The Big Whisper: What's Up With John McCain?

John McCain has been all over the map recently, especially when it comes to the economic crisis that's been hammering Wall Street. He also managed to make some interesting - or rather, bizarre - remarks about Spain on Wednesday. See more articles below on McCain's actions over the last few weeks.

McCain Remarks Appear To Reject Spain As Ally:

Late Wednesday night, news made its way from the other side of the Atlantic that John McCain, in an interview with a Spanish outlet, had made a series of bizarre responses to a question regarding that country's prime minister.

"Would you be willing to meet with the head of our government, Mr. Zapatero?" the questioner asked, in an exchange now being reported by several Spanish outlets.

McCain proceeded to launch into what appeared to be a boilerplate declaration about Mexico and Latin America -- but not Spain -- pressing the need to stand up to world leaders who want to harm America.

McCain Flip-Flops On AIG Bailout: Rejects It Tuesday, Says It's Okay Wednesday:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain, a day after flatly rejecting the idea of a taxpayer bailout for American International Group Inc., said Wednesday that the government had been "forced" into proposing an $85 billion loan to the nation's largest insurer.

McCain appeared to soften his opposition to the bailout proposed by the Federal Reserve, treating the plan as a necessary evil to protect ordinary Americans with finanical ties to AIG and asserting that such a financial collapse should not be allowed to happen again. He also called for an investigation to uncover any wrongdoing.

NY Times: McCain All Over The Place On The Economy:

On Monday morning, as the financial system absorbed one of its biggest shocks in generations, Senator John McCain said, as he had many times before, that he believed the fundamentals of the economy were "strong."

Hours later he backpedaled, explaining that he had meant that American workers, whom he described as the backbone of the economy, were productive and resilient. By Tuesday he was calling the economic situation "a total crisis" and denouncing "greed" on Wall Street and in Washington.

McCain Slams Wall Street "Fat Cats" Who Are His Biggest Donors:

John McCain struck a tough, quasi-populist pose this morning during his morning sweep of the television news shows. Speaking to NBC's Matt Lauer about the current crisis on Wall Street, the Republican nominee said executives have "treated it like a casino and need to be held accountable and stop walking away with these fat-cat packages."

Leave aside for the moment the fact that one of McCain's top economic advisers, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, walked away with a $42 million "golden parachute" after being fired. Overall, the generic Wall Street "fat cat" is a tough character for McCain to cast as his nemesis, given his success in fundraising among their ranks. As Bloomberg reported Monday night, securities and investment companies have collectively donated millions to both McCain and Barack Obama.

Time's Joe Klein: "Increasing Numbers Of Otherwise Sober Observers... Are Calling John McCain A Liar":

Politics has always been lousy with blather and chicanery. But there are rules and traditions too. In the early weeks of the general-election campaign, a consensus has grown in the political community -- a consensus that ranges from practitioners like Karl Rove to commentators like, well, me -- that John McCain has allowed his campaign to slip the normal bounds of political propriety. The situation has gotten so intense that we in the media have slipped our normal rules as well. Usually when a candidate tells something less than the truth, we mince words. We use euphemisms like mendacity and inaccuracy ... or, as the Associated Press put it, "McCain's claims skirt facts." But increasing numbers of otherwise sober observers, even such august institutions as the New York Times editorial board, are calling John McCain a liar. You might well ask, What has McCain done to deserve this? What unwritten rules did he break? Are his transgressions of degree or of kind?

Comments

[koulflo]

McCain is about to go up in flames
see
http://koulflo.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/mccain-playing-chicken-with-press-and-may-well-go-up-in-flames/

[Blue in NH]

Guess what? McCain is not a Christian. According the New Yorker magazine, John McCain has never been baptized.

[peskime]

John McCain UNFIT to lead.

[Quelkin]

I think the poor guy is crazy in love.

[ColoradoCool]

I have started to wonder if some of Senator McCain's somewhat bazaar behaviors might be attributable to untreated post-traumatic stress disorder following five and a half years of torture in a Vietnam POW camp. While I admire McCain’s heroism, and realize that bringing up his mental health is not PC, I feel obliged to say that I find his chronic confusion about current events, people, places and things, his willingness to lie repeatedly even after being called out about it by the media on specific untruths, and his extreme reactions to stressful world (entertaining thoughts of having a war with Russia!) and domestic events ("fire him" in response to the financial crisis) to be very upsetting if not downright alarming.
The US Vietnam Dispatch has posted an article on theie website about McCain and this issue of PTSD. They site the following as symptoms of PTSD “difficulty in controlling intense emotions such as anger and an inability to function well under stress".
If the Senator was content to remain the respected Senator from Arizona, I wouldn't feel the need to being this up. However, after suffering, with the rest of the world actually, through eight years of being led by a dry-drunk who has been described by some and has exhibited many of the behaviors of someone having narcissistic personality disorder, I think McCain's mental health is a fair topic of inquiry. I’d like to hear from others concerning this topic.

[Rafterman]

If McCain appears to be losing it, he is!

[nikto]

John McCain's intellect and integrity?

What happened?

In the ominous late words of
Donald Moffat in the sc-fi film, The Thing (1982),
as he replies to MacCready,
we perhaps have our best answer:

"It's GONE, MacCready."

It can't be fixed.

It's GONE.

[Rafterman]

It seems that he possessed very little of both.

[thinkworklivelove]

McSame lost touch when he didn't stand up to Bush in 2000. McSame has a record of voting with Bush 90% of the time. McSame has even flip-flopped on the rest of the 10%. He disqualified himself from being a serious candidate after he allowed abuse of power Palin to be put on his ticket. His incompetent team DID NOT vet her. Or did they deliberately want a person with NO Foreign Policy Experience, NO International Experience (just got passport in 2007), and NO National Security experience on a National Ticket? How scary! McSame does not have the judgement to hold the highest office in the land.

[orca2008]

Have no doubt you squirmy libs- Palin is up to the job. When State Senator Obama was, only few years ago, dodging sensitive votes in the Illinois Legislature to avoid political setbacks, Sarah Palin, unconcerned with the political fallout, was fearlessly taking down Alaska’s corrupt Republican establishment and Big Oil. And when Obama was sitting around fashionable Hyde Park in Chicago, philosophizing with the unrepentant Weather terrorist, William Ayers, Palin was in the Alaskan outdoors working with her hands, hunting bear and catching salmon to feed her family.
Palin will succeed because unlike the vainglorious Obama, she has true grit.
Average Americans will realize, as my father and his buddies did at Pete’s Tavern, that she is that rarity in politics – a real person who’s made it into office. John McCain hit a home run this selection of a representative of the silent majority, Sarah Palin. Libs are like locust they move state to state and destroy everything in its path. Liberalism must be stopped at all cost, you have to squash them like the cockroaches they are. From his radical stance on abortion to his prominence in the corruption scandals that has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media, Barack Obama is not fit to be Senator -- not to mention the next President of the United States.

[trinidadgirl]

HUH? Are you sure for the forward progression of America?

[Joulanda]

Dude, Ok I get it you are a Palin fan and from your writing you sound like a republican (completely dellusional and out of touch), but don't try and pretend that Palin is out hunting wild life to feed her family. Someone living in a Mansion and have a chef in the kitchen does not hunt and fish to feed their family, she does it for a sport! And in response to Obama being fit to be president, aside from what you think brace yourself it is coming, wait for it, wait for it, Obama will be the next president of the United States of America!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!

[scrutiny1]

Let Miss I can see Russia from my backyard PROVE she is up to the job prior to the election. Otherwise if you believe what you wrote based on what has transpired so far you are completely delusional.

[mishi]

PLUS she fearlessly shot wolves from an airplane so she could put up wolf jam to prevent her family from starving during the long Arctic winter, and she built an igloo entirely out of used lipstick containers...not to mention protecting us all from vicious polar bears by promoting their extinction...and hey, I hear she's already crocheting blankets to keep us out-of-staters warm when we flee north during the Rapture...just like Jesus says, what a gal!

[serena1313]

hahahahaha

Iam laughing because you fell hook-line-­and-sinker for the republican talking points which are nothing more than embellishments and exaggerations.

Actually it isn't funny at all; it is scary when people do not use common sense, do not question or use discernment. Skepticism is healthy.

Too often individuals rely on someone else's opinions to influence their thinking without questioning it and will defend it against anyone saying differently. What is called tunnel-vision and close-mindedness do eventually birth intolerance which often leads to conflict and even war.

My father used to tell me, don't believe everything you hear or read and only half of what you see.

That turned out to be good advice once I started practicing it.

Questioning things, using common sense and thinking for oneself keeps the mind open.

Those with open-minds and open-hearts find life more interesting and joyful.

It is shocking that you believe because a person hunts and fishes and is a "real" person means he/she is fit to be the VP ? If that is all it takes we've certainly lowered the bar.

Evidently you misplaced your common sense.

Hopefully that is temporary.

[wordvarc]

What's Up With John McCain?

Confabulation.
.

[CaptainStormfield]

Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.
Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.
So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king.
And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not.

[JMalone3]

If You were The Boss... which team would you hire?
>
> With America facing historic debt, multiple war fronts,
> stumbling health care, a weakened dollar, all-time high
> prison population, skyrocketing Federal spending, mortgage
> crises, bank foreclosures, etc. etc., this is an unusually
> critical election year.
>
> Let's look at the educational background of the
> candidates and see what they bring to the job:
>
> Obama:
> Occidental College - Two years.
> Columbia University - B.A. political science with a
> specialization in international relations.
> Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
>
> Biden:
> University of Delaware - B.A. in history and B.A. in
> political science.
> Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)
>
> vs.
>
> McCain:
> United States Naval Academy - Class rank 894 out of 899
> (meaning that, like George Bush, McCain was at the bottom of
> his class)
>
>
> Palin:
> Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
> North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
> University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
> Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
> University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in journalism
>
> Now, which team are you going to hire to lead the most
> influential nation in the world?
>

[care4mypeeps]

The choice is breathtakenly clear. Obama Biden 08 end of story.

[skyfish]

It's pretty obvious. Sarah's poisoning him. (The Palin-McCain ticket, remember...?) Be afraid around this woman John, be very afraid...

[Truth4Voters]

Best laugh all day. Thank you.

[wordvarc]

Arsenic, a series of small doses...and old Lace.

[jaleh]

thanks for the laugh

[thespy]

The white-haired dude's wrinkly-grey brain is failing him.....in the last week, McCain's been making even W look smart - and that's not an easy task! And on the subject of the white-haired wrinkly one, if you haven't see this yet, check it out, it's good:

http://givemeamillionparishilton.com/

And pass it on! I want to see if she'll do it!?!?!?

The spy

[gintheb]

Its spelled s*e*n*i*l*i*t*y*