They’re Doing It Again

The news reports tonight are all about the “hype” surrounding the eventual announcement of Barack Obama’s running mate.

I’ve got a news flash for the news media: There’s all that hype because you are creating the hype by endlessly speculating about it and even going so far as to send camera crews to stalk the presumed shortlisters.

I bet $20 that if Obama’s running mate isn’t somebody they’ve been stalking, they’re going to utterly trash Obama for making the wrong choice. And if they guessed right, the reports will be all about their own cleverness, not about anything Obama and the running mate happen to say in the announcement. And they’ll still trash Obama for making that choice. Any takers?

Sing Along

Stately dwellings on the hillsides
Stately dwellings made of beer and graft
Stately dwellings on the hillsides
And they’re all owned by McCain

There are cabins, there are condos
There are chalets, there are grand châteaux
And they’re all made out of beer and graft
And they’re all owned by McCain.

(By Caprice of Salon’s Table Talk; used with permission)

Thanks To Steve Murray For Passing This Along

It looks like Muhammad Ali is going to be at Denver this week.

Seriously. He apparently contacted Obama’s people and asked if he could attend, and they said yes.

I expect that he knows about a certain photo that has pride of place on Senator Obama’s DC office wall.

Friday Cat Blogging

Oooooopsie!

John McCain’s team, which seems to be stuffed with people every bit as hotheaded as McCain himself, just did another own-goal.

In trying frantically to snuff the growing awareness in the public that a guy married an heiress and who is so rich he has no idea how many houses he owns is running around attacking his self-made opponent for “elitism”, the McCain campaign tried invoking the names of Tony Rezko and Bill Ayers and even Jeremiah Wright.

Never mind that all of these non-scandals were dealt with nicely months ago — no less an investigator than Patrick Fitzgerald himself gave Obama a clean bill of health on Rezko, for starters. But by bringing up Rezko now, instead of in October, the McCain campaign has opened itself up to be quizzed about Charles Keating.

And guess what? It’s already happening:

Jed posted an excerpt of John King’s paean to John McCain last night. We’ve heard King really, really likes McCain personally, but he actually dealt with one of McCain’s biggest controversies — The Charles Keating Scandal:

Perfect timing because Keating is back big time — and McCain did it himself through his weak attacks on Obama about Rezko. McCain shouldn’t have gone there, but he did.

So, to review:

First, McCain, when asked a simple question about how many houses he owned, couldn’t answer the question but deferred it to an advisor.

Next, it turns out that McCain owns seven — no, make that eight — homes. Obama jumps on this like ugly on Rush Limbaugh, taking over the news cycle.

McCain’s team goes ballistic, hollering about Rezko and POWs and taxes and Ayers, but fails to change the narrative — other than to hurt themselves by giving the press an opening to bring up Charles Keating.

McCain’s team then reveals that Cindy, John’s ultra-rich heiress wife, actually owns all the houses and that McCain himself owns nothing. They then rant on how mean it is of Obama to pick on Cindy McCain (which Obama didn’t), thus hinting that they’re going to turn their surrogates loose on Michelle Obama.

But all that does is show that McCain isn’t just a clueless jackass, but a clueless jackass who didn’t dare come right out at the very beginning and say “I don’t own anything, Cindy owns it all” because he knew it would make him look like a wuss and a kept man.

Pass the popcorn!