Response To McCain's Pitiful Attempt To Address The Dregs Of The Republican Party

There was actually a genuine maverick moment in McCain's otherwise exploitive, turgid, boring speech last night: he defied the cease and desist order he got from Heart and played their song "Barracuda" when he was finished, as several men nearly as old as he is dosed off, dreaming happily of lower taxes and warm milk.

I'm speechless. I don't know what to say. His speech was the product of a confused, crumbling mind that is sure of 3 things: it's his turn, he's owed the presidency, and his lobbyists have assured him they can use self-righteous right-wing resentment to capture it for him... as long as he doesn't try sticking to any old-fashioned scruples. It made me want to hurl. There's nothing much more that I can say about it. Jesse, the son of an old college buddy IM-ed me while McCain was still spewing. He's in an Eastern European-style folk band called Which Way East that spans the cultural divide between Plovdiv and Brooklyn.

jervis03 (7:27:55 PM): this man is scary

A short time later I got an e-mail from another musician, Scott Ryser from The Units, a band that used to be on my San Francisco indie label in the late 70s. Scott felt the need to get his thoughts out:

I was having a hard time understanding the poor old codger at first …
The bad fitting dentures didn't help him any …
And of course he misplaced his reading glasses again, making it tough to see that teleprompter.
Kind of like feeling sorry for your dim witted, demented, war vet grampa …
(Sorry to break the news folks, but at my age we ALL have war vet grampas that we love … but wouldn't vote for … for fucking president)
Putting up with his grouchy bullshit ridicule cause you know he's not going to be around for long … and you don't want to piss off your mom or your girlfriend by telling the old asshole that he's lost his marbles.
But I think I get it now … I think McCane (as in walking stick) is like one of those old guys in the Indian tribes that knows that the best thing he could do for the tribe is to walk off into the wilderness and fertilize some trees … but he's not quite ready to throw in the Depends yet … so he figures if can keep telling us these campfire stories about how he was captured by that bad tribe … maybe we'll all feel bad for him … and we'll keep chewing his food for him for a while, so we can listen to his stories.  I know … it's sad.  He's really sad.  But is the personality trait “sad” a good reason to vote for the leader of the free world?
Palin's speech left me feeling like I had narrowly escaped a lynch mob.
McCane (as in walking stick) left me feeling sad … (poor old fella).
Gee … what a great ticket!
These two should really make the rest of the world envy and respect us again!

My neighbor down the street isn't a musician; her husband is the most famous drummer in the world though. She said if McCain and Palin were elected she would throw herself off Mount Rushmore. Hillary Clinton's reaction wasn't as colorful-- but it went right to the point of why McCain is going to lose in November by historic proportions:

"The two party conventions showcased vastly different directions for our country. Senator Obama and Senator Biden offered the new ideas and positive change America needs and deserves after eight years of failed Republican leadership. Senator McCain and Governor Palin did not.

"After listening to all of the speeches this week, I heard nothing that suggests the Republicans are ready to fix the economy for middle class families, provide quality affordable health care for all Americans, guarantee equal pay for equal work for women, restore our nation's leadership in a complex world or tackle the myriad of challenges our country faces.

"So, to slightly amend my comments from Denver: NO WAY, NO HOW, NO McCAIN-PALIN."

An Obama campaign spokesperson, Bill Burton went further in expressing frustration at McCain's utterly deceptive attempt to persuade Americans that he has some role in finding a solution to problems that he worked so diligently to create:

"Tonight, John McCain said that his party was elected to change Washington, but that they let Washington change them. He's right. He admonished the 'old, do-nothing crowd' in Washington, but ignored the fact that he's been part of that crowd for twenty-six years, opposing solutions on health care, energy, and education. He talked about bipartisanship, but didn't mention that he's been a Bush partisan 90% of the time, that he's run a Karl Rove campaign, and that he wants to continue this President's disastrous economic and foreign policies for another four years.  With John McCain, it's more of the same.
 
"That's not the change Americans need. Barack Obama has taken on the special interests and the lobbyists in Illinois and in Washington, and he's won. As President, he'll cut taxes for 95% of all working families, provide affordable health care to every American, end the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas, and eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in ten years."

If you want to read a line by line refutation of all McCain's-- and Palin's speechwriter's-- lies, Fact Check at JustMoreOfTheSame.com lays it all out in well-documented irrefutable black and white. Political hacks like Karl Rove and John McCain count on people never bothering to read the facts-- and just swallowing whole the 30 second sound bytes and 60 second attack ads they're so good at. Two nights ago Palin spat out the nastiest speech of this campaign to date. Focus groups so far are indicating that other than the hard right dittoheads, people were mostly repulsed by her negativity. Last night McCain put the country to sleep. Oh, you'll hear insider partisan hacks who masquerade as legitimate journalists-- the David Broders, Rush Limbaughs and Liz Sidotis of the world-- paraphrasing Rove's talking points that were handed out before the speech was even given. But listen to a disappointed Michael Gerson, a former Bush speech writer: "The policy in the speech was rather typical for a Republican. Pretty disappointing. It didn't do a lot of outreach to moderates and independents on issues that they care about. It talked, about issues like drilling and school choice which was really speaking to the converted. I think that was a missed opportunity. Many Americans needed to hear from this speech something they have never heard from Republicans before. And in reality, a lot of the policy they’ve heard from Republicans before... Tonight was not particularly innovative, interesting or promising. It was the speech of someone who talked about being a past Maverick." And that's from someone defending him! David Gergen at CNN pretty much saw it the same way: "It was mostly a rerun, retread of a lot of old Republican ideas that have brought us to where we are now. I think the country is looking for fresh answers. It's hard to separate yourself out from President Bush when you essentially have the same economic policies as President Bush." Even GOP TV was making fun of him-- Chris Wallace: "It was a green backdrop behind him, it was a big lawn in front of a big house. You thought what the heck was that? It looked like it could have been one of the McCain mansions"