PolitickerME:

Senate candidates Susan Collins (R-Bangor) and Tom Allen (D-Portland) both denounced an ad that hit Collins on her support of the Iraq War.

The ad is from the third party veterans' organization VoteVets.org that opposes the Iraq War.[..]

The campaigns for both Collins, the incumbent, and Allen, a current U.S. Representative, released statement on the ad.

First, the Collins campaign called on Allen to denounce the ad, citing a recent promise Allen made to denounce all third party ads.[..]

One hour later the Allen campaign responded. Communications director Carol Andrews said that Allen would in fact denounce the ad.[..]

Andrews then turned to both candidates' records on the war, criticizing Collins for opposing a deadline for withdrawal.

"Because he feels so strongly about a deadline for withdrawal, Tom Allen has repeatedly voted against measures for funding that do not include binding deadlines for withdrawal," Andrews wrote. "Susan Collins has repeatedly opposed setting timelines or deadlines."

Help me out, why is a Democrat denouncing a VoteVets ad against his rival? Why have they not figured out that they have public sentiment with them to go hard on this Iraq issue? I understand not wanting to go negative yourself, but that's what proxies are for...don't hamstring them, especially when it's the truth.

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How dare Hurricane Gustav threaten the Gulf Coast on a Sunday? Doesn't Mother Nature know that McCain likes to take weekends off? I'm hoping that it is truly the feedback he complains about in the early part of the video and not just petulance for being forced to make executive decisions on a Sunday that accounts for a somewhat disoriented McCain announcing that in sensitivity to the damage that Hurricane Gustav may wreak on the Gulf Coast, he's opted to cancel all but the "necessary" components of today's RNC schedule:

Ariz. Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, visited the Gulf briefly and instructed convention organizers to suspend all but essential business on the opening day of the convention and turn many of the gathering's planned festivities into fundraisers for potential victims of the storm.[..]

Adding to the sense of uncertainty, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney announced that they would skip the convention to monitor preparations for the storm, which is expected to make landfall late this morning.

Officials said that as part of the convention's opening night, Laura Bush and McCain's wife, Cindy, would speak from the podium and describe ways to help victims of Hurricane Gustav. The First Lady visited the convention hall Sunday evening to check out the podium. Cindy McCain and Palin arrived in the Twin Cities by private plane Sunday night.

It's heartwarming to see such concern for the hurricane victims, isn't it? Especially since John McCain did so little for Hurricane Katrina victims and actively fought against a commission to find out what went wrong. My buddy Bob Geiger--the Senate blogger--is back to his blogging duties and files this:

What does seem odd is that McCain thinks Gulf Coast residents will forget how he, George W. Bush and the then-Republican Congress turned their backs on them so many times in the months after Katrina thundered ashore in 2005.

Sure, McCain was big on rote sympathy right after the disaster, saying on September 1, 2005 "American citizens have proven time and again how generous and selfless a people we are, and now we have an opportunity to come to the aid of those in need." A week later he stridently said "Our work to help the victims of this national tragedy has just begun, and Congress must do all that is necessary to fund essential relief and recovery efforts and help those in need."

It must be nice to have staffers writing that stuff for you.

Too bad he spent the months to follow leading the Republican charge against every Senate bill that would have actually helped Katrina victims or mandated investigations on how the Bush administration could have blown disaster response so thoroughly.

Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden jumped immediately to the aid of hurricane victims in the week after the 2005 disaster, authoring S.Amdt. 1661 "...to provide emergency funding for victims of Hurricane Katrina."[..]

But with John McCain's help, the Republican-led Senate shot down the funding on a 41-56 vote with McCain voting against, while Biden and Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama voted for the funding.

When Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) proposed the creation of a Congressional Commission to "examine the Federal, State, and local response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.. and make immediate corrective measures to improve such responses in the future," John McCain was once again exactly where George W. Bush wanted him to be: On the "nay" side of a straight party-line vote (44-54) that killed that legislation.

So when McCain tells the people of the Gulf Coast now that we'll pray for them, is that the only assistance they can expect from him?

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Informed Comment: McCain, Palin and NOLA

Democurmudgeon: Have you noticed how Republicans love the idea of a Republican, like Palin , going after the major American oil companies so she could tax them?

Oliver Willis: John McCain and his roommates

Ken Silverstein: Since Obama's pastor was vetted more carefully than McCain's running mate, now seems like a good time to examine the viewpoints of Sarah Palin's two most recent pastors.

Economist's View: The Death of the Credit Card Economy

Politics in the Zeros: In Minneapolis, Federal and local thugs with badges are violating the law.

"... not a maverick."

Download | play Download | play h/t Heather! (Watch the entire segment on YouTube)

Via Digby:

Works for me:

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... Howard Wolfson, Senator Clinton's former communications director, said that this pick might just work to draw women to the Republican ticket. Are you worried about that?

KERRY: Well, with all due respect to Howard, you know, I have much more respect for the Clinton supporters than that sort of quick- blush take with -- I mean, how stupid do they think the Clinton supporters are, for Heaven sakes?

Do they think Clinton supporters supported Hillary only because she was a woman. For Heaven sakes, they supported Hillary because of all the things she's fought for, because she fights for health care, which John McCain doesn't support; she fights for children and children's health care, which John McCain voted against; she fights for a windfall profits tax on the oil company, which John McCain opposes.

I mean, for Heaven sakes, the people who supported Hillary Clinton are not going to be seduced just because John McCain has picked a woman. They're going to look at what she supports.

The fact that she doesn't even support the notion that climate change is manmade -- she's back there with the Flat Earth Caucus. And I don't see how those women are going to be fooled into believing -- I think it's almost insulting to the Hillary supporters that they believe they would support somebody who is against almost everything that they believe in.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK.

KERRY: What John McCain has proven with this choice -- this is very important, George. John McCain wanted to choose Tom Ridge. He wanted to choose Joe Lieberman. He wanted to choose another candidate, but you know what? Rush Limbaugh and the right wing vetoed it.

And John McCain was forced to come back and pick a sort of Cheney-esque social conservative who's going to satisfy the base. What John McCain has proven with this choice is that John McCain is the prisoner of the right wing, not a maverick.

I like it. ...

I do too. Kerry keeps swinging for the fences like that and someone's going to want to test him for steroids.

Digby also shares some good advice, as always, on what our response to Palin might ought to be. While I tend to agree, that might be a tall order, as this well just keeps getting deeper. Your thoughts?

Afghans prepare graves for people killed by a US airstrike on Azizabad village in Herat province. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says it has has found "convincing evidence" that 90 civilians -- including 60 children -- were killed in US-led air strikes last week.(AFP/File/Reza Shirmohammadi)

Some of you might remember this story from last Sunday. The UN has backed Afghan claims that a recent airstrike in Afghanistan didn't kill Taliban militants as the US military claims but instead killed 90 civilians, about 60 of them children. Under pressure, the US has now agreed to a joint investigation.

Evidence from all sides regarding the raid has been scant, with no conclusive photos or video emerging to shed light on what happened in Azizabad. But the claim of high civilian casualties by the Afghan government, which is backed by the U.N., is causing new friction between the Afghan president and his Western backers.

... The U.S. military says civilians are never deliberately targeted and that forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

... Three Afghan officials said Thursday that U.S. commanders were misled into striking some 15 houses in Azizabad.

They said U.S. special forces troops and Afghan commandos raided the village while hundreds of people were gathered in a large compound for a memorial service honoring a tribal leader, Timor Shah, who was killed eight months ago by a rival clan.

The officials said the raid was aimed at militants who were supposed to be in the village, but they said the operation was based on faulty information provided by Shah's rival, whom they identified as Nader Tawakal.

Afghans targeted in U.S. raids have complained for years of being pursued based solely on information given by other Afghans who sometimes are business rivals, neighbors with vendettas or who are simply interested in reward money for anti-government militants.

The local Afghan version of what happened is terribly reminiscent of the "bounties for terrorists" system that led to literally tens of thousands of Iraqis being arrested after being fingered by neighbours with grudges. The US military have released 11,000 Iraqi detainees this year and about 20,000 remain in US-run prison camps at Camp Cropper in Baghdad and Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. It's also reminsicent of the bounty system that led to them filling Gitmo with detainees, over 80% of whom were later released without charge.

You'd think by now they'd have worked out that the bounty system isn't working, it's just being used to settle local grudges. That's piss poor COIN doctrine - losing hearts and minds even among the fingerers, who surely see the US as just an unthinking oppressor of whom they can take temporary advantage.

That this 36-year-old gem of snarky, vinyl-based, paleo-blogging was my very first political convention-related memory probably explains an enormous amount.

Open thread below...

My first concert was Sabbath. As I remember it, my little group sat on shelves on top of a stack of speakers the size of the Tetons, in a venue that no longer exists, dodging gunfire, intercepting joints, and screaming either "I just pooped myself in fear?!" or "Is this 'Iron Man'?"

I think they played "Paranoid" but I cannot recall. At this time.

Here's Joe Lieberman praising Obama back in '06. This is more evidence that Joe has attached himself to McCain out of fear of being 'left behind' in the Senate and not because he believes McCain is the right choice for President. (h/t Scarce)

"As far as I'm concerned [Barack Obama] is a 'Baruch,' which means a blessing. He is a blessing to the United States Senate, to America, and to our shared hopes for better, safer tomorrows for all our families. The gifts that God has given to Barack Obama are as enormous as his future is unlimited. As his mentor, as his colleague, as his friend, I look forward to helping him reach to the stars and realize not just the dreams he has for himself, but the dreams we all have for him and our blessed country."

Joe proclaims that Obama will make America safer and said he would help Obama realize all the dreams for our country.Will he say this with pride during the RNC convention? Let's see if the media brings this up when they cover his speech.

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What does it say about Sarah Palin that in her first big appearance before a national audience - her introduction as McCain's running mate - she decided to flat out lie about her accomplishments?

I told Congress -- I told Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks," on that bridge to nowhere.

If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves. Well, it's always, though, safer in politics to avoid risk, to just kind of go along with the status quo. But I didn't get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not why the ship is built.

Politics isn't just a game of competing interests and clashing parties. The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons.

She did that? Well, no. When told that Congress had stripped funding for the bridge, she said she was still in favor of Congressional assistance for that and other Alaskan projects. And when that assistance didn't materialize, she got all sour-grapes about it.

When she finally canceled the $400 million project, Palin lamented the fact that Congress was not more forthcoming with federal funding. She said in a statement at the time:

Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island.

Despite her claims to be a reformer and "govern with integrity", Palin has kept up her relationship with indicted Seanator Ted Stevens, the father of the bridge to nowhere. He endorsed her for Governor in 2006 and, on July 2, 2008, Stevens and Palin held a joint press conference on energy issues. As Steven's hugged Palin she said "I have great respect for the Senator... He needs to be heard across America. His voice, his experience, his passion needs to be heard across America--so that Alaska can contribute more."

Contribute more to what? America's prison population? Republican coffers? What?

Now, both John McCain and Lindsay Graham are repeating Palin's claims. In response to Graham, George Stephanopoulos told him "But Senator, she turned against that, only she campaigned for it in her 2006 race, and turned against it in 2007 only after it became a national joke. "

Then there's the shadow governor, Todd Palin. He sits in on legislative meetings dealing with oil company negotiations while he's still working for BP. He took a very short hiatus back when Palin was first elected Governor but returned quickly to work citing the need for the "extra income". The Governor of Alaska pulls down a six figure salary and the Palin's own three houses - one residential and two recreational.

Oh, I get it now - contribute more to lying to the American public. To serve for the wrong reasons.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

Oh dear. Does Cindy know?

After only one meeting before naming her his running mate and little to no vetting, McCain has decided that Sarah Palin is his "partner and soulmate". Ew, that's a little creepy. Can you imagine him saying that about his true partner, Joe Lieberman, if the GOP hadn't demanded he not pick Holy Joe as his running mate?

McCain continues the lies -- he must really count on the low info voter taking everything at face value -- by claiming he's been following Palin's career for years and years. Oh really? What's McCain doing following a ex-beauty queen turned small town Alaskan mayor's career, because she has hardly had enough time at the Governor's mansion to be tracked for a year, much less years and years? And she stood up against oil interests? That's not what environmentalists are saying. Being FOR drilling in ANWR is hardly standing up against the oil companies.

My favorite line? I don't particularly enjoy the label "maverick"

Yeah, rrrriiiiiiiggggghhhhhtttttt.

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