Welcome to an all-new Videos of the Week. I've been writing about PUMA all week (click here if you missed it), so it seemed natural to dedicate this week's VOTW to the passionate former Clinton supporters, and their wayward sister, The Anti PUMA.

This is a surprisingly rich topic, but I also saved room for some new hilarity from Barely Political, more McCain madness, The Onion gets in on the values voter issue, and an outbreak of substance on The View.

First up is a clip of a PUMA rally in San Francisco. I'm sure you would agree, aside from badly needing some chanting lessons, the PUMAs put on a good show.

Last night, I posted a piece about John McCain's latest brush with women's issues, but I just missed out on including this vile tidbit. The Nation reports that John McCain might not be all that sensitive to the ladies:

According to the Tucson Citizen, here's what McCain, then a two-term Congressman from Mesa, said during his run for the Senate:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'

Here's a link to the original article. At the time, McCain said, "How dare you, HOW DARE you make such an accusation?"

Wait, sorry, what he said, through a spokesman, was "John does not recollect telling that joke..."

The original article was very well-sourced.

McCain has a history of making disturbing jokes, such as a crack about then-18-year-old Chelsea Clinton, but nothing this heinous.

Here's what makes it worse, at least for me. I've heard this joke before, told by a loudmouthed nieghbor during a card game with my folks. Only when he told it, it was a black joke.

In case you missed it, John McCain had a...um... hard time answering a question earlier this week about the nexus of Viagra and birth control. A reporter asked him why he had voted against legislation that would have required companies that cover Viagra to also cover birth control, and McCain was unable to respond. The reporter told him it was "no big deal," and was sure that "this never happens" to him.

Now, it seems that Planned Parenthood is still looking for McCain to deliver, as they take a swing at the Republican nominee in a new ad. From Politico:

The ad uses McCain's evident discomfort with a question about whether it's "unfair" that some insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control to raise doubts about the candidate with women voters.

Reproductive rights are typically at the forefront of presidential politics, though Obama has chosen to seek women's votes in large part through talking about economic issues. But Planned Parenthood and other groups remain potent forces, and this ad hits McCain on a pretty populist issue: 98% of sexually active women, according to one study, have used at least one form of birth control.

Update: I can't believe it, either, but here I am in agreement with Captain Ed:

This is a monumentally stupid ad. It spends a full minute saying nothing about the issue it supposedly addresses, and it insults the intelligence of the people whom McCain is trying to woo. And I'm someone who has a little more sympathy for McCain's efforts on immigration than most on the Right. Take two big steps backward, Senator McCain.

John McCain has released a new campaign ad, entitled, "God's Children," that seems to be stating something so obvious, you have to wonder why it needed to be said at all. Via press release:

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today released its newest television ad entitled "God's Children." The ad features John McCain's remarks at a June 2007 debate in New Hampshire honoring the service and sacrifice of Hispanics in our Armed Forces. The ad will air in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.

The McCain campaign has also scheduled a conference call to discuss the ad. I'll have more on that later.

Here's the ad, followed by the transcript. Ask yourself, "Who is this ad aimed at?"

As I reported yesterday, the re-launch of John McCain's campaign is sputtering in its berth, due to a number of miscalculations. The latest of these harks back to a popular gaffe game from the primaries, the subject of plagiarism. McCain introduced a new slogan yesterday in his "love" ad, but as Andrew Sullivan points out (via the UK Telegraph), the mantra is far from fresh:

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.'

Sullivan fails to note, however, that the slogan might be even older than that, drawing on Dante's Inferno for inspiration.

First off, I love that the first half of the slogan, "Backwards or forwards, because we can't go on as we are," cuts right at McCain and his support for President Bush's policies. Perhaps Obama should look into licensing it.

The fact that the slogan is not original isn't the worst part, however. While it's good for a headline or two, voters don't care much about the plagiarism charge. No, the real problem here is the slogan itself. It sounds clever, but without the preamble, it just makes me think, "Well, I was planning on doing both."

I touched on this earlier, but the evidence is starting to pile up that when John McCain shook up his campaign last week, he didn't shake hard enough. Even in a turtle-orgy-slow news cycle, McCain is managing to do damage to himself through inept campaigning, while failing to leave a scratch on opponent Barack Obama.

The biggest disaster, from a campaign standpoint, is McCain's sloppy and poorly-received new economic plan, but the latest is a complete dismantling of McCain's most recent Spanish-language radio ad by Factcheck.org:

McCain's new radio ad, in Spanish, aims to show Florida would benefit from the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, which he supports. But every number in the ad is wrong, except one, a prediction of job gains taken from a group favoring the trade deal. And even that number is rounded upward so generously as to flunk third-grade arithmetic.

I also noticed, the fact that McCain's new economic plan contains a proposal for a gas tax holiday to begin on Memorial Day, 2008. I initially chalked that up to McCain simply wanting to score those points regardless of the fact that it is July now. Upon reflection, I'm starting to think it was more sloppiness than anything else. The McCain campaign admitted that there was really nothing new here, and that this was a repackaging. I think they forgot to check the expiration date.

Update: 3:30 pm - I'm waiting to get on a McCain conference call right now. I'm not sure I'll report on it, that depends on several factors, but I was really amused by who they have on the call:

PRESS CONFERENCE CALL

WHO: Meg Whitman, former President and CEO, eBay Inc. Doug Holtz-Eakin, Senior Policy Adviser, John McCain 2008

So, We're going to balance the budget selling old copies of MAD magazine and Star Wars dolls?

Update: 3:47 pm They took 3 questions. None of them were about Ebay. One of them was whether the McCain campaign would be releasing hard numbers to back up their claim of balancing the budget by the end of his first term. Doug Eakin decided to summarize the plan instead of answer the question, so I guess it's a no. I'll post the audio later.

On the heels of a campaign shake-up, John McCain has released his new economic plan, and it is filled with McCain's new answer to Barack Obama's messages of Hope and Change: Magic!

According to McCain's new economic plan, making money is as easy as one, two, POOF! Under McCain, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would make piles of cash appear:

The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.

If you are spending $200.00 a month on your credit card for cigarettes, and you quit smoking, you save $200.00 a month, but can you use that $200.00, that you're now not spending, to pay off that credit card?

According to John McCain's new economic plan, you sure can.

That's just one whopper in a whopper-filled paragraph, from a whopper-crammed economic plan. That passage alone also employs the logical fallacy that McCain will help America by ending his own policies, which he hasn't implemented yet and has said he will not end.

I could spend all day picking this plan apart, and I'm sure I will, but primary to that exercise is the recognition that this is a fundamentally flawed plan. It relies mainly on reducing spending and cutting taxes, while promising to balance the budget. Unfortunately, as Obama adviser Jason Furman points out, there ain't enough spending in the world to do that.

McCain would have to pay for all of his new tax cuts and other proposals and then, on top of that, cut an additional $443 billion from the budget-which is 81 percent of Medicare spending or 78 percent of all discretionary spending outside of defense.

See, you can't pay your mortgage by canceling your HBO subscription. Now that we have that out of the way, here are a few more interesting, sometimes hilarious, tidbits from the plan.

John McCain unveiled a one-two punch of political theater this week that finally gelled, for me, the Republicans' central narrative for this election: America is embroiled in a bad spy flick. First, there was McCain's new ad, "Dr. No" (more on that later), and then his unveiling of the portentously monikered "Lexington Project."

Immediately, I thought, "What is that, some kind of weather control device? A moonbase from which to launch covert attacks? Some sort of (air quotes) 'laser?'"

It also put me in mind of the GOP's "24"- style FISA scare ad, and all of the nutso smears against Barack Obama. They all focus on his exotic lineage, and his "friends" around the globe, and are dependent on a suspension of disbelief worthy of "Moonraker."

Throw in gold-obsessed former candidate Ron Paul, recurring good-guy-turned-villain Ralph Nader, and you've got yourself the makings of a summer blockbuster, or as those in the biz call it, a "tentpole." (Don't feel bad, I'm chuckling, too.)

Update: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani chimes in at the end of the story.

The latest round of dueling campaign emails and conference calls between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain centers on a statement by Barack Obama: (via e-mail from McCain's Press Office)

Barack Obama: "And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated. And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, 'Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.' So that, I think, is an example of something that was unnecessary. We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws." (ABC News, 6/16/08)

The statement seems pretty straightforward. We should obey the rule of law, the US Constitution, when detaining and trying suspected terrorists. Anyone over the age of 12 would understand this, and then either agree or disagree with it. Certainly, straight talkin' John McCain would meet this head-on.

From the same e-mail:

Today, McCain campaign Foreign Policy Advisor Randy Scheunemann issued the following statement concerning Barack Obama's interview with ABC News:

"Barack Obama's belief that we should treat terrorists as nothing more than common criminals..."

(Sound of record album scratching to a halt)

John McCain spent his Saturday sucking up to disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters, both on a conference call, and a post-call meetup with members of PUMA (Party Unity My Ass, which can be read several ways, depending on the number and placement of commas).

The whole thing reminds me of that guy at the club who thinks he's a smooth talker, but invariably gets the "How stupid does this guy think I am?" eye-roll and a date with his fist.

"Yeah, Baby, I'll appoint some women!"

"Uh-huh, they treated your friend, Hillary, real bad."

"Litmus test? You have beautiful eyes."

"Sure, I brought protection. It's right here in my Iraq."

Of course, I'm paraphrasing slightly, but really, who is going to fall for this line of BS?