10/23: Al-Qaeda Endorsements And Shopping Sprees

Back in April, conservative bloggers (along with John McCain) criticized Barack Obama after a Hamas spokesperson made positive comments about the IL senator. Now left-wing bloggers are giving their right-wing counterparts a taste of their own medicine. Liberal bloggers are buzzing about the news that "al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency". Although lefty bloggers are emphasizing that "this 'endorsement' shouldn't itself influence voters", they're claiming that this news shouldn't come as a surprise. In their view, al-Qaeda has every reason to hope that McCain wins the election, since "the war in Iraq, as well as saber rattling against Iran by McCain and those who surround him...are an excellent recruiting tool for al Qaeda." Lefty bloggers are also criticizing the McCain camp's "panicked" response to the report.

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers continue to mock Sarah Palin following the Politico's report that the RNC "has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize [Palin] and her family" since late August. The netroots believe that this is a very damaging revelation that "pulls back the curtain on Palin's everywoman facade" and exposes her as "just another fake 'bootstrapper' Republican". Conservative bloggers are more divided: some are blaming the RNC for spending so much money on clothes, while others are defending the RNC's expenditures.

MCCAIN: The Coveted Al-Qaeda Endorsement

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about the news that "al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency":

"...The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, 'impetuous' Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [...]

'If al-Qaida carries out a big operation against American interests,' the message said, 'this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it.'"

Liberal bloggers aren't surprised that (at least some) al-Qaeda members prefer a McCain Presidency to an Obama Presidency:

• Obsidian Wings' Eric Martin: "This should come as no surprise, really. The CIA concluded that bin Laden attempted to swing the election for Bush in 2004 with the release of a videotape in the last weeks of the campaign. Despite McCain camp claims that Obama is soft on terrorists, and an appeaser who thinks that all terrorists need is 'a good talking to,' bin Laden and al-Qaeda fear an Obama administration more than a McCain administration."
• TAPPED' Adam Serwer: "I've never been a big fan of patterning U.S. foreign policy on what terrorists may or may not think of us. Still, this AP report on who some Al Qaeda supporters would like to see in the White House is consistent with the idea that in order to function properly, terrorist groups need an effective enabler. [...] I don't believe that Americans should pick their candidates based on who terrorists or their supporters would like to see in office, let alone on an internet message board. But many people on the Right do believe this is incredibly important, and that Americans should base their votes entirely on who the terrorists seem to be most afraid of. That apparently isn't McCain."
• The Huffington Post's Jon Soltz: "There's no question that continuing the war in Iraq would prolong the strain that our military is facing, trying to fight a two-front war, and that continuing in Iraq saps resources in the fight against al Qaeda, where they are based -- the border region of Pakistan/Afghanistan. Al Qaeda would be much worse off if the U.S. shifted priority from Iraq to going on the offense in Afghanistan, as Senator Obama has proposed. But there's something else at play, here. The war in Iraq, as well as saber rattling against Iran by McCain and those who surround him, like Joe Lieberman, are an excellent recruiting tool for al Qaeda. [...] Of course, this 'endorsement' shouldn't itself influence voters, as Hamas' statement on Obama shouldn't. The American people shouldn't base their votes on the basis of what maniacs say. But it once again underscores the question of who would be stronger in the fight against al Qaeda, which candidate is proposing a stronger plan to go after those who attacked us on 9/11, and which is for continuing the policy that has allowed al Qaeda to gain recruits and regain strength."
• MyDD's Todd Beeton: "It was common in 2004 for Republicans to imply...or even state outright, that John Kerry was Al Qaeda's preferred candidate. For example, when asked if he felt that Al Qaeda would 'operate with more comfort' if John Kerry were elected, [ex-House Speaker] Dennis Hastert said Yes. Even oh so honorable John McCain has made reference this year to the idea that if you listen to its leaders, Al Qaeda clearly wants Barack Obama to win. Umm, really?"

Several liberal bloggers are speculating about the possibility that al-Qaeda will try to influence the Presidential election in order to help McCain:

• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "There's no telling what al-Qaeda is actually capable of doing at this point. But it's well-known that al-Qaeda does try to influence western elections. We saw it with the Madrid bombings before the Spanish elections, and then we saw it with the October 2004 bin Laden tape that the CIA believes was designed to boost George W. Bush's re-election fortunes. Al-Qaeda members will probably be able to come up with something to do between now and Election Day to help push things in the direction they prefer."
• Ezra Klein: "It's stupid to take the endorsements of terrorists seriously. But it means it's worth being mentally prepared for the possibility that the terrorist group will stage a late intervention in the election, either via a tape or something worse. Meanwhile, can you imagine the outcry if intelligence experts had broken into a locked al Qaeda site and found deep conversations asking how best to ensure Barack Obama's election?"

MCCAIN II: Digging A Deeper Hole...

Several top McCain aides held a conference call in which they blasted the report about al-Qaeda's alleged preference for McCain:

"Senior McCain aides blasted a report published in today's Washington Post quoting commentary on an Islamic extremist Web site that 'Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,' saying that The Post had relied on a 'blogger' whose connections to al-Qaeda were questionable. And the McCain team accused The Post of running an 'inflammatory' headline while ignoring words of praise for Barack Obama from other Middle East leaders."

Liberal bloggers believe that the McCain camp's argument is logically inconsistent:

• Democracy Arsenal's Max Bergmann: "On the McCain campaign's conference call they just dug their hole even deeper. Instead of just saying that talking about who terrorist groups endorse is ridiculous, Randy Scheunemann -- McCain's foreign policy adviser -- decided to whine that the Washington Post article should have included comments from Hamas, Qaddafi, and Ahmadinejad saying positive things about Obama. I see, stories that say 'terrorists endorse McCain' are unfair but ones that say the same about Obama are fair. I just don't understand how they can possibly complain about stories on Al Qaeda members endorsing McCain and then in practically the same breathe say stories should be written about other terrorist groups endorsing Obama. Randy -- the correct response was this is all ridiculous. If those other endorsements of Obama are fair game then so is Al Qaeda's. And it would seem to me that Al Qaeda's endorsement is a bit bigger deal than Hamas'."
• TPM's Greg Sargent and Eric Kleefeld: "One especially fun moment on the call came when McCain adviser Jim Woolsey badly undercut the campaign call's message. Woolsey said that Al Qaeda supporters who praise McCain are actually doing it to hurt him, because praise from Al Qaeda is the 'kiss of death.' At that point, a reporter quite naturally asked whether the same could be said of Hamas advisers who praise Obama, prompting Woolsey to pull a homina homina homina and dodge the question."
• Martin: "As for the contention that al-Qaeda is trying reverse psychology (attempting to damage McCain by stating a preference for him), that is a difficult claim to defend while simultaneously pointing to the statements of support for Barack Obama coming from other suspect groups. The attempt to thread that needle goes something like this: You can't trust al-Qaeda, and they're obviously using reverse psychology. But Hamas would never lie to us, and isn't now. Nor [Ahmadinejad]. Or something."
• Yglesias: "[McCain's aides] seem to have taken a two pronged approach: (1.) Other 'bad guy' types have said nice things about Obama. (2.) Al-Qaeda saying they're hoping for a McCain win is obviously a bankshot effort to help McCain. Of course these arguments contradict each other."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "If al Qaeda really wanted to play some kind of reverse-psychology game here, it probably wouldn't have posted a message to a website closely linked to the terrorist group, in Arabic, on a page accessible by a password. Indeed, if the situation were reversed, and that same page had expressed support for Obama, every Republican in America would be screaming hysterically right now. But what seems clear is that Republicans are stuck in a trap of their own making. Bush, [Dick] Cheney, McCain, and other leading Republicans have argued for years that we must take the terrorists' words seriously and accepted at face value. Today, they're arguing the polar opposite."

Liberal bloggers are also accusing the McCain camp of not addressing the substance of the report:

• Firedoglake's Spencer Ackerman: "To describe the call as panicked would be an understatement. [...] What was absent from the call, oddly enough, was any discussion about why al-Qaeda might want McCain to win. And there the case is simple enough. al-Qaeda prefers an indefinite U.S. occupation of Iraq and a bellicose U.S. all across the Muslim world in order to radicalize Muslims to its terrorist cause and drain the U.S. of its financial wealth -- what Osama bin Laden calls his 'bleed to bankruptcy' strategy. Hence the reason why, as the CIA eventually concluded, bin Laden tried to help George W. Bush's reelection in 2004 by releasing a late-October tape. McCain pledges basic continuity with Bush on the Iraq war. As Scheunemann put it, 'John McCain will spend what it takes to win.'"
• Think Progress' Matt Duss: "What was most striking to me is the way McCain advisers James Woolsey and Randy Scheunemann simply refused to accept or even seriously address the idea that policies supported by John McCain could have possibly benefited Al Qaeda. The press call was intended to beat back the idea that Al Qaeda might prefer the policies of John McCain, but I think Woolsey and Schuenemann only succeeded in reinforcing why that could be."

PALIN: The Hockey Mom Gets Exposed

Following the Politico's report that the RNC "has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize [Palin] and her family" since late August, liberal bloggers are arguing that Palin isn't the middle-class "hockey mom" that she claims to be:

• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "[This] officially ends Palin's ability to run as 'small town hockey mom.' You don't get to shop like Leona Helmsley and then play that class card."
• Daily Kos' Kagro X: "[Palin is] just another fake 'bootstrapper' Republican. What a shocker."
• Beeton: "The amazing thing to me is that anyone actually bought into this idea of Sarah Palin as everywoman. Her whole 'Joe sixpack' thing was so clearly a cynical ploy to appeal to the real 'Joe sixpacks' who value that connection with the plain speakin' politicians. The fact that the RNC would spend so heavily on Palin's wardrobe reveals the hollowness of this image, both because it implies that Palin was merely an actress in need of a costume (duh!) and because it pulls back the curtain on Palin's every woman facade. On a larger level, this lays bare the hollowness and cynicism with which The Republican Party regularly exploits the fears and values of the white working class for electoral gain. Is this story, of all things, beginning to wake people up to this?"
• The Huffington Post's Bob Cesca: "Be it Larry the Cable Guy or his Ohio cousin, Joe the Plumber, or their political and spiritual leader, Bushie the Commander Guy, or their newly discovered co-star Sarah the Hockey Mom, it should be obvious to anyone watching that the Republicans have been engaging in a seemingly endless game of dress up, and pretending to be something they're clearly not. [...] As we've all observed today with the news of Sarah Palin's $150,000 wardrobe -- purchased, I hasten to underscore, from stores based in the 'anti-American' areas of the nation -- the Republican 'Joe Sixpack' flimflam appears to be crashing and burning faster than McCain's poll numbers."

On the right side of the blogosphere, Michelle Malkin defends Palin and blames the RNC for giving her a costly "makeover": "Joe Biden is imploding, but Sarah Palin's RNC-funded wardrobe budget is the headline. The libs are claiming that some unnamed Republican National Committee donors and members are 'disgusted' by the expenditures. Are you surprised? The RNC has squandered its time and money on a lot of stupid things. [...] Heckuva job, RNC."

NRO's Lisa Schiffren, on the other hand, defends the RNC's clothing expenditures: "Had she been a creature of Washington, Palin would have had closet full of suits, unexciting, perhaps, but appropriate. [...] Instead, she had zero time and no personal fortune. And she faced the terrible hurdle of being young and attractive -- the very sort of woman who most desperately needs wardrobe cues to make her look authoritative. If she had had to pay for it herself, she could not have run. The bill would have been ruinous to a genuinely middle class person. So the GOP did what it had to do in order to put a non-rich woman on a national ticket. Whatever one thinks of the choice -- and I am a supporter -- it's nice to see that someone was thinking about the details. The difference between Palin at the announcement in Dayton, and Palin at the convention was a subtle but impressive transformation. Subtle always costs more. As a sometime GOP donor, I begrudge her none of it."

PALIN II: Six Degrees Of Sleaze

Liberal bloggers are also buzzing about a new Atlantic report which found that Palin's clothes were purchased by GOP consultant Jeff Larson, "whose firm has been tied to the onslaught of negative robocalls from Senator John McCain's campaign":

• Daily Kos' MissLaura: "Sarah Palin's folksy authenticity must have been touted by Republican operatives at least once for every dollar the RNC has spent on her clothes, hair, and makeup over the past six weeks. [...] But it turns out the Republicans didn't trust Palin to dress herself for the big time. No, her Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys, and Neiman Marcus clothes were purchased by one Jeff Larson. And in a stunning coincidence, $75,000 of the clothes for Palin were purchased by Larson at the very same Neiman Marcus where Republican donor Nasser Kazeminy allegedly bought suits for...[MN Sen.] Norm Coleman. I foresee an ad for that store: 'The choice for Republican operatives seeking to outfit up-and-coming politicians who can't dress themselves.'"
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Palin personal shopper = McCain robocaller = Sen. Norm Coleman's very generous landlord. What a tangled web those Republicans weave."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "Jeff Larson is not only John McCain's chief robocaller and Sen. Palin's $150k clothes shopper, he's also the guy who's giving that sweetheart rental deal on his apartment in DC [to Coleman]."

HORSERACE: A Dead Heat?

Conservative bloggers are buzzing about yesterday's AP poll which found Obama and McCain in a statistical tie:

• AmSpec Blog's Quin Hillyer: "Toldja so. After decrying the McCain and Palin debate performances for episodes 1-3 (breaking with the conservative consensus all three times, and all three times seeing my assessment mirrored in the poll movements in the subsequent days), I wrote right after the last debate that McCain won a solid victory for what he needed to do. Well, again, a poll confirms my analysis. The AP now has the race essentially even, and the crosstabs are even more interesting, because they explain WHERE McCain made his gains."
• RedState's Pejman Yousefzadeh: "This election is not over. And John McCain continues to hang around. [...] I recognize that there are plenty of people interested in making this a coronation, not an election. Alas for them, the voters may still have something to say about the matter."
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Take this, as with all polling this cycle, with a grain of salt -- but usually the error in the AP polling goes the other direction. A new poll of likely voters has Barack Obama clinging to a one-point lead, 44%-43%, with John McCain making up almost all of a seven-point deficit over the last three weeks. [...] There's still plenty of time left in this election. McCain has now obviously found a winning message that negates Obama's economic populism."

HORSERACE II: Don't Let The Polls Get You Down, Conservatives!

Several conservative bloggers are suggesting that the media is portraying McCain in worse shape than he actually is:

• Morrissey: "The proliferation of polls gives media outlets their choice of narrative. Maybe they focus on the worst of the polls more than the ones indicating more of a dead heat? That could explain why some media outlets (I won't name names like CBS, of course!) routinely conduct polls with ridiculously-skewed samples favoring Democrats by 14 points, just to drive that kind of negative coverage."
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "Today's AP poll showing a dead heat in the presidential campaign, like yesterday's Battleground Poll with the same result, are so far outside the MSM's narrative as to be instantly dismissed by even many McCain-Palin supporters as too good to be true. And perhaps they are. Or perhaps the pollsters simply don't know how to catch this year's bouncing ball. Or they are catching many different balls depending where they are polling."

Several righty bloggers are also questioning the reliability of pollsters' party ID weighting:

• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "I'm thinking back to this post, pointing out that the vast majority of pollsters in 2006 overestimated the percentage of the electorate that would be Democrats, sometimes by a wide margin. [...] This doesn't guarantee that those guys will be wrong again this time around. But it is within the realm of possibility."
• Liebau: "The problem for pollsters is that, at this point, no one is sure how to weight Democrat vs. Republican participation. How much of a partisan edge do Democrats have over Republicans? Not clear. But how that's calculated has a lot to do with what kind of results pollsters are getting. Put wrong information in, get wrong information out. Same goes for the extent to which 'leaners' are pushed to choose a candidate. If those who are truly undecided are forced to choose a candidate for purposes of the poll, it offers a mistaken impression of how many voters are still 'convinceable' for the candidate who's behind. So nobody really knows what's going to happen on election day. That's why it's important for Republicans to keep pushing..."

MEDIA CRITICISM: Where's The Love For The Maverick?

Conservative bloggers are once again complaining about media bias following a new Pew report which found that McCain has received significantly more negative press coverage than Obama during the past six weeks:

• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "Does this surprise ANYONE? [...] Shocker! [Howard] Kurtz insists it's because being ahead in the polls creates the condition for more favorable coverage. Hm. Too bad there's no way to factor in all the negative stories that could have been reported about Obama's policies, character and past (uncovered by journalists like Stanley Kurtz) -- but which the media has conveniently overlooked. The imbalance would be even more striking."
• AmSpec Blog's Robert Stacy McCain: "When reporters provide coverage of the McCain campaign where negative stories outnumber positive stories 4-to-1, it's pretty obvious that their news judgment is not balanced. I will note, however, that the First Amendment does not require balance. Newspaper editors and TV news producers can be as biased as they wish; the audience, however, should understand that they're not getting the full truth."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "Good thing the Republicans nominated a media darling for President!"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Dissecting The Democratic Coalition

The Next Right's Sean Oxedine:

"Racial minorities are consistently one of the most conservative demographic groups when it comes to gay rights. [...] Hispanics Democrats in Congress already tend to be more conservative than their brethern, especially on cultural issues, and especially when they hail from rural areas like South Texas. As time progresses, we also begin to see increasing diversity in the African American congressional delegation, with more and more Congressmen like Sanford Bishop, Harold Ford, and David Scott sounding conservative themes when it suits their constituents.

I don't expect to see African Americans and Hispanics vote Republican anytime in my lifetime, although if the party goes the [Mike] Huckabee route (the opposite of what I'd like to see) of increased economic liberalism combined with cultural conservatism, this may become more likely. Of more interest is the effect this has within the Democratic caucus as time goes on. Will we see more ideological primaries in minority-majority districts, as we saw with Majette-McKinney or Cuellar-Rodriguez[?] Ironically, this is what we saw in the South in the 1930s-1960s, where race held together a Southern Democratic party split by serious ideological divisions."

LEST WE FORGET: Zogby Poll: John Zogby Coolest Dude In America

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- In a poll taken by Zogby International, 100 percent of respondents agreed that American pollster John Zogby is the coolest dude in the United States of America, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and all of the other U.S. territories. The poll results were posted on Zogby.com all day Thursday and revealed that, of the 300 million citizens surveyed, John Zogby not only had the coolest friends, but was also easily the coolest guy in both high school and college. In addition, when Americans were asked who would be the one person they would most like to 'hang' with if given the opportunity, every one of them responded with 'John Zogby.' The poll, a Zogby representative said, has a zero percent margin of error and is potentially one of the most awesome polls ever conducted."