links for 2008-10-11

This morning, I wrote a blog post arguing that John McCain was not serious about his William Ayers attacks. Later in the day Time's Michael Scherer, who has spent the past several months covering McCain with intelligence and sensibility, responded with a post saying that McCain was serious, to the extent that serious is a factor that matters.

Mike and I continued our debate privately over email. As he writes, "After a few exchanges, we decided to post our entirely friendly and respectful give-and-take, in a slightly edited form."

Yeah, it's a cheap shot from me. Fuck him.

The other three "moderatees" attempt to steer him to a safe port. When Alec Baldwin makes you look sentient, life has taken a hard south turn.

Oh, Maher attempting to rough in a Palin joke is a bit humorous.

Fat, drunk and stupid is apparently a great way to get on this show.

There are whispers in Sacramento that outgoing Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata is not exactly chummy with 19th District Democratic candidate Hannah-Beth Jackson. If that's the case, it hasn't been reflected in the state Democratic Party's willingness to help fund her campaign in recent weeks.

Still, there's some evidence that at least three current senators weren't taking any chances. Instead of contributing money to a state party effort at least partly controlled by Perata (and also incoming Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg), these three contributed big bucks from their campaign accounts to the Santa Barbara County Democratic Central Committee.

Through Sept. 30, the county committee contributed $83,000 to the Jackson campaign. In reports filed this week, the source of that money was revealed. The primary contributors are Sens. Sheila Kuehl ($25,000), Alan Lowenthal ($30,200) and Dean Florez ($30,200).
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More hide the ball political contributions from California Democrat leaders

Fearing the raw and at times angry emotions of his supporters may damage his campaign, John McCain on Friday urged them to tone down their increasingly personal denunciations of Barack Obama, including one woman who said she had heard that the Democrat was "an Arab."

Each time he tried to cool the crowd, he was rewarded with a round of boos.

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, another powerful Chicago-based political figure associated with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and other long-time associates of Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama, is leaving no doubt about what he thinks of the leader in the campaign for the White House.

He says when Obama talks "the Messiah is absolutely speaking."
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Wonderful and McCain remains respectful in apparent defeat…..

But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate.

McCain has only himself to blame for the bad timing. He should months ago have begun challenging Obama's associations, before the economic meltdown allowed the Obama campaign (and the mainstream media, which is to say the same thing) to dismiss the charges as an act of desperation by the trailing candidate.
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And, now apparently even McCain has thrown in the white towel of surrender.

Earlier this week, I wrote about Dean Barnett’s current struggle with cystic fibrosis and how it landed him in the ICU. I asked for prayers, and we got a tremendous response from Hot Air readers. I’ve also seen how much concern bloggers have for Dean in the repeated requests for updates on his condition, but until this evening, I just hadn’t heard anything.
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Flap's prayers are in there, Ed.

The bottom line is that while it's great Steyn is off the hook, free speech in Canada still does not exist in any meaningful way. It would be fair to say that Steyn and Maclean's magazine were spared by the bureaucratic star chamber because they were well-known enough to fight back and attract considerable publicity. The next person in Canada who dares to excercise his freedom of speech in a way that attracts the government censors probably won't be so lucky. And unfortunately, Canada is still rank with Human Rights tribunals acvtively looking for those that express politically incorrect opinions, reprint objectionable Bible verses etc. so they can go about their business of denying free expression.

SOCCER moms and Joe Sixpacks, listen up. Get your beer, mooseburgers and caribou dips ready. Sarah Palin is doing "Saturday Night Live." Not Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin doing "Saturday Night Live." But the Sarah Herself. She has already OK'd it. She's booked. It's confirmed. Done deal. Sketches are being sketched as we speak. She – eyeglasses, haircomb, designer jacket and trunkful of gosh-darns, golly-gees and gol-dangs – will be on "SNL" Saturday night, Oct. 25. Sarah's rehearsal time has already been penciled in for Friday the 24th. And it's because she wants to do it.
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A very smart move for Sarah Palin who will have a political life after McCain loses on November 4.

The Philadelphia Flyers’ decision to invite self-described hockey mom Sarah Palin to drop the ceremonial first puck at the team’s home opener on Saturday night is prompting head-scratching in the worlds of sports and politics.

For Republicans — who are clinging to diminishing hopes that Palin and her running mate, John McCain, can carry Pennsylvania — a less-than-warm welcome from the notoriously unruly Philly fans could be embarrassing to the GOP ticket. A cascade of boos for Palin might also prove to be a PR nightmare for the Flyers, reinforcing yet again Philly fans’ reputation for boorishness, and focusing unwanted attention on the motives of the teams’ managing partner, big GOP donor Ed Snider.

Is John McCain really serious about questioning Barack Obama's association with William Ayers?

The evidence suggests he is not.

Top McCain campaign officials are grappling with how far to go with negative attacks on Sen. Barack Obama in the final weeks of what is turning into a come-from-behind effort.
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Is McCain conceding the election by going after William ayers instead of attacking on the economic front?

“We've reported the Ayers relationship before, and we had it on our ‘to do’ list for a while to take a more comprehensive look,” Keller said in an e-mail. “When the McCain campaign began to make it a major focal point of ads and stump speeches, we decided the time was right.”

“It didn't take any prodding,” Keller continued. “When the conversation on something controversial reaches a certain level, curious readers look to the Times to help them sort the facts from the fictions and figure out what to make of it. That's what we did.”

The Supreme Court released its historic ruling at 11:30 a.m. Citing the equal protection clause of the state constitution, the justices ruled that civil unions were discriminatory and that the state's "understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection."

"Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice," the majority wrote. "To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others."

In a statement released minutes after the decision was announced, Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she disagreed with it, but uphold it.
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Another judicial decree for Gay Marriage. How will this affect California's vote to ban it?

At the same time the Bush administration was negotiating a still elusive agreement to keep the U.S. military in Iraq, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to convince Iraqi leaders in private conversations that the president shouldn't be allowed to enact the deal without congressional approval.