Under the Big Top
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A federal judge in Philadelphia last night threw out a complaint by a Montgomery County lawyer who claimed that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was not qualified to be president and that his name should be removed from the Nov. 4 ballot.
Philip J. Berg alleged in a complaint filed in federal district court on Aug. 21 against Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission, that Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya.
Berg claimed that the Democratic presidential standardbearer is not even an American citizen but a citizen of Indonesia and therefore ineligible to be president.
He alleged that if Obama was permitted to run for president and subsequently found to be ineligible, he and other voters would be disenfranchised.
U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick had denied Berg’s request for a temporary restraining order on Aug. 22 but had not ruled on the merits of the suit until yesterday.
Obama and the Democratic National Committee had asked Surrick to dismiss Berg’s complaint in a court filing on Sept. 24.
They said that Berg’s claims were “ridiculous” and “patently false,” that Berg had “no standing” to challenge the qualifications of a candidate for president because he had not shown the requisite harm to himself.
Surrick agreed.
Even as John McCain and Sarah Palin scramble to close the gap in the final days of the 2008 election, stirrings of a Palin insurgency are complicating the campaign’s already-tense internal dynamics.
Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain’s camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain’s decline.
“She’s lost confidence in most of the people on the plane,” said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to “go rogue” in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.
“I think she’d like to go more rogue,” he said.
The emergence of a Palin faction comes as Republicans gird for a battle over the future of their party: Some see her as a charismatic, hawkish conservative leader with the potential, still unrealized, to cross over to attract moderate voters. Anger among Republicans who see Palin as a star and as a potential future leader has boiled over because, they say, they see other senior McCain aides preparing to blame her in the event he is defeated.
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Bail was set at $50,000 Friday night for a GOP campaign worker who made up a story about being attacked by a man angered by a John McCain bumper sticker on her car.
Police say Ashley Todd admitted making up the report that she was attacked because of a McCain sticker.Ashley Todd, 20, of College Station, Texas, has been charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor, a police report said.
Todd, who is being held at the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, did not enter a plea when she appeared in court Friday night. She did not post bail.
She is scheduled to appear in court again October 30, when she is expected to enter a plea.
If she posts bail, Todd must be evaluated at a behavioral clinic.
“This has wasted so much time. … It’s just a lot of wasted man hours,” Assistant Police Chief Maurita Bryant said at a briefing.
Time for some new music:
First there was Joe the Plumber. Is Joe the Hothead next?
Joe McCain said Friday he’ll withdraw from campaign activities for his brother, GOP presidential nominee John McCain, after calling 911 to angrily complain about traffic. Joe McCain has apologized for making the call.
The candidate’s younger brother, who lives in Alexandria, Va., told Washington radio station WTOP he was returning from a campaign event in Philadelphia around 2 a.m. on Oct. 18 when he got stuck in traffic on Interstate 495 at the Wilson Bridge. Police say the call was made about 1:30 a.m. Oct. 21.
Frustrated because of the traffic, Joe McCain called 911 to find out what was going on. The operator asked him to “state your emergency.”
“Well, it’s not an emergency, but do you know why on one side at the damn drawbridge of 95 traffic is stopped for 15 minutes and yet traffic’s coming the other way?” Joe McCain said.
The operator asked him if he was calling 911 to complain about traffic. McCain then uttered an expletive and hung up the phone.
McCain told WTOP that he thought his cell phone was on mute.
After hanging up with 911, McCain said he called Alexandria police to ask them about the traffic on the bridge and got a similar reaction.
“I did not mean to swear at the officers themselves,” McCain said. If he were in their situation, “it would have really frosted me too and I absolutely understand their reaction.”
They are the beating heart of conservatism, and to watch most television is to forget they exist, for they are not shown much, except at rallies. But they are there, and this is a center-right nation, and many of them have been pushing hard against the age for 40 years now, and more. For some time they have sensed that something large and stable is being swept away, maybe has been swept away, and yet you still have to fight for it. They will not give up without a fight, and they will make their way to the polls.
And they will be a rock-hard challenge to Mr. Obama if he wins.
This is the thing: If Mr. Obama wins, and governs as a moderate liberal, not veering left, not seeming to be the cap that pops off a kettle that’s been boiling for eight years, but governs to a degree, at least in general approach, as Bill Clinton did—as a moderate Democrat well aware of the terrain—he may know some success. And he may be able to tamp down the insistence of the long-simmering left by the force of his own popularity, which will grow once he is president among grateful Democrats, and others. But if he goes left—if it comes to seem as if the attractive, dark-haired man has torn open his shirt to reveal a huge S, not for Superman but for Socialist, if he jumps toward reforms such as a speech-limiting new Fairness Doctrine, that won’t yield success. It will yield trouble, and unneeded domestic arguments. We have enough needed ones.
The McCain campaign has authorized another vicious robocall that claims Barack Obama and Democrats would cut off funds for the military, have accused American troops of “war crimes,” and pose a threat to national security.
Two readers from Wisconsin reported receiving the call, narrated by Orson Swindle, a fellow POW and McCain friend, mid-afternoon Friday.
And finally, the fat crazy lady sings:
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has taped an advertisement apologizing for her televised comments calling Barack Obama anti-American, according to a Republican source familiar with her campaign’s decision.
Bachmann campaign spokeswoman Michelle Marston said the campaign will be airing a new advertisement this afternoon, but declined to comment specifically on whether Bachmann would be apologizing in the spot.
“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Marston said.
The move comes as polling, both public and internal, shows Bachmann rapidly losing ground in her reelection bid. A University of Minnesota poll released today shows Bachmann trailing her Democratic opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg, 45 percent to 43 percent. Those numbers are consistent with an automated SurveyUSA poll showing Bachmann trailing Tinklenberg 47 percent to 44 percent.
Tinklenberg has been referencing Bachmann’s comments in his own advertising this week. His latest ad, airing across the district, replays her controversial “Hardball” gaffe.
“Michele Bachmann represents the worst of Washington, even questioning the patriotism of others in Congress,” the ad says. “Gen. Colin Powell called her comments nonsense.”
The Republican Party and the conservatives: the best clown show since Barnum and Bailey.
