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From The Situation Room Oct. 30, 2008. While discussing the response of Kay Hagan to the Elizabeth Dole ad calling her Godless, Wolf Blitzer actually asks Donna Brazile and Bill Bennett if it's okay for candidates to be associating with atheists. I'm not sure what's more disturbing, his question, or their answers.

Blitzer: But did she make a mistake Donna by going to that fundraiser at the home of the woman who professes that there is no god?

Brazile: You know Wolf there are a lot of believers. I'm one of them. And there are people who just don't believe in an existence of a god. I don't know why because clearly there's strong evidence that there's a god but I believe that you serve all the people. Not just those that profess to have faith but those with little or no faith. That's how you convert them.

Blitzer: Is it a problem Bill to associate with atheists?

Bennett: Well this is an active atheist. This is a woman, ah, people who are campaigning to get "In God We Trust" off the currency. You know it would have been sensible for Kay Hagan or Kay Hagan's advisers to say let's just pass on this one. That's just going to get you into the association game. You know the "house of" like Barack Obama's been tagged with for the last six months or six years.

This is just so wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin. First of all Donna Brazile, yes if you hold a public office you should serve all and not just those who profess to have faith, but that's not how you convert them!! Are you kidding me??!! There are plenty of people out there who don't care to be converted thank you. I know George Bush and the GOP have blown a hole right through this but we are supposed to have separation of church and state in this country, and we don't need to have two theocratic parties. One is one too many already. And Wolf, there is nothing wrong with being an atheist or heaven forbid associating with them. There's nothing wrong with atheists that might want to..gasp.. run for office. Just like there's nothing wrong with Muslims who want to run for office, or agnostics, or Jews, or Catholics. And Bill Bennett, we do still have a thing called free speech in this country and if someone doesn't like the words "In God We Trust" on the currency, they have every right to express that view without being treated like commie pinkos. Shame on all of you for this interview.

  CNN's Christine Romans looks through the archives and finds that either the Bush administration was completely oblivious to the impending financial crisis, or were simply lying to the public. Watch and reach your own conclusion.

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ROMANS: It's about as dire a President can get on the economy.

PRES. BUSH: We're facing a choice between action and the real prospect of economic hardship for millions of Americans.

ROMANS: This from an administration that for months said the economy was vibrant, the financial system strong. The President didn't acknowledge 'storm clouds' until last December, By then, it was raining.

   Jeffrey Toobin injects a much-needed dose of reality into a panel discussion on "The Situation Room" about John McCain's decision to "suspend" his campaign and postpone the debate.

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TOOBIN: Well, can I just quarrel with the premise of this? Who says he suspended his campaign? He didn't suspend his campaign. He's been campaigning all day. He gave a speech in New York. He's giving interviews all night. He's raising money. His surrogates are attacking Barack Obama.

I think this is posturing of being apolitical. And, frankly, I think we're being kind of gullible in falling for it. He didn't stop his campaign. He's campaigning. Now whether it's successful or not...

HAYES: He's pulled his ads down, too, Wolf.

TOOBIN: No, he didn't pull his ads down. His ads have been on. And he's done exactly what Obama has done all day. And Obama admits that he's campaigning. It's the middle of the campaign. I don't see why we should treat what he's doing as anything different from what Obama is doing.

Toobin also goes on to say that McCain would look like a "chicken" if he decides to skip out on Friday's debate, which leads to a nice little exchange with right-wing water-carrier Stephen Hayes. I really don't see how it's possible for McCain to bail out. I guess we'll find out later today, but I think AL may be onto something:

Earlier today, well before the contentious meeting at the White House, I wrote this:

[H]ere's the most likely McCain play. He'll swoop in, read through the compromise proposal that's been reached and declare that it's unacceptable in its present form. He'll then demand that something either be added or removed (or both) and use his leverage (his threat to vote no) to get the bill changed. Then he'll vote for the amended bill and take full credit for having made this crucially important change (whatever it is). His surrogates will claim that the whole episode shows McCain's heroic leadership, the way he takes charge of a situation.

I still think this is still the most likely scenario. Right now the major holdouts are the House Republicans who have come up with their own half-baked alternative proposal (really just a set a talking points). Look for McCain to attempt to broker some sort of compromise whereby the existing proposal is modified in some minor way to appease House Republicans and bring a few more of them on board. Then he'll jet down to Mississippi for the debate.

Over the past few days, John McCain has launched an all-out war against Barack Obama's fitness to be commander-in-chief. In Denver on Friday, McCain claimed that in supporting the January 2007 surge in Iraq, he passed "a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief" his Democratic rival supposedly failed. That same day, McCain insisted to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "I know how to win wars." And on ABC This Week on Sunday, McCain ridiculed over and over Barack Obama's "total lack of understanding" of the realities - and stakes - in Iraq.

As McCain put it in his address to the American GI Forum Friday, Barack Obama failed the John McCain commander-in-chief test:

"Senator Obama and I also faced a decision, which amounted to a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief. America passed that test. I believe my judgment passed that test. And I believe Senator Obama's failed."

Sadly, when it comes to the war in Iraq, it is the Arizona Republican who failed his own commander-in-chief exam. At almost every turn in the run-up to the invasion and the ensuing American occupation, McCain's judgment was almost always wrong, often disastrously so. From his predictions of a short war, claims U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators and that the U.S. would find weapons of mass destruction to his announcements of mission accomplished, his ongoing confusion over friend and foe in Iraq and so much more, John McCain the would-be wartime president gets failing marks.

 That F grade is not, as McCain insists, a "job for the historians." As his past statements show, American voters can reach that conclusion right now.

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As developments on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to undermine his campaign, Republican John McCain tried to play the Bin Laden card on Friday. Repeating his claim "I know how to win wars," McCain told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "I know how" to capture Osama Bin Laden. Apparently, the McCain strategy, as he never tires of telling voters, is to follow Bin Laden to "the gates of hell."

Appearing on the Situation Room, John McCain suggested that his record on Iraq and expertise on the geography of the Iraq-Pakistan border region would allow him to succeed where George W. Bush failed in capturing the Al Qaeda chieftain:

"I'm not going to telegraph a lot of the things that I'm going to do because then it might compromise our ability to do so. But, look, I know the area, I have been there, I know wars, I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden -- or put it this way, bring him to justice…We will do it, I know how to do it."

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No doubt, McCain hasn't been shy when it comes to explaining how he'll bag Bin Laden.

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I heart Granholm. When have I ever said that? She's an incredible communicator who really captures the mood of the country and blue collar workers after living under the Conservative agenda for almost eight years. In the few minutes she had on The Situation Room Monday---Governor Granholm quickly and easily deconstructed McCain's talking points on every economic issue Wolf brought up. I guess after all was said and done it comes down to one word: "McSame." Michigan is lucky to have her.

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GRANHOLM: I'll tell you what blue collar American wants. They want a change in the White House. They don't want a third Bush term. Here in Michigan, in small towns across our state, where we have seen jobs go on a slow boat to China, on the Internet to India, or on a fast track to Mexico, we want to make sure that we have an investment, a manufacturing policy in this country that supports our job providers so we can keep jobs here. Bush and McCain will further the unfair trade policies that have hurt states like Michigan.

People are mad in Michigan. We're mad that the Bush administration has stood idly by while we have lost almost 400,000 jobs since Bush became president.

Can you imagine that, Wolf? Four hundred thousand jobs. That's our own version of Hurricane Katrina, only it's {trickled out} over the past seven and a half years. So we need a change in the White House. That's what people are mad at. They're mad at a White House that has not paid attention to middle America.

I can imagine it. Michigan is not the only state that has been devastated by the Bush doctrine. I love the way she made sure to incorporate the "trickle down" principals of Conservatism in her response to McCain's camp. For McCain to say that Obama is out of touch with blue collar working Americans is laughable since he has stood side by side with the conservative agenda that has been an utter failure for our country. I will say that the White House has paid attention to the fat cats on wall street. They certainly have made a killing while Bush has been in office. That's why we will constantly hear screams of "Obama is a socialist---run for the hills," by the Saturday morning zombie stock show guests on FOX.

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Politics makes strange bedfellows, as the old saying goes. Former presidential candidate and current professional Republican pundit Pat Buchanan is one of the few voices on the right that agrees with us on the left about the uselessness of the Iraq invasion and occupation. Unfortunately, to arrive at the same conclusion we have, Buchanan has to hop on the bus to CrazyTown, by way of Isolationist-Ville via the Godwin Express.

Buchanan has written a new book: Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War where he places blame for the Holocaust and WWII at an unconventional target: Winston Churchill. Though I can't claim to be a history buff to say definitively, Buchanan's reasoning is a little shaky at best. All this time, I thought it was Hitler that caused the Holocaust. Who knew?

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Somehow, Buchanan manages to pull from this Godwin nightmare that had England not promised to save Poland, Hitler would not have exterminated 6 million Jews, and like that unnecessary World War II, the lesson that we should take from that is that Bush is making similar imperialistic entries and taking us into an unnecessary war in Iraq.

Like I said, we arrived at that conclusion without the detour into CrazyTown.

Full Transcripts below the fold...

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McCain Then and Now:

On Thursday, John McCain toured areas of New Orleans that are still damaged from Hurricane Katrina and tried to explain how he would have done things differently had he been President.

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John McCain: Never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled. Never again.

Dana Bash: John McCain used these vivid reminders of a stained Bush legacy to try to distance himself. President Bush famously flew over New Orleans in the days after Katrina, a mistake McCain said he would not have made.

John McCain: In all candor if I had been President of the United States I'd have ordered the plane landed at the nearest Air Force base and I'd have been over here.

Yep, John McCain would have hopped off of that plane and done what exactly? He didn't say, so we're left to guess whether he would have used Air Force One to rescue evacuees (and if so, why didn't he hop on his private jet and do so at the time? just sayin') or is it more likely he would have simply held a photo-op presser like he did yesterday and the day Hurricane Katrina hit.

Now, I guess it's asking a lot to let something like Katrina spoil his birthday plans, but if he really would have done things so differently had he been President, honestly, then why didn't he at least say something along the lines of: 'I'm flattered you still thought enough to come, Mr. President, but don't you have something more important you should be attending to?' and wouldn't he at least have exercised better judgment than to participate in a laugh-filled photo-op with the President for the historical record that fateful day?

Despite all the talk at yesterday's campaign photo-op, John McCain's actions then and since could not be more stark in contrast:

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The Situation Room takes a look at the upcoming documentary Standard Operating Procedure by Errol Morris (The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line) which examines the incidents of abuse and torture at the Abu Ghraib prison.

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More videos from the film via The New Yorker, in which Sy Hersh first broke the story of the US's gulag in Iraq.

I look forward to seeing how complete and honest an account of what went on this film is. It looks promising. I'm sure Janis Karpinski will do her part to make sure they set the record straight. Also, I'm pretty sure I know where the film's title comes from:

Army documents show. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, U.S. soldiers and intelligence personnel began to use these techniques in Iraq, where they were informally "accepted as SOP [standard operating procedure] by newly arrived interrogators," according to an August 2004 report on Abu Ghraib abuses by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay. By September 2003, Gen. Geoffrey Miller had arrived at Abu Ghraib, allegedly with a mandate to "Gitmo-ize" interrogation procedures at the prison.

In light of the recent revelations that torture techniques were discussed and approved in meetings by the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a group that included Vice President Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, John Ashcroft, and that President Bush admits he was fully aware of them, I think the Pentagon spokesman's statement at the end of the CNN report that there was never "any government policy that directed, encouraged, or condoned abuse" is not only demonstrably false, it shows what a sham the military's investigation into the matter was. Janis Karpinski was right all along.

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As the Senate Armed Services Committee grandstands through their oversight hearing with Iraq Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, with the Republicans willing to look at anything and everything as signs of progress, CNN correspondent Michael Ware has recently returned from Iraq, shows that the situation on the ground is far more complicated than Congress and Petraeus/Crocker wants to make it.

BLITZER: Quick question, we just heard Nic's report from Sadr City. Can the Iraqi forces loyal to the prime minister Nouri al Maliki crush these Shi’ite militias in Sadr City with U.S. military help?

WARE: Well, first Wolf, I think you'd have to find which of these Iraqi units actually have soldiers loyal to Nouri al Maliki. Because, let’s bear in mind, much like the government itself, the Iraqi security forces are comprised of and drawn from the militias themselves. Now, whilst you do have other recruits who've just shown up for a paycheck, at the end of the day, the troops on the ground are drawn from the militias, are drawn from the political factions. These are the building blocks of Iraqi political power. And Nouri al Maliki, the prime minister, doesn't have a militia and given that guns, the barrel of the gun is still the currency of political power in Iraq; Nouri al Maliki has little but words and some influence. Real power rests elsewhere.

And this gets to crux of the problem. By what definition of "success" is Petraeus claiming the "surge" has caused? The initial justification was to reduce the violence to allow the government to gather strength, but as Ware points out, that's not happening. To subdue neighborhoods in Baghdad--in an admittedly fragile, highly temporary way--how exactly is that "success" and how does continuing that policy pave the way for anything that will enable us to leave, ever?

And most pointedly, when will there be a Democratic Senator that asks that question, because we know the Republicans never will?

The increasingly schizophrenic James Dobson issued a tough statement against Senator McCain today, saying that he has been insufficiently pandering to the radical religious right.

"I have seen no evidence that Sen. McCain is successfully unifying the Republican Party or drawing conservatives into his fold. To the contrary, he seems intent on driving them away."

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Translation: McCain hasn't been talking about how much he hates teh gays. That's sort of a rite of passage on that side of the aisle. And he's trying to be viewed as relevant again in an election cycle that has left them in the cold. Except---John Hagee of course...

Because the media has gotta have a horse race. Now that John McCain has locked up the Republican nomination, the focus moves to who he will choose as his running mate. Will he choose someone who offsets his age, his lack of appeal to the Religious Right faction of the party (what, Hagee isn't good enough for you people?), his perceived lesser conservatism (because wanting to be in Iraq for a 100 years doesn't quite cut it, you have to want to fence the US off from Mexico too, apparently) or perhaps a minority or woman to counteract the Democratic ticket? McCain has set up a committee to look into different methodologies of picking that running mate. But Jack Cafferty asks his viewers what they think, and bless their little hearts, it looks like some snarky liberals got in some good zingers:

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Sky says: "Maybe he should look over at Shady Pines. There should be plenty of his contemporaries there. He might even find one who agrees with his brilliant suggestion to keep our GIs in Iraq for 100 years."

Ed in Houston: "McCain ought to let Rush Limbaugh help him pick the vice presidential candidate as soon as possible. It sounds by his comments today regarding a Clinton/Obama dream ticket that he will be re-entering rehab again soon."[..]

Dan in Gulfport, Florida: "Unfortunately, a lot of potential candidates are in jail or soon will be. McCain might be better off if he placed an ad in the jobs available section of The Times. The nice thing is that after Dick Cheney, the bar for vice president is so low that it won't be difficult for anyone to hop over it. My personal recommendation would be Senator Larry Craig. He'd lock up the public restroom vote and there might not be many other places Republicans will be able to find votes this year."

Oh snap!

Transcripts below the fold:

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The outlook for the Republicans in 2008 is abysmal and it's obvious they're having a hard time concealing it. Bay Buchanan and Dee Dee Meyers appeared on The Situation Room Thursday to discuss the ongoing flap over the juvenile attacks on Senator Barack Obama by accentuating his middle name and how right wing radio hosts are losing their minds over John McCain's rejection of the tactic.

Buchanan adamantly states that Obama's middle name should be fair game because it's a real concern for a lot of Americans and that they have the right to know if he has Muslim in his blood. WTF? This is pure xenophobic baiting at its finest (or worst) and both Meyers and Blitzer call her out on it. By the end of the segment Buchanan is reduced to a blithering idiot with Wolf and Meyers laughing and cracking jokes at her expense. This is so refreshing to see on CNN, especially after their inexcusable smear against Obama. We often give Blitzer a hard time at C&L, and rightfully so, but I have to give him credit, this was a shining moment for him.

The backlash against "Obama-mania" has really begun in earnest in the last week or so. Last night on CNN's The Situation Room, Carol Costello treated viewers to a Fox News-like presentation of more recent examples.

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COSTELLO: Many political observers say they've never seen anything like it. Thousands wait in line to see him, and it seems with every speech, they always latch onto Obama's three favorite words.

OBAMA: Yes, we can.

COSTELLO: Obama supporters wildly respond, chanting enthusiastically along with their candidate. But it's a scene some increasingly find not inspirational but "creepy."

L.A. Times columnist Joel Stein is cited, calling it "Obamaphilia. Then two of the very serious people sect have their opinions presented, Conservative columnist David Brooks in the NY Times, through his alter-ego Dr. Retail:

Meanwhile, Obama’s people are so taken with their messiah that soon they’ll be selling flowers at airports and arranging mass weddings. There’s a “Yes We Can” video floating around YouTube in which a bunch of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and the guy from the Black Eyed Peas are singing the words to an Obama speech in escalating states of righteousness and ecstasy. If that video doesn’t creep out normal working-class voters, then nothing will.

Or Joe Klein in Time magazine, in a piece called Inspiration vs Substance. None too subtle is Joe. Klein also introduced the descriptor "creepy" to Obama-mania.

"There was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism ... [T]he message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is.

And although not mentioned in the CNN piece, the truly creepy conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer gets into the act yesterday with this Washington Post column The Audacity of Selling Hope.

Interestingly, Obama has been able to win these electoral victories and dazzle crowds in one new jurisdiction after another, even as his mesmeric power has begun to arouse skepticism and misgivings among the mainstream media.

ABC's Jake Tapper notes the "Helter-Skelter cultish qualities" of "Obama worshipers," what Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times calls "the Cult of Obama." Obama's Super Tuesday victory speech was a classic of the genre. Its effect was electric, eliciting a rhythmic fervor in the audience -- to such rhetorical nonsense as "We are the ones we've been waiting for. (Cheers, applause.) We are the change that we seek."

Krauthammer compares it to what he experienced as a young man growing up in Montreal, in what became known as Trudeaumania. The more obvious example to many Americans who remember the spring of 1968 is with Robert Kennedy. It would seem the traditional media's reaction to inspirational political figures has not improved in the intervening 40 years. If anything it's only gotten worse.

Or as Will Bunch succinctly put it:

But the real takeaway here is that passion + politics = cult.

God -- the real one -- save our political discourse.

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Charles Barkley appeared on The Situation Room to promote Barack Obama's candidacy. As you may remember, Barkley was a very vocal Republican not that many years ago. Well, no more. Barkley's disgust with the Republican Party was so palpable that Wolf Blitzer could only flounder to try to make it a little less vitriolic.

BARKLEY: Hey, I live in Arizona. I have got great respect for Senator McCain. Great respect. But I don't like the way the Republicans are taking this country. Every time I hear the word "conservative," it makes me sick to my stomach, because they're really just fake Christians, as I call them. That's all they are. But I just -- I'm going to vote Democratic no matter what. [..]

BLITZER: All right. One quick point before I let you go. You used the phrase "fake Christians" for conservatives. Explain what you're talking about.

BARKLEY: Well, I think they -- they want to be judge and jury. Like, I'm for gay marriage. It's none of my business if gay people want to get married. I'm pro-choice. And I think these Christians -- first of all, they're supposed to be -- they're not supposed to judge other people. But they're the most hypocritical judge of people we have in this country. And it bugs the hell out of me. They act like their Christians. And they're not forgiving at all.

BLITZER: So you're going to get a lot of feedback on this one, Charles.

BARKLEY: They can't do anything to me. I don't work for them.

Full transcripts available here.