links for 2008-10-27

The Obama campaign whined about WFTV being "unprofessional" when it dared to dish out some tough questions to Vice President hopeful, Joe Biden.

The Obama spokesperson issued this statement about the interview:

"There's nothing wrong with tough questions, but reporters have the very important job of sharing the truth with the public — not misleading the American people with false information. Senator Biden handled the interview well; however, the anchor was completely unprofessional. Senator Biden's wife is not running for elected office, and there are many other stations in the Orlando television market that would gladly conduct a respectful and factual interview with her."
"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election."
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Don't like to answer hard questiond now do they?

John McCain on Sunday warned Americans against the increasingly likely prospect of a Democratic takeover of Washington’s two main branches of government next week, but insisted that opinion polls indicating a strong victory for Barack Obama were misleading.

Mr McCain – who is trailing his rival by an average of seven to eight percentage points with eight days to go – would pull off the biggest electoral upset since 1948, when Harry S Truman beat Thomas Dewey, were he to win next week.
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The Bradley effect could be in play.

Clearly, they waited this long to address the issue in hopes it would blow over. Palin said she wanted to do so at the rally to avoid "the filter of the media" — always a good line for a GOP crowd — but even in friendly interviews this week she didn't offer up much of an explanation. Further, there was no mention until McCain let it slip on "Meet the Press" today that a third of the clothing was given back after the convention.

Now, nine days out, comes the defense, ensuring that the story will stay alive for at least one more news cycle.
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Sarah Palin has been relying on the inept McCain campaign to spin things for her. This is an attempt to recover some ground for her later politicla career.
John McCain is a flawed Presidential candidate for many reasons but there is really no excuse for his poor campaign managment.

Sarah Palin is the rogue elephant in the GOP war room.

The maverick mom is distancing herself from John McCain and blowing off the advice of senior Republican aides, convinced they're damaging her reputation and ruining the campaign.

Things have gotten so tense between Palin and her traveling staff, an insider said, that she's overruling their advice – which was evident last week when she ignored GOP aides piling into waiting cars at a Colorado event and strolled over to the press corps for an impromptu talk.
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Can you blame Sarah Palin? She has been mishandled badly and is the future of the GOP along with Bobby Jindahl.

"Unfortunately, I think John McCain might be added to that long list of Arizonans who ran for president but were never elected," Kyl said, listing Republican Barry Goldwater, Udall and Democrat Bruce Babbitt. "Maybe, we'll be able to say Arizona's the only state where your child can't grow up to be president. Let's hope that doesn't happen," the Republican added.
"If it's not John McCain, it'll be another Arizonan someday," said Kyl.
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Kyl has always been a realist

A draft US Army intelligence report has identified the popular micro-blogging service Twitter, Global Positioning System maps and voice-changing software as potential terrorist tools.

The report by the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion, posted on the website of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), examines a number of mobile and web technologies and their potential uses by militants.

The posting of the report on the FAS site was reported Friday by Wired magazine contributing editor Noah Shachtman on his national security blog "Danger Room" at wired.com.

The report is not based on clandestine reporting but drawn from open source intelligence known as OSINT.
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Food for Twitter thought….
Nefarious instant communication….