McCain’s Suspension Bridge to Nowhere

WHAT we learned last week is that the man who always puts his “country first” will take the country down with him if that’s what it takes to get to the White House.

For all the focus on Friday night’s deadlocked debate, it still can’t obscure what preceded it: When John McCain gratuitously parachuted into Washington on Thursday, he didn’t care if his grandstanding might precipitate an even deeper economic collapse. All he cared about was whether he might save his campaign. George Bush put more deliberation into invading Iraq than McCain did into his own reckless invasion of the delicate Congressional negotiations on the bailout plan.

By the time he arrived, there already was a bipartisan agreement in principle. It collapsed hours later at the meeting convened by the president in the Cabinet Room. Rather than help try to resuscitate Wall Street’s bloodied bulls, McCain was determined to be the bull in Washington’s legislative china shop, running around town and playing both sides of his divided party against Congress’s middle. Once others eventually forged a path out of the wreckage, he’d inflate, if not outright fictionalize, his own role in cleaning up the mess his mischief helped make. Or so he hoped, until his ignominious retreat.

The question is why would a man who forever advertises his own honor toy so selfishly with our national interest at a time of crisis. I’ll leave any physiological explanations to gerontologists — if they can get hold of his complete medical records — and any armchair psychoanalysis to the sundry McCain press acolytes who have sorrowfully tried to rationalize his erratic behavior this year. The other answers, all putting politics first, can be found by examining the 24 hours before he decided to “suspend” campaigning and swoop down on the Capitol to save America from the Sunnis or the Shia, or whoever perpetrated all those credit-default swaps.

To put these 24 hours in context, you must remember that McCain not only knows little about the economy but that he has not previously expressed any urgency about its meltdown. It was on Sept. 15 — the day after his former idol Alan Greenspan pronounced the current crisis a “once-in-a-century” catastrophe — that McCain reaffirmed for the umpteenth time that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong.” As recently as Tuesday he had not yet even read the two-and-a-half-page bailout proposal first circulated by Hank Paulson last weekend. “I have not had a chance to see it in writing,” he explained. (Maybe he was waiting for it to arrive by Western Union instead of PDF.)

Then came Black Wednesday — not for the stock market, which was holding steady in anticipation of Washington action, but for McCain. As the widely accepted narrative has it, his come-to-Jesus moment arrived that morning, when he awoke to discover that Barack Obama had surged ahead by nine percentage points in the Washington Post/ABC News poll . The McCain campaign hastily suited up its own pollster to belittle that finding — only to be drowned out by a fusillade of new polls from Fox News , Marist and CNN/Time , each with numbers closer to Post/ABC than not. Obama was rising most everywhere except the moose strongholds of Alaska and Montana.

That was not the only bad news raining down on McCain. His camp knew what Katie Couric had in the can from her interview with Sarah Palin . The first excerpt was to be broadcast by CBS that night, and it had to be upstaged fast.

But even that wasn’t the top political threat McCain faced last week. Bigger still was the mounting evidence of the seamless synergy between his campaign and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage monsters at the heart of the housing bust that set off our current calamity. Most of all, it was the fast-moving events on that front that precipitated his panic to roll out his diversionary, over-the-top theatrics on Wednesday.

What we were learning — through The New York Times , Newsweek and Roll Call — was ugly. Davis Manafort, the lobbying firm owned by McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, had received $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac from late 2005 until last month. This was in addition to the $30,000 a month that Davis was paid from 2000 to 2005 by the so-called Homeownership Alliance, an advocacy organization that he headed and that was financed by Freddie and Fannie to fight regulation.

The McCain campaign tried to pre-emptively deflect such revelations by reviving the old Rove trick of accusing your opponent of your own biggest failings. It ran attack ads about Obama’s own links to the mortgage giants. But neither of the former Freddie-Fannie executives vilified in those ads, Franklin Raines and James Johnson , had worked at those companies lately or are currently associated with the Obama campaign. (Raines never worked for the campaign at all .) By contrast, Davis is the tip of the Freddie-Fannie-McCain iceberg. McCain’s senior adviser , his campaign’s vice chairman, his Congressional liaison and the reported head of his White House transition team all either made fortunes from recent Freddie-Fannie lobbying or were players in firms that did.

By Wednesday, the McCain campaign’s latest tactic for countering this news — attacking the press, especially The Times — was paying diminishing returns. Davis abruptly canceled his scheduled appearance that day at a weekly reporters’ lunch sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor, escaping any further questions by pleading that he had to hit the campaign trail. (He turned up at the “21” Club in New York that night, wining and dining McCain fund-raisers.)

It’s then that Angry Old Ironsides McCain suddenly emerged to bark that our financial distress was “the greatest crisis we’ve faced, clearly, since World War II” — even greater than the Russia-Georgia conflict, which in August he had called the “first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the cold war.” Campaigns, debates and no doubt Bristol Palin’s nuptials had to be suspended immediately so he could ride to the rescue, with Joe Lieberman as his Robin.

Yet even as he huffed and puffed about being a “leader,” McCain took no action and felt no urgency. As his Congressional colleagues worked tirelessly in Washington, he malingered in New York. He checked out the suffering on Main Street (or perhaps High Street) by conferring with Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the Hillary-turned-McCain supporter best known for her fabulous London digs and her diatribes against Obama’s elitism. McCain also found time to have a well-publicized chat with one of those celebrities he so disdains , Bono, and to give a self-promoting public speech at the Clinton Global Initiative.

There was no suspension of his campaign. His surrogates and ads remained on television. Huffington Post bloggers, working the phones, couldn’t find a single McCain campaign office that had gone on hiatus. This “suspension” ruse was an exact replay of McCain’s self-righteous “suspension” of the G.O.P. convention as Hurricane Gustav arrived on Labor Day. “We will put aside our political hats and put on our American hats,” he declared then , solemnly pledging that conventioneers would help those in need. But as anyone in the Twin Cities could see, the assembled put on their party hats instead, piling into the lobbyists’ bacchanals earlier than scheduled, albeit on the down-low.

Much of the press paid lip service to McCain’s new “suspension” as it had to its prototype. In truth, the only campaign activity McCain did drop was a Wednesday evening taping with David Letterman. Don’t mess with Dave. Picking up where the “The View” left off in speaking truth to power, the uncharacteristically furious host hammered the absent McCain on and off for 40 minutes, repeatedly observing that the cancellation “didn’t smell right.”

In a journalistic coup de grâce worthy of “60 Minutes,” Letterman went on to unmask his no-show guest as a liar. McCain had phoned himself that afternoon to say he was “getting on a plane immediately” to deal with the grave situation in Washington, Letterman told the audience. Then he showed video of McCain being touched up by a makeup artist while awaiting an interview by Couric that same evening at another CBS studio in New York.

It’s not hard to guess why McCain had blown off Letterman for Couric at the last minute. The McCain campaign’s high anxiety about the disastrous Couric-Palin sit-down was skyrocketing as advance excerpts flooded the Internet. By offering his own interview to Couric for the same night, McCain hoped (in vain) to dilute Palin’s primacy on the “CBS Evening News.”

Letterman’s most mordant laughs on Wednesday came when he riffed about McCain’s campaign “suspension”: “Do you suspend your campaign? No, because that makes me think maybe there will be other things down the road, like if he’s in the White House, he might just suspend being president. I mean, we’ve got a guy like that now!”

That’s no joke. Bush has so little credibility he can govern only through surrogates (Paulson is the new Petraeus). When he spoke about the economic crisis in prime time earlier that same night, he registered as no more than an irritating speed bump en route to “David Blaine: Dive of Death.”

It’s that utter power vacuum that gave McCain the opening to pull his potentially catastrophic display of economic “leadership” last week. He may be the first presidential candidate in our history to risk wrecking the country even before being voted into the Oval Office.

Republican Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin may have campaigned for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (population 6 thousand at the time) as a “fiscal conservative”, but according to residents, during Palin’s 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. Decreased taxes on businesses, and raised taxes on residents.

And similar to a certain President we know, Palin inherited a budget surplus and squandered it. Palin left Wasilla $22 million in debt.

What a great VP Pick McCain! Gooooo Republicans! Idiots.

In case anyone hasn’t been paying attention, the worst threat Palin poses on a White House ticket is the threat she poses to the environment.

Palin doesn’t believe humans are responsible for global warming, even though her state has a front row seat as the Artic melts away.

Palin wants to drill through Alaskan wilderness for oil even though scientists have long concluded that the presumed oil there is negligible and wouldn’t become available at least ten years after discovery.

Palin has fought successfully against imposing stricter regulations on mining operations which pollute Alaskan streams and destroy the state’s most important international export: salmon. … If you like “wild caught Alaskan Salmon” you had better eat up now before Palin’s policies have you munching on iron ore and smelt.

And oh yeah, Palin is on record refusing to believe the polar bear is endangered.

Palin personifies the forces behind global warming and pollution: beaurocrats with their heads in the sand and pockets full of oil money.

Presidential “hope”full Senator John McCain still can’t tell his Shia’s from his Sunnis, or Maliki from Sadr, or a ceasefire from all out defeat. He keeps on getting it wrong. All wrong. You just can’t make this stuff up!

But, hey: cut him a break! McCain’s just calling it as he sees it … through McCain-colored glasses that is. Keep on livin’ that dream, McCain!!!

I’m sure McCain will find all sorts of stuff to forget about if he makes it to the White House.  (Anybody seen my “Straight Talk Express” lying about?)

I’m calling bullshit on all this press about McCain visiting “poor areas“. As if “poor areas” were dead zones on a map where you can’t get a cell phone signal. As if “poor areas” were uncharted regions of Mars thought to be inhabited by savage life forms. As if McCain were fucking diving in to a black hole tethered to one of his wife’s diamond-studded panties. As if we should give McCain a medal of honor for doing his so-called job.

How brave. How noble. How exemplary for this privileged white man to dirty his shoes in “poor areas”.

McCain might as well come out and say: “Let them eat cake.” Or he could just fly over them in one of his private jets.  He is so fucking out of touch.

The poor are not aliens. The poor are not foreign. The poor are our friends and neighbors, our brothers and sisters.

And the poor don’t live in one “poor area”. The poor live right next door, down the street, above and below us. Has McCain never taken a stroll around the block in DC (one of the most impoverished cities in America!)??? What a load of horse shit, McCain.

Call me a cynic. Call me jaded. But, I don’t buy for a second that McCain gives a damn about “poor people”. I don’t think that McCain cares or empathizes with those less fortunate. This is nothing but a media blitz in hopes of inaccurately painting McCain a “compassionate” Republican.

Again: bullshit. It’s all politics, baby. If he really cared about the poor he would have taken the silver spoon out of his mouth and done something to ease their burden during his 26 years in public office.

The New York Times is reporting that the Pentagon has sought to mold public opinion starting from the buildup to the War in Iraq through a cabal of retired generals posing as “independent military analysts” on television news channels. And shocker: these retired generals have strong financial ties to the military industrial complex and to the military contractors on which they are supposed to be commenting.

The generals’ mission? To plant seeds of untruth about the War in Iraq.

The thing is that I am actually shocked. Really shocked. If we can’t trust our retired generals to give us objective, honest, sobering analysis on the state of our nation’s security, then who can we trust? I mean, it is becoming seriously difficult not to drown in complete cynicism here!

And this whole thing reeks of one name: Donald Rumsfeld.

Citizens! We must demand a more transparent government!!! We elect (most of) these people! We can vote (most of) them out!

Moral of the story: don’t trust retired generals posing as military analysts on television news.

I suppose everyone has now caught wind of McCain’s ridiculous plan to “stimulate the economy” by placing a moratorium on the gas tax through the summer. While this plan is obviously irrational, harmful and backward thinking (global warming, pollution, anti-alternative fuels, putting hard-earned American money in the pockets of terrorist friendly middle eastern regimes, etc.), it should come as no surprise that this is a simple pander to the oil industry which has donated 70% of all its political contributions to Republicans. And among them: Senator John McCain.

I suppose we could give 71 year old McCain credit for kickin’ it old school and towing the party line by keeping the Republican Party bent over for the oil industry. But, I shan’t.

McCain’s proposal to lift the gas tax is criminal. Yes, criminal. He is attempting to deceive the American people, posing as if this tax cut is “to ease the burden on the working man”. Bullshit! This tax cut proposal is nothing more than a pathetic and weak attempt at securing more funding for McCain’s campaign. Pure and simple.

And McCain should be held accountable. How much longer will we allow our elected officials to take bribes from the very countries who fund those who wish to do us harm? Who’s products keep polluting our air?

It’s unfortunate that McCain has shown us that he is no different than Bush, Cheney or the rest of them. Because we are at a time when we require true visionary leadership. It’s as if McCain were sleepwalking. It isn’t 1985, Johnny Boy!!!!

Where Obama (in many peoples’ opinion) represents “change”, McCain is the anti-change. McCain is the status quo. The rotten-to-the-core status quo.

For the last time, the terrorist group known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq was NOT in Iraq before the US led invasion. It simply didn’t exist. Furthermore, 95% of its combatons are foreign fighters who have come to Iraq for the sole purpose of attacking US troops and positions. When are our elected officials going to stop trying to connect Iraq to 9/11?!? Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

Oh and BTW, Senator McCain, Al-Qaeda is associated with Sunni Islam - not Shi’ia:

MCCAIN: Do you still view al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?

PETRAEUS: It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was say 15 months ago.

MCCAIN: Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shi’ites overall?

PETREAUS: No.

MCCAIN: Or Sunnis or anybody else.

Get it straight, “straight-talker”!!!

Let’s face it: the surge is not working. Just because we have diminished our definition of success does not a success make. Troops are still dying. Iraqis are still dying. There is no end in sight. Maliki is weak and ineffectual. Our resources are stretched beyond comprehension. The surge has been nothing more than a band-aide on a severed artery. And at the end of the day we are at the mercy of a radical Anti-American cleric.

Something to ponder: why do you think the Bush Team never bothered to put enough troops in Iraq to begin with? The Surge is the Bush Team’s half-ass response to pressure from all sides to do something constructive about the horrific situation in Iraq. Could it be that it was never the intention of the Bush Team to secure peace, prosperity and independence for Iraq in the first place? Hmmm …