Why I Love This Guy, Part 2

Kevin Drum has left Washington Monthly for Mother Jones, but he left behind Steve Benen, who's been maintaining Drum's great standard, and this post in particular is the sort of thing more people should be talking about.

Short version:  McCain has been claiming that Obama voted against money for the troops.  Which he did in a sense; he voted against a supplemental budget bill, along with many other Democrats, as a way to show opposition to the continuation of Bush's Iraq policy.  But there was another supplemental budget bill, backed by Democrats, and McCain voted against that one.  

In the he-said, she-said world of idiot politics, the expected response--and the sort of thing that Clinton tended to do, smart as he was--was to simply accuse right back: "McCain voted against a bill for the troops!*  (*Details elsewhere.)"

Obama is refusing to play the game, and in this article, as you can see, what he says instead is, "Look--here's how bills work..."  Read it here.  It's just as refreshing as hell.  

I don't understand how anyone can make any moral equivalence between these two campaigns. Take away the lies, and McCain has almost nothing compelling to say.

Be sure to read the comments.  There are some pretty good ideas in there too once you sift through the trolls.  Washington Monthly has always had a really healthy substance-to-troll comment ratio that I don't see at DailyKos.

(Okay.  Back to writing, dammit.)