High points include –

Prepared Remarks after the Jump.

“A Rescue Plan for the Middle-Class”

Monday, October 13th, 2008

Toledo, Ohio

We meet at a moment of great uncertainty for America. The economic crisis we face is the worst since the Great Depression. Markets across the globe have become increasingly unstable, and millions of Americans will open up their 401(k) statements this week and see that so much of their hard-earned savings have disappeared.

The credit crisis has left businesses large and small unable to get loans, which means they can’t buy new equipment, or hire new workers, or even make payroll for the workers they have. You’ve got auto plants right here in Ohio that have been around for decades closing their doors and laying off workers who’ve never known another job in their entire life.

760,000 workers have lost their jobs this year. Unemployment here in Ohio is up 85% over the last eight years, which is the highest it’s been in sixteen years. You’ve lost one of every four manufacturing jobs, the typical Ohio family has seen their income fall $2,500, and it’s getting harder and harder to make the mortgage, or fill up your gas tank, or even keep the electricity on at the end of the month. At this rate, the question isn’t just “are you better off than you were four years ago?”, it’s “are you better off than you were four weeks ago?”

I know these are difficult times. I know folks are worried. But I also know this – we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. Because we are the United States of America. We are the country that has faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats. And at each and every moment, we have risen to meet these challenges – not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans.

We still have the most talented, most productive workers of any country on Earth. We’re still home to innovation and technology, colleges and universities that are the envy of the world. Some of the biggest ideas in history have come from our small businesses and our research facilities. It won’t be easy, but there’s no reason we can’t make this century another American century.

But it will take a new direction. It will take new leadership in Washington. It will take a real change in the policies and politics of the last eight years. And that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.

My opponent has made his choice. Last week, Senator McCain’s campaign announced that they were going to “turn the page” on the discussion about our economy so they can spend the final weeks of this election attacking me instead. His campaign actually said, and I quote, “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” Well Senator McCain may be worried about losing an election, but I’m worried about Americans who are losing their jobs, and their homes, and their life savings. They can’t afford four more years of the economic theory that says we should give more and more to millionaires and billionaires and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. We’ve seen where that’s led us and we’re not going back. It’s time to turn the page.

Over the course of this campaign, I’ve laid out a set of policies that will grow our middle-class and strengthen our economy in the long-term. I’ll reform our tax code so that 95% of workers and their families get a tax cut, and eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000. I’ll bring down the cost of health care for families and businesses by investing in preventative care, new technology, and giving every American the chance to get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress give themselves. We’ll ensure every child can compete in the global economy by recruiting an army of new teachers and making college affordable for anyone who wants to go. We’ll create five million new, high-wage jobs by investing in the renewable sources of energy that will eliminate the oil we currently import from the Middle East in ten years, and we’ll create two million jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools, and bridges.

But that’s a long-term strategy for growth. Right now, we face an immediate economic emergency that requires urgent action. We can’t wait to help workers and families and communities who are struggling right now – who don’t know if their job or their retirement will be there tomorrow; who don’t know if next week’s paycheck will cover this month’s bills. We need to pass an economic rescue plan for the middle-class and we need to do it now. Today I’m proposing a number of steps that we should take immediately to stabilize our financial system, provide relief to families and communities, and help struggling homeowners. It’s a plan that begins with one word that’s on everyone’s mind, and it’s spelled J-O-B-S.

We’ve already lost three-quarters of a million jobs this year, and some experts say that unemployment may rise to 8% by the end of next year. We can’t wait until then to start creating new jobs. That’s why I’m proposing to give our businesses a new American jobs tax credit for each new employee they hire here in the United States over the next two years.

To fuel the real engine of job creation in this country, I’ve also proposed eliminating all capital gains taxes on investments in small businesses and start-up companies, and I’ve proposed an additional tax incentive through next year to encourage new small business investment. It is time to protect the jobs we have and to create the jobs of tomorrow by unlocking the drive, and ingenuity, and innovation of the American people. And we should fast track the loan guarantees we passed for our auto industry and provide more as needed so that they can build the energy-efficient cars America needs to end our dependence on foreign oil.

We will also save one million jobs by creating a Jobs and Growth Fund that will provide money to states and local communities so that they can move forward with projects to rebuild and repair our roads, our bridges, and our schools. A lot of these projects and these jobs are at risk right now because of budget shortfalls, but this fund will make sure they continue.

The second part of my rescue plan is to provide immediate relief to families who are watching their paycheck shrink and their jobs and life savings disappear. I’ve already proposed a middle-class tax cut for 95% of workers and their families, but today I’m calling on Congress to pass a plan so that the IRS will mail out the first round of those tax cuts as soon as possible. We should also extend and expand unemployment benefits to those Americans who have lost their jobs and are having a harder time finding new ones in this weak economy. And we should stop making them pay taxes on those unemployment insurance benefits as well.

At a time when the ups and downs of the stock market have rarely been so unpredictable and dramatic, we also need to give families and retirees more flexibility and security when it comes to their retirement savings.

I welcome Senator McCain’s proposal to waive the rules that currently force our seniors to withdraw from their 401(k)s even when the market is bad. I think that’s a good idea, but I think we need to do even more. Since so many Americans will be struggling to pay the bills over the next year, I propose that we allow every family to withdraw up to 15% from their IRA or 401(k) – up to a maximum of $10,000 – without any fine or penalty throughout 2009. This will help families get through this crisis without being forced to make painful choices like selling their homes or not sending their kids to college.

The third part of my rescue plan is to provide relief for homeowners who are watching their home values decline while their property taxes go up. Earlier this year I pushed for legislation that would help homeowners stay in their homes by working to modify their mortgages. When Secretary Paulson proposed his original financial rescue plan it included nothing for homeowners. When Senator McCain was silent on the issue, I insisted that it include protections for homeowners. Now the Treasury must use the authority its been granted and move aggressively to help people avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes. We don’t need a new law or a new $300 billion giveaway to banks like Senator McCain has proposed, we just need to act quickly and decisively.

I’ve already proposed a mortgage tax credit for struggling homeowners worth 10% of the interest you pay on your mortgage and we should move quickly to pass it. We should also change the unfair bankruptcy laws that allow judges to write down your mortgage if you own six or seven homes, but not if you have only one. And for all those cities and small towns that are facing a choice between cutting services like health care and education or raising property taxes, we will provide the funding to prevent those tax hikes from happening. We cannot allow homeowners and small towns to suffer because of the mess made by Wall Street and Washington.

For those Americans in danger of losing their homes, today I’m also proposing a three-month moratorium on foreclosures. If you are a bank or lender that is getting money from the rescue plan that passed Congress, and your customers are making a good-faith effort to make their mortgage payments and re-negotiate their mortgages, you will not be able to foreclose on their home for three months. We need to give people the breathing room they need to get back on their feet.

Finally, this crisis has taught us that we cannot have a sound economy with a dysfunctional financial system. We passed a financial rescue plan that has the promise to help stabilize the financial system, but only if we act quickly, effectively and aggressively. The Treasury Department must move quickly with their plan to put more money into struggling banks so they have enough to lend, and they should do it in a way that protects taxpayers instead of enriching CEOs. There was a report yesterday that some financial institutions participating in this rescue plan are still trying to avoid restraints on CEO pay. That’s not just wrong, it’s an outrage to every American whose tax dollars have been put at risk. No major investor would ever make an investment if they didn’t think the corporation was being prudent and responsible, and we shouldn’t expect taxpayers to think any differently. We should also be prepared to extend broader guarantees if it becomes necessary to stabilize our financial system.

I also believe that Treasury should not limit itself to purchasing mortgage-backed securities – it should help unfreeze markets for individual mortgages, student loans, car loans, and credit card loans.. And I think we need to do even more to make loans available in two very important areas of our economy: small businesses and communities.

On Friday, I proposed Small Business Rescue Plan that would create an emergency lending fund to lend money directly to small businesses that need cash for their payroll or to buy inventory. It’s what we did after 9/11, and it allowed us to get low-cost loans out to tens of thousands of small businesses. We’ll also make it easier for private lenders to make small business loans by expanding the Small Business Administration’s loan guarantee program. By temporarily eliminating fees for borrowers and lenders, we can unlock the credit that small firms need to pay their workers and keep their doors open. And today, I’m also proposing that we maintain the ability of states and local communities that are struggling to maintain basic services without raising taxes to continue to get the credit they need.

Congress should pass this emergency rescue plan as soon as possible. If Washington can move quickly to pass a rescue plan for our financial system, there’s no reason we can’t move just as quickly to pass a rescue plan for our middle-class that will create jobs, provide relief, and help homeowners. And if Congress does not act in the coming months, it will be one of the first things I do as President of the United States. Because we can’t wait any longer to start creating new jobs; to help struggling communities and homeowners, and to provide real and immediate relief to families who are worried not only about this month’s bills, but their entire life savings. This plan will help ease those anxieties, and along with the other economic policies I’ve proposed, it will begin to create new jobs, grow family incomes, and put us back on the path to prosperity.

I won’t pretend this will be easy or come without cost. We’ll have to set priorities as never before, and stick to them. That means pursuing investments in areas such as energy, education and health care that bear directly on our economic future, while deferring other things we can afford to do without. It means scouring the federal budget, line-by-line, ending programs that we don’t need and making the ones we do work more efficiently and cost less.

It also means promoting a new ethic of responsibility. Part of the reason this crisis occurred is that everyone was living beyond their means – from Wall Street to Washington to even some on Main Street. CEOs got greedy. Politicians spent money they didn’t have. Lenders tricked people into buying home they couldn’t afford and some folks knew they couldn’t afford them and bought them anyway.

We’ve lived through an era of easy money, in which we were allowed and even encouraged to spend without limits; to borrow instead of save.

Now, I know that in an age of declining wages and skyrocketing costs, for many folks this was not a choice but a necessity. People have been forced to turn to credit cards and home equity loans to keep up, just like our government has borrowed from China and other creditors to help pay its bills.

But we now know how dangerous that can be. Once we get past the present emergency, which requires immediate new investments, we have to break that cycle of debt. Our long-term future requires that we do what’s necessary to scale down our deficits, grow wages and encourage personal savings again.

It’s a serious challenge. But we can do it if we act now, and if we act as one nation. We can bring a new era of responsibility and accountability to Wall Street and to Washington. We can put in place common-sense regulations to prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again. We can make investments in the technology and innovation that will restore prosperity and lead to new jobs and a new economy for the 21st century. We can restore a sense of fairness and balance that will give ever American a fair shot at the American dream. And above all, we can restore confidence – confidence in America, confidence in our economy, and confidence in ourselves.

This country and the dream it represents are being tested in a way that we haven’t seen in nearly a century. And future generations will judge ours by how we respond to this test. Will they say that this was a time when America lost its way and its purpose? When we allowed our own petty differences and broken politics to plunge this country into a dark and painful recession?

Or will they say that this was another one of those moments when America overcame? When we battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other’s success?

This is one of those moments. I realize you’re cynical and fed up with politics. I understand that you’re disappointed and even angry with your leaders. You have every right to be. But despite all of this, I ask of you what’s been asked of the American people in times of trial and turmoil throughout our history. I ask you to believe – to believe in yourselves, in each other, and in the future we can build together.

Together, we cannot fail. Not now. Not when we have a crisis to solve and an economy to save. Not when there are so many Americans without jobs and without homes. Not when there are families who can’t afford to see a doctor, or send their child to college, or pay their bills at the end of the month. Not when there is a generation that is counting on us to give them the same opportunities and the same chances that we had for ourselves.

We can do this. Americans have done this before. Some of us had grandparents or parents who said maybe I can’t go to college but my child can; maybe I can’t have my own business but my child can. I may have to rent, but maybe my children will have a home they can call their own. I may not have a lot of money but maybe my child will run for Senate. I might live in a small village but maybe someday my son can be president of the United States of America.

Now it falls to us. Together, we cannot fail. Together, we can overcome the broken policies and divided politics of the last eight years. Together, we can renew an economy that rewards work and rebuilds the middle class. Together, we can create millions of new jobs, and deliver on the promise of health care you can afford and education that helps your kids compete. We can do this if we come together; if we have confidence in ourselves and each other; if we look beyond the darkness of the day to the bright light of hope that lies ahead. Together, we can change this country and change this world. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America.

All black against an ornate red and gold background. He just looked scary.

Transcript courtesy of MSNBC.COM

Last Wednesday, Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home of a woman in Akron, Ohio named Addie Polk, in order to evict her. After 38 years in that house, Ms. Polk had fallen behind on paying the mortgage. It was so bad that the company that held that mortgage, Fannie Mae, had foreclosed.

In fact, it was far worse than anybody knew. Addie Polk couldn’t bear it any more. So, rather than be evicted, she shot herself in the chest.

Evidently she will survive. And, after Congressman Dennis Kucinich brought her plight to the floor of the House, Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant you and I and all the rest of us pretty much own now, agreed it would forgive Addie Polk’s debt and, when she gets out of the hospital, let her go back and live in her home again.

That this is already a gothic horror story, you’ll agree. But I left out one detail. Addie Polk is 90 years old.

In the self-pronounced area of expertise of the Governor of Alaska—energy—the real experts of both parties are at a loss to figure out any way, even’drill, baby, drill’, that might lower gas prices before 2018. We are at war in two countries and a lame duck President with no reason to check his own imbalance still has dreams of one more.

And a 90-year-old woman, trapped in the middle of a financial meltdown, shoots herself and she’s still in better shape than the economy. Yet, the Governor of Alaska wants to talk about somebody Barack Obama doesn’t know very well, and what this somebody Barack Obama doesn’t know very well, did, during the year Obama was eight and the Governor of Alaska was in pre-Kindergarten.

And she wants to talk about Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And she doesn’t object to being introduced with a reference to Barack Obama’s middle name. Well, this is my suggestion. In much the same way we, America, in the corporate persona of Fannie Mae, have forgiven poor Addie Polk of Akron, Ohio.

We, America, also need to forgive poor Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska. They are both in situations that are beyond their ability to cope. They are both stuck in a crucible caused by forces they cannot comprehend. They are both unable to understand what they are doing.

After stumbling through a clumsier version of it at Englewood, Colorado, the Governor of Alaska said Saturday at Carson, California:

“Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”

She later defended the remark by adding this was an “association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about.”

Governor, Conservative groups have thus far spent ten million dollars this year trying to make something, anything, out of the brief interaction on a charity board between Sen. Obama, and a rehabilitated former domestic radical from the ’60s and not even Conservatives have been stupid enough to buy the snake oil, that this was either a close relationship or a nefarious one.

But of course, you know better, Governor. You’re smarter than the rest of us. A reporter asks you a horrible gotcha question like’which newspapers do you read’ and it takes you four days to come up with an answer, and somehow it’s the reporter’s fault.

The reporter asks you to name one Supreme Court ruling with which you disagree other than Roe vs. Wade and even though you’d commented on just such a case from Alaska no less not three months ago your eyes turn into a big neon sign reading “Vacancy” and you insist it’s because that evil media asked the wrong question.

So you’re the genius Governor, and it’s your supporters and the undecided voters who are the dopes who are now going to believe the same mickey-mouse crap that Sen. Clinton couldn’t get to stick, and Sean Hannity couldn’t get to stick, just because it’s you adding that word “terrorist” and that phrase “palling around” and dropping the “g” in pal-ling.

And of course, Governor, those same dopes, and we media morons, we are not smart enough to ask about that pesky Alaskan Independence Party, and why you recorded a speech for its convention last March, and why your husband remained a registered member of it until 2002, even though it was founded by a man named Joe Vogler who wanted Alaska to secede from the United States. The way the South seceded, precipitating the Civil War.

The same Joe Vogler who once said:

“The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government, and I won’t be buried under their damn flag.”

And who also said:

“I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.”

Shoot, Governor, them’s strong words, hah? Did he wink as he said ‘em? You betcha! So, where does Joe Vogler rank on the scales of “terrorists who would target their own country?” Your opponent’s guy Ayers wound up on a volunteer anti-poverty committee in Chicago.

But your guy Vogler wound up founding a group that wanted to rip one of the stars off the American flag! Well, ok, Governor, Vogler’s more your husband’s guy. So it’s your husband who’s been “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

But I’m assuming you’ve been “palling around” with your husband. But, gee willikers, Governor, you know what’s best. You’re not one of these Washington insiders who would notice that though that’s a straight line connecting you, your husband, and this Alaskan secessionist, you’re*standing under a banner with the campaign slogan “Country First” and if somebody out there puts two and two together they might just ask, “which Country dja mean? The Country of Alaska?”

“The heels are on,” you said with another smile. “The gloves are off.”

Well, if you’re telling William Kristol you want to talk about Jeremiah Wright fer sure! So, Governor you don’t mind addressing whether this Pastor Muthee is a terrorist? Do you? We’ve told you before about Pastor Thomas Muthee.

He’s the preacher who visited the Wasilla Assembly of God church a couple of times while the Governor was there, ironically enough, just about as many times as Bill Ayres has met Barack Obama and, see, there was this one time where Pastor Muthee actually laid hands on the Governor.

And I’m sure that sounds like just some crazy anecdote, except there’s videotape. And of course the Governor talked about this moment, the laying on of hands, just last summer.

It was in October, 2005, as the video indicates, when Muthee put his hands on Sarah Palin’s back and said, “make a way for Sarah, even in the political arena. Make a way, my God. Bring finances her way, even if for the campaign in the name of Jesus.

“Every form of witchcraft, it will be rebuked in the name of Jesus. Father, make her way now. ”

And the Governor said that “bold” approach of Pastor Muthee was one of the reasons she became Governor and she gives him just oodles of credit for puttin’ her on the path.

The problem for the governor is that in 1999 The Christian Science Monitor reported that Pastor Muthee had gotten his start a decade earlier in Kenya, in the Nairobi suburb of Kiambu.

Kimabu was crime-ridden. So this character Muthee showed up, and announced it was the fault of this woman in town who he had decided was a witch. And Muthee gave the witch a choice: either be saved, or get out of town.

And the woman initially chose none of the above, but this became less than a viable option when Muthee got 200 of the townspeople together and they decided, heck, you know, Muthee’s right, she probably is a witch, and the next thing you know the police are raiding her house and reportedly shooting her snake because if she was a witch, the snake had to be a demon, and then the woman left town and everybody said crime went down and most of the bars closed and this is not only how Pastor Muthee got started but he’s proud of it and he tells the story in his testimonial videotapes and people in that church in Wasilla where he laid hands on the Governor knew all about it.

And they think it was just a Joe-Six-Pack, Hockey Mom kinda thing to do, to let a guy who branded some woman in Kenya a witch, demand that God make some different woman the Governor of Alaska!

Governor, what would you call someone who arrives in a suburb, blames a resident for the local crime, organizes a mob to threaten the woman, convinces the authorities to go and raid her home, and then chases her out of the suburb?

C’mon Governor, just give us one answer that has something to do with the question you were just asked. That’s right you’d call him a terrorist. And since it was in his own country, that would make himmmm? Yes, very good, a domestic terrorist.

So, you, Governor, you’ve been “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” Say it ain’t so, Gov! Say it ain’t so! Of course it is.

The Governor of Alaska ignores Addie Polk and the American tragedy that is a 90-year old woman shooting herself out of shame and panic and who knows what else. Over the mortgage!

Instead the Governor of Alaska wants to start calling people terrorists and insisting of Sen. Obama that quote “this is not a man who sees America like you and I see America” and whose rhetoric like that, and the “pallin’ around with terrorists” line were rightly described by the Associated Press yesterday as a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing kind of way of slipping racism into the equation, because it’s a nifty trick to remind the white folk that (psst) Obama is black.

But overriding this sleaziness and dog-gone it, the Governor of Alaska has got to be the sleaziest politician working the stage at the moment, there is the sheer blessed stupidity of letting herself become the bomb-thrower when her own life is full of domestic terrorists.

Governor? Bill Ayres? Your hubby was in this secessionist hate group for which you recorded a video.

Governor? Jeremiah Wright? That pastor you credit with helping you become Governor, is either a con man or a psycho who believes he can tell which woman in the village is the witch, and which woman is the governor.

And Governor, there’s also “The U.S. Council On World Freedom.” You should ask Sen. McCain about that outfit and why he had to scat away from it 22 years ago.

Or, ask him why yesterday his own brother Joe referred to Northern Virginia as quote “communist country.” Or you could ask him about Pastors John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Or about why Sen. McCain said about introducing Jeremiah Wright into this campaign, “there’s no place for that kind of campaigning, the American people don’t want it, period.”

Or don’t ask. You know best. You’re the one selling the patent medicine. Those of us out here, we’re just the suckers pulling out our greenbacks. Go on talking about this man Ayers and trying to link Obama to that word “terrorist.”

But be prepared for others to ask you about your pastor and terrorism. And for still others to ask you about the First Dude and terrorism. But not me, Governor.

I forgive you. You are about as guilty here as poor Ms. Addie Polk in Akron. And I hope that after what you’ve done to yourself, you recover as well as she seems to be doing, and that you too get to go back and live in your own home again.

Because if you think the terrorism con, and the racism sting are going to do anything but bury you and Sen, McCain, you need to pick up one of those how-many-ever newspapers you reed and check the headlines to find out what people are really worried about right now.

Otherwise, when you said “the heels are on, the gloves are off,” you got as close to telling the truth as you’ve ever gotten, and without really knowing it.

Because, for you and Sen. McCain, Governor, it’s not the gloves that just came off.

Obviously—it’s the wheels.

The Couric-Palin interview:

The VP Debate:

Say what you will about Olbermann, but he’s right on the money with this commentary. The RNC’s 9/11 Video was distasteful, political fear mongering, and quite frankly, shameful (that word keeps showing up in descriptions of the McCain campaign.)

Transcript:

As promised, a Special Comment about our sad anniversary tomorrow.

Or, more correctly, what our sad anniversary tomorrow has been turned into by the presidential administration, and the current Republican candidates for President and Vice President.

This is supposed to be a day of remembrance. Remembrance of the attack, remembrance of the national unity which followed it.

Most important of all, remembrance of the dead.

But 9/11 has become a brand name. A Republican campaign slogan. Propaganda of the lowest form. 9/11 has become 9/11 with a trademark logo.

9/11 (TM) has sustained a president who long ago should have been dismissed, or impeached. It has kept him and his gang of financial and constitutional crooks in office without — literally — any visible means of support.

9/11 (TM) has made possible the greatest sleight-of-hand in our nation’s history.

The political party in office at the time of the attacks, at the local, state and national levels, the party which uniformly ignored the warnings and the presidential administration already through twenty percent of its first term and no longer wet behind the ears, have not only thus far escaped any blame for the malfeasance and criminal neglect that allowed the attacks to occur, but that presidency and that party, have managed to make it seem as if the other political party would be solely and irredeemably responsible for any similar catastrophe in the future.

Thus, Sen. McCain, were you able to accomplish a further inversion of reality at your party’s nominating convention last week.

There was the former Mayor of the City of New York, the one who took no counter-terrorism measure in his seven years in office between the first attack on the World Trade Center, and the second attack.

Nothing, except to insist, despite all advice and warning, that his Emergency Command Center be moved directly into the World Trade Center.

Yet there was this man, Sir, Rudolph Giuliani, quite succinctly dismissed as “A Noun, a Verb, and 9/11,” and repudiated even by Republican voters, transformed into the keynote speaker, Sen. McCain at your convention.

And his childish, squealing, braying, Tourette’s-like repetition of 9/11 (TM), was greeted not as conclusive evidence that he is consumed by massive guilt – hard-earned guilt, in fact but rather as some kind of political tour-de-force, an endorsement of your Vice Presidential nominee, a rookie governor , a facile and slick con artist.

The blind endorsing the bland, to a chorus of 9/11 (TM), 9/11 (TM), 9/11 (TM.)

Your ringing mindless cheer of “We’ve Kept You Safe Since Then.”While nobody asks “doesn’t then count?”

All of this, sadistically disrespecting the dead of New York, and Washington, and Shanksville. Endorsed, Sen. McCain. Exploited, Sen. McCain. Trademarked, Sen. McCain by you.

And yet of course the exact moment in which Sen. McCain’s Republicans showed the nation exactly how far they have fallen from the Better Angels of Mr. Lincoln’s Nature, came the next night.

The television networks were told that the Convention would pause, early in the evening, when children could still be watching, for a 9/11 Tribute, and they were encouraged to broadcast it.

What we got was not a tribute to the dead of 9/11, nor even a tribute to the responders, or the singularity of purpose we all felt. The Republicans gave us sociological pornography, a virtual snuff film.

Years ago, responsible television networks, to the applause of the nation, and the relief of its mental health authorities, voluntarily stopped showing the most graphic of the images of the World Trade Center, except with the strongest of warnings.

And yet, the Republicans, at their convention, having virtually seized control of the cable news operations, showed the worst of it.

This is all anyone with a conscience can show you of what the Republicans showed you. The actual collapse of the smoking towers.

A fleeting image of what might have been a victim leaping to his death from a thousand feet up. And something new. From this angle, ground-level, perfectly framed, images, of the fireball created when the second plane hit the second tower.

It was terrifying. After all its object was to terrify. Not to commemorate, not to call for unity, not to remember the dead. But to terrify.

To open again the horrible wounds, to brand the skin of this nation with the message — as hateful as the terrorists’ own, that you must vote Republican or this will happen again and you will die.

And just in case that was not enough, to also dishonestly and profanely conflate 9/11 with the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, to stoke the flames of paranoia about another Middle Eastern Nation.

This was a 9/11 Tribute. Not to the dead, nor to the unity. But a tribute to how valuable 9/11 has been as a political tool for the Republican Party. 9/11… (TM.)

Sen. McCain, you had promised us a clean campaign. You could be Snow-White the rest of the way, Sir, yet that manipulative videotape from your convention should tar you always in the minds of decent Americans.

And still, as this seventh 9/11 (TM) approaches that, Sir, is not the worst of your contributions to the utter politicizing of a day that should be sacrosanct to all of us.

Hard to believe, but the Senator has done worse with 9/11 and the evil behind it.

We heard it last week in Minnesota, we’ve heard it off and on since January but Senator McCain said it most concisely in June.

“Look,” he said. “I know the area, I’ve been there, I know wars, I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden — or put it this way, bring him to justice. We will do it. I know how to do it.”

Sen. McCain seems to be quite serious, that he and he alone, not the CIA, nor the U.S. Military, nor the current President can capture bin Laden.

Thus we must take him at his word, that this is no mere ludicrous campaign boast.

We must assume Sen. McCain truly believes he is capable of doing this, and has been capable of doing this, since last January. “We will capture Osama bin Laden… we will do it. I know how to do it.”

Well then, Senator, you’d better go and do it hadn’t you?

Because, Sir, if a man or woman in this nation, Democrat or Republican, had a clear and effective means of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden…

If that person had been advertising his claim, Senator for eight months.

But if that person not only refused to go to responsible authorities in government and advise them of this plan to catch bin Laden, but further announced he would not even begin to enact this secret plan to corral the world’s most hated man until the end of next January.

What would be your description of such an individual, Senator? Charlatan? Do-nothing? Opportunist? Sen. McCain, if you have, if you have had a means of capturing Osama bin Laden, and you do not immediately inform some responsible authority of the full scope of that plan, you are to some degree great or small aiding and abetting Osama bin Laden.

If you could assist in capturing him now, Sen. McCain, but you have chosen not to you, Sir, have helped Osama bin Laden stay free.

Free to inspire and supervise the terrorists. Free to plan or execute attacks here.

You, Sir, are blackmailing some portion of the American electorate into voting for your party, by promising to help in the capture of bin Laden only if you are made president!

I’d rather win an election than catch bin Laden! No more cynical calculation has ever been made in this nation’s history, Sir. If you lose the election, Senator, are you not going to tell the President-Elect?

Are you intending to keep this a secret until the next election and your party’s next nominee? Senator, as you and your Republicans shed your phony, crocodile, opportunistic tears tomorrow on 9/11 TM, in front of the utterly disingenuous banner “Country First,” the fact is, you have shown that it is John McCain first, and the country last.

The fact is, Sir, by holding out on your secret plan to catch bin Laden by searing those images into our collective wounded American psyche at your nomination last week, terrorists are not what you, John McCain, fight. Terrorists are what you, John McCain, use.

This is the politics of fear plain and simple.

I am so disgusted when politicians use 9/11 to make a political point. The Republican National Convention crossed the line tonight.

Disgusting.

Later on, Keith Olbermann had this to say. Whatever your feelings on Keith may be, on this point he was right.

Well… McCain either still doesn’t know the answer or doesn’t need a million dollars, or both, because he resorted to his old standby:
Noun
Verb
POW

The fact is, he tried to tag Obama with the ‘Celebrity’ and ‘Elitist’ tag. He got called on his BS and he leaned on his old crutch.

What’s sad is that the one major aspect of McCain that’s universally respected is being cheapened by his campaign. I have an inordinate amount of respect for McCain’s service, but he’s using this as a crutch time and again. We saw it in response to the Abramoff-Reed connection. We saw it in response to the infidelity of his first marriage. He used it to defend his (lack of) healthcare plan. He even used it when he broke the rules of the Saddleback Forum.

Now, he even has to use it on a Jay Leno softball question. Again, John McCain did something for this country I could never imagine and we all owe him so much respect, but c’mon John, you can do a lot better than Noun-Verb-POW.

Even Independents that I’ve talked to at work said this was one of the reasons they lost interest in his 2000 candidacy.

Here is the entire speech from Springfield, IL today, courtesy of MSNBC:

Awesome speeches today! Great momentum going into convention week…