July 02, 2008
Clark, McCain and the forms of courage
As the McCain-Clark dustup continues into its fourth day (mostly courtesy of McCain), it seems to me that there is one interesting way in which it reveals assumptions about Presidential qualifications. One could make a fairly plausible point about how being a POW would prepare someone for the Presidency: in a word, courage. It was courageous for McCain to fly...
June 30, 2008
Piling on re Wes Clark on John McCain
Mark and Jonathan are entirely right about Wes Clark and John McCain. Clark's criticism was not of the honor or veracity of McCain's service record but of its relevance to his qualifications to be president. Clark in fact said McCain as a POW was a hero to him and millions of others. On Capitol Hill, I can't think of a lasting contribution McCain has made to defense or national security policy (other than the POW-MIA issue and normalization of relations with Vietnam), despite his powerful position. I invite readers to provide examples that I have missed.
Wes Clark on John McCain
No, McCain's military experience doesn't prepare him to be Commander-in-Chief. And no, it's not "swiftboating" to point that out.
June 29, 2008
The good life
John McCain has so many houses he can't remember which ones he hasn't paid any real estate tax on for four years. But Barack Obama is an "elistist." Go figure.
June 17, 2008
Wish-I'd-said-that Dep't
Todd Gitlin says that on climate change policy John McCain is "talking through his cap."
McCain campaign slimes Obama on terrorism policy
It turns out that on national security the McCain campaign's notion of discussing issues is Rovian name calling. Update: Readers pitch in with additional substance.
June 16, 2008
Ambition and moral degeneration
John McCain in 1974 knew that sleep deprivation and stress positions are forms of torture. John McCain in 2008 voted to keep them legal.
June 14, 2008
McCain's campaign manager's Kremlin ties
The influence of money on politics creates a national security vulnerability. Patriotically, Rick Davis of the McCain campaign has alerted us to that vulnerability; his firm Davis, Manafort has close allies of Vladimir Putin as clients, and has helped those allies try to frustrate U.S. foreign policy.
He contains multitudes
John McCain never changes positions. He just magically goes from position A to position not-A without ever changing.
June 09, 2008
Gotcha!
Yes, McCain misstated on Friday what he said on Tuesday. And yes, his press staff tried to spin their way out of it, lying all the way. And no, Jonathan Martin of Politico.com is not pleased. Bad move!
June 08, 2008
John McCain: One interview, two gaffes
He flatly denies saying what he actually said to a national TV audience just last Tuesday, about how the media had been mistweating poo' liddle Hiwwawy. And he says that his new position that the President may engage in warrantless wiretapping in violation of criminal statutes is no change at all from his earlier position that "Presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is."
June 06, 2008
All you need to know about McCain, part 2
Analysis of 2 NYT articles on same page today: 1) McCain designated spokesperson on wiretapping has no legal or other related expertise 2) Carly Fiorina, who he listens to on economic policy, has no economic expertise or experience 3) Fiorina, while at HP, conducted illegal surveillance Conclusion: No competence or disposition to obey the law, or help average Americans, here
June 05, 2008
"How do we beat the bitch?" "Excellent question!"
John McCain's "respect" for Hillary Clinton, his "friend," goes only so far.
June 02, 2008
Phil Gramm, ghoul
Gramm as a lobbyist for UBS tried to sell the State of Texas a "dead peasant insurance" scheme under which the state, and the bank, would make a profit every time a schoolteacher died.
June 01, 2008
McCain's religious cluelessness
It's rather charming. And it has led him to do a good, if unintentional, job at unmasking some of the nuttiness of the Religious Right.
May 30, 2008
Ouch!
Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films have two devastating take-downs of John McCain up on YouTube.
May 27, 2008
John McCain, Phil Gramm, and UBS
While UBS was helping its clients evade US taxes, its Vice-Chairman and lobbyist, Phil Gramm, was advising John McCain on banking policy.
What does McCain's speech on nuclear security say?
1. It's addressed to the wonks, not the voters. 2. It won't please the ultra-hawks; it puts daylight between McCain and Bush, at least rhetorically. But it assumes that generals, not civilians, make security policy. 3. It involves changes from McCain's earlier positions without explanation. 4. Statements in it diverge from consensus reality at several points, especially in his characterizations of opposing positions.
May 26, 2008
Losing potential non-coms: the GI Bill v. Blackwater
If offering potential non-coms a college education is a bad idea because it encourages them to leave the service, why is it ok for Blackwater to offer them six-figure salaries (which we have to pay for) to leave the service?
May 24, 2008
"A very bad day for Gramps"
"Prup" of the Carpetbagger Report thinks that John McCain just cost himself a bunch of votes by repudiating Hagee and Parsley.
McCain and the veterans: talk v. action
If McCain has such esteem for veterans, why doesn't he ever do anything about it?
May 23, 2008
The nativists are restless
McCain's re-flip-flop back to "comprehensive immigration reform" may cost him part of his base.
May 22, 2008
Bad day for John McCain, Part II: anger management
When a candidate has well-known anger-management issues, he really needs to be careful about the tone of his statements. Today, John McCain was one of only three Senators who failed to show up for the debate and vote on Sen. Jim Webb's improved GI Bill. (Ted Kennedy is in the hospital, and Tom Coburn was at a funeral. McCain was...
Bad day for John McCain, Part I: crazy preachers
Suddenly it's not true that Their Crazies Don't Count: the media are now covering McCain's connections with Hagee and Parsley.
May 21, 2008
Huffington on McCain
Was the John McCain of 2000 a better man than the one now running for President? I rather doubt it. But it's an effective line of attack.
May 18, 2008
May 16, 2008
Rats being forced off the ship department?
Mark has done a great job of drawing attention to the dictators' lobbyists on the McCain campaign. See here and here. Today comes word that Craig Shirley has been ousted from the McCain campaign after Politico asked about his connection to an anti-Democratic 527. In the 1990's Craig Shirley was on payroll of the Serb side in the Bosnian conflict....
Another goddamned appeaser
John McCain, two years ago, about negotiating with Hamas: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another."
May 12, 2008
Some 'splainin' to do
At some point, will a member of McCain's worshipful personal press corps dare to ask him a question about whether he feels comfortable taking money and advice for paid agents of hostile foreign powers?
May 10, 2008
Judge him by his friends
How come so many of John McCain's buddies take money from anti-American tyrants?
May 08, 2008
Embracing hatred
Can McCain get away with his "spiritual leader" Rod Parsley's call for a war on Islam? Probably.
Question for John McCain
If your wife won't release her tax returns, how do we know that your official actions aren't helping her business associates: Charles Keating, for example?
May 04, 2008
Obama/Ayers. McCain/Liddy.
Sauce. Goose. Gander.
John McCain is closer to Gordon Liddy than Barack Obama ever was to William Ayers. He has never repented his record of burlary and of plotting to use firebomging, kidnapping, and political assassination when he worked for Richard Nixon.
May 01, 2008
April 30, 2008
Against it before he was for it
John McCain, before he called for 100 years in Iraq, called for bringing all the troops home because their presence in an Islamic country would inevitably stir up trouble.
"Just asking" dep't
In what universe is a $150-billion-per-year war affordable and a $2-billion-per-year extension of the GI Bill not affordable?
April 27, 2008
I feel your pain: McCain's fatuous but politically effective tour of coal country
Deep in his World War II memoirs, Winston Churchill laments that the democracies spent the phony war hesitant and bickering, thus allowing the Germans to systematically execute a scientific war plan. November is a long way off, but right now the Democrats seem trapped by some of the same problems. John McCain's fatuous but politically effective "Time for Action" Appalachian tour provides one reason for worry....
Even more precisely: Wouldn't Hamas profit from another conservative Republican?
According to a recent interview, John McCain believes that Hamas wants Barack Obama to be president. Judging by past performance, wouldn't Hamas profit from another conservative Republican?
April 26, 2008
Precisely!
Andrew Sullivan asks the right question: why does John McCain want to let the terrorists choose our Presidents for us?
April 22, 2008
Another McCain scandal for the media to ignore
McCain helped a big developer who is also a big contributor get favorable treatment from the feds on land swaps. Ho, hum.
April 21, 2008
McCain finds a loophole in McCain-Feingold
... to let his fat-cat friends give him $70k each instead of the $2300 legal limit.
Damning McCain with Faint Praise
Obama says that McCain would make a better President that George W. Bush. Well, yes. But then you could make a better President than George W. Bush out of papier mache.
April 20, 2008
"Enhanced educational opportunities could negatively affect retention rates"
John McCain refuses to support Jim Webb's new GI Bill.
"I wanted them to think me still an honest man"
... but he's not. Anna Quindlen has details on the sad moral wreckage that is John McCain.
April 19, 2008
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and John McCain
When McCain says that if we pull out of Iraq "al-Qaeda in Iraq" will wind up "taking a country," he's saying something demonstrably absurd. Michael Cooper and Larry Rohter provide the demonstration, with Kenneth Pollack of Brookings in the role of Deputy Clown.
April 06, 2008
Say what? dep't
McCain claims he "voted hard" [whatever that means] against Bush's strategy in Iraq. Huh?
April 02, 2008
Keating 5 anniversary: Did McCain just call for more "government-induced accounting fraud"?
The original Keating Five whistleblower says that John McCain's proposals to deal with the current financial crisis simply replicate the error that led to the S&L; meltdown: letting banks lie about their assets.
April 01, 2008
Big in Iran
Press TV (Iran's Russia Today/Fox News official 24-hour propaganda channel) profiles John McCain. They're not impressed:Iowa Senator Charles Grassley who was subject to McCain's "I'm calling you a f****** jerk!" said in an interview that he was so upset by the tirade that he did not speak to him for two years. Many say Americans should be worried that if...
March 29, 2008
More lobbying in StraightTalkLand
Phil Gramm wrote a financial deregulation law that allowed UBS to buy Paine Webber, and promptly went to work for UBS as a lobbyist fighting tighter mortgage regulations. He's now "general chairman" of the McCain campaign.
March 27, 2008
March 26, 2008
How bad could four years of McCain be? Bad.
Harold Myerson makes the case that McCain isn't to be trusted on matters of war and peace.
March 24, 2008
March 23, 2008
The Real McCain
McCain's tax and health-care proposals ought to help focus progressive attention on November rather than Obama-v.-Clinton sniping.
March 20, 2008
Michael Scherer Fluffs McCain
Take that, NPR! Time Magazine's Michael Scherer can kiss up to McCain more than you can. Writes Scherer: The ongoing saga of the McCain Campaign’s effort to keep the political discourse respectful added another chapter today. As reported by Jon Martin, the campaign has suspended a junior staffer, Soren Dayton, a conservative blogger/consultant who worked in McCain’s political department. His...
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