In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody today, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) defended radical pastor John Hagee’s late 90s comment that “Hitler was a hunter” sent by God in order to get “the Jewish people” to “come back to the land of Israel.” “A comment Pastor Hagee made about the Holocaust was taken way out of context,” Lieberman told Brody. Lieberman, who compared Hagee to Moses at the Christians United For Israel conference last week, added that Hagee’s “a dear friend” for whom he has “the greatest admiration.”
The AP has obtained an email gag order from the chief of staff of the EPA’s enforcement wing, who told staffers in June exactly what to do should a reporter, the inspector general or the Government Accountability Office call: “Please do not respond to questions or make any statements.”
The agency is already under fire for, in the words of Sen. Barbara Boxer, acting as “a secretive, dangerous ally of polluters.”
AP via Google:
The Environmental Protection Agency is telling its pollution enforcement officials not to talk with congressional investigators, reporters and even the agency’s own inspector general, according to an internal e-mail provided to The Associated Press.
The June 16 message instructs 11 managers in the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, the branch of the agency charged with making sure environmental laws are followed, to remind their staff members to keep quiet.
“If you are contacted directly by the IG’s office or GAO requesting information of any kind ... please do not respond to questions or make any statements,” reads the e-mail sent by Robbi Farrell, the division’s chief of staff. Instead, staff members should forward inquiries to a designated EPA representative, the memo says.
The latest Mac attack ad plays above. And here is the text:
Announcer: Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan.
He hadn't been to Iraq in years.
He voted against funding our troops.
And now, he made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops.
Seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras.
John McCain is always there for our troops.
McCain. Country first.
John McCain: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
2. The reason the McCain campaign is so worried is that the Olympics start in less than two weeks. At the height of summer, most experts think that whomever has a steady lead going in will have a steady lead coming out. The next big event after the Olympics? The Democratic National Convention. At which Obama will accept the presidential nomination in a speech at Denver's football stadium before 80,000 screaming supporters.
3. This TV ad is media bait. There is no serious buy behind it. I've gone through this before with McCain's new campaign director, Steve Schmidt, when he was Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign manager in 2006. The Schwarzenegger campaign rolled out a couple of TV ads early on, which I pointed out then were running in San Diego at midnight. In this case, think Denver, Harrisburg, and, naturally, Washington. The purpose of this ad is to further press commentary to continue a storyline. A major caveat. This does not mean that there is not a serious ad, and a serious new ad buy, coming.
4. In keeping with what I just wrote, this ad is the highest-rated YouTube video for McCain of the general election campaign. What that means is that the ad is being pushed out to create a frenzy amongst the conservative Republican base, whipped up by the right-wing talk show circuit and blogosphere. I think more people have seen it on YouTube than have seen it on their TV sets.
5. Obama is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Europe. Afghanistan, as it happens, is not in Europe. Afghanistan is covered by an entirely separate subcommittee. Thus the attack on Obama for failing to hold a hearing on Afghanistan is non-serious. This does not mean that he should not have done so, as an eager beaver presidential candidate. Surely, McCain would have been opportunistic enough to do so.
6. ... But it turns out that McCain has missed every hearing for the past two years of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Afghanistan. McCain is the ranking Republican member of this very powerful committee. It's only in the last week that McCain has endorsed Joe Biden's -- and Obama's -- plan to send more US brigades to Afghanistan.
7. It's true that Obama hadn't been to Iraq for two years. McCain has been there a lot. There was the time last year when he toured a Baghdad market, declaring everything to be copacetic. As it should have been, with him wearing a bullet-proof vest, accompanied by a company of paratroopers and a flight of helicopter gunships. As most shoppers undoubtedly were.
8. Obama voted for troop funding on all but one occasion. When he decided to try to force the Bush Administration to set a timeline for US troop withdrawal.
9. Obama's visit to the US military hospital in Germany was never, despite the statement in this ad, on his media schedule. He actually visited the US military hospital in Baghdad a few days earlier, sans media. The former head of the military hospital in Germany has denounced the ad, noting that Obama visited the military hospital in Baghdad with no fanfare whasoever.
10. Obama pulled out of the German military hospital visit when the Pentagon informed his military advisor on the trip, retired Air Force General Scott Gration, that only Senate staff could accompany him. This happened after all the Senate staffers along for the Congressional delegation visit to the Middle East had been sent home. Which meant that General Gration, a highly decorated Air Force veteran who is not a member of Obama's Senate staff, was effectively disinvited from visiting the military hospital at the well-known Air Force base at Ramstein.
11. While the TV ad says that McCain is always there for the troops, he actually voted against the new GI Bill authored by Obama ally Jim Webb, the former Navy Secretary-turned-Virginia Senator. Webb, as it happens, is an old friend of McCain, who has called him "a legendary fighting man," as befits the most highly decorated Marine combat officer of the Vietnam War. McCain lost badly in the Senate on Webb's new GI bill, but he and President Bush later tried to take some credit for its passage.
12. And with regard to always being there for the troops, it is interesting to note that McCain actually voted against $360 million for armored tactical wheeled vehicles for units deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that McCain just held a big ticket fundraiser at the home of one of the country's largest defense contractors, Ronald Perelman, whose MacAndrews & Forbes holding company owns AM General, manufacturer of the HumVee. The HumVee became known in the Iraq War as a "Purple Heart box."
Here is the actual scene from which Obama's purported German workout in lieu of visiting wounded troops is taken. Note that it is Obama visiting enthusiastic American soldiers in the Middle East.
13. The footage in the McCain attack ad which accompanies the text about Obama spending time at the gym rather than visiting wounded troops is not actually of Obama working out in Berlin.
Actually, it is, as you see above, footage of Obama visiting with the troops in Kuwait. Hitting a 3-point jump shot on the first try, to the screams of the enthusiastic American soldiers.
Interviewed on MSNBC last week, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Fox News pundits and commentators were useful to the White House stating that they were given "talking points" to repeat on air:
Q: Did people say call Sean, call Bill, call whoever? Did you do that as a regular thing?
McCLELLAN: Certainly. Certainly. It wasn't necessarily something I was doing, but it was something that we at the White House, yes, were doing.
On his radio show yesterday, Bill O'Reilly let loose on McClellan, calling him a "liar" and an "idiot" for saying O'Reilly accepted the talking points. Today, McClellan went on O'Reilly's show and in a tense back and forth, O'Reilly got McClellan to apologize for the "talking points" statement. "Do you owe me an apology?" O'Reilly asked. McClellan responded:
McCLELLAN: The truth is I messed up. I was specifically not trying to single anyone out, including you. But the way a couple of the questions were phrased in that interview along with my response left things open to interpretation and I should not have let that happen. I understand why you got upset. "You're the Big Kahuna at Fox News, and some people tried to paint in a black and white term through a preconceived notion.
Despite McClellan's apology, O'Reilly yelled at McClellan later in the segment, blaming McClellan for getting "played" by Chris Matthews and accusing him of being a "liar" and "crazy":
O'REILLY: Matthews played you.He played you! You should be mad at him!
McCLELLAN: So you don't owe me an apology for calling me a liar? –
O'REILLY: You are a liar! You said I received talking points and I didn't!
McCLELLAN: No I didn't! I was not confirming that. I'm telling you right now —
O'REILLY: Oh you're parsing the damn thing! Come on, be honest!He baited you! He baited you!You[base ']re crazy! You're partners with [NBC] in selling your book!
McClellan, however, did stand by his original point. “I stand by what I said in terms of the larger things and everything.” Without pointing out specific names or networks, McClellan vaguely claimed: “There were other people that were friendly and sympathetic to us.”
