This coming from the campaign that took a commercial comparing Obama to a celebrity and construed it to be a racist attack. They’re now going to tell other people not to be paranoid?

The Huffington Post is headlining a claim this evening that Team McCain planned to attack Barack Obama if he visited the wounded troops, like he went after him for skipping out on the visit. The original claim, made on July 28th, read:

What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was…wait for it…using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.

Sounds horrible until you understand it’s already been debunked, per the original author’s own follow-up posting. David Kiley of BusinessWeek.com writes:

Given the McCain campaign’s vehement denials about ever discussing an ad/messaging strategy that would have bashed Sen. Barack Obama for visiting wounded troops in Germany this month [The New Normal: McCain’s Desperate Ad Hours], I thought it fair to hear in detail the McCain campaign’s explanation, and to go back to my original source for elaboration. I also sought, unsuccessfully, to find secondary sources to back up my original source.

I spent quite a while on the phone with Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for the McCain campaign.

The McCain campaign insists that no conversations took place about ads or campaign communication that would have cast Senator Obama in a bad light for visiting the troops while on a campaign trip about which the McCain campaign has been highly critical.

Griffin cites the following reasons why this couldn’t and wouldn’t be true.

1. The McCain campaign was not aware of the Obama visit to the troops in Germany beforehand, and neither was the traveling press with Obama. Therefore, the campaign could not have prepared a strategy around the trip. By the time they were reacting to his skipped visit of the troops, there was no reason to have talked about any other scenario.

2. Barack Obama has frequently visited the troops, including wounded troops at Walter Reade Hospital, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sen.. McCain has always praised him for doing so. The campaign has said that there is never a reason not to visit the wounded troops, which is why it reacted so strongly to his decision not to see the troops in Germany.

3. John McCain visited the same hospital in Germany during his last trip to Europe, so it would have been crazy to criticize Sen. Obama for doing so. [It is worth noting here that Sen. McCain, according to his spokesman, was on a Senatorial trip, not spending campaign funds as Sen. Obama was. The rules for visiting troops are different when spending campaign funds.]

I went back to my original source with whom I spoke last weekend to make sure I had understood what he was saying. He clarified that he’d heard about discussions of a possible ad, not literally that a script was in place. It may be worth noting that I originally called this source, an experienced GOP lobbyist and strategist, to ask him his viewpoint about the sharp turn the McCain campaign had taken in much more negative attacks on Obama. The information was not fed to me deliberately or proactively. However, I have not been able to find a secondary source to back up the original source. Subsequent calls to a couple of other sources today were greeted with a much greater sense of nervousness because of the intense scrutiny around this issue inside the McCain campaign.

This leaves me with little ammunition to buttress the original assertion, especially in the face of the fierce denials by the McCain campaign.

There is a huge amount of smoke being blown by both campaigns, each trying to define the other in the most negative terms possible. Indeed, my original blog-post enumerated some of the examples of other media outlets and www.factcheck.org citing the McCain campaign in recent days for broadcasting ads that just don’t hold up to even basic scrutiny. The Obama campaign has at times also drawn fire from media outlets and www.factcheck.org.

But I do admit that my source’s original assertion should have been backed up by reliable secondary and tertiary sources, especially since it hit close to the bone for the McCain campaign.

So Arriana Huffington’s headlining a claim that was made by one unnamed source, which later changed his/her story and was reported by a guy that’s backing down from it. That just screams “integrity”.

Even if Americans were paying $10 a gallon at the pump, Congressional Democrats would still oppose expanded domestic drilling. Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) objected to every trigger price up to and including the $10 mark during Senate proceedings today. Watch below:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The GOP needs to own this issue. It needs to make sure that whenever Americans think “high gas prices”, they think about Democrats objecting to doing what most people want them to in order to resolve the crisis.

As Ed Morrissey points out, people in both California and Florida now support expanding our domestic drilling. Congressional Democrats, on the other hand, would rather you pay $10 a gallon…or more.

Currently ranking #893 on its most popular list, coming in far behind such exciting best-sellers as Goodnight Bush, Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, and Have a New Kid by Friday. Just how bad is it? Let’s ask some reviewers from the site:

Anyone who buys this book should, out of deference for the planet, multipurpose the material and use it for toilet paper – preferably before they read it.

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That’s how the book reads, kind of like an advertising brochure.

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What a waste of paper. Al Gore should have intervened to help spare our planet of this waste of our resources.

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I guess she was hoping to cash in on the Senator book fad. Or she was too busy to spend much time on it. It was really pointless.

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No wonder our country is in such a mess.

All contribute to her average 1-Star rating on Amazon. Apparently Nancy’s approval ratings aren’t the only thing in the dumper nowadays.

Apparently it’s dirty politics and negative attacks when John McCain makes the comparison, but a light-hearted, acceptable moment when Obama does the same thing.

John McCain is facing criticism from many Democrats for likening Barack Obama to Paris Hilton, but the Illinois senator made the same comparison himself at a dinner in 2004.

“Andy Warhol said we all get our 15 minutes of fame,” then Senator-elect Obama said at a Gridiron dinner in December, 2004. “I’ve already had an hour and a half. I mean, I’m so overexposed, I’m making Paris Hilton look like a recluse.”

Obama’s supporters respond in CNN’s comment section with the usual restraint and reasonability.

BACK OFF YOU RIGHT WINGED REPUBLICANS!

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This is proof of the fact that the McCain campaign is losing it! what a bunch of whiners the whole lot has become!

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Karl Rove at best!

Oy.

Does he really think people are that stupid? I mean, really?

Yesterday in Missouri, Obama predicted McCain and the GOP would use racially-tinged attacks against him.

“What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama said. “You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

An Obama spokesman denied that the line about “dollar bills” was related to the Democrat’s race.

If it wasn’t about his race, what the hell was “look like all of the other presidents” about? As far as I can recall, this country has yet to have a long string of identical twins in office. He’s talking about the big ears, isn’t he? Yup. Republicans are attempting to scare you away from voting for him because he’s got big ears.

Seriously, though, here’s the full quote of what the spokesman said:

“What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn’t get here after spending decades in Washington,” Gibbs said Thursday. “There is nothing more to this than the fact that he was describing that he was new to the political scene. He was referring to the fact that he didn’t come into the race with the history of others. It is not about race.”

He’s so full of crap I can smell him from here. What does Obama not spending decades in Washington have to do with “look(s)”? And how many decades did George Washington spend in D.C.? Abraham Lincoln? Thomas Jefferson?

Last month he was more specific when he played the race card:

“They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”

And now they’re denying that his recent remark has nothing to do with his race? Seriously?

To his credit, it’s being featured on Drudge right now. While the fact that 11 Americans gave the ultimate sacrifice is still hard, July had the lowest death toll for American troops since the invasion of Iraq.

Eleven US soldiers were killed in Iraq in July, the lowest monthly toll since the 2003 invasion, according Pentagon figures, highlighting what US commanders say is a marked drop in overall violence.

The number compares with the deadliest month of November 2004 when 137 American troops were slain, an independent toll by icasualties.org showed. The previous low was in May this year when 19 soldiers were killed.

Iraqi civilian deaths are also down drastically, falling to their lowest level since April 2005. General David Petraeus told an interviewer that “overall violence was falling to almost “normal” levels”.

When did this downward trend begin? AFP readily admits that it started when the troop surge did. You know, the same surge that Democrats claimed either wouldn’t help or would make the situation worse.

Considering it’s coming from Matt Drudge, I’m not quite sure if he’s parodying Obamamania or this is just a fantasy he’s had laying around.

More bad news for Barack Obama this morning, as a new poll shows his lead in major swing states continuing to diminish. According to the Quinnipiac University poll released today:

• Florida: Obama leads McCain 46-44; Down from 47-43 on June 18th
• Ohio: Obama leads McCain 46-44; Down from 48-42 on June 18th
• Pennsylvania: Obama leads McCain 49-42;  Down from 52-40

What happened? One explanation could be the new attention payed to offshore drilling. Voters in each state were shown to support the expansion by a 29-30% margin. Barack Obama hasn’t exactly been quiet about his opposition to it, while McCain staunchly supports it.

“While Obama was on tour, trying to show voters he could handle world affairs, voters were home trying to fill their gas tanks,” Brown added.

“The same voters who give President George W. Bush job approval ratings that are more than 2 – 1 negative want Congress to go along with the President on offshore oil drilling…”

Iraq still remains an important issue, but only in Florida does it outweigh energy/economic policy. While voters still believe it was a mistake to go in in the first place, voters in all states agree with McCain’s plan to keep troops in the country until it’s stabilized.

But by margins of 10 to 20 percentage points, voters in each state support McCain’s plan to keep U.S. troops in Iraq with no fixed date for full withdrawal, rather than Obama’s plan to set a fixed timetable for withdrawal.

All of this while President Bush maintains approval ratings of 28% in Florida, 30% in Ohio, and 24% in Pennsylvania. Apparently voters don’t believe McCain is a third Bush term as much as Barack Obama and the far left do.

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The bad news for Obama doesn’t stop there, however. Over at Rasmussen Reports, we find that 30% of Conservative Democrats intend to vote for John McCain.

Thirty percent (30%) of conservative Democrats say they’re voting for John McCain. Rasmussen Reports data also shows the Republican hopeful picking up support from 19% of White Democrats and 15% of Democrats over the age of 50.

Among liberal Democrats, 23% have a favorable opinion of McCain. 90% say the same about Barack Obama.

One heck of a recession we’ve got here, huh? In fact, consumer spending and personal income are also up.

Gross Domestic Product or GDP grew at a 1.9 percent annual rate, up from a revised 0.9 percent rate in the first quarter that previously was reported as 1 percent…

That followed a 0.2 percent contraction in GDP during the final quarter of 2007 and avoided pushing the economy into back-to-back declines that would have met a popular definition of recession. Businesses reduced inventories at the sharpest rate since the end of 2001 in a sign they anticipate restrained growth ahead.

Consumer spending that fuels two-thirds of U.S. economic activity grew at a 1.5 percent annual rate in the second quarter, up from 0.9 percent in the first quarter and 1 percent in the fourth quarter last year.

Recession! Via HAH.