Sullivan asks: “And did Bush’s Nazi silliness unwittingly stomp on McCain’s big speech today?”
To which I respond, if McCain is lucky. I briefly blogged about the McCain speech yesterday, asking why he chose 2013 as a good time to withdraw the troops, and after having some time last night to watch more of the speech and read the whole thing, I have my answer.
There is no answer. The whole speech is made up. It is all, every last word of it, pure fantasy. There was no outlining of plans, no presentation of facts that would lead you to believe all of the things he “sees” in his “vision” will come to pass- it was nothing but pure nonsense. Here is a partial list of things he sees in his “vision”:
We “win” in Iraq. No mention of what “winning” actually means.
The Taliban is “defeated.” How? Who knows?
We have a bigger Army and bigger Marine corps, and they are “better” trained and “better” equipped.
Bin Laden will be dead.
The economy will be “growing.”
New trade agreements leading to increased exports. Who are the agreements with? Who knows? What are we exporting? Who cares?
Health care will be “affordable.” How? FORCE OF WILL, BABY. Don’t you know John McCain is a veteran!
And on and on and on it goes. He might as well have also promised to cure AIDS, give everyone a PONY, and promised time travel.
And what is so amazing about it is that most of the press seems to have taken this… seriously. Why was he not laughed off the stage? Why, after eight years of an administration making their own reality, is this buffoon offering us visions and people are not throwing tomatoes at him? This is insanity, plain and simple.
*** Update ***
Not everyone is bamboozled:
No doubt, John McCain’s attempt to lay out the goals of his prospective presidency was a worthy and honorable effort–but there was something deeply hilarious about it as well. Take his paragraph about Iraq:
By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role.
And the tooth fairy will spread giggle-juice throughout the land, and the Mets will win the World Series and I will lose 20 pounds while continuing to consume vast quantities of Chinese and Italian food.
It is a depressing commentary in and of itself when Joe Klein is the only one calling bullshit on this. Joe fucking Klein, people. At any rate, props to Joe for seeing through this nonsense. Read his whole response.
4tehlulz
but..but…he’s so
dreamymavericky!Killjoy
I hear he has a big account at the Bank of the Media. I doubt he’ll be overdrawn by November, even accounting for McCain’s increasing rate of incoherent lunacy.
Plus I hear his barbecue ribs are to die for.
Jake
Watching the speech, I just got the notion of an old grayhair sitting around a fire telling a story to a bunch of YMCA campers, trying to get them ready to go to sleep.
cleek
since they’ve spent the last eight years fellating him, they really appreciate a little dry rub in payback now and then.
thanks. i’ll be here all week.
r€nato
magic ponies! a bumper crop of magic ponies – just vote for McCain!
Ripley
“Anything’s possible in the World of Magic!” – Doug Henning
rachel
It’s a pitiful yet sickening sight.
Davis X. Machina
They’ll carry him across the finish line if necessary.
It’s now easier to change the government than to change The Master Narrative. The future already exists, in the form of stories already on their hard drives. Reality will just have to conform.
dj spellchecka
i read the whole speech over at mccain’s website. the first time thru i was convinced that this had to have been a parody site. and yes all i could think of was ponies.
besides that, the minute i heard “iraq” and “2013” in the same sentence my reaction was “s@#t, four more years of war.” seems like a bad thing to be selling.
calipygian
Shorter McCain:
“Clap harder”
The Other Steve
I say we declare victory now. That’ll save us 4 more years of soldiers living in the suck.
Davebo
Assuming McCain wins in November, you’ve got to believe he’s only good for one term at his age.
So his plan is exactly the same as Bush’s plan. He’ll dump the problem on the next president.
rob!
and they call OBAMA the head-in-the-clouds, no-details dreamer?
Davis X. Machina
and they call OBAMA the head-in-the-clouds, no-details dreamer?
See above for explanation.
Jake
I think it’s about to become painfully clear to many people just how mediocre a candidate John McCain is.
The question is how much that will actually matter.
The Other Steve
It’s not about having details.
It’s about promising ponies.
Fe E
Edited for completeness
David Hunt
I think you’ve answered your own question, Mr. Cole. The Bush Administration has managed to housebreak and train the political press to the point that they won’t call BS on stuff like this…at least from a Republican. But just wait until (God willing) there’s a Democrat in the Whitehouse next year. The press will then remember what it’s like to be an adversarial institution.
I thank all that’s holy that nothing short of a direct act of God will place Hillary Clinton there. I don’t think that I could take four more years of how Hillary Clinton murdered her lesbian lover, Vince Foster in Whitewater and how the bloodstains on the blue dress prove it.
Bobzim
McCain should’ve done the Wayne Campbell “DOO-DOO-LOO, DOO-DOO-LOO, DOO-DOO-LOO”.
PK
This 2013 ad (sorry I don’t know how to link) has to be the silliest ad I have ever seen. So many magical things will happen in 2013. No mention of how any of it will be achieved!
They talk about Obama being full of false hope. I have never seen any politician promise so many things in one ad.
Please tell me that the republicans are not so insane as to fall for this idiocy.
Halteclere
McCain’s list of projected successes sounds to me like most all of President Bush’s State of the Union addresses. A hydrogen car in every garage! We’ll send a man to Mars!
pablo
Kinda like this:
Dennis - SGMM
How will McCain make all of these things happen?
Shut up! is how.
/obligatory BJ response
Billy K
I will travel back in time to give myself a pony.
NickM
My pony’s going to be rainbow-colored and is gonna shit money. Preferably Euros.
lilysmom
Yes, and when the Newsweek reporter had the temerity to make a mildly questioning, deregatory remark about the speech, Mark Salter went postal and tried to have her thrown off the Magic Carpet bus or airplane.
Please tell me again about how your administration will be transparent and open.
Someone will ask a touchy question in some debate this fall and this old man is gonna blow like a package of Mentos in a fresh Diet Coke.
Zifnab
See, I don’t even know. The media has a taste for “controversy” and they love to dicker over meaningless nothings like orange juice and crazy preachers. But I don’t know if they still remember how to be truly adversarial and not simply dickish.
If the FOX guy in the White House Press Room just wants to ask questions about Obama’s lack of flag lapel pin and turn it into a “LATE BREAKING ACTION ALERT NEWS ITEM OF EXTREME IMPORTANCE” he isn’t any closer to the next Watergate than Chris Matthews in full on blowjob mode.
Until the press is willing to turn towards meatier issues, they’re going to have a much harder time pillaring Democrats. At least the Clinton scandals had perjury involved. This latest crop of gossip reporting doesn’t say anything even remotely issues related.
The Other Steve
Rainbow colored? Don’t you know rainbow colored ponies force kids to dream about gay sex?
Damned at Random
According to what I’ve been reading elsewhere, the Church will be raptured in 2012 according to the Mayan calandar (?) – so anything you say about 2013 doesn’t matter anyhow – we will be under the spell of the antichrist (who presumably is not McCain, but may be Obama – he is a secret Muslim or maybe a Jew). So McCain’s job is to keep us happy until the inevitable horrors of the end times.
Oh, yeah – spend your stimulus check – the end is near.
libarbarian
Obama = Magical Unity Pony
McCain = Magical Victory Pony.
Keith
Because it was funnier when Al Gore opened Saturday Night Live with almost the same speech.
Thomas
Unless he “sees” me driving a flying fucking car in 2013, he won’t get my vote! Will we never get our flying cars?
rob
Time travel! That’s where he’s getting the troops from! He’s requisitioning the troops from far in the future, where our nation has no need of them thanks to the peace made back in 2013! Those future troops, with their futuristic weapons that can automatically define “victory” via a dial setting on the handgrip, will make short work of this war. Also, everyone saves on oil consumption by riding around on the ponies he gave them!
sstarr
But I don’t want a pony! What am I going to do with my pony? I’d better get some sort of Federal Pony Housing Assistance along with my pony. Maybe a tax credit would be better – sort of a market driven approach to mandatory pony ownership.
AND the flying cars better run on ethanol!
Tsulagi
Didn’t see it, but did skim his speech yesterday. Yeah, nothing but air. But it sounded pretty. If it weren’t for the fact it’s a sure sign of teh gay, McCain might even have added there would be a huge rainbow in the skies over the entire country reaching up to the heavens in 2013 heralding his triumphant first term.
Even my father I talked to yesterday, who will likely vote for McCain, wasn’t buying that sparkly pony dust. Called it McCain’s Age of Aquarius speech. But then my father thought the renaming of fries and toast as a vital blow for the American way of life was brain dead, so clearly he’s a RINO.
Oracle
To be fair, I loved McCain’s bit about weekly question and answer sessions with Congress. I’ve been wanting that ever since I first discovered the Prime Minister’s Questions on C-SPAN. I mean, talk about political theater. The only question is will the back-benchers in Congress have the temerity to heckle and jeer when they hear something they don’t like, as their UK counterparts do.
SamFromUtah
Gee, why would McCain try to fool everyone with a bunch of transparently bullshit platitudes? That sort of thing has never worked before.
*cough* MorningInAmerica *cough*
The Grand Panjandrum
Well! Mine is going to piss tequila and Belgian Abbey Ale depending on what I feed it.
AND my magic pony will be the Pegasus model so it can fly.
My friends, it appears we will all have to vote for McCain. Johnny, Johnny he’s our man! If he can’t do it nobody can! Yay!
rawshark
All he has to do is say whatever out loud. The wingnuts love to hear it and when we come along to pick it apart and demand some kind of explanation for how this will all play out we play our role in their show. Pointing out the holes or just flat supidity of their plans just reinforces the merit of the plan to the flock. Its perfect. They don’t really care about fulfilling any of the promises they make.
David Hunt
Only after being hounded for five years by the Press, Congress, Ann Coulter, etc. and subjecting himself and a huge number of his staff to subpeonas did someone manage to back Clinton into a lie about an illicit affair. That shit would never have happened if the witch-hunt hadn’t been going full-steam for years.
Note: I’m not excusing Clinton’s perjury. I’m just pointing out that he would never have been put in that situation if he’d gotten a tenth of the deference that Bush has received.
My principle argument is that, for whatever reason, the Republicans get more of a free ride from the press than Democrats. Maybe the Press has been conditioned by years of the “Liberal Bias” meme to rake Dems over the coals in self-defense. Maybe they just think they get treated better when the Repubs are in power. Maybe I’m full of shit. But I still think that the Washington Press is going to remember that it’s supposed to be an adversarial institution about a nanosecond after a Dem says “So help me, God.”
r€nato
1) Elect McCain
2) ?????
3) Peace, prosperity and victory in 2013!
Desmond
I just checked out his website, and it’s actually a little improved. A few months ago, it was just like that speech; lots of lofty goals but no substance.
But just for kicks, check out his healthcare plan:
Rick Taylor
Like I said, the the Republican party has completed it’s transformation into the Tinkerbell party.
r€nato
funny- listening to Diane Riehm show and the guests on the Friday roundup are ripping on McCain for exactly what John is talking about – making a speech promising lots of wonderful things without any specifics about how he’ll get us there.
The Other Steve
John McCain has my vote. I believe we need a constitutional amendment mandating this.
SamFromUtah
…the Republican party has completed it’s transformation into the Tinkerbell party.
Leather Tinkerbell with a whip and a planeload of cluster bombs.
Zifnab
That means the government is going to pay for me to go through 8 years of college and get a medical license, right?
r€nato
the really ironic thing is that 8 years ago, McCain’s shtick was that he represented change from the business-as-usual in DC.
Today, he’s completely gone 180 degrees to embracing business-as-usual… at the very time that the voters want change more than anything else.
Seanly
I can play too!
In 2013, my wife will be aroused by the sight of me playing WoW.
In 2013, I will be able to get into shape by eating nothing but my awesome grilled chicken, my kickin chili, chot wings & beer.
In 2013, I will work just 2 hours a week yet get paid for 40.
Ahh, life will be so good in 2013!
Rick Taylor
God damn. I went to John McCain’s site to get details of how he’s going to accomplish all these things and clicked on Iraq. They haven’t even bothered to proof-read it!
(emphasis added)
Desmond
Well, to be fair, John McCain doesn’t know much about economics, so maybe he thinks that’s the cheapest way to fix the system.
TenguPhule
It’s the future, where’s my fucking nuclear powered Sex-bot?
cleek
the poor copy writers didn’t know which position he was advocating that day and so they left them all in, just to be safe
David Hunt
Saddam Hussein stole the nuclear material from her to use in his WMD program and then hid it where no one can find it: inside the madrassa where Obama was inducted into his secret Muslim cult by Jeremiah Wright.
The Other Steve
+1
Jon H
McCain’s plan is to just sign an executive order declaring it 2013, then ignoring all the problems that have “already been solved”
Kevin
LOL
4tehlulz
Japan, where else?
ThymeZone
What a huge fucking surprise that Mister Magoo, the Nearsighted Standard Bearer of the GOP, has discovered that good old fashioned Wishful Thinking is all you need to create a vision for the future.
Obama will have his work cut out for him trying to Out-Wishful-Think this crazy old motherfucker.
nightjar
He sounds like this in most of his speeches. He’s just a smarmy version of Bob Dole and Obama will punk him in the debates with embarrassing ease.
jake
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green, towering over your head…
At least this confirms that Cindy McCain is clean and sober. John must be stealing all of her drugs.
McCane Haz a Proze Portal?
Desmond
Where’s p.luk when you need him? Don’t you know that McCain will be invincible against Obama? All the stupid white people will vote for him, especially in crucial battleground states like West Virginia, and only blacks and latte sipping elitests will vote for Obama, who will be busy making sure he doesn’t lose California.
Alas, inevitable defeat!
Grumpy Code Monkey
Will this do?
Lynne
John, you have seemed to forget that this was John McCain speaking his “straight talk” and that the media never, ever questions any little nugget that might fall from his mouth.
It never ceases to amaze me what they let him get away with. He flip-flops with regularity and is never called on it. I swear, the press has their collective nose so far up his rear that if he sneezed and his sphinter tightened, they would all have broken noses.
Since Obama is fairly circumspect when it comes to dealing with the press, and McCain yammers to them on a near constant basis, it will have an affect on how the head to head matchup between the two is spun and reported. Many feel that the press has given Obama somewhat of a free ride, but if will not compare to the free ride that McCain will get – he’s been getting it since the 2000 race.
Rick Taylor
That’s not true; he mentions a few things.
As I said earlier, someone should ask them when they’ll be disbanding the badr brigades; or when he says the militias will be disbanded, does he only mean the ones hostile to a US presence?
The vision of an Iraq with a strong central government able to impose its will is, by now, a pipe dream. Moreover, even if that was what we wanted, our strategy in empowering local Sunni’s in the Sunni awakening is running counter to what McCain calls are eventual goal.
So I can’t agree that there’s not mention of what “winning” means; for the first time there’s enough here to start an intelligent conversation if we wanted to. It’s certainly more than what George Bush ever gave us.
Rick Taylor
Joe Klein on McCain’s speech
I hope some reporters will ask McCain these questions.
Suicidal Zebra
Militias disbanded? The notion of trying to disband the Mahdi Army, which has stood down—for the time being—in Basra and is continuing to fight in Sadr City—remains a fool’s errand. And would McCain disband the Kurdish pesh merga? I don’t think so. (In fact, he steadfastly refuses to notice that much of the backbone for the Iraqi Army is provided by the Badr Corps, yet another militia.)
“SHIFT+D!”, yelled McCain on his first public address in Baghdad. He appeared confused when the Sewerage System wasn’t completed the following year.
ThymeZone
They will, but he will stifle them with BBQ.
Come on, how hard can it be to bamboozle Dana Bash?
jake
Yep. They’ll have nothing to do all day but stroll around The Mall of Iraq and go on the rides at M.E. Disney.
Anytime someone tries to claim McCane’s experience in the Navy makes him ready to lead this country during wartime please quote a few lines from Senator Shaman’s vision o the future.
Adding insult to injury, the speech sounds like it was written by the computer that produces “Choose your adventure” stories.
LarryB
Not to get all Marxist on everyone, but look at who owns the press: Rich, white men who are overwhelmingly Republican. To me, this is a fundamental problem which is incredibly dangerous to little-d democracy. We need someone to break the media conglomerates the way T.R. busted up the bank trusts at the beginning of the last century.
Cain
I told him to take a break, and that we’d still be here and we want to talk about Republicans now. I didn’t think he’d actually listen! I must be some kind of internet wingnut balm. I’m sooooothing.
cain
Cain
The press is probably one of the biggest reasons we’re down a rabbit hole. They just divide people for their own profit. I’d support a media break up.
cain
yet another jeff
I’d like to see a series of these, like the “In The Year 2000” bits that Conan O’Brien does.
lutton
>>things he sees in his “vision”:
The image of the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast?
Dennis - SGMM
Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
Cellophane flowers of yellow and green,
Towering over your head.
Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes,
And she’s gone…
binzinerator
What do you feed it? I can only get mine to piss Glenfiddich. In fact, I never have to even feed my pony. Strangely, it still shits regularly but via serendipity and various experiments the details of which I do not care to go into right now I have learned I can use the pony dung to fuel my flying car.
But I’d vote for Johnnie in a heartbeat if he promises I can trade my pony up to a Pegasus model.
Dreggas
I wasn’t the only one thinking about this. Dec. 21, 2012 is when it’s supposed to end. Basically it’s a winner for Fuckstain McCain since no one will be around to criticize him for being full of shit.
jake
One pill makes you larger,
and another makes you small;
But the one’s that, mother gives you,
don’t do anything at all.
Dreggas
what do salt-peter and enzyte have to do with this?
jake
Go ask Alice…
Just Some Fuckhead
You said subpoenas. Teehee.
Josh
The Other Steve’s talking about how if McCain’s saying we’re going to declare victory in 2013, then why don’t we just declare victory now and leave, reminds me of this:
******
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the excercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7… Minute… Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you’re going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin’ there, there’s 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7.
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
Ted: You guarantee it? That’s – how do you do that?
Hitchhiker: If you’re not happy with the first 7 minutes, we’re gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That’s it. That’s our motto. That’s where we’re comin’ from. That’s from “A” to “B”.
Ted: That’s right. That’s – that’s good. That’s good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you’re in trouble, huh?
[Hitchhiker convulses]
Hitchhiker: No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody’s comin’ up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won’t even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.
Ted: That – good point.
Hitchhiker: 7’s the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that’s the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin’ on a branch, eatin’ lots of sunflowers on my uncle’s ranch. You know that old children’s tale from the sea. It’s like you’re dreamin’ about Gorgonzola cheese when it’s clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office.
Ted: Why?
Hitchhiker: ‘Cause you’re fuckin’ fired!
Barbara
Sorry if this has already been noted but according to the NYT, the speechwriter intentionally wrote a “when you wish upon a star” (my words) speech so that there would be no way to refute it with facts. I (or they) report. You judge.
lucslawyer
To think of John McCain and LSD at the same time is something I never thought I would do, but then again, never say never…
dj spellchecka
does mccain really think that your typical american with his/her short attention span is gonna sit still for having to wait four years for stuff to happen?
bago
Don’t you know who I am? I’m the McCain juggernaut bitch!
Bruce Moomaw
Klein is hardly the only one taking an extremely dim view of McCain’s fractured fairy tale. Take a look at the normally unflappable Phil Carter.
Kevin James' Left Testicle
Appeasers!
Phoebe
Everyone on the “The Verdict” panel [except the poor Republican] was calling McCain out on this. Also: They showed a video of him in his Straight Talk Express horseshoe couch surrounded by the press, all clacking away on their laptops, and he’s yelling at them. Why? Because they wanted him to say whether or not 2013 is a deadline for the war to be over and he wouldn’t, and then he wouldn’t answer their follow-ups, basically “then what is the significance of the 2013 date re: the war?” And the panel was saying “It’s a wish! I wish the war is over by 2013! Haw Haw Haw!”
And that’s exactly what it is if you are not willing to say/do anything about it, as President.
Phoebe
Oh yeah, while he was in the aforementioned horseshoe [and squirming like he wanted out], he also declared victory in Iraq right now. He said we’d already acheived it. I need to see this again… It must be on youtube somewhere.
Phoebe
aha, couldn’t find the horseshoe, but Keith O made same point:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5Yn5ja1Tgl8
..
ok, found the horseshoe,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24674143#24674143
he doesen’t say that we have acheived victory, but that we have succeeded in Iraq. And that we will be succeeding in 2013, which is.. oh. ok.
Lawrence O’Donnell makes John’s point, as soon as they get to the panel comments.