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:

“In the past few weeks, Wall Street’s been rocked as banks closed and markets tumbled,” Obama says in the ad. “But for many of you — the people I’ve met in town halls, backyards and diners across America — our troubled economy isn’t news. 600,000 Americans have lost their jobs since January. Paychecks are flat and home values are falling. It’s hard to pay for gas and groceries and if you put it on a credit card they’ve probably raised your rates. You’re paying more than ever for health insurance that covers less and less. This isn’t just a string of bad luck. The truth is that while you’ve been living up to your responsibilities Washington has not. That’s why we need change. Real change.

“This is no ordinary time and it shouldn’t be an ordinary election. But much of this campaign has been consumed by petty attacks and distractions that have nothing to do with you or how we get America back on track. Here’s what I believe we need to do.

• Reform our tax system to give a $1,000 tax break to the middle class instead of showering more on oil companies and corporations that outsource our jobs.
• End the “anything goes” culture on Wall Street with real regulation that protects your investments and pensions.
• Fast track a plan for energy ‘made-in-America’ that will free us from our dependence on mid-east oil in 10 years and put millions of Americans to work.
• Crack down on lobbyists once and for all — so their back-room deal-making no longer drowns out the voices of the middle class and undermines our common interests as Americans.
• And yes, bring a responsible end to this war in Iraq so we stop spending billions each month rebuilding their country when we should be rebuilding ours.

“Doing these things won’t be easy. But we’re Americans. We’ve met tough challenges before. And we can again. I’m Barack Obama. I hope you’ll read my economic plan. I approved this message because bitter, partisan fights and outworn ideas of the left and the right won’t solve the problems we face today. But a new spirit of unity and shared responsibility will.”

This is what real leadership looks like.  It’s not glitzy, it’s not flashy, it’s just the political equivalent of mom and dad sitting around the table trying to figure out how to pay the bills.  In a word: it’s responsible.

Let’s hope it works.

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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.

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~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.

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

Chris Wallace: Right, but in fairness what does McCain do that has gone too far in his ads?

Karl Rove: McCain has gone in some of his ad, similarly gone one step too far and started attributing to Obama things that are beyond the 100% truth test. They don’t need to attack each other in this way. they have legitimate points to make in this way that are beyond…

Chris Wallace: Real quick question, 30 seconds: do they need to be 100% passing the truth test? When you were running bush’s campaign did you care whether some fact check organization…

Karl Rove: No. And you can’t trust the fact check organizations. They’re human beings, they’re individuals. They’ve got their own biases built in there. But both campaigns ought to be careful about, there aught to be an adult who says, “Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don’t we make our point, and won’t we get broader acceptance, and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us, if we don’t include that one little last tweak in the ad?”

Such statements display a fundamental lack of honesty when it comes to fact-check organizations. Yes they’re human, but “checking” facts doesn’t mean analyzing candidates statements or positions based on opinion, it means comparing them to reality. Now we all know that reality has a well known liberal bias but come on, this is ridiculous.

Lets not forget the second half of this farce. Every time the GOP gets pushed up against the ropes lately it seems their first natural instinct is to either change the rules, slander the opponent, or cry foul. In this interview Rove does what he does best, he tries all three in hopes that one of his arguments sticks to the wall.

The simple fact of the matter is that Obama’s latest salvo of attack ads have damaged John McCain where it counts, his image. The days where John McCain could do no wrong, where the media “had his back”?  They’re done.  John McCain the maverick has been replaced by craven John McCain, willing to do anything to win.  And the worst (or best) part? All Obama had to do was shine a spotlight onto McCain’s own words and deeds. McCain did it to himself.

So, damage control, it’s time to go after the fact-checkers. If that’s the case maybe McCain should consider not using them when it suits his purposes. But then this isn’t about being honest or acting honorably, it’s about dragging the debate down to a level where McCain’s lies are simply business as usual, where they can be ignored because “everyone does it“.

This will likely get picked up by the AM radio talkshow circuit but McCain’s treading on increasingly thin ice. In his war against the media he’s lost a lot of allies he’s not likely to get back. As Karl Rove says, “They’re human”. It’s one thing to attack perceived bias, it’s completely another to repeatedly lie after you’ve been called on it and then attack the reporters and fact-checkers.

They might not take such actions too kindly.

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~ 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.

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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.

This ad is many things. With it’s references to 1980’s technology and pop culture it could be seen as a oblique reference to McCain’s age. So you would expect the Right to pull out the ageist card, right? You’d be wrong. Turns out the Boston Globe released a touching story eight years ago mentioning John McCain’s heroic endurance of his war injuries. From that the NRO’s Jonah Goldberg decided he could score a few cheap points with a little fake outrage and mock defensiveness of McCain’s war injuries as his excuse for not knowing how to use a computer.

Senator John McCain using his cell phone and blackberry simultaneously. (AP Photo)

Does anyone know why McCain doesn’t use a computer or email? As a couple readers suggested to me, it might be because his injuries prevent it. I mean he can’t lift his arms much higher than his chest and it looks like he has all sorts of other mobility problems with them. Maybe he can’t type or use something like a blackberry. I don’t know. But I hope the Obama campaign found out before they played the granpa Simpson card on McCain. I’d hate for Obama to be mocking a veteran’s disability to score cheap points.

Golberg’s not alone in trying to ignore the substance of this ad, but do we really expect anything less of McCain’s chearleaders? They know they can’t successfully argue against the notion that McCain’s tax plan is a massive handout to corporations and the rich, so they drum up outrage over fake controversies to try to drown out the news cycle.

The funny part? Not even McCain’s campaign agrees with them.

“John McCain travels with a laptop,” said McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. “This is a senseless tactic from Obama’s campaign because they’re struggling with the realization that the American people understand he is not equipped to deliver change because his record has no bipartisanship or significant legislative accomplishment in it.”

Note to Goldberg: Your reader tipsters are clueless. Not only can McCain use his hands just fine (ever tried to try with a blackberry?), the McCain campaign doesn’t even agree with your fake outrage. Next time try focusing on the substance of an ad, won’t you?

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~ 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.

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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.

Since February, when the McCain campaign talked about going to war with [the New York Times] over a front-page article that included allegations of an improper relationship with a female lobbyist, there have been several public disputes. This past Tuesday, a McCain spokesperson described Elisabeth Bumiller, one the reporters on the McCain beat, as a “fiction” writer.

“I know whether or not they cooperate with us, we will be very actively looking into who [Palin] is, what she’s done, what her record is — as much as we can learn about her in as concentrated a time as we can,” Stevenson said.

“One of the costs to them of not putting her out there,” he added, “is the coverage is going to define her as much as the campaign.”

In honor of this media blackout Centerpoint Review will begin running a (possibly) limited-time community ad highlighting the time since Palin last gave an interview.  You can find it in the sidebar below memeorandum headlines.

Only time will tell how long McCain keeps his veep sequestered and that ad stays up but, as Joe Biden says, “Eventually, she’s going to have to sit in front of you like I’m doing and have done. Eventually, she’s going to have to answer questions and not be sequestered. Eventually, she’s going to have to answer on the record.”

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

Joe Biden: I tell you, it’s not so much what I heard at the Republican convention, when you heard John speak last night.  Or not so much what I heard when I heard part of what what the Governor had to say as the vice presidential candidate.  It’s what I didn’t hear.  The silence of the Republican Party was deafening!  It was deafening on jobs, on health care, on the environment, on all the things that matter to the people in the neighborhoods I grew up in! Deafening!

Lady’s and Gentlemen. Their America is not the American I live in.  They see something different then I see.  Lady’s and Gentlemen.  I can’t swear to this because I didn’t see every bit of every speech but I asked my staff check: do any of you recall either candidate on the Republican ticket utter the phrase, “middle class”?  Did any of you hear them utter the phrase, “health care”?

Lady’s and Gentlemen. Rick Davis, John’s campaign manager, said at the convention that this election is “not about issues.”  That’s what he said.  And everything I saw at the convention demonstrated that.  It was about how well placed and, boy she is good, how a left-jab can be stuck pretty nice.  It’s bout how Barack Obama is such a bad guy.  It’s about how, in fact, they had great quips.

Man, they were like the kids you knew when you went to school and you were proud of the new belt you had or the shoes you had and there was always one kid in the class who was like, “Oh, were they your brothers?”  Remember that kid?  That’s what this reminded me of.  “Oh I like that dress, was that your mothers?”  You know what I’m talking about.

What do you talk about when you have nothing to say?  What do you talk about when you cannot explain the last eight years of failure?  What do you talk about?  What do you talk about?  You talk about the other guy.

I wasn’t around when Harry Truman was around but I remember my grandfather saying when they yelled “Give em hell Harry!” he yelled back, “I’m not going to give em Hell.  I’m gonna tell them the truth and they’re gonna think it’s hell.”

Now, some on the left are afraid that Biden’s admission that outside of politics he considers John McCain a friend might somehow cost Democrats the elections.  They’re following the “Michael Moore campaign playbook” and while their fear may be partially justified they’re missing the point.  Playing direct gutter ball, sinking to the GOP’s level, won’t work this time around.

One of the Democrats greatest strengths in this election isn’t that they’ve finally developed a backbone, it’s that the Obama ticket refuses to directly sling mud.  They’re leaving the attacks mostly to the media, to their surrogates and to the bloggers.  What this this video of Joe Biden demonstrates is that, unlike for the Republicans, staying on the issues and not playing by the GOP’s rules is just as effective an attack strategy.  Obama didn’t just pick the guy for veep because he’s an experienced Washington insider after all; the man’s a “pit bull” in his own right.

When the Right pats themselves on the back because they’ve found a two-faced vindictive, racist, and sexist attack dog they forget one thing: No matter how much they might crow about how great their TV ratings are the economy is terrible, the American people are struggling. Far from being a bad move Obama’s selection of Biden as his veep is turning out to be nearly prescient.  Keven Hayden of American Street:

I’d always assumed he was just another longtime member of the Millionaire’s Club, out of touch with middle America. He never sold himself as the Joe Biden Obama introduced to us: the guy who DIDN’T line his pockets as a Senator. The guy who commutes 2 hours and 110 miles each way and every work day, so he can spend each night at home withh his family. The guy who survived terrible family tragedies.

[...]

Whatever caused this synergy, I can only guess. But it’s clear that Obama found a helluva fighter and a guy far nicer than I thought was there.

I certainly can understand now why several Republican Senators confided to Harry Reid that they’d be voting for this ticket. More than the partisan divide, they respect and admire the kind of guy he is. Obama’s first major decision of the administration he hopes to lead was far better than I thought it was when he announced it.

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For those of you unable to watch video’s Raw Story has the details:

…a full-on technicolor extravaganza as “tribute” to the day that briefly made their president among the most popular in history. (With George W. Bush’s approval ratings now cemented among the lowest in history, perhaps the GOP thought a good dose of terror-porn was just what was needed to rouse their troops.)

The three-minute video, which featured graphic, disturbing images of a plane flying into the World Trade Center and the Twin Towers’ collapse, attempts to conflate all of America’s struggles in the Middle East into a singular crusade against a uniform enemy.

“The first attack occurred in Iran,” the narrator says over photos of hostages held there in 1979. According to the video, it was the same enemy who bombed US embassies, the USS Cole and the Twin Towers and Pentagon.

[...]

The video was the most deliberate and graphic use of images from 9/11 in a political context. Along with the montage of the collapsing towers — which is already seared into the consciousness of anyone who saw it happen on that day — is followed by video of a burning Pentagon, of police and firefighters combing through wreckage and of mourning families and missing persons posters.

Some mentally unstable partisan’s see nothing wrong with so brazenly using footage of the dead and dying for their own political benefit.  Thankfully, they’re in the minority.  For the rest of us on the left and right this is, simply put, disgusting.  Over at Riehl World View they sum things up nicely:

This isn’t just about appealing to someone’s emotions. Left or Right we should all agree that the dead are to be respected. And the video, added to Olbermann’s principled denouncement of the GOP makes it pretty clear - the GOP set out to exploit the dead for political gain as almost a theme for the convention. Sorry, but that’s just crossing the line with me.

The simple fact of the matter is 9/11 was one of the defining moments in American history.  It affected liberals.  It affected conservatives.  The people who carried out these attacks didn’t care what political persuasion their victims had, they hated us all.  This wasn’t an attack on any one group, it was an attack on America.  I was lucky, I didn’t know anyone who died.  Keith Olbermann however did:

Having craven political operatives try to use this tragedy for the sake of winning an election unfortunately isn’t that surprising and it was bound to happen.  Did they cross a line?  Absolutely, and that’s precisely why they deserve to lose this election.

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