Sunday Funnies: The McCain Follies

John McCain's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

During just this past seven days, McCain described Social Security as "a disgrace", his top economic adviser, Phil Gramm, called the American people "a nation of whiners", he released an economic plan that no one thought was serious, he flip-flopped on Iraq, joked about killing Iranians with tobacco products, and denied making comments that he clearly made -- TWICE. He capped it off on Friday by fudging details about an incident during his captivity as a Vietnamese POW, contradicting what he claimed in his memoirs.

Yet watching and reading the mainstream media you would think he skated through all of that. At least Jesse Jackson didn't say anything about him, after all.

Let's unpack McCain's lousy week in greater detail:

1. McCain unambiguously called Social Security "an absolute disgrace." This is not a quote taken out of context. This is shocking -- and if it had been uttered from Obama's mouth would have dominated the news coverage and the Sunday talking heads, as pundits would speculate about the massive damage the statement would cause him among seniors in Florida.

2. McCain's top economic policy adviser called Americans a bunch of "whiners" for being worried about the slumping economy. Words cannot fully explain how devastating this statement should be from Phil Gramm. But it's also what the candidate believes as well; that our economic problems are psychological.

3. Iraqi leaders call for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, McCain gets caught in a bizarre denial and flip flop. The Iraqis now want us to begin planning our withdrawal -- so what does McCain say? First, he refuses to accept Maliki's statement as being true. Then he concedes that it was an accurate statement, but was probably just a political ploy to curry favor with his own people and WOULD NOT influence his determination to keep US troops in Iraq indefinitely. Yet McCain in 2004 at the Council on Foreign Relations said that if the Iraqis asked us to leave, we would have to go. No matter what. But that was apparently a younger and less experienced John McCain.

4. McCain's economic plan to cut the deficit has no details and is simply not believable. There are so many things here. McCain pledges he would eliminate the deficit by the end of his first term (the campaign latter flip-flop-flipped about whether it was four years or eight years), but does not provide any details about how he would do it. Economists on both sides of the political aisle said that this was simply credible, especially given McCain's other proposals to a) cut individual and corporate taxes even further, b) extend the Bush tax cuts, c) massively increase defense spending on manpower -- 200,000 more troops; and d) maintain a long-term sizable military presence in Iraq.

5. McCain's deficit plan includes bringing the troops home, and that represents his greatest Iraq flip-flop to date. Speaking of the long-term military presence, a story that has gotten absolutely no attention is that McCain now believes the war will be over soon. The economic forecasts made by his crack team of economists predict that there will be significant savings during McCain's first term because we will have achieved "victory" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The savings from victory (ie the savings from not having our troops there) will then be used to pay down the deficit. The only way this could have any impact on the deficit in McCain's first time is if troop withdrawals start very soon. So McCain believes victory is in our grasp and we can remove soldiers from Iraq right away.

That doesn't sound much different from Obama's plan, does it?

6. McCain campaign misled about economists support. In the press release the McCain campaign issued to tout its Jobs for America economic plan -- that would balance the budget in 4 years -- it included the signatures of more than 300 economists who, the campaign claimed, supported the plan. Only problem is that the economists were actually asked to sign up to SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Um, hello?

7. McCain makes a joke about killing Iranians with cigarettes. There's that Straight Talking Maverick we've been looking for. According to the AP this was just a humanizing moment between candidate and spouse.

8. McCain denies, flatly, that he ever said that he is not an expert in economics. Are you kidding?

9). McCain distorts his record on veterans benefits in response to a question from a Vietnam veteran, who then proceeds to call McCain out on it.

There's video of this one:



10.) McCain demonstrates he knows nothing about Afghanistan and Pakistan. McCain said "I think if there is some good news, I think that there is a glimmer of improving relationship between Karzai and the Pakistanis." Pat Barry notes how crazy this comment is..."Just what "glimmer" is McCain talking about?? Maybe he's referring to President Karzai's remarks last month, which threatened military action in Pakistan if cross-border attacks persisted? Or maybe McCain is talking about Afghanistan's allegations that Pakistan's ISI was involved in a recent assassination attempt on Karzai? Maybe in McCain's world you could call that a silver-lining, but in realityland I'd call it something else."

11.) To wrap up the worst imaginable week ever in any presidential campaign, McCain misquoted himself by describing an incident during his POW captivity in Vietnam, substituting the Pittsburgh Steelers for the Green Bay Packers in the anecdote regarding the names of his squadron-mates. Of course McCain was speaking to a Pennsylvania television reporter at the time, so I'm sure it was an honest pander.

This morning expect these incidents above to get short shrift from pundit after pundit, because after all Jesse Jackson said he wanted to cut Obama's nuts off.

Synchronized flip-floppery

Yesterday our illustrious Texas Senators Cornfed and Bailey scored a perfect ten on a twin reverse-three-and-one-half forward tuck on the Medicare bill, (which immediately followed their mirror image conga-line on FISA). Let's excerpt liberally from the mighty BooMan:

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As CQPolitics explains, the Democrats were not the only party to show a shameful degree of fear-based voting yesterday in the Senate. Last month the Democrats failed in an effort to pass this year's Medicare bill when they fell one vote short of the needed sixty votes to invoke cloture. The only reason the Democrats did not have 60 votes was because Teddy Kennedy was in treatment for his cancer. No Republican was willing to acknowledge this and toss their vote to Kennedy out of respect for his years of service and his commitment to health care. It was shameful, and I said so at the time.

The Democrats reintroduced the bill yesterday and the Republicans assumed that they still had the votes to block cloture. They introduced ridiculous amendments and demanded the Democrats cave in because they knew they couldn't pass their version. But then Kennedy suddenly and unexpectedly appeared on the Senate floor. All Senators, from both parties, erupted in applause at the sight of an upright and walking Teddy Kennedy. They gave him a two-minute standing ovation.

Kennedy, 76, entered the chamber midway through the roll call vote. With an arm around his shoulder was presumed Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama of Illinois. As they walked through the door, stunned fellow senators, aides and gallery watchers broke into raucous applause.

With the cheers still cascading, Charles E. Schumer , D-N.Y., walked to the center of the aisle and blew a kiss at the Republican side, grinning.

Sen. Schumer blew them a kiss because he knew that the Democrats now had the needed 60 votes to invoke cloture and pass the Medicare bill. And then a funny thing happened.

And this time around, Republicans fled the president once it became obvious that Kennedy’s vote would give supporters of the bill the 60 votes needed to advance it.

Nine Republicans who had voted against the bill on June 26 switched to vote in favor of the Medicare measure.

Here are some typical explanations for the flip-flop:

“We’ve had a very dramatic moment in the room here,” said Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. “I voted for the bill. It’s not the way I would have written it,” she added.

Even as he criticized the bill, John Cornyn , R-Texas, explained his vote for it. “It reversed the cut. That’s the commitment I made to the physicians in my state,” he said.

Cornyn is referring to the portion of the bill that will prevent a dramatic cut in doctors' compensation. In opposing the bill, he was reneging on a promise he had made the physicians' groups to prevent the cut. In supporting the bill, he sought to take credit for keeping his promise. Hutchison's explanation was more honest, but not honest enough. Both Texas senators were more than willing to kill the bill, but they were not prepared to be on the record as opposing it if it passed. This is the exact kind of behavior that has many Democrats seething at Barack Obama. This 'against it before I was for it' voting strategy doesn't inspire any confidence or respect from voters. It is not an example of moderation. It's a matter of fear.

The Republicans are discovering that very few seats are safe. Ideally this would lead the Democrats to press their advantage and repeatedly probe for weaknesses and ways to crack Republican unity. On the Medicare bill, they found a fissure in Republican resolve. But on many other issues, the Democrats are afraid to rock a boat that seems to sailing with so much wind at its back. FISA was a case in point. The Republicans have tried unsuccessfully in several special elections to turn the Democrats' respect for civil liberties into a weakness against terrorism. But, even though they haven't won any elections using this strategy, they did succeed in making a rump of Democrats afraid that opposing FISA would lead to damaging 30-second spots. It's the same reason that John Cornyn caved on Medicare and it comes down to this ...

It's easy to say in a 30-second spot that John Cornyn voted against the Medicare bill and broke his promise to doctors. But it takes too much time to explain that John Cornyn only kept his promise when it became clear the bill would pass without his support. Cornyn flipped to add ten seconds of explanation to a 30-second ad. It's as simple as that. That's what politics has come to in this country. Sometimes it is even worse. Politicians will make bad votes in an effort to prevent an opponent from distorting their record. I'm sorry, but if you distort your votes to prevent someone from distorting your record, you are doing their job for them. There was a lot of shame to go around in the Senate yesterday.

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Three things, tangentially related:

1. Corndog is scrambling, because he is really scared he's going to lose to Rick Noriega.

2. Rick Noriega had the right thing to say on FISA:

"Many times throughout my lifetime I have sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. This isn't a part-time Constitution. We as a nation cannot grant anyone sweeping amnesty if they break the rules. It's appalling that my opponent, John Cornyn, puts his special interest campaign contributors ahead of the Constitution. Texanshave had enough.

Americans will not accept an abuse of power, and they will not accept corporations getting away with breaking the law.

We already have a law in place that balances national security concerns while adhering to the Constitution. This is not the time to compromise the privacy of the American people and not the time to disregard the Constitution of United States. I regret that the Senate has voted this way."

3. Barack Obama voted for cloture on FISA. Which killed the possibility of a Dodd filibuster (it needed 41 votes and got 26). Which says, "Let's get this show on the road so I can get back out on the campaign trail".

I expect a lot more leadership than that out of my presidential candidate, especially when it comes down to defending his oath of office as well as the 4th Amendment itself.

Gas prices hurting you?

RIP Fourth Amendment. Capitulation Accomplished.

• Dodd Amendment (to strike immunity) fails, 32-66. Those voting in favor included Biden, Boxer, Clinton, Kerry, Obama, Tester and the leaders of this effort, Dodd and Feingold and Leahy. No Republicans, of course. The disturbing part? Democrats voting against included Bayh, Carper, Conrad, Feinstein, Inouye, Johnson, Kohl, Landrieu, Lincoln, McCaskill, Mikulski, both Nelsons, Pryor, Rockefeller, Salazar, and Webb. The two missing votes belonged to Kennedy and McCain.
  
• Specter Amendment (allows broader court review) also fails, 37-61. The five Senators who switched to the good side here include Conrad, Kohl, McCaskill, Webb and Arlen Specter, the lone R.
  
• Bingaman Amendment (delays immunity until completion of the IG report) also fails, 42-56. The five additional lame defenders of the Constitution and their oath of office are Feinstein, Johnson, Lincoln, Mikulski, Nelson of Florida, and Salazar.
  
• Motion to Invoke Cloture on H.R. 6304 (ends debate, eliminated the possibility of a filbuster by Dodd) passes 72-26. This number portends the final tally on the bill itself.
  
• H.R. 6304, the FISA amendments act of 2008, passes 69-28. Those voting no -- the last-gasp defenders of a citizens' right against unreasonable search and seizure -- are, in alphabetical order: Daniel Akaka of Alaska, Joe Biden, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Robert Byrd, Maria Cantwell, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Bryan Dorgan, Dick Durbin, Russ Feingold, Tom Harkin, John Kerry, Amy Klobuchar, Frank Lautenberg, Pat Leahy, Carl Levin, Bob Menendez, Patty Murray, Jack Reed, Harry Reid, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer, Debbie Stabenow, Jon Tester, and Ron Wyden. If their name isn't on that list, they are no better than a Republican. I'm looking at you, Barack Obama.
  

This action today by the Congress signals not just forgiveness of what the telecoms did, but also the felony committed by the President of the United States. As for the legislation, the ACLU will challenge its constitutionality the minute it is signed into law:

"This fight is not over. We intend to challenge this bill as soon as President Bush signs it into law," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project, in a statement. "The bill allows the warrantless and dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international telephone and email communications. It plainly violates the Fourth Amendment."

On to the Supreme Court eventually, during an Obama administration (and perhaps with a different combination of Justices than the current).

Contemplating the 5-0

Fifty years and about three hours ago your intrepid reporter entered this realm (I've always been an early riser).

Around 5 a.m. at the St. Therese Hospital in Beaumont, Texas; seven pounds five ounces; a thick shock of wavy black hair, delivered by Dr. Lamar Bevill (I would meet him twenty years later at Lamar University as an undergraduate; he was serving the campus as the medical center's physician).

Herewith an executive summary of my life by decades in approximate:

-- In the summer of '69 I was a Tenderfoot at summer camp in the Boy Scouts of America. It was my first time away from home overnight (beyond the kiddie sleepovers, of course).

-- 1978, age 20: Completing my third year in the college of business at Pecker Tech. Had just moved into Morris Hall and pledged Delta Sigma Pi.

-- 1988, age 30: Two years newlywed as well as advertising director for the Plainview Daily Herald, had a nice party with all of the requisite black and death-themed motifs at one of the finest lounges in town, Reflections at the Conestoga Inn.

-- 1998, age 40: Had just returned from a week-long Alaskan cruise and was fired from my position as financial services manager for Gillman Mitsubishi in Houston (the old Bellaire location that's now a large green field). My old boss -- he was fired shortly thereafter -- was unaware it was my birthday, so I'm guessing he might've waited a day had he known. Anybody who's ever been canned after coming back from vacation knows that they're about to get it anyway.

-- 1998, age 40: Was set to begin at the spanking-new Lexus of Clear Lake as financial services manager, my last job in the car business and in fact my last job ever working for someone besides myself.

-- And here we are today. All I really want for my birthday, in case you were wondering what to get me, is better health and much better government. The United States Senate is poised, unfortunately, to deliver some bad news about the Fourth Amendment.

I'm not going to lie and tell you that the FISA bill (containing retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies for warrantless wiretapping on Americans) isn't going to pass today. I can't see the Senate Democrats mustering more than twenty votes to block it, to strip immunity, or to pass any amendments.

But that doesn't mean that you won't feel better about it if you call your senators between now and when the vote goes down. You can use this tool to clear your conscience.

As Glenn Greenwald notes:

What all of this is really about — the reason why political elites like Nancy Soderberg are so eager to defend it — is because they really do believe that lawbreaking isn’t wrong, that it doesn’t deserve punishment, when engaged in by them rather than by commoners. People who defend telecom immunity or who say that it’s not a big deal are, by logical necessity, adopting this view: “Our highest political officials and largest corporations shouldn’t face consequences when they break our laws as long as they claim it was for our own good.” That’s the destructive premise that lies at the heart of this deeply corrupt measure, the reason it matters so much. Just like the pardon of Nixon, the protection of Iran-contra criminals, and the commutation of Lewis Libby’s sentence, this bill is yet another step in cementing a two-tiered system of justice in America where our highest political officials and connected elite can break our laws with impunity. ...

Our Congress, with the political and media elite cheering, is about to violate every one of these principles. They are taking away from the judiciary the power to adjudicate allegations of lawbreaking. They are creating a two-tiered system of justice in which our most powerful corporations can break the law with impunity and government officials remain immune from consequences. And they are, in unity, spewing rank propaganda to the commoners — who continue to be subjected to the harsh punishment for violations of the law and one of the world’s most merciless justice systems — in order to convince them that granting license to our political and corporate elites to break the law is necessary for their own Good and for their Safety.

I'm going to give Barack Obama holy hell about it here, but it's a mistake to blame Obama mostly for it without placing equal blame on the other 99 senators (and the House, for that matter).

Take a moment to go on the record. You'll feel better.

Update: Greenwald, at Salon, reports that the vote will be not today but tomorrow ...

The votes in the Senate on various amendments to the FISA "compromise" bill and to the underlying bill itself were originally scheduled for today, but have been postponed until tomorrow (Wednesday, July 9) to enable Senators to attend the funeral of Jesse Helms.

That is without a doubt the best thing that nasty evil bastard ever did.

The Weekly Wrangle

Time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance's Weekly Round-Up, composed each week of submissions by TPA member bloggers, and compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

According to PDiddie at Brains and Eggs, if Chris Bell -- in his current inclination toward making a run for the Texas Senate in District 17 -- were to stand next to Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa, it would appear to be at a 90-degree angle compared to him.

It was a week for new contributors at WhosPlayin. Kit asks a million tough questions about America's interventionism and the illusion of national security, and txdemjen expresses the frustration a lot of us have with Obama's sudden right-ward bend.

CouldBeTrue from South Texas Chisme is appalled that special prosecutor Terry McDonald gives former sheriff Michale Ratcliff a sweet plea deal for the sexual assault of a minor supposedly under his protection.

Bay Area Houston says Governor Perry is calling for an investigation into the insurance industry.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News now sees his Pasadena neighbor Joe Horn saying he is no hero. Will he be subject to the same attacks those who have been saying that all along have experienced? Gary has been on vacation, mostly, but remains ticked off over the stupid.

Lovelie99 at McBlogger takes some time out of her busy schedule to inform us about the plight of supermodels. Apparently, there is a shortage of H-1B work visas since far too many math nerds are being imported to, you know, make stuff and program computers and stuff. And make other stuff, such as cellphones, such as. Which means there are too few supermodels who are allowed to work in the US. Well, at least the kind who are emaciated, gaunt and angular. We at McBlogger wondered if possibly there are math nerds who could do double duty. Then we laughed and laughed and laughed.

The Texas Cloverleaf wonders which is the better place to live... Collin County or New Jersey?. Forbes has the answer.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts the latest toll scam we'll be paying for soon: Going "Cashless" Will Cost Us All.

Off the Kuff notes a recent CNN presidential poll and says it's not a dead heat if someone is leading.

Last week was a great one for evolutionary biology, but sucked if you happen to be a Conservapedia believer. Over at Texas Kaos Boadicea shares the tale of a Conservapedia Ignoramous Schooled by Evolutionary Biologist, and then discovered a sequel in which Lenski Meets the Naked Scientists.

refinish69 ponders the American Dream on the 4th of July at Doing My Part For The Left.

North Texas Liberal reports on Kim Brimer's cowardly move to keep worthy opponent Wendy Davis off the ballot in Fort Worth's SD-10.

Vince at Capitol Annex tells us about state Rep. Warren Chisum's announcement that he'll be trying again to pass legislation creating a two-year waiting period before couples can divorce.