Links With Your Coffee - Wednesday
- George F. Will - McCain Loses His Head - washingtonpost.com
"The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around."
-- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
- McCain Aide’s Firm Was Paid by Freddie Mac Through August - NYTimes.com
One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.
The disclosure undercuts a remark by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.
- 13 Cars for the McCains--and not all American | The Trail | washingtonpost.com
First it was his seven houses. Now, Sen. John McCain has to explain his fleet of 13 cars.
According to a Newsweek item published online today, McCain and his wife, Cindy, own more than a dozen cars, including three electric bubble-shaped cars, called GEM's that the magazine says are popular in retirement communities.
But the ones getting him into trouble are the foreign-made cars. According to the magazine, the McCains own a Honda sedan and a Volkswagen convertible -- despite having once claimed to always buy American-made cars.
That's not America first, that's McCain first.
- Single funniest blog post I ever read - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
- Cash-Strapped NPR Launches 'A Couple Things Considered' | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
- Even Fox News Trying to Get Away From John McCain | Indecision2008 | Comedy Central
- Fallacy Files Weblog Archive: September, 2008
Q: A spam email invited me to take "The Barack Obama Test". I dismissed the test as bunk, but my coworker argued the questions are valid and fair. Or "fair and balanced," as it were. I thought your take on the questions asked in the survey might be interesting, and if I can serve my coworker with a big "so there!" then that wouldn't be the worst thing, either.―Jessica Lindberg
- Having secular people on the buses is a problem
- Wonkette: The D.C. Gossip » Blog Archive » New Anti-McCain Ad Insufficiently Comical
Comments
The problem I have with Will's commentary is that, while he assails McCain decision making process, he defends the conservative line of BS that reasonable government intervention and oversight is tantamount to (gasp!) socialism
A far better critique from the right about McCain's disqualification from the Presidency, published yesterday, is here:
Wick Allison on Obama & McCain
Unfortunately, as Will is one of the TV Talking Heads, his words will be far more widely read than those of a former National Review publisher.
For both these men to say this is pretty amazing - and, I actually think that essentially, they are saying the same thing: they don't agree with some of Obama's policies but, at this point in time, he is the right man for the job (or, at least, the better man.)
I understand that you don't like hearing a conservative line of BS in Will's and may I add to that the conservative line of BS in Allison's which is liberals efforts make them "feel good" but they aren't "doing good." That seems to be a conservative company line on what liberals do and it's such a joke.
Conservatives that say this are revealing themselves to be so self-serving and myopic that the only reason they think liberals would take the stances they do is to personally "feel good." I don't support liberal policies to "feel good" - they don't actually make me feel particularly good. I support the policies that I think are just, that I think support the goals of the founding fathers (some pretty amazing men), that I think are most advantageous to the country. If these policies make me "feel" anything, they make me feel safe because I know the more opportunities that people have; the smarter, healthier and stronger the people are, the smarter, healthier and stronger the nation is and that makes it more impervious to religious, political, financial and racial upheavals. But, mainly, I want policies and politicians that mean I don't have to think about the government because it's doing such a good job I get to concentrate on what does make me feel good and that's mainly about me - is that self-serving enough?
On an altruistic level, I "feel good" when I'm able to give money or time to a cause that is actually "doing good." I check out the organizations I'm supporting to make sure most of the money goes to the cause and not in the pockets of the people administrating it. I'm interested in positive results.
I don't blame the Post, I guess for doing a McCain's cars story, but the Obama ad hitting him for it was really stupid. McCain drives a couple Toyotas! Which are probably made in the U.S. The attack is completely incoherent.
Sometimes I think ad people in the campaigns don't really know the opposition very well. McCain went into Michigan and told the auto workers that manufacturing jobs aren't coming back. He's made all kinds of remorseless free trade claims over the years. You could make a hard-hitting, accurate, substantive attack on McCain in Michigan if you were a media director with some comprehensive knowledge of the opposition. But instead they jump up and make an ad out of the latest brainless attack on McCain owning foreign cars.
Are you really surprised?
When Hillary was complaining after some unknown, upstart, media-selected messiah derailed her sure shot at the White House, and she couldn't get any of the fawning press he was getting, a conservative pundit said "Hillary, now you know what it's like to be a Conservative." And he was 100% right.
Look at the article on the tenuously-connected "McCain aide" whose firm received money from Freddie Mac. It has been on the front page of MSNBC and Yahoo! News, among others, for days. Yet the fact that Obama took the second-highest level of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae? Never made the front page. Obama's other ties to the shady lenders are only mentioned to stress that Obama has 'denied influence'.
McCain has been vilified in the press for supposedly 'debunked' ads, whose debunking has been debunked, and for 'negative campaigning'. Obama's spate of attack ads have hardly been mentioned, except in a weird complimentary way of "Obama finally grows a backbone!" or "Obama finally hits back!"
Palin is roundly ridiculed for doing softball interviews - Jon Stewart did a stupid 'comedy' bit where he compared the Fox interview to an informercial. Biden does a softball interview with CBS and CBS didn't even point out his stupid mistake about Roosevelt supposedly talking on TV about the Great Depression! Here's the drooling, fawning line they put right after that ridiculous statement:
Mr. Burns, your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train! Why are you so popular?
The Obama campaign can do no wrong, in the eyes of the MSM.
McCain's ads were not debunked - you just have the viewpoint on truth that SNL made fun of.
Biden misspoke on Roosevelt? That sounds like a really stupid mistake to make. But, that, to you is the same as Palin not having to address her lies. The fact that a reporter didn't say to Biden - hey, Senator - what are you trying to put over on us by getting your history so stupidly wrong? Is the same as saying - why have you continually said you said no to the Bridge to Nowhere, that you've begun the pipeline, that you haven't taken earmarks?) That is a strange sense of proportion.
Is Clinton's blowjob the same as starting a bloody war in Iraq, too, by any chance?
The ad Clarifies that they are foreign built.
The big point is that he lied to MI voters about always buying American cars.
When Kerry said he didn't drive SUV's and then it was reported that his family owned 4 he caught flack too.
Thanks for the info, RedSeven. I should watch the ad next time.
Calligraph: "Look at the article on the tenuously-connected "McCain aide" whose firm received money from Freddie Mac."
Are you referring to his campaign manager Rick Davis, whose firm took $15K per month from and anti-regulation group funded by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or William Timmons, who was assigned to head McCain's transition team? Or some other "tenuously connected McCain aide"? Not that these are much real revelations; McCain's campaign is bursting at the seams with lobbyists who are on the payroll of major corporations.
"Obama took the second-highest level of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae"
You mean Fannie Mae employees? Yes that's a story, but it's not accurate that any corporation has given to any candidate, because that's illegal. But corporations do hire lobbyists, who work on some campaigns. The lobbyists aren't doing it for pure fun.
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