McCain Camp Responds On Houses Gaffe: He Was A POW!
The McCain campaign is road-testing a new argument in responding to Obama's criticism of his number-of-houses gaffe, an approach the McCain camp has never tried before: The houses gaffe doesn't matter because ... he was a POW!
"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.
For those of you who haven't kept track, the McCain campaign just recently cited McCain's POW years in explaining away the Miss Buffalo Chip gaffe, and in dealing with the allegation that he broke the rules and listened in on Barack Obama during the Rick Warren forum.
Also, Rogers made sure to play the anti-intellectual card: "In terms of who's an elitist, I think people have made a judgment that John McCain is not an arugula-eating, pointy headed professor-type based on his life story."
THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR MCCAIN!!!
August 21, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where've you been? I missed you!
August 21, 2008 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
The odd thing: Cindy McCain still hasn't released her tax returns!
Why are we, the great unwashed cyber bullies of the left, not screaming at the top of our lungs for those tax returns?
August 21, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because John McCain was a POW?
Noun, verb, POW.
August 21, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
oh he's not playing the pow card, actually it appears in this case that Rogers was simply making an excuse for McCain's faulty memory.
August 21, 2008 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Welcome back!
August 21, 2008 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Noun, verb and POW.
August 21, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know Biden is not afraid to go there.
August 21, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kinda like they're saying it's a recurrence of McFeeble's PTSD.
Hurry! Get this guy some Geritol!
August 21, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, please God, let his secret VP pick turn out to be Rudy. Its not about what a catastrophe that would be for them. Its about the comedy, oh dear god, the high comedy.
Just imagine the headlines if that was the ticket ... Noun verb 9/11. Noun verb POW. Noun verb 911. Noun verb POW . . .
August 21, 2008 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget "SURGE!"
August 21, 2008 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, what a shock. The american people will get tired of this as long as obama and surrogates don't engage on the pow bs.
August 21, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
HAHAHAHAH...this is getting pathetic.
someobdy should ask mccain if he EARNED those houses or INHERITED them after his FIVE AND A HALF YEARS, ALAN!! FIVE AND A HALF YEARS!
August 21, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
You really think he would remember?
August 21, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is absolutely SNL territory. Do they realize how satirical this sounds?
August 21, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe I'll hafta start watching Leno et al. just to which way the snarky winds are a-blowin'.
August 21, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
This reminds me of the Frozen Caveman Lawyer Routine.
August 21, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
A skit called "Breakfast in New Hampshire," which aired on 2/5/00, shows McCain (Chris Parnell) having a not terribly flattering flashback to his captivity.
Can't find any video, but I remember seeing it when it came out: quite tasteless and funny.
August 21, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was thinking the exact same thing - I thought it was a joke from the moment I read the headline.
Apparently being a POW is supposed to give you a free pass in life, or so the McCain campaign would have us believe.
August 21, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
God knows, the last person we need confronting a monumental tangle of intractable problems is one of those pointy-headed professor types.
If America falls for this crap again, we're circling the drain.
August 21, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't get too dismissive, because:
[a] It WORKS;
[b] It works primarily on THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA.
Who know not to "go there", once the narrative of the untouchable, Tortured Patriotic Saint gets invoked.
It's like a horse's head in the bed of journalists, that anyone who dares to delve so much as one layer below his fucking sainthood will be whacked immediately as a Terrorist.
Meanwhile, the *162* layers of this corrupt and phony little sonofabitch never get explored. Because the MSM got intimidated at Layer One.
What a scam. It's almost as if the MSM had never HEARD of "Karl Rove".
There are not as many stupid Americans as you're led to believe; oh, there are some, but The Official Story is that we ALL believe this shit.
And for the citizens who only pay marginal attention to "politics"... THIS is the only story they're ever going to hear.
In a more, shall we say, efficient society, the mass executions would start with the MSM. They are to blame for EVERYTHING.
August 21, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which is why I was furious when Obama slapped down Clark for saying that being a POW is not a qualification for anything. We need some cracks in that armor coating big enough to stick a screwdriver in and start prying.
August 21, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's Biden time.
Come on, Joe...
"A noun, a verb, and P.O.W.!"
Say it! Say it!
August 21, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, they didn't really try THAT one again, did they? Priceless!
Lame, lamer and lamest.
August 21, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
This doesn't surprise you, does it?
I knew this was coming. The last post on TPM election central I nailed it. If they'd of only added, "and Grampy Golddiger McCain was right on the surge," I could apply for prophet status.
August 21, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Less important than the arguments that are made in Obama's commercials, or McCain's response, is the importance of controlling the news cycle. If tonight is all about McCain's houses, and tomorrow (and the weekend) is all about Obama's VP pick, and next week is the convention, then there will be close to ten days before McCain's campaign is able to control the agenda.
The celeb ad and others like it-- their supposed success -- had less to do with the merit (or lack thereof) of their content and the fact that Obama was always in response mode.
August 21, 2008 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone seen that Horatio Sanz/Bill Murray sketch on SNL a few years back in which Sanz throws furniture out of another man's apartment because, years ago, "My parents were eaten by a bear!"?
The POW card reminds me of that.
August 21, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ha ha, I thought the exact same thing: "But the bear ate my paaaarents!"
August 21, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's playing the POW card from the bottom of the deck!
But seriously, if they keep tossing it out where it's utterly irrelevant, will the press start noting it? Perhaps even mocking him? For the tactic, of course, not for his POW-hood.
August 21, 2008 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think the press will notice. They have thier heads so firmly up thier asses it is hard to hear.
August 21, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
August 21, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry for screwing up the HTML tags.
Did I mention I was a POW?
August 21, 2008 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
IOKIYAPOW
August 21, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure those Ottomans can be brutal on POW's.
August 21, 2008 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know when I was a commercial fisherman in Alaska I spent a summer as a POW (prisoner of Whittier.)
Since this is uneniably true I think I'm going to go rob a bank, beat up a nun, kick a puppy and poop on a cop car.
But it is okay, I was a POW.
August 21, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
kicking puppies is NOT cool!
Otherwise, carry on. =]
August 21, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think America wants an professor-type when it comes to the economy. That POW shit isn't going to work.
Obama needs to repeat over and over
1. 7 homes
2. $8000,000 tax cut for multi-millionaires
3. $5 million rich
August 21, 2008 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain has drawn a line in the sand.
Oh, wait, that's a cross. Never mind.
August 21, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gold medal.
August 21, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn right.
August 21, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oskie has won this thread...
August 21, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Man, Halperin is really trying to bury this story. He's had the most ridiculous "Hillary Clinton for VP?" nonstory at the top of his page almost all day, and the next story down is how McCain is "going nuclear" on Obama.
August 21, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
He is demonstrating what a blatant tool he is, isn't he?
August 21, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Once again my point is proven:
Mark Halperin sucks!
McCain: Ten houses is fine if you're a POW.
August 21, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
New Obama ad: "McCain thinks that he needs seven/ten houses because he was a POW. But he doesn't think other former POWs deserve decent health care from the VA, or that Iraq vets deserve a good education."
August 21, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember that name he called Edwards...yeah, it fits him as well. I really can't stand that guy.
August 21, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCranky going nuclear sounds good to me.
August 21, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know it was inevitable, but I gotta pat myself on the back for calling it this morning.
August 21, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
This isn't going to work. They're not going to get an ad out of it unless they just start advertising that he spent five years as a POW without bringing up any context, and the value of "POW" will be diluted.
Plus, I like how they refer to Obama's house as a "frikkin mansion". They really want to go there? Really?
August 21, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, yeah, and then we can flash all those images of McCain's McMansions!
August 21, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why would they use "frickin"? Isn't that kind of wierd for a presidential campaign?
August 21, 2008 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it reflects how rattled the campaign actually is.
Sweet avatar, btw.
August 21, 2008 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks! :-)
August 21, 2008 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please, people. Let's not forget that Obama enjoys eating fancy lettuce.
WHO'S THE REAL ELITIST HERE????
August 21, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excuse me, but arugula (eruca sativa) is NOT lettuce! It's of the eruca genus, unlike lettuce whose genus is-
D'OH! There I go again! Once an elitist...
August 21, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
you pointy headed professor!
August 21, 2008 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
you pointy headed professor!
August 21, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quiet! You, you, pointy-headed, professor-type!!
August 21, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure, he was a POW, then he cheated on his wife, married a rich heiress, and got his 10+ homes as a result. Talk about being an elitist.
August 21, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
SAT time:
Guiliani:9/11::McCain:___________?
a) Canada
b) POW
c) bunny rabbits
d) Charles Keating
August 21, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL...it's been a while since i looked at one those goddamn analogies.
August 21, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I pick:
e) Surge!
August 21, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink