Is McCain losing his mind?

[Harlowe]

As far as I'm concerned, inciting fear and violence from places of power is just another form of terrorism Embar. Pure and simple.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-tr ... _roug.html

Words mean something, inciting hatred and violence means something - and that's not a foofy liberal philosophy. It's personal responsibility. It doesn't take responsibility away from the person that commits the act, but you are responsible for your role in that act and if you behave irresponsibly, specifically to incite people to irrational states and engage in hatemongering, you are a skurge to our society.

[Embar Angylwrath]

You've let your contempt for Palin bleed into your perception of reality.

She's not inciting anything. She's thumping the stump and spinning a story trying to connect Obama to Ayers. She never said or implied Obama should be the recipeient of violence. One guy yelling out something in the crowd... I just don't see how you can paint Palin with that... unless you're going to do what you decry Palin for doing, linking someone to something just becuase they happen to be in the general vicinity.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Luckily I think most Americans see right through these tactics of desperation. OMG Obama Hussein the terrorist! Honestly, who is falling for that except a few total nutjobs? All the republicans need to do is start saying: "Don't elect a nigger!" and their demise will be complete. I'm surprised that hasn't already happened.

[Lurker]

Embar,

You think it's acceptable political discourse to falsely accuse your opponent of being so anti-America that they hang out with terrorists aimed at destroying us? That's just "thumping the stump and spinning a story" in your eyes? The scum pushing that line has no responsibility when their followers take the intended leap of logic and start seeing Obama as a terrorist sympathizer who's guilty of treason?

The McCain / Palin campaign is uglier than any I've seen. They are treading on ground usually left to some shadowy 527 that would give them plausable deniability over a shameful message. You have a lot of nerve lecturing others about perception of reality with the spineless (I'm not voting for them but they aren't doing anything wrong and look at the other guy!) defense of Palin / McCain you've made on these boards.

[Tarfang_Trubasher]

CNN making a connection for Obama to Ayers?

-TF

[Embar Angylwrath]

Lurker -

You can't be shocked that a campaign is involved with spin and distortions (on both sides now). If you think most of America will be swayed by spin, then your beef seems to be with most of America, not with the spinners. If we are sheep, we deserved to get eaten.

[Harlowe]

I think you have blinders on about the extremists within the GOP base. I'm not concerned at all by your average American, they do see right through this sort of bullshit and will vote accordingly. I have no doubt in my mind the US will elect Barack Obama. I just feel that all this hatemongering to incite the base is irresponsible and dangerous. "Terrorism or Terrorist" is the US hot button. It incites fear and anger and should be used with extreme caution and sparingly. It's not tossing around spin, it's reckless and thoughtless.

Thief, liar, scum, whatever ...all fair ridiculous terms, toss those around at will. But to play with Americans with terms that you know are extremely sensitive and inspire irrational fear is unconscionable. After all our people have been through, to toss that term around like some sort of campaign slogan, is probably the most irresponsible, unpatriotic tripe I've heard.

To me it's like crying "Fire" in a crowded movie theater.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

I think you overestimate the "average" American a little too much.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

I think many people underestimate the average American. If you're right Fallakin, then McCain will be the next president. We'll soon see eh?

What's ironic is that the McCain camp is simultaneously pandering to "joe six pack" while insulting his intelligence in almost the same breath with a fear-laden smear campaign that even my 13 year old can see right through.

Should be a good debate tonight, and MSNBC is reporting that Palin might appear on SNL.

[Lurker]

You can't be shocked that a campaign is involved with spin and distortions (on both sides now).

If you see equity in the tactics used by the two campaigns so far you are further gone than I thought.

Harlowe said everything else that needed saying about the disgusting lows McCain and Palin are sinking to.

[Partha]

Republicans and their apologists are modern day Humpty-Dumptys.

[Harlowe]

From Daily Dish,

An Israeli reader writes:

Your post on "The Danger of Obama" immediately brought to mind what happened here in Israel in the period leading up to Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. Even allowing for the differences in political culture between the two countries, some of the sounds we're hearing in the public debate around the election have a haunting echo. Here no one would have thought it possible that an Israeli Jew would take the life of a high official. There's little doubt that the crescendo of demonization toward Rabin – including accusations of treason, flyers picturing Rabin as an SS officer – and the difficulty, in a society guaranteeing free speech, of 'civilizing' the public debate before it creates a fertile bed for actual violence, all helped create the context in which Rabin's murderer decided to take matters into his own hands.

I'd like to see which Republicans will denounce this turn towards demonization. And if there are no takers – maybe Joe Lieberman?

Not to be overly alarmist, but I feel this is where this kind of hate-mongering in politics leads. This is why I am absolutely disgusted, and let me add - along with many fellow independents & conservatives alike - about the manner in which McCain/Palin are campaigning right now "Terrorist" "Treason". I don't know of too many Republican or Independent friends that are still going to vote McCain. There are a couple of hold-outs but that's about it. Seriously, it's gotten that bad. Palin was a turn off to quite a few from the beginning, but they seemed to think she would be harmless in office. The past week, more than a few had "buckwheat eyes" talking about how dangerous the two of them have become and the potential greater divisiveness in our country, not to mention potential for civil unrest were to any crazy shit assassinate Obama. That's why I say "Country FIrst" is the biggest crock of absolute horseshit imaginable.

[Harlowe]

I certainly was wondering whether I was snow-balled 8-10 years ago by McCain (I had a very positive opinion of him then) or if he's just changed that much. Conservatives and moderates alike are wondering the same thing.

If, like me, you're trying to absorb what has happened to John McCain in this campaign, and wonder whether you were wrong about him for all those years, or simply hadn't examined him closely enough, read this much-talked-about Tim Dickinson piece in Rolling Stone. It's about as brutal as any profile I've ever read. But it also has many critical figures on the record, and carries with it a real whiff of truth and insight. The character Dickinson describes makes sense of both McCains - the contrite rogue committed to country and the preening, reckless narcissist who gave us Britney Spears ads and the farce of Sarah Palin. Some of his fellow Vietnam vets are the toughest on him. John Dramesi was an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam and a peer of McCain's.

Dramesi attempted daring escapes twice and was brutally tortured and never cracked under the pressure. McCain himself called Dramesi "one of the toughest guys I've ever met." Dramesi also went on to become chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command. I'm not sure how you get to be a bigger hero than that but like most real heroes and unlike McCain, Dramesi didn't spend his life writing five memoirs commemmorating his own heroism or running every single political campaign partly on the basis of being a POW. And here's what Dramesi now says about McCain:

"McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man. But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."

I would have dismissed that as bitterness six weeks ago. No longer. Go read the whole essay. Trust me. It's eye-opening.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/covers ... ohn_mccain

[Partha]

Don't think you were snowballed, Harlowe - I wrote him in on the general ballot. I just think that 8 years of biological decay plus the need to cozy up to the fundies have changed him. He's decided that he'll do whatever it takes to be President, no matter what, since it's his last chance.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

I used to have a very high opinion of McCain as well. Now the thought of president McNasty and vice president Caribou Barbie is very disconcerting to me.

[Fallakin Kuvari]

McNasty and vice president Caribou Barbie

A friend of mine wrote McCain in 4 years ago.

[Harlowe]

Did you catch his mortgage bail out plan to end all plans? I mean this thing is so big the most liberal bleeding heart Democrat wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/08/news/ec ... tm?cnn=yes

This is not a conservative, hell I don't think it's a Republican either. This goes into wild spending crazy town.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

McNasty and vice president Caribou Barbie

A friend of mine wrote McCain in 4 years ago.

4 years ago I would've voted for McCain. Even until recently my thought was that we had two great candidates and America wins either way. I've always said you learn more about a person when the chips are down, and from what I've seen recently, when the going gets tough, the man gets nasty. Not only that, but he didn't even have the guts to look his opponent in the eyeballs and say those nasty things to his face. I would've respected him for that. If you think the man is a dishonorable terrorist sympathizer, then do the honorable thing and tell him, and tell the American people.

The economic deficit to me is a symptom of a deeper problem; a leadership deficit. I'm willing to concede that McCain did a pretty good job on the debate, but I just don't see him as the best America can do for the highest position of leadership in the land. We can do better, and we will do better.

[Harlowe]

He said, "I would order the Secretary of Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes, at the diminished values of those homes, and let people make those - be able to make those payments and stay in their homes."

The government would convert failing mortgages into low-interest, FHA-insured loans.

"Millions of borrowers" would be eligible for the program, dubbed the American Homeownership Resurgence Plan, according to McCain economic advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin.

"[McCain's] original plan relied on lenders taking the hit," said Holtz-Eakin. "This bypasses that step."

Instead, taxpayers pay for it, with the funding already provided by the $700 billion bailout bill.

That could prove to be very unpopular with homeowners who aren't in trouble, as well as ordinary Americans who objected to the Hope for Homeowners plan as a bailout for delinquent borrowers and irresponsible lenders.

The Obama campaign issued its response to the plan Wednesday afternoon.

"Last night . . . [Senator McCain] threw out a proposal that appeared to give the Treasury authority it already has to re-structure troubled mortgages. But now that he's finally released the details of his plan, it turns out it's even more costly and out-of-touch than we ever imagined," said the statement. "John McCain wants the government to massively overpay for mortgages in a plan that would guarantee taxpayers lose money, and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don't recover."

The statement claimed the biggest beneficiaries would be the "same financial institutions that got us into this mess, some of whom even committed fraud."

"Since this beginning of this crisis, Barack Obama has demanded that any rescue plan must protect taxpayers and ensure that they share in any profit once the economy recovers, and he worked to include that principle in the plan that passed Congress," said Obama's economic policy director Jason Furman.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/ca ... l?tid=true

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/08/news/ec ... 2008100815

[Ddrak]

His "plan" is batshit insane, but I tend to agree with the commentators when they say it's more a sign of adolescence than age - it's just another kneejerk reaction in an amazingly erratic campaign.

Why would you reward everyone who took out a bad loan using the taxes of people who were responsible? Shit - not even the Democrats are that economically nuts.

Dd