McCain shows his true character and leadership

CoastalRat wrote:

Some democrats actually are tolerant and capable of discussing without resorting to calling others names.

Where is that? I'd like to visit this fantasy land...

McCain's Media Blitz

Suspended campaign be damned! Jonathan Martin reports that McCain is going to tape interviews with all three network news shows tonight. Maybe this is all a ploy to draw attention away from Palin's disastrous interview with Couric [..]. I guess I shouldn't complain that McCain is suddenly making himself more accessible to the media, but he's doing it an odd time.

--Jason Zengerle

Suspending Disbelief

"Tomorrow morning I will suspend my campaign." --John McCain, yesterday

Today, Ben Smith:

Readers in Iowa and Wisconsin [and Virginia] emailed to say that they saw seen McCain ads on the air this morning, though he's said he's taking them down.

Jonathan Martin:

What exactly constitutes a "suspended campaign?" Well, Team McCain is still working away this morning. Joe Pounder, the indefatigable press aide, blasted out his morning email of clips and quips to reporters with just a bit of dissonance.

Wonkette:

Go to McCain’s website, and you’ll see he’s still collecting campaign contributions and still running his trashy anti-Obama video spots. He’s still doing interviews (just not Letterman!)...

TPM:

Despite McCain's claim that he's put his campaign on hold, two of [his advisers] directly attacked Barack Obama in political terms on television this morning.

The important thing, of course, is that John McCain will not attend debates until the Republic is saved, or doing so will get his running mate out of her debate, whichever comes first.

-- Christopher Orr

McCain Didn't Bother to Read the Bailout Plan?

Here's John McCain talking about the proposed financial bailout, during an interview with a local television station from Cleveland. The Obama campaign is sending the video around, and I can see why. Pay particular attention to the final few seconds, when McCain says he hasn't had a chance to read the actual proposal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnsNOEgp-_o

I assume he's referring here to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's proposed bailout. [..] The Paulson plan was available over the weekend. And this interview, according to the YouTube page, took place on Tuesday. [..]

Remember, this is the same man who just announced he's suspending his campaign, because the financial crisis demands his full attention and participation.

Update: The McCain campaign has confirmed to Politico that the reference was to the Paulson plan--that is, the proposal Paulson made available on Friday, four full days before this interview took place. Oh, did I mention that the Paulson plan is all of three pages long?

--Jonathan Cohn

How Is John McCain Going To Help Solve The Financial Crisis?

This video, put together by a Romney supporter (who just has to be banging his head against the wall right now watching McCain) kinda makes you wonder exactly what McCain thinks he’s bringing to the table that merits the “suspension” of his campaign.

BARTIROMO: Sen. McCain, has Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cut interest rates aggressively enough?

Has Ben Bernanke cut interests rates aggressively enough?

McCAIN: I’m not…I’m not…I don’t have that kind of expertise to know exactly whether he has cut interest rates suffiently or not. I’m glad that whenever they cut interest rates. I wish interest rates were zero.

Um, huh? Interest rates at ZERO???? Oh yeah, this is the guy I want negotiating the bailout. ‘Course, it might help if he bothered to read the Paulson plan.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/09/25/how-is-john-mccain-going-to-help-solve-the-financial-crisis/

Instead he [McCain] found himself in the midst of a remarkable partisan showdown, lacking a clear public message for how to bring it to an end.

At the bipartisan White House meeting that Mr. McCain had called for a day earlier, he sat silently for more than 40 minutes, more observer than leader, and then offered only a vague sense of where he stood, said people in the meeting.

...

Still, by nightfall, the day provided the younger and less experienced Mr. Obama an opportunity to, in effect, shift roles with Mr. McCain. For a moment, at least, it was Mr. Obama presenting himself as the old hand at consensus building, and as the real face of bipartisan politics.

09.26.08 -- 12:24AM // link | recommend (3)
Annals of Suspension

As we've been reporting, John McCain's attack ads have remained up on the air across the country as late as this evening. And now it turns out that his campaign has instructed TV stations around the country to start airing them again starting on Saturday. In other words, McCain's ads may actually disappear from the air for a few hours on Friday.

At this point it looks like the only thing that got cancelled in McCain's much ballyhooed suspension of his campaign was the appearance on David Letterman.

--Josh Marshall

McCain Blames Earmarks For The Current Financial ‘Difficulties’

When talking about the economy, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) regularly resorts to talking about one of his favorite subjects: pork barrel spending projects known as earmarks. “The first big-spending pork-barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it. I will make them famous, and you will know their names,” McCain constantly says.

During an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric yesterday, McCain said that the current financial crisis “is of the utmost seriousness and a crisis of enormous proportions.” But sticking to his mantra, McCain strangely cited earmarks as “one of the major reasons why we’re having difficulties”:

McCAIN: [W]e’ve got to take tough decisions and one of them is government spending by the way. One of the major reasons why we’re having difficulties is we let spending get completely out of control " earmark and pork-barrel projects. Senator Obama asked for over $900 million in earmarks pork-barrel projects, that’s not part of the answer thats part of the problem.

---


But of course, earmarks have very little to do with the current financial crisis " one that is actually rooted in bad mortgages and crashing credit markets.

Someone on another board suggested that Bob Barr be given McCain's seat since McCain doesn't want it.

That would be funny.

Sorry for all the TNR links, but they're really on this case...

It turns out that McCain was so determined to set everything aside to deal with the impending, monumental financial crisis that ... he still hadnt actually read the administration's plan to deal with it four full days after it came out. Even though it's just three pages.

Quote:

McCain Didn't Bother to Read the Bailout Plan?

Here's John McCain talking about the proposed financial bailout, during an interview with a local television station from Cleveland. The Obama campaign is sending the video around, and I can see why. Pay particular attention to the final few seconds, when McCain says he hasn't had a chance to read the actual proposal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnsNOEgp-_o

I assume he's referring here to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's proposed bailout. [..] The Paulson plan was available over the weekend. And this interview, according to the YouTube page, took place on Tuesday. [..]

Remember, this is the same man who just announced he's suspending his campaign, because the financial crisis demands his full attention and participation.

Update: The McCain campaign has confirmed to Politico that the reference was to the Paulson plan--that is, the proposal Paulson made available on Friday, four full days before this interview took place. Oh, did I mention that the Paulson plan is all of three pages long?

--Jonathan Cohn

What a joke..

But the other stuff sure reinforces the impression that all McCain wanted to suspend was a debate or two - either his own or Palin's.

When John McCain announced Wednesday that he was suspending his campaign to tend to the nation’s economic crisis, a top aide said McCain wanted the presidential candidates and members of Congress to “lock themselves in a room for the next 100 hours” to achieve “consensus on something.”

Yet on Thursday afternoon, McCain swept into Washington, walked to his office with pal Joe Lieberman, said little at a contentious White House meeting, did a few TV interviews, sped off to his home and proclaimed, through a spokesperson, that he was “optimistic” about bringing House Republicans “on board.”

McCain's attempt to shift the argument from the economy to character has, perversely, given Democrats an opening to question his own fitness to lead. Spur-of-the-moment decisions " from his choice of a running mate he hardly knew to his request that the first debate be delayed " reflect an impetuousness he's tried to associate with Obama's youth, his critics say, while undercutting his argument that he's a cool, tested old hand capable of coping with presidential pressure. [..]

Questions about McCain's temperament [..] have long been a feature of his political career. He's gotten into profanity-laced shouting matches with fellow senators and other officials, and he jokes that nobody's ever suggested he should get a prize for congeniality. In March, the Democratic National Committee labeled him "Senator Hothead," and circulated to reporters a quote from Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, who said earlier this year that "the thought of [McCain's] being president sends a cold chill down my spine…. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

That line of attack, however, seemed to subside " until this financial crisis.

Nearly two weeks ago, as the crisis dominated the news, McCain claimed that the fundamentals of the economy were "strong,” then quickly corrected himself, saying the economy was "in crisis." This week, he defended his running mate, Sarah Palin's, suggestion that America risks another Great Depression.

After initially opposing the $85 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG, he backtracked and supported it.

Then he called for the firing of SEC Chairman Chris Cox, claiming he had "betrayed the public's trust" " only to later soften those comments and call him a "good man."

In an interview on "60 Minutes" last Sunday, McCain surprised fellow Republicans by saying he would replace Cox with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who has investigated Wall Street corruption.

Then came the big, roll-the-dice moves this week.

McGentrix wrote:

CoastalRat wrote:

Some democrats actually are tolerant and capable of discussing without resorting to calling others names.

Where is that? I'd like to visit this fantasy land...

People tend to respond in kind. So, while there are always people who will be asses no matter what among liberals too, conservatives like Coastal, Roger and maybe Georgeob or James Morrison probably have a somewhat different experience of talking with liberals than someone like, well, you, or Okie, Woiyo or Fox (let alone cjhsa, H2OMan and Gunga) would have...