The Demise of John McCain

John McCain has more problems then just running a smear campaign filled with lies and innuendos. His ugly smear campaign has only turned the left and center into busy little bees digging up some of his questionable activities over his past 24 years of public service. Those busy bees have unearthed quite a nest of vipers: donation irregularities and lobbyist activities. It's one thing that McCain's ads are being viewed as detrimental to his character as the "Straight Talk Maverick" but it's totally a different beast when you are being called out for your (or your campaign member's) actions. Yes, I know they should have been called out for his lying campaign ads; but, this is America and one thing we know for sure, ignorance is bliss.

It has been brought to light that certain organizations (MoveOn and good government group) plan to press legal action in regards to how McCain's contribution bundler's have been gathering contributions for his general election:

"...A good government group is set to ask the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into the two big McCain stories of recent days -- the bundled contributions from Hess executives, and the bundling by Harry Sargeant, the guy who raised cash for McCain from a host of unlikely donors."

It has also been brought to light that there will be a deeper investigation into McCain and his campaign manager, Rick Davis, participation in the demise of over 8,000 jobs for Americans in Ohio"

"Barack Obama's presidential campaign claimed that the general election had reached a critical turning point this past week after it was revealed that John McCain and his campaign manager had helped facilitate a merger that could result in the loss of thousands of jobs in Ohio."

On a conference call with reporters, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe said news of McCain and Rick Davis' involvement in the DHL deal was "the most important development of the entire campaign this week" and would convince voters in the critical swing state that the Arizona Republican was far from his maverick image."

Obama put out, today, a radio ad exposing this issue which can only underscore the underhanded tactics of the Republican party.

Although I am excited by some of the truth coming out about McCain and his shady dealings it is already being tempered by the fact that the "Barbecue Media" (expression stolen from Bob Cesca who totally rule on the topic of the media and their slacker reporting) has not put any time in discussing any of this with the public at large. No the big topic tonight is: JOHN EDWARDS ADMITS AFFAIR IN ABC INTERVIEW.

John Edwards' affair is morally wrong but it is not the most important thing going on right now. Yes, the topic deserves some time for discussion but all night? No mention of any of McCain's possible illegal activities (with the exception of Keith Olbermann and others)? Why would Edwards situation supersede important issues going on with the republican campaign? The list of republicans problems is long and as John Amato has listed you would think some of it should had been food for fodder for the media to push out to the public. After all if any of this involved Obama it would be front page news:

• McClellan said that FOX News got talking points from the White House
• Bush authorized rendition.
• Bush authorized torture. Yes, that means waterboarding.
• Bush authorized a war based on lies resulting in millions of innocent Iraqi and Afghani civilian deaths as well as an ethnic cleansing.
• Thousands of our troops have been killed or seriously injured.
• The US dollar is in the tank.
• The housing/mortgage crisis has almost caused a depression.
• How about the trampling of our Constitution with warrantless wiretapping?
• Laptops are being confiscated at airports and the border.
• Under Bush, oil companies are raking in record profits while Americans suffer.
• The US attorney scandal.

Alas it seems the only thing that moves the "Barbecue Media" is looking for or fabricating dirt about Obama. You could almost ask the question, who is McCain? Such insignificant reporting is done about his countless gaffes, flip flops, confusions and lies that the only thing people know about McCain is that he is OLD.

Update: And the hits just keeps coming, it was reported today that another one of McCain's campaign workers was involved in lobbying for that nation of Georgia:

WASHINGTON — John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randall Scheunemann, lobbied for the nation of Georgia for four years, including for about a year after he joined the Republican senator's presidential campaign staff in early 2007.

"Georgia has paid Scheunemann's firm, Orion Strategies, LLC, nearly $900,000 since 2004, including $200,000 for an eight-month contract that began on May 1, two weeks after McCain issued a strong statement criticizing Russia and supporting Georgia.

Scheunemann took a leave from lobbying for Orion in March, two months before McCain barred active lobbyists from serving on his staff. He's still listed as Orion's president and owner.

Reached by phone, Scheunemann declined comment and referred a reporter to the campaign."

Come on people what's the expectation when you know the candidate has surrounded his self with lobbyist?

Is The Negativity of McCain's Campain just petty jealousy?

After reading a very interesting article by David Border concerning the negativity that this campaign has taken, it caused me to ask the question of whether McCain's real reason for embarking into that arena was due to his petty jealousy?

David Border asked John McCain "How do you feel about the tone and direction of the campaign so far?" McCain's response was very interesting:

"I'm very sorry about it," McCain said in a Saturday interview at his Arlington headquarters. "I think we could have avoided at least some of this if we had agreed to do the town hall meetings" together, as he had suggested, during the summer months."

Does McCain know how petty that sounds? Clearly from the blogs I have read regarding this topic a lot of people are just ready to write McCain off as a bitter old man. But not so fast. That statement is plagued with a wealth of tell alls about McCain's mind set. Whereas some people want to push the statement as coming from an old man, I see it coming from the other end of the age spectrum and it shows that McCain has very jealous juvenile tendencies. Since I have children the analogy was very easy to see. When one child will NOT play the game the other one wants, the first child considers that an act of war and ventures into the realm of striking back by any means, short of physical harm (although sometimes it does come to blows between children).

The picture McCain is portraying to me is one of a petty jealous juvenile-bully. Doubtless not one that beat you up for your lunch money everyday, but one that gets so jealous and angry because the other person won't do what they want and then when that person is looked favorably on for rejecting the petty jealous juvenile-bully, the petty jealous juvenile-bully then looks for ways to hurt that person in an emotional way and be damn how that will make the petty jealous juvenile-bully look. They don't care. They just want the the world to know how enraged they are. Sort of the "be damn of the consequences" approach.

I agree with Obama when he said that he and McCain have ultimate control over their campaign (unless McCain is really just a puppet, which for now I will give him the benefit of the doubt). So when Obama denied McCain the opportunity to travel with him to the middle east and then Obama had the nerve to turn it out and be labeled as a rock star. McCain's petty jealousy and juvenile-bully came out in full force and (maybe) when his campaign asked how he wanted to handle the situation he probably told his inner circle to find someway to destroy Obama. Thus we got the "media love Obama ad," the Obama is willing to lose a war to win an election, the infamous "celebrity" ad and of course the "he played the race card."

Of course the consequences was probably not what McCain wanted. There was an immediate backlash from the media over McCain's false claim that the media didn't notice him, he got a public and government out cry over Obama not being patriotic enough and of course we know he got an even uglier responses for the celebrity ad and the race card accusation.

McCain's actions can not be viewed as anything less than a jealous temper-tantrum of the petties kind. But my question to McCain, if he can answer one in between yelling Surge, Surge, Surge and Drill, Drill, Drill, what about what's troubling the American people (who really do not have time for watching your petty jealous juvenile-bully in action)? Your petty jealous juvenile-bully actions may make the RNC, neocons, and right winger happy but keep in mind that you need more votes then just that base. We need answers, not skits. You should give full concentration towards answering the big questions (and not in the key of one note -- drill, drill, drill) if you want to win or much less stay in the game.

Well this is my night to keep it simple. Let's just let the clips say all that I could say.

Why it's getting harder to listen to the Media

I get it, the media believe this campaign is about Obama and they feel that it's their duty to make sure "regular American citizens ("RACs") knows as much as they can about the presumed democratic nominee. Since I'm an RACs I can write regarding this subject with a certain amount of honesty.

Being the RACs I can state as a fact that the media does not observe reporting from the perspective of the RACs. We are very tired of the constant negative messages regarding Obama that we receive on a daily basis. Granted some of the media will spend a few minutes giving the RACs some positives reporting about Obama but you can bet it will be countered by either a positive message about McCain's (irregardless of whether he deserve such coverage of praise) or a negative report about Obama. Yet the RACs can always bank on receiving a good 75 to 80% positive coverage of McCain never being followed up by any negative, unless it's against Obama.

Most times when McCain commits a faux pas, gaffe, misstatement or just out right lies the only reporting we receive as an answer for these stumbles, campaign growing pains, or out right lies is that McCain is being McCain. Are they blind or just playing stupid? The media totally misses the point that the RACs is not buying that bulls**t. We are not stupid or blind and can easily see the disparity between the reporting of these two candidates. The RACs would very much appreciate being treated like adults and not listening to someone of the media play with our intelligence.

The best way to illustrate how bias the media has been is to point out some of their recent disparities in their lopsided reporting.

• When McCain offered (or prentended to offer, the jury is out on this vote) his wife to participate in the Buffalo Chip contest the vast majority of the medias response was to give McCain the benefit of the doubt. That's all good and well, but McCain is the same man who call his wife a c**t and is the same man that do not believe in a woman's right to make a choice on abortion, as well as the same man that does not believe women deserve equal pay. Just what benefit of the doubt are we suppose to give McCain? The RCAs knows where he stands on woman's issues (not those RACs who are female that have given over their right to be independent versus being subjugated by a male counterpart). His offering his wife to participate in a contest that would expose her to being stripped of her dignity does not seem like such a reach to pander for votes. After all, he does not respect women in other right.

Now let's examine what the headlines would have been had Obama, for the sake of votes, offered his wife to participant in the same event. The headlines would have been screaming to the RACs about how Obama had no family values; how Obama had no respect for his wife; or, better yet, how low would Obama would go to win this election (which would play in to Obama's lack of patronism). Double standard? You know it.

• Obama just released his new energy plan, which received raves from environmentalist for it's progressive stance. On the same day McCain campaign picked up on the advise that Obama offered a response to a RAC about how the RAC could help. All of a sudden the suggestion (which was not his energy plan) became the butt of McCain's bash Obama joke. Let's not stop there though. What Obama suggested (which was to keep air in your tires) was true. Did the media report that the ridicule coming from the Republicans and McCain was not true? Hell no (get use to this comment since I will be saying it constantly). Not until the ridicule had ran it's course. Did Obama's energy plan get pushed into the media's attention. Hell no.

• When McCain visited a nuclear plant that had a history of almost having a melt-down (and is currently close) to advocate his point of pushing for creating more nuclear plants, even though he is more than vague on where we are suppose to put the waste, did the media report that fact. Hell no.

• When McCain put out the infamous "celebrity" ad that depicted Obama as an empty glory seeking non-star celebrity the media said it was fun and cute. Yet within that same period of time after some pundits, reporters, statesmen and RACs noted that the ad really had racial undertones to it (not that McCain is a racist, but his campaign wants it out there so that those so called white voters that Obama supposedly need will understand that Obama is not one of them) and Obama later made a statement about the true fact that the republicans would say he was a risk, looked funny and didn't look like one of the presidents on our dollar bill, McCain's camp and McCain pushed out the story that Obama was playing the race card. We can all agree Obama has no choice but to play the race card every day...He's Black! Some in the media wrote articles about how Obama was doing just that, playing the race card. They never stopped and said, "gee, I wonder where he got that idea from." Maybe from McCain's web site that had a video of Obama being superimposed over Mt. Rushmore, Statue of Liberty and $100 dollar bill (although McCain has removed the evidence from his web site, thank goodness for YouTube ). Did the media ever pick up on this morsel of truth? Hell no.
  

• Still ,on the point of the "celebrity ad," when Paris Hilton responded to the ad McCain put out portraying her as an empty headed star-wanna-be-celebrity, and she came out with her own ad (which was very cute) laced with plenty of insults toward McCain the media reported the story simply as "McCain enjoyed it." The RACs wants to know who the h*ll cares? The election is not about Ms. Hilton or McCain's indulgence in this juvenile conversation. why isn't the media asking why the RACs is being subjected to this sideshow while we have real problems going on with our economy. Had this been Obama the headlines would be screaming in regards to his descent into distracting conversation with an air head. Why is McCain constantly getting a free pass for these ridiculous antics?.

My list of injustices by the media over reporting actual facts when it concerns to McCain could go on and on (which I admit probably will over the course of the next 90 days). But I will bring this article to close by simply stating an honest fact: HEY MEDIA GET IT RIGHT. THE RACs WANT THE TRUTH. No more with the white washing of McCain's lack of a real plan. No more playing into McCain's (or more to the point right wing talking points) campaign of distraction. Until then I will be like other RACs and just put you on pause, lower the volume, or turn the channel.

This message does not include (Keith Olbermann, Jack Cafferty or Rachel Maddow as part of the media Obama bashing machine).

A Leader or a Puppet?

As I've been comparing President Bush to the presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, it has become some what glaringly clear that they are similar in too many ways, which makes me feel that McCain winning the election will not bode well for the growth of America. I've done this comparison because I really feel that we are heading in the same path by electing McCain. Why? Well because most people agree that Bush was not the force behind the destruction of America even though he is taking the blame. He just isn't smart enough. Plenty of people agree that Bush was not smart enough. Hum...neither is McCain for that matter. That begs for the question that needs an answer: if McCain wins who will really be running the government? Big Business, again? The neocons? The religious right? Dick Cheney? Karl Rove? Or will it be just a joint effort by all of them?

Let's put the ducks in a row and compare President Bush and McCain on several factors with the intent of finding the difference:

1. Educational accomplishments,
2. policies,
3. campaign tactics, and
   
4. speaking capabilities

Let's look at Bush's and McCain's records shall we:

Bush received a C during his tenure at Yale and McCain was 5th from the bottom of his class that had over 800 students during his tenure at the U.S. Naval Academy. It seems they are pretty equal in the educational department.

Overall McCain has voted 95% FOR Bush's policies and in 2007 McCain voted 100% FOR Bush's policies. In fact McCain plans to keep most of Bush's failed policies and give the oil companies and big business more cuts and Tax Breaks. As Glenn Grernwald puts it:

"John McCain delivered what was billed as a "major foreign policy" speech and today, David Brooks gushed that it was "as personal, nuanced and ambitious a speech as any made by a presidential candidate this year." In particular, Brooks said that the speech demonstrates just how different McCain's foreign policy approach is from that of Bush/Cheney: "Anybody who thinks McCain is merely continuing the Bush agenda is not paying attention." The reality is exactly the opposite. Thematically, rhetorically and substantively, McCain's speech, particularly as it concerned the Middle East, was essentially a replica of the speech George Bush has been giving for the last seven years. It trumpeted virtually every tenet of the neoconservative faith: to be safe, the U.S. must slay tyranny around the world, spread democracy, bring freedom to the grateful peoples of the Middle East so they turn towards us and away from the Terrorists, using "more than military force"

As well as Think Progress puts it:

"McCain’s speech last week represented a feeble attempt to distance himself from Bush, something his top surrogate acknowledges is futile. Strangely enough, McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said recently that Obama’s economic polices, not McCain’s, would represent a third Bush term (a claim ultra-conservative Robert Novak even found absurd).

But the simple fact is that Graham is right. McCain is proposing massive tax cuts that primarily benefit higher-income households, ignore other priorities and drive up the national debt by trillions. And McCain’s health care policy would raise costs and abandon the uninsured. That sure sounds like an “extension” and “enhancement” of Bush’s policies."

Just like his predecessor McCain has embarked in running a campaign lacking integrity and substance when it comes to using ads. As Bush had in 2004 against Kerry with the use of the infamous swift boat mudslingers, McCain has his campaign running mudslinging ads as well (the only differences is that Bush was not the one slinging the mud, McCain must have felt that it would be better to cut the middle man out of the picture). The Wall Street Journal writes:

"John McCain has edged toward more negative ads lately – a strategy he took in his previous presidential bid and one that “has been and may still be problematic - if not disastrous,” writes The Huffington Post’s Thomas B. Edsall. “For McCain, negative ads have by and large been poorly conceived and minimally effective. In 2000, his decision to go negative against George W. Bush was a crucial factor in McCain’s eventual defeat.” For those who don’t remember, McCain compared Bush to Bill Clinton, which was “at that moment, beyond the pale,” Edsall notes."

For the final comparison let's just let the visuals do the job:





Enough said, another puppet waiting to get in the White House.

McCain's Bog Site is Ridiculous

McCain and company really know how to bring new meaning to the term blogging. Besides the fact that his blogs site only list a few subjects (as small as 5 listings), I am getting this creepy feeling that the people that populate his blog are his own campaign staff workers. There is just too much familiarity to the people that are doing the blogging to not make a person suspicious. His blog site only reminds people just how low and pathetic McCain and his people are. Why have a blog page if no one is really blogging? What's the point? Oh I get it. We are suppose to believe people really care about his issues and have extensive blogging going on to prove he is interesting. Well then I think McCain and his campaign crew have a lot more work to do. If his blog site was new I would give it the benefit of the doubt for only having 5 subjects but it is not new and even if he or staff member Archived you would only do so to make room for new subjects (or, of course, scrub subjects so people don't have any way to trace some of your more erroneous statements).

Most blog sites that I have encountered are populated with readings and comments. For a first time visitor there is usually (even if dated) plenty to read. Not so at McCain's site which caused my investigative antennas to go up and check out what was really going on with his blog site.

While hanging out at John McCain's web site (this is something I do regularly just to know where he's at) I stumbled across a Blog about McCain's weekly radio program (one of the 5 blogs he had listed). The text of that blog was not of any great significance but the comments were beyond stupid. The commenter's were all going on about how scary Obama was and to go to a particular site to see (snopes.com/politics/obama/airplane.asp) . And, if that site was true it proves Obama was the anti-Christ? So of course I went to the site with great expectation of seeing something amazing or distorted. What the hell did I find but a page from Snopes showing how Obama remodeled his plane. It was bad enough that on McCain's blog page you get a sense that everyone knows one another and you can only wonder if the conversation is taking place between campaign staffers. It boils down to a conversation by the same 5 or 6 people. They make comment like "leaving in a few hours," "getting ready to go to lunch," "Tom....we will see you later" and things like "hi Joe," "hi Tom" etc. Who ever those people are they are ridiculous. They basically went off about Obama taking the American flag off the tail of his plane and replacing it with his trade mark symbol. Forget the fact that Obama still has a picture of the American flag on his plane; he just dared to tweak it and move it from it's prime location (as per whoever those bloggers are). I am just shaking in my boots over this. How awful can Obama be for removing the flag from the back of his plane. How dare he. We the people should organize and protest this outrage! Oh wait, I've got bigger problems...the need for a better ECONOMY! These tactics of McCain's and his campaign are beyond juvenile. I've got an 11 year old who could have done a better job.

Just to make sure I was not assuming McCain had no real traffic at his blog site I clicked on another topic. Sure enough you had another 5 or 6 people who seem very familiar with one another having a conversation. I can't prove that the conversation was being held by campaign staffers but it seem pretty odd to me that bloggers would have such long conversations with the inclusion of such topics as going to lunch, missed you last night and see you later. I've blogged quite a bit and I have yet to have such a long conversation with so few people. McCain's blog site reminded me more of Match dot com then an authentic blog site.

Good vs. Evil

This campaign is shaping up to be a real fight of good vs. evil. Not that either candidate is really good or evil but their policies are. Will we vote for a candidate that have new ideas and is new, charismatic, charming and have the power of a rock star or will we hide in fear of change (just like the republicans want us to) and elect a candidate that is old, no real new ideas (voted 95% for Bush's policies), ill-tempered, lacking in real policies and also employs dirty tactics?

If you listen to the media especially when they go to some rural town and ask the older population (I don't know maybe young people have moved away?) what they think of Obama you get a sense of desolation. They are usually bias and seem to have no access to real news (or should I say the internet?). But let's remember the media is not in Obama's pocket and they tend to skew the facts. The media usually pick a town that have no real voting power in the state they are surveying and the town's people seem to want to live in fantasy land compared to the rest of America. Does Obama have a real shot of being our next president? Hell yea! Too much time is spent looking at national polls. No offense to the national polls but I have no idea what states they chose to phone on that day. There's also the fact that cell phone owners (you know the people that only have cell phones) are not being taken into account. I strongly feel that most polls are skewed. The only problem with us Obama supporters though is that a lot of us want to tell Obama how to run his campaign. Let's see, we tell him how he needs to put out negative ads, how he needs to vote on legislation, whether to drill or not, who should be his VP, blah, blah, blah. Can we get a little faith going here. What is the alternative? McCain. McCain is so upside down I am having a hard time defining whether he is too old, nasty, a bigot or just a plan old puppet. Based on Obama's opinion McCain's campaign is cynical. But since I know McCain and his campaign does not always agree on his position I'm starting to wonder if McCain is a puppet more than any thing else. The last thing America needs is for another Bush (I firmly believe he was a puppet. He was too dumb to put forth the destruction that we've just experienced, just like McCain who was Mr. 6th or 5th from the bottom of his class. News to America, being rich (such as McCain is) do not make you smart, it makes you an an empty elitist.