Author: McCain Called Wife Cunt, Trollop

Author: McCain Called Wife Cunt, Trollop

In his book The Real McCain, author Cliff Schecter claims that John McCain made extremely ugly remarks about his wife Cindy McCain during a tirade witnessed by three reporters and two aides. "At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, 'You're getting a little thin up there,'" Schechter writes. "McCain's face reddened, and he responded, 'At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.' McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days." Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Here's Your Candidate, Whoever You Are

Here's the caption from Reuters, via Americablog.com:

Wed Oct 15, 11:15 PM ET

US Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) reacts to almost heading the wrong way off the stage after shaking hands with Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) at the conclusion of the final presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, October 15, 2008. REUTERS/Jim Bourg (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008

(USA)

In Nationally Televised Debate, McCain Lies About Qualifications of "Joe the Plumber" Some Two Dozen Times

Today, John McCain accuses ACORN (voter registration and poor people's organization) of being involved in historic vote fraud. But, not long ago, as this YouTube video shows, McCain was a special guest at an ACORN-sponsored rally in southern Florida. Hat Tip to Eddie G. Griffin (BASG).

Yesterday, in the last of the debates between Barack Obama and John McCain, McCain brought up one "Joe the Plumber" (Joe Wurzelbacher ) some two dozen times, using him as an example of hard-working American small businessman. Only, it turns out that "Joe the Plumber" is not a plumber, and he's not even a licensened plumber's helper. In possible contravention of Ohio state or local laws, Joe the Plumber performs plumbing work without ever having been formally trained to do so at all.

The point is not that he shouldn't perform plumbing work (that's for the local authorities to decide), but rather that John McCain should get his facts straight before he makes an obscure and unlicensed laborer into the centerpiece of his argument for his presidential campaign, while exaggerating Joe's professional qualifications to the American people.

We cannot help but remember when George W. Bush and his cronies filled the airwaves with false claims about Iraq, evidently caring little that they were easily disproven. The problem isn' that John McCain doesn't know the truth. The problem is that John McCain doesn't care about the truth.

ACORN at Rally with John McCain

Source: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/a_lifetime_ago_sen_john.php

John McCain Hearts "Joe the Plumber" in Last Night's Last Presidential Debate

In last nights presidential debate, Barack Obama was the winner hands down. He was steady, personable, expressed deep and credible concern for the middle class, and talked knowledgeably about his focus on the economy. (See C-Span video.)

John McCain was scattered and attempted to rely on a conceit: "Joe the Plumber". To understand what McCain was talking about, you have to understand the back story: Recently, while Obama was walking through a middle class neighborhood and knocking on doors, a man accosted him and insisted that Obama intended to raise his taxes (while implicity John McCain would not). The video of this encounter is making the rounds of YouTube and the television networks.

John McCain might have hoped to rattle Obama by mentioning "Joe the Plumber" (he didn't), but then McCain returned to the "Joe the Plumber" storyline more than half a dozen times at different times during the debate, as if the phrase had some magical quality that would convince voters of McCain's sincerity or of his contention that Obama might raise taxes.

McCain made some very important concessions. He conceded that the Federal Budget had exploded over the last eight years, but he insisted he and his pal George W. Bush were not responsible for it. Meanwhile, McCain also insisted that if Obama 'wanted to run against George W. Bush, he should have run four years ago.' Once again, McCain effectively conceded that the Bush years are a disaster and McCain's only political hope is to try to disassociate himself from them, as Gore tried to disassociate himself from Clinton in 2000. As Geraldine Ferraro attempted unsuccessfully to disassociate herself from her husband's shady tax returns in 1984.

Meanwhile, normal Americans are feeling the hurt. Although the Social Security Administration announced today an abnormally large increase of 5.8% in 50 million Americans retirement incomes,

"Right now many senior citizens are feeling depressed because things seem out of control. They feel like they are in a boat being whipped around by rough seas," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Smith School of Business at California State University. "Their purchasing power has been going down because of higher prices for food and energy and a lot of other things while their savings have taken a hit because of what is happening in the markets." Yahoo News

In last night's debate, Obama, without specifically mentioning George W.Bush, reminded voters several times in several contexts that the last eight years' economic policies have not worked, and voters can see this plainly, grimly with their own eyes, in their own finances. McCain, in response, rattled off a list of ways in which he had been independent from Bush, like torture (old news and irrelevant to the current crisis); Iraq (a war that McCain supported and continues to support, and which is similarly irrelevant to the current economic crisis, except as one of the obsessions that has distracted the Republicans from the US economy), and so on and so forth.

By asserting incredibly that the has been independent in other ways, but without mentioning the economy, McCain effectively conceded that he has been a Bush lackey on what now matters most.

John McCain began his response to a question by mentioning offhandedly and irrelevantly that he had attended a professional sports game last weekend (probably in a battleground state), and Obama interjected crisply, "Congratulations!" The economy is in full meltdown mode, and John McCain spends his afternoon at a football game. So, now we know McCain's priorities. Unlike McCain, America thinks it's important that we resolve the meltdown in our economy, not play games.

Did I mention "Joe the Plumber"?

McCain Would Tax Employment Based Medical Benefits

Once again, in tonight's debate, Senator John McCain repeated his determination to tax the medical insurance provided to American workers by their employers. He says his goal is to discourage "Cadillac care," and yet his plan would tax the provision of ALL employer provided medical care, including the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This is undeniably a new tax on health care services that would affect American workers including the poor and the rich.

In a related health care matter, John McCain says he would forbid abortion that are necessary to save the life of the mother.

If we look closely, we can see a certain perverted logic in John McCain's neo-conservative thinking: By taxing health care benefits and making it harder for Americans to see doctors, John McCain hopes to reduce the number of abortions in which doctors participate. See the logic? If there were no doctors, nurses and hospitals, then there would be no abortions. And that is the foremost public policy goal of one of John McCain's key constituencies.

Can John McCain Kick Barack Obama's Ass in Tonight's Debate?

Recently, John McCain publicly predicted and promised that he would "whip" Obama's "you-know-what" in tonight's presidential debate. This was a poor strategic move on McCain's part for a few of reasons: First, in the last two debates, McCain hasn't shown any ability to "whip" Obama in any way, shape or form, and so this bit of McCain bluster tells America how McCain would perform as president - as a loud-mouthed talker who can't size up his (our) situation and successfully put his fists where his mouth is when it comes to resolving conflict.

Second, McCain has set a high bar for himself that he probably cannot possibly meet. When the country sees that McCain was all talk, it will hurt McCain even more than if he hadn't made any predictions about the outcome of the debate at all. Moreover, McCain's prediction will increase the audience for a series of debates that have coincided with plummeting polling numbers for John McCain.

And tonight's debate format doesn't favor McCain, who has been unable to look Obama in the eye in past debates. The Washington Post points out that, "Unlike the two previous presidential debates, tonight's encounter will feature the two candidates seated at a table with the moderator." McCain is far more likely to get rattled and lose his cool, or seem angry and petulant, in this format than is Obama.

Third, McCain's bluster shows that he is desperate and that his supporters are egging him on to do something about the desperate state of his campaign. His promise to whip Obama is effectively a concession that he has failed to do so in past debates, and in the campaign in general.

If John McCain were smart, he'd have encouraged viewers not to watch the debates at all, since there's no evidence that the debates have done him any good. But, he might be of the opinion that the campaign is already effectively lost, based upon recent polling, so he has nothing to lose by promising that something will happen in tonight's debate that McCain has failed to accomplish in all the debates that preceded it.

I've found all of these debates to be ultimately pretty boring. Barack Obama has shown himself to be strong and steady, not surprising and making very little news through these debates. Meanwhile, McCain has meandered through his answers, calling the audience "my friends" in a way that is really annoying to those of us who don't consider him to be a friend of ours, including many Republican, Independent and undecided voters.

I'll watch tonight's debate but, with Obama in the lead and quietly trying to convince undecideds while running out the clock, it's hard to see how anything that happens there can be more monumental than the melt-down in the US and world economy that has dominated the news for the last few weeks.

Obama will keep doing what he has been doing in the last debates (making little news but seeking to reassure voters), while McCain may make a desperate move that will turn voters off even more than they already are - to him, to George W. Bush, and to their deregulated anything-goes banking, mortgage and health care systems.

The real news for the weeks leading into the General Election will be whether the candidates can get their voters to the polls and the Election Day chaos and spurious legal challenges to the final results that Republicans are preparing to submit to courts packed with Bush appointees.