Zip it up, "GHW" McCain

Someone should tell Johnny. and the rest of them to holster their alter egos and wait until next June to threaten Iran with their manly missiles.

The Iranians may do at the ballot box what McCain wants to do with bombs, and vote to get rid of Ahmadinejad for a more reasonable man.

by Sandy Sand (133 articles, 0 quicklinks, 169 diaries, 1272 comments) on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 7:01:44 AM
 

Yeah, I Agree Steven

Yeah,

    Their attitude toward death reveals where they're at.

Cold, non-empathetic, war-loving, and narrow-minded.

No McCain for me.

by Bob Gormley (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 911 comments) on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 8:14:35 AM
 

Disqualified already

Can you imagine what the U.S. reaction would be if a foreign politician had made that joke about us? And how can a man who is asking to take on the role of leader of the free world, and represent our country with foreign leaders, say such a horrific thing?

by Amy Fried (39 articles, 78 quicklinks, 46 diaries, 176 comments) on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 11:12:18 AM
 

Maybe they do hate our freedoms!

In particular the one that so many stupid, jingoistic politicians avail themselves of to issue thinly veiled threats of mayhem in public.

by John Sanchez Jr. (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 1055 comments) on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 12:16:14 PM
 

follow the money? how about follow the fear...

Mccain has been cozy with the john hagees of the gop camp who have chosen religion as a hell insurance, forsaking emulating christ who said love your enemies, so, what we have are sheep who follow fear-monger preachers and those endorse killing.  See strait gate ministries http://whtt.org/ who are picketing these christians to try to get them to wake up and listen to themselves. 

To be part of the solution and not the problem is to hopefully look for common ground.  After following this lead myself, i thought surely the Jews and Christians who espouse an adherence to the old testament 10 commandments would have something in common, like thou shalt not kill, but it turns out that The Jews I have heard back from, on this, indeed differentiate saying they don't believe the 10 commandments say thou shalt not kill, but instead thou shalt not murder.  Then, i heard Rice use the word murder at AIPAC where we might have chosen the word kill, and there confirmed for me that the distinction is high and mighty uniting  ideology based on word selection. So, as far I understand the few Christians who follow Christ instead of the old testament are in the minority just like The Confessing Church leader Bonhoeffer and his band of Lutherans (who disagreed with the rightwing theology of justification by faith during WWII) were, yes, hung in concentration camps.  (The Jews for Jesus reported recently needing armed guards to protect them in Israel) The fear to induce one to follow the majority leadership is what is going on here.  To think otherwise, is to mean that you think outside the box, and history has recorded what happens to them.  The thinning out of the wheat from the chaff has begun, Tim Russert is gone, George Carlin, other truth seekers and naysayers of the blindsheep mechanism set in place by floride, msg, aspartame and other chemically induced fads to leave us dumbstupid.  WHen Neimoller (of the confessing church) wrote his famous line of "first they came for the communists, then the jews, the sick and the incurables, the way we treated the occupied countries etc., hmmm occupied  he said, then later were added other groups, the premise is true, although his people groups have been distorted by adding favored sons.. etc...see this translation of the original: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/niem.htm#order

The terminology of what and who are christians, jews, zionists semites etc, is at the basis of the fearmongering, and the distinction made by the new testament was clear, we are not to regard each other form a human point of view, neither to regard christ through that filter as well...

well, mccain and his followers have a fear occupied brain, and that is what we have to fear. but let's not...because like The Peace Pilgrim said, when you fear, it's then that you are in trouble, because that's when you bring it to you through your fear.  Deep breaths here, shake off the slumber, and like jesus is quoted as saying, "fortifie-toi et agis"...strengthen yourself, and get going....

disclaimer:  the reference to Christ is from a karma point of view.  I do not subscribe to the type of God that is a hell-monger.

by karmacounselor (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 52 comments) on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 1:28:56 PM
 

Re: "McCain Jokes about Killing Iranians

It is quite sad Steven that John McCain, even if he was joking (a sick joke) would make this second reference about killing Iranians.

The problem is, John McCain is so far out of touch with reality, and he and his supporters are in touch with their own disconnected reality, one which will only further the hate felt toward America and it's people. I just don't understand the mindset of these McCain supporters?  I guess it's all about "America first."  Me, me, me and F' everyone else.

by Munich (0 articles, 53 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 739 comments) on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 2:29:47 PM
 

A culture of cowardly over-grown children

Nobody protested McCain's response, right?  He answered that way because he knew what was expected from him. Hey, take James Bond. A man kills people. And so far in all the movies no woman ever had rejected him for a simple reason that a man with blood on his hands is disgusting.  So what is the message? That message is now our nature. McCain just.. satisfies the customers.

by Mark Sashine (47 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3360 comments) on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 2:46:38 PM
 

Republicans have congealed...

into a sticky residue of sociopaths.

by John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1094 comments) on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 8:04:33 PM
 

McCain Jokes about Killing Iranians ... AGAIN

It is simple.  He is simple! (also as stupid as a bag of rocks)

by vet613 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 16 comments) on Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 8:53:53 PM
 

Do you know what I'll never understand?

How is pointing out that John McCain joking about killing people in an article  self righteous? Maybe you can shed some light on that Darwin. Are you disagreeing with the fact that McCain made the comment? Then what the hell are you referring to? I've been to Oswego, NY on a few occassions, and based on the general populace there, your overarching life's work should be to make sure people in that area stop reproducing immediately. Your a philosophy major? Jesus, that's all we need is a brainwashed, neo con philosopher roaming the streets of Oswego. I've gone back and read some of your comments, and I'm genuinely perplexed at the brevity and genuinely unoriginal comments you seem to post. Are you 14 years old?

by Dave Rogers (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 224 comments) on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 12:16:10 AM
 

As the author, let me second Boris' comment to your comment

Did I misquote McCain? Actually, that is impossible since I included the entire video. What, if any real issue do you have with my article?

I think the answer is that McCain either screwed up or really is as scary as his statements imply and you are upset that I pointed it out. That's not my problem, that is McCain's.

by Steven Leser (193 articles, 38 quicklinks, 32 diaries, 1299 comments) on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 10:56:53 AM
 

Not the McCain of Old.

I liked McCain back in the day before he was co-opted by the Bush Administration. Ever since 2004 when McCain threw his arms around Bush at the GOP convention, he's been a different man. The move to the right was been blatant and not very satisfying to this swing voter.

Yesterday, McCain said that we can't afford another Holocaust. I think most people would agree with that statement, however, our own intelligence community isn't even sure if Iran has an on-going nuclear weapons program or not. Still, Bush and McCain seem to want to bomb first and ask questions later. Didn't we already do that in Iraq? Do we really want to go down that same road again so soon? Can we afford to double the price of oil overnight? Not that our foreign policy should be driven by the price of oil one way or another, but still. Its effect on the economy has to be considered along with the destruction of our 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf.

That said, I think McCain's precondition for talks that Iran forsakes offensive violence towards Israel is resonable even though most of the accusations about Iran wanting to destroy Israel are misinterpretations of their calling for a regime change in Israel. (They could be beseeching Allah to wipe Israel off the map for them for all I know.) Those two are not necessarily the same thing, though nuance doesn't seem to be McCain's style. A hair-triggered fighter pilot is more his style, and I'm thinking we need a man with a steadier, slower, more deliberate hand at the controls of our foreign policy.

Someone in the media needs to flat-out ask if McCain and Bush favor using bunker-busting nukes to take out Iran's suspected underground nuclear facilities, and if not what they could possibly hope to achieve with a conventional bombing campaign against such hardened targets. In my opinion, neither McCain nor Bush would give a straight answer to that question while reiterating for the umpteenth time that "all options are on the table." If that includes the nuclear option, count me out. Whoever starts lobbing nuclear bombs around the Middle East in the name of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons doesn't deserve to be the Commander-in-Chief.  

That would seal my vote for Obama unless he did something really stupid like putting Hillary or Wes Clark on the ticket. Then I'd have to go third party or just stay home in November.

by Sam Adams (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 81 comments) on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 4:54:04 AM
 

McCain's Joke

by Bahramerad (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 23 comments) on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 6:37:04 AM
 

Parsing your statements...

It's OK to joke about killing people if their government is bad.

Are you sure you want to stick with that?

by Steven Leser (193 articles, 38 quicklinks, 32 diaries, 1299 comments) on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 2:04:28 PM
 

McCain's cigarette quip

I think this is something of an overreaction to McCain's comment in response to a rather inane question which caught him by surprise. Don't get me wrong - generally, republicans make dreadful jokes of the sort that will only get laughed at by other republicans in steam rooms. But I see no more significance to that particular comment than I do to any other dumb joke.

However, Bush's comment, "please don't kill me" truly made me cringe and seriously wonder just how psychopathic he was (and is). But I had a context - which was Bush's unbelievable obtuseness and arrogance about the death penalty and the possibilities of innocent people being put to death - something he repeatedly and quite glibly dismissed as absolutely impossible in Texas. That sole issue and Bush's comments on it in many contexts was the sole reason I despised him long before he became president and nothing since has met that high level of despicability, imho.

I've been a liberal and even, at times, a leftist radical, most of my adult life, but I must say that liberals too can end up in lockstep with the propaganda and mythologies of their causes (take global warming) and can take themselves very, very seriously at times. Through the 20th century, liberals have always been very sentimental about the suffering of the innocent in other lands, but nonetheless, the democratic party has served the corporate interest regardless of the cost in human suffering every bit as much as the republican party and American liberals have enjoyed the physical benefits to their lifestyles and pocket books every bit as much as their republican counterparts.

And we can be a bit stiff about jokes, I must add (though not nearly so much as most republican commentary I run across). For instance, Bush's joke of looking under furniture for WMD was pretty funny (he surprised me - I didn't think he had it in him), whatever about the lack of taste in such a joke. And I can remember some very funny jokes or political cartoons about Clinton and Lewinsky, even though as a political issue and distraction, I was as disgusted and dismayed by the absurdity of the right's campaign on that matter as much as anyone I ever met or read.

Usually when I hear republican jokes or the republican response to jokes, I can't help but think of CS Lewis who came under criticism for laughing at a joke about sex. He said that there is a big difference between a joke that is an excuse for sex and using sex as an excuse for a joke. Over the last decade in particular, I have always been struck by the darkness of republican attempts at humour, which so so often seems to be weighted down by agenda so much that just in case you didn't get the underlying message that is the real purpose of the joke, the listener/reader gets hit over the head with the punchline so heavily that it's almost seems like the joke is annotated. (This always reminds me of how the Swedish translated Tony Hancock's classic sketch, "The Bloodbank" - if you want an exercise in self torture, try watching first the original - which is very funny - and then the Swedish version.)

I cringe a little when my fellow liberals display the same lack of humour because of the preciousness in their minds of the subject matter. 

by Terry (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 32 comments) on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 11:35:58 AM
 

Not a chance

Jokes about killing people have as much relationship to  humor as rape has to  making love.

Eat your checkers

by Mark Sashine (47 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3360 comments) on Thursday, July 10, 2008 at 12:08:45 PM
 

Parsing your statements

by Bahramerad (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 23 comments) on Friday, July 11, 2008 at 5:33:15 AM