The Swamp

Latest from the Tribune's D.C. blog feed.

Gov. Sarah Palin's eBay plane claim

by Jason George and Andrew Zajac JUNEAU, Alaska -- When Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sought to illustrate her frugality and flair to delegates at the GOP convention Wednesday, she described how she disposed of a corporate jet acquired by her unpopular predecessor. "That luxury jet was over the top," Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, said to loud cheers. "I put it on eBay." Palin's statement implied the plane was sold through the online auction site revered for empowering...

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GOP attacks media, we respond

by Frank James At Republican gatherings, we media types take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. Next to whoever are the leaders of the Democratic Party at a given time, we're the GOP's favorite pinatas. They clearly feel they need to throw us to their conservative base to get their voters out. It seems to make little difference that the Founding Fathers so expected the media, or press as it was called in their time, to antagonize those who rule that those wise men placed in the Constitution...

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Swamp Sunrise

Good morning. The national political conventions are finished and now it is a two-month sprint to the Nov. 4 election. Newly minted Republican nominee John McCain is campaigning today in Milwaukee and later Sterling Heights, Mich., while Democrat Barack Obama will be in Scranton, Pa. The Labor Department is releasing unemployment statistics for August. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is discussing America's security as the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches.

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John McCain: 'An imperfect servant'

by Mark Silva ST. PAUL -- Republican Sen. John McCain, with an opening nod of public respect for his Democratic rival, pledged to his party tonight that he will wage a winning fight for the White House. And McCain, who waged his first campaign for president eight years ago as a self-styled change agent, quickly appropriated the pledge of Democrat Barack Obama's campaign for the White House: "Change is coming.'' "Fight with me,'' McCain called to the convention crowd, rising to...

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Obama, McCain camps trade Palin jabs

by Frank James Davide Axelrod, senior adviser to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign took after Republican vice presidential nominee today and the Republicans naturally didn't like it. This is from an Associated Press story: Earlier in the day Obama's top strategist, David Axelrod, dismissed the Alaska governor's convention speech as dishonest about Obama's record. Axelrod told reporters aboard Obama's campaign plane that the Republican National Convention speakers had distorted...

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Palin, GOPers irk community organizers

by Frank James The last people a politician might want to get on the wrong side of are community organizers. By definition, they know how to organize. They can have a group of sign-toting, chanting protesters marching around your house and upsetting your neighbors by sundown. But that's exactly what Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani did last night when they belittled Sen. Barack Obama's community organizing experience last night. Today, Republican...

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Obama: Iraq surge good 'beyond dreams'

by Mark Silva ST. PAUL - Barack Obama, who opposed President Bush's deployment of additional military forces in Iraq and pledges to bring American troops home, says the president's "surge'' of forces "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.'' "I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,'' Obama says in an interview with FOX News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, which airs on The O'Reilly Factor at 8 pm EDT this evening. "It's succeeded beyond our wildest dreams." Obama's...

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Obama: New faces, same old message

by James Oliphant LANCASTER, Pa.--Barack Obama's speaking here in a public park in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country, on a sweltering early evening before close to 10,000 people. He has continued hammering the McCain campaign for not providing solutions on the economy, but his speech here contained a new wrinkle, one that appears to be aimed squarely at a certain Alaska governor. "They may have found some new faces to present their message, but it's the same old message," Obama told...

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For GOP, it's a whiter shade of pale

Delegates at the Republican National Convention the Xcel Energy Center on Paul, Minnesota. U.S. Sen. John McCain will accept The GOP nomination for U.S. President Thursday night. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) by Frank James ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Several news outlets covering the Republican National Convention this week wrote about the lack of African-American delegates here thanks to the Joint Center for Economic and Political Studies which issued a report at the start of the week...

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Sarah Palin: Gov'nors don't vote present

by Mark Silva ST. PAUL - Sarah Palin started beating a drum about Barack Obama at the Republican National Convention here, and she was beating it again today. "We don't have a 'present' button as governor,'' Palin said after an appearance before fellow Republican governors in Minneapolis. "We are expected to lead, we are expected to take action and not just vote 'present.'' This, of course, is an allusion to the many "present'' votes that Obama had cast in the Illinois Senate, a common...

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George Bush: Name-dropping dropping

by Mark Silva ST. PAUL -- A certain name is fading into the background here at the Republican National Convention, a name that played prominently at the Democratic conventioon: George W. Bush. At Countdown to Crawford, our colleague Johanna Neuman has been keeping count. "Democrats made frequent use of the president's name from Denver,'' she notes. On Tuesday, the first night of the Republican convention, the only mentions of the president's name -- five --...

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GOP's strawman: 'Community organizer'

by Mark Silva ST. PAUL - The Republicans are giving community organizers a bad name here - that's their goal, anyway, for at least one former community organizer: Barack Obama. "Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown,''; vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said here last night. "And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor if...

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Sarah Palin boosts Barack Obama funding

by John McCormick Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been good for Sen. Barack Obama's campaign fund, with sources in the Illinois Democrat's presidential campaign saying he has raised $8 million online from more than 130,000 donors since her vice presidential nomination acceptance speech last night at the Republican National Convention. Campaign aides say Obama is on pace to record $10 million in post-Palin contributions by the time Sen. John McCain takes the stage this evening for his...

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Barack Obama: Penn State fumble

by Josh Drobnyk and Mark Silva ST. PAUL -- Barack Obama has put the Pennsylvania Republican delegates here in stitches over getting the name of the Penn State University mascot wrong today. Not what you want to be doing in a state where the GOP is hammering you hard for being out of touch. To most sports fans, they're the Nittany Lions. Obama, during a stop in Pennsylvania today, called them the "Nitally lions" as he called on someone during a question-and-answer...

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Obama: 'Who are they fighting for?'

Barack Obama addresses reporters at a hydroelectric turbine plant in York, Pa. (Photo by J. Oliphant) by James Oliphant YORK, Pa.--Barack Obama said Thursday he wasn't surprised by the ferocity of Republican attacks this week during the party's convention in St. Paul. "This is what they do," Obama told reporters after a campaign event at a plant in York. "They don't have an agenda to run on. They haven't offered a single concrete idea so far in two nights about how they would make the...

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