Office of the Independent Blogger

When I last wrote I believed that John McCain would win, as I predicted last February, and that he was on the right path in terms of rhetoric and strategy. Now I am almost certain he will lose, but I could not have possibly foreseen an economic crisis as we’ve experienced. Sucks for McCain.

This is the sort of rhetoric John McCain needs to use if he is going to defeat Barack Obama in the Presidential election:

* “Today he claimed the congressional stimulus package was his idea. That’s news to those of us in Congress who supported it. Senator Obama didn’t even show up to vote.”
* “He talks a tough game on the financial crisis but the facts tell a different story. Senator Obama took more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than anyone but the chairman of the committee they answer to. And he put Fannie Mae’s CEO, who helped create this problem, in charge of finding his vice president. That’s not change, that is what’s broken in Washington.”
* “He talks about siding with the people, siding with the people, just before he flew off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbara Streisand and his celebrity friends. Let me tell you my friends, there is no place I’d rather be than here with the working men and women of Ohio.”

Barack Obama answers these attacks with these:

Obama poked fun at McCain for proposing a commission to examine the crisis, calling that “the oldest Washington stunt in the book.”

“This isn’t 9/11. We know how we got into this mess,” Obama said. “What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I’ll provide it, John McCain won’t, and that’s the choice for the American people in this election.”

Obama also pointed to a history of Democratic presidents, from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, who commanded the country through rough financial waters. And he hammered McCain repeatedly — for failing, he said, to grasp the root of the problems and for only belatedly deciding that greater regulation is needed.

“John McCain has spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers,” Obama told a crowd of about 2,100 at the Colorado School of Mines.

Their approaches are intrinsically similar — ridicule, attack — but their rhetoric is quite different, and I suspect that McCain’s pit-bull mentality will work against Obama’s kinder and gentler words. Who knows how the working families of Dayton see this, however.

Kim Jung Il is sick and has collapsed. I hope he dies but there is no news on what, if anything, he is suffering from.

This Bob Woodward article about the Bush Administration’s relationship with the military leading up to the “Surge” (titled “Outmaneuvered And Outranked, Military Chiefs Became Outsiders“) reads very much like a President doing the right thing well, albeit a little clumsily.

We are sending a billion dollars to Georgia in support of their democracy, have pledged our assistance to them and Ukraine in future matters, and Dick Cheney is over there right now re-affirming our alliance. We must stand with our allies and it’s good to see us do just that.

Bob Woodward has written a new book about the Bush Administration’s internal deliberations, this one regarding Iraq from 2006 to 2008. What is, at this moment, most interesting to me is its revelation that we spied on the Iraqi military and leadership in an effort to plan our anti-insurgency efforts. It is interesting to me because the Iraqis are hopping mad about it, arguing that the allegations, if true, will alter their relationship with us because they show that we have no “trust” in them.

Puh-lease.

Espionage is common and accepted practice in international relations. They need to get over it, especially when they have so often failed at providing the necessary services to their leadership and their constituents.

McCain’s campaign has maneuvered brilliantly into a dichotomous struggle between person and country, as Obama has been caricatured as a me-first phony while McCain presents himself as a man who has given everything to the United States of America. Will this move work? Maybe. Maybe not. But it is, I think, his best and only shot at victory as Bush’s unpopularity makes it virtually unpopular for McCain to win otherwise.

Governor Palin made a remark tonight that illustrated perfectly my every problem with Barack Obama: “[T]his is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate.” That, my friends, is everything that is wrong with Senator Obama. The rest of Palin’s speech was strong and effectively delivered, and it is a sign of things to come for the rest of the American public.

A friend asked me today why at least one prominent Democrat seems to abandon the party in times of war to support the Republican candidate for President. I immediately thought back to John Connally, Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman and couldn’t find functional equivalents for the Republicans. Why? Because Democrats since the 1960s have been split between pacifist and realist, and that makes it more likely that a prominent leader will bolt for fear that the left-wing will not allow a liberal President to do what is right militarily if the situation calls for it. George W. Bush today mentioned that McCain was not broken by his experiences in Vietnam and so he would never be broken by “the Angry Left.” I thought that was a solid line, though it wasn’t as good as his remark about Laura Bush being there in his stead and that being a “trade up.” Fred Thompson gave a great speech and Joseph Lieberman has rocked the crowd: “Eloquence is no substitute for a record.”

The GOP has always known how to throw a punch at their convention. Democrats do it sometimes, but we haven’t had a William Jennings Bryan or Harry Truman in a long time.

This New York Times article and this NYT article are great success stories for the American government and people. First:

Two years ago, Anbar Province was the most lethal place for the Americans in Iraq, with a marine or a soldier dying here nearly every day. The provincial capital, Ramadi, was a moonscape of rubble and ruins. Islamic extremists controlled large pieces of territory, with some so ferocious in their personal views that they did not even allow the sale of bread.

On Monday, following a parade on a freshly paved street, American commanders formally returned responsibility for keeping order in Anbar Province, once the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, to the Iraqi Army and police force. The ceremony capped one of the starkest turnabouts in the country since the war began five and a half years ago. In the past two years, the number of insurgent attacks against Iraqis and Americans in Anbar Province has dropped by more than 90 percent. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group that American intelligence agencies have concluded is led by foreigners, has been severely degraded, if not crushed altogether. Since February, as the situation improved, American commanders have cut the number of marines and soldiers here by more than a third, they said.

The transfer of authority codified a transformation that Iraqi and American officers say has been in effect since April: the Iraqi Army and the police operate independently and retain primary responsibility for battling the insurgency and crime in Anbar. The Americans, who had long done the bulk of the fighting, have stepped into a backup role. With the transfer on Monday, Iraq now bears the primary responsibility for maintaining security in 11 of its 18 provinces.

Second:

This nearly deserted city appeared to have escaped threats of full-scale devastation on Monday when Hurricane Gustav came ashore 70 miles to the southwest, bearing winds and rain far less formidable than earlier forecast.

The storm smashed through the bayou country of rural Louisiana, raising fears of widespread coastal erosion and damage to fishing villages that state officials were unable to confirm Monday evening. But before making landfall, it was downgraded from a Category 3 hurricane to Category 2 when its winds slowed to 110 miles per hour, from 115 m.p.h., and state officials said they believed that their worst fears had not been realized.

Hurricane Gustav weakened to a tropical storm late Monday as it moved over central Louisiana.

I, for one, am proud of our soldiers and strategy in Iraq and the national response to Hurricane Gustav, though I realize that we had a lot of luck in New Orleans this time around. Incidentally, a friend of mine refused to “abandon the city” like he did during Hurricane Katrina and therefore stayed for this storm. I think he’s okay, and I’m glad that the city didn’t “get it” quite like last time around. Let’s just hope it holds.

A Hurricane is headed toward the Gulf Coast — and New Orleans — and has therefore disrupted the Republican National Convention, essentially canceling the first night of the event and likely canceling the second. I can’t imagine how much work is going on in the White House to prevent another fiasco from occurring. John Dickerson thinks this event is “good” for John McCain; I am just worried about a friend who lives there and has decided to stay because he doesn’t want to “abandon the city.” Brave man.

I love Governor Palin as a choice for McCain’s Vice President. It’s a shrewd, intelligent pick that has a certain riskiness that any gambler would appreciate. But I have a question about the Governor. About three weeks ago, I was reviewing McCain’s potential running-mates and nixed Palin for two reasons: she’s very inexperienced, and she recently had a child, who also has Down Syndrome. I figured she’d want to be home to take care of her child instead of running all around the continental United States on the campaign trail and that she would therefore decline the spot on the ticket even if it were given. (It would not have been the first time a person refused higher office for their family, or at least put it off for some time. And it’s easier to be a mom/dad as Governor than Veep or President with all the accompanying travel.) But she didn’t, and now she has a good chance to become the first female Vice President in history.

That said, I am not comfortable with her decision. I do not believe in nannies or hired hands to raise children, and especially not with a child who has special needs. Should Palin have stayed home to take care of her baby? At what age is it “okay” for a child to experience a parent’s prolonged absence? Why aren’t these issues being discussed?

As I noted earlier, I love Palin. She’s attractive, vibrant, athletic, beautiful and fiercely independent of conventionally political wisdom. But this is a question that ought to be discussed as a matter of familial philosophy and an insight into her character.

My first thoughts on Obama’s speech tonight: weak. John Dickerson wrote a great column with suggestions on how he can relive the 2004 masterpiece but he didn’t take it. His foreign policy rhetoric fell flat on me, and I do not see it having any resonance with very many Americans in coming weeks and months. And he mentioned Franklin Roosevelt and Jack Kennedy as foreign policy visionaries but not Harry Truman. So he loses my vote again for not having enough sense. His post-speech celebration, with the orchestral score and fireworks, is the height of hubris, and he isn’t making it any harder for Republicans to paint him as a free-spender.

John McCain has made his choice for Vice President of the United States and will announce it Friday. Here’s my unsolicited advice to McCain: announce it earlyish in the day, late-morning to early afternoon, and do it like a normal human being. No teasing it for hours on end, no nonsense about text messages or emails, just announce it, have him speak, speak for yourself and move forward with an aggressive campaign. Why would I recommend that? Because Barack Obama made it easier to paint him as a celebrity tonight by appearing early at the Democratic National Convention, by acting as if he were a lowly street-MC (”Hillary rocked the hoooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwse!”) and by announcing that he’d be speaking in front of Greek columns tomorrow. Biden gave a good speech, but not a great one, and the Vice President doesn’t matter much anyway. President Clinton was good but the same can be said for him. It’s up to Obama to deliver for himself tomorrow, and then he has to brace himself for a Republican National Convention that should hit him harder than he has ever been hit before. This is the beginning of the actual fall campaign.

David Gergen called Hillary Clinton’s speech tonight her “finest hour in politics” and I must say that I agree. It was a phenomenal speech that had me on the verge of tears at various points. And I felt a surge of emotion before she took the podium, too, as the DNC’s video tribute to her was incredibly moving.