September 10, 2008

9/10: Can't Take Their Eyes Off Of Her

Fists are flying in the political blogosphere, and once again, Sarah Palin is at the center of the action. Liberal bloggers are portraying Palin as a shameless liar after she repeated her line about how she told Congress "thanks but no thanks for that Bridge to Nowhere." Multiple news organizations have debunked Palin's claim, but that hasn't stopped her from making it, and liberal bloggers are outraged. They're urging the press to continue debunking Palin's claim every time she makes it. They're also encouraging the press to start treating Palin's repeated falsehoods as a story in itself -- which, they hope, will establish a narrative that Palin has a problem with the truth.

Meanwhile, many conservative bloggers are joining the John McCain camp in accusing Barack Obama of deliberately referring to Palin a "pig." Others believe that Obama simply made a poor choice of words. Liberal bloggers believe that conservative bloggers are simply feigning outrage in a transparent attempt to win the news sycle.

PALIN: Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Liberal bloggers are calling Palin a shameless liar after she repeated her debunked claim that she told Congress "thanks but no thanks for that Bridge to Nowhere." In reality, Palin endorsed the Bridge to Nowhere during her '06 gubernatorial run and only distanced herself from it after it became a national scandal, as multiple news organizations have reported.

• TPM's Greg Sargent: "The falsehood has now been debunked by everyone from Newsweek to the Associated Press to the Wall Street Journal. But here's Palin keeping up with it anyway."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "It's obvious she's lying. She knows she's lying. She knows that we know she's lying. But she just doesn't give a damn. At this point, it's bordering on pathological."
• BooMan: "What does it tell us about the McCain-Palin campaign and how they would govern that they will tell lies so brazenly and unapologetically, day after day after day after day? Isn't that what ruined the Bush administration? Didn't Scott McClellan write a book about just that point?"
• TAPPED's Mori Dinauer: "So what happens when a lie is widely refuted, yet still lives on? I can't help but think this incident might be the incubation of a powerful narrative against McCain that the Obama campaign, if they're smart, can use to shatter, once and for all, this nonsense about a 'reform' Republican ticket."

Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "Alaska has been masterful in having the federal government send billions, while it gives its own tax revenues directly to its citizens. While Alaska could afford to pay for its bridges to nowhere (Palin approved!), it would rather have the rest of the 49 states shoulder the cost. It gets away with it, and I won't begrudge a state or its federal delegation the ability to deliver the goods. [...] What I do begrudge is Sarah Palin and the GOP walking around lying about that record. Lying about her support for the Bridge to Nowhere. Lying about her supposed opposition to federal pork. Lying about her state's role in fueling that most obnoxious and corruption-inducing congressional practice. The GOP's ability to stare voters straight in the eye and then feed them a load of mooseshit is second to none. But let's not kid ourselves about reality."

PALIN II: Do Your Job, Media!

Liberal bloggers are urging the press to debunk Palin's Bridge to Nowhere claim every time she repeats it:

• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "Not get too sanctimonious about this, but this really is a test of some kind for the press. This lie is unusually egregious given the plain facts of the situation (Palin was eagerly supportive of the bridge until after Congress pulled the earmark, at which point she reluctantly decided to take the money but use it for other projects), and if the media allows the McCain campaign to get away with this -- if they relegate it to occasional closing paragraphs and page A9 fact checks -- well, that means McCain knows he can pretty much get away with anything. The press will be writing its own declaration of irrelevance."
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "Sarah Palin -- for apparently the 23rd time -- again flat-out lied about the Bridge to Nowhere today. The press has done a fairly decent job reporting the inaccuracy, but she and the McCain campaign are just rubbing the press's nose in it at this point. They clearly feel like they have the press pretty much where they want them. I'm curious to see if the press will step up its criticisms, or whether it will cower in fear that Steve Schmidt might say something mean about them again."
• TAPPED's Adam Serwer: "Rather than presenting the story as a 'he said, she said,' journalists should note what is factually true beyond argument: Palin is lying."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "How many days in a row do Palin and McCain have to treat the media and the voters like chumps before someone in the media calls her on this? I'm not talking doing a single story on it, I'm talking making the only question you ask the McCain campaign 'why are you guys lying?' The fact that McCain has chosen to outright lie, repeatedly, to the press and public, says something larger about him and his campaign."
• The Huffington Post's Paul Begala: "Facts ought not be debatable. The media have an obligation to point out when a politician is lying about a matter of fact, but the right-wing attack machine has so cowed some of them you can almost hear them moo. Steve Schmidt, McCain's top dog, is a brilliant and audacious strategist. His candidate has had the most favorable press coverage of any politician of the last century -- fawning, adoring, sycophantic press coverage. And yet he is brutalizing the press, waterboarding them into pretending that whether Gov. Palin supported the 'Bridge to Nowhere,' or hired an Abramoff-connected lobbyist to secure massive earmarks are somehow debatable."

Other liberal bloggers are urging the press to start treating Palin's determination to continue making this false claim as a story in its own right:

• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "The ultimate test of what matters isn't one-off articles [debunking Palin's claim] but campaign narratives. During the 2000 campaign, the press developed a narrative about Al Gore being dishonest based almost entirely on things he didn't even say. During the 2004 campaign, there was a narrative about John Kerry being a flip-flopper. In 2008, a robust narrative exists about Barack Obama being too aloof. This blog isn't allowed to draw conclusions about the character of candidates for office, but reporters covering campaigns do it all the time and there's a fairly obvious narrative about John McCain that could be built around his campaign's penchant for repeating false claims about bridges, opponents' tax plans, etc."
• Moulitsas: "Yglesis is right. This is a narrative ready for the media's taking. They've accepted the fact that the McCain campaign is operating on a foundation of lies, now they need to take the next step and adopt it as a narrative."
• dday: "She's lied about [this] at least 23 times. It's not going to stop because the media has not exacted a price for all the lying. They haven't built a 'serial liar' narrative around John McCain the way they did around Al Gore, despite there being far more cause for one in this case."

PALIN III: You Call This Fiscal Responsibility?

Liberal bloggers are still buzzing over the Washington Post article detailing how Palin "has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office":

• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "Palin and her husband both make six-figure incomes. They don't need to be chiseling the state for this money to live, and she sure isn't entitled to be running on fiscal responsibility when she's pocketing cash in a way that has a history of being regarded in Alaska as a 'scam.'"
• Moulitsas: "The bottom line appears to be that staying at her own joint was a luxury she thought Alaskans should pay for. Oh, and when she did travel for such crucial state-related business such as 'Newsweek's third annual Women and Leadership Conference', she did things like charge Alaska for three nights at a hotel costing $707 per night. That was certainly a luxury she thought Alaskans should pay for. [...] I've gotta admit. As a scam artist, she's pretty good."
• Firedoglake's Christy Hardin Smith: "Sarah Palin is already facing one abuse of power investigation, allegedly using her position to exact retribution against her former brother in law and officials who wouldn't tow her line. Lining your pockets on the taxpayer dime with a little extra reimbursement where you are paid to live in your own home sounds a little too Boss Hogg for my comfort. If she did violate state regulations, will there be reimbursement? Also, some of this is taxable income, so did she pay proper taxes on it? Something's funky, and I'm going to keep digging."
• Mark Kleiman: "Since sleeping in your own bedroom is not a tax-deductible business expense, those per diems (and perhaps the travel expense for Palin's children traveling with her) represented taxable income to Palin. As far as I know, she hasn't released her tax returns yet, but there could be an explosive issue there. Voters don't like petty chiselers, and they don't like tax cheats."

MCCAIN: So Much For Running An Honorable Campaign

Liberal bloggers are outraged that the McCain camp is running a misleading ad claiming that Obama wants children to learn "about sex before learning to read." McClatchy's Margaret Talev offers a fact-check:

"This is a deliberately misleading accusation. [...] As a state senator in Illinois, Obama did vote for but was not a sponsor of legislation dealing with sex ed for grades K-12. But the legislation allowed local school boards to teach 'age-appropriate' sex education, not comprehensive lessons to kindergartners, and it gave schools the ability to warn young children about inappropriate touching and sexual predators."

• Drum: "I see that the McCain campaign has pretty much decided to go all-in on the culture war front. Their latest ad, which Lee Atwater must be chuckling over from wherever he's warming his toes these days, basically says that Barack Obama wants to teach your five-year-old how to put on a condom. This is, the narrator warns ominously, 'Wrong for your family.' [...] John McCain has obviously decided that he can't win a straight-up fight, so he's decided instead to wage a battle of character assassination, relentless lies, and culture war armageddon."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "McCain is pure sleaze. Sound harsh? Sure. But any other interpretation of the man at this point amounts to willful obliviousness or an embrace of the fantasy that he somehow doesn't know what his campaign is doing in his name. This is the race he's decided to run. Now what do you do about it?"
• MyDD's Josh Orton: "This is a political low from McCain I didn't really expect."
• Oliver Willis: "John McCain has no shame, but you knew that already."
• Daily Kos' georgia10: "In liveblogging Sarah Palin's acceptance speech, I noted that the ideal Republican candidate is someone who has the ability to lie without shame. Sarah Palin proved within minutes of her speech that she was well-qualified in that regard. The latest McCain-Palin ad reaffirms that the modern Republican Party, barren of ideas and solutions, will effortlessly and shamelessly resort to depraved lies to win. [...] It is indeed a remarkably dishonorable act for John McCain to 'approve this message.' There is no Vietnam scar deep enough and no POW flag large enough to mask the brazen ugliness of this unprincipled and deliberate lie."
• Kleiman: "Barack Obama sponsored a law in Illinois designed to teach schoolchildren, all the way down to kingergarten age, to protect themselves from sexual predators. I'm not sure whether McCain's attack on that bill is designed to win the votes of the pedophiles or attract campaign contributions from the kiddie-porn industry. But no doubt that man of honor is proud of it, just as he's proud of his entire sleazy, lying campaign."
• Obsidian Wings' hilzoy: "I hope McCain is enjoying himself. It would be a shame for him to give up what remains of his honor without getting anything at all in return."

Open Left's Chris Bowers thinks McCain's ad will be effective: "The point, unfortunately, isn't that the ad is false. The problem will come in when the media repeats the charge without disputing it. The headlines will be something like 'McCain Campaign Accuses Obama Of Sex-Ed For Tots,' because I guess the attack itself is news. Then, more stories are written about how 'Obama Denies Kindergarten Sex Charges.' So the charge gets repeated over and over again, and never really debunked. The campaign that is on the defensive, the one that is making explanations about charges sent your way, is invariably the campaign that is losing ground."

Aravosis wants Obama to hit back hard: "It's clear that McCain is Karl Rove -- the transformation is complete. Mccain is going to get as sleazy as he needs to in order to take down Obama. Perhaps now Senator Obama will finally, and completely, take the gloves off. We can start with McCain's repeated statements that he didn't love America until the age of 31. [...] Then let's have a full discussion about John McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal and his cheating on his first wife (the latter definitely deals with sexual morality). And if McCain really wants to have a sleazy discussion about who has the best interest of children at heart, all I'm going to say is that the Obama's never stole drugs from sick children in order to feed their drug addiction. Show of hands -- how many McCains can say that? And oh yeah. Where is Vicki Iseman?"

OBAMA: A Sexist Pig?

Conservative bloggers are accusing Obama of referring to Palin as a "pig" when he made the following remarks at a rally:

"Obama poked fun of McCain and Palin's new 'change' mantra.
'You can put lipstick on a pig,' he said as the crowd cheered. 'It's still a pig.'
'You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink.'
'We've had enough of the same old thing.'"

• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "[My] callers and e-mailers are furious with Obama. Beyond furious, really. MSM is ignoring this tsunami of a story thus far, but it has traveled around the globe and back and will keep traveling. Millions of women will never forget and they won't forgive."
• The Next Right's Soren Dayton: "Obama made a sexualized attack on Palin, comparing her to a pig. This is exactlty the same sort of thing that he did in the primary. [...] This is the stuff that alienated Hillary Clinton voters. No wonder white women are swinging to McCain-Palin. If he keeps this up, it will be a landslide. Democrats do not know how to run against women."
• NRO's Jonah Goldberg: "If you watch Obama's comments in full, I think Obama probably was referring to McCain/Palin with the fish/pig comment. The audience clearly thought so."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "Despite the Obama campaign's protestations that his 'pig in lipstick' remark didn't refer to Sarah Palin, there are two clear indications that, in fact, it did. First, note that the lefty blogosphere has been referring to Governor Palin in those terms for days now (for example, here and here and here and even in a press release from NARAL as noted here). So is it just coincidence that Barack Obama would use the same terms? Riiiiight. Second, look at the entire quote. [...] Taken together, it's obvious that Barack is referring, first, to Governor Palin and then to Senator McCain. And really, the rhetoric is disgusting. [...] Barack owes Governor Palin an apology -- and Senator McCain, too, for that matter. This is not the kind of behavior that Americans want, welcome or deserve from their presidents -- aspiring or elected."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Given that Palin had very publicly made the lipstick/pit bull joke during her widely-seen acceptance speech, it certainly seems that Obama intended to reference both Palin and McCain respectively in this sequence, with Palin being the pig and McCain the 'old fish' wrapped in change. The crowd certainly understood what Obama meant, and roared appreciatively. [...] It's always difficult to gauge intent, but one would have to think Obama an idiot for not seeing the subtext of his own statement, especially since the crowd understood it all too well."
• Townhall's Matt Lewis: "Several folks are pointing out that McCain has used this cliche in the past, and that an aide of his has a book titled, 'Lipstick on a Pig.' Of course, this is entirely irrelevant. The context of Obama's remark is what matters. Just last week, Palin delivered those lines. They weren't hidden in her speech -- it was the most famous line of her entire political career. And you're telling me Obama wasn't at least making a veiled reference? He's either a complete idiot -- or guilty of this attack: It must be one or the other..."

OBAMA II: Much Ado About Nothing

Other conservative bloggers don't believe that Obama was referring to Palin when he made the "pig" remark:

• AmSpec Blog's James Antle: "I'm sorry, I simply don't think either the video or the context supports the claim that Obama intended to call Sarah Palin a pig, no matter what the audience supposedly thought or what the notoriously thin-skinned and ridiculous Jane Swift says. Yes, Palin wears lipstick and compares herself to a pitbull wearing lipstick but that's the only connection. To quibble about the phrase 'putting lipstick on a pig' is to put conservatives in the same category as illiterate PC liberals worried about the word 'niggardly.'"
• AmSpec Blog's Philip Klein: "It's one thing to let Obama's poor choice of words play out in the media, but for the McCain campaign to embrace this line of attack and play the gender card so explicitly is just pathetic, and may very well come back to haunt McCain should he say anything that could be twisted by the PC police into having racial overtones."
• AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer: "There was nothing remotely offensive about what Obama said, and the McCain campaign is acting in an utterly puerile fashion by making an issue out of it -- and even worse by making a commercial out of it. For that matter, all the caterwauling in general -- both last week and now in this commercial -- about 'sexism' being the root of the attacks against Palin is just flat out dishonest, plus it combines the victim card with the identity card in a way worthy only of the worst liberals in the country. It's beneath contempt."
• Glenn Reynolds: "Everybody stumbles now and then. I say, don't make any more of it than if McCain had said something similar."
• Ann Althouse: "I didn't blog this yesterday, because frankly, I considered it absolutely nothing. 'Lipstick on a pig' is an extremely common expression, and it doesn't become taboo because somebody else made a wisecrack about lipstick on another animal or because that somebody else happens to wear lipstick."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "Having watched [the video], I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt...just because I hate when the left pulls this with innocent statements made by conservatives."
• NRO's Yuval Levin: "I think Obama's choice of words was unbelievably stupid (as it so very often is when he's not chained to a teleprompter), and I certainly think both he and [Joe] Biden have completely lost their cool because of Palin and are getting hysterical -- Biden's ugly reference to Palin's Down syndrome child and stem cell research today is one example. But did he set out to call Palin (or McCain) names? I think it's a bad gaffe, not an attack. That's bad enough, but the McCain folks themselves shouldn't overreact. Let them melt down."
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "I think it was just probably -- but not definitely -- another screw-up from the human gaffe machine. [...] This is a guy who says something dumb every other few days if he's off a teleprompter, so that's PROBABLY the case here, too."
• Michelle Malkin: "There's lots of debate here in the comments thread and across the blogosphere about whether the McCain camp is overreacting, whether Obama should get the benefit of the doubt for using a common old metaphor at the wrong place and time, etc., etc. Was he being malicious? Probably not. But it's yet another in a long line of rhetorical gaffes that demonstrate his ineptitude."

Other conservative bloggers aren't sure what to think:

• RedState's Moe Lane: "It's the laughter that's the problem for Obama. If nobody had laughed, he'd be in a better position to say that people are exaggerating this; as it stands, you can certainly make the case that the crowd took it as an insult direct against Palin. [...] Sexist, or just plain dumb: take your pick. Either way, Obama's should probably stop with the own-goals if he wants any chance at all at winning this thing."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "I have mixed feelings about it. Watching the video, I think it's plausible for Obama to say that he wasn't talking about Governor Palin. On the other hand -- come on. Does he seriously believe, given all the water under the bridge, that he can use the words 'lipstick' and 'pig' in the same sentence without people thinking he's taking a shot at Palin? His audience certainly took it that way. Maybe it's just another example of Obama's lack of skill on his feet, when he doesn't have a teleprompter to tell him what to say."

OBAMA III: Apparently Republicans Can Play Identity Politics Too

Liberal bloggers are pushing back fiercely against the McCain camp's allegation that Obama called Palin a "pig":

• The New Republic's Michael Crowley: "I'm speechless over the cynicism at work here. [...] Maybe Obama was calling Palin, whom he never named, both a pig and a rotten fish. Or maybe Republicans are playing identity politics cynically enough to make Al Sharpton cringe."
• The Washington Independent's Ari Melber: "Sen. John McCain played the gender card on Tuesday night, seizing on a hackneyed statement by Sen. Barack Obama to claim, rather implausibly, that the Democratic nominee was calling Gov. Sarah Palin a pig. To even entertain McCain's far-fetched attack, one would have to think Barack Obama had a political death wish. [...] Actual sexism still infects our culture and our politics, of course, but John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin undermine the fight for equality when they falsely and cynically stage fake offenses."
• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "The McCain campaign is using their inaugural 'truthsquad' call to feign outrage and pretend that somehow this comment was a reference to Palin's acceptance joke about pitbulls. Please. No one's really taking it seriously."

Many liberal bloggers are arguing that McCain -- and the GOP in general -- is no position to accuse anyone else of sexism:

• Willis: "I wonder where this sudden concern for women comes from on the right when their fellow travelers have been calling women 'feminazi' and the like for 20+ years?"
• dday: "There's no doubt that this is going to turn into some giant controversy, despite it being COMPLETELY MANUFACTURED. [...] But this is ridiculous. And the newfound Republican guardians of feminism, the ones who spent the spring selling Hillary nutcrackers and Citizens United Not Timid T-shirts, are somewhat less than credible."
• Smith: "You know what is sexist, though? Joking about rape. Calling your wife a c#*&. Or joking about Chelsea Clinton's parents being Hillary and Janet Reno. Pot, this is kettle, McCain."
• Aravosis: "If you believe McCain's latest lie -- that Obama's use of the 'lipstick on a pig' expression is now sexist -- then when McCain used the same 'lipstick on a pig' expression to deride Hillary Clinton's proposals McCain was, under his own logic, calling Hillary Clinton a pig too. [...] That's the question every reporter needs to ask McCain now. Why did McCain call Hillary Clinton a pig. [...] Oh, one more thing. Can you still be America's greatest defender of women if you cheat on your first wife and call your second wife the c-word?"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Alaska The Welfare State?

Time's Michael Kinsley:

"Alaska is, in essence, an adjunct member of OPEC. It has four different taxes on oil, which produce more than 89% of the state's unrestricted revenue. On average, three-quarters of the value of a barrel of oil is taken by the state government before that oil is permitted to leave the state. Alaska residents each get a yearly check for about $2,000 from oil revenues, plus an additional $1,200 pushed through by Palin last year to take advantage of rising oil prices. [...]

As if it couldn't support itself, Alaska also ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1."

LEST WE FORGET: Way To Drop The Hammer, Harry!

Wonkette's Jim Newell reacts to the news that Joe Lieberman is no longer welcome at Senate Dems' weekly caucus lunches:

"Oh ho ho, Joe Lieberman is getting it now! His total divorce with the Democratic party commenced yesterday when his legislative director up and quit on the first working day after the Republican convention, and today we have witnessed SEVERE ESCALATION. In the most 'Harry Reidish' move ever, Harry Reid has brutally punished Lieberman by BANNING HIM FROM WEEKLY CAUCUS LUNCHES. Those Democratic leaders, they sure know how to shake a stick. 'Now he'll have to pack his own goddamn lunch,' Reid said, except he didn't."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at September 10, 2008 01:06 PM