Yet more catch-up:
+ This Matt Bai piece on McCain was an absolute must read. I had planned to comment extensively on it, but no time, apparently. So just go read it.
+ Rather than try to explain how lost McCain has so often been on so many different issues, this video let's him do it all in his own words:
I can hear it now... Flip flop! Flip flop! Flip flop!
+ Check out what former Sen. Chafee has to say about his former colleague, John McCain. And what current Sen. Chuck Hagel has to say as well. Wow.
+ Last bit on McCain. VoteVets comes swinging:
You can imagine Sen. Webb appearing in something like this during the fall campaign, can't you?
+ Don't look now, but SecDef Gates is openly contradicting both his boss, the current President of the United States, and the man who would replace him. OK, that was the last bit on McCain.
+ Rachel Maddow sat down with Geraldine Ferraro yesterday on the Today Show for some serious must-see TV.
Hillary was attacked by other candidates back when she was the frontrunner, so that's proof of sexism for Ferraro, who reports that she responded by making a dumb joke about men. She says she doesn't want another woman attacked "like that ever again" - any and all attacks are a sign of misguided misunderstanding - but then attacks Obama by pointing to instances where she believes he was overtly sexist: his joke about Clinton thinking she's Annie Oakley, and his Jay-Z "brush your shoulders off" reference. But as even Rachel Maddow pointed out, neither of those had anything to do with gender whatsoever. Ferraro was then forced to admit that she didn't realize it was a reference to Jay-Z, but then claims that this truth doesn't matter because it is her perception that counts, not reality.
It's all quite sad, watching her descent into self-parody. What matters, she says, isn't the intent of the speaker but the perception of the listener. Objective reality isn't important. If she feels it, it is real. It's amazing how corrosive the mindset of victimhood can become, isn't it?
But in the end I must admit... It must be very, very hard for the former congresswoman to live a life of endless oppression. Maybe one day she'll manage to overcome the endless series of obstacles that confront her on a daily basis, allowing her find some small measure of success in this world.
+ The DOJ has just released a long awaited report on the FBI's involvement in abusive interrogations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, and Marcy Wheeler has dug through all of the details so that you don't have to. As has so often been the case with this administration, it blocked the investigators from looking into the role White House officials played in crafting these policies. But although it leaves unanswered some of the most important questions in this whole sorry affair, it nevertheless still manages to get us closer to the truth. In Wheeler's words, "Make no mistake, though, the implication is that Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, Dick Cheney, and Rummy did nothing apparent to resolve the inter-Agency tensions about torture."
+ And speaking of Gitmo, check this out:
Buried in a Department of Justice report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there.
Because the Uighurs oppose their communist masters, they have been deemed terrorists by the Chinese government. In the face of oppression, some of them have no doubt radicalized. But allowing Chinese officials to come to Gitmo to interrogate them? What has become of my country?
+ I made brief reference to the trial of the 20th hijacker a few days back, suggesting that the dismissal of his case made clear that the evidence against him was insufficient to proceed to trial. Turns out I was wrong. His case wasn't dismissed for a lack of evidence; it was dismissed because our treatment of him has literally driven him insane. As a result, his case was dismissed. We'll never know whether he was guilty or innocent.
+ SurveyUSA has a series of polls in the field testing various VP pairings in some key swing states. The results from PA are in, and they're quite encouraging. Not only is Obama likely to win there this fall, but if he picks the right VP candidate, it will be a blowout. Unfortunately, SUSA didn't see fit to include Sen. Webb in the pairings, a mistake I hope they make up for soon.
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