Most campaign commercials run at exactly 30 seconds.  They’re short, to the point, and most of the time completely worthless for informing anyone of anything.  They’re political theater and serve little more than as a way to make or break a politicians brand.But, unfortunately, that’s all the political establishment believes modern voters are interested in.  To them we’re all ADD-riddled channel flippers.

Now that may usually be true but with the recent collapse of most of the major Wall Street banks and lending houses Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has decided to take a different tone.

For those of you who can’t watch videos the transcript is below the fold: Read more »

Apparently democratic debate is too painful for The Right.  How else to explain Hot Air’s latest complaints?  They’re fast of the trail of some truly disturbing browncoat behavior by the Obama campaign.  The Obama campaign dared to organize supporters to call in during Milt Rosenberg’s WGN radio show last night so they could argue with his guest, noted neocon liar author David Freddoso:

David Freddoso attempted to appear on Milt Rosenberg’s WGN radio show last night, and just as when Stanley Kurtz tried to talk on the same show, the Barack Obama campaign organized a disruption of the show.  The campaign sent out an e-mail to supporters in the area sliming Freddoso as an “extreme” hate monger, a “smear merchant”, and attempted to silence him despite Rosenberg having an Obama surrogate on the show

Now maybe it’s different from the host’s chair but it seems if there are problems with guests being shouted down and “silenced” during their interview by callers there are a couple of steps that can be taken.

1. Screen your calls better if you don’t want dissenting opinions.
2. Hang up on the caller if you don’t want to talk to them anymore.

These guys really need to grow a pair and quit complaining.  But, if there’s one thing that’s as predictable as the tide, it’s that neoconservative pundits love to talk trash nearly as much as they like to play the martyr.  Every argument against them is an “attempt to silence”.  Everyone who challenges them on their lies a fascist.  If a person didn’t know better they’d think progressive organizers were the modern incarnation of Nazi Germany.

There’s really one response to this kind of idiotic complaining, mockery:

The resistance is predictably displeased, realizing that this hearkens back to Hitler’s ingenious letter-writing campaign against western Europe.  After tying up the postal services of those free countries for virtual hours at a time, they all mysteriously dropped dead because fascism is evil.

~It appears that somebody, most likely the federal government, is barring news media from flying over the hurricane-ravaged sections of Galveston Island.

~In the 26 years John McCain’s been a senator he’s seen two major loan crises.  Someone should tell the guy that with his ringside seat to the GOP fueled “free market” excesses maybe, just maybe, touting his experience isn’t the best response to today’s Wall Street news.

~Hell just froze over.  Even Fox News is calling the McCain campaign on their shenanigans now…

~Saturday Night Live is many things, sexist isn’t one of them.  If there was any doubt that Sarah Palin was picked in large part to hold up as a feminine human shield this it should be gone after this.

~Speaking of Palin.  It seems when you remove the novelty act from McCain’s speeches his attendance numbers drop pretty hard.

~Clue to the right wing radio host of America: When you broadcast the home phone numbers of protesters who you disagree with you won’t go unpunished, especially when they recieve death threats as a result.

Given former Bush adviser Karl Rove’s personal history with “the truth” this last decade it’s amusing that his opinion still carries any sort of weight in the media pundit circles. Never-the-less Karl Rove appeared on Fox News Sunday this morning to weigh in on this weekends round of campaign ads and his opinions? Ignore those pesky fact-checkers.

For those of you who can’t watch videos the transcript follows: Read more »

Today’s selection of important stories you might have missed:

~ Serious questions are being raised about the McCain campaign’s crowd size numbers. There’s something seriously fishy about a campaign attributing crowd size numbers to a fire marshal who denies ever releasing a count and releasing a number 3x larger then what on-the-scene campaign reporters estimate.  There’s room for error here, but a 3-fold difference?  No way.

~ The talk on the grapevine is that the Obama campaign’s August donation numbers might top February’s $55 million record.  It seems Palin hasn’t just energized the GOP base.

~ When you’re the mayor of a town you’ve got a limited but noticeable amount of power, especially over town employees.  Asking the local librarian how to go about banning books from the library three times and then sacking her for not helping (but reversing course due to public outcry) is many things, “rhetorical” isn’t one of them.

~ Now that both political parties have wrapped up their nomination conventions the Gallup daily tracking poll is showing the race has again settled down into a statistical dead heat.

This post won’t truly make sense unless you watch the “offensive” Obama campaign ad first.

For those of you who can’t watch video the transcript follows:

1982.
John McCain goes to Washington.
Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn’t:
- He admits he still doesn’t know how to use a computer. (Politico 7/13/08)
- Can’t send an email. (New York Times 7/13/08)
- Still doesn’t understand the economy. (Boston Globe 12/18/07 - behind a registration firewall)
- And favors $200 billion in new tax cuts for corporations but almost nothing for the middle class (Tax Policy Center, Analysis of Candidates’ Tax Plans 8/18/08).
After one president who’s out of touch we just can’t afford more of the same.

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Today’s selection of important stories you might have missed:

~ For the people of the Texas breakwater island of Galveston Hurricane Ike is turning into a real nightmare.  The storm surge is in danger of completely overrunning the island.  The coast guard has issued a very strongly worded warning and said that, “Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family one- or two-story homes will face certain death.”  Playtime’s over people; if you’re reading this from Galveston get. out. now. Your pride’s not worth your life.

~ When trying to make your vice presidential pick into some sort of anti-earmark queen by claiming she “never took earmarks as governor” it helps if, you know, she didn’t.  It especially helps if she didn’t request more earmarked tax dollars per capita then any other state or hire a Washington lobbyist while a mayor to funnel federal tax dollars to her town.

~ In the same week that Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez expelled the US ambassador Russian nuclear-capable bombers have arrived in the nation to begin training. Look for this story to get interesting.

~ Sarah Palin’s handlers are no doubt in spin mode over her Gibson interview claim that American soldiers in Iraq are there to fight the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.  In her words the soldiers duty is to “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”  Sounds good but, as much as the wingnuts may try to spin it, the chances that Palin wasn’t referring to 9/11 are nearly nil.

~ The next time you hear that proximity to Russia counts as foreign policy experience your reply should be simply, “And when I look out my window I can see the moon. Doesn’t make me a f-ing astronaut now, does it?” And Cole, that is quote of the year.  No need to vote, you’ve got your winner.

And lastly two site related bits of news.

~ After this weeks dry spell of new content I’m pleased to announce that from this point on there should be a new post up daily.  Also, If any readers would like to contribute as either guest posters or join up as recurring writers please feel free to contact me via the feedback page.

~ We’re currently in the midst of a site redesign so if you happen to notice things looking different in the coming days and weeks don’t panic; we’re still the same Centerpoint Review you’ve come to enjoy.

In less than two months America will elect a new president. Now, for months, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his campaign have highlighted “experience” and “readiness” as the qualifying factors for the position of President.  The question to ask then is simple:  Why, if readiness is of such importance, is McCain unwilling to have his running mate Sarah Palin take even softball friendly interviews?  Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has a theory:

Sarah Palin could be the President of the United States in four and a half months. We tend to think of this as an abstraction; but it’s true. And yet today she’s so unprepared and knows so little about the challenges and tasks facing the country that she can’t even give a softball interview.

[...]

As is so often the case, Palin is the incarnation of the Republican slurs. The darling of the hard-right; she gives stem-winding speeches. She pushes all their buttons. But she’s such a lightweight, they can’t risk letting her answer a few questions. Not even on Fox. They know she’s not ready and probably never will be. But they think the politics might work for them.

McCain is playing a dangerous game here. They openly mock Barack Obama’s accomplishments as a community organizer, they whitewash his record as state and federal senator and they ignore the fact he’s showed near-prescient judgment in foreign affairs when even their own candidate has been wrong on nearly every issue.  They do all of this so they can charge him as “unready”.  So is this really a game they want to play?  The media will likely only “play along” for so long and we’re already starting to see a backlash.

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One of the great democratizing benefits of the web when it comes to politics is that no matter what a person’s work schedule is they can, if they look for it, watch nearly any campaign speech whenever they want.  The Jed Report has just released a stinging campaign video of Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden ripping into the GOP for “completely ignoring every single major economic issue facing America and for offering nothing but sarcastic personal attacks.”  Watch:

For those that can’t watch video the transcript is below the fold:

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In six days America will commemorate the 7th year since the World Trade Center towers were destroyed. The common consensus since then has been that it’s simply inexcusable to try to use the memory or footage of those who died for political gain. With Rudy “9/11″ Giuliani speaking at this years Republican National Convention nobody would have been at all surprised if he pulled out his offensive “a noun, a verb, and 9/11″ trick, but they likely didn’t expect this:

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