Joy Behar, meet David Letterman

More from the Questions the "Serious" Media Will Not Ask file:

Letterman questioned him about Palin's claim that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama "palled around with terrorists," and McCain backed her up, saying his opponent need to better explain his relationship with former Weather Underground activist William Ayers.

"Did you not have a relationship with Gordon Liddy?" Letterman asked about Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy.

McCain said he knew him. Then, after a commercial break, McCain said, "I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt, he went to prison ... I'm not in any was embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy."

"You understand the same case could be made of your relationship with him as is being made with William Ayers?" Letterman said.

McCain said he has been completely open about his relationship with Liddy.

Letterman appeared to ridicule McCain about the implication that Obama and Ayers had a relationship.

"Are they double-dating, are they going to dinner, what are they doing?" Letterman asked. "Are they driving across country?"

"Maybe going to Denny's," McCain said.

I doubt it, John. Denny's doesn't usually cotton to the African Americans. But, in other news, does anyone give a shit that we're so reliant on our "entertainers" to ask serious questions?

DOW 0

Reliably predicting events even a few days in the future is never easy. But this time, I think it's pretty obviously straightforward. Lead-pipe domain. Assuming a continued steady and daily 500 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Index (which is looking pretty optimistic at this point) when will we finally reach Dow=0?

Why, on November 4th, of course. When else could it possibly happen?

I expect CNN and others to have some "Countdown to 0!!!" graphics up by the afternoon.

The Impossible Has Happened

No one could have expected:

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

"These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.

Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."

She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and "collected on" as they called their offices or homes in the United States.

This is only the marginally above board part of this particular iceberg. Guaranteed, absolutely, 100% take-it-to-the-bank: they were using this stuff for purely political ratfucking style oppo research and general mayhem. No doubt whatsoever. Whether or not we'll ever get to that information is doubtful, but it's there somewhere. Start with the attorney firing and work backwards.

Ceterum censeo GOP esse delendam

David Brooks, the man who (uh, more or less) admits to covering for John McCain these past ten long years, is officially off the bus with regard to the bleeding edge (circa 1984) economic and geopolitical thinking of the current GOP:

It has been interesting to watch them on their single-minded mission to destroy the Republican Party. Not long ago, they led an anti-immigration crusade that drove away Hispanic support. Then, too, they listened to the loudest and angriest voices in their party, oblivious to the complicated anxieties that lurk in most American minds.

Now they have once again confused talk radio with reality. If this economy slides, they will go down in history as the Smoot-Hawleys of the 21st century. With this vote, they’ve taken responsibility for this economy, and they will be held accountable. The short-term blows will fall on John McCain, the long-term stress on the existence of the G.O.P. as we know it.

I’ve spoken with several House Republicans over the past few days and most admirably believe in free-market principles. What’s sad is that they still think it’s 1984. They still think the biggest threat comes from socialism and Walter Mondale liberalism. They seem not to have noticed how global capital flows have transformed our political economy.

Every now and then, even a blind pig finds a nut. He then applies lipstick with it. Badly:

What we need in this situation is authority. Not heavy-handed government regulation, but the steady and powerful hand of some public institutions that can guard against the corrupting influences of sloppy money and then prevent destructive contagions when the credit dries up.

Er, okay, David. We'll have some non-regulating regulations out for you by lunch. Nice talking to you.

The real conclusion is reached by Brad DeLong:

This Republican Party needs to be burned, razed to the ground, and the furrows sown with salt...

Yep. Methinks this is the end of the beginning of the end of the current political structure. Whether or not the GOP will be a part of what follows depends heavily on the next few weeks and months.

Why the bile? Why especially now? Perhaps this has something to do with it:

[NBC's Andrea Mitchell reported that] leading Republicans who are close to [Newt Gingrich said] he was whipping against this up until the last minute when he issued that face-saving statement [claiming he was in favor of the bailout bill]. Newt Gingrich was telling people in the strongest possible language that this was a terrible deal, not only that it was a terrible deal, that it was a disaster, it was the end of democracy as we know it, it was socialism. And then at the last minute comes out with a statement when the vote is already in place.

[...]

NBC’s Mike Barnicle said he had been told by congressional conservatives that the move was “the opening salvo of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign four years hence.”

Cynicism, thy name be Newt. Where's Ross Perot and some pie-charts when you need him? Let's hope there's a recognizable country left for one of them to run into the ground come 2012.

We ought to route him into Lake Michigan, at least we'll avoid killing innocent people.

Looks like the GOP is taking its own advice. ~60% of them voted against the bailout bill. The Dow promptly closed down 777 points. Tomorrow, it would seem, is when the shit really hits the fan:

...new worries were building inside the nearly $2 trillion world of hedge funds. After years of explosive growth, losses are mounting — and so are concerns that some investors will head for the exits.

....The big worry is that a spate of hurried sales could unleash a vicious circle within the hedge fund industry, with the sales leading to more losses, and those losses leading to more withdrawals, and so on. A big test will come on Tuesday, when many funds are scheduled to accept withdrawal requests for the end of the year.

“Everybody’s watching for redemptions,” said James McKee, director of hedge fund research at Callan Associates, a consulting firm in San Francisco. “And there could be a cascading effect, where redemptions cause other redemptions.”

All over but the crying. It's been a good run. Man on the moon, and all that. Somebody turn the lights out on the way out the door. Krugman notes there's no parking in the White Zone.

I say "Let 'em crash!"

Shorter GOP house membership:

They Bought Their Tickets, They Knew What They Were Getting Into. I Say--Let 'Em Crash!

Seriously, this bunch of idiots prefer decades of economic destruction to sacrificing their (fake) small guvmint "credentials" at the altar of actual necessity? We can argue and re-tune deals until the cows come home, but I think any responsible person realizes "I don't know what it is, but something's got to be did."

Naturally, this all just kabuki nonsense such that Saint John McCain can either:

a) Create distance between himself and everybody else (the Democrat menace has gotten to W! He never was a "real" conservative no-how!) when they pass the current bill over his cold, dead (voting-against-it) hand.
2) Claim victory when some other version of the bill passes that includes his beloved Blue Ribbon Commission. (Did they just say "Blue Ribbon?!?"; then it must be good.)

All of which can hopefully cause the cancellation of the VP debate, because 'Merica's in too much danger to allow a lot of this talkin'.

But Joy Behar knew better

Sometime, in the far future, when they are writing the definitive history of that mysterious entity known as the United States of America, you know, the one that went through this odd, transformative period that no one can really explain, still, even here in the far future; when they are writing that history, they'll come to the point where they write "But Joy Behar knew better." Joy Behar, defender of (whatever's left of) The Republic. She'll be right there by Cicero.

Richard Cohen, of all people, lays it out for us in the WaPo. Check this out:

Last week, one of the co-hosts [of The View], Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig -- an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners.

"We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies."

[...]

"Actually, they are not lies," he said.

Actually, they are.

Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Read that last line again. And then read it again. And then rub your eyes (but not too hard). And then double check the link above isn't some sort of Russian redirect intended to cleverly sap your accounts and steal the time-share you've got way out in Bermooda. "Actually, they are." See, that wasn't too hard. But our man Cohen ins't going to leave it there and start in with the hacktackular James Carville™ excuses. No sir:

[Continuing directly] McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most.

[...]

[McCain's] opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

[...]

McCain was [...] going to look the American people in the eyes and say, not me. I will not lie to you. I am John McCain, son and grandson of admirals. I tell the truth.

But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can -- as he did in South Carolina -- renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won't work.

God save Joy Behar. She was The One who could get through to Our Media Elite, the Serious People who run things around here. Too late for the Republic, and all that, but at least we may be spared the final indignity of going down in a blaze of "glory" under a McCain/Palin administration.