Take one cherry-picked quote, say that a newspaper has been "hiding" it when it has been on their website all along and hype the result through several different rightwing noise-makers. Result - a scandal which says that Obama would like to drive the coal industry bankrupt. One good enough for Sarah Palin to tout on the stump.

The original quote, presented in a cropped clip of an Obama interview that discussed his policy on climate change and carbon "cap and trade", looked terrible for Obama. Especially in places like West Virginia and Ohio:

That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants are being built, they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted-down caps that are imposed every year. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel, and other alternative energy approaches.

But it's just the Right cherry-picking its quotes again to fabricate a smear out of whole cloth.

This from the same interview - and unmentioned by the unethical smear-merchants at Newsbusters, who first floated the rightwing's version of the truth:

"But this notion of no coal, I think, is an illusion. Because the fact of the matter is, is that right now we are getting a lot of our energy from coal. And China is building a coal-powered plant once a week. So what we have to do then is figure out how can we use coal without emitting greenhouse gases and carbon. And how can we sequester that carbon and capture it. If we can’t, then we’re gonna still be working on alternatives."

Shows clearly that Obama meant only plants not using clean-coal technology would be hit.

And that is also McCain's position.

On June 21, 2005, Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) told McCain in a Senate debate that his legislation to curb climate change would "put coal of out of business." McCain didn't contest that claim. Indeed McCain agreed that his legislation would "require sacrifice" acknowledging that critics said it would cost "thousands of jobs."

But you won't be hearing that from Newsbusters, Drudge, Malkin, Fox News, Palin or any of the many others who climbed on this "November Surprise" bandwagon.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

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During the recent debate with Barack Obama, John McCain stated that "I know the veterans, I know them well, and I know that they know that I'll take care of them". Obama let it slide, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Our good friend Brandon Freidman of VetVoice has done some excellent work researching and compiling the Master List of how little McCain cares for troops and veterans. It's a must-read post that's too detailled to excerpt but it comprehensively lists all the times McCain: refused to support veterans by refusing to vote for veteran benefits, healthcare and support; refused to support the troops in combat by voting against extra armor for them; refused to  support the troops by first cheerleading for and then voting for enmiring America in Bush's war of choice in Iraq; refused to support the real front in Afghanistan by continually voting against any withdrawal from Iraq. It also lists a whole slew of McCain's foreign policy gaffes, pointing to systemic ignorance and bad judgement rather than a few accidental mis-speakings. Brandon has included sources for his list and YouTube videos to back many of the items.

Seriously, you'll want to read and cite this list often. His support for veterans and troops is a big part of McCain's pitch but in reality it's simply mythology created out of whole cloth.

And so is McCain's "judgement" on Iraq.

McCain: "We're going to win this victory. Tragically, we will lose American lives. But it will be brief.  We're going to find massive evidence of weapons of mass destruction . . . It's going to send the message throughout the Middle East that democracy can take hold in the Middle East." (Fox News, Hannity & Colmes, 2/21/03)

Wolf Blitzer, on Sunday's Late Edition interviewed Pakistan's new President, Asif Ali Zardari about his nation's involvement in the War On Terror, and specifically clashes over incursions into Pakistan by US troops. Zardari provided a lesson in glib lying which could be required viewing for a certain type of Western politician (step forward John McCain and Sarah Palin). Not a single "tell" was in evidence as 'Mr. Ten Percent' wildly spun to make himself and Pakistan sound all things to all presidential hopefuls.

  Download | play Download | play

Many thanks to Heather for the vids.

In the interview, Zardari claimed that the US was being "over-indulgent" (I think he meant over-zealous) in its incursions on Pakistani territory and appealed to the Bush administration just to "give us the intelligence" and that Pakistan would then do what was needed.

When asked about allegations from the US and other allies that elements in the Pakistani military and ISI intelligence agency shielded or aided some anti-US militant leaders, he said that was all in the past and that his government had full control of Pakistan's military. "Our democracy is trustworthy" he said. Yet in recent months, Zardari's government have tried at least three times to exert more authority over the shadowy ISI, and have had to climb down each time after pressure from the military. The ISI was directly accused of involvement in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul back in

On recent reports, from both Pakistani and American authorities, that Pakistani troops had fired on US helicopters at least once and perhaps as many as three times - completely in accord with military statements saying Pakistan would defend against incursions at 'all costs" and would unhestitatingly "open fire" - Zardari stuck to his own tale that "open fire" is just a warning and that "only flares" to warn US forces had been used.

(Later in the interview, Zardari also said that if Pakistan captured Bin Laden it would try him in Pakistan rather than extradite him for trial on 9/11 charges, before hurredly doing an about face when Blitzer pressed him on this matter.)

But the most fervent spin of all was when Zardari tried to square himself with Obama, in case the latter should become President. When asked about Obama's policy (the one that both Bush and Sarah Palin apparently agree with but John Mccain doesn't) that the US should act unilaterally inside Pakistan if it is unable or unwilling to take action of its own, he said:

ZARDARI: Senator Obama answers that, if the Pakistani authorities are unwilling, but in this case, Pakistani authorities and the president of Pakistan is more than willing.

BLITZER: Are you confident that you have control over all elements of the security forces, that you're all on the same page, as far as the United States and the war on terror is concerned?

ZARDARI: Most definitely.

BLITZER: Absolutely?

ZARDARI: Absolutely.

All done with hardly a flicker. It's easy to see why Mr. Ten Percent is now one of the richest men in Pakistan without ever running an actual business. But if American leaders trust him at his very changeable word then caveat emptor.

  We knew this was coming.....

Exaggeration and truth-stretching is standard fare in politicking, but McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds took it to a new level today when he told Andrea Mitchell that John McCain's selfless act of leadership in coming back to Washington single-handedly helped push through negotiations on the bailout bill. Nevermind the fact that McCain still hasn't contacted the ranking Republican on the Banking Committee, Richard Shelby, and that his campaign is very much still in effect... John McCain put country first and personally saved the economy from disaster. Give me a break.

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"Before John McCain suspended his campaign yesterday, the situation that we're looking at today looked very different then. After he showed leadership and called for bipartisanship, and called for us to put partisanship aside and tackle this solution, here we are."

Barney Frank said earlier today that 'White House photo-op designed to help McCain.'

“All of a sudden, now that we’re on the verge of making a deal, John McCain drops himself in to make a deal," Frank said. "I really worry about this politicization of it....We're trying to rescue the economy, not the McCain campaign.

McCain was only interfering with the negotiations.

Rep. Barney Frank told a group of reporters outside the House chamber: "It's the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys."

Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan was on Sunday's "This Week" and told George Stephanopoulos that the current financial crisis is a "once in a century" eventwhich he wouldn't bet on leading anywhere except to recession. Gloomily, Greenspan explained how US house prices, now in freefall, underlie the US government paper that permeates the world economy - and that consequently the rest of the world is suffering even more than America is from a home-grown US financial collapse.

And, on Saturday the Associated Press reported remarks by Greenspan that clearly indicate he doesn't think John McCain is the one to steer America and the world through that collapse.

"Unless we cut spending, no," the former Federal Reserve chairman said Friday when asked about McCain's proposed tax cuts, pegged in some estimates at $3.3 trillion.

"I'm not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money," Greenspan said during an interview with Bloomberg Television. "I always have tied tax cuts to spending."

That McCain's "Bush-Plus" budget planning, which would make Bush's tax cuts permanent while introducing extra cuts benefiting mostly the very rich and corporations and would aim to offset those cuts by cutting earmark spending, comes up woefully short was pointed out by Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.):

McCaskill said eliminating congressional earmark spending — estimated at $17 billion annually — cannot offset McCain's proposed tax cuts.

"That's a huge amount of money, but it's not even a drop in the bucket to pay for $3.5 trillion in tax cuts," she said. "So, every time he throws up earmarks and he's asked how he's going to pay for it, he knows he's being disingenuous, he knows he's not being forthcoming."

It'sa position that McCain's own chief economic advisor also holds - as divulged in a forthcoming book. Douglas Holtz-Eakin believes that "you’re going to have to raise taxes whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat or a Martian" but the McCain campaign campaign isn't taking his advice and he isn't speaking out in public about that because "“It’s the brand and you don’t dilute the brand.”

  On the campaign trail, John McCain likes to brag that he went after corrupt uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff as some sort of high-minded reform crusade. Well, according to a new book by Boston Globe reporter Gary S. Chafetz, McCain's war against Abramoff was motivated more by revenge than any sort of noble principle.

Politico:

A new book released the day after Sen. John McCain accepted the Republican presidential nomination attacks one of his trademark political successes: his investigation of now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2004 and 2005.

“The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff,” by former Boston Globe freelancer Gary S. Chafetz and put out by small independent publisher Martin and Lawrence press, aggressively puts forth the case that McCain’s investigation into Abramoff wasn’t the high-minded reform crusade he has made it out to be on the campaign trail, but rather was pure political payback.

ThinkProgress has more.

So much for fighting for reform, eh? Sarah Palin built her political capital in Alaska by throwing in with none other than Ted Stevens

Palin's name is listed on 2003 incorporation papers of the "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors. The group was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in the state. She served as one of three directors until June 2005, when her name was replaced on state filings.

Palin's relationship with Alaska's senior senator may be one of the more complicated aspects of her new position as Sen. John McCain's running mate; Stevens was indicted in July 2008 on seven counts of corruption.

Palin, an anti-corruption crusader in Alaska, had called on Stevens to be open about the issues behind the investigation. But she also held a joint news conference with him in July, before he was indicted, to make clear she had not abandoned him politically.

Stevens had been helpful to Palin during her run for governor, swooping in with a last moment endorsement. And the two filmed a campaign commercial together to highlight Stevens's endorsement of Palin during the 2006 race.

Shortly after Palin was announced as McCain's vice presidential pick, the ad was removed from her gubernatorial campaign web site. It remains available on YouTube.

And here's that ad, courtesy of TPM, who saved it for posterity.

VECO, the company that gave "gifts" to Stevens, has ties to Palin too according to Think Progress, contributing 10 percent of her total campaign fund when she ran for lieutenant governor in 2002.

Corruption you can believe in!

What's remarkable is that people like Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) are going around repeatedly spouting talking points like "Gov. Palin took on Ted Stevens. If she can take him on, she can take on the Russians. Heh." And the question arises - are they really that dishonest or are they simply ignorant, digging themselves deeper and deeper into holes because of the worst-vetted candidate ever?

   General James T. Conway, the Marine in charge of security in Iraq's Anbar province the Commandant of the Marine Corps [that'll teach me to pay attention to names when writing posts at 1am. I knew this], has said that US forces there could hand over control to the Iraqi government as soon as Monday, and is lauding the reduction in violence in the province. The general says that remaining US troops in the province will concentrate on bringing Sunnis and Shiites together. But the handover was intended to happen last month, though a sharp uptick in violence there delayed the event, along with a convenient sandstorm. Veteran and blogger Brandon Freidman documented that increase back in May.

 And wrote that:

While I do not profess to know exactly what change in the political climate precipitated this specific spike in violence, I do know that General Petraeus was correct when he said that the placidity in Anbar Province was reversible.  What most have failed to realize thus far is that, while al Qaeda is deeply unpopular in Anbar, U.S. forces are equally despised.  So it seems that those who've repeatedly used Anbar's relative peacefulness as a sign of impending U.S. success in Iraq know little about counterinsurgency and less about Iraq.

Success in Iraq is something that will be brought about by Iraqis--not the American military.  As long as we're there, the best we can hope for is extreme violence broken by periodic lulls--such as what we've witnessed in Anbar over the past seven months.  As long we remain in Iraq, the violence will remain cyclical.  It will rise and fall, contingent on the latest deal we've cut with tribal leaders or the latest deal that someone has brokered within the Iraqi government.  But our military will never completely solve this inherently Iraqi problem.  We're watching that unfortunate fact unfold before us in Anbar this month.

Continue reading »

  Download | play   Download | play   (h/t BillW)

The Washington Post yet again manages to produce an op-ed only fit to wrap fish in, as neocon Michael Rubin - ex of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, the Office of the Secretary of Defense as an advisor to Rummie, political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority and unpaid hack for propaganda articles produced by the Pentagon's PR firm, the Lincoln Group - blames Joe Biden for eight years of Bush administration foreign policy failure in a desperate attempt to label Biden as "Iran's favorite Senator".

Here's how Rubin's logic works, as explained by Ilan Goldenberg of Democracy Arsenal:

Rubin makes a convoluted and nonsensical argument that A.  Joe Biden supported engagement with the reformist Khatami government of Iran during the late 1990s and first half of this decade.  That B.  During that time trade between Iran and the EU increased.  That C.  A National Intelligence Estimate found that Iran had stopped working on its nuclear weapons program in 2003.  From this he deduces that it's Biden's fault that Iran has moved ahead on its nuclear weapons program because it used increased trade with Europe to fund a nuclear weapons program.  What???

... Rubin basically takes a bunch of unrelated facts and uses them to conclude that Iran must have spent 2000 to 2003 working furiously on its nuclear weapons program and that it did it with money from Europe that somehow Joe Biden was responsible for.  Yup, putting those rigorous analytical skills that he learned that the Office of Special Plans to work.

Rubin also forgets to mention little details.  Like the fact that under this Administration trade with Iran has actually increased ten-fold and is at its highest levels since before the Iranian revolution.  Or the fact that the 2007 NIE concluded that Iran did in fact stop working on its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and was still years away from building a bomb.

Rubin then claims that Biden's vote against Kyl-Lieberman was partisan politics because Biden said that he didn't trust this Administration.  Ummm.... Trying to prevent war with Iran is not exactly a partisan activity.  It's not partisan to fear that an administration that has a track record of escalating conflict and misleading the American public might do it again.  That is in fact the exact opposite of partisan if you believe that war with Iran is against America's interests.

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  President Karzai of Afghhanistan's signature is on a pardon for three gang-rapists who just happened to be cronies of a former Taliban commander and Afghan MP. The woman who was raped and her family didn't even know about it until the men turned up in their village again, but Karzai's office says he doesn't know anything about it.

“Everyone was shocked,” said Sara’s husband, Dilawar, who like many Afghans uses only one name. “These were men who had been sentenced and found guilty by the Supreme Court, walking around freely.”

Sara’s case highlights concerns about the close relationship between the Afghan president and men accused of war crimes and human rights abuses.

The men were freed discreetly but the rape itself was public and brutal. It took place in September 2005, in the run up to Afghanistan’s first democratic parliamentary elections.

... A copy of the pardon was numbered, dated in May and appeared to bear the personal signature of Hamid Karzai. It recommended the men’s release because, it said, “they had been forced to confess to their crimes.”

When showed copies of the presidential pardon and court papers, President Karzai’s spokesman, Hamayun Hamidzada, was visibly shocked and said that if the documents proved genuine, Mr Karzai would be “upset and appalled.”

He said it was impossible that President Karzai could knowingly have signed a pardon for rapists, but refused to speculate on how the pardon could have come about.

An Afghan MP told the Independent's Kate Clark that “The commanders, the war criminals, still have armed groups,” he said. “They’re in the government. Karzai, the Americans, the British sit down with them. They have impunity. They’ve become very courageous and can do whatever crimes they like.” UN officials say cases such as this are increasingly common - and the family of Sara, the raped woman, are in hiding again.

There's none of this that an Afghan Surge can solve - just as the Iraqi Surge hasn't solved very similiar problems there. And yet again the need to pretend that "democracy" follows in the Bush administration's wake outweighs the needs of the common people, while exiles pushed by the West and local crooks carve up the country to suit themselves.  Such nice allies we have.

  Dr. Christopher A. Ford, the U.S. Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation, has joined the exodus from the Bush administration, and headed straight for neocon think-tank The Hudson Institute. Ford has been one of the administration's leading shills in demonizing Iran for supposedly contravening the NPT by doing what the NPT says it can - enriching uranium - while utterly ignoring the non-NPT possession of nukes by the likes of India, Pakistan and Israel. In February 2007 he told a Vienna audience that Iran "has tried to hijack legitimate discussions of the NPT's Article IV and twist them into a politicized form designed to give cover to Tehran's nuclear weapons ambitions." Of course, by the end of the year the Bush administrations own NIE concluded that Iran had no weapons program - something that still has the wingnuts in a tizzy.

The man who has been in charge of Bush's "nonproliferation" efforts (hah!) should feel right at home at Hudson. It was founded in 1961 by several hardline Cold Warriors including Herman Kahn, a nuclear strategist famous for his efforts to develop "winnable" nuclear war strategies. It's currently also ideological home to John Bolton apologist Herbert London, Giuliani's foreign policy advisor Norman Podhoretz (The Case For Bombing Iran) and Supreme Court wingnut Robert Bork.

Like many a Bush administration neoconservative before him, Ford intends disappearing back into the think-tank woodwork for now.

  Oil exports from the U.S. are currently running at 1.8 million barrels a day - exports that enrich Big Oil but don't do a thing to reduce prices at the pumps. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is asking Bush to "keep our oil".

.....at the current export rate, by the time the first barrel of oil could be produced from increased offshore drilling, America would have already exported the equivalent of nearly 40 percent of the oil that is projected to lie beneath protected areas offshore.

And that's the Oil Shuffle, as brought to you by George Bush, John McCain and oil company campaign donations.

Gareth Porter today examines the deeply flawed relationship between Musharraf of Pakistan and the Bush administration - one that sacrificed US national security for the mere appearance of alliance.

The problem faced by the Bush administration when it came into office was that the Pakistani military, over which Musharraf presided, was the real terrorist nexus with the Taliban and al Qaeda. As Bruce Riedel, National Security Council (NSC) senior director for South Asia in the Bill Clinton administration, who stayed on the NSC staff under the Bush administration, observed in an interview with this writer last September, al Qaeda "was a creation of the jihadist culture of the Pakistani army".

If there was a state sponsor of al Qaeda, Riedel said, it was the Pakistani military, acting through its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate.

... For the next few years, Musharraf played a complicated game. The CIA was allowed to operate in Pakistan's border provinces to pursue al Qaeda operatives, but only as long as they had ISI units accompanying them. That restricted their ability to gather intelligence in the northwest frontier. At the same time, ISI was allowing Taliban and al Qaeda leaders to operate freely in the tribal areas and even in Karachi.

The Bush administration also gave Musharraf and the military regime a free ride on the A. Q. Khan network's selling of nuclear technology to Libya and Iran, even though there was plenty of evidence that the generals had been fully aware of and supported Khan's activities.

Journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins wrote in their book "The Nuclear Jihadist" that one retired general who had worked with Khan told them there was no question that Khan had acted with the full knowledge of the military leadership. "Of course the military knew," the general said. "They helped him."

But the Bush administration chose to help Musharraf cover up that inconvenient fact.

I hope all the Bush-cheerleaders who backed Musharraf simply because Bush called the ex-dictator a bulwark against terrorism are thoroughly ashamed of their support for such an amazingly dangerous lie. The motive for that cover up seems to have been providing an appearance of progress in the War on Terror rather than an actuality. Style over substance. But Musharraf's Pakistan gave nuclear know-how to Iran, North Korea and Libya as well as providing safe haven to myriad of Islamic extremist terrorist groups.

Still, I really don't expect the situation under Zardari, a man who is legendary for his corruption in a land of incredibly corrupt politicians, to improve any. Which mounts a serious challenge to the foreign policy plans of both the presidential candidates. Does either have the courage to call a spade a spade and to call Pakistan a major sponsor of terrorism?

Check out our video for the proof. John McCain had a chance to say on TV that he wasn't in the "cone of silence" when he came out and started his interview with Rick Warren.

Warren says he's going to ask identical questions and has placed McCain in a cone of silence. McCain's response was:

McCain:  I was trying to hear through the wall."

Download | play   Download | play (h/t Silent Patriot)

He was not in the cone of silence.

Senator John McCain was not in a "cone of silence" on Saturday night while his rival, Senator Barack Obama, was being interviewed at the Saddleback Church in California.

Members of the McCain campaign staff, who flew here Sunday from California, said Mr. McCain was in his motorcade on the way to the church as Mr. Obama was being interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren, the author of the best-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life."

McCain was supposed to not be able to hear any of the questions before he went on or it would have given him an unfair advantage and a way to mold his answers. Driving in a car is a lame excuse to say he couldn't hear any of the questions. We get all sorts of information these days in numerous ways. And why was McCain even late for the event? It was promoted like crazy.

Mr. Warren started by asking Mr. McCain, "Now, my first question: Was the cone of silence comfortable that you were in just now?"

Mr. McCain deadpanned, "I was trying to hear through the wall."

Interviewed Sunday on CNN, Mr. Warren seemed surprised to learn that Mr. McCain was not in the building during the Obama interview.

Andrea Mitchell said on Meet the Press that:

The Obama people must feel that he didn't do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because that--what they're putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. 

And Rick Warren was told about it by CNN's Rick Sanchez. Warren responds:

 Warren: Well, that's true. He was in a cone of a secret service motorcade.

Sanchez called the McCain camp and said that he would have to go on the honor system. Yea, right. If John McCain can lie about his whereabouts during an evangelical presidential forum on TV, what does that tell you about his honesty and morals? And why isn't Warren outraged by this breach of trust by John McCain? If Obama had not been in the cone the media would be in an uproar about it. Drudge would have had a huge headline on it and he would have been hounded. Well, you know the rest. Please email and call Rick Warren and ask him why he let John McCain lie about not being there on time or in the "cone of silence." He should have been excluded from the forum completely. 

Here's his website. Rick Warren.

Here's some contact information for Saddleback below the fold: 

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...albeit in a gentle, politically-correct way.

Investigative journalist Ron Suskind dropped by "The Daily Show" Monday night to talk about the blockbuster revelation in his new book, The Way of the World, in which he was able to confirm through high-ranking CIA sources that the Bush administration ordered US intelligence agencies to fabricate a letter justifying the invasion of Iraq after the original case was revealed to be a fraud.

"The White House is intensely interested because there may be a legality that has Constitutional consequences."