I’m going to take John McCain at his word in the video below, where he essentially smacks down the GOP hate mongers. There are a lot of us who had a begrudging respect for McCain for a lot of years, and at least to me it’s pointless to worry about whether he should have said this a few days ago or whatever.
He said it, and as a fellow citizen I thank him. We all make mistakes. (Props to TPM for the video.) Naturally I cannot support McCain as I disagree wholeheartedly with him, but I’m no longer feeling like he wants the crazy people to get even crazier. That’s an act of patriotism in my book.
Did I hear him call that old woman a stupid cunt before he correted her. Was that the woman who was once married to our very own MTR? I think it was. What a bunch of chicken shits, “I’m scared.” Grow up you thumb suckers.
McCain’s conscience finally got the best of him. I find it hard to believe that this campaign of hate was his idea. He should have stopped it before it got started.
The video shows, to me, a broken man who is tired and fed up. He knows the fight is over.
He’s an Arab! Good god.
Yeah, I’m glad McCain’s trying to call off the dogs, but those dogs were only grudgingly in his camp to begin with.
Geez Jon, can I get a special “Thank you for your patriotism” for not inciting a riot today? That bar is so low that hanging from it, you can feel the heat from hell. How about, “Thanks for being human” instead?
I don’t think it was his conscience, it was face saving. I’m glad he is telling the rednecks to knock it off but only after weeks of not looking directly at Obama during the debates and the terrorist meme was being milked beyond its Rovian/Atwater pulp byte.
@5
That sounds about right.
This time around we’re not gonna throw the tea
in the water, that I will promise.
Yeah, you guys might be right. Not an attack of conscience. More like not thinking about being elected and instead worried about his legacy.
This is the best commentary I have read on McCain, it is from the UK, but hits the point.
http://tinyurl.com/3l75zf
Here is a sample:
Kid plays with matches, starts house afire, calls 911. Gets called hero for saving family from blaze.
Jon, he owns that mob now after pushing the “Obama pals around with terrists” meme through his VP and campaign. Calming them down is better than not doing so, but he deserves not a gram of credit for it, none.
I need help on poetry. Can’t finger out what rhymes with “maverickin’.”
Over hill
over dale
We will hit the dusty trail
When those caissons go rolling along.
. . .
When the Dow
Has a cow
We will short all that they allow
We’re just maverickin’ and maverickin’ alonnnnnnng.
@10 Jim:
Can you make something from any of these?:
chicken
dickin’
lickin’
pickin’
quicken
sicken
stricken
thicken
@10 Jim:
my dead kin
have dead kin (better)
Palin’s skin
the dust bin
above the din
porposie fin
topshelf gin
max and min
with a pin
that’s a sin
cup of tin
he can’t win
I wish I could feel so good about this. But let me say, last night David Gergen, not a radical, said that if McCain and Palin did not get these crowds under control we will have serious violence, and they have an obligation to get them under control or the violence will be on their hands.
The old, old John mcCain (I mean 2001 or 2002) might have really meant this. Now, I can’t help but feel he is trying to save his candidacy by any means necessary, because this ploy was even losing him Republicans. Lynch mobs are not a majority party, but they are ugly and dangerous.
I am sorry, but I am far too cynical about this ploy. How many days until he is back to saying, well I don’t really care about the fact “that one” palled around with terrorists, that doesn’t matter to me ( but it should matter to you is the undertone)but we instead should ask who is he really?
If he does not do that again, maybe I will accept this as sincere.
Some republicans who read this board who spent many a byte of comment saying how hateful liberals are and how all the hate in the world lives with liberals. How do you all feel now? Care to own some of this and work on your own party? I can’t believe someone would actually shout “kill him” and that people would actually believe Obama is a terrorist. That’s just really ignorant, juvenile and insane.
Hey.. Yeah. I got to give credit to McSame.
Dissing the Limbaugh/Hannity-Insanity/Newswhacks/WingnutDaily type of nutjobs that are so sceeeeerrred of an Obama presidency.
Little weenies. We’ve had it with you and your hate. This country is ready to move ahead with adults at the helm.
And if you silly wingnuts get violent, well, actions have consequences is all I can say.
@14
We’ve already had a few politically motivated shooting and I’m doubtful that they will be the end of it.
Mr. Dave
Many thanks. I’m still trying to come up with a longer one–it’ll probably show up later when I LEAST expect it.
I used to work with a very very old feller who had this massive ’72 Caddy land yacht and the license plate holder said:
“Nothin’s lackin’
When you’re Cadillackin’.”
Still workin’ on rhymin’ with Maverickin’.
Supporting The Troops Dep’t
I’ll bet our soldiers in Iraq and their wives are gonna be real unhappy when they find out that Bushevik spooks in the NSA and CIA wiretapped their phone calls and tape recorded (and passed around) their phone sex.
I am going to be really curious to see if Ms Pig/Lipstick changes her tune on the campaign trail.
Is McCain concerned (he should be) that:
A. Palin draws larger, much larger, crowds at her solo appearances than he does.
B. That when they make a joint appearance half the crowd leaves when Sarah Barracuda finishes her stump speech.
The headliner being upstaged by the opening act is never a good thing. Years ago the Judds booted Garth Brooks when his set out did theirs.
@5 “I don’t think it was his conscience, it was face saving. I’m glad he is telling the rednecks to knock it off but only after weeks of not looking directly at Obama during the debates and the terrorist meme was being milked beyond its Rovian/Atwater pulp byte.”
More likely it was fear — fear they might turn on him if he loses. Fear that if they turn into a lynch mob he might be the first one lynched.
Jesse Washington was a 17-year-old farmhand in Waco, Texas. The farmer’s wife was found bludgeoned to death. Jesse, a Negro, was charged with the crime. On May 15, 1916, it took a jury of 12 white men only four minutes to find him guilty and sentence him to death.
The good white citizens of Waco couldn’t wait for a hanging. Courtroom spectators seized the frightened youth and dragged him down the courthouse stairs to a waiting mob outside. What awaited him out there is remembered by history as The Waco Horror.
“A chain was thrown around Washington’s neck before he was dragged toward the City Hall, where another group of vigilantes had gathered to build a … bonfire. Upon reaching the city hall grounds, the leaders of the mob threw Washington onto a pile of dry goods boxes under a tree and poured coal oil over his body. The chain around Washington’s neck was thrown over a limb of the tree, and several men lowered his body onto the pile of combustibles and ignited a fire and watched him burn alive. An observer wrote: ‘The boy was beaten …. Thousands roared, “Burn him!” Bonfire preparations were already under way in the public square, where Washington was beaten with shovels and bricks. Fifteen thousand men, women, and children packed the square. They climbed up poles and onto the tops of cars, hung from windows, and sat on each other’s shoulders. Children were lifted by their parents into the air. Washington was castrated, and his ears were cut off. A tree supported the iron chain that lifted him above the fire of boxes and sticks. Wailing, the boy attempted to climb the skillet-hot chain. For this the men cut off his fingers. The executioners repeatedly lowered the boy into the flames and hoisted him out again. With each repetition, a mighty shout was raised.’ Two hours later, some men placed the burned corpse in a cloth bag and pulled the bundle behind an automobile to [the town of] Robinson, where they hung the sack from a pole in front of a blacksmith’s shop for public viewing and intimidation.”
(Quoted from Wikipedia under fair use.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: If Palin doesn’t understand what can happen when a crowd becomes a mob, and it appears she doesn’t, she should read history. You can ride a tiger, but you can’t control it. No one can. She’s having the time of her life being a big celebrity and whipping crowds into a frenzy by feeding them red-meat rhetoric. I know third-graders who have better judgment than that. Ready to be president? No, absolutely not.
How hard is it to whip up hate in a crowd as genetically challenged as the lemmings listening to Moose Lady, and McSmeagel’s speeches.
My god. There isn’t a non mouth breather in the whole gym.
Soon it will be time to put conservatives, and their pet trickle up Reaganomics into the dust bin of utterly destructive bad ideas…
Conservative = Ignorant = Deadly
Need any more proof?
“As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.” — George Washington
I couldn’t have said it better.
I am still stunned at the old lady who said that Obama is an Arab. Who in this country, that has a 5th grade education, does not know you must be a NATURAL BORN US CITIZEN to be president?
Mouth breathers is being generous in your description, AFSMP.
11, 13 – Let it never be said that liberals aren’t poets! Redneck wingnuts? They never progressed beyond comic books.
Austrian politician and provincial governor Joerg Haider, 58, one of Europe’s most prominent far right figures, has been killed in a car accident. If you think this isn’t a big deal, you know nothing about European politics. Haider, an anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer, pulled 27% in a nationwide election.
The following article, which I am not going to quote, is written by Rosanne Cash. Yes, she is Johnny’s daughter.
Not only can she sing, but she is funny as hell going after Sarah Barracuda.
Enjoy!!
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081027/cash
Um sorry, but McCain’s campaign is the one that claims that Obama supports terrorists.
Its too late. McCain had a chance and he chose to jump into the mud. He has unleashed angry mobs. He won’t be able to reign them back in. They’re there to see Palin anyway.
Fuck him.
A real maverick thing to do would have been to provide real leadership on issues instead of fomenting hatred against Obama and then trying to fix it when it gets out of control.
McCain is not the first presidential candidate to give props to an opponent, but I’ll grant you that he’s the first one to do so after stirring up racially tinged hatred against the opponent himself as part of a formal campaign strategy.
Sounds less maverick and more lunatic to me.
I never had any respect, grudging or otherwise, for John McCain. He’s a right-wing dick with anger management and impulse control problems due to his treatment in Vietnam.
He never took a “maverick” stand that was unpopular in the polls, and he only really turned on his party when he was pissed off at Bush after 2000. Republicans seem to forget that he talked to Kerrry about being he Democratic VP nominee.
I got no use for the guy, and I’m glad that his inept, aimless campaign has finally blown up in his face. Even now, he’s not calming people down because he’s a good guy, he’s doing it because he knows their bullshit HURTS his already-doomed campaign.
If somehting happens to Obama, I guarantee you that there will be dead Republicans in the streets.
And then Bush’s victory will be complete: America will have become Iraq.
Some folks here are considering the attempts by Senator McCain to calm his supporters to be a cynical campaign ploy.
There are many folks in the Democratic Party that have been begging Senator Obama to jump down into the mud and get dirty in attacking Senator McCain. (Regular readers of the comments here can certainly remember many of those calls, and even angry responses to those of us that called for an honorable campaign.)
Some Democrats have openly complained that Senator Obama has said nothing about Senator McCain’s actions as a POW, nothing about his first wife, and hasn’t made an attempt to smear Senator McCain at every possible point.
One reason I really like Senator Obama is that he’s better than that. It is very much to his credit that he has resisted the strong and constant call to “take off the gloves” and get dirty. He has responded forcefully to attacks, but has consistently done so in an honorable, respectful manner.
Now, it is not to Senator McCain’s credit that he gave in to the same calls from his supporters, but I understand that the pressure on him was probably greater. It is easier to remain calm and reasonable when you’re winning.
But let’s give Senator McCain the benefit of the doubt and assume that he has come to his senses and regained the honor that many of us (even on the left) hoped that he had.
The Republicans are seeing their entire political philosophy in tatters, their party is fracturing between the old “economic conservative” and “social conservative” wings (strange bedfellows at the best of times), and unless they entirely reinvent themselves, I can see a place for them in the history books alongside the Whig Party.
We’re winning. Let’s be gracious winners, and show some of the class that Senator Obama shows. Let’s wish Senator McCain the best of luck on his return to the Senate.
32:
And we should wish Gov. Palin a swift return to her “hockey mom” life in Alaska.
You know, where her troubled with “drugs and the law” son, her pregnant 17 year old daughter and her special needs child need her more than the country does. (If she can mention that babay on the campaign trail, I can say that the baby needs her at home).
I am taking bets that Levi Johnson heads for the hills when Palin/McCain fail in their quest for the White House. You just know that he was taken into a back room and told the rules and all about the wolf hunting mom in a helicopter as they closed the bolt on the rifle for dramatic effect. He had no intention of marrying that girl until Palin was tapped to be VP.
There’s little left for McSame. He’s soiled himself so badly like Colin Powell soiled himself – with right wing fantasies and lies.
Still I got to give him credit for easing up on the fear and hate pedal. That’s the unforgivable sin to the wingnuts.
When push comes to shove, the wingnut puts the fear, hate and jingoism pedal to the bare metal.
@32
Thanks for posting that. Good idea.
The circumstances of the video were no doubt carefully staged. One of the two questions asked is about as non-specific as possible (about being “scared” of an Obama presidency), and the other is so outrageous that McCain can easily refute it without directly contradicting himself–he and his campaign can continue to hammer away about Bill Ayers and ACORN as being “terrorists” and “subversives”.
It’ll also be interesting to see in the coming week whether he and Palin end up doing a “good-cop/bad cop” gambit as a routine part of their act.
I’ll believe it when Palin says it. Sorry, you can’t repeat these things over and over and then say, “But he’s really a good guy.”.
Speaking of Palin, I love, love, love the Rosanne Cash piece in The Nation. Hilarious.
Interesting how at ease McCain is with a “town hall” when it’s all full of supporters. Especially the ones who have no fear of opening their big fat yaps and showing their true colors.
And I’m with Daddy Love; there will be riots if anything happens to Obama. My 17-year old son watched the HBO film, Recount, about the 2000 election and asked why people were not protesting in the streets. I told him we thought things would be settled in an orderly and fair way. Now, if there’s a whiff of cheating (like the error in one ballot where it’s printed “Osama” instead of Obama and that’s called a “whoops!”)or any idiot with a gun tries to hurt Obama, the right will regret it.
Left Foot:
While I have somewhat less sympathy for Governor Palin, my wish for her is just that she head back to Alaska, where they now know her a bit better than they did when they elected her Governor.
She really seemed to be enjoying working the crowds into a frenzy, to the point where I was wondering if she was deliberately inciting violence.
My sympathy is reserved for her daughter, dragged through the chaos and mud of a campaign, having her personal life invaded by every news outfit in the country. (It’s hard to blame the news media, considering that Governor Palin made “family values” a campaign issue. In fact, the newsies have been rather reserved on this, which speaks well for them.)
I think we can expect Governor Palin will serve out her term as Governor, then become a right-wing talk show host or one of the talking heads over at Faux News.
And we’ll occasionally hear how much “better” the country would have been if only she’d been elected, and how she was “cheated” out of the election.
38 In other words, Palin is Dino Rossi in lipstick and stilettos.