The newest line of attack:
A leading surrogate for John McCain called Barack Obama “frighteningly inexperienced” Tuesday, the latest effort from the Arizona senator’s presidential campaign to step up its criticism of the Democratic presidential candidate while he travels abroad.
Speaking on a conference call with reporters, Rep. Heather Wilson, R-New Mexico, sharply criticized Obama and his presidential campaign for suggesting the Iraqi government had endorsed his timetable for withdrawal from the war-torn country.
Aside from the fact that she is just wrong or lying about the iraqi government, let us take a look at the kind of experience Heather Wilson brings to the table:
Rep. Heather Wilson has long been among the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress, eking out wins in a Democratic-leaning New Mexico district because of her independent reputation and persistent campaigning.
She now faces a new challenge to her future as well as her reputation: involvement in a growing political tempest over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys by the Justice Department.
Wilson acknowledged Monday night that last October she contacted then-New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to inquire about the pace of a corruption probe against the state treasurer, a Democrat. But she firmly denied calling to pressure Iglesias to speed the indictment process.
The real Republican experience- being crooked from top to bottom, from the former Keating Five candidate to the surrogates who speak for him.
merl
McBush doesn’t really have all that much military experience.
I won’t question his integrity by mentioning the USS Forrestal fire because that would be wrong.
I’ll also forget all of the planes he crashed and the fact that he is a reverse ace.
That wouldn’t be right.
calipygian
Yeah, that inexperienced Barack Obama. He sure looked inexperienced meeting with all those foreign leaders the last week.
zoe from pittsburgh
It’s the only card they have left– after this one is played they have nothing to do except sit back and let all of their “independent” orgs swiftboat him.
I just turned on Morning Joe. Apparently the GOP spin against the fact that Iraq and Bush are suddenly talking about an Iraq pullout “horizon” (cough, timetable) is that Obama was against the surge. Thankfully General Wesley Clark was invited to school hapless Joe and said that Joe was breaking it far down too simplistically, that it isn’t about the surge, that we never had enough people on the ground to begin with. Joe then tried to say the surge caused the Sunni Awakening– which Clark said wasn’t true at all.
Morning Joe makes me crazy. He’s this sort of likable guy who many don’t seem to know is a card-carrying GOP. Why does he have 3 hours in the morning to try and put a GOP spin on the news?
grandpajohn
Damn good question. Why are all these supposedly non-partisan news channels loaded with the same kind of programs, Some of them like Beck with extremely low ratings. Find any truly progressives with their own shows? My solution don’t watch them,boycott the channels, kill their ratings and ad revenue, drive the assholes bankrupt.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
The 1st Congressional District in New Mexico was traditionally Republican because of the wingnut ranchers in Torrance county (which makes up a sizable chunk of the district). The wingnut vote has been enough to outweigh the strongly Democratic vote in Albuquerque. In spite of this, Heather Wilson owes her electoral successes–particularly in 1998 and 2000–to the New Mexico Green Party who ran Congressional candidates in the District in 1996, 1998, and 2000 and they siphoned enough votes away from the Democratic candidates in 1998 and 2000 to get Wilson re-elected.
The District has been slowly going Democratic. In 2006, Wilson defeated Democrat Patricia Madrid by a margin of only 861 votes.
Wilson will soon be history. She left her House seat to run for the retiring Pete Domenici’s Senate seat but lost in the Republican primary to Club For Growth Republican Steve Pearce. Democrat Tom Udall is leading Pearce by a wide margin in the polls (the most recent Rasmussen poll has Udall with 58% and Pearce with 30%).
Notorious P.A.T.
Barack Obama is so inexperienced, he disagreed with McCain’s awesome gas tax holiday! He’s so inexperienced, he can tell the difference between Sunnis and Shi’as! He’s so inexperienced he knows there is no longer a country called “Czechoslovakia”! etc.
The Grand Panjandrum
I live next to the District and it has always been a slight Democratic majority. Probably close to 50.5%-49.5%. The problem has always been the candidates put up by the Democrats not the Green Party. Had Madrid been a better candidate (and not had a Deer in the Headlights moment at a debate just before Election Day) she would have won. Patricia Madrid lost the race. In a year where Republican incumbency was at least two strikes against anyone in a closely divided district Madrid fucking lost. L-O-S-T. Heather Wilson did not beat her.
I won’t be surprised if the Democrats don’t take the seat in November. If Heinrich wins it will be because Obama’s GOTV machine helped him. The Republican candidate, Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White, is a household name in the area. Jesus, the most dangerous place in the state is the straight line between White and a TV reporter with an open mic and a camera.
But Heather will soon spend more time with her family. As far as I know she has always worked for the government or held public office so I have no idea what she plans to do after January 2009. Good riddance.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
You can’t just blame the Greens. The NM Democratic party has struggled to find good candidates to run against Wilson. Patricia Madrid performed poorly in debates against Wilson in the 2006 election.
The local TV and print media are heavily skewed pro-GOP (the Albuquerque Journal once ran a political hit job against Bill Richardson in the sports section of the newspaper trying to drum up a scandal about his minor league baseball career!) and NM politics is heavily influenced by patronage ties, with Pete Domenici being known locally as “Saint Pete” because of his influence in DC and ability to bring in federal spending (which is a key part of the local economy) and intervene to keep local AFB’s open during the last round of base closures.
St. Pete’s retirement (which means that Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman has moved into the Domenici’s spot at the top tier of the patronage ladder) is one of the big factors in the recent blue shift occurring here.
As usual, all politics is local.
NewUnansweredQuestions
Listening to Mister Magoo this morning bloviating in Pennsylvania, as near as I can tell, his entire campaign theme right now is “OBAMA BAD DON’T VOTE FOR OBAMA.”
That’s it. If OBAMA BAD is your main issue, McCain is your candidate. On the other hand, if you are looking for ideas or policy that might be useful in a difficult and dangerous world, you might want to shop around for something else.
Martin
Note to John: ‘Inexperienced’ is as much an attack on Obama’s age as questioning McCain’s memory is an attack on his age. This has been fair game territory for some time.
Dreggas
As I said over in the comments on a diary at the GOS. It’s been nice to see Obama on this over-seas trip and see how someone aspiring to be president should behave. Once he’s in office we won’t have to worry about him giving shoulder rubs to foreign leaders and in general embarrassing the U.S.
Genine
A McCain aide is now going after Obama’s Holocaust remarks.
Well, it depends. When John McCain says something obviously and completely wrong, attributing it to his memory is kind. Its not good, politically, to call him stupid and/or a liar. So to say he “misremembers” or something’s wrong with his memory is a charitable way of putting it.
Also, look at it this way, the Republicans can’t really go after bad memory as an attack. That very same line was used in their defense in a number of hearings and investigations.
Dreggas
Oh and funny thing, McLame cancelled his press avail today which was the last one he’d have for the week. Guess it’s hard to have to answer all those questions and call it straight talk.
Continuum
I just fail to see how a Republican party hack calling Obama inexperienced merits reporting as news? Seems that this is just the usual political mudslinging. This isn’t even the “man bites dog” story. It’s the “dog sniffs another’s behind” story.
Ella in NM
Believe me folks, Heather Wilson is an authority on FEAR.
She was at a soccer tournament here in NM a couple of years ago, watching one of her kids play my son’s team.
Let me just say, nothing gave me more pleasure than seeing the ghastly horror on her face when my 185lb. 16yr-old goalie came bounding out of the box towards her “frighteningly inexperienced” kid, who immediately blinked and flubbed the shot.
nitish
could one of the BalloonJuice geniuses explain which one of these past maliki proclamations turned out to be true?
(annotating Max Boot):
– may 06: “…Iraqi forces are capable of taking control of security in all of Iraq within 18 months”
– oct 06: “….it’s only a matter of months before they can start leaving and freeing themselves from this burden.”
– jan 07: “The Iraqi government’s need for American troops would ‘dramatically go down’ in three to six months”
when BJ was slightly less full of it, it recognized this bluster: “For those who participated in or materially aided the US occupation, when the Americans go their lives will be worth a half-soy latte at Starbucks. Panic is not too strong a word for those who don’t already have a place reserved on the last helicopter to leave the Green Zone.”
i say only slightly less full of it because BJ was as spectacularly wrong about the surge as obama: “20,000 more troops is a drop in the bucket. Unless we also change how our army operates I doubt that insurgents will even notice.”
does BJ think they noticed anything yet?
BJ’s ‘unexamination’ of maliki’s history of overpromising and underdelivering, appears to be laying the groundwork for future product testing of Lindsey Lohan’s knee pad leggings (fittingly called Mr President)