We got ahold of one of BMW Direct’s mailers. This one is on behalf of Ada Fisher in her 2006 congressional campaign, when she says BMW Direct “screwed me.” Take a look.

Whether you’re pro- or con on the recent and flagging neo-imperialist turn in US foreign policy, it’s a bit sad when the White House has to resort to ‘dog ate my homework’ level excuses when a country says they don’t want to remain under occupation any more. As you can see, the demand for a definite date for withdrawal of US troops turns out not to have been a ‘transcription error’, as the White House earlier claimed. Seems like they really want a date certain.

The House oversight committee gives Attorney General Michael Mukasey until July 16 to produce subpoenaed FBI reports on interviews with the Vice President in the Plame leak investigation — or face a contempt of Congress vote.

The AP pulls out all the stops to bring you the substantive political reporting you can’t get anywhere else.

New York Times out of step with Associated Press on Obama’s Iraq stance?

Voters should understand, he said, that they rarely will find themselves in 100 percent agreement with him. “But don’t assume that’s because I’m just doing it for “political reasons, he said.

“That just means we disagree,” he said.

At which point he returned to Iraq, an issue where he has wavered very little from the stance he took many months ago. He favors a phased-in 16-month withdrawal. The McCain campaign has labored hard to suggest that he is inconsistent on this issue.

Over at TPMCafe, David Sirota takes up a favorite TPM topic — astroturfing — and explains how it’s a symptom of what he calls “autocratic progressivism,” which emphasizes a top-down structure versus true grassroots organizing. Jared Bernstein responds by pushing for progressives to do both: [W]e’ve got to think on both bottom-up and top-down tracks.”

This morning we showed you John McCain’s new ad which ends with his new campaign slogan “Don’t hope for a better life; vote for one.”

But as TPM Reader AF points out, they seem to have copied it from a late-70s slogan Saatchi & Saatchi created for the UK Tory party.

From a 1997 article in the UK Telegraph (emphasis added) …

The first work produced for the party was a television broadcast devised by Charles, in which images of everyday Britain were run in reverse. The dramatic sequence was concluded with Michael Heseltine uttering the slogan: ‘Backwards or forwards, because we can’t go on as we are. Don’t hope for a better life; vote for one.’

It’s also referenced in this book.

Now, to be clear, I think this kind of borrowing is part and parcel of political messaging. It’s got a long history. It’s not ‘plagiarism’. It’s just borrowing a good line.

But it’s always worth keeping track of who the candidate is cribbing from.

Here’s the lede from the AP’s latest McCain fluffer, this time from Nedra Pickler …

Barack Obama says John McCain’s plan to balance the budget doesn’t add up. Easy for him to say: It’s not a goal he’s even trying to reach.

Well, easy for McCain too, since he doesn’t either.

Pickler doesn’t mention that McCain doesn’t even say how he’ll do it; he just says he’ll do it. No numbers — No nothing. Every sentient being who’s looked at his spending and tax cut proposals knows he won’t come close to balancing the budget in four years. And within a few hours of making the claim his own economic advisor decided that he was actually going to do it in eight years not four.

I guess I love a good slavery joke as much as the next guy. So here’s a terribly witty Jonah Goldberg column in which he belittles slavery and debt peonage by comparing them to requiring college students to do a few hours of community service in exchange for taxpayer-subsidized student loans or getting kids to volunteer for Americorps.

Are the Rove proteges reshaping McCain’s campaign? Are they cracking down on the cringey laugh and turning McCain into just one more bland teleprompter jockey? And what’s the progress on scoring the budget victory numbers?

We bring you all up to date in today’s McCain campaign update (with special new cringey laugh footage) …

High-res version at Veracifier.com.