My thanks to all who serve and served. I appreciate you.
Archive for the ‘McCain’ Category
HAPPY VETERANS DAY
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008AUDACIOUS HOPE FOR MAVERICKS
Monday, November 3rd, 2008If you’re a McCain voter, you’re probably feeling like a guest at the election night Michael Dukakis party, as spoofed by Jon Lovitz on SNL.
We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking McCain really has much of a chance to win this election, but that certainly doesn’t mean we have to submit to defeat in advance of the actual results, which is precisely what the Obamedia would like.
So in the spirit of John McCain, who wouldn’t dishonor himself by accepting early release from the Hanoi Hilton, let’s not accept defeat until all the votes are counted. Instead, let’s all be mavericks and embrace the audacity of hope.
Here, then, are three links to boost your morale:
- The Left’s Big Blunder, by Zombietime
- 10 Reasons Why McCain Might Win, by John Podhoretz
- My prediction, by Bob Krumm
Feel free to add your own pro-McCain spin in the comments.
WHAT SELFISHNESS LOOKS LIKE TO THE LEFT
Friday, October 31st, 2008If McCain pulls out an unlikely victory next Tuesday, the biased media and radical Leftist blogs will deserve much of the credit.
Over at the Mos Eisley blog, “Jeff” quotes himself telling his son why he should have voted for BRCK BM instead of John McCain at his school election:
“John McCain is a selfish man. He only cares about himself. Barack Obama cares about you and me.”
Sure, BRCK BM’s relatives are living in inner city slums and third world shacks, but what did McCain ever do for this country?
I mean, except for devoting his entire life to public service and putting his life on the line time and again. Other than that, he’s completely selfish.
UPDATE: BRCK BM agrees with “Jeff.”
UPDATE II: The esteemed Lang Wiseman has a new blog and a series of posts on selfishness:
EXPERIENCE MAKES A COMEBACK
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008Back during the Democratic primary, all we heard about was change and experience.
The two finalists selected these generic tags as surrogates, since there were no essential ideological differences between them, and since both were freshmen Senators with equally thin resumes.
It was Change (embodied by a doctrinaire Leftist who wouldn’t alter a single plank of the Democratic platform) vs. Experience (represented by a carpet-bagging one-term legislator whose most vivid telling of her experience involved dodging runway sniper fire — otherwise known as a typical airport greeting ceremony).
Change spat upon the very notion of experience and said it was a corrupting agent, while Experience belittled change as being insufficiently capable of bringing about itself.
Experience started out on the defensive, saying it was she who had the requisite experience to bring about change. Sensing weakness, Change countered that change wouldn’t come from Washington, that in fact we were the ones we’ve been waiting for. Then with her back up against the wall and facing impossible odds, Experience decided to attack Change head-on, drawing on her own assumed strengths and questioning whether Change was prepared to take phone calls at 3 a.m. But Change had reserved a knock-out blow, explaining that instinctive judgment, not experience, was the real prerequisite for change.
This back and forth was not lost on the Republican candidates, who jumped at the opportunity to ride the change bandwagon, each of them claiming to be the true representative of change, while simultaneously chiding the triteness of the term’s usage. America’s Mayor said his proven conservative leadership would really change Washington, the Mormon Governor replaced his full-movement conservative rhetoric with slogans hinging on populist change and political reform, and the Governor from Hope staked a claim on change by logical extension.
But it was the Maverick — a term already synonymous with change — who was endorsed by Experience as its Republican standard-bearer. The Senator from Arizona essentially came to represent both terms, brilliantly alternating between his dual reservoirs of change and experience, drawing from one or the other, depending on the given audience or circumstances, and thus surging ahead of the Republican field.
Upon assuming the official status as the Democratic nominee, Change pinned the defeated Experience label on the Republican winner and tied him to the current administration — casting him as the continuation of the last eight years and saying he could thus not represent change. So the Maverick’s age became a larger issue, as did his recent voting record.
The Maverick hit back with the now-familiar Experience jab, knocking Change as a vapid celebrity and pounding him with questions about his readiness to lead the country.
Bloodied and dazzled by the onslaught, Change undercut himself when it came time to pick a running-mate. Change defensively selected an old Washington insider who could help solve his experience problem, even though he too had once questioned Change’s experience.
With the title in sight, the Maverick took a chance on delivering a knock-out punch, choosing a running-mate who would reinforce the change side of his combination attack.
Change fell into the trap, attacking the Maverick’s running mate for her lack of experience, thus abandoning his safety zone and entering unfriendly territory. You can call it bad judgment, but that’s just what happens when you have absolutely zero experience. (more…)
FAMILY MATTERS
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008I don’t agree with BRCK BM that family matters are completely off-limits, particularly if those family members are making political stump speeches. It also extends to spouses, siblings, children and extended family who don’t project themselves upon the public stage, to the extent it reveals something important about the candidate’s character or ideology.
It’s important that we know how serious BRCK BM is when he quotes the Bible on “whatever you do to the least of these, my brothers…” Does his charity start at home, with his own half-brother, living in a shack off a dollar a month? It’s important for us to know why MCHLL BM is only recently proud of her country, and why she and her husband chose Jeremiah Wright to marry them, advise them and mold their socio-religious views.
It’s perfectly fair for us to talk about how Sarah Palin’s socio-religious views play out in her own family. What does it mean for her husband? What does it mean for her children, and her children’s children? Does Gov. Palin advocate abstinence-only education both at home and in public schools? If so, what is the product of that ideology, and how does she personally deal with the benefits and consequences of those views? Further, how practical is that ideology when contrasted with more liberal sex education, and what are the comparative statistics on pregnancy, birth and STDs?
That discussion should in turn bring us back around to BRCK BM — why he thinks it’s “above [his] pay grade” to determine when human life begins, and why he’s willing to gamble with destroying human life in the absence of that assurance. And we should be asking what he meant when he said he didn’t want his daughters to be “punished with a baby.”
I’m not saying minor children of politicians should be over-exposed, exploited or kept under constant news surveillance. Children should be allowed to be children, and we shouldn’t expect perfection from political families. For the most part, all family members should be left alone. But when their lives, actions and public statements tell us something important about the candidate, the public cannot be expected to ignore them.
NOT FUNNY, JUST SAD
Sunday, August 31st, 2008You have to give John McCain props, because we knew it was an impossible task from the outset — to find a running mate who could rival BRCK BM in youth and inexperience. We can’t blame McCain for only meeting the first part.
Meanwhile, since McCain’s poor sense of humor would indeed be carried over from the current White House, I’d wager five smurfs that McCain will go green and recycle Reagan’s joke during the debates: (more…)
VP SHOCKER
Saturday, August 30th, 2008So you were surprised by his choice — that John McCain selected an attractive woman to stand by his side? I’m beginning to question how much you really know about John McCain.
MEMPHIS LIAR FACT-CHECKS MCCAIN, HILARITY ENSUES
Thursday, July 31st, 2008Memphis Liar Editor Bruce VanWyngarden picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue:
The presidential race is starting to turn nasty — at least on one side. John McCain said last week that opponent Barack Obama was willing to “lose a war in order to win a campaign.” McCain also ran an ad falsely claiming that Obama canceled a meeting with wounded vets in Germany because “cameras weren’t allowed.” (This, even though McCain similarly had canceled an appearance with wounded vets this spring, also at the request of the Pentagon.)
First off, and this is an admittedly minor point, the McCain ad doesn’t make the direct claim Bruce reports. To be exact, the ad’s narrator says: “He made time to go to the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops. Seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras.” The ad certainly implies or suggests that BRCK BM canceled his visit because he wasn’t able to stage it as a campaign event, but the direct charge is not specified, and VanWyngarden also tampers with the quote: “cameras weren’t allowed.”
Second, I find no evidence for VanWyngarden’s assertion that McCain “canceled an appearance with wounded vets this spring.” According to CNN, “the Navy declined a McCain campaign request to speak at the Naval Aviation Museum at the naval base in Pensacola, Florida, because it is a military owned installation and is located on the base.” Unless there were wounded vets lined up to appear with McCain at the museum, VanWyngarden appears to be making a stretch.
Third, and most importantly, VanWyngarden falsely suggests that the Pentagon asked the Senators not to meet with wounded troops, when in fact it has simply asked both to make such appearances in an official, rather than a political, capacity.
The Dallas News quotes Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman: “Nobody denied Senator Obama the opportunity to visit our wounded being cared for at Landstuhl. Obviously as a sitting senator he has an interest in that and can certainly visit in an official capacity… The senator’s staff was informed of the limits on what the military can do with respect to a political campaign and how we could support a senator’s visit to Landstuhl, and quite frankly I expected them to have the visit.”
According to BRCK BM’s own campaign statement, canceling the event was a decision of his own choosing:
“The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign.”
I’m willing to give BRCK BM the benefit of the doubt and take him at his word on this one, but McCain’s campaign is certainly free to reach a different conclusion, particularly in light of the larger context of BRCK BM’s campaign.
VanWyngarden continues his editorial with an analysis of McCain’s appearance on CNN’s The Situation Room, in which he repeated his vow to capture Osama bin Laden or otherwise “bring him to justice.”
Blitzer asked how McCain was going manage such a feat when President Bush hadn’t been able to do it in seven years.
This is an unexpected and welcome departure from the Leftist mantra that President Bush took his eye off the ball, but unfortunately it’s the only line approaching reasonable criticism in the whole editorial.
Of course, a few days earlier, McCain had proclaimed himself worried about the situation on the nonexistent “Iraq/Pakistan border,” which would suggest he doesn’t know the area quite as well as he’d like us to think.
Yes, of course… but what VanWyngarden fails to mention is that McCain’s comment was, like the question that elicited it, about Afghanistan, which in fact does border Pakistan — suggesting not that he’s unfamiliar with the area, as VanWyngarden implies, but instead that McCain’s simply as prone as any politician to verbal gaffes and temporary geographic confusion.
Take, for example, BRCK BM, who forgot his home state of Illinois shared a border with Kentucky when talking about that state’s primary…
“Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.”
… and who at one point seemed to have discovered an additional eight states:
“Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.
VanWyngarden continues:
What got to me, though, was his assertion that he knew how to capture bin Laden but hadn’t bothered to share this magical information with the president, the CIA, or the Pentagon. He’s a U.S. senator, for heaven’s sake. Surely the president will take his calls.
Seems to me that McCain was dangling his secret plan to capture the world’s leading terrorist as an incentive for the American people to elect him president. “Elect me,” he appeared to be saying, “and I’ll get the bad guy.”
It’s nothing short of absurd to claim that McCain’s confidence in his own military experience, knowledge about warfare and determination to defeat Al Qaida somehow amounts to “magical information” that he has refused to share with the White House.
Yes, it’s unfortunate that McCain seems to be making the capture of Osama bin Laden a campaign promise, rather than simply expressing his desire and readiness to continue aggressively taking the fight to Al Qaida.
But at least he’s not promised to cure paralysis, a la John Edwards, or worse, control the land, sea and air, a la BRCK BM, who told the crowds in Berlin, “Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.”
Huh. Sounds like he’d rather win a campaign than capture Osama bin Laden. Either that, or the “maverick” is full of, uh, non-straight talk.
The Memphis Liar certainly knows a thing or two about “non-straight talk.”
Cross-posted at MemphisLiar.com.
WHY THE NY TIMES PANNED MCCAIN’S OP-ED
Monday, July 21st, 2008The New York Times rejected John McCain’s Op-Ed on Iraq, a rebuttal to one they published that was penned by BRCK BM.
One reason the Times was forced to reject McCain’s editorial is that it clearly puts shame to their endorsement of him in the Republican primary:
Mr. McCain was one of the first prominent Republicans to point out how badly the war in Iraq was being managed. We wish he could now see as clearly past the temporary victories produced by Mr. Bush’s unsustainable escalation, which have not led to any change in Iraq’s murderous political calculus. At the least, he owes Americans a real idea of how he would win this war, which he says he can do.
One need only skim McCain’s Op-Ed to discover how profoundly wrong the Times editors were about the surge, even as they endorsed the man who helped initiate it.
Ironically, rejecting McCain now is probably the best gift they could have given him.
UPDATE: Welcome, Times editors! (more…)
NEXT THEY’LL SAY MCCAIN ISN’T OLD ENOUGH
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008First, BRCK BM surrogate Wesley Clark said McCain would represent Bush’s Third Term, as if the Bush-McCain split isn’t legendary.
Now Gen. Clark says McCain doesn’t have enough military experience, as if there were any national politician with a more impressive story of service and dedication to this country.
Just to save Gen. Clark some time, let’s list a few more brilliant attacks he could make:
- Cast McCain as a political outsider who doesn’t understand the political process or know the major players.
- Point to McCain’s lack of legislative achievement in the Senate, his failure to make a mark on Congress, and his inability to reach bipartisan compromise.
- Say McCain is too conservative to appeal to moderates and Democrats, people like, oh, and I’m just pulling out a random name here, Joe Lieberman.
- Explain why his policies are unpopular with Hispanic voters.
- Accuse him of pork-barrel spending.
- Question his patriotism.
That should get you through the next few weeks, General.