Centerblue.org

I think it’s fair to say that McCain’s campaign is imploding.

1) Nero fiddling while Rome burns (or is it Daniel vs. the lions?): Hoping to look like a hero and in control of the dire financial crisis, he swooped into Washington to inject presidential politics into a very delicate compromise happening between Bush, Democrats, and Senate Republicans. Instead, he observed passively without saying a word for the majority of a meeting called by Bush at the White House, and towards the end he garbled something unintelligible that vaguely sounded like he was siding with a conservative House Republican revolt against the plan. The compromise fell apart later in the day.

McCain is now in the unenviable position of being in between Bush/Democrats/Senate Republicans who are trying to save the nation from financial ruin on the one hand, and renegade conservative House Republicans who despise McCain but whose constituents McCain cannot afford to lose on Election Day. Who knows how this will play out, especially because a lot of Americans do sympathize with the House Republican position to some extent–but right now it’s looking like a nasty vise for McCain.

2) “Crawling to your corner and hiding behind your blanket”: this is how Barbara Boxer framed McCain threatening to walk out of the first debate tonight, and it was painful to watch. But various polls I’ve seen agree with her: most Americans want McCain there tonight. A president needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, and attending some high level meetings where you hardly say a word is no excuse for failing to come before the frightened American people and present your case for why you should be the one to lead this mess in a few weeks.

3) Palin plunge: Did anyone see the horrendously embarrassing performance Palin put on for Katie Couric? This would be all over the news if it weren’t for Debate-gate. Here’s the bit about Putin “rearing his head”:

And then there was this little gem, where a question about the $700+ billion bailout devolved into an unintelligible set of talking points about healthcare:

Her answer was so nonsensical that she reminded me of this answer given during the Miss Teen USA contest last year:

Former Palin defender Glenn Greenwald put it best:

Sarah Palin’s performance in the tiny vignettes of unscripted dialogue in which we’ve been allowed to see her has been nothing short of frightening — really, as I said, pity-inducing. And I say that as someone who has thought from the start that the criticisms of her abilities — as opposed to her ideology — were much too extreme. One of two things is absolutely clear at this point: she is either (a) completely ignorant about the most basic political issues — a vacant, ill-informed, incurious know-nothing, or (b) aggressively concealing her actual beliefs about these matters because she’s petrified of deviating from the simple-minded campaign talking points she’s been fed and/or because her actual beliefs are so politically unpalatable, even when taking into account the right-wing extremism that is permitted, even rewarded, in our mainstream. I’m not really sure which is worse, but it doesn’t really matter, because with 40 days left before the election, both options are heinous.

This is all quite apart from the new story in today’s Washington Post about how Gov. Palin accepted $25,000 in gifts from industry executives and others. So much for being a reform-minded maverick!

As I said–”ka-boom.”

In an interview with the Omaha World-Herald, Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel on Sarah Palin:

“‘She doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials. You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don’t know what you can say. You can’t say anything.”

…

“‘I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, “I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia. That kind of thing is insulting to the American people.’”

…

“‘I think it’s a stretch to, in any way, to say that she’s got the experience to be president of the United States.”

Ouch!

The media is finally starting to do its homework, and a narrative about McCain’s campaign is beginning to emerge: that they’re liars, willing to lose their integrity to win the election. Obama better pound this point home–because if McCain is going to spread lies, he deserves to have them thrown back at him.

A blizzard of “you’re a liar” coverage has emerged against McCain/Palin in recent days:

–McCain’s claims that Obama would raise taxes were called a lie–by none other than Fox News! So did the Washington Post’s editorial and factcheck.org.

–On McCain’s claim that Obama supported sex ed for kindergarteners when in fact he favored a bill in committee that would have optionally taught kids how to protect themselves from predators in language they understand, he was called a liar to his face before millions of people watching the View program with Barbara Walters.

–On that same show he was similarly called to the mat for the whole “lipstick on a pig” silly brouhaha, which has been exposed as the empty and irrelevant indignation that it was.

–On Palin’s claim that she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere/pork barrel spending, we now know she was for it before she was against it.

–Along the same vein, her current claim (repeated by McCain on the View and then rejected by the hosts as another lie) that she opposed Alaska earmarks was flatly false, as she in fact requested $750 million in special federal spending from Congress–by far the largest request per capita for any state in the union.

–McCain has been crowing about large crowd sizes and claiming the numbers are backed up by fire marshals, the Secret Service and other officials. Now we hear that those officials are saying they have provided no such estimates and are unable to do so.

–Palin and McCain said she had been in Iraq, when in fact she had not.

A pattern of lying is extremely relevant in figuring out how a future administration would lead the country. I can’t remember a candidate, even Bush, that has simply and baldly lied as much as McCain has, in hopes that the speed of the Internet will make the lies true in the minds of people. Shameful.