Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
John McCain Archive
December 24, 2008
"Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran," revisited
Was McCain poking fun at the ultra-hawks?
November 04, 2008
McCain's concession
If he'd made this sort of speech during the campaign, he would have left a better memory.
Eulogy for John McCain
"There is neither honor nor profit in doing evil badly." - Michael Walzer...
Time zones
Will John McCain concede before the polls close in Alaska?
October 30, 2008
John McCain: Cool and consistent
The consensus seems now to have settled down that John McCain's campaign behavior has been erratic and temperamental. Certainly that was the Obama campaign's narrative. In fact, McCain has been about as consistent as can be: whatever Steve Schmidt tells him to do, he does. Since Schmidt is obsessed about the news cycle, and has determined that McCain can win...
Factor of safety = 0.95
If McCain is an engineer because he went to Annapolis, then I'm a pansexual semiotics professor (because I went to Swarthmore).
October 29, 2008
October 28, 2008
McCain's "Redistributionist" Complaint
All government policies redistribute income. So McCain's complaint is nonsense.
October 27, 2008
Everyone-that-doeth-evil-hateth-the-light Dep't
The McCain campaign in Florida gets its "volunteers" from temp agencies.
Some of the managers seem a little prickly about it.
"Incoherent"
Ann Althouse says that John McCain's attempt to paint Barack Obama as a socialist is incoherent, and wonders if McCain is "exhausted or sick." McCain may well be losing it, but that's not the reason he can't make the case. There's no case to be made.
October 24, 2008
More than one kind of courage
What did John Lewis mean when he likened John McCain to George Wallace? Not what you think he meant, says someone who has studied both Lewis and Wallace.
October 22, 2008
Prosecution, please.
Assault and battery against a Democratic tracker by someone who seems to be a Missouri Republican party official.
October 21, 2008
Childish
Joe Klein has been banned from the McCain and Palin campaign planes.
October 20, 2008
Yes, it's possible to go too far ...
... even at a McCain rally. A anti-Islamic bigot gets roundly rebuked by a bunch of McCain supporters, including one campaign staffer.
October 18, 2008
The company he keeps
John McCain is employing the same robo-call artists who smeared his family in 2000 against Barack Obama.
October 17, 2008
Requiem for a maverick
"Requiem for a Heavyweight" and current events.
October 15, 2008
Kids: the anti-McCain
Mom, Dad? We need to have a little talk.
October 13, 2008
When your "hero" calls you out...
When they heard McCain's "hero" John Lewis say they were hate mongering, John McCain and his campaign never once considered that there might be some truth in what Lewis said.
October 11, 2008
The real McCain?
One reading of McCain's belated protests against his supporters' hate speech is that it's a purely cynical move, motivated by bad press and by protests from moderate Republicans. I admit that I incline to that interpretation. But it's not the only reading consistent with the facts. Yes, McCain is accountable for the staff he has collected and for the campaign...
October 10, 2008
Yes!
Joe Gandelman: The 2008 McCain is to the 2000 McCain what New Coke was to Coke Classic. Up until this week, there were many voters who thought they were voting for McCain 2000: that after the election he'd take off his mask and stand revealed as Moderate-Man. Now there are fewer of them. As Arianna Huffington said, "I'd like to...
OK, I give up
Rick Davis is now bragging that John McCain "blew up" the bailout package that John McCain blamed Barack Obama for not supporting vehemently enough. As Orwell once said, this doesn't even have the relationship to the truth that an ordinary lie has. Explanations: 1. Davis is stupid. 2. Davis thinks the voters are stupid. 3. Davis thinks the press will...
"Illegal" is a proper subset of "wrong"
The Troopergate report highlights a distinction invisible to the Bush administration, to its further eternal shame, and kind of a challenge to a large part of the Republican party: a lot of things that are legal are Very Bad, and "not convicted [yet]" is not at all the same as "heckuva job". An executive may legally fire anyone above the...
This IS Your Father's Republican Party
It is somewhat amusing to find so many Republicans who are shocked, shocked about the tactics that John McCain and Sarah Palin are using. Race-baiting? Never! Anti-intellectualism? Reagan and Bush I never would have done that! Crazed insane accusations of treason? Who could have predicted it? I'm not sure whether to condemn them for their ignorance or their dishonesty. This...
October 09, 2008
Good news!
The McCain mortgage plan seem to be forbidden by the bailout bill.
In a nutshell
When socialism comes to America, McCain will have wrapped it in a flag and Palin will - with a wink - carry its cross.
Overhead projector
A photo of that $3m "overhead projector".
"My fellow prisoners"
All right, candidates misspeak. But "my fellow prisoners"? That's not like saying you've visited 57 states when you mean you've been in 57 delegate contests, or conflating "green" and "wet behind the ears" as metaphors for inexperience into the Martian-sounding "green behind the ears." That's just weird. And note that McCain doesn't correct himself. John Scalzi is right: there are...
October 07, 2008
One in four corrected
A corrected estimate of the risk of a forced Palin succession.
October 06, 2008
Updated photo
Mark is sometimes a little behind the curve on tech stuff, like railways. The photo of the Straight Talk Express he posted is actually not the most up to date, but I am happy to provide a pic of the end of the voyage. It turns out Phil Gramm was at the controls, texting back and forth with a committee...
McCain's judgment and veracity as an aviator
McCain lied to the Navy about two out of three of his peacetime crashes. The LA Times focuses on his lack of judgment rather than his self-serving mendacity or the common view in the Navy that except for his status as the scion of admirals he would never have graduated the Naval Academy, and that, if he had, his wings would have been taken away, probably after the second crash.
October 05, 2008
October 02, 2008
McCain on Turtle Island: FALSE
Didn't happen. But it's going around as a viral email.
October 01, 2008
Government as desperate measure
"...when there's a crisis, government has to step in." --John McCain, in NPR interview this morning. I guess, when there's no crisis, government should go crawl in a hole somewhere, to allow crises to develop and ripen. The airport management book bromide version of this is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Surely one of most deeply stupid ideas...
September 30, 2008
Questions for John McCain
1. You pride yourself on your "leadership." Were you disappointed that two-thirds of the Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to follow your lead in supporting the bailout bill? 2. How many Members of Congress did you personally ask to vote for the bill? How many did so? 3. All five Arizona Republicans voted "No." Had you spoken to...
September 29, 2008
Days of (political) awe
When John McCain demanded that Congress"get back, obviously, immediately to address this crisis" had no one told him that Rosh HaShanah is tonight and tomorrow? That won't go down very well in Palm Beach. Tonight, his political doom is being written. Soon - before Yom Kippur, I would guess - it will be sealed....
Surreal
John McCain: "Our leaders are expected to leave partisanship at the door and come to the table to solve our problems. Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame. Now is the time to fix the problem."
September 28, 2008
Question for John McCain
How would you hold those who authorized torture accountable?
Randy Travesty
In which I find myself in the awkward position of defending the integrity of a lobbyist
September 27, 2008
Yes, Rick Davis was still affiliated with Davis, Manafort
... and the campaign knew it, since Davis's salary was paid directly to the firm, which was also collecting $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac for providing, as far as the record shows, no services whatever, in a deal (shakedown) arranged by Davis personally. Two lessons here: 1. The McCain campaign is a collection of crooks and liars. But that's...
Research earmarks
After the bridge, and the road to the not-bridge, earmarks for research on bear DNA, seals, and crabs have been used as ammunition (an example among many here) in the election debate. In her inept way, I think Palin was sort of right about this issue (sort of right is the most precise judgment one can make of this poor...
Well matched
John McCain, just like Sarah Palin, isn't very good at faking it when he doesn't know what the f*ck he's talking about: Watch CBS Videos Online He clearly doesn't have a clue either about what the issues are or what the proposals are....
September 26, 2008
"O you sanctimonious turkey!" Pt. II
Just up on the McCain website. ______________________ Statement By McCain Campaign On Negotiations John McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign was made in the hopes that politics could be set aside to address our economic crisis. In response, Americans saw a familiar spectacle in Washington. At a moment of crisis that threatened the economic security of American families, Washington played...
September 25, 2008
John McCain and the "turkey" memo
"O, you turkey! You pious turkey! You sanctimonious turkey!"
"A conspiracy so vast ... "
Either "John McCain" is an entirely imaginary character or the actual McCain has been kidnapped and replaced by a double with the assignment of destroying whatever George W. Bush left intact of the Republican party and the conservative movement by illustrating their folly and their evil. The satire has grown increasingly broad, but today it completely jumped the shark: "McCain" announced that he hadn't read the Paulson plan, which is all of 894 words long and has been at the center of national debate for three days.
September 24, 2008
Malignant narcissism
Harold Meyerson on John McCain's Messiah complex.
McCain's "suspension": the Obvious Analogy
The clearest equivalent to McCain's bizarre and cynical proposal to "suspend" the campaign must be Jimmy Carter's 1980 refusal to leave the Rose Garden until the hostages were released. I think that most Americans saw that for what it was: a bizarre and cynical refusal to engage political opponents (such as Ted Kennedy, who challenged him in the primary), and...
September 23, 2008
Hardball
Arizona politics is just as rough as "Chicago politics." People get killed.
Don Bolles, for example, the reporter who was killed on the orders of mob boss Kemper Marley.
Marley's convicted-felon business partner, Jim Hensley, the man Marley set up with the Budweiser distributorship for Arizona, later sponsored the political career of his son-in-law, John McCain.
Glass houses. Stones. Let's keep this polite.
September 22, 2008
Shorter Rick Davis
The New York Times has lost its credibility by reporting that I was paid $2 million by Fannie and Freddie for lobbying. I was actually paid $2 million for doing absolutely nothing....
September 21, 2008
September 19, 2008
"Yes, thanks," to a dead-end road
The LA Times tells, once again, the story of the Access Road to the Non-Bridge to Nowhere, still being built by Sarah Palin with your money and mine. Think what it says about John McCain that he is so willing to repeat, and keep repeating, a lie that has already been exposed.
John. McCain. Does. Not. Understand. The. Job. He. Is. Running. For.
He's asking the Fed to stay out of the bailout business? Why the hell does he think central banks were invented in the first place?
Of candidates and hemispheres
Spain is (mostly) in the Western Hemisphere, which is not identical to the New World.
McSpain explained
The first time, he meant the Western Hemisphere. The second time (about Zapatero), he meant the Northern Hemisphere. It's not his fault, his mind just works faster than a reporter's. Or yours....
Is glossolalia infectious?
Asked about an AIG bailout, John McCain babbles incoherently. $5 reward for any trace of sense you can discern in his answer.
September 18, 2008
The sort of lede we love to read
MADRID, Spain (AP) - John McCain either doesn't want to meet Spain's prime minister any time soon or isn't quite sure who he is. Or try this, from CNN. Or Joe Klein: Seems to me that putting a chill in the relationship with one of our NATO allies simply because McCain misheard a question is going a bit far....
John McCain, financial idiot
And now, let us hold hands across the blogospheric divide. My friend and colleague Steve Bainbridge is right: the President can, in fact, fire the SEC chair. What he can't do is fire a commissioner, so he would have to choose a new chair from among the group of serving commissioners. The old chair would be just be a regular...
John McCain as Bob Dole
Reporters are finally noticing. Not as scary as "McCain as Goldwater," but that one may be coming next. Also note the delicious bit of projection: Let’s have some straight talk. Senator Obama is not interested in the politics of hope. He’s interested in his political future. That’s why he is hurtling insults and making up facts....
McCain's Spanish blunder
He inadvertently insulted the Spanish Prime Minister because he didn't understand a question. Instead of admitting the mistake, his campaign decides to make the insult a deliberate one. Me first, country second.
First things first
John McCain wants to add new members to NATO, but doesn't seem to be entirely clear on which countries are currently members.
September 17, 2008
Another departure from the McCain "base"
Elizabeth Drew withdraws from the cult of McCain.
"Panic" v. "meltdown"
Not panic but meltdown.
Can you see Russia from the Senate Commerce Committee?
More resume padding from McCain. Senate Commerce does not "oversight [sic] the whole economy." The guy is a chronic b.s. artist, though he's not all that good at it.
September 16, 2008
Quitting-while-you're-behind Dep't
Someone asked Carly Fiorina whether Sarah Palin would be competent to run Hewlett Packard. She said, accurately, "No," and then tried to explain why it didn't matter. But, realizing that she might have put her foot in her mouth, Fiorina went on to shove it in all the way to the ankle by pointing out that John McCain also isn't...
McCain's Responsibility for the Financial Meltdown
John McCain is now shocked, shocked, that there was no oversight of the financial system over the last 8 years, and wants "new rules for Wall Street." John McCain was chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has as part of its jurisdiction "interstate commerce." He could have called for hearings any time he wanted to. He didn't want to....
What foreign policy?
McCain's website has no section on foreign policy.
John McCain, liar extraordinaire
Yes, John McCain is more of a liar than the average politician. He tells more lies, he tells more blatant lies, and he keeps right on telling them after they're exposed as lies. The difference matters.
Will the real John McCain please stand up?
Are we witnessing the fall of a tragic hero or the unmasking of the villain in a melodrama?
McCain's Record on Defense Procurement: Pugnacious but Counter-Productive
McCain's involvement with defense procurement reform has been pugnacious but counterproductive. It refutes any claim to be an effective agent of change for the economy or any other complicated system.
"The Ugly New McCain": Richard Cohen is off the reservation
Cohen hits McCain on lying, and on Palin. Couldn't be better.
September 15, 2008
Tippecanoe and Palin too
The eerie analogy to President Harrison' brief tenure.
September 14, 2008
Leadership We Can Believe In
I make no pretense toward understanding the world of complex international finance, but by the time most of us at RBC wake up tomorrow morning, the financial system might be unrecognizable. Lehman Brothers will apparently declare bankruptcy, as other banks have given up trying to save it; the immediate hit could affect thousands of Lehman's 25,000 employees. Instead, Merrill Lynch,...
Profile in ... something
Army Times headline:
:"McCain on FCS: Flip-flop or fib?"
The campaign won't tell the Army Times whether McCain is for or against "Future Combat Systems."
Yep, that's the question, all right.
Scott Lehigh in the Boston Globe:
"Here's the question voters should be asking themselves this week: Just how stupid does the McCain-Palin campaign think I am?"
One in four
A revised estimate of the likelihood of VP Palin having to replace POTUS McCain.
September 12, 2008
Deep Thought of the Day
John McCain thinks that you have too much health insurance and that you don't pay enough for it. That's why he wants to tax your health benefits....
Lying, or out of touch?
McCain says Gov. Palin never asked for earmarks.
September 11, 2008
"McCain lies": AP edition
Charles Babington reports (this is the lead):
>>>>The "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into doublespeak.
September 10, 2008
Asleep at the Switch
So it turns out that there is a "culture of ethical failure" in the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service. The Inspector General's reports "portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch." It's all there: sex, drugs, cash--just the sort of thing that makes...
Deep Thought of the Day
John McCain is the lipstick. George W. Bush is the pig. Thus, John McCain's campaign is lipstick on a pig. QED....
September 08, 2008
Sleazy chiselers
Well, if this isn't the damndest piece of small-time larceny: Sarah Palin has been gouging the taxpayers of Alaska out of a per diem allowance for days she's at home (about ten months worth). She also arranged that they pay to fly her husband and kids around on her junkets. The amounts involved total less than $100,000; I don't know...
Temper, temper!
Is John McCain too unstable to be President? There's reason to think so.
September 06, 2008
More presumption by John McCain
He's acting as if he's a (Republican) President even before the election. I'm pretty sure even Nixon waited until he'd been inaugurated to start obstructing justice....
September 05, 2008
Tough
Barack Obama goes on the O'Reilly Factor. John McCain runs away from Larry King. Sarah Palin refuses to answer any questions from any reporters, runs home to Alaska. Who's tougher? This meme about Republican toughness is simply absurd. I remember back in 1982, in the book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, one important point was that "real men don't care...
September 04, 2008
Unbef*ckinglievable!
I'm watching the McCain biopic at the RNC. (I may need treatment for a violin overdose.) They just did the romance of Cindy and John McCain. "It was love at first sight." No mention that it was, in fact, adultery at first sight. They just dumped the first wife down the memory hole....
September 03, 2008
Taming the maverick
Maybe the angry left couldn't break him, but it was easy for the angry right.
"Thrill-seeking personality"
David Brooks on John McCain. Hardly a good quality in a President.
September 02, 2008
Two more self-contradictions in the Palin nomination
The Palin choice belies both "Country First" and the idea that McCain bucks the Republican Party
Testy, testy!
Is McCain canceling his Larry King interview to punish CNN for daring to ask some medium-tough questions of one of his spokesgeeks, or is he just afraid that even Larry King might ask him questions he'd rather not answer?
September 01, 2008
How likely is it that Palin would have to take over?
Add a 7% risk of severe disability to the 15% mortality risk.
August 31, 2008
Poker and craps are not Tweedledum and Tweedledee
The difference between a crapshooter and a poker player is not a matter of taste in generally similar games. Poker is a game of nearly infinite subtlety and complexity, in which money is managed across a constantly changing information landscape as deep as the psychology and perspicacity of all the players. Smart poker players are much better at it than...
Russian Roulette goes to video
A reader sent us a link to a cool video he made from our earlier post....
August 29, 2008
Country first
Whe the CIA fears a McCain Presidency.
"Mr. McCain's judgment"
The WaPo asks the obvious question: WTF was McCain thinking?
Piling on
The average 72-year-old American male has about an 85% chance of surviving to 76-1/2. John McCain is a cancer survivor three times and has a variety of health issues resulting from his imprisonment, but as president he will get the best of health care (the kind uninsured people don't get); let's assume these balance out. (Doris Kearns Goodwin just pointed...
August 28, 2008
Question
Pawlenty? And his qualifications to be Commander-in-Chief are ... ?
Losing his Teflon?
Time Magazine gets off the Straight Talk Express.
August 26, 2008
McCain qualifications in brief
Mark is judging McCain by irrelevant standards; the question is how POW experience qualifies McCain for the White House, not whether it protects against little slips and mistakes. Let's quickly review, remembering the lessons of history: every bad president in US history lacked POW experience, and not a single one was tortured: Way underperforms father and grandfather (why do American...
John McCain, former POW
His prison camp experience was honorable, but it hasn't prevented him from acting dishonorably since.
August 24, 2008
"Above my pay grade"
Barack Obama thinks God knows some things Barack Obama doesn't. John McCain is not so modest.
August 22, 2008
Home schooling
John McCain seems a bit unclear on the concept of a "budget." Must be nice to be so rich you don't have to live within one personally, but it might be a little bit rough on the country to have those principles applied to the Federal government.
More fun facts to know and tell
McCain spent more on household help last year than the average American sends to buy a house.
And his household-help expense exceeded his charitable giving. Charity begins at homes.
Conservation
John McCain takes a nine-car motorcade to buy himself a Starbucks cappuccino.
August 21, 2008
Just plain folks
If you had MADE last year as much money as John McCain spent ON HOUSEHOLD HELP ALONE -- $273,000 -- you'd be richer than 95% of American families.
Calling Maureen Dowd -- McCain Shrink Needed
It would take all of Maureen Dowd's literary powers to do describe McCain's internal monologue around ambition and honesty now in relation to his 2000 campaign -- or was that just his co-author, Mark Salter?
Attn: Late-night comics
Some one-liners on the "houses" theme, all gathered from today's email.
How it's done
Reporter asks tough question, gets cut off McCain campaign conference call.
Precis
An unnamed Obama staffer on McCain:
A George Bush candidate running a Karl Rove campaign with a Dick Cheney sense of humor.
More houses than he can count
He'll have to get back to you on that.
Hey, maybe he didn't marry Cindy for her money after all!
August 20, 2008
The three greatest lies
1. The check is in the mail. 2. I was just driving her home. 3. John McCain is a moderate....
Jack Cafferty slams McCain
"John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president."
Water-Rustler-in-Chief
McCain puts his foot in it up to his hip joint. Don't mention rope in the house of a hanged man or water in Colorado.
Say. This. EVERY. DAY.
...and in every statement. John McCain is George W. Bush. Blue Blogistan is in, well, a blue period about the recent poll movements. It should be, although I think it can be vastly overstated. There is, of course, ample reason for criticism of the Obama Campaign, in its failure to come up with a consistent, overwhelming line to define John...
To the gates of Hell, but not to Pakistan
John McCain's position on Osama bin Laden: pursue him "to the Gates of Hell," but give him safe haven in Pakistan.
August 19, 2008
Maverick -- Is that really a good thing?
Democrats should turn the "Maverick" reputation against John McCain, rather than fighting it. What it really signifies is "unreliable reactionary loner who can't lead and who as President would continue the disastrous Bush economic policies."
August 18, 2008
McCain's smoothness at Saddleback--another take
Jim Fallows has a useful take on McCain's relatively smooth (can you say stump speech?) performance at Saddleback.
McCain's Saddleback deception
A Megan McArdle commenter on McCain's shenanigans:
"His performance didn't look so good when I suspected the performer was a cheating liar."
McCain Campaign's non-denial denial and McCain's character
More on McCain's breaking the rules of the Saddleback Civil Forum and seemingly making a liar out of Pastor Rick Warren.
A fellow POW on John McCain's qualifications for President
A fellow POW says John McCain's POW record was not exceptional, and in any case is not a qualification to be President.
August 17, 2008
Non sequitur
Did McCain cheat by getting an advance peek at Rick Warren's questions? I don't know, but the argument "of course a former POW couldn't cheat" makes no sense whatever.
August 14, 2008
Love, death, and John McCain
Tom Ridge is pro-choice. That's OK, says McCain. But Mike Bloomberg is pro-gay-rights. That, says, McCain, would be too much. So love is worse than murder?
August 13, 2008
John McCain, wind power, and hot air
McCain has ads showing windmills, but won't vote to extend the tax credit that keeps the wind power industry in business.
Is this allowed?
AP treats the scandal about McCain's foreign policy adviser lobbying for foreign governments as ... as scandal. I thought that was against the rules.
Meantime, Saakashvili wants McCain to pass from words to deeds, and wants American troops as peacekeepers. Would McCain send them?
August 12, 2008
Maverick
McCain takes money from Ralph Reed.
Leading by example
John McCain, having been caught in an obvious act of plagiarism, denies it.
August 11, 2008
A case of plagiarism
TurnItIn is a weapon of mass destruction.
August 10, 2008
Temper, temper!
How about a bunch of TV spots with the targets of, or witnesses to, McCain's screaming fits describing how he looked and sounded? "Crazy" is the ultimate "other."
August 09, 2008
As you plant, so shall you reap
Even Republican ringers ask McCain question that turn out to be embarrassing for him to answer.
"Why McCain would be a mediocre president"
Rex Nutting, Washington Bureau Chief of MarketWatch, dares to ask whether John McCain is qualified to be President.
Ohio Democrats take off the gloves
McCain gets nailed on his lobbyist ties.
August 08, 2008
Sleazy, hot-tempered, ill-natured
That's the account of John McCain by Amy Silverman, who has covered him for 15 years.
August 07, 2008
McCain and the Co-equal Branches of Government
McCain's says as president he would keep Congress in session according to his whim. Do you think he's ever read the Constitution?
"Pea-green with envy"
MoDo, on McCain. Love to see it.
August 06, 2008
Questions for John McCain
A new-and-improved list of tough questions reporters ought to be asking John McCain, but aren't.
Paper tiger
McCain folds on the "tire gauge" issue.
August 05, 2008
The best President (illegal) money can buy
$61,000 in campaign contributions from an office manager for Hess Oil and her husband, a foreman for Amtrak. They live in an apartment in Queens; she drives a '93 Chevy. If you think that money came out of their pockets and not their employer's, do I have a bridge for you.
John McCain: out-of-touch elitist
He doesn't have to worry about inflating his tires. Not after marrying a hundred million bucks.
Who does John McCain think his supporters are?
He promises policies "enabling you to decide where to drill for oil."
Well, I guess I could, if I had a drill rig. Otherwise it's just Exxon he's enabling.
August 01, 2008
I have a little list ...
... of questions for John McCain.
Just asking
Would a candidate for President who's "proud" of the Britney/Paris Hilton ad make a President for the country to be proud of?
July 31, 2008
John McCain, still Standing Tall
So HHS has issued a draft regulation that defines IUDs and birth control pills as abortion. The concern, of course, is that if the regulation stands, the equation of contraception and abortion might serve as precedent for interpretations of federal and even state laws. Not surprisingly, dozens of Congressional Democrats, including Barack Obama, "have signed letters of protest blistering the...
Which candidate is more like Britney Spears?
"I'm rubber, you're glue, what you say bounces off me and sticks to you"
July 30, 2008
Take your pick
The Law of the Excluded Middle strikes again: either McCain really doesn't know what's in his ads, in which case he's not fit to be President, or he really does know what's in his ads, in which case ... he's not fit to be President.
"Old age is second childhood": Aristophanes
And John Weaver thinks John McCain's latest ad is "childish."
McCain's Ferragamos
McCain wears $520 Italian loafers. Obama is an "elitist."
Go figure.
July 29, 2008
McCain's skin biopsy: benign
It's only the rest of him that's malignant.
July 28, 2008
Standing tall
Obama stays vague on chlorinated chickens.
July 24, 2008
Magic Wand Economics (or John McCain, Comedian?)
John McCain's claim that recent oil price declines are due to Bush's countermanding his father's executive order against offshore drilling is risible.
July 23, 2008
Decency is SUCH a bore
Obama visits the Holocaust memorial, says "Never again." McCain campaign attacks.
July 22, 2008
Lying or confused?
Unless effects precede causes, the Surge didn't cause the Anbar Awakening, as John McCain claims it did.
July 20, 2008
Is McCain surrounded ENTIRELY by crooks?
Lindsay Beyersteinn explodes a ton of dynamite under the McCain campaign: Randy Scheunemann, McCain's foreign policy adviser, was involved in an influence-peddling scheme aimed at oil-rich Central Asian tyrannies, and involving the guy who just got caught selling access to officials for donations to the Bush library.
July 18, 2008
McCain, Machiavelli -- spoke too soon edition
A reader points out I spoke too soon in retracting the conspiracy theory of the Gramm gaffe -- Gramm has now resigned from the McCain campaign. A taste of political incompetence is all that remains of this.
McCain blabs
Announces in public the timing of Obama's trip to Iraq: a serious breach of security.
McCain not Machiavelli; comfortable with economic thuggery
Events seem about to disprove my earlier speculation about McCain Machiavellian press management in favor of the alternate theory
July 17, 2008
The cost of flip-flop: McCain on gay adoption
Having outraged everyone with humane instincts by saying that he'd leave kids in orphanages rather than let gays adopt, McCain has now outraged the Christian Right by halfway taking it back.
John McCain, Teddy Roosevelt Maverick?
John Podesta and co-author skewer McCain's branding.
Cheerful thought
McCain forced to back off his latest anti-gay remarks. The polls must be telling him something.
July 15, 2008
Riverboat John McCain ...
... is gambling that the press won't say that he's adopted Barack Obama's strategy: withdraw troops from Iraq in order to increase force levels in Afghanistan.
July 14, 2008
Al Hunt hammers McCain
Calls him on his economic b.s. Other reporters, please copy.
July 13, 2008
Machiavellian Press Management?
Warning: This post contains rank speculation going beyond the available facts: Was Phil Gramm's "mental recession" remark a deliberate ploy to allow the McCain campaign to sever its close relationship with man who had become a liability as a lobbyist, a representative of rapacious global capitalism, and, with his wife, a major force in the deregulation of American economic life that spawned the home loan crisis?
Heartless
Yes, John McCain really would leave a kid in an orphanage if the alternative is adoption by a gay couple. Feh.
July 12, 2008
McCain tells the truth
He really DOESN'T want to discuss whether health insurance ought to include birth control.
July 10, 2008
Not a good week for McCain ...
... and it's not even Friday yet.
July 08, 2008
More fun than a barrel of monkeys
Reuters: "Presidential candidate John McCain, who once sang in jest about bombing Iran, on Tuesday reacted to a report of rising U.S. cigarette exports to the country by saying it may be 'a way of killing 'em.' "
July 07, 2008
Out in Sixteen Months -- Another Take
How Barack Obama should navigate the politics of Iraq, allowing him to become president and then execute a superior policy to that of either John McCain or George W. Bush, that actually might succeed in getting troops out of Iraq,
July 02, 2008
Clark, McCain and the forms of courage
As the McCain-Clark dustup continues into its fourth day (mostly courtesy of McCain), it seems to me that there is one interesting way in which it reveals assumptions about Presidential qualifications. One could make a fairly plausible point about how being a POW would prepare someone for the Presidency: in a word, courage. It was courageous for McCain to fly...
June 30, 2008
Piling on re Wes Clark on John McCain
Mark and Jonathan are entirely right about Wes Clark and John McCain. Clark's criticism was not of the honor or veracity of McCain's service record but of its relevance to his qualifications to be president. Clark in fact said McCain as a POW was a hero to him and millions of others.
On Capitol Hill, I can't think of a lasting contribution McCain has made to defense or national security policy (other than the POW-MIA issue and normalization of relations with Vietnam), despite his powerful position. I invite readers to provide examples that I have missed.
Wes Clark on John McCain
No, McCain's military experience doesn't prepare him to be Commander-in-Chief.
And no, it's not "swiftboating" to point that out.
June 29, 2008
The good life
John McCain has so many houses he can't remember which ones he hasn't paid any real estate tax on for four years.
But Barack Obama is an "elistist."
Go figure.
June 17, 2008
Wish-I'd-said-that Dep't
Todd Gitlin says that on climate change policy John McCain is "talking through his cap."
McCain campaign slimes Obama on terrorism policy
It turns out that on national security the McCain campaign's notion of discussing issues is Rovian name calling.
Update: Readers pitch in with additional substance.
June 16, 2008
Ambition and moral degeneration
John McCain in 1974 knew that sleep deprivation and stress positions are forms of torture. John McCain in 2008 voted to keep them legal.
June 14, 2008
McCain's campaign manager's Kremlin ties
The influence of money on politics creates a national security vulnerability. Patriotically, Rick Davis of the McCain campaign has alerted us to that vulnerability; his firm Davis, Manafort has close allies of Vladimir Putin as clients, and has helped those allies try to frustrate U.S. foreign policy.
He contains multitudes
John McCain never changes positions. He just magically goes from position A to position not-A without ever changing.
June 09, 2008
Gotcha!
Yes, McCain misstated on Friday what he said on Tuesday. And yes, his press staff tried to spin their way out of it, lying all the way. And no, Jonathan Martin of Politico.com is not pleased.
Bad move!
June 08, 2008
John McCain: One interview, two gaffes
He flatly denies saying what he actually said to a national TV audience just last Tuesday, about how the media had been mistweating poo' liddle Hiwwawy. And he says that his new position that the President may engage in warrantless wiretapping in violation of criminal statutes is no change at all from his earlier position that "Presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is."
June 06, 2008
All you need to know about McCain, part 2
Analysis of 2 NYT articles on same page today:
1) McCain designated spokesperson on wiretapping has no legal or other related expertise
2) Carly Fiorina, who he listens to on economic policy, has no economic expertise or experience
3) Fiorina, while at HP, conducted illegal surveillance
Conclusion: No competence or disposition to obey the law, or help average Americans, here
June 05, 2008
"How do we beat the bitch?" "Excellent question!"
John McCain's "respect" for Hillary Clinton, his "friend," goes only so far.
June 02, 2008
Phil Gramm, ghoul
Gramm as a lobbyist for UBS tried to sell the State of Texas a "dead peasant insurance" scheme under which the state, and the bank, would make a profit every time a schoolteacher died.
June 01, 2008
McCain's religious cluelessness
It's rather charming. And it has led him to do a good, if unintentional, job at unmasking some of the nuttiness of the Religious Right.
May 30, 2008
Ouch!
Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films have two devastating take-downs of John McCain up on YouTube.
May 27, 2008
John McCain, Phil Gramm, and UBS
While UBS was helping its clients evade US taxes, its Vice-Chairman and lobbyist, Phil Gramm, was advising John McCain on banking policy.
What does McCain's speech on nuclear security say?
1. It's addressed to the wonks, not the voters.
2. It won't please the ultra-hawks; it puts daylight between McCain and Bush, at least rhetorically. But it assumes that generals, not civilians, make security policy.
3. It involves changes from McCain's earlier positions without explanation.
4. Statements in it diverge from consensus reality at several points, especially in his characterizations of opposing positions.
May 26, 2008
Losing potential non-coms: the GI Bill v. Blackwater
If offering potential non-coms a college education is a bad idea because it encourages them to leave the service, why is it ok for Blackwater to offer them six-figure salaries (which we have to pay for) to leave the service?
May 24, 2008
"A very bad day for Gramps"
"Prup" of the Carpetbagger Report thinks that John McCain just cost himself a bunch of votes by repudiating Hagee and Parsley.
McCain and the veterans: talk v. action
If McCain has such esteem for veterans, why doesn't he ever do anything about it?
May 23, 2008
The nativists are restless
McCain's re-flip-flop back to "comprehensive immigration reform" may cost him part of his base.
May 22, 2008
Bad day for John McCain, Part II: anger management
When a candidate has well-known anger-management issues, he really needs to be careful about the tone of his statements. Today, John McCain was one of only three Senators who failed to show up for the debate and vote on Sen. Jim Webb's improved GI Bill. (Ted Kennedy is in the hospital, and Tom Coburn was at a funeral. McCain was...
Bad day for John McCain, Part I: crazy preachers
Suddenly it's not true that Their Crazies Don't Count: the media are now covering McCain's connections with Hagee and Parsley.
May 21, 2008
Huffington on McCain
Was the John McCain of 2000 a better man than the one now running for President? I rather doubt it. But it's an effective line of attack.
May 18, 2008
McCain's lobbyist albatross
MoveOn goes after Charlie Black's Marcos/Savimbi/Mobutu connections.
May 16, 2008
"Completely divorced from reality"
Phil Carter thinks John McCain needs his "vision" corrected.
Rats being forced off the ship department?
Mark has done a great job of drawing attention to the dictators' lobbyists on the McCain campaign. See here and here. Today comes word that Craig Shirley has been ousted from the McCain campaign after Politico asked about his connection to an anti-Democratic 527. In the 1990's Craig Shirley was on payroll of the Serb side in the Bosnian conflict....
Another goddamned appeaser
John McCain, two years ago, about negotiating with Hamas:
"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another."
May 12, 2008
Some 'splainin' to do
At some point, will a member of McCain's worshipful personal press corps dare to ask him a question about whether he feels comfortable taking money and advice for paid agents of hostile foreign powers?
May 10, 2008
Judge him by his friends
How come so many of John McCain's buddies take money from anti-American tyrants?
May 08, 2008
Embracing hatred
Can McCain get away with his "spiritual leader" Rod Parsley's call for a war on Islam?
Probably.
Question for John McCain
If your wife won't release her tax returns, how do we know that your official actions aren't helping her business associates: Charles Keating, for example?
May 04, 2008
Obama/Ayers. McCain/Liddy.
Sauce. Goose. Gander.
John McCain is closer to Gordon Liddy than Barack Obama ever was to William Ayers. He has never repented his record of burlary and of plotting to use firebomging, kidnapping, and political assassination when he worked for Richard Nixon.
May 01, 2008
McCain, lefty
He only proposed a gas tax holiday *to help poor people*.
April 30, 2008
Against it before he was for it
John McCain, before he called for 100 years in Iraq, called for bringing all the troops home because their presence in an Islamic country would inevitably stir up trouble.
"Just asking" dep't
In what universe is a $150-billion-per-year war affordable and a $2-billion-per-year extension of the GI Bill not affordable?
Birthday cake
MoveOn goes after John McCain on "100 years."
April 27, 2008
I feel your pain: McCain's fatuous but politically effective tour of coal country
Deep in his World War II memoirs, Winston Churchill laments that the democracies spent the phony war hesitant and bickering, thus allowing the Germans to systematically execute a scientific war plan. November is a long way off, but right now the Democrats seem trapped by some of the same problems. John McCain's fatuous but politically effective "Time for Action" Appalachian tour provides one reason for worry....
Even more precisely: Wouldn't Hamas profit from another conservative Republican?
According to a recent interview, John McCain believes that Hamas wants Barack Obama to be president. Judging by past performance, wouldn't Hamas profit from another conservative Republican?
April 26, 2008
Precisely!
Andrew Sullivan asks the right question: why does John McCain want to let the terrorists choose our Presidents for us?
April 22, 2008
Another McCain scandal for the media to ignore
McCain helped a big developer who is also a big contributor get favorable treatment from the feds on land swaps. Ho, hum.
April 21, 2008
McCain finds a loophole in McCain-Feingold
... to let his fat-cat friends give him $70k each instead of the $2300 legal limit.
Damning McCain with Faint Praise
Obama says that McCain would make a better President that George W. Bush.
Well, yes. But then you could make a better President than George W. Bush out of papier mache.
April 20, 2008
"I wanted them to think me still an honest man"
... but he's not. Anna Quindlen has details on the sad moral wreckage that is John McCain.
April 19, 2008
Voodoo economics 3.0
The numbers don't add, and Bloomberg calls McCain on it.
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and John McCain
When McCain says that if we pull out of Iraq "al-Qaeda in Iraq" will wind up "taking a country," he's saying something demonstrably absurd. Michael Cooper and Larry Rohter provide the demonstration, with Kenneth Pollack of Brookings in the role of Deputy Clown.
April 06, 2008
Say what? dep't
McCain claims he "voted hard" [whatever that means] against Bush's strategy in Iraq. Huh?
April 02, 2008
Neutronium John McCain
If he were any denser, light would bend around him.
Keating 5 anniversary: Did McCain just call for more "government-induced accounting fraud"?
The original Keating Five whistleblower says that John McCain's proposals to deal with the current financial crisis simply replicate the error that led to the S&L meltdown: letting banks lie about their assets.
April 01, 2008
Big in Iran
Press TV (Iran's Russia Today/Fox News official 24-hour propaganda channel) profiles John McCain. They're not impressed:Iowa Senator Charles Grassley who was subject to McCain's "I'm calling you a f****** jerk!" said in an interview that he was so upset by the tirade that he did not speak to him for two years. Many say Americans should be worried that if...
March 29, 2008
More lobbying in StraightTalkLand
Phil Gramm wrote a financial deregulation law that allowed UBS to buy Paine Webber, and promptly went to work for UBS as a lobbyist fighting tighter mortgage regulations. He's now "general chairman" of the McCain campaign.
March 27, 2008
NPR frames itself
NPR stokes the liberal-bias canard.
March 26, 2008
How bad could four years of McCain be? Bad.
Harold Myerson makes the case that McCain isn't to be trusted on matters of war and peace.
March 24, 2008
Banzai!
... means "Ten Thousand Years." At last, a "Yes We Can" video for the McCain campaign.
March 23, 2008
The Real McCain
McCain's tax and health-care proposals ought to help focus progressive attention on November rather than Obama-v.-Clinton sniping.
March 20, 2008
Michael Scherer Fluffs McCain
Take that, NPR! Time Magazine's Michael Scherer can kiss up to McCain more than you can. Writes Scherer: The ongoing saga of the McCain Campaign’s effort to keep the political discourse respectful added another chapter today. As reported by Jon Martin, the campaign has suspended a junior staffer, Soren Dayton, a conservative blogger/consultant who worked in McCain’s political department. His...
Precisely!
"McCain '08: Not tougher. Dumber."
Another NPR puff-piece on McCain
Their "news stories" sound like campaign radio spots.
March 18, 2008
Retraction
John McCain just gave Hillary Clinton a good excuse for taking back her comment that he was ready to be Commander-in-Chief. Will she take it?
Not-so-strange bedfellows
In defense of John McCain's addlemindedness
March 16, 2008
A good Mayor of Birmingham
Hillary Clinton is like Neville Chamberlain - not the way you'd think
March 10, 2008
McCain v. Hillary, redux
No, it's not just the Supreme Court.
March 08, 2008
Meantime...
McCain surrogate launches full-throated attack on Obama's heritage. Will the Clinton campaign be smart enough to respond?
March 07, 2008
Question for Hillary Clinton
Does Hillary Clinton think that someone who believes that the CIA should employ torture is fit to be Commander-in-Chief?
February 29, 2008
John McCain and John Hagee: a profile in ...
Neither denouncing nor rejecting, McCain just waffles.
Althouse on McCain and Hagee
Ann Althouse wonders why her candidate is embracing bigotry.
February 27, 2008
A bandwidth too far?
There were limits to John McCain's subservience to Paxson Communications. He'd still make a terrible President, but it is refreshing to find a Republican who has some limits.
February 26, 2008
Yeah! What he said!
E.J. Dionne says that McCain was lucky to have the red herring of sex dragged across the trail of influence-buying.
February 25, 2008
"The real McCain"? I don't think so.
David Brooks is shocked -- shocked! that anyone could accuse John McCain, who has a lobbyist working out of his own campaign bus, of being too cozy with lobbyists.
February 22, 2008
Shorter John McCain
"Since the FEC doesn't have a quorum, there is no controlling legal authority requiring me to abide by the laws I helped write."
Influence peddling on the Straight Talk Express
Charles Black, who runs a lobbying firm, is still drawing a full-time salary from his firm even as he travels on the Straight Talk Express as one of McCain's senior staffers. How does he earn his salary? Why, he does his lobbying work by phone from the campaign bus.
Beautiful!
Shorter Josh Marshall
McCain is a liar. And his free pass from the press may be about to expire.
Straight Talk speak with forked tongue
McCain claimed that his letter to the FCC was designed to get a speedy decision, as desired by both sides to the controversy. But at the time the lawyer for the opponents of the deal denounced it angrily.
Don't bother emailing this post
McCain in the blog echo chamber.
February 21, 2008
Paxson and the dominionists
Paxson Communications, for whom John McCain did such a big favor at the behest of lobbyist Vicki Iseman, is run by one of the big wheels in Florida's Christian Right establishment.
Another take on McCain-Iseman
It's perfectly plausible that they were flirting but nothing more.
McCain and the media barons
It doesn't pay, if you're running a media empire, to annoy the chair or the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, especially not one who has presided over the media consolidation that has made you richer and more powerful.
Very afraid
I'll see your Giuliani and raise you an Edwards.