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While Obama and Karzai were busy bonding yesterday, McCain headed off to Yankee Stadium with Giuliani.  (To stay in the game, McCain has to drive home the point that Obama -- bopping around in these threat zones -- doesn't know what he's doing and is therefore dangerous -- especially if something really nasty goes down.)

On one hand, McCain can almost evoke the fear meme just by standing next to Rudy, who -- at this point, as Biden so aptly put it -- is essentially his own walking 9/11 analogy.  To put more spit on the ball, though, what Team McCain chose to do was set up a photo op in the stadium's famed Monument Park in front of the 9/11 Monument.  (Don't feel bad if you didn't know about this pinstripe-free commemorative, I didn't either.)

Besides leveraging off the patriotic value of America's pastime, the McCain team tried to score on a mixed metaphor -- tying New York Yankee legendary "boys of summer" heroes like Mantle, DiMaggio, Gehrig and Ruth together WITH New York's 9/11 heroes, WITH the specter of, dare someone say it, of another terrorist attack.

(Photo from AP Photo by Carolyn Kaster. July 20, 2008.  Yankee Stadium)

Both presidential candidates vow to reform the nation's defense procurement if elected president, yet each is unwilling to take a stand against the rising cost of a White House perk: the new Marine One helicopter.

John McCain has often been described as a media darling, but that was before Mr. Straight Talk had to run against a political phenomenon. The Arizona senator was already frustrated by his drooping media prestige, but the wall-to-wall coverage of Barack Obama’s international tour, which was kind of McCain’s idea, has him seeing red.

The Guardian:

The Republican presidential hopeful John McCain let his frustration with the US media boil over today for its saturation coverage of Barack Obama’s visit to the Middle East and Europe.

McCain, upset over the extent to which his campaign has been eclipsed, launched a new video on the internet titled Obama Love, with quotes from television anchors and other journalists that he regards as evidence of bias.

The launch of the video came the day after McCain protested over what he saw as another sign of bias, a rejection of a comment article on Iraq he submitted to the New York Times.

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The backlash following Phil Gramm’s comments about the “mental recession” he believed Americans were bringing upon themselves through negative thinking has evidently caused the former Texas senator to leave his position as a top adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign. Gramm announced late Friday afternoon that he exiting from Team McCain’s inner circle.

The Washington Post:

Phil Gramm, a top adviser to presidential candidate John McCain, is resigning from the role as campaign co-chairman after his comments that the United States had become a “nation of whiners” who constantly complain about the state of the economy.

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[althouse.blogspot.com]

Phil Gramm was unceremoniously booted from the McCain campaign this week after making a simple observation about the collective intestinal fortitude of the populace in this country. My very simple question is whether or not Senator Gramm was wrong...

The exchange [...]

Image Credit: Rebecca Cook, Reuters McCain Takes a Look at the Chevy Volt Fresh off his proposal for a $300 million government-sponsored prize for the development of better battery technology, presidential candidate John McCain, along with "GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and other company executives. . .examined and got into a model of a Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid-electric car GM says it plans to have on the market by 2010." During th...

The sheer brute force of the Internet's distributed intelligence continues to baffle and humble me. If postmodernism killed the author, Google has finished off the rest of us. Seems like every time I have a moderately interesting idea, someone's beaten me to it. Which, of course, is not an original observation.

The latest: I had a clever little idea for a parody of the already-iconic Shepard Fairey Obama poster, featuring a blue and red John McCain, with the legend "Get off my lawn!" instead of "Change we can believe in." Ageist, yes. Puerile, yes. But probably politically effective in some small and moderately amusing way. After all, public opinion polls show that, when asked to identify McCain in one word, the most common choice is "old."

Anyhoo, I decided to Google "mccain 'get off my lawn'". Whaddaya know -- not only were there 15,400 results, but the very first one was my t-shirt design, uploaded to Flickr a week ago.

I hold no grudges. The "Hotness Factory," as its designers call themselves, did a great job.

On Sunday’s Late Edition Rep, Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee who reliably votes in favor of the Oil & Gas industry and against renewable energy bills and has been rewarded in return, joined the month-long chorus of Republicans including McCain that have been making the demonstrably false claim that there weren’t any major spills caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

 Download | Play Download | Play

Blunt: If there was ever a test of this system it’s in the one place that we do drill which is the gulf - 4,000 platforms in the gulf - thank God we’ve got them. 238 of them were injured by either Katrina or Rita. There was really no oil loss of any appreciable kind at any of those. Less oil was lost than used to seep up out of the gulf floor.”

In fact, as we continue to note each time a new version of this claim has been made, there were at least 124oil spills as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The website Skytruth.org even has posted satellite images of the spills as seen from space. Blunt added to his false assertion a repeat of what must be the new talking point on this issue that was offered on Thursday by McCain’s policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer (an energy lobbyist) after she was called out by MSNBC’s David Schuster after trying to claim that “hurricanes Rita and Katrina and did not spill a drop” of oil, a downplaying of the spills by comparing them to the amount of oil that naturally seeps into the ocean floor.

As ThinkProgress notes, “the effects of seeps and spills differ hugely” in their environmental impact. It’s an apples and oranges comparison, as seeps are natural, thus not preventable, and they have very little adverse ecological impact due to the fact that they result in a much lower rate of release over time over a larger area, while the effects of spills on the surface can be devastating.

Rep. Blunt also attacked Speaker Pelosi’s calling for a release of 10% of the oil in the strategic oil reserve and her pointing out many of the same facts I had written about a month ago that the oil industry has yet drilled in just 19 percent of the more than 40 million acres they already can that are not covered by the current ban — 40 million acres that represent 79 percent of America’s technically recoverable offshore oil reserves. Using generous estimates from the latest analysis from Bush’s own Department of Energy, allowing for unlimited drilling both offshore and in ANWR “would lower the price at the pump by less than 6 cents by 2025.”

Despite every claim made by Blunt through his entire interview, Speaker Pelosi was right on all counts:

A Department of Energy analysis determined that opening the OCS to offshore drilling “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.”

A much faster, more effective action to reduce oil prices would to sell a half million barrels of oil per day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase supply, reduce prices, and burst the “speculative bubble” that leads speculators to buy oil futures based on the assumption that supply will remain fixed and prices will escalate.

This is great. The McCain campaign is crying bias and went running to Drudge because the New York Times wouldn't print their stupid editorial. See, the Times printed an editoral by Barack Obama called "My Plan for Iraq." So McCain "wrote" an editorial about how Obama's plan for Iraq was to lose just like we lost Vietnam and John McCain's plan was to win the war. So the Times said, hey, why don't you try another draft of this where you articulate what "winning" means? The McCain campaign took this as a rejection and now they're all whining like the embittered nation of recession-imagining whiners they hate.

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES — less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's 'My Plan for Iraq' has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.

'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'

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In McCain's submission to the TIMES, he writes of Obama: 'I am dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it... if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.'

NYT's Shipley advised McCain to try again: 'I'd be pleased, though, to look at another draft.'

[Shipley served in the Clinton Administration from 1995 until 1997 as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Presidential Speechwriter.]

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A top McCain source claims the paper simply does not agree with the senator's Iraq policy, and wants him to change it, not "re-work the draft."

WHINE WHINE WHINE.

Of course there is bias at the New York Times Op-Ed section. It is the Opinion section! We call BIAS on the Wall Street Journal for not running our op-ed, "everyone who reads this section is a retard."

Drudge!!

Dr. Marty Klein, author of “America’s War on Sex: The Attack on Law, Lust and Liberty,” has some additional questions for John McCain—who flailed in the face of a perfectly reasonable query about Viagra versus birth control last week—as well as his rivals for the presidency.

Sexual Intelligence:

But since we’re on the subject, Senator, here are some other questions about fairness and sex we’d like your opinion on:

* Is it fair that teens can be jailed for having consensual sex with other teens?
* Is it fair that teens having legal sex with each other can be jailed for taking and sending photos of themselves doing it?
* Is it fair that some people become licensed by the state to be pharmacists, and then insist they don’t have to do their job if they hear voices telling them they shouldn’t? (that’s called “religious freedom” or “morality” if you agree, “discrimination” or “disqualified to do your job” if you’re a consumer trying to get your medicine)
* Is it fair that hundreds of hospitals licensed by their states refuse to offer certain legal medical services—based on “moral grounds”? (what if those “moral grounds” precluded giving blacks blood transfusions from white blood?)

Here’s a challenge to all presidential candidates: Commit to every American’s right to effective contraception. Unless, of course, you can name a private event that shapes a person’s life more than becoming a parent. Of course you can’t.

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Court Tosses FCC 'Wardrobe Malfunction' Fine (AP)
A federal appeals court on Monday threw out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp. for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction." The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity. NYT: The court also ruled that the F.C.C. had been wrong to hold CBS responsible for the actions of Janet Jackson and her performing partner, Justin Timberlake. LAT: The ruling was another blow to FCC chairman Kevin J. Martin's tough indecency policies, which broadcasters have fought aggressively in the courts.

Times Wants McCain Op-Ed -- But Only if Edited (NYT/The Caucus)
The Op-Ed section of The New York Times has decided not to publish an opinion piece submitted by Senator John McCain in response to one published last week by his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, on his plan for Iraq. Times officials said David Shipley, editor of the Op-Ed page, kicked back the original version while offering suggestions for changes and revision. TVNewser: Cable networks cover rejected McCain op-ed.

Icahn Gets Seats on Yahoo Board (NYP)
After more than a month of trading blows, it's kiss-and-make-up time for rebel investor Carl Icahn and Yahoo chief Jerry Yang. Icahn -- having failed to secure a new takeover offer from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer -- approached Yang over the weekend to work out a settlement that would give him three seats on Yahoo's newly expanded 11-member board. LAT: With more than $1.5 billion spent on a 5% stake in Yahoo, Icahn will probably take an active role on the board. Analysts expect him to use his board seat to pressure Yang to pursue bold strategic changes and revive growth after a long decline that made Yahoo vulnerable to Microsoft's unsolicited takeover attempt.

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