...you'll love the Brand New Man.

This is Democratic Congressional candidate Jack Davis' idea of a campaign ad, apparently.

Big John Cornyn must be breathing a sigh of relief that his campaign is no longer responsible for the worst campaign song of all time.

And the campaign of Davis' Democratic primary opponent Jon Powers must be quite relieved that this is how Davis chooses to spend his vast personal fortune.

Assuming they can stop laughing.

Race tracker wiki: NY-26

Ever since Nouri al-Maliki endorsed Barack Obama's plan to withdraw most US troops from Iraq within about 16 months, John McCain has been agitatedly trying to find a cloud in the silver lining. He's opted to belittle Obama's judgment for opposing the "surge" - implying somehow that the US has won the sectarian civil war by placing more troops in the middle of it. What we won is left unclear, but whatever it is McCain is keen to take the credit.

Speaking to Hispanic vets on Friday in Colorado, however, McCain moved beyond mere vaunting to full mouth frothing. In situations like these the temptation is always to rebut McCain point by point. But sometimes you have to resist the easy route. Sometimes, tactically, it's more effective to force yourself just to stand back and report the Berserk as you happen to find it.

Without further ado, then, McCain's insights on the Iraqi civil war:

McCain, a Vietnam War veteran, said if Obama had succeeded in his effort to prevent last year's boost in U.S. troop levels in Iraq, American forces would have had to retreat under fire, the Iraqi army would have collapsed and al Qaeda would have found a safe haven..."We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right," the Arizona senator added

Because drawing fire is more hopeful than evading it.

"We face another choice today. We can withdraw when we have secured the peace and the gains we have sacrificed so much to achieve are safe," McCain said. "Or we can follow Senator Obama's unconditional withdrawal and risk losing the peace even if that results in spreading violence and a third Iraq war."

'Unconditional withdrawal' - a cute turn of phrase. Makes you wonder whether McCain would prefer, say, negotiated violence.

"Senator Obama and I ... faced a decision, which amounted to a real-time test for a future commander in chief," McCain said. "America passed that test. I believe my judgment passed that test. And I believe that Senator Obama's failed."

McCain doesn't grade on a curve, America! And just look how Obama even failed at his attempts to fail.

"Senator Obama made a different choice. He not only opposed the new strategy, but actually tried to prevent us from implementing it. He didn't just advocate defeat, he tried to legislate it. When his efforts failed, he continued to predict the failure of our troops."

Boy is he lousy at predicting things.

"As our soldiers and Marines prepared to move into Baghdad neighborhoods and ... villages, Senator Obama predicted that their efforts would make the sectarian violence in Iraq worse - worse! - not better."...

In retrospect, given the opportunity to choose between failure and success, he chose failure," McCain said. "I cannot conceive of a commander in chief making that choice."

Is John McCain trying to convince us that he's the smart one, or the angry one?

CO-Sen: Several polls out over the past few days. Rasmussen showed the race at 47% for Udall, 44% for Republican Bob Schaffer yesterday.

Previously, four polls in a row had showed a 9-10 point lead for Udall.

Now, two new polls are out with contrasting results. From Frederick:

And from Quinnipiac:

Could be statistical noise, or it could be the race closing a little. Conventional wisdom (and most other wisdom) rates the race "Leans Democratic, and that seems accurate. But this race is not money in the bank, and never has been.

ME-Sen: Here is a Maine poll, showing Republican incumbent Susan Collins with a substantial lead over Democrat Tom Allen. From Critical Insights:

Swing State Project notes that when the sample is limited to likely voters, there is only a 10-point margin for Collins, 50% to 40%.

This race has leaned towards Collins from the get-go, and Allen has been slowly closing the margin throughout the campaign. It's certainly not unreasonable to think he can catch her by election day, but this is still Collins' race to lose.

AK-Sen: Ted Stevens doesn't like us. And he doesn't like ActBlue. Here's a recent Stevens fundraising email attacking Democrat Mark Begich:

Instead of tending to his job in Anchorage, Begich was recently in Austin, Texas, at a "Netroots Nation" convention where he spent two days trying to garner support from bloggers with extreme left agendas. Just last quarter, the mayor raised more than $37,000 from just one liberal Lower 48 Internet campaign known as ActBlue (the 1,500 out-of-state donors he gained through this site amounted to a third of the "grassroots" support he received last quarter).

Fortunately the Begich campaign has a stinging response:

You wrote in your fundraising email:

   "Just last quarter, the mayor raised more than $37,000 from just one liberal Lower 48 Internet campaign known as ActBlue"

ActBlue.com is a website, not a "Lower 48 Internet campaign". I hate to break it to you, but Alaskans use ActBlue, too. We're proud of our Alaskan donors who used ActBlue to support Mark's campaign.

What sort of website is ActBlue? Well, it is a website that allows Americans to make donations to candidates they support. That's it. It processes credit cards. So when you imply that we raised money "from" ActBlue, it's kind of like attacking us for raising money "from" PayPal or American Express or personal checks.

And it sure would be silly for you to criticize us for taking money "from" American Express (I'll spill the beans -- some of our donors gave with their AmEx cards).

The campaign also notes that Begich received far more donations in Q2 from Alaskans alone than Stevens received in toto. But why bother with facts if you're a Republican?

NH-Sen: UNH's polling showed this race tightening, with Democrat Jeanne Shaheen up only four points on Republican incumbent John Sununu.

Now, Rasmussen has a similar result:

Sununu had been compared to this cycle's Rick Santorum, as he had consistently failed to close what had been solid double-digit polling leads for Shaheen. Now, it seems as though the race may well be tightening, at last. Shaheen still has an edge, but these polling results seem more in line with what one might have expected from this race.

OK-Sen: Orange to Blue candidate Andrew Rice diaried at Daily Kos today. Rice is trying to raise money to keep his latest ad on the air, so feel free to head over to the Orange to Blue page and help him out.

House Races:

MI-09: Democrat Gary Peters' campaign brought in an impressive $570,000 last quarter, and now sits on $1.1 million cash on hand.

It should be a tough fight against Republican incumbent Joe Knollenberg, who brought in even more - $713K, and now has $1.8 million. Still, it's good to know that Peters will have the financial resources to take this race.

OH-02: Not a good sign for Republican party unity in this district; even they don't like Jean Schmidt. From her former primary opponent, Tom Brinkman:

Schmidt is now enmeshed in a bitter feud with another Ohio Republican, who's so furious with her that he called her a "lying b----" and a "despicable person" who would "sell her mother" -- and expressly told us we could print that!

The issue? GOP State Rep. Tom Brinkman, who founded an anti-tax government watchdog group, is charging that Schmidt's House staffers frequently work on her campaign for re-election.

"You can quote me anywhere you like. Jean Schmidt is a lying b----," said Brinkman, who lost his primary challenge to her this year by a 58%-40% margin, in an interview with Election Central. "She would sell her mother to promote herself. She is a despicable person. She will go any length possible to win, to get what she wants."

Oh, dear. That kind of rancor cannot be good for Republicans in the district.

IA-04: Republicans are scared all over. From a press release from Democrat Becky Greenwald's campaign, it appears that Karl Rove himself is coming to Iowa to fundraise for Republican incumbent Tom Latham.

"When Tom Latham is in the district, he blames partisan bickering for the problems in Washington. But the next thing we know, he brings Mr. Republican Party himself, Karl Rove, in for a fundraiser," said Greenwald Communications Director Erin Seidler. "Plus, Latham has voted with the Republican Party 92% of the time. It will be hard for Latham to run from his loyalties to the Bush administration and Republican Party."

Latham is hardly on the top lists of vulnerable Republican incumbents, although his district is quite winnable (D+0.4). The fact that Rove is actually going out to fundraise for Latham seems to indicate that Latham is some part of a Republican firewall. One which it would be delicious to break.

On the web:
Orange to Blue ActBlue page

Lots of gnashing of GOP teeth in the Senate today:

The Senate failed to advance legislation targeting oil speculators after Republicans and Democrats remained at an impasse on adding an expansion of offshore drilling to the bill.

The chamber voted 50-43 — well short of the 60 votes needed to limit debate on the measure that would have addressed manipulation in the oil futures markets, primarily by adding more regulators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Democrats had said the bill was the logical first step towards solving high gas prices since speculation was a large part of the problem.

GOP senators wanted to add language that would expand offshore drilling and pledged to block floor action unless they received a chance to amend the Democratic bill. Democratic leaders said they wanted to limit amendments for practical reasons — the chamber expects to adjourn in August — and because Republicans’ real goal was to protect oil companies.

In other words, the motion to invoke cloture was defeated. There were 43 Senators voting to continue a filibuster of the bill, including James Inhofe (R-Exxon).

He votes to continue a filibuster... and then he puts out this unbelievable mountain of craptacular spin, accusing the Democrats of trying to cut off debate on gas price relief:

Democrats [sic] Attempt to Shut Down Energy Debate Fails

"Today's vote shows that Republicans are willing to stand up and fight to ensure the Senate stays focused on providing solutions to rising energy prices," Senator Inhofe said. "When Democrats allow the Senate to reopen for business on the issue of bringing down energy costs, I am ready to put forward amendments to encourage the development of natural gas vehicles, prolong the feasibility and production from our marginal oil and gas wells, address the market distorting subsidization of fuels in other countries, and repeal federal prohibitions on importing fuels from the Canadian oil sands.

"Republicans in the Senate are serious about providing solutions to rising energy costs. I will continue to stand with my Republican colleagues to ensure the Senate holds a fair and open debate on the need to increase energy supplies.  I believe a large majority of Senators will vote in favor of amendments to open responsible access to America's plentiful energy resources.  Democratic leadership knows this as well.  That's why they're blocking a full and open debate."

Wow.  Just... wow.

(From the diaries -- Susan)

Conservative columnists have been trying to make a big deal about a paper that Barack Obama wrote when he was a student at Columbia University - they seem to think the fact that no one has a copy is a sign that Obama has something to hide. MSNBC's First Read has the whole story.

Here's the reality - which I happen to know as a Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University:

1. Colleges and universities do not usually keep or formally retain copies of undergraduate papers. If we do not return them to students at the end of the term, we might hold on to them in our offices for a few months into the next term, in case a student wants to come by and pick up the paper. That's it - they're gone after that (even in my messy office).

2. PhD dissertations and sometimes Masters theses are indeed kept on file both by universities, and by central repositories (such as University Microfilms - UMI). But Obama's paper was neither a doctoral dissertation or a masters thesis.

3. In fact, it would be a violation of a student's privacy for a professor to provide any journalist with a copy of a student paper.

4. Students are of course free to do with their papers as they please. But how many of you still have copies of your college papers? I don't (though for some reason I did keep a high school paper I wrote about Charles De Gaulle way back when. Go figure.) But there's no reason to think that Obama kept any of his college papers.

Hey, this whole subject is a good topic for a paper - maybe I'll assign it to my students at Fordham this Fall.

Coming Up on Sunday Kos ...

• brownsox will share his thoughts on Netroots Nation, as a first-time attendee.
• Netroots Nation has MissLaura thinking about community.
• Devilstower looks at at the mythology of energy in "Thoroughly Modern Mastodons."
• BarbinMD will look at John McCain's idea of running a respectful campaign.
• SusanG will review Barbara Ehrenreich's This Land Is Their Land.
• DarkSyde will review Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming by two leading lights in climate research, Michael Mann and Lee R. Kump.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 7/22-23. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (No trend lines)

Obama is getting only 15 percent of the white vote. Kerry, for his part, got 22 percent of the white vote in 2004. This poll closely tracks black turnout with the 2004 election (31 percent versus 30 percent in 2004), and we can assume those numbers will be greatly boosted thanks to Obama's presence in the field. However, those white numbers make it extremely difficult to make a go of this state. Perhaps that's why the Obama campaign talks more about Georgia than they do about South Carolina.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

I am a citizen of the United States. I am a citizen of the world. And I am a citizen of late night snark:

"Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is calling the Bush presidency a total failure. Total failure. I don't know, I think he's done okay. I think he's done okay if you don't count Iraq, the economy, the environment, Afghanistan, the mortgage crisis. I think he's done all right... The deficit. Gas prices. Hurricane Katrina. Illegal wire tapping..."
---David Letterman
-
"In Berlin, Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of over 200,000 people. In fact, he was so eager to please the Germans, he promised to name David Hasselhoff as his vice president.

Have you heard John McCain’s new campaign slogan? 'Hey guys, I’m over here!'"
---Jay Leno
-
"So far the only gaffe of the trip belongs to Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki. When speaking to a German magazine, Maliki said that he supported Obama's plan to draw down troops over the next 16 months. Saying, quote, 'we think it would be the right time-frame for a withdrawal.' God, Maliki is so naive about Iraq. One presumably stern phone call later, U.S. Centcom released a statement from the Iraqis claiming that al-Maliki had been mistranslated by the German magazine. Because, as you know, there is one thing Germans are known for: sloppiness and lack of precision"
---Jon Stewart
-
"Folks, Senator Barack Obama left his church in May, but questions still linger about his religion. According to a new Pew Research Poll, since March, the number of people who believe Obama is Muslim has increased by two percent. And strangely, the number who believe he's Jewish has gone from none to one percent. Wow, you play Tevye in one Congressional production of Fiddler on the Roof and you're typecast for life."
---Stephen Colbert
-
""The economy here in the United States is in very bad shape, but President Bush isn't sweating it. Partly because he believes the bad news is being exaggerated and partly because he has the intellect of a Golden Retriever."
---Jimmy Kimmel

And our favorite:

"Ok, now [Wes Clark] shows up on Saturday at the most hateful, there is not---and I’m including the Nazis and the Klan in here---there is not a more hateful group in the country than these Daily Kos people."
---O'Reilly the Clown

Tag, you're it. Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Having created their "drill more" catchphrase, dictating that the only solution is to continue beating our heads against the same wall that's already given us an economic and national security concussion, Republicans used a technical maneuver to defeat the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  Democrats had a plan to release 10% of the reserve's light sweet crude over a six month period, helping moderate prices on the market.  Republicans moved quickly to protect their talking point, and got what they wanted -- higher prices.

Oil prices reversed course and moved higher Thursday in U.S. trading after a move in Congress to tap into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve was defeated. ... At a press conference before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, pointed out that previous releases from the oil reserve had knocked down prices, sometimes significantly: 33 percent in 1991, 19 percent in 2000 and nine percent in 2005.

Is releasing oil from the strategic reserve a long term solution?  No, but unlike anything the Republicans have suggested, it actually would help relieve prices at the pump today and give the market a chance to moderate.  And there's a record amount of oil in the SPR, so a minor adjustment in the reserve's composition (the plan required that this oil be replaced by heavier crude) would represent no problem for US security.

Of course, selling that 10% would both reduce ExxonMobil's bottom line and damage the GOP talking point.  And their leverage was already being eroded by the damage they've done to the economy, which was putting demand in doubt.  That had to be stopped!

Republican plan from now until November?  Continue talking about drilling that won't help prices so they can avoid talking about anything that will.  Oil prices were edging down on more economic worries on Friday.  That has to have them worried.

With C-SPAN still on in the background after the non-impeachment hearing, I just heard Barack Obama say in response to a question about his schedule and his short stay in France:

As far as me spending time in Paris? I don't know anybody who doesn't want to spend more time in Paris.

So, how long before he's attacked as "elitist?"

Every once in a while, it's important to go back to basics. Now, this is a lesson the talking heads need to learn, but it is helpful for us to learn the same things.

1. Polls are a snapshot in time.

They are not predictive. They are not definitive. They are, however, representative. To insist the data shows a lead today is not to insist that the lead translates into a win tomorrow, next week or next month.

2. Polls depend on good technique, good interpretation, and a representative sample

The art of the pollster is in getting this part right. It's not easy, and some pollsters have a track record of doing this better than others. Party ID is a variable, for example, so decisions about weighting affect the results of the poll. However, huge fluctuations generally raise red flags, particularly when no event to match the fluctuations occurs. Gary Langer (ABC):

"Trend is your friend," pollsters say. Look at repeat polls from the same organization to gauge movement over time. And, again, look beyond the horse race to other measures: the levels of commitment and enthusiasm from a candidate's supporters, the groups that are more or less fired up, the factors motivating their support. It takes willpower to trudge off to an hours-long Iowa caucus on a dark winter's night. Who's inspired? How? Why?

3. With some exceptions (Field in CA, Selzer in IA), state polling is much more difficult and less reliable than national polling.

It's actually more important since we elect via the electoral college, but it's harder to do. But there is nothing more infuriating than having a blowhard like Chris Matthews insist, as he did today that this election is a dead heat. Take a look at the electoral estimate from fivethirtyeight.com to the right. Or take a look at the electoral estimate from pollster.com. Does that look like a dead heat? See the tracking poll data below for more.

4. Understand the difference between adults, registered voters and likely voters.

It is difficult to know, in a change election, who the likely voters are. Right now, LV based on past elections favor older voters, who skew McCain. Before the convention, it's best to rely on registered voters, but always make sure you are comparing apples to apples.

5. Get help.

Compared to 2004, there are many more polling resources available on the internet. Invaluable sites like pollster.com, www.fivethirtyeight.com, and www.realclearpolitics.com as well as Mark Blumenthal's Thursday series in National Journal should be consulted regularly (and there are others who specialize in electoral college estimaters). Other terrific resources include News University's online course in how to read polls (partnered with American Association for Public Opinion Research) and 20 Questions A Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results from the National Council on Public Polls.

There are also pollsters who write regular columns about their findings, and the art of polling. Not to be exclusionary, but Scott Rasmussen, Frank Newport at Gallup, Kathy Francovic at CBS and Gary Langer at ABC come to mind as frequewnt posters.

Some sites, like pollster.com or fivethirtyeight.com (personal favorites) allow comments. Read the comments. Ask questions. It's the best way to learn.

6. Media polls drive narrative, and often the narrative excludes other polls.

Look at them all. If the NBC/WSJ poll has Obama up by 6, and the average of polls has him up by three, then a new Gallup tracker that is tied doesn't 'change everything' - nor does the WSJ/NBC poll, for that matter.

None of that predicts who wins in the fall, but data will enhance your commentary. And the use of data would be a useful habit to get into. But don't be assuming a Bradley effect exists, for example, when that may or may not be the case.

Remember, when  polls don't fit the news or the feel you have for the campaign, something is off. It may be the polls, and it may be you.

But if you missed what's going on, and the polls pick up something happening, don't blame the polls and don't blame the pollster. Just use them to expand your world view. And, of course, wait for the next poll to tell you if it's a trend. And, for God's sake, don't compare a 14 point lead in Zogby (internet) to a new Q-poll that shows a 4 point lead in MI and claim this is a remarkable change. The previous month's Q-poll had Obama up by 6, so that's just noise. And as per First Read:

Regarding those Quinnipiac polls, don’t miss this: "Clay Richards, the assistant director of the Connecticut university's polling institute, said the Obama slide [in Minnesota] probably isn't as dramatic as the raw numbers reflect. Still, Richards said McCain is clearly stronger in the state than he was in June."

Rasmussen, meanwhile, says Obama got a bounce from the overseas trip, and the speech was well received by voters. Gallup today has Obama up by 6.

Previous election year polling shows that the conventions have a high (but not 100%) probability of shaking up the race. The impact of events prior to the conventions is certainly more difficult to pin down. As noted, the structure of the race this year appears to have snapped into place in early June after Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race for the Democratic Party's nomination, and it simply has not changed much since. Whether or not it will change at this juncture remains to be seen.

Take deep breaths and stop hyperventilating over those, too. And go back and review what happened in 1980. Ronald Reagan was the risky unknown. Reagan's move in the polls was very late, but it was decisive.

In the meantime, ask yourselves if the networks are cherry-picking polls they want to use to sell their narrative of a close race (particularly the usually ignored Q-polls) and ignoring the Rasmussen and Gallup polls today. The real picture requires looking at all the polls, not just the ones you like.

• The Swing State Project rolls out its Cash Power Rankings for the House and the Senate. Click through to see how your favorite challengers stack up against incumbents in terms of cash-on-hand.
• As an example of the networks working hard to level the field even if it means tilting right to do it:

  "This has got to be very frustrating for John McCain . . . that he wants to make his points, he wants to get coverage, and yet everything seems to swarm around Barack Obama," Gibson told viewers."

  Cry me a river, Charlie. It’s even more frustrating for voters who don’t want artificial balance so much as unbiased news. - DemFromCT

• As is so often the case, what Digby said.
• I thought John McCain said there were no votes to be had in Europe:

  Barack Obama's campaign has received roughly 10 times more money from declared U.S. donors living in Germany, France and Britain than his Republican rival, reflecting his popularity in Europe as he makes his first tour of the continent as the presumed Democratic nominee.

• Could it be? Is Barack Obama really Amish? See the proof and judge for yourself.
• Words fail...

  There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

• Kate Sheppard at Grist has summarized Van Jones's July 20 speech at Netroots Nation. He spoke of a "Green New Deal" and how Barack Obama will face tough sailing on energy issues against a conservative backlash if he is elected.

  Jones emphasized the pursuit of a new, green economy as the solution to all these problems - weaning the country of fossil fuels, giving consumers other options, creating new jobs, and including historically disadvantaged communities into the conversation.

  "We have to change the terms of the debate," said Jones. "We've been getting our butts whooped by the 'drill, drill, drill' mantra."

  - Meteor Blades

• There's nothing like an election year to get Congress off their ass.

  The Senate cleared the last hurdle Friday to passing a housing rescue aimed at sparing hundreds of thousands of homeowners from foreclosure and bolstering troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

  The 80-13 test vote showed broad support for the election-year package and put it on track to pass the Senate by Saturday. The White House says President Bush will sign it, having earlier dropped a threat to veto it over $3.9 billion in neighborhood grants.

• If you're planning to buy tickets for the Olympics, you may want to avoid the first-day-on-sale rush.
• Did you miss the Netroots Nation Pub Quiz?  Recap and video here.  --Adam B

Earlier I wrote about the startling Pew poll showing Latinos breaking for Obama at a 66-23 clip. Jonathan Singer over at MyDD crunched some state-level numbers, and the results are also startling.

And in case you don't think these numbers matter, think again. Just look at McCain's home state of Arizona -- where McCain has been forced to campaign. If McCain were only able to manage 22 percent of the Hispanic vote in Arizona, just doing the math he'd have to pull in about 63 percent of the White, Asian-American and "other" vote in the state to reach the 50 percent marker (Jon Kyl received about 55 percent of the White vote in his 10-point reelection victory in 2006, for reference).

Bush managed 59 percent of the Arizona white vote in 2004, per the exit polls. He also got 43 percent of the Latino vote in the state.

This is just one state, Arizona, a state that McCain should win. Now extrapolate these numbers across the country, particularly in other states with large Hispanic voting blocs, and you see McCain's immense problem. If the 22 percent mark were to hold in a state like Texas, and Obama were to receive a respectable though not shockingly high 90 percent of the African-American vote, McCain would need to pull in close to 60 percent of the remaining vote to earn a majority of the overall vote.

Go down the list of swing states with large Hispanic populations -- Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada, and you see that right off the bat, McCain faces some serious structural disadvantages in losing this vote by so much. Throw in states with large African American plus Latino populations -- Georgia (59 percent non-Hispanic white), North Carolina (68 percent non-Hispanic white), Virginia (68 percent non-Hispanic white), and Mississippi (59 percent non-Hispanic white) -- and suddenly you have a whole swath of states, with a great deal of electoral votes, in reach by Democrats because of McCain's inability to garner the brown vote.

And that's just this year. Long term, of course, the situation is even more dire for the Republican Party.

Used to be an ironclad rule of American politics that partisanship ended at our shores. Even in the depths of the Cold War, few of Washington's commie-baiters dared to trash the political opposition while abroad. But for Republicans, 9/11 changed everything. This year we're getting used to seeing Bush, McCain & Co. taking partisan pot shots at Barack Obama before foreign audiences. Addressing the Israeli Knesset in May, Bush likened Obama's policies to Nazi appeasement. Several weeks ago McCain used a trip to Colombia and Mexico as an occasion to attack Obama's trade policies. All that came immediately after McCain had promised to forego partisan sniping while abroad; classic McCain double-talk, that.

Now real bottom-feeding surrogates are getting into the act. Yesterday while Obama visited Germany the country's newspaper of record, Die Welt, published a crude op-ed by GOP Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (MI) deriding him. It caused enough of a stir that the AP report quoted it. McCotter hasn't had the guts to put the English version up on his Congressional website, but he did post it at The Hill blog and Redstate. Here's a taste of what a Republican member of Congress thinks is the appropriate use of partisanship overseas.

Senator Obama has yet to show any understanding of the fundamental truths that have linked the Transatlantic Alliance through time and tribulations...

Maybe, while listening to JFK’s "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" speech on his I-pod beneath his safety helmet as he pedals past the Reichstag, Senator Obama will recall how, throughout the Cold War, the leaders of the Transatlantic Alliance resisted the siren song of popular pragmatism...

It explains why so many Americans, Europeans, other free peoples, and those yet to be free, are so dismayed at the prospect of Senator Obama’s potential elevation to the Leader of the Free World during a trans-national war against terrorism.

Thus in Berlin no one knows which Obama will show. Will it be the ideological left-wing Democratic primary candidate who vowed to "end" the war rather than win it, or the Democratic nominee who dismisses the progressing coalition victory as a "distraction"? Will it be the American populist who has told supporters in the United States that he will demand more from our allies in Europe and get it, or the liberal internationalist hell-bent on being liked in Europe’s salons?

You get the idea: a semi-coherent rant dripping with sarcasm, the kind favored by wingnuts. Bad enough that Americans should be exposed to this offal. But why do Republicans believe that foreigners need to be drafted as extras into their partisan spectacles?

Yesterday, during a campaign stop at "Schmidt's Sausage Haus und Restaurant", John McCain criticized Barack Obama's speech before 200,000 people at Berlin's Victory Column, saying:

Well, I’d love to give a speech in Germany, a political speech, or a speech that maybe the German people would be interested in, but I’d much prefer to do it as president of the United States rather than as a candidate for the office of presidency.

Does John McCain have a valid point? Or, could it be argued that while there aren't any electoral votes to be won in Germany, we do have many shared interests that need our attention? And given that Germany is a friend to our country, wasn't Obama's speech both necessary and appropriate?

Let's check with noted foreign policy expert, Senator John McCain:

There aren't any electoral votes to be won up here in the middle of a presidential election. But there are many shared interests that require our attention today, and many Canadians here I am proud to call friends.

Uh oh. Does that mean John McCain isn't proud to call Germans his friends? Or was he just having some whine with his sausage?

Back in February, the Republicans knew they had a losing issue on their hands.

Even some Republicans admit that it may be hard to sell voters on the idea of continuing to provide tax incentives to oil companies earning record profits.

"It's not as sexy and easy a sound bite," said Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican who opposes the measure

What to do?  What to do?  After years of pushing multi-billion dollars tax breaks into the overflowing coffers of oil companies -- all in the name of encouraging exploration -- the Republicans had only managed to fatten company bottom lines while emptying American pockets.  

But wait!  They could just turn it around.  Blame Democrats for blocking the very thing the GOP had been funding year, after year, after year and pretend it never happened.  "Find more, use Less" became the new GOP talking point.  And boy, this idea's a three'fer.  You get to blame Democrats for a problem you caused, keep the tax breaks you've been feeding your oil buddies, and tear down the restrictions around the last protected places.  If that's not making barrels of light sweet Texas lemonade out of sour lemons, I don't know what it.

Best of all, the American people are behind it.  The GOP drank the shake and stuck Democrats with the tab.

Only... maybe not.  A poll conducted by the Wilderness Society delivers very different results from the Faster, Democrats! Drill! Drill! line that's being pushed on the 24 hour talking head-a-thons.

The American public is not buying the arguments of President Bush and the oil industry that new drilling will lower gas prices, a new poll finds. Despite a well-funded campaign to convince lawmakers to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and the offshore waters of the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling, and to allow new oil shale projects in the Rocky Mountain West, a majority (54%) of Americans do not see more drilling as a solution to high gas prices.

George Bush, John McCain, and the Republican Chorus think that the way to turn attention from their disastrous oil policy is repeat the same thing, only more so.  But somehow, people aren't buying.

A significant majority of Americans (63%) said that the President's proposal to open up public lands to oil and gas drilling is "more likely to enrich oil companies than to lower gas prices for American consumers." A substantial majority (66%) said that "the small percentage of public lands still protected from oil drilling should remain off limits because they are valuable natural resources that cannot be replaced."

Republicans think they have a winner here.  But then, when's the last time the Republicans were right about anything?

Oh, and someone might want to talk to George Voinovich about the "use less" part of "find more, use less" motto.

Voinovich: Let's go after every single drop of oil that's available to us.

Uh, yeah.  That seems to sum up the Republican plan for our future.  No doubt after we've burned that last drop, we will use less.