At work today I was talking with a friend and co-worker, a middle aged Filipino American woman married to a white Republican.  She's really cool, very smart and a retired middle school teacher. I know that she hasn't been happy with the Bush years. She's even forwarded me some anti-Bush stuff.

So anyway, the conversation meandered into politics and the Dem convention. I asked her if she'd seen Michelle's speech and she said she'd seen some of it. Then came the bombshell . . .

She said she wasn't sure about Michelle because of all the "stuff" she's been hearing about her i.e. the right wing smears. She didn't like what Michelle had to say before her speech, you know, the I'm not proud of my country crap. I defended Michelle and said "Michelle's a wonderful woman. That stuffs all B.S."

She also was afraid that Michelle wanted to be a co-president "like Hillary" and I assured her Michelle is more interested in being a good mom to her kids and public service, etc. (Heads up: This might be another smear wingers are using against Michelle - strong Democratic woman = big threat to presidency)

So then she says to me . . .

If Romney gets the VP nod, everyone in American needs to spend 10 minutes watching this video.

The best line of the night belongs to Bob Casey.  In the middle of an otherwise tepid speech, he dropped this zinger about McCain: "That's not a maverick, that's a sidekick"

This was a night with a lot of great lines. Even Bob Casey, Jr. who is not known as a rhetorical wiz had a couple of zingers. The four more months chantwas terrific. And his line that McCain isn't a maverick, he's Bush sidekick was also really well done.

    Just about everyone here is well aware that the myth of McCain as honest principled maverick is very different from the reality - and still reigns supreme in the media narrative.

The media still seem to be absolutely determined to keep this image of McCain up. It’s as if they find it impossible to alter their framing of him to fit the facts. The truth I suspect is that they don’t want to change for a variety of reasons whether it be laziness a corporate desire to see McCain succeed or simply the fact that the narrative just seem that much more interesting when one of the protagonists is an independent action hero, as keen as they were in assisting the undermining of Kerry in 2004 the same just does not appear to happening this time round.

If this were to continue to remain unchallenged through November I think you'd find that McCain would receive many votes primarily based on this myth , of a bipartisan moderate honest and principled man.

John McCain's get out of trouble cards, "but I was a POW and don't ever flaunt it or that was long time ago", is getting old. He was  serial adulterer almost 30 years ago and is forgiven by evangelicals because it was almost 30 years ago. I guess character is not such a big issue for them if it is properly aged.

He was officially chastised for bad Judgment when the Keating Five  lobbied for Charles Keating one of McCain's key backers in Phoenix during the Savings and Loan crises. Well that was 20 years ago!

He is now the press's maverick who is said to go against the established interests especially lobbyists. That has certainly proven to be false given the "maverick"has mostly lobbyists running his campaign.

John McCain has had a shady history I would also like to forget if he wasn't running for President. If all else fails he is forgiven because he was a POW 40 years ago. There are just too many references to his military history not to examine how often it happens.

If there’s one thing we know about John McCain, it’s that he’s a stratight-talkin’ maverick ex-POW.  (Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know the POW thing; he doesn’t like to talk about it much.)

Because he’s a straight-talkin’ maverick ex-POW, those who criticize what McCain says or, worse, disagree with him reveal themselves to be flip-flopping, politically correct anti-patriots who are willing to lose a war in order to win an election.  Talk about an embarrassing faux pas!  And a difficult one to avoid in light of the fact that much of what McCain says appears at first glance to be, how to put this delicately? incredibly stoopid, certifiably insane or both.

There is, fortunately, a fairly easy way to avoid such humiliations.  I explain after the break.

Frank Rich, bless him, swings for the fences in this week's column and knocks another one out of the park. Truly, the man shames most of his peers. (Looking at you, Dana Milbank.) This week, he offers a full-throated assault on the myth of McCain the Maverick... and does so with no shortage of facts to back up every single claim. Astounding -- a MSM writer that doesn't bleat the narrative or vomit up pointless blather disguised as "analysis." (Looking at you, Mark Halperin.)

In slinkerwink's diary on McCain running commercials during the DNC, I objected to the idea that the Obama campaign is behind the curve on marketing strength this season.

slinkerwink countered that the "Maverick" meme survives, despite their being ample evidence of McCain as a pandering poodle to the Cheney/Bush regime.

So, here's my idea to dispel the "maverick" appellation once and for all:  call in the original Maverick.

Today the Barr Campaign released a video of Bob talking about John McCain’s ‘Maverick’ credentials. Bob Barr is no friend of progressives, and was certainly the bane of Bill Clinton’s existence for eight long years.  But sometimes the enemy of one’s enemy is one’s friend.  Barr’s appeal to true Libertarian’s cannot be denied.  In many ways, Barr is the thinking-person’s Ron Paul.  More importantly, Bob Barr could very well be the Ralph Nader of 2008 and be forever reviled by Republicans as a result.

On Saturday, Russ Feingold praised John McCain's maverick quality in this article . I'm going to question Russ Feingold's intelligence if he honestly thinks that McCain is a "Maverick" and "Independent Thinker". How can McCain be those things if he isn't even running his campaign, and just says and acts how his handlers tell him to?

John McCain repeated a blatant lie in a Town Hall meeting in Lima, Ohio televised live by CNN. McCain stated;

"I'm proud to stand before you to tell you that I have never asked for, or received a single pork barrel project for my State. I'm proud of it!"

Sounds very noble, except it is completely untrue. McCain has repeated this lie a number of times both during the primary campaign and over the past couple of months.

With this recent ad

http://www.youtube.com/...

John McCain seeks to reclaim the "Maverick" mantle imperiled by his embrace of failed Bush policies and the demands for party orthodoxy from the GOP base.

Didn't we all see this coming earlier this year when Hillary started on her 'kitchen sink' strategy? The obvious fodder for the McCain campaign was picked up by them in the latest McCain ad

Hey Guys. I know this has been posted twice already.

But here's the real, official campaign MAVERICK video, you all keep asking looking for.

I know many of you haven't seen it yet, or saw the video with the chopped up ending (already posted 2x).

The video here, is not even offically released on Obama's website yet. But it's on youtube (go figure). I guess someone in the campaign must of released it privately.

Once again; many of you haven't seen it yet, or did and want the proper ending (no Wolf Blitzer), with the You Tube embed.

Here it is.

Thanks to Hope08 and Al Rodgers for their previous video post.

1.  If you actually have to call yourself The Original Maverick, then you're not really all that Mavericky.  Are ya?

2.  If McCain says today we're worse off than we were four years ago, but in January that we were better off than we were eight years ago, what the heck does that mean?  I guess the first four years must have been awesome (9/11 and recession anyone?). Ot, the last six months must have been really crappy.  Does that mean the surge didn't work?

After two weeks of ads peddling lies about Barack Obama, John McCain is now lying about himself.  In a new spot ironically titled "Broken," McCain tries to resurrect his battered maverick image tarnished by his endless flip-flops and gutter politics.  But as it turns out, the man the ad describes as "the Original Maverick" is telling tales again.

McCain's mendacity starts with the economy.

There are some items up on News Unfiltered that might interest the community.

Pelosi praises Dems' proposal to lower gas prices, slams the Republicans' motion:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on Democratic proposals to bring relief to Americans at the pump: "Democrats offered a real solution to high energy prices that would bring immediate relief within 10 days by forcing the President to free our oil from the nation's stockpile. The Republicans propose to give away public lands to Big Oil, which will not immediately reduce the price at the pump and save Americans only 2 cents 10 years from now. This Republican hoax is unworthy of the serious debate we must have to reduce the price at the pump and promote energy independence."

Read more.