McCain's acceptance into public financing may have played a role into a $4 million campaign-saving loan he received and his ability to remain on the ballot in some states.

So even if he didn't "steal" by receiving matching funds, McCain does not have clean hands.

Which he needs to have if he's going to criticize Obama on this.

And which he desperately needs if he's going to bill himself as Mr. Campaign Finance Reform.

The average person isn't going to understand the details behing all of this (hell, people who follow this sort of thing aren't going to understand the details!). But what does ring true is that McCain's image as a principled, maverick reformer doesn't jive with this info.

For an average person to make this mistake would be no big deal: After all, Bush has largely bypassed the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CentComm Commander and gone straight to Iraq Multi-National Force leader Petraeus.

Why would the average person know that it's not Petraeus' call?

But McCain, who bills himself as Mr. Foreign Policy (and seems almost proud of his domestic issue ignorance) ought to know better. He can't afford to make foreign policy gaffes because all he claims to offer is foreign policy.

For what it's worth, I don't think McCain's gaffe came from ignorance. It's just that politicians get so use to saying "Petraeus" that they've starting taking his name in vain: "Oh, whatever St. Petraeus says is best."

I swear, it's only a matter of time before they start deferring to Petraeus on the mortage crisis, the weakened dollar and health care reform.

--

Xanthro, it is a chain of command issue insofar as the chain of command represents areas of expertise. Petraeus is the Iraq Multi-National Force leader. You wouldn't want to move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan without his input but you wouldn't move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan because "he felt that the situation called for that." What does Petraeus know about Afghanistan? Afghanistan isn't under his command nor is it his area of expertise.

Remember back on 9/11/01, when Bush was in the elementary school classroom reading "My Pet Goat"? John McCain has become Bush's pet goat--hell, he even looks the part.

He's no pet goat.

He's an old goat.

Couldn't resist.

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Plot summary of The Pet Goat from wiki:

"The Pet Goat is the story of a girl's pet goat which eats everything in its path. The girl's parents want to get rid of the goat, but she defends it. In the end, the goat becomes a hero when it butts a car robber into submission."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pet_Goat

I had no idea--both Bush and McCain want to be Iraq's goat! Devour everything in sight, be condemned by all but be proven right in the end.

Do they not know about the "bitter" episode?

Do people know and find it a stupid distraction?

Or do people just not care if they're justifiably bitter and someone calls them bitter?

The last is my slant on the matter. Just because you're bitter and angry doesn't mean you don't have good reason to be. It's what you do with the anger and bitterness that matters (bigotry and hatred, for example, would be bad uses).

"It seems the only people for whom this would actually be useful are germ/dirt-phobic people."

Is it wrong that I immediately thought, hey, use this immediately on your hotel room bedding! Seats in the movie theatre! Your office furniture! Go to a friend's house for dinner and test the sofa and the kitchen table! Test your dates hands before you go out!

I think it's kind of a hoot.

Of course, this only works for infidelity detection if your mate is messing around with another man.

Yes, and now I'm sitting at my desk cracking up. Thanks for the reminder!

Maybe the kit should be paired with an ad for Tide: "Unlikely its leading competitor, Tide actually removes semen from your undies."

Watch the ad before working yourself into a tizzy (although, Steve Benen, your headline leads people into 'Tizzy Territory.')

Bin Laden's appearance in the ad is so brief, you might blink and miss him. Of recent footage, home foreclosures and rising gas prices are much more prominently featured.

The ad is completely fair, and there is surprisingly little fear-mongering involved. My take-away from it? "Hillary Clinton will be a strong leader when the going gets tough--and the going will get tough."

Not, "Hillary Clinton: vote for her or the forces of evil will descend upon you without mercy, eating your babies and slaughtering your puppies."

The thing is, I'm not so sure. I'd like to think that Democrats (with 90% of blacks voting Democrat) wouldn't feel this way.

But how do we know this?

People still live in largely segregated communities. And for those that don't, some view people of a different race as "the other" or even "the enemy." And a reluctance to vote for a black man doesn't have to come from blatant, vitriolic hate. It can just come from vague unease.

And vague unease can be enough to sway a person when it comes time to check their ballot.

Hmm, did McCain already know about this change when he said he'd let Petraeus dictate troop deployments to Afghanistan?

I wonder how this will all play out. Petraeus is clearly a skilled military man when it comes to tactics and counter-insurgency. He's been doing everything asked of the military in Iraq and changing existing tactics to actually achieve results.

But with CENTCOM, he's overseeing what are, in part, two conflicting wars--there are only so many troops to go around. After all of his work on Iraq, will he continue to focus his attention there to the neglect of Afghanistan?

I reckon the decider is trying to make as many mischief decisions as possible in his blessedly short time.

Making him the Commander-in-Mischief?