A fall full of moments like these will be entertaining. You have to wonder if there is video.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you."

The correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia, according to his staff. Newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties.

The McCain family has proved to be out of touch before. These aren't harmless little gotcha moments. This sort of thing is a threat to your pocketbook.

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

In a PressThink post, Jay Rosen takes issue with our recently published forum on Barack Obama. We asked two dozen thinkers and writers, "Is Barack Obama exaggerating when he compares his campaign to the great progressive moments in US history?"

Writes Rosen, "Obama really said something like that? His campaign is a 'movement' comparable to, say, the civil rights movement, or to second wave feminism, or to the labor movement after the industrial revolution? If so, I had missed it."

Rosen is really insistent on this point. He also writes, "any statement from the candidate himself that compared Obama '08 to the great movements for freedom and justice in our history would have been quite the controversy, what with the McCain camp already mocking his messiah complex and calling him "The One." Why would Mother Jones, a progressive magazine, accuse Obama of the same thing McCain is attacking him for?"

To answer the question that ends that passage, we may be a progressive magazine, but we're still journalists who believe in refereeing and commenting on the campaign as fairly as we can. Nothing we write is in service of the Obama campaign and its goals. Occasionally, we'll write posts and articles that hurt Obama; the New Republic, the Nation, and the American Prospect all do the same.

But to Rosen's larger point — Obama does indeed put himself in a historical context alongside the great progressive movements of the last century. Here are four examples, one of which Rosen has already seen. They get long. Feel free to skim. Also feel free to visit the links to get a better sense of context.

[Read more]

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

Take a look at this.

If there is some point here relevant to the headlines — beyond the fact that Obama is pro-choice — I don't know what it is. I'm not sure it matters. This is so foul is goes beyond any standard of good taste and common decency. I tend to give satire a pretty wide berth; this is beyond the pale.

Barack Obama beating fetuses with a bloody baseball bat in a dumpster? I can't even look at it for more than a few seconds.

Here's the thing. A few years back I had a coworker who wrote a feminist blog on the side. We used to joke about the way hardcore pro-lifers saw her, as an activist for abortion rights. "They probably think you eat fetuses in a bowl for breakfast," I would say. "With chopsticks!" she would respond.

We knew it was over the top. It was ridiculous. It was parody. And apparently, stunningly, it had elements of truth.

Update: Here's what this is about. As you would guess, it in no way justifies this cartoon. And EF makes a great point in the comments — if Democrats produced something equally disgusting about John McCain, there would be a backlash with serious consequences. It would start, of course, with Fox News, the in-house network of the Republican Party.

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

Joe Biden, a leading contender for VP if you believe the buzz, was the least wealthy member of the last Senate and is likely near the bottom in this Senate.

Now, there is nothing inherently ennobling about being poor (I'd be a better man if there were), and there is nothing inherently corrupting about being rich. But the fact that Biden has been in the Senate for 35 years and hasn't seen his personal fortune blossom means that he hasn't used his position, and all the connections and insider knowledge that come with it, as a cash register. It's an easy thing to do without ever overstepping legal boundaries.

Biden has chosen not to. I think that speaks to his priorities and why, fundamentally, he is in Washington.

• Print
• Email
• Tweet