The Hollywood Liberal

AP
CLEVELAND – Republican John McCain said President Bush should not be held responsible for the much-criticized “Mission Accomplished” banner five years ago…
McCain said he can’t blame Bush for the banner. After shifting explanations, the White House eventually said the “Mission Accomplished” phrase referred to the carrier’s crew completing its 10-month mission, not the military completing its mission in Iraq…
Do I blame him for that specific banner? I can’t,” McCain said. “But I do say that statements are made, ‘a few dead-enders,’

HL’s Take
Yeah John we know. Nothing was Bush’s fault. He has been the perfect President. Iraq is not Bush’s fault, neither is the economy, or the housing crisis. New Orleans was not Bush’s fault. Everything just sort of happened. Can’t blame the President for that. The Mainstream media certainly doesn’t blame him for anything. You can tell because everytime they write a story about anything that is going on they never even mention his name. According to them Bush is just like Jefferson. So why should we blame him for anything.

McCain’s Privacy Could Hurt Campaign
Karl Rove calls it “politically troubling” that Sen. John McCain “is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history.”

“When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal.”

Monmouth Poll: New Jersey Likely to Stay Blue
While several previous polls suggested Sen. John McCain might make New Jersey competitive this fall, a new Monmouth University poll shows Sen. Barack Obama beating McCain, 56% to 32%, and Sen. Hillary Clinton winning, 52% to 38%.

Meanwhile, “all signs point to Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) being in a strong position for re-election in both the primary and general elections.”

Open Thread

There are other things going on in the world beyond a discussion about a pastor. For example, Atrios writes:

It appears the Atlantic has hired a pretentious commentless blogging git whose gullible advocacy led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. How he manages to live with himself is a mystery, and why The Atlantic thinks we should live with him is a deeper one.

Surprisingly, Atrios is not discussing Andrew Sullivan. With Obama love, all is forgiven.

This is an Open Thread.

The Heloc Years
Even though I’ve seen quite a few of these, I just continue to be stunned at the amount of fake equity people were pulling out of their homes. “They put in $15,600 and took out $599,800. ”

What We Can Learn From Woodrow Wilson
Wilson’s idealistic vision of democracy and self-determination around the world should serve as a model for the Democrats’ foreign policy.

Who’s Illegal? The Politics of Immigration
For every Minuteman who beats his chest at the border, there are many more immigration rights supporters.

Just goes to show what a total bunch of Whores they are

Fox News To Run DNC’s Ad Attacking McCain
This is fun. A Democratic National Committee spokesperson confirms to me that the DNC, somewhat puckishly, asked Fox News if the network would run its ad attacking McCain over his 100-years Iraq talk — and that Fox has agreed. The…

HL’s Take:
Wow, do you believe that. How the mighty have fallen. Fox news must be really hurting for revenue. They are going to run attack ads against their own boy McCain. Not only that but they are having Hillary on the O’rielly factor. His ratings must be in the toilet. That fool ruled the broadcast landscape a few short years ago. Of course like Limbaugh, they probably want Hillary to win because they think McCain has a better chance of beating her. Or is it that The Bush Clinton alliance is really all about the same objectives? That’s why it has to be Obama for the Dem.
Screw you Fox news, choke on it. You are a big reason that so many uninformed (or should I say lied to) people supported the war and Bush from the start. Now they are losing there homes and their jobs, can’t afford food or health care. Maybe Fox should be come a full time Liberal station and fire that idiot O’rielly, they would make more money.

TPMtv: McCain’s Yes, No, Maybe on Iraq
Behind the recent “100 years” brouhaha has been Sen. McCain’s claim that we should be seeing our occupation of Iraq following the model of our long-term troop deployments in Germany, Japan and South Korea. But yesterday, the Huffington Post noted…

Economist: Future shocks could spark depression
Economist: Future shocks could spark depression

Paulson: bad time for 2nd stimulus
No more stimulus packages for now, but Paulson will be watching.

Judge Walton: Bush’s commutation of Libby sentence creates impression of unequal justice.
U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton sentenced Scooter Libby to 2.5 years in prison after a jury convicted the former White House staffer of lying to federal prosecutors and impeding an investigation into leak of a former CIA agent’s identity. Walton’s sentence was overturned by President Bush’s commutation order last July. In an interview with […]

U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton sentenced Scooter Libby to 2.5 years in prison after a jury convicted the former White House staffer of lying to federal prosecutors and impeding an investigation into leak of a former CIA agent’s identity. Walton’s sentence was overturned by President Bush’s commutation order last July. In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Walton said that, while he respected the president’s authority to issue the commutation, Bush’s actions create an impression of unequal justice under the law:

Walton, whom Bush nominated to the District of Columbia bench, acknowledged Tuesday that Bush’s decision was part of the system, but he also said it fed some people’s notion that justice isn’t equal.

“The president has that authority and exercised it, and that has to be respected,” said Walton, who is to speak Thursday in Milwaukee at a literacy event.

“The downside is there are a lot of people in America who think that justice is determined to a large degree by who you are and that what you have plays a large role in what kind of justice you receive. … It is crucial that the American public respect the rule of law, or people won’t follow it.”

“I believe firmly you apply the law and apply it strictly,” Walton said from his chambers in Washington. “I don’t give white-collar criminals a pass.”

Lawmakers to See Secret Documents
The Justice Department yesterday agreed to grant lawmakers limited access to secret memos that authorized CIA interrogation strategies, an offer that Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) immediately criticized as “certainly too late . . . and too little, as well.”