Simon's hagiographic treatment of McCain didn't start this week. After the Republican convention earlier this month, Simon regurgitated the talking points emanating from McCain Central:

John McCain is a maverick who has now done what mavericks almost never do: win. And now he must lead a party while maintaining his independence from it.

It's a dilemma, but McCain attempted to resolve it by facing it head on. "I don't work for a party," he said. "I don't work for a special interest. I don't work for myself. I work for you."

Then as the economic crisis threatened to undermine the Republican's campaign, Simon praised McCain for "shooting craps" in trying to appropriate the Wall Street meltdown for his own political purposes:

John McCain is now shooting craps with his presidential campaign. It is high risk. But all he needs is a little luck to pull off his current gamble.

McCain has suspended his campaign to work on a solution for the nation's financial meltdown, and he has threatened to pull out of the first presidential debate scheduled for Friday unless Congress takes action by then.

McCain has been attacked from all sides for doing this, but it isn't as dumb or as desperate as it looks.

Then came Friday's debate. While CNN and CBS post-event surveys showed a marked advantage for Obama among undecided viewers, commentators across the political spectrum scoffed at McCain's childish refusal to look his opponent in the eye. But for Politico's fawning Simon, McCain's victory was clear, his churlishness a positive:

John McCain was very lucky that he decided to show up for the first presidential debate in Oxford, Miss., Friday night. Because he gave one of his strongest debate performances ever.

While Barack Obama repeatedly tried to link McCain to the very unpopular George W. Bush, Bush's name will not be on the ballot in November and McCain's will.

And McCain not only found a central theme but hit on it repeatedly. Obama is inexperienced, naive, and just doesn't understand things, McCain said...

...McCain seemed to be enjoying himself. He smiled a lot, mostly when Obama was talking, though his smile was really more like a smirk.

Simon started his laudatory piece on McCain's gamble Thursday by explaining, "I have watched John McCain shoot craps for hours" and that "craps is his favorite casino game." Sadly for John McCain and Roger Simon, Sunday's New York Times featured an article which began with an almost identical description of McCain's gambler past. That story, which may well dominate discussion on Monday, was titled, "McCain and Team Have Many Ties to Gambling Industry."

In the recent teen film Superbad, a young nerd hopes to obtain alcohol and girls with a comically bogus driver's license identifying him only as "McLovin." This past week, Roger Simon offered a similarly feeble impression of a journalist. McLovin, indeed.

UPDATE 1: The Times' Frank Rich provides a compare-and-contrast with Simon on McCain's pathetic posturing.

UPDATE 2: In his defense, on September 4th Simon penned a scathing critique of McCain's war on the press titled, "Why the Media Should Apologize."

Friday's first presidential debate may well be best remembered for the unique combination of cowardice displayed by the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Unlike Barack Obama, John McCain couldn't look his opponent in the eye during the contest. And unlike Joe Biden, Sarah Palin wouldn't look into television cameras after.

McCain's childish refusal to even acknowledge Obama's presence immediately struck commentators doing the event post-mortem. On MSNBC, Richard Wolfe noted that McCain "curiously couldn't look Obama in the eye." In the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson pointed out that McCain's "aggression came with a smirk and a sneer." The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, too, observed that the Republican literally couldn't face the man he repeatedly tried to attack:

"McCain did not filter himself, letting his frustration and contempt for Obama show; he wouldn't let himself look at the challenger."

Of course, many will write off the 90 minute display of petulance as just McCain being McCain, this time wrestling with his demons in front of 100 million people nationwide. Regardless, that "McCain seemed contemptuous of Obama" (to quote Robinson) was sadly expected, a display attributed perhaps to McCain's arrogance, impatience and legendary temper.

But Americans at least got to see McCain's temperament - disturbing as it was - on their screens last night. Sarah Palin was nowhere to be seen.

As soon as Obama and McCain finished their match-up in Mississippi, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden appeared on almost every network. The omnipresent Biden made Palin's absence from the airwaves all the more glaring.

That Governor Palin was a no-show was inexcusable, but not surprising. (That she merely watched the debate in a bar in Philadelphia only makes matters worse.) After all, the handful of times the stealth candidate emerged from her undisclosed location has proven disastrous for the Republicans. While her appearance with ABC's Charles Gibson was merely embarrassing, her interview with CBS' Katie Couric was a catastrophe. The GOP's fear and loathing was best captured Friday by Kathleen Parker of the reliably Republican National Review. Palin, she said, was "out of her league" and should drop out of the race.

Discretion, so it said, is the better part of valor. Sadly, in McCain's case, he showed no discretion at all. As for Palin, her cowardice was clear; she didn't show up at all.

In a piece titled simply, "McCain Loses His Head," a horrified Will made the case that McCain's out-of-control temper, festering personal grudges, "impulsive" reactions and "boiling moralism" constituted a worrisome "a harbinger of a McCain presidency":

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."

As it turns out, McCain's same "childish reflex" was on display 20 years ago during the Keating Five imbroglio that almost ended his career.

There's an old saying that "everyone is entitled their own opinion, not their own facts." Not according to John McCain. In the face of an avalanche of criticism across the political spectrum over John McCain's endless lies, distortions and smears, his campaign continues to insist that the truth doesn't matter. For John McCain, facts themselves are subject to debate.

The downward trajectory of the McCain, as I predicted months ago, was revealed by campaign chairman Rick Davis' admission two week ago that a war on Barack Obama's character - and not the issues - is the only thing John McCain care about.

"This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

And to manufacture that "composite view," McCain and his Republican allies would literally make lying the centerpiece of their campaign. As Team McCain's mountain of falsehoods about Sarah Palin's record on earmarks, travel to Iraq, national security and energy expertise and the Bridge to Nowhere grew to almost comic proportions, GOP strategist John Feehery was clear that truth indeed would be the first casualty in McCain's character war. As the Washington Post reported:

John Feehery, a Republican strategist, said the campaign is entering a stage in which skirmishes over the facts are less important than the dominant themes that are forming voters' opinions of the candidates.

"The more the New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there's a bigger truth out there and the bigger truths are she's new, she's popular in Alaska and she is an insurgent," Feehery said. "As long as those are out there, these little facts don't really matter."

After McCain was blasted by the hosts of ABC's The View on Friday for his patently false ads attacking Obama, campaign spokesman Brian Rogers insisted truth was relative.

"If you and the Obama campaign want to disagree, that's your call."

Then on Saturday, it was Rogers again who put McCain's Vince Lombardi strategy ("winning isn't everything, it's the only thing") on the table:

"We're running a campaign to win. And we're not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it."

In fits and starts, the media are finally beginning to push back. Editorial boards across the nation branded McCain's ads and statements "intellectually dishonest", "deceptive", "double-speak", "a fictional narrative" and a "gross distortion." On Saturday, NBC's Mark Murray in a piece simply titled, "Wheels Come off Straight Talk Express?" documented "a brutal day for John McCain and his campaign" as the chorus of press criticism reached a crescendo.

By Sunday, even Karl Rove was forced to acknowledge John McCain's blatant disregard for the truth. While claiming "you can't trust the fact-check organizations," Rove admitted that McCain has:

"Gone, in some of his ads...one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test."

Amazingly, Fox News' Megan Kelly followed suit, blasting McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds for his campaign's lies about the Obama tax plan. "Virtually every independent analyst who took a look at that claim," Kelly rightly noted, "said that’s not true."

For their part, the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party are belatedly starting to fight back. The DNC debuted a "Count the Lies" web site to document John McCain's growing legion falsehoods and deceptions. And the Obama camp launched a new ad decrying McCain's dishonorable campaign.

The venerable Democratic Senator and Vice President Hubert Humphrey once said, "The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." In his scorched earth war for the White House, that is a risk John McCain is clearly willing to take.

After all, John McCain's mantra is a perversion of the words of Abraham Lincoln:

"You can fool some of the people all the time and that's our target market."

On Friday, ABC's Charles Gibson and its hosts of The View again exposed the differences on abortion and stem cell research between John McCain and his hard-line GOP running mate Sarah Palin. But lost in their interviews is any mention of the 2008 Republican Party platform. As it turns out, that radical document demands far more draconian restrictions than either McCain or Palin will acknowledge.

To be sure, John McCain now supports overturning Roe v. Wade, a reversal of his stance heading into his failed 2000 White House bid. But his party's platform adopted last week in St. Paul goes much further, calling for a constitutional amendment banning all abortions in the United States, including cases involving rape, incest and protecting the life of the mother. The GOP platform is quite clear on the point:

"We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children."

Cowed by the radical right of his own party, John McCain yielded to the extremist plank despite telling Washington Post just two weeks ago that "my position has always been: exceptions of rape, incest and the life of the mother."

And to be sure, that is not the position of McCain's party or his running mate. After signaling her agreement with John McCain on overturning Roe v. Wade, Sarah Palin made it clear to ABC's Gibson that she backed banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest:

GIBSON: John McCain would allow abortion in cases of rape and incest. Do you believe in it only in the case where the life of the mother is in danger?

PALIN: That is my personal opinion.

GIBSON: Would you change and accept it in rape and incest?

PALIN: My personal opinion is that abortion allowed if the life of the mother is endangered. Please understand me on this. I do understand McCain's position on this.

Appearing on The View earlier the same day, Cindy and John McCain acknowledged they had been shunned by the Republican platform and the GOP's veep choice on the issue:

Adding that she and her husband see "eye-to-eye" on most issues, Cindy McCain did admit to disagreeing with Palin when it comes to abortions in the instance of rape or incest.

On stem cell research, too, the hard-line Republican platform sounds more like Sarah Palin than John McCain. During the now infamous forum at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, McCain sheepishly announced to the evangelical-laden audience, "I've come down on the side of stem cell research." Again, the Republican platform committee never got the message. As the National Review noted, "the 2008 Republican Platform calls for a ban on all embryonic stem-cell research, public or private:"

"We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes."

As for Palin, she left no doubt she stands behind the harsh Republican plank on stem cells:

GIBSON: Embryonic stem cell research, John McCain has been supportive of it.

PALIN: You know, when you're running for office, your life is an open book and you do owe it to Americans to talk about your personal opinion, which may end up being different than what the policy in an administration would be. My personal opinion is we should not create human life, create an embryo and then destroy it for research, if there are other options out there.

Ironically, the McCain campaign chose Friday to debut a new radio ad touting John McCain's support for stem cell research. But in a cynically deceptive ploy, the spot sidesteps the central issue of embryonic stem cell research, which is opposed not only by McCain's running mate, but by the platform the GOP approved at its convention 10 days ago:

They're the original mavericks. Leaders. Reformers. Fighting for real change.

John McCain will lead his Congressional allies to improve America's health. Stem cell research to unlock the mystery of cancer, diabetes, heart disease. Stem cell research to help free families from the fear and devastation of illness. Stem cell research to help doctors repair spinal cord damage, knee injuries, serious burns. Stem cell research to help stroke victims.

And, John McCain and his Congressional allies will invest millions more in new NIH medical research to prevent disease. Medical breakthroughs to help you get better, faster. Change is coming.

McCain-Palin and Congressional allies. The leadership and experience to really change Washington and improve your health.

Paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee.

And so it goes. While all eyes followed Sarah Palin's "moose in the headlights" performance with Charles Gibson and John McCain surprisingly combative appearance on The View, the story of the Republican ticket's extremist platform went untold.

Once again, John McCain is proving the old maxim that a man who lives in 11 glass houses shouldn't cast stones. While his campaign feigns outrage over Barack Obama's labeling of the McCain change mantra as "lipstick on a pig," video footage surfaced of McCain using the same aphorism about Hillary Clinton's health care plan in 2007. And its effort to manufacture fury over bogus accusations of sexism, Team McCain must be betting that Americans have forgotten John McCain's troubled history with b*tches, tar babies - and worse.

Of course, the "lipstick on a pig" formulation is so commonplace - and understood to be without incendiary overtones - as to enjoy bipartisan support. For his part, Obama has been using "lipstick on a pig" for months, including in a past reference to the Bush administration's Iraq policy. Former Rumsfeld press secretary and current McCain water-carrier Torie Clarke penned a book titled, Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game. John McCain, too, turned to the same phrase in attacking Hillary Clinton's health care proposals (though not the almost first woman presidential nominee) last October:

"I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," McCain said of the plan last October as Clinton was running for the Democratic nomination.

Unfortunately, when it comes to sexist slurs directed at Hillary Clinton, John McCain and his campaign have a checkered past. When a supporter during an event in South Carolina last November asked him, "how do we beat the bitch," McCain laughed before calling it an "excellent question." (Video here.) After CNN's Rick Sanchez described "McCain's reaction, or lack thereof" to "a horrible word that is used to do nothing but demean women," McCain campaign chairman Rick Davis sent out a fundraising email to literally capitalize on the episode:

"The CNN Network, affectionately known as the Clinton News Network, has stooped to an all-time low and is gratuitously attacking John McCain for not defending Hillary Clinton enough when a South Carolina voter used the 'B' word to describe her when John McCain stopped into a luncheon yesterday at the Trinity restaurant in Hilton Head, SC...

...As an independent news agency, CNN owes John McCain an apology because of the outrageous behavior of their network host Rich Sanchez."

Sadly, John McCain's B*tchgate pales in comparison to his 1998 slander of the teenaged Chelsea Clinton. Appearing at a Senate Republican fundraiser, the gutter dwelling McCain joked:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."

While McCain later apologized to President and Mrs. Clinton (though not to Janet Reno), he brushed off the episode to the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. "''This is the bad boy," he said, adding, "I was wrong, but do you want me crucified? How many days does it need to be a story?'"

McCain's run-ins with inflammatory rhetoric don't end with sexism. Last year, McCain followed Tony Snow and Mitt Romney in casually reintroducing the racist slur "tar baby" back into the vernacular. Answering a question about fathers' rights in divorce cases during a March 2007 campaign event, McCain stumbled his way into trouble:

"For me to stand here before all these people and say that I'm going declare divorces invalid because someone feels that they weren't treated fairly in court, we are getting into a, uh, uh, tar baby of enormous proportions."

When CNN's Candi Crowley subsequently asked him (video here) about the racist overtones of the expression, McCain apologized:

"I hope that it's not viewed that way...I don't think I should have used that word and it was wrong to do so."

Despite his past utterances - intentional and not - neither the Democratic Party nor the mainstream media are branding John McCain sexist or racist. (With their recent uses of the term "uppity," Georgia Republicans Lynn Westmoreland and Rick Goddard are another matter.) But in its latest cynical use of Sarah Palin, the McCain campaign is waging a transparently ridiculous war against Barack Obama using trumped-up charges of sexism.

Of course, neither Obama nor McCain was serving up sexist slanders when each spoke of "lipstick on a pig." But given his track record when its comes to charged rhetoric, John McCain would do well to show restraint now.

After all, men who live in glass houses...

What a difference a year makes. Last fall, Rick Davis and the McCain campaign sang a different tune about sexism in politics. When the press criticized John McCain's feeble response to a supporter calling Senator Hillary Clinton a "bitch," Davis used the dust-up as a fundraising opportunity.

At an event in South Carolina last November, John McCain and his supporters showed Clinton backers that sexism would be in the eye of the beholder. When a woman asked, "how do we beat the bitch?" McCain laughed and called hers an "excellent question" (video here). As ABC recalled the encounter:

An older woman stood and asked him, "how do we beat the bitch?"

Groans and applause followed.

"May I give the translation?" McCain asked.

"I thought she was talking about my ex-wife," joked a man in the audience.

"But that's an excellent question," McCain said. "You might know that there was a poll yesterday, a Rasmussen poll, identified, that shows me three points ahead of Senator Clinton in a head-to-head matchup."

"I respect Senator Clinton, I respect anyone who gets the nomination of the Democrat party," McCain continued.

Reporting on the story on November 13, CNN's Rick Sanchez declared "this could be real bad for John McCain." Noting that a McCain supporter used "a horrible word that is used to do nothing but demean women," Sanchez told viewers that given "McCain's reaction, or lack thereof," CNN "decided that this is both relevant and newsworthy, and important information to this campaign." Later, Sanchez emphasized:

"This is a fellow senator that he's talking about. No matter what you think of Hillary Clinton, is John McCain done as a result of this? Is this going to become a viral video? This is the kind of questions that we got to examine at this point. We're going to be looking at a lot of these issues."

In response, the McCain campaign in a precursor of its Palin strategy wasn't content to merely launch a war against the "sensationalism" of the media. Rick Davis turned it into a revenue opportunity for the bankrupt McCain campaign.

By Wednesday, November 14th, Davis sent a fundraising email on McCain's behalf. In his telling, John McCain (and not Hillary Clinton) was the aggrieved party at the hands of the "Clinton News Network." While the National Review has the full text, the highlights (or rather, lowlights) follow below:

Friends,

The CNN Network, affectionately known as the Clinton News Network, has stooped to an all-time low and is gratuitously attacking John McCain for not defending Hillary Clinton enough when a South Carolina voter used the 'B' word to describe her when John McCain stopped into a luncheon yesterday at the Trinity restaurant in Hilton Head, SC...

...As an independent news agency, CNN owes John McCain an apology because of the outrageous behavior of their network host Rich Sanchez...We are not going to let Senator Clinton's friends in the liberal blogosphere and on CNN try to destroy our campaign. Senator McCain is a fighter and he is not going to back down to CNN...

...Can we count on you to stand up and support John McCain against these attacks?

Will you stand up and help strengthen the resurgence of our campaign as the best candidate to defeat Hillary Clinton?

We are asking you to help us fight Rick Sanchez and CNN and stand with John McCain. Please make your most generous contribution from $25 up to the maximum limit of $2,300 to the only candidate who can defeat Hillary Clinton.

In a foreshadowing of its triumphant spin over Sarah Palin, the McCain campaign won the day on B*tchgate. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post declared that CNN "may have overdramatized the incident." And the Politico's Mike Allen, while appearing (ironically) on CNN, summed up the conventional wisdom:

"But what Republican voter hasn't thought that? What voter in general hasn't thought that and what people like about McCain is his straight talk, his candor."

And so it goes. Whether in the role of the accused or the accuser, John McCain has turned charges of sexism into political gold - literally. Apparently, as Matthew Yglesias and others have noted, "everything is good news for McCain."

UPDATE: Politico reports that ABC will travel with Governor Palin over several days, starting with her conveniently timed Sepember 11 address to her son's military unit as it prepares for deployment.

Monday was a miserable day for the Dow, with the market suffering a 242 point drop. But rather than joining "so-called market analysts" in attributing the sell-off to credit market woes, higher oil prices and a fluctuating dollar, the National Review's resident class warrior Larry Kudlow found a predictable villain. Despite the inescapable history that the stock market does better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones, Kudlow blamed the market steep slide on the opening of the Democratic Convention in Denver.

Unsurprisingly, the reliably Republican Kudlow faithfully regurgitated every GOP talking point in laying the Wall Street's woes at the door of the DNC:

"Are the Denver Dems downing the stock market today? The Dow is off 230 points, starting right from the get-go. So-called market analysts are blaming financials and the credit crunch as they always do. But there’s more.

Obama and Biden gave us plenty of class warfare in their Springfield, Ill., get together on Saturday. Tax the rich. Redistribute income and wealth. Go after all those corporate meanies. Trade protection...

...With the Denver Dems strutting their stuff, this could be a bumpy week for stocks. Did anyone say free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity?"

Of course, as the record shows, the best path to prosperity is to elect Democratic presidents.

The superior performance of Democratic presidents covers virtually the entire spectrum of economic indicators. As Elliott Parker of the University of Nevada, Reno detailed in a 2006 paper, since 1949 Democratic administrations have done better than Republican ones when it comes to unemployment (5.2% to 6.0%), job creation (-.0.4% decrease in unemployment, compared to 0.3% increase), GDP growth rate (4.2% to 2.9%), and even corporate profits as a share of GDP. And to be sure, he found the Dow benefits from Democrats in the White House.

There's no shortage of studies to show that stock market returns are higher under Democratic leadership. (As it turns out, Wall Street's performance is also better when Democrats control Congress.) In 2000, Pedro Santa-Clara and Rossen Valkanov of UCLA's Anderson School of Business concluded that "that the average excess return in the stock market is higher under Democratic than Republican presidents - a difference of 9 percent per year for the value-weighted portfolio and 16 percent for the equal-weighted portfolio." As the New York Times noted of UCLA study in 2003:

"It's not even close. The stock market does far better under Democrats...

...Professors Santa-Clara and Valkanov look at the excess market return - the difference between a broad index of stock prices (basically the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index) and the three-month Treasury bill rate - between 1927 and 1998. The excess return measures how attractive stock investments are compared with completely safe investments like short-term T-bills.

Using this measure, they find that during those 72 years the stock market returned about 11 percent more a year under Democratic presidents and 2 percent more under Republicans - a striking difference."

In 2002, Slate similarly concluded that "Democrats, it turns out, are much better for the stock market than Republicans":

Slate ran the numbers and found that since 1900, Democratic presidents have produced a 12.3 percent annual total return on the S&P 500, but Republicans only an 8 percent return. In 2000, the Stock Trader's Almanac, which slices and dices Wall Street performance figures like baseball stats, came up with nearly the same numbers (13.4 percent versus 8.1 percent) by measuring Dow price appreciation. (Most of the 20th century's bear markets, incidentally, have been Republican bear markets: the Crash of '29, the early '70s oil shock, the '87 correction, and the current stall occurred under GOP presidents.)

According to almanac editor Jeffrey Hirsch, the presidential party figures are among the most significant he's found. If the stock market were random, we'd expect such a result only one-quarter of the time. "I don't know why people are convinced Republicans are good for the stock market," Hirsch says.

Why? Because Republican water carriers like Larry Kudlow continue - with great success - to perpetuate the myth that the regulation-free policies of the GOP that so benefit them personally somehow help the American people overall.

Back in April, CNBC's Kudlow compared the economic downturn to an enema, declaring, "Recessions are therapeutic." Needless to say, Kudlow's "let them eat cake" pronouncement is not true. Then again, neither is his myth that Republicans are better than Democrats for the stock market.

But on one point, there is no dispute. Despite CNN's assurances to the contrary, Rick Warren simply asked Barack Obama and John McCain different questions.

From the very first question, Warren treated McCain with biblical kid gloves, editing out scriptural references that might have proven uncomfortable for the religiously reticent Republican:

QUESTION TO OBAMA: These first set of questions deal with your personal life as a leader and I'm not going to do this with any other segment, but as pastor I've got some verses that have to do with leadership. The first issue is the area of listening. There is a verse in Proverbs that says fools think they need no advice but the wise listen to other people. Who are the wisest three people you know in your life and who are you going to rely on heavily in your administration?

QUESTION TO MCCAIN: This first question deals with leadership and the personal life of leadership. First question, who were the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?

Chuck Todd of MSNBC was quick to note the strikingly different answers Obama and McCain offered, but not the clearly different questions they were asked:

"Take the VERY first question Warren posed to both candidates: who are three people you'll depend on for wisdom in the presidency. Obama seemed to answer this in a very personal way, talking about his wife and grandmother. McCain went right to this message, checking boxes on Iraq (Patraeus) and the economy (Whitman) for instance. Now, I'm betting Obama's answer came across as more authentic but McCain's was probably more effective with undecided swing voters."

Given the very different framing of the question Warren posed, it's no surprise that Barack Obama and John McCain produced strikingly different responses in both substance and style. Obama took Warren's personal question personally, and cited his wife and grandmother as both "wise and honest'' before moving on to a litany of political figures on both sides of the aisle. (Obama's mention of the radical social conservative Tom Coburn (R-OK) was transparent pandering to his audience.) For his part, McCain responded to Warren's political question and pointed to General David Petraeus, Obama supporter Congressman John Lewis and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. (McCain was quick to return to his stump speech and extol the glories of eBay as America's economic future.)

But Warren's divergent paths for Obama and McCain split further with the very next question on leadership and moral weakness. Again, Warren turned to the Bible for Barack Obama, but to Dr. Phil for John McCain:

QUESTION TO OBAMA: Let's talk about personal life. The Bible says that integrity and love are the basis for leadership. This is a tough question. What would be looking over your life, everybody's got wings [sic], would be the greatest moral failure in your life and what would be the greatest moral failure in America?

QUESTION TO MCCAIN: We had a lot leaders because of their weaknesses, character flaws, stumbled, become ineffective [and] are not serving anymore, serving our country. What's been your greatest moral failure and what has been the - what do you think is the greatest moral failure of America?

Again, the different framing of the question put Obama at a distinct disadvantage. After admitting his own troubled, selfish youth as his personal failing, Obama turned to scripture to highlight America's failure to live up to its own ideals:

"I think America's greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we still don't live by that basic precept in Matthew that whatever you for the least of my brothers, you do for me."

In contrast, McCain killed two birds with one stone. He dispensed with his own marital infidelity in a single sentence, "my greatest moral failing, and I have been an imperfect person, is the failure of my first marriage." (The issue never surfaced again, and Warren's admission Friday that he "absolutely" would have compunctions about voting for an adulterer never became an issue for McCain.) More important, McCain highlighted America's greatest shortcoming as a failure to "serve cause greater than yourself." That theme - "country first" - is the rhetorical cornerstone of the McCain campaign. And the contrast of his response with Obama's discussion of his own battle with what Warren termed "fundamental selfishness" couldn't have been more strategic for McCain.

Warren's different framing of the inquiries he posed and the tailored, selective follow-ups continued in his discussion of marriage. Warren asked Obama and McCain alike to "define marriage." But while Obama was then asked, "Would you support a constitutional amendment with that definition," Warren instead offered John McCain an opportunity to weigh in on a hotly contested ballot measure being pushed by the religious right in California:

"Let me just ask a related question to that. We got a bill right here in California, Proposition 8, that's going on because the Court overturned this definition of marriage. Was the Supreme Court of California wrong?"

It's no secret that the foes of same-sex marriage see Proposition 8 as essential to fueling Republican turn-out in November.

And so it went all night. Thanks in no small part to Pastor Warren's biblical guidance, Barack Obama spoke in a personal, conversational style, making a point throughout to refer to the principles of his Christian faith in the misguided attempt to please an audience indifferent to him at best, downright hostile at worst. So while Barack Obama talked of "trying to do God's work," John McCain did the work of his campaign advisers. Despite Warren's feeble requests not to do so, McCain just repackaged his stump speech and made purely political appeals. In so doing, John McCain probably had the best night of the campaign.

(This piece originally appeared at Crooks and Liars.)

On Monday night, CBS News reporter Wyatt Andrews featured Robert Kagan in a segment describing Russia's ambitions in - and beyond - Georgia. But whereas the New York Times, Charlie Rose and virtually the entire media this week identified Kagan both as "a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a top McCain foreign policy adviser," CBS described its source for perspective and analysis as merely "a political analyst":

"We have to understand, these Russian troops didn't materialize out of nowhere," said political analyst Robert Kagen [sic]. "This is the culmination of Putin's efforts to pull Georgia back within Russia's sphere and exert control over it."

(It is worth noting that the Washington Post, too, makes no mention of its columnist Kagan's affiliation with the McCain campaign at the end of his August 11th piece, "Putin Makes His Move.)

On Saturday, CBS did more favors for the McCain campaign. Anchor Russ Mitchell led with a segment on the scandal surrounding John Edwards' admission of a 2006 affair with Rielle Hunter. But ignoring the obvious parallels between Edwards' betrayal of his ill-wife on one hand and those of Republicans John McCain and Newt Gingrich on the other, Mitchell predictably asked colleague Bob Schieffer about the damage to Democrats' electoral prospects. The CBS web site teases their exchange:

"CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer speaks with Russ Mitchell about John Edward's extramarital affair and what this could mean for the Democratic Party."

McCain, after all, began his affair with Cindy Hensley, now the second Mrs. McCain, months before divorcing Carol Shepp, the first Mrs. McCain. (As Salon and the Daily Mail each noted, McCain's first wife was still coping with the injuries she had suffered in a serious car accident.) And to be sure, for all his faults, John Edwards did not commit the "full Gingrich" by divorcing his cancer-stricken wife. For his part, Gingrich is a serial philanderer, dumping wife #2 in 2000 for a young Congressional aide, Callista Bisek. Yet Gingrich did not merely entertain a 2008 presidential bid, he was back on Capitol Hill last week as part of another threatened government shutdown (this time over offshore drilling) by his Republican allies.

For its part, ABC News on Tuesday offered a piece titled "Cheating on a Sick Spouse," which appropriately began:

John McCain. Then Newt Gingrich. And now John Edwards.

But not CBS. There, John Edwards' infidelity and shameless lying is a reflection on his Democratic Party, not a reminder of deeply flawed - and eerily similar - Republicans past and present. And McCain foreign policy adviser and neocon hardliner Robert Kagan is just "a political analyst."

On Wednesday, Perrspectives detailed how John McCain's new ad touting the Arizona Senator as the populist "Original Maverick" utterly contradicted the "True Conservative" TV spot he used during the Republican primaries. In February, McCain to be sure wasn't the maverick battling special interests in his own party:

Announcer: As a prisoner of war, John McCain was inspired by Ronald Reagan.

Mr. McCain: I enlisted as a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution.

Announcer: Guided by strong conservative principles, he'll cut wasteful spending and keep taxes low. A proud social conservative who will never waver. The leadership and experience to call for the surge strategy in Iraq that is working.

John McCain: The true conservative. Ready to be commander-in-chief on Day One.

As it turns out, McCain's claim to be a "true conservative" didn't just disappear once he sewed up the Republican nomination. For the most part, so did the ad itself.

The mystery began when I looked back at some of my earlier pieces from May and June about the ad - and McCain's mad dash back to the center. As I noted previously, back on February 1, the release of McCain's "True Conservative" ad was widely covered by the American media. The New York Times, the Politico, the Boston Herald, Slate and the Cleveland Plain Dealer (among others) reported on the spot as part of McCain's strategy to "shift right" and stress his credibility among the GOP's conservative base. But the YouTube link used by all of the sites above no longer works; clicking on the embedded video they display simply produces an error message:

"We're sorry, this video is no longer available."

That same day (February 1), the McCain campaign also issued a press release titled, "John McCain 2008 Launches New Television Ad: 'True Conservative.'" But that release, too, is no longer available on the McCain web site in either its standard web format or print layout versions. (The former links to an error page, the latter to a blank page.) However, not only did other web sites run the text, but Google cached versions of the McCain site from July 1 and July 11 show the original content as well.

And it makes for interesting reading. The press release tells readers to visit one of two locations on YouTube and the McCain web site to view the "True Conservative" 30-second spot:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqLWHvbRFO8
• http://www.johnmccain.com/tvads/

The ad is no longer available at either location.

Even more fun, though, is the background information on McCain's conservative street cred contained in the now-purged February 1 press release. For example, former Senator and McCain adviser Phil Gramm, later disgraced by his "whiners" remarks, praises McCain as a deficit hawk. And Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Tom Coburn (R-OK), both ardent foes of women's reproductive rights, laud McCain's pro-life bona fides in a section of the press release subtitled:

John McCain "Is Far And Away The Most Consistently Anti-Abortion Of All The Top Contenders"

Which isn't to say the "True Conservative" ad has been completely purged from the McCain web site. While it is apparently no longer accessible from the campaign's TV Ads page, Multimedia page or its Multimedia archive, a search of the site shows the February ad is still available in a post oddly dated April 17, 2008. An earlier January 22nd spot titled "Proud Conservative" can also be accessed through a site search. The "True Conservative" ad can also be viewed elsewhere on YouTube (as displayed above).

While tracking down McCain's "True Conservative" ad was a bit of puzzle, there's no mystery as to why his campaign wanted to sweep it under the rug. Almost as soon as McCain locked up the GOP nomination, his campaign rapidly reversed the hard right turn it has executed during the primaries. In early May, McCain senior adviser Charlie Black declared that John McCain was now magically "slightly right of center." And McCain's own dismal "green screen" speech of June 3rd was delivered in the hopes of running away from the moribund Republican Party and its wildly unpopular president.

As John McCain's endless flip-flops show, he's no maverick. And as Barack Obama suggested yesterday, John McCain is a true conservative, or at least was until he won the Republican presidential nomination. Apparently, that's a secret the McCain campaign just doesn't want Americans to know.

UPDATE: John McCain's latest ad released Thursday, "Praising McCain," features old clips of Democrats lauding McCain. The spot is introduced by a screen stating, "John McCain is a Maverick."

Recently, John McCain has taken to boasting, "I know how to win wars." But he isn't talking about Iraq. As his gutter politics of the last week show, McCain is talking about the "character war" against Barack Obama.

As predicted, McCain is turning to the Republicans' tried and untrue formula for success from 2000 and 2004. That is, because Americans overwhelmingly prefer Democratic positions and priorities across almost the entire spectrum of issues, the GOP has to make the race about something else. This year as in 2000 and 2004, the Republicans will turn the race into a presidential personality contest. And to win it, they need to manufacture a "character gap" between John McCain and Barack Obama:

The data is clear. If the election is about the economy, health care and Iraq, John McCain cannot become the 44th president. Only if the GOP succeeds once again in transforming the race into a media medley about lapel pins, angry ministers and Muslim-sounding middle names can the Republicans hope to maintain their hold on the White House.

The right-wing media machine is already hard at work on producing the 2008 version of the character gap. The supposed elitism of Barack Obama (and not the perpetually out-of-touch John McCain) has already emerged as an indispensable, if demonstrably false, conservative story line.

As it turns out, that assessment grossly underestimated the effort of the McCain campaign to paint Obama as a foreign, untrustworthy and literally un-American threat. It's only the beginning of August, and John McCain has already described Obama as a traitor, a genocide enabler, a "celebrity," an ally of Hamas and a "socialist" whose "word cannot be trusted." So much for McCain's pledge to run a "respectful" campaign.

To be sure, if anyone knows about being on the receiving end of "ugly brand of politics," it is John McCain. McCain, after all, was brutalized by the campaign of George W. Bush in 2000. But just in case there was ever any doubt about the course this election would take, the New York Times provided confirmation on Thursday. The Times reported that McCain's effort to "create a negative narrative about Barack Obama is being coordinated by veterans of President Bush's 2004 bid." So McCain not learned at the feet of the master, he's hired his henchmen as well.

In his 2007 book The Big Con, Jonathan Chait described how Republicans consistently win elections despite almost universal disdain for their policies among the American people. In a nutshell, Chait argues that Republicans must convert elections into contests of character because they simply can't win on issues. While their man, be it George W. Bush or John McCain, is the "authentic" guy you'd "like to have a beer with," the GOP drives the media conventional wisdom that paints the likes of Al Gore, John Kerry and now Barack Obama as effete, out-of-touch elitists whose positions change with the wind:

"Media outlets functionally affiliated with the Republican Party have been able to create news that makes its way into the nonpartisan media. It is a kind of machine that manufactures images of character.

The Republicans' seminal insight was that the random process by which small events come to wield great symbolic insight into the character of presidential candidates didn't have to be random. It was possible to prime the pump, in a way." (p.169)

And it works. The 2000 and 2004 exit polls clearly show the Republican Party succeeded both in portraying the presidential contest as being about character and in defining the accepted media narrative for candidates Bush, Gore and Kerry. Eight years ago, 24% of voters claimed being "honest/trustworthy" was the quality that mattered most; among them, George W. Bush trounced Al Gore by 80% to 15%. In 2004, Bush walloped the supposed flip-flopper John Kerry by 70% to 29% among those claiming honesty was the most important presidential attribute. Among those wanting a "strong leader," Bush swamped Kerry by a staggering 75 points.

A corollary to the Republicans' quadrennial character crusades is the necessary obfuscation of their own policy prescriptions. As the Politico detailed just today, the "policy plans of John McCain have been notably short on details" in what it deemed a "paper gap." And that's no accident. For example, on Social Security, where John McCain has hedged about his past commitment to follow in Bush's privatization footsteps, McCain senior adviser Taylor Griffin laughably argued:

"The history of the Social Security debate has taught that too many specifics, especially during a presidential campaign, has polarized the debate."

Similarly, senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin complained about a Tax Policy Center analysis showing the McCain budget plan would literally produce trillions in red ink. "He has been very clear that he'd like to develop an alternative simplified tax," Holtz-Eakin said, adding, "We do not yet have a specific proposal."

And when the details are a hindrance and not a help, it's easy to get them wrong. In the wake of his multiple, confused reversals about his "no new taxes" pledges, even the reliable Republican mouthpiece the Wall Street Journal asked, "Is John McCain Stupid?"

Which isn't to say that some of the media haven't taken notice of McCain's dumpster-diving brand of politics. The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson declared simply, "so much for St. John." Joe Klein of Time lamented:

"A few months ago, I wrote that John McCain was an honorable man and he would run an honorable campaign. I was wrong."

As he's made quite clear, John McCain can live with criticism like that. After all, he's got character.

There are many reasons to dislike CBS News with Katie Couric. Now you can add ham-handed racial stereotyping to the list.

Just days after editing out John McCain's calamitous gaffe about the Sunni Awakening following the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq, Couric offered a pablum profile of the McCain campaign team. In her behind-the-scenes segment Tuesday (video here), Couric seemed shocked - shocked - to learn that McCain's director of outreach to African-Americans was himself an African-American:

The campaign tries to reach out to various voting blocs like women, Hispanics and African-Americans. The efforts are coordinated by National Coalitions Director Aaron Manaigo.

"You're an African-American man and supporting John McCain obviously. Do your friends give you a hard time at all?" Couric asked him.

"No. Absolutely," Manaigo said. "Most of my friends like John McCain. In any other election year, they would probably be right here working with us."

Couric's dual assumption, of course, is that Manaigo's friends must be black and that they monolithically support Barack Obama for President. Now while Obama consistently polls at or above 90% among African-American voters, Manaigo's circle might include Lynn Swann, J.C. Watts, Kenneth Blackwell, Michael Steele and Shelby Steele. Or, his friends could be as diverse as any other group of Americans. While Manaigo's response seems to suggest that many of his buddies may in fact be black, Couric posed the question in almost euphemistic terms.

Sadly, this isn't the only recent example of Couric's newscast reporting caricatures to the American people. In February, a segment about a study of faith in America parroted the stereotypes of the religious right, with CBS' Wyatt Andrews proclaiming, "the unprecedented survey of religion answers many concerns about a secular, morally void America."

As for Couric, the CBS Evening News on her watch continues its dismal ratings slide, remaining deeply mired in third place. It's not hard to figure out why.

That the Republican water carrier and New York Times columnist David Brooks would blast Barack Obama's Berlin speech was utterly predictable. (Kevin Drum even predicted the title of the piece, "Playing Innocent Abroad.") To be sure, by slandering Obama's call to "remake the world" with epithets including "saccharine," "treacle," and "Disney," Brooks did not disappoint. Of course, even less surprising is that back in 2005, David Brooks had only glowing praise for President Bush's democratization agenda and its audacious vision to "imagine new worlds."

On Friday, Brooks wasted little time in excoriating Obama for his optimistic call for a new internationalism in which American global leadership restored could help tackle the challenges of terrorism, sectarian strife, economic prosperity and climate change:

"Obama speeches almost always have the same narrative arc. Some problem threatens. The odds are against the forces of righteousness. But then people of good faith unite and walls come tumbling down. Obama used the word "walls" 16 times in the Berlin speech, and in 11 of those cases, he was talking about walls coming down...

...But substantively, optimism without reality isn't eloquence. It's just Disney."

Ironically, Brooks opened by noting that "radical optimism is America's contribution to the world" and that "Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush preached their own gospels of world democracy." Ironic, because when the optimistic preacher in 2005 was President Bush, David Brooks was all for it.

During his February 2005 State of the Union address, Bush declared that the mission of the United States was nothing less than to end tyranny and dictatorship worldwide:

"The only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom...And we've declared our own intention: America will stand with the allies of freedom to support democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

That Republican's radical vision was one David Brooks could get behind. Joining giddy conservatives like Rich Lowry and Charles Krauthammer in premature celebration of the Bush Doctrine, Brooks lauded the Bush agenda for bringing what then seemed like a wave of democracy around the world.

In February 26, 2005 column (titled "Why Not Here?"), Brooks' assessment was a mirror image of today's Obama diatribe. Looking to the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, pro-democracy protests in the Palestinian territories and elections in Iraq, Brooks proclaimed that all across the Middle East - and the world - people were asking "why not here?"

Amazingly, Brooks then cited Ronald Reagan's own 1987 Berlin speech as invoking the world of possibility the visionary George W. Bush had imagined:

It's amazing in retrospect to think of how much psychological resistance there is to asking this breakthrough question: Why not here? We are all stuck in our traditions and have trouble imagining the world beyond. As Claus Christian Malzahn reminded us in Der Spiegel online this week, German politicians ridiculed Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech in 1987. They "couldn't imagine that there might be an alternative to a divided Germany."

But if there is one soft-power gift America does possess, it is this tendency to imagine new worlds. As Malzahn goes on to note, "In a country of immigrants like the United States, one actually pushes for change…We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow."

Apparently, the mere act of changing the speaker's name - and party affiliation - produces a 180-degree turn from David Brooks.

The image of tearing down walls wasn't the only historical device Obama deployed in Berlin on Thursday. He repeatedly harkened back to the 1948 American airlift which saved the city and busted the Soviet blockade. Obama's was not merely a metaphor for a reinvigorated trans-Atlantic partnership, but a call for renewed American global leadership. Alas, David Brooks is comfortable only when American dictates, not when America leads.

Back in 2005, Brooks concluded his piece by exhibiting the same symptoms of conservative hubris which have backfired so tragically for the United States. Just months before Russia's authoritarian swing, carnage in Lebanon and the Hamas triumph in Palestine, Brooks insisted Bush deserved accolades for prompting the cry of "why not here?":

"But this is clearly the question the United States is destined to provoke. For the final thing that we've learned from the papers this week is how thoroughly the Bush agenda is dominating the globe. When Bush meets with Putin, democratization is the center of discussion. When politicians gather in Ramallah, democratization is a central theme. When there's an atrocity in Beirut, the possibility of freedom leaps to people's minds."

But that was then and this is now. Barack Obama speaks of a "new dawn in the Middle East" or all of Europe choosing "its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday," And that, according to David Brooks is "Disney."

But you'd never know from the ads ("Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" and "My Eyes Adored You"). Mocking reporters and pundits including Matthews and NBC's Chris Cowan, CNN's Lou Dobbs and Fox News' Steve Doocy complain that the press corps is "in the tank" for Obama. Matthews, who sang Obama's praises on the Jay Leno show just last night, is ridiculed in the McCain ads for his February 12th primary night reaction to Obama's speech:

"I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often."

As it turns out, Barack Obama may send a thrill up Chris Matthews' leg, but John McCain already won his heart.

The first two days of the Netroots Nation conference have already produced a bumper crop of highlights and sound bite moments. As was widely reported, the DLC's Harold Ford was showered with cries of "Why?" and "Who?" when he told the lunchtime audience, "I have great, great respect and admiration for my former colleagues" at Fox News. And former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman challenged John McCain to "call on Rove to go and obey the law and to show up before the Judiciary Committee."

But away from the glare of the keynotes, the Netroots Nation break-out sessions and panels produced their own fair share of memorable moments and quotable quips.

Over the past two days, I attended sessions on "How to Talk Like a Pundit," the "Next President and the Law," conversations with Don Siegelman and Richard Clarke, and "Iraq Strategy in Context." As the following snippets suggest, the speakers did not disappoint:

"I get why you hate the media."
Jacki Schechner, formerly of CNN and now of Health Care for America Now, on her recent experience with the launch of her group's $40 million ad campaign.

"I have a deep fear of my former tribe."
John Dean, former Nixon White House lawyer.

"Mitt Romney is like Richard Nixon on Prozac."
John Dean

"Rudy Giuliani is Richard Nixon on crystal meth."
John Dean

"Most partisan - Thomas."
Cass Sunstein, on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. A University of Chicago study of 30,000 judicial votes compared how Republican and Democratic appointees ruled in overturning conservative versus liberal decisions made by executive branch agencies. Among the Supreme Court justices, Thomas was the most partisan, voting 46% less frequently to overturn conservative vs. liberal policies of the EPA, NLRB and other agencies.

"Most activist - Antonin Scalia."
Cass Sunstein. Scalia voted 52% of the time to overturn executive branch agency policies.

"Most restrained - Stephen Breyer."
Cass Sunstein. Breyer voted 82% of the time to uphold executive branch agency rules.

"Most neutral - Anthony Kennedy."
Cass Sunstein.

"It's like firing a park ranger for failing to find Sasquatch."
Michael Waldman, on Alberto Gonzales' Department of Justice purging U.S. attorneys for not prosecuting mythical cases of voter fraud.

"If you believe all roads lead to Rove, this is the shortest route to get there."
Governor Don Siegelman, on the need for the House Judiciary Committee to hold Karl Rove in contempt.

"Does that give you confidence?"
Governor Don Siegelman, on the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility looking into his prosecution.

"[It's full of] all these people who can't spell 'Homeland Security.'"
Former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, on the ranks of Bush administration political appointees to DHS, the highest ratio of political-to-career personnel in the federal government.

"It was just incompetence."
Richard Clarke, asked if the Bush administration intentionally did not capture Osama Bin Laden in 2001/2 because doing so would have undermined the atmosphere of fear needed to support a war in Iraq.

"Even Condi gets it."
Richard Clarke, asked if the Bush administration understands how counterproductive the policy on limiting student visas is when it comes to winning hearts and minds worldwide.

"A lot of the world wants us back."
Richard Clarke.

"It's f**king stupid."
Spencer Ackerman, on John McCain equating conditions in Iraq with those in Afghanistan in calling for a new surge there.

For the next few days, I'll be blogging intermittently from the Netroots Nation (formerly YearlyKos) conference in Austin, Texas. While most eyes will be on the headliners like Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Lawrence Lessig, Wesley Clarke and Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, there are a number of intriguing sessions I'll be checking out.

On Friday morning, Cass Sunstein, John Dean, Adam Bonin and Michael Waldman will be discussing "The Next President and the Law." Coming just days after the release of Jane Mayer's new book The Dark Side and President Bush's latest declaration of executive privilege in the Valerie Plame affair, the session couldn't be more salient.

Also on Friday, Alabama Governor Don Siegelman will discuss his experience as a target of the Karl Rove-directed Justice Department. Sentenced in 2006 to seven years in prison on trumped-up bribery charges, Siegelman has argued, "I think this will make Watergate look like child's play when it is fully investigated."

Given this week's Obama-McCain confrontation over Iraq and Afghanistan, "Iraq in Strategic Context" is timely, to say the least. Spencer Ackerman, Ilan Goldenberg, AJ Rossmiller and Matthew Yglesias (author of Heads in the Sand) will be leading the panel discussion placing Iraq in a "broader strategic context concerning al-Qaeda, nuclear proliferation, Iran, Syria, etc."

Friday afternoon, Kerry national security adviser Rand Beers and former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke will discuss the issues and proposals raised by Clarke's new book, "Your Government Failed You." From Al Qaeda, Iraq and global terrorism to the threats posed by climate change, nuclear proliferation, cyber-security and the rise of India and China, Clarke and Beers will look at the panoply of national security challenges the United States faces.

On Saturday afternoon, Andrei Cherny and New Democrat Network head Simon Rosenberg lead a discussion of "A New Era of Possibility" for America's global role in the aftermath of the Bush presidency. Rosenberg, who sought the DNC chair in 2005, has been at the forefront of redefining the brand of - and political infrastructure for - the 21st century Democratic Party. While Cherny's new book The Candy Bombers tells the tale of the 1948 Berlin airlift, his 2001 The Next Deal offered a compelling facelift for progressive politics.

Later Saturday, Vince Warren, Jameel Jaffer, Dahlia Lithwick and Jeremey Scahill headline a panel looking into the Bush administration's war on the rule of law both here and abroad. In "Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Torture and Military Contractors," the panel dissects the implications for the next president's first 100 days.

To be sure, John McCain wasn't padding his resume with a dubious example of his courage and sacrifice. His personal bravery is beyond dispute. But McCain's life story is so well documented and so central to his campaign that his made-to-order biographical facelift for a Pittsburgh audience should raise questions about his judgment and character.

As ABC's Jake Tapper details, the tale of POW McCain tricking his interrogators in Hanoi was prominently featured in his 1999 memoir Faith of My Fathers and the 2005 A&E film based on it. In his book, McCain wrote:

"Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron."

During a subsequent May 2005 interview with CNN, McCain confirmed that movie's account of his response to his Vietnamese handlers ("Starr; Greg; McGee; Davis; Adderly; Brown; Ringo; Wood") was accurate:

"That was the starting lineup of the Green Bay Packers, the first Super Bowl champions, yes," McCain responded. But it's -- it was the best I could think of at the time."

Fast forward to 2008 and Pennsylvania with its 21 electoral votes is in play. (Wisconsin, home to the Packers, only offers 10.) Perhaps hoping to close the gap with his Democratic rival Barack Obama, McCain Friday told Jon Delano of Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV that it was his city's football Steelers at the heart of the Hanoi Hilton ruse (video here). Asked "when you think of Pittsburgh, what's the first thing that comes to your mind," McCain answered, "the Steelers." He continued:

"When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup -- defensive line -- of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!"

Now, it is entirely possible, as the McCain campaign insists, that McCain's was "an honest mistake." Unfortunately, McCain's SteelerGate occurred in the same week Mr. Straight Talk claimed "I'm committed to making sure that there's equal pay for equal work ", an assertion obviously belied by his past statements and voting record. Days earlier, McCain falsely asserted he has the backing of all veterans groups, which he does not. On Thursday, the supposed maverick could not recall his past opposition to mandating that insurance companies covering Viagra also pay for birth control, a position his surrogate Carly Fiorina conveniently - and strategically - got wrong at an event targeting women voters. And to be sure, McCain's Pittburrgh Pander called to mind his June 4th Hurricane Katrina whopper at a Baton Rouge town hall meeting that "I've supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the tragedy."

That's a lot of "honest mistakes" to make in one week. Either John McCain is a craven political opportunist of the first order or his memory is failing at a dizzying rate certain to rekindle