Best McCain ad yet
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nVQaHpOnO8

I love it! :laugh:

Is this for real?

If so, McCain is sunk as this ad reeks of desparation.

hmm could be that gramps is losing his bearings again!:laugh:

You've got to be kidding me. This can't be serious, can it?:shrug:

I think it's pretty funny and points out the lunacy of some of the people like Will.I.Am that chant his name, or Scarlett Johanssen that chant his speeches. How about that column in the LA Times that described when the writer (Olsen) "came to HIM", meaning Obama. There's also the groups that have started up how they describe how Obama has changed their lives. I mean, the guy has a Messiah complex and some of the people that follow him as a messianic figure are deluded and this shows that Obama is deliberately feeding into it. How about the fainting at every speech he gave for a while, until it was pointed out that the fainting happened every time and he said the same thing? The guy is a sideshow! I just think that a lot of people are so sick of Bush that they'll believe anything, including a snake oil salesmen like this guy.
Here's an article that describes a lot of the weirdness and Obama as a cult leader. http://townhall.com/Columnists/Micha...as_cult_leader

^^^

Then ehy not say this is what I want to do to help America. This is what my opponent wants to do. This is why I believe I am right and he is wrong. Then, soeak the truth.

Sadly, McCain is doing none of that. Again, it smacks of desparation because if the McCain camp had anything substantive to attack Obama with, they'd be doing it instead of pushing these ridiculous attacks, the former of which was flat out untrue.

Do you actually support this tactic?

McCain has made his positions clear as to what he wants to do. Did you miss the press coverage of the release of his economic plan two weeks ago? Probably because the press barely covered it. They've been too busy covering the bowel movements of The Obamessiah. McCain also challenged to debate Obama at ten townhall debates, which Obama rescinded after accepting, as he found out there would be no teleprompter. McCain also repeatedly challenged Obama to talk to the leaders in the middle east before he formed policy, which Obama eventually did after it made him look bad and repeated ads from troops that he refused to see. You'd see more substance if Obama would talk about it, but he does the same thing. He accused McCain of racism just yesterday and back in June. He has his surrogates attack McCain, like Wesley Clark, then disavows what they said, as if they had changed and Obama didn't know. Obama has been playing dirty for a while and I thought he was going to bury McCain in negativity because he's too nice to hit back, like when he wouldn't attack Romney. Yes, I do support this tactic and I'm damn glad McCain grew a set. :]

^^

So, you support lies and character assasinations by association to people the victim has nothing in common with.

I think you are better than that :shrug:

You know I used to find McCain one of the most palatable of all Republicans but the fact that he is taking the low road here in light of the what the Rove smear machine did to him in 2000 is just despicable ..this anything to win is part of what cost Hillary the nomination I believe and I hope it has the same effect with McCain.

I am unsure. Remember, Hillary garnered millions of actual votes as opposed to caususes. There is a difference.

In the end though, it is this type of BS that I think leaves bad tastes in peoples' mouths.

McCain is smart if inappropriate in that these uncalled for and mostly false (the quotes in "The One" are all taken out of context :rolleyes: ) are puting McCain in the public eye, which formerly had been undeviatingly on Obama. I think it will backfire on his though as it just solidifies McCain's image as same ole politics that people are sick of. I think that reason is the reason Hillary "lost."

Obama's response:

Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan dismissed the ad as a juvenile stunt.

"It's downright sad that on a day when we learned that 51,000 Americans lost their jobs, a candidate for the presidency is spending all of his time and the powerful platform he has on these sorts of juvenile antics," he said in a statement. "Senator McCain can keep telling everyone how 'proud' he is of these political stunts which even his Republican friends and advisors have called'childish', but Barack Obama will continue talking about his plan to jumpstart our economy by giving working families $1,000 of immediate relief."

_____________________

Somewhat smart to try to shift the focus. But, the focus will remain on this for awhile. Obama must find a way to counter that.

Imagine if Obama ran an ad with skin cancer patients dying of chemo, horrible images of radical skin cancer disfiguting people, families at funerals, etc. -- and then placing this text on the screen - "Sen. McCain has this disease in his veins and it's only a matter of time for the 71 year old man." "Does he have the medical time to lead this country?" Clearly McCain's skin cancer is a legitimate campaign issue. I think, though, that the McCain campaign would be horrified by such an ad. Yet, they run the same kind of tripe.

Of course, McCain learned from the best :rolleyes:


Bush Waged Nasty Smear Campaign Against McCain in 2000

Bush Supporters Called McCain “The Fag Candidate.” In South Carolina, Bush supporters circulated church fliers that labeled McCain “the fag candidate.” Columnist Frank Rich noted that the fliers were distributed “even as Bush subtly reinforced that message by indicating he wouldn’t hire openly gay people for his administration.”

McCain Slurs Included Illegitimate Children, Homosexuality And A Drug-Addict Wife.

Among the rumors circulated against McCain in 2000 in South Carolina was that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually black, that McCain was both gay and cheated on his wife, and that his wife Cindy was a drug addict.”

Bush Campaign Used Code Words to Question McCain’s Temper.

“A smear campaign of the ugliest sort is now coursing through the contest for the presidency in 2000. Using the code word "temper," a group of Senate Republicans, and at least some outriders of the George W. Bush campaign, are spreading the word that John McCain is unstable. The subtext, also suggested in this whispering campaign, is that he returned from 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam with a loose screw. And it is bruited about that he shouldn't be entrusted with nuclear weapons.”

Bush Supporters Questioned McCain’s Sanity.

“Some of George W. Bush's supporters have questioned Republican presidential candidate John McCain's fitness for the White House, suggesting that his five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam drove him insane at the time.”

Bush Supporters Spread Racist Rumors About McCain’s Daughter.

Bush supporters in South Carolina made race-baiting phone calls saying that McCain had a “black child.” The McCains’ daughter, Bridget, was adopted from Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh. In August 2000, columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that the McCains “are still seething about Bush supporters in South Carolina spreading word of their dark-skinned adopted daughter.”

Rove Suggests Former POW McCain Committed Treason and Fathered Child With Black Prostitute.

In 2000, McCain operatives in SC accused Rove of spreading rumors against McCain, such as “suggestions that McCain had committed treason while a prisoner of war, and had fathered a child by a black prostitute,” according to the New Yorker.

After Rove Denied Role In McCain Whisper Campaign, Reporters Concluded He Was Behind It.

A December 1999 Dallas Morning News linked Rove to a series of campaign dirty tricks, including his College Republican efforts, allegedly starting a whisper campaign about Ann Richard being too gay-friendly, spreading stories about Jim Hightower’s involvement in a kickback scheme and leaking the educational history of Lena Guerrero. The article also outlined current dirty tricks and whisper campaigns against McCain in South Carolina, including that “McCain may be unstable as a result of being tortured while a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.” (DMN, 12/2/99) After the article was published, Rove blasted Slater in the Manchester, NH airport, “nose to nose” according to one witness, with Rove claiming Slater had “harmed his reputation,” Slater later noted. But according to one witness, “What was interesting then is that everyone on the campaign charter concluded that Rove was responsible for rumors about McCain.”

Rove Was In Close Touch With McConnell, McCain-Feingold’s Chief Opponent.

Senior White House adviser Karl Rove was in close contact with Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) during McConnell’s effort to fight the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Bill in the U.S. Senate. According to Newsweek, though Rove and Bush have publicly kept their distance from McConnell on the issue, “sources tell Newsweek that Rove is, in fact, in close touch with McConnell as GOP experts study the bill for hidden land mines.”

Bush Campaign Accused of Using Push Polls Against McCain.

College of Charleston student Suzette Latsko said she received a telephone call from a woman who identified herself as an employee of Voter/Consumer Research, and that the caller misrepresented McCain’s positions and asked if Latsko knew McCain had been reprimanded for interfering with federal regulators in the savings and loan scandal. Voter/Consumer Research is listed as a polling contractor on Bush’s Federal Election Commission filings; the Bush campaign has paid Voter/Consumer Research $93,000 through December 31, 1999. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer denied the call was a push poll, but said it was important that the Republican Party remember McCain’s role in the S&L crisis.

Bush Campaign Acknowledged Making Phone Calls.

Tucker Eskew, Bush’s South Carolina spokesman, acknowledged the Bush campaign made such calls, but claimed they were not “push polls.” Eskew added, “Show me a baseless comment in those questions.”

Bush Used Fringe Veterans Group to Attack McCain as “Manchurian Candidate.”

“In the case of Ted Sampley, the same guy who did Bush's dirty work in going after Sen. John McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries is doing the job against Kerry this year. Sampley dared compare McCain, who spent five years as a Vietnam POW, with ‘the Manchurian Candidate.’”

Sampley Called McCain a “Coward” and a Traitor.

“Sampley… accused McCain of being a weak-minded coward who had escaped death by collaborating with the enemy. Sampley claimed that McCain had first been compromised by the Vietnamese, then recruited by the Soviets.”

___________________________

And all this a decorated POW. Then again, Bush was MIA for years during Vietnam and Cheney "had better things to do" than go to Vietnam. And they clearly devalue hinorable service as they did the same thing to Max Cleland and John Kerry. If I had been Kerry and W started the Swift Boat crap with me, I would have walked over to his podium during a debate and said "listen, at least I voluntered to go you fukcing pu$$y." Then again, they value human life and the brave American soldiers so much that they lied to get us into a war and refused to provide enough soldiers to win that war or enough money at home to take care of the wounded. They make me sick. Now, McCain is continuing the path.

So, it isn't wasteful or distracting to spend donors money on trips to countries where they can't vote in the election? McCain's doctors disagree with you, so what makes you smarter than they are? Just crack any economics textbook, even those by Paul Krugman, and even he admits these rebates are totally inefficient and do not work. Last time it was tried was back in the Carter era and it didn't work then either. What Obama won't tell you is that if he taxes the oil companies at the rate he wants to and gives us all $1,000.00, it won't outweigh the price increases we will have to suffer as a result of his misguided policy, or the effects from the rising deficit by using the government to do what the market can do more efficiently. Someone open a damn textbook, will ya?! I would actually suggest Paul Krugman's texts, because he uses specific examples of the failures of these types of rehashed 70's energy policies that result in shortages and higher prices. Doesn't anyone remember this? Good lord.

So glad you brought this up! It certainly counters the notion of "McBush" as you would like to portray. Thanks for doing my job for me! :laugh: I always had a problem with Bush for the way he went after McCain. It was sleazy.

And equating Obama to a mentally unbalanced blond girl and convicted felon and porn star blond girl is :shrug: Not to mention the conclusions asserted in that ad a patently false, i.e. McCain lied in the ad. Same shiitte - different day :shrug:

I am unclear what you are asserting. Are you asserting that a US Senator, much less one on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - cannot go to Iraq and Europe. Are you actually asserting that. I mean even McCain said he should go :shrug:

You missed the point. The point is McCain lied in his attack ads and you condone it. Would you feel the same way if the tables were turned.

I am talking about the ads specific reference to drilling for our oil and how that will somehow reduce the price of gas ostensibly now -- that is a lie and a patent one at that :shrug: Do you not acknowledge that was a lie?

Oh why not :laugh:



Sure sounds like Bush to me --

Transcript:

QUESTION: Are there other signs you see that are encouraging to you...

MCCAIN: Oh yeah. A lot of the fundraisers from other camps are coming on board. And yeah we're seeing that coming together really well. We're seeing it.

[Inaudible]

MCCAIN: Who?

QUESTION: Karl Rove?


MCCAIN: Oh I, listen, he ah. Nobody denies he's one of the smartest political minds in America. I'd be glad to get his advice. I get advice from a lot of people. I'd be happy to have his advice.

QUESTION: I was wondering about that, right....

MCCAIN: He beat me. I certainly would be glad to get his advice. I don't think I'd want to revisit how he did it. And I mean that. Not about South Carolina. I mean I don't feel like reliving my defeat.

QUESTION: Are you worried about, he uses very aggressive tactics is that something that--



MCCAIN: I've always respected Karl Rove as one of the smart great political minds I think in American politics. I've always respected him. We never had any ill will after the initial South Carolina thing. After we had the meeting with President Bush we moved on. I've seen Karl Rove many times when I've been over at the White House. We've always had pleasant conversations.



QUESTION: His tactics don't, you don't disapprove of them? They don't make you nervous?

MCCAIN: It's not so much whether I approve of his tactics or not. It's that he has a very good, great political mind. Any information or advice and council he can give us, I'd be glad to have. I don't think anybody denies his talents. So I'd be glad to get any advice and council. We would obviously decide whether to accept it or not.

And - since you brough up Krigman as a source - here he is proving that McCain's assertion that Obama's refusal to support drilling for oil is an outright lie.

(emphasis supplied)

August 1, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Can This Planet Be Saved?

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Recently the Web site The Politico asked Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, why she was blocking attempts to tack offshore drilling amendments onto appropriations bills. “I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she replied.

I’m glad to hear it. But I’m still worried about the planet’s prospects.

True, Ms. Pelosi’s remark was a happy reminder that environmental policy is no longer in the hands of crazy people. Remember, less than two years ago Senator James Inhofe — a conspiracy theorist who insists that global warming is a “gigantic hoax” perpetrated by the scientific community — was the chairman of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee.

Beyond that, Ms. Pelosi’s response shows that she understands the deeper issues behind the current energy debate.

Most criticism of John McCain’s decision to follow the Bush administration’s lead and embrace offshore drilling as the answer to high gas prices has focused on the accusation that it’s junk economics — which it is.

A McCain campaign ad says that gas prices are high right now because “some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America.” That’s just plain dishonest: the U.S. government’s own Energy Information Administration says that removing restrictions on offshore drilling wouldn’t lead to any additional domestic oil production until 2017, and that even at its peak the extra production would have an “insignificant” impact on oil prices.
What’s even more important than Mr. McCain’s bad economics, however, is what his reversal on this issue — he was against offshore drilling before he was for it — says about his priorities.

Back when he was cultivating a maverick image, Mr. McCain portrayed himself as more environmentally aware than the rest of his party. He even co-sponsored a bill calling for a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions (although his remarks on several recent occasions suggest that he doesn’t understand his own proposal). But the lure of a bit of political gain, it turns out, was all it took to transform him back into a standard drill-and-burn Republican.

And the planet can’t afford that kind of cynicism.

In themselves, limits on offshore drilling are only a modest-sized issue. But the skirmish over drilling is the opening stage of a much bigger fight over environmental policy. What’s at stake in that fight, above all, is the question of whether we’ll take action against climate change before it’s utterly too late.

It’s true that scientists don’t know exactly how much world temperatures will rise if we persist with business as usual. But that uncertainty is actually what makes action so urgent. While there’s a chance that we’ll act against global warming only to find that the danger was overstated, there’s also a chance that we’ll fail to act only to find that the results of inaction were catastrophic. Which risk would you rather run?

Martin Weitzman, a Harvard economist who has been driving much of the recent high-level debate, offers some sobering numbers. Surveying a wide range of climate models, he argues that, over all, they suggest about a 5 percent chance that world temperatures will eventually rise by more than 10 degrees Celsius (that is, world temperatures will rise by 18 degrees Fahrenheit). As Mr. Weitzman points out, that’s enough to “effectively destroy planet Earth as we know it.” It’s sheer irresponsibility not to do whatever we can to eliminate that threat.

Now for the bad news: sheer irresponsibility may be a winning political strategy.

Mr. McCain’s claim that opponents of offshore drilling are responsible for high gas prices is ridiculous — and to their credit, major news organizations have pointed this out. Yet Mr. McCain’s gambit seems nonetheless to be working: public support for ending restrictions on drilling has risen sharply, with roughly half of voters saying that increased offshore drilling would reduce gas prices within a year.

Hence my concern: if a completely bogus claim that environmental protection is raising energy prices can get this much political traction, what are the chances of getting serious action against global warming? After all, a cap-and-trade system would in effect be a tax on carbon (though Mr. McCain apparently doesn’t know that), and really would raise energy prices.

The only way we’re going to get action, I’d suggest, is if those who stand in the way of action come to be perceived as not just wrong but immoral. Incidentally, that’s why I was disappointed with Barack Obama’s response to Mr. McCain’s energy posturing — that it was “the same old politics.” Mr. Obama was dismissive when he should have been outraged.

So as I said, I’m very glad to know that Nancy Pelosi is trying to save the planet. I just wish I had more confidence that she’s going to succeed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/op...hp&oref=slogin

It is a lie in that no one ever said it. The problem will just simply be worse later. Also, the Army Corps of engineers estimates are that we could extract more oil inside of 3 years, not 10. The best thing to do is drill now and also invest in alternative fuels, which is what McCain's plan is. Bush first proposed drilling at the beginning of his first term and the situation now vindicates him, does it not?! The fact is that WE are responsible for high gas prices because we keep electing people who are opposed to it.

As far as the rest goes, Obama lies about McCain every day. I didn't see anything in either ad that was false, just humourous. The ad I just posted was mostly Obama's own words.

The fact is that Obama had no intention of going to Iraq and Europe until McCain pressured him into doing it because he looked bad developing policies on subjects he knew nothing relavent about.

I was discussing Obama's rebates and you are switching the subject. Krugman is an authority on economic policy, not on oil drilling. The rebate policy, according to Krugman's own textbooks, outright state that rebates do not work. I used Krugman to specifically refute Obama's tax and rebate policy and not drilling, which Krugman is NOT an expert on.

Here's a list of books by Krugman, all of which contain specific chapters on the failues of Obama's rebates.

http://www.worthpublishers.com/krugmanwells/

I have to change a previous position. I DO think that development and drilling now would change the prices somewhat immediately. Here's why: oil prices are partially driven by futures markets. Long term futures prices would likely decrease, causing a slowing demand in the bidding for crude. This would create excess supply in the long term, meaning more than one year. It would convince speculators that we are serious about increasing long term supply, which would lower the demand curve to meet at a lower clearing point, resulting in lower prices for processed crude. Secondly, it would put us in a much better bargaining position with OPEC, which would either build more capacity themselves to meet our demand, or start lowering prices to keep us happy in the long term. So, there are two basically sound theories that would predict a modest drop in the price if congress authorized drilling today.

No, it is a lie. Please see the above cited report from W's Energy Dept.

Let's see these lies.

They took his words out of context and turned them into hyperbole. It is disingenuous at best and IMO lying. But, you hate Obama - therefore you approve the ads. Again, if Obama ran the ad I mentioned, would you not be outraged. Yet, that ad is actually truer than the ads McCain posted in that McCain actually had skin cancer, is still monitored for it as malignant melanoma is deadliest form of skin cancer, and his has come back at least once.

In the end, I think both ads would be despicable, though the underlying issues are worthy of better discussion. How come I can admit that, but you are loathe to?

I have always been talking about the drilling. That is why I was unclear what you were talkling about.

But, Krugman's expertise need not apply to the drilling because W's own Dept. of Energy (clearly experts :shrug: ) solidly supports Krugman's comments, which is why Krugman cited it. Are you refuting the DOE's report?

With respect, there is no futures market I now of that goes ten or 20 years in the future :shrug:

Also, OPEC likely would laugh in our face because the negligible production is a decade or more off and even if it happened now, OPEC would likely just sell more to China and other countries.

Anyway, you cannot win that point, so let's move on shall we.

Why are you so opposed to trying to save the environment and producing alt. energy sources. Clearly we could do it if COngress ignored the oil lobby :shrug: My goodness, Brazil (a relatively poor country) beat the US at it's own supposed game. That is mind alternatingly ridiculous.

Oh Well - I guess you like Obama now :wavey:

Obama shifts, says he may back offshore drilling

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer

38 minutes ago

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.
Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post.

"If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage — I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done."

Asked about Obama's comment, McCain said, "We need oil drilling and we need it now offshore. He has consistently opposed it. He has opposed nuclear power. He has opposed reprocessing. He has opposed storage." The GOP candidate said Obama doesn't have a plan equal to the nation's energy challenges.

In Congress, both parties have fought bitterly over energy policy for weeks, with Republicans pressing for more domestic oil drilling and Democrats railing about oil company profits. Despite hundreds of hours of House and Senate floor debate, lawmakers will leave Washington for their five-week summer hiatus this week with an empty tank.

"The Republicans and the oil companies have been really beating the drums on drilling," Obama said in the Post interview. "And so we don't want gridlock. We want to get something done."

Later, Obama issued a written statement warmly welcoming a proposal sent to Senate leaders Friday by 10 senators — five from each party. Their proposal seeks to break the impasse over offshore oil development and is expected to be examined more closely in September after Congress returns from its summer recess.

The so-called Gang of 10 plan would lift drilling bans in the eastern Gulf of Mexico within 50 miles of Florida's beaches and in the South Atlantic off Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, but only if a state agrees to the oil and gas development along its coast. The states would share in revenues from oil and gas development.

Drilling bans along the Pacific coast and the Northeast would remain in place under this compromise.

The plan also includes energy initiatives Obama has endorsed. "It would repeal tax breaks for oil companies so that we can invest billions in fuel-efficient cars, help our automakers re-tool, and make a genuine commitment to renewable sources of energy like wind power, solar power, and the next generation of clean, affordable biofuels," Obama noted.

"Like all compromises, it also includes steps that I haven't always supported," Obama conceded. "I remain skeptical that new offshore drilling will bring down gas prices in the short-term or significantly reduce our oil dependence in the long-term, though I do welcome the establishment of a process that will allow us to make future drilling decisions based on science and fact."

Nevertheless, Obama said the plan, put forward by mostly moderates and conservatives led by Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., "represents a good faith effort at a new bipartisan beginning."

Earlier in the day, Obama pushed for a windfall profits tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs, a counter to McCain's call for more offshore drilling.

The pitch for putting some of the economic burden of $4-a-gallon gasoline on the oil industry served a dual purpose for Obama: It allowed him to talk up an economic issue, seen by many as a strength for Democrats and a weakness for Republicans, and at the same time respond to criticism from McCain that Obama's opposition to offshore drilling leads to higher prices at the pump.

In linking McCain to the unpopular President Bush, Obama struck a theme from Ronald Reagan's successful 1980 campaign against President Jimmy Carter by asking a town-hall audience in St. Petersburg: "Do you think you are better off than you were four years ago or eight years ago? If you aren't better off, can you afford another four years?"

Obama primed the crowd by noting new government figures showing 51,000 jobs lost last month and citing 460,000 jobs lost over the last seven months. He tied other bad economic news from the Bush administration to McCain and offered his energy program as one route to relief.

"This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months," Obama said during a two-day campaign swing in Florida. "It will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills. Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills, or even to pay down your own debt."

www.yahoo.com

I would like him if he supported it wholeheartedly, but in typicaly Obama fashion, he doesn't really commit to it. Just more double talk from the "Messiah".

I think McCain's just too senile these days to realize what a messed up ad that was.

LOL! That's what the media would have you believe. Obama says there are 57 states, he says he's a member of the Committee of Banking, Housing, And Urban Affairs and The U.S. Senate Banking Committee, when he is a member of neither. He also messed up the name of Brownsville, TN, Sunshine, FL, Sioux Cit, SD, and too many other places to list. He said his father served in World War II and that his uncle liberated Auschwitz. Neither of which is true. He believes that there is a "Defense Against Marriage Act" He keeps forgetting to ask for donations to pay off Hillary's debt and has to go back out on stage. He says that American forces are just "air rading villages and killing civilians" in Afghanistan. The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported on an Obama rally, "It wasn't clear if Barack Obama knew where he was Friday Afternoon..." He stated that he wasn't doing well in Kentucky because of nearby Arkansas, whereas Arkansas doesn't border Kentucky, Illinois does. He stated he won the Michigan Primary, when he wasn't even on the ballot. He said that Israel is a strong friend of Israel, he confused the two langauges of Iraq and Afghanistan, he also incorrectly stated that we were sending aid to AIraq that should go to Afghanistan, which wasn't true. He confused Iran and Israel on numerous occasions. He criticised China for criticising remarks he made that he already apologized for and retracted. He has said he would remove all troops, then later say he would leave troops behind to protect our interests. He has referred to the Prime Minister of Canada as "president". He has cited bills that he "wrote" that he had no part of. He said that if obesity rates were at 1980's levels that the US would save "1 trillion". He said crimes against hispanics doubled in the previous year, when they had not. Basically, he makes Bush look halfway intelligent.

I mean, this is only the campaign and these represent only half of the gaffe's that have been reported in the news. Yet, we see more coverage of McCain being confused, when Obama is obviously confused as well. No one is senile. Chalk it up to the fact that these two men are absolutely exhausted. How many of us could keep our own names straight with all the traveling and campaigning these two guys have to endure.

haha! I didn't know most of those. Except the Michigan primary one, because I live in Michigan and he definitely was not on that ballot. I don't think either one of them are going to make a good president. If I had to choose, I'd still vote for Obama, though. He wants troops out of Iraq, and McCain doesn't. I'm just a big peace, love, rock n roll kind of girl. :o

I wonder what type of super hero suit she's going to wear while saving the planet?
Will it include a cape? And more importantly will the movie based on her heroics
beat out Batman at the box office?

That reminds me of a Robot Chicken sketch where they had a delusional Ted Turner as Captain Planet killing polluters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVzLzClY2E8

No one can beat off Batman -- I mean - errr :o

Because you want to save $0.04 a gallon like 20 years from now :wavey:

Can't say I really disagree with this guy -- I really thought McCain was better than this. But, I suppose when no one is listening to what you are saying, you have to do something to dim the mega wattage of the opponent who is eclisping you. Sadly, McCain resorted to lies, baseless conmparisons, the race card, unsupported innuendo, and sound bytes taken out of context, to wit:

August 2, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Running While Black

By BOB HERBERT

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

Since then, Senator McCain has only upped the ante, smearing Mr. Obama every which way from sundown. On Wednesday, The Washington Post ran an extraordinary front-page article that began:

“For four days, Senator John McCain and his allies have accused Senator Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.”

Evidence? John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he — Senator Obama — would not have to lose an election.

Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.

The Republican National Committee targeted Harold Ford with a similarly disgusting ad in 2006 when Mr. Ford, then a congressman, was running a strong race for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee. The ad, which the committee described as a parody, showed a scantily clad woman whispering, “Harold, call me.”

Both ads were foul, poisonous and emanated from the upper reaches of the Republican Party. (What a surprise.) Both were designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.

The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place.

Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black.

So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.

Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”

The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.

But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.

Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation.

Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades.

He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/op...hp&oref=slogin
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Perhaps McCain fellates Rove in some way to get these ideas out of the playbook :rolleyes:

And, just in case anyone thinks Obama is all about appeasing the blacks (emphasis supplied) -

Obama says he opposes slavery reparations, apology

By CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press Writer

13 minutes ago

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama opposes offering reparations to the descendants of slaves, putting him at odds with some black groups and leaders.
The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the economy for all.

"I have said in the past — and I'll repeat again — that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed," the Illinois Democrat said recently.

Some two dozen members of Congress are co-sponsors of legislation to create a commission that would study reparations — that is, payments and programs to make up for the damage done by slavery.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People supports the legislation, too. Cities around the country, including Obama's home of Chicago, have endorsed the idea, and so has a major union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Obama has worked to be seen as someone who will bring people together, not divide them into various interest groups with checklists of demands. Supporting reparations could undermine that image and make him appear to be pandering to black voters.

"Let's not be naive. Sen. Obama is running for president of the United States, and so he is in a constant battle to save his political life," said Kibibi Tyehimba, co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. "In light of the demographics of this country, I don't think it's realistic to expect him to do anything other than what he's done."

But this is not a position Obama adopted just for the presidential campaign. He voiced the same concerns about reparations during his successful run for the Senate in 2004.

There's enough flexibility in the term "reparations" that Obama can oppose them and still have plenty of common ground with supporters.

The NAACP says reparations could take the form of government programs to help struggling people of all races. Efforts to improve schools in the inner city could also aid students in the mountains of West Virginia, said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau.

"The solution could be broad and sweeping," Shelton said.

The National Urban League — a group Obama is to address Saturday — avoids the word "reparations" as too vague and highly charged. But the group advocates government action to close the gaps between white America and black America.

Urban League President Marc Morial said he expects his members to press Obama on how he intends to close those gaps and what action he would take in the first 100 days of his presidency.

"What steps should we take as a nation to alleviate the effects of racial exclusion and racial discrimination?" Morial asked.

The House voted this week to apologize for slavery. The resolution, which was approved on a voice vote, does not mention reparations, but past opponents have argued that an apology would increase pressure for concrete action.

Obama says an apology would be appropriate but not particularly helpful in improving the lives of black Americans. Reparations could also be a distraction, he said.

In a 2004 questionnaire, he told the NAACP, "I fear that reparations would be an excuse for some to say, 'We've paid our debt,' and to avoid the much harder work."

Taking questions Sunday at a conference of minority journalists, Obama said he would be willing to talk to American Indian leaders about an apology for the nation's treatment of their people.

Pressed for his position on apologizing to blacks or offering reparations, Obama said he was more interested in taking action to help people struggling to get by. Because many of them are minorities, he said, that would help the same people who would stand to benefit from reparations.

"If we have a program, for example, of universal health care, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because they're disproportionately uninsured," Obama said. "If we've got an agenda that says every child in America should get — should be able to go to college, regardless of income, that will disproportionately affect people of color, because it's oftentimes our children who can't afford to go to college."

One reparations advocate, Vernellia Randall, a law professor at the University of Dayton, bluntly responded: "I think he's dead wrong."

She said aid to the poor in general won't close the gaps — poor blacks would still trail poor whites, and middle-class blacks would still lag behind middle-class whites. Instead, assistance must be aimed directly at the people facing the after-effects of slavery and Jim Crow laws, she said.

"People say he can't run and get elected if he says those kinds of things," Randall said. "I'm like, well does that mean we're really not ready for a black president?"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080802/...ry_reparations
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I personally think reparations, much less to one group, are absurd.

I don't see where he has played the race card, but the guy who just took over his campaign has a reputation for being an SOB that the opponents usually hate. Sadly, I think Rove really lost his touch the last election. It's REALLY time to let some new guys take the helm now. Rove should join Carville and make their own version of "Crossfire". There's a show I'd love to watch!

The ONE and ONLY area where I admire Obama is here. He is into using those bootstraps that God gave you, no matter what color you are. It's refreshing to hear someone besides Bill Cosby saying that if you want better, you have to do better. He's a refreshing antidote from Racism, Inc. that has taken over the black community leadership since the death of the Great Dr. King. He's the closest thing we've had to a Dr. King since then. I kinda wish he'd take over for Jesse Jackson more than run for president. I think that is one place where he could really work wonders. I don't see him being an effective president, but I do see him pulling up the black community.

What an interesting article from Ms. Dowd.

August 3, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Mr. Darcy Comes Courting
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Barack Obama must continue to grovel to Hillary Clinton’s dead-enders, some of whom mutter darkly that they will not only not vote for him, they will never vote for a man again.

Obama met for an hour Tuesday with three dozen top Hillaryites at a hotel here, seeking their endorsement and beguiling their begrudging. He opened the session by saying that he knew there had been frustration about what they saw as sexism during the primary.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Hillary die-hards want to enshrine a whine in the Democratic platform about how the primaries “exposed pervasive gender bias in the media” and call on party leaders to take “immediate and public steps” to denounce any perceived bias in the future. That is one nutty idea.

Perhaps it is because feminists are still so busy cataloging past slights to Hillary that they have failed to mount a vivid defense of Michelle Obama, who has taken over from Hillary as the one conservatives like to paint as a harridan.

Before the Obama campaign even had a chance to denounce Ludacris, one of the rappers on the senator’s iPod, Hillary Inc. started to mobilize. Susie Tompkins Buell, a former Clinton bundler, told The New York Observer that Obama had to distance himself, given Ludacris’s new song rooting for Obama to “paint the White House black” and calling Hillary the b-word.

Despite Obama’s wooing, some women aren’t warming. As Carol Marin wrote in The Chicago Sun-Times, The Lanky One is like an Alice Waters organic chicken — “sleek, elegant, beautifully prepared. Too cool” — when what many working-class women are craving is mac and cheese.

In The Wall Street Journal, Amy Chozick wrote that Hillary supporters — who loved their heroine’s admission that she was on Weight Watchers — were put off by Obama’s svelte, zero-body-fat figure.

“He needs to put some meat on his bones,” said Diana Koenig, a 42-year-old Texas housewife. Another Clinton voter sniffed on a Yahoo message board: “I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.”

The odd thing is that Obama bears a distinct resemblance to the most cherished hero in chick-lit history. The senator is a modern incarnation of the clever, haughty, reserved and fastidious Mr. Darcy.

Like the leading man of Jane Austen and Bridget Jones, Obama can, as Austen wrote, draw “the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien. ...he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased.”

The master of Pemberley “had yet to learn to be laught at,” and this sometimes caused “a deeper shade of hauteur” to “overspread his features.”

The New Hampshire debate incident in which Obama condescendingly said, “You’re likable enough, Hillary,” was reminiscent of that early scene in “Pride and Prejudice” when Darcy coldly refuses to dance with Elizabeth Bennet, noting, “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me.”

Indeed, when Obama left a prayer to the Lord at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a note that was snatched out and published, part of his plea was to “help me guard against pride.”

If Obama is Mr. Darcy, with “his pride, his abominable pride,” then America is Elizabeth Bennet, spirited, playful, democratic, financially strained, and caught up in certain prejudices. (McCain must be cast as Wickham, the rival for Elizabeth’s affections, the engaging military scamp who casts false aspersions on Darcy’s character.)

In this political version of “Pride and Prejudice,” the prejudice is racial, with only 31 percent of white voters telling The New York Times in a survey that they had a favorable opinion of Obama, compared with 83 percent of blacks.

And the prejudice is visceral: many Americans, especially blue collar, still feel uneasy about the Senate’s exotic shooting star, and he is surrounded by a miasma of ill-founded and mistaken premises.

So the novelistic tension of the 2008 race is this: Can Obama overcome his pride and Hyde Park hauteur and win America over?

Can America overcome its prejudice to elect the first black president? And can it move past its biases to figure out if Obama’s supposed conceit is really just the protective shield and defense mechanism of someone who grew up half white and half black, a perpetual outsider whose father deserted him and whose mother, while loving, sometimes did so as well?

Can Miss Bennet teach Mr. Darcy to let down his guard, be more sportive, and laugh at himself?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/op...hp&oref=slogin
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As an aside, I think it is hysterical that people vote on the way people look. IMO, unless they are porcine, unbathed, and disheveled (which I think would be a character flaw in that they have no respect for themselves so how can they have any for the country) -- then what the hell does physical stature have to do with it? Yet, if Hillary had been a hottie, it certainly could not have hurt her.

LOL! I couldn't agree more. Appearance has nothing to do with a person's qualifications. It is as discriminating as only hiring attractive hotties. An election is basically a hiring process.

best. sketch. ever.