“… not a maverick.”

 Download | Play  Download | Play h/t Heather! (Watch the entire segment on YouTube)

Via Digby:

I do too. Kerry keeps swinging for the fences like that and someone’s going to want to test him for steroids.

Digby also shares some good advice, as always, on what our response to Palin might ought to be. While I tend to agree, that might be a tall order, as this well just keeps getting deeper. Your thoughts?

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (h/t Heather)

This Week with George Stephanopoulos acknowledges the passings of Ford Agency head Jerry Ford, LGBT activist and same sex marriage pioneer Del Martin and Nobel Laureate Thomas Weller as well as 5 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

According the icasualties.org, the total allied deaths for Operation Iraqi Freedom now stands at 4,150.  Per Iraq Body Count, there were 141 Iraqi civilian deaths this week. 

 Download | Play   Download | Play(h/t Heather)

This Week’s In Memoriam segment noted the passing of NFL great and union head Gene Upshaw,  Dave Matthews Band sax player LeRoi Moore, Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones and the names of 12 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to icasualties, the total number of confirmed military deaths to date in Iraq is 4,460. And per Iraq Body Count, there were 153 Iraqi civilians killed during this week.

And finally, SteveAudio remembers his friend, producer Jerry Finn, who died unexpectedly this week at the age of 39.

 Download | Play   Download | Play  (h/t Heather)

During the roundtable discussion on today’s This Week, “journalist” Mark Halperin shows yet again that he’s fully in bed with John McCain.  As Donna Brazile, Cokie Roberts and the always flaky George Will do the usual back and forth, Halperin chimes in with a zinger that is so ridiculous that even host George Stephanopoulos can’t let it slide:

Of course it is, it already has and Halperin knows that. He speaks as though John McCain hasn’t already been running a nasty, Rove-designed campaign already.  Halperin’s talking points sound eerily familiar to those of another McCain hack, Joe Watkins. Perhaps they’re feeding at the same trough?

UPDATE:  (Nicole) Oh, this is too good.  Balloon Juice’s John Cole awards Halperin an award of merit for his servicing of McCain. (h/t Bill W.)

 Download | Play  Download | Play

This Week with George Stephanopoulos marks the passings of Issac Hayes, Bill Gwatney, Jerry Wexler, Leroy Sievers, and the pentagon released the names of 9 service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to icasualties, the total fatalities for the Iraq coalition is now 4,460, and per Iraq Body Count, there were 138 Iraqi civilians killed this week.

  Heather writes:

 Download | Play   Download | Play

It really is a shame that Mitt’s $35 million investment for President didn’t pan out; it’s pretty obvious that he would have been the weakest candidate of the bunch. And his “experience = judgment” argument re: McCain is laughable. Just as is true with Rumsfeld and Cheney, so-called “experience” is worthless when 30+ years of it leads you to believe that, say, a war with Iraq will be a cakewalk with no negative repercussions. For all his naivete and “inexperience,” Barack Obama predicted rather accurately what an invasion would entail.

On ABC’s THIS WEEK, Cokie said this about Obama going to Hawaii:

 Download | Play   Download | Play (h/t Heather)

Responding to Cokie Roberts ridiculous statements about Obama’s vacation to the state of Hawaii–here’s a little message for her via email from Senator Akaka’s office:

I wonder how many times Cokie has been there herself?

  Even though Cokie Roberts knows that Obama’s grandmother lives in Hawaii, he’s still acting like an elitist snob for taking a vacation instead of some place common people go, like Myrtle Beach, SC.  Hey, it’s a party town. I think Obama should have Cokie make all his vacation plans from now on.

 Download | Play   Download | Play (h/t Heather)

We’re all so happy that Cokie is a concern troll and hey, she knows Hawaii is a state and all.  Wow, what a concession.  It’s so exotic, visiting your grandmother. Really, it’s just more of the chattering class talking amongst themselves. Who cares where Obama goes on vacation except for the wanking elites?  Are they bothered by the fact that McCain takes off every weekend and goes to one of his eight homes? Of course that’s not elitist at all, is it, Cokie? 

UPDATE: (Nicole) In addition to his elitist vacation spot, the McCain campaign and the RNC put out a mocking “Barack Obama’s Hawaii Travel Guide” that, among other things, bashes Obama for attending a private school on scholarship there.  Jon Perr has it. 

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (h/t Heather)

This Week with George Stephanopoulos marks the passings of former Ambassador Anne Armstrong, former Surgeon General and HeadStart founder Dr. Julius Richmond, journalist Edie Huggins, Congressman John Seiberling, as well as 3 soldiers and Marines killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  According to icasualties, the total fatalities for the Iraq coalition is now 4,442. And per Iraq Body Count, there were 130 Iraqi civilians killed this week. 

In July, there were 589 confirmed killings of Iraqi civilians, 25 of which were children and 14 by U.S. forces.

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (h/t Heather)

This Week with George Stephanopoulos  marks the passing of actress Estelle Getty, Reagan administration official Charles Wick, “Last Lecture” Professor Randy Pausch, as well as 22 service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last two weeks.  According to icasualties.org, the official count of military killed in Iraq is now 4,438.  According to Iraq Body Count, there were 88 Iraqi civilian deaths this week. 

 Download | Play    Download | Play  (h/t Heather)

McSame has swallowed a big old gulp of Bush’s “Do as I say, not as I do” and “yer either with us or agin us” methodology for foreign policy and washed it down with a chaser of Clint Eastwood tough guy bravado. Hence the screen cap, my approximation of a Eastwood-esque stare down. 

McCain’s stated desire to kick Russia out of the G8 is laughable on its face and yet another area in which McCain will flip-flop, as Steve Benen so perfectly deconstructed earlier this week.  And what is instigating this ultimately impotent stance?  Russia has decided to enact policies that benefit…*gasp* themselves. 

How dare they think about their interests?  Next thing you know, they’ll be invading a country that posed no threat on trumped up intelligence and then occupy it for the oil lease rights, alienating the rest of the world with their “my way or the highway” rhetoric, really threatening peace throughout the world and then you know they’re really asking for the condemnation of the rest of the global community.

Oh, wait…

UPDATE:  Wasn’t it helpful for George Stephanopoulos to correct John McCain when he forgot Putin’s new political status as Prime Minister?  Remind me again, why should we believe that McCain has the experience in foreign policy?  He can’t keep anything straight.

Transcripts below the fold:

(Read the rest of this story…)

  This morning on ABC’s “This Week” McCain talked about “two parent families” being preferable to gay adoption.   

 Download | Play   Download | Play 

There are dozens of studies, including some from the American Psychological Association, showing that a supportive environment is far more indicative of emotionally secure children than the sexual orientation of the parents. 

But the “gay parenting” lesson for John McCain, unfortunately, has to begin with the incontrovertible fact that a gay or lesbian couple is a two-parent family.  Sigh.

 Download | Play   Download | Play (h/t Heather)

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain obviously thinks he’s hit the jackpot of talking points that hurt Barack Obama, because he’s only used them 3,298 times this week (my personal guesstimate–YMMV) at various events.  Logic and reality be damned,