POOR LITTLE RICH WILLARD SENSES McCAIN IS A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR... BUT HE CAN'T QUITE PUT HIS FINGER ON IT

This morning's Washington Post has a front page story about the vicious fighting between the pygmies in Florida. Before Gov. Crist endorsed McCain yesterday, polls showed a neck and neck race between Willard and McCain-- with Huckabee, Ron Paul and poor, pathetic Giuliani-- no longer a factor and likely to try to cut a deal with someone and drop out-- struggling for third place. Desperation has set in and the candidates are lashing out at each other so blatantly that one has to wonder what happened to the let's-play-nice dullards from last week's Boca Raton debate. After McCain deceitfully claimed that Willard favored withdrawing from Iraq, Romney pointed out that he was being "dishonest." He missed an opportunity to explain just how fundamentally dishonest John McCain actually is.

Both Republicans abandoned all pretense of civility as they campaigned across central Florida in advance of the state's primary Tuesday. Recent polls show a dead heat between McCain and Romney, and the winner here will gain a huge advantage as the nomination fight moves to 21 states a week later.

Stumping in Fort Myers on Saturday, McCain went on the attack first, linking Romney with Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.): "If we surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do, and withdraw, as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos, genocide, and the cost of American blood and treasure would be dramatically higher."

He added to reporters that "one of my opponents wanted to set a date for withdrawal that would have meant disaster."

Romney, who said in April that the military should consider a "private timetable" but not public deadlines, shot back: "That's dishonest, to say that I have a specific date. That's simply wrong. . . . I know he's trying desperately to change the topic from the economy and trying to get back to Iraq, but to say something that's not accurate is simply wrong, and he knows better."

Later, Romney added that McCain's comment on Iraq is "simply wrong and it's dishonest, and he should apologize."

I almost feel sorry for the dismal Willard as he watches his gold chip campaign circle the bowl. He can't very well call McCain out on the pile of Neocon claptrap he spews out at every opportunity-- since it's what he believes adheres to as well. (One has no idea what-- if anything-- Willard believes, since it changes with every focus group.) Instead of attacking McCain's basic premises-- the only thing that almost holds the fast-dissolving Bush coalition together-- all he can do is whine that McCain lied about him, which he clearly did. In fact, the National Review challenges anyone to come up with anything that supports McCain's smear. They themselves offer tons of proof that Willard is a clueless Neocon, just the way Republicans want their candidates.

McCain's entire political career-- despite the success of his Orwellian p.r. machine  (his daughter is a public relations executive in the music business)-- is built on bold-faced lies and deception. Now he smells the presidency he's lusted after for so many decades and he certainly isn't going to let human decency or any semblance of honesty stand in the way-- not at this point in his life.

McCain not only refused to apologize to Romney yesterday, but at his next campaign appearance McCain lashed out at his rival, saying: "The apology is owed to the young men and women serving this nation in uniform, that we will not let them down in hard times or good. That is who the apology is owed to."

His campaign then issued a statement in which McCain said that Romney may have changed his mind on the idea of a buildup of troops in Iraq but that "the fact is, like on so many other issues, Governor Romney has hedged, equivocated, ducked and reversed himself."

...McCain and his aides, angry that Romney has made a point in recent days of questioning the senator's lack of private-sector experience, publicly took the former governor to task for his comments.

During a town hall meeting in North Fort Myers on Saturday, McCain questioned "people who say you haven't had a real job" if you served in the military. "Those of us who have served in the military, we think it's a real job," he said.

McCain added that if elected president, he would appoint managers to work beneath him, rather than seek that role for himself-- a dig at Romney's repeated assertion that his experience as a manager in the business world should qualify him for the presidency.

Or maybe the problem is that Willard is just as big a liar as McCain and he doesn't want to get into a cat fight about who lies more? I used to work at AOLTimeWarner. I was president of one of their divisions. When Romney's vulture capital firm, Bain, bought it, they stripped it of it's value and left it to rot. Today's Boston Globe tells a little of the Bain Capital-Mitt Romney story. This guy is using his experience in the business world as the reason why Republicans should vote for him. His experience in the business world-- beyond anything else-- is exactly why no one in their right mind should consider voting for him for anything. When "his political interests... conflicted with his business responsibilities" he didn't care what happened to peoples' jobs, careers, or even what happened to the shares of the companies, their investors, their future viability. Romney was always about how to get ahead-- for Romney.

Throughout his 15-year career at Bain Capital, which bought, sold, and merged dozens of companies, Romney had other chances to fight to save jobs, but didn't. His ultimate responsibility was to make money for Bain's investors, former partners said.

Much as he did when running for Massachusetts governor, Romney is now touting his business credentials as he campaigns for president, asserting that he helped create thousands of jobs as CEO of Bain. But a review of Bain's investments during Romney's tenure indicates that job growth was not a particular priority.

...Bain Capital is a private equity firm that invests in start-ups and established firms. It provides venture capital for emerging companies, such as Staples in the 1980s, but specializes in leveraged buyouts. Leveraged buyouts combine small amounts of investors' money with large amounts of borrowed money to buy established companies, increase their value, and resell them at a profit.

Increasing value means boosting profits. That can require a range of approaches including cost-cutting, modernizing plants, adding products, expanding into new markets, and acquiring similar companies.

Bain employed all these strategies under Romney. It's impossible to say precisely if more jobs were created than cut by Bain since the firm does not track employment in its investments.

Warner Bros Records isn't precisely flat on it's back because of Bain, but every bad management decision that could have been made was made and the company has shrunk down to a shadow of its former self and is on the verge of bankruptcy. It employs less than half the people in once employed. On top of that, the future for the company looks extremely bleak. Obviously Romney isn't involved with Warner Bros. His company, Bain, still operates exactly the way it did when he ran it. What a horrible set of choices the Republicans are left with! That's why so few of them are bothering to participate in the selection process.

How ironic that two of the very issues that should disqualify these two politicial pygmies-- national security for McCain and the economy for Willard-- are exactly what they tout as their strong point! As yesterday's Time points out, "McCain wants the Florida primary to be an election about national security, his best issue [another myth perpetrated by the media with zero basis in fact]. But until Saturday, the contest was humming along as an election more about the economy, Mitt Romney's best issue." Romney may achieve his dream of getting into the White House-- as unlikely as that sounds-- but those who vote him in will yearn for a nice old Bush Recession once the Willard Depression starts. And McCain? Well... if you want Americans fighting and dying in Iraq for 100 years, he's your man. They sure make Hillary and Obama look good!


THE HUCKSTER COMES OUT SWINGIN'... FOR McCAIN

Huckabee says he's unimpressed with Willard's business credentials. How could anyone not be? And he is clearly trying to boost McCain over Willard. As as an impressive array of Democrats jumps in against Hillary-- Ted Kennedy and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius the latest-- Republicans are making their last stands to derail the candidates they hate most. As we pointed out yesterday, the hard core and most extreme elements of the Right would do anything to stop McCain. Today a surrogate for Darth Cheney, his radical right, somewhat deranged daughter Liz, showed her family's disdain for McCain by endorsing Willard-- and going to work for his campaign. Meanwhile Hillary was endorsed by the ex-Governor of New Mexico, Bruce King, who unlike ex-Gov. Gary Johnson-- also of New Mexico and who endorsed Ron Paul-- does not support legalizing marijuana.