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Bush's endorsement of McCain: "We also need somebody with a big heart. I have got to know John well in the last eight years. I've campaigned against him, and I've campaigned with him. Laura and I have spent time in their house. This is a man who deeply loves his family. It's a man who cares a lot about the less fortunate among us. He's a President, and he's going to be the President who will bring determination to defeat an enemy, and a heart big enough to love those who hurt. And so I welcome you here. I wish you all the best, and I'm proud to be your friend," Bush added. http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7010240170
Somewhere I read this morning that McCain said that terrorists may influence U.S. election by attacking Iraq and elsewhere. Common sense is that if terrorists attack, McCain will win. So, is he telling the terrorists something?
Jobs...Jobs...Jobs...otherwise natives get restless here and in Iraq or Afghanistan or even Pakistan....
McCain '08: All the help they can get John McCain certainly is a maverick. So maverick, in fact, that conventional wisdom doesn't apply. He's so smart, according to members of the media, that he doesn't need to get his facts right. And the exhausting campaign trail is not a test of mettle or character, but simply an exhausting circus that excuses McCain's brilliant errors. Or something like that. At the heart of the issue is a recent gaffe by Senator McCain, the presumptive nominee for the GOP presidential ticket. Speaking to reporters in Jordan, McCain asserted that Iran was training Al Qaeda operatives for the Iraqi theater. Senator Lieberman whispered in his ear, and McCain then corrected himself. The incident, naturally, has found its way to YouTube. Over at The Trail, a blog published by the Washington Post—a newspaper often included in speculation about the "liberal media bias" conspiracy—it took two reporters, Cameron W. Barr and Michael D. Shear, to downplay the incident: What Barr and Shear fail to mention received brief mention at Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: And then Elizabeth Holms updated the blog entry to give the GOP candidate's campaign the last word: Over at Reuters, the headline reads, "McCain corrects himself on which group Iran backs". The article opens, While quoting DNC Communications Director Karen Finney (see Holmes above), Reuters turns to the GOP response (see Holmes update) and then moves on to discuss an article McCain wrote for the London Financial Times in advance of his fundraising trip on this journey that, according to the campaign, is not political (see Barr and Shear above). Over at the New York Times, a newspaper squarely at the heart of the rumored "liberal media bias" conspiracy, the editorial board opened with the sentence, "Call it the misfortunes of war." Describing McCain's statement as a "stumble" and a "basic error", the editors noted that, "On a slower news day, there might have been a bigger fuss over the fact that a presumptive major-party presidential nominee — and one who has declared his willingness to remain in Iraq for 100 years — stumbled so publicly in discussing the war." • • • Why is the media giving John McCain a pass on this one? Why is this one being left to the bloggers? Over at The Carpetbagger Report, the headline reads, "McCain isn’t the only one confused about al Qaeda", and deals with some interesting statements by President Bush and White House Press Secretary Dana Perino about how al Qaeda might take over Iraq's oil production and become an even bigger threat: This particular note is important because, as Glenn Greenwald asserts, They aren't nice accusations. McCain, on the one hand, capitalizing on a hatred born of paranoia in which Muslim = evil. To the other, he just doesn't know what he's talking about? Consider The Carpetbagger Report, recalling an erroneous McCain argument similar to the Bush administration's latest scare tactic. As Greenwald noted: Indeed, Joe Klein, who according to The Carpetbagger Report recalled McCain's earlier paranoid theory about al Qaeda in Iraq, dismissed the Iran gaffe as a "brain fart". Yet, as the blogosphere notes, it is a recurring brain fart. Democrats and liberal bloggers have roundly noted McCain's appearance earlier this week on the Hugh Hewitt Show, and both Greenwald and ThinkProgress notes that McCain also farted last month, asserting a direct connection between al Qaeda and Iran during a speech in Houston on February 28. That's a bit of brain flatulence. Juan Cole, president of the Global Americana Institute, suggests, "You wonder whether, if he had been corrected by anyone but Lieberman, he would even have backed off momentarily." The thing is that the media isn't just downplaying the gaffe in its coverage of the event. Various media faces are going forth to help the McCain campaign avoid the issue. Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post repeatedly referred to McCain's foreign policy expertise during an online appearance yesterday. She suggested that the gaffe "would have gotten a lot more attention were it not coming from someone who is generally judged to have a lot of foreign policy expertise", and later repeated herself, saying that the incident "would be a bigger deal if the speaker had been different". When a reader suggested that McCain had botched the Sunni/Shia issue last month while "excoriating" Sen. Obama, Marcus responded that "He has seemed pretty knowledgeable about foreign policy and engaged in the issue when I've seen him, much more so than on domestic issues". Glenn Greenwald also notes Time magazine's Ana Marie Cox on CNN: And then there was Jonathan Alter of Newsweek on Olbermann's show yesterday: Where Greenwald has asserted a form of fearmongering that leads to hatred or simple ignorance on McCain's part, though, we must also consider a third option, that McCain simply isn't cut out to be president. The campaign trail is getting to him, causing a certain fatigue that, in other candidates, would be significant of their unreadiness for the marathon demands of the presidency. Cox wrote it off, jokingly, as a lack of coffee. Alter pointed out that it's "very tiring" to travel and campaign. And while none of us doubt that running for president is, in fact, an exhausting endeavor, recent cycles have brought the race itself to become a significant factor: if the campaign exhausts the candidate, what of the office? Bill Clinton aged tremendously after he took the White House. The events of September 11 aged George W. Bush in a matter of hours. If McCain is making these errors on the trail because of fatigue, what does he have left for the office? After all, Reagan went senile on the job. But McCain's friends in the press won't consider the idea that fatigue should reflect poorly on him. Maybe if he was a younger candidate. After all, if he wasn't such an expert on foreign policy, his campaign rhetoric would be expected to reflect reality. Funny how that works, eh? So perhaps one of McCain's supporters might be able to help me find an answer to a question: If John McCain is the better candidate, why does he need all the help the press will give him? ____________________ Notes: Barr, Cameron W. and Michael D. Shear. "A McCain Gaffe in Jordan". The Trail. March 18, 2008. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/03/18/a_mccain_gaffe_in_jordan_1.html Cole, Juan. "5 Years, 5 Lies". Informed Comment. March 19, 2008. http://www.juancole.com/2008/03/5-years-5-lies-cole-in-salon.html The Carpetbagger Report. "McCain isn't the only one confused about al Qaeda". March 20, 2008. http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14951.html Greenwald, Glenn. "McCain's repeated 'slips of the tongue' on Iran and al-Qaida". Unclaimed Territory. March 19, 2008. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/19/mccain/index.html Greenwald, Glenn. "The media's special relationship with John McCain". Unclaimed Territory. March 20, 2008. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/20/mccain/index.html Holland, Steve. "McCain corrects himself on which group Iran backs". Reuters. March 18, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN1823751620080319 Holmes, Elizabeth. "McCain Stumbles on Iran and Al Qaeda". Washington Wire. March 18, 2008. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/03/18/mccain-stumbles-on-iran-and-al-qaeda/ Marcus, Ruth. "Real Life Politics". WashingtonPost.com. March 19, 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/03/02/DI2008030202108.html New York Times. "McCain Stumbles on the Facts About Iraq". The Board. March 19, 2008. http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/mccain-stumbles-on-the-facts-in-iraq/ See Also: CBS News Raw. "McCaign's Foreign Policy Gaffe". YouTube. March 18, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6GBdyws5YU
It wasn't a single remark - it was at least four separate repetitions, including one after a reporter gave him an opportunity to correct himself, over two days on this one trip. That's jsut the ones noticed recently. He's apparently been saying stuff like this regularly, and his staff hasn't been catching it. Do McCain's support staff people know that al Qaeda is Sunni and Iran is Shia ? Do they know the difference ?
The support staff probably know the difference. May be, McCain gets mad when someone brings that up, so the staff do not tell him anything on the subject. He has a hot temper you know...I wonder if he is suffering some memory lapses due to his age... When you are old, you repeat certain facts to yourself to strengthen that into memory...once done, it is difficult to get rid of that scenario...hence the brain fart...unless he repeats himself hundred times..."Al Queda is Sunni, Iran is Shia"
Baghdad John - It's got a ring to it. Y'know, McCain said this the other day in Israel, on the heels of his four-time confusion of AQ and the Sadrists And the Dems can't seem to get the media levered over to their side no matter what they do, and damn if it doesn't look like we're going to get a fourth consecutive Republican President who can be extensively mocked just by being quoted accurately. The US government has looked and sounded like it was being governed by a machine translation from the Chinese for seven years and counting, and before that was eight years of the "Great Communicator" mixing up old movie scripts with events and forgetting the names of his Cabinet officers, followed by four years of a guy who would be famous for verbal gaffes to this day if his VP hadn't been even goofier. And now we have this to look forward to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/john-mccain-the-new-bag_b_92786.html
Ice, have you heard about the large groups of young Iraqi men denouncing the clergy because they feel they are fueling suicide bombings and radical networks? Congress voted on this war. Were they deceived? Not sure. The media just announced that we recovered some WMD components in Iraq last week.True or fabbed.,the first gulf war fighters got into all kinds of chems so we know Saddam was keen on it. McCain scares me, but not as much as a flustered bleeding heart making bad decisions in order to not get their hands dirty. The sad part is that war is big business from the media to whole city economies. We need to review the steps taken before military action, starting with the presidents role which is constitutionally debatable in the first place. The fact hat many presidents don't receive top level security clearance is telling about the forces behind the scenes. Even with all the chilling realities of the US military,We can't unmake nuclear technology and as much as it sucks to be a world power, I'm damn glad we are one.
That's your description of Obama ? Clinton ? Flustered bleeding hearts ? McCain has a terrible record of judgment and decisionmaking in any poitical matter outside his personal experience. From being Chalabi's big supporter going into Iraq, to various lobbyist connections (not just the latest), to voting for the Military Commissions Act and almost every other domestic monstrosity of this administration, he hasn't shown evidence of a single sound political principle or historical understanding he can use to guide his decisionmaking. That and his temper bode ill for any quick decisionmaking that falls into his lap as Pres - or any slow decisionmaking, either. (Losing one's temper is one way getting flustered, btw). His daughter, while not in Chelsea's league, would have better prospects: http://mccainblogette.com/docs/video/
Four more years This has been going around the web. I think this branch of the lineage so far is Fubar—>Attaturk—>Greenwald—>me. And I give it to you: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
List of links to various accounts of McCain on issues in which the real difference between his presented image and the circumstances of these realities has received less TV news attention than the imaginary relationship between Obama and Louis Farrakhan. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022101131.html?hpid=topnews Lobbyists, close ties with including campaign staff and advisors http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gtqD_x9yYIuq_7S2dimSjMV5qRmg Foreign affairs, incompetence at http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=what_is_mccains_economic_agenda budget, huge gaps in http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/...year=2008&base_name=the_pete_rose_of_politics his own campaign finance system, gaming of http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_mccainhagee_connection_1.php nutcase preacher - one of them - sought out, invited, and welcomed on campaign trail without repudiation: Hagee quotes - inc hurricane hitting NO because of gay sex at Mardis Gras.
So apparently, by rumor, Rove is now officially working as a campaign adviser for McCain, without giving up his job at Fox News. Fox has no journalistic ethics, so no worries there - but supposing it's so, is that a benefit for McCain ? Does he take an image hit from associating himself with Rove ? And if not, why not? The whole "straight talk" marketing campaign would seem to be endangered.
