Desperate Times

Remember how a few weeks ago we said that desperate parties will reach for desperate measures? It's getting desperate out there for McCain.

Even former McCain strategist John Weaver is a little appalled at the frenzy of hate that has been whipped up at McCain and Palin rallies, saying, " top Republicans have a responsibility to temper this behavior. "People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Sen. Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Sen. McCain, and from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive. Sen. Obama is a classic liberal with an outdated economic agenda. We should take that agenda on in a robust manner. As a party we should not and must not stand by as the small amount of haters in our society question whether he is as American as the rest of us. Shame on them and shame on us if we allow this to take hold."

Already , I think McCain may be finding that he can't control the beast that he has unleashed. At a rally on Friday, a McCain supporter went a little far, even for McCain's taste and he tried to dial things back. "I don't trust Obama," a woman said. "I have read about him. He's an Arab." "No, ma'am," McCain said several times, shaking his head in disagreement. "He's a decent, family man, [a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about." The crown groaned its disapproval apparently, and booed him. Isn't it wonderful to know that as a full-grown adult you can still behave like you're a three-year old with a loaded weapon?

Obama praised McCain for tempering the tone, "'I want to acknowledge that Senator McCain tried to tone down the rhetoric in his town hall meeting yesterday,' Mr. Obama said, speaking at an early-morning rally in North Philadelphia. 'I appreciated his reminder that we can disagree while still being respectful of each other. I've said it before, and I'll say it again – Senator McCain has served this country with honor, and he deserves our thanks for that.'" My God, can ANYTHING ruffle this guy? Andrew Sullivan pits it this way: Americans "need a Valium. They can now vote for one for president."

Later in the weekend, Palin dropped the puck at a Philly Flyers hockey game, and was roundly booed. I could say she reaps what she has sown, but to be honest, I have to say I'm not deriving any pleasure at all out of this. I think it's just nasty ugly and so completely not what the country needs right now, or frankly at any time.

On the Road in Scranton

Hillary and Bill Clinton campaigned in the key area of Scranton with native son Joe Biden and his wife Jill. Just making sure Pennsylvania stays blue... Hillary reminded us: "Make no mistake about it. We've done it before and we will do it again. America will once again rise from the ashes of the Bushes."

Climate Change

Georgia Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, whom McCain has named as a figure he respects, said in a statement to Politico: "What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history," Lewis said in a statement issued today for Politico's Arena forum. "Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse."

Lewis didn't accuse McCain of imitating Wallace, but suggested there were similarities.

"George Wallace never threw a bomb," Lewis noted. "He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama."

McCain responded to this ouch moment:

"I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I've always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track," the GOP nominee said in a statement this afternoon.

He added: "I call on Senator Obama to immediately and personally repudiate these outrageous and divisive comments that are so clearly designed to shut down debate 24 days before the election. Our country must return to the important debate about the path forward for America."

And Obama's reply to that suggestion:

"Senator Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for President of the United States 'pals around with terrorists.'

"As Barack Obama has said himself, the last thing we need from either party is the kind of angry, divisive rhetoric that tears us apart at a time of crisis when we desperately need to come together. That is the kind of campaign Senator Obama will continue to run in the weeks ahead."

Jeez people, can we just get ON with it?

I'm reminded, a little sadly, of what Obama said at the DNC way back before any of this really took off, "But what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism. The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain."

It's been another bad week for McCain, whose reputation as a military hero took a hit with the Tim Dickinson Rolling Stone story, which recounted McCain's less-than-heroic actions on the day when the fuel tank on his jet caught fire on the deck of the USS Forrestal, setting off a missile and ultimately causing one of the worst disasters in modern U.S. naval history. McCain was not to be found at the forefront of fire-fighters, but rather in the ready room, where he retreated after jumping out of his damaged jet.

Jeff Stein at the Congressional Quarterly takes that story a step further, questioning whether McCain actually played a more pivotal role in the missile accident on the USS Forrestal. "According to these accounts, McCain, whose A4-E Skyhawk was queued up in a line of jets waiting to take off, "wet started" his engine, a prank designed to startle a trailing pilot with a flame of exploding kerosene."

Normally, it's a harmless, common stunt by "cowboy pilots." But on this occasion the exploding kerosene caused a six-foot long Zuni rocket under the trailing pilot's wing to launch across the flight deck.

"[It] ripped through the fuel tank of McCain's aircraft," Dickinson writes. "Hundreds of gallons of fuel splashed onto the deck and came ablaze. Then: Clank. Clank. Two 1,000-pound bombs dropped from under the belly of McCain's stubby A-4 . . . into the fire."

McCain rolled out of his cockpit onto the deck and ran for his life, Dickinson writes.

"Just then, one of his bombs 'cooked off,' blowing a crater in the deck and incinerating the sailors who had rushed past McCain with hoses and fire extinguishers."

But according to historian Mary Hershberger, writing on the liberal Truthdig.com site, McCain panicked.

"Some of those who were on the Forrestal and other persons familiar with the ordnance told me that because the rocket did not hit McCain's craft, only actions by the pilot could have caused any bomb to fall from McCain's Skyhawk," wrote Hershberger, who in 2005 published a biography, "Jane Fonda's War," advertised as "an antidote to the 'Hanoi Jane' myth."

"These sources . . . who spoke under the condition that they not be publicly identified," Hershberger wrote, "agree with each other that, if any bomb fell from the McCain airplane, it was because of actions that he took either in error or panic upon seeing the fire on the deck or in his hasty exit from the plane. Two switches in the cockpit of a Skyhawk need to be thrown to drop such a bomb, according to the sources."

It might set the In-the-tank-for-Obama-ites teeth on edge, will anyone pay attention? Probably not.

Anyway, one could argue that it' not necessary to dig into the past to help the McCain campaign implode. They seem to be doing fine all on their own thanks very much. This morning, Bill Kristol called McCain' campaign "pathetic" on Fox News Sunday. Andrew Sullivan hilariously characterizes McCain's effort as coyote-esque.

Over the weekend, CBS announced that McCain and Dave Letterman have tentatively made up-- or at least, McCain will appear on Dave's show. That could be good, or really bad...

And SNL ran a repeat this week, but through the magic of the internet, you can see them spoof the last McCain-Obama debate here. No Tina Fey, but still funny.