McCain  is impugning Obama's patriotism in a way no other nominee  has, in the last 50 years. Not Nixon. Not Bush 43 advised by Karl Rove. Not  Bush 41, helped by Lee Atwater.

When we adopted the surge, we were losing the war in Iraq, and I stood up and said I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war. Apparently Sen. Obama, who does not understand what’s happening in Iraq or fails to acknowledge the success in Iraq, would rather lose a war than lose a campaign.

McCain is charging Obama with treason.

Not even Sen. McCarthy went this far, accusing a political opponent trying to lose  a war to win an election. But we need to look that far back for a fitting response.

Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?..If there is a God in heaven, it will do neither you nor your cause any good.

This is McCain's rewritten essay for the NYTimes. We got an advanced copy from a source close to Sen. McCain.

How did this happen to me? I am the war hero. The Maverick. In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation "hard" but not "hopeless."  I alone supported him in the "surge" strategy. Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years. The situation now is full of hope. Hope!. Obama is getting all credit. They didn't  even take me on the class trip. My essay got rejected by the teacher. My friends, Gramm was right. We have become a nation of whiners. And I am the top whiner. Boo-Hoo. There is media bias against me.

Both of us started out as war candidates. I was for it. He was against it. Obama saw ahead where the rest of the world will be and proposed a 2010 deadline to withdraw.  He smiled a lot and stayed firm on Iraq  as he subtly changed himself into the economy candidate. I am left all alone, even Bush is for Timelines now. Maliki stabbed me in the back. I am fucked.

This is a rant against a fellow Democrat. If you can't stomach it please don't read any further.

There is an old  joke about a guy  running down the street with his clothes on fire. Another  man comes up to him with a cigarette  and asks

Hey, Buddy. Can I have a light?

That is Sen. Clinton for you.

Gas is $4.50. Banks are failing. People are struggling.  We are in a tough race against John McCain for President. It is not an exaggeration to say that the fate of the world hangs in the balance. At the very least the fate of thousands of our soldiers and many more Iraqis.

McCain is exploiting loopholes in the law ( which he wrote) toget supporters to pay as much as $100K per person. The RNC has a 2 to 1 advantage in fundraising over  the DNC.  In the midst of all this, what does Hillary Clinton want us to do?

Pay off her campaign debt!. Talk about selfish. Ran a spendthrift campaign, always spending more than she raised. Is worth at least $100M. And she wants the small contributors to Obama's campaign to pay her bills.

Raising $20M  to pay Clinton's  bills is not our priority.

Pay your own bills!

At the end of WWII  the British public voted Chruchill out of power . After fighting two World Wars.  British economy was struggling. Churchill had no effective plan to deal the economy. Or  the growing independence movement in the Colonies.  Atlee, with a promise of independence to India and a focus on rebuilding British economy won handily. Once Gandhi endorsed Atlee's plan, Churchill had no moves left.

So what is the relevance to today? McCain is a one-issue politician, as Churchill was. The one issue being war. And like Churchill, people will reject him as soon as the war stops being the main issue. To McCain's surprise, Maliki of Iraq just endorsed the Obama plan for Iraqi independence. Checkmate.

The inability to balance  war and politics while forming  a coherent strategy for the economy  brought an end to both men's careers.

The Audacity of Senility
By Charles Nothammer
WASHINGTON --
John McCain  Wants to Speak at the Water Gate.

He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast -- a doddering  audience and a few fainting nonagenarians --  will follow along to  bolster his Republican   credentials.

What McCain  does not seem to understand is that the Water  Gate is something you earn. It is sacred ground. How dare you John? Next you will want to wear Nancy Reagan's panties on your head. Shame on you, McCain!

Last month there was a lot of hand wringing here on DKos. People wrote diaries threatening to abandon Obama over FISA. 20,000 supporteres joined a group  started by a Stark Raving Loon, who  had joined Obama's webpage just for this purpose. Some even withheld donations to teach Obama a lesson: so that he would behave better. A true blue supporter  wanted his spokesman fired. Arianna Huffington told Obama what he needed to do. Baroness Rothschild,a British Tycoon, called him an elitist. (Yes one of those  Rothschilds). All of this was a reflection of what was going on  in the MSM. He was attacked  for spurning public funds for his campaign. Flip-Flopping on Iraq. For leading McCain only by 5 points.

As Al Giordano noted, the sky did not fall.  Part of leadership is to know when to ignore the nervousness of your followers. You just have to keep driving as the kids in the back ask

Daddy, are we there yet?.  

The poll that matters is in. The grass roots are still with Obama.  Obama just raised $52M. A shade less than his highest total ever. From an ever growing number of contributors. These are people who may not know FISA from Pizza. Or care. They know  their  priorities.

I am taking issue with a diary that was on the Rec List by an author with whom I have always agreed in the past. Obama does not need to fire Bill Burton or anyone else.

These are the dog days of the summer. Presidential campaigns are in that lull before the conventions. It is easy to lose one's nerve. In many ways the most difficult period of a contest is  this time of  maneuvering. The difficulty is to turn  implicit  into the direct, and misfortune into gain. This is the time each side is framing the other in its own terms.

It may not appear so, but Obama is doing what he needs to do. Look away from the day to day polls, most of which reflect statstical fluctuations from  which the chattering class is trying to learn some grand trends. Obama was down  yesterday, up today, tomorrow who knows? It really does not matter.

Are they framing the issues in terms advantageous to us? Are they responding to attacks immediately? Are they planning ahead to neutralize vulnerabilities? The Obama campaign is doing the right thing, I  argue after the jump.

It was not  Hurricane Katrina that killed thousands of people in New Orleans. It was the breaching  of the levies. And the incompetence of FEMA administrators who were supposed to mount a rescue. The sheer indifference of the ruling class, symbolized by that flyover by Bush. Even as images of thousands of people taking refuge in the SuperDome filled our TV screens, Bush administration officials were deriding it all as a figment of our imagination. Sounds familiar?

Now a similar catastrophe is under way with the US banking system. The Hurricane is the downturn in the business cycle.  Dare I call it  the recession? The levies are the system of checks and balances put in place after the crash of 1929.  Federal guarantees of deposits under $100K. Freedie Mac and Fannie Mae to help with  mortgage liquidity.

The levies have been breached. Banks are failing. Bears Stearns. Indymac. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae themselves need to be bailed out. The whole system is drowning in bad debt.  And the week before each Bank failed, its Government Regulator assured us that everything is fine. No need to panic. It is all in our mind. It is a mental depression, folks. Don't be whiners, says Dr. Phil Gramm. Like those people in New Orleans.

I challenge anyone who thinks David  Broder (of the Broder Bump fame) is a hack  to produce a dumber column than the one Bill Kristol wrote on July 15 2007  with the title

Why Bush Will Be A Winner

and the prediction

George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one.

Rachel Maddow is possibly the smartest person on TV. Sorry, Keith. She combines KO's passion with an electrifying intelligence. There is no sweeter sight than to watch  her wipe the floor with Joe Scarborough's sorry ass. No Rhodes scholar, old Joe.

But occasionally,  she misses the point. Last night she seemed worried that Obama wasn't pounding Phil Gramm on his asinine remarks that the economic recession is just a mental depression. That Americans are a nation of whiners.But here is the thing: Obama knows just where he wants Phil to be in the Fall. If you make a big thing of it now in the dog days of summer,  McCain will fire  Gramm and move on. Instead, Gramm  is still a cochair of the McCain campaign.

You want the dysfunction in your opponent's campaign to fester. Gramm's words can still be used in a couple of juicy ads in the Fall. Gramm should be given every  opportunity  to give us a few more money quotes. By hitting him lightly, ridiculing him as the second Dr. Phil, Obama is setting up the next shot. We want Gram's ugly mug to be McCain's face on economics. Not someone  hot like Carly Fiorina.

Obama does not win always win arguments by being right. Often he simply stakes out a middle ground and sticks to it, staying very calm and genial as his opponents flail about and eventually commit some grievous error. Then they are finished and Obama goes onto the next level. It sounds easy to do, so why doesn't everyone else do it? It is like saying all you have to do to be a great baseball player is to  hit  the ball out of the park. The trick is to know what position to take, far enough in advance, so that the other side is only left with the lesser  choice. It is complicated because in politics it is not enough to figure out which position is correct logically. You have to know which  one will win. Not always the same thing.

But there has to be some luck involved also. How did Obama go from being a State Senator in Illinois to the Democratic nominee for President in four years? People take a lifetime, if ever, to make that transition. He was extraordinarily lucky in his  Senate race. His first opponent, Ryan,  self-destructed in a sex scandal. (Don't ask. Ok just a hint: 7 of 9) As replacement the Republican Party could find only  Alan Keyes, the Mike Stark of the Right wing. Keyes was so batshit crazy that Obama did not even have to work hard to win in a landslide.

Obama-bashing has made gonzo political performance artists  into celebrities;corporate hacks  into Thomas Paine wannabes.  So where does one look for some common sense  these days? To Narco News. And  to the New York Times Op-Ed page. (Don't tell any one I read either one.)

Al Giordano    says that the people who are outraged at Obama over the FISA vote are not going to abandon him over it; they will just threaten to abandon him all over again on the next issue. That sounds just about right.

It turns out that being a community organizer is good training  to run for President. People have been  threatening  to do all sorts of things to Obama  if he does not do this or that, for the past twenty years. Obama learned  to listen. And to ignore.  Gail Collins points out that  many on  the Libertarian Left , which wants Obama  to listen to them or else, has not been listening to Obama.

I am not defending Obama's vote for the FISA `compromise'. He was wrong, in my view. He was wrong to promise to support a  filibuster against TELCO immunity. He was wrong even more not to follow through. These days everyone, left and right, is finding reasons to take potshots at Obama. Perhaps it means  that he is successful. Or that he is a centrist after all. Most likely it means that people put Obama up on a pedestal where no politician belongs. Not even MLK or Gandhi. If you have heard of MLK but not Stokely Carmichael; if you know about Gandhi but not Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, it is because the compromises they made eventually made their movements succeed.

The opposition to FISA has attracted large numbers of sincere progressive activists. It has also attracted some agitators and hotheads.  A case in point is the diary below  by Mike Stark. Yes, that Mike Stark. The founder of the 23,000 member group on myBO.

Obama is a mainstream Democrat. This might come as a surprise to some, who might have mistaken him for some kind of Leftie. Still others pretend to be shocked-shocked!- that Obama is planning on winning the GE. Then there are the single issue crusaders who, in their sole focus on constitutional rights, are reminiscent  the NRA   than Democrats. Add to this the opportunists who see a cause they can ride to National Fame. May be even a media career as commentator on a MSM publication.

If a Liberal supports Obama it is not news. Dog Bites Man. Big Deal. If a Liberal attacks Obama it is news. It feeds into what NYTimes, CNN, WSJ, FOX and others are looking for. Man Bites Dog.

Obama is the first Presidential candidate to use modern technology to let dissenting  supporters tell him what they think. And we should take advantage of that. But who is being helped when  that medium and blogs such as this are used to attack Obama relentlessly day after day?

The concern over the FISA Bill is genuine. Obama shares that concern. But the FISA debate has been taken over by a handful of bloggers and their low information followers who obsess over it to the exclusion of everything else.

Back in 2000 John McCain was locked in a struggle against George W. Bush in South Carolina.  Richard H. "Rick" Davis was his campaign manager. That year McCain really had a reasonable claim to be the Maverick he now pretends to be. He had not yet sold out his soul to get his ticket to the White House.

The Bush campaign managed by Karl Rove unleashed one of the worst smears againt McCain. Rick Davis wrote in the Boston Globe:

It's not necessary, however, for a smear to be true to be effective. The most effective smears are based on a kernel of truth and applied in a way that exploits a candidate's political weakness.

It didn't take much research to turn up a seemingly innocuous fact about the McCains: John and his wife, Cindy, have an adopted daughter named Bridget. Cindy found Bridget at Mother Theresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, brought her to the United States for medical treatment, and the family ultimately adopted her. Bridget has dark skin.

The issue is not Sen. McCain's patriotism. It is not his bravery. No one (except a few Right Wing nuts) questions whether he deserved all the medals he got. But there are many war heroes who did not make it to President. Ask Sen. Dole. Sen. McCain can be our hero without becoming our President.

Yesterday,  I diaried  that McCain caved in to Bush  on the one issue in which he had unquestioned moral high ground--torture. Today we will ask: how well does McCain represent the interests of his fellow veteran in Congress? Veterans  less fortunate than himself, who don't have a powerful family or a rich wife to ease their way through life.

Vawatchdog.org ratings are interesting. They rated Sen. Clinton very highly: an A. She made it her mission  when she arrived in the Senate to become an expert on the military and to support veterans interests.

Obama fares quite well: a B+. And McCain? A dismal D. Even worse than his academic grades at Annapolis.  Details after the jump.

John McCain talks at great length about his reluctance to talk about his POW experience. When he is not talking about not bringing it up, one of his surrogates is bringing it up.  No one can ask why  his war  experience is relevant to his running for President.  That is claimed to be an attack on his heroism and even his patriotism. Not even if it is acknowledged that McCain is a genuine hero and we are all grateful for his service.  

Yet, on the one issue to which his experience  is relevant to public policy-torture of POWs, dealt with in the Military Commissions Act- McCain  caved in to Bush.

WaPo

Initially, McCain appeared reluctant to talk about the connection between his being a prisoner of war and his presidential candidacy. "Please," he said. "I had an experience in serving - I had the privilege and honor to serve in the company of heroes."

"If it helped me be president, it made me appreciate how wonderful and great and patriotic Americans are in their leadership...," he said, before trailing off.

Ok. But he was not finished:

There seems to be much consternation on DKos that some on the left are criticizing Obama on FISA. Obama has always been a mainstream Democrat, and always cautious about taking positions that will move him him out of that center. His speech in 2002 against the Iraq war is exceptional precisely because it came from a politician  right smack in the political center.

The Right Wing claim that Obama is the most Liberal Senator is  silly. Hello..?Feingold? Saunders? Among the Presidential contenders, was Obama more liberal than Kucinich? I supported Obama not because he was the one I agreed with most, but because he was the most talented candidate and I agreed about 80% with him. That is a pretty high percentage. You don't get 100%  in politics.

So of course, we will lobby Obama on an issue of importance to us. Obama is running a new kind of campaign with  new tools for feedback from his supporters. Such as his website. We must take advantage of those tools. But always keeping in mind that this is not the only issue that matters to us. We lobby him as supporters, not by threatening to abandon him or work for the other side. Leave that sort of idiocy to the PUMAs and the Naderites.