John McCain’s chief export to Colombia appears to be bullshit:
The Republican senator from Arizona smiled as he denied he ever dissed his understanding of economics and said he was “more experienced than my opponent.”
The Republican presidential candidate made his comments during an exclusive interview from Cartagena, Colombia, with “Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts, who asked McCain why he went abroad when the No. 1 issue for voters was the U.S. economy.
“You have admitted that you’re not exactly an expert when it comes to the economy,” Roberts began.
“I have not. I have not. I actually have not,” McCain interrupted. “I said that I am stronger on national security issues because of all the time I spent in the military. Very strong on the economy. I understand it. I have a lot more experience than my opponent.”
The original remark that prompted Roberts’ question and has haunted McCain slipped out last December in New Hampshire when McCain said, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” He went on to joke, “I have Greenspan’s book,” referring to the biography that has just been published at the time by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
And at a January town hall meeting in Concord, N.H., McCain told the crowd, “I am not an expert on Wall Street. I am not an expert on some of this stuff.”
Several weeks ago he stated he never critiqued the media in his lime-green backdrop speech, when it was clear he absolutely did, in fact, state precisely what he denied he had said. Throw in his now endorsing the GI Bill he opposed all along, and other various things like this, and I really am wondering what he is thinking. Does he not remember saying this stuff, or does he think we don’t remember?
Or does he just think he can get away with it?
*** Update ***
An impressive list, and apparently he does think he can get away with it. Thanks, liberal media!
*** Update #2 ***
Now, video.
4tehlulz
>>Or does he just think he can get away with it?
He has so far. Why stop a good thing?
Tony J
SATSQ
And we watch as the snake, with a minimum of effort, strikes at it’s own tail and takes hold in what can only be called a death-grip.
El Cid
Maverick!
smiley
Steve over at the Carpetbagger Report has been documenting all the flip flops and self contradictions of McCain. Also how the press suddenly doesn’t care about flip flopping. Follow the link in the link I’m posting here. It’s a pretty impressive list.
Buckethead
He *is* getting away with it! If only we could have predicted that the media would let him..
Tim H.
Wasn’t he just in Columbia a little while ago? Did he have to make another coke run this soon?
pablo
Looks like my friend Al Simer visited McCain!
Cols714
The press will let him get away with it. They love him, as was born out by the Schieffer-Clark thing.
Cols714
SATSQ???
Jon Karak
IOKIYAR
Dennis - SGMM
He’s managed to get away with it so far, hasn’t he? It’s hard not to think that the order has come down from on high in the MSM to lay off of McCain. Heaven forbid that we might have a president who would sign a restored Fairness Doctrine back into law.
Brachiator
To the true believer, simply being conservative and Republican makes you more experienced than any liberal, because you are inherently tough minded, and believe in the right things. Cutting taxes (without regard to budget deficits) and belief in “free markets” (with the occasional government bailout) is exactly the same thing as a belief in gravity and young earth creationism.
And note that remarkably, no reporter has yet asked McCain whether his understanding of the economy has improved since he was one of the Keating Five.
Cols714
Dude
No one is going to sign the Fairness Doctrine back into law. It’s gone forever.
cleek
(up from your nap, BJ?)
A “liar” ? Good sir, do you realize you’re talking about John McMavericky McWarHero McCommander Of My McHeart McCain ?
How Dare You besmirch that good man’s military service ? How Dare You ? Have you no sense of decency sir? At long last, have you no sense of decency ?
Har-fucking-rumph!
SpotWeld
Oh no… he’s trying to go for that whole “I’m just a regular guy, just like all you other voters” attitude. (With the subtext of “and the other guy is an elitist snob who you should hate.)
So, how do we get the message of “yeah, you’re probably a nice guy, but I want someone competitent to be in charge.”
Maybe something along the lines of “Do you really want your uncle-in-law to be your boss?”
linda
even as he demeans them…:
McCain senior aide Mark Salter quipped this morning that “only the good reporters” would get to sit in the specially-configured section for interviews. “You’ll have to earn it,” he said.
blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/06/30/straight_talk_express_gets_an.html
Joshua Norton
Republican candidate out of the US for the 4th? hmmm…
1) Didn’t want pics comparing his turnouts with Obama’s crowds for the 4th.
2) Medical procedure.
Dreggas
Funny thing, there was a poll that said more people would want to have a BBQ with Obama than McCain….
Dreggas
How much do you want to bet that when this is all over and McCain is looking for new work he ends up going the Dole rout, but rather than Viagra he becomes the spokesman for memory-loss medications? Or maybe even team up with Dole to peddle a new drug, gingko-viagra, so even John McCain can remember what the fuck he’s doing.
Alex
John McCain: unaware of the internet tradition of recording what he says.
Punchy
There’s no way Obama can win this if the supposed unbiased arbiter of all things “newsworthy” is actually so biased and unabashedly for McCane.
At this point, McCane could go on a rampage, killing feti and kittens and cunts and CNN would roll with wall-to-wall coverage of Obama’s mismatched pants/shirt.
Dreggas
Apparently he likes assaulting foreign officials
TCG
Maybe John McCain forgot he knew Economix back then and said so but remembers he knows Economix today.
And
John McCain has forgotten that he forgot about Economix back then and is merely answering honestly today by denying what he previously said, because he has forgotten.
It could be possible.
Martin
Rick Taylor
Why on earth not? After all, Bush said on multiple occasions we had to invade Iraq because Saddam wouldn’t let the inspectors in, and he got away with it.
That was really creepy. It was already clear by that the reasons they’d given to justify us going to war were false. But I was still shocked at the time the President could say something that was obviously false, that everyone presumably knew was false because we’d lived through it together, and not only would he not be grilled on it, but he’d do it again and again. I still find this really disturbing; it’s in “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia” territory. I’m curious what you thought about Bush’s remark at the time, John, as this was back when you were still on the other side of the debate.
Incertus
How long has it been since McCain was in a real race? 8 years now? A lot has changed in those 8 years, including the way a lot of people get their news.
DannyNoonan
To: John McCain
From: John McCain
Subject: Your name is John
And yesterday you said you were down to drill for oil offshore. You should probably say the same thing today.
Best,
JM
bad dad
Hockey threadjack!
I’m in ur base, signin’ ur d00dz! — Ken Holland.
freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080702/BLOG09/80702064
Dreggas
Let’s not forget, the media today is focused on the fact that Obama got a good mortgage rate because he had good credit, a good job, paid his bills on time, etc.. So of course McCain will never be called to the mat for this just like he won’t be called to the mat for nearly blowing up at a reporter when he was asked if his military service made him more qualified to be president but not too much later was saying his military experience means he has national security and foreign policy cred.
Zifnab
Win.
Wilfred
Bbbbut, his mere presence in a place is enough to free the oppressed:
What timing, But now he’s got to deal with at least 3 more people qualified to be president. They probably speak Spanish, too.
gbear
John McCain has remembered more than most people have ever forgotten.
Jay C
WTF? Is this really a direct quote from Sen. McCain? IIJM, or does this sound like a particularly poorly-programmed robot?
Geez: talk about “passing the Commander-in-Chief threshold”! Is it really too much to want to have a President who’d pass a Turing Test?
ThymeZone
While on his current trip to Columbia, Magoo shook up his campaign and installed a new director, Steve Schmidt, who worked for a firm that lobbied for …. Columbia.
The country, not the record company.
Magoo now has a Columbia lobbyist running his campaign.
The shakeup, according to CNN, was the result of concerns that McCain wasn’t competing successfully with Senator Obama.
But anyway, any news today on how well Obama is treating Muslims at his events? I mean, I don’t want to get my priorities all out of whack here, amirite?
jrg
What Alex said… McCain cannot use a computer. At some point, someone probably told him that “Youtube is for clips of the Daily Show and clips of people doing stupid stuff around the house”. My guess is that a “blog” to him is exactly like a collection of amateur newspaper columns.
New media has a memory, and it catches and sets trends much faster than McCain is probably used to.
If the T.V. refuses to make the distinction between a flip-flop based on new evidence and a flip-flop based on poll numbers, the internet will gladly make that distinction for them.
Fuck the T.V., and everyone on it.
Chuck Butcher
Suppose McCain in Columbia & hostage rescue & trade agreements are a coincidence?
binzinerator
Fix’t for accuracy.
The specially-configured reporter section includes built-in knee pads on the floor to facilitate the constant fellating of McCain.
Dork
I wish he’d have to re-pass the SAT to be Pres, just to watch him bust out his abbacas (sp?) and slide-rule for the math problems.
ThymeZone
Gosh, I dunno, it’s not like I haven’t been telling you what a complete fake this guy is since forever. People in Arizona long ago figured out that McCain is a phony. He wins here because he has a strong political machine behind him, tons of money, and nobody wants to run against him. Not because he has done anything for Arizona, or because the people here like him.
He doesn’t care what he says, really. He figures nobody dares to challenge him.
Chuck Butcher
Columbia hostages – coincidence?
Zifnab
America: Mr. President! Mr. President! We need advice on the mortgage meltdown. What would you suggest we do?
McCain: 500 Internal Server Error
The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request. Please refresh your page or contact your network administrator if you continue to have this result.
ThymeZone
Well duh. Better ‘cue. Better food. Better music.
And I’m sure, better beer.
Davebo
What is truly ironic is that if McCain’s Dad had not been Commander of European Forces he most likely would never have been shot down over Hanoi.
Very few pilots can total 3 aircraft in such a short period of time, two of which were obviously lost due to pilot error, and still get to keep flying.
jake
Brilliant. Foghorn Leghorn is running for pResident.
Mike G
Or does he just think he can get away with it?
The corproate media have been well-trained by eight years of Bush fellating.
Remember “stay the course”? Chimp’s endlessly repeated mantra about Iraq, until the clusterfuck situation couldn’t be hidden anymore, then he proclaimed, “We’ve never been about ‘stay the course'”. And the corporate puppy press obediently never mentioned it again.
youtube.com/watch?v=7w0wTF-QdXQ
Zifnab
Did his father just hate him? How many times does your son’s plane have to go down before you say, “You know, I’d like to have grandkids. John, you’re grounded.”
Davebo
Actually Zifnab, I’d think his Dad would have been pretty embarrassed by the boy graduating 790th out of 795-of the Academy class of 1958.
I wonder how many of the 5 who did worse than McCain got selected for pilot training?
Seitz
Come on, guys, lay off. It’s not like he ever claimed he invented the internet or anything.
Calouste
There were already grandkids. Granted, they were brought in from the first Mrs. McCain’s first marriage, but John formally adopted them.
RSA
Huh. And I thought Economix (emphasis on the second syllable) is what we’ll all be eating when we can’t afford real food any more. . .
Cris
Because “retards with webcams” has too much technical lingo.
Dreggas
Like these people?
Dreggas
In addition to my response to RSA, but hey, at least Jordan is getting a cool 450 million more in aid from us this year
nightjar
There are no more Lois Lanes, and besides this guy would kick Superman’s ass from here till November.
Hell, by election day, the press will have Obama as the next Red Skull and Lex Luther rolled into one skinny black guy from Chicago.
bago
See, that what the tramp stamp with the name in it is all about. Comes in handy, when remembering whose name you are supposed to be yelling.
JL
McCain is a straight talker as long as he has Graham and Lieberman by his side. Not so straight alone.
phobos
I wouldn’t be so sure of that forever thing. There are many “ifs” and “buts” relating to FCC allocation, veto powers and judicial interpretation.
Personally, I don’t think the White House having a virtual propaganda network in effect 24/7 is good for America.
pillsy
Geez: talk about “passing the Commander-in-Chief threshold”! Is it really too much to want to have a President who’d pass a Turing Test?
What makes you say is it really too much to want to have a President who’d pass a Turing Test?
pillsy
What makes you say is it really too much to want to have a President who’d pass a Turing Test?
Just Some Fuckhead
If Democrats want the “liberal media” to talk about these things, they’ve gotta push ’em nonstop like the Republicans do. When you see one of those Republican talking fucks on your teevee screen, notice how all he does is hit the same few points over and over, no matter the question. Behind the scenes, you have major league phone calls going on to different members of the press, pushing the same set of themes.
Democrats just think the fourth estate is going to one day get whiff of a damning story and run with it, or see a glaring contradiction and point it out, “journalistically”. Those days are gone forever. The press is more like less ethical NBA refs these days. Since you can’t shame them into journalistic integrity, you just have to keep telling them what they should be doing until they give in and do it. Democrats still lag behind Republicans in using these tactics.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Today’s Tribune Sports headline was, “Mmm! Mmm! Good!”
Nellcote
>Columbia hostages – coincidence?
Iranian hostages released as Raygun comes to power-coincidence?
Dennis - SGMM
Obama has said that it’s not an issue for him. Pelosi has been making noises about bringing it back though and I suspect that even the threat of having to provide both sides of an issue is enough to send our courageous MSM to the barricades.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I saw the video of this exchange on RftWH and McCain flashes his big shit-eating grin after stating, “I have a lot more experience than my opponent.”
Whenever McCain says bullshit or levels an over-the-top attack on Obama he always flashes that grin. It’s like, “Yeah, I just said that. And, you know what? Nobody will call me on it.”
It’s so Bushian it makes me want to scream.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Colombia.
Columbia.
Discuss.
Zifnab
The Carter-Reagen-hostage crisis was more like political blackmail. And Iran got what it paid for a few years later when Reagen started feeding weapons to Saddam’s Iraq. But that you, I’d forgotten about how the 80s was dominated by a giant pack of assholes.
The Columbia thing is just a giant photo-op. McCain rolls into town. Columbia does its song and dance. I don’t see J. Sidney garnering any serious benefit from it other than to be standing in a place that already had cameras set up.
Enlightened Layperson
It’s a shame. I always thought McCain’s admission that he did not know much about the economy was a refreshing bit of honesty. No President is an expert in everything. All have to rely on advisors in some of their weaker areas. The question is how well they choose their advisors. McCain’s choice of economic advisors is not very reassuring.
AkaDad
To be fair, he may not be lying. It’s probably just the result of being tortured.
Jay C
@ pillsy:
My “Turing Test” comment was my reaction to that extraordinarily stilted-sounding quote from Sen. McCain John so thoughtfully posted for us to comment on. Reading it, it looks like something out of the pre-programmed Slogan-O-Matic – and given McCain’s normal delivery, it probably sounded like it, too.
Whatever you think about Barack Obama, at least his quotes sound like normal human speech from a normal human: John McCain often, on the stump, falls short.
cleek
he’s just adapting his tactics to changing conditions on the ground – yet another examples of how his military experience has prepared him for the job of President.
4tehlulz
It probably would have help McCain if people knew or cared about the Colombian hostages.
rachel
Carly Fiorina? OMG, not reassuring at all.
Digital Amish
I’m wondering if any of this stuff makes any difference. Has anybody here (or anybody that frequents political blogs of any stripe for that matter) not made up their mind on how they’re going to vote in November? I don’t know how many undecideds there are out there in the great unwashed masses but my bet is they’re not paying much attention right now. I think the deciding factor for them will be whatever the storyline is that the networks are pushing come mid October.
Rick Taylor
Also his opposition to the Bush tax cuts. Unfortunately, whatever principals he had were thrown overboard in his quest to become President. Maybe after getting beaten by Bush and Rove, he decided principal wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.
Redleg
Even more telling is Cafferty’s reference to John Kerry’s much discussed flip-flopping. It seems these memes stick to Democrats but not to Republicans. In fact, I can think of only two significant instances where Kerry appeared to change positions and those were on the resolution to permit the use of force in Iraq and the Iraq funding bill. In both cases Kerry changed his stance because he thought it was important to finally hold the Bush administration accountable for the mis-management of the war. On both issues Kerry admitted he was initially wrong and changed his opinion because of what had happened after the initial decision. He explained it to the media and the public but it was too fun for the media to act like they couldn’t understand his explanations.
The “liberal” media also aided-and-abetted the wingers in painting Gore as a “pathological liar” while ignoring Bush’s many, many significant transgressions and McCain’s almost daily flip-flopping and bare-faced DENIAL, in spite of video evidence, of the same.
The fucking liberal media- sheesh. To them, Clinton is synonymous with scumminess and lying about sex, Gore is a pathological liar, and Kerry is a pathetic flip-flopping elitist. Reagan, up to his wrinkly fucking neck in Iran-Contra, is still revered by the media as the “great communicator” while Bush continues to deceive this country about many issues of great importance (at least compared to lying about sex). McCain doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing or saying but the media makes up excuses for him and even attacks McCain’s legitimate “critics” like Wesley Clark.
When will the mainstream media start treating Rethuglican candidates as poorly as they have Democratic candidates?
Beej
Why, why, why is the MSM letting this go on and on without, it seems, the slightest interest in writing about it. Holy dancing Jesus, if Obama had done even one of these flip-flops, it would be the lead story on the evening news for days! Is the easy access to the candidate and McCain’s “aw shucks” manner really enough to explain the kind of total abdication of journalistic responsibility that has been MSM reporting on the McCain campaign? Apparently so. Is there any way Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, and Sam Donaldson could be put back to work reporting on this election? We could call them the “Geriatric Journalists” or something. Help!
Rome Again
That was no joke, that was a serious statement. John McCain didn’t understand economics until he finished Alan Greenspan’s book. Now he has finished it and thinks he’s an expert.