PALIN SIMPLY CAN'T TELL THE TRUTH

It's truly something to behold. Sarah Palin (with Greta Van Susteren) on that whole book banning thing:

And then, too, things that, again, so easily could have been corrected about my supposed attempts to censor and ban books when I was the mayor of Wasilla. And one of the examples that they gave was that media was just sure that one of the books I tried to ban was Harry Potter. Of course, it hadn't even been written when I was the Mayor of Wasilla.

Just for the record, Sarah Palin was Mayor of Wasilla from 1996-2002. The first Harry Potter book was published in 1997. In fact, FOUR BOOKS in the Harry Potter series came out during Palin's tenure as Mayor.

Does that mean she tried to ban them? No. But when your explanations aren't even based in fact - you're on very shaky ground. I for one will say "Thanks, but no thanks" to Palin for the rest of my lifetime.

60 MINUTES: OBAMA'S INNER CIRCLE

As I watched this, I couldn't help but smile while thinking about Rudy Guiliani and Sarah Palin's sarcastic cracks about "community organizers". Simply put, the RNC got their ass kicked by grass roots organization that flipped once richly-red states like Indiana and North Carolina to Obama.

TALK ABOUT A DILEMMA AT THE POLLS

Bacon wins every time!

GOP HITS "ROCK BOTTOM", ADMITS SOME SCARY STUFF

The Washington Times published an article today which shows the severe cracks in the Republican Party. However, at one point the article quotes one Thaddeus G. McCotter a Michigan Congressman saying something odd:

"We're rock bottom. We are now free to start thinking again, acting again, and doing the right thing by what our constituents and our country need."

What the hell?! Does this mean that when the Republicans were riding high, it was somehow okay to "not think", "not act", and "not do the right things" for their constituents and the country?

PALIN DIDN'T KNOW AFRICA WAS A CONTINENT

Hey, remember when John McCain defended Sarah Palin again and again as being "ready" to take over as President? Remember when the public was starting to get the idea that Palin wasn't so smart about world affairs, but right-wingers called it "gotcha journalism"? Remember when conservative journalists were being blasted by the right-wing for criticizing Palin's intellect? Well, it turns out that not only were we right - but we didn't even know the HALF OF IT?!

Here's a segment where Carl Cameron lets the public in on the "super secretive" world of the McCain Campaign following Sarah Palin's selection. And remember, it was Cameron who followed the campaign - and this interview is taking place on Fox News of all places:

I truly believe that these types of revelations will hurt John McCain way more than the unseemly negative campaigning we saw in the last few weeks. After all, McCain was talked into selecting Palin after only a brief meeting, he backed her after knowing her lack of knowledge on important issues, and he (and his campaign) sought to deceive voters through limiting her contact with the media.

County first? Yeah, right.

FOX NEWS ASKS, "WHY DID McCAIN LOSE?"

Crooks and Liars posted this a few hours ago. Apparently, Fox News started a message board thread that asked their audience to answer the question, "Why did John McCain lose?" One of the more disturbing responses came in just before midnight:
As of this morning (at 10:34 AM Pacific) it's still there (bottom of the page). Now Fox's own Bill O'Reilly has famously slammed websites like DailyKos and others for having message board postings like this. He's on record as calling them "hate sites" and comparing them to Nazi Germany and the Ku Klux Klan. Yet there's seemingly no editor at multi-million dollar news organization to remove this stuff?

UPDATE: It's still there at 3:00 PM Pacific. Will O'Reilly mention it on his show this evening?

RACHEL MADDOW ON THE LONG LINES FOR VOTING

This is not a partisan issue - this is a sanity issue:

I VOTED...

Lines were longer than usual, even here in "deep blue" Southern California. It took only 45-minutes to vote though - which seems longer when you have a whining 13 month-old with you.

Even with the outrageously long lines - I sincerely hope everyone gets to vote before the polls close.

Can someone please tell me why we don't do this on a weekend? Why it isn't a National Holiday?

BARACK OBAMA'S GRANDMOTHER DIES

Obama's 86 year-old grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died this morning of cancer. To think that she made it within 24-hours of seeing the grandson she raised possibly become the first African-American President of the United States. I can't imagine how conflicted Obama himself must feel.

On a completely separate note, I hope that this quiets the ghouls like Rush Limbaugh who raised questions about Obama's emergency visit with Dunham 10 days ago. As Rush put it:

"Who announces days in advance they're rushing to the side of a loved one who is deathly ill, but keeps campaigning in a race that's said to be over, only to go to the loved one's side days later? See, I think this is about something else. You know what's really percolating out there? And I've been laying low on this because it just -- it hasn't met the threshold to pass the smell test on this program. But this birth certificate business, this lawsuit that a guy named Phillip Berg filed in Philadelphia in August for Obama to produce his genuine birth certificate, and he still hasn't replied, he hasn't done so."

There simply is no "bottom" for people like Rush, Hannity, Corsi, and Savage - they are the lowest of the low.

SUPERBARACK!

He graduated top of his class at Columbia University.

He was President of the Harvard Law Review.

But did you know he had heat vision too?

A CANDIDATE'S HEALTH: IT'S A MATTER OF TRUST

Two weeks ago, Sarah Palin said she would release her medical records "before election day". With that date some 11-hours away, Palin's records are nowhere in sight - and there's no indication that they will be coming.

This is something that every candidate for President and Vice President has done for years. It's a matter of transparency when electing someone to the most important office in the world.

It should be noted that, along with Palin, McCain released his records in one of the strangest, most secretive ways ever. The 72 year-old cancer survivor released 1,800 pages of documents that covered only the last eight years - that's 225 pages PER YEAR! He also made the "review process" a joke by imposing the following rules:

Only certain news networks and newspapers will be permitted to enter the room, and they will have only three hours to examine the papers.

No cell phones or Internet access will be allowed in the room, located in a resort outside Phoenix, Arizona. Copying the records is also prohibited.

So while McCain and Palin continue to attack Senator Obama for his associations with others - it's simply amazing that these two can't even come clean about their own bodies.

McCAIN'S SPELL CHECK: PART III

There seems to be no end in sight. I posted not one, but two examples of the McCain Campaign's inability to use spell check in their advertisements. Here's a third:
We already knew the McCain Campaign knew nothing about "virtue" - but you'd at least think they could spell it.

THE ONLY PERSON WHO'S BETTER OFF THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO

Dude's got the same representation as Grand Funk Railroad and Eddie Money! As Bill Maher said:

"He's so worried about Obama taking away the money he'll never have, but he's willing to give a manager fifteen percent."

IS IT STILL A "RALLY" IF NO ONE SHOWS UP?

I'M SURE THIS IS WHAT McCAIN WANTS TO HEAR

Endorsed by Cheney AND Bush?! Nice. A president with a sub 30% approval number, a worthless (and expensive) war in Iraq, and an economy in shambles thinks McCain has the "right ideas" on the economy and National Security? This guy must not like John McCain very much.

McCAIN'S MATH PROBLEM AND THOSE PESKY CELLPHONES

Chuck Todd did a good job of explaining why John McCain is spending so much time in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire these days. As it turns out, it's his only prayer to winning the White House:

On a completely separate note, Nate Silver has an interesting take on the polls and why the "tightening" might not be as real as we think. The problem? Many young voters (under 30) have eliminated "land lines" in favor of cell phones as their primary communication device. However, many traditional polls don't take this into account when conducting their phone polls - which means many young people are under represented.

However, a few polls have begun contacting these "cell only" voters, and results to their polls has been evident. The polls below in yellow take into account cell phone voters - the grey does not:
It should still be noted that Obama leads in every poll - but the difference when cell phone users are added is staggering.

McCAIN'S SPELL CHECK PART II

Just yesterday, I posted about the McCain Campaign's lack of spell check in an advertisement that, no doubt, passed several sets of eyeballs along the way. Well, it wouldn't be a trend without two, so here we go:

You might notice that end card:
For those of us that didn't finish 894 out of 899 in their class, "exaggerate" is two "g's" and one "r". Again, does a sloppy and mismanaged campaign make a sloppy and mismanaged Presidency? Let's hope to God we don't have to find out.

VOTER FRAUD: THE REPUBLICAN FAIRY TALE

You gotta hand it to the guys over at Politico. Republicans have been jumping up and down over the last few weeks about ACORN, phony voter registrations, and the threat they pose to the process. Heck, even John McCain said that ACORN, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

So Politico decided to ask a member of the McCain-Palin "Honest and Open Election Committee" to name a single instance where such phony registrations had lead to actual voter fraud at the polls. His response?

“Do we have a documented instance of voting fraud that resulted from a phony registration form? No, I can’t cite one, chapter and verse.”

That's a fancy way of saying, "Hello. We're trying to create a conservative hysteria over here! Do you mind?"

The rest of the article does a good job of minimizing the hysteria whipped up by Fox News and others - and again makes me wonder how many legal voters will be affected come Tuesday by the illegal voter purging that's been taking place the last few weeks.

ALMOST BEYOND BELIEF... ALMOST

A woman denying candy to children of Obama supporters? A woman attaching candy bags to McCain/Palin pamphlets? If Hollywood created a conservative character this evil - Fox News would be up in arms!

WHY DRUDGE AND MURDOCH FAIL

The Drudge Report is currently running a large headline which simply reads: "I WILL CHANGE THE WORLD" under a photo of Barack Obama. The linked story takes you to a story from Rupert Murdoch's SkyNews, which parrots the exact same quote attached to the Democratic Candidate, and talks of his speech yesterday in Henderson, Nevada.

I was troubled. This just didn't seem like the words Obama would choose. After all, he may be many things, but Barack Obama has forged his campaign with the idea that America works best "from the bottom up", and that ordinary people can make a change. Which is maybe why a text search for "I will change the world," never matched the transcript of his statements in Nevada. His speech actually read like this:

And if in these last few days, you will knock on some doors for me, and make some calls for me, and go to barackobama.com and find out where to vote – and remember, you can vote early here in Nevada. If you will stand with me, and fight by my side, and cast your ballot for me, then I promise you this – we will not just win Nevada, we will not just win this election, but together, we will change this country and we will change the world. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America.

I guess it's kinda hard to paint a guy like a megalomaniac when he's actually empowering everyday people to join together for change? So yeah, why show some journalistic integrity? Why not simply replace the word "we", for "I", and see where that gets you?

You know, if only Obama were as dishonest as these scumbags - then they might have something to smear him with.

IS THE RACE REALLY TIGHTENING?

Fox News talks up a "tightening" race. The Drudge Report trumpets a Zogby poll where McCain leads on one day. The McCain campaign even talks about Pennsylvania being "in play". But is any of it true? Not if you take Gallup's word for it.

Take this "likely voter" model:
Or their likely voter "traditional" model:
Or how about the simply "registered voter" model:
If anything, you see the trend lines separating between McCain and Obama. In fact, this chart could lead you to believe that Obama's 30-minute "infomercial" might have had more influence than anyone thought. At any rate, this appears to be a 10-point difference some 72-hours before the polls close on Tuesday night.

Some of the more fascinating prognostication comes from former baseball statistician Nate Silver's site: fivethirtyeight.com. Silver became a political star when he forecasted the Super Tuesday results within 20 delegates (out of 1,700). His site is a oddsmaker's dream, and currently gives Obama a 96.2% (to 3.8%) chance of winning the White House.

In other words, it better start actually "tightening" for McCain to have a chance.

DOES SARAH PALIN THINK WE'RE AT WAR WITH IRAN?

Check out the 2:00 mark:

You just gotta love that she tries to jump on former Governor Bill Richardson "gaffe" moments after making a gigantic gaffe herself. I mean, if she can't properly identify the two military conflicts we're currently in, should she really be speaking about ANYONE not being capable of leading the country?

Is this really the future leader of the Republican Party?

WHAT CAMPAIGNS SAY ABOUT THEIR CANDIDATE?

The other day I poked fun at the idea of John McCain calling out for "Joe the Plumber" only to find out his campaign dropped the ball and never followed up with the man. As silly as the moment was, it does speak to the level of competence of the McCain Campaign. I mean, how hard is it to make a friggin' phone call?

So I guess it should come as no surprise that they've dropped the ball again in an even more spectacular fashion. Here's McCain's newest "Joe the Plumber" ad:

So maybe someone can explain how this commercial was produced, and no doubt screened hundreds of times for people of all levels in the campaign - and NOT ONE PERSON noticed this:
That's right "EVERBODY" in the McCain Campaign missed a simple misspelling, when it was the ONLY WORD on the screen at the time. I've personally worked ten years in television production - sometimes as a one-man facility - and NEVER missed something this simple.

Again, forget that McCain is 72 years-old. Forget that his Vice Presidential pick is massively unqualified. Forget that his campaign is filled with lobbyists. Forget that his economic plan is Dubya's on steroids. These idiots can't even catch the simple stuff?!

Ouch.

HAT TIP TO CROOKSANDLIARS.COM

McCAIN MAKING DUBYA LOOK ARTICULATE

Since the beginning of the financial crisis, John McCain has been repeating the same line, "Raising taxes during a time of crisis makes a bad economy worse." One can argue the merit of this argument, especially with Bill Clinton's stunning reversal of the 1992 recession - but there's no mistaking McCain's "broken record" rhetoric. Then yesterday, he said this:

Note to McCain: You're not too old because of your age. You're too old because of your actions.