Joe Conason

The discovery that John McCain’s remarks on Georgia were derived from Wikipedia, to put it politely, is disturbing and even depressing—but not surprising. Under the tutelage of the neoconservatives, who revealed their superficial understanding of Iraq both before and after the invasion, he favors bellicose grandstanding over strategic thinking. So why delve deeper than a quick Google search?

Worse still, neither he nor his advisers yet grasp how our misadventure in Mesopotamia has diminished American power and prestige. In fact, the Wikipedia episode—an awful embarrassment that would have devastated the presidential campaign of Barack Obama or any other Democrat—revealed an underlying weakness in Senator McCain’s vaunted grasp of foreign policy.  read more »

Touring America’s oil rigs and nuclear plants, John McCain sometimes sounds as if he will produce enough wind to power the nation all by himself. So strongly does his current rhetoric smell of methane, the gas emanating from manure, that he might even qualify for a renewable energy tax incentive.

The former straight talker, who could not help telling the truth, has found the voice of the demagogue within him. As Senator McCain seeks to exploit public anger over the price of gasoline, first with his dubious “gas tax holiday” and now with his campaign for offshore oil drilling, the thoughtful legislator who defied his own party on issues such as global warming and Alaskan oil leasing has been replaced by that much more familiar Congressional figure—a rented mouthpiece for the energy industry.  read more »

Forced to cancel a planned visit to an oil platform off the Mississippi coast last week because of inclement weather—and the untimely leaking of hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil by a shipwreck in the vicinity—John McCain finally got his photo op at a Bakersfield derrick on July 28. Speaking on site, the Arizona senator delivered extraordinarily good news to the beleaguered gasoline-consuming public as he explained why we must drill offshore.

Based on briefings that Senator McCain says he received from “the oil producers,” he said, “There are some instances [that] within a matter of months they could be getting additional oil.  read more »

Barack Obama knows which countries border Iraq; he understands the difference between Shia and Sunni; and he is probably aware that Czechoslovakia no longer exists—but as John McCain complains, the young senator has “no military experience whatsoever.” Indeed, like both of the last two presidents, Mr. Obama possesses scant credentials in national security and foreign policy.

Why, then, does he appear increasingly plausible as the next president? Assurance, grace, and mastery of the facts have helped to lift his stature, as did his daring decision to venture abroad, directly challenging his older opponent’s perceived strength. But granting his talent and initiative, the strongest argument for the Democrat is the weak performance of the Republican regime’s vaunted “grown-ups,” including Mr.  read more »

An expression of outrage is the highest compliment that politicians can bestow upon a satirist. So when spokesmen for Barack Obama and John McCain echo each other and many another stuffed shirt in complaining about the current cover of The New Yorker, the magazine’s editors and cartoonist Barry Blitt should accept such remarks in precisely that spirit.

From Mark Twain to Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, there have always been people who didn’t get it—or worried about the damage that would ensue when other people didn’t get it. Today in America, despite the rising influence of The Daily Show and The Onion, it can be hazardous to be too hip for the room.  read more »

Despite all the feigned outrage fanned by the mainstream media and the right-wing noisemakers, Wesley Clark—retired four-star general, former Supreme Commander of NATO, wounded and highly decorated veteran of ground combat in Vietnam, and a military man to his core—assuredly did not denigrate the war record of John McCain when he talked about the Republican candidate on television last Sunday.

Instead, perhaps naïvely, General Clark stated a very simple fact. Mr. McCain’s service in Vietnam doesn’t prove his aptitude or competence to serve in the nation’s highest office. Or as he told Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer on CBS: “I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.  read more »

Precisely on schedule, the usual assortment of right-wing operatives is preparing its expected assault on the Democratic presidential nominee. While this unwholesome phase of the election cycle is known universally as “Swift-boating”—named after the defamatory media blitz against John Kerry four years ago—the style and some of the personnel date back at least two decades. So does the winking charade of separation between the official Republican presidential campaign and the dirty business conducted on its behalf.

The only notable difference this year is that neither the money nor the message has crystallized yet behind any “independent” effort to destroy the candidacy of Barack Obama.  read more »

Once upon a time, there was a fiscally and socially responsible senator named John McCain. Despite his presidential ambitions, the Republican from Arizona spoke out against the economic royalism of his party’s leadership in the White House and Congress, and simply said no.

He rejected the Bush tax cuts in 2001 because they provided an unearned bonanza for America’s wealthiest citizens while giving a pittance to the middle class and nothing to the working poor. To him, as a long-standing enemy of waste and profligacy, these proposals were not only unfair but also unwise.

“I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief,” he said, joining courageously with Lincoln Chafee, then a senator from Rhode Island, as one of two Republicans who dared to cast such a crucial vote against president and party.  read more »

To his credit, John McCain has invited Barack Obama to join him in a national “town hall” tour over the coming months, without the unneeded intrusion of celebrity journalists, network extravaganzas and all of their irrelevant impertinence. The Arizona Republican insists that he wants a serious debate over the competing ideas and visions of the two parties, rather than the usual petty focus on process issues and gotcha questions.  read more »

The selection of a vice president is not only an exercise in political handicapping but a national rite of statecraft. Candidates, advisers, pundits and assorted experts try to calculate the ethnic, geographic, gender and ideological characteristics of potential running mates, but what this choice actually reveals is the character of a presidential nominee.

For Barack Obama, the choice of a vice president is a test of his self-confidence and his vaunted judgment.  read more »

When the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee meets on May 31 to determine the status of the votes cast in the Michigan and Florida primaries, its members should try to look past self-serving campaign arguments and silly attempts to save face by bumbling party leaders.

In the mind-numbing saga of the botched primary schedule, there is plenty of blame to be shared among all the participants, from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and their surrogates to Howard Dean and the party apparatus in Washington.  read more »

Disturbed by troubling connections and unflattering publicity, John McCain has just purged several prominent Washington lobbyists from his presidential campaign. Surely his intentions are laudable, but if Mr. McCain is consistent in ridding the campaign of such compromised people, he will find himself riding lonesome on the Straight Talk Express. That’s because nearly all of his advisers, fund-raisers and top staffers have worked on K Street, starting with his campaign manager, Rick Davis, and his senior adviser and spokesman, Charles Black.  read more »

Double standards are endemic in American journalism. But Cindy McCain, wife of the Republican presidential candidate, displayed poor taste in flaunting her family’s special immunity from press scrutiny. Declaring on NBC’s Today that she would “never” release her income tax returns even if she becomes first lady, the Arizona beer heiress showed no concern that she and her husband will have to meet the same tests as other would-be White House occupants—ever.

Unfortunately, the arrogance of Mrs. McCain is probably well founded.  read more »

In this protracted and often dispiriting prelude to the general election, few remarks have been as poorly chosen as Senator Hillary Clinton’s threat to “totally obliterate” Iran. What she obliterated with just those two words were her own boasts of superior diplomatic experience—and she managed at the same time to tar America’s international image with all the subtlety of the man she hopes to replace.  read more »

As the Rev. Jeremiah Wright gleefully tours the airwaves, inflicting severe political damage with almost every utterance, he is proving that racism isn’t the only obstacle to a black president. That historic prize is almost within the grasp of one of the most talented politicians America has ever seen. Yet what seems most likely to frustrate Senator Barack Obama now is not white prejudice but the frivolity, egotism and pettiness of those who should be his most serious and dedicated supporters.

To criticize Mr. Wright is not to reject the black church, the speaking styles of black preachers, the aspirations of black children or the rhythms and tonalities of black music, as he seemed to suggest in his address to the N.A.A.C.P. last weekend. To reject his ideas about the origins of AIDS or the causes of 9/11 is not, as he puts it, to confuse “different” with “deficient.”  read more »

Nobody with a functioning memory should be too quick to condemn Jimmy Carter for daring to speak with the leadership of Hamas, as nearly everyone along the American political spectrum suddenly has felt obliged to do. From Condoleezza Rice and John McCain to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, along with every Congressional backbencher in both parties, expressions of disapproval have rained down upon the former president, who is old enough and tough enough to pursue his own beliefs to their logical conclusion.

“The United States is not going to deal with Hamas,” said the secretary of state, “and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help.” The justification for that policy was explained helpfully by Senator Obama, whose willingness to meet with foreign adversaries does not extend to Hamas, at least not during the primary season. The Illinois senator “does not support negotiations with Hamas until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist and abide by past agreements,” according to a spokesman for his presidential campaign.  read more »

It is hard to blame John McCain for mocking Barack Obama as an “elitist” following that silly remark about bitter folks who cling to guns and religion. Rarely does the Arizona senator—one of the wealthiest members of Washington’s most exclusive club—encounter such a tempting chance to masquerade as a populist.

Making the most of that opportunity, Mr. McCain, the elder statesman, delivered a brief history lecture to the young upstart from Illinois. “During the Great Depression,” he said in a statement released by his campaign, “with many millions of Americans out of work and the country suffering the worst economic crisis in our history, there rose from small towns, rural communities, inner cities, a generation of Americans who fought to save the world from despotism and mass murder, and came home to build the wealthiest, strongest and most generous nation on earth.  read more »

Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the American forces in Iraq, is more candid than his publicists in the media and on Capitol Hill. Unlike the senators and editorial writers who claim that the glorious “surge” should be hailed as one of the most successful military campaigns in history, he warns that the escalation’s achievements are mixed at best—or as he put it, progress on the ground is “uneven,” “fragile” and “reversible,” with “innumerable challenges” remaining to be addressed.

His caveats cannot dampen the enthusiasm of the politicians and pundits who would maintain the occupation of Iraq, and even expand our aggressive presence in the Mideast. Selling that policy requires propaganda proving that the surge is succeeding and that if we only stay long enough, spend enough money and sacrifice enough young men and women, then someday we will achieve a great victory. We’re “closer,” says the general, carefully.  read more »

The most puzzling aspect of John McCain’s political persona is his habitual attraction to George W. Bush’s bad ideas. Their shared enthusiasm for invading Iraq and then escalating the war is why “McSame” will soon become the new shorthand for the Arizona Republican, replacing “maverick”—but that isn’t the only reason. He doesn’t just endorse the disastrous foreign policy initiatives; he loves the failed domestic policy schemes, too.

Specifically Mr.  read more »

For many years, Robert Morgenthau has warned America that the nexus of capitalism and criminality poses a serious threat to our prosperity, security and growth. Now in the wake of the collapse of Bear Stearns, which pushed global markets still closer to the brink, perhaps the nation will listen to the Manhattan district attorney, whose scrutinizing gaze is fixed on targets well beyond New York.

As a legendary prosecutor of international financial crime, Mr. Morgenthau has long kept a watchful eye on the buccaneering crew at Bear, the firm that now symbolizes the worst in amoral capital. Its executives were notorious for testing the limits of the law, by sheltering shady stock promoters and bucket-shop brokerages and by swelling the assets of its hedge funds with dubious mortgage-backed assets.  read more »

“Well, that’s history. That’s the past. That’s talking about what happened before. What we should be talking about is what we’re going to do now.”

The man who spoke those words was Senator John McCain, and the subject was the Iraq war and its origins in official falsehood, strategic error and wishful thinking. Expect to hear him repeat those same dismissive phrases again and again as the presidential campaign unfolds.  read more »

When Eliot Spitzer stood before the stunned press corps on Monday to make a brief apology for his misconduct, he spoke of “real change,” of trying to “uphold a vision of progressive politics that would rebuild New York and create opportunity for all,” of “ideas and the public good.” If the governor actually believes in any of those things, he will be the former governor by the time these words appear in print (or as soon as he can exchange his resignation for a favorable plea bargain, whichever comes first).

It is painful to watch the fall of Mr. Spitzer because the potential he represented was once so inspiring. Blessed with a privileged upbringing, he seemed to feel a duty to serve. Armed with the confidence of the elite achiever, he dared to challenge the powerful, including major business interests and right-wing ideologues, in defense of the public interest. Lionized by voters who sent him to Albany with a mandate, he invited comparison with great New Yorkers who changed the nation during the past century, such as Louis D. Brandeis and the Roosevelts, Theodore and Franklin.  read more »

Whatever their true private beliefs, presidential candidates in America are constantly required to provide proofs of their faith, often through their connections with various religious figures. Benedictions from the pulpit can bestow an aura of righteousness—except, of course, when the pastor or minister is a disreputable kook whose endorsement should be an embarrassment.

In recent weeks, both Barack Obama and John McCain have suffered exactly this kind of indignity, under very different circumstances.  read more »

Within the next two weeks, the number of American troops killed in Iraq is likely to reach 4,000, assuming that the average number of fatal casualties per day remains steady. It is an arbitrary number, given meaning by the fact that the nation may briefly take notice, but a day will come in this presidential campaign when Senator John McCain must explain what he thinks we have gained by the sacrifice of those men and women.

Anticipating that prospect must make Mr.  read more »

As a presidential candidate, John McCain stands out not only for his vocal endorsement of the unpopular war in Iraq but also because one of his own sons is a Marine Corps officer on active duty there. He supports the war even at the price of his own career or the life of a child he loves.

Yet although the senator from Arizona is obviously no chicken hawk, he carefully avoids “straight talk” about the real costs of this war in dollars and debt.  read more »

For the next month or so, the conservative valentines will arrive every day at the headquarters of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The Illinois senator’s image will be illuminated by the bipartisan aura of admiration from prominent Republican commentators and strategists, as they savor the promise of his victory over Hillary Clinton, long the object of their hatred. He may well imagine that they really like him—and surely some of them do, at least for now.

Such happy feelings are easily conjured these days, when William Kristol hopes Democratic superdelegates will do “the good deed” of pledging their ballots to him, and when George Will urges Democrats to choose him as “the party’s most potentially potent nominee,” and when Peggy Noonan promises that he will be “bulletproof” against Republican attack.  read more »

The revival of John McCain’s presidential candidacy, now expected to carry him through to his party’s nomination, can be interpreted as either proof of the judgment of Republican primary voters or evidence of the paucity of alternative choices. Certainly, it confirms the wisdom of betting against the predictions of the national press corps, which produced so many sorrowful postmortems on his campaign.

Very soon, if not instantly, the same pundits who wrote off Mr. McCain’s chances will be assuring us that the recent has-been is now an electoral juggernaut. They will describe him resplendent in political valor, reforming zeal and militant patriotism, and of course brimming with “straight talk.” Of such shiny publicity has the Arizona senator’s image been built over the past decade or so.  read more »

The most likely motive for Bill Clinton’s reckless political performance in recent weeks, ironically and sadly, is to redress the terrible humiliations he inflicted on his wife in years past. But unless he quickly regains control of himself, the most likely result will be to inflict irreparable damage on the presidential aspirations of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Whether he has done that much harm already remains to be determined in the primaries ahead. At the very least, however, the former president has begun to change the polarity of his own presence in her campaign from positive to negative—and to raise real questions about the meaning of his return to the White House.  read more »

Supporters of one Democratic candidate or another may insist that their man or woman won last Monday’s debate in South Carolina, but in their hearts most viewers could only have been disappointed by its childish tenor and puerile content. Unless those viewers happened to be Republicans, of course—in which case they could only have been delighted.

With a worried nation edging toward financial panic and dragging down the world economy—thanks to foolish ideas and bad management—the Democrats seem strangely preoccupied with petty snarking.

A debate is supposed to be a discussion of policy, but this last was nothing more than a blather of insults. It diminished both Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while former Senator John Edwards only emphasized his irrelevance with glancing blows at both contenders.  read more »

As America marks the first anniversary of the troop escalation in Iraq, at least one thing has become clear. Although the “surge” is failing as policy, it seems to be succeeding as propaganda. Even as George W. Bush continues to bump and scrape along the bottom of public approval, significantly more people now believe that we are “winning” the war.

What winning really means and whether that vague impression can be sustained are questions that the war’s proponents would prefer not to answer for the moment. Their objective during this election year is simply to reduce public pressure for withdrawal, which is still the choice of an overwhelming majority of voters.  read more »

“They will try to Swift Boat me,” said Barack Obama in the days before the New Hampshire primary, looking forward to the Democratic nomination that he now believes will be his with a prediction that is both accurate and chilling.

Whether he can go on to claim the nomination is yet to be determined. Much more predictable is the nature of the campaign that will be waged against him—and the fickleness of the national press corps when that ugly process eventually reaches its nadir.  read more »

As political buzzwords, “bipartisan” and “non-partisan” and “independent” sound elevated and even virtuous, which must be why we so often hear them touted as remedies for our national ills. Every four years the promoters of these miracle cures seek a vessel for their illusions, preferably someone whose fortune is as limitless as his ego. This year’s model seems to be Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York and billionaire owner of the national business news service.

The immediate charm of a Bloomberg candidacy—or the candidacy of any other such supposed savior—is that it serves as a blank screen suitable for the projection of whatever obsessions, beliefs, projects or personal qualities are desired.

He is not only independent but free-floating, at least in the imaginations of his would-be supporters; he is not only devoid of ideology but practically free of content altogether, like nonpartisanship itself.  read more »

Not so long ago, the conventional wisdom of Washington proclaimed that Hillary Rodham Clinton could not be stopped from winning the Democratic presidential nomination. Today, the same wise men and women hint that she has forfeited the prize.

But she has never been unstoppable—and she has certainly not yet been stopped.

What must always be remembered when estimating the prospects of Senator Clinton is that the mainstream media amplifies her campaign’s errors and diminishes her strengths in ways that can be misleading. Foaming expressions of hostility to her are considered normal among the Beltway pundits, especially on cable television and talk radio. Such constant emotional outbursts tend to distort political news and analysis.  read more »

Having vaulted into the front ranks of the Republican presidential contenders, Mike Huckabee is now more than an amiable curiosity—and his decade as governor of Arkansas will be scrutinized carefully for clues to his character, temperament and beliefs. He has established an admirable persona as an evangelical conservative who displays none of the rancor that permeates the religious right. But when he says that his faith defines his life and that there can be no separation of religion from government, what does that mean in practice?

Although modern preachers seem to find scriptural justification for virtually any public policy they may prefer, it isn’t clear how Mr. Huckabee’s Baptist outlook influenced his decisions on taxes, education or transportation. But his record in granting clemency and pardons clearly demonstrates the dangers of religious zealotry in power.  read more »

Even when George W. Bush tells the truth, he cannot quite bring himself to tell the whole truth. Although the White House released a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, indicating that the Iranians shut down their program more than four years ago, the president treated those conclusions as a vindication more than an embarrassment.

With the usual propagandists at Fox News Channel and elsewhere filtering the N.I.E. to cover up their mistakes, it is worth reproducing a few of the new report’s most salient quotes. “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” said the N.I.E. text, reflecting a strong consensus among the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies. “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005 [when the intelligence community prepared its last N.I.E. on this subject]. Our assessment that the program probably was halted primarily in response to international pressure suggests Iran may be more vulnerable to influence on the issue than we judged previously.”  read more »

Tuesday’s meeting in Annapolis—not to be confused with a summit or conference—indicates once again that adult supervision never did gain control of the second Bush White House.  read more »

Former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean did not make a stir because he endorsed John McCain, but because he rejected Rudolph Giuliani.  read more »

The Pentagon has launched a preventive strike against a target that military chiefs presumably regard as one of the most active current threats to U.S. and world security—namely, the office of the vice president of the United States.  read more »

As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton spar over Social Security, their argument has shed little light on America’s most successful domestic program but has instead revealed unattractive aspects of both candidates.  read more »

Mr. Giuliani's biting words about terrorism invite closer scrutiny of his claims about himself. Unfortunately very few mainstream media outlets will take up that invitation.  read more »

Hillary Clinton rarely surrenders a juicy quote without a struggle, as any journalist who has tried to interview her can attest.  read more »

The distorted values of the Senate are on display with the handling of the ethical embarrassments created by Larry Craig and Ted Stevens.  read more »

Once among the most frightening and effective epithets in American political culture, “socialized medicine” seems to have lost its juju.  read more »

The controversy over what Rush Limbaugh meant when he uttered the phrase “phony soldiers” last week isn’t just another broadcast sideshow.  read more »

This week's visit by Ahmadinejad raises a more serious problem that has long confounded American policymakers: How to cope with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s real masters, the corrupt regime of mullahs who determine both foreign and domestic policy in Iran.  read more »

Hillary Clinton’s skillful introduction of her new health care plan demonstrated why she is the most formidable Democrat running for president.  read more »

Neither Gen. David H. Petraeus nor Ambassador Ryan Crocker could convincingly claim that the American military escalation in Iraq is achieving its stated goals.  read more »

As the deadline approaches for official assessments of American policy in Iraq, the Bush Administration is maintaining a steady barrage of diversions, obfuscations and manipulations.  read more »

As Karl Rove exits stage right with his ruined dreams of rightist hegemony, all the political signs and portents tell us that America is turning the other way.  read more »

Why Karl Rove is leaving matters much less than the opportunities he squandered and the wreckage he leaves behind.  read more »