RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events McCain in 08?

Fuck him.
He's a faggot.

That's the funny part. Since McCain (whose campaign was written off as over a few months ago, out of money and forced to fire his campaign manager, with no funds left to pay him) is now the uncontested Republican nominee, nobody cares about McCain at this point.

Everyone's following the horse-race between H.Clinton and B.H.Obama.

And like MEM said in the Obama topic, for all the hype about this being it if Hillary doesn't win in both Texas and Ohio, it will still be close enough that Hillary can keep on going, despite what has been hyped about this being the ultimate end-all primary.

Or something like that. I'm paraphrasing.

In any case, whether or not any of these people are my candidate of choice, I don't think I've ever seen a presidential primary season like this. The guaranteed winners have been leveraged out, and Hillary Clinton may be the last. The wild-cards on both sides have risen to become the front runners.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_campaignplus/20080304/ap_ca/on_the2008_trail

Congrats to McCain. He may not have been a favorite among many GOPers but I think he's going to be tough one to beat.

Very gracious, MEM.

LOOKOUT MEM, G-MANS GUNNA G-FUCK YOU!

Maybe a teensy bit gracious because despite some stances on issues I dissagree with I do think he's a pretty good guy. He could be your next Reagan.

LOOKOUT G-MAN HE RECIPROCATED YOUR ADVANCES!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080316/wr_nm/whitman_mccain_dc;_ylt=AuZLWjMcCgT9ktseiJ6c.kQjtBAF




this is bone headed, her approval rating amongst eBay sellers is in the negative..

Here's whomod back on 03/19/04 03:14 AM:



And, again, on 03/25/04 06:19 AM



And, more recently, on 01/17/08 04:51 AM:


Now, with McCain all but the official Republican candidate for president, what does our friend whomod think of the good Senator now?

In comparing McCain to W.Bush, while McCain agrees with Bush on permanent tax cuts, and completing the mission in Iraq (especially now that we are winning) I don't see McCain making the kind of ideological blunders that ignore reality, as Bush did.
I see McCain as reaching out to the political center more, and not catering exclusively to the conservative base (which McCain doesn't have to rely on anyway!)

Throughout the Iraq war, McCain is labelled retrospectively by Democrats as being "just like Bush". But that's simply not true.
Along with Republican senators Luger and Hagel, and Democrats like Biden and Levin, McCain has constantly pressed Bush publicly over the last 5 years to change to a winning strategy in Iraq and fire Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, replacing the Defense Secretary with someone else who would regain the confidence of the House and Senate, of our troops in the field, and of the American public. Which finally happened after Nov 2006, with new secretary Robert Gates.
And since then, the war in Iraq has improved dramatically, to the point that even Pulitzer-winning reporters for the New York Times (John Burns) and Iraqis polled, cannot deny the vast improvement in the security situation there.

McCain, like W. Bush, advocated staying in Iraq to finish the job. But unlike Bush, McCain didn't have loyalty to incompetents that he refused to fire, and pressed Bush every step of the way to fire Rumsfeld.

Whereas the Democrat response among the candidates has been retreat retreat retreat, withdraw withdraw, and abandon the Iraqis, across the board.
McCain, on that issue, by the success evident now, is to only one who got that issue right.

The new liberal mantra regarding McCain is "Just like Bush".
But that's a deliberate misrepresentation.

McCain has his problems, on campaign finance, NAFTA and particularly immigration/amnesty. But he's not "just like Bush".

To whomod, even Hillary is "just like Bush."

As we all know, McCain is using taxpayer dollars to undertake a campaign trip around the world. And, it is a campaign photo op. Yesterday, McCain got confused over the most basic facts about who is doing what in Iraq and Iran. Very basic stuff:



Wait. Isn't Iraq supposed to be McCain's strong suit? So much for that lifetime of experience constantly attributed to McCain by Hillary Clinton.

McCain's major mistake wasn't a one-time thing. According to the Huffington Post, McCain made the same incorrect statements about al Qaeda on the Hugh Hewitt show -- and they've got the audio:



Al Qaeda is Sunni. Iran is Shiite. That's a pretty big mistake for someone who is supposed to be so steeped in foreign policy and Iraq.

What if Clinton or Obama had made this mistake?

Now the traditional media types have it in their heads that McCain knows foreign policy inside out. That's wrong.

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

The mistake threatened to undermine McCain's argument that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead a country at war with terrorists. In recent days, McCain has repeatedly said his intimate knowledge of foreign policy make him the best equipped to answer a phone ringing in the White House late at night.

Not so ready for that phone call after all.

So we learn that the volatile Senator doesn't know the basics -- the very basics -- about Sunnis and Shiites. He made the mistake by linking Al Qaeda and Iran. No doubt, McCain thinks that's a good, scary talking point, but he's wrong. His new adviser, Karl Rove, probably told him to do it anyway.

There would have been a news story, just as was the case here.

You might recall, for example, the gaffe in which Obama threatened to attack Pakistan. It was reported, there was criticism, but it was quickly forgotten

This seems, if anything, less extreme a gaffe, as it involves a slip of the tongue, not a statement of intentional bellicosity against a sometimes ally.

G-Man, the fact that McCain made identical remarks on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show as well makes it clear McCain was not guilty of simply a "slip of the tounge" What’s more, McCain corrected himself only after Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) “stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate’s ear.”

A video by CNN shows that McCain repeated the inaccurate claim twice during the same press conference, bringing his total number of "slips of the tounge" to three.


I don't want to open the door to allegations of age discrimination (or to allegations of defending McCain in some way, for that matter), but it did cross my mind that these mistakes could also be products of age. The travel and time schedules of a presidential campaign are brutally taxing even for the sprightliest of contenders. McCain's 71. They don't call them senior moments for nothing. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying it's possible he misspoke rather than really didn't know. I do, however, think the juxtaposition of age is going to be BIG come the general election - especially if Obama wins the democratic nomination. In case you missed SNL this weekend, even they hit on the issue in a skit that declared McCain officially "crazy old." (If I can find a clip online, I will be happy to post it. Haven't had luck unearthing it yet.)

thank you rev. wright.

But McCain may not be wrong to suggest that Iran is backing Sunni as well as Shiite terrorists in Iraq.

As the Wall Street Journal noted in January 2007, American intelligence had unearthed documents in Iraq suggesting cooperation between Iran's Quds ("Jerusalem") force and people affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq, among other Sunni groups, confirming the suspicion of Iraqi liberal Mithal al-Alusi that Iran was playing both sides in Iraq.

And according to a July 2007 New York Sun article:

• One of two known Al Qaeda leadership councils meets regularly in eastern Iran, where the American intelligence community believes dozens of senior Al Qaeda leaders have reconstituted a good part of the terror conglomerate's senior leadership structure.
  
  That is a consensus judgment from a final working draft of a new National Intelligence Estimate, titled "The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland," on the organization that attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Like any intelligence, this may be a mistake, disinformation or otherwise false or not the whole truth. But the notion that because Iran is a "Shiite country" it would never cooperate with Sunni extremists is simpleminded nonsense. Iraq is majority-Shiite too, and the two countries fought a brutal war for eight years in the 1980s. Political alliances do not always follow the lines of sectarian or other natural affinities.

Either way, it's hardly proof of old age or disingenuousness on McCain's part.

I prefer Rev. Run.

It's Tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time
It's Tricky...

You be illin'.

Here's whomod back on 03/19/04 03:14 AM:



And, again, on 03/25/04 06:19 AM



And, more recently, on 01/17/08 04:51 AM:


Now, with McCain all but the official Republican candidate for president, what does our friend whomod think of the good Senator now?

I hope you realize that I generally don't bother to click on any youtube video unless some sort of description of it is included in the post.

i think he linked to another cheech and chong bit...

Nobody kicks whomod's ass better than whomod.

Yes, but was McCain 'Cheech' or was it Lieberman?

your an Obama supporter so i expect you to bash the jewish Lieberman...

Saddam Hussein and his clan were Sunni, so your point is irrelevant. Yes, the Sunni was and still is a minority in Iraq, but during Hussein's and his Baath Party's regime, they were in charge. Which I thought you already knew.

Earlier this month, Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS), the parent company of France-based Airbus, won a $40 billion Air Force tanker contract, beating out Boeing, DOD’s usual go-to company for Air Force contracts. Some of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign advisers lobbied for EADS while actions by McCain himself helped the deal go through. The contract would create thousands of jobs for Airbus and thus the French have a message for McCain: “Merci.” Watch this new video from the Campaign for America’s Future:

According to CBS News



In other words, McCain favored giving the contract to the company that built a better plane. whomod apparently favors giving it to the company that built an inferior plane.

I think McCain deserves credit for sticking up for quality and the safety of our armed forces.

I think whomod deserves scorn for wanting our armed forces to have substandard equipment. Once again, we see that liberals hate the troops.

So G-man thinks the French work force is superior to American workers.

Why do you support outsourcing American jobs?

Why do you hate America?

I realize that you think you're being terribly clever here. But you're not. You're just displaying your partisanship.

According to CBS, the contract was given to the most qualified vendor. I wish it had been a US company but it wasn't. I don't believe in protectionism, and I certainly don't think it should trump the safety of our armed forces. Likewise, it appears that McCain's involvement was to see that quality, not political connections, were considered in awarding the contract.

As such, you're attacking a McCain for advocating that a government contract be awarded to the most qualified vendor.

Not only is what you're attacking a good practice, but it's generally the law. Typically, when evaluating a contract, the government has to award to the lowest "responsible" bidder. This means the bidder with, for example, the best track record for quality.

There have been a lot of stories over the past few years of our troops sometimes having substandard equipment. I'd like to think you agree that is wrong, no matter what party occupies the White House.

In fact, take the troops out of the equation. Do you really want any human beings flying in aircraft of lesser quality?

In short, you're advocating that a candidate put his own interests (in this case political) over the safety of human beings and the finanical interests of the taxpayers.

McCain, on the other hand, is putting the taxpayers and lives ahead of his short term interests. That's the type of thing we should admire. It's also the type of thing you used to claim you admired him for...before he became the nominee, of course.

I would say the same for you. Look, like it or not, outsourcing such a big contract and during an election cycle no less is an issue. Your points are certainly well thought out, written and articulated but lets say Hillary Clinton had done this? Would you be so thoughtful and articulate then? I seriously doubt it.

Sometimes, especially during an election, the legal and routine thing to do doesn't trump was it the right thing to do. And seriously, I don't think Americans are incapable of making a plane that is just as safe. It may cost a bit more but then again, aren't we giving away money next month to try to stimulate the economy? With the plane contract staying at home and actually being spent employing American workers, I'd call it money better used.

McCain seems to be having some Reagan moments in this campaign. Unfortunately they're not the flattering kind.



McCain’s mistake wasn’t a big deal. But what is interesting is Lieberman's role during this trip. In two days, Lieberman has intervened twice in front of the press -- once helping McCain with a correction on Sunnis/Shiites and once putting the blame on himself regarding the description of Purim.

Lieberman seems to now be McCain's Nancy to McCain's increasingly addle headed Ron.

I understand that one of the liberal/DNC talking points against McCain is going to be his age. I'm not sure how hard you/they want to push that, however, given that senior citizens tend to vote in pretty large numbers and given how well it worked (or didn't) against Reagan.

In regards to your more substantive point



I think the record will reflect that I've defended Hillary against Obama sometimes and vice versa, depending on whether I think one or the other is right on a particular issue.

But more importantly, when you have to resort to "you'd do the same thing" it's usually a good sign that you've lost an argument. And that's the case here.

The simple fact of the matter is, as noted above, the law requires the government to award contracts to the lowest responsible bidder. You postulate that the US could make as good a plane (for more money) but that's just guess work on your part. And it's the kind of guess work that, if allowed, can lead to all sorts of abuses and favoritism. None of which is good for our country.

But most telling is your admission that:



With this comment, you are essentially admitting that this is about partisan politics, not good government. You want the "legal and routine" to be trumped by a particular end, even if it isn't the ethical one. You're admitting that you think this should be an election issue even if McCain did nothing wrong.

In other words, you're displaying your partisanship.

Sunday's New York Times Magazine is going to have the bombshell that it was in fact McCain that actively courted Hagee's endorsement and not the other way around. Which is funny since I thought this news was old. Considering I think I mentioned it weeks ago.

oh no. if the new york times publishes this then all is lost. I'm sure so many people will give a flying fuck.

I think you did. And I think that, like your cartoon above, it was an attempt to draw a parallel between McCain and Obama where one doesn't really exist.

And, in that respect, I think the general response here was that it was still a far cry from: (a) attending the man's church for twenty years; (b) appointing him the campaign's "spiritual advisor,"; (c) having him baptize his children; (d) naming a book after one of his sermons.

So, other than the fact that you got your ass handed to you yesterday for trying to attack McCain for upholding the competitive bidding laws and need to change the subject, is there a reason to bring it up again?