Cheney Emerges from his Undisclosed Location to Endorse McCain

Obama already has an ad mocking the endorsement that you can see here.

And here's Obama's statement:

"I'd like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it. That endorsement didn't come easy. Senator McCain had to vote 90 per cent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it. He served as Washington's biggest cheerleader for going to war in Iraq, and supports economic policies that are no different from the last eight years. So Senator McCain worked hard to get Dick Cheney's support."

Shocker: Al Qaida Hates Peace and Loves War

Why else would they be supporting John McCain?

Top McCain Advisor Says His Candidate Will Raise Taxes

Time has the story. If this is true - and I don't doubt it, since no Republican president in recent memory has actually cut spending - what do the libertarians supporting McCain have left? Since Obama clinched the nomination, it's been an endless chorus of "Obama will raise taxes! Obama will raise taxes!! Obama will raise taxes!!!" He probably will (by a modest amount), but if McCain will do the same, just like George H.W. Bush did, what do small government types still see in McCain? Do they actually believe the small government rhetoric? "This time, the Republican will be different. This time, the Republican's small government promises are for real. This time ..."

Update: Alan Greenspan's not a fan of McCain's tax plan. And, as Don the Libertarian Democrat points out, the Tax Policy Center refutes the myth that Obama will raise taxes across the board, and McCain will balance the budget.

Things I Never Thought I'd Hear Republicans Cheer at their Convention

10:28 - John McCain saying he "fought tobacco companies ... and drug companies"
10:31 - A sob story - with no apparent point or relevance - about a family with a special-needs child.
10:38 - Increased government spending for the unemployed.
10:42 - More government spending on energy projects, including environmentally-friendly energy.
10:44 - "Restoring the health of our planet."
11:01 - John McCain

Does John McCain Want a Draft?

At the end of this woman's very long question/comment, she tells John McCain that the U.S. should reinstate the draft. His response: "Ma'am, let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said."

Now, if McCain just mis-heard or mis-spoke or wasn't paying attention, fine. I'll give him a pass. But if he doesn't really want to impose a draft, then he'd better set the record straight right quick. Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic says that in context, McCain wasn't advocating a draft at all, but agreeing with other parts of the woman's question. He's probably right, but I can't find any sort of McCain retraction or clarification online. And with McCain's bellicose words toward Russia this week - saying the country deserves "harsh treatment" - I'm not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. If McCain is serious about getting into a military confrontation with Russia, then a draft probably wouldn't be out of the question.

Yet More Unintentional McCain Comedy: Black Men for McCain

I haven't figured out yet whether BlackMenForMcCain.com is a parody site or not. Here are the opening lines of the first post:

"Brothers, we are on the verge of a great American tragedy. Empty suit Barack Obama has brainwashed the good liberals in this country! He MUST BE STOPPED!"

Sounds like pretty standard anti-Barack Obama talk. But then the blogger goes on to make four posts in a row - the only other posts on the blog, thus far - discussing the merits of John McCain's campaign's "African Americans for McCain" T-shirts.

"If this doesn’t illustrate what makes America great, I don’t know what does. In response to my request, the McCain campaign is now offering an “African-Americans For McCain” t-shirt. This is within four hours of my post."

Several comments point out that McCain had been selling these T-shirts all along, the blogger apparently just couldn't find them. As with many blogs, the best material can be found in the comments threads. Let's just say that the site hasn't yet become a forum for black men to discuss their mutual love of McCain.

I link to this site mostly because it is hilarious, but also partly to show that a blog called "Libertarians for Obama" is certainly not the strangest thing the 2008 campaign has produced.

Habeas Corpus

First, a little history lesson.

In 12th century England, free men began demanding a check on the rights of the authorities to arbitrarily arrest whoever they wanted. No one back then questioned the power to arrest people arbitrarily, but it was considered too much for someone to be arrested without explanation. In 1305 the term habeas corpus - Latin for "we command that you have the body" - appeared when King Edward I formally recognized this right. But it wasn't for another three centuries that the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 formally codified it. In 1772 this act was used by a man named Somersett who held in slavery to successfully sue for his freedom. "The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it," wrote the court. America's Founding Fathers carried this old English right over into their new nation, writing in the Sixth Amendment that a defendant "be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation."

While both England and the United States have occasionally suspended or ignored habeas corpus, it has more or less endured for eight centuries because the idea that the government can jail a person without even telling them what crime they are accused of is offensive to basic human sensibilities - the basic desire of all people to be free.

This week habeas corpus suffered both a setback and a victory. In the U.K., the birth place of habeas corpus, Parliament voted to allow the government to hold people for 42 days without charge. The movie In the Name of the Father tells the story of the Guildford Four: U.K. citizens who were imprisoned without charge for 28 days - the previous limit - during which time they were tortured into confessing to IRA bombings that they did not commit.

In this country, the news was more positive. The Supreme Court ruled that the government can not indefinitely imprison terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay without charging them with a crime and giving them the opportunity to try to prove their innocence. John McCain blasted the ruling, calling it "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." (Yahoo news has a list of other Supreme Court decisions that might make McCain think twice about calling this one "one of the worst") And, of course, conservatives in Congress are already trying to get around it.

Barack Obama, who voted against both the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act that the court partially overruled in this case, has taken the politically inexpedient but principled path of defending the basic rights of everyone, even accused terrorists, to know the charges against them.

"We are going to live up to our ideals when it comes to rule of law," said Obama, who, as a constitutional law professor, knows a thing or two about the fundamental rights and freedoms that we enjoy in this country. "John McCain thinks the Supreme Court was wrong," Obama said. "I think the Supreme Court was right."

John McCain Does Not Use a Computer

You read that right. The man who bristles any time someone implies he's too old to be president hasn't made the technological leap into the 1980s. See the video at Mother Jones. Add to this George W. Bush's admission that he doesn't use email and Sen. Ted Stevens' description of the internet as a "series of tubes" and you wonder if the Republicans have a fundamental problem with technology. Maybe that has something to do with why - as Adam Thierer points out - the Republican revolution of 1994 had big promises for freeing up the internet, but failed in spectacular fashion to deliver.

Among the Republicans' accomplishments:
- Increased internet and media censorship
- Forced access provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996
- Creation of the e-rate program
- Prohibitions on internet gambling
- High-definition television spectrum giveaway
- Growth of the Federal Communications Commission

Update: Here's McCain aide Mark Soohoo trying to defend his boss's tech rep at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York. (via The Politico)

"You don’t actually have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country," Soohoo says.

"You actually do," former Edwards blogger Tracy Russo responds, suggesting he try to explain Twitter to his grandmother and then ask her how that applies to governing.

"John McCain is aware of the Internet," says Soohoo. "This is a man who has a very long history of understanding on a range of issues."

McCain Hires Michael "Near Dictatorial" Goldfarb

From Reason:
John McCain just hired the Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb to be his number-two communications guy. Glenn Greenwald points out that this isn't a particularly encouraging sign when it comes to reining in executive power. Goldfarb has written (falsely, by any reasonable reading of the Constitution, Federalist Papers, or diaries of the Constitutional Convention) that the founders believed the president should have "near dictatorial" powers when it comes to war and foreign policy.

More Unintentional McCain Comedy: The Youth Speech

From the Drudge Report:

MCCAIN 'YOUTH' SPEECH PLANNED FOR TUESDAY: 'For much of our history, the world considered the United States a young country. Today, we are the world's oldest constitutional democracy, yet we remain a young nation. We still possess the attributes of youth -- spirit, energy, vitality, and creativity. America will always be young as long as we are looking forward, and leading, to a better world'

Thanks for the string of lame cliches, John. That's what the kids are looking for to inspire them. Put aside all of the policy reasons for opposing McCain - do we really want four years of boring speeches from a cranky old man? Maybe he should have taken some speech writing tips from the rapper known as john.he.is:

Libertarians for Conformity

The web site Join or Die '08 is an effort to get Ron Paul supporters to abandon every piece of ideology their candidate has - non-interventionism, civil liberties, privacy, personal freedom, etc., etc. - and rally around John McCain for the good of ... what exactly? Paul has never been the most die hard Republican - remember 1988? - and the Republicans have been happy to return the favor (read the full history of Republican attempts to defeat Paul here). So why should libertarians care about Republican unity, especially when the party's standard bearer is John McCain?

The site was apparently started by a 14-year-old from Georgia who has raised a total of $320 for Paul's campaign. So I'll try not to bash its collectivist, conformist, rally-around-the-leader sentiments too much. But what are Join or Die's adult supporters thinking? And why is the site getting coverage in everything from Wired to Daily Kos? This is pretty embarrassing for Paul supporters.

John McCain Wants the Government to Dictate CEO Pay

For those libertarians who say "Yeah, John McCain's a warmonger and a cultural conservative and an all-around shady character, but at least he gets it on economic issues" I offer you this Reuters story: McCain Wants to Shine Light on CEO Pay.

John McCain: Not-So-Reluctant Warrior

There's an interesting story in the L.A. Times today about John McCain's history of supporting the Iraq war. The highlights:
- McCain predicted a quick and easy victory.
- He didn't read the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate before voting to go to war.
- He co-sponsored the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which called for "regime change" in Iraq (Bill Clinton signed the law).

McCain's War Tour

John McCain has been on a tour of the Middle East this week. The trip gives us a nice idea of what a McCain foreign policy in the region might look like. Here are the highlights:
- On Tuesday, he told Israelis that their enemies are America's enemies too. Does this mean that a President McCain would start new wars with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran?
- He went on to tell reporters in Baghdad that things are going well in Iraq, but the U.S. can't pull its troops out any time soon.
- Yesterday, he demonstrated his ignorance of the region by saying that Iran was training Al Qaida members. Joe Lieberman had to publicly correct him. Wishful thinking on McCain's part?
- McCain later tried to weasel out of his gaffe by saying that "Al Qaeda and Shi'ia extremists — with support from external powers such as Iran — are on the run but not defeated." (My emphasis).
This sounds a lot like George Bush's tortured Iraq war logic: Saddam Hussein supported terrorist groups; a terrorist group attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001; the U.S. should therefore attack Iraq in retaliation for Sept. 11.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, opposed the Iraq war and opposes a war with Iran. Check out the speech he gave today on how the war has hurt the U.S. economy.