Let's take a short break from the hyper-partisanship. Here's Barack Obama and John McCain roasting each other, gently and kindly, at last night's Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner.

Barack Obama:

John McCain:

(h/t NCDemAmy)

This was the moment that John McCain sealed not just his fate, but the fate of the Republican Party this year. There will be no comeback in 2008:

John McCain cedes the "health" of the mother to the Democratic Party, thus alienating women voters. But I see something deeper in this clip. It cedes "health" altogether. It admits that to the Republican party, the healthcare crisis is not of concern to them. "Health" is, to McCain and the Republican Party, so unimportant that it gets put into finger quotes. John McCain has just defined "health" as nothing but a rhetorical talking point.

In my continuing coverage of Republican racism and anti-Semitism, one of the stupidest Republican memes was "gee, uh, duh, isn't Obama a Moooslim?"

My first reaction was "so what if he was?" Why couldn't a Muslim be an American leader? But that is beside the point. There has never, ever been the slightest evidence that Obama was Muslim.

Those who listen to this lie and believe it are, quite honestly, abyssmally stupid or amazingly gullible.

But who originated the "duh...Obama is a Moooslim" lie?

Seems an unstable anti-Semite, named Andy Martin, started it. And Fox News let this unstable anti-Semite assert lies without questioning him...yet another connection between Fox News, lies, and anti-Semitism.

There is a protest today in front of The Waldorf-Astoria brought to you by PinocchioPolitics.org.

They are staging a "Lie-in" at 10:30am at the Waldorf, where they are trying their best to have Sarah Palin meet with foreign leaders behind closed doors and without any media scrutiny.

I actually have to go up that way today. I'll drop by around 11am and see what's going on.

More later.

Here's the infamous, ghoulish video that ran during the Republican National Convention. This is republicans ripping the remains of the victims of the 9/11 terror attacks from their graves and rubbing them in the faces of the electorate in their desperate plea to stay relevant.

Dead Americans, dead New Yorkers, used, dishonored, exploited. It's shameful. Republicans think they died to give them dramatic footage.

They weren't murdered in their thousands, on the watch of a republican administration, to be a tool of sleazy republican operatives. On 9/11 itself, it didn't matter what your party affiliation was; not to the hijackers of the planes, not to the victims in the towers, not to the police officers and firemen who died trying to save lives.

It shouldn't matter now. So what to do?

The best way to stop republicans from dishonoring our dead is to hold them to account. Call them, and demand that they repudiate their nominee's sickeningly cynical exploitation of dead Americans. Contact info for New York City republican Senators and Majority Leader Skelos is over the fold.

And here you have it, via email from the DNC, George Bush's ringing endorsement of John McSame.

It's like getting endorsed by herpes.

Ben has a new McCan't campaign spot up, and it's hilarious.

Senator Charles Schumer makes a brief cameo appearance, with the phrases 'Ready to Tax' and 'Ready to Spend' flashing on the screen along with his headshot.

Of course, during the Bush administration, federal spending increased more than under Carter and Clinton, as per - drumroll, please - the Cato Institute.

I'm actually sitting in Barry Goldwater Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, and it's really fun to be writing about John McCain from his own home turf. Or the turf that some of his homes rest on, apparently.

This morning, John McCain announced the choice of his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Trapper John calls the choice Worse Than Quayle. The New York Times says Old Man John is "shaking up the political world at a time when his campaign has been trying to attract women."

What's truly remarkable here is just how much Hillary Clinton continues to form the political dialogue of the Presidential race. From the lavish praise heaped on her in Obama's aceptance speech yesterday to now providing the obvious rationale for John McCain's selection of a potential chief executive - Booman notes John McCain's age and health issues, impolite, but necessary - Hillary Clinton is still driving the narrative of this campaign.

No, that's not a spoof. It's the last audio snippet in John McCain's newest, presumably web-only, television spot.

There's a lot to be embarrassed about if you're a republican, but John McCain seems intent on making that pie higher.

You can't make this stuff up. John McCain to the San Francisco Chronicle on February 18th, 2000 (via Daily Kos):

Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to apologize yesterday for his use of a racial slur to condemn the North Vietnamese prison guards who tortured and held him captive during the war.

"I hate the gooks," McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. "I will hate them as long as I live."
"
McCain, a former Navy pilot who spent five years in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp, was questioned about the language because of a story last month in the Nation magazine reporting his continued use of the slur.

Because what this country really needs is an avowed, unrepentant racist as President.

Update: A phone statement from Councilman John C. Liu:

"This was highly offensive in 2000, and it's offensive today. For a would-be President, the statute of limitations for a slur like this is longer than eight years. I think everyone can understand how a POW comes to hate his captors. Hopefully, however, he's come to understand that "gooks" is one of the most offensive terms anyone can possibly use about Asian-Americans."