I'm getting very tired of McCain's status as an ex-POW being raised as a qualification for being President of the United States. While we may admit that he was a POW and that it was an unfortunate experience, it does not give him world-affairs perspective, nor does it make him more knowledgeable about foreign policy.

Wesley Clark was criticized heavily for saying McCain's POW status didn't qualify him for the presidency, and, unfortunately, took him out of the VP race (I think he would be the best choice... once again we will lose out on a candidate of intelligence and experience). But there are others who should be listened to.

Playwright and screenwriter Sherman Yellin wrote an interesting piece in the HuffPo that I read this morning about McCain's negative advertising vis-a-vis Obama as a celebrity. Aside from pointing out that it is McCain who comes from the wealthier, "celebrity" background and not Obama who has worked his way up with conscientious effort and academic success that McCain can't touch, indeed falls completely at the opposite of the knowledge scale. But even more distinctively, McCain is using a comparison that raises his own history with women and his views of the whole feminine population.

To quote Yellin:

John McCain -- unlike the mythical Good Joe American he hopes to bamboozle with his vicious anti-Obama ads -- is an elitist/opportunist who abandoned a sick wife, carried on with an attractive blond beer heiress and married her, survived corruption charges as one of the Keating Five, and became a proxy billionaire through that romantic transaction which has helped to finance his political ambitions. To suggest that Obama, a brilliant man from a modest background, one who made his own luck and life through his intelligence and strength of character, has something in common with these Hollywood girls is less than an insult to Obama, who has young daughters and clearly loves them; it is an embarrassment to McCain, as it reveals his low view of women. They are dirty jokes to him. Be it a young Chelsea Clinton's awkward adolescent looks, or women being raped by gorillas, he finds the denigration and victimization of women a source of infinite jest. None of this is accidental.

I read this in a Newsweek article by David Kiley:

What the McCain campaign doesn't want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was...wait for it...using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that's political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents--a lie.

This is something McCain denied to Andrea Mitchell yesterday on MSNBC, but what's a denial added to the lies coming from his campaign already? Not much, I'm afraid.

The desperation of McCain is too obvious for words, yet there are many who seem to be falling for the Karl Rove-ian techniques.

And now he keeps race in the issue by accusing Obama of playing "the race card" simply because the Democrat admits to being different from previous candidates (ie: funny name, doesn't look like the presidents on the currency, etc.). The fact that what he says is true... and that he is really using it as humor to get us away from personal distractions so that issues such as the economy, the military mix-up, the profit gobbling oil companies and eight years of Republican debt buildup... has no serious meaning compared to the one McCain implies.

McCain started out saying he wa committed to a "Civil Campaign". Instead, he is aiming for a Civil War.

Under he LobsterScope

This week's New Yorker cover satirizes the far right's view of Mr. and Mrs. Obama, using all the false stories that have been thrown around (Barack is a Muslim, Michelle is  a terrorist, the "fist bump" is a signal of black rebellion) and locates all of it in the oval office.

If you are a sophisticated audience, like most New Yorker regulars, this is satire that makes the conservatives look silly.

Unfortunately, to the great mass of unsophisticated Americans, the huge audience of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and the like, this is going to be promoted as a confirmation of fact.

One wishes it hadn't been done. But there it is. So far, Obama has refused to comment.

Perhaps next week we can have a satirical image of McCain in an old folks home, armed to the teeth and assisted by Holy Joe Lieberman, plotting out attacks on an Iranian map...
Under The LobsterScope

I think we all have to have a great deal of respect for Dennis Kucinich who has tried time and again to have Bush impeached for truly obvious misdeeds. He has faced Nancy Pelosi's "no impeachment" position and has added to his following in single Congressional digits every time (Pelosi doesn't even want Karl Rove brought to justice for ignoring a Congressional warrant from Conyers' committee).

Kucinich just put out this letter in response to the revelations by the Pentagon that we got into Iran due to a lie which Bush was aware of. Instead of bringing 35 charges, he is bringing only one... maybe the rest of Congress can absorb one issue.

I found this posted on an ABC site:

IF YOU LIKE THIS ECONOMY;

IF YOU LIKE THIS NEVER-ENDING WAR;

IF YOU LIKED HIS VOTE AGAINST A GI BILL FOR IRAQ VETS;

IF LIKE PAYING HIGH GAS PRICES;

IF LIKE THE TAX BREAKS FOR THE RICH;

IF YOU CAN'T WAIT TO INVADE IRAN;

IF YOU LIKE HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT;

IF YOU LIKE A PRESIDENT WHO VOTED AGAINST EQUAL PAY FOR WOMEN;

IF YOU LIKE A PRESIDENT WHO VOTED AGAINST MATERNITY LEAVE FOR WOMEN;

IF YOU LOOK FORWARD TO THE END OF ROE V. WADE;

IF YOU LIKE THE UNFAIR TRADE POLICIES THAT SEND JOBS AND TECHNOLOGY OVERSEAS;

IF YOU LIKE A GOVERNMENT THAT PRACTICES TORTURE;

IF YOU LIKE A GOVERNMENT THAT SPIES ON ITS OWN CITIZEN;

IF YOU LIKE THE FACT THAT THE US IS ONE OF THE MOST REVILED NATIONS ON THE PLANET, THEN YOU'LL JUST LOVE McCAIN.

I think this should be printed out and posted on every refrigerator in America (or wherever YOU keep YOUR important reminders).

No matter what arguments come out of the campaigns this year, this says it all to me. Each and every item sums up the problems with Republican policies and you can be guaranteed that the Old Man promotes all of them.

Under The LobsterScope

The Wall Street Journal says things are probably not looking up in the oil and gas crisis:

In the U.S., $200 crude would push the price of gasoline to well over $6 a gallon, causing commuters to alter their driving habits more sharply than they have already, while putting extreme strains on large sectors of the U.S. economy.

Speaking as one member of a strained-large-sector-to-be, I am wondering what I can plan ahead to do by December... or, indeed, what I can do now that I haven't done already... to make economic survival possible.

I'm already driving a car that gets 33 mpg, and, except for going the 15 miles back and forth to work 3 days a week (4 this coming fall), I have limited my driving to the half mile to the grocery and the gym.  No more exciting trips to visit friends or relatives. No vacation travel. This part of life has already been cut back and become utterly boring (but has kept me from spending money in many places where I would have before). West Virginia has little-to-no public transportation, so that's out as well.

I've cut down doing my laundry to once a week... and doing cold-water washing at that. I used to do laundry twice a week and always used hot water. I wear things for longer periods, now... and for that I hope to be forgiven by the local style mavens.

Sweaters come out of the closet this fall...heat gets cut down on, even though we're an all electric house... sooner or later the ticket goes back to the oil prices.

Most of all, I'm going to encourage everyone I know to get the Republicans who left us with this mess out of office... and I don't feel too partial to some of the Democrats who helped them when there are more progressive ones available.

Under The LobsterScope

How people feel one way or another about Iran is one thing (personally, I don't see that making war with them over nuclear weapons which they don't really seem to have and are not likely to develop for years is such a good idea), but this article in the Khaleej Times made me grateful that I can blog about anything I damn well choose:

Khaleej Times Online  >> News >> MIDDLE EAST
Iran mulls death penalty for Internet crimes
(AFP)

2 July 2008

TEHERAN - Iran's parliament is set to debate a draft bill which could see the death penalty used for those deemed to promote corruption, prostitution and apostasy on the Internet, reports said on Wednesday.

MPs on Wednesday voted to discuss as a priority the draft bill which seeks to "toughen punishment for harming mental security in society," the ISNA news agency said.

The text lists a wide range of crimes such rape and armed robbery for which the death penalty is already applicable. The crime of apostasy (the act of leaving a religion, in this case Islam) is also already punishable by death.

However, the draft bill also includes "establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy", which is a new addition to crimes punishable by death.

Those convicted of these crimes "should be punished as "mohareb' (enemy of God) and "corrupt on the earth'," the text says.

Under Iranian law the standard punishments for these two crimes are "hanging, amputation of the right hand and then the left foot as well as exile."

The bill -- which is yet to be debated by lawmakers -- also stipulates that the punishment handed out in these cases "cannot be commuted, suspended or changed".

Internet is widely used in Iran despite restrictions on access and the blocking of thousands of websites with a sexual content or deemed as insulting religious sanctities and promoting political dissent.

Blogging is also very popular among cyber-savvy young Iranians, some openly discussing their private lives or criticising the system.

Human rights groups have accused Iran of making excessive use of the death penalty but Teheran insists it is an effective deterrent that is carried out only after an exhaustive judicial process.

The number of executions soared last year to 317 amid a campaign which the authorities said was aimed at improving security in society, and was sharply up on 2006 figures when Amnesty International recorded 177 executions.

All legislation in Iran has to be rubber-stamped by a conservative clerical watchdog before it is written into law. The Guardians Council vets bills to see if they are in line with the constitution and Islamic law.

The most I feel about these idiots is pity.

Under The LobsterScope