Charles Babington, one of several AP writers who have been criticized for their unfavorable coverage of the Obama campaign, has noticed that major newspapers have noticed that the McCain campaign is truth-challenged.

A New York Times headline accuses the McCain Campaign of distortion:

Ad on Sex Education Distorts Obama Policy

Language in a Washington Post headline is even sharper:

McCain's 'Education' Spot Is Dishonest, Deceptive

[more...]

Some commenters have cited this White House document as a delineation of the Bush Doctrine. The key portion I think is this:

For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack. Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat—most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack.

We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction—weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning.

MORE . . .

A thread where everyone is welcome to comment, as long as they adhere to the rules of the site (the rules of my threads are not operative in Open Threads.)

This is an Open Thread.

Now even the normally level headed Greg Sargent has it:

Forget war with Russia. The real news from Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin is this stretch, where she is clearly clueless about what the Bush Doctrine is...

"In what respect, Charlie?"

This performance is the kind of thing that could have a serious impact on the race, unless everyone politely agrees to ignore it.

This is seriously nuts. Palin asked Gibson to define what HE meant by it. (NOTE: Stellaa points out that Gibson tried the same game with Obama and Media Matters ripped Gibson for it then. Guess Sargent is ok with it when it is done to a Republican.) Indeed, her eventual answer to the question is extremely sensible (unlike Bush and McCain's actual policies) and smart politics. She did not accept the premise of Gibson's question and then gave a sensible answer to the question. This type of stuff is what is killing the Left blogs right now. They look like fools when they act this way. The video is on the flip.

The Republican Attorney General of Wisconsin is in a position to meddle with elections, so of course he can't resist. J.B. Van Hollen has sued the state because it has not forced local clerks to "crosscheck voter names with driver's license records for voters who registered to vote or changed their addresses on or after Jan. 1, 2006." State election officials argue that conducting any required crosschecks "would cripple efforts to prepare for the Nov. 4 presidential election because they don't have the staff to check so many names in the next eight weeks."

If Van Hollen wanted to solve the problem, he would work with the governor and legislature to find a political resolution. That he chose instead to file a suit that seeks the disenfranchisement of newly registered voters suggests that Van Hollen's true motivation is the suppression of Wisconsin's new voters because they are enthusiastic supporters of Barack Obama. That suspicion is only heightened by Van Hollen's role as "state co-chair of John McCain's presidential campaign."

[more...]

Kevin Drum notes that while Sarah Palin echoes the irresponsible McCain position on the expansion of NATO to Georgia, the Democrats have not a leg to stand on on the issue:

John McCain's official position on NATO expansion is that we should include Georgia and Ukraine posthaste. This means that if either of those countries gets into a border skirmish — or worse — with Russia, the United States will be obligated to go to war on their behalf.

However, unless I'm mistaken, this is also Barack Obama's official position. So I wouldn't expect a whole lot of pushback on this from his camp. Which is too bad, since the American public really ought to think long and seriously about whether we should be reponsible for defending distant countries that have long histories of ethnic strife and unstable borders.

The only "Serious Person" who has made sense on this issue is Sam Nunn:

This isn't the most pressing problem facing the country -- it isn't even in the top twenty -- but Sen. Herb Kohl nonetheless has a point when he wonders why it should cost 20 cents to text a question mark to a friend.

In his letter, Kohl points out that Sprint was the first major carrier to up its text messaging charges, increasing them from 10 to 20 cents. The others eventually followed suit. Kohl believes, as many others do, that text messages are so small that they do not warrant such a large rate increase. The senator also points out that since all four carriers raised the price around the same time, they have not engaged in the "vigorous price competition" that is expected in a free market. The big four wireless carriers serve more than 90 percent of the cell phone market, so the absence of competition for text message pricing is definitely worth looking into.

Examining the larger problem of lax antitrust enforcement -- the Justice Department's current philosophy that if two or three or four huge companies share an entire market, that's all the competition we need, even when it amounts to no competition at all -- might be a more productive use of the senate's time.

Here's more evidence of Republican incompetence to manage the government, as if more were needed:

The government wasted millions of dollars on four no-bid contracts it handed out for Hurricane Katrina work, including paying $20 million for a camp for evacuees that was never inspected and proved to be unusable, investigators say.

Not to mention the Fence to Nowhere:

The Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that cost overruns, legal obstacles and other problems were imperiling its goal of completing the 670 miles of fencing and technological improvements on the Southwest border that President Bush has promoted as vital to securing it.

[more ...]

Herman Atkins served 12 years before DNA testing showed he didn't commit the rape and robbery that led to his conviction. Atkins considers himself lucky that there was DNA available for new testing in his case. He speaks from the heart when he urges Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign two bills on his desk. One would help prevent wrongful convictions and the other would help the wrongfully convicted.

The first bill, SB 1589, would require corroboration for jailhouse informant testimony. Informants have good reasons to lie: they are getting something in exchange for what they say. Yet, they are persuasive. In fact, informants are the leading cause of wrongful convictions in death penalty cases. We already require corroboration for co-defendant informants; SB 1589 simply extends that same precaution to jailhouse informants.

[more ...]

As Jeralyn pointed out yesterday, the McCain campaign has gone beyond negative. It's latest ad is filled with disgusting lies, most prominently its accusation that Barack Obama sponsored an Illinois bill to teach "comprehensive sex education" to kindergarten students. The bill, which Obama did not sponsor, would have allowed teachers to give kindergarten students enough information to protect themselves from sexual predators, while reserving "medically accurate" information about sex to be taught to older students in higher grades.

Almost as troubling is the advertisement's false claim that this bill was Obama's "one accomplishment" in the field of education. [more ...]

A slew of state polls have been released but I am not going to pay attention to them. Here's why - they all came too close to the GOP Convention. I am going to concentrate on the national tracking polls for a few more days. We have 3 to follow - Ras, which has a tie, Gallup, which has McCain by 4 (though I have expressed my problems with the Gallup tracking results), and Hotline, which has McCain by 2.

At this point, the race seems to have stabilized to a virtual tie/small McCain lead. I believe the fundamentals still strongly favor Obama and believe he should remain the strong favorite to win the election. But he really needs to look to change the current Media narrative. The disagreement between Jeralyn (and the entire Left blogosphere apparently) and I on Palinpalooza need not be rehashed in this post. I merely suggest again the following - Barack Obama can grab the Media narrative by the neck if he would spend a few days campaigning together with Bill and Hillary Clinton, especially if he makes a strong economic appeal in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan. I strongly recommend Obama take this tack next week.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Ted Stevens' prosecution is on track for trial as U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan rejected a number of defense motions to dismiss the case.

[The motions] challenged the indictment on the grounds that it was constitutionally vague or violated the statute-of-limitations. This came after Judge Sullivan earlier ruled that the indictment did not violate separation-of-powers provision for the executive branch and Congress. A move to change the venue for the trial to Alaska has been rejected as well.

Although "there is still a chance that U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan will dismiss the case on the grounds that it violates the Speech or Debate Clause," that chance seems infinitesimally small. That Clause does not insulate legislators from prosecution for filing false financial disclosure forms. Stevens' trial is scheduled to commence in twelve days.