Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

My, oh my. Even Karl Rove is calling McCain a liar:

Karl Rove was reluctant to say it, and he tried really hard not to say it, but he conceded on Fox News this morning that John McCain's ads aren't exactly accurate.

Here's the clip, by way of the Jed Report, of Rove pontificating on "Fox News Sunday" earlier today. I didn't watch the interview, and in context, I suspect Rove had just finished
accusing the Obama campaign of some kind of dishonesty.

But host Chris Wallace asked, "All right, for fair game, what does McCain do that goes one step too far?"

Rove responded, "McCain has similarly gone one step too far, attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100% truth test."

And that, my darlings, is about as close as Rove will go in proclaiming McCain a lying sack of shit - but that's essentially what he's saying. When Karl Rove proclaims you've gone too far, you know you've jumped a whole fucking ocean of sharks.

And how are voters responding to the sleaziest campaign in history(h/t TPM)?

So far, based on polling over the past two weeks, McCain's roll of the dice has paid off. Not only has McCain made substantial gains, pulling modestly ahead in most national polls, but his assaults on Obama appear to have damaged the Democratic Party as well, raising Republican hopes of minimizing House and Senate losses.

America: don't make me kick your ass.

It's too soon for me to pull on the spiked boots just yet - after all, the media's only now picking up steam on the McCain's a Dirty Rotten Liar meme, so we could see a sea change as folks stop fawning over Palin and start realizing that she and McCain are Bush squared. Maybe a few thousand more articles like this will help them understand just what a drastic mistake McCain/Palin would be for this country:

The Chicago Tribune's Steve Chapman, who had a column quoted in a McCain campaign ad this week, appears to have grown tired of the Republican nominee's tactics.

[P]oliticians are not saints, and campaigns are not conducted under oath. We all expect a certain amount of deceit from people running for office, in the form of fudging, distortion, exaggeration and omission. But the McCain campaign's approach, as [the "lipstick on a pig"] episode illustrates, is of an entirely different scale and character. It is to normal political attacks what Hurricane Ike is to a drive-through carwash. [...]

Why does McCain insist on running such a mendacious campaign? There is plenty an honest conservative might say in opposition to Obama.... But McCain has concluded that a fact-based case about Obama isn't enough to prevail in November. So he has chosen to smear his opponent with ridiculous claims that he thinks the American people are gullible enough to believe.

He has charged repeatedly that his opponent is willing to lose a war to win an election. What's McCain willing to lose to become president? Nothing so consequential as a war. Just his soul.

The other day, Kevin came up with "The 'Enough' Club," comprised of media figures who went from loving to loathing McCain, after watching his campaign's penchant for smears and lies. I think we can safely add Chapman to the ever-growing list of members.

There's far more where that came from. Oh, and this, too. I think McCain's lost his base. 's what happens when your tactics are so noxious even Karl Rove thinks you're overstepping the bounds of decency.

Something important that voters need to consider is just what they're getting with a McCain/Palin ticket. They're getting a "maverick" who's voted with Bush 100% of the time this year. And they're getting a woman who rolls all the worst attributes of Bush and Cheney into one complete package:

Palin's political style is more than a little frightening. She attacks critics, pursues petty vendettas, ignores mayors and state lawmakers, blurs the line between government business and personal grievances, demands strict secrecy in all matters, refuses to engage in policy
matters in any real depth, tries to fire state employees who dare to challenge her demands, and insists on surrounding herself with childhood friends and church members, appointing unqualified allies to key government posts. (The Times noted, "The Wasilla High School yearbook archive now doubles as a veritable directory of state government.")

A conservative radio personality and longtime friend of Palin explained that the governor considers her detractors "bad people who are anti-Alaska."

Reading the piece, and realizing that Sarah Palin may very well be one heartbeat from the presidency in just three months, is nothing short of chilling. It's hard not to think Palin would be a poor choice to help lead a convenience store, worse yet the executive branch of
the United States government.

That John McCain picked her for the ticket is more than enough to raise questions about whether he has any idea what he's doing.

What he's doing is preparing to ensure that the destruction of America is completed. Nothing more, nothing less. And, while I'm a frothing liberal, remember one thing: I tend to pull back from doom-and-gloom, end-of-the-world assessments. When I tell you that I seriously fear for my country's survival if this Dastardly Duo gets elected, I hope you'll understand that's not hyperbole, and that's not partisanship. It's the trajectory that drove me hard to the left in an effort to save this Republic, and it's a trajectory that will bring this Republic down.

I'll have more to say on that later. For now, I just want you to go read this:

While Fundilicious Palin has been soaking up the airwaves, the Bush team has been ever so busy with their Going Out of Business sales: big deals for friendly arms merchants, a war in Pakistan - and at best upping the pressure, at worst preparing an attack on Iran.

And then try to tell me the country will do just fine with four more years of insanity. This is what McCain's offering. The only "change" he's bringing is that he wants to accelerate the destruction.