George W. Bush said he'd be a "Compassionate Conservative", a "Uniter not a divider", have a "humble" foreign policy, bring dignity back to the Oval Office, etc.

Republicans saying anything to be elected even if it's the exact opposite of what they will actually do once in office is nothing new.

Hopefully the Democrats can get that point across this time around.

a tax of $1 per trade for any security or a levy of a penny per share--buying or selling.

Based on how the McCain campaign has handled the issue of musicians objecting to use of songs, McCain would continue to name-drop even if the names themselves object.

Schaller, is that a macro on your computer? Is this some kind of test? Nader-dropping? McCain and Obama are both Nader-esque? Who'd a thunk it?

"Don't be a name dropper. Bobby DeNiro told me that." -- source unknown, but you can bet it was somebody important and cool.

The senator had better be careful: At some point, somebody whose name is dropped by The Name Dropper is not going to like it...and speak up about it.

I hope it's Warren Buffet.

I watched Ben Stein on Larry King the other night and it really illustrated how dysfunctional the base of the Republican is currently.

As a fiscal conservative, Stein is outraged by what has occurred on Wall Street and acknowledged that he didn't like the people advising McCain on financial matters - he would prefer Warren Buffet advise McCain rather than Barack Obama as he is doing - and that he didn't expect anything to really change with a McCain administration.

Stein went on to agree with everything Robert Reich had to say (Reich is also advising Obama), but said he couldn't vote for Obama because it would betray his pro-life stance.

My hope is that there are more people who are going to vote with the party that cares more about what happens to you after you're born.

I read that Buffett and Bloomberg freely offer their advise to politicians of both parties. Bloomberg mentioned his relationship with both candidates on Meet the Press yesterday.

Re: "May I ask how it is that McCain is allowed to poach on the credibility of others by dropping the names of people who, so far as I can tell, may not necessarily agree with him or his policies, aren't paid or unpaid advisors for his campaign, and might never agree to serve in his administration? "

It is very easy to do when John McCain knows that not one member of the reporting media will actually take the time to check the facts of his speech, let alone report on it.

That's more of what he's been doing for his Wall Street, lobbying, white bread rich buddies.

Reach across? I don't think so.

... considering that Paulson is suggesting a deeply questionable response to a bad situation McCain himself helped enable.

McCain: Against regulation before he was for it.

to so muddy the waters about who is a reformer so that Obama's advantage is obscured. A responsible press would decry this. Tom Schaller, by suggesting that McCain is speaking Naderesque rhetoric, JUST LIKE OBAMA, without hammering him for doing so, is simply being another echo-chamber. Schaller, you need to point out, each and every time, what the underlying lie is.

Re: "Schaller, you need to point out, each and every time, what the underlying lie is."

That would require research and real work. Much easier to just repeat (White House supplied) talking points, write up some feelings and be off to the next McCain Family Barbecue.

Rep. John Lewis already has called McCain on his name-dropping. Here's what he said last month when McCain claimed, during the Saddleback forum, that he would seek Lewis' counsel:

"I cannot stop one human being, even a presidential candidate, from admiring the courage and sacrifice of peaceful protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge or making comments about it."

"Sen. McCain and I are colleagues in the US Congress, not confidantes. He does not consult me. And I do not consult him."

This is electioneering. No one has any intention of doing anything about this other than the obligatory opening of the coffers to pay for it. There will be no new nothing. And in a year or two whether Obama or McPalin is in charge there will be a fight to cut taxes for millionaires. Haven't any of you been awake the last 30 years?

5 years of being a POW doesn't excuse that fact.

McCain is lying, again. Time to drop the name "liar" on him and keep repeating it until it sticks.

And I sure wish you had pointed that out.

What's really creepy is that McCain looks like he's channeling Johnny Carson in this segment. The same hand in the pocket, the same up-on-the-toes--my god, even his hair looks similar!

you wrote:

...at some points McCain's language is positively Nader-esque...

Big difference between Nader and McCain -- Nader means what he says, and he's been saying the same thing all his life.

The answer couldn’t be simpler, and, no, it isn’t the fault of the greasy whores in the stenographic media.

Sure, there’s lots of blame to go around, but the most salient reason – by far and away – is the gutlessness of Obama and the DLC rats polluting the Democratic Party, whose purpose is insuring that no progressive policies are ever permitted to threaten control of the party by the insurance industry, Wall Street, Big Oil and the rest. Blacktop’s got it right: Stop the ass-kissing, never again give in to the urge to babble on about what an inspiring, brave, heroic, all-around fantastic human being McCain is, and repeat ten times a day that McCain is a brain-addled pandering hypocrite who calls his wife a cunt in public, and will say and do anything to satisfy his drooling lust to become president of the United States.

Along the same lines, it means (as discussed in the post immediately following this one), cutting the bullshit about how “[t]he era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has led us to a perilous moment.” It’s not the greed and irresponsibility in Washington, it’s the incompetence, corruption and fanaticism of the Republican Party. We’re not “in this mess because of a bankrupt philosophy,” but because of the corrupt and fanatical ideology of the Republican Party. It’s not that “the doors of Washington have been thrown open to an army of lobbyists and special interests,” but that they’ve been thrown open by the Republican Party. Get it? There is simply no excuse whatever why McCain gets away with claiming that he and the Pig represent “change” of any kind, and he couldn’t do so if Obama didn’t talk about change as some vague, amorphous quality, but defined it each and every time as change from “the incompetence, corruption and fanaticism of the Republican Party.” We simply can’t lay the blame for the fact that McCain continues to get away with this shit at the feet of the Republican-owned media until our own candidate grows the balls to press the narrative he expects them to report.