Politics today

Interesting stuff (updated, see last entries):

From Christopher Buckley (son of William F.) in The Beast: Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama

This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?
...having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves.

Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” Well, the dear man did his best.

Harold Ford, Jr: Will McCain Do Anything to Win?

When I ran for the Senate in 2006, my opponent, Bob Corker, also found himself trailing in the October polls. His campaign and the Republican National Committee launched a series of false and vicious character attack ads, including the infamous "call me" ad, in which a scantily clad white woman looked at the camera and said, "Harold, call me."

Every major news organization and independent ad-checking group ruled the ad a smear and deemed it way over the line. But that didn't stop John McCain from coming to Tennessee and campaigning for my opponent while the "call me" ad and other smears were broadcast across the state. Not once did McCain speak out against that ad as he did about the smear against John Kerry. In fact, the first manager he hired for his 2008 presidential campaign was Terry Nelson, the person who produced the "call me" ad.

From Frank Rich, in today's New York Times: The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama. (How many people will read that without looking at the column, and say 'See? Even the New York Times knows.)

(Updated:) In the Times, again, The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama .

Seems the best thing a news researcher can be doing these days is looking into all the rumors and trying to show where they come from. Note researcher Kitty Bennett's contribution to the latter story, by Jim Rutenberg.

(Speaking of misinformation...or just weird thinking, here's from a letter to the editor in Saturday's Asheville Citizen Times that will shock you -- or not:)

Obama...and Biden...are pro-abortion.
A child has just as much right to live as they do. If they win, however, those who voted them in can call them 'president' and 'vice president'. I will not.
Biden lied when he said he would not be vice president. I don't think the KKK will like it very much if Obama gets elected.
I used to be a Democrat but I have switched. Give me John McCain any time.

(um...isn't he pro-choice?)

...Vote the Bible.