Appearing on Anderson Cooper 360 tonight on CNN, Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein said that John McCain's comments Tuesday that Barack Obama is willing to lose a war to win an election were the most scurrilous he had ever heard by a major party candidate.
On his blog on the Time Magazine website, Klein wrote that the comment "smacks of desperation."
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They won't. I don't get it. If even the most toss away thing said by McCain were said instead by Obama, the MSM would be like a hungry dog with a hambone. There wouldn't even be marrow left after they gnawed on, chewed to bits, cracked open and hollowed it out looking for a story.
not only was the comment offensive ... but his "smile" after made my skin crawl
You caught that too. It made me ill too. It was the face of evil.
Just looking at that face gives me the wiggins.
very scary!
Mine, too. That was just plain creepy.
I said something to my wife about that.You couldn't miss it. Almost like a comedian who nails the punch-line. Gave me the willies.
You're right! I wonder if he's been using Cheney as a behind the scenes image consultant.
If anyone had any doubt about Rove being involved in this campaign..
Where is the outrage from the Obama camp. They should be shredding McCain for this statement and force an apology. You know the how repubs roll.
Are they not all overseas with Obama?
These recent statements by McCain show how desperate he is. He is not even talking about the issues anymore. It is all Obama, Obama, Obama. And to think, he state the media had a bizarre interest in Obama
One would hope that his campaign staff is large enough that they can't all fit on a single Congressional junket. But considering some of the boneheaded maneuvers they've pulled in the last few months, maybe all the people with brains are with Obama. Or maybe he's the only one with brains. He sure has jiu jitsued McCain's ass with this trip.
They're probably simply giving McCain enough rope to hang himself. They really don't have to do or say anything. McCain is doing it for them.
John McCain's agenda: http://mcc
State of the Economy: http://mwh
How we waste $8.9 billion from a $416 billion Defense Appropriation Bill:
Google: Don't Mind If I Do! washington
I agree with Joe Klein. This was a way below the belt punch by McCain which shows the American people how desperate he is. He has done nothing but alter facts to try to win this election. The maverick has sold his soul to the devil. NEVER would I vote for such an unscruplous, evil, man!
The audacity of scurrilous rhetoric - thankfully Rovian-like slander and outright public accusations of treasons acts and/or siding with an enemy who would carry out a 9/11 attack will die out with the Bush administration.
Historical Rewrite
What logic is applied to allow the historical facts to be altered without correction? We are obligated as human beings to see things as they truly were and to not allow ourselves or our fellow man to be deceived or delusional in the service of some hidden agenda.
The simple logical conclusion to all of this stands clearly in the light. A well organized group of powerfully placed people, deliberately mass marketed a Nation into a war in which hundreds of thousands of human beings have been slaughtered for the financial gain of the powerdrunk.
The timing, reasoning, cost, and effect of the so called surge is moot. It was merely one more act of these criminal masters to placate the people into believing something was being done to end this horror. they continue to use our bravest like kindling for the fire to justify uncountable treasure to disappear into the black hole of the insatiable Military industrial complex that includes BIG OIL!
If the unrest in the middle east ends, how do you justify $100+ per barrel oil or over half a trillion a year for defense?
Taken in the context as a profit center, the entire history of every move this cabal has made has logical explanation. Every other attempt to cloud or cover it with a patch of human decency, further reveals its true and original foundational motive. $$$$$$$$$$
Even GW admits that they are "powerdrunk".
At first I thought it was just me; maybe I was twisting what I'd heard, but then I heard it again and realized how absolutely outrageous it is for this little boy-toy runt to think he can get away with saying crap like that.
His wife can build him another little fake lake to fish in, and ply him with more free booze and scoot him around Blue America on her jet, but she doesn't have enough alchohol profits in her bag to buy the humanity and common sense this guy sorely needs.
Barbara Bush might say, "I am done with him." I say fire him from everything and get him a job "selling fish to tourists in tee-shirts" and let's get back to the future.
Amen!!
Its pretty well known that most American liberals and the democratic party have wanted a loss in Iraq. According to senator Reid we have already lost.
Because the Iraq War was based on lies, it can NEVER be "WON".
False premise, its not based on lies. Even if it was it can still be won. In a way, you prove my point about liberals wanting a loss in Iraq.
Good point. I thought we declared "victory" years ago. I am interested in what "win" and "lose" mean in this context or are they merely words to be used against your political opponents?
Losing means...wh
If you talk about a loss, explains what a "win" means in the Iraq context. What is the outcome at the end of the game you want to see?
'Well-known?' You mean, 'Often asserted by Rush Limbaugh.'
We lost in Iraq the moment Bush went in without a plan, without international support, and without enough troops, to break up the Iraqi army and leave that big ammo dump unguarded while staging 'victory' photo ops.
The great irony about the 'Surge' thing that McCain's got his facts wrongs about it, is that if Bush had listened to the generals and waited to send in enough troops to do the job right the *first time,* rather than rush in before anyone got too close a look at his false premises for the invasion, it might have come off a lot better in the first place.
But then this probably wouldn't be the conversation we'd be having.
How do we win an occupation?
Exactly!
Easy. We showed the world how to do it after we defeated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. You simply crush their military, occupy their homeland for a relatively short period of time, set up a constitutional government, hand over the reins to the new government and go home. I don't recall surrendering to the Japanese or the Nazis, do you? We have done all of the aforementioned tasks in Iraq already. We won. Let's go home.
Easy. When we run the place.
McCain was 5th from the bottom of his USNA class for a reason, his father was a prominent Naval officer (perhaps admiral at the time) and his grandfather an admiral... otherwise he would have been kicked out...
the man is a know nothing fool with an impulsive and nasty temperment
The odd thing to me is that during the democratic primary you would have thought that McCain would have studied up on many issues. Like Bush he doesn't seem to care about reading. Yes McCain is a war hero. But really he has made a lot of important gaffes and the press has let him off the hook. He is mad because Obama he getting more coverage. Yet he is the one that taunted him to go. Now McCain can't have it both ways. The surge worked yes it did. But we are so over it now the people want our troops out of Iraq. McCain is acting like a child because he wants Obama to say he was right and Obama was wrong. I say to McCain forgetaboutit. Iraq wants us out, the american people wants us out. McCain wants to stay than send in the clowns that support you.
The odd thing to me, and I hope you don't take offense, because it's true, is, that during the primary, hills said that he would make a better POTUS than O.
Something about him passing the CIC threshold.
I would like to inform the replublicans and those others here, that
the surge worked because the adversaries called a truce. Duhhhh
IT is called a cease fire. What it means is that all firing will
cease.
It is spelled C-e-a-s-e f-i-r-e
It is not that the aurge worked, just as Obama said, the Iraqi
themselves decided to work together.
But of course the replublicans take the credit and demean the smart
one. I am so sick and tired of their lies...
War?
BS its an occupation.
In the midst of an long going civil/religious war.
There is no winning
So right. McCain never says what he means by "winning." Winning in the Republican parlance means the absolute subjugation of the Iraq people to our military might, of our ability to have complete military control of the county, in the same way that national governments in normal peaceful countries have a monopoly on the use of force to maintain peace and stability. Only through permanent military occupation would such a "win" be possible. This is why McCain talks about a 100 year presence in Iraq. This is the clear difference between the two candidates. McCain wants a permanent occupation of Iraq and Obama, at least, says, he does not.
So right. McCain never says what he means by "winning." Winning in the Republican parlance means the absolute subjugation of the Iraq people to our military might, of our ability to have complete military control of the county, in the same way that national governments in normal peaceful countries have a monopoly on the use of force to maintain peace and stability. Only through permanent military occupation would such a "win" be possible. This is why McCain talks about a 100 year presence in Iraq. This is the clear difference between the two candidates. McCain wants a permanent occupation of Iraq and Obama, at least, says, he does not.
Winning means controlling the oil of Iraq, don't confuse it with freedom
I saw that last night and have to agree. It is dishonorable for a major party candidate to say himself that his opponet is a traitor. And that is what he did accuse Obama of.
I would say that McCain, in his narrow and singled minded obsession to become president has let his temper and envy has led him to not only sell his soul to the devil (Bush) but, to conduct himself in a most unpresidential and dishonorable way.
Um. wasn't it Cha vez that said he could still smell the sulfur?
Interesting how Joe Klein trashes McCain even though he supported the Iraq War. If you're going to trash anyone over this, you might as well trash Bush. Of course, Klein probably secretly has guilt and inferiority feelings over his lack of service during the Vietnam Era period. McCain always was a threat to the powerful and influential with his brave, Democrat, populist style charismatic Vietnam era war service. That's why all of the rich cowards made sure he didn't get the nomination in 2000. I supported him then but not now. The Republicans know they're going to lose, so what they do is pretend to care about someone (McCain) who behaved in wartime as if he were from humble origins. It's too bad McCain isn't a Democrat (and didn't vote for the war).
couldnt agree with you more
Joe Klein, regardless of his support for the war is smart enough to see a "dirty, scurrilous" attack, and just name calling (which is what McCain has resorted to) won't cut it, with guys who've seen 9 elections.
Hmmm, I'm not sure you're living up to your screen name with this one. Having supported the Iraq war is not mutually exclusive from finding it repulsive when one candidate claims the other wants our country to "lose" a war.
I do admit that I liked McCain a lot more before our long national vacation in Iraq. (And by vacation, I of course mean
Huh? Why should Klein trash Bush for something McCAIN said???
But I agree that McCain is not the same man he was in 2000. He also is no longer charismatic OR independent. He is Bush's lapdog and can barely string two factually correct sentences together.
He has also shown himself to be a liar (the Pittsburgh Steeler change to his war story was clearly a lie to pander in Pennsylvania. Crediting the surge for the change in Sunni policy was another LIE he told just yesterday).
He lies. He makes mistakes all the time. He slavishly follows Bush. If this were Senator "Smith", he'd be a national laughingstock already.
McSame doesn't have either the intelligence nor the character, at this point, to be a good president. Democrats have plenty of FINE military men in our party--Clark, Webb, Reed are just three. John McSame 2008 has nothing to offer us at all. And he -did- vote for the war, repeatedly. Why would you want him to be a Democrat?
The talk of winning a conflict that should never have begun is moot. When something is a mistake, the only thing that can be done is to correct it, not perpetuate it. That's why McCain's talk of winning is ridiculous. It just shows how the war he suffered through in Viet Nam is being replayed in his mind. As for the "surge' that he and his campaign harp on. It really only quelled violence because if you have cops on every street corner, of course violence is down. Another factor is that over 100,000 Iraqis are dead not to mention the thousand of refugees that have fled Iraq. The people left have realized that by bringing together the different factions i.e. Sunni, Shia, and showing a semblance of calm will assure that the US troops leave. Therefore, in an off-handed way the surge had an effect, working is another matter entirely.
Soothsayer, you have stated the case perfectly. If neighborhoods in Bagdad are more stable now, it is because they have been ethnically cleansed. The only tools Republicans are left with in their arsenal is hatred, fear-mongering, and pandering to ignorance and prejudice of every kind. They have never been afraid to use it, and now they are going to be barraging the public with bitterness, negativity and mis-information. I only hope the public is as fed up with it as I am. But there are still a lot of gullible people out there.
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First Posted: 07-23-08 02:32 AM | Updated: 07-30-08 05:12 AM