Mac Should Muzzle Staffers, Drop Robocalls, Talk Security

Adviser who called Clinton 'monster' lands national security role

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama’s national security team seems to consist entirely of people known for speaking their minds, observes Ben Smith of Politico, and none moreso than new NSC staff member Samantha Power, best known for calling Hillary Clinton “a monster.” She was booted for the incident, but that was just a “political convenience,” says Smith. “She wasn’t some political operative who had played a dirty trick, but an academic who tripped up.” More»

A McCain win isn't the worst thing for liberalism

(NEWSER) - OK, so John McCain isn't likely to win, admits Bill Kristol in the New York Times. But if he does, here are things liberals could cheer (if they're not heading for the Canadian border).

• Shouldn’t liberals love it when the underdog pulls it off? “A McCain upset victory would be a classic liberal happy ending.”
• The establishment loves Barack Obama, and the establishment taking a hard lump should bring smiles to liberal faces.

McCain, Obama break with tradition and carry their negative campaigning into the election's final days

(NEWSER) - Both presidential candidates are bucking tradition and remaining on the offensive in the last days of the election—a time when campaigns usually back off and focus on positive messages, the Washington Post reports. Barack Obama is spinning Dick Cheney’s endorsement of John McCain as a troubling indication of a possible Bush redux, and McCain’s newest robocalls feature Hillary Clinton’s primary season attacks on Obama. More»

'Tinny and trivial' attacks are too small, and in any case too late, in momentous election

(NEWSER) - Any day now, John McCain will mock John Kerry for flip-flopping. Or maybe go with George H.W.’s “Read my lips, no new taxes,” pledge, even Eisenhower’s “I shall go to Korea.” What he won’t do is offer anything new, because all year he’s “seemed intent on fighting the last war, or rather, waging the last campaign,” Scot Lehigh writes in the Boston Globe. More»

(NEWSER) - “With 10 days to go before the election, it's getting pretty dark out there” for John McCain, William Kristol writes in the Weekly Standard. All the more reason for true conservatives to stand behind him "for the sake of the country," says Kristol, who's proud to stay off the "Obama juggernaut." He'd love to see an upset and revel in "the dejection of the mainstream media” and “the incredulity of the leftwing triumphalists.” More»