BS: Popular views on McCain

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Aug 08 - 09:33 PM

I'm beginning to think they have a 7% solution.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: GUEST,Jack The Sailor
Date: 19 Aug 08 - 08:22 PM

Don't be silly Rig. They have a solution, get rid of McCain and Dole.

But I think its a waste of money for them to run that ad in North Carolina. Swing voters won't trust them.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Aug 08 - 07:51 PM

Does anybody really expect MoveOn.org to find solutions to anything?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 19 Aug 08 - 05:46 PM

"What if there was a vote to decide if $13.5 billion in tax breaks for oil companies should go into oil alternatives, like solar and wind? What would you want your Senator to do?

Well, as you probably guessed, there was such a vote. We needed 60 votes to prevail, and 59 of them were in. But John McCain ducked the vote.1

As a result, instead of powering millions of homes with clean energy and building next-generation solar technology, we're giving ExxonMobil and other companies billions in tax breaks at a time when they're already making record profits.

This vote is political dynamite. And if we all pitch in, we can make sure voters know about McCain's give-away to big oil. And it's a twofer—we'll run the ad in the battleground state of North Carolina to help remind voters that Senator Elizabeth Dole, who's up for re-election, voted for big oil tax breaks, too.

Check out the ad here:



The ad links Republican support for oil tax breaks with the campaign contributions they're taking from the oil companies.

Exposing their favors for big oil can puncture Republican promises to help people hurting from high gas prices.

Our ad can help defeat McCain, win a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and promote real solutions to the energy crisis. " (MoveOn.org)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 18 Aug 08 - 02:22 PM

"The NYT's David Kirkpatrick had a very strong piece yesterday on John McCain's foreign policy worldview, his embrace of neoconservatism, and his response to the attacks of 9/11. It applies a little more scrutiny than McCain is probably accustomed to receiving.

[By the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001], Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.

"There is a system out there or network, and that network is going to have to be attacked," Mr. McCain said the next morning on ABC News. "It isn't just Afghanistan," he added, on MSNBC. "I don't think if you got bin Laden tomorrow that the threat has disappeared," he said on CBS, pointing toward other countries in the Middle East.

Within a month he made clear his priority. "Very obviously Iraq is the first country," he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: "Next up, Baghdad!"

Just to clarify, by October 2001, McCain was already a cheerleader for invading Iraq. This was his reflexive response to the terrorism perpetrated by al Qaeda. ..." (Steve Benen quoting D. Kirkpatrick)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 18 Aug 08 - 02:12 PM

..."Second, John McCain is not a typical Republican. Sunday's Times had part of the answer to its front-page story on its Op-Ed page, in Frank Rich's column:

It seems almost churlish to look at some actual facts. No presidential candidate was breaking the 50 percent mark in mid-August polls in 2004 or 2000. Obama's average lead of three to four points is marginally larger than both John Kerry's and Al Gore's leads then (each was winning by one point in Gallup surveys). Obama is also ahead of Ronald Reagan in mid-August 1980 (40 percent to Jimmy Carter's 46). At Pollster.com, which aggregates polls and gauges the electoral count, Obama as of Friday stood at 284 electoral votes, McCain at 169. That means McCain could win all 85 electoral votes in current toss-up states and still lose the election.

Rich goes on.

What is widely known is the skin-deep, out-of-date McCain image. As this fairy tale has it, the hero who survived the Hanoi Hilton has stood up as rebelliously in Washington as he did to his Vietnamese captors. He strenuously opposed the execution of the Iraq war; he slammed the president's response to Katrina; he fought the "agents of intolerance" of the religious right; he crusaded against the G.O.P. House leader Tom DeLay, the criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff and their coterie of influence-peddlers.

With the exception of McCain's imprisonment in Vietnam, every aspect of this profile in courage is inaccurate or defunct.

The only people who disliked the 2000-era version of John McCain (McCain 2.000) were, well, Republicans. McCain 2.008 has worked assiduously to earn their acceptance and they've given it, grudgingly. But just as Obama is still largely unknown, so is the current iteration of John McCain.

"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 18 Aug 08 - 11:06 AM

On Sunday, the New York Times front-paged a profile of McCain's response to 9/11: to retaliate not only against Al Qaeda -- but also Iraq, Iran, and Syria. "Now, as Mr. McCain prepares to accept the Republican presidential nomination, his response to the attacks of Sept. 11 opens a window onto how he might approach the gravest responsibilities of a potential commander in chief. Like many, he immediately recalibrated his assessment of the unseen risks to America's security. But he also began to suggest that he saw a new 'opportunity' to deter other potential foes by punishing not only Al Qaeda but also Iraq."

"To his admirers, Mr. McCain's tough response to Sept. 11 is at the heart of his appeal. They argue that he displayed the same decisiveness again last week in his swift calls to penalize Russia for its incursion into Georgia, in part by sending peacekeepers to police its border. His critics charge that the emotion of Sept. 11 overwhelmed his former cool-eyed caution about deploying American troops without a clear national interest and a well-defined exit, turning him into a tool of the Bush administration in its push for a war to transform the region. 'He has the personality of a fighter pilot: when somebody stings you, you want to strike out,' said retired Gen. John H. Johns, a former friend and supporter of Mr. McCain who turned against him over the Iraq war. 'Just like the American people, his reaction was: show me somebody to hit.'"

MSNBC

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 10:02 PM

Well there doesn't seem to be any question about how important he thinks he is.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 08:08 PM

An interesting question. I think he is a hack, too.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 07:43 PM

Yes, Jack. We can agree on that. One needs to look into the history of how he got the job.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 06:37 PM

Kristol,

Should not be writing for the Times. He is the opposite of journalism.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 06:28 PM

Why?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 05:39 PM

A bad choice, too!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 05:29 PM

Sorry. Yes, he is their token Conservative. They have one other, as well, whose name escapes me.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 05:21 PM

Amos,

Doesn't bill Kristol write editorials for the (nyt)? When you cut and paste. I'd like to see the name of the author and the title of the piece.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 17 Aug 08 - 12:13 PM

So why isn't Obama romping? The obvious answer — and both the excessively genteel Obama campaign and a too-compliant press bear responsibility for it — is that the public doesn't know who on earth John McCain is. The most revealing poll this month by far is the Pew Research Center survey finding that 48 percent of Americans feel they're "hearing too much" about Obama. Pew found that only 26 percent feel that way about McCain, and that nearly 4 in 10 Americans feel they hear too little about him. It's past time for that pressing educational need to be met.

What is widely known is the skin-deep, out-of-date McCain image. As this fairy tale has it, the hero who survived the Hanoi Hilton has stood up as rebelliously in Washington as he did to his Vietnamese captors. He strenuously opposed the execution of the Iraq war; he slammed the president's response to Katrina; he fought the "agents of intolerance" of the religious right; he crusaded against the G.O.P. House leader Tom DeLay, the criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff and their coterie of influence-peddlers.

With the exception of McCain's imprisonment in Vietnam, every aspect of this profile in courage is inaccurate or defunct.

McCain never called for Donald Rumsfeld to be fired and didn't start criticizing the war plan until late August 2003, nearly four months after "Mission Accomplished." By then the growing insurgency was undeniable. On the day Hurricane Katrina hit, McCain laughed it up with the oblivious president at a birthday photo-op in Arizona. McCain didn't get to New Orleans for another six months and didn't sharply express public criticism of the Bush response to the calamity until this April, when he traveled to the Gulf Coast in desperate search of election-year pageantry surrounding him with black extras.

McCain long ago embraced the right's agents of intolerance, even spending months courting the Rev. John Hagee, whose fringe views about Roman Catholics and the Holocaust were known to anyone who can use the Internet. (Once the McCain campaign discovered YouTube, it ditched Hagee.) On Monday McCain is scheduled to appear at an Atlanta fund-raiser being promoted by Ralph Reed, who is not only the former aide de camp to one of the agents of intolerance McCain once vilified (Pat Robertson) but is also the former Abramoff acolyte showcased in McCain's own Senate investigation of Indian casino lobbying.

Though the McCain campaign announced a new no-lobbyists policy three months after The Washington Post's February report that lobbyists were "essentially running" the whole operation, the fact remains that McCain's top officials and fund-raisers have past financial ties to nearly every domestic and foreign flashpoint, from Fannie Mae to Blackwater to Ahmad Chalabi to the government of Georgia. No sooner does McCain flip-flop on oil drilling than a bevy of Hess Oil family members and executives, not to mention a lowly Hess office manager and his wife, each give a maximum $28,500 to the Republican Party.

While reporters at The Post and The New York Times have been vetting McCain, many others give him a free pass. Their default cliché is to present him as the Old Faithful everyone already knows. They routinely salute his "independence," his "maverick image" and his "renegade reputation" — as the hackneyed script was reiterated by Karl Rove in a Wall Street Journal op-ed column last week. At Talking Points Memo, the essential blog vigilantly pursuing the McCain revelations often ignored elsewhere, Josh Marshall accurately observes that the Republican candidate is "graded on a curve."

Most Americans still don't know, as Marshall writes, that on the campaign trail "McCain frequently forgets key elements of policies, gets countries' names wrong, forgets things he's said only hours or days before and is frequently just confused." Most Americans still don't know it is precisely for this reason that the McCain campaign has now shut down the press's previously unfettered access to the candidate on the Straight Talk Express.

To appreciate the discrepancy in what we know about McCain and Obama, merely look at the coverage of the potential first ladies. We have heard too much indeed about Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis, her pay raises at the University of Chicago hospital, her statement about being "proud" of her country and the false rumor of a video of her ranting about "whitey." But we still haven't been inside Cindy McCain's tax returns, all her multiple homes or private plane. The Los Angeles Times reported in June that Hensley & Company, the enormous beer distributorship she controls, "lobbies regulatory agencies on alcohol issues that involve public health and safety," in opposition to groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The McCain campaign told The Times that Mrs. McCain's future role in her beer empire won't be revealed before the election.

Some of those who know McCain best — Republicans — are tougher on him than the press is. Rita Hauser, who was a Bush financial chairwoman in New York in 2000 and served on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in the administration's first term, joined other players in the G.O.P. establishment in forming Republicans for Obama last week. Why? The leadership qualities she admires in Obama — temperament, sustained judgment, the ability to play well with others — are missing in McCain. "He doesn't listen carefully to people and make reasoned judgments," Hauser told me. "If John says 'I'm going with so and so,' you can't count on that the next morning," she complained, adding, "That's not the man we want for president."...

(NYT)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 03:13 PM

Oops, missed that.... been a while since I have been around the 'Cat lately, didn't read enough down the threads list!

Brian.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 03:05 PM

>>Have you seen Paris Hilton's response to his "celebrity" ad?

Yeah, I think most have. There is a thread.

We'll always have Paris.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 03:01 PM

Have you seen Paris Hilton's response to his "celebrity" ad?

Paris for Prez?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 12:23 PM

Is John McCain losing it?

On Sunday, he said on national television that to solve Social Security "everything's on the table," which of course means raising payroll taxes. On July 7 in Denver he said: "Senator Obama will raise your taxes. I won't."

This isn't a flip-flop. It's a sex-change operation.

He got back to the subject Tuesday in Reno, Nev. Reporters asked about the Sunday tax comments. Mr. McCain replied, "The worst thing you could do is raise people's payroll taxes, my God!" Then he was asked about working with Democrats to fix Social Security, and he repeated, "everything has to be on the table." But how can . . .? Oh never mind.
..." (WSJ column)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 08 - 05:39 PM

John McCainÕs Chilling Project for America

EMAIL      PRINT      SHARE
Posted on Jun 12, 2008


AP photo / LM Otero
By Elliot Cohen

John McCain has long been a major player in a radical militaristic group driven by an ideology of global expansionism and dominance attained through perpetual, pre-emptive, unilateral, multiple wars. The credo of this group is Òthe end justifies the means,Ó and the end of establishing the United States as the worldÕs sole superpower justifies, in its estimation, anything from military control over the information on the Internet to the use of genocidal biological weapons. Over its two terms, the George W. Bush administration has planted the seeds for this geopolitical master plan, and now appears to be counting on the McCain administration, if one comes to power, to nurture it.

The Road Map to War

The blueprint for this Ònew orderÓ was drafted in February 1992, at the end of the George H.W. Bush administration when Defense Department staffers Paul Wolfowitz, I. Lewis Libby and Zalmay Khalilzad, acting under then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, drafted the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG). This document, also known as the ÒWolfowitz Doctrine,Ó was an unofficial, internal document that advocated massive increases in defense spending for purposes of strategic proliferation and buildup of the military in order to establish the pre-eminence of the United States as the worldÕs sole superpower. Advocating pre-emptive attacks with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, it proclaimed that Òthe U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.Ó The document was also quite clear about what should be the United StatesÕ main objective in the Middle East, especially with regard to Iraq and Iran, which was to Òremain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the regionÕs oil.Ó The Wolfowitz Doctrine was leaked to The New York Times and The Washington Post, which published excerpts from it. Amid a public outcry, President George H.W. Bush retracted the document, and it was substantially revised.

The original mission of the Wolfowitz Doctrine was not lost, however. In 1997, William Kristol and Robert Kagan founded The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a nongovernment political action organization that sought to develop and advocate for the militant, geopolitical tenets contained in the Wolfowitz Doctrine. PNACÕs original members included Wolfowitz, Cheney, Khalilzad, Libby, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, William J. Bennett, and other soon-to-be high officers in the Bush administration.

McCainÕs Ties to PNAC

John McCainÕs connection to PNAC can be traced back to before its formation in 1997. In fact, he was president of the New Citizenship Project, founded by Kristol in 1994. This organization was parent to PNAC, and served as its chief fundraising organ.

... (See complete article on this site.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 11:54 PM

Not intentionally--at least, I don't think so!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 11:46 PM

Obama has all those things. Rig; you are being vituperous again.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 11:11 PM

Nor do I, Dick. It's hard to imagine why Obama has any support at all--except for Ludacris, that is.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 11:02 PM

I fail to see why lack of charisma, lack of popularity, lack of communicative ability, lack of coherent policy and lack of understanding things like economics and energy policy should be things to be admired in a candidate. Nor why the presence of these characteristics should be a basis for attack.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 02 Aug 08 - 06:40 PM

Recent writers to the editor of the NYT:

"e ÒMcCain Is Trying to Define Obama as Out of TouchÓ (front page, July 31):

Senator Barack Obama is a well-educated, well-spoken man who has just returned from his first visit abroad as a presidential candidate. By all accounts, he was well received Ñ the trip was successful and without incident.

Here in America, the appearance of Mr. Obama as a presidential candidate seems to have thrown some of the more traditional politicians into a tizzy. They must have short memories Ñ both John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton socialized and were photographed with celebrities. And Mr. Clinton is still doing that. Mr. Obama isnÕt, and to insinuate so is just wrong.

Senator John McCain knows better, and it is his reputation that is being damaged by stooping to this level of campaigning.

Joan Baldwin Chapman
Cheshire, Conn., July 31, 2008

¥

To the Editor:

The Straight Talk Express has permanently derailed. Launching shameful attacks with no basis is typical Republican Party desperation tactics. These attacks have only solidified Senator John McCainÕs persona as the third disastrous Bush presidency.

David Walker
North Dartmouth, Mass.


July 31, 2008"


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Nickhere
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 09:16 PM

This is about McCain...in a roundabout way:

Obama v. McCain

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 08:05 PM

Speaking to volunteers at an Orlando phone bank, Obama ribbed McCain for taking the campaign into the gutter. ÒWhen we started this campaign, we were hoping for a more elevated debate. I mean, imagine Ñ at a time when we face more challenges than at any time in our lifetime, these guys are running ads with Paris and Britney,Ó he said. ÒThatÕs frivolous. ItÕs desperate.Ó

Obama said the campaign tactics are a sign of a lack of imagination over at Team McCain. ÒItÕs a sign that they donÕt have anything to offer to the American people so theyÕre just going to try to call folks names like you did in 5th grade,Ó he said. ÒYou remember that, back in 5th grade? You know, peopleÕd be calling each other names and getting into these petty fights. We donÕt have time for that.Ó

One might think that the Illinois Senator, who has two grade-school aged children himself, wouldnÕt want to bring the freshness of youth to the 72-year old McCain, whose age is seen as a liability Ñ although Obama did tell the crowd that McCain Òwants to do the same old thing.Ó Never a bad idea to get the word ÒoldÓ in a McCain riff.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 08:05 PM

"In a video message to donors this evening, Barack Obama's campaign manager said they are responding in an inspiring way to John McCain "taking his campaign into the gutter."

David Plouffe said 200,000 people have given Obama money in the last week -- including 100,000 just on Thursday, with one- third of them new contributors.

McCain's string of attacks have shown that he does not want to talk about the issues, Plouffe said.

While McCain wants to make the campaign about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, "you want to make it about our future," Plouffe told donors in the message.

"I think John McCain has harmed himself in the last week," Plouffe added.

2 COMMENTS SO FAR...
*"I think John McCain has harmed himself in the last week," Plouffe added. *
I couldn't agree more with Mr. Plouffe. I am an independent voter and I was shocked to see how low the McCain camp has sunk. The McCain we have been seeing in this campaign is a far cry from the one who years ago garnered some respect from voters of all stripes. I think he is desperate -- he just doesn't compare well to someone with the character, intelligence, and credentials of Barack Obama.
Posted by Margo August 1, 08 07:39 PM

Your article is totally correct. I gave once to Obama, and now I am giving again. I don't give a lot, only $50 at a time, its all I can afford. But every time I hear one of McCain's ugly, twisted ads, I scrape up some more money and give it to Obama. I ask my friends to do the same, and they are. The final straw that moved me to go beyond my own giving and ask others to contribute was the ad that showed Obama with two white women. It was so obviously designed to push racist hot buttons it made me sick. John McCain, I used to think you were an honorable man, now you are willing to prostitute yourself and your values to become president. Oddly enough, I don't want a prostitute for president."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 08:03 PM

Recent remarks on the latest Blockbuster SFX ad put out by McCain to try and slur Obama:

"his ad was pretty lame. Who are their writers? Every attack ad McCain airs is more and more laughable and immature. The man has no substance- just another empty suit. I hope McCain's backers enjoy watching 2008-12 from the sidelines!

Posted by: Bane | August 01, 2008 at 01:53 PM
Disgraceful. Unfunny. Trying too hard.

Stop wasting our time, McCain. The voters are not stupid. They don't care about your youtube clips, or the Marsha Blackburn Sex Tape, or any of this sideshow garbage. We need a direction. The only candidate worth voting for--Nader--doesn't stand a chance. How we ended up with these two political lightweight, I don't know.

Posted by: Josh Ritter | August 01, 2008 at 01:53 PM
McCain would rather win the slimy way than lose the honest way.

His overall message is not how or why he is good or great for America, but only negative things to say about his opponent.

Is this what 50 plus years of public service have taught you?

Posted by: SonOfHistoryProf | August 01, 2008 at 01:54 PM
well mccain, if you can't inspire anybody,
ridicule the guy who can.

what a small, childish ad this is for someone of mccain's stature to run.

Posted by: haymaker | August 01, 2008 at 01:55 PM
...Razorblade Nicolle? Very funny, or very desparate?

Posted by: Paul Svec | August 01, 2008 at 01:56 PM
So, if Obama is 'the One,' then that makes McCain Satan?
Posted by: Meme | August 01, 2008 at 01:56 PM
I agree with the ad. How dare Obama be inspiring. Who does he think he is? I prefer my political leaders to keep me cynical and dispirited.

Also, I don't like it when foreigners are waving American flags and cheering American leaders. I'm used to the world hating us. It just feels right.
Posted by: Andrew Huston | August 01, 2008 at 01:58 PM
McSameÕs a jealous old coot who failed at being a fighter pilot and has miserably flip-flopped ever since heÕs been in the Senate! Anybody that votes for McSame is an IDIOT!"

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 05:59 PM

Deponent sayeth not. The possibilities are ...interesting.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 05:03 PM

"'Vince is credited with saying "Winning is not the only thing. Its everything.'"
    "Al Davis is credited with Just win, baby!"


                        Jack, I think you're right about that. What could I have been thinking?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 05:01 PM

Example of impending panache...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 04:48 PM

Did you mean Spanache?

>>> Panache <<<

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: heric
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 02:59 PM

Did you mean spinache?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 02:34 PM

I love this paragraph.

>>Since then the McCain campaign has sharply escalated its rhetorical attacks -- making blatantly false claims, for example, about a canceled visit with injured troops in Germany. The blitz has been successful in one of its aims, which is to drive the news cycle and thus focus attention on McCain. Much less clear is whether voters really want to elect Don Rickles as president.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 02:29 PM

>>Well, you know how it is, when a journalist can't get his/her facts right on one part of the story, the reader comes to doubt everything else that is written in the piece.<<

Your habit of pooh-poohing everything that Amos writes used to show some pinache, but now you aren't even trying. Do you really believe that Vince Lombardi would address someone as "baby"?

Vince is credited with saying "Winning is not the only thing. Its everything."

Al Davis is credited with Just win, baby!

Eugene is a funny and excellent writer. Why don't you try reading the piece with an open mind and stop pulling critiques out of your butt.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 11:54 AM

Well, you know how it is, when a journalist can't get his/her facts right on one part of the story, the reader comes to doubt everything else that is written in the piece.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 11:06 AM

Good job, Rig--cut right through to the heart of the matter and asked the important questions.....


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 10:11 AM

"'...same moral code that guided the bad-boy Oakland Raiders in their heyday: "Just win, baby.'"


                   I thought that was Vince Lombardi

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 10:10 AM

"...McCain, on the other hand, is running a campaign straight out of the playbook that lost the Conservative Party the last three British elections. The old Conservatives thought that if they just kept attacking Labor, the citizens would see the error of their ways.

It didn't work, and it's hard to imagine the American electorate buying McCain's new advertising effort to undermine Obama by accusing him of being a "celebrity" and comparing him -- OMG! -- to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. McCain has made matters worse by falsely accusing Obama of wanting to raise taxes on electricity and by offering a phony account of why Obama decided not to visit wounded American soldiers in Europe.

By running an attack campaign that is almost a parody of George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 exertions, McCain is chucking away his greatest opportunity, which is to show that he could reform Republicanism and offer voters an alternative way of breaking with a past they have come to loathe.

Interestingly, Miliband put himself at the center of Britain's torrid political speculation with an op-ed article in the Guardian on Wednesday suggesting that even an incumbent party can turn itself into a party of change if it understands the fix it's in. "To get our message across, we must be more humble about our shortcomings but more compelling about our achievements," he wrote, noting that Labor "won three elections by offering real change, not just in policy but in the way we do politics. We must do so again."

It's true that Labor's record in Britain is more compelling than Bush's in the United States. That's why it's sad to see Brown, an intelligent and decent man, in such trouble. But Miliband and Cameron both have the right idea: Voters are in a mood to give the status quo a swift kick. Instead of offering puerile ads trashing Obama, McCain should show how he'd be the change we've been waiting for. " (Ibid)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 10:07 AM

So Much for St. John

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, August 1, 2008; Page A17

It's awfully early for John McCain to be running such a desperate, ugly campaign against Barack Obama. But I guess it's useful for Democrats to get a reminder that the Republican Party plays presidential politics by the same moral code that guided the bad-boy Oakland Raiders in their heyday: "Just win, baby."

The latest bit of snarling, mean-spirited nonsense to come out of the McCain camp was the accusation, leveled by campaign manager Rick Davis, that Obama had "played the race card." He did so, apparently, by being black.

On Wednesday, at a campaign stop in Missouri, Obama had predicted that Republicans would try to "make you scared of me. You know, 'He's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name,' you know, 'he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.' " So what does Davis do? He promptly tries to make voters scared of Obama by feigning outrage over the presumptive Democratic nominee's "divisive, negative, shameful and wrong" remarks.

Of course the McCain campaign isn't really offended that the first black major-party candidate for president in American history might mention this distinction from time to time. The idea is to slow Obama down before he runs away with this thing, and the weapon of choice is handfuls of mud.

Remember St. John the Reformer, who promised a high-minded campaign and said he wouldn't question his opponent's patriotism? Clearly, he's been replaced by an evil twin. The switch seems to have taken place during his opponent's world tour, when Obama's prescriptions for Iraq and Afghanistan began to look prescient -- and McCain's began to look irrelevant.

McCain kept saying that Obama "doesn't understand" the war zones -- even though the president of Afghanistan, the prime minister of Iraq and even U.S. military officials on the ground seemed to think Obama understood both situations quite well. McCain then resorted to the outrageous charge that Obama "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." I think that qualifies as an allegation that Obama is "not patriotic enough," don't you?

Since then the McCain campaign has sharply escalated its rhetorical attacks -- making blatantly false claims, for example, about a canceled visit with injured troops in Germany. The blitz has been successful in one of its aims, which is to drive the news cycle and thus focus attention on McCain. Much less clear is whether voters really want to elect Don Rickles as president.

The low point so far is McCain's bizarre ad that flashes images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears before showing Obama in Berlin addressing the multitudes. In what promises to be a major attack theme, the ad derides Obama as "the biggest celebrity in the world" -- an attempt to turn Obama's popularity into some kind of fatal flaw.

In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Davis and campaign senior adviser Steve Schmidt -- a veteran of George W. Bush's 2004 campaign -- kept returning to the word "celebrity" in describing Obama. It's a classic attempt to take a positive and turn it into a negative, as was done with John Kerry's heroic service in Vietnam by the odious Swift boat campaign.

The McCain campaign's excursion into popular culture has been so aggressive that the Obama campaign felt obliged to promptly denounce a new song by Ludacris that criticizes both McCain and Hillary Clinton in crude terms. Never mind that the rapper has no association with Obama's candidacy, and never mind that McCain is probably not intimately familiar with the Ludacris oeuvre. All this gnashing and flailing would be laughable if it weren't so purposeful. The aim is to cast an aura of doubt around Obama -- to portray him as handsome and popular but insubstantial, as a "celebrity" who's not really up to the job. Oh, and not that we would ever mention such a thing, but did you notice that Obama had the audacity to mention that he's African American?

The Obama campaign has been quick to respond with new television ads accusing McCain of practicing the "old politics." Kerry's unhappy experience showed that this kind of define-your-opponent blitzkrieg, however ridiculous the attacks may be, has to be answered immediately -- and in kind.

Negative campaigning is not a pretty thing, and it should be beneath John McCain to stoop so low. But Democrats would be foolish to forget that sometimes it works.

(WaPo)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 10:05 AM

Where do you get your ideas from, Mister McCain?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 01 Aug 08 - 09:09 AM

" McCain campaign ad says that gas prices are high right now because "some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America." That's just plain dishonest: the U.S. government's own Energy Information Administration says that removing restrictions on offshore drilling wouldn't lead to any additional domestic oil production until 2017, and that even at its peak the extra production would have an "insignificant" impact on oil prices.

What's even more important than Mr. McCain's bad economics, however, is what his reversal on this issue — he was against offshore drilling before he was for it — says about his priorities.

Back when he was cultivating a maverick image, Mr. McCain portrayed himself as more environmentally aware than the rest of his party. He even co-sponsored a bill calling for a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions (although his remarks on several recent occasions suggest that he doesn't understand his own proposal). But the lure of a bit of political gain, it turns out, was all it took to transform him back into a standard drill-and-burn Republican."

...(Krugman, NYT)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 31 Jul 08 - 09:41 PM

Just win baby!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jul 08 - 09:38 PM

WASHINGTON Ñ After spending much of the summer searching for an effective line of attack against Senator Barack Obama, Senator John McCain is beginning a newly aggressive campaign to define Mr. Obama as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency.

Enlarge This Image

Mary Altaffer/Associated Press
Senator John McCain, speaking Wednesday at a town-hall-style meeting in Aurora, Colo., has begun a campaign to define Senator Barack Obama in negative terms.
Related
On Line: Starry-Eyed Media Breed Green-Eyed Candidates (July 30, 2008)
The Caucus: Obama as ÔCelebrityÕ in McCain Ad (July 30, 2008)
Obama Camp Sees Potential in G.O.P. Discontent (July 31, 2008)
Political Memo: McCain Goes Negative, Worrying Some in G.O.P. (July 30, 2008)
Times Topics: John McCain
Times Topics: Barack Obama
Blog
The Caucus
The latest political news from around the nation. Join the discussion.
Election Guide
More Politics News
On Wednesday alone, the McCain campaign released a new advertisement suggesting Ñ and not in a good way Ñ that Mr. Obama was a celebrity along the lines of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Republicans tried to portray Mr. Obama as a candidate who believed the race was all about him, relying on what Democrats said was a completely inaccurate quotation.

The Republican National Committee began an anti-Obama Web site called ÒAudacity Watch,Ó a play on the title of Mr. ObamaÕs book ÒThe Audacity of Hope.Ó And, in a concerted volley of television interviews, news releases and e-mail, campaign representatives attacked him on a wide range of issues, including tax policies and energy proposals.

The moves are the McCain campaignÕs most full-throttled effort to define Mr. Obama negatively, on its own terms, by creating a narrative intended to turn the public off to an opponent.

Although Mr. Obama has been under an intense public spotlight for the last year, he is still relatively new on the national scene, and polls indicate that for all the enthusiasm he has generated among his supporters, many voters still have questions about him, providing Republicans an opening to shape his image in critical groups like white working-class voters between now and Election Day.

Mr. McCainÕs campaign is now under the leadership of members of President BushÕs re-election campaign, including Steve Schmidt, the czar of the Bush war room that relentlessly painted his opponent, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, as effete, elite, and equivocal through a daily blitz of sound bites and Web videos that were carefully coordinated with Mr. BushÕs television advertisements.

The run of attacks against Mr. Obama over the last couple of weeks have been strikingly reminiscent of that drive, including the Bush teamÕs tactics of seeking to make campaigns referendums on its opponents Ñ not a choice between two candidates Ñ and attacking the opponentÕs perceived strengths head-on. Central to the latest McCain drive is an attempt to use against Mr. Obama the huge crowds and excitement he has drawn, including on his foreign trip last week, by promoting a view of him as more interested in attention and adulation than in solving the problems facing American families. ... (NYT)

---

Gotta love that healing voice...



A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: beardedbruce
Date: 31 Jul 08 - 04:05 PM

McCain's True Voice

By David Ignatius
Thursday, July 31, 2008; Page A19

In the dog days of summer, John McCain's political personality has become so fuzzy that even some Republicans are worrying about his viability. But if you want a reminder of why McCain should be a formidable candidate, take another look at his remarkable 1999 autobiography, "Faith of My Fathers."

McCain's account is as revealing as Barack Obama's memoir, "Dreams From My Father." Both candidates have written powerful accounts of their formative experiences. Each tale is woven around the universal theme of fathers and sons. Given the psychological torments that often drive politicians, it's a blessing to have two candidates who have examined their lives carefully and appear to understand their inner demons.

But these two memoirists couldn't have more different stories to tell, and that's what should make the 2008 campaign so interesting. Where Obama describes a quest for an absent father and an African American identity, McCain's early story is about learning to accept the legacy of a famous family where both his father and grandfather were four-star admirals.

McCain was a wild man in his youth, drinking and chasing women like a renegade prince of Navy royalty. He is brutally frank in his description of this protracted adolescence, describing his years at the Naval Academy as "a four-year course of insubordination and rebellion."

McCain's burden, and ultimately his salvation, was the military code of honor that his forefathers embodied. He was from a family of professional warriors, as far back as he could trace his ancestors, and he says this gave him a "reckless confidence" and a sense of fatalism. But it also produced an unshakable bond with his fellow officers and enlisted men -- and to the nation they had pledged to serve. Leadership, the art of guiding men courageously in war, was the family business.

The McCain story converges on his 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. In the conventional telling, it is a tale of heroism -- how McCain refused an offer of early release, how he braved torture year after year, how he turned his insolent anger against his captors.

Certainly all those heroic details are present in McCain's memoir, and in his political appeal this year. The Vietnam legacy of steadfastness motivated him to resist American failure in Iraq and to agitate, sometimes almost alone, for what came to be called the "surge" of U.S. troops. When he says he preferred political defeat for himself to military defeat for his country, he is telling the truth. With an ex-POW's stubbornness, he could not abide the notion of failure and dishonor for U.S. forces.

But what makes McCain's account of his captivity truly remarkable is not the heroism but the humility. In page after page, he praises men who he insists were braver than he was. Though even the toughest prisoners were broken by torture, he cannot forgive himself for signing his own confession: "I shook, as if my disgrace were a fever." He survived through solidarity with other prisoners who were "a lantern of courage and faith that illuminated the way home with honor."

McCain's triumph, finally, was that he got over Vietnam. He didn't fulminate against antiwar activists. ("I have made far too many mistakes in my own life to forever disparage people.") He accepted the ways America had changed in his absence. He didn't bear grudges. He had finally grown up. McCain wrote in a magazine article soon after his homecoming in March 1973: "Now that I'm back, I find a lot of hand-wringing about this country. I don't buy that. I think America today is a better country than the one I left nearly six years ago."

That healing gift is what McCain, at his best, brings to the presidential race -- not the brass marching band of military valor but the tolerance of someone who has truly suffered. It's evident in his achievements as a senator: He had been tortured himself, so he campaigned, against intense pressure from the Bush administration, for a ban on torture; he had been caught as one of the "Keating Five" in a sleazy campaign finance scandal, so he defied his party and became a crusader for campaign finance and ethics reforms.

What's damaging the McCain campaign now, I suspect, is that this fiercely independent man is trying to please other people -- especially a Republican leadership that doesn't really trust him. He should give that up and be the person whose voice shines through the pages of his life story.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Jul 08 - 11:00 AM

The most recent MCCain ad never even mentions McCain....

Intstead it starts with video of Brittany and Paris Hilton who America knows for flasjhing their twats and filming their blow jobs.

nice move McCain

McCain can't so I am calling him John McCan't from now on.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: Riginslinger
Date: 31 Jul 08 - 10:20 AM

Yes, McCain has the problem that his extreme base goes to church, whereas Obama's extreme base does not, which renders Obama's base more dependable.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views on McCain
From: GUEST,Ron Davies
Date: 31 Jul 08 - 06:14 AM

heric has it nailed. All Obama needs to do is neutralize the Iraq war as an issue and
return the focus to the economy, where McCain's views are now embodied by Gramm in the minds of many, despite his denials.

Obama can point out that the US is now paying doubly--and needlessly--in Iraq. We are paying to maintain our troops there, and we are paying otherwise unemployed military-age men to belong to self-defense organizations.

That money is urgently needed elsewhere--in Afghanistan, and above all, at a time of recession, at home.

And it looks like Obama knows this--and is doing it.

Meanwhile, as I've noted earlier, McCain is trapped. He desperately needs independents--but every time he tries for them his own base threatens to revolt--or stay home.