Personal attacks lead in to debate

Never say die Obama. McCain, Obama question each other's character in latest campaign ads

The presidential contest turned increasingly nasty yesterday as Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain launched new personal attacks ahead of the second presidential debate.

Tonight's format, with direct questions from voters, could benefit McCain, who prefers that setting. But this may be the only built-in advantage for the Republican, who trails in polls amid a darkening economic climate.

Obama says McCain is desperately trying to distract voters from the economy by employing smear tactics. Many Democrats are worried that they might work.

In a radio interview, Obama tried to reassure supporters.

"One of the things we've done during this campaign, we don't throw the first punch but we'll throw the last," he said on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, which claims a largely African-American audience of 8 million.

McCain is attempting to tie Obama to controversial Chicago figures and accusing the Democrat of not being open with voters about his past.

Obama said that "if John McCain wants to have a character debate, then I'm happy to have that debate, because Mr. McCain's record, despite him calling himself a maverick, actually shows that he is continually somebody who relies on lobbyists for big oil and big corporations, and that he makes decisions oftentimes on what these lobbyists tell him to do."

McCain and running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin were resorting to negative campaigning "because they don't want to talk about the economy and the failed policies of the last eight years," Obama said.

A few hours later, Obama opened a new character attack of his own, linking McCain's involvement in the Keating Five scandal of the 1980s to the latest financial crisis. Also yesterday, Obama released a new attack ad against McCain, calling him "erratic" and as "out of touch" as President Bush.

McCain, in turn, took a personal swipe at Obama, using the word "angry" to describe the first African-American on a major party ticket.

At a campaign rally in the battleground state of New Mexico, McCain echoed his own latest negative TV ad, which attempts to exploit voter doubts about Obama. The commercial begins with a narrator asking "Who is Barack Obama?" and calls the Democrat "dishonorable," "dangerous" and "too risky for America."

"Who is the real Barack Obama?" McCain said to supporters in Albuquerque. "My friends, you ask such questions and all you get in response is another angry barrage of insults."

Palin went after the Democrat at a campaign event in Florida, another Republican state in 2004 that is in the tossup category this year.

She said Obama is "someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who targeted his own country." It was the latest volley in an attack that Palin began over the weekend, appearing to question Obama's patriotism by claiming that the Illinois senator pals around with terrorists.

Her references were to Bill Ayers, a University of Illinois professor who was an early Obama supporter in Chicago and has been an occasional social acquaintance and professional associate. Ayers was a founder of the Weather Underground, a violent antiwar group whose bombings caused property damage and killed a police officer in the early 1970s.

Obama has denounced Ayers' radical activities and pointed out that they took place when Obama was 8. Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's state legislative re-election campaign in 2001.

Speaking to reporters in Asheville, N.C., where he was rehearsing for tonight's debate, Obama said McCain and Palin want to "brush aside" economic issues and, instead, "engage in the usual political shenanigans and smear tactics that have come to characterize too many political campaigns, [which] is not what the American people are looking for." He ignored questions from reporters, however, about his campaign's new character counterattack against McCain.

It came in the form of a 13-minute online video that assails McCain for his association with convicted savings-and-loan figure Charles Keating Jr., a major McCain donor who went to prison on fraud charges.

In 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee rebuked McCain for "poor judgment" in meeting with federal regulators on the businessman's behalf, along with four other senators, in what came to be known as the Keating Five scandal.

McCain had received $112,000 in campaign contributions from Keating and his associates. After Keating's activities came under government scrutiny, McCain belatedly repaid more than $13,000 for private trips taken with the Arizona businessman.

McCain later called his meeting with regulators "the wrong thing to do." In an effort to redeem his image, he opened a new phase in his career as a political reformer and became the co-author of a 2002 law that overhauled the federal campaign finance system.

In releasing the video, the Obama campaign called the Keating scandal "eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules." Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, in an e-mail to supporters, called the scandal part of a "pattern of poor judgment by John McCain."

At 9 tonight, the candidates will face questions from an audience of undecided voters at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. The moderator, Tom Brokaw of NBC, has the discretion to include questions submitted online as well.

McCain, who prefers town-hall style events to more traditional rallies, managed to rescue his candidacy during the primaries, at least in part, through his performances at anything-goes sessions with voters. During the summer, Obama rejected a McCain challenge to meet him in a series of 10 town-hall debates around the country.

Palin: Obama “palling around with terrorists”

Palin you just waste your time. Go Obama. It’s “time to take the gloves off,” Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin said on Saturday before launching an attack that sought to link Barack Obama to a violent, 1960s-era radical group.

No ramp-up time was needed for Palin, fresh off last Thursday night’s debate. She hit the ground in Colorado and California, ’spittin’ fire’ as the folksy governor might say.

“Our opponent … is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” she said, referring to a co-founder of the 1960s-era Weather Underground, an organization the FBI labeled as a domestic terrorist group.

The co-founder, Bill Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, served on a board with Obama and held a fundraiser for him in 1995. Obama has condemned the actions of Ayers, and many media organizations have discounted any ongoing relationship between the two.

New York Times

In discussing Obama and Ayers, Palin cited the newspaper that the McCain-Palin campaign regards as a foe.

“I get to bring this up not to pick a fight, but it was there in the New York Times, so we are gonna talk about it,” she said. “Turns out one of Barack’s earliest supporters is a man who, according to the New York Times, and they are hardly ever wrong, was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that quote launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and US Capitol. Wow. These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes.”

Swift-boat

In an email to reporters, Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan condemned Palin’s remarks and included a listing of media outlets that dispute the charge of any meaningful relationship between the two men.

“Governor Palin’s comments, while offensive, are not surprising, given the McCain campaign’s statement this morning that they would be launching Swiftboat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation’s economic ills. In fact, the very newspaper story Governor Palin cited in hurling her shameless attack made clear that Senator Obama is not close to Bill Ayers, much less ‘pals,’ and that he has strongly condemned the despicable acts Ayers committed 40 years ago, when Obama was eight.”

Aggressive

Sevugan was calling attention to a statement McCain strategist Greg Strimple made on Saturday as reported by the Associated Press.

“We are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days,” Strimple said. “We are looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama’s aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans.”

Stop the bleeding

The tougher approach is part of the McCain campaign’s strategy to stabilize poll numbers, which have dropped substantially in the last two weeks. With voters more critical of Republicans for the nation’s financial woes and several shaky performances by Palin in the media interviews, the McCain campaign has some ground to cover.

But after a better than expected performance by Palin in Thursday’s debate (a CNN poll found that 84 percent of Americans thought Palin exceeded expectations), the vice presidential nominee followed the campaign’s playbook.

“This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America,” she said. “We see America as the greatest force for good in this world. If we can be that beacon of light and hope for others who seek freedom and democracy and can live in a country that would allow intolerance in the equal rights that again our military men and women fight for and die for for all of us.”

Erratic

Not wanting to let the McCain campaign change the conversation, Team Obama released a new television ad calling attention to the McCain strategy.

“No wonder his campaign’s announced a plan to turn a page on the financial crisis, distract with dishonest, dishonorable assaults against Barack Obama,” the ad says. “Struggling families can’t turn the page on this economy and we can’t afford another president who’s this out of touch.”

The :30 spot calls McCain “erratic in crisis” and “out of touch on the economy.” Familiar scenes are peppered throughout the spot including a shot of McCain with President George H.W. Bush on a golf cart and a smiling McCain with the current President in the Rose Garden.

Conservatives Viewed Bailout Plan as Last Straw

Bailout now. The seeds of the House Republican revolt over the financial industry bailout were sown in an e-mail message circulated Monday night as internal animosity built quickly over the Bush administration’s request for $700 billion to prevent an economic collapse.

In a message to members of the conservative Republican Study Committee, leaders of the bloc of more than 100 lawmakers solicited ideas, calling for a “free-market alternative to the Treasury Department’s proposal so that, regardless of how individual R.S.C. members vote on final passage, House conservatives have something to be for.”

As the week progressed, it became abundantly clear that one thing conservative Republicans were most certainly not for was the Treasury plan, prompting them to begin searching for an alternative to avoid the perception of strictly being naysayers.

By the end of Friday, at least a portion of their alternative seemed likely to be included in the broader proposal as a sweetener for Republicans, although closed-door negotiations continued into the evening on Friday, and the contours of the final package remained in limbo.

After years of acceding to the White House on a variety of initiatives despite deep misgivings, House Republicans found the administration’s latest proposal to be too much to swallow.

Just as they were trying to reassert themselves as a party of fiscal restraint, President Bush, on his way out the White House door, was asking them to sign off of on a $700 billion bailout built on taxpayer dollars, with very few questions allowed.

“You were being asked to choose between financial meltdown on the one hand and taxpayer bankruptcy and the road to socialism on the other and you were told do it in 24 hours,” Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, head of the conservative group, said. “It was just never going to happen.”

As they dig in against the White House, House Republicans are drawing strength and encouragement from outside critics of the bailout, like former Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Club for Growth, a conservative economic group known for financing primary challenges against apostate Republicans.

Richard Viguerie, the longtime conservative leader, on Friday heralded House Republicans for guarding against “this total cave-in by President Bush and the Senate Republicans.”

The resistance caps two years of frustration among House Republicans after losing the majority in 2006. They believe they have suffered serious mistreatment at the hands of the Democrats and that they have been marginalized in legislative negotiations since they, unlike their Senate counterparts, do not have the procedural weapons to force their way to the negotiating table.

They also complain that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has been too quick to bargain mainly with Democrats, led by the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, and Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, not only on this plan but on the stimulus proposal earlier this year, a subsequent housing bill and other economic measures.

The Monday e-mail message, which led to a statement of principles that many other conservatives embraced, became their manifesto. By Thursday, a legislative alternative was circulating, one centered on federal insurance for mortgage assets combined with tax cuts on investment gains. When Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, put that alternative on the table at the White House on Thursday afternoon, a verbal brawl broke out, scuttling a grand compromise and forcing negotiators back to the table.

With the blessing of Mr. Boehner, the plan was promoted by a troika made up of Mr. Hensarling along with Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, a major fund-raiser and a rising star in the Republican ranks, and Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who is seen as one of the sharpest economic minds in the Republican conference.

The legislative alternative, combined with anger at their vastly reduced power on Capitol Hill and fueled by an internal power struggle , has made House Republicans suddenly relevant again. They have become the chief impediment to speedy approval of a bailout plan, because Democrats say they will not push one through on their own.

It represents a risky approach, raising the prospect that Republicans could be blamed if the bailout collapses and the markets plunge. But they could also claim victory if some of their plan is incorporated into the final product and it generates Republican support — still a large question mark as negotiations continued. Democrats and the Treasury Department both say the Republican plan is flawed and unworkable.

Recognizing the prospect that a failure could be attributed to them, Republicans took pains Friday to make it clear they recognized some government intervention was necessary, just not the sort sought by the White House. And Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 House Republican, was tapped to serve as an official emissary to the negotiations.

Mr. Cantor acknowledged, “People want to see a deal made, no question about it.”

Yet, at the same time, it was becoming quite obvious that some House Republicans no longer saw themselves as an extension of the Bush White House.

For example, in advance of the president’s speech Wednesday, Representative Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan, a member of the Republican leadership, sent out this statement expressing his pique: “Who’s giving the Republican response?”

The revolt surprised many because the Republican leadership of the House and Senate initially appeared to be solidly in Mr. Paulson’s corner. Participants at last week’s meeting between the leadership and administration economic advisers said Mr. Boehner was among those most willing to endorse a drastic intervention, a position he emphasized in a later television interview, calling for speedy action.

But he began rolling back as the negotiations moved ahead and was adamant, after the Thursday announcement of a deal in principle, that there was no deal he had blessed. By Thursday night, he had moved behind the Republican alternative, demanding it get a hearing.

Aides to Mr. Boehner said he was motivated partly by what he saw as a political effort by Democrats to seal a deal before Senator John McCain, the party’s presidential candidate, could have a say in talks when he arrived Thursday.

On Friday, when House Republicans met to review the state of play, Mr. Boehner received a standing ovation at the Republican meeting in tribute to his decision to balk at the plan.

“Republicans say they believe they stand to be rewarded for forcing closer review of the bailout. They say Democrats can always pass the Treasury plan on their own.

“If Democrats believe the only plan that will save the economy is the Paulson plan, they have the power and the moral responsibility to go ahead and pass it,” said Mr. Hensarling. “They don’t have to have Republican votes to get it done.”

EU agency to check health risk of China milk powder

Take action now. Europe's top food safety agency will issue a scientific opinion this week on whether processed items containing milk products coming from China pose a risk to human health, the agency's chief said on Monday.

Speaking on the margins of an informal meeting of EU agriculture ministers in France, the executive director of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said the opinion was likely to be issued on Wednesday or Thursday.

EFSA's opinion had been requested by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm responsible for monitoring food safety and implementation of EU food standards across the bloc's 27 member countries, Catherine Geslain-Laneelle said.

"The Commission would like to know, in case you find melamine in this type of product, would there be a risk for human health," she told Reuters.

"There are so many ingredients that are imported and then used in complex products."

China's top quality regulator has resigned over the scandal, which has found milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, used in making plastics.

Four deaths have been blamed on the toxic milk powder, which causes kidney stones and agonising complications, and a string of Asian countries have banned or recalled Chinese milk products. Thousands of Chinese infants are also sick in hospital after drinking tainted milk formula.

While the European Union does not import milk or milk products from China, Commission experts are keen to make absolutely sure that nothing enters EU markets as an ingredient or as part of a processed product that might pose a health risk.

"There's no question of having milk products from China in the European Union ... but in case they (Chinese) have used milk for the production of biscuits, for example," EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou told reporters.

"My suspicion is that they use melamine to give the impression of high protein in the milk. It's not a coincidence that people are being criminally prosecuted in China," she said.

Melamine is rich in nitrogen, and relatively cheap. Adding it to milk makes watered-down milk's protein level appear higher. Standard quality tests estimate protein levels by measuring nitrogen content.

Blaine's Latest Stunt Endzzzz

The End. No one will ever know for certain how many of the 60 hours David Blaine actually hung suspended upside-down for. Many spectators witnessed him standing upright, being suspended horizontally and basically just slacking off on his mind-exploding magician duties. A collective "yawn" was heard throughout the city as the 60 hours went on, and last night ABC aired the grand finale: the Dive of Death.

Just after 11 p.m., delayed by Bush's speech, Blaine essentially bungee jumped from atop a 44-foot-high platform. The Daily News reports back saying he dropped down and touched "the stage below lightly with his toes before cables pulled him back up. He then hung in the air like a sack of potatoes with a goofy grin on his face, occasionally kicking his legs as though he were running." Boos were in place of "oohs and ahhs" from most watching live, one telling the paper it was "ridiculous," and "everybody was robbed of their time." Take a look in the below video (he jumps at about 2 minutes in and the crowd reactions are worth listening to):



The 2-hour televised program included disclaimers such as "don't try this at home," but really, kids, you can try it--in fact you've probably already bungee jumped anyway. In the end, did Blaine only really succeed at putting in the most hours to ultimately just piss off a bunch of New Yorkers?