McCain Blames Bush For His Campaign's Collapse But Is He Being Honest With Himself?

Almost daily we're hearing how McCain "blames" Palin for his death march to political oblivion. I doubt it. Blaming Palin means buying in to what every serious McCain detractor from both sides of the aisle has been saying: McCain's poor judgment and cynicism-- for selecting her in the first place-- make him unfit for the presidency. So who does he blame for his sinking poll numbers and what is shaping up to be the biggest disaster for the Republican Party since the last time a senator from Arizona headed the national ticket? Bush, of course, his old nemesis.

Yesterday on the Double Talk Express, he granted an interview to a couple of friendly reporters from the Moonie Times. He "lashed out at a litany of Bush policies and issues that he said he would have handled differently as president," neglecting to mention he supported almost every single one of them in the Senate. Consistently refusing to take any responsibility for his own rejection by the voters, McCain "blasted President Bush for building a mountain of debt for future generations, failing to pay for expanding Medicare and abusing executive powers, leveling his strongest criticism to date of an administration whose unpopularity may be dragging the Republican Party to the brink of a massive electoral defeat." None of the crowing about how he voted for 90% of Bush's agenda.



No, McCain wasn't talking about how he turned himself into a virtual rubber stamp for Bush-Cheney, especially in the most recent years, when he racked up a disgraceful and shockingly extremist voting record to the right of lunatic fringe senators like Larry Craig (R-ID), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC). The handful of senators to the right of McCain are the bizarre extremists and neo-Confederate obstructionists like David Vitter (R-LA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Miss McConnell (R-KY), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), John Cornyn (R-TX), James Inhofe (R-OK)... mostly the worst trash in Congress several of whom are in jeopardy of losing their seats in two weeks. Instead, it was all Bush's fault.

"Spending, the conduct of the war in Iraq for years, growth in the size of government, larger than any time since the Great Society, laying a $10 trillion debt on future generations of America, owing $500 billion to China, obviously, failure to both enforce and modernize the [financial] regulatory agencies that were designed for the 1930s and certainly not for the 21st century, failure to address the issue of climate change seriously."

Were the lobbyists who run the campaign not certain that the Moonies would let it all pass without reminding the brittle and nasty senator that he voted for every one of these things he's now blaming on his political demise, they would never have been granted the interview. He also took the opportunity to blame the GOP in general for his woes and to lash out on the one person in America who is even less liked than Bush: Cheney. "I don't agree with Dick Cheney's allegation that he's part of both the legislative and the executive branch." (Perhaps he should explain that to ignorant and unqualified his running mate.)

"I think, frankly, the problem was, with a Republican Congress, that the president was told by the speaker and majority leaders and others, 'Don't veto these bills, we need this pork, we need this excess spending, we need to grow these bureaucracies.' They all sponsor certain ones. And he didn't do what Ronald Reagan used to and say, 'No'; say, 'No. We're not going to do this.'"

Presumably he had a little memory thing about what he's been doing for the last few decades. Most voters, on the other hand, know full well that the problems caused by the corporately-dominated Republican Congress can all be blamed on McCain as easily as on Bush and any other Republican in Congress. And this morning's CongressDaily has some of the worst news about voter retribution for Republicans so far. Even Inside the Beltway, an awareness is building that a political tsunami is headed right towards the Capitol. Looking two and a half weeks into the future, one Republican strategist declared flatly that "It's going to be a bad night." How bad?

Republicans are desperately trying to cling to red districts where Republican incumbents are resigning but almost every single one of them is trending towards Democratic challengers. Worse yet, Republican incumbents trying to stay in Congress-- a toxic mixture of extremists and rubber stamps like Marilyn Musgrave, Ric Keller, Robin Hayes, Sam Graves, Tim Walberg, Steve Chabot, the Diaz-Balart Brothers, Joe Knollenberg, Dave Reichert, Randy Kuhl, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mean Jean Schmidt, Dana Rohrabacher, Michele Bachmann-- are polling poorly and sinking rapidly.

"It's hard to change the dynamic of a race in the last 14 days," said one Republican strategist, who criticized the NRCC for not moving earlier to funnel more money to less expensive media markets where Republican incumbents are in unexpectedly difficult races. "It's just baffling the way they're spending this," the strategist said last week.

As evidence of the souring GOP fortunes, The Cook Political Report recently changed ratings for 25 districts, all indicating Democratic momentum. Republicans have suffered a toxic combination of a financial market meltdown, a referendum on the unpopular Bush, anemic fundraising and an increasing number of candidates enduring self-inflicted wounds.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee plans to spend $1 million against Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who said on MSNBC's "Hardball" late last week that the Democratic presidential candidate, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, "may have anti-American views" and suggested that "the news media should do a penetrating exposé" to determine whether some members of Congress are "anti-America."

The Cook Political Report changed Bachmann's race from leaning in her favor to being a toss-up and now rates six Democratic seats and 25 Republican seats in the toss-up category. Cook now projects Democrats will gain 20 to 25 seats in the House.

Cook is the most notorious lagging indicator of all the out-of-touch Inside-the-Beltway prognosticators. If they're saying the Democrats will gain 20-25 seats, it means that with a strong effort the DCCC could confidently expect over 30, possibly 40 seats. As of September 30 the NRCC had $17.4 million in the bank to the DCCC's $41.3 million. If the DCCC doesn't waste it chasing nominal Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- as Emanuel did in 2006 and is demanding they do again-- they will win close races for real Democrats who will support Obama's agenda for change, instead of supporting GOP-Blue Dog agenda for obstruction (of which Emanuel is expected to be an integral component).

I was glad to read in today's Miami Herald that instead of wasting her time and energy trying to save Republican-in-Democrat's-clothing Tim Mahoney from certain defeat, Nancy Pelosi is working to elect progressives Annette Taddeo, Alan Grayson and Joe Garcia and some moderates.

Congressional Republicans are blaming McCain for their impending doom and McCain is blaming congressional Republicans. It's funny because there is no difference between any of them. And appalled Republicans from across the country are experiencing unparalleled waves of disgust for McCain, Palin and the whole party. Just this morning Arne Carlson a much-respected former governor of Minnesota-- and a lifelong Republican and a real maverick-- endorsed Obama.

Carlson said Thursday that the Illinois senator's stances on the Iraq war, the economy and green energy goals won him over. Carlson, who served from 1991 to 1998, also cited recent comments by GOP Congresswoman Michele Bachmann questioning whether politicians have "pro-America or anti-America views."

"Regardless of our party, regardless of our partisan inclinations, there is no interest more compelling than the interest in the well-being of the United States," Carlson said at a gathering of Obama supporters at the state Capitol.

And, of course, it isn't just the rantings and ravings of far right lunatic extremists Michele Bachmann and Robin Hayes who are turning independents and moderate Republicans off. All across the country right-wing extremists and bigots are being forced to step down from the McCain campaign and from the Republican Party apparatus for... well, for basically following Palin crackpot themes, but just going a step or two over the line. One maniac GOP leader in California's Inland Empire, Diane Fedele, was forced to resign today after the viciously racist campaign she was leading against Obama was exposed to the public.

Earlier this week, Barbara Lorman, the first woman ever elected to the Wisconsin state Senate and another lifelong Republican, said that McCain's negative campaign had so disgusted her that she has decided to vote for Obama. No, she isn't eshewing McCain because of George Bush; she's endorsing Obama because he is clearly a better candidate and because McCain is running a disgraceful and dishonest campaign. Like all serious-minded Republicans, she is also horrified at the prospect of Sarah Palin becoming president. "I certainly would not put my trust in Sarah Palin. She is a terrible choice because she is not qualified, and the vice president is a heartbeat away. She may be a fast learner, but that is not enough to be president of the United States."

McCain's Confused And Confusing Campaign Is Bogged Down And Sinking

Next Sunday's NY Times Magazine features an absolutely devastating piece on the now pointless, divisive, shameful, directionless, chaotic McCain campaign. After the concept of America First was disposed of with the cynical selection of a patently unqualified-- and tragically unvetted-- Wasilla housewife, the campaign morphed into just some kind of vehicle for McCain's blind ambition. It got ugly-- fast. Now McCain is pointing fingers and blaming everyone.

I'm thinking the villain of the piece is chief campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt-- Rove's guy-- who, like McCain, get a thrill out of gambling big time. He has a reputation as a smart guy but he claims the smartest political wisdom he ever heard came from George W Bush. He thinks he would win this if he could just control the narrative... if only the world were really as plastic, scripted, and malleable as the Republican Party imagines it to be! Given his shot to paint McCain a hero in the financial bailout crisis, McCain instead came off as McCan't-- "more like a stymied bystander than a leader who could make a difference. Judging by the polls, the McCain campaign has yet to recover."

Schmidt has been in charge of strategy for the McCain campaign since early this summer, and his effort to prevail in the battle of competing story lines has been considerably more problematic. The selling of a presidential “narrative” the reigning buzz word of this election cycle has taken on outsize significance in an age in which a rush of visuals and catch words can cripple public images overnight... Schmidt and his fellow strategists have had difficulty explaining how America will be better off for electing (as opposed to simply admiring) a stubborn patriot. In seeking to do so, the McCain campaign has changed its narrative over and over. Sometimes with McCain’s initial resistance but always with his eventual approval, Schmidt has proffered a candidate who is variously a fighter, a conciliator, an experienced leader and a shake-’em-up rebel. “The trick is that all of these are McCain,” Matt McDonald, a senior adviser, told me. But in constantly alternating among story lines in order to respond to changing events and to gain traction with voters, the “true character” of a once-crisply-defined political figure has become increasingly murky.

It's a campaign with no philosophy and not even a strategy, just a series of disjointed and confusing, generally unsuccessful, tactics.

Yesterday's Times explained why McCain is faltering-- and faltering badly-- among Hispanic voters he has courted so assiduously. Only about a quarter of Hispanics-- and that includes elderly right-wing Cubans in Florida-- plan to vote for McCain in November. Four years ago Bush took almost 45% of the Hispanic vote. The tactics-- playing the divide and conquer card to foment tension between Latinos and blacks, and playing up social conservatism and his ambiguous, balancing act policies (between GOP nativists and corporatists) on immigration reform-- have all backfired and washed up on the shoals of Republican Party economic catastrophe for working families. Hispanic voters, like all other voters other than blinded religious fanatics, see McCain and his campaign as "up and down and all over the place." McCain confuses them. He confuses everyone. In fact he is confused himself.

Late last night Reuters reported that the newest polling from Zogby is showing an increasing gap between Obama and McCain for voters across the board. Obama now leads McCain by 12 points-- 52 to 40%. Among independent voters, upon whom McCain based his claim to GOP leadership, there is now a 30 point margin and the campaign is unfocussed and floundering. The Public Policy Institute of California poll, also released late last night, shows that California is way out of McCain's grasp-- 56-33% in favor of Obama. (The poll also shows that Californians are probably going to reject the homophobic Prop 8.)

It's Still The Economy-- And We'll See Who's Whipping Whose Ass

Back in the 1980's I used to listen to radio stock investor Bob Brinker. I learned some solid fundamentals of investing by listening to his show and years later I turned my friend Roland on to the weekly program as well. I always had a problem hearing him ranting and raving about his golfing and his far right extremist policies between the good investment advice and eventually I couldn't take it anymore and just stopped listening. All the George Bush propaganda was just too much to take. Yesterday I found out the Republican blowhard is still on the air and still selling Republican snake oil to anyone who will listen. Roland still listens and he told me that Brinker had gone on a vicious tear against another media stock prognosticator, Jim Cramer. When I saw the video about the Republicans' propensity for recreating Herbert Hoover economic situations, I understood why Brinker went bonkers. Watch:



Meanwhile, Obama made a speech today unveiling his Economic Rescue Plan for the middle class. It's a comprehensive four-part plan to deal with the immediate crisis that builds on proposals he has previously announced and includes several major new ideas. Reactionary ideologues, like Brinker, will hate it, no matter how helpful it is for ordinary Americans.

1.      JOB CREATION: A New American Jobs Tax Credit. Obama is calling for a temporary tax credit for firms that create new jobs in the United States over the next two years.
 
2.      RELIEF TO FAMILIES: Penalty-Free Withdrawals from IRAs and 401(k)s in 2008 and 2009. Obama is calling for new legislation to allow families to withdraw 15% of their retirement savings – up to a maximum of $10,000 – without facing a tax-penalty this year (including retroactively) and next year.  
 
3.   RELIEF TO HOMEOWNERS: 90 day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners that are acting in good faith. Financial institutions that participate in the Treasury's financial rescue plan should be required to adhere to a homeowners code of conduct, including a 90-day foreclosure moratorium for any homeowners living in their homes that are making good faith efforts pay their mortgages.
 
4.      RESPONDING TO THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: A Lending Facility to Address the Credit Crisis for States and Localities. Obama is calling on the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to work to establish a facility to lend to state and municipal governments, similar to the steps the Fed recently took to provide liquidity to the commercial paper market.

Obama's plan also calls for temporarily eliminating taxes on unemployment insurance benefits; keeping all options on the table to help our automakers weather the financial crisis; having the Fed and Treasury prepare for guaranteeing a broader range of liabilities of the banking system; and instructing Treasury to help unfreeze markets for individual mortgages, student loans, car loans, loans for multi-family dwellings and credit card loans.

McCain's erratic campaign yesterday reiterated that they have no new proposals for the economy, something McCain doesn't understand anyway, and that they'll just stick with what they've already laid out there-- a hodge-podge crazy-quilt of the worst of Josef Stalin, Herbert Hoover, George Bush and Phil Gramm. Even mainstream conservatives are repulsed by McCain's bizarre response to the economy. Expect 24/7 gutter tactics from McCain and Palin-- then pathetic tears of remorse from McCain after his defeat in November.

Is It Reasonable To Keep Referring To McCain's Spotty Military Record As "Heroic"-- Or Even Honorable?

Congressional Quarterly's daily publication, CQPolitics is one of the most nonpartisan sources of political information you can find. I've long wondered why the mainstream media has refused-- steadfastly refused-- to take a serious look at the disgraceful military record McCain has dolled up and ridden to national prominence. I know it's a lazy Saturday, but CQPolitics has finally dragged the one-eyed old aunt in the attic down into the livingroom-- with her rocking chair. They link to the phenomenal Rolling Stone feature by Tim Dickinson, Make-Believe Maverick that spills the beans on McCain's real military record, the one you never hear about from his pals in the media. I suspect that many CQPolitics readers will get into their offices on Monday, look at the story and flip out. Re: Rolling Stone:

It portrays him running from his burning jet on the Forrestal’s deck and virtually hiding in the carrier’s ward room while others died fighting the ferocious fire and exploding ordnance. In all, 133 sailors died in the tragedy.

Publicly, McCain’s campaign has ignored the story. It also declined to respond to my requests by phone and e-mail for a comment on the story’s accuracy.

Likewise, it has not responded to slashing blogs circulating intensely on the Web that offer an even darker view of the Forrestal incident.

According to these accounts, McCain, whose A4-E Skyhawk was queued up in a line of jets waiting to take off, “wet started” his engine, a prank designed to startle a trailing pilot with a flame of exploding kerosene.

Normally, it’s a harmless, common stunt by “cowboy pilots.” But on this occasion the exploding kerosene caused a six-foot long Zuni rocket under the trailing pilot’s wing to launch across the flight deck.

“[It] ripped through the fuel tank of McCain’s aircraft,” Dickinson writes. “Hundreds of gallons of fuel splashed onto the deck and came ablaze. Then: Clank. Clank. Two 1,000-pound bombs dropped from under the belly of McCain’s stubby A-4 . . . into the fire.”

McCain rolled out of his cockpit onto the deck and ran for his life, Dickinson writes.
“Just then, one of his bombs ‘cooked off,’ blowing a crater in the deck and incinerating the sailors who had rushed past McCain with hoses and fire extinguishers.”

But according to historian Mary Hershberger, writing on the liberal Truthdig.com site, McCain panicked.

“Some of those who were on the Forrestal and other persons familiar with the ordnance told me that because the rocket did not hit McCain’s craft, only actions by the pilot could have caused any bomb to fall from McCain’s Skyhawk,” wrote Hershberger...

It has always been clear that McCain caused the accident on the Forrestal but it was even more thoroughly whitewashed and covered up than his role in the Keating Five Scandal. Sailors have been saying that he would have been killed on the spot by survivors if the Navy hadn't gotten him off the burning ship immediately. Mainstream media refuses, adamantly refuses, to cover the story. And the Democrats are afraid to push it. I mentioned it in passing on a major mainstream website a few days ago and my piece was immediately taken down and they sent me a nice note asking me to edit it out of the story and resubmit it. McCain's main self-professed qualification for the presidency is his military record. But the media won't touch the real record and allows him to continue to describe it in heroic terms. If he wants to talk about his record, there should at least be a real discussion of it. Funny how the media had no problem echoing the lies and distortions Republicans smeared John Kerry with 4 years ago but won't even look at evidence that McCain has deliberately misled the country about his own actvities during the Vietnam War era.

McCain Tossing Away His Chances In Iowa

The latest Rasmussen tracking poll shows Obama ahead of McCain in Iowa by 8%-- 51-43. One Iowan, though, who seems to be buying in to every bit of embarrassing nonsense that McCain has been spouting is ring wing extremist Steve King. King, of course, voted against the Paulson legislation this week and is likely to vote against any compromise that comes up later this week regardless of what McCain says he wants Republicans to do. But King, on a right-wing talk show today, said he agrees with McCain that the "fundamentals of the economy are sound" and that "our unemployment is fairly low... People out there have jobs, they’re working, the economy’s flowing."

It's good that King and McCain see eye to eye. Neither of them has any understanding of economics. Earlier today McCain met with the editorial board of the Des Moines Register. What a nasty, mean old man! I suspect he's not going to get their endorsement again:



Obama's campaign had a tone-perfect response to McCain's haughty, nasty responses. "When confronted with his discredited lies about Barack Obama's record and his own willingness to continue the same failed policies of the last eight years, John McCain offered nothing more than snide, frustrated responses. Senator McCain's sarcastic diatribe is just more evidence that he will continue the same failed tone we've seen in Washington for too long and that Americans are looking to change."

McCain's Erratic Stands On The Economy Jeopardizing A Recovery

I'm not voting for either former Vietnam captive

OK, OK, everyone knows that McCain doesn't know anything about economics-- he's admitted it over and over-- and most people have figured out that he also isn't interested and just wants to get into the White House so he can start some wars and make up for whatever psychological problem is still haunting him from his failures in Vietnam. And Sarah Palin isn't exactly an economist either. But McCain doesn't need failed corporate plutocrats like Carly Fiorina and sleazy, crooked lobbyists like Phil Gramm to tell him what he has to say about the economy. All he has to do-- which is what he has been doing lately-- is go back to his old voting record and do the old McCain flip-flop.

Every single position he has supported-- from massive and irresponsible deregulation to more tax cuts for the wealthy-- has turned out to be wrong, dead wrong. So now all he has to do is talk about how he opposes everything he's ever stood for. And this morning he tried a new one. Many of McCain's supporters have a great deal of money in their checking accounts that federal insurance doesn't insure. The FDIC only insures bank deposits up to $100,000. What about all McCain's millionaire supporters? Well, following Senator Obama, McCain quickly came out for upping the federal insurance on deposits from $100,000 to $250,000. This is especially interesting since McCain has always opposed this-- loudly. In fact, in 1991 McCain introduced an amendment that limited insurance on Individual Retirement Accounts.

That same year, just two years McCain was caught in a massive bribery scandal, the Keating Five, which he was able to wriggle out of, he blamed the failure of Savings & Loan banks-- which he was an active participant in defrauding and robbing-- on "the perversity of Federal Deposit Insurance." Here's what he said then-- very different from what he's saying today: "The perversity of Federal deposit insurance is exemplified by the taxpayer bailout of the savings and loan industry. Mr. President, I think it is generally acknowledged that the failure of the savings and loan industry, to a
large degree, can be directly attributed to the unwarranted expansion of deposit insurance by the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980. Basic coverage was increased from $40,000 to $100,000. No longer was deposit insurance for the small depositor. It became the safety blanket for large, sophisticated depositors and freewheeling bankers."

More recently (last February), the Boston Globe reminded voters of McCain's key role in the Keating Five scandal that was a test run for today's Wall Street meltdown, trying crooked political hacks to avaricious bank executives.

"The story of how the 'Keating Five' senators allegedly pressured regulators to lay off a failing Arizona S&L became a major scandal, and marked a turning point in McCain's life-- the near-death of his political career… The events of 1987, when McCain met with regulators, and 1991, when the Senate Ethics Committee concluded that he used 'poor judgment' in the matter, are only dimly remembered by many. … McCain met Keating in 1982, during McCain's successful run for
Congress, and soon began accepting offers from Keating to fly McCain's family on a corporate plane to Keating's house in the Bahamas. McCain did not pay for most of the trips until years later, when the matter became public. Keating, meanwhile, complained regularly to McCain that a proposed regulation would hurt his business. … He cosponsored a resolution sought by Keating, but it failed to postpone the regulation."

McCain's spectacular flip flops are normally on issues like the FDIC which he was against years ago and now supports, But today he was flip flopping in a matter of minutes from one position to another. While the Republican Party was releasing an ad blaming Obama for supporting the unpopular bill to infuse liquidity into the credit system-- which Republicans, not understanding it, killed yesterday-- McCain was urging Americans to support the exact same bill!

While McCain and his surrogates have been running around like a bunch of chickens without heads sending mixed messages, sowing discord, politicizing the issues and telling every audience what they think it wants to here-- even though they contradict each other, Obama has been calm, clear and consistent. This crisis has shown, once again-- as if people still needed more proof, that McCain is erratic, ineffective and untrustworthy. Listen to Obama this morning and compared that to McCain's crazy-quilt of hysterical, always changing pronouncements: