Putting An End To Prison Rape

By GottaLaff

Our friend and former co-editor, Cliff Schecter, has written a piece over at Huffington Post. He has graciously given me permission to share excerpts with you.

In his piece, he drops this little bombshell: There is a prison in Texas where 15.7% of the inmates were raped last year, by other inmates, or by those who are supposed to be "guarding" them.

In any country that likes to think of itself as a beacon of freedom, this is outrageous and must be stopped.

"Beacon of freedom". Really? As in racial profiling?

As in Guantanamo Bay?

As in supporting big corporations over sexual assault victims?

This includes over 100,000 men, women and yes -- CHILDREN -- a fact that should be every bit as shocking, embarrassing and downright sickening as those photos from Abu Ghraib.

We're not quite as beacon-y as we should be, now are we?

It is currently Sexual Assault Awareness month, and we are approaching the end of a deadline (June 2010) for the Attorney General to act on recommendations mandated by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), passed in 2003.

That bill was co-sponsored by Teddy Kennedy and Jeff Sessions and signed by George W. Bush. Now that's noteworthy. Democrats and Republicans working together? Who'd a thunk it?

In order to make sure the Obama Administration follows through, weeds out known predators, provides additional monitoring, and increases the overall transparency of our corrections system, you can take action.

Add your public comment.

Make your voice heard.

Speak up.

Make us beaconworthy again.

Go sign the petition.

Only 99 signatures are needed to reach the goal of 7,500. Make it happen between now and May 10.

Thank you.

And thank you, Cliff Schecter, for bringing this to our attention.

VIDEO: Cliff Schecter talks Republican Sexcapades on Young Turks

By GottaLaff

Cliff Schecter is a very talented political analyst, Democratic consultant/strategist, and author (The Real McCain). He's also a good friend... so good, in fact, that he convinced me to co-edit this very blog with him and Paddy a couple of years ago.

He's been busy working on Very Important Things, so he had to leave The Political Carnival (he still pops in sometimes, as you may have noticed).



Cliff is back on the air with his Republican Sexcapades revelations, a series he did regularly for some time. It's so good to see him out there exposing the preposterousness of the so-called "Family Values" hypocrites. We need more like him.

VIDEO- Our own Cliff Schecter: "This is a party that makes Kanye West look humble"

By GottaLaff

CliffDoggie's back, and he goes after Joe "You lie!" Wilson... and more:



Cliff Schecter is a very talented political analyst, Democratic consultant/strategist, and author (The Real McCain). He's also a good friend... so good, in fact, that he convinced me to co-edit this very blog with him and Paddy a couple of years ago.

He's been busy working on Very Important Things, so he had to leave The Political Carnival (he may pop in again, though, stay tuned...)

I nicknamed him "Bulldog" because of his ability to go up against any political talking head, sink his teeth into him/her, and not let up. When given the chance, he devours his opponents. This video doesn't get quite as wild and woolly as usual, but he still gets to strut his stuff.

It's so good to see him back on air, especially on my Twitter pal David Shuster's show.

Cliff Schecter To Be On Cavuto's Show Today At 4p EST

Cliff Schecter calls Trapper John a moron on Fox
They're going to "discuss" raising taxes on the rich on Neal Cavuto's 4p EST show on Fox today. Cliff is scheduled to appear at the top of the show. Tune in, it's must see teevee.

Gramm-pa McCain's Terrible, Horrible, No good, Very Bad Temper 101

By GottaLaff

I've posted about Gramm-pa McCain's temper often. But here we have Gramm-pa's Volatile Temper for Dummeez all in one post, courtesy of "Make-Believe Maverick", The Real McCain, and yours truly:

McCain is sensitive about his physical appearance, especially his height. The candidate is only five-feet-nine, making him the shortest party nominee since Michael Dukakis. On the night he was elected senator in 1986, McCain exploded after discovering that the stage setup for his victory speech was too low; television viewers saw his head bobbing at the bottom of the screen, his chin frequently cropped from view. Enraged, McCain tracked down the young Republican who had set up the podium, prodding the volunteer in the chest while screaming that he was an "incompetent little shit." Jon Hinz, the director of the Arizona GOP, separated the senator from the young man, promising to get him a milk crate to stand on for his next public appearance.

Talk about a "short" temper. See what I did there? Didja catch that short joke? I wonder if he sits on telephone books when he goes to the Early Bird Special at Denny's. Moving on. This next part is the story our own Cliff Schecter broke in his book, The Real McCain:

During his 1992 campaign, at the end of a long day, McCain's wife, Cindy, mussed his receding hair and needled him playfully that he was "getting a little thin up there." McCain reportedly blew his top, cutting his wife down with the kind of language that had gotten him hauled into court as a high schooler: "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." Even though the incident was witnessed by three reporters, the McCain campaign denies it took place.

They've tried everything they could to discredit Cliff. Aren't they an honest and transparent bunch? Now imagine what it would be like to have this person's finger on the Big Red Nuclear Button:

In 1992, McCain got into a heated exchange with Sen. Chuck Grassley over the fate of missing American servicemen in Vietnam. "Are you calling me stupid?" Grassley demanded. "No, I'm calling you a fucking jerk!" yelled McCain. Sen. Bob Kerrey later told reporters that he feared McCain was "going to head-butt Grassley and drive the cartilage in his nose into his brain." The two were separated before they came to blows. Several years later, during another debate over servicemen missing in action, an elderly mother of an MIA soldier rolled up to McCain in her wheelchair to speak to him about her son's case. According to witnesses, McCain grew enraged, raising his hand as if to strike her before pushing her wheelchair away.

McCain has called Paul Weyrich, who helped steer the Republican Party to the right, a "pompous self-serving son of a bitch" who "possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain." In 1999, he told Sen. Pete Domenici, the Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, that "only an asshole would put together a budget like this."

Last year, after barging into a bipartisan meeting on immigration legislation and attempting to seize the reins, McCain was called out by fellow GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. "Wait a second here," Cornyn said. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line." McCain exploded: "Fuck you! I know more about this than anyone in the room." The incident foreshadowed McCain's 11th-hour theatrics in September, when he abruptly "suspended" his campaign and inserted himself into the Wall Street bailout debate at the last minute, just as congressional leaders were attempting to finalize a bipartisan agreement.

At least three of McCain's GOP colleagues have gone on record to say that they consider him temperamentally unsuited to be commander in chief. Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has said that McCain's "temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him." Sen. Domenici of New Mexico has said he doesn't "want this guy anywhere near a trigger." And Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi weighed in that "the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded."

McCain's frequently inappropriate humor has also led many to question his self-control. In 1998, the senator told a joke about President Clinton's teenage daughter at a GOP fundraiser. "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" McCain asked. "Because her father is Janet Reno!"

I did an entire post on his vile, hostile, mysogenistic "sense of humor".

Let's not leave out one more instance of Gramm-pa's instability, via The Real McCain:

Two former reporters covering McCain, one who witnessed the following events and one who confirmed the facts provided by the first, relayed it to me as follows: In 2006, the Arizona Republican congressional delegation had a strategy meeting. McCain repeatedly addressed two new members, congressmen Trent Franks and Rick Renzi, as ‘boy.’ Finally, Renzi, a former college linebacker, rose from his chair and said to McCain, “You call me that one more time and I’ll kick your old ass.” McCain lunged at Renzi, punches were thrown, and the two had to be physically separated.

There you have it, all in one place. Consider this your own, personal WikiGramm-paTemperPedia.

Cliff Schecter, author of "The Real McCain" on Blog Talk Radio Tonight at 9p EST

Cliff's going to be on with my friend Denise from AOL's Political Machine. I'll be there to add, ahem, color.

Tonight at 9p EST. Link here to listen.

Happy Obama Pic & Cliff On C-Span Alert

Just look at the face on that woman!! I never see people in the audience at McCain's shindigs looking that happy.

ALERT- The indubitable Cliff Schecter will be on C-Span Washington Journal tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 810-845a EST to talk about his book "The Real McCain".

Oh, and make this an open thread for your yabbering pleasure.

Cliff Schecter on Fox TV: Universal health care edition

By GottaLaff



Cliff held his own beautifully today with a host who wouldn't let him get two words out without trying to "Gotcha" him. They discuss universal health care. Actually, Cliff tries to discuss it, Fox Guy does his Fox thing.

NOTE: Due to a glitch in the timing of my DVR recording, the video ends with the words "Delete Recording"/"Don't Delete Recording". My apologies. My computer is in the shop and I have no way of editing that out for at least 5 days.

John Sidney McCain's "C-word" makes it on to CSPAN

By GottaLaff

Somebody's calling Cliff a lefty liberal lying gossip monger. It must be hard to be such a professionally unprofessional rightie book critic, especially when Cliff's three sources were solid. But, you know, "unnamed sources" are never reliable. Just ask the corporate media whenever they print nearly any White House lie story. The piece in question begins by quoting a caller to CSPAN's Washington Journal. The caller repeated a story that Cliff broke in his book The Real McCain.

There are Internet rumors [Laffy Note: Again, 3 good sources do not a rumor make] abounding about an alleged 1992 episode in which John McCain used the word in an exchange with his wife. The rumor appears to have started with a passage from a book, The Real McCain, by Cliff Schecter who sets out to portray an angry man who is unfit to serve as President of the United States. Schecter is a blogger at the Huffington Post. The passage quotes anonymous sources in a hearsay portrayal of something that happened 16 years ago.

At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c---." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day.

There is no mention of this occurrence in any national news outlets [Laffy Note: McCain did all he could to suppress Cliff's book sales in the U.K., as you'll see below in an e-mail to Cliff from a major U.K. newspaper. Given that precedent, he most likely did the same thing here at home*], even though, according to Schecter the three anonymous sources were reporters. And the quote itself seems so preposterous; it is reminiscent of the Edward Klein creation regarding Hillary Clinton, in which he reported that Bill Clinton said he’d "raped" his wife.

The mainstream media have made it a point to disavow smears against Barack Obama. While the caller to Washington Journal was most likely repeating Internet rumors, it remains to be seen whether the anti-smear mantra will be so lavishly applied to McCain.

After all such an outburst fits nicely in the "short tempered, volatile" box into which the liberal media want to stuff McCain.

Yes, the left wing media, aka Cliff Schecter, is all about the indiscriminate, delusional partisan smearing of John "P.O.W." Sidney CanDoNoWrong. There hasn't been so much as Word One from the liberal press about Obama's "shift to the center" or his middle name, let alone how he and his wife are unpatriotic Muslim terrorists who hate their own country, right? It's all about the unrelenting discrediting of McCain, day in and day out. Why, the media have been all over that gambling story like Lieberman on J Sid.

*Cliff's story, via an e-mail to him from a newspaper that was going to promote his book. This is verbatim, except for a couple of edits for privacy purposes:

Hi Cliff,

As far as I know it is dead here, so feel free to talk to your people. I would prefer if you didn't reveal my name or publication, but you should know what happened. The reason for being this is that my editor would not be pleased.

I called McCain's people for comment. They told me that first that this was all off the record, that you were a super liberal with a hate streak, that you were known to make outlandish comments like this and that you were not a reliable source. Then they said that they would prefer that we didn't go with anything, just to protect the Senator's image from false information. Because this was just a crazy, gossipy piece of journalism anyway.

I then asked for a quote for the article, as my editor needed something from them. They said, "Well, I know you aren't going to like this" and with a little almost smirk from them:

"This book is just tabloid trash," said [...] a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign. "The fact that it is even being reported speaks to the sad state of journalism today."

I further asked if the Senator was going to pursue legal action for libel, and she said no, and would not cite a reason why. Well constructed comment from them if I ever heard one. Would make a lot of news editors reconsider.

Let me know if you need anything,

[E-mailer's name, major U.K. newspaper]

If you go here , you'll find a link to the video of the CSPAN Washington Journal caller in question. I couldn't get it to load, but Paddy could. She said it was hilarious. The fun starts at about 2:54:36.

Cliff Schecter joins Shoot the Messenger" on June 23!"

By GottaLaff

Shoot The Messenger

is a comedy troupe performing a satirical wrap-up of the week's news from the brain of Daily Show Co-creator Lizz Winstead.The members of the Shoot the Messenger ensemble come from The Daily Show, Air America Radio, National Lampoon, Upright Citizen Brigade, Second City, Huffington Post, and represent some of the best political comics, writers, actors, filmmakers, and producers working today. Each week this extraordinary team scours the media and collectively create a fresh new approach to political and social satire.

Each week Lizz interviews a media figure who digs deep and gets it right. They'll give us the lowdown on the big stories that were buried (or ignored) by our pals over at the corporate media mill.

Our website (http://www.shootthemessengernyc.com) has bios of the actors and characters, a webcast of the weekly show, and other web-only features - so if you don't live in NYC, you can see this awesome show live on the intercom.

Special Guest: Cliff Schecter on June 23rd

Cliff Schecter

Political Commentator, Consultant and Author of The Real McCain

The Real McCain

Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't

Cliff Schecter Has Some Choice Words For Lanny Davis

Why oh why can't we clone Cliff? Go read.

Exclusive! Cliff Schecter calls "Trapper John" a moron on Fox TV

By GottaLaff

It took forever to load, but it's here.

I worked with Wayne Rogers (formerly "Trapper John" on the series "M*A*S*H") on a TV series ("House Calls") a million years ago. I promise you, there were times when I wish I'd had Cliff's chutzpah.

Had Cliff's points been acknowledged politely, an intelligent discussion might have taken place, and viewers could have actually learned something. However, Wayne made the mistake of calling Cliff an idiot, and our Cliff isn't one to sit back and take it.

Watch and enjoy.

Cliff Schecter On Fox At 11:30a(?) EST

By Paddy


You can watch Cliff today on FNC at 11:30a EST. I hear it's a feisty appearance.

UPDATE- He's supposed to be on "Cashin' In", and by the tv guide that has been knocked back to noon by the space shuttle landing.

Cliff Schecter to appear on ... FOX! And NPR radio!

By GottaLaff

I just IMed Cliff Schecter, and apparently, he had quite the heated conversation on Fox with Terry Neal (he thinks that's who it was).

This will air tomorrow, Saturday morning at 11:30 am Eastern, on Fox.

Next:

Today he will be on Los Angeles Public radio at 2:30 Eastern. You can listen live here.

Finally:

Later today at 4 pm Eastern, he'll be on the Neil Cavuto Show on, yes, Fox. After he taped the show that will air tomorrow morning (see above), they invited him to be on Cavuto.

Happy viewing/listening! And congratulations, CliffDoggy!

John Sidney McCain: "Slick and cruel"

By GottaLaff

Forgotten woman: Carol McCain(left), and the happy couple

Cliff has written about it. Now the Daily Mail goes into some detail. John Sidney McCain is a heartless, slimy, lowlife womanizer. He has no moral standing ... about anything. After all the stories that are coming out on him, why would anyone, let alone the "family values" crowd, even think of voting for him?

It was in 1969 that Carol went to spend the Christmas holiday – her third without McCain – at her parents’ home. After dinner, she left to drop off some presents at a friend’s house.

It wasn’t until some hours later that she was discovered, alone and in terrible pain, next to the wreckage of her car. She had been hurled through the windscreen [...]

‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better. [...]

Through Ross Perot, he met Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California. A sympathetic Nancy Reagan took Carol under her wing.

But already the McCains’ marriage had begun to fray. ‘John started carousing and running around with women,’ said Robert Timberg. [...]

In 1979 – while still married to Carol – he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage.

Carol and her children were devastated. ‘It was a complete surprise,’ says Nancy Reynolds, a former Reagan aide. [...]

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.

‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.

‘This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.’

But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’

There's your golden boy, Corporate Media. How do you like him now?

John Sidney McCain could get fighting mad. One can only hope

By GottaLaff
Keep your fingers crossed that John Sidney McTemper gets fighting mad:

Openly frustrated by what they see as an ongoing double standard in the press’s treatment of his campaign, Sen. John McCain and his aides have been aggressively denouncing unfavorable stories as “smear jobs” and “scurrilous attacks,” while the candidate himself has launched a series of stinging attacks on Sen. Barack Obama.

Awww, is J Sid pouting? The press doesn't like him? (?!?) Peoples is writing honest meany-weany books about him?

For McCain and his small coterie of fiercely loyal advisers, it’s a fine line to walk. [...] But in doing so, they’ve already raised the question of whether McCain can maintain his upbeat warrior image while running an uphill race against an opponent for whom the candidate can barely conceal his contempt, and covered by a press the campaign sees as biased. [...] Plainly, McCain wants to cast Obama as a naïf who lacks the experience needed to lead the country.

J Sid, you mega-experienced, wizened rascal, you. That very argument may work against you:

In highlighting one of Obama’s chief vulnerabilities, though, McCain highlights two of his own. While voters may hesitate before turning the White House keys over to a candidate just a few years removed from debating highway speed limits in the Illinois state Senate, experience is a double-edged sword at a time when the overwhelming majority of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction — just ask Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. What’s more, it’s always dangerous for McCain, who would be the older person ever elected president, to remind voters of his age.

Let's not beat around the bush any longer. Here's the twist:

What may be even more perilous for McCain, though, is Obama’s ability to get under his rival’s skin.

And get under his skin Obama shall!

Thanks to his own personal tenacity and a weak GOP field, McCain’s penchant for the putdown never really backfired during the primary.

Now, with more attention and less margin for error, McCain may need to watch his quick tongue.

You've all heard of "like father, like son"? Try this: Like candidate, like campaign:

It’s not just been the candidate himself who has turned feistier, but his campaign as well — especially toward the press. [...] In responding to what they perceive as unfair pieces, they’ve unabashedly criticized the same press that McCain once jokingly called his “base.” [...] “We can’t sit back when the press clearly, clearly is giving Obama very favorable coverage and very little tough scrutiny and not sort of call fouls when they happen,” added Black.

I feel sooo, sooooooo bad for J Sid! The press has been just awful to him! Calling him a hero! Ignoring Cliff's C-Word story! Not covering Cliff's scoop on how J Sid punched out a fellow Congressman! Bad media! Bad, bad media! They're grounded!

Yet some McCain sympathizers are concerned about how their candidate is presenting himself.

“It lacked graciousness, lacked civility and it was small,” one friend of McCain said in describing the candidate’s attacks on Obama on the night the Democrat made history by becoming the first African-American to run as a major party’s nominee.

McCain and his campaign are unhappy, this source suggested, at where they find themselves heading into the general election. [...]

Still, Obama hasn’t completely avoided the temptation to frame McCain as temperamental.

Responding to McCain’s lengthy and searing rebuttal on the veterans’ bill last month, Obama said: “These endless diatribes and schoolyard taunts from the McCain campaign do nothing to advance the debate about what matters to the American people.”

It's only June. J Sid has to contain himself for 5 more months. I have no doubt the Obama camp will do everything they can to highlight McHostile's feistier side.

Cliff Schecter on Ring of Fire NOW

By GottaLaff

Cliff Schecter on air NOW, on Air America's Ring of Fire.

UPDATE ON AL FRANKEN, via an IM I'm having with Cliff:

me: Quick question: what are Franken's chances against Coleman?

Cliff: Very good, toss up race

John Sidney McCain is confronted on infidelity

By GottaLaff



Looky what our own Cliff Schecter found:

As you'll see in this video above, from a town hall meeting in Nashville, Tennessee Monday, mixed in with platitudes about gay marriage, we get a nice little comment from this questioner on the sanctity of marriage in McCain's life--or more to the point, sanctimony. Here is a rough transcript of her question to The Morally Righteous One, which comes at the beginning of the video (it includes McCain's answer to this question and a previous on on Hillary Clinton):

My second and final question, you talk a lot about the character issue...and...like you, um, I was opposed to gay marriage, I was in always in favor of civil unions but the basic definition of marriage....but, then I get to thinking, that is based on what we consider to be the sanctity of marriage. There is nothing....you see long-term couples splitting up, it's, it's just crazy...I know that you, your own situation, you're going to have to address that in the campaign. Infidelity is just a terrible cancer on this country....and I think if we're going to talk about...gay marriage, it has to be in the context of the preservation of marriage...which I just don't see it, I think we need to make it more difficult for people to get married, or whatever we need to do..if that's...if we're going to be consistent.

McCain ignored that part of the question, of course.

Of course he did. What's he going to say, "I am completely inconsistent. I did the very things I tell you I deplore. I hereby hand over the election to Mr. Obama."

In Cliff's book, The Real McCain, he confronts McCain's infidelity effectively. Too bad John Sidney McTwoFaced doesn't:

Arriving back in the United States in 1973, McCain faced not only his own lingering injuries but also those that his wife had sustained in an automobile accident in 1969. [...] McCain had already met and romanced, while still married to Shepp, the woman who would be his second wife — Cindy Lou Hensley, seventeen years his junior, the only child of a wealthy Anheuser-Busch distributor

Cliff goes on:

It just occurred to me, as this was in Tennessee, where the local GOP has been attacking Barack Obama's wife in ads, that perhaps someone might ask McCain to address whether he respected "the sanctity of marriage" enough to demand that his local party stop attacking his opponent's wife.

I don't see that happening, do you?

Liberal groups launch efforts to spotlight the 'real' McCain that media doesn't

By Paddy


Cliff made the SanFran Chronicle- go read it, but here's his bit-

While the national press has been slow to focus on the lobbyist story while zooming in on the ongoing Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton battle, that has changed in recent days. Outlets like the Washington Post and NBC News have published and aired stories on the lobbyist ties of McCain's aides and cited MoveOn's online "fire Black" campaign. Activists see it as a hopeful sign that the national press may end its comfy clinch with McCain. "Because the Democrats are still fighting the primary battle, a lot of us got tired of waiting around," said Cliff Schecter, author of "The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't" - an attempt to debunk Arizona senator's media-burnished image as a "maverick."

Still, Schecter and others acknowledged that it is hard to change the media image of someone who has been in the public spotlight since he was a Vietnam POW 40 years ago.

The New York Review of Books likes Cliff Schecter

By GottaLaff

Be proud, Cliffy!

Schecter, a freelance liberal commentator who contributes frequently to The Huffington Post, recounts, for the first time, a tale—confirmed to him, he writes, by three Arizona reporters—that in 1992, after Cindy McCain teased her husband about his thinning hair, McCain snapped at her, in front of the reporters and two staffers: "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c—." One wonders if on such occasions she reminds her husband who it was that made his political career possible. She has recently called the idea that her husband has a temper "a concoction."

The second issue is more substantive and deals with McCain's policy record—both his votes as a senator and the positions he's taking as presidential candidate. In many matters, it is far from consistent. Schecter's The Real McCain chronicles, in fine-grain detail, McCain's votes and positions, showing that they often seem to reflect hypocrisy, flip-flopping, and pure expediency, rather than the political courage for which he is famous.

Go, Cliff! We need your words to become part of the general election mantra.

One more thing: After seeing what Cliff can dig up, I wouldn't want to be on his bad side. Wink.