and yet the media still call him a ‘maverick’, even as lobbyists run his campaign from the ‘Straight Talk Express’. Some ‘reporter’ on NPR’s All Things Considered did it last week and earned a scorching email from me over it.

same old crap from the Republicans. Economy in the shitter? Cut taxes! Osama attacked us? Cut taxes! Government spending out of control? Cut taxes! Want to talk about anything except Iraq in November? Cut taxes!

Promise the voters magic ponies for free and you’ll get their vote every time. Suckers.

off-topic, saw Michelle Obama on Colbert and she is damned sexy. I’d be proud to have her as our First Lady. Would be a great break from frumpy old women and plastic-surgery’d Xanax-ed out Stepford wives the GOP always gives us.

McCain can’t even balance spending when he’s legally required too. Why the hell would anyone trust him to do it when he’s not?

This stuff is much more interesting than watching candidates take shots.

— Brad

You must be one of those latte-sipping liberal down-to-earth southern gal-next-door Hillary Clinton keeps talking about in between shots.

Uh oh! They did “substance”? They’re gonna get crucified. As Unserious People from their bretheren , and for “a liberal hatchet job” from the right.

“Would be a great break from frumpy old women and plastic-surgery’d Xanax-ed out Stepford wives the GOP always gives us”

Yep.
Speaking of which, check out the other link from that story, on
Shorter Cindy McCain. Something just “ain’t right” with that pic. I wonder if Shorter Megan M ghostwrote any of Cindy’s Rachel’s recipes?

Christ, can you guys fix WordPress already?

Promise the voters magic ponies for those other people inside the gated community and you’ll get their vote every time.

Fixed.

Nooooooooooooooooooo!

Must sow my wild oats!

I took a break from Palast’s “Armed Madhouse” to read the first chapter of “Free Ride,” cause it came in the mail today. David Brock is so awesome. A little more perspective on McCain – who was a prisoner of war at the Hanoi Hilton, you know – can never be harmful in the discussions I will be having with nutcase conservatives in the next few months.

Did you know John McCain was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War? He’s too modest and never mentions it himself.

Except when he does. Fortunately the press takes its tongue out of his ass to mention it when McCain is too busy playing maverick cowboy.

Who is the crazy old guy there?
Maverick is his name.
Steering the country who knows where,
just to sit in the Executive Mansion.

Did you know he was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam conflict?

I waved at him when I was sitting in the Viet Cong gun turret.

Hi, John!

Will it be offensive to conservatives if I say,

“Just because he was a POW doesn’t mean he’d be a better president.”?

(You know how politically correct they can be … when it suits them. Just look at the fuss they are making over Obama’s ‘bitter’ comments. They sure sound bitter to me. We should be more careful of their feelings because they are so easily offended.)

Anyway, if they find my casual dismissal of McCain’s captivity as some sort of qualification to be president to be offensive, I will be sure to use it frequently.

And they can’t get mad. Because they’re the ones who shit all over the military – and hence the flag – in 2004.

Any time spent drying out in a county drunk-tank should also be viewed as a qualification.

Yesterday, in one of the quicker flip-flops in recent memory, McCain reversed course. The Washington Post, apparently anxious to give McCain a hand, said the senator was “refining” and “revising” his plan. That’s enormously generous of the newspaper, but in reality, McCain’s proposal was an embarrassing dud, so he gave up on it.

Senator John McCain, who drew criticism last month after he warned against broad government intervention to solve the deepening mortgage crisis, pivoted Thursday and called for the federal government to aid some homeowners in danger of losing their homes, by helping them to refinance and get federally guaranteed 30-year mortgages.

“There is nothing more important than keeping alive the American dream to own your home, and priority No. 1 is to keep well-meaning, deserving homeowners who are facing foreclosure in their homes,” Mr. McCain said in a speech on economic themes that he gave at a window company in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.

Funny, two weeks ago he thought these same homeowners shouldn’t be “rewarded” for acting “irresponsibly.”

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/11/mortgage/

When McPander said he didn’t know anything about the economy, he wasn’t kidding. I’m sure it was just a “senior moment”.

“Bail-outs are bad! Well, except for the Bear-Stearns one. And if you’re losing your house, go to the government! They’ll back your mortgage!”

Psst!

You’ve got the wrong image up there.

Here’s the version the media had to censor.

Yeah well, just as long as he doesn’t eat foreign ham.

I think the R&D credit was a good idea, but I think it should be more specific. Fer instance: R&D when it comes to energy conservation and development.

That is all well & good, but the important fact is that John McCain is a Maverick who is an American Hero who refuses to let the liberals Lose In Iraq, ever.

In the Washington Post? What is this, 1973?

Is there enough time between now and November to give “maverick” a negative denotation? I’m thinking of something along the lines of what Dan Savage did with “Santorum,” but focusing on a label instead of a last name (although at this point the word is practically part of his name). Something funny but disgusting.

Maybe it’d be easier to write the newspaper editors and pundit show producers and ask them to refrain from using the word. That plea would probably fall on deaf ears though.

a proposal to allow businesses to write off the cost of new equipment and technology from their taxes

They can already do this.

Offering vaguely pseudo-populist messaging without spelling out any of the actual details (i.e., because there are none) is the hallmark of St. BBQ’s economic package, just as it is with his global warming package.

Give him credit, Brad, there are a few details here. I’d say Maverick McCain’s hallmark is rather that when he hammers out details they contradict his message, e.g. the “anti-torture” theater in 2006, when he made a big show about being against torture, then gave Bush everything he wanted with a cherry on top. The press is typically very good at reporting the facade but can’t be bothered with the reality… maybe not considering McSame a “maverick” is unserious. Good on Shear and Weisman; may their tribe increase.

I always refer to McCain as John “Wet Start” McCain. It’s a tribute to his pilotuer abilities on the USS Forrestal.

That’s John “Wet Start” McCain.

From the Post article on Le Maverique:

McCain offered no details about a plan to create a simpler alternative tax system, other than saying it would have two tax rates and a more generous standard deduction, and taxpayers could chose whether to use it or the current system. McCain’s friend and former rival for the Republican nomination, Fred D. Thompson, proposed just such a system, with no AMT and a 15 percent tax rate and 25 percent tax rate. Because taxpayers would be allowed to choose whichever system gave them the lowest tax bill, critics estimated that the cost to the Treasury could be in the trillions of dollars.

My favorite GOP candidate may be out of the race, but his policy proposals lumber on. Good on ya, Fred!

Those look gross. I only eat things you can put cheez whiz or cheese-flavored powder on.

Bitter elitist!

Wow, that pic of Cindy! Girlfirned needs to match the foundation color to her skin tone!

Goddamm WordPress

The market place will settle on the new diet supplement , “Lose in Iraq” , as the one comestible that it is “Beyond Good” for what ails you . While having no bitter aftertaste some have defended its salty shock to the palette by pointing to its rich mineral deposits , lately discovered by invisible hands ™ located in Central Pointistan . All this while still losing , and more !
Also recommended are the bright cookbooks . Easily the best local innovation in the culinary arts with its artsy cute and irresistible Security Color Scheme . Perhaps not since belt soup made its literary splash back in the early 1930’s have we seen such a warm and friendly official government attitude towards its own beloved population . Randian malice , a wildly ranted , or sweet bootstrap molasses cookie which really clears the head from the ordinary wishy washy entre . It is so hard to keep from being objective ! umm good !

A little more perspective on McCain – who was a prisoner of war at the Hanoi Hilton, you know – can never be harmful in the discussions I will be having with nutcase conservatives in the next few months.

I think I heard somewhere that McCain planned his own capture in Vietnam to pad his resume for his future presidential bid. (I mean, come on, isn’t that a bit more believable than “self-inflicted a grenade launcher wound”?)

Seriously, you can probably review the press reports of the South Carolina primary from 2000: Rove & Co. savaged McCain as much as they would any Democrat. There were stories of him “selling out” while a POW and cooperating with the Viet Cong–that kind of thing.

And you know they must be 100% true–because why on earth would his fellow Republicans lie about him? And besides, Our Dear Leader said so.

Depending on the age of your nutcases, you may also want to mention the whole 1980’s S&L scandal that brought down the Reagan “boom” so nicely and McCain’s central role in the Keating scheme to defraud people and make taxpayers foot the bill when they got caught. That fact that the S&L crash parallels the morgage crisis today is just a bonus.

(I just realized something: Jonah Golberg probably hasn’t got the official talking points that forbid the mention of the yuppy 80s and the Alex Keaton stereotype in particular, since that might just remind people what happened to that particular group of people and who was intimately involved in it.)