Whiner McSame's Delusions

If The Media Isn't Too Busy...

BarbinMD:

There has been a lot of attention paid to John McCain’s apparent flip-flop yesterday on timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, and given his frequent attacks on Barack Obama’s call for a 16 month timetable (or if you prefer, horizon), McCain’s words were rather stunning:

BLITZER: So why do you think he said that 16 months is basically a pretty good timetable?

McCAIN: He said it’s a pretty good timetable based on conditions on the ground. I think it’s a pretty good timetable, as we should — or horizons for withdrawal. But they have to be based on conditions on the ground.

But why don't we just add this to his ever growing list of flip-flops since McCain will dismiss any questions on this about-face and the media will go along with whatever he says because he is the foreign policy expert (despite his confusion or outright lies about his past statements on the war, Sunnis, Shiites, Iran and the Anbar Awakening). But since McCain has spent the past week whining about the press, perhaps the media could oblige him with some primetime coverage and ask him to clarify a couple of other comments he made during yesterday’s interview. None that would call into question his foreign policy expertise, of course. After all, he was a P.O.W. nearly 40 years ago. But just to have him clear up a couple of points he made. [snip]

John McCain wants more media coverage, so by all means, bring it on.

McCain: We won the Iraqi civil war

smintheus:

Ever since Nouri al-Maliki endorsed Barack Obama's plan to withdraw most US troops from Iraq within about 16 months, John McCain has been agitatedly trying to find a cloud in the silver lining. He's opted to belittle Obama's judgment for opposing the "surge" - implying somehow that the US has won the sectarian civil war by placing more troops in the middle of it. What we won is left unclear, but whatever it is McCain is keen to take the credit.

Bullshistory: a timeline

Kevin Holsinger


The Truth About John McCain

Texas Cowboy


Nice Trick

dday:

I guess conservative bloggers are pitching a fit because Obama didn't pay his respects to the troops at Landstuhl AFB in Germany. That might be because the Pentagon nixed it. [snip]

This of course, won't stop anyone, including McCain, from making it an issue.

It is a nice trick by the supposedly apolitical Pentagon, however. Allow Obama to plan a trip to the Air Force base, then lay down the rules at a time when Obama has no choice but to cancel it, and then watch the political fur fly.

Political Participation - The Real Fascism

dday:

Jesse Taylor at Pandagon had a remarkably insightful piece today about the wingnut carping over the Barack Obama speech in Berlin, the media reaction, and his popularity generally. I really think this is important to understand. The right has always held a goal of minimizing political participation; normally this is done through voter suppression, onerous voter ID or ballot access laws, and generally disenfranchising those for whom it is hardest to engage in the process. Now they've taken it a step further, basically planting the seed that ANY participation whatsoever, not just voting but showing up for a rally or working a phone bank or donating money, is toxic and inherently fascistic. Because their deficit in this election year is enthusiasm, they're trying to make such support and excitement untenable. [snip]

Yep. And because McCain is running such an awful campaign, conservatives must then rationalize that there's something deeply wrong with the popular and competent campaign that Barack Obama is running. [snip]

But that's all subtext, of course. The idea is to create the connection between large crowds and enthralled supporters in the 1930s and in the Obama campaign today. And that is meant to induce feelings of revulsion and shame, not just in those voters who are more passive and see these images on television, but among the very participants themselves. Going to an Obama rally? You're a mindless pawn. Send him money? You are funding a cult. Work on his behalf? You have drank the Kool-Aid and are pathologically creepy. [snip]

Entertaining, but also dangerous. They're taking a hip campaign and trying to make it radioactive. Those silent masses could easily be turned off by something they are browbeaten into considering the work of wild-eyed cultists. It's absurd, but it can be effective if we don't head it off. With growing numbers of the politically active and engaged, the Republican Party withers and dies.

Codpiece Delusion

Digby:

Like so many of you, I have long thought that electing McCain is a third Bush term. His differences in policy really are minimal and his temperament is equally arrogant and angry. What I didn't realize until recently is that he's equally delusional. That's the Bush trifecta. [snip]

So McCain has gone from a heroic prisoner of war who survived to tell the tale to someone who "knows how to win wars." But then, why not? Bush was hailed as the second coming of Winston Churchill because he made a speech that included the word "axis" in it.

McCain is getting crispy. He attacked Obama in a really ugly way by saying that he's willing to "lose a war to win an election" and now he's telling everyone he knows how to win them. This is delusional. Codpiece delusional. McCain has never "won" a war. [snip]

This type of personality can be brave but they aren't leaders. In fact, they are temperamentally completely unsuited to be leaders. The fact that both of these men feel the need to baldly state that they "know how to lead" should be a tip-off. That's something people can sense and see and it doesn't need to be articulated.

McCain is just like George W. Bush, only old.

Younger Than Springtime

Digby:

I love this. Via Maha, I see that right wingers are now arguing that Obama is too young to be president. The man is 47 years old. Old enough to be a grandfather. (But hey, I'm only four years older than him and I've been feeling pretty damned old lately so this is good news. I feel young again!) [snip]

I think, frankly, we should stop worrying about age and gender and race and the rest and start thinking about IQ. Bush is quite clearly on the lower end of the scale, no matter what age he is, and I'm seeing some quite serious signs that McCain's lousy record at the Naval Academy wasn't due to his carousing.

I'm not saying you have to be a genius to be president but you should have to meet some kind of intellectual thresh hold to be considered for the job. We've see how badly it can turn out when you ignore the fact that the president is a blithering idiot, no matter what the age. I'll take a thoughtful, intellectual, young person over a hidebound, rigid, intellectually deficient older jackass any day. They are, after all, the ones who have fucked things up to kingdom come.