The McCain campaign can start drinking heavily:
The major Sunni sheik who John McCain said was protected by the surge and subsequently helped lead the Anbar Awakening, was actually assassinated by an al-Qaeda led group in midst of the surge.
On Tuesday evening, McCain falsely claimed that the downturn in violence in Iraq’s Anbar province was a result of the surge, when in fact the surge began months afterward. Moreover, he said, if it weren’t for the work of U.S. forces, the major Sunni figure leading that awakening wouldn’t have had the protection he needed.
***The Arizona Republican’s campaign went further the next day, claiming that the major figures that turned around Anbar province would have been killed had the surge policy not been in place. “If Barack Obama had had his way, the Sheiks who started the Awakening would have been murdered at the hands of al Qaeda,” said spokesman Tucker Bounds.
Sadly, that murder took place even with the surge underway. In September 2007, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the sheik widely credited with persuading Sunni leaders to turn against al Qaeda in Iraq, died in a bomb attack in Anbar. His work, prior to then, was held as a major effort in transforming the province from one of Iraq’s deadliest areas into one of its safest.
This has gone from a serious campaign into something of a hybrid modern art masterpiece/comedy sketch. To call the McCain campaign a train wreck is to portray it too positively. Seriously, all these self-inflicted wounds this week are on his strong topic. On his weak topic, the economy, he tries to go to an oil rig to get some press attention, and has to cancel because of an oil spill and a hurricane.
*** Update ***
Off topic but not worthy of a separate post, I have a super hot scoop for Patrick Ruffini– sometimes, when foreign companies advertise their products in the United States, they use English, and not their native tongue, as you would have thought. It turns out that if you are Volkswagen, and you are wanting to reach people in the US, you should use English rather than German. I know, I know, that sounds crazy, but it is true.
Also, they even pronounce Volkswagen differently here in the states! I am sure there is a story in there somewhere.
4tehlulz
Is it possible for a campaign to troll itself? Cuz that seems to be what the McCain campaign is doing here.
JR
This is the new best week ever.
In other news…
Dreggas
I am dying of laughter here. I probably shouldn’t be but this is like the movie GO!, it’s one of those “But wait, it gets worse” things.
Dreggas
I should sue you for the brain damage I received after being compelled to bang my head on the desk repeatedly while reading that…
TR
Unbelievable.
Any chance this will pierce the media bubble? Chuck Todd is on Hardball right now saying that “the American people have already made up their minds that McCain is ready to be president.”
Christ, and he’s normally one of the sane ones.
Incertus
Oh wow. You know the saying about how fiction has to be more real than reality is, because reality constantly throws stuff at us that we’d never believe if someone made it up? Yeah, that’s McCain’s campaign this week.
EJ
Pfft. Whatever. Didja hear that Obama is giving a speech in GERMANY!?!?!?
OMG!!!OMG!!!
I’m pretty sure we’re all horrified, for some reason.
maxbaer (not the original)
Wow, even God is against him. Maybe Obama really is the messiah.
cyntax
Wow. We’re going to need some sort of highly innovative technique for graphically representing large data sets if we’re ever going to compile a summary of the McCain campaign’s blunders.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Nein!
jrg
The McCain campaign has turned into a complete and total goat rodeo.
If the oil rig abortion was about energy independence, then why go to an oil rig? Everyone with half a brain knows we’re not going to drill our way to independence. Why not go to a solar, hydroelectric, or coal gasification plant?
If this is about pain at the pump, couldn’t he have found a way get the message across better, like doing an ad from a gas pump? Christ, even BP has the sense to lie and call themselves “Beyond Petroleum”.
Does McCain want people to think he’s in bed with big oil? This man’s inept campaign is reason enough not to vote for him.
The Briscoe Kid
And we’re only a month away from Katrina’s anniversary which coincides with McCain’s birthday which will remind people that he’s really really old and that he was also eating birthday cake with George W Bush as New Orleans drowned.
Incertus
So why isn’t he winning?
demkat620
Dear god, how do these people even get out of bed in the morning? What part of this is a non issue don’t they understand?
PeterJ
He could have borrowed Fred Thompson’s little old red pickup truck. It’s just collecting dust anyway, still hoping that it will do photo ops in 2012.
JR
I’m going to need a notarized, stamped, sealed original handwritten note from your doctor, accompanied by his original medical school diploma and his original birth certificate and DNA samples from him and his parents to verify this claim. And I need all three of them to deliver this information to me in person.
Jim
Unfortunately, it is the blogsphere that is paying attention to McCain’s idiotic ramblings – for the most part it is being buried in the liberal MSM.
Martin
That’s awesome.
If they had a photo of Obama as a projectile flying out of his mom’s uterus, quite obviously in a Hawaii hospital, I have no doubt that a team of physicists would be employed to calculate his trajectory in order to prove that he in fact landed in Tuvalu and isn’t eligible.
Zifnab
LOLS!
Wow. Now will someone please queue the McCain campaign “Why can’t we get more media coverage?” meme? Seriously, right about now it would be great to get the flood lights on this guy. This is just too amazingly hilarious.
Brachiator
McCain’s chief campaign adviser is obvious Brett Favre:
Shouting at the Rain
It turns out that if you are Volkswagen, and you are wanting to reach people in the US, you should use English rather than German. I know, I know, that sounds crazy, but it is true.
Well, not always. Remember “farfugnugen” = Volkswagen
Plus the word “schadenfreude” is being used quite a bit lately…
syl
I know it’s unfortunate, but I think that’s probably true, at least as a general proposition. Most people don’t pay close attention to politics at all, an they recognize McCain’s name and say, “sure I guess he could be president.” Now, whether he’s ready and whether he’s preferable are two different questions, and McCain is faring more and more poorly on that second one, despite the SprinkleMedia’s best efforts.
The Grand Panjandrum
Heh. Go back to the blog and click the link to the blog rules at the top of the page. Jesus! The comment section is a fucking goldmine.
Heh. Why can’t they just speak English like the rest of us! Damn, Krauts! Didn’t we already beat them to a pulp once? Ungrateful, I say. Ungrateful.
Your point is well taken. Shouldn’t the guy who was for the Surge before the Surge came to life at least know a few simple facts?
I will admit to being at a loss to understand most of McCain’s logic. He’s has already declared that we won in Iraq. OK, then isn’t the next step to start withdrawal? Oh wait, we won, but we didn’t really finish the job yet, because we won the victory that was won … SHIT!!! LOOK AT THE SHINY OBJECTS!!!
Why is he so goddamned confusing?
McCain ’08: Hey, I don’t dribble oatmeal down my chin so vote for me!
pablo
If in fact, a gaffe happens in a a MSM forest,and doesn’t make a sound, does it really matter?
nightjar
Well I think Texas Darlin may be onto to something with;
I know I haven’t seen Obama’s baby picture. His campaign ought to post them on his website pronto. It seems the MCcain camp is once again “Johnnie on the spot” by releasing their candidates baby photo.
The Grand Panjandrum
That certainly explains why Mickey Kaus seems to get so aroused when writing about McCain.
Bubblegum Tate
I fear that even the mighty Venn diagram is not up to this task.
HumboldtBlue
Wow, even God is against him. Maybe Obama really is the messiah.
Or, as Betty Cracker put it so beautifully … After stepping on his dick all week (McCain, not God), the candidate decided to suck some oxygen away from Obama’s World Tour by staging an oil rig photo op to polish his domestic policy cred. And God promptly smote the oil rig with Hurricane Dolly.
Sweet weeping Jesus on a windmill, McCain just can’t win. Odds are he crashes the Straight Talk Express into a war orphan burn unit before this is over.
http://rumproast.com/
I think those planes in McCain’s poster are already in tailspin.
gypsy howell
I had a shitty day. And so I want to thank each and every one of you, from John on down through the lowliest commenter (you know who you are) for the laugh riot that ensued from reading this post and the thread. Bless you all.
Bless you all.
Jeffro
I’ll second Gypsy Howell on that one, and my day wudn’t even half bad.
Bra-VO!
Frank
Well, I think it’s news junkies who are paying attention. Not all news junkies are bloggerific.
But, ya know what, we can actually like talk to people in person too.
And what I came here to do was simply to compliment the opening line of the post.
The Grand Panjandrum
Thank you. Being a lowlife has been a lifelong aspiration. Nice to have someone finally acknowledge my life’s work. (I’m one of those annoying people who
thinksKnows everything is about them.)Davebo
OT:
Swift is on fire!
Read the rest
pakaal
English, English Uber Alles!
Wow, I guess Patrick Ruffini isn’t a JFK fan. Sure, Kennedy called himself a donut in Berlin, but at least he did it in German!
rob!
isn’t it funny how scared the wingnuts are that Obama will be some power-mad, vindictive president? gee, if only they hadn’t let the current president grab all kinds of power the Constitution doesn’t allow him to have, and now might be bestowed upon Obama.
“Obama for President: The Blood of the Wingnuts Will Flow Down Pennsylvania Avenue Like An Uncorked Bottle of Wine.”
The Dangerman
The wheels came off with the reviews of McCain’s Balls (golf, you sick people). They were riding on rims for a while until those ripped off, too. I don’t know how they are still going down the road in the Express…
John O
Yeah, it has been a funny week. But Obama is still up only 6 nationally, and most of the swing states are still very close.
As I like to say when I’m pointing out what a loser of a candidate McCain is to my wingnut friends and acquaintances, “It sure is lucky for him he’s running against a black guy.”
Oh, and being on vacation this week, and getting an above-average news fix (which is saying something) I can tell you that the MSM is still working very hard to make this a horse race, and they have all the power, CBS. Hell, Andrea Mitchell is so far in the bag for McCain she can’t contain herself.
McCain is moving hard to court those low-information voters, and it is stupid to underestimate how many of them there are. I still call this election 50-50.
On the upside, a McCain win will ruin the GOP for decades, most likely. The downside is that most of us will be dragged down with it.
Jeff
Totally Off-Topic, but Weezer is aware of all YouTube traditions.
I think they left off a few, but not bad, considering the got the original “celebrities” in the video.
(From Crooks and Liars.)
Kevin
I’ve been wondering if they’ve been doing that already.
skippy
well i’m thinking that this stuff is actually starting to seep into the mmm (multi-millionaire media).
olbermann&co. is still hammering cbs for editing mclame’s interview w/morning personality katie couric to remove that gaffe about the surge, and abrams was gleeful and even tweety reported novak’s hit and run today.
was ruffini anbetrifft, er kann meinen hahn saugen.
Tsulagi
Yep.
Said it before, the way McCain’s “senior moments” are accelerating you could probably start getting betting odds whether McCain by November remembers what he’s running for. I almost feel a little sorry for him.
Really have to wonder who’s going to want a seat on this slow motion train wreck as his VP on the ticket. Have a feeling more than a few potential picks are now starting to be a little slow in returning phone calls from the maverick’s staff. Some are soon going to be having other priorities.
What would be bizarre is if the Democrats really dig deep finding a way to lose this thing. Now that would be Epic Fail.
Jon H
Well, okay. Would you believe he was assassinated peacefully.
Salty Party Snax
A video showing that bastion of the librul media, CBS News, attempting to cover-up John McCain’s senior moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDIAsS9VXiM
Jon H
“The McCain campaign can start drinking heavily”
I’m sure they’re already downing Ensure by the case.
Did you mean something stronger?
Heshe
Tucker Bounds! What kind of name is that?
Studly Pantload
Well, the tossed-about-name with his whole political future ahead of him, Bobby Jindal, has already told Fox Opinion, “I’m not going to be the vp nom, or vp.” (There’s smart move 1 for his career; now, he might wanna re-think the whole party affiliation thang.)
I dunno, I can’t say I’ve never seen him try to eat oatmeal. Have you?
Wilfred
Apparently not. It was only yesterday that McCain asserted that Obama was willing to lose a war in order to win the election. I didn’t see it reported anywhere, and it makes his gaffes today seem less than startling.
Studly Pantload
Double negatives: They’re not just for Romance languages, anymore!
TR
Jindal’s a far-right Catholic nutcase who’s actually performed exorcisms. I think the GOP should keep him.
El Cid
This Abu Risa fellow sacrificed his life in support of The Surge, the most important military-strategic event ever to have taken place in 10,000 lifetimes, and now seditious anti-Americanners like you want to demean his sacrifice and impugn the integritude of John McCain.
You don’t even deserve to live in this country, let alone enjoy the rights and liberties The Surge gave you.
Litlebritdifrnt
“Christ, even BP has the sense to lie and call themselves “Beyond Petroleum””
Thats cause the good ole American Patriots would never buy gas from a company called “British Petroleum”. :) “Didn’t we beat those m-f, in a war or something?”
Studly Pantload
Point taken. If there’s a party in need of an exorcist right now…
Dreggas
Channelling Wilfred Brimley:
“This is Wilfred Brimley, you may know me from those quaker Oats commercials. Well I know John McCain, and John McCain has indeed dribbled oatmeal down his chin.”
This message was bought and paid for by Oatmeal Spokesman for Truth.
Davis X. Machina
Everyone with half a brain knows we’re not going to drill our way to independence…
That’s the problem with majoritarian forms of governance…
RSA
For non-German readers, here’s a translation of the German-language propaganda on Obama’s flyer (aside from location and time):
Admission tickets are not required.
This event is free and open to the public.
Please use public transportation.
Please limit personal items you bring in.
Signs and glass containers are not allowed.
My God, the first three messages clearly identify Obama as the anti-Bush.
harlana pepper
‘slow motion train wreck’ – that just says it all. LOL
NR
John – The problem is, the media is covering all this shit up. CBS even went so far as to remove a segment of an interview where McCain got some facts about the surge wrong, and replaced it with an answer to another question.
They are flat-out shilling for McCain, just like they did for Bush. And that’s why McCain still has an excellent chance to win this election.
Jim Henley
I realized Patrick Ruffini was a tool in October 2001. I was just a little toddler of a bloggist then, but Glenn Reynolds linked Ruffini heavily – talk about your early warnings! Anyway, there was anthrax. (Nobody seems to remember this any more, but there was.) Patrick Ruffini explained on his blog what the Bush Administration needed to do in response, which was, he said, first, reassure the nation by telling the people that “We know who did this” and are dealing with them. That era of Ruffini’s blog is down the memory hole, but what struck me with the force of thunder at the time was that at no point did Ruffini suggest that, as a prerequisite to assuring the American people that “We know who did this,” the White House needed to actually know who did that. The factual matter of whether the Administration knew anything was utterly beside the point.
With that kind of attitude, I expected the boy to have gotten a lot farther by now. Do you think he has some kind of drug problem or something, that makes him underachieve?
TR
I think we’re just one more big self-inflicted wound from the McCain campaign before we have to resurrect Kennesaw Mountain Landis to investigate.
It’s not that implausible. McCain played with Shoeless Joe Jackson in the farm leagues in 1908.
demkat620
Well it’s certainly better than Dick Wadhams
harlana pepper
Nice try, RSA but there are secret, coded messages in there which are only understood by the underground German Nazi movement, with which Obama will collude to take over the world after he seizes the presidency.
Pastor John Hagee
Dear Senator McCain,
How’s that endorsement working out for ya?
Payback’s a bitch, huh?
If you have any more weather related issues, have our mutual friend Joe Lieberman give me a call and we’ll talk.
harlana pepper
Oops, I just realized I let slip the McCain campaign’s next talking point! Shhhh.
nightjar
UPDATE
Obama camp has answered calls to provide baby photo of candidate. Says Mccain can suck on this awhile.
Pastor John Hagee
Andrew
Sorry I’m a little lost. I thought the surge was centered on Baghdad. My question is how did it then affect the creation of awakening groups in Anbar? Sorry if I missed something but that doesn’t make any sense at all.
Carnacki
John, you might like this about WV GOP political gee whiz kid Vic Sprouse.
w vincentz
At least someone commented on Ruffini’s blog.
Poor guy, must be as lonely as the Maytag man.
Notorious P.A.T.
What would be bizarre is if the Democrats really dig deep finding a way to lose this thing.
That would suck, but it wouldn’t be strange. It’s the Democrats we’re talking about here.
Brachiator
Damn! Coincidence? Or, not? Katie appears to be trying to deflect criticism for sucking up to McCain by blaming … (wait for it)…. SEXISM (Katie Couric thinks both she and Sen. Hillary Clinton are victims of sexism):
Martin
Last bastion of male dominance? Yeah, all those female players in the NFL are waaaaay better off than she it.
gex
jrg says: “Everyone with half a brain knows we’re not going to drill our way to independence.”
Ah, come on now, you know that’s not his base.
My God, McCain’s campaign is so bad that I’m almost glad the MSM is criminally negligent in doing their jobs. What would we do if we as a nation, not to mention the rest of the world, came to the realization that a man with these kinds of ideas is a viable candidate for the presidency? Who could ever respect the position again?
Chris Johnson
Oh man- this all is too funny.
Apparently Novak did not run over a lawyer- the lawyer chased him on a bike. Certainly more exciting and dangerous than ambulance chasing! But it deprives us of the chance to remind Novak that you have to run over lawyers twice, and then shoot them with a silver bullet at a crossroads at midnight :)
As for the oil rig- can natural and manmade disaster BE more awesome? :)
gex
Speaking of performance art, let’s give a hand to the Packers and Brett Favre. He called the Vikings from a Packer phone, and is now talking about maybe not applying for reinstatement? Sounds like a frame job to me.
I hope the Packers get nailed for a salary cap violation on said phone if the Vikings get nailed for tampering.
aarrgghh
the ruffini nonsense reminds me of an obscure poem i found many years ago in a philly weekly:
aarrgghh
jeez that really got farked up. let’s try again:
Brachiator
Sadly, everyone doesn’t know this. The Bush Administration and the GOP are working hard to push this lie in order to support Bush’s executive order opening up areas to drilling.
And the suckers are eating it up. During my commute, I listened to California Republican Congressman Ed Royce pushing drilling on one of the local talk radio stations. The hosts and the callers were eating it up, especially when this guy pointed out how Cuba and Venezuela were drilling near Florida, falsely implying that Democratic Party opposition was allowing these nations to steal our oil.
Gus
He’s going for a majority, not the people with half a brain. I swear, our overconfidence is going to sink us.
AnneLaurie
Everyone with half a brain knows we’re not going to drill our way to independence.
As others have said, ‘people in possession of a functioning forebrain’ is not the McCain target demographic. That’s why McCain advisors are asking Adam Sandler if he’d take the VP slot — but only because Eddie Murphy’s people won’t take their calls.
Royston Vasey
Vorsprung Durch Teknik as a famous German car commercial campaign once said.
=)
Johnny Pez
Don’t tease me like that.
Michael D.
Yglesias also has written on the Ruffini post. My favorite quote from his comments section:
Texas Dem
Tell me, if the McCain campaign is such a train wreck (and I don’t dispute that point), then why are these polls so damn close? A new batch of polls were released today showing the race tightening still further. McCain is ahead in Colorado and Michigan is essentially tied. Same story in New Hampshire. McCain is also ahead in Ohio, according to Rasmussen. Sort of makes you wonder what will happen in September and October, when presidential races nearly always tighten. There are probably many reasons for this, including race, but one thing that is definitely hurting Obama at this point is offshore drilling. I know it’s bullshit but the cruel lesson of modern American politics (you’d think Dems would have learned by now, after the disasters of 1988, 2000, and 2004) is that you fight bullshit with even better bullshit of your own. Hillary Clinton, for all of her obvious faults, understands that. Repeat after me: “President McCain.” “President John McCain.”
By the way, I’m not a plant for the McCain campaign–really. I actually despise the man and happen to believe, based on the awful campaign he’s been running, that he will probably be a terrible president. But he’s going to win this election. Whether that’s due to mistakes on Obama’s part or race is for others to determine.
Zuzu's Petals
Almost as bad, McCain REPEATS his outrageous comment about Obama wanting to lose a war to win a campaign, and Couric lets it pass.
Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.
binzinerator
Because there are more stupid people than you thought?
Because half the people in this country are statistically stupider than average, and all you need to win is 50% + 1 vote?
Because 66 million people voted for an even stupider man to be president, and that was after 4 years of being able to read hundreds of news articles, see dozens of videos, and search the intertubes for proof of his idiocy?
And finally…
Because we got and may just yet get the government the stupid deserve.
binzinerator
Which just goes to show you…
“You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can fool all of the stupid people all of the time.”
I just made that up. And damn proud of it, too.
I don’t think McCain will win — you now have to be among the stupid of the stupids to be one of his bobble-heads, or a fundy social con, or a pantswetter.
In short, you have to be an unrepentant gooper, and enough have defected that I don’t think 50% + 1 is gonna work for McBullshit.
Texas Dem
While we’re on the subject of polls, we also need to consider that Obama’s actual polling numbers are probably a little lower than these new polls suggest, mainly due to the Bradley effect. This would mean that McCain is actually ahead right now in many crucial swing states. Bob Herbert brought up this issue on Hardball tonight and I think he’s right on target. Unless Obama has a high single digit lead going into the election, McCain wins. This is starting to remind me of the late Spring contest between Hillary and Obama, where the pundits and polls kept predicting the race was over yet Hillary won most of the big states anyway. Could history be repeating itself?
TenguPhule
Yep, Obama is about to clean another clock.