It's always someone else's fault. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Mike - thanks for temporarily relieving us of Alex's Ashley Todd fixation today.

Under any and all conditions, anything bad a Republican does is always a Democrat's fault. That's their story, and they are sticking to it.

The Republicans ALWAYS whine, and never take responsibility. This is NOT adult behavior. They are the equivalent of a bunch of fucked-up addicts, as at a twelve step meeting, except that they haven't even gotten to the first step: realizing they are really fucked up.

The only thing that will teach Bush, McCain, Palin, and the Bachmanns of the world is to LOSE, and lose big.

He started it! Obama's a big meanie! I'm gonna tell mom!

... another president who won't accept the consequences of his own decisions.

need to put that crack pipe down right away.

It's just embarrassing at this point. I was about to ask "just how stupid do they think the US electorate is?" Never mind.

So, by count Obama is running more "negative" ads ... because he's running more ads.

Of course, by count Obama is also running more non-negative ads than McCain.

(Hell, Obama might have more supporters on Santa's naughty list than McCain does ... and no doubt has more supporters on Santa's nice list.)

The GOP's base has to be fed an alternative to reality. If they are left to their own devices then they might actually believe something said by someone who isn't a right-winger. Once that happens they might start questioning their other beliefs. Obviously, that can't be allowed to happen.

So, the next time you have to ask "how could anyone actually believe this" don't forget that there are some folks out there that must believe it to keep their version of reality in play.

it veers close to blaming the victim.

It veers close to it, swerves to hit it, runs over it, backs up, runs over it again, revs its motor and pops it into gear to peel off its mutilated corpse.

If Obama hadn't insisted on doing better in the polls by running a better campaign, McCain wouldn't have had to go negative, right?

was so right on...

"It was Barack Obama who went back on his word and refused John McCain’s offer to do weekly town hall meetings that would raise the level and tone of the debate in this campaign," Rogers writes.

I don't recall reading that Obama promised to do the townhall meetings. Instead, he agreed to consider the suggestion. It went like this: McCain asked back in the primaries if Biden and Obama would agree to do townhalls if either became their party's presidential nominee. Biden agreed and shook on it. Obama only agreed to think about it.

Therefore, Obama did not renege. McCain wanted that format because he felt that it would display his strength. Obama obviously came to the conclusion that he had nothing to gain by doing the townhalls. There is absolutely nothing wrong in a political campaign in making such decisions based upon self-interest.

McCain is trying to make Obama look undemocratic for not playing by McCain's own self-serving rules. McCain obviously really believes this and is grumpy about it -- but he is grumpy because he is losing.

The first time McCain cited the reason for going negative was due to Obama declining the town hall proposal, I thought to myself why does McCain think he's in charge of how the two of them should campaign? By extension, I think McCain would continue to employ this kind of self-centered pretzel logic to his presidency.

They're sad, paranoid, nasty people and when Obama said enough is enough he spoke for the majority of us. Time to be creative instead of reactionary. Time to kick the Republicans to the curb for awhile until they can recruit more like Chuck Hagel to their ranks.

Didn't it go flat last week?

Or was it that there was so much media goodness in Joe "Jumped the Shark" the Plumber that the McCain crew have been saving it for later?

Boy, I still can't get past the size of McCain's balls as he continues to push this line of attack. Does McCain really believe that he could set the format and agenda for BOTH campaigns and then use Obama's subsequent refusal of his (Mac's) proposed arrangement as a defense of subsequent smear campaigning? In my view, McCain switched from navigating from the driver's seat to riding bitch when he didn't more forcefully go after the Rovians who smeared him in 2000. Ever since those primaries, McCain's integrity has steadily eroded. This latest (repeated) line of attack is a pathetic attempt to insist upon his own prerogatives as somehow superior to Obama's. It's been a problem from the very start for McCain and we've seen evidence of it throughout (e.g., refusals to look his opponent in the eye, refusal to shake hands, "that one"). Then again, when the root of your presidential run is ambition, there's no where to go if you don't have vision, character, or an appreciation for nuance. Ambition, after all, slew Caesar. I never knew Caesar, but McCain, my friends, is no Caesar. Well, they're both dead in one way or another ...

Come on folks. If we're running more negative ads because we're "running more ads period", we're still running more negative ads. We don't get a pass, or get to claim that it's the percentage of negative ads that counts rather than the absolute number, just because we won the fund raising battle. There's a pretty strong argument that we went back on our word there too by bypassing Federal funding.

Since we're winning, and even if we weren't, maybe we should try a little intellectual honesty.

I'm really tired of the line about the town halls. Debates and other common appearances between candidates are always negotiated, and negotiations like this are rarely "Side A proposes something, Side B says OK". A valid answer in any negotiation is "No, how about...". Enough of that, and you reach an agreeable solution.

It's like the McCain camp is saying, "He didn't do exactly what we wanted, so we're taking our ball and going home." To bad there are plenty of other balls on the playground.