WOW!!! When Richard Cohen turns on a good friend like John McCain you know there's a problem. --------------- The Ugly New McCain By Richard Cohen Wednesday, September 17, 2008; Page Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised. The precise moment of McCain's abasement came, would you believe, not at some news conference or on one of the Sunday shows but on "The View," the daytime TV show created by Barbara Walters. Last week, one of the co-hosts, Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig -- an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners. "We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies." Freeze. Close in on McCain. This was the moment. He has largely been avoiding the press. The Straight Talk Express is now just a brand, an ad slogan like "Home Cooking" or "We Will Not Be Undersold." Until then, it was possible for McCain to say that he had not really known about the ads, that the formulation "I approve this message" was just boilerplate. But he didn't. ad_icon "Actually, they are not lies," he said. Actually, they are. McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though. I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician's lap. Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story -- that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity. McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not. At a forum last week at Columbia University, McCain said, "But right now we have to restore trust and confidence in government." This was always the promise of John McCain, the single best reason to vote for him. America has been cheated on too many times -- the lies of Vietnam and Watergate and Iraq. So many lies. Who believes that in Afghanistan last month, only five civilians were killed by the American military in an airstrike, instead of the approximately 90 claimed by the Afghan government? Not me. I first gave up on the military during Vietnam and then again when it covered up the death of Pat Tillman, the Army Ranger and former NFL player who was killed in 2004 by friendly fire. McCain was going to fix all that. He was going to look the American people in the eyes and say, not me. I will not lie to you. I am John McCain, son and grandson of admirals. I tell the truth. But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can -- as he did in South Carolina -- renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won't work. Karl Marx got one thing right -- what he said about history repeating itself. Once is tragedy, a second time is farce. John McCain is both. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy.../09/15/AR2008091502406.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
McCain and Palin have both taken to lying. McCain lied in the ads mentioned in the article. McCain lied about lying about it. He's a liar. Palin who's now gone back on her word to meet with investigators regarding the troopergate scandal after she promised she would is also lying. Of course she lied about other things as well, but this is the most blatant. I have to believe that people are tired of being lied to like this and won't support it.
When it's this blatant it seems like an insult. I can't believe it won't backfire. Honestly, who the hell is this guy calling himself McCain? It isn't the McCain that most people thought they knew.
McCain is deluded if he thinks the nation will rally behind him by winning knee deep in his own filth.
Hayes, I'm used to you parsing a topic down to the level of matter/anti-matter and the origin of the Universe, but really! How can you defend this? And that's what you are doing... defending this ad by the McCain campaign, approved by John McCain. No matter how you slice it (no, not "anti-matter" - it matters. as a matter of fact, this would fall under "Dark Matter."), you are defending this ad. Did you even watch it? And if you did, how can you possibly defend it or parse it in such a way as to give John McCain an "out" for such a low, disgusting political tactic, worthy of the worst of Rove and George H. W. Bush's Willie Horton crap? How can you do that? I'm astonished. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/et_3YCV9ceI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/et_3YCV9ceI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
the meltdown is almost complete. from Josh -- The Cowardice Issue The image is now coming into focus. Even McCain's confidants are now suggesting that it was his anger and frustration with Obama that led him to embrace Steve Schmidt's Willie Horton-on-Steroids campaign for the White House. And whether it's the appearance before the Des Moines Register Editorial board or his tense refusal to make eye contact during the first presidential debate, I don't think many people would deny at this point that McCain's hostility and contempt for Obama -- what even Wolf Blitzer calls his "disdain" -- is palpable. After the first debate many people wondered aloud whether it was hostility and contempt or fear and intimidation that kept McCain from looking Obama in the face even once. But with two weeks and more evidence to consider, it is clear that it was both: Hostility that is magnified by the person's mortifying inability to face the person who inspires it. That's the kind of unchanneled, clogged up anger that makes you unsteady, that makes you make mistakes. McCain's moral cowardice has been one of the subtexts of this campaign ever since he wound up the nomination and turned his attention to Barack Obama. But I did not realize it would reveal itself in such a physical dimension. The tell came this week as McCain unearthed the Ayers story which, for whatever its merits, was fully aired months ago and has no clear relation to the particulars of October other than McCain's collapsing poll numbers. He's on it. Palin's on it. He's releasing slashing new TV ads like this one. Both of them are ginning their crowds up into spiraling gyres of right-wing delirium -- a ready-made Lord of the Flies (and let's admit that's a gentle allusion, given the tone of these barnburners) if Obama happened into one of the auditoriums at the wrong moment. He ever swaggered on for a couple days about how he was going to 'take the gloves off' when he met up with Obama in Nashville. But when the two of them were there in each others physical presence ... nothing. By a myriad of gestures and reactions Obama owned him. Nor is it a matter of shifting off the tactics, because as soon as McCain made his hasty retreat from the stage at Debate #2 he was right back at it. In every other aspect of life, how and low, refined and unlovely, we have a word for that kind of behavior: cowardice. And now Obama can lightly taunt McCain with that very cowardice, his inability to just say it to his face. And if my take on the inner workings of McCain's mind at the moment is right that should simply unhinge him even more. --Josh Marshall
Lying wins. ask bush McCain has an illegitimate black baby, remember? McCain still hasnt forgiven Bush for that lie...
Eh, he kind of did. A few weeks ago, he hired the political operative that created that lie. 8 years ago he said there was a special place in hell for him.
Well, McCain did say he'd go to the gates of hell to find Bin Laden (unless of course, those are in Pakistan). Maybe he hired the operative because he has inside information from hell as to where Bin Laden is!
Not to nitpick, but Steve Schmidt (the rove lackey) was given "full operational control" July 2nd. He's obviously not as good as his dark lord.
It was a lame joke, but I was going to post a pic of ex-nba dud Joe Klein. However, I can't find any pictures of him. Weird.
The bizarre "shoot-self-in-foot" quality of mccain's current stranglehold on ayers and wright is baffling to me. I mean, mccain has to know that those two tenuous connections are just plain silly compared to his publicly acknowledged incidents with Keating, Iran-Contra, and his previous marriage... Not to mention Hagee. I find it baffling that a career senator would intentionally aim to bring up murky past behavior...
Or abortion doctor shooting terrorists (as called by her judge). Or the guy who's foundation both Obama and Ayers served on the board? He was a right winger and his widow is a McCain supporter.
oh, i didnt know that...no wonder mccain has been so dirty lately. i figured mccain would never forgive bush for that. i mean it was the first time a president and vice president didnt attend the RNC. although i do realize by them showing up it wouldve hurt more than helped.....
Panic attacks: Voters unload at GOP rallies Link Really. Ya'll should be ashamed. I will not support blind and ignorant anger.
Better to Be... "a guy of the street" than a guy of the gutter. Posted by Joe Klein But seriously, folks, I'm beginning to worry about the level of craziness on the Republican side, the over-the-top, stampede-the-crowd statements by everyone from McCain on down, the vehemence of the crowds that McCain and Palin are drawing with people shouting "Kill him" and "He's a terrorist" and "Off with his head." Watch the tape of the guy screaming, "He's a terrorist!" McCain seems to shudder at that, he rolls his eyes... and I thought for a moment he'd admonish the man. But he didn't. And now he's selling the Ayres non-story full-time. Yes, yes, it's all he has. True enough: he no longer has his honor. But we are on the edge of some real serious craziness here and it would be nice if McCain did the right thing and told his more bloodthirsty supporters to go home and take a cold shower. But McCain hasn't done the right thing all year. His campaign is appalling, as the New York Times editorial board said today--and more, it is a national disgrace. http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/better_to_be.html
