Year: 2008

John McCain’s been coming up with some wacky-assed stuff lately. One would wonder if his advanced age is causing his fuzzy-headedness, but then one would be reminded that his advanced age is off limits, and cannot be noted, alluded to, or used as an explanation for confusion or seeming dementia. Sorry, I meant, misstatements.

First, McCain mistook his own voting history.

In a statement criticizing Obama’s positions (sic) on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard…McCain wrote, “This is the same organization that I voted to condemn as a terrorist organization when an amendment was on the floor of the United States Senate. Senator Obama refused to vote.”

The problem with the critique? McCain also missed that vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment on September 26, 2007. Records show that Obama was in New Hampshire and McCain was in New York instead of being in the Senate chamber for the vote in question.

O.K., I guess you could just shoot off your mouth about what you did without being sure of it, but it’s not recommended when you’re running for president and people actually check your facts. Then again, mixing up your voting record is small potatoes compared McCain’s other recent memory slip, which occurred this week while campaigning in Pennsylvania.

And then McCain told a rather moving story about his time as a P.O.W. “When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the pressures, physical pressures on me, I named the starting lineup, defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron mates.”

“Did you really?” asked the reporter.

“Yes,” McCain said.

“In your POW camp?” asked the reporter.

“Yes,” McCain said.

“Could you do it today?” asked the reporter.

“No, unfortunately,” McCain said.

Here’s one reason he likely couldn’t do it today — the Steelers aren’t the team whose defensive line McCain named for his Vietnamese tormentors. The Green Bay Packers are. At least according to every previous time McCain has told this story. And the McCain campaign just told ABC News that the senator made a mistake — it was, indeed, the Packers.

In McCain’s best-selling 1999 memoir “Faith of My Fathers,” McCain writes:

“Once my condition had stabilized, my interrogators resumed their work. Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship’s name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron. When asked to identify future targets, I simply recited the names of a number of North Vietnamese cities that had already been bombed.”

In 2005, A&E ran a movie version of “Faith of My Fathers.”

And McCain discussed that precise clip on CNN.

The actor playing McCain, asked to name the men in his squadron, says: “Starr; Greg; McGee; Davis; Adderly; Brown; Ringo; Wood.”

Cut back to real life. The CNN anchor asks McCain: “For those who don’t know the story, were those NFL football players?”

“That was the starting lineup of the Green Bay Packers, the first Super Bowl champions, yes,” McCain responded. But it’s — it was the best I could think of at the time.”

Too bad McCain can’t think that fast anymore. How do you mix up something that was purportedly such a big deal it became the stuff of legend, landing prominent placement in your own autobiography and subsequent Hollywood dramatization? I’m not feeling so good about McCain’s mental acuity.

Just like Bush? You have to be a Bush supporter to see the president speak, but to log on to the McCain campaign web site, they want you to state whether you’re a supporter, undecided, or not registered to vote. Unfortunately, there’s no category fo, “Wouldn’t Vote for You if a Dirty Bomb Were Pointed at My Head.”

When the Democrats regained control of the House in 2006, the new Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, famously took the impeachment of George Bush “off the table.” This puzzled and disappointed millions of people who rightly wondered why a president could be impeached over a sex lie in 1999 but not over a lie just four years later that sent hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths in Iraq while draining the U.S. Treasury of billions upon billions of dollars.
True, the fact that Bush’s lies cost the lives of 4,116 lives of US service men and women, injuries to over 30,000 of our troops, the deaths of over 1 million innocent Iraqi civilians, the destruction of Iraq, and a long term cost over $3 trillion may not rise to the level of a sex lie about a blowjob, but they still deserve at least a hearing.
In parliamentary proceedings, however, any item that can be taken off the table can be put back on it, if conditions change and the leadership wills it so. Yesterday, Speaker Pelosi signaled that an Article of Impeachment charging Bush with lying to Congress about his pretexts for invading Iraq might at least get a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.

There’s no way to know what changes in conditions, if any, may have prompted her to rethink impeachment, but it may have something to do with a new Rasmussen poll released on Tuesday that found approval of Congress at 9 percent, which is essentially a statistical zero.

Pundits have long speculated that Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and the other leaders have been averse to impeaching Bush because the impeachment of Pres. Bill Clinton put the Republican-controlled Congress in such bad odor with the public.

Let’s assume that Pelosi and company are not so blind that they can’t see the difference in severity of Clinton’s misdemeanor and Bush’s high crimes — or that they’re such bad politicians that they can’t judge the difference in the voters’ view of Clinton, whose approval rating remained in the mid-60s throughout the ordeal, and its disregard for Bush, whose approval is in the low 30s. Nor can they be unaware of the corollary fact that disapproval of Bush’s misadventure in Iraq is in the upper 60s.

But the bottom line for Pelosi is, with approval of Congress at statistical zero, what has she got to lose? A good politician in that kind of trouble should not be averse to throwing some red meat out to the base.

Who can say if that’s what is happening but yesterday, the right-leaning Politico.com reported that Pelosi herself said that there might be hearings on impeachment:

[…]

Operatives for the John McCain campaign expressed their displeasure at a protester who carried a sign that equated McCain with George Bush by behaving just like operatives for George Bush and having her forcibly removed and threatened with arrest.

The incident occurred outside a McCain townhall meeting in Denver on Monday when Carol Kreck was ticketed for trespassing and escorted off the sidewalk at the behest of the McCain campaign.

Ironically, Kreck’s sign said, “McCain = Bush.”

It is revelatory that McCain operatives see the sentiment expressed in Kreck’s sign as an insult. If her sign had read, “McCain = Reagan,” they probably would have given her a front-row seat.

But in silencing Kreck, the McCain operatives underscored and even compounded Kreck’s message. McCain is indeed just like George Bush, whose minions routinely silence dissent by carefully screening out attendees at public events who might not agree with Bush’s policies.

Bush’s tolerance of opposing views is so low that his handlers often wade into crowds to shield him from seeing protesters by surrounding them with large pro-Bush signs. White House operatives also reroute Bush’s motorcades so that he won’t see protesters who line the streets.

Ironically, one of the most egregious episodes of Bush goons silencing dissenters also occurred in Denver, in March 2005, at a taxpayer funded townhall session to promote Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security.

Volunteers at the event tossed out Leslie Weise, Karen Bauer and Alex Young because they had arrived in a car that bore an anti-Bush bumpersticker. Known as the “Denver Three,” testimony given during their civil trial against the government in 2007 revealed that White House officials on the scene had ordered their removal.

The group ProgressiveNowAction has set up a defense fund for Carol Kreck.

Oops, he did it again. John McCain just can’t seem to get the distinction between objecting to the policies of Iran’s rulers and expressing a desire to kill all Iranians, even the pierre ordinaire folk.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was asked about the number of exports going to Iran, specifically the increase in cigarette exports.

McCain looked surprised at that fact and in a line somewhat reminiscent of his “bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran” comment last year said, “Maybe that’s a way of killing them.” Then he followed it up quickly noting that it was a joke.

McCain made the remark during a visit to Primanti Brothers Sandwich shop in Pittsburgh, Pa.

There’s something wrong with John McCain. This guy is not a maverick, he’s a loose cannon who can’t figure out how to keep his mouth shut and his inappropriate thoughts to himself. I can’t imagine any former or potential president saying such things, and that even includes George W. Dumbass himself.