Pew Hispanic Center. 7/9-13. Registered Hispanic voters. MoE 4.4% (

Remember, exit polls gave Bush 44 percent of the Latino vote in 2004, with Kerry getting just 53 percent. These Pew numbers represent the utter collapse of GOP support amongst Latinos which started in 2006, when xenophobic anti-immigrant rantings scared Latinos away from the GOP. Only 30 percent of Latinos voted Republican that year. I'm guessing today that Democrats earn as much as 75 percent of the Latino vote this year.

That will be significant, as the rest of Pew's report (PDF) makes clear.

[S]ome 78% of Latino registered voters say they are following the election very closely or somewhat closely this year, up from the 72% who said the same thing at this stage of the 2004 campaign. These poll findings, coming on the heels of a spirited Obama-Clinton nomination fight that led to rises in the Latino share of the vote in many Democratic primaries, suggest that the Hispanic community is politically energized heading into the fall election campaign.

More than three-quarters (76%) of Hispanic registered voters have a favorable opinion of Obama, and 73% have a favorable opinion of Hillary Rodham Clinton. In contrast, 44% of Hispanics have a favorable opinion of McCain and 27% have a favorable opinion of George W. Bush.

More than three-in-four Hispanics who voted for Clinton in a Democratic primary or caucus this year say they would vote for Obama or lean toward voting for him, while 8% of Clinton voters say they would vote for McCain or lean toward voting for him.

Latino registered voters are almost three times as likely to say that being black will help Obama (32%) with Hispanic voters than hurt him (11%); the majority (53%) say his race will make no difference.

More than half of Latino voters (55%) say that the Democratic Party is better for Latinos while just 6% say the Republican Party is better for Latinos.

By 2010, the Census Bureau expects the Latino population to be at 47.8 million, or 15.5 percent of the total population. By 2050, they project 102.6 million of us, or 24.4 of the country's total. With Republicans assiduously alienating this key and rapidly growing block, to the point that just 6 percent think Republicans are better for them, it has put a serious strain on their future ability to win.

So yes, this is all great news for Obama this year, but it portends huge things for the future of American politics, quite possibly the death of the modern Republican Party.

As for Obama, we've been mocking the whole "Latinos won't vote for a black guy" thing for months, ever since the Clinton campaign first used that ridiculous (and insulting) line of attack. The numbers since then have been quite clear. Latinos are more than happy enough (and excited) about voting for Obama as anyone else, and likely more so. I'm glad we're finally moving on from that ridiculousness.

Oh, apparently the wingnutosphere is in a tizzy because the traditional media won't cover the latest tripe from the National Enquirer. On that front, Richard Blair makes a good point:

if the legacy media heathers decide that they must titter and squeal about the veracity of the claims of in the Enquirer, then they are also duty bound to get to the bottom of the following tabloid stories:

Bush Booze Crisis, National Enquirer, 2/21/2005

Claw Marks, Globe Magazine, 1/8/2008:

Google Bush divorce tabloid and see what you come up with (hint: more than 175,000 hits)

Yeah! Why won't the "MSM" cover these stories? Coverup!

Seriously, I can't believe this is even subject to debate, but for the crazies, no source is too disreputable if it validates their warped world view. Although in a perverse sense, the more energy they spend on b.s. like this (and Obama's supposedly forged birth certificate), the less energy they're spending on smearing Obama.

The House is not in session today, but the big goings-on will be in the House Judiciary Committee.

• Watch online
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Today's the day House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has set aside for a hearing granted in response to the demands of Dennis Kucinich for hearings on the impeachment resolutions he's introduced over the course of the past few months: H. Res. 333 and H. Res. 799, impeaching Dick Cheney, and H. Res. 1258 and H. Res. 1345, impeaching George W. Bush.

The hearing, scheduled for 10:00 A.M. in Room 2141 in the Rayburn House Office Building, is not styled as an impeachment hearing. That's something Conyers and his staff have studiously avoided. It is instead titled a hearing on, "Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations." As we'll see later, this designation could impose some real substantive limitations on the ability of Members and witnesses alike to discuss such critical matters as what constitutional provisions actually set the boundaries of executive power, and what Bush may have done to warrant their invocation. But other than that...

Chairman Conyers wasn't originally inclined to hold any kind of hearing related to Kucinich's resolutions, but a combination of factors eventually made that an untenable position -- though unfortunately none of those factors likely reflect any newfound interest among most Members of Congress in actually impeaching either Cheney or Bush. But with three of Kucinich's four resolutions all referred to Conyers' committee by actual roll call votes on the floor rather than by the usual process of designation by the Speaker in consultation with the parliamentarian, treating those referrals as mere pro forma designations and letting the bills die of neglect (as is the chairman's prerogative) became more difficult to do.

In addition, the cosponsorship of some of those resolutions by members of the Judiciary Committee (Tammy Baldwin, Robert Wexler, Luis Gutierrez, Steve Cohen, Keith Ellison, Shiela Jackson-Lee, Maxine Waters), and especially the explicit pressure for hearings by Wexler, Baldwin and Gutierrez, made it impossible to maintain the position that there was no interest among the membership in having those hearings.

Finally, there was the tactic eventually employed to greater effect by Kucinich, taking advantage of the rules permitting any Member of the House to bring a resolution directly proposing impeachment to the floor at any time as a highly privileged motion, and forcing the Speaker to designate a time within two days after the motion is noticed for its consideration. That gave Kucinich the ability to threaten, after his Cheney resolutions were ignored by the Judiciary Committee, to follow up his first Bush resolution with a second one if the Committee didn't act within 30 days. In theory, he could have threatened an even shorter timeline for the second one, or indeed to bring one every single day until he got what he was looking for. But with that being clear to everyone, granting the hearing (but refusing to call it an impeachment hearing) must certainly have seemed the simplest solution. Especially if you can schedule them for a Friday when there are no votes in the House, so that fewer people will want to stick around to participate or follow along.

So who are the witnesses at this non-impeachment hearing?

Witness List

Panel I:

Hon. Dennis Kucinich
U.S. House of Representatives
10th District, OH

Hon. Maurice Hinchey
U.S. House of Representatives
22nd District, NY

Hon. Walter Jones
U.S. House of Representatives
3rd District, NC

Hon. Brad Miller
U.S. House of Representatives
13th District, NC

Panel II:

Hon. Elizabeth Holtzman
Former U.S. House of Representatives
16th District, NY
Department of Justice

Hon. Bob Barr
Former U.S. House of Representatives
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
7th District, GA

Hon. Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson
Founder and President
High Roads for Human Rights

Stephen Presser
Raoul Berer Professor of Legal History
Northwestern University School of Law

Bruce Fein
Associate Deputy Attorney General, 1981-82
Chairman, American Freedom Agenda

Vincent Bugliosi
Author and Former Los Angeles County Prosecutor

Jeremy A. Rabkin
Professor of Law
George Mason University School of Law

Elliott Adams
President of the Board
Veterans for Peace

Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr.
Senior Counsel
Brennan Center for Jutice at NYU School of Law

Interesting. Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Constitutional Law professor who doesn't appear to have a law degree. It's by no means impossible to teach ConLaw without one. But I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. GMU Law. Gee, I wonder who suggested him?

Panel I looks interesting too. Walter Jones is a name I wouldn't have expected to see there, though I know he's been both rather remorseful about the Iraq war and outspoken about it, since his long ago "freedom fries" days. Hinchey has been very vocal in the past with questions about the process by which DOJ claims to have "authorized" the NSA's illegal domestic spying program. Kucinich, of course, is Kucinich. And Brad Miller will be there to discuss two pieces of legislation he's introducing to address the Bush "administration" power grabs: one to authorize the Congress to ask the courts to appoint a special prosecutor in cases when the DOJ refuses to press contempt of Congress charges, and one to require notice to Congress when the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issues an opinion advising the executive that it may ignore statutory law (though I suppose we might wonder why they wouldn't ignore that law, too).

Finally, a note on what not to expect: the "L word." Many people watching the hearings will wonder at some point why no one is just coming out and saying Bush lied. There's extensive precedent in the House against "personal abuse, innuendo, or ridicule of the President."

Personal abuse, innuendo, or ridicule of the President, is not permitted. Under this standard it is not in order to call the President, or a presumptive major-party nominee for President, a "liar" or accuse him of "lying". Indeed, any suggestion of mendacity is out of order. For example, the following remarks have been held out of order: (1) suggesting that the President misrepresented the truth, attempted to obstruct justice, and encouraged others to perjure themselves; (2) accusing him of dishonesty, accusing him of making a "dishonest argument", charging him with intent to be intellectually dishonest, or stating that many were convinced he had "not been honest"; (3) accusing him of "raping" the truth, not telling the truth, or distorting the truth; (4) stating that he was not being "straight with us"; (5) accusing him of being deceptive, fabricating an issue, or intending to mislead the public; (6) accusing him of intentional mischaracterization, although mischaracterization without intent to deceive is not necessarily out of order. [Notes omitted]

And here's something that may cause a bit of trouble:

Although wide latitude is permitted in debate on a proposition to impeach the President, Members must abstain from language personally offensive; and Members must abstain from comparisons to the personal conduct of sitting Members of the House or Senate. Furthermore, Members may not refer to evidence of alleged impeachable offenses by the President contained in a communication from an independent counsel pending before a House committee, although they may refer to the communication, itself, within the confines of proper decorum in debate. [Notes omitted]

I'm not sure what kind of latitude is permitted in a hearing that's convened solely because of a pending proposition to impeach the president, but which purports not to be on that subject, but even the above rule doesn't appear to leave a lot of room for, you know, actually discussing what it is that people will be there to discuss.

All of these precedents, though intended to govern debate on the House floor, will likely be applied similarly to questioning and testimony in the Judiciary Committee. So you may have to get your fix of the "L word" from the press conferences afterward. And depending on what kind of stink, if any, Republicans raise and how Conyers deals with it, most of the other words you want to hear, too. Fair warning.

The hearings will be available via streaming video at the House Judiciary Committee website, and Pacifica Radio's coverage begins at 9:00 am EDT, and will be streamed live at pacifica.org and kpfa.org and on the air at KPFA (Berkeley), KPFK (Los Angeles), KPFT (Houston), WBAI (New York), and others TBD.

In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

Convenes: 9:15am

9:15 am Immediately following the prayer and pledge, the Senate will proceed to up to 2 Roll Call Votes in relation to the following:

• Motion to invoke cloture on S.3268
• If cloture is not invoked on S.3268, motion to invoke cloture on the House message with respect to H.R.3221, the Housing legislation.

10:00am Filing deadline for all 2nd degree amendments [see this discussion of the different types of amendments] to S.3268, the Energy Speculation bill.

The Senate will likely stay in session over the weekend to finish any post-cloture debate on the above bills, and perhaps begin the process of getting the "Coburn Omnibus" (S. 3297) to the floor for next week.

Did you know Obama was in Europe?

EJ Dionne:

The conventional wisdom on certain subjects is so deeply rooted that no amount of evidence disturbs its hold. That's how it is with those dreary predictions that young Americans just won't vote.

If and when they do, of course, they rewrite history.

David Brooks: Eh, I'm not impressed about that Obama speech. Where were the unicorns? Compared to Shakespeare, this was merely Faulkner.

Eugene Robinson: Obama's not lucky, he's good. But don't tell Brooks.

Charles Krauthammer: Obama will probably win. That snake in the grass Maliki just threw the election Obama's way. And he doesn't even wear an American flag lapel pin.

Ilan Goldenberg: If McCain wants to pretend to be a counterinsurgency expert, he'd better start listening to Maliki. That's Counterinsurgency 101.

Joe Scarborough (MSNBC, vlog): McCain wins the image contrast by campaigning at Sausage Haus. No kidding, I really said that.

Kathleen Parker: It's all about pride and arrogance. And presumption. How dare he not buy into right wing frames and admit The Surge Is Working®? He must be a left wing commie pinko that hates America. Just like Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed.

What does it mean to be arrogant?

ar·ro·gant  (r-gnt) adj.

1. Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.

2. Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others: an arrogant contempt for the weak.

How about presumptuous?

presumptuous  (pr-zmpch-s) adj.

Going beyond what is right or proper; excessively forward.

Do we think we can be a little more accurate when we throw the terms around? I ask after hearing the talking heads on cable TV blather about while everything about the Obama trip was successful, it 'borders' on being arrogant and presumptuous to be doing as well as he is doing abroad. Not that these were ever terms used by these folks for an event that really deserved the terms. Had they been free with the terms when George Bush landed on the aircraft carrier, or when John McCain said in 2003, referring to Iraq, "Overall, I Believe Our Goals Have Been Met", they might have a point. But they didn't say that about Bush and McCain then and they won't say it about them now. It's not the narrative they are trying to set. They want to reserve the terms for the new guy, Obama, who hasn't paid his dues with them (at least in their own minds).

These same folks are still rather annoyed that Obama doesn't seem to be a supplicant to the talking heads and pundits for their blessing and approval for him to look like a President. He seems to be doing it without them, and not all of them like it.

Some are willing to give Obama a passing grade. David Broder is willing to argue that Obama took no risks with this trip, but nonetheless, the lad did okay. You may recall this famous quote about Bill Clinton:

"He came in here and he trashed the place," says Washington Post columnist David Broder, "and it's not his place."

to get a sense of how important it is to the gatekeepers to establish exactly whose place Washington is, and who belongs and who does not.

Still, the media coverage for the most part has been very good and very positive, and with those visuals, how could it not be? And even those who bring up the arrogant and presumptuous descriptions allow that Obama looked Presidential, and held his own with the generals and the statesman. Everyone who brings it up is careful to say 'almost' or that 'there's no line that's been crossed'. It's just part of the narrative that's developing, in parallel with Obama holding his own with the generals, or his thinking and expressing that he might be dealing with these world leaders for some years to come.

The fun thing is watching someone who is composed, sure-footed and, yes, intelligent, represent America abroad. How great is it that we have a potential President that can put two sentences together without sounding like an inarticulate drunk?

Our friends from overseas are honest enough to say so. This is from the Times (UK):

And there is much more to him. He can sound high-minded yet rooted, idealistic yet grounded, exhilarated yet calm, warmly American and yet a bit of a European too. And, yes, presidential — it is there in his confidence and in his willingness to think and talk big with measured inspiration and an attractive humility. He didn’t go so far as to say "Ich bin ein Berliner", like John F. Kennedy all those years ago, but to judge by the excitement with which they greeted him, the Berliners clearly thought that he was that — and more.

Meanwhile, while Obama looks Presidential, McCain looks petulant. He's ignored his own trips to Canada (with speeches) and Central and South America to suggest that Obama shouldn't be giving speeches abroad. This, after bitterly complaining that Obama hadn't gone to Iraq and Afghanistan, and now complaining that he has.

McCain has had a terrible week, and Obama has had a great one. So, the only way to equal it out a little is to call Obama arrogant and presumptuous, especially for refusing to accept The Surge Is Working® frame. But times have changed, and we don't need them to tell us what to think. We can watch and see for ourselves. The funny thing is that, just between you and me, I think the terms fit some of the pundits this week better than they fit Barack Obama. But, of course, it would be presumptuous of me to say so.

^{Bush picture credit: AP/Applewhite
Obama picture credit: Reuters/Tobias Schwarz}

Chris Bowers at OpenLeft wonders, What Is Your Favorite Contradictory McCain Attack?:

1. Seventeen days after taking a trip abroad to Columbia [sic] and Mexico, five weeks after giving a paid campaign speech in Canada, and two months after criticizing Obama for not going to Iraq, the McCain campaign criticizes Obama for taking a trip abroad that includes a stop in Iraq

2. Eleven days after holding a press conference to claim that Obama  is a serial flip-flopper, McCain argues that Obama is the most extremist member of the Senate.

3. Five days after releasing a documentary criticizing Obama for flip-flopping on Iraq, the McCain campaign argues that Obama is too inflexible on Iraq.

Whether it's Roe v. Wade or off-shore drilling or a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants, McCain has taken opposite sides. Is it flip-floppery? Or is it flim-flammery?

He was anti-Grover Norquist before he was pro-Grover Norquist. He opposed torture before he yielded to White House demands. He was for campaign-finance reform before he was against a reform provision he sponsored two years earlier. He opposed presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he favored it. He was anti-ethanol, then for it. He supported flying the Confederate flag on government property before he rejected the practice. He was for talking with Hamas until he was against it. He favored privatizing Social Security before he said he never was in favor of privatizing Social Security. He opposed the Bush tax cuts for the rich until he voted for them, twice.

Just before he steps off the Double-Talk Express, McCain must spin around three times and click his deals to decide which side of his mouth he is going to speak from.

At the risk of exhausting our pixel supply, here's your chance to name your favorite McCain contradiction.

(If you think you remember one, but not quite, you might try out nica24's extensive collection of links: h/t to peraspera.)

The Overnight News Digest is posted.

This evening's Rescue Rangers are vcmvo2, ybruti, a synthetic cubist, sunspark says, HansScholl, dadanation and jlms qkw with Avila as editor.

• captbobalou suggests that religious fundamentalism may not be the most difficult issue to overcome in Afghanistan in The Problem with Poppies (Part II). (sunspark says)
• winterbanyan describes how Obama's visit has stirred memories of kindness and courage of the American pilots during the Berlin airlift in Obama, the "Raisin Bombers" and my German friend. (HansScholl)
• Louise finds echoes of FDR in Obama's Berlin speech in Obama and FDR's 'Four Freedoms'. (sunspark says)
• fake consultant takes a look at the Bush administration's failure to support our troops upon their return from war in On Extraordinary Awards, Or, Wounded Troops, Wounded Again. (sunspark says)
• mspicata pulls back to look at the larger political picture, the right wing's limited arsenal, and John McCain's tomato supply. (a synthetic cubist)
• boofdah, who recently added two little boys to her family, explains why Being a foster parent has made me more, not less, liberal. (ybruti)
• CinDan reminds us that our failure to have universal health care carries a higher price tag than who pays the co-pay in Rejected. (vcmvo2)
• Tuffy illustrates problems with our health care system in I am so damned tired of almost losing family. (ybruti)
• AdmiralNaismith continues his state by state review of Democratic prospects in the upcoming elections in Focus On...WISCONSIN!!! (HansScholl)
• Bcgntn shares her reflections on her father's birthday and Obama's speech in The Audacity to Hope is a Dream From My Father. (jlms qkw)
• CIndyCasella has a somewhat more sympathetic than usual take on the Katie Couric/John McCain interview in Dear Katie. (sunspark says)
• lyubansky examines the socioeconomic differences between the races in the well-researched but cumbersomely titled How Obama can appeal to Black and White voters and why doing so is more difficult than it may seem. (sunspark says)
• While bklynarch outlines why wetlands are vital to slowing climate change in Wetland Destruction - Another AGW Puzzle Piece, Crashing Vor explains how they can act like "Horizontal Levees". (a synthetic cubist)
• FishOutofWater reports on the status of a plan to protect endangered Hawaiian marine life in Endangered Species & Unique Habitats Must be Protected. (vcmvo2)

High Impact Diaries are brought to you by jotter, and Top Comments - Lily vs. The Head are brought to you by emeraldmaiden.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries from the last 24 hours in the open thread.

Apparently, Brock Olivo did not do well in social studies class. And presumably, he was even worse in history.

Asked to name his favorite of the Founding Fathers, our favorite former football star turned heinously awkward political candidate has a terrific answer:

"Abraham Lincoln".

In his defense, another candidate said "Ronald Reagan", an answer in which I am really trying to see the funny side. Even Brock himself didn't name Reagan as his fave founder (although to be fair, he almost did).

The Repubs actually have two serious candidates, Bob Onder and Blaine Luetkemeyer, and they better be praying with all their might that they don't split the vote and enable one of these two maroons to win the primary.

Race tracker wiki: MO-09

CNN reports that Dr James Dobson, described by some as the most powerful living leader of the Dominionist movement, might be ready to kiss and make up with John McSame. The news came as a bit of a surprise -- to the irrevocably clueless anyway -- as just this year Dobson declared he could not vote for the aging Arizona Senator under any circumstance. Why the dramatic flip-flop? Ed Brayton makes a safe wager:

As I've been telling people for months, there is only one thing they really and truly want and know that they can get if they can keep Obama out of the White House: the Supreme Court. I guarantee you they have already cut a deal with McCain ...

On the wild chance that anyone really needed more or better reasons to vote for Obama, there you go. If McCain wins, odds are the next set of Supreme Court Justices will be chosen by an ultra-conservative American cleric leading a Neo-Reconstructionist movement in which public schools are blasphemous, and over zealous followers pray their hearts out for the violent end of the world every day -- just what every nuclear superpower needs. Forget about reproductive choices, science education, or equal rights. Ignorance and illiteracy breeds true. A decade or two under the purview of neo-clown winger judges groomed by the likes of Robert Bork or Roy Moore, and many of tomorrow's young women could end up in prearranged sexual servitude alternating between serial pregnancies and being locked in a menstrual shed.

The Bush White House is surely twice as ethical this year as last. In July 2007 the WH staff included two "Ethics Advisors", each earning more than $100,000. That was the year in which a parade of top administration officials were telling Congressional hearings that they remembered nothing about their criminal conspiracies.

Since 2007 both Ethics Advisors have left the WH. Previously the two ethicists in 2006 had also moved on. Perhaps the work load is a problem. Sensing that something needed to be done, the WH has now doubled the number of ethicists on staff to four. The top salary has also shot up nearly 20%.

The improvement in the White House's ethical standards is apparent. Fewer and fewer administration officials are feigning memory loss. During the past year the WH favored a much cleaner solution to the problem of oversight by refusing to comply at all with Congressional subpoenas.

Presumably that's why the WH was able to eliminate the Office for Lessons Learned. Bush has learned all the lessons he wishes to learn.

Here's something no one could have predicted...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday announced joint appointments to a landmark ethics review board that for the first time will allow private citizens to review allegations against members.

Still, four out of six members of the board for the newly created Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) will be former members of Congress, including former CIA Director Porter Goss (R-Fla.), who will serve as co-chairman.

Well, golly-gee! Wow. The ex-chief spy -- in an era where insane FISA "reforms" have already made people suspicious of political spying -- being put in charge of sorting out the dirt on Members of Congress.

By the way, go read the article. It's a masterwork of news-in-context. Porter Goss, named to co-chair the ethics panel, written up in a DC insider publication, with no mention whatsoever of Dusty Foggo or Duke Cunningham.

Spies, bribes, hookers... ethics panel. Yeah, this is gonna be great.

Accountability, here we come!

Earlier today, after Barack Obama's speech in Berlin, the McCain campaign issued a this petty press release:

While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a citizen of the world, John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election. Barack Obama offered eloquent praise for this country, but the contrast is clear. John McCain has dedicated his life to serving and protecting America, Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about.

Yes, how dare a presidential candidate speak to the world about his ability to govern as president. And as a matter of fact, here's John McCain thoughts on this very subject before his trip to Latin America earlier this month:

Going to Latin America in the midst of a presidential campaign, he said, speaks less to his role as a senator than to what he's hoping to achieve if elected this fall. "It's more my ability to govern as president," he said, "my ability to lead as president, to keep up with these major issues."

Did he forget that he said that, or is John McCain that much of a hypocrite?

Bryon York over at NRO's The Corner whines:

It's a small passage from Obama's Berlin speech, but this formulation, common in some circles, grates on some ears, like mine:

The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.

Yes, the victims were from all over the globe — places like Brooklyn, and the Bronx, and Manhattan, and Queens, and Staten Island, and New Jersey — all over.  And most were Americans, weren't they?  Wasn't that the point of the attack?  This isn't to diminish the loss of anyone on September 11, but people come from all over the world to be Americans, and the great majority of people who died that day were Americans.

York points to Factcheck.org, which states that only 21 of the death certificates handed out as a consequence of September 11 were of foreign nationals from eight countries.

There were 327 foreign nationals killed in the September 11 attacks. They were commemorated on the fifth anniversary, with Condoleeza Rice in attendance, as you can read about in this story, Five-Year 9/11 Remembrance Honors Victims from 90 Countries. Some, it is true, were dual citizens. But Britain alone lost 67 of her citizens that day, as you can read about in this story, British victims of 9/11 remembered by royal couple.

York's take on this not only begrudges other countries their loss, but also renders that loss a provincial, American loss. Obama is attempting, years after the fact, to remind the world of the opposite, of the universal horror of that day and the way that people from every corner of the globe - from France to Iran - stood in solidarity with New York and Washington on September 11. And, of course, by implication, how attitudes like York's within the administration squandered that sense of solidarity.  

York is certainly petty in downplaying the deaths of non-Americans in the attacks. But worse, inherent in his screech is the reverse of his xenophobia, a rejection of the notion that we as Americans could ever feel solidarity and a sense of humanist bonding with people of another country. Screw the Enlightenment, we're not cosmopolitan, we've got no broader sense of common humanity. It's us versus the world, and if you don't live here, you don't f'n matter.

Pathetic.

McCain apparently isn't as tech ignorant as we think.  Like most Republicans, he appears to be getting all his news from chain emails, because he's parroting the latest talking point that's been propagating down the pipe that brought previous bits of GOP misdirection.  

Earlier, campaigning in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., McCain credited the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush's lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling, an action he has been advocating in his presidential campaign.

See, we didn't even have to drill to lower the price of oil, we only had to talk about it.  Which has to make you wonder why Bush didn't bother to remove the executive ban until after Republicans had decided to make oil the focus of their campaign.  (Oh yeah, and how is it that Democrats kept oil companies from saving us when Bush left the executive ban in effect until now?)

What's the real reason oil prices are falling?

"The worries about demand erosion in the U.S. and an economic slowdown are really pulling prices down," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consulting firm Purvin & Gertz Inc. in Singapore.

The Energy Department's report also showed that U.S. gasoline stockpiles jumped 2.9 million barrels last week, far more than analysts surveyed by energy research firm Platts predicted. The decline in crude inventories was less than forecast.

So congratulations to McCain, Bush, and the Republicans!  They've reduced oil prices by wrecking the economy to the point where demand is falling.  I guess that's one way to satisfy the supply/demand equation.

Don't worry, none of this will make the email.

Just a little reminder from Berlin ....

This is what "proud to be an American" looks like in the 21st Century.

We're in trouble:

Obama was at the Tiergarten in Berlin, amid a sea of people.  McCain was at "Schmidt's Sausage Haus und Restaurant" in German Village, an enclave of Columbus, Ohio.

McCain addressed about a half dozen Ohio small business owners in the historic village.
"I'd love to give a speech in Germany," McCain said. "But I'd much prefer to do it as President."

[...]

This event was hastily organized after the candidate's planned visit to a Louisiana [oil rig] was cancelled due to the threat of hurricanes in the Gulf Coast.

Someone emailed me this news from another source, and at first we couldn't tell if it was satire.  Obama, of course, gave a speech this afternoon to huge crowd in Berlin.  He has just come from the Middle East, where he garnered glowing press.   Seeing the McCain campaign try to counter Obama's Berlin event with a stop in German Village where McCain ate some sausage is so pathetic it probably causes most political observers who aren't fervent Republicans to laugh, and like us, think, "nah, this has to be a joke.  They're not that bad...are they?"

It wasn't a joke.  And it's got me worried.

You probably know the concept of peaking too soon.  I'm afraid the McCain campaign may be bottoming out too soon.  I've been following politics since the mid-80's, and I can't think of any campaign that has been as bad as McCain's.  

The campaign thought it was a good idea to send McCain out to an oil rig during a hurricane.  That didn't work, because, you know, there was a hurricane.  By even suggesting that it was a good idea, and then having to pull back from their plans, they looked like nitwits.  (And that doesn't even address the problems caused by the oil spill that's shut down the Mississippi River south of New Orleans.  

Their Plan B?  They sent him to an ethnic diner that will reinforce the contrast between the tired McCain, who met with a few small businessmen, and the charismatic Obama, who got a reception from Berliners like that given to John F. Kennedy.  

Obama went to Berlin and got hundreds of thousands of people and fawning press coverage.  McCain went to Ohio and got a bratwurst and probably a case of heartburn.    

So why am I worried?  Because I can't believe Republicans will allow McCain to continue running his campaign this poorly.  [And the RNC hasn't been any better, as SusanG pointed out yesterday.]  The rest of the party doesn't necessarily need him to run a campaign that can put him in a position to win, but they have to do whatever they can to prevent him from losing solidly and losing in a landslide.  A solid loss hurts them for a while.  It could take them a decade or longer to recover from a landslide loss.

McCain isn't a particularly good candidate.  He's undisciplined, many people think he's too old to be president, he's too closely associated with George W. Bush, and his party is now loathed by much of America.  He's generally seen as likable, but more and more his weaknesses as a candidate are becoming visible.

But as bad a candidate as McCain may be, his campaign is making him worse.  They wasted the time between him locking up their nomination and Obama securing ours.  Obama raised as much money in one day last month as McCain raised in all of June.  McCain spent far more than Obama in June, but he didn't gain any ground.

The McCain campaign recently went through shake-up that was supposed to tighten their operations.  While they have gotten slightly more aggressive in attacking Obama, their messaging and choice of locations and visuals have been laughably bad and don't appear to be getting any better.

I love seeing McCain's campaign get outclassed by Obama's in almost every facet.  I have thought all along that whoever won our nomination would win the presidency, and that there's a good chance that by historical standards it won't even be close.  But I don't like to see the McCain campaign hit what by similar historical standards may be rock bottom, and do it so far out from the election that McCain might have time to bring in people who could improve his operation and make the election closer than we would all like.