The McCain Plan for Health Insecurity
By Cernig
At the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. David Blumenthal reviews McCain's healthcare plans - and finds the same old Republican "I'm alright, Jack" philosphy.

America the Banana Republic

The ongoing financial meltdown is just the latest example of a disturbing trend that, to this adoptive American, threatens to put the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave on a par with Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and Equatorial Guinea.
by Christopher Hitchens

John McCain Thinks You Are Stupid

Here's John McCain, speaking today to an audience in Concord, North Carolina:

You might ask: How do you cut income taxes for 95 percent of Americans, when more than 40 percent pay no income taxes right now? How do you reduce the number zero? Well, that's the key to Barack Obama's whole plan: Since you can't reduce taxes on those who pay zero, the government will write them all checks called a tax credit. And the Treasury will have to cover those checks by taxing other people, including a lot of folks just like Joe. In other words, Barack Obama's plan to raise taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it's just another government giveaway.

And here's McCain, again, in the very same speech:

I will provide every single American family with a $5000 refundable tax credit to help them purchase health care insurance.

This is from the prepared remarks, but I assume that's the way he gave the speech. For the last two days or so, his advisers have been attacking Obama's refundable tax credits as "welfare," "socialism," and a "govenrment giveaway," even though--as countless observers have noted--McCain's own health care plan also includes a refundable tax credit.

Presidential campaigns are full of hypocrisy, of course. But I can't remember the last time a candidate was this brazen about it. It makes you wonder what McCain thinks about the public's power of perception.

--Jonathan Cohn

Story of Joe the Plumber springs many leaks

Senator Honorable in the Sewer
Posted by Joe Klein

Back in 2000, in South Carolina, the robocalls--and calls to local right-wing talk radio shows--were about John McCain's "interracial child" and Cindy McCain's drug addiction. They were a craven, disgusting tactic by the George W. Bush campaign. McCain was, rightly, outraged by them.

Now McCain's campaign is making robocalls distorting Barack Obama's non-existent relationship with Bill Ayers:

The call begins: "Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC," before telling recipients that they "need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans."

Now this isn't quite the spew that McCain suffered in South Carolina, but hey, he's got three more weeks to descend to that. Certainly, such calls are not the sort of activity normally attributed to "a man whose courage has never been questioned," as McCain described himself last week. Real men don't hide behind robocalls. It is nowhere near honorable.

But, my friends, I give you John McCain, 2008 edition--John McCain for the history books.

Update: Greg Sargent has all the skeevy robocalls...so far at TPM.

Levi Stubbs, Motown legend 1936-2008

Is McCain really proud of these crowds?
A video record of the hate whipped up by the GOP ticket.
by Joan Walsh

Palin supporters fear "blacks may take over"
by David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Supporters of Sarah Palin attending a rally in St. Clairsville, OH on Sunday were not shy about displaying their racist attitudes and their ignorance about Barack Obama -- along with their very real fears and insecurities -- to al-Jazeera reporter Casey Kauffman.

A Bush Style Whitewash
By Joe Conason —
For anyone who followed the story of how and why Sarah Palin fired her state’s public safety commissioner, last week’s release of a legislative investigation that found she had violated state ethics statutes was anticlimactic.

The Hoover-Palin Ticket
By Robert Scheer —
And the winner is … Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Remember him—the great Democratic president who saved capitalism from the capitalists by reining in their exorbitant greed? Forget the Reagan Revolution heralding a new era of small government, which turned out to be nothing more than a fig leaf for legalized corporate crime. The hero of the hour is FDR.

McCain Loses Again
In a bizarre debate dominated by Joe the Plumber, the GOP candidate failed to break through, and his sarcasm -- again -- will hurt him.
by Joan Walsh

McCain's Last Stand
The Republican senator's final debate performance was marked by oddball characters and marginal attacks, as hopes of his political resurrection appeared to fade.
By Walter Shapiro

THREE FOR THREECBS, CNN, FOX INSTANT REACTION... OBAMA TROUNCES MCCAIN

Watch full debate

Palin Family Values

The damning Troopergate report shows that Gov. Palin is not only unethical, but vindictive.
By Gary Kamiya

What Right Wingers Mean When They Call Obama A "Socialist"
by Adam Serwer
It's no wonder that the tone at McCain rallies reminds Congressman John Lewis of the bad old days. Conservatives are sounding increasingly retro with their attempts to paint Obama as a socialist or communist. These remarks aren't just disingenuous -- they're rooted in a history of conservative smears against black leaders.

The Poor Losers Of The Right

By Cernig

Pundits with conservative sympathies are starting to talk about the "L" word as they contemplate the utter collapse of Republican credibility and a probable scenario where Obama as President is backed by democratic majorities - even fillibuster-proof ones - in both Senate and House.

John McCain's campaign has already tacitly accepted the "landslide" scenario. It's latest tactic is to try to offer a McCain presidency to independents as a balance to Pelosi, something they wouldn't even contemplate if they thought that Republicans weren't going to take a major beating or if McCain had a chance of taking the White House under their own power.

They wouldn't be in such dire straits if the Bush Years hadn't been such a massive disaster in all ways both foreign and domestic, if McCain wasn't seen as just more of the same or if the GOP in general was seen as sensitive to the wants of voters rather than corporate giants and their lobbyists. It's their own damn fault and one of those generational adjustments that takes place whenever a polical party gets too used to idea of power (the permanent Republican majority), too incestuous with the big-money players (K Street Project revolving doors) or too hubristic about its ability to control the world around it (the neocon fantasy of "the end of history" and American hegemony). At some point in the future, it'll be the Democratic Party's turn again, although whether the GOP in its current form will still be around to witness that fall is beginning to be questioned too.

But hardline Republicans' reactions to their impending years in the wilderness are those of sullen and sore losers. They're turning to hate speech, false equivalences, myth-building to cover their own acts and myth-building to excuse their loss.

They're even setting up what Mark Steyn is already calling a "Cold Civil War". As my colleague Ron Beasley writes at Newshoggers:

the bile that will be heaped upon Obama after the election will make even the insanity of the Clinton years look tame in comparison ... the framing of it all being the fault of an illegitimate usurper who befriends terrorists and waves the white flag of surrender to America's enemies will likely find some powerful resonance. Scape-goating our problems always does, which is why we're entering such dangerous times, and it wouldn't surprise me to see Palin carrying the banner for all that insanity as she is now.

The GOP base loves her for it, and are already lining up to defend Palin from the consequences of her abusing power in Alaska, just as she'll be able to count on blaming McCain's "too honorable" campaign as the reason they lost. Get used to her. It's a safe bet you're looking at the future of the Republican Party.

Which is, by the by, why the Republican Party is going to become a whole lot smaller and perhaps even slip into the minor leagues, to be replaced by some new, saner center-right coalition with a new party name.

Still, I worry. The percentage of ultra-right diehards is likely to be enough to kick a few who are crazy enough to try make their long-promised insurrection or armed coup a possibility. Minority nutcases and to be labelled correctly as terrorists - but dangerous nonetheless.

Greenspan’s Reputation in Ruins—Deservedly So
By Amitabh Pal
The biggest bubble blown in the recent past—Alan Greenspan’s reputation—has finally been pricked.