The Hollywood Liberal

Johnson Steps Away from Veep Search
James Johnson said he is leaving Sen. Barack Obama’s vice presidential search committee after the Wall Street Journal reported over the weekend that he may have received preferential mortgage terms from a financial institution, according to Bloomberg.

Johnson said he was quitting “to avoid being a hindrance to Obama’s presidential campaign.”

As First Read noted this morning, “the campaign seemed surprisingly unprepared for the vetting of the vetter.”

McCain On The Troops Coming Home From Iraq: “Not Too Important”
McSame is getting absolutely hammered today for his comments this morning on Good Morning Lauer. LAUER: “If it’s [the surge] working, Senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?” McCAIN: “No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany.

McSame is getting absolutely hammered today for his comments about Iraq on Good Morning Lauer.

LAUER: “If it’s [the surge] working, Senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?”

McCAIN: “No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine.“

What’s noteworthy here is that this is pretty much word-for-word what he said in his now famous 100-years-in-Iraq pledge, even down to the word, “fine.”

Q: “President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years…”

McCain: “Make it a hundred.”

Q: “Is that …” (cut off)

McCain: “We’ve been in South Korea … we’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans …as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. That’s fine with me, I hope that would be fine with you…”

Make no mistake — this is not some gaffe or Macaca moment. It’s quite clear that McSame, like Bush, wants to occupy Iraq forever. And Americans will have a clear choice in November between indefinite occupation and getting out as quickly as possible.

Marshall:

The problem for the McCain campaign is that he keeps stumbling into clear statements of his actual policy, which is close to lethal since the vast majority of Americans disagree with his policy and Iraq is virtually the only thing he’s running on.

Oh well.

How To Read A Poll: Part X

The NBC/WSJ Poll that has Obama leading McCain 47-41, also has a lesson in reading a poll. Let’s look at this excerpt from the poll:

Twenty-two percent say that adding Clinton as Obama’s vice presidential running mate makes them more likely to vote for Obama in November; 21 percent say it makes them less likely to vote for him; and 55 percent say it makes no difference.

Hmmm. That does not sound very good. Sounds like Clinton is a wash at best. Ahh, but let’s learn about how to read a poll. What is the real effect?

An Obama-Clinton ticket defeats a GOP one of McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by nine points, 51-42 percent.

Ahhh. Clinton pushes Obama over the magic 50% mark, up 4 to 51 from 47. That is called winning folks. It just goes to show you how meaningless some poll questions can be. And the more likely/less likely question is one of the most useless of all.

This is now a consistent finding – Clinton puts Obama over the top, adding 3-5 points to the ticket. It is time for a reality check on this — Obama can put the election away with his VP pick – by choosing Hillary Clinton.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Up 6
I guess now that we’re in general election mode I can mention polls again. Obama up 47-41 in latest WSJ/NBC poll.

I doubt McCain will ever go much below that, the question is whether the Obama can gain with the undecideds and others.

McCain Campaign: Dems Took “Not Too Important” Quote Out Of Context
The McCain campaign is battling back hard against the criticism of his claim today that it’s “not too important” when the troops come home from Iraq. The McCain camp sent out this video of the fuller context of his remarks…

Phase II: What Was Missing
Last week the Senate intel committee released their report on pre-war intelligence in Iraq, which confirmed the disconnect between intelligence information espoused by Bush Administration officials and what was actually known. The parameters of Phase II were negotiated between Senate…

US to Iran: World has lost patience
Rice rips ‘foot-dragging’; targeted strike on Iran sites again under discussion.

BooMan: McCain’s imperialism
…Whether you’re a progressive, a paleoconservative, or a libertarian, there is so much wrong with McCain’s worldview that it’s hard to know where to begin. For those of us that have long questioned America’s forward-leaning foreign policy of maintaining military bases in nearly 200 foreign countries, McCain’s lazy acceptance of century-long foreign occupations is discordant, to say the least…

O?Reilly Uses Heavily Edited Ambush Segment To Attack Moyers As ?Rude,? ?A Fanatic,? ?A Crazy Guy,? ?Scary?
Deploying one of his favorite tactics, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly sent out a “reporter” last week to ambush PBS journalist Bill Moyers, at a journalism conference. The reporter, Porter Barry, accused Moyers of not “having the courage” to come on the O’Reilly Factor. Moyers replied, “I will come on Bill O’Reilly’s show after he […]

Deploying one of his favorite tactics, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly sent out a “reporter” last week to ambush PBS journalist Bill Moyers, at a journalism conference. The reporter, Porter Barry, accused Moyers of not “having the courage” to come on the O’Reilly Factor. Moyers replied, “I will come on Bill O’Reilly’s show after he accepts my invitation to come on my show, unedited, a whole hour. I’ll give him a whole hour.” He added, “But let’s see if that message gets on the air.”

Unsurprisingly, O’Reilly chose to air only a tiny portion of the ambush on his show Monday night. He praised Barry’s performance, saying “he handled himself well.” O’Reilly’s “body language expert,” Tonya Reiman, agreed, saying that Barry “handled himself beautifully.” Unsurprisingly, O’Reilly used the segment to launch personal attacks on Moyers:

– “Now, it doesn’t matter what he says. It’s just pure rank propaganda.”

– “Isn’t that rude? No, really?”

– “Look, he’s a real fanatic, this Moyers. He’s like a crazy guy.”

– “Moyers is scary.”

Watch it:

O’Reilly has never been one to mince words about his dislike of Moyers. In April, though he judiciously said he would wait to “really hang Moyers” until he saw Moyers’ entire interview with controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright, O’Reilly said the two should “take a long vacation, perhaps in Iran.” More recently, he was forced to issue a correction for falsely reporting that Moyers didn’t provide his employees with health insurance.

During that same episode, O’Reilly ironically claimed, “We’re not fans of Mr. Moyers, but he does deserve to be treated fairly.”

Watch the full ambush of Moyers that O’Reilly hid from his viewers here.

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Transcript: (more…)

Comedians Of Clout
The Onion newspaper jokingly dissects how Barack Obama calculates his every facial expression to convey the countenance of Inspirational Leadership. Jon Stewart jests that Obama strikes poses so evocative of the forefathers on our currency, he’s not campaigning merely for president but rather is…

A Welcome Flip-Flop – Washington Post

Sustaining Growth is Century’s Challenge
Martin Wolf, Financial Times