John McCain, Failed Presidential Candidate, Pettier than Ever (or would that be more petty or are both correct?)

(Sorry for the title, I just finished teaching comparatives to my intermediate grammar class, and I couldn’t help it.)

Having been on the nightly news for more than a year (and being a bitter person in general), John McCain has a problem with an Obama nominee FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.

Why is that you ask?  Is it because this person advocates money be spent to research honey bees or bears?  Does McCain disagree with this nominee’s stance on a border fence?

Why?  Why has David Hayes, who wants to be deputy secretary of Interior, drawn the wrath of McCain?

Well, Mr. Hayes wrote this one thing one time and compared Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush.  And not in a very nice way.  No, it wasn’t in the way that the person who parks in the parking garage at work asserted — her bumper-sticker proclaimed (it’s gone now)  that all of her heroes are cowboys and pictured Reagan and W. Bush.

Wait.  It was.  Maybe that person in my parking garage had a vanity bumper sticker and she was a constituency of one.  Or maybe, just maybe, the Bush supporters  (and Bush himself, too) wanted him to be associated in that way with Reagan.

Nevermind that Reagan left office amid the lawlessness of Iran-Contra and Bush left the mess we have now.

No one anywhere can get a job in government if they compared W to Reagan ever — according to John S. McCain.

And where does McCain’s biggest supporter stand on this?  I don’t know.  She’s tilting at windmills.

What a baby.

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McCain Meets with Obama

Could he be SoS?

I’m more tired of this rumor shit than I am of Kathleen’s nonsense:

Did you get the feeling that this Presidential race was a lot like a reality show? But only for the minor players, because we never saw the reality of Obama or Michelle.

When did people become celebrities just for being a part of it? I saw William Ayers doing the morning shows to promote his book that he is re-releasing (which I would NEVER link here, and if you buy it I hope the teeth in your head rot out). Ayers knew that this was his 15 minutes of fame (without blowing anything up anyway) and he is taking advantage of it.

I’m waiting for Rev. Wright to do the same. Why waste your 15 minutes of bigoted fame?

Joe The Plumber said that he has received 2000 marriage proposals since he asked that one question of Obama. Maybe they had him confused with Mr. Clean?

Just kidding. I liked Joe The Plumber.

The reality of the Obama adminitstration is going to hit her like a bus.  I saw the aftermath of a bus vs. person accident in Mexico many years ago.  It made a huge impression on me, unlike some teeveee show.

I think Kathleen is disappointed that the rumors about Obama didn’t take hold and let her smear him anymore than she already has.

Today in McCainland

flounders floundering

Not sure how it happened exactly, but this McCain called out for Joe the Plumber and got no response.  The guy showed up at a later rally, but does that really make up for the earlier incident?

The most shameful part of the morning rally though was that the kids at the high school had to attend and out of the 6000 there, 4000 had been bused in.  Sad.

John McCain Thinks You are Stupid

TPM wraps it all up:

The McCain campaign apparently thinks you don’t have a very long memory — or much regard for the truth. It has just released what it’s billing as a new ad attacking Obama on Iran — even though the McCain camp already put out the same ad back in August, only to see it widely exposed as deeply dishonest.

I heard Hugh Hewitt play the ad this afternoon, claiming that French President Sarkozy had called Obama’s stance on Iran ‘immature,’ which I had read earlier (and is still there) on memeorandum.  But there is a little problem:

The remarks attributed by the newspaper Haaretz to the president of the French Republic concerning Sen. Obama’s positions on Iran are groundless. To the contrary, the in-depth discussions between the president of the Republic and Sen. Obama on Iran during their meeting in Paris in July demonstrated a broad convergence of views on this issue. President Sarkozy and Sen. Obama agree to oppose Iran’s development of a military nuclear capability.

Thankfully, I have already voted and cannot be swayed by McCain’s insult.

Some Pre-Debate Thoughts

First up:  Bad Karma or just plain stupid?  Jerome Corsi thought it would be a good idea to go to Kenya to sell his smear book about Obama.  He also wanted to meet with Obama’s half brother. (Some people have no understanding of people who value honor.  Obama’s half brother doesn’t want the attention — he feels ashamed of himself, but has taken responsibility for his actions and life.  Why can’t people just leave him alone?)  Corsi was detained and then deported.  (Even handed but interesting article herefrom the CSM.)

Finally free or not quite?  The Bush administration lost in court again but will appeal.  Federal Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered that 17 Uighurs be released from Gitmo 6+ long years after they were turned in tho the U.S. military for a bounty.  The basis of the appeal?  Same old same old:

The Justice Department said it planned to seek a stay of Urbina’s order. His ruling “presents serious national security and separation of powers concerns and raised unprecedented legal issues,” said Brian Roehrkasse, a department spokesman.

I got one of my retirement account statements yesterday — it’s a little one from a part time gig I had right after grad school, not my main one) and it has lost a little over 10% in value.  In a way I’m lucky — my accounts have time to recover.

Bill Bennett got something right — stopped clock or has he come to his senses?  This morning Bennett was looking for and giving advice to McCain for the debate.  Overwhelmingly, the verdict is that McCain has to look at Obama.  Perhaps easier said than done for McCain.

I saw two more cars with Obama stickers today in the parking garage — only one McCain so far.

The last segment on the News Hour tonight is especially good.  The description:

Poet Kwame Dawes teamed up with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to create a multimedia Web site called “HOPE: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica.” The interactive site pairs his poetry with music, essays and video from people living with the disease and their caretakers.

As for the debate, I don’t think it will be a game-changer either way.  Obama’s numbers, particularly in individual states, are not only holding, but improving.  My favorite wingnut Kathleen is responding on cue to the recent McCain rhetoric:

I fear for our country. I fear that we may elect Obama, the man who taps on the window and smiles and seems so harmless, but in the end hurts us. (This refers to a story from her youth earlier in the post.)  I fear he will hurt our country in ways that can’t be measured. I don’t mean that Obamais a bad person. I am speaking metaphorically. I mean that the socialistic things he wants to achieve and his misunderstanding of the war on terror will make us so much less of a country and hurt us for generations to come.

He is the dangerous one.

As a persistent Bush supporter (she defends him to this day), I guess it’s understandable that she doesn’t realize the deeper meaning of what she is saying.

Sara!! Sara!!! Where are you Sara!!

Poor  dirty old man McCain.  He just wants to be president.  Is that asking so much?  He waited for W to have his time.  Why can’t McCain be president?  Why?  Oh why?  Why can’t McCain do anything without a handler?  Before it was Lieberman and Graham, now it’s Sara and Cindy.  But Cindy is frail — just look at the cast on her arm froma handshake.

Pity John McCain!

John McCain is a Dirty Old Man

McCain has approved yet another message:

Obama’s one accomplishment? Legislation to teach “comprehensive sex education” to kindergartners. Learning about sex before learning to read?

Using the rhetorical question makes it all ok, right?

The Obama campaign’s response:

“It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls – a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why.”

It’s bad enough that McCain and Palin lie repeatedly on the trail, that he has been a copy cat for some time now, and that he’s tried to turn Obama’s posititives into negatives, but could he sink any lower?

Country first, my ass.  McCain first and always.  Contrary to what most think, I think McCain doesn’t want to appear without Palin because hardly anyone would show up — just like before.  It must be tough on the old guy.  His pick is far more popular than he is.

My hope is that this election doesn’t turn out to be a popularity contest.

I’ve never been more disgusted with McCain.

One Copy-Cat McCain should have done

The average people who spoke for Obama were powerful because they spoke for themselves.

John McCain told stories. Can you believe him at this point, after all of those nasty ads?

Why couldn’t the RNC use some of that money to fly in the people McCain quoted and let them speak.

You know why.

Identity Politics, Republican Style

by Roberto

As with their approach to religion, Republicans act as though it is enough
to latch on in their lemming-like way to some figure they admire, and that
alone will transfer that figure’s perceived virtues back to them. They’ve
done it for years with Jesus, bugging everyone in earshot that they
believe, but not noticeably doing any of the things their Lord asked them
to do.

Republicans get all frothy and tumescent whenever a uniform shows up, but
stay put when it’s time to sign up and ship out. And where someone like
John McCain can point to his 5 years in a POW camp as pretty good evidence
that he put his country before himself (illegal war notwithstanding), all
the party faithful have to do is flap those blue “Country First” posters,
as though it means something. Looking at the Republican record, my guess
is that it means:

Country first (but better not raise my taxes to take care of the country’s
business); Country first (but better not ask me to drive less or take
public transportation); Country first (but sure as hell better not ask me
to enlist or make any sacrifice whatsoever).

And then there is the hilarious enthusiasm for Sarah Palin, who is already
providing the soap opera moments every American election needs. At the
RNC, delegates have been falling over themselves to marvel at the obvious.
Governor Palin loves her children! I certainly hope so and I also would
like to know: so what? That they have found a mother who loves their
children is clearly startling enough to them that they have to keep
mentioning it. There is of course the stain of Ronald Reagan (Greatest Man
Who Ever Lived), a fellow so detached and unloving that he couldn’t
recognize his own son in a reception line. The next few days ought to be
sickening in terms of the number of times we get to hear about what a hit
she is among the St. Paul zombies. A woman who neither uses (nor
apparently understands) contraception but who can kill woodland animals
like you wouldn’t believe! Oh, her poor poor family (oh sorry, we’re
supposed to leave them out of this, right?)

Fred Thompson’s Weirdisms

by Roberto

According to David Brooks’s commentary immediately afterward, Fred
Thompson’s address at the RNC was far better than any stump speech he
delivered during his underwhelming slouch towards defeat as a candidate
during the primaries. No argument there. The phlegm-curdling after each
sentence seems to have grown worse however. Don’t his handlers have the
nerve to tell him? Or is it meant to add to his ‘I’m-just-your-average-down-home-millionaire’ allure? Who knows. The Republicans’ self-perception remains an enigma to me.

Fred’s weird fantasy about Roberta McCain being taken prisoner by the
North Vietnamese was odd and unpleasant, but the robots laughed anyway.
But even odder was his rant about the ‘angry left’. He said that the North
Vietnamese may have broken John McCain’s arms but they couldn’t ‘break
his honor.’ And, thundered Fred, ‘neither will the angry left.’ What does
this mean?  I have to admit I’ve heard a lot of angry lefties in my day, saying
all manner of things, from the deeply profound to the deeply silly, but
not once have I heard any of them express the wish to break John McCain’s
or anyone else’s ‘honor’. It doesn’t even sound English. Could Fred
have meant ‘spirit’? Beats me. But the robots must have understood because they
cheered and whooped and mugged for the camera like they were on the edge
of a bit of hooliganism (of the gated-community variety, of course).