Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Good. The MSM's finally starting to discover the wonder and joys of the Smack-o-Matic:

The McCain campaign and leading Republican voices continue to argue that Sarah Palin's position as the putative head of the Alaskan National Guard is evidence of foreign policy experience. We already know that's not true -- Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, told the Associated Press that when it comes to national defense activities, the entire Guard operation is under federal control.

Undeterred by facts, Palin's boosters, including McCain campaign spokesperson Tucker Bounds, keep pushing the line that she has genuine foreign-policy experience. Yesterday, CNN's Campbell Brown pressed him to explain what on earth he's talking about. More specifically, Brown asked, "Can you just tell me one decision that she made as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard. Just one." Bounds could attack Barack Obama, he could tout John McCain, but he couldn't answer the question. Brown kept asking, and Bounds kept
dodging.

I watched the video last night, and it's highly entertaining. So entertaining, in fact, that the McCain campaign felt the need to retaliate:

Today, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer revealed that because of that tough interview, the McCain campaign has canceled the senator’s appearance on Larry King Live tonight:

The McCain campaign said it believed that exchange was over the line and as a result the interview scheduled for Larry King Live with Sen. McCain was pulled. CNN does not believe that Campbell’s interview was over the line. We are committed to fair coverage of both sides of this historic election.

Outstanding. CNN finally found their spine - I never thought I'd see it. Maybe they're just sick of Johnny's tantrums. As Think Progress notes in the above article,

The McCain campaign has repeatedly tried to intimidate the press. It is now angry about media coverage of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, calling NBC’s reporting on it “irresponsible journalism.” Campaign staffers “even considered pulling out of one of the three presidential
debates because it would be moderated by Tom Brokaw, a former NBC News anchorman.” When Newsweek wrote a cover story in May examining the hardball tactics conservatives might use in the general election, the McCain campaign “threatened to throw the magazine’s reporters off the campaign bus and airplane.”

Go grab yourselves some video and enjoy. It's nice watching someone other than the Dems and a highly unpopular president getting the smackdown.

In other wrong notes McCain's lackeys have hit, this one's guaranteed to bring down the house:

We haven't heard much from Phil Gramm lately, despite speculation that he, despite his record, might be considered to lead the Treasury department in a McCain administration. Apparently, calling the United States a "nation of whiners" makes one something of a political pariah, even in Republican circles.

And yet, he's back, and he's as off-message as ever.

Bloomberg News reports that at a Financial Services Roundtable event in Minneapolis today, former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, revisited the comments that got him into trouble in July.

"If you're sitting here today, you're not economically illiterate and you're not a whiner, so I'm not worried about who you're going to vote for,'' Gramm said.

I see. So, the rest of the country is made up of "whiners," but if you're at the Republican National Convention, you're exempt from the label. It's not enough to Gramm to reemerge from political exile, he also feels compelled to return to the subject that gone him in trouble in the first place.

With friends like Gramm, Palin et al, it's starting to look like McCain doesn't have any pressing need for enemies.

The news doesn't get any better for Republicons away from the McCain & Palin sideshow. Our own dear fuckwit Alberto Gonzales is back in the national spotlight, and although the dodged a bullet on getting prosecuted for improperly handling classified information, he could yet get a shotgun blast to the chest over perjury:

But Gonzales may have done more than just “improperly handle” classified national security documents. CQ’s Spy Talk blog reports that there is “strong evidence” in the report “that the former attorney general lied to federal investigators probing his careless handling of highly classified documents.”

According to the IG the report, Gonzales told investigators that he did not know that documents he handled relating to the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program were classified:

Gonzales said that he was unaware of the classification level and compartmented nature of the NSA program he referenced in the notes. Gonzales also stated he did not recall thinking that the notes themselves were classified.

Yet the report also says that an envelope containing the documents were marked “top secret” by Alberto Gonzales himself:

The envelope containing documents related to the NSA surveillance program bore the handwritten markings, “TOP SECRET - EYES ONLY - ARG” [the attorney general’s initials] followed by an abbreviation for the SCI codeword for the program.

Heh heh heh whoops. "ARG" is right. Remember, my darlings: if you're going to commit perjury, make sure your own handwritten notes don't call bullshit on you.

Bush isn't having a good day, either. He's decided to play pollyticks with Gustav and got smacked around by none other than Joe Scarborough:

This morning, President Bush discussed Hurricane Gustav, using the occasion to push for more offshore drilling:

BUSH: One thing that’s for certain, when Congress comes back they got to understand that we need more domestic energy, not less. And one place to find it is offshore America, lands that have been, have been, uh, taken off the book, so to speak, by congressional law. And now they need to give us a chance to find more oil and natural gas here at home.

Reacting to Bush’s statement on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman (D) called Bush’s statement “the worst pivot ever,” questioning “how you go from hurricane to offshore drilling.” Scarborough agreed. “Just stop!”

When Joe's asking a fellow Republicon to stop being a raving dumbass, you know the dumbass factor just reached critical levels.

All right. Just one nugget of Sarah Palin trivia. Remember how her "foreign policy cred" included visiting three countries? Well, about that visit to Ireland...

She didn't visit Ireland, which is what the McCain-Palin campaign claimed to Politico's Ben Smith on Saturday. She had a short refueling stopover, which means at best her extensive Irish diplomacy amounted to buying a sweater and a beer mug in the Shannon airport.

Simply... wow. The audacity of the McCain/Palin camp's lies is just un-fucking-believable.