8 posts tagged “john mccain”

Roger Simon wrote a piece dripping with sarcasm for Politico today.  And I love it.

Focusing on the outcry over the media coverage Sarah Palin has been receiving since the announcement about her taking the Republican VP slot last week, Simon perfectly enunciates what I never could in my severely limited attempts at voicing my opinions:

…On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.   We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.  We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?

…We should stop making with all the questions already. She gave a really good speech. And why go beyond that? As we all know, speeches cannot be written by others and rehearsed for days. They are true windows to the soul.  Unless they are delivered by Barack Obama, that is. In which case, as Palin said Wednesday, speeches are just a “cloud of rhetoric.”

…Sarah Palin wanted the media to report on her teenage son, Track, who enlisted in the Army on Sept. 11, 2007, and soon will deploy to Iraq.  Sarah Palin did not want the media to report on her teenage daughter, Bristol, who is pregnant and unmarried.  Sarah Palin thinks that one is good for her campaign and one is not, and that the media should report only on what is good for her campaign. That is our job, and that is our duty. If that is not actually in the Constitution, it should be. (And someday may be.)

On the other hand, I think that a portion of the coverage Palin has received is unfair.  And, apparently, some of Hillary Clinton’s aides agree with me:

Georgetown University professor Deborah Tannen, who has written best-selling books on gender differences, said she agrees with complaints that Palin skeptics — including prominent voices in the news media — have crossed a line by speculating about whether the Alaska governor is neglecting her family in pursuit of national office.

“What we’re dealing with now, there’s nothing subtle about it,” said Tannen. “We’re dealing with the assumption that child-rearing is the job of women and not men. Is it sexist? Yes.”

“There’s no way those questions would be asked of a male candidate,” said Howard Wolfson a former top strategist for Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Ultimately, I like Palin.  A lot.

But there’s still no way in hell that I’d ever attached my vote to a McCain campaign.  The fact that they managed to find someone to run in the VP position who would do much better headlining the ticket doesn’t change the fact that McCain is a slimeball with nothing better to do than sell Americans out at the domestic level while playing up his foreign policy credentials.  If we’re going to have four more years of mismanaged policy at home, why not put it all in the lap of someone as easy to write-off as Barack Obama?

Barring the possibility of McCain dropping out of the race in the next two months for age-related reasons, I will continue to throw my vote in for a post-Obamalyptic dystopian future where Americans are finally shaken back to reality.

Yeah, it sounds bad, but we have a nasty tendency of finding order only after chaos.  Just look at Carter and his inspiration for Reagan.

Dear America,
I don't claim to be an expert in economics, but I'm certainly impressed by the generic understanding of supply and demand that you have exhibited as you've watched the gas prices rise over the last couple years.  According to the Federal Highway Administration, you are driving less these days - presumably because you're fed up with paying high prices for gas.  Given this reality, it's likely that this has led to more stability when it comes to the price of crude oil on the market.  This, I assume, has contributed to the gradually dropping prices that we are paying at the pump.

The joy of a (relatively) free economy, like the one you are currently a part of, is that the consumer always has the final say in whether the economy fails or succeeds.  If you don't like the price of something, you simply stop purchasing it or, in this case, limit your purchasing.  This will force the producers to limit the prices that they apply to their products and, ultimately, both parties will benefit from a competitive market in which reasonable prices for quality products becomes the standard.

However, this slight deviation from your normal ignorance of the inner workings of our economy appears to have faltered in the realm of politics.

Currently, John McCain is desperately pushing his plan to expand drilling for oil off of the American coastlines.  Inherently, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a potential future where we produce more of our gasoline locally.  That, though, won't do much to alter gas prices - especially in the near future.  According to just about everyone who seems to understand the gasoline-production process, any expansion in our local drilling would take several years to impact us directly, if at all.  McCain's attempt to impress you with his deep understanding of your day-to-day struggle to fill up your gas tank at a reasonable price is certainly an attempt to pander to you for your vote.  Please don't encourage this sort of thing, as you appear to know better than that - remember, supply and demand is the name of the game.

McCain, though, isn't the only politician trying to pull the wool over your eyes.  His opponent, Barack Obama, is now pushing his plan to institute something called a 'windfall profits' tax on the oil companies.  Now, being the good economists that you've demonstrated yourselves to be, you obviously know the difference between regular 'profits' and something called a 'profit margin.'  You are also aware, of course, of the fact that the profit margins for our major oil companies remains at a steady 8% - 10% rate.

This means that our oil companies, who are the only producers available to us for gasoline, would be staring down the barrel of a serious cut into that significantly light profit margin rate in order to pay for Obama's attempt to pander to you.

Now, I'm not trying to tell you who you should vote for because, frankly, I'm not impressed with either plan.  But I did want to address the fact that you are apparently aware (or should be) that the best way to deal with high gas prices is through limiting your use of it.  Congratulations.  Perhaps soon you'll come around to the fact that income taxes are the ultimate in modern techniques of federal enslavement.

Best of luck in November,
W.

Watching Barak Obama's climb from nameless state senator to Democratic frontrunner has been an interesting one.
Watching his gradual slide from the liberal end of the spectrum to something more moderate, though, has been thoroughly entertaining.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how someone who runs as the candidate of hope can possibly expect to run successfully through November when he appears to be nothing more than a maneuvering politician as it comes time to face the general voting population in America - a population that remains historically more conservative than all the hope in the world could change.

My good friend Greg over at the Office of the Independent Blogger linked to a piece from the Wall Street Journal focusing on the growing similarities between Obama's campaign posturing and Bush's own posturing.  Granted, these similarities are slight, but they should be troubling to the true-believers out there who might've been holding out for this guy to remain true to his roots.

Of course, the other side of the coin is John McCain's absolute inability to sell himself as anything but an angry old man.

My second exam didn't go quite as well as I had originally planned, but at least Mr and Mrs Scrambler Biggs arrived in southern California with no major troubles.

Just interrupting my brief hiatus to celebrate the fact that the Senate finally did it's job and actually listened to their constituency and blocked the Kennedy-McCain Immigration Bill this morning.  I find it interesting that the bill in the last week, and especially now that it's failed, is being referred to as the 'Kennedy-Bush' immigration bill - completely ignoring the fact that John McCain was the actual co-writer of the bill with Ted Kennedy.
Funny how McCain has managed to distance himself, if only ever so slightly, from this monstrosity.

'See you at the signing,' indeed, Mr. President.
Looks like Bush has finally managed to get even the hardiest of republican support to question his grasp on reality.

When the McCain-Kennedy Immigration Reform bill was pulled from the floor of the senate last week, I could almost hear the collective sighs of relief from across the country.  What was originally celebrated as a bipartisan compromise, carefully crafted by only those most egalitarian senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy behind closed doors (you can see an embarassingly glowing Washington Post review of it here), went down in flames because there just wasn't any support for it.  So it goes.

The manner in which the bill failed, though, is what's really interesting to me.  Originally, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acted as a co-sponsor of the bill while he had full faith that the American people would passively sit by and watch the legislature pass the horrid thing.  However, when things had proven to be more difficult that he'd originally planned, he then attempted to distance himself from it.  As with all failures in the last six years in Washington, Reid started to push this off on President Bush on Thursday in suggesting that it's up to Bush to bring more Republicans in on the bill.
What's more, Bush seemed to be more than willing to step up to Reid's challenge and start pushing for the bill.

Ultimately, I'm curious about the motives Reid has in trying to pin this on the President.  Is it because he recognizes that the majority of the public is against it?  And what happens if Bush does gain the votes needed?  Will the Democrats be able to continue to support it if it will not provide a victory for the President?

Strange bedfellows, indeed.

"I do not believe Washington can be transformed from within by lifetime politicians...there have been too many deals, too many favors, too many entanglements - and too little real world experience managing, guiding, leading."

Thank you, Mitt Romney.

In an ideal world, where Americans trade in their nightly dosage of 'American Idol' and 'Lost' episodes for a happy helping of political involvement, the 2008 Presidential Election might find you and Barak Obama as the headliners at the final debate events.  Unfortunately, while I agree with you on the above statement, I can't say that you're the strongest possible candidate on the Republican side.  Of course, when you've got someone like Guiliani or McCain at the top of the dogpile, you might actually stand a chance.
Meanwhile, while looking at the calendar the other day, I was struck by the fact that the Iowa caucus isn't for almost another year.  And I think that Karl Rove has a valid point when he says 'I think it is going to mean that people develop a persona earlier and wear out their welcome earlier than they would...I think there's going to come some point this year where people are going to basically be saying: 'I'm largely disinterested in the contest.'

Who knows?  Maybe McCain will slip up and call someone a 'gook' on national television or Hillary will throw a hissy fit and have her bodyguards beat up Cindy Sheehan before then.  Maybe Guiliani will be caught in another affair.
Maybe Obama and Romney can somehow manage to keep themselves clean throughout this whole process.

Well, with Rudy Guiliani's announcement that he'll be running for President, it would appear that the Republicans finally have someone to stand up to John McCain in the upcoming primaries.  And, while I'm going to stand proud under the ever-growing banner of the 'Anyone But McCain or Hillary' crowd, I find it unnerving that I know so little about Guiliani's political background.  I find it even more unnerving that I'm likely not alone in that respect.
Thankfully, there are people out there who are willing to help losers like me.  (Thanks, Dox - I promise I'll watch the videos when I'm done with this post!)

There's more at his Wikipedia page, too.

Frankly, I'm not impressed with his stance on illegal immigration - he's no better than McCain and his flailing attempts at promoting amnesty under a fancy new terminology ('path to citizenship' reads much better in the media, I assume).  They both also happen to share a proclivity for writing off personal responsibility regarding gun ownership in American, as Rudy seems to favor lawsuits over law enforcement.
And, while I realize that his pro-choice/pro-gay marriage stances may end up causing the most damage to his chances of surviving the primary run, I can't say that I disagree with him on either of those issues.

Ultimately, I think that the Republicans are in a bit of a bind to find someone with the polls to back-up their chances and Guiliani is the only one right now who has that.  Whether or not those polls stand with him the whole time is the mystery.

While I'm willing to admit that this week I've been taking it easy on dipping too much into the news, I did happen to run into this story.  And I can't believe how damned ridiculous it is that everywhere I saw this likability poll mentioned in a news story, it was based around the fact that Kerry came in 'dead last' compared to all the other candidates listed.

For the record, I don't think Kerry was ever really that popular to begin with.  I don't recall ever discussing the 2004 election with any Kerry supporters who could justify their support beyond his party affiliation.  The guy was a phony on the Iraq War, a phony on his fuzzy Vietnam memories, and a phony intellectual - and just about everyone knew it at the time, even if they didn't want to admit it.
And who would admit to such a tragedy, anyway?

But an election in which you've got George Bush versus John Kerry is like making a child pick between broccoli and peas for their dinner vegetable.  Suffice it to say that I don't think there's much point in anyone gloating over the fact that John Kerry is a big loser this late in the game.

What's more interesting about the poll, though, is who is actually at the top of the 'feeling thermometer.'  Don't know what a feeling thermometer is?  Me neither, but apparently the people who took this poll did, and they felt that  Rudolph Giuliani and Barak Obama warmed their thermometers just right.  That is, Giuliani and Obama were at the top of the pile.  Giuliani beating Obama by no more than five points.  The third wheel in this mess of feelings was John McCain.
It should be of some note that all three of these candidates are moderates - or, at least, that's how they portray themselves.

Frankly, while I realize that McCain is tough enough to survive a tortuous stay at the Hanoi Hilton, I have some serious doubts about his ability to face a Republican primary election and walk away in one piece.  I attribute this mostly to the fact that he's already failed once and I don't think the Republicans are anxious to deal with him as a serious candidate any longer - regardless of the support he may be able to rile up with the moderate voters.

Giuliani faces a similar problem in surviving a Republican primary election run.  He's just not conservative enough to win over the Republican base, methinks.  His views on gun control, abortion, and gay marriage (all relatively core to the stereotypical conservative think-tank voting machine) swing a little too far to the left to make sense as a real victor in a Republican primary.  However, unlike McCain, he doesn't have a history on the national electorate just yet and might actually be able to pull it off.
Assuming nobody asks him any moral questions about his third marriage.

Obama's the one that really looks like he's got a chance.  Like Giuliani, he's got the benefit of having only just recently broken into the national conscience.  Not only that, but he's done it in an extremely controlled and collected manner.  He's currently one of the top fund raisers in the Democratic party and the media absolutely loves him.  He may be young, but I think he's got a good shot at making some headway in any Democratic primaries - he's just got to be careful of the machine that is Hillary Clinton.

Personally, I wouldn't place any of them anywhere near the top of my feeling thermometer - but not everyone is going to vote 'Pam Anderson for President '08,' are they?