I can foresee almost no situation in which this is true. Perhaps this is just my optimism about the American people showing through, but it seems to me that only the most slobberingly patriotic will be skittish enough to scurry to McCain over a few comments critical of American foreign policy from a potential first lady.

Voting for Sen. McCain is a legitimate political choice; voting for him out of irrational dislike for Michelle Obama is not. Being proud of the United States is a legitimate sentiment(one I share), though there is a difference between blind pride and pride with an ability to hear criticism and maintain some sense of rationality.

It is precisely for this reason that when every election rolls around and the low turnout is decried by the media, it is celebrated by me.

“I’d put my money on Eric Holder, the guy who helped Marc Rich get his presidential pardon from the waning days of the Clinton administration.”

We can make whatever snotty comment we please about the use of the pardoning power, but until it’s constitutionally amended the president may of course pardon whomever he pleases (or commute whichever sentence he pleases), be it Marc Rich or Scooter Libby. Partisans from the other side will always attack the pardons of a president (or those that facilitated them), pretty much without fail. I’ve always thought this was an unusual grant of power by men suspicious of overzealous executives; it seems to me self-evident that it’d be used as political favor.

“As opposed to John McCain’s dealings and associations with lobbyists who represent oppressive regimes and then DOES NOT “throw them under the bus” (god, I fucking hate that phrase) when those associations are revealed.”

Quite right. I’d put my money on nobody at this level of politics being squeaky clean. Some are more ostentatiously unclean than others.

J.

As opposed to John McCain’s dealings and associations with lobbyists who represent oppressive regimes and then DOES NOT “throw them under the bus” (god, I fucking hate that phrase) when those associations are revealed.

There’s been a lot of “that’s not the XXX I knew” going on lately. Scott McClellan has been replaced apparently. So has the John McCain of 2004.

Bill AYERS, Bernadette DOHRN.

J.

It’s “schmear.”

I sentence you listen to Weird Al Yankovic’s “Pretty Fly For A Rabbi” 100 times as punishment.

Then, call your mother.

J.

(Who spent far too long dating a Jewish mother)

Two thoughts occur to me, though:

1) Isn’t it amusing that it complains about how “Book Quotes are Truncated and Out of Context,” yet got several days’ mileage out of John McCain’s “100 years in Iraq” quote, which they also truncated and took out of context. I’d say something about pots and kettles, but in light of recent discussions, I’ll just say “sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander” and hope THAT has no racial overtones.

2) A pity they can’t do something about debunking the stories that Obama keeps hiring and appointing and associating with some of the most disreputable, dishonest, hateful,and downright shady characters, then stands by them staunchly right up until he throws them under the bus in the name of political expediency, saying “XXX isn’t the person I knew” or some variant thereof.

Whoops, nothing to debunk — those are true. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Dohrn, Tony Rezko, Jim Johnson, Father Michael Pfleger — the list goes on and on.

I’m tempted to start a betting pool on the next Obama associate to get the old heave-ho. I’d put my money on Eric Holder, the guy who helped Marc Rich buy get his presidential pardon from the waning days of the Clinton administration. But the field is wide open…

J.

What?

Respectfully,
The Squid