Top Items:
Joe Klein / Swampland:
Apology Not Accepted — Back in 2000, after John McCain lost his mostly honorable campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he went about apologizing to journalists—including me—for his most obvious mis-step: his support for keeping the confederate flag on the state house.
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Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
McCain's Integrity — For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person.
Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
New heights of stupidity — We're fighting multiple wars; our oldest and most established financial institutions are on the verge of collapse; we've fundamentally transformed and then dismantled our constitutional framework over the last eight years, etc. etc.
Margaret Talev / McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Out of bounds! McCain misstates Obama sex-ed record — WASHINGTON — Throw the flag against: The McCain-Palin campaign. — Call: Unsportsmanlike conduct. — What happened: A new 30-second TV ad attacks Barack Obama's record on education, saying that Obama backed legislation to teach …
Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:
UNFIT FOR HIGH OFFICE — One of the interesting aspects of this campaign is watching the scales fall from the eyes of many of John McCain's closest admirers among the veteran DC press corps. I'm not talking about the freaks on Fox News or any of the sycophants at the AP.
Jonathan Weisman / Washington Post:
As Campaign Heats Up, Untruths Can Become Facts Before They're Undone — From the moment Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin declared that she had opposed the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” critics, the news media and nonpartisan fact checkers have called it a fabrication or, at best, a half-truth.
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The Huffington Post, MoJoBlog, Matthew Yglesias, Washington Monthly, Prairie Weather, Politics Nation, Booman Tribune and Spin Cycle
Steve Benen / Washington Monthly: UNFIT.... John McCain was presented with a choice: lose the election or lose his honor.
Mike Allen / The Politico:
55 days - Lipstick wars - Chuck Todd: McCain and Palin could continue joint campaigning — Good Wednesday morning. Gov. Palin heads to Alaska, where Nicolle Wallace and others will join her for 9/11 remarks, her son's Army deployment and the Charlie Gibson interviews.
Discussion:
AMERICAblog News
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Andy Barr / The Hill:
Meghan McCain: My Dad Says ‘Lipstick on a Pig’ — John McCain's daughter Meghan is not taking offense to Barack Obama's “lipstick on a pig” line like the rest of her father's campaign, pointing out Wednesday morning that GOP presidential nominee has been known to use the phrase.
Discussion:
Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Ben Smith's Blogs, BuzzFlash.org, FOX Embeds, The BRAD BLOG, The Reaction and Commentary
Washington Post:
McCain Camp Sees An Insult in a Saying — Obama Called Policies ‘Lipstick on a Pig’ — Sen. Barack Obama said yesterday that Sen. John McCain's claim that he will shake up Washington after agreeing with President Bush for so long is like “putting lipstick on a pig” …
Discussion:
Ablogistan, TPM Election Central, Polimom Says, Open Left, PERRspectives Blog, Donklephant, QandO, MSNBC, Boston Globe and Emptywheel
James Gerstenzang / The LA Times President Bush Blog:
Lipstick? Palin? Obama? Did someone say Dick Cheney?
Lipstick? Palin? Obama? Did someone say Dick Cheney?
Discussion:
The Swamp
David Weigel / Reason:
Lipstick Traces — Barack Obama, on his week-long tear …
Lipstick Traces — Barack Obama, on his week-long tear …
Discussion:
I Am TRex
Greg Sargent / TPM Election Central:
Obama On Lipstick Controversy: Attacks Media, Says “Enough Is Enough”
Obama On Lipstick Controversy: Attacks Media, Says “Enough Is Enough”
Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:
Pigs And Lipstick — So it's come to this. The full context …
Pigs And Lipstick — So it's come to this. The full context …
Discussion:
Political Machine
Warner Todd Huston / NewsBusters.org:
Did Obama Steal his ‘Lip Stick on a Pig’ Speech from a Political Cartoon?
Did Obama Steal his ‘Lip Stick on a Pig’ Speech from a Political Cartoon?
National Enquirer:
PALIN FAMILY SHOCKERS: WHAT SARAH'S REALLY HIDING! — The NATIONAL ENQUIRER'S exclusive ongoing investigation of GOP VP Nom Sarah ‘Barracuda’ Palin's goes far beyond a mere teen pregnancy crisis this week! — The Enquirer's team of reporters has combed the Alaskan wilderness to discover …
Discussion:
The Jawa Report
Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:
Obama knocks press on ‘made-up controversy’ — Speaking at a high school in Norfolk, Obama took a few moments to address what he calls “the made-up controversy” of the day, Amie Parnes reports. — Obama said the McCain campaign moved to “seize an innocent remark and take it out of context …
Discussion:
Townhall.com, Stop The ACLU, Taylor Marsh, Hog On Ice, JammieWearingFool, Gateway Pundit, Don Surber and Right Wing News
Gallup:
Gallup Daily: McCain 48%, Obama 43% — Nine percent undecided in latest average — PRINCETON, NJ — The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update finds John McCain continuing to lead Barack Obama, 48% to 43% among registered voters. — The Sept. 7-9 average — spanning interviewing conducted Sunday …
Suzanne Gamboa / Associated Press:
Paul says he turned down appeal to endorse McCain — Featured Topics: - John McCain - Barack Obama — WASHINGTON - Republican Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texas lawmaker who attracted a devoted following in the GOP primaries, said Wednesday he rejected an appeal to endorse John McCain's presidential bid.
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Maureen Dowd / New York Times:
My Fair Veep — The rain in Spain stays mainly in the Arctic plain ... I hope John McCain doesn't throw his slippers at Sarah Palin's head or get as acerbic as Henry Higgins did with Eliza Doolittle when she did not learn quickly enough. McCain's Pygmalion has to be careful …
Jonathan Martin / The Politico:
S.C. Dem chair: Palin primary qualification is she hasn't had an abortion — South Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a running mate “ whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion.”
Dana Blanton / Fox News:
FOX News Poll: McCain Leads Obama 45% to 42% — A substantial shift in the vote preference among independents has given John McCain a slim lead over Barack Obama after the Republican convention. Independents now break for McCain by 15 percentage points (46 percent to 31 percent) in a FOX News poll released Wednesday.
James Fallows:
A controlled experiment: Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin — Twice in the last six months we've had the spectacle of a candidate clinging to a provably false personal narrative. Each tale was meant to show something admirable and significant about the candidate's character.
Discussion:
American Street
Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Obama's Education Speech — It's too bad everyone seems to have agreed that this election isn't going to be about issues, because Barack Obama's been saying some interesting things about education reform. Kevin Carey has a good rundown of the specific points Obama hit in his education speech …
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