The Garlic: 09/14/2008

Saturday, September 20, 2008

A Tune For The Times ...

With all that's going down, time to put a soundtrack to it ...

We choose the classic Cannonball Adderley 'Mercy, Mercy. Mercy', and be sure to pay close attention to the intro by Cannonball, it fits the day so perfectly.

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy

Bonus Economic Mercy Riffs

Paul Krugman: Uneasy feelings

Sandy Levinson: A further Schmittian (and constitutional?) moment

Think Progress: Bush Compares The Financial Crisis He Created To The Terrorist Attacks He Never Saw Coming

Bloomberg's Catherine Dodge and John Brinsley: Bush Absent on Financial Crisis as Paulson Leads (Update3)

Mark Kleiman: John. McCain. Does. Not. Understand. The. Job. He. Is. Running. For.

Top Ten Cloves: Ways John McCain Isn't Like Herbert Hoover

Top Ten Cloves: Names Considered To Rename Wall Street

This Date ... On The Garlic

20 September 2007... On The Garlic

Minced Garlic - New Keith Olbermann Special Comment: ‘Your hypocrisy is so vast’

Hypocrites, The Bunch of Them!

20 September, 2006... On The Garlic

Breaking News! Pontiff In Major Spread, Popemobile Giveaway; Oprah Lands Pope Benedict XVI For Huge Tell-All Over Muslim Flap; Either Apology or Conversion To Islam Promised In Teasers; Pontiff Turned Down By CBS News Free Speech

Top Ten Cloves: Ways Spinach Industry Plans To Overcome E. Coli Setback

20 September 2005... On The Garlic

President Accepting Blame For New Storm In Advance; Says "Not Waiting For FEMA To Screw Up"; Lights, Generators Packed For Another PrimeTime Speech

Zellweger Says Bad Salutation Caused Break-Up; Chesney's Greetings A Turn-Off; "He Didn't Get Me At Hello"

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard During The Afghanistan Voting

Friday, September 19, 2008

Top Ten Cloves: Names Considered To Rename Wall Street

As part of the government's pending, unprecedented, massive, enormous bailout of Wall Street, a component of the proposed plans include the renaming of Wall Street, to commemorate the crisis.

10. You Say Bailout, We Say Loan Place

9. Trillion Dollar Turnover Turnpike

8. The McCain-Hoover Highway

7. The Economy is Fundamentally Sound Street

6. Subprime Causeway

5. Sucker Street

4. Hey Buddy, Can You Spare A Billion Dollar Bailout Boulevard

3. Bush McCain Policy Promenade

2. Dewey Cheatem and Howe Highway

1. And You Thought The Keating Five Scandal Was Bad Boulevard

Bonus Road Maps

Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight

Chris in Paris: Paulson's bad debt purchase to cost a HALF A TRILLION, and then some

Paul Krugman: Crisis Endgame

Fred Wilson: Trying To Make Sense of The Brokerage Bust

John Cole: You Have To Be Shitting Me

Good Post Alert - McCain’s Bush Problem, Laid Bare ... And Bush's Third Term

As we go through our latest "Black Friday", and Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain flops around all over the place, almost literally throwing it against the wall to see what sticks, running away from his record, his legacy, his maverickness (today, in a speech, blaming Obama for the meltdown!), we go with the old saying "you can run, but you can't hide".

So we point you to a post, yesterday, from Matthew Delong, over on The Washington Independent.

McCain’s Bush Problem, Laid Bare

Here's a snip;

The McCain campaign appears to have a blanket policy of not mentioning Bush. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews made this painfully obvious during a recent interview with McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer, when she refused to say who she voted for in 2004.

But McCain still can’t, or won’t, attack Bush, for fear that it will give the Obama campaign an opportunity to link McCain to his own party, by pointing out that McCain has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time. Obama has a free pass to criticize the administration and to run ads showing McCain and Bush together, and McCain has essentially cut himself off from benefiting from the wealth of anti-Bush sentiment in this country.

And, here's a good video, showing us more of what would be Bush's Third Term;

John McCain and the Keating 5: Third Term

Yes, we will concede, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain does have great insight to this latest crises.

This Date ... On The Garlic

19 September 2007... On The Garlic

New Garlic Song: Everything's Coming Up Iraq!

Top Ten Cloves: Ways The Iraqi Government Can Get Blackwater USA Out of The Country

19 September 2006... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard, if President Bush and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Happen To Get On The Same U.N Elevator

Minced Garlic - New Keith Olbermann Special Comment - Bush Owes Us An Apology

19 September 2005... On The Garlic

19 Cheney Slated For Surgery; Halliburton Gets No Bid Contract; $26M For Operating Room Clean-up; "Can't have VP's DNA Floating Around" Says White House

New Saturday WSJ Causes Mass Confusion and Panic; Thousands Show Up At Locked Offices; Lower Manhattan Gridlocked

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard at the Emmy Award Last Night

Thursday, September 18, 2008

"From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish ..."

El Presidente

Okay, not quite exactly what Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain pulled in his Spanish media interview, but, also, not too far off the path from the Woody Allen's "Bananas" clip above.

This is one of those things, that no matter how the Rove Rats attempt to explain away McCain's fog, it just doesn't cover him in Commander-Guy-In-Waiting, Mr.-Foreign-Policy-Expert, glory.

Since late last evening, the World Wide Web, with Josh Marshall being on top of it from the get-go, has been abuzz with this fascinating interview Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny conducted with Radio Caracol Miami.

Fly Boy seemed to get lost, not quite following along (and completely whiffing on the billboard-sized hint the interviewer tossed in his lap) when asked about meeting with Spain's Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, should he win the election.

Here's the relevant excerpt of the interview, from from The Raw Story;

INTERVIEWER: Senator finally, let’s talk about Spain. If elected president would you be willing to invite President Jose Rodriguez Louis Zapatero to the White House, to meet with you?

McCAIN: I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion.

And by the way President Calderone of Mexico is fighting a very, very tough fight against the drug cartels. I’m glad we are now working with the Mexican government on the Merida Plan, and I intend to move forward with relations and invite as many of them as I can, of those leaders to the White House.

INTERVIEWER: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government? To the president himself?

McCAIN: Uh, I don’t, I, ya know, I, honestly, I have to look at the situations and the relations and the priorities. But I can assure you, I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.

INTERVIEWER: So you have to wait and see. If he’s willing to meet with you, would you be able to do it? In the White House?

McCAIN: Well, again, I don’t — All I can tell you is I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that’s judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.

INTERVIEWER: OK, what about Europe? I’m talking about the president of Spain.

McCAIN: What about me what?

INTERVIEWER: OK. Are you willing to meet with him if you are elected president?

McCAIN: I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom, and I will stand up to those who are not.

To get a better feel for it, the good folks over at TPM have the interview, in a YouTube format;

McCain Answers Question on Spain, Zapatero

Notice the repeating of the answer, three times, similar to Mommy Moose, in her Charlie Gibson sit-down?

The Dead Campaign Express is already out there, saying it's nothing to break a sweat over.

McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Sheunemann said McCain's answer was intentional.

"The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero (and id'd him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview," he said in an e-mail.

It was intentional?

He's intentionally dissing a NATO ally?

Please ...

Let's put this in perspective, as Steve Benen does does, detailing some of Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny's other "intentional" statements;

Let's also not lose sight of the broader pattern. McCain thinks the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia was "the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War." He thinks Iraq and Pakistan share a border. He believes Czechoslovakia is still a country. He's been confused about the difference between Sudan and Somalia. He's been confused about whether he wants more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, more NATO troops in Afghanistan, or both. He's been confused about how many U.S. troops are in Iraq. He's been confused about whether the U.S. can maintain a long-term presence in Iraq. He's been confused about Iran's relationship with al Qaeda. He's been confused about the difference between Sunni and Shi'ia. McCain, following a recent trip to Germany, even referred to "President Putin of Germany." All of this incoherence on his signature issue.

This guy, increasingly, doesn't know whether to piss, or wind his watch!

Considering how he is dealing with the economy, I am a bit surprised that he didn't punt and babble that our "our fundamental relationship with Spain is strong".

Just keep him on simple statements, don't let him stray to far off the script.

Kind of like the scene, in 'The Manchurian Candidate', when Senator Iselin is complaining about having to remember how many communists there were.

Mrs. Iselin: [at meal time] I'm sorry, hon'. Would it really make it easier for you if we settled on just one number?
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: Yeah. Just one, real, simple number that'd be easy for me to remember.
[Mrs. Iselin watches her husband thump a bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup onto his plate]
Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: [addressing the Senate] There are exactly 57 card-carrying members of the Communist Party in the Department of Defense at this time!

He would still be coming off as out-of-it, but it would be better off that, then coming off as having a senior moment, or worse.

It was suggested, by some, that his staff didn't brief, or prepare him well enough before the interview.

Could be, however, considering the strategy of "Lie, Lie, Lie", why spend time feeding him info that he, likely, and as evidenced in the interview, wouldn't keep a grasp of it, anyway.

Let him flap around, say whatever he says, then spin and lie about it after.

And this isn't, necessarily, an isolated incident, particularly, and ironically, with the Spanish media.

Check out John Aravosis, over on Americablog, and his "Senator McCain, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still seriously dead", on an interview Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny did a few month ago.

We still have one more day before the weekend.

Between the strong economy that Stumblin Bumblin' Johnny sees, and this tremendous Spain gaffe, I don't know about you, but I smell a whopper of a POW-POW-POW story coming along ...

A Cavalcade of Links

Kevin Drum: A More Generous Interpretation of the McCain-Spain Gaffe

BooMan: McCain: Reckless or Senile?

Hilzoy: McCain Chose Vanity

Paul Campos: The reign in Spain falls mainly on McCain

Josh Marshall: Embarrassing

Warren Street: John McCain's Foreign Policy Credentials Take a Major Hit

Blue Girl: Call me old fashioned...

Pam Spaulding: Is McCain senile?

Brilliant at Breakfast: Senile dementia is not funny. It is also not trivial

This Date ... On The Garlic

18 September 2007... On The Garlic

Media Lobbies Vegas Court To Delay OJ Proceedings Until November Sweeps; Amicus Brief Filed; Media Caught "Flat-Footed", Need Time To Ramp Up For Doc Blocs and Cooper's Emotions

Top Ten Cloves: Possible Problems With Suing God

18 September 2006... On The Garlic

Breaking News! With DisneyBaghdad, Bush Says “Nobody Wins Hearts and Minds Better Than Disney; Disney, With Secret Contract, Working With White House, Military On Building Baghdad Moats; ‘Pirates of the Caliphate’, Other Attractions To Mask Security Measures; State Dept. Touts “DisneyBaghdad Will Pay For Itself”

Top Ten Cloves: Other Ways John Yoo Thinks Presidency Has Regained Its Balance and Is Reinvigorated

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Top Ten Cloves: Ways John McCain Isn't Like Herbert Hoover

News Item: With ‘fundamentals are strong’ comments, McCain borrows Hoover’s Depression-era rhetoric

10. Pretty sure Hoover knew how many houses he had

9. Hoover's wife wasn't lifting recipes off the Internet (Okay, there was no Internet, but she wouldn't have done it, anyway)

8. Hoover didn't have Joe Lieberman around, to whisper correct answers to him

7. Hoover went to Standford, McCain didn't (Though, it may be one of the colleges Sarah Palin spent a minute at)

6. Press of the day wasn't bringing Hoover boxes of donuts

5. Hoover, as best as we can tell, didn't claim to invent radio, shortwave radio, or the telegraph (McCain's camp claimed him to have invented the Blackberry)

4. Hoover could, correctly and knowledgeably, make reference to "Czechoslovakia"

3. Hoover didn't blame the Depression on his being in a POW prison for five-years

2. Sturgis Biker Rally hadn't been launched yet, so, Hoover couldn't have attempted to whore his wife out

1. Hoover couldn't have selected a "Sarah Palin" for his VP - Alaska wasn't a state yet

Bonus Hoover-McCain-Same Economy Riffs

Kathy at Comments From Left Field: Herbert Hoover Said It First

Eric Rauchway: McCain's Dangerous Do-Nothing Economics; The Great Depression was caused not by a stock crash but by a banking system left to self-destruct by a conservative president who, like John McCain today, insisted that the economy's "fundamentals" were strong

Paul Krugman: Fundamentals

Think Progress: FLASHBACK: In 2007, McCain Admitted He ‘Did Not’ Anticipate Financial Crisis

Top Ten Cloves: Other Things John McCain Thinks Are "Fundamentally Sound"

And Now For Something Completely Different ... Michael Palin for President?

H/T to Will Bunch, over on Attytood, for this;

Michael Palin for President

Considering the Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain camp got confused when he first announced Mommy Moose, I suppose it could be reasonable there's a measurable number of people out there that believe Monty Python is looking to take over the White House.

On another point, how eerily similar is the classic Python "Argument" routine mirroring the McCain crew these days?

Monty Python Argument Sketch

Bonus Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny and Mommy Moose Riffs

Why Do You Think We've Been Calling Him "Stumblin' and Bumblin"?

How Little We Know ...

"I shot a moose once ..."

We Told You He Was Just Like Bob Dole

This Date ... On The Garlic

17 September 2006... On The Garlic

Would Fox Have Cut Her Off If She Started Talking About Loofahs?

Okay Conspiracy Theorists, Break Out The Tinfoil Hats - Nuke Solider Found Dead

17 September 2006... On The Garlic

Weekend Special - Sautéed Cloves

Do All Neocons Look Alike? ... The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll

Help Spread The Garlic!

17 September 2005... On The Garlic

Weekend Special - Sautéed Cloves

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Well ... In Her Defense, She Can't See Hewlett Packard From Alaska

This is truly inexplicable ...

Why would she even go there?

Why would she take on a hypothetical question, on a day, where her boss was already being pummeled, directly, for his stunning vision on the economy, and the campaign, overall, for their journey over the past few weeks, into their "Lie, Lie, Lie' strategy.

I suppose, it goes to, in some degree, why she tanked at Hewlett Packard (as a good friend of mine this evening offered, when was the last time you heard someone raving about "that great HP computer" they have).

But there she was, not once, but twice, today, putting her foot between her lipstick-covered lips.

Carli Fiorina, one of Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain's Economic/Financial/Business advisors, extolling on how Sarah Palin, with all her Wasillian experience, couldn't run a company, like, say, Hewlett Packard.

That was on radio (Go here to check that out)

Apparently, fearing the campaign wouldn't be ridiculed enough, Carli goes trudging onto television, on MSNBC (Here's the video), and, remember from above, the part about backing away from hypothetical questions, plows right into again, saying her boss, Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny couldn't run a company like Hewlett Packard either (and, for good measure, perhaps the thought of being tossed under a bus quickly flashed through her mind, she included Barack Obama and Joe Biden in it as well).

Jesus!

That Ms. South Caroline Teen USA contestant would have been better off repping the McCain crew today.

Now, I'm quite confident, if she was asked to take over Hewlett Packard, Palin would become a Hard Drive, with lipstick, in a flash

She'd say, something like this;

I -- I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this company and victory in the markets, you can't blink.

Likely, she would also throw in that "God's will has to be done, in unifying people and companies ... And that the people of Hewlett Packard's hearts have to be right with God, so we can work together to make sure God's will be done here."

That is, she'd say this, if her teleprompter was working...

Especially if gets a deal on a parachute comparable to Carli's!

And McCain?

Likely, he wouldn't be interested.

He'd be too busy, tinkering with his invention, looking to build a a bigger and better Blackberry.

Yes, it's needed, again ...

Help Me Mr. Wizard!

Bonus Carli Fiorina Foot-In-Mouth Riffs

No Intel Inside

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Carly Fiorina should stop "helping" Sarah Palin

BooMan: If the Presidency Were a Hiring Job

Think Progress - Fiorina clarifies: ‘I don’t think John McCain could run a major corporation.’

Jennifer Skalka: Off Message, Squared

Ron Beasley: Foot Shooting

Alex Koppelman: Does McCain really oppose golden parachutes?

This Date ... On The Garlic

16 September 2005... On The Garlic

Santorum Backs Vatican On Hunt For Gay Priests; Says Church Can Lead Return To Family Values; Suggests Boston As First To Be Cleaned Up

President's Speech Lets Millions See St. Louis Cathedral For First Time; On-Line Maps Jammed; Help Lines Flooded With Searches For Landmark On Bourbon Street

Top Ten Cloves: Questions On The Vatican Probe To Weed Out Gay Priests

Monday, September 15, 2008

McCain in Pottersville - All's, Hee-Haw, Hunky-dory

It's A Wonderful Life bank run

(Watch the full-version of the scene here)

If Stumblin' Bumblin John McCain lived in Bedford Falls, perhaps the town's Mayor (or, we can even keep him a Senator), no doubt he would be extolling the virtues of Pottersville, saying that things there were 'fundamentally sound" and that Mr. Potter "and his innovation and his entrepreneurship, his businesses, those are the fundamentals of America and I think they’re strong.”

He'd be doing this, having tossed away is first wife, and now toting around his second, Violet Bick.

His policies would have benefited Sam Wainwright, to move his business overseas.

His aide-de-camp, Sarah Palin, would have shuttered the library, banning virtually all of the books, leaving poor Mary Hatch unemployed.

Ernie and Bert would have been stop-lossed, and now overseas fighting in a 100-year war.

And, as he would be dead wrong standing in the middle of Bedford Falls' Main Street, he's as dead wrong today, standing on the main political stage, painting himself as the savior of the American way of life.

This morning, as Wall Street melted, like a Hershey bar lying on a dashboard in July (or, one of those American workers McCain once mockingly challenged to work in the hot Yuma summer sun - H/T The Jed Report), Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny stuck to his stump script and pronounced, that despite the troubles of the day, our economy was fundamentally sound.

By noontime, he was being, rightfully so, derided as woefully out-of-touch, and his talking heads were rushed onto the cable news sets to start spinning "what he actually said", which caused severe technical problems with the broadcasts, having the sets spinning so ferociously.

Then by late today, Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny was doing the spinning himself, offering “The American worker and their innovation and their entrepreneurship, the small business, those are the fundamentals of America and I think they’re strong.”

Nice, jingoistic compliment, but it doesn't address the reality, or have anything to do with what's going down with the economy.

Kind of an Economic POW-POW-POW story.

However, it's almost like gushing, glowingly, over the bin of bright, shiny colorful oranges, when the issue is the bin of rotten apples right next to them.

One has nothing to do with the other.

Paul Krugman, today;

The new system was supposed to do a better job of spreading and reducing risk. But in the aftermath of the housing bust and the resulting mortgage crisis, it seems apparent that risk wasn’t so much reduced as hidden: all too many investors had no idea how exposed they were.

And here’s the thing: The defenses set up to prevent a return of those bank runs, mainly deposit insurance and access to credit lines with the Federal Reserve, only protect the guys in the marble buildings, who aren’t at the heart of the current crisis. That creates the real possibility that 2008 could be 1931 revisited.

But Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, was adamant that he wouldn’t sweeten the deal by putting more public funds on the line. Many people thought he was bluffing. I was all ready to start today’s column, “When life hands you Lehman, make Lehman aid.” But there was no aid, and apparently no deal. Mr. Paulson seems to be betting that the financial system — bolstered, it must be said, by those special credit lines — can handle the shock of a Lehman failure. We’ll find out soon whether he was brave or foolish.

Hmmm ... Sounds like there was no oversight, or regulatory process in place.

Whether it be Krugman, or any other analyst today, I didn't see any vibes, any allusions, any blame been plastered on the worker bees of Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, or that other teetering elephant in-the-room, AIG.

McCain is desperately, to the point of looking utterly foolish, of trying to rip off his Republican suit, as if he (and, specifically, his prime financial advisor, Phil Gramm, he of "Mental Recessions" and "Whining"), had nothing to do with the melting economy.

What's going down now is the direct result of the Republican administration, and rubber-stamp Congress for six-of-the-past-seven-years.

Let the free markets be free, and not burdened with the government looking over their shoulders and everything will take care of itself.

Policies that will continue in a McCain-Palin administration.

Hee-Haw!

Bonus McCain's Economy's Strong Riffs

BusinessWeek: Wall Street's Perfect Storm - Investors deal with a Lehman bankruptcy, the sale of Merrill Lynch to BofA, and a possible AIG restructuring

Joe Klein: Their Brand is Collapse

No More Mister Nice Blog: CHANGE? McCAIN CAN'T EVEN CHANGE HIS CATCHPHRASE

Space Cowboy: McCain: Economics Supergenius in Training

Chris In Paris: The Sunday night Wall Street tsunami, Part I: What happened?

Hilzoy: Donald Luskin Reclaims His Title

Pam Spaulding: Greenspan's "once-in-a century" financial crisis counters McCain's economic hallucinations

NYT Dealbook: Counting the Cash for Lehman’s Chief

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Ring of Lying - The New McCain-Palin Campaign Theme Song

Power comes from lying ... Lying big and getting the whole damn world to play along with you ... Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you get them by the balls

Senator Roark, from “Sin City - That Yellow Bastard”

Yes, it is that dire.

We have to pull out, once again, the infamous Sin City quote.

Paul Krugman called it a "Blizzard of Lies"... Even the MSM is jumping off the Dead Campaign Express and calling it as it is - lies ...

And, please sit down for this, the Lyingest Liar of them all, the Grand Wizard of Smears, Karl Rove came out today and indicated he thought Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, and Mommy Mayor Moose, Vice President, Sarah "I'm not really a Vice-Presidential candidate, I just play one on the campaign trail" Palin's lying has gone to far (though, we must be cautious, this could have been Turd Blossom giving a coded signal to the Rove Rats of "Good Job!"; Rove, also today, indicated that ‘You can’t trust the fact-check organizations.’ - Here's the video of it).

So, as we have done so often, we offer a tune, a theme song, for this pugnacious prevaricating pair.

They can play it as a prelude to their speeches, undoubtedly filled with lies, to warm the crowd up (another thing they have been lying about), get that big applause line.

When they send their press release out to the media, they can include a small .wav file of it, so reporters will know, whatever they are sending, contains lies.

Let's all help make this their new calling card, their signature tune.

Jump in and sing along, you know the tune, it's a Johnny Cash classic.

The Ring of Lying

Lyin' is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of Lyin'

I fell into a burning ring of Lyin'
I went down, down, down and the Lyin' went higher
And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of Lyin'
The ring of Lyin'

I fell into a burning ring of Lyin'
I went down, down, down and the Lyin' went higher
And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of Lyin'
The ring of Lyin'

The taste of Lyin' is sweet
When Reformers like us meet
I fell for you like a child
Oh, but the Lyin' went wild

I fell into a burning ring of Lyin'
I went down, down, down and the Lyin' went higher
And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of Lyin'
The ring of Lyin'

I fell into a burning ring of Lyin'
I went down, down, down and the Lyin' went higher
And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of Lyin'
The ring of Lyin'

And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of Lyin'
The ring of Lyin'
The ring of Lyin'
The ring of Lyin'

Bonus Prevaricating Posts

A Times Editorial: Campaign of lies disgraces McCain

Brilliant at Breakfast: Hooray! An actual newspaper uses the "L" word

Brad Jacobson: 'McCain's Distortions' by Robert Greenwald

Eric Martin: Your Stupid Lies, It Just Makes Me Wince

Lance Mannion: Sarah Palin's lies are John McCain's lies

Josh Marshall: Unfit for High Office

Steve Benen: THE ROUTINE ACCEPTANCE OF OBVIOUS LIES...

How Little We Know ...

Boy, that Palin Truth Squad, as we alluded to last evening, sure has its' creepy, spidery fingers, and hands, full today.

Since the Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain Campaign has left it up to the media to vet Mommy Mayor Moose, Vice President, Sarah "I'm not really a Vice-Presidential candidate, I just play one on the campaign trail" Palin, vet, indeed is what is being done.

Along with the NYT, The Washington Post rings in today with "As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood", and we get more of the fractured picture of the Wasilla Whiz Kid;

But a visit to this former mining supply post 40 miles north of Anchorage shows the extent to which Palin's mayoralty was also defined by what it did not include. The universe of the mayor of Wasilla is sharply circumscribed even by the standards of small towns, which limited Palin's exposure to issues such as health care, social services, the environment and education.

Palin limited her duties further by hiring a deputy administrator to handle much of the town's day-to-day management. Her top achievement as mayor was the construction of an ice rink, a project that landed in the courts and cost the city more than expected.

Arriving in office, Palin herself played down the demands of the job in response to residents who worried that her move to oust veteran officials would leave the town in the lurch. "It's not rocket science," Palin said, according to the town newspaper, the Frontiersman. "It's $6 million and 53 employees."

Along with this, Maureen Dowd weighs in, with her excursion to Alaska, with "Bering Straight Talk", offering "I’ve been in Alaska only a week, but I’m already feeling ever so much smarter about Russia", putting her, nearly on par with the former Mayor, who, when asked by Charlie Gibson the other evening, about her insight to Russian Foreign Policy, with great perk, shot back instantly “They’re our next-door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”

OOOO-Kayyyyyyyyyy!

And, with a little icing, Frank Rich comes running in with his "The Palin-Whatshisname Ticket".

It’s an urgent matter, because if we’ve learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it’s that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America’s chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election.

No longer able to remember his principles any better than he can distinguish between Sunnis and Shia, McCain stands revealed as a guy who can be easily rolled by anyone who sells him a plan for “victory,” whether in Iraq or in Michigan. A McCain victory on Election Day will usher in a Palin presidency, with McCain serving as a transitional front man, an even weaker Bush to her Cheney.

So, as the Stumblin' Bumblin McCain Campaign sifts through the damage, maybe they will be singing, or humming, this tune.

Lauren Bacall: To Have and Have Not "How Little We Know"

Bonus Moose Droppings

Taegan Goddard: Palin's Limited Duties as Mayor

Sadly No: An absolute menace

Marty Lederman: Angler and Barracuda

Brilliant at Breakfast: New York Times to America: Wake the hell up!

Steve Benen: WORSE THAN BUSH...

Well, I Guess It Rules Out On-Line Gambling Too ...