×
- Beware of authors such as Jerome Corsi who refer to their doctoral degree on the book cover. He gets the front page treatment in today's New York Times for his latest foray into fact-challenged character assassination and slander. Media Matters picks up the fact-checking ball the publishing industry has decided to drop, although Michelle Cottle worries that unless Obama hits back fast and hard against this, he risks traveling down the same road as John Kerry who -- as an expert on being the recipient of such smears -- has set up a website focused on calling out Corsi's lies.
- Evan Bayh, who appears to be at the top of Obama's VP list, is meeting some stiff resistance from the netroots, as a Facebook group opposed to the Bayh nomination has set the ambitious goal of signing up 100,000 members in one day (they're at 730 as of this writing). It should be noted that while Bayh isn't a horrible pick as far as red-state Democrats go, his views on foreign policy directly contradict the Obama campaign's message about judgment. Get a load of this 2007 statement from Bayh on Iraq, which sounds indistinguishable from the delusions of Joe Lieberman: "You just hope that we haven't soured an entire generation on the necessity, from time to time, of using force because Iraq has been such a debacle. That would be tragic, because Iran is a grave threat. They're everything we thought Iraq was but wasn't."
- Speaking of Lieberman (Jingo-CT), these are his thoughts on the choice the American people face in November between Obama and McCain: "One candidate, John McCain, who has always put his country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate [Obama] that has not." TPM notes that the McCain campaign is embracing this rhetoric, but not really getting called out on it by the MSM (except Howard Fineman). Funny, I seem to recall that the editor of a certain progressive magazine predicted the McCain campaign would go down this road a couple months ago...
- Mark Warner, who stands an excellent chance of taking Virginia's other Senate seat for Democrats this Fall, has been given the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. In other convention news, PA Sen. Bob Casey will be a featured speaker, though I'm having trouble understanding why exactly.
- Strange polls indeed: Barack Obama -- who we all know has a credibility problem, a "bubba" problem, a race problem, an age problem, etc. -- apparently doesn't have much of a Christian problem, as the Barna Group has him leading McCain in all categories except evangelicals. Stephen Suh has some additional thoughts on this issue. Meanwhile, Obama holds an improbable five-point lead in Alaska, to which Nate Silver urges caution as the polling firm is somewhat partisan. Finally, Insider Advantage has Obama down four points in Florida, and Survey USA has Obama down the same amount in North Carolina, 49-45.
- Politico has abandoned the "why isn't Obama receiving 70 percent of the vote?" storyline, with a lead story that observes the obvious: "Polls show landslide scenario unlikely."
- Ed Kilgore has a post at The Democratic Strategist that argues Ohio's early voting window is good news for Obama.
- That's my McCain: "In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations." Except, I presume, those "exceptional" nations, right Jack?
--Mori Dinauer
