Something to remember G. W. Bush by...

Stung by repeated criticisms that the US government could have done more to protect Americans, that numerous warning signs were ignored, the Bush administration made a great show of initiating intrusive government oversight -- spying, some call it -- over broad swaths of American civil life, poking here, prodding there, trolling everywhere, looking for terrorists and suspicious folks in general.

Their efforts produced an ever-burgeoning mountain of names and information. It was to be all neatly organized into a central database, cross-indexed, instantly searchable...

That was the plan.

The latest version of the project is codenamed Railhead. According to the New York Times:

The new program, known as Railhead, is intended to fix the problems with the current outmoded program. That database — begun as an urgent priority after the Sept. 11 attacks — has been bedeviled by an array of problems, including the inability to do basic searches to find suspects’ names.

Bush administration officials have been pronouncing Railhead a success. But the investigation by a House Science and Technology subcommittee found it crippled by serious design flaws, management blunders and runaway contractors. Hundreds of private contractors from dozens of companies involved were recently laid off as government managers finally ordered a fresh overhaul in the face of “insurmountable” problems.

It turns out the Railhead database can't be searched for alternate or incorrect spellings, or soundalikes and users cannot create even a basic compound search using operators like and, not, or -- commonplace functionalities that users of free online search engines like Google or Yahoo know and expect.

“The program not only can’t connect the dots,” Representative Brad Miller, Democrat of North Carolina, declared. “It can’t find the dots.”

Nonpartisan watchdogs hit McCain ad as "untrue," "inaccurate," and "misleading"

After earlier criticizing candidate John McCain for continuing to "distort" his rival Barack Obama's tax proposals, nonpartisan watchdog truth-checkers, FactCheck.org, much more forcefully criticized an attack ad brought out by the McCain campaign yesterday as they tried to blunt the damage flowing from McCain's "housing problem" gaffe. (When asked how many homes McCain owned, he hemmed and hawed and told reporters for Politico.com that he'd have to have staff "get back to them" with an answer. McCain's staff obligingly contacted Politico.com some time later saying the McCain's owned "at least four" homes. Turns out it's at least seven homes and a number of condos and own your owns used by members of the family.)

Stung within hours by a quickly produced Obama ad capitalizing on McCain's befuddlement, the McCain campaign struck back -- hard -- with a "housing problem" attack ad of its own.

Only problem -- the add was filled with distortions, half-truths, and outright lies.

Factcheck.org wrote:

On the defensive over the extent of multiple McCain homes, the GOP candidate strikes back. But his TV spot gives an oversimplified and misleading account of how Obama bought his own $1.6 million house in Chicago.

The ad says Chicago power broker Tony Rezko got "political favors" including "$14 million from taxpayers." But there's no evidence of any connection to the Obama home purchase. The $14 million was to build apartments for low-income seniors. Obama wrote a letter supporting the "worthy" project, but both men say Rezko didn't ask for the letter.

It says Rezko "purchased part of the property [Obama] couldn't afford." Rezko's wife did buy an adjoining tract but later sold the land at a profit. Obama paid market price for his home.

The article on the McCain ad goes on:

McCain's ad opens by turning Obama's housing problem attack back on Obama. The narrator says Chicago real estate developer Tony Rezko, one of Obama's "biggest fundraisers" helped Obama buy his "million-dollar mansion" by purchasing property that Obama couldn't afford. The ad goes on to charge that Obama helped Rezko receive "political favors" including "$14 million from taxpayers," and it points out that Rezko is now a convicted felon.

It's untrue that Rezko got "$14 million from taxpayers" for himself, as the ad seems to be saying. The "help" to which it refers is a one-page letter Obama signed in October 1998 urging the city housing commissioner to support an apartment project for low-income senior citizens. A copy went to the state housing development authority. The 97-unit Cottage View Terrace, which opened in 2002, was funded with taxpayer money, and Tony Rezko was involved in developing the project.

But the deal did not put $14 million into Rezko's pocket. That figure represents the total development cost for the project. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Rezko and his partner, Allison Davis, netted about $855,000. That's not pocket change, but it's a far cry from $14 million. And the tenants of the building benefited too.

Moreover, the ad's claim that Obama wrote the letter as a favor to Rezko is without factual support.

The McCain ad goes on to describe Obama's house as a "million dollar mansion" (apparently Mr McCain hasn't priced mansions in the last decade or two -- Obama's house is a simple, two story wood frame house in a nice neighborhood).

Factcheck.org again:

Million-Dollar Mansion
As for that claim about Rezko helping Obama buy his house, well, we've dealt with that one before. The gist of the story: In 2005, Barack and Michelle Obama found a house that they wanted to purchase. The property had been divided into two parcels, one containing a house and the other undeveloped land. The owner had listed the properties separately. After considerable haggling, the seller accepted the Obamas' third bid of $1.65 million for the parcel containing the house. Tony Rezko's wife, Rita, purchased the adjoining lot for $625,000.

When the Obamas wanted to increase the size of their yard, they approached the Rezkos about purchasing a strip of the adjacent parcel. Obama told the Sun-Times that a 10-foot strip of the 60-foot lot appraised for $40,000. The Obamas nevertheless paid Rita $104,500 (or 1/6 of the total purchase price of her lot) for the strip. In 2007, Rita sold the remaining lot for $575,000 (or roughly a $54,500 profit on the overall property).

McCain's ad, however, is worded in a way that could leave a false impression. It says Rezko "helped him buy his million-dollar mansion" by "purchasing part of the property he couldn't afford." That's true, but only because the seller wanted to sell the two parcels as a unit and the Obamas couldn't afford both. Rezko did not make a gift of any property to the Obamas. Furthermore, the fact that his wife sold her lot for more than she paid for it contradicts any suggestion that the Rezkos overpaid for their part of the deal as a way of getting the seller to lower the price to the Obamas for their part.

Possibly the most troubling bit in the McCain ad is the implication that "a convicted felon" helped Obama in the transaction. But at the time of the transaction, Rezko had not even been accused by law enforcement of wrongdoing:

Convicted Felon
The McCain ad says of Rezko, "Now, he's a convicted felon." That's true; Rezko was indicted in 2006 and convicted of corruption charges on June 4, 2008. But those charges came after the 2005 Obama home purchase and had nothing to do with that or with the $14 million project mentioned in the ad.

Obama has conceded that purchasing the land from Rezko, whom Obama knew to be under investigation at the time, was "boneheaded." As we reported in December, Obama has donated campaign contributions from Rezko and his associates to charity.

But what about the Obama ad that enraged the McCain campaign and encouraged one McCain operative of sputtering that now "the gloves are off" in the wake of the Obama ad.

Here's what Factcheck.org says about Obama's ad citing McCain's interview answer that he didn't know how many homes he owned and the subsequent McCain campaign response that the McCain's owned "at least four" homes. Obama's ad put the total at 7. Factcheck.org decides that the number is actually higher: eight homes. But other reporters who've continued digging, suggest that the answer may be from eight to thirteen homes -- depending on where you draw certain familial lines, since, while the homes in question are technically owned by McCain and his wife, other members of their extended family live or stay in them from time to time:

What About That Obama Ad?
As we mentioned, McCain's ad was prompted by an Obama attack ad released earlier in the day. In that TV spot, Obama criticizes McCain for not knowing just how many houses he owns. The answer depends on what you count as a McCain-owned home. We're going with our colleagues at PolitiFact.com, who decided that the McCain total is eight.

Read more at factcheck.org.

After weeks of relentless attacks on Obama character, judgment, and patriotism, McCain to finally "take off the gloves"

Those naive souls who thought the Karl Rove-trained attack dogs now running the once-floundering, now surging McCain campaign had already forsaken clean campaigning with weeks of relentless attacks on opponent Barack Obama's character, judgment, and patriotism may be forgiven in the light of campaign operatives signaling that the gloves will only now be coming off in the wake of the Obama campaign's latest ad.

What is so shocking and hurtful in the Obama advert?

McCain's own words.

Always a problem when those words paint the candidate as a universe away from the voters he's trying to pass himself off as one of.

The problem for the McCain campaign is that, in a recent interview with the Politico blog, when asked how many houses he owned, McCain allowed as he didn't know -- and that he'd have to have his staff get back with the answer.

The answer, sort of, was forthcoming. At least four, said the campaign.

But a watchdog group did a little digging and found out, no -- it's at least seven.

Now, it's no secret that McCain grew up rich, and that in his second marriage, he married up: the woman he began dating before he persuaded his first wife to grant him a divorce being the heiress to a fortune now valued at around 100 million dollars. Not what it used to be, maybe, but still a good chunk of change.

But, it's safe to say, most regular ol' Americans probably know how about many houses they own at any given time. I'm thinkin'.


The Rovian barrage of highly negative ads from the former Rove lieutenants brought in to reinvigorate the McCain campaign clearly seemed to be working and old line Democratic operatives (notable among them tough-talking, tougher-campaigning southern strategist James Carville) had been railing at the Obama campaign to take up the gantlet and launch a negative campaign of their own.

Naturally, McCain's befuddlement as to how many houses he owned -- coming on the heels of his recent jaw-dropper when he was asked to define the income threshold at which one could be considered rich was too much for the Obama campaign to pass up and they jumped in with ads highlighting McCain's own quotes.

Which infuriated the McCain campaign, prompting new threats to "take off the gloves"...

CBS's Dean Reynolds comments in his CBS News blog:

But the question must be asked, what did Obama's campaign do that would require a doffing off of the gloves? Did he not simply recycle McCain's own words. And, of course, that is the dilemma for McCain's camp. Just as their man was feeling the wind at his back and basking in some good polls comes word of his seven homes.

At least seven. The McCain campaign cried foul, pointing out that Obama earned $4 million last year, which doesn't exactly make him a man of the people. But by McCain's own definition, it doesn't make Obama rich either.

Remember this from last weekend's conference with Rev. Rick Warren at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.?

"Define rich," Warren said to McCain.

"How about $5 million?" McCain responded. The audience laughed. But nobody at the McCain campaign is laughing now.

No doubt the Obama campaign would prefer it noted that his four million dollar income last year was the result of sales of his best selling book -- and that the purchase price of Obama's own "million dollar home" near Chicago would barely buy into a middle class neighborhood in many pockets of the hot real estate market of several years ago.

Diebold/Premier voting machine bug has been losing votes for ten years and no one noticed

Although proper cross-checking should have turned up the bug in voting machines in use as long as ten years in 34 different states -- it was only recently that 'vigilant' voting officials in Ohio became aware of a problem with the machines that has apparently been causing "lost" votes for as much as a decade.

The company had furiously denied there was a problem with the machines -- even going so far as to sue an Ohio county that stopped using the machines because of continuing irregularities. The state of Ohio countersued -- and found that other counties then found the same problem.

But the company, Premier (formerly known as Diebold) finally was forced to admit that the problem was inherent to their machines -- and had been in place and presumably causing lost votes -- for ten years.

The company offered the altogether unreassuring excuse that voting officials should have been cross-checking and if they had, they should have run the totals again. But no officials came forward to complain (as far as we know at this time -- litigation is pending and the company is dummying up) so -- presumably -- the mistakes went unrecognized for a decade because election officials across the country simply didn't bother to do basic cross checking.

The cynics among us may speculate that county election officials -- often wined and dined extravagantly by voting machine companies vying for lucrative voting machine contracts -- didn't want to upset their free-spending benefactors.

Kudos to the iconoclasts in Ohio for doing their job -- and particularly to Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner who has become a vocal critic of the voting machine companies.

And a huge raspberry to voting officials across the country who didn't catch the lost votes.

How many elections might have come out differently had this problem not been in place for ten years without being caught?

Read more in The Trail, in the Washington Post: Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes

Is the Blue America PAC a secret RIGHT wing conspiracy?

You'd just about have to think so...

The supposedly liberal PAC, Blue America, has been actively campaigning against Democrats in races against Republicans, supposedly to punish fiscal conservatives in the Democratic Party -- including some of the very people Blue America originally supported -- but with the certainty that it will mean Democrats losing a seat in Congress and Republicans gaining it.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned in my years working in the anti-Vietnam War movement was that the some of the strangest, most seemingly self-defeating behavior on the left actually came from agents provocateurs planted by the far right and the so-called national security crowd manipulating the most logic-challenged but perennially contentious of the far left (some old leaders of which, curiously enough, were among the most vocal and strident supporters of GW Bush's singlularly ill-conceived war of conquest against Iran).


Maybe Blue America just really want to sabotage the Democratic Party's legislative majority... certainly there are elements of the far right who are much happier when the right is out of power -- since it typically has meant increased contributions from the ultra-right inherited wealth set, the folks who haven't had to perform honest labor in many generations and so devote much of their energies fighting what they see as a threat to their ever snowballing riches.

It may well be that the professional fundraisers of the left have come to the same conclusions as their vampiric colleagues on the right...

From the Wall Street Journal: Liberal Democrats Turn on One of Party's 'Blue Dogs'