McCain deflates his own “tire-gauge” attack: ”

After all the stupidity and charade surrounding the GOP’s attack on Obama -including this lampooning by Stephen Colbert — for proposing a common sense approach to increasing fuel efficiency, McCain is forced to admit that it’s a pretty good idea.

Reuters:

The surprise came during a telephone town hall meeting McCain held on Tuesday with voters in Pennsylvania.
””
‘Obama said a couple of days ago says we all should inflate our tires. I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it,’ McCain said.

But he kept up his broad criticism of Obama on energy: ‘I … don’t think that that (inflating tires) is a way to become energy independent.’

Would that be another flip-flop, McSame?’ Contrary to the Team McCain attacks, Obama never suggested that properly inflating your tires and keeping your engine tuned alone will make us energy independent. But as is always true with the Republican distortion machine, facts and context never get in the way of a good smear… even when the attacker admits that the target of the smear was right all along.’

There are more Colbert/Stewart videos on the campaign available at Indecision ‘08.

“

John McCain ad irritates many in Hollywood

Okay, hallmark of the Rove tactics is to turn a strength against an opponent.
But seeing the crowds around Obama and deciding that he is famous for being famous is a fundamental misunderstanding. These people are turning out to see the performance he has turned in time and time again. The civic guitar solo.
HRC poo-pooed this showmanship as mere words. But oratory has been a core political skill since Ancient Greece precisely because of what lies behind those words. Oratory as a craft, as Obama employes it,  persuades because it uses reason, emotion, and the evocation of a civic wisdom dormant in all of us.
Persuasion is the ideal process of democractic action. It is earning the consent of the governed. People will respond to more authoritarian tactics. Scare them, they will hand over freedoms for protection. Bribe them, they will put people in power who will abuse the commons to benefit their constituency. But win them by reason, by emotion, and by appealing to their idealism and they will fill the ampitheaters and pavillions just to be a part of it.
That foundation of this oratory is compelling because it is in the genetic code of American government. It re-awakens that pride and idealism Americans felt in elementary school when they first learned what their country was intended to be. Before they did the unit on slavery, native americans, the gilded age…
And after the last eight years, Americans are weary of leaders who aim low and fall short. They want to reach for more. They want leaders who remind us we are not descended from small ambitious men. Men who tell us to be afraid and then exploit the fear they breed. They want to be part of something larger and more noble than their own self-interest.
The difference between a rock star and a celebrity is that on stage, the celebrity can only wave, the rockstar performs.

I am # 6,328

Change We Can Believe In

An Open Letter to Barack Obama

…

Here are key positions you have embraced that we believe are essential to sustaining this movement:

§ Withdrawal from Iraq on a fixed timetable.

§ A response to the current economic crisis that reduces the gap between the rich and the rest of us through a more progressive financial and welfare system; public investment to create jobs and repair the country’s collapsing infrastructure; fair trade policies; restoration of the freedom to organize unions; and meaningful government enforcement of labor laws and regulation of industry.

§ Universal healthcare.

§ An environmental policy that transforms the economy by shifting billions of dollars from the consumption of fossil fuels to alternative energy sources, creating millions of green jobs.

§ An end to the regime of torture, abuse of civil liberties and unchecked executive power that has flourished in the Bush era.

§ A commitment to the rights of women, including the right to choose abortion and improved access to abortion and reproductive health services.

§ A commitment to improving conditions in urban communities and ending racial inequality, including disparities in education through reform of the No Child Left Behind Act and other measures.

§ An immigration system that treats humanely those attempting to enter the country and provides a path to citizenship for those already here.

§ Reform of the drug laws that incarcerate hundreds of thousands who need help, not jail.

§ Reform of the political process that reduces the influence of money and corporate lobbyists and amplifies the voices of ordinary people

.

These are the changes we can believe in. In other areas–such as the use of residual forces and mercenary troops in Iraq, the escalation of the US military presence in Afghanistan, the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the death penalty–your stated positions have consistently varied from the positions held by many of us, the “friends on the left” you addressed in recent remarks. If you win in November, we will work to support your stands when we agree with you and to challenge them when we don’t. We look forward to an ongoing and constructive dialogue with you when you are elected President.

Marc Ambinder (July 30) – Weaver, McCain’s Former Strategist, Calls “Celeb” Ad “Childish” :
30 Jul 2008 04:10 pm
John Weaver,  for years one of John McCain’s closest friends and confidants, has been in exile since his resignation from McCain’s presidential campaign last year.    With the exception of an occasional interview, he has, by his own account, bit his tongue as McCain’s campaign has adopted a strategy that Weaver believes ‘diminishes John McCain.’
With the release today of a McCain television ad blasting Obama for celebrity preening while gas prices rise, and a memo that accuses Obama of putting his own aggrandizement before the country, Weaver said he’s had ‘enough.’
The ad’s premise, he said, is ‘childish.’”

2007 HRC-LOGO debate on GLBT issues (all Republicans invited but only Democrats accepted): “On Civil Rights: Real GLBT equality includes the right to marry

Q: You’re one of just two candidates who fully supports same-sex marriage.
A: Why do you think that is?

A: This is really a question of whether you really believe in equality. When you understand what real equality is, you understand that people who love each other must have the opportunity to be able to express that in a way that is meaningful, and that the state should not be intervening against people, the state should be there on behalf of people, to make sure that that love has a chance to be facilitated.

Q: So what you’re saying is that Senator Obama and Senator Edwards, who sat here just moments ago both espousing equality–are you saying that they don’t truly oppose same sex marriage, that they’re just playing politics?

A: I’m saying that I stand for real equality and that this is really part of an American tradition because when you look at the founding documents, to me this is a foundational principle of who we are as a country.

Source: 2007 HRC/LOGO debate on gay issues Aug 9, 2007″

Gravel Knocks It Out of the Park

2007 HRC-LOGO debate on GLBT issues (all Republicans invited but only Democrats accepted): “On Civil Rights: Marriage preceded religion; it’s not a religious term

Stop and think. What is marriage? I resent religion saying that it’s a religious term. It’s not. Marriage preceded all forms of religion in civilization. Marriage is a commitment between two human beings in love. And understand me; I’m saying two human beings. They can be heterosexual. They can be two lesbians. They can be transgender. They can be two gays. What it is, it’s a commitment of human beings in love. And if there’s anything we need in this world, it’s more love.

Source: 2007 HRC/LOGO debate on gay issues Aug 9, 2007

Q: Why do you think Obama and Edwards and Clinton do not support full same-sex marriage rights?

A: Well, it’s because they’re playing it safe. They’re not going to lose any votes over not being for marriage, whatever their excuses are. They’re going to win. This is costing votes for us. I don’t care. I don’t want those votes. So you want to know the difference? A good politician can tell you to go to hell and make you look forward to the trip. We see a lot of that.

Source: 2007 HRC/LOGO debate on gay issues Aug 9, 2007″

It is my strong belief that the government has to treat all citizens equally. I come from that in part out of personal experience. When you’re a black guy named Barack Obama, you know what it’s like to be on the outside. And so my concern is continually to make sure that the rights that are conferred by the state are equal for all people.
That’s why I opposed DOMA in 2006 when I ran for the Senate. That’s why I am a strong supporter not of a weak version of civil unions, but of a strong version, in which the rights that are conferred at the federal level to persons who are part of the same sex union are compatible.
When it comes to federal rights, the over 1,100 rights that right now are not being given to same sex couples, I think that’s unacceptable, and as president of the United States, I am going to fight hard to make sure that those rights are available.

Source: 2007 HRC/LOGO debate on gay issues Aug 9, 2007

On Civil Rights: Legal rights for gays are conferred by state, not by church

Q: You have said in previous debates that it is up to individual religious denominations to decide whether or not to recognize same-sex marriage. What place does the church have in government-sanctioned civil marriages?

A: It is my strong belief that the government has to treat all citizens equally. I don’t think that the church should be making these determinations when it comes to legal rights conferred by the state. I do think that individual denominations have the right to make their own decisions as to whether they recognize same sex couples. My denomination, United Church of Christ, does. Other denominations may make a decision, and obviously, part of keeping a separation of churches and state is also to make sure that churches have the right to exercise their freedom of religion.

Source: 2007 HRC/LOGO debate on gay issues Aug 9, 2007

On Civil Rights: Disentangle gay rights from the word ‘marriage’

Q: If you were back in the Illinois legislature where you served and the issue of civil marriage came before you, how would you have voted on that?

A: My view is that we should try to disentangle what has historically been the issue of the word ‘marriage,’ which has religious connotations to some people, from the civil rights that are given to couples, in terms of hospital visitation, in terms of whether or not they can transfer property or Social Security benefits and so forth. So it depends on how the bill would’ve come up. I would’ve supported and would continue to support a civil union that provides all the benefits that are available for a legally sanctioned marriage. And it is then, as I said, up to religious denominations to make a determination as to whether they want to recognize that as marriage or not.

Source: 2007 HRC/LOGO debate on gay issues Aug 9, 2007

On Civil Rights: Gay marriage is less important that equal gay rights

Q: On the grounds of civil marriage, can you see to our community where [your stance of separating gay rights from the word 'marriage'] comes across as sounding like ‘separate but equal’?

A: Look, when my parents got married in 1961, it would have been illegal for them to be married in a number of states in the South. So obviously, this is something that I understand intimately, it’s something that I care about. But if I were advising the civil rights movement back in 1961 about its approach to civil rights, I would have probably said it’s less important that we focus on an anti-miscegenation law than we focus on a voting rights law and a non-discrimination and employment law and all the legal rights that are conferred by the state. Now, it’s not for me to suggest that you shouldn’t be troubled by these issues. But my job as president is going to be to make sure that the legal rights that have consequences on a day to day basis for loving same sex couples all across the country.

Source: 2007 HRC/LOGO debate on gay issues Aug 9, 2007″