"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Saturday, February 02, 2013
Will The GOP Slap Down Obama By Torpedoing Chuck Hagel?
>
I've never been a fan of Chuck Hagel's-- and I'm not about to start now. Would he be a better Defense Secretary than Casper Weinberger, Frank Carlucci, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld (or, for that matter John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis, although back in their days it was called Secretary of War)? He could hardly be worse. But I'm not going to get stampeded into "rooting" for him just because warmongers and partisan shitheads like McCain and Ted Cruz are opposing him. Cruz, for one, will oppose anyone Obama nominates for anything. He was one of only 3 who voted against John Kerry as Secretary of State. Yes, the hysterical, McCarthyite opposition to Hagel is really little more than a temper tantrum on the right and a way for them to express their psychotic hatred for Obama and their insistence than his presidency is illegitimate. A KKK stalwart like Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and his claque will never recognize someone as president who was elected with "colored" votes. As for McCain... the bile and venom and the unending lust for young blood has rotted his brain to a point where he's as great a danger to America as any anywhere on the planet. The Republicans seemed to behave as the confirmation hearing was about finding the next U.S. Ambassador to Israel rather than someone to run the Pentagon. Hagel didn't do himself any favors with his performance, emboldening the extremists in the GOP to press for a filibuster against confirmation. Unfortunately, people watching C-Span learned more about the venality of McCain, Jim Inhofe and Cruz than about Hagel and about how he would run the Pentagon. The questions were about whatever their pet peeves happen to be in their sick jihad against President Obama... and against America. and, yes... Jim Inhofe gets his information from the Drudge Report. Poor Oklahoma!
Will Hagel be confirmed anyway? Unless the GOP goes ahead with an unprecedented filibuster that the whole demented caucus agrees to, yes. And two Republicans-- Thad Cochran (MS) and Lisa Murkowski (AK)-- have already said they're voting for confirmation. Hagel doesn't even need a single Republican vote to win a straight up or down confirmation vote. He's not going to lose any Democrats and both Independents seem to be OK with voting for him. And the GOP probably doesn't have the guts to mount a real filibuster against a former conservative Republican senator over trumped up charges on lunatic fringe right-wing websites. the kooks and obstructions will, as anyone who watches the Senate already knows, vote no. So? What else is new?
Will Senate Republicans Make McCain Minority Leader?
>
Most of the Senate Republicans support-- albeit reluctantly-- McCain for president. Even the ones he threatened, cursed at, and berated, like hapless clown John Cornyn, have endorsed him. And although several have been forced by their state's political circumstances to distance themselves from his campaign-- particularly the spectacularly shady Gordon Smith-- my guess is that the only one who will actually not vote for him is Ted Stevens, who hates his guts and has been known to try obtaining McCain fingernail clippings and hair for some unknown purpose. But while Obama's support (and McCain's lack thereof) among white people turns out to be surprising pundits-- even better than Bill Clinton's was-- I was wondering how deeply McCain's support among white Republican senators really is. Why don't they make him the minority leader of their Senate rump caucus after today's drubbing?
In this morning's NY Times Bob Herbert succinctly defines Obama's phrase “The fierce urgency of now."
Well, if your house is on fire and your family is still inside, that’s an example of the fierce urgency of now.
Something like that is the case in the United States right now as Americans go to the polls in what is probably the most important presidential election since World War II. A mind-boggling series of crises is threatening not just the short-term future but the very viability of the nation.
The economy is sinking into quicksand. The financial sector, guardian of the nation’s wealth, is leaning on the crutch of a trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout. The giant auto companies-- for decades the high-powered, gas-guzzling, exhaust-spewing pride of American industry-- are on life support.
As the holiday shopping season approaches, the nation is hemorrhaging jobs, the value of the family home has plunged, retirement plans are shrinking like ice cubes on a hot stove and economists are telling us the recession has only just begun.
It’s in that atmosphere that voters today will be choosing between the crisis-management skills of Senator Obama, who has enlisted Joe Biden as aide-de-camp, and those of Senator John McCain, who is riding to the rescue with Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber in tow.
The American people have spent over a year looking at McCain's approach and Obama's approach and they've decided, in overwhelming numbers, if the polls are to believed, that they reject McCain's approach-- basically a continuation of the Bush/Republican Party orthodoxy that McCain has supported every step of the way into the pit they have dug for us. But most Republicans still support that approach-- and McCain.
If they feel McCain is so fit to lead the country out of this mess, why don't they make him the minority leader, especially if-- as seems possible-- GOP Senate obstructionist-in-chief Mitch McConnell is defeated today? Let's face it, even though he's not likely to accept defeat with grace and dignity, he's not going to run for president again in 2012 and that distinction will belong to Romney (the Mormon Empire is the biggest bastion of GOP support left outside of the old slaveholding states), Palin (low IQ voters-- Roman Hruska's "mediocre people"-- seem to have found their contemporary G. Harrold Carswell) and Huckleberry... plus whatever fiery bigots or empty suits a party devoid of ideas spews out willy-nilly to save the day.
Meanwhile, if the GOP really wants to stand for more of the same and for staying the course, who better to lead them than John W. McSame, someone who has gotten up before the American people and made it perfectly clear that, although he might move a deck chair facing leeward to starboard, basically he wouldn't make any changes in course whatsoever? Certainly if they were willing to saddle us with him-- despite the erratic, gratuitously nasty, and uncooperative nature they all say privately they detest-- they can have no objections about putting him above themselves, can they? Let's see how they feel after today when there are 8 less of them.
And, of course, then there's Lieberman, who seems to be sending clear signals that he's now a Republican officially. He was whining to the media today that if the Democrats-- his own caucus, supposedly-- reach the 60 vote threshhold, he would fear for the "survival" of America. Now which Democrats campaigned for him over Ned lamont in 2006?
I was reading some right wing loon blabbling on and on today about what a shrewd move picking Sarah Palin was for McCain. That isn't what most observers (or, more important, pollsters say) but I guess we'll find out on Tuesday. Most conservative newspapers that have endorsed Obama and most Republicans who have endorsed Obama have pointed to Palin or-- worse-- McCain's judgment in picking Palin, as a primary component in their decision-making process for not picking McCain. But if you insist on insisting that only liberals don't recognize the real Sarah, please consider that even some of McCain's closest allies, from Lieberman to Kyl, have admitted that she is not prepared for prime time. And then yesterday... John Ensign (R-NV), head of the NRSC, made it perfectly clear that Palin was a terrible choice.
Granted, Ensign is desperately seeking a scapegoat for the meat-grinder the Republican Senate caucus is walking into Tuesday. But still... I mean he said "certainly Joe Biden is much more qualified than Sarah Palin is." AP:
Republican Sen. John Ensign says Sarah Palin is not experienced enough to be president and John McCain's presidential campaign "completely mishandled" her early days on the ticket.
For once, most everybody would agree with Ensign. But not actually everybody. Even as McCain drastically curtails his GOTV operation-- the key to winning elections for Republicans in the last few decades-- the argument over whether it was McCain or Palin who actually sunk the ticket has commenced. Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review Online speaks for more than a few conservative die-hards when she insists that "Palin’s off-message remarks are better than a lot of things I’ve heard coming out of a campaign that could have used some messaging help more than once, an operation that hasn’t always been worthy of the seasoned public servant at its helm, John McCain... Without her, all may have been lost for the Republicans weeks ago. She has, by McCain’s own admission, energized the campaign." And McCain's hometown newspaper, the far right Arizona Republic, opines that when all is said and done, Sarah Palin was the right VP pick and that, in fact, "Palin is exactly what America needs." On the other hand, if that last statement has sunk in a little, you might want to watch this entertaining little clip a few times:
MAYBE WE WON'T HAVE PRINCESS SARAH TO KICK AROUND ALL THAT MUCH LONGER
by Ken
Yesterday we were talking about Eugene Robinson's upgraded estimation of Princess Sarah's political skills, which led him to predict ruefully that, provided she can manage to absorb enough campaign smarts and poise to harness her electoral va-va-voom (not his phrase), "We'll have Sarah Palin to kick around for a long, long time."
Last night Rachel Maddow put the question to MSNBC political analyst Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., who took a strenuously opposite view. Assuming the McCranky-Princess ticket goes down the toilet Tuesday, he sees no national political future for our Sarah. The precedents are overwhelmingly against her, he argued. Losing VP candidates just don't go on to mount successful presidential candidacies -- ask Dan Quayle, John Edwards, and Joe Lieberman.
It's not even because the princess may be shouldering the blame for the party's 2008 defeat, McDonnell said -- though he did think those staggeringly high negatives Howie reports above add to her problem. Mostly, though, that problem is simply having lost this year. In support of this, he argued that Edwards and Holy Joe performed OK -- his word! -- in their VP-candidate role. (I'm not so sure about that. I don't think either did much of anything for his ticket. I'll concede, though, that neither could be blamed for his ticket's defeat.)
O'Donnell insisted, however, that losing is one sin our electoral system just doesn't forgive.
Well... it never went away and it is certainly not confined to Republicans. It's the all pervasive, never-ending stench of Washington and the political class and the type of characters drawn to politics-- be it a Tom DeLay or a Rahm Emanuel. But to the general public, that Culture of Corruption has been an albatross around Republican necks, not Democratic necks and the conviction of the most senior Republican in the Senate, Ted Stevens, brings the whole ugly mess-- the Duke Cunninghams, the Tom Delays, the Bob Neys, the Jack Abramoffs, Jerry Lewis, Conrad Burns, Tom Feeney, Virgil Goode, Katherine Harris, John Doolittle, Dirty Dick Pombo, Denny Hastert, Gary Miller, Charlie Taylor, even Mark Foley (a different kind of corruption)-- back into play. Oh... and Don Young.
So while John McCain and the Republican Party are struggling to hold on in "sure-thing," "in-the-bag" red states like North Carolina, Virginia and, now, Montana, far off Alaska eases into the national focus. It isn't a story the Republican Party wants anyone looking at.
Alaska's senior GOP politicians, Ted Stevens and Don Young, are-- Inside the Beltway world-- prominent national figures, although each has long been a personification of pork, earmarks and corruption. Alaska's primary airport is currently named for Ted Stevens but the Bridge to Nowhere is what pops into most minds when either his or Young's name is brought up. But the two of them-- albeit on top of a systemic pyramid of corruption-- are just the garbage in plain sight. The entire, all-powerful Republican political establishment in Alaska is rotten to the core. Dozens of elected officials are either rotting in prison, awaiting sentencing or trial or under investigation. "Bipartisan" in Alaska refers to the few Democrats who were invited into the GOP schemes to enrich the political class. And then there's the reformer, maverick governor-- naive, religion-obsessed small town mayor Sarah Palin who liked the idea of "cleaning things up, although appears to have had substituting her own regime of small town corruption and nepotism for the Big Oil brand that had turned Alaska into one of the country's ethics cesspools.
Yesterday a spokesman for the Alaska Republican Party, McHugh Pierre urged Republicans to "continue to support Sen. Stevens. We need to vote for him because a vote for him is a vote for a conservative candidate, a Republican who best represents the interests and beliefs of Alaskans. ... We don't know what happens in the future. But if you don't want Mark Begich, you vote for Ted Stevens." The entire Republican political establishment, rotten to the core, is standing behind Stevens:
Senator Lisa Murkowski, herself in ethical hot water and the daughter of one of the few politicians in contemporary history considered as corrupt as Stevens himself: "Ted Stevens is an honorable, hardworking Alaskan who has served our state well for as long as we have been a state....Ted has asked for Alaskans and his Senate colleagues to stand with him as he pursues his legal rights. He stood with Alaskans for 40 years, and I plan to continue to stand with him."
Rep. Don Young, Stevens' longtime partner in crime, likely to lose his seat a week from today and likelier still to soon face trial, conviction and prison himself: "I'm deeply disappointed. It surprises me. I don't think he had a jury of his peers. That's the way it goes. I'm sure there will be an appeal. If you watched the conduct of the court with the one juror leaving and going out and, of course, the actions of the prosecutors themselves, there definitely will be an appeal, and it will go for a long period of time."
McCain's campaign wrote a cagier and slicker response for Palin to mouth:
"This is a sad day for Alaska and for Sen. Stevens and his family. The verdict shines a light on the corrupting influence of the big oil service company that was allowed to control too much of our state. ... As governor of the state of Alaska, I will carefully monitor this situation and take any appropriate action as needed. In the meantime, I ask the people of Alaska to join me in respecting the workings of our judicial system. I'm confident Sen. Stevens will do what's right for the people of Alaska."
But although her "monitoring" may remind people of Bush's inability to take any remedial actions whatsoever, leading to his cataclysmic popularity crash, it is what the McCain wordsmiths left out of Palin's statement that is most glaring. Not a word from the maverick, religious reformer about the fact that a convicted felon is up for re-election in 7 days. She doesn't give a speech ever in which she doesn't invoke maverickness and her and her runningmate's "well known" battles against "our own party." That's an empty charade and her response to Stevens conviction just proves it was just another in a series of gimmicks that defines the tragic presidential campaign of John W. McCain.
Personally McCain and Stevens have long loathed each other and this morning McCain tried to further distance his sinking campaign from Stevens' corruption scandal.
"Yesterday, Senator Ted Stevens was found guilty of corruption. It is a sign of the health of our democracy that the people continue to hold their representatives to account for improper or illegal conduct, but this verdict is also a sign of the corruption and insider-dealing that has become so pervasive in our nation's capital.
"It is clear that Senator Stevens has broken his trust with the people and that he should now step down. I hope that my colleagues in the Senate will be spurred by these events to redouble their efforts to end this kind of corruption once and for all."
McCain staffers have taken to referring to Palin as a whack job but it isn't the lunacy and bizarre political extremism that are likely to damage the ticket most in the next seven days. It's her ties to the aforementioned Culture of Corruption.
This Ted Stevens fiasco is baggage of the McCain camp's own choosing. Before they added Sarah Palin to the ticket, Alaska was anything but Main Street America. Under the old rules, Steven's corruption scandal could well have blown over as a parochial scandal of the great, oily North.
But since picking Palin, McCain & Co. have staked out Alaska as the living, beating heart of American authenticity. And so, today, Ted Steven's felonious betrayal of the public trust is going to allow Democrats to campaign like it's 2006-- against the Republican "culture of corruption" that proved so electorally toxic to the GOP two years ago.
Let's remember that the McCain camp knew in late July that Stevens was under indictment and demanding a speedy trial that would put Alaska's frontier ethics front-and-center in the days before the election.
And yet, thanks to a vetting free Veepstakes, in August the campaign chose Palin, who not only owes her governorship to Stevens' throaty endorsement, but as recently as 2005 served as the director of "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service" 527 group.
...So here's my question: If Sarah Palin was such an all-American maverick, what was she doing palling around with a suspected felon like Ted Stevens?
Is he just a garden variety political liar? Or is he seriously delusional? Before you answer, please watch the 80 second clip:
That was the short version; very much to the point, right? Joe Conason has a more nuanced analysis up at Salon, one that is no less devastating for John McCain and other Republican-- and some Democratic-- rubber stamps.
[D]espite McCain's claim to greater experience and judgment in foreign policy, he just doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. If he did, the latest developments in relations between Baghdad and Washington would dampen the Republican nominee's enthusiasm for a prolonged occupation.
Negotiations between the Bush administration and the government of Nouri al-Maliki over the presence of U.S. forces have reached an impasse that no longer seems certain to be resolved until George W. Bush has left office. If any resolution is achieved over the coming weeks, moreover, it will render McCain's hard-line position on the war null and void.
Gone are the fantasies-- if not the lies and the delusions of the seriously senile-- "of the neoconservatives, who once imagined the new Iraq as a permanent base for American troops in the Middle East, with a client government that would reflect U.S. priorities. What has come to exist instead is an Iraq much closer to Iran than to the United States, one that will countenance no permanent U.S. bases and prefers that our troops depart sooner rather than later." Tell it to McCain. He makes Bush look like a peacenik.
It Hasn't Happened... Yet-- The Saturday Night Palin Video
>
Sure Sarah Palin has become of the butt of jokes all over the world but inside the McCain camp the feeling is that the joke's on them. CNN is reporting that the ambitious and overreaching Alaskan has now gone rogue. McCain insiders claim she's "looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign."
"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.
"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."
McCain is apparently regretting that he didn't bother vetting her and was caught unawares when she turned out to be the most ignorant politician he'd ever met-- and that includes Rick Renzi! "Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic," said another McCain source with direct knowledge of the process to prepare Palin after she was picked. The source said it was probably the "hardest" to get her "up to speed than any candidate in history." And, judging by her rare press appearances, it wasn't a very successful effort either. Nice clothes though.
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.)
Many people who hear her speaking can't believe she went to college-- let alone five of them. But look at Bush; he attended some too. Anyway, a friend of mine at a Board of Education sent me this. She can't swear it's real, but she thinks it is. She mentioned that she's never seen SAT scores this miserable before. (She was teaching high school in a "liberal" school district.)
Raise your hand if you think McCain was putting America first? Second? 28th?
UPDATE: FALSE
The SAT scores are fake. They may be higher. They may be lower. They may even be the same. But this document is a forgery.
Did Palin Sink McCain's Chances? Or Wasn't It Just His Cynicism And Bad Judgment?
>
All the polls differ slightly but they are all pointing in the same direction: a big win for Obama and a massive repudiation of Republican governance (unless you want to listen to far right loons who claim all the pollsters are conspiring against McCain). Yesterday we referenced a Pew Poll that claimed "growing doubt about McCain's judgment, age and campaign conduct" have led to a 52-38% breakdown between the two campaigns. That's landslide territory. And the gap is not closing; it's widening. The new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll isn't quite as dire for McCain-- but still plenty dire: a 52-42% breakdown, fueled by growing Obama support from independents, suburban voters, Catholics and white women. These voters are feelings towards Obama include "increased confidence in his ability to serve as commander in chief" and a belief that he will do a good job as president.
This is further reflected in a report from Editor & Publisher that more than 2 dozen newspapers that had backed Bush in 2004, are already on board for Obama this year. This included some influential powerhouses like the New York Daily News (circulation 703,137), the Chicago Tribune (541,663), the Denver Post (225,193), the Houston Chronicle (494,131), the Austin American-Statesman (170,309), the San Bernardino Sun (54,315), the Wisconsin State Journal (87,930), the New Haven Register (72,613) and the Long Beach Press Telegram (85,595). And keep in mind that neither the L.A. Times nor the Cleveland Plain Dealer endorsed in 2004 and both papers have come out for Obama this year. Overall, Obama has been endorsed by four times as many newspapers as McCain.
Even before the news broke about how GOP campaign contributions were used for a $150,000 shopping spree for Palin and her family, Bob Geiger was pointing out that most of the newspapers endorsing Obama are basing that endorsement, at least partially, on McCain's terrible judgment and cynicism in his selection of Sarah Palin as VP.
[O]f the myriad mistakes made by McCain since he secured the Republican nomination from their confused field of empty GOP suits, the majority of newspapers urging readers to vote for Obama in two weeks cite the faux maverick's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate as a major executive decision that made them question his fitness for the presidency.
To be sure, the endorsements offer enthusiastic support for Obama and his platform for change but it's hard to miss how many of them use phrases like "clearly unqualified" to describe Palin and call McCain's choice "reckless," "appalling," a "disaster" and "…an insult to the American people."
The Salt Lake Tribune is a Republican newspaper in a Republican hellhole. McCain is leading in Utah by an average of 35.7%. It's the single most reactionary part of the country, a virtual 12th Century theocracy in the middle of the United States. Yet even their biggest newspaper couldn't help but notice that "out of nowhere, and without proper vetting, the impetuous McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She quickly proved grievously underequipped to step into the presidency should McCain, at 72 and with a history of health problems, die in office. More than any single factor, McCain's bad judgment in choosing the inarticulate, insular and ethically challenged Palin disqualifies him for the presidency."
The Stockton Record is just as Republican-- another paper that endorsed Bush in 2004-- and they also were horrified by McCain's adolescent and extremely dangerous choice of Palin.
"If elected, at 72, he would be the oldest incoming president in U.S. history. He's in good health now, we're told, although he has withheld most of his medical records. That means Gov. Sarah Palin could very well become president.
"And that brings us to McCain's most troubling trait: his judgment.
"While praiseworthy for putting the first woman on a major-party presidential ticket since Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, his selection of Palin as a running mate was appalling. The first-term governor is clearly not experienced enough to serve as vice president or president if required. Her lack of knowledge is being covered up by keeping her away from questioning reporters and doing interviews only with those considered friendly to her views."
Delusional far right extremists, on the other hand, are still cheering Palin as the best decision McCain has ever made. Let's pray they get their way and she's the Republican nominee in 2012. As her approval ratings among normal people sink into oblivion, the far right of her discredited party still loves her.
[T]he fact that Palin's numbers have faltered among the general electorate and that some in the conservative chattering class have soured on her only strengthens her profile among rank and file conservatives come 2012.
In late September polling by the Post (the last time we asked detailed questions of voter attitudes on Palin) nearly nine in ten (87 percent) Republicans and 84 percent of conservatives felt favorably toward her. More than six in ten felt "strongly" favorable.
...Palin is clearly OF the conservative base in a real and meaningful way; they view her as their first real spokesperson on the national stage in recent memory -- perhaps since Ronald Reagan. It's hard to imagine those feelings going away because she has not worn well with either moderate and independent minded voters of the conservative media.
And, for those who argue that questions of electability in a general election will dog Palin if and when she is a candidate for president, we say pish-posh... Like her or hate her, Palin remains VERY much in the mix as a 2012 candidate.
A Palin candidacy should finish them off for another 2 generations. Fingers crossed!
McCain Campaign Collapsing-- What Will Be Tomorrow's Hail Mary Pass?
>
McCain is getting desperate as polls show state after state slipping from his grasp. How soon before Utah is a battleground state? A friend of mine in Phoenix told me that if Obama decided to challenge him in Arizona he could probably win there too. McCain's biggest ally in the Arizona congressional delegation, the corrupt and contemptible rubber stamp John Shadegg, just saw his own race downgraded, as Democrat Bob Lord beat him in two consecutive televised debates.
McCain is under intense pressure to DO SOMETHING. In each of those states-- and all over the country-- the hopes and dreams and careers of Republican politicians are circling the bowl. McCain is dragging down his whole party with him. They are hysterical. And the "brains" behind his operation, Steve Schmidt, a far right extremist who fancied himself "the new Rove," sees his own career ending. So what McCain do? If nothing else, John McCain is erratic. He can say or try anything tomorrow. Obama has as much as challenged him to say to his face what he says behind his back.
His campaign veers back and forth in a way obviously not under any kind of control. One day they decide to run on Bill Ayers and making the connection between Obama's name and Osama's name and the next day they pull back and decide to dish out another hodge podge of poorly thought out economic gimmicks. And while McCain is trying to pull the campaign out of the gutter one day, the next day he's encouraging the base in their bigotry and stoking their fears and their hatred. And Palin... she doesn't seem to even understand what's going on and her role in it. When someone asked her about the descent into dangerous territory her breezy, uncomprehending attitude was frightening: "It's not negativity; it's truthfulness." Watch
Some McCain staffers, though certainly not Steve Schmidt, who wouldn't think twice about ripping apart the social fabric that binds the country together if it got "him" 3 electoral votes, are already talking about McCain accepting an "honorable defeat" and not further destroying his reputation and dragging his own integrity through the sewers of right-wing extremism that the GOP has become.
McCain has become alarmed about the fury unleashed by Sarah Palin, the moose-hunting “pitbull in lipstick,” against Senator Barack Obama. Cries of “terrorist” and “kill him” have accompanied the tirades by the governor of Alaska against the Democratic nominee at Republican rallies.
...Palin, 44, has led the character attacks on Obama in the belief that McCain may be throwing away the election and her chance of becoming vice-president. Her supporters think that if the Republican ticket loses on November 4, she should run for president in 2012.
A leading Republican consultant said: “A lot of conservatives are grumbling about what a poor job McCain is doing. They are rolling their eyes and saying, ‘Yes, a miracle could happen, but at this rate it is all over.'
“Sarah Palin is no fool. She sees the same thing and wants to salvage what she can. She is positioning herself for the future. Her best days could be in front of her. She wants to look as though she was the fighter, the person with the spunk who was out there taking it to the Democrats.”
She's been second-guessing campaign decisions-- like pulling resources out of Michigan-- and she has been publicly complaining that the campaign isn't using enough of the good old fashioned GOP smear and fear, let alone too much of it. And although normal Americans have an unfavorable view of Palin and she isn't helping him attract women or independents to the ticket, she is much, much more popular with what's left of the Republican base. McCain "regularly has to endure the spectacle of members of the audience leaving for their cars when it is his turn to speak at joint rallies." If she isn't the ultimate example of bad judgment on his part, I don't know what is. She's exactly the kind of choice that would have made an earlier version of John McCain say he couldn't support this ticket! Or some of the kooks and nuts who are running it.
UPDATE: PALIN ON THE ICE
Scott Ostler summed up Sarah Palin's disastrous foray into the Philly ice hockey world-- without even ever mentioning the word "booed":
-- Sarah Palin, what a great idea having her drop the first puck at the Philadelphia Flyers' home opener Saturday. I hear the fans loved it when she chased the Zamboni and tried to bite the tires.
-- Palin was the Flyers' second choice. Their first choice was to have John McCain drop his dentures.
-- Palin is a hockey expert, of course, because she can see Canada from her backyard.
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.
Palin Livin': Nonpartisan Investigation Finds Palin To Have Abused Her Office In A Personal Vendetta Against Her Brother-In-Law
>
It's not like a trial but an independent, nonpartisan investigation into Sarah Palin's abuse of office in a pre-McCain scandal known as Troopergate, found that the Alaska governor "abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to try to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired." The report, published late yesterday, confirms that she and First Dude exerted illegal pressure on Alaska's public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, to fire her ex-brother-in-law, Trooper Michael Wooten.
“Such impermissible and repeated contacts,” the report states, “create conflicts of interests for subordinate employees who must choose to either please a superior or run the risk of facing that superior’s displeasure and the possible consequences of that displeasure.” The report concludes that the action was a violation of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.
...In the report, the independent investigator, Stephen E. Branchflower, a former prosecutor in Anchorage, said that Ms. Palin wrongfully allowed her husband, Todd, to use state resources as part of the effort to have Trooper Wooten dismissed.
The report says she knowingly “permitted Todd Palin to use the governor’s office and the resources of the governor’s office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired.”
Further, it says, she “knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda.”
...Mr. Monegan has said that he believes he lost his job because he would not bend to pressure to dismiss Trooper Wooten. On July 28, the Legislative Council, a bipartisan body of House and Senate members that can convene to make decisions when the Legislature is not in session, approved an independent investigation into whether the governor abused the powers of her office to pursue a personal vendetta.
The McCain campaign immediately attacked the integrity of the investigator, charged it was all a plot by Obama (even though the Alaska legislature is overwhelmingly Republican and the decision to go forward with publishing the investigation was unanimous), and claimed that, somehow, the report exonerates Palin. Thursday the McCain campaign released its own "report" declaring Palin innocent of all crimes. I guess they're practicing to be just like the Bush Regime. Of course for the McCain camp this isn't considered a total loss. At least it keeps people talking about something other than McCain's record, his despicably filthy gutter campaign, and his economic plans, which were thproughly trashed by GOP economists yesterday. Like most Americans they see his buy-up-the-mortagges as a cheap gimmick and a ploy to save a failing campaign. Maybe Palin should do something really crazy-- like shooting someone in the face when she goes on SNL the weekend before the election.
Oh-- and some key excerpts from the Branchflower Report that the McCain campaign exonerates Palin:
"For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin Abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, Page 8]
"The Attorney General's office has failed to substantially comply with my August 6, 2008 written request to Governor Sarah Palin for information about the case in the form of emails." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, Page 8]
"I find that, although Walt Monegan's refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as commissioner of Public Safety." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, Page 8]
"Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 65]
"The evidence supports the conclusion that Governor Palin, at the least, engaged in 'official action' by her inaction if not her active participation or assistance to her husband in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired [and there is evidence of her active participation. She knowingly, as that term is defined in the above cited statutes, permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor's office and the resources of the Governor's office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired. Her conduct violated AS 39.52.110(a) of the Ethics Act." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 65-6]
"Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 66]
"In this case, Governor Palin has declined to provide an interview. An interview would have assisted everyone to better understand her motives and perhaps help explain why she was so apparently intent upon getting Trooper Wooten fired in spite of the fact she knew he had been disciplined following the Administrative Investigation." [Branchflower Report to the Alaska Legislative Council, p 66]
Most people think should be settled on a special prime time broadcast of the Jerry Springer Show featuring the entire Palin brood.
UPDATE: PALIN GREETED BY RESOUNDING BOOS AT PHILLY HOCKEY GAME
It looks like hockey fans were more upset that Palin abused her office than they were happy to have a famous hockey mom stop by in the middle of the election campaign to grab some spotlight. Maybe she should have gone to a hockey game in Salt Lake City or Lynchburg. She was booed so loudly and lustily that she embarrassed the Republican slimebag who owns the Flyers, GOP financier Ed Snider. Snider's donation of the Flyers backdrop tonight wasn't considered a donation but this year alone he's given at least $40,000 to Republican candidates, primarily to the most sleazy of the breed, like Giuliani, Frank Wolf (R-VA), Norm Coleman (MN), David Dreier (CA), McCain, of course and a whopping $20,400 to the RNC (on June 30).
[W]when Palin came out onto the Wachovia Center ice Saturday night-- greeted by resounding (almost deafening) boos from the Flyers crowd-- the two hockey players who had no choice but to appear with her in that photo op were turned into props in a political campaign. If Rangers center Scott Gomez or Flyers center Mike Richards wanted to make some sort of political statement, that would be fine, but in this case, they were thrust into a situation not of their choosing. Snider put them there with his ill-advised mixing of politics and sports.
The level of discomfort has been palpable for the Rangers’ two Alaska natives, Gomez and Brandon Dubinsky, as they have been asked questions about Palin and the election in recent weeks. Dubinsky, a 22-year-old who has shied away from nothing since he broke in with the Rangers last year, looks petrified when the topic is brought up. I think both would rather play goalie in a shootout than weigh in on the presidential election.
But Gomez was stuck. He took the ceremonial puck drop because he is from Alaska and he is an alternate captain. Captain Chris Drury was quite likely relieved to be taken off that hook. The Flyers’ Mike Richards was the other uncomfortable party in that center ice get-together. It was not the first or last time Richards will hear Flyers fans howling their disapproval, but this was for nothing he did.
While everyone waits breathlessly-- the Legislative Council having voted 12-0 in favor of release-- for the Alaska state legislature to publish the independent report on Sarah Palin's abuse of office investigation (Troopergate), Palin herself is still running around the Lower 48 inciting divisiveness and hatred towards Barack Obama. Today McCain was forced by the media to address the disgraceful situation-- and was boo-ed by the racists and yahoos Palin has attracted to McCain's rallies.
Time Magazine addressed the intolerable situation-- "the kind of vicious anti-Obama attitude that's becoming a hallmark of McCain rallies of late"-- late this afternoon in a story called McCain Denounces Pitchfork-Wavers. Hey! That's the Sarah Palin base... and that's all that's left.
McCain was booed at a town-hall meeting here when he rebuked a man who said he was "scared… to bring a child up" under an Obama presidency. "I have to tell you he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States," McCain said to audible disapproval.
The man was one of nine who appealed to McCain to confront Obama more forcefully, several of them raising specific controversies dominating news, including Obama’s relationships with Bill Ayers and the group ACORN. McCain seized the microphone from the hands of a woman who called Obama "an Arab," and scolded her.
"He's a decent family man that I happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues," McCain said, to scant approval. In fact, the most rousing applause of the afternoon was saved not for McCain, but for a man who begged him to "fight" in next week’s debate.
"There's a difference between rhetoric and record, but you can still be respectful," McCain said to one questioner. "I will point out his record and I will do it with respect."
Meanwhile among the more rational 60% of Americans:
John McCain has a problem. Most people think it is because he is a cranky old man, but that is not the case. His behavior is now and always has been that of an adolescent male stuck in his teens, a time when young men decide in order to be men, they must claim they can do anything at anytime anywhere and do it better than you. John McCain is stuck in a developmental stage which is the one our sons go through where they know more than us. My sons went through that. I remember when every conversation with Dad became a debate instead of a conversation. There was no warning them. There was no cautioning them about important things such as vehicle maintenance, work ethic, and any number of issues. They knew best. How dare we question them? It was annoying at the least to hear the young men crow knowing they didn’t know squat and they had no perspective.
John McCain has a past much the same as George Bush. He was a careless partying flyboy. He was the son of an Admiral and was given special treatment. But, he was a POW you say? We will get to that. Let us just think for a few minutes about McCain and his MO throughout his life discounting the years he was a prisoner of war.
In his youth John was a handsome young man who dated models and beauties. He had a girl girls in every port it seems. When John came back from the war, he found out his model wife had been in an accident and was no longer the beauty he deserved to be associated with, no she was just a regular gal now sacrificing for the good of her prisoner husband by not wanting to burden him with her serious injuries. It gets worse. He then takes up with other women. No, Cindy was the not the first and only indiscretion of John during this time. He felt entitled, evidently, by his past habits of privilege? We don’t know for sure, but his upbringing in a family of power and privilege seems to be a determining factor in his attitude, not his stint as a POW. John was able to leave wife and family high and dry and, of course, his explanation now is that stint as a POW. He was entitled to be wild and free for a bit. No responsibility. He was owed!
Cindy McCain was no regular gal either. She herself was a beauty queen. See a pattern? There are speculations that John has not been faithful to Cindy McCain either. It is well known that John likes the pretty ones, the beauties. Consider Sarah Palin another beauty pageant reject. Yes, Sarah Palin is the side kick that a flyboy like John McCain loves to hang with. What kids doesn’t want to hang out with the cute girls.
That is personal, you say. That does not count. Ok. In McCain’s professional life as a “servant of the public” he has repeatedly lined his own pockets. The Keating Five scandal gives us insight into McCain’s standard operating procedure. John will do anything to make a buck and to acquire power. He is no stranger to strange bedfellows. He was not only involved the Keating Five scandal, but he has been linked to mafia figures in Arizona. McCain has not been forthright about his involvement in the hate group, the World Anti-Communist League that has been linked to death squads in Central America.
McCain feels no compunction to reveal his true self. He hides behind his “Maverick” (adolescent playboy, tough guy, immaturity?) image. His campaign has taken on a Pee Wee Herman air. “I know you are, but what am I?” It is painfully obvious that every accusation leveled by the McCain camp toward Obama is a fundamental truth about McCain himself. Cindy McCain says that Obama, “has run the dirtiest campaign in American history.” Really, Cindy? You mean all those talking heads have missed the point that Obama is being mean? The truth is that day after day they opine on how Obama needs to get tough, that he is too nice.
The McCain camp accuses Obama of being a terrorist or at least one who lacks judgment about his radical ties when it is McCain/Palin who have the radical ties. Not incidental ties, but purposeful ties and memberships in organizations full of hate and venom for this country and for it ideals. Sarah Palin’s husband belonged to the an Alaskan Secessionist group whose members claimed hatred for America. John McCain had a hand in the Iran Contra scandal which was clearly not legal or “American.” Yet, they accuse Barack Obama of terrorist friends.
Sarah and John have no problem bringing up the Reverend Jeremiah Wright while their connections with the clergy are every bit as dodgy if not more so. Consider Pastor Muthee who drove a woman from a village after accusing her of being a witch guilty of causing all kinds of evil that happened in the community. His special prayers, it is claimed by Sarah herself were in large part responsible for making her Governor of Alaska. Consider John’s connection with Pastor John Haggee, a religious right nutcase who engages in hate speech so regularly that if one were to document it all it would require the Library of Congress to hold it all. If Barack Obama is guilty by association, then McCain and Palin are doubly so for seeking out such associations. When they accuse Obama of being shadowy one must consider the despicable motivations of “end times” Christians embracing Israel while secretly hating Jews.
Now that there is an economic crisis, John McCain has abandoned his original critical error of claiming the GOP economy is fundamentally strong. He has adopted the more reasoned stance of Barack Obama, the one that embraces reality.
No, John McCain is not a cranky old man. No, he is not a serious man who has an issue with his temper. John McCain is a teenage son of privilege and entitlement in an old man’s body. And, not just any old man, an old man who has failed to reach his goals at the end of a long life he has squandered pandering to his own immature nature. John McCain has trouble understanding why we do not believe him when he claims “I know how to do it!” He cannot understand why we will not accept him as a reformed deregulator. He scowls. He throws his tantrum and will not look at his opponent. McCain is no Maverick. Mc Cain is an errant child who insists we give him adult status simply on the basis of his POW status, a status that did nothing to make him more considerate of others. No, if anything this experience seems to have frozen him forever in that stage of his development. Grow up, he did not. When he came home, he continued to think only of himself, not his family. When he “served” in the US Senate, he thought of lining his own pockets, not ours. No, John McCain has not changed, he is the same old spoiled brat who is now stomping his foot on the national stage insisting we honor his adolescent empty boastings.
No thanks, John. I would tell you what I told my sons struggling to reach adult credibility, that experience would be a great teacher, that they would have time to learn for real how to solve problems. I would tell you those things, but considering your age and your experience, I would say that ship has sailed. Sorry, John. I am going to vote for the adult, Barack Obama, who displaying much courage is running on real solutions and on real team work and real concern for Americans of all stripes.
In case you were wondering what mixed up, confused old McCain has on his mind all the time:
McCain Lost Another Debate-- Even Republicans Hated Him!
>
Another bad day for McCain. Forget that the A.P.-- which has been an offshoot of the Republican campaign-- declared, once and for all what everyone who has paid attention already knew: i.e., that Palin stretches truth in campaign speeches. What happened today that is most important is that McCain continuously stretched the truth at the debate and presented himself as a mean little unlikable troll. And the instant polls and focus groups didn't like his performance today. The CBS poll went for Obama- with 39%, while 35% thought it was a tie and 27% thought McCain won. Obama also won the NBC News focus group of undecideds in Pennsylvania by around 60% to McCain's 40%. The CNN panel of analysts scored it for Obama 69 to McCain's 29. And the CNN poll gave it to Obama 54-30%.
Uncommitted and independent voters didn't like McCain's nasty demeanor. CNN polled likability:
Obama
Favorable: 64% after debate (60% before) Unfave: 34% after debate (38% before)
McCain
Favorable: 51% after debate (51%) Unfave: 46% after debate (46%)
This went over especially badly:
At a focus group I watched here in L.A., the question "Which of these guys would you rather see on your TV screen for the next 4 years," only 3 people out of 20 said McCain. Even the people who agreed with McCain on more issues than with Obama were saying they would slit their wrists rather than hear him calling them "my friends" ever again after November.
And even Fox's focus group awarded the win to Obama! GOP pollster Frank Luntz: "We seem to be getting winners out of this. Obama did better overall. " Maybe they didn't like-- as most Republicans didn't-- his offer of a bail-out for mortagage holders, something right wing bloggers are howling about. Malkin: "Disaster: Mitt Romney apparently wasn’t made aware of McCain’s new $300 billion housing entitlement plan. And Fred Thompson could barely muster up enthusiasm for McCain." And nasty til the very end, McCain refused to shake hands with Obama at the end. What an asshole! Steady hand on the tiller??? It sounds like a slogan for Obama!
