Your Morning Sift

Good morning. Or is it afternoon? I usually don't make it a habit of sleeping past 7 on the weekends but a combination of a lingering cold and some late nights really tossed that habit into the wind this weekend.

Here's your brunch-like morning Sift...

A- Man or Maniac disassembles the allegations of Obama's association with ACORN.

McCain Campaign claim: the Obama campaign directed campaign money to ACORN in the amount of $832,000.

The Truth: False! They hired a group called Citizens' Services to assist with setting up various engagments (including arranging for sound and lights), and to do some "get out the vote" efforts. Citizens' Services sub-contracted the latter job to ACORN, and paid them considerable less than $832,000 for their work.

B- Reidblog does an excellent job looking into the racial aspects of the recent McCain volunteer hoax in Pittsburgh and just how much input the McCain campaign had in promoting it.

The level of involvement that has been revealed regarding the McCain campaign puts the lie to the notion that they were simply hapless dupes, wanting to believe a young would-be victim. They were active participants in this hoax, and I return to my original question: should John McCain have to spend the next decade answering for that, as Rev. Sharpton did with Tawanna Brawley? After all, had police behaved in this case they way they did in the Stuart and Smith cases, hundreds of black men might have been rousted across Pittsburgh, some even harassed, because of this young woman's story. Some crazed Palinite might have decided to take matters into his own hands, and hurt somebody out of racial animus and a quest for revenge. This incident put lives in danger, though thanks to the professionalism and skepticism of the Pittsburgh police, it was quickly exposed as a hoax. And it added one last sickening chapter to the sorry end of John McCain's political career. (CNN gets kudos for ignoring it, too.) I'll let Fox News honcho Ron Moody sum it up for me:

"If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain's quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."

Amen.

C- South Beach Bum posts a weather forecast that's important enough to post about! Lows in the upper 50's, folks! Woot!

D- South Florida Classical Review tells us about the New World Symphony's appearance in Miami.

Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony presented a pair of large-scale works by two German composers, Beethoven and Richard Strauss, in their first season appearance at the Adrienne Arsht Center Saturday night.

[...]

The scherzo was lively and vivacious with nimble dynamic marking by the horns in the trio. The finale rounded off the performance quite gloriously, the New World members delivering the music with muscle and refinement, MTT seeming to encapsulate and convey the expressive essence of each variation in his body and gestures.

E- Several SoFla blogs commented on the recent interview that Senator Joe Biden gave to Orlando television station WFTV. First, here's the video...



I thought Biden did an excellent job of holding it together and answering some really outlandish wingnut questions posed to him by this anchor. Here's what SoFla bloggers had to say...

• East Florida Gazette: Under the post title, "Barbara West Angers Joe Biden in Orlando"....

The left becomes unhinged if you make the logical connection between their income redistribution policies and the unsavory political ideology that gave birth to it. Note that Joe Biden didn't answer Obama's ACORN connection, either. In so far as his Botox-laden forehead moved at all, it was incredulous pouting. How dare a lowly Florida reporter ask me about my political philosophy? Don't you know who I am? I am Joe Kinnock…from Scranton!

• Incertus:

It's the way Biden responds with complete incredulity, especially after the quote from Karl Marx (at about 2:25). When an interviewer asks a question as stupid as that one, the only response is to point out the ridiculousness of it. Mock them as they deserve.

• Reidblog:

See what the redstaters are consuming? Talk about media bias... More about Ms. West, from her station bio. Here are the first two graphs:

I have covered stories of people, politics and medical breakthroughs. My work has taken me across the country and around the world. From Washington, D.C. I covered the inauguration of President Bush and the impeachment of President Clinton.

When Hillary Clinton attempted to reform our health care system, I traveled to Canada to examine the Canadian national health care system as a possible model for the U.S.

Uh huh... Ms. West also used to be an assistant to Peter Jennings, and she's a pageant girl, just like Sarah Palin!

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