by Evie Stone

Good morning!

Well, the 9/11 crossfire hiatus was nice while it lasted. This morning, both campaigns are up with new ads. (Though actually the new McCain ad was unannounced to the media and seems like it may have gone up during yesterday's supposed moratorium).

The nonpartisan Factcheck.org, perhaps still smarting from the McCain camp's misleading use of its own findings, was quick off the blocks to criticize McCain's latest effort. The new ad, called "Disrespectful," is another effort to portray VP nominee Sarah Palin as a victim of a cruel and desperate Obama.

The new McCain-Palin ad "Disrespectful" begins like an earlier ad we criticized, with its reference to Barack Obama's celebrity, but then goes down new paths of deception. It takes quotes from news organizations and uses them out of context in an effort to portray Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, as unfairly attacking Sarah Palin and making sexist remarks. We've long been a critic of candidates (Obama included) usurping the credibility of independent news organizations and peddling false quotes, and this ad is particularly egregious.

One wonders as well how much this victimhood schtick will really end up benefiting the GOP ticket. As hawkish as Palin's foreign policy language seems to be, if the campaign continues to paint every criticism of her (even legitimate ones like the Obama camp's pushback on her Bridge to Nowhere position) as "disrespectful" it's bound to start sparking questions — sure to be dismissed as sexist — about whether she's tough enough for the international policy stage. (There is plenty of appalling and disrespectful material about Palin swirling around the blogosphere and the commentariat — but it doesn't come from the Obama campaign, and it's not the stuff referenced in "Disrespectful.")

 

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign counters with two new ads of its own. One is called "Still" and uses a disco ball, a record player, and a Rubik's cube to illustrate the long-ago era in which McCain came to Washington. "Things have changed in the last 26 years" the announcer says. "But McCain hasn't." The ad then pokes fun at McCain for not knowing how to send email, and over footage of McCain in a golf cart with Bush 41 says he doesn't understand the economy and criticizes his tax plan.

The ad certainly mocks McCain — though as we've seen before in Obama ads, the kicky music takes some of the edge off and keeps it from seeming too mean-spirited. Expect some complaints about how it's pointing out McCain's...seniority by portraying him as a relic of another era. It's also not 100% true that McCain's tax plan does nothing for the middle class; he does not offer as much middle-class tax relief as Obama, but he does say he'll increase the tax exemption for dependents. But ultimately this is just your average spin — nothing on the order of the blatant distortions we've seen from McCain in recent days.

The other Obama ad, "Real Change" simply features Obama looking into the camera, explaining what he means by change. The kicker: "this year, change has to be more than a slogan."

These ads come in the wake of several days of panicky kibbitzing (campaign manager David Plouffe described it to the NYT as "hand-wringing and bed-wetting") from Democrats about the Obama campaign strategy. In a memo this morning, Plouffe told supporters (and the media) that the campaign plans to get more aggressive.

We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people. We will not allow John McCain and his band of Karl Rove disciples to make this big election about small things.

We have, as Jake Tapper points out, heard that one a few times, especially during the primary battle against Hillary Clinton. But so far we haven't seen any true bare-knuckle action.

As for the Sarah Palin interview, there wasn't a lot of additional material (beyond what aired on World News Tonight) released on last night's Nightline or today's GMA. We saw a few more details from the foreign policy segment, but the only new information came in a brief chunk of an interview conducted near the Alaska pipeline.

Interviewer Charles Gibson asked Palin about her stance on global warming — which she has previously said she does not believe is man-made. (A recent quote: "I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.") In yesterday's interview she seemed to open the door to acknowledging a human component to climate change. She first told Gibson that it shouldn't matter what's causing climate change, since the real question is what to do about it. But when pressed her on the subject, she gave this mushy answer: "I'm attributing some of man's activities to potentially causing some of the changes in the climate right now." Palin also told Gibson that she would push John McCain to reconsider his opposition to oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Reviews of Palin's performance have been decidedly mixed. The AP lede:

John McCain running mate Sarah Palin sought Thursday to defend her qualifications but struggled with foreign policy, unable to describe President Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against threatening nations and acknowledging she's never met a foreign head of state.

The Republican vice presidential nominee told Charles Gibson of ABC News in her first televised interview since being named to the GOP ticket that "I'm ready" to be president if called upon. However, she sidestepped on whether she had the national security credentials needed to be commander in chief.

Daily Kos calls her a "moose in the headlights." National Review musters up a "just fine," though much of the right-leaning blogosphere this morning appears focused on Gibson's performance rather than Palin's.

And finally, last night McCain and Obama spoke at a forum on service at Columbia University — and event that was all but buried by the Palin interview. As at the recent Saddleback appearance, they spoke separately but appeared briefly onstage together.

Overall it was a genial affair, fitting the day's suspension of politics as usual. McCain downplayed the dismissive comments about community organizing from Palin and Rudy Giuliani's convention speeches, saying, "of course I respect community organizers, of course I respect people who serve their community, and Senator Obama's record there is outstanding." And Obama said he respects Palin's record as Wasilla mayor, saying mayoring is one of the "toughest" jobs around: "While we yak in the Senate, they actually have to fill potholes and trim trees and make sure the garbage is taken away." And both candidates pushed their calls to service. McCain's "Service to America" initiative was released just before the forum. The Obama camp responded with a reminder to the press about Obama's service plan, which he unveiled during the primaries.

Our thoughts are with those of you on the Texas coast.