OPINION
Maybe it's time for finance reformer to swear off fabrications
Washington Post Sep 11, 08 11:58 AM CDT
(Newser)
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We all know John McCain wasn’t really offended by Barack Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” comment—the one he pretended to think was a reference to Sarah Palin. “The whole controversy is ginned up, a fraud, a lie,” writes Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post. So why isn’t anyone calling McCain on it? Lies ought to be self-defeating, but in American politics, they're not.
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Obama,
McCain to visit
Ground Zero
Associated Press Sep 11, 08 11:13 AM CDT
(AP)
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Americans marked the seventh anniversary of 9/11 with a heartfelt ceremony at Ground Zero and other solemn remembrances nationwide. Relatives of victims gathered in Lower Manhattan for readings from dignitaries and a recitation of the names of the dead. Later today, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain were due at Ground Zero to pay silent respects.
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Democrats get louder while McCain pulls back
Los Angeles Times Sep 11, 08 10:42 AM CDT
(Newser)
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In Denver, Ed Rendell told everyone to expect “a new, fighting Barack.” Now, with his lead in the polls evaporating, Obama has become just that, replacing eloquent stump speeches with loud indignant ones, the LA Times reports. His message: McCain and Palin represent not change, but a threat to civil rights. “Don’t mock the Constitution,” he thundered at a rally Monday. “Don’t make fun of it! ... It’s worked pretty well for over 200 years!”
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OPINION
Respect and courtesy, certainly, but 'deference' is pushing it
Los Angeles Times Sep 11, 08 7:19 AM CDT
(Newser)
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The McCain camp's insistence that Sarah Palin not submit to questioning until the media shows "respect and deference" is a brazen double standard bound to raise voter eyebrows, Tim Rutten writes in the Los Angeles Times . She is certainly due respect, Rutten writes, but it is hard to justify the media showing more deference to the governor of Alaska than to the president.
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Cindy, John and eldest daughter spill about dirty jokes and checking in
People Sep 11, 08 1:55 AM CDT
(Newser)
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The McCains are hardly the average American family, but Cindy still wants that gas tank filled when the car comes back. Cindy, a reticent John, and eldest daughter, Meghan, 23, spilled the beans to People about McCain family life: On messing with mom: “Sometimes I just like to shock her and say the dirtiest jokes I can possibly think of and she's like, ‘Oh, Meghan!’ I think she secretly enjoys them.”
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OPINION
Advocate (and Dem) Tsing Loh disturbed to see candidates' offspring in private education
New York Times Sep 10, 08 4:32 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Sandra Tsing Loh likes Barack and Michelle Obama’s politics, but, as a proud PTA mom, wonders why they couldn’t send their kids to a public school in their native Chicago, she writes in the New York Times . The inclusion of middle-class or affluent children, especially from families who value education, has been shown to benefit poor children immensely.
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Candidate's wife likes her privacy, and her past isn't easy to unravel
New Yorker Sep 10, 08 3:20 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Cindy McCain is a classic Western loner who chose to raise her kids as a self-styled “single parent” in Phoenix rather than join John in Washington as he served in the Senate. She may be a size zero, but she has "unusual grit": she drives a race car, flies a plane, and she likes to tell stories of making big decisions and then springing them on John, Ariel Levy writes in the New Yorker .
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GOP distracting from issues with 'Swift Boat politics,' Dem charges
Washington Post Sep 10, 08 3:08 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Barack Obama fired back today at a McCain campaign ad claiming he smeared Sarah Palin, calling the tactic "phony outrage and Swift Boat politics," the Washington Post reports. Obama used the phrase "lipstick on a pig" to describe John McCain's policies during a campaign stop yesterday, which the McCain camp criticized as a sexist reference to Palin.
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Surprising popularity defies conventional wisdom, logic
Los Angeles Times Sep 10, 08 2:56 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Democrats have been caught off-guard by Sarah Palin’s appeal, which has helped vault John McCain ahead of Barack Obama in some polls, the LA Times reports. Obama has begun attacking Palin more forcefully, which some Democrats worry will backfire, turning Palin into a “working class heroine,” in one consultant’s words. But others argue Obama must turn up the heat.
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GLOSSIES
US must defend honor, even preemptively; Iraq offers chance to make up for Vietnam
Atlantic Monthly Sep 10, 08 2:44 PM CDT
(Newser)
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John McCain’s views on war and defending the US were shaped by his Navy father and by his own time in Vietnam, Jeffrey Goldberg writes in the Atlantic , with victory as the only honorable outcome. His father believed public sentiment led to defeat in Vietnam even as a winning plan was taking root. “History repeats itself, huh?” says McCain, aware of the parallels with Iraq.
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OPINION
Palin, McCain set to continue policies that 'trample the weak, hurdle the dead'
Boston Globe Sep 10, 08 2:14 PM CDT
(Newser)
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The image of Sarah Palin as a take-no-prisoners hockey mom doesn’t square with advocating for special-needs kids, Marianne Leone writes in the Boston Globe. She may have a newborn with Down syndrome, but the “warrior culture” that suits "pit bull" Palin has "no place for the weak," Leone writes. And after caring for a quadriplegic son, who died 3 years ago, she knows McCain-Palin policies aren't what parents of these kids need.
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OPINION
Dems' attack on pro-life governor underline insecurities on abortion
Salon Sep 10, 08 1:35 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Sarah Palin represents “an explosion of a brand-new style of muscular American feminism,” writes Camille Paglia on Salon. After Barack Obama’s convention speech, Paglia assumed the election was over. "Hoary, barnacle-encrusted“ McCain seemed unthinkable as president. Then came the Palin pick, and "the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled Marlene Dietrich."
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