The Democrats are trying to give away an election they should win in a walk by nominating someone with real problems -- like, for example, a first-term senator with a 100 percent rating from Americans for Democratic Action and whose middle name is "Hussein."
But we won't let them.
The bright side of the Florida debacle is that I no longer fear Hillary Clinton. (I mean in terms of her becoming president -- on a personal level, she's still a little creepy.) I'd rather deal with President Hillary than with President McCain. With Hillary, we'll get the same ruinous liberal policies with none of the responsibility.
Also, McCain lies a lot, which is really more a specialty of the Democrats.
Recently, McCain responded to Mitt Romney's statement that he understood the economy based on his many years in the private sector by claiming Romney had said a military career is not a "real job."
McCain's neurotic boast that he is the only Republican who supported the surge is beginning to sound as insane as Bill Clinton's claim to being the "first black president" -- although less insulting to blacks. As with the Clintons, you find yourself looking up such tedious facts as this, which ran a week after Bush announced the surge:
"On the morning of Bush's address, Romney endorsed a troop surge." -- The National Journal, Jan. 13, 2007
And yet for the 4 billionth time, at the Jan. 5, 2008, Republican debate, McCain bragged about his own raw courage in supporting the surge despite (apocryphal) Republican attacks, saying: "I said at the time that Gen. Petraeus and his strategy must be employed, and I was criticized by Republicans at that time. And that was a low point, but I stuck to it. I didn't change."
A review of contemporaneous news stories about the surge clearly demonstrates that the only Republicans who were so much as "skeptical" of the surge consisted of a few oddball liberal Republicans such as Sens. Gordon Smith, Norm Coleman and Olympia Snowe.
They certainly weren't attacking McCain, their standard-bearer in liberal Republicanism. But even if they were, it was a "low point" for McCain being "criticized" by the likes of Olympia Snowe?
In point of fact, McCain didn't even stand up to the milquetoasts. In April 2007, when Democrats in the Senate passed a bill funding the troops but also requiring a rapid withdrawal, "moderate" Republicans Smith and Chuck Hagel voted with the Democrats. McCain and Lindsey Graham skipped the vote.
But like the Democrats, McCain thinks if he simply says something over and over again, he can make people believe it's true. Thus again at the South Carolina debate on Jan. 10, McCain was proclaiming that he was "the only one on this stage" who supported the surge.
Since he would deny it about two minutes later, here is exactly what Mr. Straight Talk said about the surge: "I supported that; I argued for it. I'm the only one on this stage that did. And I condemneded the Rumsfeld strategy before that."
The next question went to Giuliani and -- amid great flattery -- Giuliani noted that he also supported Bush's surge "the night of the president's speech."
Mr. Straight Talk contradicted Giuliani, saying: "Not at the time."
Again, Giuliani said: "The night of the president's speech, I was on television. I supported the surge. I've supported it throughout."
To which McCain finally said he didn't mean that he was "the only one on this stage" who supported the surge. So by "the only one on this stage," McCain really meant, "one of several people on this stage." OK, great. Now tell us your definition of the word "is," Senator.
I know Republicans have been trained not to go prostrate at Ivy League degrees, but do we have to admire stupidity?
Mr. Straight Talk also announced at that same debate: "One of the reasons why I won in New Hampshire is because I went there and told them the truth." That and the fact that Democrats were allowed to vote in the Republican primary.
Even in the Florida primary, allegedly limited to Republicans, McCain lost among Republicans. (Seventeen percent of the Republican primary voters in Florida called themselves "Independents.")
That helps, but why would any Republican vote for McCain?
At least under President Hillary, Republicans in Congress would know that they're supposed to fight back. When President McCain proposes the same ideas -- tax hikes, liberal judges and Social Security for illegals -- Republicans in Congress will support "our" president -- just as they supported, if only briefly, Bush's great ideas on amnesty and Harriet Miers.
You need little flags like that for Republicans since, as we know from the recent unpleasantness in Florida, Republicans are unalterably stupid.
Republicans who vote for McCain are trying to be cute, like the Democrats were four years ago by voting for the "pragmatic" candidate, Vietnam vet John Kerry. This will turn out to be precisely as clever a gambit as nominating Kerry was, the brilliance of which was revealed on Election Day 2004.
That Ann talks about how McCain "condemneded Rumsfeld's strategy", I would say this is a pretty nice piece on a widespread Republican attitude towards McCain in this election. She actually points out something worth noting---the fact that Independents are going for McCain.
She also mentions as a way of grabbing her readers' attention (and it doesn't take much because we know her audience) something that has been itching at my brain. It was itching at the brains of so many John Edwards supporters this morning and afternoon. It's too bad that she doesn't show signs of knowing good journalism and probe this question instead of trying to provoke an idea that leaves you ignorantly spouting off conspiracy theories of your own. But else do we expect of Ann...
Why did John drop out now before Super Tuesday? With less than a week left til the Big Day, why?
Did somebody from the establishment ask him to stop taking votes from Obama? Did somebody say we would like the race to be between Obama and Hillary? Was John threatened? Or did John take some sort of payment like a job promise or something else?
This wasn't motivated by a need to survive like Dennis Kucinich's dropout was. This was more likely motivated by the same reasons that led Giuliani to drop out of his party's election. This decision was probably for the good of the Democratic Party.
That's too bad because what's good for the Democratic Party is no longer good for the American people.
by
Kevin Gosztola (194 articles, 103 quicklinks, 63 diaries, 776 comments)
on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 10:35:50 PM
I was coming to the same conclusion myself after noting that a couple of days ago, I believe, I read or heard John Edwards state that he would not drop out of the race before Super Tuesday. My thoughts this afternoon were that he may be in line for Obama (should he get the nomination) to ask him to join his ticket as VP. I don't know if anyone else thinks that's a plausible theory, but it certainly would not surprise me -and could, in my opinion, strengthen Obama's candidacy among those who were hoping to hell that it wouldn't come down to this...
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C.Bid (0 articles, 7 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 647 comments)
on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 10:57:10 PM
Thank you. That was one of the most palatable of your pieces I've ever read. Still, I have to make one comment to this: "we'll get the same ruinous liberal policies with none of the responsibility."
Like the conservative strategy is working out so well...and there is so much accountability!
Botched Afghanistan, botched Iraq, botched Pakistan, botched hunt for bin Laden, botched Katrina, 9 1/4 Trillion debt, flat economy, perpetual war without any end in sight, corrupted Justice Dept., disgraced intelligence community, disgraced country, a dollar that is the laughing stock of the economic world....must I go on??????
Oh, and as far as nominating Kerry last time, who would you have preferred? Edwards?
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Robert Sargent (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 24 diaries, 302 comments)
on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 11:43:11 PM
at the owner it means only one thing: the owner wants to change the dog. Mrs. Colteur is worried about herself. She apparently is clueless about her own future. That's the dog's problem.
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Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3359 comments)
on Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 7:30:58 AM
tell them as I tell mine that there are some people who resemble the dogs from the ' Mars attacks'. Those are not the real ' friends of humans' and they do not belong to any species. They just...bark.
My GSD guy understands that very well.
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Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3359 comments)
on Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 8:27:46 AM
<Why did John drop out now before Super Tuesday? With less than a week left til the Big Day, why?>
I'm just going to take a wild guess here that maybe his wife's illness has worsened and he can't continue.
Also, I don't think he'd accept a VP position, saying "been there, done that". The talk is that he might accept the Attorney General position, which, in reality would suit him better and by extension, suit US better.
He could go after the corrupt corporations, who absolutely loathe him!
--hamkap
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Kerry Prep (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 5:51:39 PM
Interesting idea, Kevin. But many of us believe Ms. Coulter deserves nothing so much as total obscurity. She has discredited herself too often and slandered others gratuitously.
Henceforth, let's give her the obscurity she so richly deserves.
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R. Queisser (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 60 comments)
on Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 10:54:33 PM
By letting people be exposed to her. After once, you have to struggle to really read her seriously.
I probably won't post her again even though she's getting interesting. She'll vote for Hillary if McCain gets nominated? That's what I heard on Bill Maher.
by
Kevin Gosztola (194 articles, 103 quicklinks, 63 diaries, 776 comments)
on Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 11:23:59 PM
