During the past two debates, McCain has started his address with a "someone is in the hospital" moment.
Debate # 2: Ted Kennedy.
Debate # 3: Nancy Regan.
But ironically, Dick Cheney was hospitalized before the 2nd debate, too, but he didn't get a bit of love from the Mav.
Check it out.
Show Dick Some Love
G. Gordon Liddy
Thanks to Letterman for pointing out something we've all forgotten about: John McCain's relationship with G. Gordon Liddy.
From the Chicago Tribune:
What McCain didn't mention is that he has his own Bill Ayers -- in the form of G. Gordon Liddy. Now a conservative radio talk-show host, Liddy spent more than 4 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him.
How close are McCain and Liddy? At least as close as Obama and Ayers appear to be. In 1998, Liddy's home was the site of a McCain fundraiser. Over the years, he has made at least four contributions totaling $5,000 to the senator's campaigns -- including $1,000 this year.
Last November, McCain went on his radio show. Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain sounded like one. "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family," he gushed. "It's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon, and congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great."
Which principles would those be? The ones that told Liddy it was fine to break into the office of the Democratic National Committee to plant bugs and photograph documents? The ones that made him propose to kidnap anti-war activists so they couldn't disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention? The ones that inspired him to plan the murder (never carried out) of an unfriendly newspaper columnist?
Liddy was in the thick of the biggest political scandal in American history -- and one of the greatest threats to the rule of law. He has said he has no regrets about what he did, insisting that he went to jail as "a prisoner of war."
All this may sound like ancient history. But it's from the same era as the bombings Ayers helped carry out as a member of the Weather Underground. And Liddy's penchant for extreme solutions has not abated.
In 1994, after the disastrous federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, he gave some advice to his listeners: "Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. ... Kill the sons of bitches."
He later backed off, saying he meant merely that people should defend themselves if federal agents came with guns blazing. But his amended guidance was not exactly conciliatory: Liddy also said he should have recommended shots to the groin instead of the head. If that wasn't enough to inflame any nut cases, he mentioned labeling targets "Bill" and "Hillary" when he practiced shooting.
Given Liddy's record, it's hard to see why McCain would touch him with a 10-foot pole. On the contrary, he should be returning his donations and shunning his show. Yet the senator shows no qualms about associating with Liddy -- or celebrating his service to their common cause.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Joe The Plumber
John McCain: Focusing on the issues and people that matter.
Also on YouTube.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Olbermann: Special Comment On McCain Campaign
Text:
And this is where the satire ends and the Special Comment begins. Because this is not even remotely funny.
1:25 p.m. Eastern Time, today, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. During the warm-up act by a red meat Congressional candidate aptly named Chris Hackett, Hackett mentions Obama and a Palin audience member shouts, “Kill Him.”
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And Gov. Palin, as usual, does nothing about it; says nothing to these thugs and psychos. She may not have heard this one. It is impossible to believe that by now she has not heard about the other ones. Her silence is deafening. Just as, Senator McCain, you have done nothing when violence has been asserted. Correction. You have done one thing.
Asked why, in real time, you do not repudiate this hatefulness, you act as if you are the victim. Speaking today to our NBC Station in Washington:
McCain: “Sure and I repudiated it as I have on several occasions. Unfortunately, Congressman John Lewis is an American hero who I admire who made the worst, most unacceptable statement a couple days ago that I have ever heard. He accused me and Sarah Palin of being involved in segregation, George Wallace and even made reference to a church bombing where children were killed. Senator Obama has not repudiated that statement. Senator Obama should do so immediately. Its the most outrageous thing that I have heard since in politics…it is disgraceful.”
Disgraceful?
Obviously, Senator, you haven’t heard your own speeches, and Gov. Palin’s, and what people shout during them. And you haven’t heard your state GOP Chair in Virginia, Jeffrey Frederick, giving talking points to 30 of your field-operatives heading out to canvass voters in Gainesville, Virginia, with a reporter present, telling them to try to forge a connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden to emphasize bombings and terrorism. And you haven’t heard those volunteers, your volunteers Sen. McCain, shout back, “And he won’t salute the flag” and “We don’t even know where Sen. Obama was really born.”
Sen. McCain, these people are speaking for you! And how dare you try to claim Congressman Lewis was linking you to Gov. George Wallace’s segregation? He was linking you, aptly, to Gov. George Wallace’s lynch-mob mentality.
“As public figures with the power to influence and persuade,” said Congressman Lewis, “Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all.”
Sen. McCain, your supporters, at your events, are calling Obama a terrorist and traitor and are calling for him to be killed. And yet you keep bringing back these same rabid Right Wing nuts to deliberately stir these crowds into frenzies. And then you take offense when somebody who remembers the violence in our political past, calls you on it. You, sir, are responsible for a phalanx of individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded theater.
There are some things to respect and honor about you, Sen. McCain, but on this you’re not only a fraud, Senator, but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence. If you want to again grand-stand and suspend your campaign here’s your big chance. Suspend your campaign now, until you, or somebody else, gets some control over it and it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation.
Gut Feeling
From the HuffPo:
Bush Strategist: McCain Knows He Put Country At Risk With Palin Pick
Matthew Dowd, a prominent political consultant and chief strategist for George W. Bush's reelection campaign eviscerated John McCain on Tuesday for his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president.
Dowd proclaimed that, in his heart of hearts, McCain knew he put the country at risk with his VP choice and that he would "have to live" with that fact for the rest of his career.
"They didn't let John McCain pick the person he wanted to pick as VP," Dowd declared during the Time Warner Summit panel. "When Sarah Palin got picked instead of Joe Lieberman, which I fundamentally believed would have given John McCain the best opportunity in this race... as soon as he picked Palin, that whole ready versus not ready argument was not credible."
Saying that Palin was a "net negative" on the ticket, he went on: "[McCain] knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is something he will have to live with... He put somebody unqualified on that ballot and he put the country at risk, he knows that."
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
McCain + Saddam Hussein
From the HuffPo:
McCain Transition Chief Aided Saddam In Lobbying Effort
William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.
The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government.
During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.
McCain Should Read A Newspaper
McCain in an interview yesterday with CNN:This crisis, this conflagration, was ignited by the housing crisis. And it was Fannie and Freddie, and Wall Street, and corruption -- or certainly cronyism in Washington, D.C. that caused it.
But private sector loans that caused the crisis, with no evidence of corruption or cronyism to be found. These being facts they obviously get in the way of McCain's fictional narrative, but they ought not get in the way of journalists, who seem constitutionally unable to ask follow-up questions when politicians lie to their faces.
McCain Economic Policy
A rouge artist is decorating the dog crap in Venice Beach, CA, and making a political statement at the same time. Good work!
Day Late, 101 Million Short
The Obama campaign has released a statement in response to McCain's new economic proposal, which he'll be unveiling this afternoon on Pennsylvania:
John McCain’s latest gambit is a day late and 101 million middle-class families short. McCain’s plan would spend $300 billion to bailout the same irresponsible Wall Street banks that got us into this mess without doing anything to help jumpstart job growth for America’s middle class. His plan continues to provide no tax relief at all to 101 million hardworking families, including 97 percent of senior citizens, and it does nothing to cut taxes for small businesses or give them access to credit. Senator McCain also shows how little he understands the economy by offering lower capital gains rates in a year in which people don’t have an awful lot of capital gains. His trickle-down, ideological recipes won’t strengthen our economy and grow our middle-class, but Barack Obama’s pro-jobs, pro-family economic policies will.
McCain To Confont Obama On Ayers
From HuffPo:
On Monday afternoon, John McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds offered a quick preview of the third and final presidential debate this Wednesday at Hofstra University.
After being asked by a Fox News host whether the lack of any mention of William Ayers during today's speeches from McCain and Palin meant that "the gloves [are] going back on" after a week of tough attacks, Bounds rejected the idea.
"I don't think so at all... If you see some of the advertising coming from the RNC today, which we stand behind, and some of advertising that we'll see going forward," Bounds said, hinting at another onslaught of Ayers material still to come.
When asked if McCain plans to "go after" Obama on these topics this Wednesday, Bounds added: "So much of a debate is determined by the moderator and the questions that are posed to the candidates. I expect it could come up and I expect John McCain will ask Barack Obama to speak truthfully about his relationship with friend and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. I think that voters deserve to know, deserve to vet these candidates to the fullest extent... Certainly, Bill Ayers raises questions. Certainly, Tony Rezko raises questions."
McCain Senior Moment
From the WSJ:
Then came the event in Wilmington, N.C., held at — irony alert!– Cape Fear Community College. McCain stood in front of the crowd and said he would take questions or comments after he delivered his remarks. He finished his prepared speech and tacked on a longtime stump story about the bracelet he wears. But then the music and handshaking began. No questions or comments to be heard—at least those directed at the senator. “I thought this was a town hall meeting?” a man asked the press corps.It's alright, John. Sometimes my mom calls me by my brother's name.
McCain Hearing Things?
Isn't one of the signs of old age hearing things that aren't there? How else to explain McCain's claim that he's heard people at Obama rallies calling for him to be killed.
McCain Stood With ACORN
Marc Ambinder has the story and the video:
Here [McCain] is, on Feb. 20, 2006, telling immigration rights activists at a rally in Miami that they "are what makes America special." ACORN co-sponsored the rally, and its volunteers surround McCain, and while there's no evidence that McCain ever formally teamed with the group, the video serves as a reminder that he did not mind being associated with them when the politics of the moment were different.McCain starts about 2 minutes in.
Deep Hole For McCain
From ABC News:
Obama leads John McCain by 10 points among likely voters, 53-43 percent, in this ABC News/Washington Post poll. Though every race is different, no presidential candidate has come back from an October deficit this large in pre-election polls dating to 1936.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Ohio Newspaper Endorsement Watch
The Canton Repository: ObamaThe United States is moving in the wrong direction. That is what the polls say. What do you think? We think that the United States is moving in many wrong directions.
The Springfield News-Sun: Obama
On Main Street, families are watching their homes and retirement savings lose value while the cost of their most basic needs goes up and up. On Wall Street, a hands-off approach to oversight of financial institutions has led to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Halfway around the world, the United States remains mired in a country it should never have invaded.
Stark Countians rightly want change in Washington. The Repository editorial board believes that the presidential candidate who can deliver on this demand is Democrat Barack Obama.
It's time for a change and that change cannot be delivered by the Republican candidate who has voiced no real split with the policies of the Bush years.The News-Sun Editorial Board is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama as the best hope for the nation to return to prosperity and to regain its standing in the world.
Obama is clearly a smart, caring, committed candidate for the job of president.
His detractors call him an elitist. A good education, a tendency to analyze problems and the ability to speak in complete sentences are hardly bad qualities to have in a president. Bringing peace to the Middle East or fixing a national economy are complicated tasks.
The Findlay Courier: McCain
From the beginning, McCain seemed to comprehend far better than the Bush administration that Iraq was a huge project. He knew more troops were needed, and called for such long before the "surge" was implemented. McCain's military background is perhaps the greatest asset he brings to the presidency. He understands the principles on which this nation was founded and he's utterly committed to America. He has a realistic view of nations like Russia and Iran, but also would use caution before pushing us into another war; he knows first-hand what wars do to our military. He has shown courage and fortitude, and would continue to do so as president. It's worth pointing out that McCain lacks the negative baggage his opponent carries: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, ACORN, etc. In addition, without a Republican in the White House, there will be virtually no check on the Democratic Congress led by Sen. Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Nothing would stop them from enacting an extremely liberal social agenda as well as further socializing the nation. If we want the economy to be free to grow again; if we want even a chance of returning this nation to its founding values; if we want America to be strong again and respected if not loved by other countries, we will elect John McCain as the 44th president of the United States.
McCain & ACORN
From the HuffPo:
On Monday, the Democratic-leaning group ACORN, which has been painted as a criminal enterprise by the GOP for its voter registration and housing policy efforts, pushed back against its critics by producing a photo of John McCain attending its March 2006 rally.
It was a reminder that, for all their electoral histrionics, Republicans have aligned themselves with ACORN in the past.
Indeed, in addition to the McCain photo, there is a host of examples of prominent McCain surrogates attending ACORN events, signing ACORN legislation, or complimenting the group's efforts.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, for example, partnered with ACORN in March 2008 for a "Homeownership Promotes The Economy" taskforce. More recently, Crist declared that -- contrary to GOP outrage -- he was not upset with the group's voter registration efforts in his state. The New York Times reported that ACORN supported a law signed by Governor Crist, which "changed the rules last year to restore the voting rights of about 112,000 former convicts."
In July 2005, meanwhile, another Republican governor, Rick Perry of Texas, signed ACORN's Lending Law Reform Bill that changed the state's homelending practices.