I'm still wondering how Mrs. Bertram Jr. was able to secure such a prominent seat in Lakeville so she could ask the Senator whether Obama was an Arab.

LAMBERT: Which of the several Mrs. Bertrams might you be asking about?

Buenos Aires? Must be an AIG boondoggle?

LAMBERT: If only Hank Paulson would cut me a check.

Say, Mr. Edina, are you intimating that the villagers of Lakeville are significantly different than their neighbors up Southdale way? The communities are only minutes apart you know. The Town Hall clips were embarrassing, and consider the irony; Mr. McCain, while gently correcting their irrational assertions, must embrace this crowd in order to get elected.

LAMBERT: In Edina we'd have "people" carry our torches for us, and of course first-rate orthodontia prevents drooling.

Not as far the mainland as Buenos Aires, I found the people in Miami Florida this last week also guardedly hoping for a Obama victory. On he cusp of the voter registration deadline at the beginning of the week, the state was energized by candidate visits and a focus on organizing leading up to election day.

A few things that are pretty clear, the hysterical "cultural war" issues of abortion, gay marriage, anti-science, anti-intelligence, elitism, home schooling, Bill Ayers, arm all Americans to the I-teeth is off the radar and the most important issue to middle America is the economy.

Not "the economy" tossed around in slogans and fuel efficiency of SUVs but the economy that is breaking the backs of hardworking wage earners who have to put food on the table and sent their kids to college. All along the I-4 corridor (Florida's swing voting region) voters are concerned with the rising costs of putting food on the table, the declining value of their homes, the evaporation of the value of their 401K and skyrocketing costs of health care.

Everyone can now clearly see that the excesses of Wall Street, predatory and sub-prime lending, wildly irresponsible deregulation, inflated home prices, and the creation of risky investment derivatives created a house cards that lead to this crisis. Who would have thought such boring economic and financial management issues would come to the forefront of the popular discussion during the election?

In Florida, the polls among almost every demographic voter group have swung dramatically toward Obama. I think the same is true here in Minnesota. But, I agree with you Brian, the hysteria of the extremists on talk radio and among the dwindling base of the GOP still make headlines and fuel the FOX News fires of irrational anger and hatred.

LAMBERT: More to the point, these people have a truly bizarre sense of entitlement, and among them are enough fanatics to wreak real havoc. Commercialized extremism will not abate in the face of an Obama government and will happily -- eagerly -- sell near hysterical anger at the thought of it.

Elitist poofter, no doubt on your way to France....

Barney Frank Hit Over Boyfriend’s Fannie Mae Role

Critics are crying “conflict of interest” over Democratic Rep. Barney Frank’s live-in relationship with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses while Frank was on the House Banking Committee.

Moses was Fannie Mae’s assistant director for product initiatives from 1991 to 1998.

He was also openly gay Frank’s live-in boyfriend during that time, while the Massachusetts lawmaker was on the committee that had jurisdiction over government-sponsored Fannie Mae, Fox News’ Bill Sammon reported.

Now that Fannie Mae is at the center of the recent financial meltdown, the relationship is coming under increased scrutiny.

“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute.

“He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

“But everyone wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.”

A top Republican House aide told Fox News: “He writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws? No media ever take note?”

Frank and Moses met in 1987 and lived together in Washington, D.C., until they split up in 1998.

National Mortgage News disclosed that Moses “helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs.”

Critics charge that such programs led to the mortgage meltdown and the recent government takeover of Fannie Mae, according to Fox News, which noted that Fannie Mae and its financial cousin Freddie Mac “are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.”

In 1994, Frank thwarted efforts by President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development to impose new regulations on Fannie Mae.
_____________________________________________

Another liberal gets away with it,

Socialists avert your eyes!

LAMBERT: Is there a source, quote or concept there that isn't trapped inside the Foxified bubble?

What a relief! I was worried that your Friday flight (take that as you will) would cause you to miss the fun in Lakeville. The Obama hater from Shakopee was still spewing hatred once she left the assembly. McCain did the right thing. Afterall he isn't the attack dog on the ticket. My hunch is that the "first hub" will do an admirable job of roiling up the crowds when he visits northern Minnesota this week. I wonder what shade of lipstick Mr. Palin will be wearing.

LAMBERT: Why do I keep recalling Norm Coleman assuring me that "folks up in International Falls and Warroad" were going to love Mrs. Palin? Isn't that an insult?

Former Reagan White House staffer David Gergen has described McCains campaign as "incendiary" and "dangerous" and that McCain is loosing control over his own destiny and his supporters. He cannot lead his party or even his own supporters in channeling the anxiety and anger in positive directions. A good soldier knows how detrimental this is to his troops, their morale, and the cause to which they serve.

In this panel discussion from last weekend with Anderson Cooper, you have two Republican strategists (Gergen and Ed Rollins) and a Democrat (Paul Begala) but it is the Republicans who are sounding a louder warning than the Democrat about the dangers of the extremism and zealotry at the McCain rallies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFDyalnTJbs

The mobs at McCain and Palin rallies have been shouting "terrorist" and "kill him" and attacking innocent bystanders who they think are Obama supporters. This is mob rule mentality and McCain ought to be a statesman and repeatedly call for and end to attacks on character and fellow individual citizens as well as denounce the shock radio jocks who serve extremism and hatred up in steaming doses everyday.

These is not responsible actions by citizens in a democratic nation. Respect yourself and those who you don't agree with or our great democracy will suffer.

BJ = "...they split up in 1998."

Bummer BJ, too bad...this Frank-ly would have been a face card issue in the 2000 election, but since we have had 8 years of GOP leadership since 1998 in which under their lead things have only gotten worse, your little diversion rates about a 5 of hearts now.

Whereas Rick Davis lobbying contacts whereby he raked in millions of dollars to provide access for Fannie/Freddie to McCain is a face card for Obama to play.

So, BJ, where does Rick Davis, Financial Wizard lobbyist for McCain rate for you? What impact has his lobbying efforts had on your tax rate in 2009?

Do you think John McCain's lobbyist mistress Vicki Iseman is a germane issue in this campaign? McCain has switched wives almost as frequently as campaign strategies. Is it a double standard or triple standard that McCain is heterosexual cheating husband (and has a long-standing pattern of wife switching) and nobody at Roger Ailes FOX News will cover it?

LAMBERT: Obviously the New York Times hasn't pushed the Iseman story any further since last winter, and frankly, I hope the Clinton experience made us all grow up about sexual hijinks. But any time you read another bland recitation of John Mccain's noble history, you ought to make a note of the by-line. That writer either isn't doing the job, or has an editor who won't allow him to do it.

TOM- Please note:

BF was voting on Fannie Mae pre-1998, while being BF'd by his then bf.

THAT is the point of the article.

LAMBERT: Didn't I see you stumbling out of The Saloon a couple nights ago?

"The quintessential double standard".

Indeed.

I had to do a double-take when I read:

BL: "Summoning the simple courage to tell our exurban mob that Obama isn't 'an Arab' and that he 'respects' him is one very small step toward redeeming what has been a sustained, three month-long, self-inflicted gutting of his own reputation."

I'm not so sure.

Was it really redeeming for McCain to grab the microphone from the Lakeville woman and "defend" Obama by saying he is not an Arab? Is there something evil or un-American with either candidate Obama or McCain being an Arab or even a Muslim?

I think it is awfully easy with all the false accusations flying in this campaign and painting people with a wide brush of evil to start thinking these labels of Arab or Muslim as themselves a pejorative insult as bertram jr. likes them to be.

The media immediately jumped to the position over the weekend that it was a slur against Obama and "to his credit" McCain needed defend him. Really?

McCain's recoil was to say, "“No ma’am, no ma’am. He’s a decent family man.” as if Obama were an Arab, it would not possible for him to be decent family man.

According to the astute observation of Juan Cole who is the President of the Global Americana Institute and a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, “McCain should have said, ‘there would be nothing wrong with being an Arab, but Obama is not.’ The way McCain he put it strongly implied that he had a low opinion of Arabs.”

I have to agree with Juan Cole on this point.

LAMBERT: Well yeah, but the Lakeville context was Arab=terrorist.

Sometimes I wonder in sheer disbelief at how the McCain campaign - and McCain himself - has conducted themselves. This is such a stark opposite to the McCain I truly admired back in 2000 when he was oh-so-close to knocking out a psuedo-Texan idiot who was not even close to being prepared for Pennsylvania Avenue.

But from his total kissing up to the religious right, to his lurching back and forth on economic issues, to the negative ads, the whisper campaigns, to above all the horrid pick of Palin (which, really, was not in his control) to now these crowds...its saddening, truly.

I was always, even back in 2000, a bit skeptical of the whole "maverick" thing - but he was closer to that than he has been in the last 8 years, let alone the last 8 months. He had a real chance of running as a populist, someone who was not kowtowing to extremists - he won the nomination when the religous extremists - and conservative extremists (and really, that's truly what they are), along with the talk radio fascists, did everything they could to prevent it! The majorty of Republicans in the primaries didn't listen to the extremists! That's fascinating alone!

A true "maverick" in the GOP could have effectively run against what the economic news of late has definitively proved: that what the GOP stands for: trickle-down economics/the market will take care of itself, the rich deserve the bog tax cuts, etc. is an ABJECT FAILURE. We've had 25+ years of this experiment (and I count 8 years of Clinton in that, given the GOP controlling congress most of those years, and Clinton's "triangulation," i.e., "Reagan-lite).

To say nothing of what the media increasingly spun was his national security bona-fides. Which here too has been looking more and more of a liability...he's...just...been...wrong, essentially (what IS "victory" in Iraq anyway?).

There was a chance that it could have been different for him. And with a media that fawned and was still fawning over McCain for so long, it really could have been a much more interesting - and honorable - race.

But perhaps this really IS the real McCain? Country first? Really?

LAMBERT: Now that he has a fat lead, I'd like to hear Obama talk about what "victory" in Afghanistan is supposed to look like? We may not be the invading Russians, but everyone at the War College knows the history of fighting any kind of insurgency on foreign soil.

Sigh...I'll say it just because it has to be said and by now everyone knows it is coming--

Face Card issues BJ...stop wasting our time with issues you didn't get addressed in 1998 when they might have been close to being a face card...but now are not even worth me typing the rest of this....

But, here is an issue I'd like mister foreign policy expert McCain to address--

--how does he propose to run his military machine (trying to wage two wars and police the entire world) when the economy that is supposed to pay for his military is tanking and he has zero ideas for improving.

Because THAT is what caused the end of the cold war with Russia (not Reagan), it was the fact Russia's economy had collapsed and could no longer fund their military.

Is that McCain's future for the USA?

Thanks essari for reminding me that I too used to admire McCain FIRST, as a war hero and a symbol for the persistence of courage under strain, and SECOND, for his willingness to cross the isle and side with Democrats and oft-called "Liberal lions" like Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. When Republicans were walking in lock-step behind Trent Lott's whip with the President pushing bad legislation or appropriations, the Democrats could often call upon Senator McCain to break ranks and he did.

However, McCain has come to accept the realities of the modern day Republican Party. Mind you, this party is not a conservative party of principle anymore. They have betrayed the conservative value of a restrained and small government. They have betrayed the values of fiscal responsibility by running up the largest deficit in history and giving huge taxpayer bail outs of failed companies. They have betrayed the conservative value of fair bidding on government contracts by awarding no-bid contracts to Texas companies Bush and Cheney have worked for or have investments in. They have betrayed the conservative value of respecting the privacy of American citizens an they have betrayed the conservative value of government interfering in the private lives of its citizens.

Most obviously, these Republicans have betrayed the conservative value of placing young American lives in harms way with prudence, great measure, a sound plan for victory, and a defined exit strategy for withdrawal. This Republican party is nothing like the one we used to respect even if we disagreed with them.

This Republican Party, beginning in the 1980s purged a whole bunch of moderate Republicans by applying an anti-abortion, fanatical right-wing litmus test and many of its best moderate leaders (just to name a few in Minnesota): Arne Carlson, David Durenberger, Arlan Erdahl, Nancy Brataas, Elmer L. Anderson, Sheila Kiscaden, and numerous others on a national level were purged not even welcome to attend party conventions. They were forced to run outside their party, skip the nomination process, and even switch their party line to independent because they were PURGED.

McCain has acquiesced to the realities of the dogmatic ideology that, far beyond reason and pragmatism of the times, forces any Republican candidate into a very small pigeonhole of conformity.

And now we are seeing how this strict narrow ideological vision can severely hurt our nation. It is a ideology based on division, fear and hatred for things they describe as "others" or "anti-American" or "terrorists." We are all Americans. We all love this country. We are all in the same boat when it comes to the future and our children's future in this country and on earth.

But the extremist ideologues want us to think otherwise as they go around accusing their fellow Americans of being terrorists and shouting "kill him" at their rallies. Their extreme intolerance has collapsed inward and made their view of their fellow citizens jaded and hateful.

I agree that the Lakeville context was Arab = "terrorist" however, the important concept to defrag here is the Lakeville woman can use the word Arab as being synonymous with evil or terrorism and the crowd gets it and McCain buys in also.

A great leader, if McCain wants be one, would have been if the Senator gone to the essence of that anti-Arab remark and refuted it rather than buy into a insinuating context that the Lakeville woman implied with her question.

Moreover, I wholeheartedly believe these "supporters" of McCain and Palin, more than being ignorant, see themselves as being clever operatives in a media-play that when in front of the camera on national TV they want to ingratiate themselves to the campaign by saying provocative sound bites for the evening news. This was absolutely the case in Milwaukee with the man who was pleading for McCain to "take it to Obama" in the debate and engage in character assassination. That guy was posing for his close-up and bluntly acting the role.

And that is the fear-mongering behind the shock radio jocks who go on the air every morning talking about Obama's Muslim father and that Obama is a Arab, not an American, not a Christian, etc. thus leading these angry McPalin crowds and wives of bertram jr. to shout "kill him" because by their estimation he is an Arab terrorist.

All this twisting and turning of the truth; all the manipulations for the purpose of stirring up anger and hated are all diversionary tactics to distract American's from the real domestic economic and foreign policy issues facing the country. Driving wedges between people using fear will only further endanger our hope for solving Americas problems.

And now I think the Republicans and McCain can clearly see how it is all backfiring on them.

The secret Service investigation reveals that there was NO EVIDENCE to support that anyone yelled "kill him" at the Rally.

The reporter, apparently, just made it up.

Big surprise.

Look it up. It's the Scranton PA. newspaper.

Robb the Bolshevik is also Robb the Uninformed.

McCain will win by 5 points or more.

ObamaPelosiReidFrank done.

Last night sealed it for McCain.

LAMBERT: Your money I assume is in the mail?