Election Central Morning Roundup
McCain Credits Surge For Event From Before The Surge
John McCain has been been caught in a big foreign policy slip, saying during his interview with CBS Evening News that the surge was responsible for the Anbar Awakening, an event that first happened before the surge. Even more embarrassing for the media -- a group that the McCain camp says is for Obama -- CBS edited the gaffe out of the broadcast version, but still left it in the online version.
Obama Visits Sites, Meets Officials In Israel
Barack Obama's tour of Israel has continued while all of us in America were asleep, with the candidate visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, then meeting with high-profile Israeli and Palestinian officials. On the list of those he has met with or will be meeting with later: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
McCain In Pennsylvania
John McCain is holding a town hall event at 10 a.m. ET in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, part of his tour of swing states while Barack Obama is overseas. Expect this event to stay in keeping with the tone of the last few days: Officially it's about domestic issues, but a good part of it will be spent bashing Obama on foreign policy issues relating to the countries he's now visiting.
Volunteer Tells McCain: Get New Staff
A McCain supporter volunteering for his campaign offered her advice to the candidate during his New Hampshire stop yesterday -- perhaps the best advice he's gotten this year. "You've got to make some changes," the woman said. "I've had problems with a lot of your paid staff."
Ron Paul Ready To Make Bigger Trouble For The GOP
Ron Paul's supporters have moved his planned "Rally For The Republic" -- essentially a massive protest of the Republican convention -- to the 15,000-seat Target Center in Minneapolis, a larger venue than originally planned. This should be a sight: A bunch of Paul-heads speaking out against the modern GOP, with the candidate himself joining in for the fun.
New Hampshire Senate Race Leans Dem
CQ has changed their rating on the New Hampshire Senate race from "No Clear Favorite" to "Leans Democrat," giving Dem former Governor Jeanne Shaheen an edge over incumbent Republican John Sununu. The only surprising thing is that this didn't happen sooner -- Shaheen has led by comfortable margins in nearly every poll taken since she got in the race.
A big shout-out to Spencer Ackerman and Matt Yglesias for helping to catch McCain's mixed-up timeline of events in Al-Anbar province!!!
July 23, 2008 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ackerman was on it, I think, before anyone. Quick pass to Matt Y. -- then Keith Olbermann picked it up -- then Anderson Cooper.
TPM alumni rule.
July 23, 2008 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's rare that I get so upset over a complicit and weak press corps, since that would mean I'm upset 24-7, and I'd rather not be.
But this CBS thing for some reason has really "grinded my gears" (credit to Peter Griffin).
I would love to see TPM push this and report on it further until CBS is forced, in its broadcast, to:
1) explain why it edited the piece that way
2) explain why McCain was wrong about the facts
http://strategy08.wordpress.com
July 23, 2008 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Das, word.
It is all time gear grinder.
Eric, Greg, whomever:
Please. Do what you can to get someone at CBS to explain themselves. The CBS effort to cleanse McCain's words is more frightening than McCain's latest bout with the truth and facts.
July 23, 2008 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Many people were angry that he had not gone to Iraq. Senator McCain - a very angry man who has been showing his temper as of late - made a huge issue of it. Now that Barack Obama is making the trip, everyone, and especially John McCain, is hopping mad again. I'm so very impressed at all this indignant anger. Just think what kind of president John McCain will make, getting mad at world leaders when they don't do what he wants, and then getting even angrier when they do. What a special kind of disposition you must have to be able to vent your anger so often, barely keeping it hidden at times behind that teeth-gritting smile.
M. Dowd said it best today "The Angry One can try to paint The One as having bad judgment. But who is being advised by Kissinger, the man who helped keep us in Vietnam and get us into Iraq?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/opinion/23dowd.html?ex=1374552000&en=d50bd6a21626e039&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Obama 08!
July 23, 2008 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
mccain is a joke, i switch to FOX News to see if they were covering McCain's gaffe and to my surprise (NOT) they werent. This is completely frustrating.
Media Bias? Video of Meghan McCain and media get together at McCains house
July 23, 2008 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
2006 flip flopped with 2007
July 23, 2008 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
The silence on McCain's fuck up du jour and CBS's outrageous action is DEAFENING. The other networks and media outlets must be licking the BBQ sauce off their fingers....
July 23, 2008 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's really hard to see how McCain recovers from the last week.
July 23, 2008 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's a safe bet likely McCain voters haven't been paying attention. Selective observation by the base is the GOP's time tested ace in the hole. To put it another way, McCain's screw-ups are a lot bigger story to his detractors than to his supporters.
July 23, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are we watching an election in the USofA or the Truman Show? CBS asks questions, picks appropriate answers?
If someone or group should take credit for the Surge it should be American voters. Without giving Democrats a victory in November, 2006
Rumsefeld would still be at DOD and McCain would still be declaring victory right around the corner. The whole purpose of the Surge was to counter Democratic Congressional efforts to cut off funds for the occupation.
July 23, 2008 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, I have the video!
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=4284432n
This is from the cbsnews site. It turns out they edited both McCain and Obama interviews, probably because they were "long". They didn't help Obama either.
July 23, 2008 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
i don't know which is worst mcsame or cbs............
July 23, 2008 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
More on the interview videos of McCain and Obama. The McCain video is 14:06 long. The question about the serge and awakening is about 2:56.
You also have to sit through a commercial to get to the main video.
Obviously 14 min is too long to show the whole thing, Obama's is 22 minutes.
In the Obama video, he is asked for some area that he isn't as self-assured as foreign policy/national security. In response he hedges at first. This is the part shown on air. But they cut out where he gave an actual answer, which makes it look like when Bush couldn't name any mistake he had made (during a 2004 debate).
July 23, 2008 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's bullshit. CBS needs to answer for this...
July 23, 2008 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's ridiculous that CBS thinks it's alright to edit answers of any interview subject let alone a Presidential candidate. The fact of the matter is is that McCain showed that either he has poor understanding of what's going down in Iraq or he blatantly lied to make the surge more important. McCain is running almost solely on the surge these days so I'm not surprised that he tries to exaggerate it's role.
And McCain camps defense is to attack Obama for "trying to belittle" the accomplishments of the troops who took part in the surge.
The Obama camp needs to hit hard on this.
July 23, 2008 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, you really can't put raw interview footage on a news show; you need to fit your piece wihin the time constraints of the broadcast, and in any event, people tend to ramble in conversation, and you really need to condense it down to its essence if you want viewers to keep watching.
Editing video footage of an interview is, in and of itself, no more sinister than the editing process that goes on when selecting passages out of an interview transcript when putting together a polished article. The key thing is that the finished product accurately reflect the essence of the interview, that key points are not omitted or distorted. That requires a journalist with a clear and comprehensive understanding of what he is reporting and a commitment to getting the story right over simply making a splash. And in the end, it is an art, not a science; different honest observers can and will make different calls.
That said, since McCain has made the questions of competence, experience, and nuanced understanding of foreign policy a key theme of his campaign, when he does or says something that suggests that he is not as fully plugged into those things as he would like the voters to believe, that would seem to me to be important news. So CBS missed the boat when it edited it out of the broadcast video.
Their motives may not have been sinister. I could easily believe that Katie Couric was clueless enough not to recognize a story when she got one. (Of course, clueless or not, someone at CBS should have been fact-checking McCain's assertions. That they evidently didn't could be a fault of sloppiness, or too little time allotted to do the job right, rather than the result of a conscious effort to slant the piece in McCain's favor.)
July 23, 2008 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope Obama's people are keeping track of all these "misspeakments" by McCain so that they can be brought up in the first Debate.
This one's a keeper!
July 23, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I hope Obama's people are keeping track of all these "misspeakments" by McCain so that they can be brought up in the first Debate."
Yeah like when he said:
"Israel is a strong friend of Israel's,"
...wait, that was Obama...my bad.
July 23, 2008 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not comparable.
Obama's statement is slip of the tongue and easily understood as boiler plate along the the lines of the US is a strong friend of Israel (or vice-versa).
McCain stated B caused A when A occurred before B (maybe McCain is an advocate of non-linear time). Not as damaging as Ford stating Poland isn't under Soviet domination since -- thanks to CBS -- it won't be as publicized. Nevertheless, it's pretty astonishing McCain can't provide an accurate timeline given how much emphasis McCain places on the Surge, and how his support of it shows he has the judgment to be President. It makes McCain look like the proverbial busted clock that's right twice a day.
July 23, 2008 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm pretty sure that Israel is a strong friend of Israel. That whole "self-loathing Jew" thing is really just a stereotype that some comedians like to exploit.
July 23, 2008 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it because of audience demographics or news content that the chief advertiser on CBS Evening News is a product for stool softening?
July 23, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
LOL. I think the latter is starting to overtake the former.
July 23, 2008 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
With Katie on board at CBS, how many real journalists do they have left over there? Bob Schieffer is about the only one I know, and he isn't on much.
July 23, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Schieffer?
Oh, please, you aren't considering Bob Schieffer a real journalist I hope. Not after his clown performance with Wes Clark.
July 23, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
McFlub is on the attack...
"The Surge(TM) helped invent the Gutenberg Press!"
"Quit whining all you deadbeat Americans!"
"We need to stop the genocide in Delaware!"
"We need to give tax breaks to Darfur!"
"You kids get off my lawn!"
How on Earth can anyone take this blithering old man seriously?
July 23, 2008 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is excellent news!! For Ron Paul!!!
Not mentioned in the terse but titillating summary above is that the Paulites have not only switched to a larger venue, they've extended their EVOL-in to a full THREE DAYS, and to cap it all off ... I do not lie about things of such cosmic importance ... they've booked a cow farm for a happening unblushingly to be known as RonStock.
Cow farm. RonStock. Cow farm. RonStock.
I mean come on. How can the media resist this? Compared to the dutiful GOP troopers marshalling in the conventional hall to salute their sleep-inducing nominee, you've got thousands of actual energized Asperger-Americans prostrating themselves in a field of cowpies chanting ecstatically, "We're not worthy! We're not worthy!"
Then Alice Cooper comes on stage. Or was it Aerosmith? Maybe I'm confusing RonStock I with RonStock II. But anon.
This will be SO MUCH better than the Chicago Seven fomenting riots in the streets.
July 23, 2008 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
And this just in:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080723/ts_nm/economy_usa_politics_poll_dc_7
Economists prefer McCain by more than 3:1. Go figure.
July 23, 2008 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
And this:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/22/eveningnews/main4283813.shtml
Obamites misjudge McCain. In this interview he is confident and believable. Couple this with th eObama flip-flops on the surge and it is apparent that as these campaigns reach out Obama will be seen as merely a photo-op camera hound and McCain the one with actual experience.
July 23, 2008 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink