Another conservative is feeling very uneasy about John McCain. This time it's George Will who writes in The Washington Post: "Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama."
Will criticizes McCain's impulsive, reactionary and very un-presidential calling for the head of SEC Chairman Chris Cox with little regard for the facts. He goes on to say:
"Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.
It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?"
History is literally unfolding before our eyes and under our noses---as it has been for the past eight years. Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic gives his unsettling take.
"But this new move to create a de facto dictator for the financial markets, to invest a Treasury secretary with unprecedented powers to buy and sell at close to a trillion dollar level - with no oversight or accountability: this is a new collapse in democratic life and constitutional norms."
Elizabeth Drew, a longtime McCain supporter and author of the glowing 2002 book, Citizen McCain, is no longer feeling the love.
In a very personal piece on Politico,Drew recalls how during the 2000 presidential primary race she felt great admiration for McCain and considered him a man of "principle and honor" who "voted his conscience, and demonstrated courage in bucking his own party and fighting for what he believed in."
Back then, she firmly believed in---and helped create--the image of him as a maverick in the Republican party.
But no more. In the last few years, Drew has been troubled by some of McCain's behavior: his fixation on "winning the war," his yielding to Bush on torture, his waning support for campaign finance reform (after it proved politically unpopular with Republicans).
But the final straw for Drew was McCain's "willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition."
Drew, who has had more access to the man than many, has concluded that there is:
"a disturbingly erratic side of McCain’s nature. There’s a certain lack of seriousness in him. And he does not appear to be a reflective man, or very interested in domestic issues. One cannot imagine him ruminating late into the night about, say, how to educate and train Americans for the new global and technological challenges."
In the last few days, even conservatives have called into question McCain's judgment--specifically his choice of Palin and how he's choosing to run his campaign.
"In the current Weekly Standard, Steven Hayward argues that the nation’s founders wanted uncertified citizens to hold the highest offices in the land. They did not believe in a separate class of professional executives. They wanted rough and rooted people like Palin.
I would have more sympathy for this view if I hadn’t just lived through the last eight years. For if the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice.
And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all, it requires prudence."
"Now that we've seen the entirety of the Palin-Gibson tete-a-tete, I concur with Rich Lowry and Rod Dreher. The most that can be said in her defense is that she kept her cool and avoided any brutal gaffes; other than that, she seemed about an inch deep on every issue outside her comfort zone. Yes, the questions were tougher than the ones that a Tim Kaine or Tim Pawlenty probably would have been handed, but they were all questions that a vice-presidential nominee needs to be able to answer. And there's no way to look at her performance as anything save supporting evidence for the non-hysterical critique of her candidacy - that it's just too much, too soon - and a splash of cold water for those of us with high hopes for her future on the national stage."
Richard Cohen of The Washington Post wonders where the John McCain of 2000 is because the 2008 version has turned pretty ugly and is not what the country needs right now.
"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."
"McCain has gone in his ads one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test," said Rove. "Both campaigns ought to be careful about... there ought to be an adult who says: 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don't we make our point and get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don't include that one little last tweak in the ad?'"
The new global economy isn't so new anymore. It is in full swing---and has been for awhile. While we've been busy hunting down WMDs and barking insults at evildoers, doing business around the world has changed a lot. Eight years later, America can no longer afford to scream from the sidelines. We not only need to get in the game; we need to be defining the rules and the goals of that game.
To do so, we desperately need a leader with vision who understands the interconnectedness of technology, energy, trade and the environment. The same innovative minds that have given us microprocessors the size of our pinky nails could most certainly come up with something better than an SUV for getting around town. But it's going to take an administration willing to make oil-independence a priority and invest in it accordingly.
An energy policy based almost exclusively on extracting more fossil fuels from every crevice of unexplored earth (while cheering 'Drill, baby, drill!') is quite literally one from the dark ages.
Thomas Friedman spells it out: It's way past time to invest in the future, the green economy and the economic realities of the 21st century.
"Unless we make America the country most able to innovate, compete and win in the age of globalization, our leverage in the world will continue to slowly erode. Those are the issues this election needs to be about, because that is what the next four years need to be about."
A little break from politics...these guys are insane! Watch what they can do on a skateboard, flying down a very STEEP hill and going upwards of 30 mph while passing a camera. Skip the first two minutes.
Sarah Palin supposedly has an approval rating of 80 percent in her own state. But a lot of Alaskan women came out in Anchorage this weekend to voice their disapproval.
A self-described "ex- Air Force officer (9 years), evangelical Christian, card carrying conservative, Rush/Hannity listener" describes why he can no longer support the Republican party and why he's voting for Obama.
Think Progress is counting the number of times the McCain campaign lies about Sarah Palin being an opponent of the Bridge to Nowhere.
I guess if outright lying about your own record time and time again despite the facts makes you a Maverick, then they might actually be on to something.
Recently, someone I know---who is a self-described swing voter who lives in Alaska--asked me about how Obama's "experience" compares to Palin's. Here is my response:
Hey, If you have some questions or want to talk about it earnest, I'm happy to talk about it. But if you seriously can see no difference and think that the choice of Palin is anything more than a pander to women and the far, far right wing, as well as a major sideshow so McCain doesn't have to address the issues, then I honestly don't know what to say.
This election, to me, is not like our typical family political conversations of the past. Everything is riding on this---and it's honestly keeping me up at night. It's that important, and it's the choice is that clear.
In a very short time, Palin has proven herself to be a pretty shameless, well... liar, yes liar---claiming to be a 'maverick reformer' but actually serving as director of Ted Stevens 527, hiring a federal lobbyist and making trips to DC herself to get earmarks for Wasilla, boldly claiming she opposed "the bridge to nowhere" ---when in fact she totally supported it until she realized it was politically unpopular and then pocketed the federal dollars for Alaskans, flagrantly abusing her executive power in the firing of Walt Monegan and now using the McCain campaign to stonewall the investigation and have Hollis French removed, claiming that Obama has never authored a single, not one piece of legislation---he's authored 820 in the Illinois Senate, sponsored 520 in U.S. Senate (in 2 years) and authored 152 of those, including co-sponsoring with Richard Lugar (R-IN) legislation funding the destruction or securing of "loose" nuclear weapons in other countries. (Palin claimed Obama never reached across the aisle.)
To say nothing of what she's done policy-wise: transformed her hometown's budget surplus into a huge deficit, responding to the energy crisis with only "drill, baby drill," developing a foreign policy based on fear, ignorance and total lack of understanding about the rest of the world. Shhe did not have a passport until 2007 and has only been to Kuwait and Germany to visit the troops (oh and Ireland for a refueling stop.)
Do you really want someone so small-minded and provincial anywhere near the helm? Since when is it a bad thing to be educated and forward thinking? We've had 8 years of a president who "is one of us, can have a beer with." My god, isn't it time for one who is a wee bit smarter than that?
If I were a Republican (classic fiscal conservative ala Dad who values limited gov't, personal liberty, etc.) I would be outraged that my party has been blatantly co-opted by the right-wing, fundamentalist, simplistic, Amerio-centric neocons like Palin. These people have not always dictated the platform of the Republican party. That's a new phenomenon since Bush/Rove, and it's utterly terrifying. Even many Christians think there's nothing "Christ-like" about this woman.
I agree with Andrew Sullivan on this one: Palin "is a Bush-Cheney fiscal conservative: low taxes, unprecedented new spending, utter incompetence, endemic cronyism and massive debt."
Senator McCain of the past had a compelling story and did operate outside of his party on occasion. Before he became the victim of Rovian smears by Bush in the 2000 election and shockingly started sucking up to Bush, he used to stand up to his party and put himself out there. Candidate McCain, on the other hand, is a puppet trying to win an election. He's agreed with Bush more than he hasn't.
His choice of Palin affirms it even more and reveals so much about his decision-making: compulsive, reactionary, simple-minded, dismissive. Sounds too familiar for me. She is a token woman who can read a teleprompter and then gets carted off to hide in Alaska and won't take questions. She's the only candidate on the ticket not doing the Sunday a.m. talk shows this weekend with 60 days before the election. It's literally unheard of for a newly selected VP candidate not to hold a press conference or take questions at all. But we're sexist and elitist because we, the American people, want her to answer questions about her positions. Her handlers---one of whom I went to grad school with--- are fully admitting she needs to be tutored and trained so she doesn't make a mistake. She's reading the Cliff's Notes before the big "Anyone Can Be Vice-President" exam.
Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager said this week "This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."
They have nothing, literally nothing to run on except the last 8 years, so they need to make it about culture issues: abortion, religion, small town vs. cities, family values, gun rights. Energize the right; enrage the left. Karl Rove 101. They did not mention the economy once all week in St. Paul. What? How can people be OK with that?
It's astounding to me that the guy who was raised by the single mother, worked his way up to get into Ivy Leagues schools on scholarships and turned down Wall Street jobs to do service work is somehow branded as the "out of touch, uppity elitist". And the guy who got lost four planes while in the Navy, graduated 894 of 899 in his graduating class, was appointed to the Naval Senate liaison office because his father was an admiral is characterized as the hero, maverick and one of us.
Somewhere along the line, the American dream of upward mobility and making a better life for yourself has been hijacked---living out the American dreams makes you 'uppity'. Mediocrity, complacency and ignorance have become the gold standard. Sadly, playing to the lowest common denominator wins elections. We don't want to be threatened by our leaders; we don't want them to be better than us, more educated than us, more worldly than us. No wonder were in the mess we're in. We simply cannot afford to do it again.
The last 8 years have been an utter and colossal disaster. I can quite literally not fathom anyone wanting to continue four more years of this. It's incomprehensible to me on many levels, most importantly for the planet, the health of the middle class (huge indicator of overall fiscal soundness and sustainability of a nation), our standing in the world, quality public education and health care, the nightmare that is the Iraq war (while Talibanistan goes unchecked), and most importantly the quality of life for our children.
We have spent $3 trillion on this nightmare of a war---while we've let everything else go (public education, health crisis, the planet, global competitiveness). We are so unbelievably in debt to China, anyone who saw the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics knows that we don't start being the leaders in technology and innovation again, we will be absolutely screwed in the global market in our children's generation.
Please don't fall for it. They have literally nothing to stand on. Now McCain shouts "Change" at the RNC after outwardly mocking it as rhetorical gibberish for the last 18 months. Does he really think we're all that stupid and ill-informed? That we haven't been paying attention? Sadly, I think he does. And many people are.
When you have nothing else: Lie. They are just outright lying, and unfortunately as we learned in 2004 if you lie enough, people start believing it.
Every one of the "more experienced" experts---including Hillary Clinton--- mocked Obama in the beginning for his positions on going into Pakistan because Musharraf wasn't addressing Al Qaeda there, talking to our enemies like Iran, building up forces in Afghanistan, having a timetable for pull-out in Iraq. "Oh, he's so inexperienced. He's so naive and green. We can't do that!!! Timetables, talking to our enemies---that would be disaster. We know best because we've been doing this forever."
Bahaha...now what's even by the Bush administration doing? Condi Rice is in Iran talking to them, Bush is drawing up a timetable for pull out (because even the Iraqis want us out), Musharraf is out of Pakistan, etc.
So you really need to define "experience" if that is going to be what you base your decision on. Years is government is only one component. But life experience, negotiating/diplomacy skills (working successfully with people who are different than you in any capacity), temperament, values, vision, worldview, openness vs. resistance/fear of change, priorities, integrity (including family life and choice of spouse), looking forward v. looking back, and overall intelligence play a much bigger role than time in office for me.
If we elect them, we get what we deserve. I just fear for all of our children.
