Barack Obama knows which countries border Iraq; he understands the difference between Shia and Sunni; and he is probably aware that Czechoslovakia no longer exists—but as John McCain complains, the young senator has “no military experience whatsoever.” Indeed, like both of the last two presidents, Mr. Obama possesses scant credentials in national security and foreign policy.

Why, then, does he appear increasingly plausible as the next president? Assurance, grace, and mastery of the facts have helped to lift his stature, as did his daring decision to venture abroad, directly challenging his older opponent’s perceived strength. But granting his talent and initiative, the strongest argument for the Democrat is the weak performance of the Republican regime’s vaunted “grown-ups,” including Mr.  read more »

An expression of outrage is the highest compliment that politicians can bestow upon a satirist. So when spokesmen for Barack Obama and John McCain echo each other and many another stuffed shirt in complaining about the current cover of The New Yorker, the magazine’s editors and cartoonist Barry Blitt should accept such remarks in precisely that spirit.

From Mark Twain to Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, there have always been people who didn’t get it—or worried about the damage that would ensue when other people didn’t get it. Today in America, despite the rising influence of The Daily Show and The Onion, it can be hazardous to be too hip for the room.  read more »

Despite all the feigned outrage fanned by the mainstream media and the right-wing noisemakers, Wesley Clark—retired four-star general, former Supreme Commander of NATO, wounded and highly decorated veteran of ground combat in Vietnam, and a military man to his core—assuredly did not denigrate the war record of John McCain when he talked about the Republican candidate on television last Sunday.

Instead, perhaps naïvely, General Clark stated a very simple fact. Mr. McCain’s service in Vietnam doesn’t prove his aptitude or competence to serve in the nation’s highest office. Or as he told Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer on CBS: “I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.  read more »

Precisely on schedule, the usual assortment of right-wing operatives is preparing its expected assault on the Democratic presidential nominee. While this unwholesome phase of the election cycle is known universally as “Swift-boating”—named after the defamatory media blitz against John Kerry four years ago—the style and some of the personnel date back at least two decades. So does the winking charade of separation between the official Republican presidential campaign and the dirty business conducted on its behalf.

The only notable difference this year is that neither the money nor the message has crystallized yet behind any “independent” effort to destroy the candidacy of Barack Obama.  read more »

Once upon a time, there was a fiscally and socially responsible senator named John McCain. Despite his presidential ambitions, the Republican from Arizona spoke out against the economic royalism of his party’s leadership in the White House and Congress, and simply said no.

He rejected the Bush tax cuts in 2001 because they provided an unearned bonanza for America’s wealthiest citizens while giving a pittance to the middle class and nothing to the working poor. To him, as a long-standing enemy of waste and profligacy, these proposals were not only unfair but also unwise.

“I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief,” he said, joining courageously with Lincoln Chafee, then a senator from Rhode Island, as one of two Republicans who dared to cast such a crucial vote against president and party.  read more »

To his credit, John McCain has invited Barack Obama to join him in a national “town hall” tour over the coming months, without the unneeded intrusion of celebrity journalists, network extravaganzas and all of their irrelevant impertinence. The Arizona Republican insists that he wants a serious debate over the competing ideas and visions of the two parties, rather than the usual petty focus on process issues and gotcha questions.  read more »

The selection of a vice president is not only an exercise in political handicapping but a national rite of statecraft. Candidates, advisers, pundits and assorted experts try to calculate the ethnic, geographic, gender and ideological characteristics of potential running mates, but what this choice actually reveals is the character of a presidential nominee.

For Barack Obama, the choice of a vice president is a test of his self-confidence and his vaunted judgment.  read more »

When the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee meets on May 31 to determine the status of the votes cast in the Michigan and Florida primaries, its members should try to look past self-serving campaign arguments and silly attempts to save face by bumbling party leaders.

In the mind-numbing saga of the botched primary schedule, there is plenty of blame to be shared among all the participants, from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and their surrogates to Howard Dean and the party apparatus in Washington.  read more »

Disturbed by troubling connections and unflattering publicity, John McCain has just purged several prominent Washington lobbyists from his presidential campaign. Surely his intentions are laudable, but if Mr. McCain is consistent in ridding the campaign of such compromised people, he will find himself riding lonesome on the Straight Talk Express. That’s because nearly all of his advisers, fund-raisers and top staffers have worked on K Street, starting with his campaign manager, Rick Davis, and his senior adviser and spokesman, Charles Black.  read more »

Double standards are endemic in American journalism. But Cindy McCain, wife of the Republican presidential candidate, displayed poor taste in flaunting her family’s special immunity from press scrutiny. Declaring on NBC’s Today that she would “never” release her income tax returns even if she becomes first lady, the Arizona beer heiress showed no concern that she and her husband will have to meet the same tests as other would-be White House occupants—ever.

Unfortunately, the arrogance of Mrs. McCain is probably well founded.  read more »