Thursday, August 21, 2008

"A noun, a verb and P.O.W."


You might have noticed the McCain campaign trot out the candidate's history as a P.O.W. to explain or excuse any number of issues—despite the fact that the campaign and McCain himself maintain that "they don't like to talk about it."

It's their go-to trump card and applies to everything from:

• His favorite football team
• His healthcare plan
• His publicly humiliating his wife
• The possibility of his cheating in Saturday's Q&A forum.


But today, they played the P.O.W. card in an instance I thought there's no way they could wedge it in...

Yesterday, McCain was asked during an interview about the economy, "how many homes he owns." He couldn't answer the question (link).

Seriously. He didn't know. His actual response was, “I think — I’ll have my staff get back to you.”

Obama pounced in his speech later that day and with an excellent (and lightning-fast) response ad (video here). The McCain Camp's first counter was with the tired and dishonest arugula and preposterous Hawaii elitism attacks on Obama. But today they went the distance...

“This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison,” spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.


At what point will the media start to treat this like the bullshit it is? I think Joe Biden's debate riff (down thread) was the tipping point against Guiliani's 9/11 rhetoric that allowed the media to put aside the fact that while 9/11 itself wasn't funny, Guiliani's abuse of the event had officially become a running joke.

I think it's safe for Stewart and Colbert to take the first cracks at this, and it will spread from there.

UPDATE: Added Toles cartoon. h/t Sullivan.

4 comments:

Noah said...

McCain not only stays on the tried-and-true Rovian "you want the terrorists to win" fear-mongering rhetoric, but he stoops so low as to try to put people on the defensive by adding a heaping of "and you can't question me because I was a tortured POW" to his shit sandwich.

Wes Clark is right, and I believe it whole-heartedly. I know a lot of fly-boy fighter-jockies, and they are not team-players. They are Lone Cowboys to their very core; that's what it takes to fly a supersonic jet and dodge equally supersonic missles all day. Just because you were an officer (you have to be an officer to fly, not an enlisted guy) does not mean that you 1) can lead lots of people; and 2) know how to fight and command an entire war and "Commander In Chief." Which, by the way, is not the President's job. Let's not forget...our role model Warrior-Presidents of Washington, Grant (wait...I said "role model...") and Eisenhower were President after their wars. But I digress...

So, yeah, sorry for the 5 1/2 years you were stuck in Hanoi Hilton. Sorry incompetent and chicken-shitted commanders at the time couldn't get you out. That must have sucked more than anything else in the universe could possibly suck. I myself couldn't imagine it and would probably try to start daily fights so I could fucking die.

But that experience, and your experice as a lone-wolf fighter pilot, and your dad being an Admiral...none of that added together means you can lead anyone out of a wet paper bag let alone be President.

Noah said...

/rant

Mr Furious said...

Excellent.

I'll book you for "Meet the PRess" this Sunday.

Noah said...

AND ONE MORE THING.

There are people out there who criticize Wes Clark for what he did as NATO Supreme Commander in Bosnia...

...but at least he commanded thousands of troops and made fucking decisions.

/soapbox