McCain Says Russia-Georgia Conflict First Serious International Crisis Since End Of Cold War

Say what?

McCain: “Sometimes I’m Given To A Little Hyperbole”

Speaking in Aspen on Thursday with the Aspen Institute’s Walter Isaacson, denouncing torture, and  being reminded that he called the Supreme Court decision granting rights to Gitmo detainees “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country”, McCain backed way off that point of view.  In fact he seems to be all over the place on the issue of Habeas Corpus.

h/t Think Progress

Troops Are For Obama 6-1

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, among those deployed overseas at the time they contributed money to a presidential campaign, Obama was the overwhelming favorite in every service branch except the Marines.

Despite McCain’s status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall — whether stationed overseas or at home — are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin. Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel has gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.

 Maybe they realize what the rest of the population does about how we’re fighting the GWOT.

Can You Imagine If Obama Or (Name Your Democrat) Were Photographed With The Flag This Way?

BEIJING – AUGUST 10:  President of the United States, George W. Bush holds up the American Flag the wrong way before wife Laura Bush instructs him to turn it around at the swimming arena at the National Aquatics Center during day 2 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 10, 2008 in Beijing, China.  (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Obama Fights Back Against Corsi Smears

Barack Obama’s campaign will not sit idly by while people with questionable credibility smear him.   Most notably in their sights is Jerome Corsi’s book, which is getting some traction and will be number one on the New York Times best-seller list this weekend (although it should be in the fiction, not non-fiction category).

Politico runs down some of Corsi’s wild theories:

• Hillary Clinton is a lesbian

• Muslims worship Satan

• President Bush has worked to eliminate borders with Mexico and Canada

• John Kerry is a Communist

• Oil is a natural resource that generates naturally

But what should be most damning, especially to conservatives who embrace him for his anti-Obamaism, is his agreement with the 9/11 so-called “Truthers” that the government lied to us about 9/11.  Quoting “Truther” Steven Jones, Corsi tells radio host Alex Jones:

“The fire, from jet fuel, does not burn hot enough to produce the physical evidence that he’s produced,” Mr. Corsi said. “So when you’ve got science that the hypothesis doesn’t explain-evidence-then the hypothesis doesn’t stand anymore. It doesn’t mean there’s a new hypothesis you’ve validated. It just means the government’s explanation of the jet fuel fire is not a sufficient explanation to explain the evidence of these spheres-these microscopic spheres-that Steven Jones has proved existed within the W.T.C. dust.”

On Thursday’s Radio Show…

• Could Gen. Wesley Clark be America’s next vice president? Gen. Clark joins Alan to respond to the speculation.
• Ron Suskind, author of The Way of The World, discusses the fallout from his claim that the Bush administration forged documents linking al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein.
• Obama fights back! Is he the target of a smear campaign? We’ll debate it.

Feel The Love

From: Jonathan
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 10:12 PM
To: Alan
Subject: border

Good thing you talk well because your the goofiest looking guy I’ve ever seen!

From: jose
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 6:34 PM
To: Alan
Subject:

The Fox Network is basically for conservative viewers who are interested in the truth,not for those liberal radicals from the left. You definitely do not belong with that network. You belong with WSNBC or CNN.Move on.

From: Alan
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 6:54 PM
To: Jose
Subject: RE:

I see, so you only want to see your own views represented?

From: Bob
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 6:27 PM
To: Alan
Subject: YOU are a freaking Alien!!

Look at yourself you are so freaking weird looking. Slowly you are becoming the son of the devil…your opinions, your ideals are all going to be a great judgement against you. I hope you enjoy this life because hell is waiting on you freak.

From: Margie
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:23 PM
To: Alan
Subject: help

I can not believe you are so stupid – that you won’t even listen – when someone tries to warn you about the danger of Obama. Are you so willing to sell our country down the drain just to get a Democrat in power. If this man gets elected you will get all you deserve. Surely there is some other liberal that Fox could have in your place.

From: Alan
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 10:19 PM
To: Margie
Subject: RE: help

So Fox should put on only those liberals who don’t support Obama? There should not be a pro-Obama view on Fox?

From: Tim
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:24 PM
To: Alan
Subject: Left eyebrow

Get your left eyebrow fixed, Alan. You look like a cartoon character.

From: Wayne
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:30 PM
To: Alan
Subject: Are you an atheist?

Just wanted to know.

Please reply
Wayne

From: Jeanine
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 9:47 PM
To: Alan
Subject: Your reporting

Alan,

I can not stand your comments, your opinions, your attitude towards your republican guests.

I tried to listen to your radio show (on Sirius) and hate what you say, just as much.

You are SO unappealing, it’s sad. Furthermore, as a Jewish man, you have never stood for any Jewish causes. Pathetic.

You are my least favorite TV personality.

From: Janice
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 10:00 PM
To: Alan
Subject: Program tonight 8/12/08

How did someone with such a Dense mind as yours ever make a TV host. A mistake on your networks’s part I am sure. NO–You just like to argue.

Janice

From: Alan
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 11:04 PM
To: Janice
Subject: RE: Program tonight 8/12/08

No I don’t.

From: Janice
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 5:09 PM
To: Alan
Subject: Re: Program tonight 8/12/08

YES YOU DO

From: Alan
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 8:16 PM
To: Janice
Subject: RE: Program tonight 8/12/08

No I don’t.

From: DG
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 10:07 PM
To: Alan
Subject: You don’t get it

How can you be so stupid? Get you head out of your butt! You are unbeleivable. So dumb.

You are lucky they let you on the air.

From: Kay
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 10:11 PM
To: Alan
Subject: You owe us all, but certainly Sean ,an apology for the shameful things you said and your actions tonight.

You can dish it out, ALAN, but YOU can’t take it. I’ll be glad to see you leave. Sean doesn’t need you and the audience doesn’t need you.

Did no one teach you not to be rude and get right in someone’s face and keep interrupting????? I guess not. You are a disgrace. Get out of tv!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

–
For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.
They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you
a future and a hope.

From: Alan
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 11:44 PM
To: Kay
Subject: RE: YOu owe us all, but certainly Sean ,an apology for the shameful things you said and your actions tonight.

It’s interesting, Kay, that you write such a hateful email to me, followed by such a beautiful quote from the Lord.

From: Kay
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 6:19 PM
To: Alan
Subject: Re: YOu owe us all, but certainly Sean ,an apology for the shameful things you said and your actions tonight.

I wish you would read the verse again and come to know the Lord. He doesn’t promise a life free of problems or people that you don’t like when they lie. You aren’t fair and balanced like Sean… Have you ever read the Bible about the Anti-Christ”?

From: JW
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 12:23 AM
To: Alan
Subject: What will you be doing?

You go from a lying Vet to a Nigger lover. What are you going to do when you face your maker? Oh yeah, that would be Satan, so I guess that you will still be lying.

…even while you are burning and screaming.

Remember, Colmes, this will be for eternity and while you will be all alone in your suffering. There aren’t political parties in hell. Nobody will hear your screams of agony.

From: Greg
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 5:40 PM
To: Alan
Subject: You’re fired!

If I could, you’d be fired for the comments made last night! Maybe you should be locked in an NVA prison, starved, tortured, and denied proper health care! And the thing is, you wouldn’t know from day to day if you were going to live or not to see the sunset that night or the sunrise the next day. And be held where you can’t speak the language. You are such a wimp, you couldn’t last 1 day. You should be ashamed of yourself. I DEMAND AN APOLOGY on the show tonight from you to Sen. McCain and the other Veterans of the Vietnam War and the other P.O.W.s. You insulted more people than you can imagine. If I don’t hear an apology tonight, I will contact Fox News Channel and begin a petition for your dismissal. Your choice! This is not an idle threat. I will see to it you are removed if I don’t hear an apology. Just think how many veterans and former P.O.W.s there are.

Detainee Dies In US Custody

Hiu Lui Ng was a computer engineer who worked in New York’s Empire State Building. He lived in America since 1992, and had a wife and two American-born sons. After going to immigration headquarters in New york last summer to be interviewed for a green card, he was swept up into immigration detention and moved about between jails and detention centers.  He died on Wednesday, August 6, two days after his 34th birthday, after four months of excruciating back pain, during which he could not walk or stand.  His cancer-riddled body had gone undiagnosed and untreated during this time.  The New York Times has the rest of the story:

Mr. Ng’s death follows a succession of cases that have drawn Congressional scrutiny to complaints of inadequate medical care, human rights violations and a lack of oversight in immigration detention, a rapidly growing network of publicly and privately run jails where the government held more than 300,000 people in the last year while deciding whether to deport them.

In federal court affidavits, Mr. Ng’s lawyers contend that when he complained of severe pain that did not respond to analgesics, and grew too weak to walk or even stand to call his family from a detention pay phone, officials accused him of faking his condition. They denied him a wheelchair and refused pleas for an independent medical evaluation.

Instead, the affidavits say, guards at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., dragged him from his bed on July 30, carried him in shackles to a car, bruising his arms and legs, and drove him two hours to a federal lockup in Hartford, where an immigration officer pressured him to withdraw all pending appeals of his case and accept deportation.

Of course, you have to wonder how it could have gotten to this point.

In 2001, a notice ordering him to appear in immigration court was mistakenly sent to a nonexistent address, records show. When Mr. Ng did not show up at the hearing, the judge ordered him deported. By then, however, he was getting married, and on a separate track, his wife petitioned Citizenship and Immigration Services for a green card for him – a process that took more than five years. Heeding bad legal advice, the couple showed up for his green card interview on July 19, 2007, only to find enforcement agents waiting to arrest Mr. Ng on the old deportation order.

So, Mr. Ng died, not just of cancer, but because of disdain and disgust for immigrants, because of bureaucratic incompetence, because a society that claims a high moral ground and claims to care for the sick, the needy the unfortunate, really doesn’t.  After being warned by authorities that if the came to visit him, he’d be transferred, a warden finally approved a family visit, when he had just hours left to live. His sister, Wendy Zhao, spoke he last words to him:

“Brother, don’t worry, don’t be afraid,” Ms. Zhao said, repeating her last words to him. “They are not going to send you back to the facility again. Brother, you are free now.”

Yes, America finally gave Mr. Ng the freedom for which he longed.   Death will set you free.

The Beautiful New McCain Family Book

Meghan McCain’s book My Dad, John Mccain.

It looks beautiful. Sentimental. Full of images of the McCain legacy.  The story of a hero.

McCain iconography: there’s a drawing of his cadet head shot from the Naval Academy, as well as a rendition of a still-recuperating McCain’s meeting with Richard Nixon following his return from Vietnam. McCain is also depicted sitting forlornly in his Hanoi prison cell.

The book is recommended for children between ages 5 and 10, but it contains a mild dose of the politics, including some of the McCain campaign’s over-arching themes, particularly the notion that McCain “puts his country first.”

It’s a family story, too!

Cindy McCain, along with Meghan’s siblings Jack, Jimmy and Bridget, are described fondly in the book…

There’s just one little thing left out.  That would be John McCain’s three children from his first marriage: Douglas and Andrew, Carol McCain’s two children who McCain adopted, and Sidney, the daughter they had together.

On Wednesday’s Radio Show…

• Obama Communications Director Robert Gibbs brings Alan the inside scoop from the campaign trail.
• Will high-profile black Republicans cross party lines on Election Day? Former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts weighs in.
• Do people just drive you NUTS? Dick Meyer, author of Why We Hate Us, dissects America’s biggest pet peeves.

John Kerry Won’t Let Obama Be Swift-Boated

That’s why he’s started Truth Fights Back.

Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Shot Dead

Bill Gwatney was shot in his Little Rock office and died a few hours later.  The gunman fired three shots, and was followed in a 25-mile chase by police who eventually shot and killed him as well.

Just before noon, Mr. Gwatney’s secretary burst into a florist shop across the street from the party headquarters, said Sarah Lee, a sales clerk there. “She was saying that somebody was in her office shooting a gun, and she didn’t know if he had been hit,” Ms. Lee said. “She was just screaming, so we got her behind the counter and locked the door because we didn’t know if someone was following her.”

The secretary said a man had come into the party headquarters and insisted on seeing the chairman, whose office is the first room behind the reception desk, Ms. Lee said. When the secretary tried to put him off, by offering him bumper stickers, he walked past her into the office. “He kept saying he needed to see the chairman, and then just went around her and started shooting,” Ms. Lee said.

Unfit For Publication

Jerome Corsi, who did a hit book (ie a “swift boat”) on John Kerry,  is doing the same thing to Obama.  He claimed his book is “fair and balanced”, in spite of his one-sided source material and stated intent to use the book to stop Obama from becomming president, and in spite of his inability to say one positive thing about his candidacy.

COLMES: All right, Dr. Corsi, we’re very limited on time here. Still some ground I want to cover.

Tell me two good things about Obama.

CORSI: He reads a good speech off a teleprompter. That’s number one. And I do admire his suits. He dresses extremely well.

COLMES: So on the surface he can read off a teleprompter.

CORSI: He does very well. One of the best I’ve seen.

COLMES: In terms of the depth – does he have any good policy positions?

CORSI: He’s a radical, as I say. And he’s good.

COLMES: No, no. Does he have any good policy positions? Name one thing you agree with him on.

CORSI: One thing I agree with him on. Let’s see. How much time do I have?

COLMES: You can’t think of one thing?

CORSI: I can think of nothing that comes to mind immediately.

COLMES: Not one thing that you agree. He’s a radical.

CORSI: He’s a radical in his policies.

COLMES: He shouldn’t be president. He’s going to ruin the country, and we should all be scared that he can speak fluent Arabic.

CORSI: You’re taking it to the extreme.

COLMES: Yes, I’m taking it to the extreme here.

CORSI: You’re trying to say.

COLMES: That’s exactly what I’m doing.

CORSI: What I’m saying is, Alan.

HANNITY: He’s an extremist.

COLMES: I’m taking it to the extreme. That’s exactly what I’m doing.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: He can speak fluent Arabic,

CORSI: OK,

COLMES: And he knows people like Odinga.

CORSI: My whole point is.

COLMES: . and we’ve got to be really scared about him, right?

CORSI: . let’s get the truth about him on the record. When he says he has never had Islamic instruction, that’s not true. When he says he doesn’t know what, you know, Minister Wright.

COLMES: No, he said he’s not – he’s not Muslim. That’s not true.

CORSI: OK, well he says never was a Muslim. He was registered with his stepfather as a Muslim in Indonesia.

COLMES: If he was born to a father who happened to be Muslim that’s not as a child making a decision to be a Muslim.

CORSI: Well, in six to 10, I mean he was – let’s get the record straight. Let’s have him say yes, I was Islamic at that time.

COLMES: And so what if you’re a Muslim? Is that supposed to scare people?

CORSI: No, but I want the truth told.

COLMES: But is that supposed to scare people that oh my god he’s a Muslim?

CORSI: No, I didn’t say.

COLMES: He knows Arabic, he knew Odinga.

CORSI: I want the truth told.

COLMES: We’re supposed to be scared, right?

CORSI: Alan, you’re, again, trying to take it right back to the – you set me up. I’m trying to scare everybody.

COLMES: Yes.

CORSI: I’m trying to tell people the truth. People from there can make their own judgment.

COLMES: All your.

CORSI: That’s what the book was about.

COLMES: Your quote mostly right wing sources.

(CROSSTALK)

COLMES: You (INAUDIBLE) Andy Martin who takes credit.

CORSI: Alan.

COLMES: . who’s spreading that he’s a Muslim.

CORSI: I’ve got 680 footnotes in there.

HANNITY: The “New York Times”.

CORSI: Over a hundred books cited in here. This book – I go to the Kenyan newspapers, the Indonesian newspapers. I go to primary sources.

COLMES: You go to “World Net Daily” from whom you work, you go to Andy Martin, you go to mostly conservative.

CORSI: It was 680 sources in there.

COLMES: And mostly anti-Obama sources.

CORSI: Look, there – the sources that are primarily are primary sources. They’re sources – the books, for instance, Reverend Wright says go to James Cone.

COLMES: You don’t claim it’s a fair and balance quote, right?

CORSI: I go to James Cone. No, I think it is a fair and balance.

COLMES: Really?

CORSI: And I’ll support it as a fair and balance book. And I’ll yet to debate.

COLMES: So give me the – you didn’t give me one positive thing where you agree with Obama if it’s fair and balance.

CORSI: Why do I have to agree with Obama on any particular point?

(CROSSTALK)

CORSI: Once I analyze where radical income distribution, taxing, as the policy positions, and much weaker.

COLMES: That’s an opinion.

CORSI: Well, those are the points I’m arguing in those speeches and presentations.

Wednesday’s New York Times has a page one story on the book.

Significant parts of the book, whose subtitle is “Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,” have already been challenged as misleading or false in the days since its debut on Aug. 1. Nonetheless, it is to make its first appearance on The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction hardcovers this Sunday – at No. 1….

The goal is to defeat Obama,” Mr. Corsi said in a telephone interview. “I don’t want Obama to be in office.”

He said he was planning to aid several conservative groups that intend to run advertisements against Mr. Obama this fall, though he would not name them.

Mary Matalin, the former Cheney advisor who runs the imprint that put out this book, claims the book is not political, and even more astoundingly, says the book is “a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that.”

Oh yeah?

Several of the book’s accusations, in fact, are unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate.

For instance, Mr. Corsi writes that Mr. Obama had “yet to answer” whether he “stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or whether his drug usage extended to his law school days or beyond.” “How about in the U.S. Senate?” Mr. Corsi asks.

But Mr. Obama, who admitted to occasional marijuana and cocaine use in his high school and early college years, wrote in his memoir that he had “stopped getting high” when he moved to New York in the early 1980s. And in 2003 The State Journal-Register of Springfield, Ill., quoted him responding to a question of his drug use by saying, “I haven’t done anything since I was 20 years old.”

In an interview, Mr. Corsi said “self-reporting, by people who have used drugs, as to when they stopped is inherently unreliable.”

But we can believe the “self-reporting” of Jerome Corsi.  Right?

Is Adultery Ever Okay?

This Is What I Get For Mentioning McCain’s Adultery

I am not defending John Edwards. But we got into it on H&C about whether a different standard should be applied to John McCain because he was in the Hanoi Hilton. But during that time, his wife waited patiently for him to return, only to be rejected and cheated upon. But by bringing this up I have provoked lots of reaction, more of which will be posted later today.

From: wally
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 10:28 PM
To: Alan
Subject: 08/12/08 HANNITY & COLMES SHOW

YOU’RE PATHETIC. YOU’VE SUNK TO A NEW LOW THE WAY YOU’VE  DISRESPECTED A POW AFTER HE RETURNS HOME FROM BEING BEATEN FOR FIVE YEARS. DON’T YOU GET HOW DIFFICULT IT MUST HAVE BEEN FOR MCCAIN AND HIS WIFE? THAT IS ON SUCH A DIFFERENT LEVEL THAN THIS EDWARDS DEAL. ARE YOU THAT BLIND OR JUST PLAIN STUPID?

IT SHOULD BE COWARDS LIKE YOU WHO ARE TAKEN PRISONERS OF WAR. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT? … A COWARD LIKE YOU COULDN’T HANDLE IT. GUYS LIKE YOU NEED THEIR MAMA TO CRY TO WHEN THINGS GET ROUGH. GUYS LIKE YOU NEED TO HAVE THE TEACHER AROUND SO YOU CAN TELL ON SOMEONE.

I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU GOT YOUR BREAK IN SHOW-BIZ BUT YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. YOU’RE A DISGRACE TO THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL.

I HOPE YOUR PRODUCERS READ THIS E-MAIL BECAUSE I PREDICT THE HANNITY & SHITHEAD SHOW WILL LOSE IN RATINGS BECAUSE OF YOUR DISRESPECTFUL COMMENTS TOWARDS MCCAIN. YOU ARE NOT CAPABLE 95% OF THE TIME IN MAKING INTELLIGENT ARGUMENTS IN DEBATES ON THIS PROGRAM AND IT’S JUST UTTERLY RIDICULOUS FOR FOX TO EMPLOY SUCH PINHEADS LIKE YOU.

IT MUST BE SOME TYPE OF AFFIRMATIVE ACTION THING TO WHERE THEY ARE LEGALLY BOUND TO HIRE ONE PINHEAD OUT OF THE HUNDREDS OR EVEN THOUSANDS OF EMPLOYEES FOX NEWS NETWORK HAS.