McScumbag
Let's take the gloves off, my friends. John McCain is a scumbag. Harsh?
Yes, I guess so. Tough. I can't think of any better descriptor at the moment. If you can, feel free to suggest.
McCain's been playing an insidious but totally transparent little game the last few weeks. First he sends attack Chihuaha Sarah Palin out in public to dribble her piddle about Obama palling around with terrorists. But McCain says he really doesn't like this sort of stuff and will stay on the high road.
He doesn't mention Bill Ayers during the Nashville debate. Probably because he's too much of a coward to look Obama in the face and do it. But the next day, his very strange and very wealthy wife -- long time experimenter with Vicodin and Percoset-- ambles out onto the stage and more or less accuses Obama of personally betraying her son in Iraq (forgetting that his running mate also has a son serving in the same place).
McCain's handlers tell reporters on a conference call that they shouldn't be distracted by all the mud, however. The campaign and certainly the candidate doesn't really condone this sort of thing. That Senator McCain wants to talk about the issues.
But take a look at the latest ad approved by The Gentleman from Arizona and seems rather obvious that the issue is just how big of a hypocritical, bald-faced scumbag John McCain really is. Some are wondering how low the Dow will go. Better question: How low will John McCain go? This is the legacy he wants to leave behind in his coming defeat?
I like what Andrew Sullivan says about this ad: "Remember this. And never forget what John McCain is. He's telling us every day."
October 9th, 2008 at 10:39 am
The rightwing is playing with fire in the nature of the assault being launched on Obama…
It won’t win the election, but it will set the tone for a certain segment of the country in reacting to Obama’s presidency. They are giving the mad dogs a kind of license and legitimacy – we’re going to see some very ugly stuff as this plays out.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:44 am
McCain’s always been a jerk:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/09/report-mccain-exploded-wi_n_133242.html
October 9th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I’m intrigued by the number of people who have shared physical space with John McCain, at one time or another, coming forward in ones and twos, to tell of John McCain’s temper. Like dozens of Molly Ivins-s, who tried to warn people about the essence of GW Bush.
I think it was Nate at FiveThirtyEight, or perhaps someone else, who said the best the McCain campaign can do at this point is to limit the spread when he loses. The effort seems to be to minimize the rout that’s surely coming. There are others arguing that McCain’s campaign approach is sinking a deep rift within the Republican party that cannot/will not be healed for a very long time.
You can actually read that in the comments of issues sites like Glenn Greenwald (who is a lot less liberal than right wing bloggers make out). Where do honest conservatives go? I see them rooting for Obama, distressed at having voted for George Bush, and arguing that the GOP deserves an honest thrashing for the way it has betrayed conservative thought.
The ads, like the one above, are not calling the party faithful home. If anything, it has made plain that a rogue group of home-invaders has taken up residence in the GOP, and trashed the place. I don’t see these conservatives returning to the home, until the place is fully fumigated.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:34 am
GM: “No fire in the belly shown by McCain.”
George, that fire is just the alien (think John Hurt) squirming to get out.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Throw down?
Given McCain’s tenuous grasp on his self-control, you just got to wonder how explosive he’d be if Obama were to puncture the thin veneer of McCain’s currently dubious honor.
October 9th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Two can play this game – check recent print editions of Counterpunch about McCain’s spousal abuse, gambling and – in the most recent issue – very serious evidence that he’s a lot more sick than he lets on.
It shouldn’t go in the ads, but Obama should have this oppo. stuff just in case.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Never mind McCain’s explosive temper. You have real explosive “issues” to think about:
(Read this to the tune of Jim Morrison singing The End)
“Methane Chimneys” Pose Scary New Warming Threat
If the prospect of carbon dioxide rapidly building up in our atmosphere and warming our planet isn’t quite daunting enough for you, get a load of this: Scientists have discovered a brand-new and very frightening global warming phenomenon happening in our seas. Late last month, scientists sailing the length of Russia’s northern coast have found that as the Arctic warms and sea ice retreats, massive deposits of underwater methane gas are bubbling to the surface like greenhouse-gas smokestacks. As you read this, it appears that millions of tons of methane — a gas 20 times worse for global warming than carbon dioxide — are being released into our air from beneath the Arctic seabed. In fact, the amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is estimated to be greater than the total amount of carbon locked up in the whole planet’s coal reserves.
Still not scared? The release of so much methane could accelerate global warming in a massive positive feedback loop in which more atmospheric methane causes more warming, leading to more melting permafrost and yet more methane released. Scientists believe that in the past, the sudden release of underground stores of methane have been behind dramatic climatic changes that have led to the mass extinction of species.
Learn more about it in the Independent.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2008/independent-09-23-2008.html
October 9th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Yes, McCain has always been a war like, reactionary jerk, it’s just that our blog host was very late to come to that conclusion. There’s a number of witty peices authored by Katha Pollitt years ago, deliciously taking Marc to task over his crush on McCain, a man Marc once thought once took to be a bulwork against the two party status quo. Those polemics hold up quite well today
October 9th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Top 10 Reasons to Vote Against Obama
by Sarah Palin
10. He’s not smart enough to be president.
9. He’s too much educated, speakin’ in full sentences, ya know, like that is in scary weird thing thinking people like me are dumb.
8. He shifts his policies like the wind.
7. He’s a committed Marxist ideologue.
6. He wears a flag pin, but its actually reversible with a verse from the Koran on the other side.
5. He was abducted by aliens and given a secret plan to replace the board of directors of Frito Lay and the Internet with the left-wing extremist executives of the New York Times.
4. He has a tattoo of Mao Zedong on his forehead, but you can’t see it unless you come to my church on Wednesday night.
3. His uncle prepared tax returns for a doctor who treated Manuel Noriega’s hemmoroids while he was doing time for just ’cause.
2. Obama’s real father is Saddam Hussein, and if you don’t believe me, ask Sean Hannity.
1. He’s really popular, like Hitler.
October 9th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
McCain’s only chance is to go “Nuclear” and that probably won’t work when even your “Base” (the media) has been alienated and is worried sick over their 401(k)s. And another very troubling issue – McCain’s health. Jay Leno made fun of st John’s wanderings over that stage in Nashville but there is something wrong and its hard to hide.