the end of the rule of law

courtesy of John McCain and Joe Lieberman. Via OpenCongress:

One of Congress’s most notoriously hawkish duos, Sen. John McCain [R, AZ] and Sen. Joseph Lieberman [I, CT], recently introduced legislation in response to President Obama’s decision to try Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day airplane bomber, in a criminal court. Their proposal, which they are calling the Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act, would empower the U.S. military to arrest anyone, U.S. citizen or otherwise, who is suspected of terrorist associations and detain them indefinitely, without right to a trial.

From the legislation itself:

SEC. 5. DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL OF UNPRIVILEGED ENEMY BELLIGERENTS.

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3( c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

And the people eligible for such treatment:

(2) CRITERIA FOR DESIGNATION OF INDIVIDUALS AS HIGH-VALUE DETAINEES- The regulations required by this subsection shall include criteria for designating an individual as a high-value detainee based on the following:

(A) The potential threat the individual poses for an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the United States or upon United States citizens or United States civilian facilities abroad at the time of capture or when coming under the custody or control of the United States.

(B) The potential threat the individual poses to United States military personnel or United States military facilities at the time of capture or when coming under the custody or control of the United States.

(C ) The potential intelligence value of the individual.

(D) Membership in al Qaeda or in a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda.

(E) Such other matters as the President considers appropriate.

The passage of this bill will mean the president can lock up anyone he wants for any length of time for any reason he deems sufficient. It does not matter if that person is a US citizen on US soil, or how many decades there are considered to be "hostilities," or even whether or not the person is in any way involved with terrorism.

For all of you consoling yourselves by figuring this will never survive judicial review, remember that only those people with "standing" can challenge a law in court. What this means is the ACLU can't just petition the Supremes to review any law they see fit; you can only challenge a law you have been personally punished by or will be imminently punished by. In this case, you have to have already been jailed by the military under this law to take the president to court.

Except you can't, of course, because this law explicitly denies you the right to a trial or a lawyer.

little jerk

John McCain is such a douchebag.

All the more considering Obama's generosity in having this thing in the first place. Let's be honest, holding a fiscal responsibility summit with congressional Republicans is sorta like asking the Chinese government how we can be better human rights advocates.

a video to rev you up for the moment

November 4, 2008: the recap.

John McCain will lose AZ. It's only a matter of time.

Kos, on the new R2K poll:

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/28-30. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)

McCain (R) 48
Obama (D) 47

Early voters (17 percent of sample)

McCain (R) 42
Obama (D) 54

Obama's putting new money into the state in the last 4 days of the race, and is forcing McCain to spend Monday (the day before Election Day) there instead of in Pennsylvania, a key tactical victory for Obama even if he doesn't win AZ. If Obama wins Arizona, however, there will lots of things to celebrate. Among them will be the potential realignment of the Mountain West-- a blue Arizona and Montana will mean Obama won the Rocky Mountain states 32 EVs to 12, the first time in modern history a Democrat has outperformed the Republicans there (Clinton tied it in '92). It's also heaping insult onto injury for McCain, and after his race-baiting campaign, he deserves every bit of it.

That's not the eye-popping news from this poll, however:

If the 2010 election for U.S. Senate were held today for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Janet Napolitano the Democrat and John McCain the Republican?

McCain (R) 45
Napolitano (D) 53

Janet Napolitano, the current governor, has an eye-popping 69-21 approval rating but will reach the end of her 2 term limit in 2010, just as John McCain comes up for re-election. McCain won't have it in him for a second tightly contested election in 2 years; he'll hang it up. This is the last stop for the Straight Talk Express.

McCain commercials, as shot by 3 famous directors

Hysterical and totally nonpartisan, so your McCain supporting friends/family can enjoy these, too:

I'm starting to believe

Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic lays out the McCain campaign's argument for how they're gonna win:

The Republican Party has built a presidential election machine that is tested and proven, the argument begins. Its voter database, Voter Vault, has 150 million potential Republican voters listed, each with dozens of psychographic datums appended.

The Party knows how to turn out Republican voters in red states. The Democratic Party has no record of turning out sporadic Democratic voters in presidential years in red states. It is not reasonable to assume, therefore, that Democrats can really turn out the voters they say they will, while Republicans have a record of turning out habitual Republican voters. How can Democrats build good and accurate voter lists in these red states?

Take Indiana: Gov. Mitch Daniels leads his Democratic opponent, Jill Long Thompson, by a healthy margin. Can you imagine Mitch Daniels voters choosing Obama?

Obama's in trouble in Pennsylvania. Why else is Ed Rendell begging Obama to return there?

In 2006, the Republican base was depressed after "Macaca" and Jim Webb still only barely managed a victory there.

The GOP will spend $70 million on GOTV in the next 13 days.

Obama isn't breaking 50% in Ohio and Florida. It's hard to imagine a big shift to him in the final ten days, when the mind is concentrated, when imponderables come into play.

Colorado is tough... but Pennsylvania is doable.

Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri will all revert to partisan form. Already, McCain's campaign has factored in census + 1 turnout for African Americans, and there are plausible scenarios under which McCain wins.

Several polls -- including McCain's internal polls -- show that some white male voters who broke away from McCain [ed note: but did not support Obama] are coming back to McCain's fold.

Oh, and all this talk of Barack Obama leading in the early vote? So did John Kerry.

Wow, this is weak. The McCain campaign just knows that Pennsylvania is doable, that Daniels voters won't vote for Obama, that states enduring huge demographic shifts will continue to vote exactly as they had before, that late deciders can't possibly vote for Obama. And if those obviously true conclusions prove not to be such, there's always the Republican supercomputers, which have a supersecret file containing roughly 30 million more Republican voters than the total number of people that voted for either president candidate in 2004. And they can read minds, too!

By the way, the last argument, the one about John Kerry winning the early vote? Demonstrably false: Bush won the early voters 60-40.

Does this feel like b.s. spun to keep from admitting they're screwed to anyone else?

now it's official

The biggest drag on the McCain campaign: not Bush, not Iraq, not taxes. From TPM, on the new NBC/Wall St. Journal poll:

Respondents were read a list of things and were asked to pick the two that most concern them about McCain. Thirty-four percent named Palin, versus only 23% for the runner-up, which was that it seems likely he'd continue Bush's policies.

That would seem to suggest that Palin may have become a greater liability for McCain than Bush.

Separately, the poll's toplines show Obama with an expanded lead of 10 points over McCain among registered voters, 52%-42%.

I believe this is the part where the media starts referring to her as "polarizing."

I've been saying it for a while now: by the time this thing is over, John McCain will seriously regret this decision.

McCain's endgame strategy

In the third debate, John McCain peppered his answers with old bromides like "redistribution of wealth" and "socialism" and, in a turn that most people considered damaging to his chances with the women vote, went on a brief tirade about abortion, gesturing scare quotes as he sarcastically intoned "health of the mother." When asked about the racist and eliminationist comments being spouted by his supporters in recent rallies, he defended his supporters vigorously, calling them patriotic Americans, not making even the slightest concession that things have gotten a little out of hand.

Sarah Palin commits another apparent gaffe a couple of days later, referring to North Carolina as one of "the pro-America areas of this great nation."

Then, two days after that, McCain himself makes the same mistake in Virginia, saying that, even though he's behind in the state as a whole, he's winning in "real Virginia."

And then today, McCain takes a racially charge turn for the worst, deriding Obama's tax plan as "welfare."

Yet despite all these supposed "gaffes," McCain has actually gained ground in the last 5 days, gaining from -12 to -4 in the indy vote and gaining 6 points among Republicans in the Research 2000/Daily Kos poll.

Can you see what's going on here?

It looks to me like the Hate Talk Express has decided to try to win the way Bush did it in '04: focus like a laser on conservatives. Return to the hard right rhetoric of the primary, rile them up, scare the hell out of them, and send them to the polls in the highest numbers you can. Use fear and hate to close the enthusiasm gap, rely on the high turnout rate of key conservative demographics and hope that once again blacks, young people, and women-- Obama's strongest demographics-- don't show up in high enough numbers to make up the difference. A judicious sprinkling of voter suppression efforts should be just enough to tip the scales.

There is obviously a case to be made that this tactic won't be enough. For one, Democrats have registered millions more new voters than the Republicans, so there may be too few conservatives put him over the top. Also, at the moment the enthusiasm gap is still much wider than it was in '04. Then there's the issue of Obama's wicked ground game and huge money advantage. McCain's tactic could backfire in a way that Bush's didn't; for instance, there's a chance that his "real VA" remark could boost turnout among Obama voters and leaners in Virginia incensed at the slight (say what you will about W, but he would never have made that mistake). There's the economy. There's Sarah Palin, whose potentially proximity to the presidency scares the bejeesus out of a lot of people.

And, of course, there's Barack's superior strategizing. Powell's endorsement was rolled out at the best possible moment to blunt McCain's case to conservatives, and he's been far more effective than any Democrat I've ever seen at working the media. McCain, on the other hand, can't even keep his own operatives from hyping a Powell endorsement before people leave work for the weekend.

"side effects may include..."

One of Obama's better moments.

the transformation is complete

And thus John McCain became what he most despised. From TPM:

We've obtained yet another McCain campaign robocall, and this one levels perhaps the nastiest charge yet: It claims that Barack Obama callously denied newborns needed medical attention by opposing a measure to force doctors to preserve their lives when they survive botched abortions.

The call, which was sent in by a North Carolina reader, labels Obama "extreme" and to the left of Hillary, and charges Obama doesn't "share our values."
...
So let's take stock. We now have documented four McCain/RNC robocalls, some known to be running in multiple states:

* One that questions Obama's patriotism by saying he put "Hollywood above America" during the financial crisis.

* One that says that Obama and Dems "aren't who you think they are" and claims they merely "say" they want to keep us safe.

* One that attaches him to "domestic terrorist Bill Ayers," whose group "killed Americans."

* And, now, the above, which dishonestly paints him as indifferent to the lives of babies.

At what point do you think John McCain will finally look in the mirror and see George W. Bush, ca. 2000?

don't trust him

There's a rumor flying around that Colin Powell is going to endorse Barack Obama on Press the Meat this Sunday. From Politico:

The general’s camp is being coy about what he might or might not say on Sunday. But some McCain advisers suspect, without being sure, that Powell will endorse Obama.

“It’s going to make a lot of news, and certainly be personally embarrassing for McCain," a McCain official said. "It comes at a time when we need momentum, and it would create momentum against us.”

McCain officials are actively talking to the press and saying they think he'll endorse Obama? Maybe I've become too obsessed with strategy. Maybe my opinion of Colin Powell's independence and judgment have sunk too far below the truth. Maybe I'm giving the McCain too much credit. In any case, I find it very difficult to believe, not one week after Powell testified to the sterling word of honor of Ted Stevens, that he would then go on MTP and endorse Barack and that McCain's own officials would be the ones to make a story out of it on the preceding Friday.

If this story turns out to be true, John McCain is running the worst, most undisciplined campaign in history.

UPDATE (SUNDAY NIGHT): My mistake. Apparently McCain is, in fact, running the worst, most undisciplined campaign in history:

the camera is a cruel mistress

This image has made my day.

it worked

Remember the trap I was talking about yesterday?

Here's a screen cap of indy voters' reactions to McCain leveling the Ayers charge:


And here's the response afterwards:


Harold Meyerson at the Washington Post:

Now we know why Obama’s aides were goading McCain earlier this week to raise the Bill Ayres issue in the debate. They wanted to play McCain’s rage against Obama’s measured, judicious, statesmanlike, even a bit boring presidentiality. And McCain obliged them big time.

There's something else about McCain's answers in these debates that I noticed on a visceral level watching the replays, something that reminded me of the debates I've had that left me thinking less of the other person, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Andrew Sullivan provides the assist:

At no point have we seen a grace note from McCain. When dealing with the negativism of the campaign, it would not have killed him to seem genuinely horrified at calls for violence rather than offended that anyone dare criticize him or some of his supporters. Or to wish Obama well. It's this lack of generosity of spirit that he lacks and that people want in a president. Obama still manages to say when he agrees with or admires McCain. In this whole dynamic, Obama seems more secure, more self-controlled, more mature.

The ability (or lack thereof) to make concessions in a debate can actually say a lot about a person. It conveys the "generosity of spirit" that Sully is talking about, impressing upon the other person that you're really listening to them, that you're trying to be objective about the issue and not just advocating for your side. It also shows that you're big enough to admit when the other side has a point and not to take their opposition personally. And, frankly, in these debates it separates the men from the boys, the master debaters who are thinking on both the macro and micro level, from the jokers who don't bother with things like "focusing on a theme" or "working the crowd," thinking you win debates by scoring the most points.

As much as I hate the tactic of arguing by analogy (especially sports analogies), a poker analogy is irresistible here because it's just so damn apt: it's like Obama and McCain are at a poker table, and McCain is the aggressive novice trying to win every hand. Meanwhile, Barack often folds when his cards aren't as good, and wins the big pots by baiting McCain into overplaying his hand.

ambush

I said a couple of days ago that I thought Barack's sudden and uncharacteristic "John McCain doesn't have the cajones to say these Ayers attacks to my face" line sounds like a trap. He pretty clearly wants McCain to bring up Ayers, and by appealing to John McCain's impulsiveness and machismo ("you callin' me yella'?") both personally and via surrogates, he's basically forced McCain to launch the attack at the debate or risk damaging his manly military reputation.

Well, looks like the baiting worked. John McCain has pledged to bring up Ayers at the debate.

Did I mention that John McCain was a POW?

Obama's motives for the trap here could be simple. Perhaps this is a contest of polling, whereby McCain's pollsters believe the attacks damage Obama while Obama's pollsters have come to believe (with the aid of recent polling) that the attacks actually backfire on McCain, raising his negatives while barely denting Obama's positives. McCain's losing position virtually guarantees that he'll have to go on the attack anyway, and the more he does it, the more likely he is to turn off independents and leaners who tend to be repelled by this stuff, as Mike Madden at Salon says. Also, others have noted that the candidate who goes hard negative in the debate usually loses it (Bentson being a notable exception). This seems like an imminently reasonable explanation, almost certainly the correct one. Such a strategy would be especially productive if Williams doesn't ask about it and McCain is perceived to have brought Ayers up unasked in the debate.

But on the other hand, you just have to marvel sometimes at Obama's luck, the serendipity of the news cycle. Amazing the stories that seem to fall out of the sky on the day of a major debate.

the consequences of Sarah Palin's rhetoric

You had to figure it would happen eventually. From Philadelphia's local FOX affiliate:

PHILADELPHIA -- There was a scare Tuesday at the South Philadelphia campaign headquarters of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.

The office at 15th and Christian streets was filled with volunteers around 5 p.m. when one of them brought in the mail and opened a letter that had a note and a powdery substance on it that immediately set off alarms.
...
Fortunately, the substance found in the letter was harmless and nobody was hurt. But the incident is still under investigation as a threat, Fox 29's Sharon Crowley reported.

This is the kind of thing we have all been afraid of ever since Barack became a viable candidate in January, and that we've been especially dreading since the McCain campaign started doing the full hatemonger a couple of weeks ago. McCain may have finally started telling his supporters to cool down (though only after being thorough rebuked by the media for fanning the flames), but his VP candidate is still at it, as are the supporters at her rallies, with nary a peep from ol' Grandaddy Warbucks. Today's and yesterday's Palin gigs came complete with shouts of "Obama bin Laden" and "kill him!," while we also learned yesterday that Sarah Palin quoted a man who openly advocated the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in her convention speech. The Hate Talk Express has now inspired what we can only call "nonlethal terrorism." How long 'til the next step?

Barack the bullfighter

Does anyone else get the feeling that the "John McCain won't say it to Obama's face" argument coming out of several quarters is a coordinated attack from the Obama campaign? And do any of you get the feeling that they're setting a trap, appealing to McCain's inner belligerent, "honor"-obsessed narcissist to get him to level the Ayers charge on national TV? Do you think this means that they've polled it and found that people would be turned off, especially if countered with a classic Obaman "he's trying to distract us from the real issues" parry, or has the Obama campaign devised a special retort that they're saving for prime time?

Rolling Stone on John McCain

A longie but a goodie. It's a detailed and pretty brutal re-examination of McCain's biography, essentially portraying him as a reckless, ill-tempered carpetbagger with a Napoleonic complex and mild-to-moderate daddy issues.

It's pretty sobering to hear that no fewer than 3 Republican Senators are on the record stating that John McCain's temper is so unstable that it should disqualify him for the presidency. One of them says that the idea of John McCain becoming president "sends a cold chill down my spine." Wow.

to all of you who chose "my friends" as the trigger for your drinking game...

...I hope someone was around to relay your address to the paramedics.

the evolution of John McCain's health care program

Now with Medicare and Medicaid cuts! That'll help people pay for medical costs!

Krugman goes to town on McCain's plan as well, and Atrios calls it "pretty much The Worst Fucking Idea Since Invading Iraq." Hard to disagree.

But the important question is what that one guy Obama served on a charity board with was doing when Obama was in elementary school.

take notice, John Kerry, here's how the master does it

Ouch.