Update below: Wall Street Journal Removes 'Probe' From Headline, edits article text.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the man lovingly referred to as the "D.N.C.'s A.T.M.," by the New York Times is under scrutiny by the SEC in an alleged kickback scheme involving New York state's pension fund. The pay to play scheme has already resulted in the arrest of a top political fundraiser in a "123-count state criminal indictment that included money-laundering, enterprise-corruption and bribery charges."

Steven Rattner, the leader of the Obama administration's auto task force, was one of the executives involved with payments under scrutiny in a probe of an alleged kickback scheme at New York state's pension fund, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A Securities and Exchange Commission complaint says a "senior executive" of Mr. Rattner's investment firm met with a politically connected consultant about a finder's fee. Later, the complaint says, the firm received an investment from the state pension fund, then paid a $1.1 million fee.

The "senior executive," not named in the complaint, is Mr. Rattner, according to the person familiar with the matter.

The school district reviewing the invite of Bill Ayers to a Napervile Illinois High School has canceled the appearance by the former terrorist and his wife Bernardine Dohrn. The community was up in arms after having learned of the invite. Also canceled was the post appearance book signing at Anderson's Book Shop in the same town.

School Superintendent Alan Leis released the following statement:

The appearance by Dr. Bill Ayers at Naperville North High School next week has been canceled.

On Friday, it was announced through a Talk203 email that we were reviewing the decision to invite him and that we were also exploring the possibility of moving the appearance to another venue. Initially, many people were upset about his appearance in a school building, even though it was to have been with a select group of students with required parental permission. Several people offered worthy suggestions about how to make the event more meaningful by concurrently inviting someone that would provide an equally strong opposing viewpoint.

Over the weekend, however, it became clear that this issue was not really about where Dr. Ayers was speaking, but that he was speaking at all. Each day, the level of emotion and outrage has seemed to increase, along with the number of emails and phone calls received. What was most unfortunate was that a few directed their anger toward an outstanding high school and at a well-regarded, award-winning teacher who encourages students to think for themselves.

This afternoon I learned that Bill Ayers has been invited to speak to high school students in the suburb of Naperville Illinois where he will discuss his days in the Weather Underground. (h/t Doug Ross Journal). The school district is defending the decision with the laughable claim that they would never invite anyone to the school that advocated violence. No kidding, this isn't a joke.

"While we firmly believe in exposing students to a wide variety of speakers and opinions, offering them the chance to experience different viewpoints and the opportunity to hone their critical thinking skills (one of the tenets of our mission), please know that we would never invite anyone who advocates violence," District 203 said through a news release issued Friday evening. "Our understanding is that Bill Ayers does not, although this point is being actively debated by several who have contacted us. In addition, administrators from other school districts who have heard his presentation to students, have indicated that Ayers focuses on students being involved in social justice."

Really, this claim is being actively debated? Bombings and dead people weren't enough to convince these educators that violent activism is what Bill Ayers is all about?

Hush all you sniveling bailout hating troublemakers. Just shut up, you don't need the money. That is the message from Washington Post personal finance commentator Michelle Singletary.

In his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama declared that he was going to "speak frankly and directly."

That's what I want to do as well. I want to speak frankly and directly to the many people who have written to me complaining that they aren't directly benefiting from the federal government's efforts to resuscitate our gasping economy.

The sniveling sentiments of these people come down to one question: "What about me?"

It appears that Singletary has an axe to grind. Apparently she sees the same sniveling sentiments across the country and wants to shut them up before they sour the President's bailout efforts. 

South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn appeared on WIS-TV yesterday in a round table setting to discuss how the stimulus bill will affect South Carolina.  During the debate he stated that he was insulted by opposition to the plan; specifically targeting GOP Governors of Southern States by implying that their opposition was a "slap in the face of African-Americans" as if race was a determining factor. 

"The governor of Louisiana expressed opposition. Has the highest African-American population in the country. Governor of Mississippi expressed opposition. The governor of Texas, and the governor of South Carolina.

These four governor's represent states that are in the black belt. I was insulted by that," Clyburn said. "All of this was a slap in the face of African-Americans. It had nothing to do with Governor Sanford." (src - WIS-TV)

While Capitol Hill is working on a "compromise" I thought it fitting to take a look at how the usual suspects in the media are dealing with Republican leaders that dare speak out and identify elements of the stimulus package that have nothing to do with stimulating the economy. For this task I turned to Rolling Stone Magazine and quickly came upon an article headlined "The Unserious Opposition".

In that article Rolling Stone Magazine Contributing Editor Tim Dickinson rolled out his Mother Jones bona fides with a predictable attack on Republican Senators after CNN published a Republican list of 32 wasteful provisions contained in the proposed bill.

With the simple phrase "And look at what the GOP considers to be pork in this bill", Dickinson takes the common path of those that can't stop living in the past and sarcastically twists the list to portray the Republicans as "Cheneyite" ideologues. In his logic however we find a convoluted line of reasoning that is misleading at best. It exemplifies the typical approach taken by gushing media types that have forsaken their watchdog duties to become members of the Presidential fan club.

ABC News is reporting that an attorney that did undercover work for the FBI in the 1980's told federal authorities decades ago that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich ran an illegal gambling operation and payed the mob a street tax in order to operate. (see update below)

Former mob lawyer and Chicago cop Robert Cooley was so credible as an FBI informant that his work netted 24 corrupt judges, lawyers and cops in operation Gambat. Yet ABC news elected not to report the story during Blagojevich's 2006 re-election campaign because Cooley wanted to remain anonymous and the Governor denied the allegation.

"When I was working with government wearing wire, I reported, I observed Rod, the present governor, who was running a gambling operation out in the western suburbs. He was paying street tax to the mob out there," said Robert Cooley, federal informant.

On a web-based interview show last week, Cooley said he reported to federal authorities nearly two decades ago that Rod Blagojevich had been operating an illegal sports gambling business.

Robert Cooley is a former Chicago police officer-turned mob lawyer-turned federal informant. During Operation Gambat in the late 1980's and early 1990's, Cooley's undercover work and testimony put away 24 crooked politicians, judges, lawyers and cops. Several years ago, when Mr. Blagojevich was running for re-election, Cooley provided the same information to the ABC7 I-Team. Because Cooley did not want to be identified at the time and the governor denied it, ABC7 did not report the story.

A small county in rural Alabama is making national news for passing a motion declaring that the second Monday in November will be forever recognized as "Barack Obama Day".

Normally small county resolutions that affect a mere 40 of this nation's 301 million residents would not capture a national audience. In this case however the AP has discovered one of those pivotal occasions where they can pursue what should be an obvious national event while at the same time implying the obvious racism of the rest of the state that supported John McCain "largely on strong support from White voters."

MARION, Ala. - In central Alabama's Perry County, government workers already get a day off for President's Day, Martin Luther King Day, and Veteran's Day. In 2009, they'll get one more: "Barack Obama Day."

The rural county, which overwhelmingly supported Obama in last month's presidential election, has approved the second Monday in November as "The Barack Obama Day." Commissioners passed a measure that would close county offices for the new annual holiday and its roughly 40 workers will get a paid day off.

[...]

Perry County has 12,000 residents, most of them Black. Voters there backed Obama by over 70 percent in a state that gave 60 percent of the overall vote to Republican John McCain based largely on strong support from White voters. - Save the date: Ala. county passes Obama holiday

An independent investigator hired by the Alaska Personnel Board has determined that state prosecutor Steve Branchflower miscontrued evidence and applied the wrong state laws to determine that Sarah Palin abused her office by firing Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.

The report provides vindication for Sarah Palin who had claimed that Branchflower's investigation had been motivated by partisan politics.

The board decided to release the normally secret findings after Palin waived her privacy rights. According to Fox News the board released the findings as a matter of public interest due to Palin's status as John McCain's running mate in tomorrows election.

Chicago Tribune staff writer Rex Huppke has solicited the expertise of communist party leaders to defend Barack Obama from the fallout of the now famous answer he supplied to a man referred to as Joe the Plumber.

In an article with the misleading headline "Socialists: Obama No Socialist" Huppke applied some painstaking logic to reach his conclusion that Barack Obama can not be a socialist if avowed communists will not state that he is.

Local communists, rarely tapped as campaign pundits, say Sen. Barack Obama and his policies stand far afield from any form of socialism they know.

John Bachtell, the Illinois organizer for Communist Party USA, sees attempts by Sen. John McCain's campaign to label Obama a socialist as both offensive to socialists and a desperate ploy to tap into fears of voters who haven't forgotten their Cold War rhetoric.

Time Magazine editor at large Mark Halperin appeared on WLS AM radio in Chicago this morning with Don Wade and Roma to discuss politics as he does every Monday. In one of the better moments in radio Don Wade quipped that Halperin was doing stand up comedy after Halperin stated that Rahm Emanuel, Charles Schumer and Dick Durbin would actually prevent Barack Obama from going crazy liberal. (audio here, jump to 5:55)

Don Wade: New Gingrich called it the repo administration, he says if Obama wins, and if he has a moderate House and Senate he would probably be more like a Richie Daley in his administration. But he doesn't have a moderate House and Senate, he has Reed and Pelosi who are far lefties so we are in for a lot of trouble.

What do you think of that idea, that if the House and Senate were moderate that Obama would be more like Rich Daley?

Halperin: Well, I think the House and Senate are going to have a lot of moderates and a lot of liberals. And a lot of liberals in positions of authority. I am currently thinking, although there is speculation on both sides of this, that people like Congressman Emanuel, a friend of your program, and people like Charles Schumer, an others, maybe even Dick Durbin, who is relatively liberal, are going to be looking to work with Congress on behalf of the administration if there is an Obama administration to try to keep him from going crazy liberal. And I think that what will happen.

Justin Rood of ABC news came out with a tortured defense of ACORN today with the help of "experts" that claim there is no connection between invalid voter registrations and voter fraud. In order for Rood to make this claim he relies on the testimony of two "experts", namely Civil Rights attorney David Becker and Lorraine Minnite, a political science professor at Barnard College in New York.

A further examination of these two experts however shows that Rood is downright deceitful in presenting this argument. Lorraine Minnite actually donated $250 to the Obama campaign in March of this year while David Becker is anything but the Republican that he is portrayed as in the article. In fact Mr. Becker is a former director at People for the American Way, a liberal activist group that monitors "right wing organizations" and is currently launching a campaign aimed at Fighting Back Against Right-Wing Smears of ACORN.

Just in case you were unconvinced of the objectivity of Becker's former group note that they will be launching a full page ad in the New York Times in defense of ACORN.

The Colony South Hotel & Conference Center in Clinton, Md., has hosted fundraisers for Barack Obama, held a prayer breakfast for a local Democrat, hosted a meeting for the African-American Democratic club and hosted a home foreclosure program for Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer. But now that they had the audacity to put up a McCain-Palin campaign sign on their front lawn they are being threatened with an angry response from Obama supporters. (h/t Big Dog)

The act has enraged so many Obama supporters that even the NAACP has weighed in on the issue. Other Democrat activists are stirring talk of a boycott with explicit reference to shutting the hotel out of consideration as host for future political conferences; a strong arm tactic that has severe financial repercussions so close to Washington DC.

One-Time NPR Commentator Mumia Abu-Jamal

The Chicago Tribune caught up with William Ayers at his university office yesterday. While Ayers refused to comment for the reporters he told them from his door, "What could I possibly add? Life happens."

The Tribune notes that the door or William Ayers is decorated with pictures of celebrated cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal and murderous Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. These pictures alone contradict the narrative that William Ayers is somehow a repentant former radical:

Mehdi Kalhor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's media consultant and Iran's Vice President of media affairs announced on Saturday that Iran is setting two preconditions before it will engage in any talks with the United States. (h/t Wizbang).

The announcement was made in an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency and has been reported independently by both the Fars News Agency and Al Jezeera. Strangely though there does not appear to be any mention in the US media according to a Google search. (all emphasis mine throughout)

Vice President for Media Affairs Mehdi Kalhor said on Saturday that Iran has set two preconditions for holding talks with the United States of America.

In an exclusive interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency, he said as long as U.S. forces have not left the Middle East region and continues its support for the Zionist regime, talks between Iran and U.S. is off the agenda.

The New York Times took the unusual step of quickly editing and replacing a hysterical post by hockey blogger Lynn Zinser that covered Sarah Palin's appearance at the Philadelphia Flyers home opener where she was invited to drop a ceremonial puck. In her original post Zinser exaggerated the boos by the crowd, attacked Flyers owner Ed Snider for inviting Palin to the event and appears to have fabricated the discomfort felt by NHL players Scott Gomez and Mike Richards.

That account has since been changed. Somewhere along the line Zinser gutted the original article and replaced  it with a new one that came a bit closer to reality. However the repost didn't occur before the original article shot across the internet where it was eventually picked up by Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher and flogged as a "political scoop". (update below: Rangers Scott Gomez voting for McCain-Palin)

The mainstream media is going through another one of their meltdown moments as they rush to defend Barack Obama from his relationship with American terrorists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. (plural)

John Stephenson of Newsbusters detailed CNN's supposed fact check that came in response to a speech that Sarah Palin gave. In that speech Palin did the job the mainstream media refuses to do by mentioning the words terrorists, relationships and Barack Obama in a single sentence while referring to the former Weather Underground leaders.

In rushing to Barack Obama's defense CNN slipped the following into the end of their fact check: 

The McCain campaign did not respond Saturday to a request for elaboration on Palin's use of the plural "terrorists."

Well excuse me, but why should they? If CNN doesn't know that Bernardine Dohrn was a leader of the Weather Underground while they were bombing federal buildings and police stations why should the McCain campaign give CNN the legitimacy of a real news organization by providing a response?

With all the mainstream media emphasis on poll numbers that supposedly show strong leads for Barack Obama I was wondering if there should be any analysis of an AOL straw poll that shows John McCain solidly beating Barack Obama in a random sample of hundreds of thousands of readers. A major difference between the AOL straw poll and that of other polls is that the AOL poll does not consist of people that are chosen by the pollsters.The poll runs over a number of days and is repeated on a weekly basis.

I wrote about this poll on September 14th. It asks one question, vote for your candidate of choice. Two weeks ago the three day poll had amassed 321,168 samples, with 60% of the votes going to John McCain. The poll continues this week. As of September 25th the poll had counted 154,732 votes and McCain picked up 3 percentage points from the week before, leading Barack Obama by a 27 point margin, 63% to 37%.

You don't see this in the media every day. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed offers a counter argument to those that use the mainstream media pulpit to attack Sarah Palin from the feminist mantle. While peers like Mary Mitchell display their disdain for Sarah Palin with emotional editorial outbursts Michael Sneed is lending Palin some support in her column headlined "Revoke my feminist card -- I like Palin".

Hmmm. Maybe . . . I am not a feminist after all.

Maybe . . . working in a man's world for 42 years and busting my butt to beat them up the ladder deletes me from the feminist category.

Perhaps . . . struggling to be a good single mom in a very married world -- yet meeting my five-day-a-week column deadline -- doesn't earn me a feminist handle either.

Certainly . . . because I'm not appalled or sickened or shocked by Sarah Palin's stealing the thunder from Obama the orator, I am not a feminist.

Give me a break.

Here at Newsbusters we are not surprised to see liberal bias in the media. In fact it is to be expected. But there are degrees of bias; typically falling somewhere in between the subtle undertones of contextually stretched reporting to the overtly blatant thrill up the leg sort.

But there is another type of bias that is so mean spirited and over the top that you have to wonder if we aren’t observing a nervous breakdown on a mass scale. It seems that many in the media are becoming unglued over the concept of a McCain-Palin ticket.

Case in point is Mary Mitchell's latest column that appeared in yesterday's Chicago Sun Times.

Sarah Palin makes me sick. I hate that she was able to steal Barack Obama's mojo just by showing up wearing rimless glasses and a skirt.

I hate that she makes Joe Biden look like John McCain and John McCain look like the maverick he is not.

A new whisper campaign is forming in the blogosphere and creeping into web search engines across the internet as a self proclaimed e-zine called "LA Progressive" is spreading a false rumor that Sarah Palin called Barack Obama 'Sambo' while dining in an Alaska restaurant. Charley James, the author of the article that is unlikely to have his blogspot site shut down for Obama bias, also claims through 'anonymous sources' that Palin called Hillary Clinton a "b#^@h" in the same breath. It is getting pretty desperate out there.

Here are the opening paragraphs from Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper): Palin Is “Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean” (emphasis mine, src. Michelle Malkin):

Mary Mitchell of the Chicago Sun-Times appears to be having a hard time accepting the nomination of Sarah Palin as Vice Presidential candidate for the United States. On Tuesday she called Republican acceptance of the "bombshell" news that Bristol Palin was pregnant "malarkey" before ranting about the failure of abstinence only messages. 

This morning Mitchell is heaping a new sort of praise onto Sarah Palin, implying that her speech was a mean spirited attack, labeling her as backwoods and stating that discussing her record of experience is a "Republican ploy", i.e. - a trick to highlight Barack Obama's lack of experience.

Sarah Palin may come from the backwoods of Alaska, but she has the heart of a street fighter.

So Democrats shouldn't get entangled in the Republicans' "experience" ploy.

Palin isn't on the Republican ticket because she has been the governor of Alaska for two years.

The people who cooked up this scheme don't care whether Palin will be a heartbeat away from the presidency if something happens to the 72-year-old McCain.

Palin's on the ticket because she's a woman and she isn't afraid to engage in the Republicans' mean-spirited personal attacks.

Feminism took a step backwards this week. After being told for decades that women are being held back by the proverbial glass ceiling the left is looking to repair its most recent cracks with duct tape.

Apparently a mom, the once dispensable facet of the nuclear family according to many a card carrying liberal, is now so indispensable that she should actually feel guilty for seeking the job as Vice President of the United States. And you should be guilty too for recommending her for the post. This is the new theme as demonstrated by Liz Hunt of the Daily Telegraph and repeated by others that seem to have a new found problem with successful conservative mothers.

Hunt actually appears more desperate than most when attacking Sarah Palin by implying that Palin's daughter Bristol is getting married instead of getting an abortion for reasons of her mother's "political expediency".

Love and support are all very well. But what about choice. I just hope poor Bristol had a say in it too and that she isn't becoming a wife and parent at such a young age for reasons of political expediency and her mother's soaring ambition.

I suppose that Hunt could be implying that Bristol put the child up for adoption. But when left to poinder the phrasing, "what about choice", the left usually means "what about choice (for abortion)?"

Word is out that high profile Barack Obama supporter and Us Weekly Magazine publisher Jann Wenner is using his magazine to smear Governor Sarah Palin from grocery store check out aisles and newsstands across the country. (h/t Michelle Malkin)

The tabloid style attack hypes the ridiculously out of context claims of the Huffington Post that Sarah Palin ridiculed State Senate President Lyda Green in an interview with radio talk show host Bob Lester on the popular Bob and Mark radio show. 

On January 15, Alaska governor Sarah Palin laughed along with an Alaskan shock-jock DJ who called her political rival Lyda Green a "cancer," a "b#@ch" and ridiculed her weight. (Green is a cancer survivor.)

The Us  magazine cover story is filed under the URL slug "sarah-palin-very-difficult-to-work-with". This particular smear job on Sarah Palin was literally spoon fed to the magazine and bloggers on the left by the Huffington Post that featured a hacked up YouTube version of the interview that was edited to take Governor Palin out of context and make the incident sound worse than it really was. (Full interview here)

The ABC News political radar blog provided a bit of cover for former DNC Chairman Don Fowler (Democratic Superdelegate) who was caught on tape in a conversation with Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) gloating over the timing of hurricane Gustav, saying it was a sign from God.

An anonymous person posted the video to YouTube and published an accompanying article at the Red State blog. The comments were captured by a passenger sitting behind them on a flight as they departed from the Democratic National Convention.

“The hurricane’s going to hit New Orleans about the time they start. The timing is — at least it appears now that it’ll be there Monday. That just demonstrates that God’s on our side. [Laughter] Everything’s cool.”

In typical "circle the wagons" style, ABC provided a platform for Don Fowler to explain away his comments as a satirical comment on the late Rev. Jerry Falwell while simultaneously blaming the entire incident on a "right-wing nutcase".

State Test Scores in Reading and Mathematics Continue To Increase, Achievement Gaps Narrow Since 2002

A multi-year study designed to report on the effects of the much maligned 2002 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has determined that students achieved moderate to large gains on state tests in math and reading. The study also concluded that achievement gaps between white students and minorities narrowed, with significant reduction for the African American community and low income groups.

The study was conducted by the non-partisan Center On Education Policy over a 2 year period. Results of the report were released on June 24th yet few major newspapers bothered to mention the news. (all emphasis mine)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 24, 2008 – Student scores on state tests of reading and mathematics have risen since 2002, and achievement gaps between various groups of students have narrowed more often than they have widened, according to the most comprehensive and rigorous recent analysis of state test scores. These improvements have occurred during a period when the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), state education reforms, and local school improvement efforts have focused on raising test scores and narrowing achievement gaps.

When Chicago instituted a city wide smoking ban in 2005 it was met with mixed reaction; some hated the idea and others loved it with little middle ground. When R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. took advantage of a loophole in the Chicago ordinance and opened up a legal smoking lounge the Washington Post treated the company as if they skirted the law and published a critical story in its nation section under the headline "Tobacco Lounge Blows Smoke in The Face of Chicago's New Ban".

Now that an unintended consequence of Chicago's smoking ban is affecting the expression of art it is being treated as an infringement of an artist's 1st Amendment right. An indirect casualty of Chicago's smoking ban is the Chicago production of Jersey Boys. As a result historically accurate depictions of Frankie Valli and The Four Season smoking cigarettes have been replaced with toothpicks and shticks with finicky lighters. This latest rewrite on history is courtesy of the same city council that gave Chicago its much reviled and short lived foie gras ban.

Funny how it takes an absurd twist of events to get people riled up about nanny state politics after the fact.

While many newspapers ride the blurred lines between campaigning for Barack Obama and reporting news about him the New York Times is making it clear that they have no desire to hide behind such pretense. Their "in the bag" effort on behalf of Barack Obama has become so blatant and transparent that they are now printing stories to convince Obama supporters to take on Hussein as a middle name in a show of solidarity for the MSM's presidential candidate of choice.

Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father.

“Emily Hussein Nordling,” her entry now reads.

With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name.

The result is a group of unlikely-sounding Husseins: Jewish and Catholic, Hispanic and Asian and Italian-American, from Jaime Hussein Alvarez of Washington, D.C., to Kelly Hussein Crowley of Norman, Okla., to Sarah Beth Hussein Frumkin of Chicago.

The Associated Press labeled Joe Lieberman as the "Democrats' public enemy No. 1" in an astoundingly one sided attack over the weekend in response to critical remarks the former Democrat Senator made about Barack Obama while campaigning for John McCain.

The first four paragraphs of the report were dedicated to an all out character assassination that chided Lieberman for straying from the Democrats in a betrayal that is ominously close to transforming him into "an attack dog for Republicans."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Joe Lieberman is fast becoming the Democrats' public enemy No. 1.

The four-term Connecticut senator, who came tantalizingly close to being Al Gore's vice president in 2000, not only has been campaigning for his pal, presumed Republican nominee John McCain, now he's publicly criticizing the Democrats' standard-bearer, Barack Obama. Lieberman has strayed before, most notably switching from Democrat to independent in 2006 to hold onto his Senate seat after a Democratic primary loss.

But the latest betrayal has upset Democrats, who often answer in clipped but polite tones when asked about Lieberman. The reason: The independent still caucuses with the Democrats on most issues except the Iraq war, and he holds their slim political majority in his hands.

"There's a commonly held hope that he's not going to be transformed into an attack dog for Republicans," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., an Obama supporter.

The article is simply headlined “McCain alters Obama slogan to his own liking“. At first I had expected the report to be a complaint along the lines that John McCain was using Barack Obama’s own slogan against him in a critical manner. When I read the article however I learned that the AP is claiming that John McCain not only took Barack Obama’s slogan and transformed it into his own but that he also had the gall to create a new branding on his website that supposedly uses Obama’s signature design: red, white and blue in an arrangement consisting of red and white stripes. (all emphasis mine)

Republican John McCain has transformed rival Barack Obama’s slogan of “Change We Can Believe In” into his own line, “A Leader We Can Believe In.”

McCain’s campaign this week posted the personalized motto on its Web site, http://www.johnmccain.com . The white, bold words are posted on a blue background above red and white stripes - a pattern similar to Obama’s campaign logo.