poor johnny boy. that torture is starting to catch up with him now that he is one of the ones torturing and loving it. You just have to wonder if this fellow is sane, and he seems to be proving he isn't all there on a daily basis.
flashback is a bitch mr. pain.
It is too bad we have to live with losers like this guy. He has never had an opinion that he hasn't changed to suit the wind blowing up his dress.
McCain-Lieberman? The stuff nightmares are made of.
Posted by gail at August 24, 2006 10:58 AMi'm comforted that mcCain's desperation now veers toward the comic.
McCain is sending a message that he won’t be playing along as a loyal ball-licker this time,
not likely. mcCain wants to foist iraq on bush, wash his hands, and then get back in line for the party to with what they may. maverick, right.
Posted by benjoya at August 24, 2006 11:11 AMMcCain-Lieberman....BAWHHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Now that I've stopped crying from laughing so hard I can type again. McCain is going nowhere with his "we need to send MORE troops to Iraq", and Lieberman after the election will be political poison.
The winner in '08? Don't laugh...Wes Clark and Barak Obama.
Welcome back, Steve.
Posted by Christopher at August 24, 2006 01:43 PM"won’t be playing along as a loyal ball-licker " -- I agree with Benjoya - McCain has played this game one too many times, and suckered most of us for a long time. It was clear a fair time back that McCain, despite the "straight-shooter" image he covets, will do or say anything to get political advantage. Whether the goal is to jump on a Bush bandwagon, or jump off it, he is not to be trusted.....at all.. for a minute. Steve, I thought you'd learned that lesson.
Posted by T2 at August 24, 2006 02:04 PMI know you guys do not like McCain but get used to it. He is going to be the next president because there is nobody in Democratic Party that will excite the country to vote Democratic. Bill Clintons come along only once in a while.
Posted by suresh at August 24, 2006 02:55 PMMcCain-Lieberman
Good God!! I thought the DTs had returned.
A NICC and DINO running together on an independent ticket? Now that would be a formidable pairing...if they were running against papier-mache rabbits. Against real people this Franken-pol ticket would stand no chance.
Posted by phidipides at August 24, 2006 03:01 PMI've certainly never understood the gulliblilty some democrats have demonstrated for the McCain myth. To me, he's always been about as attractive as an orange, glistening and green with black-spotted corruption.
However, as the lackey in Star Wars warned the Admiral, "there is some danger in the pattern of their attack" (alright, it's paraphrased) Enough people have swallowed the bilge both McCain and Loserman have been dispensing that they could leech off a large number of votes from a legitimate, progressive (sentient) candidate and possibly allow an empty suit like Allen or Frist to ooze into power, leaving Karl laughing all the way to a tax haven in the Bahamas.
It's certain the corporate media will NOT perform anything resembling journalism. Between Diebold vote counting and a complicit, corrupt press, we can't rest on our good feelings yet.
Posted by DeminNewJ at August 24, 2006 03:07 PMI know you guys do not like McCain but get used to it. He is going to be the next president because there is nobody in Democratic Party that will excite the country to vote Democratic.
McCain will not be elected. I don't know if a Dem will win, but McCain will not. They'll take him out in the primary. He pisses off the GOP too much to garner their support.
Posted by ann at August 24, 2006 03:17 PMI think the next thing to do is to get him on the record as to whether he thinks the U.S. economy is strong or whether we are heading into a recession in the near term (say, the next 9 months). Maybe something like: "President Bush has now been in office for 5 years. The previous head of the Federal Reserve was a Reagan appointee and the current head was chosen by President Bush. President Bush has been responsible for the federal budget since 2001. Given all this, do you think that the U.S. economy is strong right now?" (If yes) "Would you therefore say that the U.S. isn't facing a recession in the near term, say the next 9 months?" (If he hedges about 9 months being the near term) "Okay, what about the next 6 months? Surely a strong economy, barring a terrorist attack or other catastrophe, isn't likely to go into recession in the next 6 months, right?"
The emphasis for the 2006 midterms seems to be Iraq, with good reason. But McCain has to be treated as the frontrunner for 2008 and he has to be put on the spot as to the economic state of the nation.
Posted by anonymous at August 24, 2006 03:29 PMAnn: McCain learned his lesson in 2000 primary when Karl Rove and the Right wing machine handed him defeat. He has now planned to use the same machine to win in 2008. That is why this independant minded maverick senator has turned into a cheerleader for Bush administration. I smell a deal here between McCain and Bush team.
Posted by suresh at August 24, 2006 03:40 PMTime to circulate McCain hugging Bush and Bush kissing Liebertraitor pictures again.
Posted by Judith at August 24, 2006 04:17 PMMcCain will probably be the GOP candidate. I just can not see the nation getting behind Frist or Allen.
If things get really bad, you might see something like Biden/Hagel ticket. These guys seem to always be on the same sheet of paper and they are more moderate than most other candidates.
If the Dems run Hillary they will lose. She even flips more than McCain. As the saying goes, McCain will dribble Hillary's head down the court.
The Dems need to get a percentate of the white male point to win. Most males out of the Southeast and Mid West will not vote for her. In addition, a big percentage of the white male vote in the west will not vote for her.
Posted by Ishmael at August 24, 2006 04:48 PMSo you know where I am coming from, I can not stand McCain either but he is certainly better than Frist or Allen. What a choice.
Ann: McCain learned his lesson in 2000 primary when Karl Rove and the Right wing machine handed him defeat. He has now planned to use the same machine to win in 2008. That is why this independant minded maverick senator has turned into a cheerleader for Bush administration. I smell a deal here between McCain and Bush team.
There's definitely a deal, but I still don't think McCain will be the nominee. Even Republicans are looking for change, and the McCain (no matter what he tries to say now) represents more of the same. The Rs are going to look at someone moderate and viable in the general election.
McCain was a moderate/maverick once - but he's gone along with all the mistakes, misdeeds and miscalculaltions of BushCo. He'll try to distance himself from it, but he has a record - on tape from his many many appearances on the Sunday Talk shows - of being a water carrier/apologist for the worst administration in US History! Chris Matthews actually played one of those tapes tonight, to discredit McCain for his words yesterday. He's not going to be able to distance himself from his own words and record.
He looks terrible these days, too - he's not aging well, and he's going to be 72 in '08, I think. Republicans will put up someone else, a Governor or a moderate Senator. Their field is very weak.
I also think that Democrats will win in '08. The polls show that the voters think that the country is heading in the wrong direction - the polling data shows the voters think Democrats will do a better job on all the issues - Iraq, economy, etc. I don't think country will give the keys back to these guys for decades!!
Posted by leftydem at August 24, 2006 05:53 PMTime to circulate McCain hugging Bush and Bush kissing Liebertraitor pictures again.
Judith
Yes!! Bush hugged and kissed "Straight Talk"! We should make Buttons - one with the HUG and one with the Kiss!! (Just like the Lieberman buttons with "The Kiss")
That's a great idea!!
Posted by leftydem at August 24, 2006 06:01 PM'McCain hugging Bush'...that ain't nothing!
How about him having cake on the day Katrina made landfall at Luke AFB here in AZ! Let's just publish that photo for the next 2 years!
Damn, we need to have a Gore/Edwards or a Gore/Richardson ticket in '08'!
Posted by Seven of Six at August 24, 2006 06:41 PMBTW, welcome back Steve!
Posted by Seven of Six at August 24, 2006 07:39 PMMcCain is a Republican and like many of the crop, you can't trust anything he says--he'll sound moderate and then reverse himself just when you least expect it--wasn't it just a couple of years ago that many Democrats saw McCain as a possible savior and there was even talk of attempting to recruit McCain for the Dem prez slot........
Jeez, some folks never learn. To wit: there'll be much hoorah before the election about how repubs are taking it the shorts in the polls -- and then hangover the day after election where the voters just went and re-elected the thugs.
Posted by degustibus at August 24, 2006 08:18 PMi noted your comments concerning your daughter entering amerikan tertiary education.
i can't wait for that discussion.
i just returned from LA. saying good-bye to my niece who is off to boulder for her collegiate experience.
before leaving LA, my sister[a schoolteacher] asked me if i could help with my niece's college expenses.
how much i asked? $38k was the annual nut, i learned.
now i graduated from hahvud in 1969. i hate to think what my parents spent in today's dollars to buy me that 4 year holiday.
i refrained from saying it to my sister, but the amerikan collegiate experience is similar to acquiring the house in the upscale neighborhood, acquiring the bmw, the merc.
except those are tangible assets.
the contemporary collegiate experience is ephemeral. and probably a waste of money.
hahvud did nothing for me.
my parents, however, who gained the status of my admission, were elevated.
children as possessions. that is how i viewed the situation 40 years ago. and i think nothing has changed.
$38k to attend university of colorado. what a waste of resources.
Posted by albertchampion at August 24, 2006 09:58 PMSteve, great to see you back.
McCain/Lieberman. Even four years ago some people might have considered that interesting. But things have dramatically changed in that period though I suspect a majority of Americans haven't quite caught up to that fact. And yet, the polls seem to show what has to be described as a shifting landscape.
McCain and Lieberman, each in their own way, seem to be reading the polls from 2002 and otherwise seem unable to keep up with the times. But maybe they're gambling that Bush will manage to start world war III (no caps for this nonsense). Nevertheless, McCain and Lieberman are utterly unprepared for the future. Personally, I have some sympathy for the 'idea' of moderates who can unify the country but too many pundits are just turning that into mush and hypocrisy. McCain is almost as conservative as Bush. Lieberman's foreign policy exists in an alternate universe and his otherwise moderate political philosophy is driven too much these days by his campaign contributors.
What I want, and what the country needs, are people who will actually address the problems of this country and who have a knack for finding pragmatic solutions; those solutions may come from a mix of true moderates and liberals this time.
I gladly voted twice for Bill Clinton, partly for his pragmatism (though it got more conservative than I anticipated), but what he offered in the 90s is already out of sync for what we need now and I haven't seen clear signs that Bill or Hillary are able to get beyond the successes of the 1990s; nor am I confident that they have yet recognized some of the weaknesses that both Democrats and Republicans were unable to acknowledge at the time.
Despite the fact that twenty-five years of Republican propaganda has given liberalism a bad name and that voters are easily misled even on moderate solutions, Americans know we need change; they know the usual Republicans are not going to offer that change.
I can see a public relations argument for McCain and Lieberman but it's all illusion and Americans are very tired of 24/7 spin games that don't connect to reality. but Democrats still need to focus very clearly on changes Americans can accept. Al Gore, for one, seems to be able to focus already on an idea or two. John Edwards seems to be that way and Russ Feingold, if he can get around some of the labeling that Republicans are sticking on him, is far more of a pragmatist than Bush will ever be. I'm not sure yet about some of the others though I remain open-minded.
By the way, if Americans start getting serious about breaking away from Bushism, the one candidate Democrats may need to watch out for is Chuck Hagel.
That being said albert, how much are you kicking in on the niece's 4 year holiday?
Posted by ran at August 25, 2006 07:40 AMAlbert:
I find it unbelievable that the University of Colorado is $38,000 a year. Now maybe but I know the University of Oklahoma is nothing like that (more National Merit scholars go to OU than practically any school in the US). I can not imagine tuition is more than $150 an hour for out of state. 30 hours is $4,500. Books could not be more than $1,000. Dorms -- Let us have you live in a mansion -- $10,000. That is $15, 500. I think this is on the high side by a couple of grand.
I would just be amazed if it cost more than this. Of course, she could go live in Colorado for a year and get instate tuition.
My four years at OU living in a one bed room apartment including beer money (which was a major expense) was probably $13,000 for 4 years.
I think Hagel might be a Republican choice.
Posted by Ishmael at August 25, 2006 08:35 AM