Jerusalem Post - Interviewing Bush, McCain, and Obama

THE JERUSALEM POST INTERVIEWED OBAMA. AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ARTICLE THEY COMPARED THE EXPERIENCE TO INTERVIEWING BUSH AND MCCAIN. HMMM . . . I WONDER WHO WON:

Obama on Iran, Syria, and Jerusalem
Jul. 24, 2008David Horovitz , THE JERUSALEM POST
Two months ago in the Oval Office, President George W. Bush, coming to the end of a two-term presidency and presumably as expert on Israeli-Palestinian policy as he is ever going to be, was accompanied by a team of no fewer than five advisers and spokespeople during a 40-minute interview with this writer and three other Israeli journalists.
In March, on his whirlwind visit to Israel, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, one of whose primary strengths is said to be his intimate grasp of foreign affairs, chose to bring along Sen. Joe Lieberman to the interview our diplomatic correspondent Herb Keinon and I conducted with him, looked to Lieberman several times for reassurance on his answers and seemed a little flummoxed by a question relating to the nuances of settlement construction.
On Wednesday evening, toward the end of his packed one-day visit here, Barack Obama, the Democratic senator who is leading the race for the White House and who lacks long years of foreign policy involvement, spoke to The Jerusalem Post with only a single aide in his King David Hotel room, and that aide's sole contribution to the conversation was to suggest that the candidate and I switch seats so that our photographer would get better lighting for his pictures.

Low-Road Express

GREAT EDITORIAL FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES!

Editorial (NEW YORK TIMES)

Published: July 30, 2008

Well, that certainly didn’t take long. On July 3, news reports said Senator John McCain, worried that he might lose the election before it truly started, opened his doors to disciples of Karl Rove from the 2004 campaign and the Bush White House. Less than a month later, the results are on full display. The candidate who started out talking about high-minded, civil debate has wholeheartedly adopted Mr. Rove’s low minded and uncivil playbook.

Obama Responds

Obama Taunts McCain: "Is That The Best You Can Come Up With?"
"We want to have a serious debate. But so far, we've been hearing about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. I do have to ask my opponent: is that the best you can come up with? Is that really what the election is about? Is that worthy of the American people? Even the media has pointed out...that McCain has fallen back into ... predictable political attacks and demonstratively false statements... Spending all this time talking about me instead of talking about what he's going to do. That's not going to lower your gas prices. That's's not going...to help you find a job if it's been shipped overseas. It doesn't do a single thing to help the American people. It's the politics of the game. But the time for game-playing is over. That's why I'm running for President."....

McCain Is Getting Dirty

A BLOG ENTRY FROM DAVID KILEY OF BUSINESS WEEK:

The New Normal: McCain's Desperate Ad Hours
What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was...wait for it...using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.

Obama's best strategy? Attack

OBAMA NEEDS TO ATTACK MCCAIN!

THIS IS FROM LATIMES.COM

Obama has barely hit back. His weak-tea replies express
"disappointment" with McCain and reject the "same old
politics.

"Here's the likely rationale: The public, by a wide margin, wants a Democrat to win the presidency. So all Obama has to do is make himself acceptable and he'll win. Hence the focus on building up his own credentials rather than tearing down McCain.

Perhaps that sounds familiar. Let me refresh your memory: it was the John Kerry campaign strategy in 2004. Four years ago, the conventional wisdom had it that a majority of the voters would reject President Bush, so winning was just a matter of Kerry proving himself as an alternative. People "are looking for some change," one pollster put it at the time, "but the change has to be acceptable. John Kerry has to prove he is acceptable."

The World's Biggest Arms Exporters

Bombs dropping down overhead. On the ground.
It's instilled to want to live.
Bombs dropping down. Please forgive our hometown in our insignificance.

- Eddie Vedder - "Insignificance"

http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11825721&fsrc=RSS

Something Inspiring

The human spirit. Pretty remarkable. . .

Tony Melendez - "Let It Be"

Eddie Vedder - Long Nights

Came across this "unofficial" video of the movie "Into the Wild." Awesome movie. Awesome soundtrack.

Commander-in-Chief Test

ATOMICTATA, YOU'LL ENJOY THIS!

Led Zeppelin - Going to California (live)

Led Zeppelin - live at Earl's Court - May, 1975. There's not much to say here. This is quite amazing. Relax and enjoy.

On Anger

Interesting blog entry from Frank Wilson:

I used to get angry a lot, but I realized something about anger one day that pretty much cured me of it in a snap. What I realized was that I got angry because (a) I was hurt and (b) couldn’t really do anything about it. The anger was an expression of impotence. The one thing I could do about what had hurt me was rant about it. No sooner had I realized that than I asked myself, “Why bother?” It didn’t do any good. And it felt awful. There is nothing pleasant about feeling angry. Of course, there’s nothing pleasant about feeling hurt, either, but if you face up to the discomfort, it fades after a while. Anger just prolongs it, like picking at a scab

Electoral Map - Obama / McCain Matchup

WILL THIS BE A WIPE OUT FOR OBAMA? IS THE "PUNDITRY" SELLING US A CLOSE GAME TO KEEP OUR "ATTENTION?" ACCORDING TO SOME POLITICAL SCIENTISTS THIS ELECTION IS ALL BUT OVER. BUT, YOU WON'T HEAR THAT ON YOUR NIGHTLY NEWS. PERSONALLY, THE RACE IS BETWEEN OBAMA AND . . . . OBAMA. IT'S HIS TO LOSE. . . THAT DOESN'T MEAN OBAMA SUPPORTERS SHOULD SIT BACK AND ENJOY THE NEXT 3 1/2 MONTHS. IT'S GOING TO GET UGLY! MCCAIN'S NEWEST AD ON OBAMA "MISSING" HIS VISIT TO THE TROOPS IS A CLEAR INDICATION THAT MCCAIN AND THE REPUBLICANS WILL GET "BILLARY" ON THEM :). TRUST ME.

CLICK ON MAP FOR BIGGER PICTURE


THIS CAME FROM HUFFINGTONPOST.COM

In an essay titled "The Myth of a Toss-up Election," Alan Abramowitz (Emory), Tom Mann (Brookings) and Larry Sabato (Virginia), jointly declared:

[V]irtually all of the evidence that we have reviewed - historical patterns, structural features of this election cycle, and national and state polls conducted over the last several months - points to a comfortable Obama/Democratic party victory in November. Trumpeting this race as a toss-up, almost certain to produce another nail-biter finish, distorts the evidence and does a disservice to readers and viewers who rely upon such punditry....

It is no exaggeration to say that the political environment this year is one of the worst for a party in the White House in the past sixty years. You have to go all the way back to 1952 to find an election involving the combination of an unpopular president, an unpopular war, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession....[I]f history is any guide, and absent a dramatic change in election fundamentals or an utter collapse of the Obama candidacy, John McCain is likely to suffer the same fate as Adlai Stevenson.

Health Care in America

Patients await dental care at the Remote Area Medical (RAM), clinic July 26, 2008 in Wise, Virginia. The free clinic, which lasts 2 1/2 days, is the largest of its kind in the nation, and organizers expected to treat more than 2,500 people over the weekend, mostly providing dental and vision services. Residents of the 'coal counties' of Appalachia are some of the most impoverished in the nation, and most are either underinsured or have no health insurance at all. For many, the RAM clinic is the only medical care they may receive each year. Healthcare for the nation's disadvantaged has become one of the main issues in this year's presidential race. Photo by John Moore/Getty. - ANDREWSULLIVAN.COM

Editorial - 9/11 and 4/11

NEW YORK TIMES
July 20, 2008
9/11 and 4/11
By THOMES FRIEDMAN

The economist Paul Romer once said to me that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” President Bush is well on his way to being remembered as the leader who wasted not one but two crises: 9/11 and 4/11. The average price of gasoline in the U.S. last week, according to the Energy Information Administration, was $4.11.

Editorial - Getting to Know You

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL
July 26, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Getting to Know You
By BOB HERBERT
The conventional wisdom in this radically unconventional presidential race is that the voters have to get to know Barack Obama better. That’s what this week’s overseas trip was about: to showcase the senator as a potential commander in chief and leader of U.S. foreign policy.
According to this way of thinking, as voters see more of Mr. Obama and become more comfortable with him (assuming no major foul-ups along the way), his chances of getting elected will be enhanced.
Maybe so. But what about the other guy? How much do voters really know about John McCain?

Obama's Week - Turning Point?

Interesting observation from Chuck Todd of NBC:

The turning point? So was this week a turning point in the presidential race? The Obama campaign certainly believes it was, and that this will be the moment that Obama grabs the lead for good. If McCain never catches up at this point, his campaign's actions this week (its blistering criticism of Obama and the media, the visuals it picked, its body language, its VP games) will get second-guessed for months. We know this was a significant week; the question is was it enough to erase the doubts voters have with Obama about his ability to be commander-in-chief? But just asking: Did this week tell us more about Obama or McCain? Watching McCain chasing the news cycle and his inability to not let Obama get under his skin -- and the campaign's -- suggests that they could be reactive from this day forward. Why, for instance, did the campaign insist on the equal treatment (see network interviews) this week and not simply attempt to create its own week of coverage from the nets? They were second fiddle all week, and seemed to almost demand being highlighted in that way.

Incubus - A Certain Shade of Green (acoustic)

Would a written invitation
signed, "Choose now or lose it all,"
sedate your hesitation?
Or inflame and make you stall?
You've been raised in limitation,
but that glove never fit quite right.
The time has passed for hand-me-downs,
choose a new, please evolve,
take flight.

Are you gonna stand around till 2012 A.D.?
What are you waiting for,
A certain shade of green?
I think I grew a gray watching you procrastinate.

Days With His Father

This is pretty neat. An photographer by the name of Phillip Toledano has a set of awesome photographs of his 98-year-old father (click near the bottom of the screen to scroll through).

Oasis - Don't Look Back in Anger (live)

Great song. Great live performance. . .

John Lennon - Evolution of Jealous Guy

WIKIPEDIA

The song's genesis came in India, after The Beatles attended a lecture by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi about a "son of the mother nature". This inspired both Paul McCartney and John Lennon to write songs about the same subject. McCartney's composition "Mother Nature's Son" was selected for The Beatles (the White Album), while Lennon's song "Child of Nature" was not

This is from Gimme Some Truth - The Making of John Lennon's "Imagine" (2004)DVD. This is a must for your DVD library if you're a fan of The Beatles.

John McCain's Neverending War

Just got back from a relaxing vacation. It's time to get serious here. 104 days till the presidential election . . . And the differences between the two are clear. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. . .

John McCain talking about the Iraq war from 2002 through the present, exposing -- in his own words -- the lie behind his claim that he was the war's "greatest critic." It demonstrates his chilling commitment to fighting this war no matter what the people of America -- or Iraq -- want.

It is long -- nine minutes, thirty seconds -- but much of the material it contains will likely be new to you...and devastating to McCain.

Please share it with your family, friends, and acquaintances throughout the netroots. We may not have a cable TV channel, but with YouTube, through word of mouth, we can level the playing field -- so please digg it, reddit it, post it in blogs and comments.

John McCain Blaming Himself for the High Gas Prices

This is a real McCain commercial . ..

Paul McCartney - Got to Get You Into My Life (live)

Live at Jools Holland New Year's Eve 2007. This is from The Beatles REVOLVER album (1966). Many consider REVOLVER to be the greatest album ever made by anyone. . . I consider ABBEY ROAD to be the greatest album of all-time. . . What do you think? JohnnyQ is unable to answer this question because he's still on HELP!



Here's the YOUTUBE link if it fails to play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR-OzzE37SE

Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma (live)

Live at Jools Holland February 2008.

Pearl Jam - Porch @ Pink Pop 92

You'll dig this AROD!