Wishing For President McCain Right Now?

Now that a Pakistani naturalized American has been caught for the Times Square bomb attempt an almost inevitable reaction sets in with certain quarters - like, say, not-President McCain.

It would have been a serious mistake to have read the suspect in the attempted Times Square car bombing his Miranda rights, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday.

McCain, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a longtime leading Republican on national security issues, said he expected the suspect in the case could face charges that might warrant a death sentence if convicted.

"Obviously that would be a serious mistake...at least until we find out as much information we have," McCain said during an appearance on "Imus in the Morning" when asked whether the suspect, 30-year-old Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen from Pakistan.

"Don't give this guy his Miranda rights until we find out what it's all about," McCain added during an appearance on the Imus show, which is broadcast by the Fox Business Network.

Do what? Evidently John McCain didn't spend anywhere near enough time in a N Vietnamese prison without the rights and protections of either US or International Law to have it figured out. The real problem is that we probably can't give him back to them and get any worse results than he proposes here or that existed with little pushback from him under good ole GWB. Let me be pretty clear to the evidently senile and unread Senator, the issue is THE LAW.

Yes, I have picked on John McCain when there are plenty of the "usual suspects" out there playing the same stupidity card. Uhuh, Pete King and Joe LIEberman have stuck their oars in the stupid pond, also.

Country First, Remember?

The Hill:

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."

So something has changed? Oh, I know - McMaverick POWy Country First, anybody want to puke?

Country First - Redux

The slogan is back, the jingoistic best left alone name of a failed bank "Country First." The losing party's campaign crap is dredged up into new life as a PAC for John McCain to run for his Senate seat again and to, honestly, fix the Republican Party.

If I can't work up to supporting John McCain and the Confederate Party of Republicanism I don't put Country First and am obviously one of those anti-Americans. I was under the impression that his base put God first, but illiteracy may be an outcome of that outlook. It wasn't a good one to begin with, it is unfortunate to have Chuck Keating and failed S&Ls in your background and failing investment banks in your present and remind people of banks with your slogan. (I'm willing to help, though.) If I were in the least undecided; I think that thing in its naked hypocritical glory would back me off. To be sure, I've never lived in AZ, never visited AZ, and don't plan to do either and I'm not the least undecided - but somebody could be...

Now I don't know how it is that John plans to try to fix the Confederate Party of Old White Men and I don't really care much, but I've noticed the right side of that Party wants to give him to us. I can't think why they'd think we'd want him, but they insist he's a Democrat with an illegitimate (R). Democrats are insulted. There's a danger in playing at McMavericism, its essential fraudulent nature pushed away most every Democrat who had ever even smiled at Johnny and the Republiwings bought the act and hated him for it. (there is always the issue that saying Democrat without an insult attached is traitorism) Maybe part of this country first would include reproaching his Confederate brethren for shilling for foreign automakers, but probably not. (funny thing, my leftwing Democratic self owns 6 Chevrolets all built in the US by UAW members)

Now to be real blunt about the prospects of the Republican Party of the Confederacy taking John's advice it might pay to stop and think that it would include taking advice from a rich old white guy with a blond Barbie who managed to lose to a Presidential race to a black socialist Muslim terrorist from Mars. Oh c'mon, they're heads would explode. That'll happen the Day Boehner reaches across the aisle and lets you have your fingers back. He plans to take Country First to the bunch who gleefully participated in the rape and pillage of the nation....

Really.

Test, Test...Tested

Joe Biden speculates that a President Obama would be tested by some world crisis and John McPOW immediately reminds us that he had something to do with jet aircraft.

"I sat in the cockpit on the flight deck of the USS Enterprise off of Cuba. I had a target," he said. "My friends, you know how close we came to a nuclear war. America will not have a president who needs to be tested. I've been tested my friends."

I'm left scratching my head with that one. I'm not sure if he could see Cuba from the flight deck and thus, like Gov Sarah, become an instant Cuban affairs expert - or actually not be able to see it like Gov Sarah couldn't actually see Russia and become an expert on the basis of bullshit. But, all that snarkiness aside, the gold is in the quote. "I had a target," isn't quite the same as, "I took measure of the situation and stared the Russians down." It is in fact something quite different from being tested at all, it is having orders to sit in a goddam cockpit and do what you're told to do by people with a clue. Maybe we're actually back on the McPOW thing, how he was heroic in Hanoi...he says. He says a lot of things and some of them he repeats and they are established lies - so? If he was 'heroic' in Hanoi that means exactly what? That he decided not to give up to pain? If I wanted somebody who'd go back to work after hitting their finger with a hammer that might be important, but that's about carpenters and paper cuts don't count. I'm having a few problems figuring out how getting shot down and being a prisoner means having judgement.

John McCain has been tested a few times and come up real short, Keating was a bit of a test, a broken wife was a bit of a test, BushCo's torture was a definite test - he's taken all the outs on those, none of this heroic stand he's fond of touting. I remember something about how he was going to run a civil and principled campaign, then he couldn't because Obama wouldn't do townhalls with him. I'm a bit flumoxed on the connection there, but he seems to think there is one - or he'd like everybody to believe that it doesn't have anything to do with not being in an easy win position. You could probably find some inconvenience in his stance against earmarks, if he didn't manage to get the pork other ways.

The fact that I don't like his politics has nothing to do with this - he is a despicable little man. He shows all the traits of the spoiled son of privilege we've grown so accustomed to under George II. If you think the son and grandson of Four Star Admirals is just some John you live in a strange world. If you think the 3rd from the bottom of the class at the Naval Academy gets a front seat in a jet 'just because' I've got a Bridge in Alaska to sell you. He spouts the Republican line of personal responsibility and takes none. For god's sake, a former POW should have been immovable on torture, nope - he gave George II what he wanted for political convenience. John McCain, of all Congressmen, had the standing to make that stink like a dead fish and bring it to a halt - he goddam caved. At the risk of our servicemen and to the shame of this country it happened when he could have stopped it. This is not about his plutocracy enhancing ideology, this is about character and his lacks much of anything. To my Republican friends of a responsible and respectable nature: I'm really sorry you've got such a bunch but that's what you've got and you've voted them into their positions. I sure as hell didn't.

Attack Politics

I've watched with interest over the past couple weeks as the media follows the campaigns and their statements. Their take on the issue seems to involve making some sort of balance out of the matter. The general theme seems to be that both campaigns are making attack statements; which is true as far as it goes.

The Obama campaign is hitting the line that McCain is Bush III and that he doesn't have a consistent stance. There is enough truth in this to pass the smell test, certainly exaggeration and cherry picking is involved, but within the range expected by voters. The McCain campaign has run with the same types of statement, although the truth content has been demonstrated to be low, and lower than voters generally accept. In this respect the media is quite correct in noting dual negativity, and correct in noting that Obama's volume exceeds McCain's.

Obama has stated quite baldly that the McCain camp has lied, and they have quite baldly done so. This is pretty personal and this is where the actual matter becomes messy and outside the media's balance. The statements about lies were laid onto specific statements which happen to have been exactly that - lies. If voters choose to carry that onto the candidate's character, they are free to do so. The contrast with the McCain campaign's rhetoric in regard to Obama's character is complete. The McCain object is to create doubt and fear with direct attacks on Obama's character, with an undercurrent of fear and race. This is the attack subset of character assassination, it asks voters to dislike a person, not policy or ideology.

I do dislike the McCain campaign, personally, and this is on the basis of their behavior in the personal regard. I strongly disagree with their politics and whatever their ideology is ( a label for it escapes me) but that is a different matter. It is personal enough that I would neither shake McCain's hand nor be cordial in the unlikely event we had close contact. He has become the sort of character I detest. Awhile ago that would not have been the case, I'd have been cordial and quite willing to talk politics - that doesn't mean he'd have liked it a lot. I consider these people to be colleagues in public service, whatever political disagreements exist, right up until they demonstrate a set of character flaws I cannot excuse or avoid.

I don't want Gordon Smith as my Senator and will work to get him out and replace him with Jeff Merkley. Gordon has pushed up against my limits with his ads, but my primary objection to him is his record and ideology. Some of my friends with similar views to mine may find that odd, but I am fairly forgiving of electoral necessity in others. I am willing to be careful in how I state things, but I won't mislead, but that is a personal decision - politically relevant to myself only. I would appreciate and state my appreciation for candidates who follow a similar line. In fact, Jeff Merkely gets my endorsement not only for is ideology and policy ideas, but also for the type of character he has demonstrated. Even if Jeff had followed Gordon's lead, I'd have backed him over Gordon, but with less pleasure. That is a simple matter of what is best for Oregon and the US.

You don't throw the laundry detergent through the window because it says, "New and Improved," on the bottle. It still works better than beating the clothes on a rock even as you understand that advertising isn't Truth. People give me grief for being Democratic, a partisan. I am admittedly that because the Democratic Party, for all its failings, has managed to be better than beating clothes on a rock.

The media balance on this is utter nonsense. You cannot lump apples and oranges together as fruits and maintain that they are the same thing in taste and texture or that disliking one means disliking the other. This is not balance, it is not fairness, it an illogical and politically driven theme. It is a statement on what ails the media and our public discourse. If it is raining it makes little sense to give credence to someone who says it isn't because they don't like it and anyone who takes that seriously is going to find themselves all wet.

The Public Trust

We've been hearing, to the point of near violence, for the past week and some about Sen Obama's connections and how he doesn't see America the way we do. He's not truthful and you can't trust him has been the thrust of McCains and Palin. The criticism of the campaign has been deafening from those other than the spit flecked base the attacks were aimed to please. There was, in this, a basic violation of the public trust in our Presidential candidates and that message seemed to get to McCain himself this late afternoon.

Whatever your beliefs regarding McCain's previous behaviors, his campaign just ran into something rather nasty. The Alaskan legislature just released its report regarding Gov Sarah Palin's troubles with the firing of Walt Monegan and it hits a rude note. Gov. Palin violated the public trust by using her office for personal gain. The report does not allege that the personal agenda was the sole reason for Monegan's firing but that it was a significant element. This is after Palin agreed to cooperate, then refused to cooperate and told Alaskans and Americans that there was nothing there at all. This would qualify as a bald faced lie - right up there with the infamous Bridge she's been trying to sell us.

We've had almost eight years of the lies, secrecy, and personal agendas of the Bush administration and now we're to swallow this without a whimper? This is the Change We Can Believe In? We get a narrow window to control our leaders, primarily what we get to do is elect them and elect the Congress that acts as a counter. Once these windows are closed the there is no legal recourse. To make this clearer, there were not the votes in Congress to deal with President George W Bush's illegal activities, nor was there the will. Two elections failed us, the 04 Presidential and the 06 Congressional. The situation we are in today, domestically and internationally, is the outcome of those votes. That was the window.

This nation was founded on some pretty outrageous ideas, at the time. Today we have grown to take them for granted. Separation of powers and a restricted government are not archaic elitist principles, they are the bedrocks of our way of life. One of the pieces of that is the idea that a governmental official will not use their political office against one of us. In the very recent past Sen McCain and Gov Palin have used their positions to spread fear, hate, and distrust of a fellow named Barack Obama and Gov. Palin used her position to attempt the professional destruction of one Trooper Wooten. Both of these individuals were placed into such positions of trust by the public for what it perceived as good reason. There is no law against what Palin and McCains have done in regard to Obama, at least there is nothing beyond simple ethics that would forbid such behavior.

There is a complete difference between questioning someones ability to do a job or judgement to do it correctly and stoking fear and hatred of that someone. Whatever else it may say about a campaign, this brings its ethical standing into stark relief. No campaign should be able to survive such behavior, that this one is still standing is an unfortunate statement on our public conscience. This late afternoon the Base perception of Obama apparently became a bit much for McCain when a woman stated that she had read about him and that he was an Arab. McCain took the microphone back and said that Obama is an American citizen and a decent family man. This is exactly where the campaign has been attempting to lead people, but an out and out blathering of their point was too much. I have no sympathy for John McCain.

Let me be clear John, you loosed these dogs deliberately. You sowed these winds of hate and you can reap the whirlwinds of that destruction. You placed this in the public view and played at it and you are now available for the judgement of that public and I sincerely hope it is harsh. We can either have a debate around ideology and policy or we can have the politics of personality destruction. Senator McCain, you are not free and clear of that. Chuck Keating hangs like a specter over you, your wives and affairs, your wife and drugs and your role in it, your association with right wing associations and Cuban terrorists, the POW/MIA issue, and the unverifiable questions regarding your POW behavior. These could be thrown at you and made to stick enough to muddy you and it is not correct to do so. The mud that is now stuck to you is the mud you've thrown, it is your personal ambition and the win at any cost element of your ambition. You are what you've done and your campaign has done and you should be made to pay for it.

Election Desperation, McTitanic

When you go nothing you go with what you've got.

Now I'm in the Construction Industry and I'd rather shoot myself than take a job running the McCain campaign. My industry has hit a wall and burst into flame and I'd much rather take a chance on it. Sure I'm an Obama supporter, but I don't build things for myself very much either, I do it for money. (there's an ethical and emotional aspect - I'll admit it) The DOW tanked again today. I don't have any money out there, but it sure isn't helping my prospects any. McCain's polling seems to track the DOW, it there's any reality in that, he just took another big hit today.

It isn't so much that I wouldn't know what to do, it is that there is so little to work with. The Other campaign against Obama is not going to work. He's been on the national stage a bit too long now and other than the base people just aren't paying any attention to it. The media has to pay attention to it, but other than Fox they aren't taking it seriously. There are a whole bunch of things on the voters' minds and that is pretty far down. What they do care about leaves McCain in the lurch.

The candidate has a record that makes economic reform really difficult to sell. Then beyond his record are the candidate's statements leading into this mess. Finally there are the idjits that "run" this campaign. I'm not going to give free advice to McCain, other than this - fire your managers. Somebody rolled the dice on Sarah Palin, somebody has run a campaign of daily tactics with no strategy, and somebody has not one idea of image.

Now I could point out what losers that bunch represented before working for McCain. Their clients have killed the economy. If my crew built like that, I'd be in jail. What are you supposed to do with such ineptitude? Get the other guy to hire them? For god's sake, McCain's foreign policy guy represented Georgia - a nation stupid enough to shoot at Russian troops who weren't shooting. Damn, I hunt big game and I've got firearms capable of dealing with anything in the Americas and I know that the Russian bear isn't impressed by spitballs. Are we talking about idiots?

The worst part of it isn't the staff, it is the employer. The boss, John McCain, has the final word on whatever goes on. This means that the entire lack of strategy and momentary tactics is something he approves of. This is the mentality of a jet fighter-bomber pilot, everything is momentary, immediate. That pilot is given a target and a route, strategy is taken care of elsewhere, his entire job is getting that plane airborne, getting there, bombing, and getting the thing landed - and worrying at instants time about fighters and ground missiles. John came up a bit short on that last.

George W Bush was going to be a boat anchor as a high performance engine in this election. At 28% approval over the last several years the Bush performance has been a given. Why is this some amazing occurrence to these people? How could McCain come out as BushIII? He says he's not, and then repeats the Bush line, how is that supposed to work? I understand the constraints he's under with the Republican Party, but tax breaks for the rich was going to explode in his face, especially considering he'd opposed them at one point. No taxpayer wants to hand money over to irresponsible fat cats, so they're already really irritated, and where does he go from there? Stupid land. Buy bad mortgages from the banks at face value and down grade them?

The irresponsible stupidity keeps getting piled on itself, higher and higher goes the mound until McCain is using it as a stage to cry foreign terrist at his opponent. It won't work that way.

Nobody is going to ask me to be a part of an administration so my refusal to have anything to do with putting my fortunes in McCain's hands is silly, but I still won't.

McCain Finally Says What He Means

Ah, a misleading title, actually nobody seems to know who is responsible for this southern Missouri sign. I suppose the real question is why the sign maker thought it was a good idea. I really doubt this thing will actually persuade anybody to change a vote.


In this blog I try to give people ammunition for persuasion. Sometimes I use it for simply howling at the Universe. I do know that for the most part I'm preaching to the choir, here. When I get published on BlogBurst I reach a bit wider audience, but even there, after a sentence or two people are pretty aware of where I'm going.

Will I get in a snit over a sign like this? Not really, mostly I'm amused. It has the virtue of being up front about its message, unlike McCain and Palin. It flatly won't do anything positive for McCain, he's already got Palin doing the chin drooling base reinforcement and she's probably much more effective than this silliness.

On the issues involved in the sign? Despite the Religious Right's rhetoric, abortions go down under Democrats and up under Republicans. Gayness has what to do with anything? These people will have a real big problem with taxing the rich? Obama seems to be staying away from guns, and most of what he's said, nationally, hasn't been poison or reassuring.

Maybe this person should think about a career in comedy...or not.

McCain's Temper

Brave New PAC requests you pass this on. It is too bad somebody can't get up next to McPOW on camera and push his buttons...

What Is The Literacy Level At Camp McPOW?

A hat-tip to Balloon Juice through to Daily Kos for finding this jem. Now if you're wondering who the "Famous Person" is, it seems to be Peggy Noonan at WSJ. Now I'm no real admirer of Peggy, she was and remains a shill for the Republican Party, but what astonishes me is the linkage the McCain campaign makes to this article. Now there are the first two paragraphs:

She killed. She had him at "Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?" She was the star. He was the second male lead, the good-natured best friend of the leading man. She was not petrified but peppy.

The whole debate was about Sarah Palin. She is not a person of thought but of action. Interviews are about thinking, about reflecting, marshaling data and integrating it into an answer. Debates are more active, more propelled—they are thrust and parry. They are for campaigners. She is a campaigner. Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did. At one point she literally winked at the nation.

You'd have to go some to write something that was a more disgustingly drooling example of sycophantism. I'm not proposing that she imploded, she survived and managed to not look incurious, incompetent, and anti-intellect. But for god's sake.

The thing about the article is that the first two paragraphs have one thing to say, something that sounds good for John McCain, then as you read on and get about three paragraphs from the end the wheels come off the POW Express:

We witness here a great political lesson. When you are president, it matters—it really matters—that a majority of the people support and respect you. When you squander that affection, you lose more than mere popularity. You lose the ability to lead when your country is in crisis. This is a terrible loss, and a dangerous one, for the whole world is watching.
***
...presidential popularity is a jewel to be protected, and to be burnished when possible, because without it you can do nothing. Without the support and trust of the people you cannot move, cannot command. You are left, like Mr. Bush, talking to an empty room.

We saw this week, too, a turn in the McCain campaign's response to criticisms of Mrs. Palin. I find obnoxious the political game in which if you expressed doubts about the vice presidential nominee, or criticized her, you were treated as if you were knocking the real America—small towns, sound values. "It's time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency," Mrs. Palin told talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. This left me trying to imagine Abe Lincoln saying he represents "backwoods types," or FDR announcing that the fading New York aristocracy deserves another moment in the sun. I'm not sure the McCain campaign is aware of it—it's possible they are—but this is subtly divisive. As for the dismissal of conservative critics of Mrs. Palin as "Georgetown cocktail party types" (that was Mr. McCain), well, my goodness. That is the authentic sound of the aggression, and phony populism, of the Bush White House. Good move. That ended well.

You've been able to tell over time that I do not work for or shill for McCain or Republicans, but that is not an article that I'd link into were I associated with McCain. If you can find something in the last paragraphs I've quoted here that sounds remotely Pro-McCain you're welcome to point it out to me. As a blue collar sort I'd say that was a 2x4 up the side of the head.

I do recognize that this is the outfit that releases ads claiming a win in a debate yet to take place and even put into doubt by the claimant. I understand that these folks didn't see huge drawbacks in Sarah Palin's record and performances. I know their candidate claimed "the fundamentals of the economy are sound" on the day the "Street" tanks on the news of the failure of investment banks and claims a few hours later that in the face of all use of language that the fundamentals of the economy means workers - a lot of words to say 'workers' with. All of that may add up to a failure of massive scale, but either illiteracy or an inability to read more than a few lines resulting in advertising your own failures is stupidity on an unprecedented scale.

This is the disorganization that claims they know how to run a Presidency, to keep us safe and "reform" the system. These are John McCain's hires, the kind of people that he surrounds himself with in the most important endeavor of his career. Phil Gramm is his economic guru, a coterie of lobbyists over a hundred strong runs his campaign and their level of competence is demonstrated by our economy of the last 7+ years, our international standing, and this campaign. It is the campaign of Washington DC inside insiders and this is what they can manage?

I'm a Democrat and I don't like McCain's policy ideas nor his claimed ideology but I find this level of incompetence stunning and frightening. While conservative pundits have been busy kicking the snot out of the Alaskan Barbie Doll for incompetence their lead man, the big Kahuna, has been about as capable a Presidential candidate as a high school freshman would be with a grade school team. This guy makes them look almost competent and here's what it takes at NRO Online:

Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.

I think I'll puke. But here you go, this is what the Conservatives have become, natural selection in operation. The continual purging of intellectuals and actual achievers from the ranks has natural consequences. Whatever you thought of Bill Buckley here's where they're at today and it makes you want to wipe off your computer screen. What is scary is that this election is within 20 points.

How Does McCain Stop The Bleeding?

John McCain is going into the toilet in the polls. Call Quinnipiac an outlier but showing Obama up 54-39 in PA is a wake-up call to that campaign. This stuff is happening across the board, IN looks to be Obama and MO looks to be going that way. This isn't quite as stunning as maybe GA going Obama or an asteroid hitting NY,NY but...wow. To be sure, McPOW had a rough week and some, what with the economy tanking and looking clueless and House Republicans telling him to **** himself and some particularly not very competent Palin without a script but that's what he's got. Every week won't be this bad, but there are 4 weeks to go and the economy isn't going to right itself in a month - probably that and a lot more so as an issue it isn't going to go away. I don't think he can get shot down again.

OK, he's got to do something. There are the Rev Wright and Ayers and Rezko and oh hell, his middle name and race. There is noise to be made there, stuff can be said that is nasty, and what does that gain? That is the trap for McPOW doing that, there is a down side; there are real problems staring us in the face, very real and very scary and to go to that well demonstrates a complete lack of anything else. Sure it would solidify the base, but that' stupid - they still support GWB. This would have to work with moderate Republicans and Independents and that just isn't likely. Moderate Republicans tend to be well educated and middle class and a large number of Independents fit that bill and further don't trust Parties. I almost hope he tries it - except for the aspect of the almost final debasement of US politics. Maybe his failure would finally discredit that game, but I hate to have to see it and the anger.

Sarah Palin cannot help McCain with anyone other than the GWB supporters and they have nowhere to go - certainly not Barr nor Paul, that is totally foreign to GWB, almost as bad as Obama. I don't care if she suddenly stops appearing incurious, unintelligent, unintelligible, and generally incompetent - it just doesn't matter. No voter she appeals to has anywhere else to go other than McCain. She could hurt him more, that is possible; that her pick portrays McCain as making a reckless political choice in the face of the security of the United States of America, to the potential real detriment of the country. It would be bad for the general perception to become "Country First" translates as "I'll do any damn thing for a vote."

If he could persuade GWB (or Cheney) to declare war or create some kind of foreign oriented disaster or terrorist attack on the US he might turn things around, might. This perception stuff gets set in cement if it lasts very long, a few more weeks of McCain going down or trailing badly in the polls is hard to reverse - that perception of failure is hard to shake. If he's down 7-9 points for a couple weeks, he's soon labeled as weak, a failure and that labeling spreads to things he's supposed to be good at. And if his reaction to such crisis is comparable to his on economics, people will run from him.

The McCain camp needs something big, a splashy plan oriented directly at average voters. Something with "I care" conspicuously plastered all over it and nothing for the wealthy. But, damn, that's a Democratic plan and who in this abortion of a campaign staff is supposed to come up with it? They all work for Obama - or would. Phil Gramm or Rick Davis??? It is really his only hope and no Karl Rove can do it, he's screwed, none of his people even know what the general idea would look like much less how to do it. Look, Republicans don't know what to do with this bailout/rescue except call for more deregulation which is about as popular as a porcupine in a condom factory.

Some really flashy foreign policy innovation might do the trick, but unless it was extraordinary and out of character it would only be seen as an exercise in distraction. Again McCain is constrained by himself and the Republican agenda. There's nothing there for him, anything he'd try would be a flip flop of such extreme nature as to be ridiculed.

John McCain is in a huge trap of his and the Republicans' construction. There are narrow limits to the Republican ideology and all the McMaverickism in the world won't get him forgiven for turning into a Democrat on foreign policy or domestic policy. It isn't as though the Democrats are sooooo right for what ails this country; it's that the Republicans suck soooo badly. I know, that's not a great choice, but what are you going to do? Sure, I like Obama a lot, but he isn't the guy I'd really want, whoever he is - he didn't run. He won't run, not in this climate. Maybe after two terms with Obama succeeding and getting a little more left with each success somebody could - or more likely I'm engaged in a generational struggle.

This country needs iconoclasts running and winning, people not afraid to smash stereotypes and drive straight through ideological barriers. Stupidity needs to be called exactly that and stupid supporters of stupidity need to be called out in plain terms. You think, well what is he talking about? Look here, I'm a gun-toting drag racing blue collar workers advocate Democrat with vast sympathies to the enrichment of the rights and privileges of all law abiding Americans. Yes, a distinctly heterosexual small town rural construction working advocate of treating gays as fellow citizens. That is what I'm talking about, putting the welfare of the citizenry ahead of narrow political and ideological and cultural interests. Why do we have a "War on Drugs"? To what possible purpose does this exist? I'm not talking about consequence-less abuse of drugs, people, jobs, the environment, etc; I'm talking about Prohibition as a recovering addict/alcoholic. Exactly, I haven't used any such substance for over 20 years because I destroyed my life with them, but that doesn't mean squat about anyone else and means I should use my head on the issue, not my emotional response. Where the hell are these people? Where the hell is the electorate that would elect them? MIA I'm afraid.

So what we've got is an almost middle of the road Barack Obama and a right John McCain who is caught in a trap and losing ground fast. Barack Obama's natural sympathies might be left but his intellect has taken the measure of the ground and formed him into a centrist. I have no idea what John McCain actually believes in or has sympathies with, I only have his votes, actions, and words to go from and he has no ticket to this electorate. If you know what McCain actually stands for other than militarism and wealth and whatever is convenient at the moment as long as it fits some sort of right ideology go ahead and tell me how he gets out of this trap.

I can shift gears because my core is solid, it doesn't vary, I stand up for the common person. I can be wrong, I backed NAFTA and I was wrong. I saw opportunities for workers to gain markets for their products and the reality was that the plutocrats rigged the game against them. There was a solid idea there, the problem was the execution was aimed at wealth and I didn't see it coming. Nobody that knows me thinks that my turning on NAFTA has squat to do with my core beliefs, I am safe there. Politicians can be safe, the same way for the same reasons; but they are not. They are not because they misrepresent themselves, they show too many faces to too many. I do not mean framing an argument, I mean lying. It is very simple, if you're for gun control you know I'm not, but you also know that the rest of the BOR and Amendments are safe with me and I won't impoverish you in the interest of a lobby -including gun manufacturers. You always know that we can disagree honorably, I will play fair. It isn't that damn tough. No, I'm not running for anything, I've done it and I've had enough of it. I could not win an election in this climate and I'll be damned if I'll be a sacrificial lamb. Maybe in 8-20 years I could and by then I'll be too old, so that's out.

What I can do is advocate. What I can do is help the best candidates. What I can do is be just exactly valuable enough to the right candidates to have some sort of reach to them - to get a fair and attentive hearing when I ask. What I can do is try to see that my candidates don't find themselves in the box McCain is in, that their political thrust keeps them from that box, outside of it and clearly on the side of Americans. G'night McPOW, I hope this is the death knell of this iteration of Republicanism.

McPOW Honor

John McCain's honorable campaign courtesy of DNC "Count the Lies." HatTip to Balloon Juice/ - one of my favorites.

Pigs and Lipstick and Pitbulls and Other Craziness

John McCain, when you got nothing you insult pigs by calling them Palins, I like pigs - they're smart, ordinarily clean, taste real good cooked right, and they don't lie.

By the way, idjits, what would you call a female pitbull wearing lipstick? Not my label, but the first thing that occurs to me is a crazy bitch. What would you call a lying, halftruthing, character assassinating old man running for President? POW. (Republican is way too generic)

I may be a political junkie and pay real close attention and not get side tracked by stupidity; but really John, the American public deserves better - if service is more than campaign slogan for you. I have generally assumed that whatever Party or ideology and however mistaken most politicians are in the arena out of a desire to serve their country - and fellow citizens. Whatever it is that your campaign has descended into in search of win at all costs, it is not service. For Pete's sake, why lie about earmarks? They amount to real money at $13 Billion, but a drop in the Federal bucket and lying about them is not worthy of a Presidential campaign. Why lie about an Illinois Bill aimed at protecting small children from sexual predators? Are you in favor of child predators? We already know you're in favor of gorilla rape and insulting Presidential teenage daughters, but b.y all means drag out sexism to cover your stinking dead fish policies. But we know, Naval POWs are a raunchy bunch and they're allowed, because...well because...POW.

John, I work like a dog, scrambling daily to find work to keep the show going and right now construction ain't exactly thriving. I give my customers good prices for good work and I produce a concrete product. You can touch it, feel it, see it, frequently live in it or under it. If I ran my business the way you've run this campaign - I'd be run out of town on a rail or in court. You want to be President and in my business you could be in jail? What the hell is wrong with you? The Navy may have deemed you to be an officer and a gentleman, but fact and Naval fictions are in conflict here. Supposedly that Commission included an assumption of honorable behavior - you've claimed it in regard to your POW - it's fiction today. You've followed your Rovian instincts into a hole.

This campaign will exist for a long time, print and video archives will be available for any student to peruse - to find out what the Republican Presidential candidate of 2008 was like. Your own words and your hired help's words will be there. They will lay in wait to expose you and the pit the Republican Party has turned into. I don't mind hard hitting policy arguments, but I loathe lies and character assassinations. I loathe the practitioners of them - that means you and the Sarah, John. The fact that you want to repeat George W Bush's policies is enough reason to oppose you, but when you take your boot licking to the extent of practicing his politics I take exception. You, sir, are a dishonored lying sack of unmitigated shit - deserving the scorn of all those with honor and intelligence.

You live in politics today on a possibly earned reputation from 2000 and POW, whatever that may have been it is not reflective of today's John S McCain. The depths of my disdain for you and George W Bush are not possible to plumb with anything like polite language and I respect my readers too much to indulge myself. You have demonstrated that the man who beat you in 2000 taught you all the wrong lessons and you learned them well. Too bad.

The New and Improved GOP

Rick Davis says the GOP was born 4 days ago, a whole new GOP. This is the new and improved GOP. You've seen that blurb on packaging, stuff like wash powder and cereals; you open the box and what's inside looks the same, smells the same, seems to be the same old stuff, then you realize that what is new and improved is the label. If the GOP is new, why am I hearing the same things I've heard from them since St Ronnie?

Now I'm serious, the Palin rhetoric isn't new, it isn't different, the Republicans have been running on this same junk for a very long time. We're Christians, the Democrats are heathens and gutter tramps, killers of the Christian nation, debasers of youth, baby murdering... How old is that? It predates Rove by a long ways. I say and do exactly the same thing as every moss back Republican, get wildly cheered at the RNC and I'm different? How, exactly - gender? Her administrative experience is marked by wholesale pursuit of earmarks, the silencing of dissent, the use of executive power for personal ends and the stonewalling of legitimate inquiry. This is the Alaskan reformer, a Bush clone with female genitalia.

McPOW running as a 'change' candidate is a little too rich, twenty six years in DC with the last seven as Bushbootlick signifies what change? Trickle down economics that has not done any such thing in recorded history, re-winning Vietnam with today's kids, a social agenda from the less kind and uncompassionate BushCo agenda, and a lackey to any plutocratic interest shows a Bush Premium Plus rather than anything reflective of change at all. If this seems harsh, look at what he proposes, a health care tax credit of $2500 is meaningless to the uninsured, if their federal taxes were $2500 after deductions they would still find themselves thousands of dollars short of paying for insurance. With the other hand he proposes to tax employer provided insurance. This is the person who claims Obama will hurt the working person, as he hands out tax relief to those most benefiting from the system and lays the costs on those supporting it. The Republican double game plays on, economic rape of the worker with family values as a palliative and war and terror as the whip. This is the experience that is touted by the GOP and its surrogates.

Today's economy is the handy work of Republican control of the White House and both Houses of the Congress, all remedial action proposed by Democrats short of minimum wage have been filibustered by Senate Republicans since the 2006 elections. These same Republicans threatened in the early years of BushCo to use the "nuclear option" of stripping filibusters being so outraged by Democratic usage, in considerably smaller numbers. This is the Party of Change that McPOW and his shills propose exists, these are the people the RNC supports, you are to believe that on the one hand the New and Improved GOP is all about changing itself as it acts to re-elect the very people responsible for the mess they propose they're ready to change. Their disrespect for the electorate could not be more blatant.

John McCain claims that Washington changed them from cleanup gang they entered as, something from the extinct swamps perhaps, or miasma vapors drifting from K St, certainly nothing to do with their basic ideology. Perhaps that explains Chuck Keating and McPOW, some intangible got him, certainly not the ideology of better-than and greed and power.

Finally there is one change that disgusts me, I am the child, nephew, and cousin to World War II combat veterans, men deeply and intimately experienced in warfare, they never reference it. Their levels of involvement wait for the post mortem sorting of papers, their families ignorant until death claimed the soldiers. My classmates and friends served in "the 'Nam" and they were combat troops, their silence about their experiences is deafening, the funny anecdote about a leave or chance encounter, but nothing regarding their actual business. That is for them, alone. I am a trusted friend and compatriot because I understand, without pretence of knowing. The constant references of McPOW offend them and I am offended for them. I do not question what they did or why and they ask only my understanding and respect, which I freely give. But they do not dine out on it or seek POW celebrity or veteran celebrity unlike a certain POW celebrity from Arizona with an entire political career based on and protected by getting shot down.

I do not care if Obama cannot do everything he says he wants to, I do not care if the ideas of change are exaggerated, they at least exist, they are not figments - however limited. I'll take that over the New and Improved on the box.

Sarah...Who???

There are plenty of things about Republicans I do not understand, like the piece where they talk as tough as nails and then squeal about threats requiring the scrapping of civil liberties. I may be missing something but I don't understand why the extemely wealthy need help being wealthy. All that may be primarily ideological, but it takes a thinking process I don't understand to get there.

Now we have anothe example of Republican ability to contradict themselves in essentially the same sentence - Sarah Palin. McCain has made an issue out of Barack Obama's "inexperience" and celebrity versus the "grand old POW candidate" so a 72 year old cancer survivor picks as VP a woman who is a 2 year governor of the 47th most populated state and previously mayor of a 7800 population suburb. Their VP pick had to start out, in her first speech, telling whoppers. She claimed to have told Congress thanks but no thanks to Sen Ted Steven's (R-AK) Bridge to Nowhere; when in fact she said in 2006 that it was important to get Alaska's infrastructure projects under way with a favorable majority in answer to a question regarding that Bridge. In March she called Hillary a "whiner" and today she praised her - odd... Not really if she's supposed to be the "Hillary dead-ender" draw. This woman stands in opposition to virtually everything Hillary campaigned on, anti-abortion rights, drilling ANWAR, global warming as not human influenced...take your pick.

Sarah Palin seems warm and friendly, that might balance McMaverick's temper, but she's an empty hair-do. It will pay the Democrats to define her before the Republicans have that chance. She has no standing whatever nationally and can be easily defined. Her entire reputation seems to be her fight with the Alaskan legislature over corruption. Some questions may be raised about her relations with Ted Stevens since she has some pretty friendly pictures floating around.

She is McCain's bow to the socially conservative wing (read whackos). You will get the Christianist theocratic drum thumping you've waited for. On abortion, rape and incest don't count, it is a case of so-what you bear the child. You have to work very hard to understand that mind set and I'm not willing. I find McPOW offensive at best, this woman makes him look reasonable. I fail to see how prostituting to the Religious Right once again is Mavericky. I guess if you're a Republican or media shill you'll figure it out. Oh yeah John, in search of a VP safety valve for a candidate older than dirt you pick a 2 year governor of a State with a smaller total population than most states have in a single city - there's an expert for you. (Somebody ought to point at Alaska's sucking at the Federal tit)

I'll admit that the idea that one needs years in foreign policy experience to run to be hoo-hoo, I vastly prefer judgement to practice at getting it wrong - John - but some demonstration of one or the other is required. Whatever the grandstanding of the surprise pick, there is a nation to run at stake.

I Have A House, One

I have a house. I like my house, it is a pretty nice place to live and nicely appointed, with finishes most people don't have. It has features that belong in pretty upscale houses, but there is something other than wealth that has to do with that. I am a construction contractor. I bought a small and quite run down and somewhat damaged 1870s Victorian. Not the big painted lady Victorian, this was the 'double-wide' of the era and built with standards that would be laughed at today. It is a nice house because I put virtually the entire loan into materials and labored like a dog on it - for free. It did cost me my weekends and all my evenings, into early morning hours and a personal construction work week of over 100 hours for months while living in the mess and with an outhouse for a bathroom. Astonishingly, my wife stayed married to me.

I know how many houses I have - one - and I also know what the monthly payment is and the tax bill and when all of these are due. With all the advantages of running a business I do not manage the Oregon median income in a good year (this isn't one). I don't complain about my income, I chose this line of work for other reasons than getting rich. I don't complain that other people make quite a bit more than I do with less exertion and risk. I do complain when someone insists that the wealthy need help staying wealthy and that they do not take the largest benefit out of the system. I not only complain, I scoff when such an argument is made by someone pretending to understand average Americans who isn't sure how many houses he owns - or his wife owns - or their company owns in their interest. Now I do admit I begin to get somewhat angry about such things when the ignorant party has made an issue about the opponent's celebrity or 'elitism.'

I do not deny a person empathy or understanding on the basis of wealth. I do deny them such on the basis of their policies and statements. Franklin Roosevelt was a child of wealth and a wealthy man who demonstrated in word and deed his concern for ordinary Americans. John and Robert Kennedy were wealthy and beloved by ordinary Americans. There are examples galore of wealthy individuals who gave concrete demonstrations of their understanding of the lives of plain citizens. John McCain just doesn't happen to be one.

Let's start at the beginning, George II's tax breaks for the wealthy, McCain wants to make them permanent - on the basis that they'll trickle down; which has not happened once in history. If wealth trickled down the era of the Robber Barons would be called something else. According to John the oil companies need tax breaks and additional incentives. According to McCainomics the American economy is fundamentally sound...we're debt ridden, our military is broken, everyone under the top half of the economic scale is watching their real income slide, the blue collar has been losing ground throughout BushCo, the divergence in wealth distribution is at historical highs, and banks are imploding. On the latter we already have a concrete demonstration of McCain's concern, it was for Chuck Keating not his depositors. Phil Gramm is still McCain's economic advisor, yes "whiners" Gramm, the architect of the Enron loophole and banking loopholes - including lobbying for USB, a foreign bank (in trouble - bank). If you are not wealthy, these people have nothing to say to you or are willing to do for you.

John McCain is a lying hypocritical bastard, POW and all. If you take his "honesty and maverickness" of today as a measure of his behavior in Hanoi you'd have to have doubts about its narrative of today. No, that isn't some partisan BS. Check his ads and statements against the facts and you'll find them wanting in truthfulness - either that is something new or he has always been a liar and manipulator of reality. I was not in Hanoi or Vietnam, but I sure know plenty who were that are entirely unimpressed with McCain's reliance on POW as CiC credentials. I get pretty pissed off with liars, I don't mean a misstatement, I mean lies. McMaverick only exists as a campaign mantra and media invention, there is nothing there at all, look at the record over the last 6 years.

John McCain can have all the respect he earns from me, but he'll have to earn it on something other than the ability to get shot down and play it to the media. Today he's earned my regard as an unprincipled prick...

How Many Wars, John?

John McCain promotes the "surge" in Iraq, more troops in Afghanistan, doing something concrete about Georgia and Russia, and making Iran sorry. He'll also follow Bin Laden "to the Gates of Hell," a project that will take some doing since George II hasn't done anthing about it.

John McCain is real fond of using the military. The military is already streached thin, so thin that additional deployments aren't possible. John wants to use them some more, and more. There really isn't any way but one. A draft. And Wednesday in Las Cruces, New Mexico at a townhall meeting John let it slip.

"Disabled veterans, especially in this state, have horrible conditions," the woman said. "Their medical is substandard. They drive four hours one way to Albuquerque for a simple doctor's appointment, which is often cancelled. Our VA hospital is dirty, it's understaffed, it's running on maximum overload. The prescription medicines are ten years behind standard medical care. We have 700 claims stacked up at the VA office in Albuquerque. Some of them are ten--seven years old, waiting to be processed. In the meantime, people are homeless. My son is an officer in the Air Force, I'm a vet, and I was raised in a military family. And I think it's a sorry state of affairs when we have illegal aliens, having a Medicaid card, that can access specialist top physicians--the best of medical--and our vets can't even get to a doctor.

"And these are the people we tied yellow ribbons for, and Bush patted on the back. If we don't reenact the draft, I don't think we'll have anyone to chase bin Laden to the gates of Hell."

"Ma'am," the Senator responded, "let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said. Thank you, and I am grateful for your support of all of our veterans."

For Pete's sake, how else could he do it? Oh, surely after the reactions start, he'll claim to not have heard the "draft" part of the statement. Maybe he'll just deny he said any such thing.

The point in having a military is not to use it. Yes, I mean that, its point is its non-use. It is the iron fist inside the velvet glove. That presence is known and understood while the soft glove gets its work-out. Warfare works on two levels, killing or maiming the opposition and making resistance fearfully inappropriate. Intimidation is not persuasion, it is not even close.

John McCain's idea is to shoot and pick up the pieces later, the immediate problem with that is the loss of life and general mayhem and the future problem is the level of enmity engendered by that mayhem. Unless you obliterate entire nations and groups they live on and their families and friends live on, with a bullseye on the offender's forehead. Does anyone have positive ideas for the viewpoints of today's children of Iraq? Has their childhood given them some reason to like and respect the US? Whatever risks adult life posed in Saddam's Iraq these children's post-Saddam life has not been a positive experience. What booby traps have we set in motion for our own today's children? Exactly how much more of this is John McCain proposing?

So, You Think You Count To The McCains?

If you think personal behavior has something to do with public behavior you'd be excused for being dubious. Cindy and the McCain campaign have repeatedly referred to her as an only child, not quite accurately it seems. NPR has a story up about Cindy's father and his other daughter, her step-sister who was cut entirely loose in Jim Hensley's will and since by the McCains.

Precisely what led to this state of affairs I don't pretend to know and it certainly is true that one doesn't get to choose their relatives. It would seem that lack of funds to mitigate some of the Portalski family difficulties isn't an issue so there's a bit more to it. Since Kathleen Hensley Portalski's existence is ignored or really denied there isn't what could be called a familial relationship.

Oddly enough, Cindy's mother had another daughter as well, so that would be three girls not just Cindy McCain. Accuracy and truth have not been highly evident in the McCain campaign since the Primaries and this seems to be another example. If you're figuring on trickle downs from these clowns, you could ask Kathleen Hensley Portalski how that's working for her.

In The 21st Century Nations Don't Invade Other Nations

John McCain said this to reporters about Russia and Georgia. Apparently a couple instances have slipped his mind, there was a bit of something regarding Iraq and no justification whatever and perhaps Israel didn't do anything whatever to Lebanon. Now S Ossetia is a part of Georgia, nominally anyhow, but the Russian peace keepers there are actually Russian and shooting at them isn't exactly an invitation to dinner. Unless the dinner is in Tbilisi.

Randy Scheunemann may lobby for Georgia while acting as John McCain's foreign policy advisor and maybe John McCain gets along with it, but making things up is pretty stupid. It may not be as stupid as trying to include me as a Georgian because GWB thought poking the bear was good fun and McCain is still fighting the Cold War against the USSR. Since Georgia seems to have thrown the deciding punch in starting this and John McCain seems to have led them to believe something, see President Mikhail Saakashvili's jab at McCain regarding deeds outweighing words.

The Obama campaign said something about McCain having lost his bearings - ethical compass - and got whacked for ageism, I'm pretty sure he has has spun a bearing in his mental motor. That ain't ageism, it's about whether a brain works or not. McCain is like a body of water one inch deep and miles wide, depth being thought and POW being miles. There isn't anything to the guy, he's run and won on being shot down for decades and having the media as his lap dogs hasn't hurt.

I'm not in the least in favor of Russia over running Georgia and people getting killed. Neither am I in favor of Georgia doing that to S Ossetia. What irks me no end is amateur politicization of a serious problem by the security candidate, McCain. Whatever his Georgian shill is telling McCain, the US cannot afford to start an economic pissing match with Russia. What is it about oil that makes Republicans completely stupid?

The McCain Comedy Express Roars On

You have to appreciate the ... something ... of the McCain campaign. Out first was the vision of Obama as an elitist, you've seen the type, leaning against the wall at the country club making derisive comments...you've never been to a country club? Must have been a Republican reference. Then there was the lose a war for political advantage...in America? Ok, so there is always the truly funny shots of a guy shooting baskets with the troops while castigating the guy for ignoring the troops, that one had me rolling on the floor. Obama as Moses was, well, odd. There was something to comparing him to Paris Hilton, her response was funnier and smarter than McCain, though Brittany seems to have missed her chance. Tire gauges are for, hmm, NASCAR and other people who care about gas mileage, people without millionaire wives - and private jets. The McCain campaign and McCain have said that it's fun to be funny, evidently that Obama guy is a joke to them. At this point the Electoral College map says the joke is on them.

I don't know that John McCain is a racist, I do know that his Party likes to play to the stereotypes and prejudices surrounding race. The Magic Negro who plays a comedic part in a situation comedy or can shoot baskets, catch balls or otherwise be a celebrity without pretending to affect our life is a good thing. Once one starts to get ideas, and becomes, well you know, uppity, he needs slapping down. Mocking a Presidential candidate can be risky business and humor is frequently in the eye of the beholder. I thought the Purple Heart Bandaides were pretty funny, until I discovered they weren't self-referential bites for faux troop support by Republicans. (ok, I'm not that stupid) Obama tire gauges might be real collectors items if Obama wins, pointless if McCain wins and none of us can afford things with tires.

I've heard McCain described as a happy warrior, whatever the heck that means, but his happiness seems to revolve around somebody else getting beaten somehow, or maybe raped by a gorilla. He does get pretty funny when he can't remember which sports team he lied to the N Vietnamese about, depending on the audience. Actually the real joke is that his ability to get shot down and captured has something to do with him knowing how to win wars and be President. If he gets elected the joke will be on the people who voted for him minus the top 1% of the income bracket, the rest of us will be the punch line.

I cannot feature how McCain can get reelected to George II's third term but underestimating the ability of the electorate to club itself in the head is a bad idea - see John Kerry. I'm working on seeing no such thing happens this time, and I don't mean internet scribbling, how about you?