Judging from the comments on the last post, I gather that most of you have read this by now, but it is simply one of the best op-eds I’ve read in awhile. Frank Rich tears McCain a new one…
“In a time of war,” Mr. McCain said last week, “the commander in chief doesn’t get a learning curve.” Fair enough, but he imparted this wisdom in a speech that was almost a year behind Mr. Obama in recognizing Afghanistan as the central front in the war against Al Qaeda. Given that it took the deadliest Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul since 9/11 to get Mr. McCain’s attention, you have to wonder if even General Custer’s learning curve was faster than his.
*********
Mr. McCain made a big show of banishing Mr. Gramm after his whining “gaffe,” but it’s surely at most a temporary suspension. When the candidate said back in January that there’s nobody he knows who is stronger on economic issues than his old Senate pal, he was telling the truth. Left to his own devices — or those of his new No. 1 economic surrogate, Carly Fiorina — Mr. McCain is clueless.
Awesome. And I love the term, “fiscal flatulence.”
Mark-NC
It is said that the truth will set you free. That certainly applies here. If the truth gets out about McCain and his staff, he will be free of the possibility of winning the election. He can simply go back to being a bad Senator.
Xenos
Lets let the old codger secure the nomination before destroying him, OK? So just chill.
Conservatively Liberal
The overpaid and underperforming CEO is right at home in the Republic Party, and they are going to be despised just as much as the rest of the fReichtards. This mess we are in was led by the right, abetted by some on the left and supported by corporate America.
Mr. John McGoo is a disaster looking for a place to happen, and if he wins this fall then we deserve it.
dan robinson
Yes, McCain is off reading “Greenspan’s book” so he really understands how retiring government debt is a bad thing.
Liberal Masochist
I thought the aside about Bloomberg was interesting. I don’t see him joining up with McCain. I wonder what is next on the horizon for him. I can’t see him hanging it up and not pursuing some higher office at some point in the future. A presidential run would seem to be likely, but I think he correctly guessed that this was going to be a bad year for Republicans despite the fact that he is not your typical Republican.
dnA
While y’all may be sick of the whole New Yorker thing, I think Lee Siegel in the Times nails it:
dbrown
When right-wingers get angry at the repubic candidate for the presidency, then you know that party is in trouble – twenty percenter’s© and similar losers won’t carry the day. McSames hope is that in American, one drop of black blood makes you black. Wait still the average red neck discovers that Obama has a black love child … .
dbrown
When right-wingers get angry at the repubic candidate for the presidency, then you know that party is in trouble – twenty percenter’s© and similar losers won’t carry the day. McSames hope is that in American, one drop of black blood makes you black. Wait till the average red neck discovers that Obama has a black love child … .
The Grand Panjandrum
This is GREAT NEWS!!!!!! For John McCain.
/Mark Halperin
Jake
I’d say that Rich article is a must-read. It really is astonishing just how bad a candidate McCain has proven to be on one hand, and just how completely that’s been ignored by the MSM on the other.
McCain die-hards (all three of them) will read that and assume that Rich is just a lefty spinning the facts. I mean, that stuff can’t really be true, right? The sad fact of the matter is that Rich doesn’t need to spin a damn thing.
dnA
“All three of them?” don’t you mean our entire political press corps?
jake
Hey now! Custer was never a POW. And. Um … Look Obama is wearing less-than-patriotic cuff links!
Jake
I don’t view the press corps as die-hard McCain supporters so much as I view them as incompetent. Yes, I know that many in the press like the McMaverick and the access he gives them, but that alone doesn’t explain what we’re seeing this election season.
In my opinion, the main reason they don’t focus on McCain is because they’ve decided he’s boring. Or, put another way, the vast majority of their viewers would rather hear about Obama – the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s something of a wash, no? Everything Obama does right gets way more coverage than it deserves, while stuff like the cover of The New Yorker is blown way out of proportion. Meanwhile, just about nothing McCain does or says is picked up. It’s completely irresponsible of the news media, and I suspect it’s more than infuriating to both camps, but that’s where we are today with our tabloid-driven infotainment.
4tehlulz
That’s next month’s cover.
AkaDad
Why is Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki waving the white flag of surrender?
smiley
Many of us said that in 2004 and now, here we are.
Redhand
Props to you, Michael D., for the heads-up on this article. Every time I think I’m finally inured to the hopeless incompetence of John McCain, a reminder like this hits me in the gut. Contemplating McCain as president is like visiting the porcelain god to ralph your insides out because of flu, hoping there’s no more gag reflex to prolong your misery, then finding you’re right back where you started, buying a Buick.
Beyond McCain’s sheer cluelessness, what really nauseates me is his laision with Phil Gramm. Fuckers like Gramm have fed at the public trough and enriched themselves through political connections so long that their ability to relate to the common citizen is non-existent. The only honest thing about Gramm is how obvious his contempt is for the rest of us.
I pray that the electorate sees this gang of theives for what they are, and votes Obama in. I’m really beginning to fear that the Republic simply can’t handle another term of Republican misrule.
jrg
Carly Fiorina’s presence on the McCain campaign is inexcusable. I bring her up every time I talk to a “fiscal conservative”. Conservative, moderately wealthy business owners don’t care for her because of her piss poor leadership of HP, and her 42 million dollar severance package.
Between that and her riffing on subjects like birth control, she should be able to damage the McCain ticket. I hope that McCain is dumb enough to pick her as VP if HRC is not picked to run on the Obama ticket.
Speaking of economics, why did Bush stop the saber rattling with Iran? Was the threat of further action in Iran driving up the price of oil, and Bush figured he should cut that out to reduce damage to the GOP in November? Or did the Iranians capture an American during an American covert operation in Iran?
I’d be interested in hearing some other hypotheses… diplomacy before blowing shit up is not typical of the Bush administration.
Bill H
I agree that that is one part of it. I believe the other part is that they want to hype a “close race” as much as possible. They did that with Obama/Clinton long after the latter was numerically defeated, hyping her “I will never give up” meme and positing a comeback because, no matter how non-factual it was, it was exciting news. If they portray McCain as being as thoroughly incompetent as he actually is there would be no “close horse race” for them to hyperventilate about.
Svensker
Lee Siegel? The NYT publishes Lee Siegel? The same Lee Siegel who wrote this about the baseball/steroids scandal, in 2007:
Or just google Lee Siegel and Sprezzatura.
TR
Damn, that Rich column is a masterpiece.
dbrown
How can a right-winger get the facts (facts for once!) correct considering what they accept and overlook relative to the puppet king and his master, bloody-hands cheney and their criminal behavior?
Notorious P.A.T.
You could have said the same thing about Bush in 2000 (and people like me did).
McCain could have his brain surgically removed and still get 33% of the vote, at least.
Brachiator
The McCain piece is great. Unfortunately, it appears in the “liberal” New York Times, which some people have been conditioned to automatically reject.
Actually, there is something fundamentally absurd about Siegel arguing against free speech in a newspaper. Siegel’s analogy is pretty dumb also.
Ironically, this helps McCain somewhat, who also has a goes along with a kind of Teflon. His supporters give him the benefit of the doubt despite his gaffes, contradictions, denials, etc., and the lack of coverage allows them to never have to deal with the inconsistencies.
Meanwhile, what is one of the top stupid statements made about Obama despite the greater coverage that he gets?
“I don’t really know him or what he stands for.”
Dave_Violence
Frank Rich, like Bob Herbert, is usually unreadable. He’s the classic ivory tower NYT writer whose head is firmly up his ass on a regular basis. However, “Mr. McCain made a big show of banishing Mr. Gramm after his whining “gaffe,” but it’s surely at most a temporary suspension.” He removed it far enough to give McCain some good advice: Ger Phil Gramm back on your time, dude. Americans are whiners, especially when it comes to their own accountability (I’m talking about citizens specifically, not elected officials in this instance, so douse that flame) regarding getting themselves in debt.
jake
Clearly we need to re-invade Iraq.
Except the GOP won’t hesitate to say look what happens when we’re nice and admit the lesser humans in our big not-at-all-elitist tent. Silly broads say dumb things that make the indulgent menfolks look bad. Back to the kitchens you c^nts!
This hypothesis will be proven/disproven if the Broken Axle Express gets a non-Caucasian spokesperson.
Martin
So why do we put more money into institutional bailout than individual bailout? Or are CEOs bigger whiners than non-CEOs?
And all of those investor/borrow fraud investigations are fraud of who? Clearly not citizens as you seem to suggest. Who then?
Oh, and on a more pragmatic front – how does calling the electorate ‘whiners’ get the electorate to vote for you, even if they are whiners?
The Pale Scot
Gen. Custer, I love it, how perfect,
a) last in class at WestPoint, check
Gained advancement thru personal connections, Check
Ignores the second law of warfare, mistakes subjective evidence
of success as objective reality (see “Battle of Trevilian Station” see also “surge”) check
Tony J
No, but it is entirely typical of them to pretend to engage in diplomacy, then, when the other side fails to issue a tearful apology admitting that the White House’s position was right all along, announce that diplomacy has failed, so the only option left is military force and no-bid contracts for all the usual suspects.
See – Iraq, 2002/3.
dnA
Do you understand what free speech is? It’s a matter of government censorship, not people getting mad at you when you say something idiotic or wrong.
I don’t know how the analogy is “dumb” in fact I think it’s spot on. But I’m guessing you don’t know why it’s dumb either, because you didn’t offer an actual argument.
dnA
Yeah, feel free to cite a quote that supports the argument that that is what Siegel was doing. Do you understand what free speech is? It’s not freedom from criticism. As though your right to say something stupid is more sacrosanct than someone else’s right to point out what you’ve said is obnoxious, offensive, wrong or stupid.
Susan Kitchens
From the article:
Oh, snap!
Dave_Violence
Martin, you asshole, I was specifically addressing the every-day US citizen, who, mostly the left, thinks is too stupid to vote properly, let alone breathe, are the ones who dug themselves their own fiscal hole, not the super rich CEOs (they do whine, yes). That’s why I put that caveat in the parentheses, dickhead.
KRK
Do tell.
Chris Johnson
Yes, but if we’re that fucked up isn’t it better to have it out in the open?
The alternative apparently means “we have to tread lightly with these people and honor their fucked-up views- let’s compromise and be about as half as fucked-up as they would like us to be”.
Fuck that!
MattF
Don’t forget that McCain got blown out of the water by none other than Karl Rove in 2000– McCain does -not- know how to run a good political campaign where there’s a competent opponent. He’s the Repub candidate because all the others (including Romney) were worse.
MattF
Hmm. Plz ignore the crossover in the above post.
dbrown
Lets see, what fiscal hole have most people gotten into? Trying to pay medical bills (#1 cause of fiscal failure), feed and cloth and pay energy bills? No, you think these people are what? are all welfare queens? and you say liberals are calling people stupid?
Lets look at reality: The mortgage companies with 5 trillion in debt going tits up after giving loans with no proof of income or salary history?
The puppet king with an illegal war and a growing and maybe 3 trillion dollar war debt for the US taxpayer? and attacking the wrong country based on lies that were known to be based on non-evidence? Or turning a large surplus into unending debt and expanding a DoD budget to well over half a trillion dollars to fight a few hundred losers hiding in caves? Or the fact that these few losers are still alive and hiding and the country protecting them is his best butt buddy? And that country sold nukes to a another country that killed over 35,000 Americans? and butt head bushwhack is rewarding them for setting off a nuke and continuing to build enriched U235 nukes?
No you are past dead wrong with your general statement. Liberals know who the stupid masses are and they are all the people who support and agree with this idiot and these beyond stupid policies!
The same assholes who think voter failed is a big problem and want massive voter ID laws when it has been proven this is a rightwing myth?
So, except for these proven morons(repubics, and such elected officials), what other people do liberals believe are stupid?
Give a series of solid examples that prove your rather general and incorrect statement has any bases in fact.
Brachiator
Actually, the issue of free speech goes beyond 1st Amendment issues of government restrictions on speech.
Siegel begins with an argument about whether the New Yorker cover was effective satire, which is debatable, but moves to the argument about whether doing the cover at all was “appropriate.”
He calls the illustration “incendiary,” but apart from some people clutching their pearls over its supposed offensiveness, I don’t see that the cover caused riots — or even much affected the standing in the polls of either Obama or McCain.
Siegel’s analogy was not sufficiently similar to the Obama cover, and seemed to me simply the outpouring of the typical white liberal racist who pretends to abhor racist images while actually wallowing in them. The New Yorker cover plays with politicized images, and the idea that the Obamas are too un-American to be worthy of the Oval Office. How is that remotely related to the images of racism and sexual violence in Siegel’s idiot hypothetical?
Siegel uses his analogy to attempt to play a rhetorical game. He wants to remind his readers that they are “good” Northern liberals and not “bad” Southern rednecks. But he gives the game away up when he talks about what the cover should have done:
This is the heart of all the phony clutch-the-pearl swooning, the false sense of outrage, the bleating over the inappropriateness of the New Yorker cover. It did not simplistically skewer the right wing while reminding lefties that their hearts are pure.
But the reality of course is that the New Yorker readership consists of a number of people who believe that Obama is a stealth Muslim and who are distinctly uncomfortable that he is upsetting the settled order. The New Yorker rightfully rubs these people’s noses in their own hypocrisy. That, even Siegel would have to admit, is what satire is all about.
Now, for me, this nails it:
Lulu
But the reality of course is that the New Yorker readership consists of a number of people who believe that Obama is a stealth Muslim and who are distinctly uncomfortable that he is upsetting the settled order. The New Yorker rightfully rubs these people’s noses in their own hypocrisy. That, even Siegel would have to admit, is what satire is all about.
As a typical white liberal, let me say: What a bunch of fucking bullshit. I assume you chose the moniker “Brachiator” for the obvious reason that you have the IQ of a monkey.