"I've Taken On Tougher Guys Than Wall St."

Who? The lobbyists that run your campaign? Your advisers that called USA a "a nation of whiners and exaggerators"? Fiorina, who now will just "disappear" for saying the truth yesterday?

I mean, come on!

"I've taken on tougher guys than this before," McCain says -- an apparent allusion to his war record.

Um, how'd that turn out, John?

Obama needs to release an ad that attacks McCain.

"WaPo: McCain Changing Positions On Financial Regulation
The Washington Post goes into detail this morning on how John McCain is embracing positions of financial regulation, but only after he's spent years opposing it. "McCain now condemns the executives at those companies for pursuing the ambitions that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made possible," the Post says, in reference to legislation that McCain had supported in years past and was written by economic adviser Phil Gramm"

-this should be the talking point from here on end...to eternity

McCain's right, guys. Some people think the economy is infinitely complex, but it's really just like a mean NVA soldier who does bad things to you. It's that simple.

Notice that McCain's ad talks about "you" and "your" problems, while Obama's speaks of "we" and "us".

McCain's skirting dangerously close to encouraging Hatch Act violations if he's having AK state employees spending their time on the clock directing reporters to the McCain campaign.

This McCain ad is a perfect illustration of what I was saying in the previous thread. Obama cannot gain ground by running as a High Borderite because McCain can just confuse low-information voters by co-opting his message.

Maybe the rally will get completely out of control and they'll round them all up and stuff everyone, including Palin, into paddy wagons. That would be a hoot.

Hillary Clinton has canceled a planned appearance at a protest outside the Iranian embassy in Washington on September 22. The reason: Organizers also invited Sarah Palin to attend, which could have led to a public confrontation between the two.

Apparently they're considering disinviting Palin now. Which begs the question: why did they invite both in the first place? If there was interest in a balance between the two parties, why would they invite the VP from one ticket and then Clinton? Because she said she's obliterate Iran? It feels like they were just looking for politicians to brow-beat Iran.

"I've taken on tougher guys than this before," McCain says

And surrendered then, too.

I see rope-a-dope number two coming. Last week it was lies (and we all freaked out when the Obama camp wasn't coming down hard enough). Now it's empty promises (which, I recognize are also lies).

So Obama lays out a comprehensive plan, invites all to look at it, and McCain starts stumping about "GREED! CORRUPTION! CHANGE!" You let it accumulate for 3-4 days, and then you kill him with it. And then every McCain hack who goes on TV gets to explain why McCain is attacking Obama for not offering solutions when Obama has laid out a detailed plan and McCain's just spouting talking points that conflict with his economic philosophy.

Brilliant!

This Election is a Referendum on the Rule of Law and the Constitution.

Unless we see it for what it is, we are doomed.

For those of you who didn't watch Countdown yesterday, I guess a ton of Obama staffers have changed their email signature on their Blackberries to say,

"Sent from my Blackberry, a miracle brought to you by John McCain."

I thought that was hilarious.

back up on intrade

My comment was a reply to Zack above at 9:34 re his comment on the Hatch Act.

Palin may have shot bears but can she ride a bear market? If the Bush Doctrine made her look like a deer in the headlights what would an economic collapse do to her?

Katie, you're up. Are you a journalist or an entertainer?

Reality Show women are not reality-based.

John McCain's whole campaign message is: vote for me because I was a POW. He has nothing else to run on or we'd hear it.

Cite:

Head of State

http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/09/cynicism-of-mccains-vp-choice.html

Monday, September 15, 2008

The Cynicism of John McCain and his VP Choice

If you read Jeffrey Goldberg's excellent piece on McCain in the new Atlantic, one fact stands out clearly. McCain's stance on the war is inviolate--it involves what for him are principles of honor that stretch back immediately and directly to his own experiences in the Vietnam war, and to those of his father in World War II. Just one example of many in the first-rate article:

I told Swindle [a cellmate and friend of McCain's] that McCain had argued to me that he doesn’t think about Vietnam overly much when he thinks about the wars of today.

“Bullshit,” Swindle said. “He’ll say Vietnam didn’t affect him, that he doesn’t think about it, that he’s aloof from it. But I see it. It’s there.”

This is the issue on which McCain is inflexible, certain, fully invested, passionate.

It is equally clear that as a result, he views all other issues as malleable, political issues--stances that can be easily taken, and easily changed, tactically-- in order to win a campaign and thus deal with the issue that, to him, matters.

This is utterly clear in his choice of Palin, where his Vietnam-and-since cynicism about political necessities is manifest--one of feeding the bread and circuses desire of the electorate, giving them, so easily fooled, as they were so easily fooled by the media in Vietnam, what they need, in order to be able to deal with the important issue.

The choice of a remarkably unqualified Vice Presidential choice is simply a political necessity. The attitude towards the public, and the media, in this choice, as in many of the public representations and statements of his campaign, is one of an extraordinary, jaded, cynicism: Feed the beast with whatever fantasies and half-truths it takes. We'll take care of it later.

Goldberg:

In my conversations with McCain, however, he never appeared greatly troubled by his shifts and reversals. It’s not difficult to understand why: tax policy, or health care, or even off-shore oil drilling are for him all matters of mere politics, and politics calls for ideological plasticity. It is only in the realm of national defense, and of American honor—two notions that for McCain are thoroughly entwined—that he becomes truly unbending.

This is no doubt rooted in McCain's eternal certainties, drummed in by three generations of such certainty. And there is no doubt strength and decency--as well as these "family values"--that drive this commitment to an ideological core.

The question is this: Do we need another president with such a core of ideological inflexibility, rigidity and unwillingness for self-reflection, linked to a long past conflict--and who is willing to resort to half-truths, deceptions, and distortions in its service?

Cite:

Head of State

http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/09/cynicism-of-mccains-vp-choice.html

Didn't McCain say the other day that he was "dead set" against a bail out of AIG? Shouldn't he be pressed on that and explain why Treasury's and the FED's reasoning is all wrong? Also, couldn't someone ask him why GWB is helping to create the United Socialist Republic of America (or USRA, kinda like the NRA)? (snark) If they keep him on the defensive on this stuff, Wingnut heads will be exploding all over the place as they try to rationalize all this on ideological grounds through their twisted logic.

John McCain has this new ad out on the economy, saying that he can reform the financial system while Barack Obama is just "talk and taxes"

More lies from the lying liar.

Instead of actually trying to explain the problem and what he's going to do about it, Obama should just run an ad with fast-paced images of hot chicks, NASCAR races, hunky men, fast food, and piles of gold, while he repeats over and over - "McCain sucks! Wall Street sucks! I'm going to give you things - with NO MONEY DOWN!"

Seriously, do we need to run local cable car dealership ads to get the attention of half of the voters in this nation? I fear we do.

McCain, by the way, looks kind of ominous in that ad. A little scary. Maybe that's the idea - "I'm the bad ass who is going to take on the Wall Street folks whose asses I and my party kissed for the last 25 years." If I were his ad guy, I would have improved it by inserting that shots of him gritting his teeth while at the Hanoi Hilton and a shot of Palin in a bikini, sitting on a "snow machine", holding an automatic rifle in one hand and moose testicles in the other. He'd win in a landslide if he did that. Heck, forget about McCain and his message on the economy - just show the shots of him in prison camp and Palin in a bikini.

It's not as if McCain is new to the world of finance, regulation...and scandal. Now seems like a good time to review his own history, and specifically a story known as the Keating Five, of whom he was one, that emerged during a previous financial bust known as the S&L meltdown. Far from "taking on" the institutions, McCain's hand was outstretched...

Hmmm...If you pay close attention to McCain's ad, he lays out no proposals or ideas for how he'll deal with the problem. Is it due to the fact that he doesn't know the difference between the SIPC and the SPIC?

Obama at least lays out several ideas for a plan to deal with what's going on.

"I'll reform Wall St. and fix Washington -- I've taken on tougher guys than this before," McCain says -- an apparent allusion to his war record.

Does anyone doubt that if he dares to seriously take on Wall Street, they'll put him in chains and lock him in a box?

Any man caught talkin' regulation in the Oval office... spends a night in the box. You get two solutions to any problem. You get to cut taxes, and you get to cut regulation... Any man talkin' new taxes or new regulations spends a night in the box.

uh,,, we are just finishing up the SECOND term of another "cowboy" ...so Yeah, for sure , folks stil lguillible and etc..Remember Ronnie too...LOL, therein lies the problem with the current 2min ad with Obama...Yeah, makes for intelligent presentation for those that DO bother to stop , thinkponder,consider etc..but there are so very, very many who DON't bother and who do bother to vote. Hence, we gt psuedo cowboys who skinny on in due to "images" that are none too factual but tug the emotions of other wannabee's but can't so willing to give the sorts of Bush or McCain or Ronnie, the sorts they want to have over for a beer,bbq or etc that seem to be extrodinary sorts but like themselves trapped and time to send messages and prove ANYONE REALLY CAN ACHIEVE ,forgetting that just because CAN does not really mean best to ALLOW for many more pertinent reasons. Folks often fail to realize the consequences until it REALLY hits home and themselves and often far too late but even then for some , hope springs eternal and they likely would do the same again and again and again.

Nicely put.

Even John McCain has admitted his shortcomings in this area, and is being advised by the guy who helped bring this all about. Who is he planning on confronting? We can only hope it himself.

I am able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. Just because I say it doesn’t mean I can do it. Why doesn’t someone drill down and ask McCain how he intends to fight Wall St and Washington. Since he has been in Washington for over 25 years he will be smacking himself

New Virginia Poll from PPP

Obama 48 McCain 46

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_Virginia_91735.pdf

If we hold all Kerry states plus Iowa(we're leading there by double digits) and Virginia, we win the Whitehouse.

How exactly did he take on tougher guys -
by bombing indiscriminately from 30,000 feet -
give me a freaking break

Sorry to say this John but the POW mojo is all gone. You used it all up too early in the campaign and now that you need it it ain't there anymore. People don't are scared shitless about the economy and they don't understand how 5 years in a Vietnamese prison camp is going to help you save the economy. So let it rest already.