I couldn’t have written it better myself. A nice handy roundup: http://www.impalin.com

Anti-Kassandra/clueless pundit Bill Kristol chimes in on Palin:

And if Palin holds her own against Biden, as she is fully capable of doing? McCain will then have succeeded in combining with his own huge advantage in experience and judgment, a politician of great promise in his vice presidential slot who will make Joe Biden look like a tiresome relic. McCain’s willingness to take a chance on Palin could turn what looked, after Obama’s impressive speech Thursday night in Denver, like a long two months for Republicans and conservatives, into a campaign of excitement and–dare we say it?–hope, which will culminate on November 4 in victory.

Bearing in mind that one of Kristol’s latest predictions was Colin Powell endorsing Obama, and among his most famous and fatuous attempts at clairvoyance were the hagiographical lauding of accused Iranian spy Ahmed as Iraq’s pro-American George Washington, and ridiculing the notion that Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq might have conflicts as “pop sociology,” I feel pretty confident in seering that this will end badly for McCain.

McCain’s pick of Palin seems like a too-obvious attempt to pander to women in general and Hillary’s disaffected supporters in particular. As Rob puts it:

Well, I guess maybe that secures Alaska’s 3 electoral votes for McCain. It should also play well in British Columbia. If McCain is picking Palin (and we should note that this hasn’t exactly been confirmed) in order to appeal to PUMAs, then I have to wonder whether the folks at Confluence, Corrente, and No Quarter haven’t done Barack Obama a fantastic favor…

I found it ironic that McCain chose to introduce a clearly unqualified and underwhelming choice for Veep — who was picked as an obvious pander to Hillary supporters solely to assist McCain’s ambition to be President — under a banner that read “Country First.” Someone who puts “country first” wouldn’t select a person with such limited credentials, no national and no foreign policy experience to be Veep. Especially when he’s a 72 year-old cancer survivor not in the greatest of health to begin with. Ramesh Ponnuru of Teh Corner instantly grasped this obvious point:

Inexperience. Palin has been governor for about two minutes. Thanks to McCain’s decision, Palin could be commander-in-chief next year. That may strike people as a reckless choice; it strikes me that way. And McCain’s age raised the stakes on this issue.

But perhaps even more to the point is the limited appeal of a pro-lifer who argued that creationism should be taught in schools to those Hillary supporters who may still be disaffected and haven’t gone the Leornard Tose route. Are they really going to say “fuck my daughters right to choose, and let the schools teach her than man and dinosaurs co-existed” and pull the lever for John McCain? A man who has said he’s willing to keep their sons in Iraq for 100 years, if he doesn’t decide to expend their lives in an invasion of Iran first?

Apart from being a woman — a woman diametrically opposed to nearly everything Hillary Clinton stands for — what does she offer them? And what kind of judgment does McCain show in descending to such an obvious ploy? Scheming is one thing, but inept scheming is another — we’ve seen 8 years of ineptitude and scheming combined, and look where it has gotten us.

What’s more, women aren’t stupid, and they can spot an obvious pander — even if nutters like Larry Johnson can’t.

I can’t believe McCain actually mentioned the PTA as part of Palin’s curriculum vitae for the office of one-heartbeat-away-from-the-presidency.

a concerned citizen who became a member of the PTA, then a city council member, and then a mayor, and now a governor…

On the one hand, it give her an “every mom” kinda credential. On the other hand, PTAs can be some of the most inefficient, contentious and divided and discontented groups of people, and I personally can’t think of a single person involved with PTA I’ve met who I’d consider even remotely qualified to be president. And McCain being a not particularly robust 72 year old cancer survivor, to boot.

Talk about picking someone who will bring absolutely no gravitas to the office. If McCain ever unloads that famous anger on her. . .

The bottom line is this: McCain is gonna have to play the roles of both W and Cheney in the next administration.

More fun stuff: McCain mentioned how she took on party bosses and corrupt politicians — essentially describing the Alaskan Republican Party.

He left out how her support for teaching of creationism in public schools. That, and her right-to-life positions will go a long way towards wooing Hillary Clinton supporters.

Confederate Wanker comparing Summa Cum Laude, Editor in Chief of Law Review, Harvard Graduate Barack Obama to not-terribly bright pop singer Brittany Spears:

Get ready for Barack Spears and the Temple of Duh:

Barack Obama will aim for Mount Olympus when he accepts his party’s nomination atop an enormous, Greek-columned stage - built by the same cheesy set team that put together Britney Spears’ last tour. . . .

Honestly? I just hope Obama remembers his underwear.(h/t/ Hot Air)

Pretty funny when someone with the intellectual incandescence of Fredo Corleone feels compelled to insinuate that someone with actual intellectual accomplishments he could never hope to replicate in a million years is dumb — because set carpenters his campaign employed worked for someone else. Getting pretty desperate.

Those little sods in the corner are en fuego with teh stoopid today.

Many are concerned that the fact that William Ayers was a radical is as unknown as the fact that McCain was a POW.

But teh stoopid cake today is taken by Jay Nordlinger with this putz-worthy effort:

Yesterday, I posted with some fury about one of Joe Biden’s lines. He said, “These times require more than a good soldier, they require a wise leader.” I thought that was pretty disgusting. You could interpret Biden to mean, “McCain may be good enough to go off to Vietnam and get himself tortured. Good for him. But he just ain’t smart enough to be president.”

You could interpret that way, if you’re a frickin’ idiot trying to manufacture a golden slur out of simple straw. (Although Nordlinger is sure to get Wingnut Bonus points for pointlessly working “McCain was a POW” into the narrative) On the other hand, it doesn’t take any “interpretation” at all to understand “It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign” as a direct and unambiguous slur against Senator Obama. Especially when, at the time Obama publicly stated his opposition to the Iraq war, support for war and President Bush was extremely strong, and any political calculus might have led a me-first/country-second politician to say absurdly unhinged things like, “I am proud of the leadership of the President of the United States,” or “I believe the President of the United States has done everything necessary and has exercised every option short of war,” or “obviously, we will remove a threat to America’s national security because we will find there are still massive amounts of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” instead.

Nordlinger tops this already solid dumbfuckery by purporting to quote Thucydides as saying, “The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” Until he is corrected by another cornerite pointing out that Thucydides never wrote any such thing who admonishes, “Don’t Rely on Wikiquote!” These wingnuts be lovin’ their ersatz-Thucydides.

Pretty good material from formerly overstuffed-near-comatose-presidential-candidate John Kerry last night:

“To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let’s compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain,” Kerry said.

“Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral.

“Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill.

“Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote.

“Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you’re against it.”

That final jab was a reference to one of his most notorious comments, which did more than anything to damn his presidential campaign, when Kerry said he was for an Iraq funding bill, before he voted against it.

The Massachussetts senator, who took his bow at his own convention in 2004, with the words “I’m John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty” also slammed McCain for perceived deficits in national security judgement.

“When John McCain stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier just three months after 9/11 and proclaimed, ‘Next up, Baghdad!’ Barack Obama saw, even then, an occupation of, undetermined length, undetermined cost, undetermined consequences, that would only fan the flames of the Middle East.

“Well, guess what? Mission accomplished,” he said, echoing the banner draped behind Bush in 2003 when he declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq from a US aircraft carrier.

Kerry, who has been mentioned by some observers as a possible secretary of state in any Obama administration, also vowed to combat efforts to assail McCain’s efforts to his question Obama’s patriotism.

“How insulting to suggest that those who question the mission, question the troops.

“How pathetic to suggest that those who question a failed policy doubt America itself.

“How desperate to tell the son of a single mother who chose community service over money and privilege that he doesn’t put America first.

Especially like how he called attention to the so-called Maverick Straighttalker kowtowing to the extreme wings of his party, by turning against his own legislative proposals.

Typical GOP response: teh Bitter card. All critics of Republican perfidy and mendacity are just bitter losers. Like Cindy Sheehan or Lila Lipscomb.

We posted here the other day about Maliki’s reported insistence on a firm, unconditional timetable for withdrawal, and the Bush administration’s insistence that any provision for withdrawing troops in its eventual agreement with Iraq would be based on “conditions on the ground” as assessed by the US.

McClatchy’s Leila Fadel, however, reported further on Maliki’s remarks, quoting a statement by Maliki that a firm, unconditional date for withdrawal had already been agreed to:

Maliki said that the United States and Iraq had agreed that all foreign troops would be off Iraqi soil by the end of 2011. “There is an agreement actually reached, reached between the two parties on a fixed date, which is the end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil,” Maliki said.

Someone here isn’t telling the truth: either the Bush administration, or the Prime Minister of Iraq in whom we’ve invested 35,000 casualties and $3 trillion to bring to power.

Gomer has really outdumbed hisself this time.

“How dangerous could a half-dozen virulently racist, skinheads with flak vests armed with high-powered rifles and high on meth be? And why must all those left-of-Lester Maddux losers in the press make a big deal out of it every time a few white supremacists plot to kill the first African American nominated for President?”

Via Sadly, No! Shorter Confederate Yankee

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has demanded a firm timetable for withdrawal of US forces from Iraq — without conditions:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said Monday that an agreement on the future of U.S. forces in Iraq must include a firm withdrawal date and that Iraq wants them out of the country by the end of 2011.

It was the first time Maliki explicitly demanded a fixed deadline for the departure of all U.S. troops from Iraq. His words appeared to rule out the presence of any U.S. military advisors, special forces and air support after the withdrawal date.

Condi Rice was supposed to smooth this over and get Maliki to agree to the condition-based withdrawal and a permanent US presence, but her record for failure continues unblemished.

The hardened position came after last week’s visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Iraq, where she met with Maliki in hopes of clearing obstacles to an agreement. But officials familiar with the talks say that the prime minister remains undecided about whether he even wants a deal.

Heckuva job, Condi.

Maliki is demanding full US withdrawal on a schedule because, politically, he has little choice. He made the remarks to a meeting of Shiite tribal leaders. His rival, Muqtada al Sadr, has risen to power largely through confrontation with the US and because his demands for an end to US occupation has been popular with Iraqis. Moreover, Maliki may be forced to demand unconditional withdrawal because Iranian-born Shiite Ayatollah Sistani, Iraq’s religious leader, and Iranian leaders find any continued US presence unacceptable.

He is under pressure from Iran, as well as the grand ayatollahs in Iraq’s Shiite shrine city of Najaf, who could come out against an agreement if they feel it infringes on Iraq’s sovereignty. At a time when he needs political cover, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the largest Shiite party in his alliance, is also deeply divided on ties with the Americans.

The senior leadership of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (formerly the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) was harbored by Iran for years while exiled during Saddam’s rule of Iraq. Its militias, the Badr Brigades, were trained and armed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and fought with Iran against Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. With Sadr’s Mahdi Army dramatically curtailing its operations, it is now the most powerful paramilitary presence in Iraq, and staunchly pro-Iranian.

The Bush administration’s reaction to this new permutation of the Iraq clusterfuck is classic Bush administration: denial.

In Crawford, Texas, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: “Any decisions on troops will be based on the conditions on the ground in Iraq. That has always been our position. It continues to be our position.

“There is no agreement until there’s an agreement signed,” he added. “There are discussions that continue in Baghdad.”

Last year, Bush stated unequivocally that we would honor a request by Maliki’s government to leave Iraq:

We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It’s their government’s choice. If they were to say, leave, we would leave.

~~~

This is a sovereign nation, Martha. We are there at their request. And hopefully the Iraqi government would be wise enough to recognize that without coalition troops, the U.S. troops, that they would endanger their very existence. And it’s why we work very closely with them, to make sure that the realities are such that they wouldn’t make that request — but if they were to make the request, we wouldn’t be there.

Now he’s threatening to hold his breath if he doesn’t get his way, apparently.

Maliki’s government is also intent on disassembling the network of Sunni militia groups which the US put together and which is credited with much of the improvement in security in Anbar and other Sunni inhabited provinces — without the integration of those militias into Iraqi security forces and political reconciliation promised to Sunni tribal leaders by US generals. This will almost certainly spark renewed insurgency among Sunni groups currently armed and paid by the United States — if this fighting occurs next year, Maliki will likely even request US assistance in dispatching his Sunni enemies.

So, after five and a half years, at least $3,000,000,000,000.00, over 35,000 US casualties, and a depleted military force structure, we are left with an Iraq which is more concerned with pleasing neighboring axis-of-evil Iran than with making an increasingly lame George Bush or the United States happy. Ahmed Chalabi and his Iranian handlers couldn’t have planned this any better.