presidential campaign

Sure we can't trust politicians to do what they say, but now we also can't trust them to even say something remotely truthful. Take Rick Perry for example:

For a small-government conservative on the presidential campaign stump like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a new federal regulation forcing farmers to get commercial drivers licenses would make a perfect example of Barack Obama’s Washington run amok.
But there is no such regulation.

During his debut in Iowa Sunday night in Waterloo, then again at on Monday at the Iowa State Fair Monday, Gov. Perry brought up the phantom “obscene, crazy” regulation in Texan terms.

“If you’re a tractor driver, if you drive your tractor across a public road, you’re gonna have to have a commercial driver’s license. Now how idiotic is that?” he thundered to the fair crowd in Des Moines, with the rejoinder, “What were they thinkin’?”

Here we go on the anti-government regulation stampede. Of course this is coming from a guy who felt it was the government's job to force woman to get vaccines. Hypocrite much Rick?

What's really interesting to note is that this article comes from the Wall Street Journal. Since Perry announced on Saturday, the Journal has been on a roll discrediting Perry. It looks like the most right publication around doesn't even like slick-Rick.

From Crawford’s blog:

For those who might be interested - and you have every reason not to be - I am no longer with MSNBC. Three months short of my current contract I sent the following to the boss, Phil Griffin:  "Phil, Just wanted to give you the heads up that my situation with MSNBC has become so unrewarding for me that I've decided to move on. -- Craig"

Short, sweet and to the point. But it doesn’t stop there. Mediaite, the site ran by former MSNBC host Dan Abrams, got even more info out of Crawford:

But he really expanded on the reasoning in the comments:

i simply could not any longer endure being a cartoon player for lefty games, just gotta move on to higher ground even if there’s no oxygen

i have never and never will forgive Chris for calling me a racist after the West Virginia primary (the last time I will ever go on air with him). Probably should have resigned then and there, but better late than never.

We asked Crawford what he was referring to regarding Chris Matthews, and to expand on why he left the network. He responded by email:

I haven’t felt like a good fit for MSNBC since the presidential campaign, and the hard turn toward point-of-view programming. No particular event brought this on, just my desire to try other outlets and have more fun. As far as Chris is concerned, on Morning Joe after the West Virginia primary he accused me of always defending Clinton and what he claimed to be her racially motivated campaigning. That’s the problem. Trying to be fair became seen as bias in the new thinking over there. But I do wish my many pals at MSNBC nothing but good things.

Today’s contestant is Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama. On Fox News this morning, Shelby reaffirmed his belief that Obama was taking us “down the road of socialism”. The big thing he blamed?

WALLACE: Sen. Shelby, you say that the Obama administration is taking us down the road to socialism. Explain.

SHELBY: Well, obviously. So, they intervene last fall in the bank crisis. No one has ever done it on that scale before. Now the automobile crisis.

And because seeing is believing:

So now the whole TARP was the work of Obama? I almost forgot that it was Obama who took the unprecedented action of suspending a presidential campaign to work on this issue. Oh wait – that was John McCain. It was also Bush’s TARP program. With lying morons like Shelby out there making the case one can only assume the Republicans really love being in the minority.

I posted the email last night that John McCain sent out stating he would be running for re-election in 2010. The email, as with all of these, was mainly for the purpose of fundraising. But let’s take a look at one key paragraph and what McCain is using to stimulate his fundraising:

The economic challenges currently confronting our nation are immense and unfortunately, the Democrats in Congress propose addressing these challenges through increased spending that wastes billions of taxpayers dollars and saddles our children and grandchildren with a staggering debt. Their proposals will not stimulate economic growth or create jobs. While the leader of the Democratic Party, President Obama, has pledged to change business as usual in Washington and spoken of bipartisanship, I have been saddened to watch as Congressional Democrats try to use their majority to advocate more of the same failed policies and wasteful spending of the past. With so much at stake, now is not the time to step away from my work in the Senate.

Now let’s put this in a little perspective. When it came to bailing out Wall Street, McCain was gung-ho to the point he suspended his presidential campaign. He even used his support for the bailout to raise money for his campaign.

The AP has been becoming more and more vile in their claim of propriety. Last year they wanted people to pay a ridiculous amount of money to quote any of their articles and now, well they are going after the artist who made this famous poster:

On buttons, posters and Web sites, the image was everywhere during last year's presidential campaign: A pensive Barack Obama looking upward, as if to the future, splashed in a Warholesque red, white and blue and underlined with the caption HOPE.

Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist, the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers, has become so much in demand that copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands of dollars on eBay.

The image, Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia on assignment for the AP at the National Press Club in Washington.

The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation. Fairey disagrees.

"The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission," the AP's director of media relations, Paul Colford, said in a statement.

I can’t believe I am here defending Frank Luntz, but this is just ridiculous:

The chief pollster for John McCain's presidential campaign offered a candid diagnosis of how his candidate was done in, on occasion reserving harsh words for fellow Republicans.

Bill McInturff, speaking at a National Journal breakfast on Thursday, said the political environment for the GOP in 2008 was worse than anything he has seen in his time polling since former Soviet empires were breaking the shackles of communism.

[SNIP]

"I saw Frank Luntz," said McInturff, "who is a moron -- I want to make sure this is clearly on the record -- he was talking to Republican governors, making fun of John for not being able to use a BlackBerry. The man can't do it because he is much more disabled than people can imagine... I would like to take a hammer and start breaking bones in Frank's arms."

So McInturff wants to actually cause physical harm to a pollster who was right? And if Luntz is a moron, what does this make McInturff – brain dead? With people like this it’s no wonder McCain went down a massive blaze.

And this time we aren't talking about John McCain, but rather his running mate:

No wonder GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin harbors such hostility toward the mainstream media: her staff imposes limits on her access to it.

During a fundraiser here that raised $800,000 last night, Palin admitted that her aides often dissuade her from tuning into televised coverage of the presidential campaign.

Remember when Katrina hit and Bush didn't respond? A large part of the blame for that was due to Bush not watching the news. If Palin can't handle the news from the campaign trail, then how could she be expected to handle the news as vice-President, or even President? This is just another example of how unqualified this woman is to be President.

Following up on my previous post of John McCain's temperament and admission to not being congenial, I would be wrong not to bring up the latest news from the McCain campaign. For the final month of this campaign season, McCain plans to go 100% negative against Obama.

At first read you might take that as bad news, but I beg to differ. I have heard tons of bloggers and pundits call for a much more aggressive Obama and Obama has ignored those calls. Instead we have seen Obama stay on his message of change and talk about his policy and that has resulted in Obama surging fast in the polls.

Yes the economy helped Obama some in the polls, but I don't think that accounts for the entire reason of his newly found success. Instead we saw a man who kept his cool at a time of crisis. While Obama was making his case, he maintained his composure. McCain played a very big political card. He took an unprecedented move of suspending a Presidential campaign, which resulted in an extra feel of panic in Washington all the way down to Main Street.

After eight years of having a President who couldn't keep his cool, we are looking to a future of a President who defines the word. This is the kind of President who can address a nation during an economic disaster and instill a level of comfort in the American people. George Bush doesn't have that temperament, but he looks like Mary Poppins compared to John McCain.