Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

“woke” is the new caravan.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Republicans in disarray!

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

We will not go back.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2008 / The Straight Talk Express

Reader Interactions

56Comments

  1. 1.

    Liberal Masochist

    Just about half way through, he starts to sound eerily like GWB. The inflections, the simple speech pattern and the hand motions. Wow.

  3. 3.

    EL

    My take is that McCain tried to pull a fast one and it bombed. He can claim it was an “inspirational speech” but he was trying to say he would achieve these things (and slip in the sly implication that it was a done deal) without saying how, and without actually promising to do so. He rightly was called out on parts of it, and should be called out on the rest – as in “how will you achieve this, when violence starts to rise as soon as we pull out some troops? How do you think the Mahdi army can be neutralized or defeated in 5 years?”

    Lots more more for the press to explore.

  4. 4.

    TR

    I’m really enjoying the new trend of MSNBC’s programming. If they’re going to switch over to a 24/7 format of exposing and ridiculing idiot right-wing pundits, sign me up.

  5. 5.

    Crusty Dem

    Wow, it’s like 1984, part 2; instead of declaring war against Oceania, he’s declaring continually victory. Actual quote “By the end of my first term, we will have succeeded in Iraq. Today we have succeeded in Iraq. Today we have. The strategy is succeeding.” The question, as always, is “How do you define success?”, the answer, I suspect, is that being in iraq is success itself. Which is madness, yet strangely predictable..

    If it’s just an “inspirational speech”, why give dates? Obviously it’s an attempt to retract the “100 years” statement..

  6. 6.

    mxh

    “By 2013, our troops have come home and we have won in Iraq.”

    McCain is so old that he talks about the future in the past tense.

  7. 7.

    rob!

    watch McCain try to explain his peyote fueled vision from the other day

    President Barack Obama.

  8. 8.

    Rick Taylor

    Wow. Just wow. John, aren’t you glad you’re not a Republican anymore, and you don’t even have to try to defend this? What’s heartening is the press wasn’t even trying to pretend this is reasonable. They don’t even lie down when Abrams says the surge is working. I wonder how more conservative blogs will respond; ignore it? Shake their heads and say we told you McCain shouldn’t be the nominee?

  9. 9.

    ThymeZone

    Oh my god. I told you guys, this man is a disaster as a candidate, but even I am floored by this.

    First, our campaign this year need be nothing more than buying tv time and running this clip over and over again. Obama can stay home, he doesn’t even need to go out and make speeches. Just play this video over and over, day and night, and then let’s have an election.

    Second, exactly how does one distinguish this performance from a SNL skit?

  10. 10.

    ThymeZone

    Oh, and I am compelled to say, I can’t stand Abrams … but damn, he is doing a good job here. Clear, incisive followups, not settling for bullshit answers.

    Go, Dan, go.

  11. 11.

    Davis X. Machina

    So long as people are motivated to go to the polls primarily to vote against, the GOP have a chance. They’re againster than anybody.

  12. 12.

    Dennis - SGMM

    This must be part of enhancing the Republican brand:
    “Now we won’t just lie to you about the past, we’ll lie to you about the future too!”

    There is some malicious fun in this, though.
    Things McCain Forget to Mention:
    By 2013, all children will be well-behaved.
    By 2013, Eternal Youth will be a reality.
    By 2013, perpetual motion will supply all of our energy needs.
    By 2013, Chrysler will build a good looking car.

  13. 13.

    ThymeZone

    I had to watch that segment from the bus over again.

    My take on it is that Mister Magoo is chagrined that the freshly BBQ-ed gaggle hasn’t bought into his fairy tale vision of the future and instead wants to call him out on the cognitive dissonances that are leaking out of every seam of his schtick. The more they don’t smile and get BBQ sauce all over their faces, the angrier he gets.

    All that’s missing is him banging his fists on the table in unison. I can almost picture him with his two little arms going up and down and his feet stamping.

  14. 14.

    Shabbazz

    “I did not say the sky was blue! I said the sky was red! You may have heard me say it was blue, but I will explain it again — I said it was red! It is red today! Red today!”

  15. 15.

    ThymeZone

    By 2013, Chrysler will build a good looking car.

    There’s funny, and there’s Fuckin Funny, and that is Fuckin Funny.

    Let me embellish:

    By 2013, Chrysler will make at least one car that doesn’t look like a cartoon, and will paint it some color other than red in the commercials.

    And the thing won’t be held together with Dzus Fasteners.

    Okay, mostly without Dzus Fasteners.

  16. 16.

    AnotherBruce

    God, I think I’d rather clean rest rooms at 24 hour truck stops than have to be a republican flack trying to explain McCains silly inconsistencies. Abrams just openly laughs at that fool as he tries to change chicken shit into chicken salad.

  17. 17.

    KC

    Honestly, sometimes it’s hard to believe that these lunatics are still in places of power. I’m not a huge fan of the Democrats, but I got tired of the for-too-long press-worshipped noids in the Republican Party–people like McCain–in 2004, and haven’t stopped voting Dem at the national level since. These guys, as well as their friends in punditry, just need to be run out of dodge. They have pushed our elections into a state where we’re continually asked to vote on the basis of the arguments of five-year-olds. The recent speeches of Bush and McCain following this tradition to the “T”. However, it appears the President’s dwadling performance, the Republicans’ continued losing streak in the House, and Democrat’s newly grown spine is finally getting the press core to grow up and ask these loonies questions. This video gives me some hope.

  18. 18.

    Libby Spencer

    I feel like I woke up in an alternate universe. First Tweety taking down the wingnut, now MSNBC has a feature called Teflon John. The boyz and girlz on the ST Express asking real Q’s? And there’s been a few other moments of media sanity that I can’t recall at the moment but astounded me in that last couple of days. I don’t know how we got here, but I don’t want to leave if this is the new reality.

  20. 20.

    PK

    Oh my god. I told you guys, this man is a disaster as a candidate, but even I am floored by this.

    His stupidity is obvious. He is completely incoherent. Just like Bush in 2000. Yet Bush won! Twice!

    Much as I always say that people are dumb to vote for this guy I met someone yesterday which gave me a perspective on why someone would vote for McCain. I met a woman around 50, with no health insurance, her kids get insurance through medicaid and CHIP. She works part time on a paper route and is trying to look for another part time job, but that is hard as her crappy car is not reliable and she cannot afford repairs. Her husband pushes carts in a store and got an 8cent (yes 8 cents) raise. She voted for Hillary and says she will vote Democrat in the fall. Yet she has heard that McCain will give $5000 per family for health insurance. Talking to her I felt that she could easily swing for McCain on this issue alone.
    I tried to do my bit by telling her that $5000 is not going to be enough to cover the family, and her best bet to get something done will be to vote Obama in the fall. But I felt like I was promising her a Pony.

  21. 21.

    Dennis - SGMM

    And there’s been a few other moments of media sanity that I can’t recall at the moment but astounded me in that last couple of days.

    They have to get in adversarial mode for the Democratic president.

  23. 23.

    Brachiator

    mxh Says:

    “By 2013, our troops have come home and we have won in Iraq.”

    Wow. Just wow.

    McCain is so old that he talks about the future in the past tense.

    By the time the general election rolls around, we will have been deluged with “John McCain is so old …” jokes (McCain So Old):

    My favorite so far:

    John McCain is so old he knew Burger King when he was still a prince!

  24. 24.

    nightjar

    Hee!

    MCcain’s just trying to catapult the propaganda, OOps, this time it landed on his head.

    And he left out by 2013 he’ll be jabbering to himself in the latrine of Air Force One.

  25. 25.

    cbear

    All that’s missing is him banging his fists on the table in unison. I can almost picture him with his two little arms going up and down and his feet stamping.

    His body language says it all—he just cannot stand being questioned on his bullshit, and he actually looks like he going to go completely postal on those reporters.
    I couldn’t help noticing that, at approx. 2:30 of the tape, the female newswriter to his right actually puts her hand on his shoulder, as if she needs to restrain him.
    Weird shit.

  26. 26.

    nightjar

    His body language says it all—-he just cannot stand being questioned on his bullshit, and he actually looks like he going to go completely postal on those reporters

    He’s like a Prickly Pear cactus growing on the side of a smoldering volcano. It will be a minor miracle if he doesn’t fully erupt before November. After all, when you choose the press as “your base”, you choose a fickle ally with shifting priorities, to put it mildly.

  28. 28.

    AnotherBruce

    watch McCain try to explain his peyote fueled vision from the other day

    I just had a flashback: I think what McCain is trying to explain to those reporters on the Straight Talk Express is- “You’re either on the bus or off the bus.”

  29. 29.

    cbear

    He’s like a Prickly Pear cactus growing on the side of a smoldering volcano.

    How’d you like to being standing next to that crazy old bastard, online at the post office, when they tell him that .35 cent stamp ain’t no good anymore?

  30. 30.

    nightjar

    How’d you like to being standing next to that crazy old bastard, online at the post office, when they tell him that .35 cent stamp ain’t no good anymore?

    Flecks of spittle a flying ever where. GET OFF MY STAMP!

  31. 31.

    mrrichardfeder

    What exactly is the function of that blond woman on Abrams’ show? Is she the bachelorette choosing between O’Donnell and that GOP shill for the big date?

    McCain is drawing closer, ever closer, to his Colonel Jessep Moment …

  32. 32.

    Punchy

    I agree about his body language. He looks PISSED that someone bothered to question His Great Greatiness. How dare Yawn McCain be forced to clarify his shitheaded statements!

    This guy’s got anger management issues that makes Cheney look like calm.

  33. 33.

    cleek

    I just had a flashback: I think what McCain is trying to explain to those reporters on the Straight Talk Express is- “You’re either on the bus or off the bus.”

    and if they hesitate to answer, he’ll throw them under the bus

  34. 34.

    Liberal Masochist

    The press is starting to sense that the wind is blowing a different direction and they will run to where the ratings and viewers are. Think about it. If you can be the reporter that causes Mt. McCain to erupt. Careers get made when shit like that goes down.

  35. 35.

    malraux

    I think now we’re seeing the downside of the republicans wrapping up their nominating process so quickly. McCain really can’t stand up to critical scrutiny. The only hope I see for McCain is a Clinton win from the democrats, because if there’s anything the press has shown it likes more than anything, its attacking democrats and the Clintons in specific.

    That said, McCain just makes himself too big of a target. He’s willing to the “right” things to reporters, but that’s going to force him to contradict himself often.

  36. 36.

    Demdude

    My favorite part was after the Republican Guy said that at that time McCain thought Hamas being just elected would be different and O”Donnell said “how naive and irresponsible of him”.

    Too funny.

  37. 37.

    mrrichardfeder

    Juan Cole (no relation) has already immortalized this new calculus …

    McCain Unit Rolled out

    Remember how Tom Friedman and Bush administration spokesmen kept saying that “the next six months” would be crucial for Iraq? They said it in 2003, 2004, 2005, etc., etc. Atrios finally called them on it, terming it the “Friedman unit”.

    Now we have the new, improved, “McCain unit”– which is apparently that the next four years will be crucial in Iraq. Indeed, McCain predicted “victory” by 2013, four years after he hopes to take office as the new president. Of course if victory does not come by 2013, then the next McCain unit would kick in, with the years leading up to 2017 being “crucial” for Iraq.

    William Lind explains why McCain’s fantasy of victory is highly unlikely to be fulfilled. Lind calls Iraq a ‘fourth generation war’ in which there is no real state capacity on which the US can build, and in which the enemy is shadowy and slips away before conventional forces (as in Basra, where rightwing commentators have mistaken the Mahdi Army’s ability to melt away and lie low as a victory for the [non-existent] state). The US really only controls the ground on which its soldiers tread, and that reality may well not change during the next 4 years. If Lind is right, McCain is hanging US policy on a set of ideas out of the 1940s that have no application in Iraq today.

    The “McCain unit” is already a public relations bust. It sounds like a timetable to Democrats. It is too far off for most people to take seriously. The beauty of the Friedman unit was that it seemed relatively near, but people could be depended to forget about its last use before it was invoked again. The “McCain unit” will tax the public’s patience too much, not to mention their pocket books. His unit probably has a $1 trillion tax bill attached to it all at once. And his unit is too specific, calling for “victory.” The Friedman unit was deliberately vague about what exactly would happen in the next six months that was “crucial” for Iraq.

  40. 40.

    PeterJ

    Intrade should let people predict which month McCain will lose his temper. That would be a lot more fun than predicting the winner of Florida.

  42. 42.

    Soylent Green

    Wait for it. The long campaign is sure to wear down the old guy’s defenses.

    Some reporter will push just the right button, on just the right day, and the lost temper will be a sight to behold.

  43. 43.

    The Briscoe Kid

    In McCain’s world everyone is a pony, and we eat rainbows and poop butterflies. And the word “succeeded” is not synonymous with “won.”

  44. 44.

    mrrichardfeder

    Fave McCain story, via Jeffrey St. Clair at CounterPunch:

    In 1992, environmentalists Robin Silver and Bob Witzeman went to meet with McCain at his office in Phoenix to discuss [the building of an observatory on] Mount Graham. Silver and Witzeman are both physicians. The doctors say that at the mention of the words Mount Graham McCain erupted into a violent fit. “He slammed his fists on his desk, scattering papers across the room”, said Silver. “He jumped up and down, screaming obscenities at us for about 10 minutes. He shook his fists as if he was going to slug us. It was as violent as almost any domestic abuse altercation.”

    Witzeman left the meeting stunned: “I’m a lifelong environmentalist, but what really scares me about McCain is not his environmental policies, which are horrid, but his violent, irrational temper. I wouldn’t want to see this guy with his finger on the button.”

    From a dry drunk to a guy with PTSD. Where is Tom Eagleton when we need him?

  45. 45.

    w vincentz

    Yikes! Poor ol’ Johnny McSame is getting hit hard for his “magic carpet ride” speech. It’s all over the f’in web.
    Let’s cut the doddering ol’ fool a break. Maybe he took too many meds, or maybe his magic 8-ball that helped him see the future didn’t supply the explanations to arrive at the outcomes it showed. What ever he’s smokin’ must be very good, but heck, he can afford it.
    Hey, didn’t we already have a prvious corrupt president that suffered through the initial and subsequent stages of Alzheimers?
    Johnny is having visions. Back to the bus for the “Magical Mystery Tour”…roll up, roll up…

  46. 46.

    Splitting Image

    “The press is starting to sense that the wind is blowing a different direction and they will run to where the ratings and viewers are. Think about it. If you can be the reporter that causes Mt. McCain to erupt. Careers get made when shit like that goes down.”

    Bullseye, unfortunately. How I wish that McCain’s takedown will come from a renewed interest in reporting the facts and an understanding of the need for the press to have an adversarial relationship to the government, but I’ll take what I get.

    Man, the next six months are going to suck for the Republicans.

    Interesting that the Clinton “supporters” didn’t see fit to comment here, in spite of their unswerving belief that Obama can’t beat this guy.

    Newsflash: Mondale could have beaten this guy. Dukakis could have beaten this guy. Obama will be a disappointment if he doesn’t deliver the landslide of the century against this guy.

  47. 47.

    maxbaer (not the original)

    This is entertaining- watch McCain try to explain his peyote fueled vision from the other day

    Wow, I knew the wingnuts were calling him Juan McCain for the amnesty views. I didn’t know they meant Don Juan McCain.

  48. 48.

    jake

    Newsflash: Mondale could have beaten this guy. Dukakis could have beaten this guy. Obama will be a disappointment if he doesn’t deliver the landslide of the century against this guy.

    A one-legged cross eyed drag queen who can’t remember the words to “It’s Raining Men” could give McCane serious trouble. Train Wreck doesn’t even begin to describe him. No man-made disaster can adequately convey the sheer fucked upedness of this man.

    The thing that will suck most for him (like anyone gives a fuck) is his party will blame him for the near-fatal spanking heading their way, and at first it is amazing that this is the best the GOP could scrape up.

    Then you realize that anyone who is still in the party and has two brain cells to bang together is laying low until 2012.

  49. 49.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    The doctors say that at the mention of the words Mount Graham McCain erupted into a violent fit.

    Prolly part of the programming he underwent as a prisoner of the Viet Cong. Remember the way those Dobermans killed at the mention of the word “rosebud” on that Columbo episode?

  50. 50.

    Splitting Image

    “Then you realize that anyone who is still in the party and has two brain cells to bang together is laying low until 2012.”

    2010, actually. They’ll be banking on the fact that the President’s party generally loses some seats in the first mid-term election to argue that the Republicans are mounting a comeback. Otherwise, yeah.

    Their “hook” will be that hard-working Americans are tired of paying for “Obama’s War”.

  51. 51.

    D0n Camillo

    Shorter Brad Blakeman: “The view from up McCain’s ass is just fine”

    Remember the way those Dobermans killed at the mention of the word “rosebud” on that Columbo episode?

    I even remember that Ed Begley Jr. had a bit role as a cop guarding the dogs.

  53. 53.

    ImJohnGalt

    Maybe it’s just me, but while I find the video revealing of McCain, I can’t help but be disturbed by the way the press is talking all *around* the issue here, and letting him get away with “I’ll repeat what i said in my speech”.

    If the fucking guy can’t answer your question re: “does that mean you see troops out by 2013?”, which is as straightforward a yes or no question as there is when he’s just given a speech with that number throughout it, how the fuck can you keep from quietly closing the lid of your laptop, nodding your head at the candidate, and walking off the bus?

    Seriously, it was like a bunch of grandchildren in a hospital room with grandpa, and none of them want to let him know he just shit his pants.

  54. 54.

    Jorge

    Wow, McCain’s perceived strength is his actual weakness. Sweet.

    Well, this definitely explains why Hillary is fighting so hard. If this is McCain as a candidate, then the past 5 months have been the general election. The next few months will consist of the Democrats laying out their vision with occassional time-outs to make McCain look like a total hypocrite.

    And this might be why so many Democrat higher ups aren’t as freaked out by the current split in the Dem party. Come November Democrats of all ages are going to be so disqusted with McCain that they’ll have forgotten any split.

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Trackbacks

  1. […] And it’s this base, and those attracted by the self-serving simplicity of this vision, who John McCain is counting on in November.  If the war in Iraq were being managed like any other sort of real-world endeavor, it would have closed down years ago.  All the major requirements have either been achieved (Saddam deposed, elections held, etc.) or Overcome By Events (hunt for WMD, connections to al Qaeda, etc.)  The top-level MS Project spreadsheet is showing completion, and any sort of dissatisfaction you may have with the results needs to be chalked up to either the inevitable vicissitudes of geopolitics or – if this happens to be one of our infrequent “accountability moments” – fatal errors made in the design phase. […]

  2. […] Wannabe US president John McCain has gotten a lot of publicity over his public channelling of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Had a Dream’ speech. When he said ‘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’, many people thought he was promising to withdraw most of the troops from Iraq by 2013, whereas it turns out he was just doing a bit of wishful thinking. As we all do I guess, but not when we are making a major speech while running for president. […]