We Told You He Was Just Like Bob Dole

Well, it was School Daze out on the campaign trail today, with Barack Obama giving some schoolin' to Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, including going to the Way Back Machine, to remind Fly Boy of his past position.

Here's the new Obama Ad, hitting Stumblin' Bumblin Johnny on Education;


From Sam Stein, over on The HuffPo;

Linking McCain to "ideologues," Obama declared in his speech Tuesday, "you certainly don't reform our education system by calling to close the Department of Education. That would just make it harder for us to give out financial aid, harder for us to keep track of how our schools are doing, and lead to widening inequality in who gets a college degree."

Republican officials and McCain staffers, meanwhile, are in full-out counter-attack mode, criticizing Obama for his education policies and claiming that the Senator is misrepresenting McCain's proposals on the matter.

"Senator Barack Obama's new campaign attack ad on education," wrote spokesman Tucker Bounds this morning, "claims that John McCain's economic plan will divert money from public education without any factual citation or basis." The campaign provided a list of resolutions increasing funding for federal education efforts that McCain supported.

But Bounds' statement made no mention of McCain's previous support for doing away with the Department of Education. Neither did two counter-attack emails blasted out by the Republican National Committee.

Hmmm ... "Calling to close the Department of Education"?

Holy Fingernails-scratching-down-a-blackboard Batman!

Over here teacher! ... Pick me! ... My hand is raised! ...

Ahh, the teacher chooses Greg Sargent, over on TPM;

Here's the full context of a CNN interview on December 11, 1994 (via Nexis), when Newt-mania was gripping the land:

FRANK SESNO: Senator McCain, would you favor doing away with the Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Department of Energy?

Sen. JOHN McCAIN: I would certainly favor doing away with the Department of Energy and I think that given the origins of the Department of Education, I would favor doing away with it as well. HUD had experienced many failures under both Republican and Democrat administrations and I would certainly want to revamp it from the bottom up, because, clearly, public housing in America is almost as big a disaster as the welfare program

WOW!

The Department of Energy (something tells me he's going to get a chalky eraser flung at his head on this one pretty soon) and the Department of Education!

Ready to dump'em faster then his first wife.

Now, was this in his Middle-Age Maverick period, or still part of the Early-Age Maverick time?

Certainly before he became an "Original Maverick".

And, who was the last Presidential candidate to embrace shutting down the Department of Education?

None other that that other Ball of Dynamo ...

Drumroll, please ....

Bob Dole!

From the PBS Newshour;

In 1980, Ronald Reagan ran for president with the promise that if he were elected, he would abolish the Department of Education. His opponent, President Jimmy Carter promised to protect the department, which he had created several years earlier. The department still exists, but the Republicans are gearing up to fulfill Reagan's promise.

Presidential candidate Bob Dole has said the funding for his $2.5 billion voucher program would come from ending Goals 2000 and cutting deep into the Department of Education's bureaucracy. On September 9, 1996, while campaigning in Georgia, Dole said "We're going to cut out the Department of Education." And the GOP Presidential platform reads:

"Our formula is as simple as it is sweeping: the federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the work place. That is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning. We therefore call for prompt repeal of the Goals 2000 program and the School-To-Work Act of 1994, which put new federal controls, as well as unfunded mandates, on the States. We further urge that federal attempts to impose outcome- or performance-based education on local schools be ended."

And, what did we tell you about Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain back in January?

The Bob Dole For The New Millennium

Now, maybe Mommy Moose will come up with another whopper, like, lets put the Department of Education on eBay, or she'll go back to that school and have the students pray for a better Department of Education.

Or, the Rove Rats go to the old stand-by - another POW-POW- POW story...

You know, something like "John McCain knows all about schools ... He got a great education in a special school, for five-years, where they would beat you for the correct answers ..."


Bonus Schoolhouse Links

AP - Obama: "John McCain Doesn't Understand" Education

Steve Benen: OBAMA EYES DEBATE OVER EDUCATION....

Bob Cesca: Prepare To Yack Up Your Dinner

(H/T Bob - Here's The McCain-Rove Rats Response)

Top Ten Cloves: Things John McCain Does On Weekends, Rather Then Campaigning

News Item: John McCain doesn't work weekends

10. Working on his own ideas, to build a new car battery, and win that $300-Million

9. Kicks back, playing a little shuffleboard

8. Hits the recycling plant to cash in all the beer bottles

7. Sits and stews, thinking of ways he can get Baby Alex

6. Spends time working on his comedy routine and his jokes

5. Puts away his Flash Cards for the week completed, and prepares his Flash Cards for the week ahead

4. It's not all rest and relaxation - Has to supervise Joe Lieberman, whose shining his shoes, doing the gardening, taking out the trash ...

3. Karaoke! (Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran)

2. Actually does a little campaign work - Studies old debate tapes of Bob Dole to sharpen up and prepare

1. Joins his wife in scouring the Internet for recipes

Change You Can't Really Believe In

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took ...

Don't know much about geography
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for ...

Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World (Don't Know Much)

We have already noted that Stumblin' Bumblin John McCain is The Gift That Refuses To Stop Itself From Giving, and early on in this campaign, he continues to come through in flying colors.

Spectacular flying colors.

The speech last week, the one that would have stumped and mystified Leonard Pinth Garnell, leaving the tart-tongued reviewer "deliciously absent of proper condemnation", but one example (and inside it, this little nugget).

And, of course, first, Scott McClellan's book, and now the Senate Intelligence Report, is blowing holes you could drive the Straight Talk Express bus through on SB John's Iraq position.

So, what's this week latest installment?

Only This ...

McCain thinks Putin is the President of Germany



Say What?

Did it slip under-the-radar, that the McCain Camp has hired Miss Teen South Carolina for their Foreign Policy team?

Or, did The Commander Guy throw some help to him, teaching him on how to use The Google?

Or, Mark Penn, to draw up their maps?

Frankly, Barack Obama can likely set his schedule to only go out campaigning part-time, as long as Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain continues to make public appearances and speeches.

But for you Die Hard Stumblers and Bumblers, you can look forward, if he does manage to Stumble and Bumble his way into the Oval Office, to this;

McCain: 'I will veto every single beer'

Like we've been saying, this is going to be an awful lot of fun ...

Top Ten Cloves: Questions Possible Running Mates Will Have For John McCain At Weekend Meeting

News Item: McCain To Meet With Potential Running Mates

10. If they become VP, will he promise not to explode his infamous temper on them?

9. Why do you want to know how much cash I have on me?

8. In case they run for Senate, can he tell them the secret for pulling off a Keating Five-like scam?

7. Will Vicki Iseman be around over the weekend?

6. Will ask if they can get a sneak peak at Cindy McCain's tax return

5. Is there any advanced preview of John Hagee smears on Obama?

4. If not chosen for VP, can they get hooked up as a lobbyist on his staff?

3. The big question - How many times has he gotten laid on the Straight Talk Express!

2. Will joke McCain, asking him the Shiite-Sunni question, just to hear his discombobulated answer

1. All three, annoyed, will ask - "Does Lieberman have to sit in on this?"


Bonus McCain Madcap Links

McCain's YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare

Think Progress: McCain implies U.S. invaded Iraq for oil

Emptywheel: Why Is McCain’s Former Campaign Chair Stumping for Obama?

The Bob Dole For The New Millennium

McCain Waves The POW Flag

McCain's Foodgate ... The Gift Keeps Giving ...


Bonus Bonus

Mark Halperin, of Time Magazine asks;

Veepstakes Quiz: For all the talk of gubernatorial running mates, when was the last time a major party candidate added to his ticket a sitting or former governor?

The answer is here

Retro Garlic: We Knew They Would Come Around

My, My, My ...

We had strong suspicions, that the longer Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain goes in this campaign, it will become more-and-more obvious, the similarities between Fly Boy and the former GOP flag-carrier, Bob Dole.











And today (yesterday, actually) author and journalist John Heilmann has a very thorough (i.e. long) article in New York Magazine;

Is John McCain Bob Dole?; Or is he Dwight Eisenhower? (Actually, that may depend on whether Barack Obama is Mike Dukakis or John Kennedy.) A handicapping

Here's a few clips;

So if McCain is no longer the bracing iconoclast he was in 2000, who the hell is he?

“I’ll tell you,” this person says. “He’s morphed into Bob Dole.”

This was not my first encounter with the McCain-is-Dole meme. I had first run across it back in January, on the night of the final Republican debate, in Simi Valley, California, when McCain’s crabbiness and sarcasm on stage had prompted a former GOP player now tilling the corporate field to make the comparison over dinner. As it turned out, the idea was also being promulgated sub rosa by a number of Mitt Romney’s senior strategists. A few days later, on the morning of Super Duper Tuesday, it popped out of Mitt’s own mouth. “There are a lot of folks that tend to think maybe John McCain’s race is a bit like Bob Dole’s race,” Romney snarked on Fox News. “That it’s the guy who’s the next in line; he’s the inevitable choice and we’ll give it to him, and then it won’t work.”

But few of the other likenesses between McCain and Dole can be spun so benignly. There’s the septuagenarian-ness (McCain is 71; Dole was 72 when he ran). There’s the physical frailty, courageously earned in war, that nevertheless serves as a constant reminder of his advanced years. There’s the legendary shortness of his fuse. (McCain has yet to have a full-on “Stop lying about my record” moment on the trail, but his testiness was on display the other day in a widely YouTubed confrontation on his campaign jet with the Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller.) There’s the firm conviction, as Time journalist Mark Halperin has noted, that “being on Meet the Press is more important than going to church—actually, that being on Meet the Press is going to church.”

Arizona Bob, perhaps, can be applied for SB John.

The Retro Part

The Bob Dole For The New Millennium

For, if they get Obama, it will be the Kennedy-Nixon Debate every single day of the campaign, McCain tripping over his Father Time beard, a skeletal-dust-filled suit laying in front of the voting stations by the time election day rolls around.

The youth and exuberance, the oratory skills, of Obama will paint the Straight Talk Express bus into a hearse, McCain's campaign posters into The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Hmmm ... Didn't Bob Dole have his own bag of war heroism, and his own deep Senatorial experience?

Once we get past the Dem's Primary, this is going to be so much fun ...


Bonus Stumblin' Bumblin' John Riffs

I Missed Home Ec For This!

Breaking News! MLK, Posthumously, Pardons McCain

Perrin On McCain, Clinton and Pornographic Ringtones

The Gift That Refuses To Stop Itself From Giving