Stop Talking About Republican Flag-Desecration Scandal

Some of my fellow liberal bloggers have seized upon the documented fact that a huge American flag was dragged across the ground by the McCain campaign. They have even provided this video of the atrocity, which ought to make "real" Americans angry, especially here in Missouri, because Missouri is where they chose to demonstrate their disregard and disdain for America.
It bothers me to even post the video.

Despite my strong patriotism, I am calling on my fellow liberal bloggers to cease discussion of the Republican flag-desecration scandal. While it provides a vivid example of how the Republicans have a penchant for false patriotism, and how little respect they really have for patriotism after it has served their self-interest, I think that we should be better than that.

We should remember that not all Republicans are flag-tramplers. In fact, even in this case, we have no evidence that John McCain personally approved of the flag-dragging. I doubt that he personally approved or ordered the flag-desecration, because he has been terribly busy planning attacks on Obama's patriotism, and on the patriotism of those who support him. When Governor Palin claimed that "real Americans" are supporting her ticket, and "anti-Americans" are supporting Obama, I'm willing to bet that she was not even thinking about her next opportunity to drag the American flag across the ground.

Some might point out that the McCain campaign deserves to be criticized for this Republican Flag-Desecration Scandal, because they attempted to create and exploit a false flag desecration scandal earlier in the campaign in an attempt to damage Obama. To that I say, let bygones be bygones, and let's just ignore the Republican Flag-Desecration Scandal That Happened Right Here In Missouri!!

Why do I think we should ignore the Republican Flag-Desecration Scandal That Happened Right Here In Missouri? Because this campaign ought to be about the issues, not about the Republican Flag-Desecration Scandal That Happened Right Here In Missouri. Personally, I would rather talk about Health Care Policy and Foreign Policy and the Economy than the Republican Flag-Desecration Scandal That Happened Right Here In Missouri.

We also must remember that after November 4, we will need to work with the Republicans across the aisle, whether they were part of the Republican Flag-Desecration Scandal That Happened Right Here In Missouri, or not. So, please, fellow liberal bloggers, let's stop talking about the Republican Flag-Desecration Scandal That Happened Right Here In Missouri.

Okay? I don't want to see this video ever again.

Not Everyone Under Water is Drowning - Why John McCain's Erratic Homeowner Bailout is Unnecessary

McCain's debate performance was stylistically stronger than I anticipated, but it was more troubling than I ever dreamed. One of the things that scares people about McCain is his tendency toward erratic behavior (erraticism?). At the debate, during a time of international financial turmoil and domestic near-panic, McCain announced a crazed new plan to throw money at people who have demonstrated their lack of financial acumen - he wants to buy the mortgages of houses that are "under water". If you have a mortgage with a value higher than the market price of your home today, John McCain wants to buy your mortgage from your bank and give you a new one with a reduced value.

It's this sort of erratic over-reaction that concerns me about John McCain. That's not maverick, that's manic.

For those of us who view houses as homes, and not commodities, the relative value of our mortgage to our home's market price is not a burning issue. If you're not selling and you're not buying, it doesn't matter if you're underwater. If you're not in the market, the short-term market price isn't really all that big a deal.

I don't really know what the market value of my house is today. I don't have a precise number for how much we owe on it, either. Why should I care? The real number I focus on is how much I need to pay every month for my mortgage - and that does not fluctuate according to the market place. Even if I had an adjustable rate mortgage (which I don't, because I realized what the A in ARM stands for), I wouldn't be focused on the value of my house, I would be focused on the cost of my mortgage. If I have enough current income to service my mortgage, I don't need to focus on my long-term capital value.

Those of us who own one home, and live in that home, can swim underwater quite happily for a long time - at least until we need to sell. I don't need lifeguard John McCain to bail me out with your tax dollars.

For most of us, our home is our most significant capital investment. As with any capital investment, we hope it appreciates, but cyclical changes in value are only unrealized gains and losses, unless we choose to sell.

While there may be some economic rationality in walking away from a mortgage that is going toward the purchase of a home with a mortgage value greater than its market value, the truth of the matter is that most of us are not going to do that if we still have current income to service our mortgage. That's just not how real families work.

For real families, a house is not an investment to walk away from while you have enough income to pay the mortgage. Our children sleep in the bedrooms. We cook in the kitchens, and relax in the living rooms. The sense of "home" and stability is more important than what an appraiser says my building is worth. Even if it weren't, the hassle of moving and potential destruction of my credit rating would keep me from walking out.

But John McCain wants to use tax dollars to bail me out, even if I don't realize that my market value may be less than my mortgage value.

Like so many issues in America, this is a hidden class battle. John McCain owns multiple houses, so he doesn't share the same concept of "home" that the rest of us do. He has a portfolio of houses - somewhere between 8 and 13 diversified units that he holds largely as tax-favored investments. For him, it does not make even a tiny bit of sense to pay a million dollar note on a house that is worth $990,000. To him, that's the same as paying yesterday's value on a stock that has dropped one percent - it is an economical irrationality, and a crisis that must be solved with taxpayer money.

For most normal Americans, the housing crisis will not be a crisis unless we start losing our jobs. John McCain's proposal to inject massive amounts of tax dollars into the mortgage industry is not designed to save jobs - it's designed to save capital. Real estate does not employ people.

The average American family does not even have an accurate, up-to-date valuation of its home. The crisis does not exist in the possible gap between mortgage value and market value - the gap that John McCain wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to address. The crisis exists only in the possible gap between mortgage cost and current income. John McCain's plan ignores that gap.

That's the gap keeping America awake at night worrying, John McCain. "That one."

Debate Parties

Tonight, as on the evenings of prior 2008 debates, I'll be joining friends clustered around a television set to watch the debate between President-elect Obama and Senator-Since-Before-Keating-Scandal McCain. It's kind of a funny phenomenon, but I've participated in and heard about more such parties this year than in prior years. For the home-bound, there's even a blogger chat-room to provide a sense of community, hosted with video by Kansas City's most awesome blogger.

It sucks to be a Republican right now. Most polls show McCain/Palin down by double digits, and the Dems have this overwhelming sense of community, anticipation and excitement that must really be annoying from the perspective on the lesser side of the aisle. Even hopes of some October surprise (what could it be? bin Laden surrendering to McCain personally?) are fading, as they realize that the real October surprise is going to be quarterly retirement account statements that count as campaign mailers for change.

I think tonight is going to be the best debate of the bunch. McCain, quite correctly, believes he needs to score big. He's abandoned the high road already, so look for him to start slinging mud, and look for him to finally summon the courage to look Obama in the eye when he does it. And look for Obama to respond calmly and firmly, triggering that famous McCain rage that is causing him facial spasms already. The only question is how ugly it will get.

Through it all, though, McCain will be somehow less than Obama - an attacker trying to bring down a bigger man. In the end, Obama will appear more presidential than McCain.

It will be good to see it all with friends. Somehow, seeing Obama wax Presidential while McCain wanes is something to be enjoyed with a sense of community, and celebration. Yes, we can.

Single Issue McCain Calls a Time-Out

Honestly, when I first saw the breaking stories that McCain is suspending his campaign to come to DC and address the "fiscal crisis", I wondered if it was some odd "Half-way to April Fool's Day" joke.

How is it helpful to the process or to McCain? He's not on the committee handling the legislation, he's not an expert in economics (that's not a partisan attack - that's a self-assessment), and the last thing anybody needs here is more false urgency as the guys in suits gravely tell us we need to give them money quickly so they can help us.

Is anyone on earth somehow feeling better about McCain because he feels he cannot possibly give this issue the attention it deserves while continuing on with his scheduled activities? In a McCain administration, will the United States have only one issue facing it at a time - will we have a season for making sure Wall Street rich people remain sufficiently "incentivized", a season for national defense/Halliburton, a season for energy policy/Exxon, and a season on tax reform? (But not a day for environment or civil rights, of course.)

I like to think that the next president of the United States will be able to walk from a briefing on China to a policy meeting on immigration to a press conference on corporate governance to an international summit on Greenhouse Gases without hitting overload on his intellectual capacity.

McCain can't do that.

When McCain announced his suspension, he called a metaphorical time-out on third and debate. Like a quarterback looking across the line of scrimmage and seeing the linebackers preparing to blitz, he buckled under the pressure. One linebacker was named Palin's Faltering Image. Another linebacker was Voter Memory of the Keating 5. Another linebacker was Increasing Worries About His Health. 100 Years of Iraq was another linebacker ready to lay a hit on him. And the biggest linebacker was Obama, looking fast and healthy and ready to sprint in and toss him for a bone-crushing loss as soon as the debate whistle blows. It seems like there are too many players on the field!

No wonder he called time-out. Today, he gets to go huddle with his Head Coach, George W. Bush, and maybe regain his nerve. But eventually he's going to have to face that snap. He's scared, he's weak, and he can't hand the ball off to anyone.

He's out of time-outs, and the opposition is ready to swarm him. In the real world, you can't only focus on one issue at a time.

Spain? Is that where the Spics come from?

John McCain is acting like a very old, befuddled man.

Very old.

Very befuddled.

And he "never felt the particular need to e-mail", even though he invented the Blackberry.

Folks, we can't afford 4 more years of Bush's befuddlement or policies, and that's what McCain offers. Or maybe fewer, which is even more frightening.

Do Republicans Get This Kind of Email?

Campaign rumors run rampant on the internet, and one of the recent ones circulated about McCain's undervetted, inexperienced Veep nominee was that she fired her librarian in a spat over Palin's desire to ban a long list of books. One email purported to list all the books that Palin sought to ban - a lengthy list, including many classics.

It wasn't true. Someone somewhere took a list of frequently targeted books and claimed that Palin went after all of them. She didn't.

What happened next, though, illustrates the difference between the right and the left in American politics. Literally within hours of receiving the list of banned books, I received an email from a leftwing source highlighting this article, disavowing the list of banned books, telling us not to forward it, and effectively shutting down this falsehood. The subject line of the email was direct - "Don't Forward that List of Palin Banned Books."

The reason that you haven't been treated to a press cycle questioning why Palin banned "My Friend Flicka" is because the left did an effective job of self-policing.

Republicans have no such self-discipline. When a lie springs into the conversation, the Republicans have learned to encourage it and make certain that it becomes part of the accepted truthiness of the world. Gore never claimed to invent the internet, but it is probably his best-known alleged claim.

It's so bad that the Democratic Party has found it necessary to create a "Count the Lies" website, listing 52 lies from the McCain campaign itself. These are all documented falsehoods, and you don't see anyone on the right circulating any emails telling people not to forward them.

It's discouraging sometimes to see how broadly and brazenly the right wing spreads malicious falsehoods, and it's even tempting to play a tit for tat game. But, in the long run, I'm proud that the left wing bloggers have a firmer grip on reality and a higher ethical standard than those who would have us believe that Palin rejected the Bridge to Nowhere.

(Note: We don't know which books Palin sought to ban, though it's true she inquired about how to go about banning books. She claims to have fired the Wasilla Librarian because she "didn't fully support her". Personally, I think it's creepy enough that Palin thought she was entitled to full support from a librarian.)

McCain's Choice of Location (For My Out-of-Town Readers)

The other day, I received a call from the McCain campaign inviting me to attend today's McCain/Palin rally out at John Knox Village. (I don't know how they got my name - maybe they thought I was a Big Oil Executive.) While Kansas Citians will recognize the location, I thought that my out-of-town readers might be interested in knowing that John Knox Village is a fancy "Retirement Community" designed for the well-off.

So, yeah, the 72 year-old McCain is making his appearance at one of the few places where he won't stand out as being particularly, umm, "up there".

McCain Checks Out His Veep

Nearly 6 months after he became the presumptive nominee, McCain announced the results of almost half a year of vetting and analysis and careful interviews and hard work. It was Sarah Palin, an untested, unknown, unvetted who will probably be announcing her refusal of the Veep seat within a few hours.

What could have been on his mind?

Maybe we can figure that out . . .

John McCain is Not Too Rich to be President

It's fun to make fun of John McCain right now.

He doesn't know how many houses he owns.

He spends more than a quarter million a year on servants.

He thinks you have to earn $5 million to be rich.

He wears $500 loafers.

Etc.

But, I ask my fellow Democrats - are those reasons to vote against him? Do those facts make Obama the superior candidate?

John F. Kennedy had some serious coin. John Kerry and John Edwards don't worry about the price of milk.

When we indulge in our childish mocking, we buy into the same silly non-issues that typify our discourse. We take our eyes off the reasons that John McCain is the wrong choice (Iraq, Iran, Supreme Court, Tax Breaks for the Wealthy, Environmental Degradation, Spying on Americans, Pro-Torture, etc.). At the same time, we legitimize the attention which will come to whatever non-issue the Right Wing Noise Machine generates about Obama. I don't want this election to turn on what brand of sunglasses Obama prefers, or the fabric of his socks.

On the other hand, this sort of nonsense sways votes. As has been demonstrated in past elections (in a spirit of bipartisanship, I won't name which), a significant portion of voters cast their ballots on "feelings" or factors other than a rigorous analysis of which candidate holds positions they share. If the Democrats limit their debate to the high ground of policy discussion, the Republicans will run the table with all their friends in low places.

It's a sad fact of democracy that elections don't always get decided on the issues I would choose. So, I regretfully acknowledge the importance of non-issues, and hope that those who focus on them for the Democrats sway at least as many foolish people as those who focus on them for the Republicans.

Cokie Roberts, John McCain, and the Foreign Land of Hawaii

Cokie Roberts is catching a little heat today because she twice has attacked Barack Obama for vacationing this week in Hawaii, which she describes as "some sort of foreign exotic place." She actually criticized him for not being American enough, because he went to visit his grandmother where she lives, in one of America's 50 states.

Predictably, the leftwing blogosphere is agog at her foolishness. They quite correctly pick up on the fact that the traditional media will stretch to any length if they can make Barack Obama seem scary and different. This is not the longest stretch - merely the most recent and most transparently stupid.

But this particular mistake points to something bigger. When Cokie Roberts was born, all the way through her mid-teens, Hawaii was NOT a state. She was 15 when Hawaii finally became a state - well past the age of geography quizzes and memorizing state capitals.

Like John McCain, Cokie Roberts came of age in an America of only 48 states. To John McCain and Cokie Roberts, Alaska and Hawaii remain foreign, exotic lands. Their America - the America they learned about when they were in elementary school, the America they first pledged allegiance to, the America they grew up with - was not the America of today.

This year's election will be an historic generational shift. The White House will shift from those who view America as something less than what it really is to those who grew up in a country with 50 great states.

And if that makes Cokie Roberts feel like she's a stranger in s strange new land, so be it.

The new America does not see Hawaii as "some sort of foreign exotic place". It's America, and it is time to have a leader from the generation that knows it.

More Paris Hilton/John McCain Fun

If you enjoyed the video that Paris Hilton did in response to John McCain's ad comparing Obama to her because they're both better-liked than he is, you might enjoy their IM transcript.

McCain Agrees With Amy Coffman's Position on Bloggers

"I hate the bloggers." - John McCain

"the time has come for me to personally to address the banter to nonsense that, in my opinion discredits Democrats, the democratic process, and purports the senseless world of blogging and the damage I believe it does to campaigning." - Amy Coffman

Just to keep myself on the high road, I will extend to John McCain the same invitation spurned by the Coffman campaign - I will happily publish the answer to the question "What is the most significant policy difference between you and your opponent, and why is your position the correct one?"

Amy Coffman refused my kind invitation - will John McCain follow her lead?

Corporate Contributions for McCain?

Corporations are banned from making campaign contributions (though they are free to form PACs, where all career-wise climbers toss their dollars in with their country-club bosses). It's becoming increasingly obvious, though, that the oil companies are NOT going to sit on the sidelines this election season. In an election that features change from Obama or a third term of record profits from "McSame", they are going "all-in" for McCain.

They've come up with an ingenious mechanism to translate some of those obscene profits into support for McCain, without technically violating the law against contributing directly. It's absolutely Rovian in its underhanded simplicity.

McCain has taken the moral low ground by flip-flopping on open drilling. Any honest and informed person knows that off-shore drilling will take a decade or more to produce even a trickle of gasoline, and provides absolutely no relief for high prices at the pump for the foreseeable future. Immediately, though, it will foul our coastal ecosystems, and expose more of our fisheries and natural beauty to the risk of another Exxon Valdez.

But birds gotta fly, and oil companies gotta drill. And McCain is the key to offshore oil drilling.

So, rather than making campaign contributions to McCain, they have worked out a little sleight of hand. McCain has sold his maverick soul to the oil companies, and now all the oil companies have to do is run dozens upon dozens of "issue advertisements" misleading Americans into believing that offshore drilling will lower gas prices.

An extra dollop of pay-off comes from the fact that there's no similar group of obscenely profitable companies who are positioned to respond. The charming bed and breakfast overlooking the ocean cannot afford prime time "issue advertisements" to compete with the oil companies. The hardworking fishermen don't have the time to go talk to the hotshots on Madison Avenue. Environmentalists cannot hope to raise money with the cruel efficiency of the oil industry siphoning unwilling donations out of my own wallet whenever I fill my tank.

The oil companies are going to use a portion of their record-setting profits to try to buy the election for McCain. They have profited wildly during Bush's presidency, and McCain represents more of the same.

Whenever you see their advertisements urging us to throw away our environmental heritage for a false quick bandaid, recognize what they are trying to do. They're skirting the laws and trying to fool us into supporting another term of record profits.

The Sermon Saga - Why I Fear Disillusionment with Obama

Let's get one thing clear up front - I am 100% behind the Democratic nominee for President, be it Clinton or Obama. I believe either will be an effective president, and can begin the process of rebuilding our country's standing domestically and internationally after the debacle of the past 7 3/4 years. I lean toward Clinton, but that is solely because of my opinion that she is the more likely to win the general election.

The past week demonstrates that Obama's support is like a cumulus cloud - impressive to see, but vaporous in nature.

It all started with reports about his pastor and "spiritual advisor" of his campaign spouting off with racially charged negativity more fitting on a joke blog than on a pulpit. Obama fumbled his first responses to the criticism, and it blossomed into a full-blown media event, complete with incendiary video and hand-wringing right-wingers shocked, simply shocked, that a black man could find something to criticize in this enlightened land.

It was all so stupid and manufactured. Republicans get in bed with people who claim God launched Katrina as a terrorist attack on us, and nobody raises an eyebrow. But if a loud, scary black preacher says something to provoke some thought and wake up the back pews, we have ourselves a genuine crisis.

But, sadly enough, it's working. For the first time in a month, Clinton has a statistically significant lead over Obama in national polls. Closer to home, the flap has caused Obama's margin of loss to McCain to mushroom from 6% to 14%.

The point is that when we are able to look at Obama as a fresh-faced, energetic symbol of our hopes and dreams for a new America, he's a winner. But when he turns out to be a real person with crazy friends and questionable decisions, his support dissipates rapidly. If people are supporting Obama because of an illusion that he will single-handedly transform us into a united, peace-loving, tolerant nation, I can assure you that the Republicans will supply us with plenty of DISillusion before November.

If a little videotape of a preacher caused an 8% swing in Obama's performance in Missouri, what will be left after Karl Rove gets finished with him?

And what will that do to the Democratic party's gains in Missouri?