As we go through our latest "Black Friday", and Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain flops around all over the place, almost literally throwing it against the wall to see what sticks, running away from his record, his legacy, his maverickness (today, in a speech, blaming Obama for the meltdown!), we go with the old saying "you can run, but you can't hide".
The McCain campaign appears to have a blanket policy of not mentioning Bush. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews made this painfully obvious during a recent interview with McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer, when she refused to say who she voted for in 2004.
But McCain still can’t, or won’t, attack Bush, for fear that it will give the Obama campaign an opportunity to link McCain to his own party, by pointing out that McCain has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time. Obama has a free pass to criticize the administration and to run ads showing McCain and Bush together, and McCain has essentially cut himself off from benefiting from the wealth of anti-Bush sentiment in this country.
This is one of those things, that no matter how the Rove Rats attempt to explain away McCain's fog, it just doesn't cover him in Commander-Guy-In-Waiting, Mr.-Foreign-Policy-Expert, glory.
INTERVIEWER: Senator finally, let’s talk about Spain. If elected president would you be willing to invite President Jose Rodriguez Louis Zapatero to the White House, to meet with you?
McCAIN: I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion.
And by the way President Calderone of Mexico is fighting a very, very tough fight against the drug cartels. I’m glad we are now working with the Mexican government on the Merida Plan, and I intend to move forward with relations and invite as many of them as I can, of those leaders to the White House.
INTERVIEWER: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government? To the president himself?
McCAIN: Uh, I don’t, I, ya know, I, honestly, I have to look at the situations and the relations and the priorities. But I can assure you, I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.
INTERVIEWER: So you have to wait and see. If he’s willing to meet with you, would you be able to do it? In the White House?
McCAIN: Well, again, I don’t — All I can tell you is I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that’s judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.
INTERVIEWER: OK, what about Europe? I’m talking about the president of Spain.
McCAIN: What about me what?
INTERVIEWER: OK. Are you willing to meet with him if you are elected president?
McCAIN: I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom, and I will stand up to those who are not.
"The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero (and id'd him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview," he said in an e-mail.
It was intentional?
He's intentionally dissing a NATO ally?
Please ...
Let's put this in perspective, as Steve Benen does does, detailing some of Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny's other "intentional" statements;
Let's also not lose sight of the broader pattern. McCain thinks the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia was "the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War." He thinks Iraq and Pakistan share a border. He believes Czechoslovakia is still a country. He's been confused about the difference between Sudan and Somalia. He's been confused about whether he wants more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, more NATO troops in Afghanistan, or both. He's been confused about how many U.S. troops are in Iraq. He's been confused about whether the U.S. can maintain a long-term presence in Iraq. He's been confused about Iran's relationship with al Qaeda. He's been confused about the difference between Sunni and Shi'ia. McCain, following a recent trip to Germany, even referred to "President Putin of Germany." All of this incoherence on his signature issue.
This guy, increasingly, doesn't know whether to piss, or wind his watch!
Just keep him on simple statements, don't let him stray to far off the script.
Kind of like the scene, in 'The Manchurian Candidate', when Senator Iselin is complaining about having to remember how many communists there were.
Mrs. Iselin: [at meal time] I'm sorry, hon'. Would it really make it easier for you if we settled on just one number? Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: Yeah. Just one, real, simple number that'd be easy for me to remember. [Mrs. Iselin watches her husband thump a bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup onto his plate] Sen. John Yerkes Iselin: [addressing the Senate] There are exactly 57 card-carrying members of the Communist Party in the Department of Defense at this time!
He would still be coming off as out-of-it, but it would be better off that, then coming off as having a senior moment, or worse.
It was suggested, by some, that his staff didn't brief, or prepare him well enough before the interview.
Could be, however, considering the strategy of "Lie, Lie, Lie", why spend time feeding him info that he, likely, and as evidenced in the interview, wouldn't keep a grasp of it, anyway.
Let him flap around, say whatever he says, then spin and lie about it after.
And this isn't, necessarily, an isolated incident, particularly, and ironically, with the Spanish media.
Between the strong economy that Stumblin Bumblin' Johnny sees, and this tremendous Spain gaffe, I don't know about you, but I smell a whopper of a POW-POW-POW story coming along ...
Considering the Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain camp got confused when he first announced Mommy Moose, I suppose it could be reasonable there's a measurable number of people out there that believe Monty Python is looking to take over the White House.
Why would she take on a hypothetical question, on a day, where her boss was already being pummeled, directly, for his stunning vision on the economy, and the campaign, overall, for their journey over the past few weeks, into their "Lie, Lie, Lie' strategy.
I suppose, it goes to, in some degree, why she tanked at Hewlett Packard (as a good friend of mine this evening offered, when was the last time you heard someone raving about "that great HP computer" they have).
But there she was, not once, but twice, today, putting her foot between her lipstick-covered lips.
Apparently, fearing the campaign wouldn't be ridiculed enough, Carli goes trudging onto television, on MSNBC (Here's the video), and, remember from above, the part about backing away from hypothetical questions, plows right into again, saying her boss, Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny couldn't run a company like Hewlett Packard either (and, for good measure, perhaps the thought of being tossed under a bus quickly flashed through her mind, she included Barack Obama and Joe Biden in it as well). Jesus!
Now, I'm quite confident, if she was asked to take over Hewlett Packard, Palin would become a Hard Drive, with lipstick, in a flash
She'd say, something like this;
I -- I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this company and victory in the markets, you can't blink.
Likely, she would also throw in that "God's will has to be done, in unifying people and companies ... And that the people of Hewlett Packard's hearts have to be right with God, so we can work together to make sure God's will be done here."
If Stumblin' Bumblin John McCain lived in Bedford Falls, perhaps the town's Mayor (or, we can even keep him a Senator), no doubt he would be extolling the virtues of Pottersville, saying that things there were 'fundamentally sound" and that Mr. Potter "and his innovation and his entrepreneurship, his businesses, those are the fundamentals of America and I think they’re strong.”
He'd be doing this, having tossed away is first wife, and now toting around his second, Violet Bick.
His policies would have benefited Sam Wainwright, to move his business overseas.
Ernie and Bert would have been stop-lossed, and now overseas fighting in a 100-year war.
And, as he would be dead wrong standing in the middle of Bedford Falls' Main Street, he's as dead wrong today, standing on the main political stage, painting himself as the savior of the American way of life.
By noontime, he was being, rightfully so, derided as woefully out-of-touch, and his talking heads were rushed onto the cable news sets to start spinning "what he actually said", which caused severe technical problems with the broadcasts, having the sets spinning so ferociously.
However, it's almost like gushing, glowingly, over the bin of bright, shiny colorful oranges, when the issue is the bin of rotten apples right next to them.
The new system was supposed to do a better job of spreading and reducing risk. But in the aftermath of the housing bust and the resulting mortgage crisis, it seems apparent that risk wasn’t so much reduced as hidden: all too many investors had no idea how exposed they were.
And here’s the thing: The defenses set up to prevent a return of those bank runs, mainly deposit insurance and access to credit lines with the Federal Reserve, only protect the guys in the marble buildings, who aren’t at the heart of the current crisis. That creates the real possibility that 2008 could be 1931 revisited.
But Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, was adamant that he wouldn’t sweeten the deal by putting more public funds on the line. Many people thought he was bluffing. I was all ready to start today’s column, “When life hands you Lehman, make Lehman aid.” But there was no aid, and apparently no deal. Mr. Paulson seems to be betting that the financial system — bolstered, it must be said, by those special credit lines — can handle the shock of a Lehman failure. We’ll find out soon whether he was brave or foolish.
Hmmm ... Sounds like there was no oversight, or regulatory process in place.
Whether it be Krugman, or any other analyst today, I didn't see any vibes, any allusions, any blame been plastered on the worker bees of Lehman Bros., Merrill Lynch, or that other teetering elephant in-the-room, AIG.
McCain is desperately, to the point of looking utterly foolish, of trying to rip off his Republican suit, as if he (and, specifically, his prime financial advisor, Phil Gramm, he of "Mental Recessions" and "Whining"), had nothing to do with the melting economy.
What's going down now is the direct result of the Republican administration, and rubber-stamp Congress for six-of-the-past-seven-years.
Let the free markets be free, and not burdened with the government looking over their shoulders and everything will take care of itself.
Policies that will continue in a McCain-Palin administration.
Power comes from lying ... Lying big and getting the whole damn world to play along with you ... Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you get them by the balls
So, as we have done so often, we offer a tune, a theme song, for this pugnacious prevaricating pair.
They can play it as a prelude to their speeches, undoubtedly filled with lies, to warm the crowd up (another thing they have been lying about), get that big applause line.
When they send their press release out to the media, they can include a small .wav file of it, so reporters will know, whatever they are sending, contains lies.
Let's all help make this their new calling card, their signature tune.
But a visit to this former mining supply post 40 miles north of Anchorage shows the extent to which Palin's mayoralty was also defined by what it did not include. The universe of the mayor of Wasilla is sharply circumscribed even by the standards of small towns, which limited Palin's exposure to issues such as health care, social services, the environment and education.
Palin limited her duties further by hiring a deputy administrator to handle much of the town's day-to-day management. Her top achievement as mayor was the construction of an ice rink, a project that landed in the courts and cost the city more than expected.
Arriving in office, Palin herself played down the demands of the job in response to residents who worried that her move to oust veteran officials would leave the town in the lurch. "It's not rocket science," Palin said, according to the town newspaper, the Frontiersman. "It's $6 million and 53 employees."
Along with this, Maureen Dowd weighs in, with her excursion to Alaska, with "Bering Straight Talk", offering "I’ve been in Alaska only a week, but I’m already feeling ever so much smarter about Russia", putting her, nearly on par with the former Mayor, who, when asked by Charlie Gibson the other evening, about her insight to Russian Foreign Policy, with great perk, shot back instantly “They’re our next-door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
It’s an urgent matter, because if we’ve learned anything from the G.O.P. convention and its aftermath, it’s that the 2008 edition of John McCain is too weak to serve as America’s chief executive. This unmentionable truth, more than race, is now the real elephant in the room of this election.
No longer able to remember his principles any better than he can distinguish between Sunnis and Shia, McCain stands revealed as a guy who can be easily rolled by anyone who sells him a plan for “victory,” whether in Iraq or in Michigan. A McCain victory on Election Day will usher in a Palin presidency, with McCain serving as a transitional front man, an even weaker Bush to her Cheney.
