June 02, 2008

6/2: Intense Feelings

The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee's decision to allocate 69 of MI's pledged delegates to Hillary Clinton and 59 to Barack Obama (who wasn't on the ballot) provoked a furious response from pro-Clinton bloggers. Taylor Marsh wrote an emotional post savaging the RBC members, telling them: "You have no idea what you've done. The fury you have unleashed...[You've] likely just thrown the 2008 election." Marsh's post -- combined with various accounts of angry Clinton supporters vowing to vote for John McCain if Obama wins the Dem nod -- has inflamed the tensions already roiling the liberal blogosphere. Many bloggers are urging the Clinton camp to cool their rhetoric (especially their controversial popular vote claims, which most liberal bloggers consider bogus) before more Dems become convinced that Obama's (likely) victory is illegitimate. Other bloggers are arguing that it's Obama's responsibility to unite Dems, not Clinton's.

DEM FIELD: Obama's More Popular

Liberal bloggers are pushing back against Clinton's claim that she leads Obama in the popular vote:

• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "In the real popular vote, including Florida which the DNC now accepts, and excluding Michigan, which the DNC now rejects, and including the caucus states (which Clinton and her camp want to disenfranchise), the numbers currently are Obama +[134,746]. [...] So even with this bullshit measure, Obama still leads. And it is bullshit. [...] The states are not on equal footing, hence any effort to tally the the popular vote is not an apple-to-apple comparison. Of course, we know that, the super delegates know that, the media knows that, and even the Clinton campaign secretly knows that. And it is that incessant bullshit that has made this primary, which has otherwise been a boon for our party, so infuriating."
• Daily Kos diarist RenaRF: "In the past three or four hours I have heard Harold Ickes, Terry McAuliffe, and Bill Schneider (CNN political analyst) repeatedly assert that Clinton is winning the popular vote. [...] Yet there was only one caution, from Anderson Cooper, that Clinton's popular vote 'lead' over Obama comes with substantial caveats on the part of the Clinton campaign. So I've done my own math. [...] There are FOURTEEN states that held caucuses which are NOT included in any of the math so far. So I went out and did some estimating. Democratic caucus turnout estimates for Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, and Wyoming were found here. I had to stretch on estimates for the remaining three caucus states. I used this mention for Hawaii's turnout estimate, this mention for Texas' caucus turnout, and this mention for Washington's turnout estimate. I recognize that this is imperfect on my part -- but at least I'm WAY ahead of Clinton's campaign in that at least I'm trying to base my estimate on some objective, fair fact. [...] When you use Clinton's own criteria and apply that criteria fairly, Obama clearly wins the so-called 'popular vote'."

DEM FIELD II: No, Clinton's More Popular

Open Left's Chris Bowers shares Moulitsas' belief that the popular vote is a "contentious" metric: "There are innumerable caveats to any popular vote total in the nomination campaign. Some states held primaries, while other held caucuses. Some primaries were open to all registered voters, others to only Democrats and Independents, and still others to only Democrats. The staggered primary calendar is another major issue, which resulted in many states having different candidates on the ballot, and voters with varying knowledge of results. Some states did not even keep popular vote totals. Michigan and Florida are also obviously major caveats. No campaigning took place in those states before the voting began, many voters stayed home because they were told the elections wouldn't count, and Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. Further, a nomination campaign is not about the popular vote, and there wasn't a single campaign that used the popular vote as a metric before the voting caucusing began. So, the popular vote is a contentious metric in the nomination campaign, to say the least."

That said, Bowers argues that Clinton is currently leading Obama in the popular vote by a narrow margin, but that Obama will probably overtake her after Tuesday's MT and SD primaries: "With South Dakota and Montana left to vote, Hillary Clinton currently holds an extremely narrow 19,899-vote lead over Barack Obama in the popular vote. Here are the current totals: Clinton: 17,916,763; Obama: 17,896,864. These totals include Iowa, Maine, Nevada and Washington, even though no official popular vote numbers were kept. They also include Florida, even though there was only minimal campaigning in the state before the primary took place and even though many people thought it wouldn't count. These totals also include Michigan, even though Obama's name was not on the ballot. They do, however, also allocate 72.91% of the 'uncommitted' vote to Obama, which is the amount of the uncommitted vote exit polls indicate he would have received in the state had his name been on the ballot. In short, these numbers are the final line from the Real Clear Politics popular vote count, minus 64,504 votes in Michigan that came from people who indicated they would have supported either John Edwards or Bill Richardson, had they been on the ballot. [...] Now, with about 275,000 votes left to go in South Dakota and Montana, and with Obama holding double-digit leads in both states, it would be pretty surprising if Obama did not end up as the winner of the popular vote."

TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt, a Clinton supporter, believes that Obama shouldn't receive any votes from MI and that Clinton leads him by a solid margin in the popular vote: "Isn't [Clinton] now indisputably the leader in the popular vote as of today? While we still need to wait for S.D. and MT where Obama is expected to win, those are small states. [...] Obama cannot count any popular votes from Michigan in my view since he removed himself from the ballot. The DNC can do what they want with delegates, but they cannot change the actual vote totals of certified state elections. Now that they have agreed to seat all the delegates based on the January results, they must also count the popular votes. The election may have been flawed, but it has now been legitimized. [...] Other facts: For the primaries held in April and May and June, Hillary won five while Obama won three, including his 7 vote win in Guam. If the Nebraska and Washington state primary numbers with far greater turnout were used instead of the caucus numbers, Hillary's lead in the popular vote would be even higher. See this post here. It's all up to the superdelegates now. Will they please put on their thinking caps?"

DEM FIELD III: This Is Not 'Nam. This Is Bowling. There Are Rules.

Pro-Clinton bloggers are criticizing the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee's decision to allocate MI's pledged delegates by a 69-59 formula:

• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "The 'solution' for Michigan was the worst possible outcome of the three choices the RBC had to choose from in settling the matter. [...] They had the votes to do the 50-50 split of MI, not recognizing the caucus. That decision would have had a basis in the rules. They could have went with a 73-55 seating, giving Clinton the seats she got from actual votes, leaving the uncommitted delegates to go to Obama, which would have also had a basis in the rules. They went instead with the MDP's 69-59 solution, which had no basis whatsoever in the rules. In giving Clinton more delegates than Obama, the RBC does so on the basis of their being a vote in MI that Clinton won, yet by not honoring the amount of votes she got, they make not actual votes, but some other measurement, the basis upon which to divide delegates. What measure would that be? Polling? The disenfranchised that didn't vote? Irrevocable harm? It's a disastrous precedent. [...] No doubt, it was a pragmatic move, but one that was the worst choice to make by a committee devoted to rules. And even the pragmatics of it are suspect. This decision needlessly gives the Clinton argument ammo, by taking away 4 delegates from votes she earned. Why? Obama, as far as I calculate it, needs about 10% of the remaining SD's for the nomination majority, 4 less PD's from MI would make the amount about 12%. Unless the Obama camp really doesn't know if they have the SD votes by a 1:9 margin, this makes no sense on their part to have had their supporters on the RBC go with this decision."
• TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat: "The DNC Rules and Bylaws committee did not change the rules [Saturday]; they did not even pretend to follow them. What the RBC did [Saturday] simply is not allowed by the DNC Rules."

Daily Kos' Kagro X agrees with Armstrong and Big Tent Democrat: "Everybody knows that a substantial portion of the people who came out to vote for 'uncommitted' in Michigan did so because they really wanted to vote for Obama, but he wasn't on the ballot (which was his own doing, whatever you may think of his motivations for doing it). But the bottom line is that the consequence of that withdrawal is that the only facts that can be definitively stated about those votes is that they were for 'uncommitted.' They could mean this. They could mean that. But they do mean 'uncommitted.' Or at least they did, until they were sprinkled with magic pixie dust over lunch this afternoon. Because when the RBC came back, they were magically transformed into votes that said, 'Yes, we said 'uncommitted,' but we really meant "Barack Obama."' And maybe that was even true. The point, though, is that the RBC had no mechanism under the rules by which they are entitled to make that decision. No mechanism, that is, except one: the prerogative of the rules committee to say -- provided it can muster the votes for it -- that the rules can go jump in the lake. And that's what they did today."

DEM FIELD IV: It's About Reflecting The Will Of The Voters

Other liberal bloggers are defending the RBC's decision to allocate MI's delegates the way it did:

• Firedoglake's emptywheel: "There have been arguments -- with which I have some sympathy -- that the RBC exceeded its authority in then choosing to accept MI's 69-59 compromise. But even if you accept the argument that the RBC didn't have the authority to do what it did, that does not mean the delegation should have been seated based on the results of the [1/15] Clusterfuck. [...] You'll hear lots of arguments about how the RBC took delegates away from Hillary to give the primary to Obama. But the real issue -- the real disagreement -- is over whether our Clusterfuck results can be considered a 'fair representation' of voter preferences. Harold Ickes after the fact declared them so, largely by ignoring both the circumstances of the election and the data showing it was not a fair representation. The leadership of the [MI Dem Party] -- relying on a lot of data and a close understanding of what happened during the Clusterfuck -- disagrees with Ickes. Any dispute comes down to whether you think Ickes or the leadership of the MI Democratic Party was right about whether the Clusterfuck was a 'fair reflection' of MI's preferences. And frankly, I think a large number of MI voters agree with the MDP leadership, not Ickes."
• The Field's Al Giordano: "Those who opine that the Obama campaign should have been still more generous by offering 36.5 Michigan delegates to Senator Clinton instead of 34.5 (a difference of two delegate votes) overlap considerably with those that have pushed the bogus 'popular vote math' arguments. They need to look in the mirror and see that they are the ones that made that particular nuance necessary. Their obsessive suggestions that a fixed contest in which Obama wasn't on the ballot should be counted toward some kind of uber-national 'popular vote' metric were precisely the simulations that made it mandatory for the committee to do something concrete that expressly did not ratify the bogus results of what Senator Carl Levin and the other Michigan leaders acknowledged was 'a flawed primary.' Had the committee based its conclusion entirely on that January 15 beauty contest, those same people would be out there with all-new 'popular vote' claims that defy common sense and democracy itself. What happened yesterday is that those claims now have no leg to stand on: the bogus results have now rightfully been put in their own dunce-cap corner, away from the rest. Some will still try to include them in with the grand total, but few are going to consider their claims legitimate."
• Nate Silver agrees with Giordano: "It might be asked: why not instead sign off Clinton the 73-55 delegate split that her campaign desired? It's only a difference of a few delegates. Well, if you did that, you'd be reflecting the Clinton/uncommitted preference from the unsanctioned primary. Which means that you'd be tending to legitimate the results of that primary. Which means that Clinton would have had a stronger claim for including Michigan in her popular vote count. And the popular vote count is a different way that Clinton has tended to imply that Obama's nomination is not legitimate. If Clinton hadn't pushed the popular vote meme so noisily, in other words, Obama would probably have given her those four extra delegates."

Meanwhile, MyDD's Todd Beeton differs from his fellow Clinton supporters in that he is satisfied by the committee's decision: "I was actually fairly shocked that they decided to seat Michigan as they did but seriously, why are Ickes and [Tina] Flournoy bitching? This is about as good a result as Clinton could have hoped to get. Sure Obama took himself off the ballot in Michigan, but everyone knows a good chunk of the uncommitted vote was for Obama, so if the Clinton team is really making an intent of the voter argument then they should be pleased with this result."

DEM FIELD V: Staring Into The Abyss

Taylor Marsh, who is one of the fiercest Clinton supporters in the liberal blogosphere, unloads on the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee: "Could you be more out of touch? Seriously. Have you not talked to any Hillary Clinton supporters, read their emails in your inbox? For 4 lousy delegates? How small are you people? Could you not understand what was swirling enough to allow Clinton her due in Michigan? Four lousy delegates? You have no idea what you've done. The fury you have unleashed. Your arrogance is topped only by your ignorance and the sheer stupidity of this 'compromise,' which sends a message that you just don't get it. Oh, and by the way, you've also likely just thrown the 2008 election."

Many liberal bloggers criticized Marsh's post:

• The New Republic's Michael Crowley: "I really don't think it behooves Hillary supporters to be so combative at this point. You can respect their strong feelings and still call it counterproductive to Hillary's interests if the country at large sees her loyalists as embittered to the point of unhinged and perhaps even rooting against Obama."
• BooMan: "I don't really know if Ms. Marsh believes what she's writing or not. But if she doesn't, and she's willing to feed other's insanity with this tripe, and she actually cares about her reproductive rights, then that qualifies as its own form of insanity. [...] For most of Clinton's staunchest supporters, they just like their candidate and/or have a strong emotional investment in seeing a female president in their lifetime. They need someone that has been on their side in this campaign...someone like Taylor Marsh...to talk them down and help them realize that Obama won this nomination fair and square. Yes, he had a few lucky breaks. Yes, he mastered the procedure and got more delegates per vote and per dollar spent. Yes, he had certain advantages because he's a man. Yes, the press was at times unfair to Clinton. But Obama didn't cheat, he didn't suppress any votes, and he was actually unfairly penalized when Florida and Michigan's delegates were seated after Obama was promised that they wouldn't count. That he wasn't penalized enough to sway the election, that he couldn't be penalized enough to lose the election, is not a mark against the legitimacy of his victory."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "Taylor and others think that four delegates were 'stolen' or that they were 'hijacked' because they are operating from the completely flawed premise that the [MI] election counted. It didn't. [...] Once you realize the consensus view on the Michigan beauty contest, that it was not a legitimate election and did not provide a fair reflection of voters' intent, you realize how truly brazen the Clinton proposal was -- they went in demanding that they receive every delegate that Hillary 'received' in the beauty contest, and that none should go to Obama. Seriously. That was their position. [...] What happened yesterday was not that the Clinton campaign was robbed of 4 delegates by the DNC, but what happened was an attempt to steal dozens of delegates by the Clinton campaign was stopped. So please cut the crap. Clinton didn't get screwed -- what happened is that the RBC and the Michigan Democratic Party stopped the Clinton campaign from screwing Michigan voters by stealing every delegate and pretending it was a 'fair reflection' of the voters. The Obama campaign won't mention this because they are trying to be magnanimous and trying to win the support of irate Clinton voters. I have no such obligation."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "This Taylor Marsh post...illustrates perfectly why the Clinton campaign's public reaction to [Saturday]'s events matters. What's particularly maddening is that Clinton insiders appear ready to give up the ghost rather soon. Thus, Ickes' little temper-tantrum was basically for show. The problem, though, is that this public theater has concrete, harmful effects. Clinton supporters at large (roughly 50% of the Democratic electorate) are not privy to internal deliberations. All they see is Ickes claiming that delegates were stolen -- all they see is angry Clinton supporters protesting. And when they see these things, they quite understandably get mad. I would be mad too if I felt my preferred candidate had been cheated out of the nomination."

DEM FIELD VI: You're Gonna Vote For McCain? Seriously?

Liberal bloggers are chastising Clinton supporters who threaten to vote for McCain if Obama is the Dem nominee:

• Daily Kos' Meteor Blades: "I'm not prescient or plugged-in enough to have any special window on how many of you Clinton supporters who are saying you will vote for John McCain in November will come to your senses by then. Many people I respect think that most of you will. I suspect they're right. I hope they are. But it's obvious that more than a handful of you are serious in your vindicativeness and will join Joe Lieberman to support the Senator from Arizona over Obama. That would be the anti-choice, hundred-year-war, two-faced, Republican Senator from Arizona. Thus is born a new subspecies, McCain Democrats, McCainocrats. [...] Is the idea that voting for another four years of rightwing Republican rule would be worth it as long as you could say: 'See? We told you Obama couldn't win.' Does the McCainocrat lunacy embrace the idea that four more years of a Republican in the White House would make Clinton a shoo-in for 2012? If that's what you're telling me, if you're willing to force the American people to suffer for your chance to say nah-nah-nah, I'll have two words for you when you come around looking for my support for any candidate or any cause in 2012 or any other time in the future: Bite me."
• Oliver Willis: "Clinton supporters who want to vote for McCain are the 2008 equivalent of [Ralph] Nader supporters who said there was 'no difference' between the two parties. You may very well end up electing the government you deserve. My guess is that the amount of Clinton supporters who are actually that stupid is a far smaller number than the loudness of their voices seems -- but I've been wrong before. I think its pretty insane that people want Sen. Obama to apologize for things he never said, but that somehow Sen. Clinton and her supporters are the wronged party even though they mainstreamed racism in the Democratic party."

Many liberal bloggers think it's Clinton's responsibility to address her more passionate supporters and "walk them back from the ledge":

• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "It would seem that a number of Hillary's top supporters, and a lot of her fans, are more comfortable helping a Republican become president if Hillary can't win the nomination. Some of that is, understandably, just talk -- it sucks to lose, people are angry. But at this late date, cheap talk is no longer acceptable. We have to reunite our party in time to successfully take on John McCain. [...] Hillary and her team have successfuly changed the national mood, of Hillary's supporters, at least, from one of disappointment that their candidate lost, to one of outright anger that her nomination was supposedly stolen away because she's a woman. That's ludicrous."
• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "The Clinton's are telling their supporters that Hillary Clinton is winning the general election, and that she is only having trouble in the primary because of a hostile media and the 'Moveon crowd', which is not representative of people, but is an 'automatic ATM machine'. [...] The Clinton's are savvy politicians, so they know they have to make this seem like a contest or the rest of the superdelegates will swing over to Obama, and he won't need Michigan and Florida delegates. If that happens, it's officially over, and her leverage drops fairly low. So she needs a rationale to stay in the race. [...Still,] I don't know how you tell millions of people one narrative for months, and then suddenly reverse yourself. I expect that to happen, of course, I just don't know how."
• Ezra Klein: "If the question of delegates seems increasingly settled, however, the problem of party unity is still far from solved. Chris Hayes, Dana Goldstein, and Eve Fairbanks all filed reports from the chaos outside the Committee Meeting, and what they found was an authentic, deep anger among Clinton supporters. And that's not a problem the Rules Committee can resolve. This one is up to Clinton herself."

Other bloggers are defending Clinton's more passionate supporters:

• Big Tent Democrat: "I am amazed at the view expressed by Obama supporters that unifying the Democratic Party is a problem for Hillary Clinton. Like me, they all expect Barack Obama to be the nominee, but they insist that the problem of unifying the Democratic Party belongs to Hillary Clinton. This is an incredibly obtuse view. Obama is going to be the candidate who will win or lose in November. It will be HIS job to unify the Party. [...] Yelling at people who consider themselves aggrieved is not exactly a smart way to bring them back in the fold. Time for some OBAMA supporters to grow up."
• Digby: "The fact is that this campaign is a photo finish. There has never been a primary where it's come even close to a tie before. Someone had to win and it's going to be Obama and it's going to be seen as legitimate, mostly because the primaries ran their course (for which everyone should actually be grateful.) But to think that a race this close could end with an instantaneous round of kumbaaya among the loser's most passionate supporters is probably a little naive. It's not human nature. (And if Clinton had been the one to win with this narrow lead, you can be sure the other side would be threatening to stay home or vote for McCain too. See this article from just before the Indiana primary if you don't believe me.)"

OBAMA: Losing My Religion

Conservative bloggers are criticizing Obama after he and his family withdrew their membership from Trinity United Church of Christ:

• Townhall's Michael Medved: "For many if not most Americans, religious commitment and membership in a faith community amount to more than 'distractions,' but comprise the very core, the very foundation of our lives. Even if you see his resignation from Trinity as something other than a craven act of political expediency, the ongoing embarrassments concerning Obama's former church suggest that in his case that core, that foundation looks appallingly weird, crazed, angry and extreme."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "For twenty years Barack Obama sat in a pew while hate poured forth. His preacher tore into America, tore into Israel, and expressed solidarity with terrorist regimes like Libya. Obama did nothing. Even when the spotlight shined brightly on the church, Obama stood by his pastor until it became politically inconvenient. And now, a guest preacher who said something about Hillary, causes Obama to get conviction enough to leave. What a standard: you proclaim yourself opposed to America and Obama stands behind you. You mock a Democrat and Obama throws you under the bus. Again, it is no longer about Obama having no shame. This man has no class. Oh, and yes, this is another example of Obama caving to the right wing when we turn up the heat. Can't wait to see him cave to China, North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't choose to attend a church where sermons are constantly preached that not only 'totally conflict with my long-held views,' but rightly offend many millions of people. The question that is still left hanging, of course, is why they didn't offend Obama until they appeared on YouTube. [...] Pundits often talk about whether a candidate has put an issue behind him, but I'm not sure whether this ever really happens. The Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright fiasco has done permanent damage to Obama. The most he can expect to gain from his disavowal tonight is that the next time some fruitcake gives an offensive sermon at Trinity, he won't have to answer questions about it. Voters will continue to wonder, however, what Obama was doing there for twenty years, and what his embrace of the theology of hate that was so often on display at Trinity tells us about him."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "I don't see how this helps, and it could hurt in two different ways. First, it confirms that the church is not in the mainstream, which once again calls his judgment into question. Wright and [Michael] Pfleger gave these kinds of sermons there the entire time, not just over the last few weeks. The big problem is that the Obamas sat in that church for 20 years listening to these sermons and finding nothing objectionably about them until they got disseminated to the nation. Second, and potentially more damaging, it shows Obama's willingness to throw anyone over the side when the boat starts sinking. That won't go over very well with his core supporters who have admired his loyalty to TUCC."
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "The MSM will pretend [this] has worked. But it hasn't and it won't. Ayers. Dohrn. Pfleger. Rezko. Wright. These are the friends, sponsors, and mentors of Obama. They define him far more than his words of the past 18 months. [...] I am willing to guarantee that the rants of Phleger, Ayers, Dohrn and Wright will be played throughout September, October and the first two days of November -- over and over again, just as John Kerry's 'I was for the 87 million before I was against it' was played in the stretch run of 2004 and Al Gore's long list of fairy tales played again and again in 2000. And every time they are played, people will think 'Obama was very, very close to these people. Does he have the judgment to be the Commander-in-Chief?'"
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Since Wright appeared, we kept hearing from Obama and his defenders, 'no, you're wrong, you just don't know this church and its leaders the way he is, your judgment is faulty, he's right.' And now, definitively, he has conceded that he was wrong, about both Wright and the church."

Many conservative bloggers are arguing that Obama only left Trinity because it hurt his Presidential ambitions:

• see-dubya: "[Obama] sat in those pews for twenty years and was quite familiar with what goes on there. He benefited from that association as he rose in Illinois politics, but as he himself admits, Trinity's radical, politicized preaching is now hurting his Presidential campaign. Business is business."
• Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "Obama left Trinity Church for the same reason he joined it -- political opportunism. The theology was always something he could take or leave. Both phenomena, the opportunism and the fact that he could take Rev. Wright's brand of black liberation theology, reflect very poorly on Obama."
• NRO's Mark Levin: "Obama left his church, but his church hasn't left him? By that I mean that Obama's church has not changed. Obama's political objectives have changed."

Meanwhile, CBN's David Brody reports that Obama and the current Trinity pastor had "talked about [this] split for months": "A source close to the Obama campaign tells The Brody File that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama approached Trinity United Church Pastor Otis Moss III a couple months ago to discuss whether Obama should remain with the church. This person tells me that Senator Obama asked pastor Moss how the controversy was affecting the church and the discussion focused in on what would be best for the church and best for Obama. The initial conversation took place after the Jeremiah Wright sermons became widespread public knowledge but before Jeremiah Wright's speech to the National Press Club. Reverend Moss knew about Obama's decision to leave the Church 'a little while ago.'"

MCCAIN: Sorry To "Nit-Pick," But...

Liberal bloggers spent the early part of this weekend criticizing McCain for falsely asserting that "we have drawn down to pre-surge levels" in Iraq:

• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "John McCain smacks Barack Obama around for not realizing that force levels in Iraq are already down to pre-surge levels. This shows, according to McCain, how Obama's not having taken a recent guided tour of Iraq makes him unqualified. But of course McCain's wrong about how many troops are in Iraq! It's almost as if being a cranky and arrogant old man isn't the same as possessing actual understanding. [...] I think the general idea is that if McCain asserts loudly enough that Obama doesn't know what he's talking about, that people will believe it."
• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "For a self-proclaimed expert on Iraq, John McCain certainly spends a lot of time being wrong about it. Yesterday McCain made the laughable claim that troop levels in Iraq are back to 'pre-surge levels.' [...] Wrong. There are currently more than 150,000 servicemen and women in Iraq, versus the 130,000 that were there before George Bush's 'surge.'"
• The Huffington Post's Nico Pitney: "Clearly, McCain's various congressional trips to Iraq haven't made him infallible on the issue."

MCCAIN II: Can't You Admit When You're Wrong, Senator?

Liberal bloggers stepped up their attacks on McCain after he and his advisers refused to concede that McCain had made an error when discussing troop levels in Iraq:

• The Huffington Post's Sam Stein: "In politics, as in life, when one is in a hole, he or she should stop digging. This advice was not heeded by John McCain's campaign today. Both the Senator and his aides sought to brush away his factually inaccurate statement that American troops in Iraq were down to pre-surge levels. In the process, they made the hole even bigger."
• MyDD's J Ro: "A refusal to back down, a need to be right at all costs, and an unwillingness to let anything stand in the way of making a political point are all hallmarks of the Bush administration. [...] It would have been easy for McCain to simply say he misspoke or misremembered his statistics. Sure, he might take some flack for being too old to remember or too callous to care, but the episode would have died down much more quickly. Instead, by digging in his heels, sending out conflicting messages, and refusing to admit a mistake, McCain has ensured this story goes on -- the press is still talking about it today. This refusal to be wrong -- similar to his refusal to 'lose' a war -- should give voters pause."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "McCain's remarks underscored a discomforting ignorance, but McCain's refusal to acknowledge his error points to something akin to a Bush-like character flaw. You can almost hear McCain's righteous indignation for having even been asked to explain why he's wrong. 'But I'm John McCain. I can't be wrong about the troops. Don't you understand?'"
• Aravosis: "He's lost his mind. McCain's now trying to claim that he didn't tell voters yesterday that we have drawn down to pre-surge troop levels in Iraq. He's now trying to claim that he said we're DRAWING down, i.e., still in the process, not there yet. But of course, that's not what he said. It's on film. Everyone has seen it. [...] Bush and [Dick] Cheney and company tried this for years, and got away with it. They constantly lied about the facts and figured no one would be the wiser. But people finally wisened up. And they don't accept blatant lies any longer. [...] Whether McCain is lying or simply doesn't understand the facts in Iraq, for him to now deny that he said what he said, well, when we have the video, it's just kind of creepy and sad."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "In his statement today John McCain said that 'we have drawn down to pre-surge levels.' But of course that that's not remotely accurate. We won't even be fully down to pre-surge levels this summer. And now in response to criticism on this point, the McCain camp is now attacking the Obama campaign and any press outlet that picks this up for 'nit-pick[ing] the tense of the verb.' Now, I think it's true that gotchas over verb tense can often be a bit much. [...] But, c'mon. This is McCain's signature issue. It's almost the totality of his campaign -- Iraq and the purported success of the surge. This is hardly nit-picking."

MCCAIN III: Does He Really Want To Talk About The War?

Several liberal bloggers think McCain is making a political mistake by trying to debate Obama over the war in Iraq:

• Daily Kos' Hunter: "As the week draws towards a close, I would just like to take a quick moment to congratulate John McCain and the Republican Party for doing everything they could this week to focus the public's attention on the Iraq War. [...] Please, Republican Party. Please keep talking about Iraq. With every waking breath, if you can manage it. Please fill the pages of our site with your assertions about the Iraq War, and your demands that the nation continue the Iraq War, and most of all your candidate's increasingly imaginary assertions about the basic facts of the Iraq War. I'm sure it will work out to your favor, and gain you lots and lots of votes come November."
• Yglesias doesn't think McCain has any alternative: "Honestly, what else is [McCain] supposed to talk about? I don't think it would serve the candidate well to talk about issues he doesn't care about or doesn't know anything about. And as best I can tell, that's, um, all the issues. But even though a clear majority of the American people recognizes that endless war in Iraq is a bad idea, a large swathe of elites agree with McCain's view that there's no number of American deaths that would be too many to try to spare elites from the embarrassment of admitting that Iraq's been a failure. This doesn't seem all that promising to me as a campaign strategy, but it's more promising than tired health care mumbo jumbo that McCain himself doesn't seem interested in."

Naturally, conservative bloggers feel differently:

• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin thinks Obama will lose a debate about the merits of the surge: "That is why, I suspect, Obama's camp -- with a major assist from the mainstream media just frothing at the prospect of showing that somehow McCain is less informed and knowledgeable about Iraq than Obama -- manufactures the 'drawn down/have dawn down/will draw down' mini-controversy. Anything, anything to get the voters' minds off the fact that Obama simply got the surge and the withdrawal strategy wrong."
• The Weekly Standard's Samantha Sault thinks Obama is foolish to criticize McCain over Iraq: "Does the Obama campaign really want to go there? [...] Obama hasn't been to Iraq since January 2006, and McCain has been five times since then."

John Cole responds to Sault's post: "Maybe [McCain] needs to make all those trips because he is a slow learner? I mean, five trips, and he still doesn't know wtf he is talking about. So, yeah. Obama does want to 'go there,' wingnuts."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Vice President Hillary? Are You Kidding Me?

Hunter slams the idea of an Obama-Clinton ticket:

"A few of the TV heads were positing that what Clinton primarily wanted today is something that can give her claims of 'winning the popular vote (minus all the other states that don't count)' some degree of legitimacy, which she will then use to leverage Obama into giving her the Vice President slot. I see absolutely no way that's going to be happening. I keep hearing this theory and frankly, it continues to sound just as ridiculous each time. Even presuming Obama and Clinton still can even stand each other, and even presuming for the moment that we accept the nonsense of 'popular vote' calculations that ignore caucus states, Clinton just doesn't bring anything to Obama's ticket.

One of Obama's most vaunted selling points is that he represents a clean break from the past -- a message that is resonating heavily, after eight years of Bush. Choosing a Clinton as Vice President steps squarely on that message of change, and presents a consummate insider ticket (McCain plus somebody) vs. another insider ticket (somebody plus Clinton). I'd have to think it would be a net loss of (a) excitement among Obama voters, (b) prospects among independents, and therefore (c) actual votes in November, compared to many other possible Obama picks."

LEST WE FORGET: Funny Newspaper Headlines

"Tiger Woods plays with own balls, Nike says"
"Astronaut Takes Blame For Gas In Spacecraft"
"Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors"
"If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last a While"
"Cold Wave Linked To Temperatures"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at June 2, 2008 01:44 PM