Before you say, "what the fuck???", hear me out.

It is clear that the corporate media is willing to ask John McCain the tough questions like "don’t you think that Obama is a flip flopper", and that his repeated gaffes, double speak, lies, pandering and outright crazy talk is not only being ignored but is being dismissed as something that he "didn’t mean" or that he "has enough credibility anyway" or is "no big deal" - when what he says and does is far, FAR worse than anything that Obama may or may not have said.

And yet, Obama still holds leads in every poll (even when the results or samples are skewed) and is doing a pretty good job of defending himself from the outrageous attacks and smears.  Hell, he beat back the Edwards and Clinton campaigns pretty soundly - which is a very impressive thing.  However and more importantly, by continuing to defend himself (or for us to spend so much time defending him), we are missing an opportunity to set the narrative on McCain and force him to go on defense.  And when McCain is forced to go on the defensive, we see the angry, unstable, hothead McCain that is being hidden from millions of voters..

I’m sitting here in Austin listening to Sam Seder interview Don Siegelman about the horrific actions that Karl Rove orchestrated in order to wrongfully imprison him for 9 months, and even though I knew some of the background, I am frankly shocked as I hear it straight from his mouth.

Once again, as Don said, "all roads lead to Rove", and here is yet another example of a gross overstepping of any legal or moral lines by Karl Rove - carried out by fellow republicans and more importantly, yet again against a prominent Democrat.

And just as Rove (yet again) has skipped out on testifying before Congress, and just as we see more "sternly worded letters" or "stern comments" by top level Democrats and "significant interest" in investigating Rove and his illegal acts - such letters will be ignored, such subpoenas will be mocked, such comments will be dismissed by republicans, and the story will not be covered nearly enough by the corporate media.

There have already been a few articles and discussions over the past few months about the "Bradley effect", which attempts to "explain" discrepancies between what white voters tell pollsters and how they actually vote when it comes to "non-white" candidates.

And even though a lot of these discussions end up with evidence that dismisses the theory, as the election season heats up, there will no doubt be more of a racial undertone (whether it is blatant or not), and as long as poll samples are intentionally skewed to help McCain, or likely Obama voters are being excluded from the polling samples - there will be more focus on the so-called "closeness" of this race.

This is something that has been on my mind for some time, yet I still haven’t quite figured out where I am going with it.  Over the past decade, this country has fallen from grace in a big way.  Granted, "grace" is overstated, since there were many stains on the integrity and hypocritical nature of what we say as opposed to what we do long before Mister Bush took office in 2001.

But even taking that all into consideration, the way that this country’s promise and opportunity was hijacked - not by "republicans" or "Democrats" or even "neoconservatives" per se - since 2001 makes one (or at least makes me) look at what has gone on and how much respectability has been lost and wasted by a combination of greed, money, arrogance and wanton disregard for the rule of law.    

With all of the talk about Phil Gramm's and by extension, McCain's campaign's comments about Americans being a bunch of whiners, most are focusing on the outrage as far as a reaction goes.  But the truth is, there is a large segment of Americans that ARE whiners.

That segment would be, ironically enough, republicans.

Think of an issue - think of the incessant whining on right wing talk radio, think of the direction of the debate and discussion over the past decade (or even more), and we can see just how much Gramm's comments ring true.

Who can forget some of the classic whining moments that prove Gramm's point?

Over the past week or so, I’ve been informed in numerous comments here that if Obama loses, it will be "the fault of me and people like me" for daring to try and hold him the smallest bit accountable for not supporting a filibuster and doing all that he himself, as a "change" and "believe in me, believe in us" candidate, could have done to stop this monstrosity of a bill from being passed in the Senate.

I’ve also been told that I am giving talking points to the media and the republicans or "doing the republicans work for them".  I’ve been accused of being a troll who will help elect McCain, despite close to 50 diaries that look very poorly on McCain.  

And I’ve also been told that every minute not spent working to elect Obama is a minute wasted - thus rendering the 2 dozen Congressional candidate interviews that we have done since March and the work on my local Congressional race wasted time.

Iraq’s National Security Advisor is the latest official to insist on a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq, following such dead enders such as the Iraqis themselves, not to mention al Maliki and the Iraqi Parliament (in fact, this is one of the only things that they do agree on).

As you may or may not have seen or heard, there is a group on mybarackobama.com that has, in under one week become the biggest group in the entire community with almost 14,000 members as of this morning.

The group was set up last week to put some pressure on Senator Obama to vote against FISA and to take the lead in urging others to do the same.  And this was met with mainly positive reaction - as evidence by the rapid growth of membership, the interest of a number of widely read progressive blogs and even got the attention of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Now, some don’t think that is a good thing, and some don’t think that there should be any pressure or criticism of Senator Obama or that the mybarackobama.com community should be used for voter outreach and registration only (or mainly).  And while that is pretty much mainly subjective and also depends on the tone and the intent and actions.

It is clear that the pie fights have reached a fever pitch here yet again, and while it has transitioned from "Obama vs. Clinton" to "Obama is teh suck vs. Obama is teh rulz", a few things are evident.

Some people think that Obama has forever betrayed them and therefore can’t vote for him.  Some people think that he has somewhat betrayed them but they will still vote for him.  Some people think that you shouldn’t dare criticize him because there is no perfect candidate, and to criticize is either to provide talking points to republicans or will make it hard for him to win.  And some people will vote for him because he is "perfect enough", "good enough" or "not McCain".

But all of these people are wrong.  There is a perfect candidate.

Me.

UPDATES BELOW

So many people on this blog and others have rightfully displayed their anger, bewilderment and other thoughts on Senator Obama’s stance on the FISA bill before the Senate - whether it be on his comments, his prior promise to stand with Dodd and filibuster or to get involved in the pie fight-like "Green-bermann" back and forth of the past few days.

And as an outgrowth of this, a group was formed at MyBarackObama on Thursday as a place for Obama supporters can organize on this issue (since the vote will be delayed by another week or so) and attempt to put pressure on Senator Obama, express concerns about the bill as well as organize events such as this one for July 1 in Washington DC about retroactive immunity.

A couple of days ago, there was an excellent diary by Magnifico that highlighted the corporate media’s blackout on reporting about Iraq – whether it be the horrors, the deaths, the violence, the lack of political progress or even any gains (not to mention the GAO’s own reports).  And rightfully so, this is disgusting and does a disservice to our troops and all Americans who are impacted directly or indirectly by the costs of the ongoing occupation-without-a-plan.

Color me unimpressed with Senator Obama’s statement with respect to the FISA "compromise".  

There are a number of things that he could have done to take a stand for the very Constitution that he is running to "preserve, protect and defend".  And while I don’t doubt that, as you say, as President you will "carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives – and the liberty – of the American people.", you miss the larger point here - and you miss it by a long shot.

Over in the comments at Swampland, there is the text of a statement by Pelosi regarding the abomination that is the FISA compromise coming to a vote tomorrow.  And, assuming that this statement is Pelosi’s, there is this head smacking passage in the statement (emphasis added):

I’ll be brief.

Yesterday, I wrote about the nonsense that is the republican "September 10th mindset" argument, and how easy it is to throw the Bush administration and republican’s actions back in their faces.

Looking back, it really is much simpler than that, especially since anything which is more than seven or eight words starts to, well, lose some people.  So here is a simple yet devastating response to any of this "pre-9/11" fear mongering nonsense:

Where’s bin Laden?

Since this bullshit line is being trotted out again in an attempt to scare people into who-knows-what, let’s look at what a September 10 mindset really means and relates to.

Bill Clinton’s transition team warned the Bush administration about al Qaeda in 2000: Senior Clinton administration officials called to testify next week before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks say they are prepared to detail how they repeatedly warned their Bush administration counterparts in late 2000 that Al Qaeda posed the worst security threat facing the nation -- and how the new administration was slow to act.

They said the warnings were delivered in urgent post-election intelligence briefings in December 2000 and January 2001 for Condoleezza Rice, who became Mr. Bush's national security adviser; Stephen Hadley, now Ms. Rice's deputy; and Philip D. Zelikow, a member of the Bush transition team, among others.

On one hand, I gotta express support, yet again, for Rep. Waxman, as he is one of a shrinking number of Congressional officials that dare to investigate, ask tough questions and follow up to a large extent.

On the other hand, I can’t help but feel that we have been down this road more than once over the past few years and still are in the same crappy place we were had no subpoenas been issued in the first place.

This is a disturbing diary, so I am warning you up front.

A report out of Iraq this past week by Dahr Jamail highlights another stunningly horrific result of the illegal use of white phosphorus and chemical weapons in Fallujah by "coalition forces" back in late 2004 and 2005.

Babies born in Fallujah are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say.

The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after "special weaponry" was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.

After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah.

In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tons of DU in Iraq thus far.

A week or so back, I created a bit of a stir with a diary whose title referred to SCOTUS overturning Roe.  And while I make no apologies for the title, I did only talk about McCain’s "fondness" for judges like Alito, Scalia and Roberts, and how he would like to appoint SCOTUS justices in their mold.

McCain’s positions on abortion have been, even for someone who is firmly on the anti-privacy and choice side of the ledger, all over the road.  But the least odious of the miserable positions that he takes is that he would like to see the decision revert back to the states, where a good number of states already have "trigger laws" on the books, which would effectively ban the right for a woman to have control over her personal private medical decisions.