Today’s Campaign Roundup

July 25, 2008

Guest Post by Adam

As a regular CR reader, I know people love these so I’ll try my best to reproduce one.

Apparently a Yeshiva student stole Obama’s prayer from the Western Wall (it’s a custom to insert a small piece of paper with a prayer into the cracks…at this point, the cracks in the wall are overflowing) and an Israeli newspaper published it. How long before someone says this is conspiracy by the Obama campaign to prove he’s not a Muslim?

There was a rumor on the interwebs yesterday that Obama deliberately “blew off troops” at an Afghan base to do a basketball photo op. It’s not true, according to Army Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, who said Obama didn’t play basketball or even visit the recreation tent where the court was located. In any case, look for this latest rumor in an email coming soon to your inbox.

An article in the New Republic outlines a conflict between NYT reporter Adam Nagourney and the Obama campaign over the Times’ article that was headlined “Poll Finds Obama Isn’t Closing Divide on Race.”

I suppose it depends which divide you’re talking about though, because Latino voters seem pretty united around the Obama candidacy.

Josh Marshall confirms that the Pentagon told Obama he couldn’t visit a military hospital with campaign staff. The McCain campaign pounced on a poorly worded press statement that it wouldn’t be “appropriate” for Obama to make a campaign appearance there, without noting of course, that Obama wasn’t actually allowed to go because it would be a violation of Pentagon rules.

The RNC might wanna fix that whole clock thing they’ve got on their website now that Obama has visited Iraq.

The Washington Post is reporting that the McCain VP pick could come any day now, noting that McCain is “anxious to counter the blanket media coverage that has followed Sen. Barack Obama on his overseas journey”. Anxious enough to get reporters to write articles speculating on whether his VP pick might come every day now? Naw, never that.

This is satire. You paying attention, New Yorker? My bad, I didn’t mean to interrupt you while you were counting your money.

Former White House communications director Dan Bartlett thinks Maliki’s comments were “a game changer.”

That’s all I got for today’s Campaign Roundup.

I think JSMcC*nt announcing his VP now would be a sign of desperation, a demonstration that he really doesn’t have a lot of great choices, and an opportunity to just trash the guy/gal for weeks before the convention. Because no matter how hard his staff worked to vet the choice, I bet the Obama campaign has dirt on them (and Hillary could provide somemore).

In short, unless JSMcC*nt has made up his mind for a lesser choice and is just tired of fielding Mitt’s calls, it ain’t going to happen.

I would love to be proved wrong.

  • I’m really starting to hate McCain and the corporate press that let him getting away with duping america into thinking he’s this foreign policy expert.

  • Nice tradition at the Western Wall. Humblingly brilliant prayer consecrated by Mr Obama. Will its power be diminished by exposure?

  • Guys tune in right now. Barack and Sarkozy are giving a brilliant press conference.

  • Last night Stephen Colbert did a gag where he pretended to have the note from the wall . . . the Colbert report is getting closer the the “real news” everyday.

    Scary!

  • It seems the Washington Post is getting sillier every day now. McCain isn’t going to announce a VP choice any day now. Obama’s trip is winding down. It’s a Friday at the end of July when very few people are paying attention. If he announces his VP choice on Monday, what’s he countering? Obama’s return flight home? The time to announce the VP choice would have been right after Obama’s speech in Germany. Instead he was at some German restaurant in New Hampshire.

  • That satire piece was quite good. The sad thing to me was the number of McCainbots posting their hate toward Obama. They don’t like the ‘change’ talk because they don’t know what kind of change he’s talking about??? Have they lived under the last 8 years of Bush?
    Very sad.

  • McCain’s campaign is unraveling. He should fire his staff…err… wait, hasn’t he already fired about 60% of them? LOL!

    You think that McCain is being revealed now as a bumbling old man who can’t remember basic geography, just wait until the debates.

    It’s going to be a beatdown of immense proportions. I look for McCain to be spanked so badly, his blood pressure and temper will rise so high he’ll spontaneously combust onstage, leaving nothing but a little green globule where he stood.

  • McCain announcing his VP would be truly dumb, and if he really wants to give up the advantage of making Obama put his cards on the table first, that would be great news in my book. But that is precisely why it wont happen.

  • I think the McCain VP announcement will be sooner rather than later. the VP is always the attack dog, and the McCain team has already shown how it loves to attack.

    It will backfire, IMO, because people are getting sick of a campaign that offers no hope, just endless, usually baseless attacks. Plus whoever McCain picks, it will probably piss off the wingnuts.

  • What?! No DEATH TO AMERICA in the Obama prayer?! Of course the xenophobic lunatics will find some anagrams in the text. He is Satan! Hate and fear, hate and fear!

  • Who can McCain pick to be his VP that would stir up any excitement?

    “Ladies and gentlemen please welcome John McCain’s running mate…”

    Mitt Romney? He pretty much reduced himself to a buffoonish used care salesman during the primaries. Besides, he was a total failure.

    Bobby “The Exorcist” Jindal?

    Mike Huckabee? Awe-shucks, he’s so darned cute…untill you scratch the surface just a little.

    Tom (Homeland Security Flop) Ridge?

    There’s always that closet-case from Florida.

  • Forget the conspiracy theories surfacing about the prayer. If the VM’s image on a toasted cheese sandwhich can sell for $28,000, just imagine what that prayer would fetch on eBay.

  • That satire piece was cute. I think the wingnuts took it as a real report, thought, from the comments they made. *Sigh*

  • So Obama meets with Sarkozy, and the world of politics is all changing for the better! For a candidate such as Obama to revel in the company of a race-baiter like Sarkozy is ironic. I guess all you Obamaphiles have conveniently forgotten Sarko’s campaign to rid France of “Polish Plumbers.”

    Bill Clinton’s “Jesse Jackson” comment was reprehensible, but now that Senator Obama gets a photo op withe the President of France, it would appear that pollock jokes are still well within the realm of polite society.

    Viva Don Rickles!

  • Like the true coward that he is, McCain continues to make these outrageous attacks on Obama while he is out of the country. Now the Obama camp has responded, it is posted on the Daily Kos website, it is really revealing about who actually supports the troops, and reveals the true McCain.
    Perhaps someone should reveal some of the McCain secrets that have been off limits, I know the Obama campaign wanted a civil campaign, but they are fighting an uncivil opponent. Perhaps the Viet Nam veterans against John McCain website should be brought into play, also the Keating five scandal, the desertion of his crippled wife, his adultery etc, not to mention his connections to Abramoff!

  • JT#7: That German restaurant was actually in Ohio (Columbus), which, as a former resident, strikes me as even funnier. It’s not even a very good one. If he was in it for the food, he should have gone to Milwaukee.

  • Who can McCain pick to be his VP that would stir up any excitement?

    If he wasn’t dead, McCain’s ideal running mate would have been Perot’s choice, James Stockdale. War hero, former POW, apparently clueless (“Who am I? Why am I here?”).

  • Apparently a Yeshiva student stole Obama’s prayer from the Western Wall — Adam

    My first thought, when I heard about that visit to the Wailing Wall — in a yarmulke, yet! — was “old Baruch is really gonna get it in the nuts now; Muslim? Christian? Jew?” But my second thought was “I wonder what he wrote”. And the moment that thought popped into my mind, I was certain that *someone* was gonna pull out that piece of paper and read it; wouldn’t be human not to. Only, I had one of the journo entourage pegged as the perp, not a yeshiva student. And I think Obama anticipated it as well; that was one bland and non-descript wish he’d left where most people leave prayers about more pressing matters (make Moshe’s hair fall out, so my Sarah doesn’t like him anymore)

  • Josh Marshall confirms that the Pentagon told Obama he couldn’t visit a military hospital with campaign staff. The McCain campaign pounced on a poorly worded press statement that it wouldn’t be “appropriate” for Obama to make a campaign appearance there, without noting of course, that Obama wasn’t actually allowed to go because it would be a violation of Pentagon rules.

    This isn’t exactly true, from the detailed stories I’ve read. The Obama campaign was told it couldn’t actively campaign on the bases and in the hospitals, but Obama was free to visit and was welcome to do so, with clearance and security.

    Obama’s campaign chose NOT TO visit the hospital — a piss-poor “choice” imo.

    I guess when you can’t campaign, or give a speech at a historic monument with 200,000 adoring fans, why do it?

    Obama is one arrogant pr***. I’m beginning to think that it IS all about him…and frankly, neither he nor McCain have clue one about the depth of the economic mess here at home and neither are doing a damned thing but talk (and give speeches). McCain at least knows where the levers of power are and has some clue about how to operate them. Obama? Inexperienced and too full of himself to even understand how woefully ignorant and inexperienced he is. But, wow! He sure gives a great “unity” speech.

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