This all seems even more ironic considering there is _so much_ else on which to

base concerns about a McCain presidency.

One example: he has aligned himself with advisors who, with flagrant conflict of interest, put their own personal financial interests above that of the American people..whom they are obliged to serve.

Another example: he has been unable to indicate how his administration would be any different than the current one. He cannot decide whether he aligns himself with the policies that have brought our country to the verge of collapse in terms of economics and foreign affairs or whether he opposes this decline and has some plan to repair the damage done in the last eight years.

That is just two...

Anyone remember Wesley Clark's job in the 1990s?  Maybe .... Commander of NATO who stopped the war in Kosovo, leading to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic?

Who's more qualified by his military service?  Clearly, Wesley Clark.

A man in his 70s who was a POW in Vietnam could be fully competent to be President.  Unfortunately, John McCain is not that man, my friends.

Mary, John McCain is a MAVERICK. He could beat up a Sandinista rebel with one arm tied behind his back.

 

I could beat up beat up the old geezer with one boney girl arm tied behind my back.

Hold my hand, girl...red rover, red rover, send Johnny mc on over! 

We could clothesline the old coot.

He could beat up a Sandinista rebel with one arm tied behind his back.

I agree. Of course, the only way McCain could beat that Sandinista rebel is if that rebel only had one arm and it was tied behind his back.

As Mr. Foser indicates, the public dosn't seem to be buying the story.  MSMFM, Main Stream Media For McCain, is a label I'd like to see get some exercise.

I'd also like to see these folks identified as a cancer upon the body politic. If their just getting warmed up this maybe considered true for an amazing number of citizens come November.

I just don't see them stepping away from this or other efforts of democratic demonization. The grooves have been developed over 20 years. They will not be abandoned easily and certainly not in the next five monthes.

McCain's Corporate Conservative News Media is giving Liar McCain a free pass and/or protection on each and every lie he tells and each and every flip-flop he engages in, and they also attack any person or group who makes legitimate criticisms of Liar McCain and/or calls Liar McCain on his many flip-flops and lies.

Exactly right Eweston...

They won't be abandoned.  Barack Obama doesn't appear to be the man who can take on the corporate media.  This would be too uppity.

He's going to have to rely on his "helpers"--Media Matters, etc.--but it's not clear if our infrastructure (though improved) is adequate for the task? 

 

 

Absolutely brilliant !!  Recommend every progressive blogger include this in their blogs to once and for all refute the lies and distortions spewed forth by our MSM.

One of the hallmarks of the Karl Rove era of GOP politics is that the Republicans aren't particularly subtle about their tactics. They tend to clearly telegraph what they intend to do, though often with the slight wrinkle of accusing the opposition of doing what they plan to do themselves.

I can't count the number of times in the last few months when I've seen false accusations made on this site where if the person who made the accusation had a mirror, they'd have been looking at themselves. This extends to the folks who attack me as being a sockpuppet when it seems very clear that they either have several screen names they use or closely monitor. It extends to the rightwingers who claim that we just can't take a joke, when there was no joke to be missed.

It extends to the McCain surrogate who claimed that Clark was attacking McCain on Obama's behalf, and then decried surrogates making attacks on behalf of someone else! Oxymoron heaven when a surrogate makes a surrogate attack saying that surrogate attacks are bad. Even funnier when the person he's accusing of making a surrogate attack didn't really even make an attack! McCain's surrogate, he did make an attack. Obama's surrogate? He didn't.

Karl Rove attacked Kerry's strength, his military record. McCain wants to pretend that his own military record is his strength, but a closer examination proves that it's not really such a strength. He was a poor student at the Naval Academy, a poor pilot who lost many planes, and was never going to become an admiral like his dad and granddad accomplished. McCain claims he doesn't run on his miltary record and his POW status, but he really does. However, he doesn't want close scrutiny of it because it can't stand up to that harsh light of reality.

His supposed strength is really a weakness. And the right is scared. They beat Kerry by lying about his strength. The left will beat McCain by telling the truth about his weakness. Honest information versus dishonest smears.

I've usually appreciated your posts BB. The attacks on you never seem to address your points. I've accused another of changing names but its just a minor item in a larger reply.

Enjoy the holiday all, even our new cut and paste troll.

New York Times columnist Gail Collins, for example, wrote: "When Schieffer pointed out that Obama had neither run a squadron nor 'ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down,' the correct response was: 'No, and he honors Senator McCain's service.' ... Nevertheless, what Clark said was obviously true."

This irritates me: totally out of context!  If you read the Collins article, or indeed any of her articles, you know she was being completely facetious when she suggested that Clark should have answered Scheiffer's question with "no, and he honors Senator McCain's service".  In fact, she was lampooning precisely the thing Media Matters is criticizing!

We've gotten some of Gail Collins' columns here in our local paper...

She is not impressive.  She seems to be a Maureen Dowd wannabe.

Another words, she's leaning toward being a skanky dirtbag. 

Over t digby's somebody made what I think is a devastating argument (can remember who, though) It goes like this:

There was one aviator who served in Vietnam, who was actually the navy's only ace in that conflict. He was shot down as well--except he managed to bail out over the Gulf of Tonkin, and so avoided what McCain went through.

After the war, he ran for Congress, where he concerned himself with military matters.

Such a man, with his heroism and long experience, clearly deserves to be considered for the Presidency.

If he ever gets out of jail.

The man is Randy 'Duke' Cunningham.

I honor his military service....

I honor his military service....

Then you must not question anything else.Unless you hate America.

What color is absurd?  McCain's war records is not the rule of who make a better president.  Why do the media spend so much time on Obama?  It's all about keeping the 24/7 alive and of course who the owners of the MSM are.  They have their club of keeping the oppressed down and the money rolling in for themselves.  How dare we the people demand a change of 7+ years of BS.  It had them (MSM as well as Bush's and McCain's lobbyist friends) living fat.  They want another 4 or 8 years of the same.  Who better than addle minded McCain to give it to them?  After all, real reporting of the unbiased truth would give the people What they have already decided.  We all want peace and comfort for having made our decision and more, importantly, having made our decision, being given a little R&R from this overly long campaign.  But no the media have to use one side of the paintbrush to paint a picture to instill fear that we could be stuck with McCain (since he is so close in this race, blah, blah).

The conservatives hate like hell that this unknown factor (Obama) has come along and given them no chance of winning.  They have pulled out all the stops,  Obama must be defined.! The only problem is that they are dealing with a master general that takes no prisoners.  He plays to win and will not let them reshape him or redefine him.  I just love the fact that he keeps them guessing and even when his surrogates speaks for him it is still part of his master plan!  Go Obama.

Paui Krugman hit the nail on the head today in his NYT opinion piece.

Thanks for pointing this out. Here's the link and a couple of paragraphs that sang out to me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/opinion/04krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

It was predictable that the McCain campaign would go wild over the Clark remarks. Mr. McCain’s run for the White House has always been based on persona rather than policy: he doesn’t have ideas that voters agree with, but he does have an inspiring life story — which, contrary to the myth of the modest maverick, he talks about all the time. The suggestion that this life story isn’t relevant to his quest for office was bound to provoke a violent reaction.

But the McCain campaign went beyond condemning General Clark’s remarks; it went out of its way to distort them. “This backhanded slap against John as not being a worthy warrior because he just got shot down is one of the more surprising insults in my military history,” said retired Col. Bud Day, who participated in a conference call organized by the campaign. In fact, General Clark had said no such thing.

The irony, not lost on Democrats, is that Col. Day himself has done what he falsely accused Wesley Clark of doing: he appeared in the 2004 Swift boat ads that impugned John Kerry’s wartime service.

That was a very good article by Paul Krugman. Thanks for posting the link. 

David Brooks is off today.

Best part of the column, IMO.

That's funny, I thought the same thing.

I hope he did hit the nail on the head...

It's pretty rare that many of these wimpy liberal columnists can hit the broad side of a barn.

We get people like Bob Herbert (super-wimp), Paul Krugman (economics 1A), Maureen Dowd (Fox News wannabe), in our local paper.

The conservatives are tearing into Obama with lies and crap, and the liberal columnists are working overtime trying to be "reasonable," and writing columns about state politics in Nebraska. 

 

YOU ARE SO RIGHT JAMISON! I LAUGH EVERYTIME PEOPLE LIKE SO CALLED MR. INDEPENDENT LOU DOBBS AND OTHERS SAY THE MEDIA GIVE OBAMA A FREE RIDE EVERDAY. THE MEDIA LOOKS LIKE A BUNCH OF BRAIN WASH PEOPLE WHEN THEY ARE AROUND MCCAIN.WELL I GUESS WHEN HE WIN IN NOV. WITH THERE HELP WE WILL HAVE TO WAITE LIKE WE DID WITH BUSH TO HAVE ANOTHER BAD WAR WITH IRAN FOR THEM TO WAKE UP ABOUT THIS MAN!!!

The lying right wing corporate conservative Republican Party controlled news media wants Liar McCain to get elected.  They are showing more favoritism to Liar McCain in this election than they showed favoritism to Liar Bush in BOTH the 2000 and the 2004 rpesidential elections combined.

Seeing the dis-likes of partisan Republicans like Schieffer at GOP-Viacom-CBS, or Republican Hate Hag Contessa Brewer at GOP-GE-NBC, etc., all working 24-7-365 for Liar McCain's election is sickening.

No doubt that Steve Schwartz has employed the new tactic in the Republican playbook, active collusion with the conservative news media.

Happy 4th, everybody. Here's to an end to phony patriotism, a swing to genuine love of country and planet, and renewed sense of hope.

Let's honor phony patriots like Liar Sean Hannity, who wore the flag pin while he avoided signing up for the military to fight in Desert Storm 17 years ago.

Or phony patriots like Liar Dick Cheney, who had 5 defermits to avoid having to fight in Vietnam because he had "better things to do" whatever they were.

Unrelated to this thread,

Happy July 4 to everyone.

 

And Merry Christmas...

Enjoy the 4th!!! 

"When did journalists decide that the "obviously true" answer to a question is not the "correct" answer? When did they decide that it was appropriate to spend days excoriating someone for saying something that is "true" but isn't "well-advised?""

Thanks so much Jamison Foser.

You are one of the Minutemen who are slowly and steadily leading us out of this conservative calamity. 

According to my Webster's, a war hero is "any man admired for his courage, nobility, or exploits, especially in war; as, Washington is a national hero."  Heroism is defined as "1. the qualities and actions of a hero. 2. Brave, noble action or trait. . . SYN.-- courage, fortitude, bravery, valor, intrepidity, gallantry,-- COURAGE denotes fearlessness of danger; FORTITUDE is passive courage, the habit of bearing up nobly under trials, dangers, and sufferings; BRAVERY and VALOR are courage in battle or other conflicts with living opponents; INTREPIDITY is firm courage, which does not shrink from the most appalling dangers; GALLANTRY is adventurous courage, dashing into the thickest of the fight."

Surviving as a P.O.W. most certinly could require FORTITUDE. It does not, however, automatically elevate one to the status of "War Hero." As an old survivor of the Bataan Death March once told me, "Hail, I was just stayin' alive."

 

 

McCain is indeed a hero.  I don't think we can even argue against that.  His refusal to leave when offered shows his strength of character. 

That said, I think the issue Clark brought up - regarding McCain's qualifications for being president is entirely worthy of debate and not out of bounds at all.  This is a fake controversy.

Some other guy in the 70s, also named John McCain, is a hero.  The John McCain I'm seeing now is pro-torture, anti-troops, and is seeking to ruin this country.  He has nothing in common with that other John McCain, so the other McCain shouldn't even be mentioned in this election.

Anyone remember Wesley Clark's job in the 1990s?  Maybe .... Commander of NATO who stopped the war in Kosovo, leading to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic?

Who's more qualified by his military service?  Clearly, Wesley Clark.

Its situations like these that show that we have to always be ready speak the truth to these lying sacks of... stuff. It galls me that they think that we're not paying attention. Then of course I see that a goodly portion of the country isn't. It can be disheartening. But it doesn't mean I'm not going to stop shouting the truth to all that will listen. 

 

Whatever Mr. Obama decides is right, regarding the management of the U.S. occupation of IRAQ, is based on sound expert Military (and Diplomatic) advice.

Contrast that, with John McCain's ignorant and slavish interest in the occupation of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney: so ignorant that he doesn't know nor even care what the different and opposed sects of Islam are, that constitute an insurgency against IRAQ's majority Shia government... and so slavish, you'd think McCain was involved in a "profit-sharing plan" for that occupation, as Bush and Cheney are.

There's no way we want four more years of a Bush Cheney McCain IRAQ (and that's what they're going to cheer I think, at the Republican National Convention, when Bush and McCheney hug and raise each other's arms aloft: "Four More Years! Four More Years!")

People talk about Hope sometimes, when they talk about Mr. Obama: Hope is a word I don't care about in these matters... it's a word that's nearly synonymous with wishing and dreaming, and in serious even grave matters, those are things for children and fools, not responsible adults.

Faith and Trust and Belief: those are more constructive and positive words, than are wishes and dreams and Hopes... I have complete Faith and Trust and Belief, in whatever Mr. Obama and his Military (and Diplomatic) advisors think is best, for Mr. Obama to do as our next Commander in Chief: and I especially have Faith in Mr. Obama, to say as little or as much or whatever he thinks is proper, regarding IRAQ, while on the campaign trail between now and November.

I figure any Democrat who'd second guess Mr. Obama's words about IRAQ, in this campaign, is either too weak of mind and heart to matter for spit... or is in fact really not a Democrat at all, but just someone cheering for "Four More Years", like the political media hack class and the ignorant and dangerous John McCain are.

  

Bud Day is not just any SBVFT smear artist. He met John McCain in the POW hospital in Vietnam. He's been one of McCain's close friends ever since that meeting in 1967. Day was John McCain's divorce lawyer.

And when Day participated in the 2004 Swift Boat ads that McCain "denounced," McCain appears not to have had enough pull with his friend of four decades to get him to stop lying about Sen. Kerry. All of these facts are well established in news reports—but no news organizations connect the dots and ask McCain to explain how he couldn't even get his close personal friends to stop acting in a way McCain himself called "dishonest and dishonorable."

lets see, did John Kerry go to vietnam to be a hero? yes, he took a video camera, he wrote reports recommending himself for medals, when tradition says that others recommend you for medals. Was he a hero there? I don't know, maybe. maybe not, maybe for just being there he was a hero. He came back and threw his medals over the white house fence, and protested the war. And said horrible things about the troops. He went to paris to meet with communist vietnam representatives. These two things are simultaneously inconsistent.

I can see how John kerry could be eager about the war and then be against the war months later. But to be in 2004 and say I am a war hero, and I am a war protester. In the same breath, on the same day. Over and Over. Doesn't make sense.

He can't get credit for both. And he tried. He should have just wore one of the hats. Pick a hat and wear it, war hero or war protester. Just pick one for Gods sake. Don't wear both hats at the same time.

That was the main problem with John Kerrys campaign. The swift boaters did not do much beyond that. No one likes to here swiftboaters say they saw john kerry act like a coward on many occasions. We just don't care to here that negativity. But what did resonate with thinking people was the contradiction as running on the laurels of war hero, and war protester, protesting the same war! It was not consistent. And it made Kerry look weak, like a flip flopper!

If he had been elected, we would have gotten out of iraq sooner, and maybe Iraq would be fine, or maybe they would have more and more chaos. I don't know. But Iraq seems to have gotten better this year. Even though we should have not stayed more than a year, with a big force. We should have done iraq the same way we did afganistan, go in with few numbers and keep very small numbers there, and let the iraqis rule themselves.