the pastor who blessed her against witchcraft, who she says nice things about, and who, among other things, she credits for her gubernatorial win. In Kenya, he's implicated in at least one honest-to-God witch hunt, for his own political gain. He accused a little old lady of being a witch, had her jailed, forced her to "accept" his brand of Christianity, and then she fled town in fear of her life.

Posted October 6, 2008 8:56 AM by Leva Cygnet

I, personally, found the Rolling Stone article both surprising and illuminating. I've had no illusions about McCain's behavior over the last several years, and I knew about his part in the Keating Five, but most of the older stuff about his youth and Navy career was news to me.

As far as I'm concerned, the most troubling aspect in him is not the opportunism and selfishness, but the temper.

Posted October 6, 2008 9:01 AM by Wakboth

I'd hold my nose and vote Biden for Pres if it came down to a choice between him and any of the Republican candidates.

The Republican party has already identified GLBT people as the other tribe. Dems, not quite as much. I have a choice between candidates who'll try to enact a federal Civil Unions bill, and will accept states that choose to allow full marriage, and ones who, while they won't vote for a federal marriage amendment, won't do anything else other than natter about how they really like certain gay people as friends.

GLBT people have been kicked in the teeth by Republicans enough to know who to vote against. After 8 years of dealing with Republicans, I'm a little gleeful at the prospect of having a President AND a Congress who'll probably work on something to advance the rights of same sex couples. I'm not thrilled with seperate but equal, but at least it's a step past nonexistent.

Also, I'd like a SCOTUS who won't overturn Roe v. Wade/ McCain has promised (for what that's worth) to point a judge who will overturn it if he can, and god knows what else. Scalia would overturn Griswold if he could. McCain wants more judges in that vein.

And finally, anyone who thinks the Iraq war was a good idea, and says he'd do it again is a fecking idjit, and should be kept way from political office by all right thinking folk.

I'm not so much on the Obama bandwagon, though there are things about him I admire. I'm hoping that the McCain bandwagon burns down, and I'd like to salt the earth under it afterward.

Posted October 6, 2008 9:08 AM by Josh Jasper

Sten, I believe I'm a bit offended by your notion that this all boils down to tribalism and team sports. My support for Obama was not lightly arrived at.

our current popular political zeitgeist pretends that the artificial black/white dichotomy is not only natural, but preferable.

I still believe all of us are political amalgams, and that no one party can represent us all the time in all ways. Certainly no candidate can do this.

Posted October 6, 2008 9:43 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Nora (32), I freely acknowledge that the U.S. Veteran Dispatch site ranges from "unreliable" to "loony" on a lot of issues, but I believe it's solid on his record when he was in the military.

Posted October 6, 2008 9:52 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Teresa @ 36... there's your problem

Cue in Adam Savage saying that after he looks at what remains of a concrete-mixer truck after it's been loaded with hundreds of pounds of explosives.

Posted October 6, 2008 9:55 AM by Serge

Every time I see someone arguing that the entire choice in politics is brought down to a lesser-of-two-evils choice, something of a tribalistic rivalry between two artificial ideologies, I remember something my brother did:

He has always been very into politics (now he's a lawyer with the UN), and the first time he was old enough to vote was 2000. He argued with my mother a great deal about how it truly didn't matter which one he backed, because both Gore and Bush were totally unacceptable. In the end, he did not vote.

When the US invaded Iraq, he called my mother up and apologized, saying that he wouldn't make that same mistake again.

It may be a lesser-of-two-evil's situation, but don't ignore how much greater the evil in that greater-of-two-evils is. Too often, it's the difference between a fistfight and a gunfight.

I hope that nobody has to see much more of the greater-of-two-evils in action before people realize just how much of a difference there is between the lesser-evil and the greater-evil.

(Note that I do not in fact think either parties are in fact evil, but rather lesser/greater goods, but the terminology is standard and the same basics apply.)

Posted October 6, 2008 9:59 AM by Micah

Micah, kudos to your brother for making the connection, and then phoning to apologize.

Posted October 6, 2008 10:07 AM by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

What kind of Christian would believe in African witch doctors and their alleged powers?

Posted October 6, 2008 10:09 AM by P J Evans

PJ Evans: the kind who has realized that if they actually believe that their god is all-powerful, they can't feed their own sense of self-importance by being a Soldier of Christ. So they do the double-think thing, whereby God Always Triumphs at the same time that The Devil Is Mighty.

Posted October 6, 2008 10:21 AM by Carrie S.

Teresa @ 36... I'm a bit offended by your notion that this all boils down to tribalism

If memory serves me right, following 9/11, Democrats put aside their dislike of Bush, for the good of the country. After which he and many Republican politicians proceeded to squander everybody's goodwill for their own personal, financial and political gains. So, I too am quite offended at being accused of tribalism.

Posted October 6, 2008 10:31 AM by Serge

P J Evans (#41): A maverick! (To be said in the same tone of voice as "The Aristocrats!")

Posted October 6, 2008 10:57 AM by Christopher Davis

Maver... ...ick.

Posted October 6, 2008 11:05 AM by TomB

I think I parsed Sten's comment at #21 rather differently than most other folks. I agree with him that the country is becoming uncomfortably polarized--indeed, I think that's more-or-less an element of the strategy employed by both parties, but I think rather more by the Republicans, because they have little else to unite their voters. And I've also been a bit dismayed by the willingness of lots of people here to apply radically different standards to their side and the other side. (Something similar seems to be happening on the right, but with a lot more hatred directed inward at the Republicans. But I'm not sure that's a widespread phenomenon.)

That doesn't remotely mean that both sides are the same, or that there's nothing to choose from between them. The Republican party had unified control of the government for six years, about four of them in a widely-accepted state of national emergency. They made a hell of a mess, one we'll be trying to clean up for the next decade or two. For that alone, the current Republican candidate needs to lose the election, because (despite the common claims to the contrary) election results really do send a strong signal to political parties. If the Republicans suffer a crushing defeat this November, which I very much expect they will, it will shake things up within the party. With luck, the pain of losing power and patronage will encourage Republicans to find some better people, strategies, and (hopefully) ideas. That's important, because as Fragano says, our political system pretty much guarantees two big parties. We need them both to be mostly sane and decent. If we arrive in 2012 or 2016 with a Republican party that's no longer the party of torture or unlimited government power or invading half the countries on the globe, maybe one that marries the "thou shalt not" side of Christianity with the "do unto others as you'd have them do to you" side, then we will end up with a much better nation. Along with that, McCain has demonstrated time and again that he's not a great choice for president. IMO, his VP choice, alone, is enough to call his executive decisionmaking into question.

But that doesn't change the fact that a hell of a lot of folks on the left and right are playing rather fast and loose with logic and rules of evidence, in order to find ways to accuse each other of being devils.

Posted October 6, 2008 11:17 AM by albatross

Serge@19: Two ridings in Toronto this weekend, and apparently Willowdale and Guelph during the byelections.

Various links in my lj here, to avoid sticking so many links in this comment that it gets moderated.

Posted October 6, 2008 11:20 AM by Marna Nightingale

Zander #10:

The most plausible explanation, to me, is desperation. They can see that the wheels are coming off, that the band-aid they've managed to apply to the financial markets won't mask the disaster there for long, that they've chosen an embarrassment as a VP candidate, that the legacy of the Bush administration is too painful to overcome. They can look at the per-state polling numbers, where the economic pain is happening and is going to happen. They know how much of their base is mad as hell at them, how many folks aren't coming in to volunteer, how many aren't sending any money this year.

And so, they're desperate. The only thing they have left is fear--get people scared that Obama is a secret terrorist, that he'll nationalize the Fortune 500 (no, wait, I think that's a Bush Administration policy now), surrender to all our enemies, impose massive affirmative action and similar policies, etc. That he's an atheistic, elitist[1] super liberal, or a member of a radical black Christian church, or a fundamentalist Muslim, or maybe all three at once. Because if they can't scare a whole lot of their base to come out and vote, they've had it. They're making a lot of high-risk, moderate-reward decisions right now. Outside of incompetence, the best explanation is that they see themselves losing and are trying to salvage something.

It's going to be a brutal election for the Republicans this year. They've earned it.

[1] Because when you're the black child of a divorced white mom who was largely raised by your grandparents, and you're running against the son and grandson of admirals who is presently a multi-millionaire by marrying well, it's clear that you are the elitist. What could be more obvious?

Posted October 6, 2008 11:34 AM by albatross

#46: I agree that there are people of all political dispositions playing fast and loose. However, Sten spoke only in general. He didn't cite anything in what Teresa had written that was a case of anyone playing fast and loose. That's why it read to me like he was flogging the "Both sides are the same argument."

If that's not what he'd meant, I apologize for misunderstanding him.

Posted October 6, 2008 12:04 PM by John Chu

SeanH @ #15

What you're reaching for isn't a tense, but the subjunctive mood. Currently on its way to extinction by most accounts, but useful for indicating hypothetical or counterfactual scenarios. Thus:

McCain has to try to keep up the impression that Palin was a good pick. -- Ok in the indicative.

Anything that made her leave the ticket now makes him look completely erratic and utterly lacking in judgment. -- You set up the hypothetical proposition correctly in the subjunctive, but the second clause, being the hypothetical consequence of that hypothetical scenario also needs the subjunctive: "... would make him look ...."

This is the way he looks already to most of America, it seems, -- Ok in the indicative.

but if he actually admits the hideous glaring mistake and jettisons Palin it'll all be over. -- "If" is always a good sign that we're entering hypothetical (and so, subjunctive) territory. Again, both the premise and its consequence are hypotheticals and call for the subjunctive: "... if he actually admitted ... it'd all be over."

I have sometimes contemplated founding a Society for the Promotion of Subjunctivity. But then I fall back on settling for correcting affect/effect errors in all my co-workers' writing.

Posted October 6, 2008 12:14 PM by Heather Rose Jones

It's fine by me for people who actually are elite to act in a manner which is consistent with their abilities.

Posted October 6, 2008 12:16 PM by Earl Cooley III

Albatross --

The voting machines are still there. If the Republicans have the big brass ones, all they need is for polling results to be reported in such a way that the race seems close enough to swing on election day. (Cue much pious head-shaking about latent and un-admitted racism.) They can certainly get that; I can't imagine why they wouldn't get that.

Polarization in general, well, y'all are in a situation where you have very real differences of opinion about very substantial things. It looks, from outside and far away, like the syncretic Americanism civil religion is making a bid for long term survival through forcible suppression of all possible sources of dissent or contradiction. That this is crazy doesn't mean those involved are going to give up of their own will.

Forms of organization able to support large cities, distributed collaboration, and the advancement of science require a willingness to admit that you're wrong, readily and directly. It is not in any way optional.

If you're from a rigid hierarchy culture, where admitting to error is permission for others to abuse you, this is somewhere between really difficult and a hideous sin.

The two forms of social organization cannot co-exist in the long term; the rigid hierarchy types figured that out at least a generation ago, and are fine with the probable costs of destroying the collaborative, post-industrial, information age culture. The thing itself they hate, because by existing it means they're wrong, and they've been working for a generation to get rid of it.

Look at how much of the energy comes from making the "Liberal" side admit that it was in error to tell the "Conservative" side it was or is wrong about civil rights, full legal status of women, contraception, equitable labour laws, the entire New Deal package of financial reforms...

It's "how dare you tell us we're wrong", from a culture where admission of error is supinate surrender, not a normal part of building a consensus, and it's backed by a lot of money and effort. (In part because "wealth" is an unrestricted good in that syncretic religion; it doesn't matter how you got that way. Something that will tell you your means weren't wrong is presumably of value to all but the complete sociopaths.)

The two cultural streams are not compatible. Economic marginalization isn't enough. This one really is going to have to be comprehensively resolved, one way or another, and the electorate has started to notice.

Posted October 6, 2008 12:17 PM by Graydon

Heather 50: Actually I think "If he...jettisons Palin" is OK in the indicative too. It has a slightly different meaning: it's a real conditional, and means that if McCain does this dumb thing in the future, the consequences will be thus-and-so.

The subjunctive version is more of an explanation of why he has NOT done that, because if he did, the consequences WOULD BE thus-and-so. I think you're correct in that that was SeanH's intent, but the other isn't bad either.

Btw, a friend of mine in college had a button that said "Save the subjunctive! ...would that we could."

Posted October 6, 2008 12:21 PM by Xopher

Xopher @53, Heather @ 50: Sorry to digress, but I can't resist adding an anecdote about the subjective. There's a marvelous story about John Voelker, Michigan's "literary justice" (aka Robert Traver, author of Anatomy of a Murder)--he evidently once used a double subjective in the peroration to one of his state supreme court decisions, to the awe and delight of his colleagues. If I remember the line correctly, it was "If eccentricity were a crime, then all of us were felons."

Okay. I'll go back to lurking on-topic, now.

Posted October 6, 2008 12:39 PM by Mary Frances

If the McCain campaign feels that it is appropriate to bring up William Ayers, perhaps it would also be appropriate to review and compare the bombing careers of both McCain and Ayers.

McCain will probably come out ahead because he was a professional bomber, with his institutional support and funding more severely impacting the people he bombed. Ayers was more of a hobbyist in comparison.

Posted October 6, 2008 12:40 PM by Carol Maltby

Re: voting ... given the rising groundswell of distaste for McCain, and polls that show Obama with a *clear* and growing lead, what do you think would happen if McCain won by Diebold? At this point, if they held the vote today, I think the fraud would be painfully obvious.

I am thinking the outrage this time around would be a bit more hot.

Posted October 6, 2008 12:51 PM by Leva Cygnet

Nice to see you posting in full form again, Ms. T

Posted October 6, 2008 12:54 PM by Clifton Royston

Leva --

What kind of outrage would be required for the folks who own the voting machines to care?

Remember that they are in favour of a collapse of governmental legitimacy; no legitimate (meaning, people agree it's legitimate even when they disagree with it) government clears the field for the direct application of money and guns. They want that.

Were any to be required, this would be full, sufficient, and ample proof that those owners of the voting machines are not suffused with cleverness, but to do the experiment should prove it were a full grievous thing to have seen done.

Posted October 6, 2008 1:01 PM by Graydon

#13 ::: Sten :::

All hail the Obamaton!

Woo. That's right out of the slaveholding disunionists' playbook for referencing President Lincoln. They had so many charming and intelligent appellations for him, such as 'President Apious', 'First Ape,' etc,

Love, C.

Posted October 6, 2008 2:33 PM by Constance

Leva, Graydon:

And that sounds just like the emergency situation that King George would need to begin his reign.

Posted October 6, 2008 2:36 PM by Nangleator

May I include an encouraging word?

From today's Columbus Dispatch, in an article "Rock the Early Vote:"

"Preliminary data indicate that more than 60 percent of those who also registered to vote in Frankling County during the early voting period were younger than 34 years old -- and more than 80 percent of voters already registered with a party who cast absentee ballot were Democrats."

Posted October 6, 2008 2:39 PM by Lori Coulson

IIRC, the material in the RS article has been known for a very long time. Only a few weeks ago it was up on CounterPunch. Daily Kos has talked about it for years.

I've referenced these articles now and again, particularly the mavrik's history with his planes.

Love, C.

Posted October 6, 2008 2:42 PM by Constance

But G Gordon Liddy is "cool" to potential McCain voters. He's a popular talk-show host, advocate of conservative causes, etc. So associating McCain with him can only help, not hinder.

And according to Wikipedia, McCain's involvement with the Keating Five was minimal - he was pretty much exonerated by the Ethics Committee - "you did wrong, but not so wrong we should punish you."

So these "McCain Association" attacks may not work as well as the Obama Association attacks. Also, are we trying to exaggerate McCain's connection to these people, as the Right Wing Noise Machine is doing for Obama?

FOX News demonstrated that it was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party yesterday. Just after McSame announced his stepped-up personal attacks, Hannity had a special program on "Obama's History of Radicalism", playing up the Ayers and Rashid Khalidi connections, at least in the 7 minutes I saw.

SeanH @ 23: my mother's version of that is "mental constipation and verbal diarrhea". Which describes Palin's debate performance pretty well - not thinking much, but boy a lot of words come out.

Posted October 6, 2008 2:51 PM by Jon Baker

I read ML everyday, but almost never comment.

But I got a piece of mail last week that disturbs me and in all my travels on the web I haven't seen anyone mention it. The timing is such that I'm betting it is tied to the upswing in attacks against Obama and his supposed ties to terrorists. Actually, I'd be amazed if it wasn't.

Has anyone else gotten a mailing from a group called The Clarion Fund containing a DVD titled Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West?

This is touted as a "pre-release" special one hour edition of what I think started as a legitimate documentary. The group mailing this out cites reviews and film festival awards and a short four word quote from the executive producer of the TV show "24", all to try to shore up that this is the real deal. All that is on the outside of the mailer.

When you open it, the hate starts. There is a picture of a tiny child holding a rifle on the right and links to a website www.radicalislam.org, where you can go to learn "activism ideas" for fighting radical Islam. The website is extremely twisted. I didn't spend much time there because swimming in filth is not my idea of a good time.

The kicker lines for me were where they urge you to use this information to make the right decision when voting in November.

I've been a registered Democrat since I was eighteen years old, which was a long time ago. I have to wonder how I got on The Clarion Fund's mailing list or why they thought I'd be receptive to this brand of hate mongering.

Has anyone else seen this or is this a special treat for living in Ohio?

Posted October 6, 2008 2:55 PM by Jaime

I'm in Cleveland, and I received that DVD too. From what I understand, other people in other states (was it just swing states?) got it as well. I haven't watched it, nor do I intend to. Right now, I'm trying to think of something appropriately symbolic to do with it. I think we actually got three, one for each registered voter in the house.

Posted October 6, 2008 2:59 PM by Summer Storms

Jaime@64:

It's not just you, but it is targeting the swing states primarily. There's strong suspicion that the distribution of this DVD was behind the terrorist attack described here.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:04 PM by Daniel Martin

Daniel: Yes, I'd heard that too, and share that suspicion.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:07 PM by Summer Storms

That DVD has been linked to an act of domestic terrorism in Ohio. Incidentally I had a weird difficulty finding that report on mainstream news sites.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:11 PM by SeanH

#63 Jon Baker: And according to Wikipedia, McCain's involvement with the Keating Five was minimal

According to Wikipedia? Wow!

McCain used to vacation in the Bahamas with Charlie Keating, on Keating's dime. McCain's wife and father-in-law had a business relationship with Charlie Keating.

McCain's involvement with Keating was deep, close, and long-standing.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:13 PM by James D. Macdonald

Ach, pipped in the ten minutes it takes me to write a comment while playing Advance Wars.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:14 PM by SeanH

In other news, it's neat to see the Obama campaign come out with a "McCain/Keating Five" website/documentary 'in response' to the McCain campaign's recent Ayers insinuations.

Some observations in search of comment from people wiser than I:
1) I think the McCain campaign started pushing on the Ayers stuff only last week. Can you really do a documentary like this over a weekend? When was this made? Have they been holding on to this for a while now, waiting for the right occasion?

1') If I ever need to follow a "taking the high road, but pragmatically" strategy, I should remember to frame all of my negative stuff as "in response" to the other side's scurrilous attacks.

2) Prosecuting corruption cases is a matter of proving a "quid pro quo". The "quid" and the "quo" are usually easy to prove. But if you're even a little good at playing stupid, the "pro" is basically unprovable, unless you were dumb enough to put things in writing, or unless the quid you delivered was so bizarre as to be inexplicable except as "pro quo."

2') If somebody bribes me, I should remember to be their friend. That way, if I'm ever accused of being bribed, I'll be able to say that it was all a matter of friendship: I never sold influence for money; it's simply a case of my good friend giving me contributions for the sake of friendship, and me making sure that my old dear friend is getting a fair shake.

3) Random language aside: What happened to all the wonderful American accents we used to have on TV? Are there any more congresspeople who sound like Sen. Howell Heflin? I haven't heard that voice in the news since I was a kid, and it's a kind of a shame. What happened? Has Southern American English changed, or are people who speak so it so strongly getting elected less by their neighbors?

4) Does the swiftness of the Obama campaign's response here, plus the claims that this is in response to the McCain campaign's negative thrust, send a signal that they're sitting on several more of these?

[Note: Despite my sympathy for the a-plague-on-both-your-houses argument, I'm voting for Obama this year: looking at the last 16 years, I think rather spend the next four years being disappointed as I was by Clinton than being outraged as I have been by Bush the Younger. IMO, if an elected official you like does not disappoint you, this is a sign that your expectations are too low.]

Posted October 6, 2008 3:16 PM by Lighthill

I'm in Florida right now, where the airwaves are blanketed by political ads.

The McCain campaign seems to be fielding only smear ads. The Obama campaign is fielding mostly positive ads. I'm also impressed by the production quality and the way they strive to paint Obama as a raving Moderate. Yay!

Sighted today, a car with an Obama sticker and "Choose Life" plates.

Note - I've absolutely no intention to turn this into an brtn thread - just amazed at the juxtaposition.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:22 PM by Larry Brennan

I have been quite amused by the McCain ad depicting Obama as the stereotypical tax-loving Democrat, whose shadow spreads all over the Land. That reminds me I should watch Lord of the Rings again.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:38 PM by Serge

It's not true that Liddy is "cool" to potential McCain voters. He's "cool" to a proper subset of potential McCain voters: people whose support McCain can already count on. (And even that overstates things. A political party is a coalition. Not all members of the Republican coalition are snarling culture warriors.)

If McCain has already exhausted his potential, if there are no potential McCain voters beyond the ones who are already committed to him, then he will lose big. Elections take place at the margin.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:41 PM by Matt Austern

Re the "Obsession" DVD

From The Denver Post, Oct. 1:

"The discs were included as advertising supplements in newspapers including The Denver Post and via direct mail."

Neither of my newspapers has included it, but apparently it's shown up in a lot of Sunday supplements over the past two weeks.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:53 PM by Linkmeister

Jim @ 69: Of course Wikipedia is biased, according to the whim of the last person to edit the article. But it may be a second source that people look to, after coming across the McSame/Cheating Five website.

The "Obsession" video(s) have been making the rounds in Orthodox Jewish circles for the past year or two. You can watch it in 10-minute segments on YouTube; that's where I saw it. It's mostly to remind us how the Arabs hate us. I find it bizarre/appalling that it's being circulated to encourage people to vote for Republicans in swing states, though.

I think there are different versions of different lengths, but they're all pretty repetitive, and mostly about Arab antisemitism, rather than anti-Americanism, although there was some anti-Americanism mixed into the version I've seen.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:55 PM by Jon Baker

Ours came via direct mail.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:56 PM by Summer Storms

We got a copy of the 60-minute _Obsession_ a few weeks ago, as a paid insert into the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer. Pennsylvania (like most of the other places I've heard of this DVD going) is a battleground state where lots of ad time is being bought, but Obama's lead has been lengthening of late.

I saved my copy in case the library where I work would find it of interest, but it turns out they've already got a copy. I might take a look at it after the election, if that goes well, to analyze its persuasion techniques, but I don't think I'd be detached enough for it to do much now than raise my blood pressure.

On the hitting back against personal attacks, Obsidian Wings has some useful discussions going on now. I'd agree with the sentiment over there that the way to do it is to keep it focused, and tied to bad policy decisions on issues that voters care about. So if the Keating video, which I haven't yet seen, focuses on McCain's poor judgment in deregulation in that case, it should work well-- it's an issue salient right now, and you don't have to prove criminal wrongdoing on McCain's part for it to stick; horrible judgment suffices.

Some of the other stuff at the top of the post (like the HuffPo stuff) doesn't appear to be as focused, or (like the USVD stuff) is via questionable sources, so it may just come off as scattering mud to see what sticks. Obama's campaign shouldn't need to do that, and they can credibly call out McCain for doing it if Obama sticks to counterattacks related to the issues of governance.

Posted October 6, 2008 3:57 PM by John Mark Ockerbloom

I suggest you take a look at Krugman's editorial in the Times.

I think it would be very effective to tell people that "McCain wants to do to your health-care what the administration just did to the banking industry - make the whole industry collapse, and then spend more of your money to bail it out." (And he wants to start by taking away any insurance you have.)

Posted October 6, 2008 4:01 PM by Clifton Royston

Larry #72:

In the DC area (I don't remember if the station is in VA or MD), I've heard one Obama radio ad play several times in Spanish, quoting McCain's comment about how the fundamentals of the economy are sound in English, then translating it into Spanish and pointing out that his party and ideas are responsible for the present disaster. I burst into laughter hearing Obama's voice at the end: "Yo soy Barrack Obama, y yo apruebo esta mensaje."

The only other local media I get much of is public radio, which is thankfully free of ads. But MD is not a battleground state.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:07 PM by albatross

Also: I have made essentially no political contributions this year up until now. That's because I was waiting until I thought they'd do the most good. This last month of the campaign cycle is when ads are likely to stick most with the undecided.

Yesterday I made a number of donations, both direct to the Obama and DNC organizations, and to outside PACs like Moveon and Planned Parenthood Action. (I think I might have just made more political donations than I'd made in my life up til now.)

The independent groups can run more aggressively critical (but still truthful) ads that dig a little harder. For example, Planned Parenthood Action has a TV ad about Palin's billing Wasilla rape victims for the evidence kits. I don't see how anyone normal can hear that and not go "Oh, ick."

Posted October 6, 2008 4:10 PM by Clifton Royston

Summer Storms @77

The direct mail piece could have been through the newspaper. When our local paper was a McClatchy paper (and I worked there) they sold packages where you put your insert in the Sunday paper and it would also be bulk-mailed to any nonsubscribers in certain ZIP codes.

We don't subscribe and still get their ad package in our mail, so I assume they still do that.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:11 PM by Rosa

As further support for my desperation theory, check out electoral-vote.com, which currently shows a massive blowout in favor of Obama. I have no idea how closely the real results will track with this, but it sure as hell doesn't look good for McCain right now. And that's what you'd expect. IMO, the financial system meltdown all but guaranteed he would lose the election--the combination of his votes in the Senate, his party apparently being most responsible for the meltdown, his ugly involvement in the previous disaster of this kind, and his choice of someone with essentially no relevant experience or (apparently) understanding of the issues as VP, doomed him.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:13 PM by albatross

Summer Storms: We got the DVD via direct mail, as well. (It went directly in the trash.) We're in the Boulder/Denver area, and we don't subscribe to any of the papers.

We do get (would that we didn't*, though perhaps it's just as well that we do, as I don't know what else we'd use to get our fireplace started) a free newspaper-insert-style advertisement/grocery ads/outdated community news stories circular in our direct mail. I cannot swear that the DVD didn't arrive on the day that the circular did.

*Obligatory subjunctive content, and not any of this weaselly indicative conditional tense, nor that sneaky indicative future tensed used in the conditional sense! Discerning customers accept no substitutes for the Gen-yoo-ine Subjunctive Mode!

Posted October 6, 2008 4:15 PM by Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

Lighthill@71

4. The domain was registered on 25th September, which suggests to me that it originated as a response to McCain's campaign suspension chicanery on the 24th. A week and a half is ample time to put something like this together. So I'd say that this isn't something from a general heap of prepped ammo.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:17 PM by Jp

Re: "Obsession" -- we got ours in the paper here in Durham, NC (and I got two, since they insist on giving me a second copy of the Durham News even though I'm a paid subscriber of the Raleigh N&O, which includes a copy of the Durham News). This was probably a month ago.

You can see at fivethirtyeight.com how well it encouraged NC to break for McCain.

I have not yet watched it. On the one hand I want to. I want to know what is out there so I can fight it. On the other hand, I know it will make me physically ill. Raw hatred always does.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:18 PM by Caroline

Long time lurker, first time poster:

A few days ago I was talking politics with my dad and, while we agree on most things, there was one point on which we could not agree -- whether McCain is, in fact, a decent guy.

Thank you for posting these links. I'm definitely passing some of them his way later.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:28 PM by Kimberly

Thanks to all of you for the information on the Obsession DVD. I have no plans to watch it. The website was enough for me.

It did come direct mail, and no, I don't subscribe to any of the newspapers here in Columbus. I get news via the web or news magazines I buy on the newsstand. They could be pulling names off voting rolls for all I know.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that amidst the flood of election year mailings and ads that campaigns like this aren't commented on or reported more widely. When I don't see any mention anywhere I have to wonder if the hate campaigns are completely flying under the radar.

Or maybe there are so many of them these days no one has time to document them all.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:45 PM by Jaime

Jp @ #85: Even assuming that this effort hadn't gotten started before the domain was registered, having the domain registered as early as Sep 25 does kind of suggest that the Obama campaign had at least been considering something of this kind before the McCain campaign started re-dredging the bottom of the barrel, no? (AFAICT, the Ayers slander started getting uptake by the McCain campaign only after the too-little-too-late VP debate on ... Oct 2, I think?)

Possibilities:
- The Obama campaign had been planning this website, and they were only waiting for an opportune moment.
- They had been planning this as a possibility, but intended to hold off unless the McCain campaign went negative.
- They had been planning to do this no matter what, but seized on the McCain campaign going negative first as a justification.
- I am giving too much weight to the sources that say that the Obama did this in reaction to McCain's negative turn; they are all just engaged in the post hoc ergo prompter hoc dance that forces all of history to make sense after the fact.
- Other.

Posted October 6, 2008 4:55 PM by Lighthill

FYI: Unwanted CDs and DVDs make good Christmas ornaments. You can also use them as clock faces (clockworks are available at any good artist-supplies store), or cut them up and use them in jewelry if you're so inclined.

Posted October 6, 2008 5:07 PM by Lee

I've been trying to figure out what to do with the entire season of 24 a friend gifted me with. I think the jewelry/ornament idea has merit, but I'd rather burn them on a banishing fire. (I won't, because ick, burning plastic and hot, sharp aluminum, but it's where my heart is.)

As for Obsession, I think collecting a bunch of them and frisbeeing them into your local McCain HQ has merit. Let's let these bastards know we weren't born yesterday.

Posted October 6, 2008 5:35 PM by Xopher

Xopher... DVDs make excellent coasters.

Posted October 6, 2008 5:41 PM by Serge

Interesting billboard spotted over the weekend in Dallas. It was advertising for a "progressive talk radio" station.

In Dallas. The reddest big city in Texas, a city nearly owned by the Southern Baptists and Church of Christ. Just about the last place where I'd expect to see such a thing.

Somebody with a fair amount of money is convinced enough that the bottom is falling out of the Christianist takeover attempt to gamble in the other direction. I hope they're right.

Posted October 6, 2008 5:48 PM by Lee

FYI: Unwanted CDs and DVDs make good Christmas ornaments. You can also use them as clock faces (clockworks are available at any good artist-supplies store), or cut them up and use them in jewelry if you're so inclined.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not sure I'd want to use a hate-filled DVD as a Christmas ornament.

I have no objection to careful production of pretty blue arcs from DVDs inserted into a microwave oven, though.

Posted October 6, 2008 5:51 PM by Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey

If you are planning to frisbee them into a McPalin HQ, I'd recommend destroying them first so that they can't just turn around and hand them out to someone else.

If you don't already have a favorite DVD destruction technique, I second Bill's suggestion of microwaving them. Very pretty indeed! (And if you haven't yet read Jon Singer's microwave page, you should.)

Posted October 6, 2008 6:05 PM by Matt Austern

@ Lee #90 - I used to like to microwave the various ill-aimed CDs I got in the mail, but apparently this hurts the microwave.

I like this bit in the make-ornaments article:

Now, the first step is to Glue two CDs together. Glue them together so that the label is facing in and the shiny side is facing out.

Perfect.

Posted October 6, 2008 6:13 PM by Arachne Jericho

Nora: Of course McCain broke under torture, it's what torture does. Doing so is not a moral failing. Looking back, and making it possible for the laws of the U.S. to permit its agents to commit toture that's a moral failing.

Posted October 6, 2008 6:18 PM by Terry Karney

#90
They can also be hung in fruit trees (or from poles with arms) as bird-scarers.
Of course, there's always the CD used as a coaster.

I've been following the 'Obsession' story at Talking Points Memo, where they're saying that the Clarion Fund has close ties to at least one extremely pro-Israel group. What's weird (to me) is that Obama hasn't given any indication that he won't back Israel (although he might not be as pro-Israel as, say, Palin, who needs it for her 'End Times' lunacy).

Posted October 6, 2008 6:29 PM by P J Evans

I expected McCain to go negative in just this way, so I'm not outraged and it's not a surprise. It is interesting to me that they are recycling Wright and Ayers (and I expect, Rezko, though I haven't heard about it yet) -- it suggests they don't have anything else.

I am furious, still and always, with the media, who are treating the sleazy, fear-mongering attacks on Obama and the well-documented and unanswered attacks on McCain regarding the Keating 5 history as if the two campaigns were doing the same thing. Even NPR does this. When did the Lehrer Report turn into Fox News?

Posted October 6, 2008 6:31 PM by Lizzy L

If there's some way of cutting hexagons neatly out of CDs/DVDs, in quantity, one could make diffraction-grating tiles for covering large surfaces. One would want to mark each tile on the label side, before cutting, to indicate the orientation. But I haven't thought of a good way of doing the cutting.

Posted October 6, 2008 6:35 PM by Joel Polowin

Snapping an offending CD or DVD in two with your hands is not a good idea; I did that once, and it shattered into a bunch of pieces that flew across the room with surprising force.

Also, if you intend to Xena a DVD, don't forget about the possibility that you've left your fingerprints on the disc.

Posted October 6, 2008 6:36 PM by Earl Cooley III

Arachne: For this the thing to do is superglue them, with the labels out, so the content is plain, and the disks ruined. A single scratch, straight across the painted top (deep enough to cut the aluminum layer) is also good. If it was just the right balance of wide/thin it might even look as if the disk were still good, and get it sent out; unable to play.

Posted October 6, 2008 6:38 PM by Terry Karney

@ Terry #102

Awww but I want to dip it in suet for the birds....

Posted October 6, 2008 7:12 PM by Arachne Jericho

My wife incorporates microwaved (and blowtorched) CDs (and LPs) into her sculptures. Destruction can be so lovely.

Posted October 6, 2008 7:22 PM by Tim Walters

CD and DVDs can be destroyed quite easily with a cheap pair of scissors -- a single cut from the edge to the centre hole is sufficient.

Posted October 6, 2008 7:29 PM by mcz

I was quite surprised to see something favorable to McCain in the Rolling Stone article:

McCain has called Paul Weyrich, who helped steer the Republican Party to the right, a "pompous self-serving son of a bitch" who "possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain."

IMO the article drops the ball when they describe McCain switching from sincerely (their interpretation) opposed to excessive use of the U.S. military to sincerely backing neoconservatism. There's no doubt that he has backed both positions, but I don't think he was ever committed to either one.

People** keep trying to invent a virtue for McCain because he would look too cardboard-villain-y otherwise (well, at LEAST he MUST have the courage of his convictions, right?), but reality isn't constrained by the need to eschew melodrama. Some people really are pompous self-serving sons of bitches who possess the attributes of a Dickensian villain, and while it may not strictly speaking take one to know one, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that that's what happened at least in this instance.

*This is only a figure of speech. Actually, it's quite possible and even fairly common for one evil person to dislike another.

**Or maybe what I really mean is that media people do this, and they do it because they don't want to look partisan. (Well, they don't want to look liberal. It's fine to look conservative - their bosses won't mind.)

Posted October 6, 2008 7:38 PM by Chris

I used to collect AOL CDs and string them up in the garden to scare birds. They worked pretty good. Right wingnut fundy racist DVDs might actually be even more scary than AOL CDs. ;-)

Oh, and Teresa? Was it you who compared Palin to Glory? I've been watching Buffy Season 5 with my boyfriend (who has just discovered Buffy) and I keep giggling at inappropriate moments. Thanks for the mental imagery ...

Posted October 6, 2008 7:52 PM by Leva Cygnet

If you are unhappy with having our electoral choices reduced to only two by Duverger’s Law, I commend your attention to the work of the Center for Voting and Democracy. Isn’t it odd that our politicians pay great lip service to the free market, but won’t give us a free market in politicians?

Posted October 6, 2008 7:53 PM by Max Kaehn

Bruce @ 24:

Sten: "Methinks our current national crises (plural) are the result of our willingness to be tribalized by forces which stand to exploit this tribalization." No, they're not. They're the result of criminal collusion on the part of a fairly small group of people to profit from the nation at any expense to the rest of us, and also (in some of their cases) to deliberately destabilize the lives of the rest of us so that in a weakened and isolated condition, we will be better subjects.

Actually I think it's some of each. But the criminal collusion is the part I hope we can do something about this time.

Posted October 6, 2008 8:06 PM by Allan Beatty

#64 Jaime Has anyone else gotten a mailing from a group called The Clarion Fund containing a DVD titled Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West?

Yes, and I intend to post about it here very soon.

It's an astounding piece of work.

Posted October 6, 2008 8:18 PM by Jim Macdonald

The "Obsession" DVD turned up in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, too, apparently because the group bought ad space nationally with Gannett. The opinion editor ran an editorial column afterwards, in which he advised that "Anyone looking to refute the inaccuracies or misleading conclusions in 'Obsession' needs to remember that attempts to end rumors sometimes reinforce the negative emotions inspired by the rumors." Which I suspect is editor speak for "Stop hassling me about the DVD, dudes!"

Posted October 6, 2008 8:19 PM by Wesley

Bill, #94: I understand your viewpoint, but consider this: by turning the emblem of hate into a commemoration of the season of love, you completely frustrate and subvert the designs of its creators. To me, that's a Good Thing, and the best kind of use for something like this.

Post