AMERICAblog: TIME: "The McCain campaign's constant invocation of the candidate's POW past is weird bordering on irrational"
DeppFan
· 1 year ago
Now that's an issue that resonates. McCain POW = Giuliani 9/11 A one-trick pony.
HereinDC
· 1 year ago
Ouch!
the last sentence is priceless:
"It's a head-spinning non sequitur, designed to distract us from something mildly troubling with the assertion of something impressive."
vkobaya
· 1 year ago
Yes, it is irrational and dishonest. What Obama needs to do is hit the most important issues repeatedly forcing McCain to resort again and again to this irrational cover until it becomes clear to everyone, even Barney, Bush's dog, that this is empty justification for McCain's failings. In reality, of course, some like Bush, McCain and a few of the idiot mouthpieces like Hannity, O'Reilley and LImbaugh are, of course, incapable of comprehending that it is irrational and demagogic, but make this the losing McCain campaign strategy. More than anything else, eventually everyone who is capable will understand that it is empty rhetoric, the King's new clothes. If we can do that, there is a chance that Obama might even win by the large margin that he deserves, which might also force him to abandon moderate middle of the road stance for really becoming a people's president. And, imagine what coat tails he might have. With a massive landslide victory, he could force the Congressional Damnocrats to also abandon their disgusting moderate politics, moderate really being a code word for corporate.
There slogan actually seems fitting for the GOP rather than the Dems.
Their slogan? "Not Ready '08: A Mile High and an Inch Deep," a play on the nickname for the high-altitude city in the western United States.
Two more useless pieces of dog shit are hard to imagine. They will be performing a number of musical numbers from "Hello Dolly". Rudy of course will take the female role he so cherishes. He is also expected to reprise a couple of numbers by Lisa Minelli and told ABC that given some encouragement he just might sing a couple of Marlene Dietrich numbers in honor of his German "henchmen". Oh Rudy, a songstress at heart.
Bush_Bites
· 1 year ago
Interesting.
Time says Mitt will be Veep, but now I wonder.
Maybe Ridge?
vkobaya
· 1 year ago
A Mile High and an Inch Deep
Exactly! The presidential conventions have become a meaningless dog and pony show that produces nothing of substance since the naming of the vice presidential candidates will take place before the campaigns. About the only thing that might be of possible significance might an important speech such as Obama's Keynote speech in 2004. Otherwise, I would hope the blogsare wise enough to avoid the massive cost of sending people to those meaningless floor shows which are nothing more demagogic posturing by the corporate media. That is money which might well be spent on far more worthwhile projects, serious research into the right wing and neocon crimes, maybe finally discrediting everything on the right wing and the disgusting moderate concessions to them.
Don't get me wrong. I don't want to see a permanent leftist, liberal hold on our government. We need conservatives to keep the Damnocrats honest or they will eventually drift either into an ideological utopian mess like Communism or become so corrupt as to be no better than the Republicans. But conservatives are a far different thing from neocons, and the extreme right wing. Real honest conservatism may even have worthwhile things to say about our government, but what exists today in the Republican party is not conservatism, but rather extreme, despotic Nazi ideology. If nothing else, we need opposition to keep people like Pelosi, Reid and the Clintons honest.
lynchie
· 1 year ago
I agree in part. I believe in keeping the overall government small. do we really need a city, county, state, federal department of health, education, etc., etc.. I have always felt that it was a useless duplication of work and a place to put your friends, nieces, nephews, sons and daughters. There is a bill that has been sitting for a couple of years here in Pennsylvania to cut 20% of our State Senators. Pa. has more state senators per capita than any state in the union. Of course this will never pass since it would mean that 20% of these ass clowns would be out of work. It is estimated that it would save $2.8 billion in salaries, perks, office staff, pensions, health insurance and the like. This is why I doubt that Washington will allow anyone to change the status quo. The politicians believe they are entitled to the perks, kickbacks, bribes, pedophilia, etc. They are working so hard. Like their current 5 week vacation. They have worked only 103 days in the past year, yet make enormous salaries and perks. I am frankly tired of the burden that Washington politicians put on the taxpayers of this country. I say let them take all the money from the lobbyists and corporations as they want. We simply won't pay them or provide benefits. They take the money anyway we might as well look at cutting our income tax. They take the bribes, kickbacks and hookers and do more for corporations than any American.
Busboy
· 1 year ago
What lynchie said
vkobaya
· 1 year ago
I think you are buying into the right wing rhetoric about duplication in government. The local, municipal levels actually administer the various functions of government. The higher levels are needed to distribute the funds and oversee how well the local levels administer the programs. It really is necessary and my guess is how government work in every nation and government in the world. To take your argument to the extreme absurdity, would you want only one government official, Bush or even Obama to administer all government functions by himself. No, he can't do it by himself. The various levels don't duplicate. True it does offer opportunities for graft, corruption and other problems including many, many incompetent officials, but the truth is that it is unavoidable. Have the Republicans had any more luck in shrinking government than the Democrats? No! What the Republicans mean by shrinking government is they want to stop all programs that offer any aid and assistance to the people, including shcools, health care, roads, airports, etc. Essential to the Republicans would be the military which would also serve for local policing. We need the separation of functions. Your dream of elimination of duplication only works if government is small enough, that is in the Vatican or say Luxembourg. Even the major municipalities don't work unless they start to delegate authority to smaller entities. Los Angeles is an example that I am very familiar with. The damn city government and city council is so isolated from the citizens, they literally get away with everything short of murder and, in the case of the LAPD, the even get away with literal, blatant murder, simply gunning down citizens on a whim with no more repercussions than a very small slap on the wrist for literal murder. Look at that cop in Inglewood who gunned down two citizens within three months without even being taken off duty after the first murder. Has anything at all been done to punish him as any other citizen would be punished for flat out, blatant murder?
lynchie
· 1 year ago
I agree if the various levels are working together and delegating authority and responsibility. However, what is happening across the country is the various levels working against each other with federal rules and regulations which are never translated down to the regional county or town level. In turn, you have local municipalities which pass laws designed to be totally counter to the state and federal rules. I will give you an example. I purchased a wind turbine. The state says it is the law that electrical companies in Pa. agree to interconnectivity (I can hook into the electrical grid and run my meter in reverse when there is suffiecient wind). There is to be no need for a building permit or any other regulations at a local, municiple or county level. When I went to install it i had to do a $5,000 noise test, even though my closest neighbor is more than a mile away. Then the local electrical co-op who i purchase electricity from notified me that i need to carry a $10 million insurance policy to guarantee my electricity is compatible with their electricity. I have called over 20 insurance companies not a single one knows how to write such a policy, the electrical company won't provide me with the details of what the polcity should say and the turbine company tells me they have never had this requirement anywhere in the U.S. where they have sold over 20,000 turbines. No one at any level of the government will answer my questions, pleas or help in any way. So why all the various levels of government with laws and regulations that at another level are simply disregarded or a different law prevails. For you to say they don't duplicate services is to ignore the facts. The republicans don't want to shrink government, they want it as big as possible so the transfer of wealth can continue. Size has nothing to do with waste except the larger the more waste.
JMOHR
· 1 year ago
So, hit him on several other issues. His reliance on special interest lobbyists - government of, for and by the corporations. His Keating five association. His own personal family wealth and his flip flops. Roll out one every four days and see if we can then cause several repetitions of the POW response. My guess is that his campaign will become totally unraveled.
bunnyjump
· 1 year ago
Hear, hear! McCain can't really point to anything stellar in his career..too many flipflops..jeebus, the current president of his own party is a liability...the only thing that they think is bulletproof is the POW thing. The Dems need Kerry to "swiftboat" McCain.
Steve_in_CNJ
· 1 year ago
"You hate the troops" = "you curse the marines". The parallels between Republicans and Col. Jessup are eery. Yes, get in McCain's face and see what happens:
Apparently, it's just a rehash of Trudy Julie-Annie's "9-11 Tourettes," except this in "POW Tourettes." Start saying anything to or about McCain and his handlers start shrieking "POW - POW - POW."
Of course, it's all they've got.
On the other hand, if being held prisoner and tortured is a top qualification for president, there are 600+ people in Gitmo who should be given a shot at it.
dad
· 1 year ago
a NOUN, a VERB and P.O.W.
interlude
· 1 year ago
he overuses it? it is all he's got to run on. and i mean. all. he's. got. noun + verb + POW = McCain Campaign
jescot
· 1 year ago
I was grew up with Jewish parents so that makes me a POW but don't see me using it as an exuse all the time ....
foolme1ns
· 1 year ago
I think when they say "John McCain was a POW" they are really saying that "John McCain is brain damaged" because they use it as an excuse for everything he does, like he is mentally challenged and can't help himself.
Not a good image for a President.
dad
· 1 year ago
special
Busboy
· 1 year ago
However unlikely, McCain seems to be becoming the "teflon" candidate.
red_dwarf
· 1 year ago
Bordering on the irrational. Bordering on a lie. Bordering on facism. Everything is bordering on.
Nothing is real anymore. And John, don't use big words like "irrational" - Americans haven't a clue.
TheOriginalLiz
· 1 year ago
I wish someone would bring up that, based on guidance from the current government, which McCain has agreed with, what he experienced in Hanoi was not torture, just "enhanced interrogation". What a big crybaby to make such a fuss about having been on the receiving end of "enhanced interrogation".
Busboy
· 1 year ago
If Obama was smart he would be working on damage control. Sean Hannity is supposedly launching a telethon next week to raise money for Obama's brother in Kenya who's living on a dollar a month.
Mike_G
· 1 year ago
Charming, coming from a douchebag who thinks the poor 'deserve' their poverty here in the United States.
LisaLV711
· 1 year ago
Sean needs to keep that money himself. Because he's soon to be fired anyday now.
kimbutgar
· 1 year ago
The fact that he was a POW makes me nervous as he might have more irrational and untreated post traumatic stress syndrome problems. And that "my friends" he says is downright creepy! I just don't see how him being a POW makes him a better candidate unless they are using this to cast sympathy for him so we feel so guilty that we have to vote for him because he was a POW. Since he was tortured we have to vote for him for repayment for those 5 year he was held captive? That's the only reason I see them pushing this framing line..
1billinnj2
· 1 year ago
it is ashame that mcCain would belittle the pow's just to win an office that he does not deserve.
LeesiD
· 1 year ago
McCain is really, and unwisely leaving himself open to be criticized. There are folks out there who have already dispelled McCain's POW status as being very close to mythological....one only has to understand that when he keeps telling the story of how he was offered early release, but turned it down because he didn't want to leave his comrades behind and there were other POWs who were there longer than he was, that is a myth, and I say that because when he was on the committee to investigate the MIA/POW issue, he tried to delay it, hoping it would go away, because doing this to conclusion, as the families wanted, didn't go along with his narrative. What was he scared of?!
pigletson
· 1 year ago
According to Sean Hannity, cheating on your wife is also totally excusable if you are a POW.
I used to work in a company where one of my immediate supervisors was a recovering alcoholic. He was a jackass. He wasn't a jackass BECAUSE he was a recovering alcoholic. He was a jackass AND he was a recovering alcoholic. He was a jackass BECAUSE he used his alcoholism as an instane defense/excuse for anything he did wrong, accidentally OR deliberately. If he got caught trying to screw over a client, or use petty cash for something in the workplace he just wanted to have (regardless of who else it might benefit), if he physically caused damage to the workplace or our stock, he'd revert to a "You don't know what it's LIKE! Don't JUDGE ME! mentality. He never took responsibility for the fact that he was a crap worker, if he were judging him harshly, we had to cut him slack because of his problem, even if why we were judging him had nothing to do with his alcoholism and everything to do with his crap work record.
At least HE wasn't running for President.
At what point does "leave him alone, he's a former POW/he's a war hero" become an unusable excuse. What if he's President, and he exacerbates a tense situation, turns a disagreement into a conflict, or conflict into a battle, or a battle into a war? Will his POW-ness still be his Get Out of Jail card then? We're not craaping on the man because he's a POW, we're crapping on him because he can't keep his stories or his facts or his attacks straight, and it's acary to think a man who can't remember what he said before, sometimes mere moments before, will be the face of America. We've had that for almost 8 years now, it hasn't worked out well. If his campaign is trying to excuse bad behavior NOW with "he's a POW," do you really think they won't use it if he's in the Oval Office? That once McMaverickety no longer has to campaign for the job he'll snap to and start to be competent? When the stress of the free world REALLY IS on his shoulders?
Mark in Florida
· 1 year ago
WELL SAID.
Mark in Florida
· 1 year ago
Yes, a very bizarre connection they are trying to make. Very bizarre. Even the average seventh grader can see how pathetic this constant referrence is.
McSAME= A NOUN, A VERB, AND POW.
Mark in Florida
· 1 year ago
It's like the Holiday Inn Ad. Connecting everything to, 'no, but I did sleep in a Holiday in once"......
..."no, but I was a POW once".....Oh, I see. Ok, that's all the questions I have......
TomJoad
· 1 year ago
I just keep getting reminded of Catch-22 all the time. The GOP generally thinks like Colonel Cathcart. Been some years now, but I remember him talking to his cohort...Yossarian had done something that gave him a "black mark" instead of a "feather in my cap", and they discuss it and his underling gets the brilliant idea of treating a bad, shameful thing as a proud fine thing. Like "you mean, take something we ought to be ashamed of, and actually act like we're proud of it and as if it were a good thing?". "yes...exactly!" So they threw a parade for it.
I wouldn't call it shameful, but isn't it a "bad thing" to get shot down? To get captured? Isn't that a failure of implementation? Sure, it was war, but it is not a shining moment. Once you are captured, how you conduct yourself can be impressive, and heroic, but either way...you're stuck there. I have read quite different accounts of McCains whole history. He says one thing, there are indications of other things.
Why this would even come into play as qualifications as president I don't know. It hasn't yet happened that a president has been kidnapped, and tortured (ooops...according to McCain that isn't torture) so how well he can stand up to it is a moot point.
LisaLV711
· 1 year ago
Maybe he'll start using his Maverick status this week.
All Comments
McCain POW = Giuliani 9/11
A one-trick pony.
the last sentence is priceless:
"It's a head-spinning non sequitur, designed to distract us from something mildly troubling with the assertion of something impressive."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieZcsHWb_Q4
Daddy Beerbucks takes a nine-car motorcade to Starbucks.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/22/92312/3...
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=562...
There slogan actually seems fitting for the GOP rather than the Dems.
Their slogan? "Not Ready '08: A Mile High and an Inch Deep," a play on the nickname for the high-altitude city in the western United States.
Two more useless pieces of dog shit are hard to imagine. They will be performing a number of musical numbers from "Hello Dolly". Rudy of course will take the female role he so cherishes. He is also expected to reprise a couple of numbers by Lisa Minelli and told ABC that given some encouragement he just might sing a couple of Marlene Dietrich numbers in honor of his German "henchmen". Oh Rudy, a songstress at heart.
Time says Mitt will be Veep, but now I wonder.
Maybe Ridge?
Exactly! The presidential conventions have become a meaningless dog and pony show that produces nothing of substance since the naming of the vice presidential candidates will take place before the campaigns. About the only thing that might be of possible significance might an important speech such as Obama's Keynote speech in 2004. Otherwise, I would hope the blogsare wise enough to avoid the massive cost of sending people to those meaningless floor shows which are nothing more demagogic posturing by the corporate media. That is money which might well be spent on far more worthwhile projects, serious research into the right wing and neocon crimes, maybe finally discrediting everything on the right wing and the disgusting moderate concessions to them.
Don't get me wrong. I don't want to see a permanent leftist, liberal hold on our government. We need conservatives to keep the Damnocrats honest or they will eventually drift either into an ideological utopian mess like Communism or become so corrupt as to be no better than the Republicans. But conservatives are a far different thing from neocons, and the extreme right wing. Real honest conservatism may even have worthwhile things to say about our government, but what exists today in the Republican party is not conservatism, but rather extreme, despotic Nazi ideology. If nothing else, we need opposition to keep people like Pelosi, Reid and the Clintons honest.
McCain can't really point to anything stellar in his career..too many flipflops..jeebus, the current president of his own party is a liability...the only thing that they think is bulletproof is the POW thing. The Dems need Kerry to "swiftboat" McCain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j2F4VcBmeo
Of course, it's all they've got.
On the other hand, if being held prisoner and tortured is a top qualification for president, there are 600+ people in Gitmo who should be given a shot at it.
noun + verb + POW = McCain Campaign
Not a good image for a President.
Nothing is real anymore. And John, don't use big words like "irrational" - Americans haven't a clue.
That's the only reason I see them pushing this framing line..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TywWtlK1hs
At least HE wasn't running for President.
At what point does "leave him alone, he's a former POW/he's a war hero" become an unusable excuse. What if he's President, and he exacerbates a tense situation, turns a disagreement into a conflict, or conflict into a battle, or a battle into a war? Will his POW-ness still be his Get Out of Jail card then? We're not craaping on the man because he's a POW, we're crapping on him because he can't keep his stories or his facts or his attacks straight, and it's acary to think a man who can't remember what he said before, sometimes mere moments before, will be the face of America. We've had that for almost 8 years now, it hasn't worked out well. If his campaign is trying to excuse bad behavior NOW with "he's a POW," do you really think they won't use it if he's in the Oval Office? That once McMaverickety no longer has to campaign for the job he'll snap to and start to be competent? When the stress of the free world REALLY IS on his shoulders?
McSAME= A NOUN, A VERB, AND POW.
..."no, but I was a POW once".....Oh, I see. Ok, that's all the questions I have......
I wouldn't call it shameful, but isn't it a "bad thing" to get shot down? To get captured? Isn't that a failure of implementation? Sure, it was war, but it is not a shining moment. Once you are captured, how you conduct yourself can be impressive, and heroic, but either way...you're stuck there. I have read quite different accounts of McCains whole history. He says one thing, there are indications of other things.
Why this would even come into play as qualifications as president I don't know. It hasn't yet happened that a president has been kidnapped, and tortured (ooops...according to McCain that isn't torture) so how well he can stand up to it is a moot point.