Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California and a McCain supporter, is married to Democrat Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy clan and an Obama supporter. Luckily, there is a tie breaker — of their four children only one is old enough to vote, and she prefers Obama.
Some of you may recall that a week ago McCain challenged Obama to a series of “town hall” meetings with him, the first one to occur in one week. Never mind that McCain does much better in town hall meetings than he does in regular debates (not to mention his abysmal performance giving speeches), and never mind that McCain has far less money than Obama, so these town hall meetings would give him much needed publicity (especially after all the publicity that the democratic candidates have received over the last few months). Only a cynic would bring up such trivial matters!
Obama’s campaign countered McCain’s proposal with their own proposal, and the candidates have not agreed on what to do, but McCain decided to go ahead with his own town hall anyway, billing it as “a town hall with independent and Democratic voters”. However even Fox News, the sponsors of the town hall, had to confess that the event was invitation only, and the people invited were McCain supporters (watch the video).
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/06/13/fox-admits-mccain-stacked-town-hall-with-supporters/
At this point I’m waiting for McCain to announce that he is the favored candidate among McCain supporters.
And, as someone pointed out, didn’t Bush used to do something similar, requiring “loyalty oaths” to be signed before you could attend his events?
“Al Gore for a while was vice president, and he had the book and the film, ‘Inconvenient Truth,’ which was about climate change. Well, they’re turning that ‘Inconvenient Truth’ into an opera. Al Gore and opera – are you kidding? Cut me a slice of that! Let’s go! But they had some trouble and they have postponed the opening of that opera. Apparently, the composer is having trouble finding a rhyme for low emission hybrid.” -David Letterman
“Hillary Clinton’s camp says she is not actively seeking the vice presidential nomination. Passive-aggressively seeking it, yes.” -Jay Leno
Well, according to the most recent survey, 14% of the people believe that we will see $5 a gallon gas by the end of the year. $5 a gallon. The other 86% think we’ll see it by the end of the week.” -Jay Leno
“You know, I don’t want to say the oil companies are screwing people, but full service now includes KY Jelly.” -Jay Leno
“Saudi Arabia announced they will call a meeting of all the OPEC nations and promised to crack down on the high gas prices. Well, let’s hope it’s as successful as the Saudi crackdown on terrorism.” -Jay Leno
“I think Hillary may secretly be glad that this whole thing is over. ‘Cause now she can go back to doing what she loves the most: huntin’, drinkin’ whiskey, shootin’, get back to her roots, as we saw. Well, the good news is Hillary is on Barack Obama’s list for potential vice presidents. Yeah. The bad news, she’s just a little bit below theReverend Wright.” -Jay Leno
“Hey, did you all see Hillary’s concession speech over the weekend? Very good. She gave a lovely, lovely speech. She was gracious, very complimentary. And she said she wanted Barack Obama to win, and then she hugged her husband, Bill. Then the Secret Service grabbed her, threw her to the ground and said, ‘What have you done with the real Senator Clinton? Who are you?'” -Jay Leno
“You know, I’ll tell you, things are not good. The price of oil doubled in less than a year. Home foreclosures are at a record high. Unemployment is surging. But yesterday we saw a ray of hope. President Bush left the country. So maybe things will get better.” -Jay Leno
“President Bush gave a big speech today in Europe. He says he regrets giving the false impression that he is not a man of peace. But see, that’s the problem. You start one or two little wars, and right away, oh everybody jumps to conclusions.” -Jay Leno
“President Bush is in Europe right now, on a tour of Germany, Italy, France, England, and several other countries that hate him. While he’s gone, don’t worry, America safe and sound in the more competent hands of Barney, the White House terrier. I guess it’s sort of like a farewell tour for the president, before he returns home to kick off his six-month good riddance tour here.” -Jimmy Kimmel
“Music legend Bob Dylan, who is maybe the most respected person in all of music, he told the Times of London today that he supports Barack Obama. Or at least they think that’s what he said, he may have been trying to book a flight to Omaha.” -Jimmy Kimmel
“A high school in Ohio passed out over 300 diplomas last week. And on the diploma, the word ‘education’ was spelled wrong. Yeah. Officials say the misprint should not harm the reputation of George W. Bush high school.” -Conan O’Brien
“Barack Obama said his differences with Hillary Clinton are, ‘infinitesimal, tiny, minute, trivial and inconsequential.’ That’s what he said, yeah. When he heard this, President Bush said, ‘That guy knows way too many words to be president.'” -Conan O’Brien
“According to the Washington Post, Barack Obama and actress Scarlett Johansson are email buddies. Apparently they email each other back and forth. So, you’ve got a 23-year-old gorgeous, blonde actress emailing a married presidential candidate. Well, what could go wrong there? Not to be outdone today, John McCain admitted he had been exchanging flirty emails with Angela Lansbury.” -Jay Leno
“John McCain is campaigning very hard. Every day I pick up the newspaper, he’s someplace else. He’s got a new strategy. Well John McCain just announced he wants to do a series of town hall meetings where he’ll meet with the public. Yeah, it’s all part of McCain’s ‘Speak Up, I Can’t Hear You’ tour.” -Conan O’Brien
“John McCain has a new slogan. ‘A Leader We Can Believe In.’ That’s a good slogan. Don’t confuse that with President Bush’s slogan, ‘We Can’t Believe He’s Our Leader.'” -Jay Leno
http://politicalhumor.about.com/b/2008/06/13/the-weeks-best-late-night-jokes-6.htm
After loosing three congressional seats in traditionally Republican districts, the Republicans are now setting themselves up for more losses, but this time in the Senate. For some reason, Republicans are having a heck of a time finding anyone either qualified or willing to run for the Senate. As a result, some of their proposed candidates are almost amusing:
The Democrats can’t resist having a little fun at the GOP’s expense. They have set up a web page called Rotten Recruits (reminiscent of the movie recommendation site Rotten Tomatoes), complete with reviews and even a fake movie trailer:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11017.html
The UN authorization that allows US troops in Iraq expires at the end of this year, so the US has three options:
The Bush administration has been pursuing option #2, but despite a virtually hand-picked government in Iraq and an attempt to get this agreement signed in relative secrecy, the effort is starting to backfire spectacularly. Initially, the agreement that the US tried to get signed was stunningly lopsided. It tried to establish over 200 bases in Iraq, gave immunity not only to all US soldiers in Iraq, but also to all private contractors, gave the US control of Iraqi airspace, allowed the US to arrest any Iraqi for any (or no) reason, and several other provisions that the Iraqi government has now rejected.
At this point, if no agreement can be reached, the US will have no choice but to withdraw our troops by the end of this year. Wouldn’t that be ironic? For perhaps the first time, the incompetence of the Bush administration would be responsible for actually doing something that the American people actually want.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/10/AR2008061003415_pf.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/06/11/BL2008061101897_pf.html
On Tuesday, in his now infamous “green backdrop” speech, McCain basically called Obama a liar:
You will hear from my opponent’s campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I’m running for President Bush’s third term. You will hear every policy of the President described as the Bush-McCain policy. Why does Senator Obama believe it’s so important to repeat that idea over and over again? Because he knows it’s very difficult to get Americans to believe something they know is false. So he tries to drum it into your minds by constantly repeating it rather than debate honestly the very different directions he and I would take the country.
Once again, McCain’s ignorance of the Internet is his undoing. To wit, John McCain on June 15, 2005, on Meet the Press:
MR. RUSSERT: And what people point to — and this is an article in your hometown paper, the Arizona Republic, “At Odds With Bush. John McCain repeatedly has taken maverick positions that have put him at odds with President Bush’s administration” … The fact is you are different than George Bush.
SEN. McCAIN: No. No. I — the fact is that I’m different but the fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I’ve been totally in agreement and support of President Bush. So have we had some disagreements on some issues, the bulk — particularly domestic issues? Yes. But I will argue my conservative record voting with anyone’s, and I will also submit that my support for President Bush has been active and very impassioned on issues that are important to the American people.
So, according to McCain, on the important issues, he is indistinguishable from (“totally in agreement and support”) Bush.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/11/mccain/
Of course, not everyone thinks so … VP Dick Cheney took time out from his busy schedule to criticize McCain’s plan to cut the gas tax.
If you still don’t believe that McCain will lie to get elected, watch McCain himself admit it in this video (forward to 6:20).
In discussing McCain’s shabby treatment of his first wife, a question naturally comes up: should private misbehavior hurt someone’s chances of being elected to public office? And should this penalty be especially applied to hypocrites who publicly condemn what later turns out to be their own private behavior?
James Poulos says yes: “someone who fails in their private life .. has failed in their public life.”
Ross Douthat seems to want it both ways: condemning McCain’s boorish behavior while then claiming that that shouldn’t stop social conservatives from electing him.
Conservative Andrew Sullivan argues that political liberalism means that there should be a separation of public and private life, however such largess may not be as available to the theocons and Christianists who themselves argue otherwise.
This is from his own campaign ad:
See also http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2008/06/senatorial-shrinkage.html
The website 23/6 has managed to take the entire year and a half Democratic Primary and reduce it to one and a half minutes of video wonderfulness:
http://video.236.com/services/link/bcpid1599834811/bctid1599873904
If that isn’t enough, MSNBC has put together a similar video, but 10 minutes long. It is actually worth a watch for some of the more interesting moments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y281SqKK_8E
Daniel Kurtzman has compiled a wonderful list of quotes from John McCain, many backed up by video!
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/johnmccain/a/mccainisms.htm
Rather than repeat any of them here, just go there and read them all. You’ll be glad you did.
In Stephen Hayes’ 2007 biography of VP Dick Cheney, McCain was asked if Cheney might serve in a McCain administration. McCain’s response? “Hell, Yeah”.
In 2004 McCain called Cheney “one of the most capable, experienced, intelligent and steady vice presidents this country has ever had.”
Of course, now that he is running for president, McCain is trying to distance himself from Cheney.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/11/mccain-cheney-hell-yeah/
On NBC’s “Today” show, Matt Lauer asked John McCain about the surge strategy in Iraq: “If it’s working Senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?” McCain’s response:
No, but that’s not too important. What’s important is the casualties in Iraq, Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine. American casualties and the ability to withdraw; we will be able to withdraw. General [David] Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are.
Now, I know that what McCain is trying to do is justify his earlier statement that it would be alright if American troops remained in Iraq for 100 years or longer. The point he keeps trying to make is that we have troops in other countries without problems, so you shouldn’t fault him for saying we might have troops in Iraq for long periods of time.
The problem, which isn’t being pointed out enough, is that John McCain thinks that we could keep troops in Iraq without major casualties. The only people who actually believe that are the same people who claimed that the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators. He sounds like those people who used to claim that we could have won the war in Viet Nam if we had tried harder, and that we only lost it because we lost the political will to fight it. Except that McCain is trying to say the same thing about Iraq.
Iraq is in the middle of a civil war, just like Viet Nam was in a civil war. Even General Patraeus has said that there is no military solution to this problem.
But McCain doesn’t get it. After all, McCain has repeatedly confused Sunni and Shia (the two major factions fighting the civil war), and even keeps claiming that Iran is training al-Qaeda, even though everyone knows this is not true.
McCain’s only criticism of the war in Iraq is how we are fighting it, the same argument used by people who thought we could win in Viet Nam. But when you ask him how we should be fighting it, all he can say is “Stay the course” — the exact same thing we have been hearing from Bush and Cheney for more than five years.
Even worse, McCain’s reason why we should “stay the course” is so that our troops can “come home with honor and victory, not in defeat”. Again, he sounds like those people who warned that a defeat in Viet Nam would lead to a huge communist victory in SE Asia. McCain is playing the same “honor” card played by Nixon to keep us in Viet Nam. But we were defeated there anyway, and did anything terrible happen? Did the dominos fall? Did SE Asia become a communist stronghold? No. Viet Nam is now a member of the World Trade Organization and has earned Most Favored Nation status from the US.
The vast majority of Iraqi citizens want us out. Even the US troops who are in Iraq think we should not be there. And of course, most Americans don’t want us there. It is time McCain explained why he wants us to remain there.
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