McCain-Palin's "Dishonorable" Ad | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008

CAPITOL LETTER
The Lieberman Lesson
Eleanor Clift 11/21/2008 12:00:00 AM
Lieberman lucked out. In any other election cycle, he'd be doomed. It wasn't so much that the former Democratic and now independent senator from Connecticut supported John McCain. That was forgivable. But blasting Barack Obama at the Republican convention was crossing a bridge too far, a bridge to nowhere. Right after the election, it looked like good ole Joe would be getting his pink slip as chairman of the Senate homeland-security committee. But word went out from Chicago that the president-elect was not interested in recriminations, and the lions laid down with the lambs, and Sen. Joe Lieberman was once again back in the good graces of his fellow Democrats.
INTERNATIONAL
A Case for Barack Hussein
11/4/2008 12:00:00 AM
With the U.S. elections at hand, a victory by John McCain seems unlikely. All of my East Coast-educated American buddies would be angry and aggrieved if McCain managed to pull off an eleventh-hour upset. Being from the Middle East—which is to say, being no fan of George W. Bush—they would expect the same from me. How could I feel otherwise about McCain, who said, after a supporter accused Barack Obama of being an Arab, "No, he's a decent man."
INTERNATIONAL
Taliban Two-Step: Can’t Sit Down Yet
Sami Yousafzai 11/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
Don't even ask Mullah Sabir about peace talks. There's nothing to talk about, says the tall, burly Afghan, one of the Taliban's highest-ranking commanders. "This is not a political campaign for policy change or power sharing or cabinet ministries," he tells NEWSWEEK at a textiles shop on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. "We are waging jihad to bring Islamic law back to Afghanistan." The refusal to negotiate comes straight from the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, says Sabir, who did not want his full name used: "The tone of his rejection has been so strong from the first that no one would dare to raise the subject with him." The trouble is, Sabir hasn't seen Mullah Omar in years, and he doesn't know of anyone who has. Internet posts released in Mullah Omar's name on Muslim holy days are the only hint that the one-eyed Commander of the Faithful is still alive. All the same, Sabir says he and thousands of other Taliban won't stop fighting until they're back in power.
CAMPAIGN 2008
Worlds Apart
Michael Hirsh 9/27/2008 12:00:00 AM
Books have been written about 1968—"The Year That Made Us Who We Are," as NEWSWEEK proclaimed in a cover story 40 years later. The nation was gripped by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, the Tet Offensive, Nixon's election. Far from the headlines, it was also a year that helped make John McCain and Barack Obama who they are. Both future senators had arrived in Southeast Asia around that time. Obama was a happy-go-lucky kid in Jakarta, thrilling to his exotic new surroundings—which included a pet crocodile—yet also savoring visits to the place he came to see as a symbol of hope and opportunity, the U.S. Embassy's American Club. McCain wasn't that far away from Obama geographically—Hanoi lies about 1,800 miles north of Jakarta—but as a 31-year-old naval aviator who had recently been shot down, he was beginning the five years of brutal imprisonment that would come to define his life and public persona.
FACTCHECK.ORG
GOP Convention Spin
Viveca Novak 9/3/2008 12:00:00 AM
Lieberman said Obama hadn't "reached across party lines" to accomplish "anything significant," though Obama has teamed with GOP Sens. Tom Coburn and Richard Lugar to pass laws enhancing government transparency and curtailing the proliferation of nuclear and conventional weapons.
POLITICS
In Denver, Making Room for Moscow
8/27/2008 12:00:00 AM
Until a few weeks ago, the idea that Russia would have any sort of influence on U.S. presidential politics in this electoral cycle would have struck most people as absurd. Neither its position as a major energy power, its influence on Iran's nuclear program, its own enormous nuclear weapons arsenal, nor its frequently demonstrated willingness to play hardball with the nations it once ruled in the Soviet empire warranted much attention on the hustings. Both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Democratic and Republican candidates, had made policy statements prior to the Caucasus flare-up. But Russia did not headline either campaign's battle plans, although McCain had generated comment by calling for Russia's ouster from the G8 in 2007.