McCain's aides and FMFM
Posted By: mt on 2008-09-25
In Reply to: Hillary supporter's take on fannie/freddie.... - sam
I worked in government relations for Fannie Mae for more than 20 years, leading the group for most of those years. When I see photographs of Sen. McCain's staff, it looks to me like the team of lobbyists who used to report to me.
William Maloni
Fannie Mae Senior Vice President for Government and Industry Relations (1983-2004)
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=7CBB865D-18FE-70B2-A80ACC7D03A8F14D
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McCain Obama and FMFM
Article on both candidates and Freddie and Fannie
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us/politics/10fannie.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
McCain received $169K from FMFM
directors, officers and lobbyists for the 2008 campaign. Obama received $16K. Look at all the numbers. These figures are from the Federal Election Commission.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/us/politics/10fannie.html?pagewanted=2
graph is on the left hand side of page.
Uh oh. Here comes the FMFM
nm
Obama aides have told CitiBank to
ditch plans they had for the $50 million private jet and that has been done. I am just loving this new prez! Imagine the nerve, get bailout and then get a new private jet.. Thnk again folks!
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Bush aides challenge Biden's boasts of Bush slapdowns.
Aides to former President George W. Bush are challenging the veracity of Vice President Joe Biden's claim this week of having privately castigated Bush, who does not remember the incident or an earlier episode in which Biden claims to have similarly rebuked Bush.
Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss's purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.
"The vice president stands by his remarks," Carney told FOX News without elaboration.
Those remarks include a shot that Biden took at Bush on Tuesday.
"I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office," Biden told CNN, "'Well, Joe,' he said, 'I'm a leader.' And I said: 'Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.'"
That exchange never took place, according to numerous Bush aides who also dispute a similar assertion by Biden in 2004, when the former senator from Delaware told scores of Democratic colleagues that he had challenged Bush's moral certitude about the Iraq war during a private meeting in the Oval Office. Two years later, Biden repeated his story about dressing down the president.
"When I speak to the president - and I have had plenty of opportunity to be with the president, at least prior to the last election, a lot of hours alone with him. I mean, meaning me and his staff," Biden said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in April 2006. "And the president will say things to me, and I'll literally turn to the president, say: 'Mr. President, how can you say that, knowing you don't know the facts?' And he'll look at me and he'll say - my word - he'll look at me and he'll say: 'My instincts.' He said: 'I have good instincts.' I said: 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough.'"
Bush aides now dispute the veracity of both assertions by Biden.
"I never recall Biden saying any of that," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush's White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. "I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don't think that's true."
Fleischer said that whenever Bush met with Sen. Biden, the meeting also included a congressional counterpart so as to not "antagonize" the House.
Karl Rove, former White House political adviser, also was skeptical of Biden's claim to have spent "a lot of hours alone" with Bush.
"I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way," Rove said.
Candida P. Wolff, Bush's White House liaison to Capitol Hill, said the only meetings she remembered between Bush and Biden also included other lawmakers. She said such meetings were held in the Cabinet Room or the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, not the Oval Office, and certainly did not last for "hours."
"The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden," Wolff said. "I don't ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff - there wasn't a reason to bring him in."
Andy Card, former White House chief of staff, reviewed the two Biden claims and said: "This does not ring true to me. I doubt that it happened."
A spokesman for Bush declined comment, although a person close to the former president said Bush does not remember either episode.
This is not the first time the veracity of Biden's assertions has been challenged. In 1988, he dropped out of the presidential race after being accused of plagiarizing British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. The Washington Post also cited "the senator's boastful exaggerations of his academic record."
Last year, liberal Slate magazine recalled that "Biden's misdeeds encompassed numerous self-aggrandizing thefts, misstatements, and exaggerations that seemed to point to a serious character defect."
Also last year, Biden came under fire for telling a questionable story about being "shot at" in Iraq.
"Let's start telling the truth," Biden said during a presidential primary debate sponsored by YouTube in July. "Number one, you take all the troops out -- you better have helicopters ready to take those 3,000 civilians inside the Green Zone, where I have been seven times and shot at. You better make sure you have protection for them, or let them die."
But when questioned about the episode afterward by the Hill newspaper, Biden backpedaled from his claim of being "shot at" and instead allowed: "I was near where a shot landed."
Biden went on to say that some sort of projectile "landed" outside a building in the Green Zone where he and another senator had spent the night during a visit in December 2005. The lawmakers were shaving in the morning when they felt the building shake, Biden said.
"No one got up and ran from the room-it wasn't that kind of thing," he told the Hill. "It's not like I had someone holding a gun to my head."
Seven weeks after claiming to have been "shot at" in Iraq, Biden again raised eyebrows with another story about his exploits in war zones -- this time on "the superhighway of terror between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where my helicopter was forced down."
"If you want to know where AL Qaeda lives, you want to know where bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me," Biden bragged to the National Guard Association. "Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are."
But it turns out that inclement weather, not terrorists, prompted the chopper to land in an open field during Biden's visit to Afghanistan in February 2008. Fighter jets kept watch overhead while a convoy of security vehicles was dispatched to retrieve Biden and fellow Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.
"We were going to send Biden out to fight the Taliban with snowballs, but we didn't have to," joked Kerry, a Democrat, to the AP. "Other than getting a little cold, it was fine."
Why are you McCain people so desperate? You are just like McCain. No plan. Just criticism of the
other candidate. I guess you want the same old thing we have had for the past 8 years. God forbid McCain win with that wild woman, Palin.
McCain
Not only will he refuse to get out of Iraq unless there is some sort of clear victory, even if it takes "100 years" or "1000 years" (his words), jokes about how to handle Iran is "Bom, bom, bom, bom, bomb Iran" (to the tune of a Beach Boys song), he also wants to kick Russia out of the G8 and not let China or India in. Way to place nice with the up-and-coming superpowers - I'm sure that will do great things for our country in years to come.
There are certain things I like about him (strict belief in Geneva Convention, willing to work across party lines), but his warmongering side scares the you-know-what out of me.
McCain's age
Whether his military uniform helps his image depends on what kind of world we want to be living in tomorrow, not the one we live in now. A lot of people will be showing up at the polls to say that status quo is not acceptable, especially when it comes to solving problems by waging wars. Concerns over his age, senility and/or Alzheimer’s are legitimate if you do the math. Those possibilities are very real and could just as easily happen early in his term as later. He has shown some early signs like his problems with word retrieval, mispronunciation, confusion, forgetting what he is saying and blank staring spells.
The teleprompter comment is also kind of a cheap shot. Besides that, it is not true, unless you believe everything you hear on Fox or YouTube. He is an excellent orator and delivered very spontaneous and inspiring responses in the town hall meetings during the primaries and in news conferences. YHe is a much better speaker than McCain.
McCain....you mean
I can't believe anyone would vote for him after what Bush just did to us for 8 years.
Well, McCain's gas in his car came from
oil from a country that supports terrorism. McCain a supporter of terrorism? You can interpret this any way you like.
if McCain gets in
that will be the tenor of the New Secretary of State.
Why McCain?
http://www.johnmccain.com/Undecided/WhyMcCain.htm
McCain looks
like he hurts. It makes me uncomfortable to watch. Obama has a significantly larger amt of data in his mind (constitutional law professor, etc) to sort through, gather, and assemble before he responds to a question. It is to his favor that he does not immediately yelp out an answer like a trained seal.
Thank you. I think McCain's age ... sm
Is what worries me so much about this situation. I mean, people die at different ages, it's true, but if McCain were 20 years younger, I don't think I'd be quite as worried. But he's 72, has had skin cancer several times, and I read (haven't verified) that both his father and grandfather died suddenly of heart attacks when they were younger than he is now. Now that might not mean anything. After all, isnt' his mother in her 90s? But it just worries me. It would be different if he wanted Palin to have a cabinet position where she could, I don't know, hone her skills, cut her teeth in Washington, so to speak, but to put her is a position of leading our country if something happens to McCain? It just makes me very nervous.
Oh, of course. McCain will get the best...sm
Healthcare. Too bad for the rest of us peons though!
Still, the best healthcare in the U.S. can't turn back time and make him young again. He is really getting up there, and the campaign must be wearing on him. I don't know how any of them can stand all the travel that comes with campaigning.
The New McCain!
The Ugly New McCain
Wednesday, September 17, 2008; Page
Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised.
The precise moment of McCain's abasement came, would you believe, not at some news conference or on one of the Sunday shows but on "The View," the daytime TV show created by Barbara Walters. Last week, one of the co-hosts, Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig -- an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners.
"We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies."
Freeze. Close in on McCain. This was the moment. He has largely been avoiding the press. The Straight Talk Express is now just a brand, an ad slogan like "Home Cooking" or "We Will Not Be Undersold." Until then, it was possible for McCain to say that he had not really known about the ads, that the formulation "I approve this message" was just boilerplate. But he didn't.
"Actually, they are not lies," he said.
Actually, they are.
McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though.
I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician's lap.
Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story -- that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.
McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.
At a forum last week at Columbia University, McCain said, "But right now we have to restore trust and confidence in government." This was always the promise of John McCain, the single best reason to vote for him. America has been cheated on too many times -- the lies of Vietnam and Watergate and Iraq. So many lies. Who believes that in Afghanistan last month, only five civilians were killed by the American military in an airstrike, instead of the approximately 90 claimed by the Afghan government? Not me. I first gave up on the military during Vietnam and then again when it covered up the death of Pat Tillman, the Army Ranger and former NFL player who was killed in 2004 by friendly fire.
McCain was going to fix all that. He was going to look the American people in the eyes and say, not me. I will not lie to you. I am John McCain, son and grandson of admirals. I tell the truth.
But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can -- as he did in South Carolina -- renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won't work. Karl Marx got one thing right -- what he said about history repeating itself. Once is tragedy, a second time is farce. John McCain is both.
cohenr@washpost.com
or like when McCain said . . .
Obama called her a pig and then on Monday said he didn't
it has to do with McCain and
Bush systematically deregulating (savings and loans - Keating 5) and wall street so that the souless corporations can do whatever they want without any limits. they have removed the safety factors built into the system after the great depression. Well, now we have the situation that deregulation brings. As Romney said at this years' repub convention - McCain is going to go at all the regulations on industry with a weed wacker.
McCain
Respecting his service to his country is one thing. He is only one of thousands who have done the same thing. or worse, died for their country, and are just as deserving of being honored as McCain. Trusting him to lead this country is another thing entirely.
Seeing as McCain may not . . .
live out his term, she is running for the top spot.
Does McCain even know what he is saying.
Maybe he had better hit the beach with the flip-flops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI&feature=PlayList&p=2F671A7FEF92B36B&index=3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK_9sI7hzAc&feature=PlayList&p=2F671A7FEF92B36B&index=10
He said, he said. I believe what McCain said,
you believe what Obama said. McCain said he told Obama he was going to suspend his campaign and when Obama spoke just now he stated the same thing, only says "I didn't know he meant it now" or some such. I don't buy that. He just didn't think McCain was serious. Turns out he was.
Can any McCain fan or Rep. tell me why
McCain has supported legislation to give tax breaks to companies that outsource jobs? I'm asking because I don't know. I figured you guys have read a lot of his stuff and thought you might know off the top of your head. I could always try to find it but am finding myself lazy tonight  and thought someone might be in the know without having to Google it.
And you think McCain is going to do any better?
What a mess!
Oh and saw on the news that this bailout will affect even the people who do live within their means because it means that the Jones' house that gets foreclosed on will reduce the amount my house is worth and therefore I lose too! Something needs to be done and quick!
It is not fair to simply point out Obama's plans when you do not mention McCain's either. What are McCain's plans? All he seems to do is "knock" Obama. Oh better consider what Palin has to say too, you know McCain is getting no younger or any healthier for that matter.
McCain
Someone with character....hmm. You best not vote then.
McCain
Typo in my name. Still feel the same way though!
McCain Ex
Oh, yes, I read what you quoted from the article. My question is, do you believe EVERYTHING you read? Might be a good idea to apply some common sense. I know a lot of ex-wives who had husbands who kicked them to the curb and not ONE of them would speak in such kind and loving terms about the ex 'who dun 'em wrong." I'm not an ex-wife (widowed) but I can guarantee you that if my husband left me for another woman for ANY reason, he would regret the day he was born. I doubt I'm much different from any other woman.
I don't believe McCain is
trustworthy either, old-timer.
McCain that is nm
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McCain
McCain seems to be nothing more than the leader of an angry mob. He and Palin have done nothing constructive for us in this campaign other than incite people's anger. Something bad is going to happen because of the rehoretic that they are supporting from their base. I think that they should be very put off by some of the comments that their crowds are shouting and I am ashamed that more of the public is not angered by it.
McCain
I felt some respect for McCain when I saw a few minutes ago an elderly woman questioning him about Obama and he said "he is a decent man, a family man." The lady asked about him being a "terrorist" and McCain said, "No, No m'am, he's not." He walked away looking liike an old, defeated man. I even felt some sympathy for him. So all this terrorist stuff was obviously a lie, donchaallthink?
What does McCain have to do with this?
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McCain
He was constantly scribbling things on papers, shuffling them around.
He never looked into the camera, addressing also the viewers. Obama did.
Gee, then I must be as bad as McCain for
I was rolling my eyes, grimacing, and ready to blow my top at some of the things the O stated. I also giggled and laughed at some of his outrageous plans.
It's McCain for me. No way do I want to live under the O's vision of "change the world".
Oh, hey! I take that back!!! If O becomes President, I think hubby and I will quit working as then we can have everything handed to us, too. Yeah. That's it! We'll just quit and let the rich people take care of us. Hubby has been working since he was 8, I started when I was 14, and I'm talking 46 years of hard work to get where we are now.
Not according to McCain
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_10786968
"The use of campaign funds for items which most Americans would consider to be strictly personal reasons, in my view, erodes public confidence and erodes it significantly," he said on the Senate floor in May 1993.
Her's another:
The 2002 campaign finance law that bears McCain's name specifically barred any funds that "are donated for the purpose of supporting the activities of a federal or state office holder" from being used for personal expenses INCLUDING CLOTHING.
McCain
Gee, did you choose YOUR middle name?
A-AGAINST McCain
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McCAIN ALL THE WAY!!!
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McCain
*
McCain
And you can't hide your health insurance.
If McCain is elected, for the first time in American history, health insurance benefits will be taxed, and the insurance companies will be the next "Wall Street" fiasco.
go mccain!!! - NM
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Just because Mccain said it
doesn't mean that we all suddenly go "oh okay, he's not."
He may not be a socialist, but he sure does have socialistic tendencies.
If it walks like a socialist and talks like a socialist, it's probably a socialist!
Do you think JTP should sue McCain for
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And I'm sure when McCain
takes office, Schwartzenegger will get his bail out for the state he ran to ground even if he DOES believe abortion is okay. Wonder how much McCain is paying Hank to grin and nod???? I'm so disgusted with that he can not count me among his fans ever again.
According to McCain (sm)
I'm not sure, but I think it's supposed to be 3 mil or less..
I must be in the underclass.
well McCain is probably
a bigger better person than most of us would be. I mean really, being in the horrible conditions he was a POW, tortured, starved, etc, he REFUSED to go home when told he could, because military protocol says first-in, first-out and he wouldn't let the fact that his father was an Admiral save him from the pain. How many anybodies would do that??? and knowing that it would be way worse on him for refusing to go as well. Now that is character, grit and integrity all rolled into one. So again, he would use his experience wisely i am very sure, and not with any vendetta.
McCain
1. He loves this country and has proven so.
2. He has fought for this country and did the right thing when nobody was looking.
3. He is a moderate republican and does not hesitate to cross the aisle with issues.
4. I trust him unequivocally and believe he will do his best to serve his country.
5. I believe he will place great Americans in his cabinet.
6. I think spending less is important now with the crisis in our midst and I feel that his deduction increases will help me and my family tremendously.
7. I believe he will keep our country safe.
McCain
No need to keep repeating the same reasons. They do not change like Obama's campaign does.
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