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Dahlia Lithwick provides a nice little narrative on grampa's draconian position on abortion:

Listen up, because he's telling us now. To the extent McCain was ever independent-minded at all on reproductive rights, he's not anymore. In 2000, McCain begged Bush to amend language in the GOP platform, which calls for a human-life amendment banning all abortions and provides no exceptions for rape, incest, or danger to the life of the mother. This week he indicated that he won't work to change that platform. That's a position espoused by fewer than 20 percent of the electorate. In the religion forum last weekend at Saddleback Church in California, McCain announced that life begins "at the moment of conception" and promised, "I will be a pro-life president, and this presidency will have pro-life policies." In April he told Chris Matthews that "the rights of the unborn is one of my most important values." He has bragged about his consistent zero rating from NARAL. He has explicitly said that his Supreme Court choices will be animated by his desire to overturn Roe.

Got that?

Posted by Earl at 06:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bast knows he doesn't really have one when you've got a backyard in Arizona like this to wine & dine & play kissy-face with his non-adversarial press bffs.

...and if he's having senior moments regarding just how many "investment properties" he and his beer heiress wife happen to own, I don't really mind that, either.  I've known a few landlords who had more than a couple of buildings or homes and none of them seemed altogether too rich to me.

But then Atrios led me to Nitpicker and then back to Politico.

It turns out that there are attendant costs when you have multiple homes instead of "investment properties:"

The McCains increased their budget for household employees from $184,000 in 2006 to $273,000 in 2007, according to John McCain’s tax returns.

Of all the landlords I've known in my life, I still have yet to meet one that has a single "household employee," let alone budgets over a quarter of a million dollars to pay them year to year.

Well, at least Grampa Warbucks is creating jobs...

Posted by Earl at 01:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Grampa, yesterday:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain chided his Democratic rival on Wednesday for getting "a little testy" as Barack Obama sharpened his tone amid a tightening White House race.

At least he remembered the code word for "uppity."

Posted by Earl at 06:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jack Cafferty, curmudgeon, looking at grampa:

John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His father and grandfather were four star admirals in the Navy. Some have suggested that might have played a role in McCain being admitted. His academic record was awful. And it shows over and over again whenever McCain is called upon to think on his feet.

He no longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the "Straight Talk Express" for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless he's reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer, John McCain is lost. He can drop bon mots at a bowling alley or diner -- short glib responses that get a chuckle, but beyond that McCain gets in over his head very quickly.

Posted by Earl at 04:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple of days ago, there was a list stolen from Newshoggers:

John McCain has some handicaps as well.

• His age - there is nothing wrong with making that an issue.
• He's a Republican.
• He didn't have the "right stuff' to be an admiral.
• He admits that we are worse off than we were 4 years ago but plans to continue Bush policies.
• He's a hot head.

And that's just a few.  Use them all.

And a lovely little list it is.

Today, however, we learned that grampa has so must warlust that he thinks it's time for the next step:

A woman told John McCain today that we might need a draft to accomplish all his foreign policy goals.  And he said he didn't disagree. 

So just how many wars does grampa want to fight?  How thin does he want to spread our forces.

How much of the finest military in the world does he want to waste for his ambition?

If you're the strongest person in a room, you don't have to prove it by beating up everyone else.  You can respond to threats with overwhelming force if you should choose to, but what good does it do to beat up the smallest person in the room?

It just wastes energy while the stronger people in the room retain theirs.

Posted by Earl at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Maverickety grampa has a sense of humor about poking sleeping bears, regardless of the consequences.  (For those that don't know, a consequence is what happens when you do something.)

Besides what's the worst that could happen?

I guess it all depends on the value you actually place on human life:

McCain likes zingers. We've all seen that mischievous look -- just before he shot a quip or sarcastic one-liner at GOP rivals such as former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. It's one of his appealing qualities, but in this case it worries me. Zingers don't make good foreign policy. They embolden friends and provoke adversaries -- and in the Georgia crisis, that has proved to be a deadly combination.

*

Now, after the Georgia war, McCain should learn that lesson: American leaders shouldn't make threats the country can't deliver or promises it isn't prepared to keep. The rhetoric of confrontation may make us feel good, but other people end up getting killed.

But don't worry about them, I guess.  Grampa has to win the election so a conflict had to erupt somewhere...

Posted by Earl at 05:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If they're standing next to each other, Grampa doesn't look as old as he is.

...and with age like that in office it would behoove the Democrats to select a new Speaker of the House, if you know what I mean.

Posted by Earl at 03:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Bob Herbert (highlighted):

This is what comes to mind whenever I hear John McCain and other Republicans reverentially invoking the name of Theodore Roosevelt. Senator McCain will tell you outright: “I am a Teddy Roosevelt Republican.”

That’s about as elastic as the facts can get.

Mr. Drilleverywheredrillnow wouldn't really pass TR's love of nature nor his sense of propriety, frankly:

Around the same time that the McCain campaign was pocketing its oil industry windfall, the historian Douglas Brinkley was poring over letters in which Roosevelt, running for his first full term as president in 1904, was indignantly ordering his campaign to return a $100,000 contribution from the Standard Oil Company.

In a letter to his campaign manager, dated Oct. 26, 1904, Roosevelt said: “I must ask you to direct that the money be returned to them forthwith.” As Roosevelt saw it: “We cannot under any circumstances afford to take a contribution which can be even improperly construed as putting us under an improper obligation.”

'nuff said.

Posted by Earl at 05:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Media Needle.

Go.

Go Now.

Posted by Earl at 04:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ron Beasley over at Newshoggers has a tidy little list I would like to spread:

John McCain has some handicaps as well.

• His age - there is nothing wrong with making that an issue.
• He's a Republican.
• He didn't have the "right stuff' to be an admiral.
• He admits that we are worse off than we were 4 years ago but plans to continue Bush policies.
• He's a hot head.

And that's just a few.  Use them all.  I'm sorry, but nice guys usually finish last in US politics and this is too important.

Have a nice day.

Posted by Earl at 06:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Saddleback thing that I didn't watch has some controversy...

Grampa's staff:

Members of the McCain campaign staff, who flew here Sunday from California, said Mr. McCain was in his motorcade on the way to the church as Mr. Obama was being interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren, the author of the best-selling book “The Purpose Driven Life.”

Grampa:

Mr. Warren started by asking Mr. McCain, “Now, my first question: Was the cone of silence comfortable that you were in just now?”

Mr. McCain deadpanned, “I was trying to hear through the wall.”

No, grampa, you were on the cell phone with KRove, sorting through the answers to the same questions you were later asked.

Pants-on-fire liar...

Posted by Earl at 06:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It doesn't take much:

Some of those who know McCain best — Republicans — are tougher on him than the press is.

Of course, if you're paying attention to the media, it's isn't all that hard to believe.

TBFFR.

Continue reading "Guess Who" »

Posted by Earl at 06:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I believe you should respond, Mr. McCain:

“Yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say, ‘We are all Georgians now,’” Saakashvili said on CNN’s American Morning. “Well, very nice, you know, very cheering for us to hear that, but OK, it’s time to pass from this. From words to deeds.”

McCain told a crowd in Pennsylvania yesterday that he had called Saakashvili to express solidarity with the people of Georgia, saying: “Today, we are all Georgians.”

So...John.  What's your absolutely unambiguous correct answer to the Georgian president?

I expect answers before I type this.

Posted by Earl at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To quote:

Our candidate believes in the audacity of bleak despair!

ROFLMAOWBBQS

Posted by Earl at 03:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My governor, whom I truly hope McCain chooses for a partner in his impending electoral defeat, has some advice for Grampa:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, often mentioned as a possible running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, said Wednesday GOP candidates would do well to adopt a positive tone like that of McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama.

"Say what you will about Barack Obama," the Minnesota Republican told a conservative group, "people gravitate when you have something positive to say." He added that McCain has been positive as well.

"People want to follow hopeful, optimistic, civil, decent leaders," Pawlenty said in a speech to GOPAC, which helps recruit Republican candidates. "They don't want to follow some negative, scornful person."

...and if you've ever noticed, hopeful and optimistic don't come easily to Grampa.

That "my friends" opening that he constantly opens with is painful for me to hear, actually.  He comes off as a man without a personality of his own but trying - desperately - to get people to like him.

I've known people like that and it was painful to hear them trying - oh, so desperately - to show genuine enthusiasm - or knowledge - or personality.  The vast majority of those people were small people.

Not in stature, either, trust me.

Posted by Earl at 05:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Please move along briskly.

McCain is the drill more/drill now/drill in your front yard candidate - That much is known.

Oil companies probably like that in a candidate.

Knowing that, read about this:

Alice Rocchio is an office manager at the New York headquarters of the Hess Corp., drives a 1993 Chevy Cavalier and lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, Pasquale, an Amtrak foreman.

Sounds fine so far, but:

Despite what appears to be a middle-class lifestyle, the couple has written $61,600 in checks to John McCain's presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, most of it within days of McCain's decision to endorse offshore oil drilling.

Funny.

Funnier:

At a June fundraiser, the Rocchios joined top executives at Hess Corp. - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Hess, his wife, Susan, his mother, Norma Hess, and six other officials in giving a total of $313,500 to a joint McCain-RNC fundraising committee, Federal Election Commission records show.

Is this passing the smell test to you?

Posted by Earl at 05:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Earl at 04:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Grumpy granpa went to talk to Georgie yesterday:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there was a fundamental difference about the original decision to go to war. He said it would inflame the Muslim world, it would become a recruitment tool for al Qaeda.

You said, and you wrote, that it would lessen antipathy in the Muslim world, and that we’d be greeted as liberators.

*

MCCAIN: I don’t believe so. We were greeted as liberators.

Can't you just smell the maverickety goodness?

Well, something smells, it seems...

Posted by Earl at 03:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Especially when it's on Fox.

...at least he's got an OH-SO-COOL Facebook pic.  He's probably talking to Jack Bauer right there...

Posted by Earl at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good stuff!

Continue reading "KO Strikes Again" »

Posted by Earl at 03:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's how to save social security - MEANS TESTING.

John McCain, married to hundred-millionaire Cindy Budweiser (Who is making a killing off the selling of A~B) is taking his social security.

You know, the safety net for the old and infirmed.

I guess he fits that description.

Not nice, I know, but why should he even be taking it?

Posted by Earl at 06:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today at W's press conference:

What was the question, Olivier? I'm 62, I'm having trouble remembering a lot of things.

On a completely unrelated note, John McCain will turn 72 on August 29 this year.

Posted by Earl at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It was only a few days ago that a certain meme infected the internet.  A certain level of comedy was achieved.

Now we have Mark Soohoo, John McCain's "Internet Guru" trying to adapt to the comedy that is his candidate (via Politico):

"You don’t actually have to use a computer to understand how it shapes the country,"  [Soohoo] says.

*

"John McCain is aware of the Internet," says Soohoo. "This is a man who has a very long history of understanding on a range of issues."

Well, at least the word traditions wasn't used...

Posted by Earl at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Continue reading "This Is Dedicated to the CM-IC*" »

Posted by Earl at 04:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's a hard word to get past, but if you're able to it is possible to laugh at the end.

Don't say you weren't warned.

With thanks going to d r i f t g l a s s.

Continue reading "NSFW Friday" »

Posted by Earl at 04:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Keith is going to have a Special Comment tonight.

I'll decide later if I'm going to put it up here.

You will find out how I feel about it, regardless.

Posted by Earl at 07:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Attempting to play on the insecurity of the people by reminding them what Barack said a few months back, McCain said this:

“Were going to go to the small towns in Pennsylvania and I’m gonna to tell them I don’t agree with Senator Obama that they cling to their religion and the Constitution because they’re bitter,” McCain told voters in Philadelphia.

If you've ever read about my feelings toward religion you should know that I'm certainly not clinging to it.

The Constitution, on the other hand, is as close to an idol as exists in my mind.  If you are on the front page of GnostiNews, you can see the flag on top of the right column.

Click on it and there you are.  The guiding principles that BUILT these United States.  It's not etched in stone and it has been changed a few dozen times since it was approved, but it always has to be that guiding force in order for America to exist.

Those that seek to set it in stone and ignore the living principles behind it are like people who cherry-pick Bible verses in order to hate something they don't like.  It's phrasal parsing worse than some idiot trying to define the word "is."

It ignores the spirit of the law and that's what conservatives have trouble with in the first place.

Posted by Earl at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 19, 2008, the fifth anniversary of the neocon nitwittery in Iraq:

On the fifth anniversary of President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, President Bush said he has no doubts about waging the unpopular war despite the "high cost in lives and treasure."

Vice President Dick Cheney had a different message. Informed during a Good Morning America interview broadcast Wednesday that two-thirds of Americans now think the war was not worth fighting, Cheney said: "So?"

John McCain, asked this morning if he could estimate when our troops could come home:

No, but that's not too important.

I'd explain the context of his answer but I don't want to.

Posted by Earl at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

He doesn't seem to have them:

"I will use the veto as needed. I will veto every single beer — bill with earmarks," he said, as rumblings from the crowd could be heard.

Of course I added the emphasis.

I can only wonder how Barack should respond to that... 

Posted by Earl at 07:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm watching McCain speak from Kenner, Louisiana on MSNBC.

I'm sure he's smarter than he sounds right now, but, geez.  Stilting, stammering speech.  Staring at the camera/teleprompter like a deer in the headlights.

He just doesn't sound very good.

It doesn't help that you can hear individual people clapping.

Posted by Earl at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Almost right off the bat, Frank tells me why I'm already bored with Scotty & the book:

There is no news in his book, hardly the first to charge that the White House used propaganda to sell its war and that the so-called liberal media were “complicit enablers” of the con job. The blowback by the last Bush defenders is also déjà vu. The claims that Mr. McClellan was “disgruntled,” “out of the loop,” two-faced, and a “sad” head case are identical to those leveled by Bush operatives (including Mr. McClellan) at past administration deserters like Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke, John DiIulio and Matthew Dowd.

So why the fuss?

Why, indeed - Well:

Americans don’t like being lied to by their leaders, especially if there are casualties involved and especially if there’s no accountability. We view it as a crime story, and we won’t be satisfied until there’s a resolution.

That’s why the original sin of the war’s conception remains a political flash point, however much we tune out Iraq as it grinds on today. Even a figure as puny as Mr. McClellan can ignite it.

That's the drum to beat in this election cycle and it's got to be as merciless a drumbeat as the selling of this war used.

Again...Why?

As F. Scott Fitzgerald would have it, we will be borne back ceaselessly into the past. Or so we will be as long as Americans continue to die in Iraq and as long as politicians like Mr. Bush, Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton refuse to accept responsibility for their roles, major and minor, in abetting this national tragedy.

Bingo, Frank.

Posted by Earl at 05:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)