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T. Boone Pickens has been in the news a lot lately pushing his so-called "Pickens Plan" which seeks to reduce America's reliance on foreign energy imports. Some aspects of the proposal are laudatory and actually quite brilliant, and some aspects are just downright stupid. But this post isn't about the merits of the idea; it's about what Pickens has to say when asked to reflect back on his role in bankrolling the insipid swift boat smear campaign against John Kerry. On this front, the billionaire oilman reveals his true, slimy colors. In this 60 Minutes profile, the cameras follow Pickens to the 2008 Democratic National Convention and capture his visibly uncomfortable encounter with the man he spent $3 million destroying.

60 Minutes:

"You spent $3 million funding an advertising campaign that, in some people’s mind, was representative of dirty politics, smear politics, character assassination, all of that. At this stage, do you have any regrets?" Rose asks.

"None," Pickens says.

Asked if he'd do it over again tomorrow, Pickens says, "What I knew then, I know that same thing now. And nothing has changed my mind."

SEE ALSO: Senator Kerry Confronts Swift Boat Funder

On the heels of the announcement that a deal has tentatively been struck to bail out Wall Street, John Kerry appeared on Fox News Sunday and put John McCain's campaign-suspending stunt into perspective:

Barack Obama was in constant touch with Secretary Paulson almost every single day, sometimes several times a day for the last two weeks. Barack Obama was the first person to speak and lay out at that meeting at the White House for about seven or eight minutes the entire parameters of what we had resolved. John McCain, when offered the opportunity to speak, passed, didn't speak until the very end, and when he spoke, did not offer a solution and did not say what he would support. The fact is that on a Monday of about a week ago, John McCain said the fundamentals of our economy are strong. Within a few days, John McCain was suspending his campaign because of the greatest crisis since World War II. He suspended his campaign and it took him 22 hours to get from New York to Washington, a one-hour flight, had time to go do Katie Couric in an interview, had time to give a speech to the Clinton millennium, and when he got here, he wound up -- I mean, he said he was going to interrupt his campaign to come down and save the negotiations. Most people believe what he did was interrupt the negotiations to come down and save his campaign. 

"... not a maverick."

Download | play Download | play h/t Heather! (Watch the entire segment on YouTube)

Via Digby:

Works for me:

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... Howard Wolfson, Senator Clinton's former communications director, said that this pick might just work to draw women to the Republican ticket. Are you worried about that?

KERRY: Well, with all due respect to Howard, you know, I have much more respect for the Clinton supporters than that sort of quick- blush take with -- I mean, how stupid do they think the Clinton supporters are, for Heaven sakes?

Do they think Clinton supporters supported Hillary only because she was a woman. For Heaven sakes, they supported Hillary because of all the things she's fought for, because she fights for health care, which John McCain doesn't support; she fights for children and children's health care, which John McCain voted against; she fights for a windfall profits tax on the oil company, which John McCain opposes.

I mean, for Heaven sakes, the people who supported Hillary Clinton are not going to be seduced just because John McCain has picked a woman. They're going to look at what she supports.

The fact that she doesn't even support the notion that climate change is manmade -- she's back there with the Flat Earth Caucus. And I don't see how those women are going to be fooled into believing -- I think it's almost insulting to the Hillary supporters that they believe they would support somebody who is against almost everything that they believe in.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK.

KERRY: What John McCain has proven with this choice -- this is very important, George. John McCain wanted to choose Tom Ridge. He wanted to choose Joe Lieberman. He wanted to choose another candidate, but you know what? Rush Limbaugh and the right wing vetoed it.

And John McCain was forced to come back and pick a sort of Cheney-esque social conservative who's going to satisfy the base. What John McCain has proven with this choice is that John McCain is the prisoner of the right wing, not a maverick.

I like it. ...

I do too. Kerry keeps swinging for the fences like that and someone's going to want to test him for steroids.

Digby also shares some good advice, as always, on what our response to Palin might ought to be. While I tend to agree, that might be a tall order, as this well just keeps getting deeper. Your thoughts?

  John Kerry tears the "myth of a maverick" to shreds by calling McCain out on every single one of his inconsistencies and flip-flops.

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I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years, but every day now I learn something new about Candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say let's compare Senator McCain to Candidate McCain.

Candidate McCain now supports the very wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once called irresponsible. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain's own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote.

Are you kidding me, folks?

"Before he ever debates Barack Obama, he should finish the debate with himself."

All I have to say is: Where was this guy in 2004?

Full transcript below the fold:

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  In one segment Kerry can be really good on NBC and then be equally bad the next. On Meet the Press today, Tom Brokaw asked John Kerry about Wesley Clark's Face the Nation segment.  Why that was even on Brokaw's agenda is mind boggling since the news is clearly focused elsewhere, but I guess McCain's Media felt they could help out their guy today. Kerry immediately threw Wes under the bus. Thanks John---for getting the back of a four star general who has been nothing but brilliant for the progressive movement when he gets slimed by the press. This was a subject that Bob Schieffer made into an issue. Clark only talked about judgment qualities, as we all know. Here's the original transcript of Clark on FTN.  

<Sign the petition at Obama/Clark>

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SEN. KERRY: Yeah, I, I don't agree. I don't agree with Wes Clark's comment. I think it was entirely inappropriate. I have nothing but enormous respect for John McCain's service. I had the privilege of standing with John McCain in the, in the cell in Hanoi when we visited there together, when we worked on the issue of Vietnam together. It was an emotional moment. I, I have awe for John McCain's experience as a prisoner of war, and he, and he does understand duty and service. But...

And John Kerry debated SCHIEFFER about McCain's judgment previously when Bob tried to inject the character issue again so he knew what to say yet went out of his way to trash him.

You'll notice how Brokaw calls Bob his friend, as if he was offended because his pal was. Schieffer blew out of proportion what Clark had said and it was Bob that egged on the whole discussion. And Brokaw suddenly forgets that Obama did distance himself from Clark's remarks, but asks Kerry why Obama didn't. Wake up, Tom. Are you that out of it or did you want Kerry to say it again on national TV? He's been horrible filling in on MTP.

I have an idea, why doesn't John Kerry make a campaign ad for John McCain and praise his service? 

Obama's camp has to do a better job at surrogate selection. Not all of them, but most have been just awful either going on the offensive or deflecting a false charge. I'll have another video up on this issue shortly.

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

Leave it to Tom Brokaw to further GOP media narratives.  In asking about John McCain's fifth-grade bully attack ads, he asks Obama supporter and former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry if Obama is "playing the race card."  Question: is there any way for Barack Obama to directly confront these ads without being accused of the pasty white GOP (and their mouthpieces in the media) as "playing the race card"?  I don't think so.  McCain used that whole mocking "Obama on the currency" analogy in June.  But Obama can't say that because he's playing the race card.  Project much?

Kerry, no stranger to these kind of character assassinations himself, calls it a Rovian strategy: 

KERRY: But this is, you know, this is a complete contradiction in John McCain. John McCain has said he wants a campaign of ideas, not insults. John McCain, who said the American people want a campaign that's respectful. Even you, Joe, ten years ago you went to the floor of the United States Senate and you said our public life is coarsening. You said that the society's values are shrinking. That's an ad that plays to the worse instincts in America, which is to diminish someone's character...

BROKAW: But what Senator...

KERRY: And then Karl Rove turns around, and Karl Rove brings up another statement, saying Obama's like the guy at the country club with the beautiful date and a martini and a cigarette in his hand. What are they trying to do? They're trying to say to America, ‘Somehow, he's not like you; he's not like us.' Last point, Joe...

LIEBERMAN: Karl Rove doesn't work for the McCain campaign...

Is that right, Holy Joe?  Liar, liar, Democratic turncoat pants on fire.

transcripts below the fold

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I don’t care that John McCain is extremely wealthy. I don’t care that he became wealthy by marrying into a wealthy family. I don’t care about his Armani clothes, his multiple luxurious homes, his wife’s private jet, or his Black Centurion American Express card. His enormous wealth is his business (though it does strike me as more than a little offensive when an obscenely rich senator like McCain votes against an increase in the minimum wage, and argues that our economic problems are “psychological,” but that’s just me).

So, when I saw this report in the Huffington Post about McCain’s Italian leather loafers, which cost $520 a pair, my first instinct was to pay it no mind.

This summer John McCain is traveling in style. He has worn a pair of $520 black leather Ferragamo shoes on every recent campaign stop — from a news conference with the Dalai Lama to a supermarket visit in Bethlehem, PA. The Calfskin loafers, with silver-tone “Gancini” buckles, are imported from Italy.

In response to Barack Obama’s foreign tour, McCain spent much of his energy last week emphasizing his focus on domestic issues. What better way to show his American pride than to tour the country in Italian leather?

The piece shows McCain wearing his extremely expensive Ferragamo shoes all the time.

And while I continue to think this is largely just candidate trivia, it is not without a certain political salience.

I was talking to a friend earlier who summarized the underlying theme of the Republican push against Barack Obama in four words: “He’s not like you.” That sounds about right.

And if so, I have a message for every American family who can’t imagine spending $520 for a pair of loafers: John McCain isn’t like you, either.

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Back in 2004, Bush told a Florida audience, “[John] Kerry said, and I quote, ‘The war on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering law enforcement operation.’ (Audience boos.) I disagree…. After the chaos and carnage of September the 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. With those attacks, the terrorists and supporters declared war on the United States of America — and war is what they got. (Audience applauds.)”

Bush, pleased with himself and the reaction, repeated the attack again and again and again. The point was obvious — paint an image in which Bush battles terrorists with the most powerful military in the world, while Kerry fights al Qaeda with cops and lawyers.

Four years later, McCain is picking up where Bush left off. As it turns out, Bush and McCain are clearly wrong.

The United States can defeat al-Qaida if it relies less on force and more on policing and intelligence to root out the terror group’s leaders, a new study contends.

“Keep in mind that terrorist groups are not eradicated overnight,” said the study by the federally funded Rand research center, an organization that counsels the Pentagon.

Its report said that the use of military force by the United States or other countries should be reserved for quelling large, well-armed and well-organized insurgencies, and that American officials should stop using the term “war on terror” and replace it with “counterterrorism.”

Seth Jones, the lead author of the study and a Rand political scientist, told Reuters, “Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests there is no battlefield solution to terrorism. The United States has the necessary instruments to defeat al-Qaida, it just needs to shift its strategy.”

Ya don’t say.

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  While making the case yesterday on "Face the Nation" about how John McCain has changed his position on far more issues than Barack Obama, John Kerry was accused by Bob Scheiffer of "challenging John McCain's integrity."

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You see, when Republicans relentlessly attack a Democrat's military service record and position on the issues, it's acceptable, even promoted by the librul media. When a Democrat does the same thing, they are guilty of disrespecting the entire military and questioning a hero's integrity. There in a nutshell is the M.O. of McCain's Media™.

Transcript below:

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Two months ago, the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen noted in passing that John McCain has “fudged and ducked and swallowed the truth on occasion.” Cohen, however, said McCain deserved a pass because he had “understandable” reasons for his mendacity. And what, pray tell, were these “understandable” reasons? Cohen didn’t say. They were just, ipso facto, understandable.

Yesterday, Cohen added a little substance to the claim. McCain may be a flip-flopper, but that’s fine, Cohen argues, because he’s also a former prisoner of war. Seriously.

Cohen notes from the outset that McCain has “abandoned his maverick persona of old and moved to assure the GOP that on most matters, he is devoutly orthodox.” Cohen then lists six issues on which McCain “has either reversed himself or significantly amended his positions.” The WaPo columnist then boasts, “There, I’ve said it all.” (He hadn’t said anywhere close to it all — Cohen missed about 42 other issues on which McCain has reversed course.)

And then Cohen concludes why none of that matters.

McCain is a known commodity. It’s not just that he’s been around a long time and staked out positions antithetical to those of his Republican base. It’s also — and more important — that we know his bottom line. As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over. This — not just his candor and nonstop verbosity on the Straight Talk Express — is what commends him to so many journalists.

Obama might have a similar bottom line, core principles for which, in some sense, he is willing to die. If so, we don’t know what they are. Nothing so far in his life approaches McCain’s decision to refuse repatriation as a POW so as to deny his jailors a propaganda coup. In fact, there is scant evidence the Illinois senator takes positions that challenge his base or otherwise threaten him politically. That’s why his reversal on campaign financing and his transparently false justification of it matter more than similar acts by McCain.

None of this makes a lick of sense.

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Over the weekend, the NYT’s Frank Rich raised a few eyebrows when he highlighted the disconnect in the media between Obama’s relationship with his controversial former pastor (Jeremiah Wright) and McCain’s relationship with a crazed televangelist (John Hagee). Rich’s point was both provocative and persuasive — that the media obsesses over Wright and gives McCain a pass on Hagee because of race. “A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man,” Rich said.

NBC News’ Tim Russert appeared on Don Imus’ talk show yesterday, and explained why the black preacher’s remarks receive wall-to-wall coverage, while the white preacher’s remarks are largely ignored. (via FDL)

IMUS: Big stretch for Frank Rich to suggest that Rev. Hagee, that somehow McCain has the same relationship with him as Obama had with Rev. Wright but he did run it up the flag pole yesterday, didn’t he.

RUSSERT: He sure did. There’s been a lot of chatter on that, you know, about Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson’s comments after September 11th. If there was video of Hagee, it makes all the difference in the world….

At first blush, Russert’s point sounds compelling. Television is obviously a visual medium, and people tend to respond more to images than text. (The Abu Ghraib torture had been reported on before it became an international scandal, but few took notice until there were pictures.) Seeing Wright say “God damn America” from his pulpit generates an emotional response, far more than reading about Hagee calling the Roman Catholic Church, among other things, “the great whore.”

But therein lies the problem with Russert’s defense for the media giving McCain a pass: there’s all kinds of video of Hagee -- and Rod Parsley and Jerry Falwell -- and it still hasn’t made all the difference in the world.

“If there was video of Hagee, it makes all the difference in the world.” Does the DC bureau chief of NBC News not realize that videos like these have been making the rounds for months? The Frank Rich column that Russert was talking about mentioned this in the first paragraph.

Bursting his way through Chris Wallace's McCain man-crush bubble, John Kerry yesterday systematically dismantled the persistent myths surrounding the media's Patron Saint. From his numerous Iraq "gaffes" to his laundy list of other flip flops, Senator Kerry has no trouble pointing out all the things the brain dead press fails to refuses to.

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Transcript via FOXNews.com:

John McCain has been wrong. He said that he said it would be long and tough in Iraq. In fact, in '03, John McCain said the war would be brief and the oil would pay for it. He was wrong. Last month he said that Muqtada al-Sadr was losing his influence. He was wrong. In January he said Basra is not a problem. He was wrong.

I think John McCain has taken positions in the course of trying to win the Republican nomination, whether it's the reversal and flip-flop on the intolerance with respect to Jerry Falwell and others, or whether it is the Bush tax cuts flip-flop, or whether it is this flip-flop now on the issue of Iraq, or whether it is, you know, global climate change, where he has not yet signed on to Joe Lieberman and John Warner's bill.

There is a clear indication of a Nomination John McCain versus the Senator John McCain.

Nicole alerted me to this comprehensive list of McCain Myth's, compiled by MoveOn, titled:

10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.

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NY Times:

Senator John Kerry embraced the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama here on Thursday, saying Mr. Obama "had the greatest potential to lead a transformation, not just a transition."

"Who better than Barack Obama to bring new credibility to America's role in the world and help restore our moral authority?" Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a rally at the College of Charleston. "Who better than Barack Obama to turn a new page in American politics, so that Democrats, independents and Republicans alike can look to the leadership that unites to find common ground."

While it remains to be seen how much impact this will have in South Carolina--a state that John Edwards won in 2004--it does tend to confirm the whisperings about the fallout between Edwards and Kerry after the 2004 election that Kerry did not contest, despite Edwards' desire to. What IS invaluable to Obama is the access to Kerry's mailing lists for outreach and fundraising.

Save the Internet:

Mr. Chairman, the upcoming auction of spectrum in the 700 band has profound implications for consumers, schools, businesses, emergency first responders, and rural communities. We are presented with a unique opportunity to shape the future of wireless communication and innovation in America.

With this auction, we stand at a crossroads-we can either provide extraordinary benefits to millions of Americans or tilt bandwidth policy to line the pockets of a privileged few.

There is a clear path I believe must be taken: the airwaves belong to the American people, and their use should serve the public interest. Read on...

For those of us who recognize the power of the internet tubes in disseminating information--especially while living in a time where our elected officials are trying hard to keep information from us, this couldn't be a more crucial fight.

My Left Nutmeg:

Given the time-sensitivity of this matter, we request that the GAO urgently examine the following aspects of this case and provide its findings/recommendations as quickly as possible:

  * Would Mr. Fox's service as Ambassador, if unpaid, be considered "voluntary service" within the meaning of 31 U.S.C. § 1342?  If not, why not?

  * Is there a conflict between statutes when it comes to Mr. Fox providing "voluntary services"?  If so, how should they be reconciled?

  * If the United States Senate defeats the nomination of Mr. Fox, would Mr. Fox's recess appointment continue through the current session of the Congress, or would it be terminated?