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John McCain: Putting Himself First

05 Friday Sep 2008

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Senator McCain’s acceptance speech last night was just about what I expected, judging from the theme of the other speakers at the Republican Convention. It was long on generalities and platitudes and short on specifics. It was a speech that could have been given by any Republican candidate for president in the last 20+ years.

Lower taxes, reduce spending, cut government programs, the usual suspects. He also found time to misrepresent Barack Obama’s proposals on taxes and health care, although he presented no health care plan of his own, and even get in an “anointed one” reference.

What McCain’s speech had plenty of was his autobiography. You know, the one he doesn’t like to talk about that much. For someone who claims that his experiences made him realize “I wasn’t my own man anymore, I was my country’s” and that he has been his country’s servant “first, last and always”, Senator McCain certainly spends a lot of time attracting attention to himself and his personal ordeal.

I would think that servant’s spirit might include a dose of humility, but then again I could be wrong.

Senator McCain also proclaimed his hatred for war, which is strange coming from the man who less than a month after 9/11 expressed his desire to take retaliation against Al-Qaeda beyond Afghanistan, and on January 2, 2002 said “Next up, Baghdad.”

McCain also continued his assertion that Obama would raise taxes, again leaving out the fact that it would only affect those making over $250,000 a year.

But he didn’t stop there, saying this:

“His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.”

To coin a McCain phrase, my friends, that is not a misrepresentation, that is a lie. Here is Obama’s health care plan. Someone please find for me where it says anything about forcing people into a government-run health care system. Remember the debate between Hillary and Obama over health care mandates? How her plan contained them and his didn’t?

Then there was this:

“I’m not running for president because I think I’m blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need.”

Another cheap shot, but not unexpected. No, Senator McCain is running for president because he wants to “serve a purpose greater than himself.” Hmmm, serve a purpose greater than yourself. That sounds to me like the job description of a community organizer. Nah, couldn’t be.

Finally, on the issue of “changing the way Washington works.” Refresh my memory, but hasn’t John McCain has been in Washington for nearly 30 years? Yet he talks like he has never even seen the place. He is going to suddenly reform something he has been hip-deep in for almost 3 decades. Does anybody see a contradiction there? But excuse me, who am I to question a former POW. Never mind.

Palin’s Speech: Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

04 Thursday Sep 2008

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Calm down Republicans, she’s only your VP nominee.

With all the gushing praise and the glowing reviews after Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican Convention last night, one would have thought she was the presidential nominee and not John McCain. Home run, amazing, brilliant, fantastic, the pundits proclaimed. What it was to me was a typical Republican stump speech, with a little personalized biographical information thrown in for good measure.

I’ll give Governor Palin credit for this much, she was well-rehearsed, well-prepared, and well-scripted. She threw enough chum in the water for the Republican sharks on hand and in the television audience to feast on for days and weeks to come.

She repeated the falsehoods and misrepresentations about her record, recounted again for us John McCain’s ordeal in a North Vietnamese prison camp, and took the obligatory shots at Barack and Michelle Obama. Yawn. Same old, same old.

What Governor Palin also did was leave herself wide open for attacks from the Democrats on everything from her alleged status as a reformer during her time as Mayor of Podunk, Alaska, to her support/non-support of the Bridge To Nowhere, to the accusations that she abused her power, to her knowledge, or lack of same, on foreign and domestic policy.

In his remarks to the Convention on Tuesday, President Bush spoke of the “angry left.” What I saw on display last night was the angry right. From Huckabee to Giuliani to Palin, I heard constant attacks on Barack Obama’s lack of experience and his policy proposals. What I didn’t hear were GOP alternatives to those proposals.

Nothing about the economy, other than the tired old ‘Obama will raise your taxes’ line. Nothing about how to deal with our dependence on foreign oil, nothing about the worsening situation in Afghanistan, just a constant stream of one-liners and zingers aimed at Barack Obama.

So I’ll end where I began, calm down Republicans, your main man has yet to be heard from. After all the hubub over Palin’s speech, McCain’s may become anti-climactic. Palin is a base consolidator, nothing more, and this election is not going to be decided by the respective bases, but by the independents and undecideds.

And when those undecideds get beyond Palin’s rhetoric and take a look at her hard-line stance on some issues and her lack of knowledge on others, I believe they will come to the conclusion that she is completely unprepared to be the person a heartbeat away from the most powerful position in the world.

Tuesday Night at the RNC

03 Wednesday Sep 2008

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For those without the inclination, or the stomach, to watch the Republican Convention last night, I thought I would bring you a few highlights(?) of what transpired. First, a shot of the delegates on the convention floor:

 

Anything catch your eye? Notice the diversity of the crowd? There are a total of 36 black delegates to this year’s RNC, that is less than 2% of the total and down from 7% in 2004. By contrast, at the Democratic Convention nearly 25% of the delegates were black.

Then there was President Bush addressing the crowd via satellite. Just as an aside, this is the first time since 1968 that an incumbent President hasn’t attended his party’s National Convention. President Bush took the occasion to jump aboard the “former POW” bandwagon with these remarks:

 

I thought comparing those who oppose John McCain, the so-called “angry left”, to North Vietnamese prison guards was a low blow, but not unexpected given the tenor of the McCain campaign so far.

Bush’s glowing remarks about McCain also brought to mind this famous photo of himself and Senator McCain.

 

 

Then there was Fred Thompson taking the obligatory shot at Barack Obama as someone who doesn’t oppose infanticide.

 

Joe Lieberman didn’t exactly receive a warm welcome from the Republican delegates, to say the least. Then he made this ridiculous statement: “God only made one John McCain, and he is his own man.”

Well, maybe with the exception of choosing a running mate. Then he bows to what the Party leaders tell him to do.

McCain Rolled The Dice on Palin, And Lost

02 Tuesday Sep 2008

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The fiasco that was the process by which Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska came to be chosen as John McCain’s running mate, gives us a good insight into the kind of President Senator McCain would make, and the picture it paints is a disturbing one.

It is one of a man who makes hasty, spur-of-the-moment decisions, based on nothing more than a gut instinct, without gathering the proper information upon which to base that decision. Not the qualities or the temperament we need in the next President, who will be facing so many decisions crucial to the future of our country.

An article in today’s New York Times goes into the details of how and why Gov. Palin was chosen, and how the incomplete, or better said, non-existent vetting process now has the McCain people scrambling to try and cover their tracks.

It seems that up until the middle of last week Sen. McCain wanted either Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge for his VP nominee. But there, he ran into a problem. From the NYT:

“But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.”

So what did the “maverick” do? The man who makes it a point to tell us how he goes against his own party when necessary? He caved, and nominated a person acceptable to those elements of the Republican Party he once called “agents of intolerance.”

McCain then had his first face-to-face interview with Palin on Thursday and immediately offered her the job, after which his advisers claimed that she had been “thoroughly vetted.” Well I guess that depends on your definition of thorough.

More from the Times:

“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,” said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor.

Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Ms. Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her.

“I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called,” Ms. Phillips said. “I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.”

The current mayor of Wasilla, Dianne M. Keller, said she had not heard of any efforts to look into Ms. Palin’s background. And Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican Party chairman, said he knew nothing of any vetting that had been conducted.

State Senator Hollis French, a Democrat who is directing the ethics investigation, said that no one asked him about the allegations. “I heard not a word, not a single contact,” he said.

Now the McCain campaign people are in Alaska checking on Palin and her background, after all the furor over her past record as Mayor and Governor has erupted. I’m no political consultant, but it seems a bit bass-ackwards to me.

In the parlance of the dice tables that Sen. McCain has been known to frequent in Las Vegas casinos, Johnny, as any experienced gambler knows, sometimes you roll a winner, and sometimes you crap out. Better luck on your next throw. I’m just glad your gamble came as candidate McCain and not as President McCain.

P.S. Starting today there is a zero tolerance policy on comments regarding Gov. Palin’s family. That subject is now off limits, let’s stick to relevant issues, please.

Barack Obama’s Executive Experience

01 Monday Sep 2008

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The latest attempt by the McCain campaign to justify the pick of Sarah Palin is to point to her advantage in “executive experience” over Barack Obama, including this, posted on the McCain web site:

“She’s the Governor of Alaska and was the mayor of a small town, meaning she has more executive experience than Barack Obama and Joe Biden put together.”

If the McCain people want to talk about executive experience, let’s look at what Barack Obama’s actions as an executive have managed to accomplish in the last 18 months.

* He has put together, from scratch, a political organization of nearly 1,000 employees that has to-date raised approximately $300 million through a network of 1.8 million donors, a major portion of whom made contributions of $200 or less.

* He has defeated the most powerful political machine in the country, the Clintons, which began this campaign with more advantages than possibly any campaign has ever had.

* He put together a campaign staff that outsmarted and out-maneuvered the Clinton team at every turn, building a grass-roots organization, not only in Iowa, but in the states following Super Tuesday, which allowed him to build a delegate lead that Hillary was never able to overcome.

* His campaign has changed forever the way a major presidential campaign is financed. This, from Rolling Stone:

“The size and scale and sophistication of the Obama enterprise — it’s like a multinational corporation compared to the mom-and-pop nonprofits of previous Democratic campaigns,” says Simon Rosenberg, president of the progressive think tank NDN and a veteran of Bill Clinton’s 1992 run. “And it isn’t just bigger — it’s a better model, it’s more democratic, it taps into the power and passion of everyday people.”

Obama has built “an amazingly strong machine,” says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, president of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at the Yale School of Management. “People expected a more ad hoc, impromptu, entrepreneurial feel to it. It has been more of a well-orchestrated symphony than the jazz combo we expected.”

Pretty impressive “executive experience” if you ask me. The way I see it, Barack Obama has more executive experience than John McCain and Sarah Palin put together.

Maher, Kaine, and McCain’s Roving Eyes

31 Sunday Aug 2008

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Bill Maher returned Friday night just in time for the McCain/Palin announcement and, to no one’s surprise, had quite a bit to say about it. See for yourself:

Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia was also on, and gave an excellent analysis of McCain’s VP pick along with an overview of Barack Obama’s speech on Thursday night. I like the choice of Biden as a running mate for Obama, but Kaine would also have been a good choice and will be instrumental in Obama’s attempt to carry Virginia, which is now considered a battleground state.

Then there’s Senator McCain. Watch Johnny’s wandering eye as Sarah Palin speaks after being named as VP nominee. Also notice the Senator twiddling with his wedding ring.

I can only imagine the thoughts that are going through his head as he ogles Gov. Palin, ‘If only Cindy hadn’t made me sign that damn pre-nup.’

Putting Country First? I Don’t Think So

30 Saturday Aug 2008

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Putting Country First. This has been the slogan of the McCain campaign, up until yesterday that is. With the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, Senator McCain has shown that he is willing to put the future of the country at risk for the sake of a political stunt that he hopes will cause women to vote for him simply because there is a woman on the ticket.

For a man who has made his experience and his judgement, and Barack Obama’s alleged deficiency in both areas, a central theme in this campaign, McCain called into question yesterday the value of his experience and the soundness of his judgement.

Here is a man who, at 72 years-old, would be the oldest man to be sworn in for his first term as President. A man with a family history of heart disease and a personal history of recurring melanoma. A man who is willing to put the future of the country in the hands of someone who has no knowledge, and admittedly no interest, in foreign policy, who recently said she has no idea of what the duties of vice-president are, and who 2 years ago was the mayor of a small town in rural Alaska.

This was a choice made out of panic, made after Barack Obama’s speech on Thursday night. From ABC News on Friday:

“The campaign secretly flew Palin into Dayton last night. She and McCain met privately for a couple of hours. McCain concluded she would “shake up the system” and was “a maverick,” qualities he believed Lieberman would have brought to the ticket. But she also would appeal to conservatives — which Lieberman most certainly would not have done.

After their meeting, McCain concluded he was comfortable with his choice. He notified Pawlenty this morning that he was going in a different direction.”

So when the McCain campaign announced on Wednesday that he had made his choice for VP, they either didn’t tell the truth or they had no idea what shoot-from-the-hip John was about to do. Either way, that’s not the honesty or the judgement I want in a President.

Senator McCain is willing to risk putting someone who he met with for “a couple of hours” in charge of making crucial national security and economic policy decisions which affect 300 million people?

Putting Country First? I don’t think so.

Obama’s Speech and McCain’s Reaction

29 Friday Aug 2008

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I’m sure most of you saw Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last night and have drawn your own conclusions as to it’s content and it’s effectiveness. I’ll share my thoughts with you and then give the reaction of others and the response of the McCain camp, which was as predictable as hot August days in Texas.

In a nutshell, Obama was magnificent. He answered his critics who say he is all style and no substance by laying out specific objectives that his administration would pursue. He drew stark differences between himself and John McCain, correctly linking McCain with the failed policies of George W. Bush. And he went after McCain, not on personal or character issues, but rather on McCain’s record and what he would do as President. In horse racing that’s called a trifecta, three winners.

Here’s just one reaction to the speech. This is Alex Castellanos, a longtime Republican consultant and a protege of Lee Atwater when it comes to down-and-dirty political warfare. Hearing this should be a cause of concern in the McCain camp.

 

Then there was the response from the McCain campaign:

“Tonight, Americans witnessed a misleading speech that was so fundamentally at odds with the meager record of Barack Obama. When the temple comes down, the fireworks end, and the words are over, the facts remain: Senator Obama still has no record of bipartisanship, still opposes offshore drilling, still voted to raise taxes on those making just $42,000 per year, and still voted against funds for American troops in harm’s way. The fact remains: Barack Obama is still not ready to be President.”

Here is MSNBC’s Chuck Todd’s assessment of that predictable reaction:

 

The Republicans definitely have a hard act to follow. If the tone of their campaign against Barack Obama so far is any indication, I expect it to be a 4-day slime and smear festival. The icing on the GOP cake will be the expected riveting acceptance speech by that great orator, Senator John McCain. This much I know, I would love to be the person who has the coffee and No-Doz concession in the arena that night.

Brain Dead Republicans Mock “Obama’s Temple”

29 Friday Aug 2008

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Proving that they are running out of reasons for which to attack Barack Obama, some on the far-right are now mocking the stage setting for tonight’s acceptance speech in Denver’s Mile High Stadium. They are calling the backdrop of Greek columns “the Temple of Obama”, the “heights of presumptuousness”, and “blind hubris.”

On his radio program yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said that since the temples in ancient Greece were built as homes for the gods, Obama has taken his Messiah status one step further and now believes himself to be God.

I hate to be the one to burst the GOP bubble, but I guess a little history lesson is in order. Today is the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which was given in front of the structure pictured here, better known as the Lincoln Memorial. Note the columns.

 

 

 

Here is a photograph of Dr. King taken during a portion of that speech. Again, take notice of the columns in the background.

 

 

 

So you see my Republican friends, the stage is not set up to portray Obama as some sort of Deity, it has an historical context. Oh well, back to attacking Obama’s patriotism and smearing him by taking his remarks on Iran and Israel out of context.

I might, however, suggest an appropriate setting for John McCain’s acceptance speech. Maybe in front of a mock-up of a crashed fighter plane, or in light of his many references to his time in captivity, a re-creation of the Hanoi Hilton. He is a former POW, you know.