It's official!

LIZ SIDOTI AND NEDRA PICKLER write for HuffPo:

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware late Friday night to be his vice presidential running mate, according to a Democratic official, balancing his ticket with a seasoned congressional veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues.

Biden, 65, has twice sought the White House, and is a Catholic with blue-collar roots, a generally liberal voting record and a reputation as a long-winded orator.

Across more than 30 years in the Senate, he has served at various times not only as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee but also as head of the Judiciary Committee, with its jurisdiction over anti-crime legislation, Supreme Court nominees and Constitutional issues.

In selecting Biden, Obama passed over several other potential running mates, none more prominent than former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, his tenacious rival in dozens of primaries and caucuses.

The official who spoke did so on condition of anonymity, preferring not to pre-empt a text-message announcement the Obama campaign promised for Saturday morning.

Obama's decision leaked to the media several hours before his aides planned to send a text message announcing the running mate, negating a promise that people who turned over their phone numbers would be the first to know who Obama had chosen.

Obama's campaign arranged a debut for the newly minted ticket on Saturday outside the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill.

(Full Article)

Food for thought...

Oh, the hypocrisy...

McCain owns 9 homes (one of which is featured in Architectural Digest), but Obama is "elitist"?

John Aravosis writes in America Blog:

Hey, nothing wrong with being filthy rich. Just stop playing the regular guy, going after your opponent's supposedly elite life, when you and your wife combined are worth $100 million and you can't even remember how many homes you own. Here's a spread John McCain posed for in Architectural Digest with one of his 8, 9, or 10 homes. I particularly like the shot below of the pool, barbeque, and guesthouse area. Most of us have BBQs, not an entire BBQ "area." And we're lucky if our houses have guest rooms, rather than entire additional guest houses. No wonder the media loves going to McCain's barbeques.

(Full article with pictures)

Scary...

Sadr to disarm if U.S. withdraws on timetable

Wisam Mohammed writes for Reuters:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Anti-American Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr would dissolve his Mehdi Army militia if the United States started withdrawing troops according to a set timetable, a spokesman said.

A car bomb in the northern town of Tal Afar killed 18 people and wounded 25, police said, an attack that demonstrated the potential for violence that persists in a country that has become far more peaceful over the past year.

Police said the bomb struck a crowded vegetable market. The town is near the city of Mosul, in an area where U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have launched a crackdown on al Qaeda Sunni Arab militants in recent months.

U.S. forces said 15 people were killed and 50 wounded.

Sadr's decision to link disarming his militia to a U.S. withdrawal comes at a crucial point in talks between Baghdad and Washington over a security pact to provide a legal basis for U.S. troops in Iraq when a U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

U.S. President George W. Bush has refused to set a firm timetable for withdrawing 144,000 American troops from Iraq, but spoke last month of a general "time horizon" for a pullout.

Iraqi negotiators have proposed that U.S. combat troops leave the country by October 2010, although Washington has not yet agreed to it, a senior Iraqi official said on Friday.

If agreed, the timetable would mean the Bush administration effectively adopting a schedule very close to that proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who opposed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

A ceasefire imposed by Sadr on his militia a year ago has been a major factor in a drop in violence to four-year lows. Sadr, whose political movement controls 10 percent of seats in parliament, has long demanded U.S. troops leave Iraq.

"We feel there's a serious intention by the American forces for a withdrawal timetable at the very least," Sadr's spokesman Salah al-Ubaidi said before Friday prayers, when the cleric launched a new cultural wing of his movement.

(Full Article)


Go figure!

TPM presents: McCain's greatest hits...

Obama opens up a can of whoopass on McCain's attacks...

Psst... Pass it on...

I inflated my tires yesterday.
Partly because it is something we all should do, but also partly to spite John McCain.

Then that got me thinking...

What if Obama supporters staged mass inflations as a political statement?

Wouldn't it be funny to see people all over the country lining up at designated gas stations to inflate their tires on a specific time and date?
With signs and banners calling McCain out about conservation being a key component of any energy policy.

What if it was... say... Friday August 15, at 6:00 pm. And it was called "PSI Friday".

And Obama supporters who have always wanted to get involved but couldn't think of a way to do it that suited their schedules thought, "Hey, I can do this."

I can get a bunch of my coworkers and friends together on our way home from work.
We'll make some cheap "Yes We Can" signs with construction paper and magic markers.

Then we'll meet at the Mobil (or whatever) station on Anywhere St. and inflate our tires together.
We could encourage others who see us there to do the same.

We'll be doing a good thing for the environment, the economy, and the campaign.

That would be pretty cool, wouldn't it?


Wouldn't it?

McCain on helping African-Americans: Uhhhh... Ummm...