John McCain is being roasted over perceived inconsistencies. Barack Obama? No.

In 2005 Obama worked on and then abandoned an anti-earmark legislation. In 2006 and 2007 he requested $740 million in earmarks, including money for his wife's hospital. In 2008 Obama again opposes earmarks. Strangely, even though McCain is a co-sponsor of the bill, Obama doesn't mention him.

Big deal? Not really. Earmarks are a Senate tradition and really are just a show issue that John McCain uses to tout his integrity. Getting rid of earmarks wouldn't significantly cut the Federal Budget.

Obama makes a big deal about not having any lobbyists on his staff. His chief strategist, David Axelrod, is the only one who doesn't think he's a lobbyist. Obama says his restriction is only on Federally registered lobbyists. Axelrod lobbies states. There's nothing wrong with lobbyists as long as the politician isn't accepting anything from them or making any decisions that are counter to the public interest. There's no indication either McCain or Obama have. Big deal? No, but lobbyists are demonized. Standing against them makes a candidate look good.

James Johnson has had some very questionable dealings with Countrywide. This after the campaign slammed Clinton over Mark Penn.Obama says it's not a big deal. He can't check all the connections of his advisors. And it really isn't a big deal. It shouldn't matter what Obama's advisor do. It's about what Obama does.

What makes it an issue is that the Democrats slam McCain over silliness like this and yet it's okay for Obama to do it. Obama holds himself up as being a different kind of politician and yet his campaign continually slams McCain on these things. McCain, who touts that he's running a "respectful campaign," then slams Obama on these sort of things. By focusing on these things neither of them are doing what they say they are doing. It'd be nice if we could just focus on the candidate's stances and policies and make a judgement there. Yeah. Yeah. I believe in unicorns too.

McCain Hearts Him Some Dick Cheney--or not:

[E]ven in a limited capacity, Cheney might make for an awkward surrogate given the prickly nature of his relationship with McCain.

After McCain said last year that Rumsfeld, Cheney’s friend and mentor in the Ford administration, would “go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history,” the vice president made plain his displeasure.

“I just fundamentally disagree with John,” Cheney told ABC News in an interview. “John said some nasty things about me the other day, and then next time he saw me, ran over to me and apologized. Maybe he’ll apologize to Rumsfeld.”

Cheney was alluding to an interview McCain gave to Politico in which he said President Bush “listened too much to the Vice President” and had been “very badly served by both the vice president and, most of all, the secretary of defense.”

Of course, McCain hasn’t always been critical of Cheney.

In an interview he gave to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes in 2006 for Hayes’s biography, “Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President,” McCain said: “I will strongly assert to you that he has been of enormous help to this president of the United States.”

Going further, McCain even told Hayes in comments heretofore unpublished that he’d consider Cheney for an administration post.

Asked whether he’d be interested in Cheney had the vice president not already have served under Bush for two terms, McCain said: “I don’t know if I would want him as vice president. He and I have the same strengths. But to serve in other capacities? Hell, yeah.”

Good thing he never flip-flops and has absolute 100 percent integrity. Hmm... maybe this explains the wiretap reversal.

Barack Obama wrote:: I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money in their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more rapidly, particularly U.S. automakers...

Barack Obama took an unpopular position on the gas prices. He recognizes that rising gas prices has reduced demand. That he took the position has to make conservationists happy. Then he took the opposite position. If he puts money into American pocketbooks and makes gas affordable for the American public consumption will go back up. Either you go for high prices to lower consumption and preserve the environment or low prices to help Americans. He seems to want both.

Obama posts here!?

Lou Dobbs considering running for NJ Gov?

Please no.

Also, since I made fun of Obama for the Boren comments, it seems both sides have a handful of hold outs.

GOPers
Dems

Also, Obama up 45-39 in NJ according to Quinnipiac.

Activists Preparing Against Use of ‘Brown Note’ at Dem Convention

Bahaha

jerseyhoya wrote:Activists Preparing Against Use of ‘Brown Note’ at Dem Convention

Bahaha

I think seeing a couple of hippies crap on themselves will help Obama reach those elusive working class whites.

I guess most or all of you have heard by now that the good folks at "Fox News" did a segment yesterday about Michelle Obama referring to her as "Obama's Baby Mama"

Stay classy, Fox News. (Read about it, including video, in Salon.com's War Room or at Talking Points Memo.)

Meanwhile, a 5-4 Supreme Court Majority has reinstated habeas corpus protections for military detainees like those at Guantanamo Bay. I guess I'm supposed to feel less safe now, but I don't. Actually, I feel a bit more safe knowing that in some cases there is still a sensible majority on the court.

Salon's blogger Glenn Greenwald notes the importance, in light of this particular decision, on how who wins this fall's election will affect the Supreme Court.

"UPDATE: Three of the five Justices in the majority -- John Paul Stevens (age 88 ), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (age 75) and David Souter (age 68 ) -- are widely expected by court observers to retire or otherwise leave the Court in the first term of the next President. By contrast, the four judges who dissented -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Sam Alito -- are expected to stay right where they are for many years to come.

John McCain has identified Roberts and Alito as ideal justices of the type he would nominate, while Barack Obama has identified Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Ginsberg (all in the majority today). It's not hyperbole to say that, from Supreme Court appointments alone, our core constitutional protections could easily depend upon the outcome of the 2008 election.

-- Glenn Greenwald"

(Note this is just a snippet of a much longer article, should not be a copyright problem.)

I had just heard of this now, but why the heck did Ms Obama say that?

Houshphandzadeh wrote:I had just heard of this now, but why the heck did Ms Obama say that?

What did she say?

Calling herself "Obama's Baby Mama," allegedly. It's dumb and derogatory.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Calling herself "Obama's Baby Mama," allegedly. It's dumb and derogatory.

But she didn't do that, did she? It was inserted in the crawl below during a Fox broadcast, "Outraged liberals: Stop picking on Obama's baby mama!"

Oh, I dunno. I think I misread Buddy's first line. I'm part of the spin cycle!!

Apparently when she was introducing him in 2004 for his victory speech on Election Night she introduced him as "My baby's daddy, Barack Obama. Yeah!"

But yeah, Fox News really shit the bed there.

swishnicholson wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Calling herself "Obama's Baby Mama," allegedly. It's dumb and derogatory.

But she didn't do that, did she? It was inserted in the crawl below during a Fox broadcast, "Outraged liberals: Stop picking on Obama's baby mama!"

That was my impression reading the story. I think Michelle Obama has a sense of humor, but I don't see it embracing self-reference as a "baby mama."

Though it's kind of funny to think of the rage-addled septuagenarians who watch Fox, blood pressure rising at the sight of either Obama, calling their children or grandchildren in perplexity and without even first saying hello, shouting "WHAT'S A BABY MAMA?!?"

Fox and Mike Huckabee sign a one year deal!

BuddyGroom wrote:Salon's blogger Glenn Greenwald notes the importance, in light of this particular decision, on how who wins this fall's election will affect the Supreme Court.

"UPDATE: Three of the five Justices in the majority -- John Paul Stevens (age 88 ), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (age 75) and David Souter (age 68 ) -- are widely expected by court observers to retire or otherwise leave the Court in the first term of the next President. By contrast, the four judges who dissented -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Sam Alito -- are expected to stay right where they are for many years to come.

John McCain has identified Roberts and Alito as ideal justices of the type he would nominate, while Barack Obama has identified Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Ginsberg (all in the majority today). It's not hyperbole to say that, from Supreme Court appointments alone, our core constitutional protections could easily depend upon the outcome of the 2008 election.

-- Glenn Greenwald"

(Note this is just a snippet of a much longer article, should not be a copyright problem.)

I thought Supreme Court nomination were the most important part of the last election cycle. With a Kerry victory, it would have secured a left leaning majority for several more decades. Now Alito and Roberts are so young that they will be on the court for decades. Add in Thomas to that and that's a sizable portion of a unbeatable majority.

Houshphandzadeh wrote:Oh, I dunno. I think I misread Buddy's first line. I'm part of the spin cycle!!

Oops, reading it again, I could have worded that more clearly.

Obama/McCain tax plans compared

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fbxpMw4mco[/youtube]

OBAMA'S NOT GETTIN' MY 710K