Election 2008: So is Old Man McCain finished?

Obama is going to smoke him.

Theyyyyre baaaaack...

Latest from the McCain Girls:

"Here Comes McCain Again"


Er, wow.

That headline and story are somewhat misleading.

It's according to one strategist (Dan Senor, of Coalition Provisional Authority 'fame'), not plural. And his entire theory is based on Rice making an unexpected visit to Grover Norquist's "Americans for Tax Reform" (aka 'wealthy Americans who want taxes lowered out of existence').

Rice and her spokesmen completely deny this report, up and down.

As Eugene Robinson wrote in the WaPo today:

She wouldn't bring any political base to the ticket, since she doesn't have one. She wouldn't bring any regional advantage, since McCain is almost certain to beat either Democrat in Rice's native state of Alabama, and almost certain to lose to either Democrat in Rice's adopted state of California. And while McCain has tied his candidacy to the Iraq occupation, he maintains some distance from the Bush administration by charging that until recently the war was woefully mismanaged. Rice, as national security adviser in Bush's first term, was one of the mismanagers.

All right, there's another problem. Rice has described herself as "mildly pro-choice" on abortion and pronounced her support for affirmative action "if it does not lead to quotas." Given McCain's apostate views on immigration, global warming and campaign finance, it's hard to see how he could pick someone with so little regard for the Republican Party's bedrock views.

And I'll close with analysis from Carpet Bagger:

For one thing, Rice doesn’t seem at all interested. In February, she explained, “I have always said that the one thing that I have not seen myself doing is running for elected office in the United States. I didn’t even run for high-school president, it’s not in my genes.”

For another, unless McCain is anxious to help Democrats tie him directly to Bush’s failed presidency, he’s not likely to pick one of the president’s closest buddies. (There was that one time Rice inadvertently referred to Bush as her “husband”….)

For that matter, she’s not exactly part of the Republican in-crowd. The party’s base seems to tolerate her, but it’s not as if she has a solid relationship with the GOP powers that be. Indeed, most Republicans have little confidence that she’s conservative on the issues they care about most.

And finally, not to put too fine a point on the issue, but in her eight years in government service, Rice has been truly awful. Weapons inspector David Kay, charged with finding WMD after the Iraq invasion, referred to Rice in Bob Woodward’s “State of Denial” as “probably the worst national security adviser since the office was created.” As Secretary of State, Rice has repeatedly been wrong about Iraq, has been careless with the facts, and has no real accomplishments to speak of.

That hasn’t stopped Republican candidates before, of course, but given the hurdles, I suspect Rice would be fairly low on the McCain list of VP possibilities.

Personally I agree with Robinson. I'd love it if she ran. She'd be a permanent reminder of the most unpopular president in U.S. history and the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history. Sadly, I don't think it's going to happen.

Maybe I should explain.

I started working with friend in 1995.

(Yes, older than dirt. I have three strokes, and 5X CABG--Carnivore, Sweet Tea, etc. please take it easy on me from the mod point.)

He was a POW for 6 1/2 years.

I love this guy like a brother. However, there is NO WAY I WOULD VOTE FOR HIM AS PRESIDENT.

Too much has changed (mentally).

McCain continues to not understand basic facts about Iran. I look forward to eggcream's explanation about how this is insignificant.

McCain’s confusion over Iran gets a little more embarrassing
from The Carpetbagger Report by Carpetbagger

Because Barack Obama has indicated he’d consider diplomacy with Iran as president, Republicans and other far-right voices have highlighted the bizarre inanities of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This is the guy, the GOP argues, that Obama would be willing to chat with.

But there’s actually some ambiguity to the point. In Iran’s system, Ahmadinejad may be president, but he’s not exactly what we’d think of a chief executive, and in terms of authority, it’s a religious council that runs the show. (Ahmadinejad was “elected,” but candidates have to approved by the religious council first.)

For U.S. political purposes, Joe Klein reports that Obama has said he’s open to diplomacy with Iran’s leadership, not necessarily Ahmadinejad.

On Friday, I promised to check into whether Obama had ever said that he would negotiate — specifically, by name — with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Indeed, according to the crack Time Magazine research department and the Obama campaign, he never has. He did say that he would negotiate with the Iranian leadership — but, on matters of foreign policy and Iran’s nuclear program, the guy in charge is the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

As of today, John McCain was still accusing Obama of wanting to negotiate with Ahmadinejad. Why doesn’t the McCain campaign and other assorted Republicans ever accuse Obama of wanting to negotiate with Khamenei? Well, because Khamenei isn’t quite the flagrant anti-Semite Ahmadinejad is … and, as we keep hearing, Obama has a Jewish problem.

So, Klein, to his credit, asked McCain about this at a press conference, inquiring as to why McCain keeps accusing Obama of reaching out to Ahmadinejad when that hasn’t actually happened. When Klein noted that it’s Khamenei who is “in charge of Iranian foreign policy and also in charge of the nuclear program,” McCain said he respectfully disagreed.

After noting Ahmadinejad having spoken to the United Nations, McCain concluded, “I mean, the fact is he’s the acknowledged leader of that country and you may disagree, but that’s a uh, that’s your right to do so, but I think if you asked any average American who the leader of Iran is, I think they’d know.”

Is that really McCain’s preferred standard for international affairs? Whomever the “average Americans” thinks is in charge should be considered the leader?

Here’s the clip. Notice McCain’s smug attitude, as if he’s certain he knows what he’s talking about.

(see original post for video link)

Ilan Goldenberg does a fine job of setting the record straight, and explaining why McCain’s latest confusion should undermine confidence in his foreign policy competence.

…Iran has a very complex system of government with varying institutions, but at the top of it sits Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who essentially is only accountable to the Council of Guardians made up of clerics, many of whom are appointed by Khamenei. So, Ahmadinejad is not the leader. And as the Council on Foreign Relations explains, especially in the area of foreign policy, Ahmadinejad has very little influence.

On top of that as Klein points out, the President’s job is to educate the public on questions of policy. So if the “average American” thinks that Ahmadinejad is the ultimate leader of Iran, it’s up to the President to dissuade them of this notion - not reinforce it. Back in 2002 more then half of Americans thought Saddam was responsible for 9/11 and President Bush did nothing to disprove this assumption (In fact, while never directly claiming that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 the Administration did everything it could to reinforce the notion). That doesn’t mean our policy should be based on those false assumptions.

Then there is the fact that in 2003 McCain and other conservatives dismissed efforts by Democrats to engage the reformist President of Iran Mohamed Khatami claiming that he had no real power. Now that the President is a hardline demagogue he is the sole voice in Iran that matters. That seems convenient.

Considering the bellicose language and all the speculation about war with Iran, you’d think the Republican nominee for President who consistently touts his foreign policy expertise should either get better briefings on the structure of Iran’s government or start exercising that “straight talk” he is supposedly so famous for.

With each passing day, it becomes clearer that McCain doesn’t really know what he’s talking about — and is hoping desperately that no one notices until after November.

On foreign policy this guy is George W. Bush incarnate.

Wow. That's chutzpah! This girl will definitely go places.

Carnivore wrote: McCain is desperate. His website is now recruiting trolls to spam political blogs and message boards.

http://www.johnmccain.com/ActionCenter/BlogInteract/BlogInteract.aspx?

Or ... is he taking a page out of the Obama playbook? I'll have to hunt it up when I get a chance, but I remember a story in the last couple weeks about the Obama campaign hiring 400 bloggers to talk him up. Except I guess McCain's will be unpaid volunteers. Unless you count McCain Online Action Center points. Perhaps you can earn a beer coozie or something.

Boygabriel wrote: Did Obama send said bloggers onto rightwing message boards to flood them with positive messages?

I'm curious to see if there are actual similarities.

The story is that he sent them to Hillary boards to flood them with positive Obama messages... FWIW.

daver wrote: [quote=Boygabriel]Did Obama send said bloggers onto rightwing message boards to flood them with positive messages?

I'm curious to see if there are actual similarities.

The story is that he sent them to Hillary boards to flood them with positive Obama messages... FWIW.
Do you have a link for that story?

McCain's Pastor: Islam Is a 'Conspiracy of Spiritual Evil'

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4905624&page=1

John McCain had yet another foreign policy/Iraq gaffe? How does anyone besides eggcream take this guy seriously?

WaPo:

In comments to reporters on Thursday, McCain asserted that “I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it’s succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr City are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough and there will be setbacks.”

In fact, as the Obama campaign was quick to point out, the troop level in Iraq is at about 155,000 right now, well above the 130,000 that would mark a return to pre-surge levels.

And the McCain camp’s response:

Advisers to Sen. John McCain said the flap over whether the senator was mistaken about the troop level in Iraq is nothing more than “nitpicking” about “verb tenses.”

lol.

McCain still can't get his troop number story right. His gaffing is only going to get worse.

I'm very concerned for eggcream and who she's going to vote for.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/americandebate/19455269.html wrote: Dick Polman[/url]:

If more people were paying attention, they might well wonder whether this guy is as sharp about foreign policy as he purports to be.

CNN’s Jack Cafferty:

How is it nitpicking if he says we have drawn down to pre-surge levels and two of the five combat brigades that were sent in there for the surge are still in there? … You know, it’s like the difference between Shia and Sunni. You know. These are things you gotta work out before you get in front of a microphone.

Washington Post Fact Checker:

[T]he attempt by the McCain media machine to spin the mistake as a simple matter of “verb tenses” is an insult to our intelligence.

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder:

Getting Iraq Right is the sine qua non of his campaign, and imprecision exposes his flank and it degrades his brand. The campaign contends that the press is frothing over a question of semantics, but that’s tough to argue. The scope of U.S. troop deployment in Iraq is the central issue of the presidential election. When combat brigades withdraw is not a detail. It is an essential element of the question.

MSNBC:

Asked if he “misspoke” yesterday on troop levels currently being at “pre-surge levels,” McCain said, “Of course not.” He defended himself by reiterating that U.S. troops have, in fact, been “drawn down.” … But according to NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, the U.S. has not drawn down to ‘pre-surge levels’ as McCain, in fact, said. Those troops will not be at those levels even after the five surge brigades finish redeploying later this summer.

McCain may find it harder to skate by over the next five months. Given the huge number of mistakes McCain has made about Iraq lately, he might want to take this time to get his act together.