And they call him Maverick.
Rumors have it that someone is worried about being dropped from the GOP ticket (click on the art for the facts).
Three basic questions.
Frank Rich boils it all down to words in today’s column:
Is a man who is just discovering the Internet qualified to lead a restoration of America’s economic and educational infrastructures? Is the leader of a virtually all-white political party America’s best salesman and moral avatar in the age of globalization? Does a bellicose Vietnam veteran who rushed to hitch his star to the self-immolating overreaches of Ahmad Chalabi, Pervez Musharraf and Mikheil Saakashvili have the judgment to keep America safe?
Johnny Straighttalk & Georgie Flightsuit, Sittin’ in a Tree…
When Sen. McCain gave the Worst. Political. Speech. Ever. in (or near, for the wingnuts who make that distinction without a difference in their desperate desperation) New Orleans this past week, one could not help but recall the famous (“Karl says this will make me look presidentialary”) photograph of the Preznint finally getting around to flying over the post-Katrina desolation, safely ensconced in Air Force One and only slightly pissed that he’d had to interrupt one of his annual month-long summer vacations…
And that, of course, inspired more memories of the Photo That Dare Not Speak Its Name, the one that the good Senator would like to see banished from public sight forever and ever….
Indeed, the GOP Presidential Candidate Human Sacrifice even (after all this time, imagine) tried to separate himself from the Preznint a bit by by criticizing the Administration’s failure (or as we call it, Cheney Compassion) to react immediately and effectively to the flooding of one of the nation’s greatest cities.
Which makes us wonder what exactly Sen. McCain did during this terrible time in our history?
Why, the very next day after Katrina hit, he celebrated his birthday in Arizona, of course, with a Very Special Guest on hand to hand him his birthday cake…
Oh, they had such jolly fun, they did…
Until the Preznint accidentally bit his thumb and gave himself a boo-boo.
Note to the McCain Campaign: you can run, but you can’t hide.
Four More Years.
On this Memorial Day, there is an excellent editorial in this morning’s New York Times:
President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights. He worries that if the traditional path to college for service members since World War II is improved and expanded for the post-9/11 generation, too many people will take it.
He is wrong, but at least he is consistent. Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break.
So lavish with other people’s sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home…
Why headline this Four More Years? Because Mr. Bush’s putative Republican successor is on board completely:
Mr. Bush — and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain — have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.
Has any man ever sold his soul so thoroughly and cheaply as John McCain?
By Their Words Shall Ye Know Them.
The way I see, if the Democrats combine this revealing moment:
with this one:
and just run the ad over and over through September and October, Johnny Old is pretty much toast.
“We’re killing your sons and daughters for oil
and we’ll keep doing it as long as we have to.”
Not much of a campaign slogan.
But it does have the advantage of being, oh so sadly, true.
The Pennsylvania Primary. A Huge Victory for….Who?
From today’s Borowitz Report:
Presumptive G.O.P. nominee John McCain appeared at a mammoth rally in Philadelphia last night to celebrate the results of the Pennsylvania primary, calling the contest “a huge victory for me and my campaign.”
A jubilant Sen. McCain said that as the results poured in, “It became abundantly clear that the people of Pennsylvania want to send the Republicans back to the White House for another four years.”
Overjoyed McCain supporters packed the ballroom at the Philadelphia Hyatt to help their candidate celebrate what he called “the happiest night of my life.”
“My friends, tonight the people of Pennsylvania have delivered the White House to me on a silver platter,” he said, his eyes glistening. “This is the best thing to happen to me since I married a beer heiress.”
At a campaign rally of her own, Sen. Hillary Clinton also savored the results of the primary, declaring that she was “one step closer to getting my hands on a nuclear bomb.”…
[ … ]
Elsewhere, Sen. Barack Obama agreed to a televised debate on CBS moderated by Katie Couric, saying, “If I make a gaffe, at least no one will be watching.”
Defeat from the Jaws of Victory. Seems more and more likely, don’t it?
Note that you can either subscribe to the Borowitz Report or get it via an RSS feed right there on the site and I highly recommend that you do so. It’s usually good for at least a chuckle or two each morning and, on the really good days, it inspires outright guffaws.
The way things are going, we may all be forced to embrace the laugh-so-I-don’t-cry lifestyle, so you might consider such a subscription as a medical necessity.
Double Standard.
One more example of why it’s good to be John McCain, the man for whom the rules are different.
OUTSIDE LOOKING IN 