Gramm: You're not a whiner...

....you're economically illiterate and a whiner.

Just when Sen. McCain must have felt he might be getting a bit of distance from the remarks of his economic advisor Sen. Phil Gramm (Gramm is no longer the campaign co-chair, but is still an unofficial advisor), Gramm reanimates his homage to the strength of the American public. 

``If you're sitting here today, you're not economically illiterate and you're not a whiner, so I'm not worried about who you're going to vote for,'' the former Texas senator told attendees at a Financial Services Roundtable event in Minneapolis on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention.

Gramm originally stepped down as the McCain campaign co-chair after telling the Washington Times in an interview that the current recession was "a mental recession" and that the country had become a nation of "whiners" in the wake of the slowdown.

On the bright side, for McCain, the slow-motion crash that is the Palin-for-VP pick is drawing most of the air in the room. But if it doesn't, since Gramm has already officially stepped into the shadows, where else can he go?

- Murphy

Eagleton?

A question that arose in the last day as I mulled over the Palin pick was, "Will she be another Eagleton?"

St. Louis native Sen. Thomas Eagleton was dropped as Sen. George McGovern's VP selection in 1972 after it was revealed that Eagleton had received treatment for "exhaustion", code for some form of mental health issue. Mental health issues-of all sorts and severities-are still relatively kept quiet today, but then they were even more taboo; especially amongst elected officials and others in powerful positions.

On August 1, less than two weeks after his selection, Eagleton was replaced on the ticket with Sagent Shriver-the Kennedy relative and father of the first lady of California, Maria Shriver. 

Yet, a Time Magazine poll at the time showed a majority of voters (77%) were not troubled by Eagleton's medical history.

Though not likely the killing blow, McGovern went on to loose the election in a massive defeat. The chaos created by the late-game switch, and voters apparent lack of concern over the issue, gave his Republican opponent, President Richard Nixon, an irresistable opportunity to attack McGovern's judgement.

The question now is, will we see Palin dropped from the ticket for a safer-if less "maverick"-choice following several weeks of the media's investigation into Palin and what is really going on with the investigations into her alleged abuse of power? 

What will a week of the national media trawling Alaska for every bit of information on Palin do to the McCain campaign? A campaign sapped by efforts to react to the stories they media is likely to uncover-the obscure or the eye-openers-is not an unlikely outcome.

The short-term politics of the decision may be regretted before long. Selecting a VP who is likely to be deposed as part of an investigation into a potential abuse of power (firing of an official for not buckling under the Governor's pressure), is not likely to strike many voters as a wise decision.

They may have blasted away at Sen. Barack Obama's expected post-convention bump, but they may limp away with a hole in their foot.

- Murphy

Noonan on Obama's Speech

Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, on her reaction to Sen. Barack Obama's speech.

In short: muted but powerful; defining his campaign as serious and worthy of examination; hefty. However, she believes it allows Republicans an opening; the opportunity to use wit and humor against him.

It would be interesting to see how likely that prediction holds up following the announcement of Gov. Sarah Palin as Sen. John McCain's VP pick. 

A week or two under the hot lights of a media that might think it had one pulled over on it are likely to drive the humor from their bodies, especially those unaccustomed to its ways.

(Via War and Piece)

- Murphy

Palin Fails First Judgement Call...

...By accepting McCain's offer. 

McCain has already displayed a shocking disrespect for the office of the President and the American people with his mind-boggling choice. Now Palin has compounded the decision by accepting. 

How many people of good judgment, knowing their qualifications to sit a heart-beat form the Presidency are as thin as Palin's, and respected the responsibility and seriousness of the job, would accept such an offer? 

It's like the plot from a bad teen movie where the main character wakes up one day to see they have been selected as the VP. 

Palin has earned her position as Governor of Alaska–though her track record there seriously undercuts the Republicans' defensive argument that she has executive experience–but the stakes are substantially higher when your job is to be the backup for the leader of the free world.

- Murphy

Kevin Drum laments the fact that Democrats seem to walk right up to the edge of explaining why Sen. John McCain has abandoned any appearance of principle or character in order to bash his way to the White House, but fail to juxtapose his current "by any means necessary" approach to what made him popular in the first place. 

Both McCain's "maverick" image and his current 24/7 pander-fest have been artifice. His current effort allowed him to squeak through the hole split by the spectacular self-immolation of the campaigns Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Gov. Mitt Romney, but at the cost of abandoning his previous, well-crafted, cantankerous "truth-teller" public persona.

The Republicans are currently dissing the DNC's convention with the line "A Mile High and an Inch Deep". Yet that back-of-the-rolling-papers commentary could effectively sum up the McCain campaign.

The McCain "campaign" exists only as long as no one looks directly at it. 

As an orchestrated effort to woo the voters, it ranks around the level of a portrait photographer's birdie gimmick.

Justify anything

"I am not sure if this means I am making things up to attack my opponents or not", but either way it demonstrates the vapidness of those who would see him lose.

- Murphy

Oops...

A demand Iraqi President Nuri alMaliki that Shiite militia members in Basra surrender their weapons seems to have backfired. (via Eschaton).

When nobody had turned up by Friday, Maliki gave members of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army militia 10 more days to turn in their weapons and renounce violence.

Instead, about 40 members of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi army and National Police offered to surrender their AK-47s and other weapons this morning to Sadr's representatives in the cleric's east Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City.

- Murphy

Basra Offensive

The Iraqi government's growing assault on militia forces in Basra had been expected for some time. The actual timing of the assault, however, has reportedly caught the United States by surprise.

That is generally believable except for that the British newspaper the Independent reported on March 20th statements by an Iraqi military leader saying that the Iraqi military were about to do just what they are doing.

That American forces on the ground would be unaware of such statements by the Iraqi general in charge of security for Southern Iraq is unlikely, so why let the story hang out there unanswered?

Two possibilities come to mind: the U.S. was not interested in preventing the action, or they were unable to.

The fact that Moqtada al Sadr, whose forces and allies are facing the brunt of the Iraqi government's attack, has yet to lift his cease-fire order adds an intriguing twist to the calculus. 

The decision by the powerful Shiite leader to impose a cease-fire has led to a far quieter period in Iraq than there otherwise would have been. U.S. and Iraqi government forces have been freed up to turn their attention towards the Sunni militias, often in cooperation (tacit or overt) with the Shiite militias they were once battling (Sadr led his forces, the Mahdi army, and others in two uprisings against the U.S. military).

The government assault unraveled fairly quickly, however, and U.S. forces have become increasingly involved in supporting the fledgling military force.

Another aspect to Sadr's refusal to sanction action is he and his allies are direct political competitors with the current leadership of the government, Nuri al-Maliki and his Dawa party as well as the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (formerly the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, SCIRI). They refused to participate in the last round of elections and have made no promises to the next round.

Given that the Shiite forces aligned with Sadr are now being attacked by a government whose legitimacy they do not recognize, their "official" neutrality may show some political cunning. The forces are certainly defending themselves, officially or not, and the government forces are unlikely to achieve any sort of victory barring intense American involvement.

Sadr is far more likely to come out ahead in such a match-up. He is unlikely to have any less friendly relations with the opposition and by staying above the fray even under the government's assault will only improve his image among Shiites sympathetic to him, or distrusting of the Maliki-led government.

Turkish Operations In Iraq

 Turkish forces invaded the mountainous border region of Iraq following a sustained air and artillery attack. The operation is aimed, tacitly at the Kurish Workers Party, the PKK. The PKK has conduced numerous raids into Turkey over the issue of a sovereign Kurdish land. 

The traditional lands of the Kurdish people chris-crossed  by the modern borders of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Armenia. 

The has operated out of the Kurdish-controlled north of Iraq, referred to as Iraqi Kurdistan, much to the Turks' annoyance. 

It is widely acknowledged that the PKK has conducted terrorist operations and poses a threat to Turkey security. The United States and the international community support and understand the Turks' pursuit of their members. Even the presence of Turkish special forces in Kurdish-controlled Iraq is an accepted reality to the Kurdish party.

Yet as the one relatively stable portion of post-Saddam Iraq, there is a fine balance that must be maintained. Turkish concerns about a Kurdish state growing in both power and influence on its border are understood, but as a potentially stabilizing factor in the precarious future of Iraq, the Kurds' own sovereignty and sense of safety must also be maintained.

Via the World Politics Review blog, the Turkish paper Hurriyet has ongoing coverage of the operation.

- Murphy

Conservatives Staying In?

The National Review's Stanley Kurtz is imploring conservative voters to get over their McCain fatigue and vote, but not for McCain.

Kurtz asks:

The notion of staying home — as opposed to going out and voting for a Republican congress–is sheer madness. Given the ongoing wrangle over McCain, the race for congress has got to start coming to the fore as an issue.

There is no margin for error in 2008. Precisely because the left controls key levers of the culture, politics is the only real route to balance. America is not that far from sliding into the culture and politics of Europe, and so conservatives simply can’t afford a sweeping political loss right now.

If the torpor is so great in the Republican base, perhaps Democratic fears of an anti-Hillary vote will fail to materialize. If she takes the nomination, it is inevitable that the opposition will rise to a fever pitch, but will that be enough to motive conservatives to the polls? Will that be enough to counter the anti-Republican vote that Hillary will also benefit from?

- Murphy