Countdown Thursday: Sum Changes
Posted: Thursday, June 19, 2008 8:59 PM by Countdown
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Blogging the Countdown
Run For the Money:
Senator Barack Obama today officially opted out of the presidential campaign public financing system... And Senator John McCain today immediately declared Obama had, quote, "completely reversed himself and gone back, not on his word to me, but the commitment he made to the American people." But in our fifth story: Obama's promise, even taken just on face value, was to accept public financing if his Republican opponent agreed to do the same. Senator McCain had in essence been running his general election campaign on private funds -- not public financing -- since he became the presumptive nominee on March 4th. McCain, late this afternoon, said he had just decided to switch to public funding. But to quote Jesse Jackson's old self-caricature on Saturday Night Live: "The Question is Moot."
Spies Like Us: Never appease political bullies, President Bush admonished at the Israeli knesset. Oddly, House Democrats chose to ignore him, on the subject of... dealing with him. A new FISA bill, that gives President Bush exactly what he wants. The increased ability to spy on Americans without a warrant. And a level of immunity to the telecom companies who already illegally spied on Americans for him. Our fourth story on the Countdown -- and the Democrats may split over the tentative deal.
ODDBALL: A kitty rescue, a car that's a phone, and a car that runs on water.
Serial Drillers: The people of Iraq have one truly vast and valuable national resource... oil. With Saddam Hussein gone, his grip on the nation's resources has been broken, and thanks to the sacrifices of American troops and the Iraqi people, those resources, that oil, is now being returned to its historic, rightful owners... the oil companies. In our third story tonight, the New York Times reporting today that on the 30th of this month, five major oil companies... and a number of smaller ones... will announce the first deals to service Iraq's largest oil fields. The companies include the four original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company, which have wanted to get back in for 36 years. Mission A-freakin-Complished.
Worsts...see below.
WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD: A rare tri-fecta for a certain media magnate.
What She Said: It is said that Mamie and Dwight Eisenhower so personally disliked Bess and Harry Truman that they refused to enter the White House for even the ceremonial cup of coffee with them in the hour before Eisenhower's first inaugural. President Truman was supposedly so offended by what he saw as a sleight against the First Lady that he was going to refuse to get into the same car with the Eisenhowers -- until the Missus said, in effect, "Harry, we get to get the hell out of here now, let's go." Our number one story on the Countdown: it's McCain versus Obama. Cindy McCain... attacking Michelle Obama.
