Well, I Guess It Rules Out On-Line Gambling Too ...

Oh, is the Right Wing Freak Show in a tizzy this weekend ...

Seems the new Obama Ad (Check out "Still Ad", it's a hoot!), depicting Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain as a technology idiot, not being able to use a computer, or send email, has gotten under their skins.

So much so, they're emulating their favorite son with, they're turning to in a time of crises - much like the campaign has done - to a McCain POW-POW-POW story.

See, Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny can't use a computer, or send an email, because he was tortured.

Prom Dress Boy Jonah Goldberg is leading the pack on this one, with all the Flying Monkeys jumping on board (you can go Here, Here, and Here to see the faux outrage and crocodile tears).

Prom Dress Boy;

Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by "extraordinary." The reason he doesn't send email is that he can't use a keyboard because of the relentless beatings he received from the Viet Cong in service to our country ...

Now, I'd hardly be surprised if McCain could type for short stretches and all that. The point is, that it's perfectly understandable why he wouldn't get in the habit of it.

Yeah, and there are plenty of other options there, Prom Dress Boy.

Hilzoy offers;

This won't work. For one thing, a variety of press reports claim that McCain uses a Blackberry, so he can't be wholly incapable of using a keyboard. (John Cole has pictures.) For another, Jonah Goldberg might not realize this, but there are a lot of products out there that are designed to allow people with disabilities to use computers. For people with motor disabilities, or just a desire to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome, speech recognition software can be a godsend. It's not hard, it doesn't involve using your hands, and we know that McCain can speak perfectly well.

So, if Fly Boy is so crippled, that he can't use a computer, work a keyboard, send an email, how is it he can stand in a casino, at a crap table for 14-hours, rolling the dice?

Earlier this year, stories poured out on the, legendary gambling addiction of Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny.

From Time Magazine;

Over time he gave up the drinking bouts, but he never quite kicked the periodic yen for dice. In the past decade, he has played on Mississippi riverboats, on Indian land, in Caribbean craps pits and along the length of the Las Vegas Strip. Back in 2005 he joined a group of journalists at a magazine-industry conference in Puerto Rico, offering betting strategy on request. "Enjoying craps opens up a window on a central thread constant in John's life," says John Weaver, McCain's former chief strategist, who followed him to many a casino. "Taking a chance, playing against the odds." Aides say McCain tends to play for a few thousand dollars at a time and avoids taking markers, or loans, from the casinos, which he has helped regulate in Congress. "He never, ever plays on the house," says Mark Salter, a McCain adviser. The goal, say several people familiar with his habit, is never financial. He loves the thrill of winning and the camaraderie at the table.

Only recently have McCain's aides urged him to pull back from the pastime. In the heat of the G.O.P. primary fight last spring, he announced on a visit to the Vegas Strip that he was going to the casino floor. When his aides stopped him, fearing a public relations disaster, McCain suggested that they ask the casino to take a craps table to a private room, a high-roller privilege McCain had indulged in before. His aides, with alarm bells ringing, refused again, according to two accounts of the discussion.

Greg Mitchell;

You may have read the Time piece already so here is an excerpt from an earlier Connie Bruck piece in The New Yorker, May 30, 2005:

The moment the car stopped at McCain's hotel in downtown New Orleans, he set out at his usual fast clip for Harrah's, across the street. McCain is an avid gambler. Wes Gullett, a close friend who worked for McCain for years, told me that they used to play craps in Las Vegas in fourteen-hour stints, standing at the tables from 10 a.m. to midnight. "Craps is addictive," McCain remarked, and he headed for the fifteen-dollar-minimum-bet tables. At the most obvious level, the game is incredibly simple -- players rotate turns throwing the dice, and you either win or lose depending on what number comes up. But McCain's betting formula makes it much more complicated. "Uh-oh!" he cried, as a player accidentally threw the dice off the table. "This is a very, very superstitious game," he said.

I guess, sitting at a computer, to do some surfing, send some emails, just doesn't kick in the same kind of adrenaline rush, as standing in a casino, at a crap table for 14-hours.

It must the adrenaline that allows him to overcome his crippling injuries, kiss the dice and, mind you, having to extend his arm, toss the dice, perhaps excitedly shouting "C'mon seven! ... Mama needs some new drugs!"

(Ooops, we leaked another member of the McCain households that has a wee bit of a crippling problem)

Also, as we have witnessed, over the past weeks (and specifically, the past few days), the crippling injuries that prevent Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain from using a computer, absolutely do not affect his ability to tell lies.

Yes, how silly of us, of Obama ...

Naturally, any problem Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny has, any gaffe he commits, if it's a cloudy day, it's only due to McCain's POW-POW-POW status ...


Bonus Stumblin' Bumblin Riffs

Nico Pitney: Yes, McCain Can Use Electronics

Oliver Willis: Jonah Goldberg Uses The POW Card For McCain’s Tech Illiteracy

LA Times: Oops, Obama ad mocks McCain's inability to send e-mail. Trouble is, he can't due to tortured fingers

TBogg: Research and Destroy


Bonus Bonus

If the Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain Campaign gets tired of using the POW-POW-POW stuff, they can always "Put The Blame on Mame"

GILDA

The Ultimate McCain POW Song

I was looking to take it easy today.

A rough day, or two, on the homefront, and even worse, in the Allergy Department (I am beginning to resemble the Our Gang dog, Petey, with a black circle blossoming around my left eye, from rubbing and scratching it).

But these guys just don't get it.

I mean, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain, and his gang of Rove Rats, just don't get it.

I believe we are entering the territory of, if it's a cloudy day on the campaign trail, for the Dead Campaign Express, they'll make some reference to McCain's POW status, like "He'd be grateful for a cloudy day ... He didn't get to see many clouds for nearly five-years, while he was in his prison hole ...".

On Saturday, newly-minted Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden lobbed a great zinger in his speech Saturday, squarely at Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny;

Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine. You sit there at night before you put the kids -- after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It's a pretty hard experience. He'll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at.

And, as on cue, less then 24-hours later, we have Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny, brushing off his dementia of not knowing how many houses he has with this;

From Greg Sargent, at TPM;

McCain slipped a reference to his war captivity into an interview McCain did with CBS that's airing today. He appeared to be referring to Joe Biden's crack yesterday that McCain has trouble considering people's kitchen table issues because he has to decide which of his own seven kitchen tables to use...

"I am grateful for the fact that I have a wonderful life," McCain said. "I spent some years without a kitchen table, without a chair, and I know what it's like to be blessed by the opportunities of this great nation...So the fact is that we have homes, and I'm grateful for it."

To which Sargent also noted;

But the "McCain-as-POW" currency the McCain camp is printing at such a furious rate -- and throwing wads of at every controversy that comes along -- is now losing value faster than the German Mark after World War I.

POW-POW-POW hyperinflation alert!

POW-POW-POW ...

It didn't take me long to A) slap myself upside the head and, B) start searching for the Ultimate McCain Pow Song, found very quickly.

Mas Que Nada!

It's a classic, covered by a bevy of folks (younger readers will likely believe it came from the Black Eyed Peas), and while I knew who did the original hit (posted below), I was hoping to find the Dizzy Gillespie version of it - he really puts some good chops into it.

One of the things that makes this the Ultimate McCain Pow Song is its meaning;

From Wikipedia;

In Brazilian Portuguese slang "mas, que nada" means something like "yeah, right", "don't be silly", or "no way, man". Literally the words mean "but, that [is] nothing".

Fits rather nicely into picture here.

So, hum and, sing along if you can

Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 - Mas Que Nada




And the next time (don't worry, it will be soon, very soon), Stumblin' Bumblin John McCain throws out the POW sob story, to excuse one of his miscues, flubs and gaffes (an ever-growing list), just start humming or singing 'Mas Que Nada'.

Much more pleasant to have this tune in your head, then the voice of "Whispering John" (H/T Barry Crimmins), bleating out another POW-laced excuse.


Bonus POW-POW-POW Links

kubla000: MoDowd Nails McCain's POW-POW-POW Defense w/ New Example ~ Updated: POW Ad Coming!

Maureen Dowd: Too Much of a Bad Thing

The Jed Report: A noun, a verb, and...

Ana Marie Cox: In His House There are Many Mansions

Sam Stein - Fineman: McCain Is Trivializing His POW Past

Steve Benen: A NOUN, A VERB, AND P.O.W...

Kagro X: McCain Eats the Seed Corn

No Sooner Had I Finished ...

"The insinuation, that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, doesn't know how many houses he has, is outrageous!"

McCain Waves The POW Flag

No Sooner Had I Finished ...

And, sure as you-know-what, satire gets usurped by reality.

THE POW CARD

After posting earlier today, we went out to the World Wide Web (Memeorandum), and, lo-and-behold, there was a McCain-sized-definition-of-rich number of posts, crying out the use of the POW Card, to explain away (or at least a finger in the dike), the complete ridicule Fly Boy was receiving, over his cluelessness on how many houses he owned.

When the post was written, I could think of a number of push backs the Stumblin Bumblin McCain Campaign may go with, but pulling out the now-getting-dog-eared POW Card was not one of them, and that is showing far more problems with the campaign (and candidate) then the MSM will ever admit.

As we alluded to in our previous post, this is getting embarrassing.

The gaffes, misspeaks, and just plain ignorance are bubbling up, more-and-more.

This is now the second time in less than a week, the Stumblin Bumblin' John McCain Campaign is hiding their bathrobe-clad, Slim Jim-juice-drooling candidate behind his POW experience.

And, in a bizzaro-world way, McCain's "how many houses do I own" gaffe, was somewhat of a silver lining.

Had he not blurted that gem out, the Stumblin' Bumblin McCain Campaign would have had a different conflagration to deal with, their candidates endorsement of establishing a draft again.

Small favors, huh?

Maybe questions need to be asked, if he is still, some 40+years later, crippled by that awful experience, perhaps, then, he needs to be in a Vet hospital, and not on the campaign trail.

Or, is the campaign using the POW Card as code, for his age?

They can't, very well, come out, throw up their hands and shrug "It's just another "senior moment" guys ..."

And all this is happening in the Dog Days of August ... Deadsville on the campaign trial, with vacations, and such, and, especially this year, with the Olympics going on.

You, practically, have to light yourself on fire to get any possible coverage, typically.

Christ, what's going to happen next month, after the VP choices, after the conventions?

We'll need one of the stat counters, like they use in boxing, to keep count of the jabs/punches-thrown in a given round, to have any hope of getting a count on Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny's stumbles and bumbles.

When they go to the debates, they'll have to add an extra scoreboard, with a running count of McCain's flubs and miscues.

Vegas will have to start issuing Over/Unders on this.

In fact, just to hedge my bets, I'm putting a marker down, here

It won't surprise me, if at the Republican Convention, Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain flies into Minneapolis as the "presumptive nominee", but a wee bit of monkey business goes on, and Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain flies out of Minneapolis with a ailment, ironically, like those old Russian leaders used to get, when it was their time to go.

Then again, the GOP knows (thanks to the inhabitants of the Bush Grindhouse) that they are completely fucked in November, and they might as well let Stumblin' Bumblin' McCain absorb the drubbing - at least, that way, they won't have to deal with him in 2012, mounting, "one more time", a presidential campaign.


Bonus House of Mirrors Links

Architectural Digest Visits Senator and Mrs. John McCain

Brandon Friedman: John McCain Needs to Lay Off the POW Talk

Spencer Ackerman: Use It Tonight

Marc Ambinder: McCain Is To Houses What GWBH Was To Grocery Store Scanners?

Sam Stein: McCain Camp Plays POW Card On House Gaffe