Double-Deuces This Month — And August Isn’t Over Yet…
1. McCain’s Threadbare Surge Suit, Part Deux: The most recent misinformational sludge oozing its way through the Big Media pipeline is John McCain’s continued insistence that Bush’s build-up of US troops in Baghdad, AKA ‘The Surge,’ worked to quell most of the violence over there. This is more bizarre McCain piffle that any decent journalist could demolish in a few hours of research on the Inner-tubes. The increase in US troop strength focused on Baghdad, not the al-Anbar province and the rest of Iraq. For most of the country, and in neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital city itself, it was millions of dollars in baksheesh bribery to Iraqi warlords, courtesy of the flat-broke American taxpayer, and a tacit agreement among the warring Iraqi factions to keep a low profile for a while, to perhaps lull the Americans into finally leaving, that has resulted in a lessening in violence, much more so than any enhanced US military presence. Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, estimated to be 50 to 100,000 strong, are temporarily dormant, and the tribes of Sunni-dominated al-Anbar province, formerly our most dedicated enemies, have taken US bribes to pursue Al-Qaeda, whom they hate a tad more than the American military. Both factions, however, will not be quelled indefinitely. Now, even the marionettes in the al-Maliki government are asking us to get out within 16 months, per Obama’s withdrawal plan. Since the Iraqis follow the election news in the US very closely and clearly favor an Obama victory in November, here’s an October Surprise for the Republicans – if it appears a month before the election that McCain is likely to win, look for an upsurge in violence in Iraq on such a scale as to make McCain’s fevered “The surge is working!” chant as repugnant and risible as Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner.
2. This is Leadership? There was McCain all over the airwaves last week, delivering a speech per day on the Russia-Georgia dust-up that Putin ungraciously ended with a truce, denying wannabe CinC John-Boy the ability to play the “Russians are coming!” panic card he so obviously salivated over like Flounder in Animal House: “Oh, boy, is this great!” Naturally our leash-trained Punditrocracy and their fellow carnival performers in the BM barked on command to spotlight McCain’s fear-inducing drivel, most of which sounded like it was lifted straight out of some Red Scare pamphlet from the McCarthy Era. For days, I heard all about McCain’s ‘leadership’ for informing us the Russian Bear was back with teeth and claws; of his daily intimate phone chats with Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili; and about how totally awesome it was that he dispatched Tweedle-Dum Joe Lieberman and Tweedle-Dumber Lindsey Graham to illegally conduct US foreign policy overseas without portfolio. Had the vacationing Obama done any of this, he would, of course, have been grimly called to account by the BM for being too presumptuous – the nerve of the guy, pretending to be president when he hasn’t been elected — particularly if he’d attempted, as the arrogant McCain did, to speak for the American people. But one question left unasked in the midst of media praise for the GOP Golden Child — a seasoned military leader who’s never commanded anything that didn’t end in disaster, and a master at foreign affairs who advocated the idiotic Iraq invasion and has supported nearly every Bush catastrophe since – was this: What did all of McCain’s speechifying and posing and dispatching of minions actually accomplish? As far as I can tell, it’s somewhere between zip and zilch. If this is an example of his ‘leadership’ in a crisis, it may be time for the nation to collectively take the gas pipe, should McCain wheedle his way into the presidency.
3. McCain Wants the Draft Back? Or, at least, he agreed with a woman at some campaign rally who said she wanted the draft reinstated. If the Big Media does their job – okay, you can stop laughing now – some industrious reporter or two should soon be inundating McBush with questions about whether he really does want to reinstate the draft and how, if there is no draft, he plans to continue his foreign policy of more war with more troops. Of course, McCainiac will lie – the draft is a loser that is sure to bring out the college kids and their folks to vote against him in landslide proportions — but how he frames his deceptions could be instructive as well as amusing. Have you noticed? McCain’s eyes go slightly out of focus and he stares straight ahead with a ‘popped out’ look whenever he’s telling a truly monstrous whopper. (No doubt it’s his misguided attempt to seem sincere.) I suspect if prodded by the right sort of tough questions – you know, the kind that BM reporters habitually ask of Democrats but rarely of Republicans – McCain will end up looking like one of those Martian Goo-Goo dolls by Election Day. Squeak, squeak!
4. The Cone of Silence That Never Was: Following the televised Saddleback Church Civil Forum last Saturday featuring Obama and McCain, Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren admitted there was not actually a ‘cone of silence’ to keep McCain from hearing the questions he had asked of Obama in the first hour, after assuring his audience that such a thing existed. You’d have to be a Conehead to believe that McCain didn’t cheat, especially in light of his ‘quick on the draw’ answers and his anticipation of a question about Supreme Court judges that had not yet been asked. It also no secret that Warren supports the Republican’s policies on abortion and federal judgeships, so he may have been complicit in giving McCain’s campaign the questions in advance. This is shameful on many levels, but par for the course of the underhanded McCain presidential effort in 2008.
The Tattlesnake – McCain’s Latest Shameful Four-Play Edition
Double-Deuces This Month — And August Isn’t Over Yet…
1. McCain’s Threadbare Surge Suit, Part Deux: The most recent misinformational sludge oozing its way through the Big Media pipeline is John McCain’s continued insistence that Bush’s build-up of US troops in Baghdad, AKA ‘The Surge,’ worked to quell most of the violence over there. This is more bizarre McCain piffle that any decent journalist could demolish in a few hours of research on the Inner-tubes. The increase in US troop strength focused on Baghdad, not the al-Anbar province and the rest of Iraq. For most of the country, and in neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital city itself, it was millions of dollars in baksheesh bribery to Iraqi warlords, courtesy of the flat-broke American taxpayer, and a tacit agreement among the warring Iraqi factions to keep a low profile for a while, to perhaps lull the Americans into finally leaving, that has resulted in a lessening in violence, much more so than any enhanced US military presence. Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, estimated to be 50 to 100,000 strong, are temporarily dormant, and the tribes of Sunni-dominated al-Anbar province, formerly our most dedicated enemies, have taken US bribes to pursue Al-Qaeda, whom they hate a tad more than the American military. Both factions, however, will not be quelled indefinitely. Now, even the marionettes in the al-Maliki government are asking us to get out within 16 months, per Obama’s withdrawal plan. Since the Iraqis follow the election news in the US very closely and clearly favor an Obama victory in November, here’s an October Surprise for the Republicans – if it appears a month before the election that McCain is likely to win, look for an upsurge in violence in Iraq on such a scale as to make McCain’s fevered “The surge is working!” chant as repugnant and risible as Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner.
2. This is Leadership? There was McCain all over the airwaves last week, delivering a speech per day on the Russia-Georgia dust-up that Putin ungraciously ended with a truce, denying wannabe CinC John-Boy the ability to play the “Russians are coming!” panic card he so obviously salivated over like Flounder in Animal House: “Oh, boy, is this great!” Naturally our leash-trained Punditrocracy and their fellow carnival performers in the BM barked on command to spotlight McCain’s fear-inducing drivel, most of which sounded like it was lifted straight out of some Red Scare pamphlet from the McCarthy Era. For days, I heard all about McCain’s ‘leadership’ for informing us the Russian Bear was back with teeth and claws; of his daily intimate phone chats with Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili; and about how totally awesome it was that he dispatched Tweedle-Dum Joe Lieberman and Tweedle-Dumber Lindsey Graham to illegally conduct US foreign policy overseas without portfolio. Had the vacationing Obama done any of this, he would, of course, have been grimly called to account by the BM for being too presumptuous – the nerve of the guy, pretending to be president when he hasn’t been elected — particularly if he’d attempted, as the arrogant McCain did, to speak for the American people. But one question left unasked in the midst of media praise for the GOP Golden Child — a seasoned military leader who’s never commanded anything that didn’t end in disaster, and a master at foreign affairs who advocated the idiotic Iraq invasion and has supported nearly every Bush catastrophe since – was this: What did all of McCain’s speechifying and posing and dispatching of minions actually accomplish? As far as I can tell, it’s somewhere between zip and zilch. If this is an example of his ‘leadership’ in a crisis, it may be time for the nation to collectively take the gas pipe, should McCain wheedle his way into the presidency.
3. McCain Wants the Draft Back? Or, at least, he agreed with a woman at some campaign rally who said she wanted the draft reinstated. If the Big Media does their job – okay, you can stop laughing now – some industrious reporter or two should soon be inundating McBush with questions about whether he really does want to reinstate the draft and how, if there is no draft, he plans to continue his foreign policy of more war with more troops. Of course, McCainiac will lie – the draft is a loser that is sure to bring out the college kids and their folks to vote against him in landslide proportions — but how he frames his deceptions could be instructive as well as amusing. Have you noticed? McCain’s eyes go slightly out of focus and he stares straight ahead with a ‘popped out’ look whenever he’s telling a truly monstrous whopper. (No doubt it’s his misguided attempt to seem sincere.) I suspect if prodded by the right sort of tough questions – you know, the kind that BM reporters habitually ask of Democrats but rarely of Republicans – McCain will end up looking like one of those Martian Goo-Goo dolls by Election Day. Squeak, squeak!
4. The Cone of Silence That Never Was: Following the televised Saddleback Church Civil Forum last Saturday featuring Obama and McCain, Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren admitted there was not actually a ‘cone of silence’ to keep McCain from hearing the questions he had asked of Obama in the first hour, after assuring his audience that such a thing existed. You’d have to be a Conehead to believe that McCain didn’t cheat, especially in light of his ‘quick on the draw’ answers and his anticipation of a question about Supreme Court judges that had not yet been asked. It also no secret that Warren supports the Republican’s policies on abortion and federal judgeships, so he may have been complicit in giving McCain’s campaign the questions in advance. This is shameful on many levels, but par for the course of the underhanded McCain presidential effort in 2008.