Sarah Palin Cost McCain the Election (UPDATE1)

UPDATE 1: Added paragraph about McCain's motivations

     Not because she is retarded.  Not because she has the policy acumen of your average hockey mom, but because she has no experience.  The morning she was selected I knew it was all over for John Sidney McCain III.

     See, you can argue that the Biden selection was a semi-cynical ploy to beef up the Obama ticket's foreign policy credentials, but I don't see how it helps with the current economic situation.

     No, the Palin selection undermined the most effective argument the McCain campaign had.  This argument had been used by all the major McCain supporters.  Before that it had been used extensively by the campaign of Hilary Clinton.  It was an argument that made me worry.  It was an argument which I know was influencing some people who might not have wanted to vote for Obama for other reasons (racism, Hillary supporters).

     The Palin selection undermined the experience argument completely.

     So, we have three choices.  We can believe that McCain had no idea about what every Republican in America was saying about Obama and experience.  We can believe that this choice was forced on him by Ralph Reed, or the likes of him.  Or we can believe that John Sidney McCain the Third wanted the Democrats to win.  The most generous answer, of course, is the last.  And if it is true, we should thank John McCain. : And even if it isn't, we should thank him for a mostly decent fight.

Yah, But What's A Ry?

     Is John McCain's "Country First" slogan really about Cindy McCain?

Pastor Conrad for John Sidney McCain III

I pray to Hindu and Buddha to raise B. Hussein Osama to the Presidency, just like Pastor Conrad (takes 15-20 seconds to get going).

More Palin Family Vindictiveness

Palin's biggest scandal so far has been firing someone who wouldn't fire the man who spurned her sister.

Apparently, this sort of personal vindictiveness is not a one time thing with the Governor of Alaska.  This article, from the crypto-right-wing Politico website says Palin cuts off people who displease her:

Palin has unceremoniously ended relationships with an aide who was dating a family friend's soon-to-be ex-wife, a campaign adviser whose mother-in-law fought Palin's legislative agenda, a local political mentor who she felt represented the "old boys' network," a police chief who she said tried to intimidate her with "stern look[s.]"

Now, I do this to some degree.  I have a billion people to choose from for friends, 10,000,000 in the city alone, so if someone repeatedly acts daft, I just stop talking to them... but that is not how someone behaves on the job.

This inability to distinguish between the personal and the professional sounds relatively unimportant... but what about foreign policy?  Will she cut off Germany if they disagree over Creationism?  Will she alienate Japan because they are not Christians? 

More Palin Links?

She's not going to make it to the election.

Video of Palin saying Iraq is a task from God (Duck Cheney is God?)

Audio of Peggy Noonan calling the Palin selection "gimmicky" and "cynical"  In McCain's defense, Noonan is a nut and a Reagan person, she is not an enthusiastic McCain supporter.

Cindy McCain attacks John McCain?

Cindy said Obama never mentions his P.O.W. experience in one speech.

In the next John McCain speech, he talked about his P.O.W. experience.

GOP Convention: Fah

Everyone says McCain never talks about his POW time or his service, but every single damned one of his commercials seems to bring it up, and that fawning RNC video before his speech tonight brought it up.  Are we supposed to believe that he didn't approve the video?  We know darned well be approved the advertisements.

Marsha Blackburn has been all over the airwaves for the last few days.  Fire breathing squirrel.  Tonight she said the TV only provides talk, never provides answers.  John Sidney McCain III has appeared, over the last decade, more times on the TV news than anyone else.  More than twice as much as his nearest competitor, Tom Daschle.  Daschle was the leader of a party in Congress, a position McCain has never held.

Blackburn also Palin would make the best Vice President ever, better than Jefferson, Adams, or T Roosevelt, although she didn't name them by name.

BREAKING NEWS QUESTION:

If John McCain is Insane, will that hurt his chances with Independents in Swing States?

Just thought I'd have the kind of fun that CNN and FOX have.

I am Happy?

I'm not carried away, but I like foreign policy, and Barack Obama chose a foreign policy specialist.  I had recently heard some rather surprisingly nice things about Evan Bayh, being a former Governor in Indiana, his role in Title IX and some other women's issues, and his father's role in Civil Rights.  He would have been the Domestic Policy choice, and I'm "happy" that, instead, a foreign policy person was chosen.

Combined with McCain's specialization in military/overseas matters means we might have some serious foreign policy debates which, regrettably, won't get much past the establishment position.

Old People and Elections

Most people don't know that the older a person was, the more likely they were to be against the war in Viet Nam.  Sure, the youth were most visible in their opposition, but, as an age cohort, youth were most pro-war.

I hear, also, that in the current war, young people have always been more pro-war than adults (also in the pre-war period).

Two reasons jump to mind.  One, mentioned in the NY Times article above, is that older people know about wars, they know it is the worst possible thing in the world that humans consciously do.  Another is that younger people are usually less aware, and therefore more susceptible to propaganda from their own government.  I remember once seeing (on TV) a classroom of kindergarten kids who almost all thought Britney Spears sang and danced because it was fun to do!

And this is one reason to consider voting for McCain, his marginally greater support among older voters.

McCain Speaks before VFW

Let's put aside the belligerent ignorance on display when he pledged to preserve democracy in the ex-Soviet states.  McCain just looks retarded when he says stuff like this:

I pledge to you that, as President, I will lead from the front to reform our VA system and make sure that veterans receive the respect and care that they have earned. The Walter Reed scandal was a disgrace unworthy of this nation and I intend to make sure that nothing like it is ever repeated.

While, today it was revealed that soldiers were ordered not to reveal disgusting conditions in medical barracks set up after the Walter Reed scandal.  I guess John McCain was waiting till he had some power before he actually showed much concern about Veterans.  Of course, the fall down on the job "non-confrontational" media will never mention this, or the rest of John McCain's voting record on Veteran's issues.

John McCain Collaborates with the Enemy

None of the press corps will let anyone attack Vietnamese collaborator John Sidney McCain III.

John Sidney McCain III admitted to collaborating with the Vietnamese in an article he wrote in 1973:

When I saw it, I said to the guard, "O.K., get the officer." An officer came in after a few minutes. It was the man that we came to know very well as "The Bug." He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends that we had to deal with. I said, "O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital." He left and came back with a doctor, a guy that we called "Zorba," who was completely incompetent. He squatted down, took my pulse. He did not speak English, but shook his head and jabbered to "The Bug." I asked, "Are you going to take me to the hospital?" "The Bug" replied, "It's too late." I said, "If you take me to the hospital, I'll get well."

and

They took me up into one of the interrogation rooms, and for the next 12 hours we wrote and rewrote. The North Vietnamese interrogator, who was pretty stupid, wrote the final confession, and I signed it. It was in their language, and spoke about black crimes, and other generalities. It was unacceptable to them. But I felt just terrible about it. I kept saying to myself, "Oh, God, I really didn't have any choice." I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.

McCain Losing His Cool (DELETED)

This video has been deleted because it turns out to have been altered.  Other videos on the same site were not altered.

JSN's One Minute Speeches: John McCain's Jokes

This is my first audio post, so please comment.  Things I am interested in include, but are not limited to

• How do I sound?
• Would you like to hear further audio posts from me?
• Did the mp3 work for you?

At one point I was on a little-heard Sirius satellite radio program about politics, and, honestly, I liked the experience.  Secondly, I write like I talk.  I use intonation a lot when I talk, to keep tangents and threads separate, and I've never made the leap and landed in the space where I stopped doing this with my writing.  There is a chance that audio will work, to convey my ideas, better than my own writing.

McCain is Our Ekthpert On Foreign Policy (UPDATE 1)

UPDATE 1: Contradiction section added as next to last paragraph

Let's start with Keith Olberman, who has a lot more power than anyone else I'll mention.

Media Matters also has a post on Couric editing McCain's answer.

I found it via the Carpetbagger report, who provides some good links to more material on McCain's remarks and also, in another post, he links to Anonymous Liberal making the profound point that if we redefine surge, Obama was for it.

In case it wasn't already crystal clear that McCain was baldly and badly covering his misstatements at King's supermarket, let's show how he clearly contradicted himself.  Here he says the "surge" included the Anbar Awakening: "First of all, a surge is really a counterinsurgency strategy, and it's made up of a number of components, and this counterinsurgency was initiated, to some degree, by Colonel McFarlane, in anbar province, relatively on his own."  McCain says the surge included the Anbar Awakening.  Yet in the CBS interview the day before he was saying the Anbar Awakening succeeded because of the surge, thus clearly making them two separate things:

Couric: Senator Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias and says there might have been increased security even without the surge.
What's your respone to that?

I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Col. McFarlane was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that Sheikh and others and it began the Anbar Awakening.

The Sunni Awakening succeeded because of the surge, and the Sunni Awakening was part of the surge.

P.S. I grew up going to a King's supermarket, and liked it!

American Media Has Internalized Lie About Surge (UPDATE 3)

UPDATE 1: Rewrote first paragraph, added facts about when McCain made his proposal
UPDATE 2: New Combined Chart!
UPDATE 3: Updated Anbar Awakening timeline

Back in October, 2006, John McCain called for increasing the number of troops in Iraq by 20,000.  At that time U.S. troop levels in Iraq were about 144,000, while the maximum had been, a year earlier, 160,000.  The narrative being pushed by the media is as follows: John McCain was wise for supporting the surge, the surge has succeeded, and Obama, who said it wouldn't work, is just plain wrong.

The following chart shows total troop strength, as reported by the Iraq Index of the Brookings Institution (as of July 17th, 2008).  Nothing can change the unalterable fact that there was no increase in troops.  The chart shows that the peak of troops occurred in late 2005.  Why do my numbers jibe so badly with what you think you know about reality?  I'm including British, Australian, and other national troops for this one(Don't Forget Poland!) but the next graph shows basically the same thing only including U.S. troops.  More below the graph!

But, even if we take out the non-U.S. troops from the equation, it is clear that the "surge" only brought maximum troop levels only a tiny fraction above their previous highs in late 2005.  John McCain's proposal was just 2.5% percent more than the previous U.S. troop maximum! More below the graph!

Since only a Big Brother, John McCain and Joe Scarborough can easily declare 2 + 2 = 5, or could possibly argue that the decrease in overall troop levels created the increase in security we have seen, let's briefly examine what did change.  The following factors are in chronological order.

• We are now paying off the Sunni tribes who were trying to kill us a year ago, the so-called "Sunni Awakening" began around August, 2006
• General Casey, the previous top military commander in Iraq, was little more than a mouthpiece of the Bush administration.  On February 10th, 2007 General Petraeus replaced him.  Please recall that none of America's military professionals have the decade+ of war experience of, say, an Iraqi General (eight years Iran, one year Kuwait).
• Moqtada al-Sadr declared a ceasefire on August 29th, 2007

I put those facts in the chart below, which otherwise, like all the data in this post, comes from Brooking's Iraq Index.

McCain, Churchill and Appeasement

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry on appeasement.

Churchill's record as an uncomplicated anti-appeaser cannot go unchallenged. His contemporary criticism of totalitarian regimes other than Hitler's Germany was at best muted, and it was not until May 1938 [Josh: after the Nazi occupation of Austria] that he began consistently to withhold his support from the National Government's conduct of foreign policy in the division lobbies of the House of Commons. Even then, Churchill seems to have been convinced by the Sudeten German leader, Henlein, in the spring of 1938, that a satisfactory settlement could be reached if Britain managed to persuade the Czech government to make concessions to the German minority.

John McCain Lies About War and American History

C-SPAN is re-airing the 1987 debate on the War Powers Act resolution, as it related to the hostilities in the Persian Gulf with Iran.  This was part of the Iran-Iraq Tanker War, the minelaying of which was also threatening Kuwaiti tankers.  America put the Kuwaiti tankers under the U.S. flag.  An Iranian missile reportedly hit a U.S. Naval vessel, and that reprisal, along with a later reprisals, involved destroying and capturing Iran's tiny naval vessels and attacking their oil platforms, also used by the Iranian military.  Later a U.S. Naval vessel shot down an Iranian passenger plane.

First, let me give credit where it is due.  Senators Dale Bumpers (D-AR), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Lowell Weicker (R-CT) and even Dan Quayle (R-IN) were, to my ears, reasonable, even if I didn't agree with their positions.  Especially good was Senator Weicker, and, impassioned, was Senator Bumpers.

This must first be contrasted with Senator John Warner (R-VA) (still serving) who appeared as nothing so much as a tool of the Armed Forces, and/or President Reagan.  An abyssmal performance (especially in his colloquy with Senator Weicker).  Also see his repeated use of the phrase "byzantine paths" to describe a straight forward piece of legislation.

Another awful performance was put in by Senator Robert Dole (R-KS), then Minority Leader.  He was foisting off his responsibilities on people outside Congress, and was saying that the Constitution doesn't address terrorism.  It does, in fact, quite clearly, when it gives Congress the power "to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas."  The Iranian laying of mines in the Persian Gulf could easily be seen as a felony of the high seas, and therefore Congress alone had the power to punish the Iranians, not President Reagan.  By the way, this clause should be updated to include the skies, something the Founders had not thought about.

But the worst, the abyssmal bottom, was Senator John McCain.  This ignorant fathead actually had the gall to misuse the debates on the Constitution.  It wasn't his only idiotic, small-minded, war-hungry and fraudulent debating tactic, but it is the only one I'll address for now.  Let us consider what the Arizona Senator said.

Senator McCain said that, during the debates of the Constitution in Philadelphia, the text was changed to say that Congress could now only declare war, and not make war, as the original draft said.  This is, in fact, the case.  He then cites Samuel Johnson's dictionary, which he deceptively says was in wide use (less than 6,000 copies existed before 1784, and we can easily imagine that most of those were sold in England), to say that since Congress no longer has the power to make war, they were in no position to have a say in whether or not Reagan would have a free hand in the Persian Gulf. 

What do the records of those debates actually say? There are two main sources, Farrand's Record and Madison's Notes.  Farrand's is quite quiet for August 17th, 1787, just listing the motions and their votes.  Madison's Notes on the debate to give Congress power to make or declare war follows:

"To make war"

Mr. PINKNEY opposed the vesting this power in the Legislature. Its proceedings were too slow. It wd. meet but once a year. The Hs. of Reps. would be too numerous for such deliberations. The Senate would be the best depositary, being more acquainted with foreign affairs, and most capable of proper resolutions. If the States are equally represented in Senate, so as to give no advantage to large States, the power will notwithstanding be safe, as the small have their all at stake in such cases as well as the large States. It would be singular for one authority to make war, and another peace.

Mr. BUTLER. The objections agst. the Legislature lie in great degree agst. the Senate. He was for vesting the power in the President, who will have all the requisite qualities, and will not make war but when the Nation will support it. Mr. MADISON and Mr. GERRY moved to insert "declare," striking out "make" war; leaving to the Executive the power to repel sudden attacks.

I hope it is now clear that McCain was pushing war and was patently, and without question, misstating the record of the debates on the Constitution in order to push more war and power for the President. 

As many of McCain's Republican Senator colleagues have said, it would be more than a little dangerous to elect John McCain.