McCain's Verbal Acrobatics

McCain does his best to make two mutually exclusive claims at once, leading to hilarity:

John McCain with a bit of verbal acrobatics on CNN's American Morning, trying to say the stimulus package was a failure while decrying the "politics" being played when Ray LaHood told his Governor they were free to follow McCain and Kyl's advice and turn down the money for Arizona.

CHETRY: All right. Republicans are hitting the Obama administration hard, not only over the cost of overhauling health care, but also the stimulus plan. Whether it's working effectively and whether it's worth the billions it cost. In Arizona, it turned up to a dustup between one senator and members of the administration, and now Senator John McCain is joining that fight over whether the stimulus spending should be outright canceled.

[snip]

CHETRY: What I'm wondering, though, is so we have Jon Kyl criticizing the stimulus, and saying that it's failing.

MCCAIN: As have I, and it is.

CHETRY: Right. And both senators from the state are saying that. So, what about perhaps putting your money...

MCCAIN: We're saying it failed.

CHETRY: What about putting your money where your mouth is and, OK, let's not take any money.

MCCAIN: We are saying that it failed, it has failed by any measurement. And by the way, one of the cabinet secretaries told me over the phone in these words that the letter that was sent is political b.s. That's what he said to me. And you know what? He's right.

[snip - during which McCain does everything he can to change the subject, and manifestly does not attempt to put his money where his mouth is]

CHETRY: Back to the stimulus money, though. For and you Jon Kyl...

MCCAIN: It's our tax dollars, and we obviously feel very strongly that we don't want our tax dollars wasted, especially Arizona's tax dollars. We send more money to Washington. The bill has been passed, the money is being distributed. Unfortunately, only 10 percent of it, and that is the case. But the stimulus has been a failure and everybody knows it.

CHETRY: So your governor, Jan Brewer, did put up on the Web site, where this money is going. Saying it's going to protect some of (INAUDIBLE), it's going to grow Arizona's future, it's going to create jobs. The mayor of Phoenix, who is a Democrat, says that he needs the money to build roads and to put people to work. They're on the frontlines of these, are they wrong?

MCCAIN: I'm sure they're probably - of course, they are correct in that the money will be of some help. It has been a failure and it is an outright failure and that's undeniable.

Only 10% of the stimulus has been distributed, it's already employing people and helping cities and states avoid utter meltdown, and Arizona doesn't want to give any of the money back, but this fucktard declares it a failure. Priceless.

Sometimes, I wonder if John McLame realizes just how very, very ridiculous he sounds. I just hope Arizonans, especially those who are currently enjoying stimulus success, laugh this assclown out of his Senate seat come next election.

Lest We Forget...

...let this serve as a reminder that John McCain is a backstabbing, two-faced, unprincipled douchebag.

McCain Hires Racist Assclowns for GOTV Efforts

Someone hasn't been reading his How to Win Friends and Influence People lately:

Sounds like that vaunted GOP microtargeting machine might be ready for a bit of a tune-up. From TPM Reader QG ...

Interesting anecdote and probably a testament to ground organization. I have no idea what this means. Friday night (which happens to be the start of our Sabbath) my wife answered the phone to hear a man stating he was from the McCain-Palin campaign. He asked who she was supporting. She replied that we will vote for Obama. He replied with "but he's a f-----g n---er!". Before I get to my wife's response I'll first have to say that I understand desperation and I also understand that this pitch may actually work for a few people. I also understand that there are people who are whack-jobs phone-banking for both sides. But here are some facts:

My wife and I are Black. Citing the fact that Obama is a f----g n---er as a way to sway our vote may not be a great idea. My wife and I live in Maryland... Baltimore, MD.... One of the most African American areas of Baltimore Maryland. How on earth did our phone numbers get on to a McCain volunteers phone bank list of potential voters to be calling at this stage in the game? We have never received a call from the Obama campaign.

Just weird. Not sure what to make of it... but that's not a good sign of organization. If it did anything it made us want to donate more. BTW, the rest of the call went downhill from there. My wife prayed for forgiveness after the call.

Remarkable. All I can say is, I hope all of McCain's GOTV efforts are this successful.

We're Talking to Syria! (No We Aren't!) (Yes We Are!) (No!) (Yes!)

Could someone please tell McCain that it might be a good idea to get his surrogates on the same fucking page sometime in the next twenty-four hours? Only right now you have to be a fan of terminal confusion as well as another four years of Bush/Cheney madness to vote for this fucktard:

In a new interview with Foreign Policy magazine, Syrian ambassador Imad Moustapha said that Syria is “doing everything possible within our means” to stop insurgents from crossing into Iraq, and decried the recent U.S. strike into Syria as a “terrorist, criminal act.” Most interestingly, Moutapha said that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) personally assured him that a McCain presidency would open up a dialogue with Syria:

FP: U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama says that he would be willing to sit down with states that are now considered enemies of the United States. Is that encouraging to you?

IM: I have reason to believe that even if [Senator John] McCain becomes president of the United States, he will also be inclined to sit and talk with Syria. I can tell you this on the record: Senator Joe Lieberman, who is supposed to be very close to McCain, has said this explicitly and very clearly to me personally.

This is a startling revelation, considering McCain and Lieberman have attacked politicians who have sought to engage Syria diplomatically...

Go. Read the rest. Return.

How fucked up is that, eh? Either they're lying out their asses to Syria - and I don't doubt they would, seeing as how they do so enjoy lying to Americans - or they've completely changed their tune. Again, I wouldn't be surprised. McCain ain't called Jukebox John for nothing.

Either way, I have serious doubts that a McCain administration would be stable enough for other countries to deal with. America's forced the world to put up with batshit insane for too long. Time to give them, and ourselves, a much needed breather.

Closing Argument: My Friends the Musical

Says it all, really:

Beyond Pathetic

Obama pulls in crowds of up to 100,000 on a regular basis. I didn't think there were 100,000 people total in America who gave enough of a rat's ass about politics to stand for hours in line just to get packed in like sardines for yet more hours in order to listen to a man's stump speeches, but here we are. Obama's just that good.

McCain had a rally in Ohio today - wonder how he's measuring up? Oh, deary me:

The McCain campaign actually had to bus in school kids from the surrounding area in order to fill the event. As reported by MSNBC:

A local school district official confirmed after the event that of the 6,000 people estimated by the fire marshal to be in attendance this morning, more than 4,000 were bused in from schools in the area. The entire 2,500-student Defiance School District was in attendance, the official said, in addition to at least three other schools from neighboring districts, one of which sent 14 buses.

This happened -- as if a reminder were needed -- less than a week out from the election, when the heat of the campaign should be drawing record crowds.

I feel sorry for those kids. I remember the agony of being forced to attend rallies at which a bunch of blithering idiots yawped at us for an hour or so. But at least we were only window dressing for our school spirit rather than warm bodies to plump up the crowd numbers for a two-bit Republicon hack who bears an eerie resemblance to that embarassing elderly relative who rants at the young-uns from the front porch.

McCain seems to feel safe with kids who are too young to vote. Maybe he feels that seeing his former-POW self hurl insults like "socialist" at his political opponent while the crazy adults filling in the cracks in the audience scream "communist!" "terrorist!" and other choice epithets will ensure the kiddies are brainwashed enough to vote Republicon when they come of age. It hardly matters to McCain anyway: by the time these children are all growed up and voting straight Democratic tickets in hopes of purging the trauma from their minds, he'll be safely dead or demented. But it's a far different story when it comes to people who are old enough to vote and young enough to be suspected Obama supporters:

Audience members escorted out of Sen. John McCain’s, R-Ariz., campaign event in Cedar Falls questioned why they were asked to leave Sunday’s rally even though they were not protesting.

David Zarifis, director of public safety for the University of Northern Iowa, said McCain staffers requested UNI police assist in escorting out “about four or five” people from the rally prior to McCain’s speech.

[snip]

[Lara Elborno] said McCain staffers wouldn’t tell her why she was being asked to leave and when she got outside, she saw “a group of about 20 people” who had all been asked to leave.

Elborno said after seeing the people who were asked to leave, she was concerned that McCain’s staffers were profiling people on appearance to determine who might be a potential protester.

“When I started talking to them, it kind of became clear that they were kind of just telling people to leave that they thought maybe would be disruptive, but based on what? Based on how they looked,” Elborno said. “It was pretty much all young people, the college demographic.”

Guess why they'd be chucking college-age people out on their ear? Yup:

Among 18- to 29-year-olds, Obama leads by 32 points in the latest Gallup poll, by 36 points in the latest CBS/New York Times poll and by 39 points in the latest Pew poll [and 29 in the latest R2K - DemFromCT].

McCain's ham-handed tactics might make those numbers rise:

“I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said.

I'm sure that's one McCain voter wishing she could take that vote back. Makes you wonder how many more have realized their mistake before it's too late?

One more thing I want to note here: Republicons have an interesting habit of throwing stones from their glass houses. It hadn't really occurred to me until now to chalk that "communist" bullshit up under the column headed "I know you are, but what am I?" However, the above noted items make me think I shouldn't have been so hasty to write it in under the "Hey, Red-Baiting Worked in the Fifties!" label.

Let us take note of the similarities between McCain's actions and the good old Soviet Communist Party:

1. "Everything that comes out of their mouths is a lie." Check.
2. "Want total control over the media." Check.
3. "Compulsory shows of support by the masses for the beloved Party." Check.
4. "Paranoid purges of suspected enemies, even when those 'enemies' are actually allies." Check.
5. "Failed ideology forces them to manufacture and attack enemies to keep the people distracted from harsh reality." Oh, check.

Hmm. It appears the old Soviet Communists and the McCain campaign have much more in common than just the color red. Remember your Shakespeare, my darlings: the next time McCain blithers on about Obama's communist tendencies, we'd be right in thinking Grampa McCrankypants doth protest too much.

(Tip o' the shot glass to Steve Benen and Kos)

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

When you're served a premium shot like this:

Barack Obama campaigned earlier in Raleigh, North Carolina, principally relying on the closing-statement speech he unveiled in Ohio on Monday. Today, however, he added a new paragraph.

"[B]ecause he knows his economic theories don't work, he's been spending these last few days calling me every name in the book," Obama said. "Lately, he's called me a 'socialist' for wanting to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we can finally give tax relief to the middle class. I don't know what's next. By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

... you've just got to chase it down with this:

More Meet the Press Fun with John McLame

I think they're keeping the wrong damned candidate off the Sunday talk show circuit:

Total meltdown for McSame on "Meet the Press" this morning. Watch how defensive he gets when Brokaw's cites poll after poll that indicates people don't think Palin is qualified to be Vice President. "Because?! Not qualified...because?!" he snaps.

Then, after some creepy, nervous giggles about the Veep debate, McSame starts ticking off the reasons Palin is qualified to be President and gets completely lost in the bullshit.

MCSAME: She has more executive experience than Sen. Biden and Sen. Obama, together. She took on the governor of her own party because she had seen what she's thought was corruption. She's been a mayor. She has 24,000 people underneath her. Her husband is a, uh, works the third shift on the oil who...in...facilities in the North Slope. He's a, ah... the-they have a won...she has executive experience...

Fail.

No kidding. When you have to tell the nation that your VP pick is qualified because her husband works graveyards for an oil company, you picked the wrong fucking VP.

It would be hysterically funny if it wasn't so appalling.

For yet more Meet the Press Fun with John McLame:

Senior Moment: McCain Forgets Which Secretary of State Endorsed Him

Brokaw nails McCain on taxing the wealthy, Reagan's record

McCain to Brokaw: I reject your objective measures of reality and substitute my own


Fun fact: McCain was speaking to Brokaw from Waterloo, Iowa. Could this be a sign?

Dave Letterman Hands McCain's Ass to Him

Holy fucking shit, Batman! Dave Letterman absolutely annihilates McCain over the Obama-associates-with-terrorists bullshit. PWNS him with G. Gordon Liddy:

Hoping to make amends, McCain appeared on Letterman's show, hat in hand, and acknowledged that he'd erred. As it turns out, though, that's not the interesting part. The real news here is that Letterman did what most reporters have been unwilling to do.

Questioning the premise of McCain's relentless guilt-by-association attacks, Letterman noted that people in public life can't necessarily be held accountable for everyone they've interacted with. When McCain protested a bit, Letterman asked two highly relevant questions: "Did you not have a relationship with Gordon Liddy?" and "Did you attend a fundraiser at his house?" McCain, looking confused, conceded to having "met" Liddy. After a commercial break, McCain added, "I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt, he went to prison.... I'm not in any was embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy."

That's an interesting response. Liddy is, of course, a convicted felon who has "acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in 'if necessary'; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a 'gangland figure' to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap 'leftist guerillas' at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis." Liddy also once famously gave his supporters advice on how best to kill federal officials (he recommended shooting them in the head because they might be wearing flak jackets).

Despite this scandalous past, McCain has accepted thousands of dollars in contributions from Liddy, attended a fundraiser in his honor at Liddy's home, and told Liddy that he's "proud of" him.

Also remember, Liddy can be fairly described as "unrepentant." When asked if he regretted his felonies, "A vein twitches angrily on one of his scales, but he replies in a level voice, 'No.'"

The fact that Letterman just slammed McCain in the gut with this is outstanding. It's about time that stupid Republicon tricks like guilt-by-association came back to bite them in the arse.

Here's the vid:

Memo to self: Do not under any circumstances ever piss Dave Letterman off.

Ready on Day One? Oh, Puh-leeze

If we were to select a president on preparedness alone, there would be no contest:

So, how are the transition teams doing? Sam Stein has a fascinating report, which tells us quite a bit about how the two candidates' operations approach their responsibilities.

...Sen. Barack Obama has organized an elaborate well-staffed network to prepare for his possible ascension to the White House, while Sen. John McCain has all but put off such work until after the election.

The Democratic nominee has enlisted the assistance of dozens of individuals -- divided into working groups for particular federal agencies -- to produce policy agendas and lists of recommended appointees. As evidence of their advanced preparations, officials provided a copy of the strict ethics guidelines that individuals working on the transition effort are required to sign.

John McCain, by contrast, has done little. Campaign spokespersons did not respond to requests for elaboration. But one official with direct knowledge, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, expressed concern with McCain's approach. The Arizona Senator has instructed his team
to not spend time on the transition effort, according to the source, both out of a desire to have complete focus on winning the election as well as a superstitious belief that the campaign shouldn't put the cart before the horse.

Look, I realize it may sound premature to work on a transition before an election, but this is pretty important work. Presidents need staffs who can take over a massive executive and complicated branch bureaucracy on Day One. Failing to take this seriously now may make the nation vulnerable come January.

The Obama campaign seems to be a model of discipline and organization: "Obama's transition effort has been organized into roughly a dozen teams of six to eight people to plot out the approach for each agency, according to a Democratic official. The ethics code governing the process prohibits staff from working on subjects that could be deemed a financial conflict of interests, either to that member or that member's family."

The McCain campaign has no ethics policy in place for the transition, and the head of the team has reportedly held a few conference calls.

One approach is deeply irresponsible. The other approach is Obama's.

I just want to ask two small questions here: if McCain isn't taking his chance at the presidency seriously, why should we? Why the fuck would we want to elect a man who displays this extreme lack of interest in his responsibilities?

When your drive to win and your craven superstition keep you from ensuring you're prepared to step into the Big Man's shoes, I think that states quite clearly that you're not cut out to lead this country.

A Ready Supply of Brownshirts

Decent people are baffled by atrocities. They want to believe that regular folks don't engage in horrible acts of mass violence. That attitude was pronounced in the years following the Holocaust: we in the West have a superiority complex, and we just couldn't imagine that ordinary Europeans took enthusiastic part in Hitler's Final Solution. His Brownshirts and the SS had to be filled with ranks of crazed, godless, evil fuckers, not average European citizens. Civilized people wouldn't do such things.

It's terrifying to realize that civilization is a thin veneer, that decency and humanity can so easily be stripped away by politicians playing on ordinary people's fears and insecurities. All it takes is a set of leaders giving people permission to unleash their inner demons on easy scapegoats. They blame an indentifiable minority for the country's ills: Jews, blacks, liberals. They whip up the hate. They work the crowd into a frenzy. And then, suddenly, ordinary people become a howling mob. Ordinary, civilized folks find themselves willing to do the unthinkable, because they've been given permission. It's normal. It's okay. It's patriotic:

It’s no wonder that the slightest incitement from Sarah Palin or John McCain will turn one of their rallies into a lynch mob. Just talk to the folks who attend.

My camera was rolling for literally seconds before people happily said to me, on camera, that Barack Obama is a terrorist. If I hadn’t spent most of my time at the event inside, waiting for the candidates to show up, I could have gotten dozens of these people on tape.

[snip]

I’ve been doing blog video for a while, and presidential rallies a lot longer. And this is the most strange, ignorant, uninformed, angry, up-to-no-good, and gullible group of people I’ve ever seen at a political rally.

Ever.

These people have been told for years that their lives are threatened by scary brown Islamofascists. They've been told that their problems are caused by the minorities taking over America. Then, when a man with a Kenyan father and a white mother runs for office, they're told he's a closet Muslim with a militant black pastor who befriends terrorists - and the easy conclusion is jumped to. They're terrified and primed to strike out. All they need is permission.

It seems McCain and Palin are more than willing to give them that permission for the sake of winning an election.

Of all the evil McCain's responsible for, this is the worst.

What Does McCain Have in Common with a Dying Salmon?

He flips and flops and flails around in utter desperation. The latest example: it took him less than 24 hours to flip-flop on his homeowner bailout "plan."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made an overnight change in the homeowner bailout he proposed at Tuesday’s presidential debate, making it more generous to financial institutions and more costly for taxpayers.

McCain's staff says it was always meant that way.

When McCain sprung his surprise idea at the start of the debate in Nashville, his campaign posted details online of his American Homeownership Resurgence Plan, which would direct the government to buy up bad home mortgages, allowing strapped people to keep their property.

The document posted and e-mailed by the McCain campaign on Tuesday night says at the end of its first full paragraph: “Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.”

So the government would buy the mortgages at a discounted rate, reflecting the declining value of the mortgage paper.

But when McCain reissued the document on Wednesday, that sentence was missing, to the dismay of many conservatives.

That would mean the U.S. would pay face value for the troubled documents, which was the main reason Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) gave for opposing the plan.

A McCain campaign official explained the change: “That language was mistakenly included in the initial draft and it’s been corrected. It doesn’t reflect the intentions of the initiative, which necessitated the correction and the removal of the sentence. A simple mistake.”

What am I sitting on right now? That's right: my ass. Admit you flip-flopped when your greedy banker friends came a-whining. Admit you plan to shaft American taxpayers. Might as well say it outright, because by saying that you mistakenly included language in a draft that would've forced shady lenders to pay for the poison they've pushed, you've basically just told us you plan to let them get off scott-free while the American taxpayers foot the bill.

That's John McCain for you. Populist rhetoric spewing out one side of his mouth while he sucks Wall Street's dick with the other.

"That One"

This very well could be McCain's "macaca" moment, the dismissive, snippy little put-down that gets picked up and endlessly repeated until everyone in the nation knows just what a mean, nasty old bastard you are:




You'd think that a man running for the presidency could control himself just for a few hours. He's already gotten a beat-down in the press for treating Obama with contempt before. He can't afford another drubbing, but that's just what he'll get. No one but those howling mobs at his campaign events has any patience with his bullshit anymore.

How this man faces a mirror every morning is beyond me.

Ready (for Mayhem) On Day One

Digby discovered a South Park-esque political vid detailing what we can expect from a McCain presidency.




The disturbing thing is, that might have been an accurate prediction.

Rolling Stone Rolls Right Over McCain

Here it is. This is the exposé that destroys McCain utterly.

This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.

After reading this, only a true-believer, reality-blind frothing fuckwit could possibly retain any respect for this disaster of a man, or one iota of belief in his myth. And the most incredible thing? A lot of the most devastating quotes are taken verbatim from McCain's own book.

You need to read the entire Rolling Stone piece. We need to print copies and hand them out liberally to anyone who's on the fence. This article explains, in stark and plain language, exactly why this man should never be allowed to govern this nation.

Here's some excerpts to whet your appetites:

There's a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience in North Vietnam — call it an honor gap. Like many American POWs, McCain broke down under torture and offered a "confession" to his North Vietnamese captors. Dramesi, in contrast, attempted two daring escapes. For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry, didn't survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word, and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the service's highest distinctions. McCain would later hail him as "one of the toughest guys I've ever met."

On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.

"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."

"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.

"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.

"Why? Where are you going to, John?"

"Oh, I'm going to Rio."

"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"

McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.

"I got a better chance of getting laid."

[snip]

McCain spent his formative years among the Washington elite. His father — himself deep in the throes of a daddy complex — had secured a political post as the Navy's chief liaison to the Senate, a job his son would later hold, and the McCain home on Southeast 1st Street was a high-powered pit stop in the Washington cocktail circuit. Growing up, McCain attended Episcopal High School, an all-white, all-boys boarding school across the Potomac in Virginia, where tuition today tops $40,000 a year. There, McCain behaved with all the petulance his privilege allowed, earning the nicknames "Punk" and "McNasty." Even his friends seemed to dislike him, with one recalling him as "a mean little fucker."

[snip]

In the cockpit, McCain was not a top gun, or even a middling gun. He took little interest in his flight manuals; he had other priorities.

"I enjoyed the off-duty life of a Navy flier more than I enjoyed the actual flying," McCain writes. "I drove a Corvette, dated a lot, spent all my free hours at bars and beach parties." McCain chased a lot of tail. He hit the dog track. Developed a taste for poker and dice. He picked up models when he could, screwed a stripper when he couldn't.

In the air, the hard-partying McCain had a knack for stalling out his planes in midflight. He was still in training, in Texas, when he crashed his first plane into Corpus Christi Bay during a routine practice landing. The plane stalled, and McCain was knocked cold on impact. When he came to, the plane was underwater, and he had to swim to the surface to be rescued. Some might take such a near-death experience as a wake-up call: McCain took some painkillers and a nap, and then went out carousing that night.

[snip]

These are the moments that test men's mettle. Where leaders are born. Leaders like . . . Lt. Cmdr. Herb Hope, pilot of the A-4 three planes down from McCain's. Cornered by flames at the stern of the carrier, Hope hurled himself off the flight deck into a safety net and clambered into the hangar deck below, where the fire was spreading. According to an official Navy history of the fire, Hope then "gallantly took command of a firefighting team" that would help contain the conflagration and ultimately save the ship.

McCain displayed little of Hope's valor. Although he would soon regale The New York Times with tales of the heroism of the brave enlisted men who "stayed to help the pilots fight the fire," McCain took no part in dousing the flames himself. After going belowdecks and briefly helping sailors who were frantically trying to unload bombs from an elevator to the flight deck, McCain retreated to the safety of the "ready room," where off-duty pilots spent their noncombat hours talking trash and playing poker. There, McCain watched the conflagration unfold on the room's closed-circuit television — bearing distant witness to the valiant self-sacrifice of others who died trying to save the ship, pushing jets into the sea to keep their bombs from exploding on deck.

As the ship burned, McCain took a moment to mourn his misfortune; his combat career appeared to be going up in smoke. "This distressed me considerably," he recalls in Faith of My Fathers. "I feared my ambitions were among the casualties in the calamity that had claimed the Forrestal."

There's more. There's far more. Things you knew, and things you'll learn here for the first time, relentless and appalling, building a mosaic of a man who would be catastrophic as our President.

I fear for my country. I fear for my world.

(Tip o' the shot glass to Firedoglake.)

Senator Hothead Rides Roughshod Over the Register

Talking Points Memo has put together a succinct and devastating little greatest hits from McCain's angry interview with the Des Moines Register. This is the man who wants to snow you into electing him:



A man who shows this much contempt and barely-restrained venom toward a couple of reporters from a newspaper that endorsed him does not deserve to have his ass planted in the Oval Office.

Let's make sure asses don't plant him there.

McCain: Aspiring Dictator

McCain tells the Des Moines Register what he thinks of the failed economic bailout bill and gives his game away:

"This is just, uh, an unacceptable situation. I'm not saying this is the perfect answer. If I were a dictator, which I always aspire to be, I would write it very differently..."

He surely didn't look like a man who's joking. If you have any friends, family, colleagues, etc. who are leaning McCain's way, you might want to ask them how they feel about living in a dictatorship. And considering how old McCain is, and who's been picked to succeed him, we'd soon be living in a Dominionist theocracy.

Be warned.

McCain: Low-Ranking Monkey

I don't mean to flood you today, but this was just too awesome to pass up. A TPM reader analyzes McCain's refusal to look at Obama during the debate, and comes to a fascinating conclusion:

And here's another note from TPM Reader TB. I guess I'm really not sure quite how to characterize it ...

I think people really are missing the point about McCain's failure to look at Obama. McCain was afraid of Obama. It was really clear--look at how much McCain blinked in the first half hour. I study monkey behavior--low ranking monkeys don't look at high ranking monkeys. In a physical, instinctive sense, Obama owned McCain tonight and I think the instant polling reflects that.

So McCain may have given away his status as a low-ranking monkey. I'd never even considered monkey rank.

Niiice. I'm going to have such fun with this one. Damn, I love behavioral science!

I Do Believe McCain's Set a New Record for Dumbfuckery

It's been quite the day for the McCain campaign. I don't think any presidential campaign in the history of America has ever had this many missteps, embarrassments, lies, gaffes, and damn fool moves in a single week. McCain's managed it in one day.

The sad thing is, the following list is probably far from exhaustive. But I'll do my best.

After slamming Obama for non-existent ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, the campaign had to engage in some desperate damage control after it was revealed that campaign manager Rick Davis's lobbying firm had been paid $15,000 a month by none other than Freddie Mac:

Today, McCain campaign spokesperson/blogger Michael Goldfarb published a 700-word response to the news, and by any reasonable measure, the statement is a complete mess. In the very first sentence, Goldfarb says the reports charge that Davis "was paid by Freddie Mac until last month," which Goldfarb insists is false. Actually, the reports charge that Davis' lobbying firm was the one paid until last month, which is true.

My goodness, what a shock: they tried to lie and obfuscate themselves out of a tough corner. And that was only the beginning.

Davis, perhaps realizing what a bloodbath it would be, decided to skip lunch with reporters. Better to look like a sissy than have to face tough questions about your business buddies, I suppose.

Especially in light of the fact that, you know, the campaign kinda sorta blatantly lied about him not having anything to do with the lobbying firm he's - whoops! - still director of.

Sarah Palin, horror of horrors, got asked a question by a reporter. The campaign earned itself jeers by hustling said reporters out of the room before she could so much as open her mouth, thus proving that whatever else she might be, vice presidential material she ain't.

Then came a poll showing Obama with a nine-point lead. Freakout! They promptly proclaimed the poll bogus, then belied that assessment by showing raw nekkid fear. What else explains McCain's impetuous decision to suspend his campaign in order to rush back to Washington to play economic savior?

Obama, Pelosi, and Reid all took the opportunity to explain to McCain that a) his presence in Washington wouldn't be helpful and b) people who hope to become President should know how to handle more than one thing at a time. Americans everywhere are now being treated to the novel idea that their President should be able to multi-task, and McCain has proven he's incapable of doing so.

As far as political stunts go, this one is roughly equivalent to Evil Knievel trying to jump the Grand Canyon and ending up spattered all over the bottom. It's working out just slightly better than McCain's choice of Palin as a veep. Let us turn now to the spectacular series of serious embarrassments that is the Palin Political Pick:

Karl Rove, when asked if Palin would make a good president, said, "I don't know." Seriously. Even Turd Blossom can't make this shit smell like a rose.

Laura Bush chimed in with this brutally honest response when asked by CNN if Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience: "Well, obviously — Of course she doesn’t have that." Geez, Laura, what happened to "Hey, I can see Russia from here!"?

Then there's the ominous rumblings from Alaska. Seems like the campaign's about to be dealing with a scandal a whole lot worse than Troopergate - an Alaska state rep is calling for an investigation into criminal witness tampering, and his evidence-loaded finger is pointed right at McCain staffers.

But that almost pales in comparison to the disasterous interview with Katie Couric. Go. Watch. Wince. There's something terribly wrong with the anchor being orders of magnitude more intelligent than the vice presidential candidate. Stunningly stupid quotes are already flying thick and fast - and this was only an excerpt. The whole thing has yet to air. Betcha McCain's goons try to get it quashed.

Speaking of quashing... McCain's not only trying to get this Friday's debate with Obama punted, he wants the October 2nd vice presidential debate nixed. Something tells me he's terrified that what's left of his campaign is going to get blown to smithereens the instant Palin opens her mouth on a stage with Joe Biden. He's right. Biden won't even have to say a word to win this one.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, McCain's effort to portray himself as so deeply concerned about the economy that he felt compelled to suspend his campaign, attempt to weasel out of the debate, and rush back to Washington was belied by his lies. He said he was meeting with key advisors to discuss the crisis, when in reality he was meeting with Lady Lynn "I Hates Elitists! Hates Them!" de Rothschild. He then begged off Letterman by saying he was at that very moment flying back to Washington - which would be true only if Katie Couric's studio got moved onto his campaign plane. Letterman responded by indulging in a rather thorough and accurate McCain bashing session while Keith Olbermann looked on in wonder.

And, as if all of that wasn't enough, McCain's volunteers in Colorado didn't get the list of campaign suspension talking points - the media did. It turns out that McCain's not the only one in his campaign who doesn't understand how to send an email. The money quote: “Fuck, tell me I didn’t send it to the wrong list.”

Oh, but you did. It's good to see McCain keeping up the tradition of Bush-league incompetence in his staff.

A complete musical comedy could be written around just this single day. If McCain somehow manages to lie, cheat, and steal his way to the White House, we can be assured of one thing: that while we may be bankrupt, at war with everyone in the entire world, choking on endless pollution, boiling in our own global warming juices, facing illness without the benefit of health insurance, suffering from the further erosion of our civil liberties and subjected to a Sarah Palin Dominionist crusade served up with a heaping helping of painful stupidity, at least we'll never be short of breathtaking dumbfuckery to marvel at.

Campaign of the Absurd

Are you sitting down? Are your drinks fully swallowed?

Good.

I know the McCain campaign jumped the shark a long time ago, but somehow, they keep finding more sharks to jump. They've lied so much there's now a website dedicated to tracking their lies (as of this moment, the count stands at 63). They held a conference call with the press to cry over the New York Times calling them out on their lies, and lied continuously throughout. They've lied so much that even McCain's biggest fans in the media have stopped bringing him donuts and started reporting the lies.

And now we learn that even their "grassroots" efforts are nothing more than factories for lies:

"You can be whoever you want to be," says an inviting Phil Tuchman. "You can be a beggar or a millionaire. A mom or a husband. Whatever. You decide!"

I volunteer in political campaigns now and then. After a series of outings for Obama and a first mission as a phone banker for John McCain, I returned to McCain's headquarters in Arlington, Va. The offer was too alluring to delay -- they wanted to put me into action as a ghostwriter. Next to commercials and phone banking, writing letters to the editor is the most important method of the McCain campaign to attract voters. At least that is what's written in the guidelines that McCain campaign worker Phil Tuchman presents to me.

[snip]

The assignment is simple: We are going to write letters to the editor and we are allowed to make up whatever we want -- as long as it adds to the campaign. After today we are supposed to use our free moments at home to create a flow of fictional fan mail for McCain.

Un-fucking-believable.

The "talking points" the ghostwriters work from include some screamers, including Palin's former 80% approval rating (which was true - up until Alaskans got a good look at her and didn't like what they saw). Let's remember that when Bush first took office, his numbers were high, too. Now he's Mr. 19%.

They also repeat that bloody Bridge to Nowhere lie that's been debunked endlessly. In fact, if we had a dollar for every time that howler's been disproved, we could very nearly pay for Paulson's bailout plan.

You'd think there'd be some embarrassment, shame, and plausible denials put forth by the campaign after such a revelation. A normal campaign would say, "We had no idea this was going on. This was not authorized by the campaign, and the person responsible for it has been tossed out on his ear. We stand for truth, justice, etc. etc."

But we all know the McCain campaign is anything but normal. Caught blatantly manipulating public opinion by getting hacks to write fake letters to the editor (in the best tradition of the National Enquirer, most of whose stories are made up on the spot), they didn't express faux outrage. No, they went with their old standby: yell at the journalist who exposed their lies and then lie some more:

Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, said that Oostveen did not properly identify herself to campaign workers in Arlington. "She did not represent herself as a journalist to the people who work in the mid-Atlantic office." Ostveen, who also wrote a column about an earlier stint phone-banking for the McCain campaign, says she twice explained to different workers in the Arlington campaign office that she might be using her experiences as a volunteer in her columns for the NRC Handelsblad.

Can you believe these fuckwits? They're beyond pathological - I've known compulsive liars, clinically mentally ill pathological liars, no less - who have more respect for the truth than these assclowns.

There's no way America can elect these buffoons and keep its self-respect.