McCain’s attacks get more reckless, less responsible
In the modern political era, voters have come to expect presidential candidates to be, well, presidential. There’s an expectation of respect and decorum. Candidates are going to go on the attack on occasion, but Americans have a reasonable expectation that would-be presidents aren’t going to fly off the handle and lose their cool. After all, if a candidate can’t conduct himself or herself with dignity and class while on the campaign trail, how would the candidate perform in the White House, when the pressure’s on?
With that in mind, it seems, with each passing day, that John McCain is starting to lose his cool. It’s one thing to go on the attack; it’s another to get reckless. As much as I understand McCain’s desire to be president, I can’t help but notice that his desperation is beginning to cloud his judgment.
Yesterday, for example, during an interview with the Kansas City Star, McCain suggested Barack Obama is an “extremist,” and possibly even a “socialist.” The Jed Report posted this gem:
McCain insisted that Obama’s “voting record … is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.” When reporter Dave Helling asked if McCain believes Obama is a socialist, McCain said, “Oh I don’t know,” as if it were a distinct possibility.
And that, oddly enough, was just the tip of the iceberg.
McCain, bordering on delusion, then accused Obama of reversing course on comprehensive immigration reform, which is hysterical, given that McCain reversed course on comprehensive immigration reform and Obama didn’t. But more importantly, it led to this fascinating exchange:
Q: But you flip-flop a little bit too.
McCain: No, I didn’t.
Q: You flip-flop on drilling, on tax cuts…
McCain: Actually, I didn’t. Actually, on the drilling issue, when gasoline reached $4 a gallon, we’ve got to do things that we otherwise haven’t done in the past. I have not changed my mind on any other issue. On immigration, I said we need comprehensive immigration reform, it failed twice, so we’ve got to do what’s going to succeed.
Q: But you were against the tax cuts, now you’re talking about making them permanent. Isn’t there flip-flopping on both sides?
McCain: Actually, no.
Now, if McCain wants to justify his reversals, that’s fine. He can explain why he changed his mind on various policies, and hope that voters understand. But McCain has instead decided to pretend that he’s never flip-flopped at all. Reality just didn’t happen in McCain’s odd worldview.
“I have not changed my mind on any other issue.” Senator, I’ve counted all of your flip-flops — and at last count, there are 64. At least try to stick to reality here.
McCain relies on the bogus National Journal rankings, after they’ve already been debunked. McCain says he hasn’t flip-flopped on anything, after we’ve already found several dozen examples to the contrary. McCain says Obama hasn’t “reached across the aisle,” after we’ve found plenty of instances of Obama doing just that. McCain just keeps lying, over and over again.
But that “socialist” line is pretty extraordinary. McCain, no matter how wrong he was on a given issue, used to conduct himself with a little more class. Even when one disagreed with him, it was easier to at least respect him as a senator.
But Candidate McCain has become reckless, and frankly, kind of an embarrassment to himself.
Two related thoughts. First, McCain worked for many years to develop a solid reputation in the political establishment, as a credible guy who took policy matters seriously. It’s a shame to see him throw this reputation away as part of a win-at-all-costs crusade for the presidency.
And second, I wonder what the media reaction would be if Obama attacked McCain with this kind of ferocity. Imagine if someone asked Obama if McCain were a fascist, and Obama said, “Oh, I don’t know.” Consider the response from news outlets if Obama called McCain an “extremist,” and began making things up.
We’d hear, I suspect, an endless barrage about Obama “cracking under pressure,” and “losing his cool.” McCain’s attacks yesterday, though, will almost certainly go by unnoticed by anyone except bloggers and blog readers.
Of course the extremist right wing hacks eat this up- McLiar says this so it must be true…want some sprinkles with that, a little cream and suger?
Stepford John needs to go to the old pilots home, pronto.
Here, once again, is where the Association of Wingnut Radio Hosts have done the legwork–Hannity, in specific, has been throwing the word “socialist” around for some time now. And once again, it doesn’t make any difference that it bears no relation to reality–if a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes at least an alternate (read: Fox) fact, and is thus legitimized.
Seriously, if we ever make it out alive, I really do want all of the AM radio wingnuts up on the dock. They’ve been that injurious to democracy. They’re hurting America, and that doesn’t begin to describe it.
McCain is sounding more whiny that I remember. I know he was a prisoner of war and all but man there only so much you can take of the whining.
Not only that I think McCain is akin to the Starter Wife who is afraid she’s gonna be replaced with a Trophy Wife.
After experiencing the corrupt meltdown of American capitalism at its “finest” over the past decade, being a Socialist should be a compliment. Aren’t conservatices talking about greater regulation and government bailout of the banking industry, complaining about capitalists speculators in the oil markets, and proposing government corporate subsidies? They sure are acting like socialists to me.
The debates can’t come soon enough. I’m sure there will be an element of “inherent McCain victory,” voters and media outlets who are predisposed to say McCain was white, er, RIGHT on most of the issues and therefore won the debate. Shades of To Kill a Mockingbird will be lost on no one who knows the story. But to the genuine fence-sitters – NOT the ones who are pretending to be on the fence so they don’t appear racist but otherwise have every intention of voting for McCain, I mean the actual fence-sitters who believe McCain’s mavericky horseshit but is genuinely curious about Obama – the debates will change everything, and mostly in Obama’s favor. Even with the media in McCain’s pocket (where he keeps his secret BBQ recipe), even with too many questions posed to Obama going to discuss rumors already proven to be untrue and not enough on actual policy or agendas, anyone paying attention to the debates will see what the candidates have to offer, and only the baseless Islamist/fascist/socialist/anti-American/tax-and-spend liberal rumors will save the GOP from losing genuine indies, perhaps for decades to come.
That’s. All. He. Got.
Not only that I think McCain is akin to the Starter Wife who is afraid she’s gonna be replaced with a Trophy Wife.
Well, that would be karmic payback at least.
I’m beginning to think that even C-Span is in on it. As of today, I’ve decided that I can no longer watch “Washington Journal” in the morning because they choose to read the most inane crap from the corporate media (WSJ, LA Times, WaPo, NTY, Washington Times). Today, C-Span decided to focus on the shocking news that Obama has advisors who prepare memoranda and suggest talking points.
Of all the crap going on in the world, C-Span chose to read the stories about the fact that one of the presidential candidates has advisors and actually uses them–stories specifically tailored to leave the impression that the other guy is so experienced that he doesn’t need advice. These guys, C-Span included, have every intention of lifting McCain up on their shoulders and carrying him into the White House. They will not let Obama win if they can help it.
Adding insult to injury, the new meme is that Obama is the one getting favored coverage (using the coverage of his European trip as an example). Unbelievable.
McCain is trying to slay the Obamable man, heck Obama is giving change you could believe in, that is change faster than a micro processor clock. What’s really funny is how McCain now admits he is not Computer literate. Sheesh we all know you don’t have to go to Harvard to be Computer literate, so this can be some fun.
Heck for me, as long as Obama seeks the help of Clinton, he will have an interesting advantage in any debate for National Security. My hind sight tells me Clinton could very well read what strategies the Neo-Con’s are up to. After serving in office for eight years, plus watching the sidelines for another ten and battling a Republican Congress back then, along with hatching the rise of newt the hoot Gingrich, Clinton with reflection after shedding the gay stray of Fox news, Dick Morris, and with Gore’s serious concerns for the future of America, all couple with the Limbaugh shuffle, they will develop more than an October surprise. The prophecy is even taking over Limbaugh; he will support Obama, because we know the temperature in hell is getting colder.
If one does a goggle it can be perceived that National Security formations after World War II are as paranoia as Clark Kent. Here, that super alter ego of the Daily Planet reporter, and Mainstream Media first line Journalist, is placed in a super cultural bubble that can only be penetrated by kryptonite. The two personalities delivered for decades to the America audience is about to haunt those powers that promoted the double life. This is more fun.
Interestingly enough, today our elected officials are finding out that being in the luxury of this discernment of the government bubble once was a duality fill with opacity like Clark Kent, and clever legal ease. Now, the transparency of the Internet is the Kryptonite American’s needed to unveil the enchantments and horrors of our leadership. And, today is giving way to public scrutiny; of course American’s want to know what the real story is behind Valerie Plame.
Actually the list of America’s history has been ditched in National Security Secrets from the get go. Here, the horror of the monsters under your bed or “Bloob” of the fifties is daunting growing wildly and real including a free market system that never was, but always was the Federal Reserve. All controlled for a century by the wealthy kept secret and buried in the Egyptian like tombs called classified secrets in our National Security Agency with a lock and key, the key masters used to be Rocky and Bullwinkle, now our contemporary educational programming now has changed to transformers, blasters or Jimmy neutron.
Now, for me, after doing a goggle about our government way back then in 1947 they obviously had a super ego after wining the demons of World War II. Homeland security was in a shuffle then with Truman planning the new security approach. All those politicians, even up to now, with good intentions followed the IRS path to glory and secret trust funds, Blind Trust funds too. Isn’t that funny, making money blindly? There is good one to tax, and those on Canary Island is laughable, here an Island off the coast of Africa has tax exempt status yet home to hundreds of front companies to Arabian’s that front money to Osama Bin Laden and his family also front companies connected to the Carlyle group Bush friends of the family all silently channeling money form the American treasury to secret bank accounts all endorsed by Congress and ATM’ed by Rockefeller.
Mr. Rodgers said it very well “It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood”, or when the media with fair and balance deliver platitudes of Nikto connecto.
Is John McCain a ticking time bomb, trained by the Chinese in his N. Vietnamese prison to be a sleeper cell in the Senate and then one day destroy the U.S. from within?
Hmmm, I don’t know.
So I can add McTool to my list now?
Huh that should be Gort Clatoo Nikto connecto
Obama is getting all the coverage. I wouldn’t call most of it favorable but he is sucking the air out of the room. They don’t even notice McCain is around except when they repeat stupid charges like this unquestioningly and even then it is still all about Obama. They may think they are helping him but McCain is seemingly becoming a nonentity in the election because he doesn’t have anything to say.
“Not only that I think McCain is akin to the Starter Wife who is afraid she’s gonna be replaced with a Trophy Wife.
Well, that would be karmic payback at least.”
–BOOM!
Yes, Socialism is the worst of what our society can be – unless you’re Bear Sterns. Or Fannie Mae. Or Freddie Mac.
We bailed out the airlines after 9/11. We’re not bailing out GM (YET!) which I suppose is good. Should we have done a bailout, at least GM could offer Americans jobs (but mostly are moving them to cheaper labor markets). Bear Stearns bailed out the uber rich with federal funds to the tune of $30 BILLION taxpayer dollars!
So, what’s today’s lesson?
Corporate Socialism is good.
Socialism for the people, using funds by those people is bad.
That’s today’s lesson, kiddies. Remeber it well.
Even Grover Norquist calls McCain a flip-flopper. McCain seems to be banking on the SprinkleMedia not informing the low-information voters about the plethora of flipflops he’s pulled in order to get the Republican nomination. IMO he’s betting that if he just keeps lying through his teeth with a straight face, that the LIVs will remain confused enough by the SprinkleMedia to give him half their votes.
If I had been interviewing him I would have asked him what a socialist was. How much do you want to bet his responce would have been the vacant stare, eyes darting around, throat clearing, creepy smile and the final irritated mocking dismissal of the question.
Bring on the debates.
if the media was doing its job, this race would be over.
Here’s a link to an article from Dave Helling, who needs to be thanked for pressing McCain about his flipflops, and asked how it felt to be lied to so blatantly.
http://www.kansas.com/224/story/467158.html
I saw something interesting in that article:
Did Obama ever say the Iraq war is lost? I know Reid said so in April of 2007, but has Obama ever said that the war is lost? I think we’d hear about that one if it had happened, so it looks like gramps has pulled another “fact” out of his ass.
Oooooh, man. That on is a the gift that’s just gonna’ keep giving. Expect to see that little snippet in upcoming ads.
The DNC is now setting up an independent operation to go after McCain. Howard Dean knows how to throw a punch. I think they probably have Carpet Bagger’s list in hand as I type this. All we can hope is that McCain’s campaign doesn’t gain control over him. As long as McCain keeps talking gibberish and flip-flopping on issue after issue, the ads will be brutal.
BTW, Flip Flopney on Today this AM said that McCain wants “all of the troops” out of Iraq by the end of his first term. A McCain flip-flop delivered by the biggest flip-flopper in the entire primary season. TOO funny. Flip, flop, flip, flop. Man, I hope McCain picks Romney for V-P.
None of this matters. Flip-flops, gaffes, mistakes and lies will have no bearing on the outcome of the election, and McCain and company know it. When he said that he would come from behind in the last 48 hours of the campaign, he inadvertantly revealed the election strategy – steal it. Under those circumstances, nothing he says will have any effect, and the factual laziness and complete carelessness with which he conducts himself would seem to bear this out. It’s in the bag – again.
McShameless is really getting desparate it seems. How is he going to handle the debates? I hope some one asks him the question again about Viagra and contraception.
TCG and MsJoanne
Both made me smile.
I wonder about the McCain looking like a Starter Wife afraid of being replaced by a Trophy Wife.
I think Mitt Romney or Guliani or Thompson would have been the only choices for the Corporate Slaveholders. When they all shot themselves in the foot (you mean in 8 years the Repubs couldn’t groom someone to replace Buuush who was charismatic, smooth, presidential? I have said for nearly a decade that we are lucky that the puppet we have is such a moron…imagine the CorporateGOP if they had someone accomplished as their puppet these last 8 years. We could be looking at a hypnotized nation who still had no idea who the bad guys were…Dems or Repubs. It was obvious the nation was truly ambivalent in 2000. And they could still be, except for the naked incompetence, criminality, and lizard-like qualities of the current leaders.)
Anyways, it is unbelievable the GOP had no-one groomed. Their top 3 Corporate Drones all tripped and stumbled out of the race and it defaulted to McCain.
I have had my doubts since then that McCain would make it to the convention. Either he would feign health problems and withdraw, handing off to Romney . Or his plane will go down. Or something. He cannot carry the Corporate Water. He is just not equipped, in a way that LeChimp amazingly was adequate, for being a Total Corporate Tool. He is not from that world. Yeah he has made a lot of money and travels in Republican circles….but he has never understood the boardroom, and when he tried he got his tit in a ringer.
I don’t know if it is precedented, where a nominee of a party just quit….threw up his hands? If the press were doing their job, McHumiliation would already have told too many lies and shameless flip-flops and pandering to go on. He is already on record, in the last 8 years (and in the last 8 weeks) of totally reversing himself and selling his Maverick identity to any bidder.
The Corporate Slaveholders KNOW that McCain will be an unmitigated disaster, as far as they are concerned. We all know he will be a disaster for the people and for the country….but TCS aren’t worried about that.
It’s bizarre to be debating the extent to which either self serving candidate has flip flopped on the issue of illegal immigration. Neither of the contestants is in touch with the vast majority of America’s Citizens who overwhelmingly support securing our borders and ports, enforcing our existing immigration laws, and eliminating the jobs and benefits magnet that draws illegal aliens to our nation.
Given our present economy and massive deficits spreading out for decades ahead of us, it’s ridiculous to suggest that “more people competing for the same limited resources” makes any sort of ethical, economic, environmental, social or cultural sense.
Overpopulation, congestion, urban sprawl, diminishing resources, crumbling infrastructure, vanishing farm land and green space, overcrowded schools and emergency rooms, lack of affordable housing, crime, pollution, depressed wages, increased tax burdens, the balkanization of our communities, the marginalization of American workers, tax payers and voters, the overall decline in quality of life, are all the result of unconstrained immigration! It’s not surprizing that both candidates are pandering to a segment of the population, it’s disturbing that they both ignore the views, values and interests of America’s Citizens!
Indeed, it was we, the people, in a state of near revolt that shouted down the egregious Kennedy/McCain Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation! Senator McCain asserts that he heard us “loud and clear” on this issue, but apparently nobody on Capitol Hill heard a damned thing!
Doubtless, many voters from both parties will see little to recommend either candidate on their immigration policies, and will thus choose to sit home on election day. This will only allow those supporters of illegal aliens and the cheap labor interests to usurp the expressed will of America’s Citizens, and steal the election. While there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between McCain or Obama on immigration issues, voters can still vote in their own self defense. By voting out Congressional incumbents and electing and returning pro-enforcement candidates, we can change the balance of power in Congress, and by so doing, we can marginalize either a McCain or an Obama presidency and minimize the damage that either will cause!
Maybe he has lost track of what position he is running for? It it starting to look like Fox News Pundit,.
McCain insisted that Obama’s “voting record … is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont.”
So my questions:
What bills have Obama voted for that makes him left of Sanders?
How are these bills socialist?
And like SaintZak asked, “Senator McCain, how would you define a socialist?”
“Imagine if someone asked Obama if McCain were a fascist, and Obama said, “Oh, I don’t know.” “
I don’t need to imagine. I remember Obama telling Clinton she was ‘Likable Enough’.
I remember the backlash on that too.
And what exactly is wrong with being a Socialist? Most of the American economy is socialized (sugar, tobacco, maple syrup, passenger rail, mail, etc., etc., etc.).
Speaking of flip flops, Jake Tapper at ABC has ignited flame wars by quoting Robert Novak’s column on the resurrection of Phil Gramm as a McCain adviser and surrogate. I guess, after saying last week “I did not have advice with that adviser…Mister Gramm,” McCain is back at least to phone advice.
In Mc Cain’s defense the wignuts are posting away. “But you liberals always say Novak is a liar,” they whine in flame.
In the spirit of those who use Jonathan Swift to defend the New Yorker, here is my modest proposal.
Our nation of whiners is threatened by Islamofacism. Robert Novak has put the McCain campaign at risk by using false anonymous sources. Life, even that beginning at conception, is endangered. Therefore, due to circumstances unforeseen by the Framers, the President is authorized, by a theory of law I may never have discussed but it was classified, to have Novak seized. His rendition will be ordered so he may be taken in a private jet piloted by Cindy McCain to Nicaragua where he can be waterboarded by Rush Limbaugh. We cannot leave this to amateurs like the Army. They might accept false sources from torture…er enhanced interrogation. Like the Steeler defensive…er Packer offensive line.
LFC: “I hope McCain picks Romney for V-P.” I say you better knock on wood. Gov. Romney is what I fear most about the Dems chances in November.
Amongst the rich, a socialist is anyone that expects them to pay their fare share.
Don’t forget that McCain admitted more than once that he didn’t know much about the economy. He lied about it to Tim Russert when he asked McCain. He said he never said it and the next time Tim Russert interviewed him he showed tape of it. All McCain did was laugh it off. What’s crazy to me is that even after that happened he said it AGAIN a few months ago! Why would you want someone as president that has admitted at least 3 times that they do no know much about the economy?
Actually, I don’t think McCain can remember what he has been saying from day to day. He is hiring lobbyist, firing lobbyist and doesn’t know if he is for gay adoptions or against gay adoptions but it should have been a no-brainer for a Repug, knowing (if he could recall) that the Christian Right is always watching.
If only McCain could remember.
I once respected john mcsame
now I wouldn’t piss on john mcsame if he was on fire
well, I MIGHT piss on the parts of mcsame that ain’t on fire …
If McCain is elected president It will be the end of the usa. Get OUT WHILE YOU CAN. aLOT OF THE REPUBS ARE NEO NAZI AND KKK. i SHOULD KNOW WAS A YR.