McCain said he was "proud" of convicted felon and domestic terrorist, G. Gordon Liddy

The mainstream media has been largely silent on John McCain's longtime and continuing friendship with convicted felon, G. Gordon Liddy.

It took late night comedian David Letterman to finally broach the subject. But while Letterman exposed Liddy's political activities on McCain's behalf, he didn't go into the extraordinarily sordid details of Liddy's plans for the assassination and kidnapping of journalists and political activists and his repeated advice -- as recently as 1995 -- to talk radio show listeners to shoot US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents "in the head" because they wear bullet proof vests.

It was only three years later, in 1998 that Liddy hosted a fundraiser for McCain's senate campaign in his home.

For his part, McCain actually defends the unrepentant domestic terrorist and would-be assassin saying only that Liddy has "served his debt to society" for the Watergate break-in -- a crime during which Liddy has written that he was prepared to kill anyone who got in the way of the break-in at Democratic political offices, a crime committed at the behest of disgraced Republican president Richard Nixon.

Respected veteran journalist Carl Bernstein, co-author of the definitive book on the Watergate break-in, All the President's Men, wrote in the Huffington Post:

In 1998, Liddy gave a fundraiser in his Scottsdale, Arizona home for McCain's senatorial re-election campaign -- the two posed for photographs together; and as recently as May, 2007, as a presidential candidate, McCain was a guest on Liddy's syndicated radio show. Inexplicably, McCain heaped praise on his host's values. During the segment, McCain said he was "proud" of Liddy, and praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great." From the program:

LIDDY: Your experience in the Hanoi Hilton is remarkable. I mean, I put in five years in a prison [for masterminding the Watergate burglary, and associated crimes], but it was here in the United States, and they didn't torture - the only torture that I had was being forced to listen to rap music from time to time.

McCAIN: Well, you know, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of your family. I'm proud to know your son, Tom, who's a great and wonderful guy. And it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon. And congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.

Which of Liddy's "principles and philosophies" was McCain referring to? Liddy's advocacy of break-ins? Firebombings? Assassinations? Kidnappings? Taking target practice with figures nicknamed Bill and Hillary?

During the same period that Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, Gordon Liddy was making plans to firebomb a Washington think tank, assassinate a prominent journalist, undertake the Watergate burglary, break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, and kidnap anti-war protesters at the 1972 Republican convention.

Re: Liddy's "continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great:" Did McCain mean to include Liddy's instructions to listeners of his radio show in 1994 (around the time Ayres and Obama were on a board together discussing education programs and other plots) on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents (aim for the head)?

If ATF agents attempt to curtail a citizen's gun ownership, Liddy counseled, "Well, if the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests."

More recently, Liddy explained making the Clintons objects of shooting practice: "I did relate that on the 4th of July of last year, when I and my family and some friends were out firing away at a properly-constructed rifle range and we ran out of targets, and so we - I drew some stick figure targets and I thought we ought to give them names. So I named them Bill and Hillary, thought it might improve my aim. It didn't. My aim is good anyway. Now, having said that, I accept no responsibility for somebody shooting up the White House."

The Liddy-McCain symbiosis has been mentioned in a number of posts on the Internet - mostly by bloggers and sites identified with The Left. But the documentation of their interaction (Liddy has also contributed financially to McCain's presidential campaign) is not a matter of Left or Right: It is astonishing that, given the prominence of the Ayers matter accorded by virtually every "mainstream" news outlet in America, there has been virtually nothing on the subject in the major newspapers and broadcast networks. This is a real journalistic failure and abrogation of responsibility.

Say it ain't so... Sam

Better be ready for your fifteen minutes of fame.

And that includes the paperwork.

Turns out that "Joe the plumber" -- the object of some twenty-odd mentions in last night's third presidential debate doesn't actually have a license to practice plumbing. And his real name is actually Sam.

According to Reuters:

The morning after he emerged as the unexpected star of Wednesday evening's U.S. presidential debate, Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, found himself at the center of a media frenzy, with reporters camped out on his front lawn and his phone ringing off the hook.

But it wasn't long before the Association of Plumbers, Steamfitters and Service Mechanics revealed that Wurzelbacher was not a licensed member of their trade.

"That means that he has not completed the training program necessary for him to sit for a license test," said Tony Herrera, market recovery specialist for Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 50 in Toledo, Ohio.

"It's a shame that this guy has ended up in this situation because it seems like he's misrepresented himself -- and for that matter the plumbing and pipefitting industry."

Without a license, Wurzelbacher cannot practice in the city of Toledo but can work for someone with a master's license or in outlying areas that do not require a license, Herrera said.

Wurzelbacher, 34, listed in the phone directory as Samuel, did not answer his phone and his voicemail box appeared to be full.

Licensed plumbers in his area are not taking this silently...

For their part, the plumbers at the Local 50 union hall said they would love to find a job that would give them the kind of income Wurzelbacher is worried about being taxed by Obama.

"If there's a plumber or pipefitter making more than $250,000, we want to know where he's working," Herrera said with a laugh. "We don't make that kind of money."

The plumber's union, like almost all labor groups in America, backs the Democratic Party.

"The real Joe the Plumber supports Barack Obama," Herrera said.

Joe -- er, Sam -- wouldn't say who he was going to vote for, but he seemed to be leaning hard to McCain, saying he was "outraged" by Obama's plan and that he was against any form of graduated income tax. Of course, the McCain tax plan like those advocated by virtually all mainstream Republicans is such a graduated plan but Republicans tend to favor various tax reductions for the very wealthiest Americans with the idea that such tax cuts will help prosperity "trickle down" to middle and lower class taxpayers.

But in the last 8 years under the "trickle down" policies of George W. Bush (supported by John McCain), the gap between the wealthy and the middle and lower classes has widened precipitously.

The FACTS are in and the winner is...

John McCain handsomely beat opponent Barack Obama for biggest arguable whopper, but Obama got a few grossly inaccurate licks in, too.

The biggest and most grotesque distortion was probably John McCain's claim that get-out-the-vote organization ACORN was trying to perpetrate "one of the greatest frauds in voter history" which might end up "destroying the fabric of democracy" in the US.

My God! Let's get those subversive bastards!

Only problem: it's one of the most absurdly over-the-top distortions of the whole campaign.

According to FactCheck's coverage of the debates:

"... does this constitute "destroying the fabric of democracy"? More like destroying the fabric of work ethic. There's been no evidence that the ACORN employees who submitted fraudulent forms have been paving the way for illegal voting. Rather, they're trying to get paid for doing no work.

Dan Satterberg, the Republican prosecuting attorney in King County, Wash., where the first ACORN case was prosecuted, said:

Satterberg: [A] joint federal and state investigation has determined that this scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting.

Instead, the defendants cheated their employer. ... It was hardly a sophisticated plan: The defendants simply realized that making up names was easier than actually canvassing the streets looking for unregistered voters. ...

[It] appears that the employees of ACORN were not performing the work that they were being paid for, and to some extent, ACORN is a victim of employee theft.

The $8-an-hour employees were charged with providing false information on a voter registration, and in one case with making a false statement to a public official. ACORN was fined for showing insufficient oversight, but it was not charged with masterminding any kind of fraud.

Not quite of the same caliber of distortion, but FactCheck called Obama to task for being not "entirely forthcoming about his relationship with ACORN."

Obama: The only involvement I've had with ACORN is, I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs.

He did, but that wasn't his only involvement. He also worked closely with ACORN's Chicago office when he ran a Project Vote registration drive after law school, and Obama did some leadership training for Chicago ACORN. The Woods Fund, where Obama served as a board member, gave grants to ACORN's Chicago branch; both organizations are concerned with disadvantaged populations in that city. And during the primaries of this election, Obama's campaign paid upwards of $800,000 to the ACORN-affiliated Campaign Services Inc. for get-out-the-vote efforts (not voter registration). Those services were initially misrepresented on the campaign's Federal Election Commission reports, an error that some find suspicious and others say is par for the course. ACORN's Chicago office and CSI have not been under investigation.

FactCheck promises a follow up report on ACORN.


According to the FactCheck summary for the debate:

• McCain said “Joe the plumber” faced “much higher taxes” under Obama’s tax plan and would pay a fine under Obama’s health care plan if he failed to provide coverage for his workers. But Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher would pay higher taxes only if the business he says he wants to buy puts his income over $200,000 a year, and his small business would be exempt from Obama’s requirement to provide coverage for workers.
  
  Update Oct. 16: ABC News reported the morning after the debate that Wurzelbacher admitted to a reporter that he won't actually make enough from his new plumbing business to pay Obama's higher tax rates. ABC said his admission "would seem to indicate that he would be eligible for an Obama tax cut."

• Obama repeated a dubious claim that his health care plan will cut the average family’s premiums by $2,500 a year. Experts have found that figure to be overly optimistic.

• McCain claimed that Obama’s real “object” is a government-run, single-payer health insurance system like those in Canada or England. The McCain campaign points to a quote from five years ago, when Obama told a labor gathering that he was “a proponent of a single-payer health care program.” But Obama has since qualified his enthusiasm for Canadian-style health care, and his current proposal is nothing like that.

• Obama incorrectly claimed all of McCain’s ads had been “negative.” That was true for one recent week, but not over the entire campaign. And at times Obama has run a higher percentage of attack ads than McCain.
  
  
• McCain described Colombia as the "largest agricultural importer of our products." Actually, Canada imports the most U.S. farm products, and Colombia is far down the list.
  

• Obama strained to portray himself as willing to break ranks with fellow Democrats. His prime example was his vote for a bill that was supported by 18 Democrats and opposed by 26. Congressional Quarterly rates him as voting with his party 97 percent of the time since becoming a U.S. senator.

Get the whole scoop here: FactChecking Debate No. 3

I knew it, I knew it, I KNEW it: Joe the plumber's taxes

I knew it...

The first thing on my list of things to do today, before breakfast, before coffee, was to write a blog post about how I was positive that "Joe the plumber" -- a fellow who button-holed Barack Obama not long ago to tell him that he was leaning toward a vote for John McCain because Obama's tax policies would mean his taxes would go up if he pursued "the American Dream" by buying the plumbing business he had been saving for.

Obama had offered his standard line, basically, that unless a small business or family's income was at least $250,000 a year, it wouldn't face a tax increase.

Joe the plumber was not mollified...

Me, I was thinking, man, I'll bet you anything this Republican-leaning plumber doesn't know the difference between gross and net income -- that the plumbing company he wants to buy does not do over a quarter million dollars in overall business -- but that his actual, net income after figuring business expenses is going to be considerably less.

I didn't get the chance to write my post.

Bleary eyed, first thing this a.m. I zombied in to the bathroom and flipped on the radio.

It wasn't 15 seconds before I heard about Joe the plumber, who had been mentioned -- by actual count -- at least 20 times in the debate the night before.

And what did I hear?

Reporters had talked to Joe since the debate and -- what do you know? -- Joe had (presumably sheepishly) admitted the new business would not have a net of a quarter million or more a year.

Joe said he was still worried about Obama's tax policies, though, because some day he might...


He had said he was undecided when he first talked to reporters.

But he's clearly uninformed and --well, clueless -- enough to make a cynic (and this writer is not just a cynic but was, within the last year a Republican, himself) think that Joe the plumber has always been a closet McCain supporter and was just looking to 'sting' Obama in a one to one, on camera meeting.

Ha!

I knew it!


UPDATE: This short article at ABC News seems to confirm my suspicions about Joe and his leanings: Joe The Plumber: Obama Tax Plan 'Infuriates Me'

Obama all but sweeps snap polls

In snap polls conducted by CNN/Opinion Research Corp and SurveyUSA, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made a strong showing, with almost twice as many of those polled saying they thought he had won. In both polls, Obama was seen by most people as bettering his rival in almost all the categories.

The SurveyUSA poll respondents thought McCain had got off the best one-liner.

And the CNN poll indicated respondents thought McCain had been on the attack more. Whether or not one views that as a good thing is subjective. But most independents -- who are, after all, the people who must be convinced -- tend to view aggressive personal accusations quite negatively and recent attacks by McCain on his campaign are seen to be the cause of a recent acceleration in McCain's downward plunge in national polling regarding the preferences in the race.

Perhaps one of the most interesting findings was on taxes. As CNN notes:

During the debate, McCain attacked Obama's stance on taxes, accusing Obama of seeking tax increases that would "spread the wealth around." But by 15 points, 56 percent to 41 percent, debate watchers polled said Obama would do a better job on taxes. By a 2-1 margin, 62 percent to 31 percent, debate watchers said Obama would do a better job on health care.

CNN: Poll: Debate watchers say Obama wins

KFSN (Fresno): SurveyUSA Final Presidential Debate Poll

The nation gets poorer and the rich get... more Democratic?

According to the quarterly Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has made strong inroads with the Americans of wealth, according to an analysis from Reuters:

"McCain does not enjoy the kind of plurality in the wealthy space that Republican candidates have enjoyed in the past," said Jim Taylor, vice chairman of the Harrison Group, a market research and strategy firm in Waterbury, Conn.

Taylor, who produces a quarterly "Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America," said the wealthy were once a solid Republican majority. "It's not anymore," he told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit on Tuesday, citing the findings of his latest survey of 614 affluent individuals taken September 19-23.

That showed McCain had 40 percent of the "affluent and wealth vote," compared with 33 percent for Obama, and given the recent stock market slide Taylor says he would be surprised if Obama's support hadn't risen further in the past few weeks.

[...]

In the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, in contrast, about 80 percent of the wealthy supported the Republican nominee, Taylor said.

While the very richest Americans have tended to be almost exclusively Republican in their politics, that has been changing:

For the wealthiest American households, who have at least $1.6 million set aside each year for discretionary spending, McCain was favored over Obama by 49 percent to 28 percent.

"That may sound like a lot but but there was a time when it was 100 to zero percent," Taylor said.

Christopher Buckley resigns from National Review in wake of Obama endorsement

Conservative columnist, Christopher Buckley, son of the late right wing icon, William F. Buckley, has resigned from his back page column at the National Review, the leading conservative journal founded by the elder Buckley. (The younger Buckley is a part owner in the publication and serves on its board.)

Why?

Because he endorsed Barack Obama for president -- and it's not sitting well with the National Review's readers.

According to the Washington Post:

"Within hours, poor NR was being swamped with furious mail, 'Cancel my subscription, this is betrayal, Judas, Benedict Arnold,' " Buckley said in an interview. "I thought the decent thing to do would be to offer to resign the column. Well, they accepted it."

The younger Buckley has known McCain since the 1980's:

In that piece, Buckley said that he has known McCain since 1982 and once wrote a speech for him but that the senator has changed, airing "mean-spirited and pointless" attack ads and -- "What on earth can he have been thinking?" -- picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. While the result was "genuinely saddening" and even "tragic" for the country, Buckley wrote, he had concluded that Obama has a "first-class temperament and a first-class intellect" and could be a great president. That is, "assuming anyone gives a fig" about his views.

Buckley noted that columnist Kathleen Parker, after a National Review Online piece declaring Palin unqualified to be vice president, had received 12,000 hostile e-mails. Parker, who is syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group, described the reaction in her next column: "I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should 'off' myself."

In his embrace of Obama, Buckley quoted his father as saying, "You know, I've spent my entire lifetime separating the Right from the kooks."

A little encouraging news for fiscal conservatives

Democratic candidate Barack Obama, discreetly laying plans for a transition into the White House that seems increasingly likely, has begun laying the foundation for a relationship with the Blue Dog Democrats, strict fiscal conservatives.

According to a story in the Washington Post:

Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas is not likely to bring Barack Obama many votes on Nov. 4. Neither is Rep. John Tanner of Tennessee or Rep. Allen Boyd, a farmer from the Florida Panhandle.

But the three could play a big role in the success or failure of the next president, one reason Obama took a break from campaigning last week to call each of them, among the leaders of the "Blue Dog Coalition," a group of conservative-leaning Democrats who are committed to balancing the federal budget. The group's 49 members already wield significant power in the House, and their ranks are expected to expand in the next Congress.

"He said he planned to be the next president and he wanted to work with us," Ross said in recounting his conversation with Obama before the House approved a $700 billion economic rescue package. "He also recognized that we had the numbers to block or clear" legislation coming from the White House if he is elected.

As the economic situation has worsened to crisis, Obama has drawn closer to the sort of fiscal discipline the Blue Dogs represent. According to the Post:

The Blue Dogs cheered when he made his firmest commitment yet on the Senate floor recently.

"Runaway spending and record deficits are not how families run their budgets, and it can't be how Washington handles people's tax dollars," Obama said in his Oct. 1 speech, delivered shortly before the Senate bailout vote. "It's time to return to the fiscal responsibility we had in the 1990s. We need to go through the budget, get rid of programs that don't work, and make the ones we do need work better and cost less. With less money flowing into the Treasury, some useful programs or policies might need to be delayed in the years ahead."

One of Obama's early supporters encouraged Obama to work with the Blue Dogs:

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), a budget expert who endorsed Obama early in his campaign, had pressed the Democratic nominee to court his colleagues. Cooper said the result was likely to be real flexibility in setting a new budget course. "We're going to have an engaged President Obama, and I think we will have a good fiscal steward."

A fountainhead of lies -- the man behind the email rumors

You've read his words, echoed across the internet in email chain letters making outrageous claims about Barack Obama. Before that, you may have come across similarly outrageous claims from him about George W. Bush. He claims he's not an anti-semite, yet he wrote, “I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did.”

He's filed so many lawsuits in federal court that he has been banned from filing any more without prior permission.

He's run for office in three states and for US president twice.

He graduated law school but was blocked from the Illinois bar because a psychiatric evaluation found him he was afflicted by a "moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”

Yet he was recently featured in a segment in a Fox News documentary filled with outrageous and provably false claims about Barack Obama, including claims that Obama had trained to overthrow the United States -- assertions which were presented in the documentary as though they were the fact-based views of a reliable expert.

He is Andy Martin, founder and owner of FreeRepublic.com, a conservative website filled with more than vaguely anti-semitic rants, bizarre claims about various political figures from Obama to Bush, and the rantings of its colorful, 62 year old owner.

The New York Times tracks down the facts and probes the background of a key source and guest for Fox News shows and the original source for many of the false rumors about the Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, in in Jim Rutenberg's article The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama.

A simple prayer opens McCain rally...

At an Iowa rally for John McCain, the Rev. Arnold Conrad spoke, apparently, for many McCain supporters when he offered this prayer, according to news accounts:

"There are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that [McCain's] opponent wins for a variety of reasons. And, Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens."

The McCain campaign distanced itself from the invocation, delivered before McCain appeared, apparently sticking to the new, toned-down rhetoric they've fitfully adopted since Friday, when McCain signaled a change in direction in the face of a series well-publicized events at McCain and Palin rallies where violently angry crowds yelled out racial epithets and calls for violence seemingly directed at McCain's rival, Barack Obama. At one event, McCain himself was actually booed by his own crowd when he tried to tell them that they didn't need to fear Obama, who McCain described as a "decent, family man," only to be drowned out by angry booing.

The Rev. Arnold's apparently unintentionally comic images -- and quite odd divergence from monotheistic thought -- apparently plays to many of those drawn to the McCain/Palin campaign rallies -- but it is likely to be troubling to many mainstream Christians -- even as it would seem to be particularly disturbing to those who don't share that faith. In my Sunday school, they kept insisting there was only one God. [Full disclosure: I only went to Sunday school for two weeks before insistently begging my mom to let me attend the adult services with her. Even at 7, I preferred the adult sermons about man's relationship with God and the ethical and moral responsibilities of Christians to the comic book retellings of colorful stories from the Old Testament that reminded me of nothing so much as the book of Greek and Roman mythology my grandmother had given me that Christmas.]


Even as McCain tries to tone down the extremes of his campaigns rhetoric, we can probably expect the exaggerations, distortions, and outright untruths widely reported by nonpartisan fact checking organizations like FactCheck.org to continue. (McCain's ads have quoted FactCheck.org as authoritative; unfortunately for the campaign, they misquoted and distorted FactCheck's statements so badly that the organization requested McCain stop misquoting them, calling the ads "less than truthful.") Both campaigns have been called to task for distortions, inaccuracies, and misstatements, but those perusing FactCheck's articles will quickly see from which campaign most of the worst comes.