In Memoriam: Senator John McCain, 1936-2018

Embed from Getty Images

The Honorable Senator John McCain died Saturday at his home in Arizona, a few days short of his eighty-second birthday.  The details of his life and career as a naval aviator, prisoner of war, maverick politician, presidential candidate, and statesman are too well known to need rehearsing here.  But he left a farewell letter to the American people which cements his renown as a patriot of the first order in the classic mold:

My fellow Americans, whom I have gratefully served for sixty years, and especially my fellow Arizonans,

Thank you for the privilege of serving you and for the rewarding life that service in uniform and in public office has allowed me to lead. I have tried to serve our country honorably. I have made mistakes, but I hope my love for America will be weighed favorably against them.

I have often observed that I am the luckiest person on earth. I feel that way even now as I prepare for the end of my life. I have loved my life, all of it. I have had experiences, adventures and friendships enough for ten satisfying lives, and I am so thankful. Like most people, I have regrets. But I would not trade a day of my life, in good or bad times, for the best day of anyone else's.

I owe that satisfaction to the love of my family. No man ever had a more loving wife or children he was prouder of than I am of mine. And I owe it to America. To be connected to America's causes - liberty, equal justice, respect for the dignity of all people - brings happiness more sublime than life's fleeting pleasures. Our identities and sense of worth are not circumscribed but enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.

"Fellow Americans" - that association has meant more to me than any other. I lived and died a proud American. We are citizens of the world's greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world. We have helped liberate more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. We have acquired great wealth and power in the process.

We weaken our greatness when we confuse our patriotism with tribal rivalries that have sown resentment and hatred and violence in all the corners of the globe. We weaken it when we hide behind walls, rather than tear them down, when we doubt the power of our ideals, rather than trust them to be the great force for change they have always been.

We are three-hundred-and-twenty-five million opinionated, vociferous individuals. We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates. But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country we will get through these challenging times. We will come through them stronger than before. We always do.

Ten years ago, I had the privilege to concede defeat in the election for president. I want to end my farewell to you with the heartfelt faith in Americans that I felt so powerfully that evening.

I feel it powerfully still.

Do not despair of our present difficulties but believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. Americans never quit. We never surrender. We never hide from history. We make history.

Farewell, fellow Americans. God bless you, and God bless America.

Powerful words of wisdom and faith, and very timely too.  I hope all my truckbuddies, regardless of political persuasion, will take them to heart.  We may have disagreed with his politics, but his patriotism is beyond dispute.

Randy Rainbow: A Very Stable Genius

"A brilliantly vulgar tour de force!" -- Blue Truck, Red State

For comparison, here's a review of an even more vulgar performance in Helsinki:

"Disgraceful . . . pathetic . . . a tragic mistake . . . 

No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant." -- Sen. John McCain

Bonus: The New York Times today released a hilarious animation of Trump's sickly-sweet infatuation with Putin:



I understand that some toxic little queens are up in arms about "homophobia" here. Well, I am as gay as they come, and I say it is brilliant satire. Gay romance is merely the vehicle, not the object of the humor here. It is not directed at gay people, it's directed at a monumental buffoon and possible traitor.

Besides, on every gay website, gays themselves have been making this very same comparison, with drawings and cartoons, ever since Trump first declared himself a candidate. So chill out, girls, and go take a powder: you are just waaaaaaaaaaaaay over-sensitive.

Every satire contains a grain of truth - and who among us hasn't, sometime or other, fallen for a seductive, sexy bad boy who later turned out to be a sonofabitch?  You never will be mature human beings until you learn to laugh at yourselves - and that goes for all the other chip-on-the-shoulder groups as well, at all points on the spectrum.  Grow up, people.

Will the Ghost of DADT Repeal Pass?

As you all no doubt know, the Senate scuttled the defense bill yesterday, along with a provision repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, 57-40.  Major fucking bummer.

But a few Senators have bright hopes for passing a standalone DADT repeal bill before the Senate adjourns for the holidays.  I can't imagine it will pass either, but Rachel explains all the machinations now underway:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Andrew Sullivan:

I have no idea whether this is viable as a way to save repeal. But one does note that repeal has passed the House, is supported by the military chiefs and defense secretary, has the backing of two-thirds of the American public, and has a 57 - 40 majority in the Senate.

This really means that John McCain's filibuster is what is killing repeal. Astonishing what one man's bitter soul can do to American democracy.

Bizarre, Absurd, Contemptible

Kilroy is still here

Openly gay Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) on the DADT debate led by "old, white, straight male" bigots in Congress:



Rachel Maddow hears from former Secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander about "the point of absurdity" this debate has gotten to:



Andrew Sullivan:

I wish I understood McCain. I thought I did once, but it seems increasingly clear that he is a man of near-suicidal vanity and misjudgment (remember suspending his entire campaign to deal with Lehman Brothers, or the insanely reckless selection of an unvetted Palin) and defined by grudges. Much of his shift to the center in 2000 and after was, it now seems obvious, an attempt to sabotage the man who defeated him, George W. Bush. His conduct in the last two years seems very similar with respect to Obama, despite Obama's early attempts to persuade and coopt him.

He's not homophobic. Very close members of his staff have been gay. His longtime chief-of-staff, Mark Buse, was and is openly gay. But perhaps buried in this psyche is something generational. McCain grew up in a world where homosexuality was never spoken of, and subsequently tolerated with radioactive discretion. Gays were objects of pity and sometimes personal affection - but never seen as full equals. And the notion of a core American icon - the American soldier - being equated with gayness - in the open - is something perhaps beyond his amygdala to process.

The alternative explanation for his recent behavior is fathomless cynicism and hollowness. It's important to remember how this torture victim, in 2006, agreed to acquiesce to the CIA using the same torture techniques once used on him on other prisoners. . . .

I don't know how a torture victim can subsequently support the same thing being done to others. I don't know he sleeps at night knowing that he is responsible for tying human beings up for hours on end in excruciating stress positions - especially when he knows firsthand how horrifying this is. But I do know that such a man has lost his soul in the process.

And that is why this week is not the first time that I have felt a great deal of contempt for him. But it's also personal this time - because I know so many servicemembers who serve and have served with great honor, even with the knife of DADT stuck firmly in their backs. By possibly being the one man insisting on keeping that knife in them and twisting it, he has gone from being contemptible to being despicable, an enemy of the American soldier he is so proud publicly to support.

Pentagon Report Asks for Repeal of DADT

The long-awaited report is out, and it's a good one. Full 267-page PDF report here, which your Head Trucker has read and highly recommends.

David Wood summarizes at Politics Daily:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday urged the Senate to speedily repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' law banning gays from serving openly in the military, as the Pentagon released a year-long internal study that found repeal would cause only ''limited and isolated'' short-term disruptions to military readiness and esprit.

Seventeen years to the day after President Clinton signed into law the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy, the Pentagon formally asked that the law be abolished and set out both the rationale and the procedure to implement what would be a broad social change among the nation's 2.5 million active-duty, reserve and National Guard soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. . . .

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also concurred with the report's findings, and noted that whatever the personal feelings of individual service members about repeal of the law, existing military regulations on personal behavior would continue to govern."We in uniform have an obligation to follow orders,'' he said. "We treat people with dignity and respect in the armed forces -- or we don't last long.''

Gates and Mullen had previously declared themselves in favor of repeal of the gay ban, arguing that it required gay and lesbian service members to lie, violating the military's highest value of honor. The service chiefs, who head the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, have expressed greater doubts about repeal, with Gen. James Amos, Marine commandant, expressing outright opposition.

Nonetheless, about two-thirds of active-duty, reserve and National Guard personnel would be comfortable serving alongside openly gay or lesbian service members or felt indifferent about the change, the study found.

More resistance was found within the largely male Marine Corps and Army combat troops and special operations units, where the Pentagon study found 40 to 60 percent either were opposed to repeal of the gay ban or said it would harm the critical camaraderie of their units.

But across the military services, the study also found that about 69 percent of troops have served with a gay or lesbian service member. Of those, 92 percent said they either favored repeal or did not oppose it.

Even among combat units with the greatest doubt about changing the law, 84 percent of the Marines and 89 percent of Army soldiers who said they had served with gays or lesbians said they did not oppose repeal.

Asked at a Pentagon briefing Tuesday about doubts and reservations among troops about repeal of the law, Gates said, "Part of this is a question of unfamiliarity, part of it is stereotypes, and part of it is just inherent resistance to change when you don't know what's on the other side.''

It's perhaps the largest survey of military personnel ever undertaken, involving direct survey responses from 115,000 active-duty personnel and their spouses, and about that many more responses via other channels.

And when all is said and reviewed - and my Stetson is off to the military, they did it all up good and proper - the bottom line is:  having the gays in the military just ain't no big deal.

So suck it, McCain.

WTF: 27% of Gay Votes Went to McCain & Palin

From a Log Cabin Republicans email quoted on conservative website Gay Patriot:

Exit polls show Sen. John McCain received at least 1.3 million votes from gay and lesbian Americans—more than any other Republican Presidential candidate has ever received. He garnered 27% of the LGBT vote, an increase from 19% support for President Bush four years ago.

Gay Patriot goes on to say, all snarky (bad cess to them):

According to the CNN exit polls, 4% of the American electorate self-identified as gay or lesbian. That means about 4.8 million gays and lesbians voted on Tuesday. That seems rather low and pathetic to me from a community that is so self-politicized. Oh well.

And so McCain got 27% of the gay vote, or 1,310,893. Up nearly 20% over 2004. I like to think there are a lot of GayPatriot readers in that bunch.

We Gay Conservatives did our part on the Stop the Obama Express! It was all of the other demographic groups that crapped out, apparently.

What I say: Your Head Trucker's jaw just hit the floor. In this particular election, when the issues were so amazingly clear, I can scarcely believe that more than one out of four queers voted for McLame and Miss Wasilla. And that twenty percent more queers voted Republican than did for Bush in '04!

What. The. Fuck. Goes. On. Here.

Something is bad, bad wrong with this picture. Recount, please.

UPDATE. It's occurred to me that exit polling on Election Day did not reflect the early voters. And haven't we just seen the biggest early voting ever in this country? So naw, these numbers are AFU. I'm not a math guy at all, but I can't believe they represent the real gay vote - or any other group's, for that matter.

Bush Congratulates Obama

Bush pledges "my complete cooperation" to Senator Obama . . . whose election is "a dream fulfilled - we move forward as one nation":

Nothing in his presidency became him like the leaving it--Macbeth, Act I, Scene IV (with apologies to Shakespeare).

I did not expect to ever say this, but for the first time in seven years I am proud of Mr. Bush: his remarks are those of a gentleman and a patriot.

As were those of Mr. McCain, whose gracious concession speech the other night was perfection: calm, respectful, and conciliatory.

Neither man expressed the slightest qualm about the ascension of the first African-American president; nor the slightest fear about the safety and welfare of the nation.

Instead, both looked forward to a bright and happy future for this republic under Mr. Obama's leadership.

I am SO PROUD of my country. We all belong now. Let freedom ring. God bless America!

Just Imagine

In some alternate universe, perhaps there's another election going on right now . . . .

(Honk to Queerty)

News Flash: McCain Condemns Holiday

Nick Anderson/Houston Chronicle

(Honk to The Daily Slab)

They Stoop to Conquer

McCain is pulling out all the stops to paint Obama as a terrorist:



Which is inciting to hatred, and maybe violence, as witness the following McCain-Palin supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania:



All these people need are white sheets or black shirts to make the picture complete:



McCain and Palin are deliberately inciting hatred; they will have a lot to answer for if anything happens to Obama.

They're pigs.



Even conservative columnist Kathleen Parker says in the Washington Post that McCain's vicious tactic has gotten totally out of hand:

The McCain campaign knows that Obama isn't a Muslim or a terrorist, but they're willing to help a certain kind of voter think he is. Just the way certain South Carolinians in 2000 were allowed to think that McCain's adopted daughter from Bangladesh was his illegitimate black child.

But words can have more serious consequences than lost votes and we've already had a glimpse of the Palin effect.

The Post's Dana Milbank reported that media representatives in Clearwater were greeted with taunts, thunder sticks and profanity. One Palin supporter shouted an epithet at an African-American soundman and said, "Sit down, boy."

McCain may want to call off his pit bull before this war escalates.

If brains were trains . . .

Afternoon Drive: Suspicious Minds

Well, I reckon the country can breathe a little easier this weekend:

* Palin didn't make a complete fool of herself in the debate last night; well, nobody's perfect. For her family's sake, I'm glad she was able to make a respectable-enough performance. Though of course she amply showed once again that her party is unfit to govern.

* Obama's lead over McCain in all the national polls continues to grow.

* And the House passed the bailout bill by a good margin; so the next Depression hasn't started. Yet.

It's a gorgeous fall afternoon here in Texas, 75 and sunny. Guess we can all kick back now, enjoy a cold one, and rock on into the weekend with Dwight Yoakam's guitar-string-busting live rendition of "Suspicious Minds," offered here in the spirit of bipartisan unity that's been talked about so much this week.

Crank it up and have a good one, y'all.

What's your problem, John?

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday:

Last night's bipartisan harmony capped a day of public unity. At an Obama rally in La Crosse, Wis., and a McCain event in Independence, Mo., the two candidates struck remarkably similar tones, speaking of the crisis as a time for unity and national purpose -- and a call for far more fiscal discipline in the future.

"The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems in Washington isn't a cause, it's a symptom. It's what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you," McCain said at the Truman Library. . . .

McCain even released an advertisement that decries partisanship in both parties, never mentions Obama and lifts one of his opponent's signature lines: "We're the United States of America."

"What a week," McCain says, speaking into the camera. "Democrats blamed Republicans. Republicans blamed Democrats. We're the United States of America. It shouldn't take a crisis to pull us together."

Yet later that same day, while both candidates were in the Senate during the vote on the economic rescue plan:

On the Senate floor, Obama crossed the well to the Republican side to reach his hand out to McCain and mouth, "Good to see you." McCain looked up briefly from his conversation with Sens. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) to give his rival a curt handshake.

The San Francisco Chronicle also reported on the incident:

McCain did not arrive in time for the debate and, when he entered the chamber, walked past Obama without acknowledging him. Several minutes later, Obama strode to where McCain was talking with his friend Joe Lieberman, independent-Conn., and held out his hand in greeting. McCain gave a curt, frigid shake back and instantly looked away. In the clubby world of the Senate, it was an unmistakable rebuff.

What gives with the pissy, prissy attitude, huh John? Where is that coming from? After all that fine, howdy-doody talk in front of the crowds and cameras about bipartisan harmony . . . .

Right. I get the picture.

Oh and McCain is not the only one peeing in the soup; the same WSJ article also noted:

The Republican National Committee came the closest to actually blaming Obama for the crisis, with an ad intoning: "Wall Street squanders our money, and Washington is forced to bail them out with, you guessed it, our money. Can it get any worse? Under Barack Obama's plan, the government would spend a trillion dollars more, even after the bailout."

That partisan ill will was evident in the Senate chamber. Obama entered at the tail end of a speech by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), who then left the chamber. Democratic senators filed in, to listen, then mob the candidate with handshakes, hugs and good wishes. Only one Republican, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, sat on the other side of the aisle.

Guess teh gayz are off the hook for the financial crisis after all: pretty soon the Republican choir will be singing a full-throated SATB chorus of It's all Obama's fault!

Just wait and see, kids. And don't believe all the happy talk you hear about bipartisan unity: just BS for the masses. The Republicans know their party is about to lose big time at the polls, and they are going to be very, very sore losers, you betcha.

Republican Betrayal

The news that the House of Representatives failed to pass the so-called bailout bill today came as a real shock to me and, I don't doubt, to many other Americans. It just took my breath away.

It was sunk by those Republicans to whom "the free market" is for all practical purposes synonomous with "the will of God." No socialism in America, oh no! We'll watch the whole country crash and burn first, before we betray our oh-so-sacred principles!

In fact, they have betrayed the country, exactly as their Republican grandfathers did in 1929 and the years following: standing firm on their free-market faith while all around them the country sank deeper and deeper into economic misery. And when Roosevelt finally got into office in 1933, they fought his every move tooth and nail, crying socialism all the way.

But as my little grandmother used to say, a sweet, humble soul to whom economics would have been as mysterious as astrophysics, "If it hadn't been for Roosevelt, we'd have all perished to death."

Which gets right to the heart of the matter: pure, unrestrained greed is lethal to the economy and the nation; Roosevelt saved the people from the excesses of the free market, and for that he was beloved by many millions who suffered economic cruelty at the hands of the self-righteous, and highly self-interested, Republican capitalists.

I'm no economist, but I know enough to say that you can't have a completely free or a completely regulated market; a happy medium must be found for the greatest good of the greatest number. The New Deal, it seems to me, was by and large that happy medium until the jackbooted Republicans of the Reagan-Bush-Bush era trampled it underfoot and made the world safe for avarice.

It was chilling to watch the televised press conferences today in the aftermath of the House debacle, with an inset displaying the Dow sinking lower and lower by the minute: down 777 points by close of business. I watched it sink a hundred points with my own eyes, in only 15 minutes of viewing.

Of course, the renegade Republicans who 86'd today's bill are the same who have gone along so blithely with Bush's imperial decrees and power grabs in the past; today they suddenly found the testicular fortitude to defy the President, not to mention the leaders of their own party. But stupidly, they have taken the wrong stand at the wrong time.

Of course, they tried to blame it on the Democrats, and Nancy Pelosi's "partisan" speech before the vote; but good ol' Barney Frank had a brilliant riposte to that.

McCain is also claiming that he charged up to Washington last week and rewrote the first version of the bill and protected the taxpayers, yada yada yada; or at least that's the slick impression his statements and those of his supporters make: rewriting history so soon. The fact is, House Dems and Repubs had a compromise bill already agreed on, and the votes lined up, before he got to Washington; his presence at the White House conference last Thursday emboldened the renegades to drop a bomb on the compromise.

So here we are. I realize that all may yet be well, though with the Jewish holidays, no bill will be passed before next weekend in the best case. But if this country really has slipped off a precipice today, I do hope history records that McCain and the pure-T-free-market Republicans are the ones who gave it the last shove into the darkness.

Bush is the new Hoover. The New York Times editorializes on today's events:

After nearly eight years of voting in virtual lock step with President Bush on everything from tax cuts to torture, House Republicans decided on Monday to break ranks on the survival of the nation’s financial system.

The rejected bailout bill that was on the floor after a weekend of hard negotiating was objectionable in many ways, but it was a Republican-generated bill and was improved from the administration’s original version. Sixty percent of House Democrats voted for the bill, enough to easily pass the measure if the Republicans had not decided to put on their display of pique and disarray.

The question now is whether the stock-market plunge that followed the House’s failure to lead — and a renewed credit freeze — will be enough to get the 133 Republicans who voted against the measure to change their minds. And, more important, whether the damage that the no vote has inflicted is readily reversible.

Republican no votes were rooted less in analysis or principle than in political posturing and ideological rigidity. The House minority leader, John Boehner, conceded as much: “While we were able to move the bill drastically to the right, it wasn’t good enough for our members.”

It’s not clear what would be good enough for the Republicans since there was very little talk of substance on Monday after the bill died on the floor of the House. Instead, the Republicans tried to blame a speech before the vote by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who connected the current crisis to the fiscal and economic mismanagement of the Bush years. It may not have been the perfect moment to say that, but it was true.

Republicans were also upset that serial bailouts represent a rejection of free-market principles. They do. That’s because the free market in finance, unregulated and unsupervised, has failed. And, in its failure, it is inflicting greater damage on an already weak economy.

No amount of amendments to the bailout package will change the administration’s disastrous economic record or erase the manifest failure of the Republicans’ free-markets-above-all ideology.

Fasten your seat belt. I've a feeling it's going to be a bumpy ride.

The First Debate

Well, damned if the Old Man didn't pull it off, after all. In my view, it was McCain, 21-6.

Of course, I'm very disappointed; and somehow in the course of the debate I developed a raging headache.

It's not the words that were spoken. Both candidates were full of names, dates, facts, and figures. Both made cogent arguments and persuasive appeals.

It's not the words. It's the very different feelings the two men brought out in the viewer.

Obama was your very smart brother-in-law who went to college, has a good job, a new car, and a great jazz collection. You enjoy his company, and he can answer just about any question you ever ask. A really good guy, and his heart's in the right place.

But McCain was Dad. Yeah, he's getting up there now, and maybe he's a little behind the times in some ways. You don't always see eye to eye, and you don't visit as often as you should.

But. When trouble happens, when a crisis arises, when the chips are down--it's Dad you turn to. It's Dad who can always make things turn out all right, somehow. It's Dad you trust. It's Dad you love--who loves you. He doesn't have to say the words; you both just know.

That is how I think this debate was felt--not merely heard--by most of Middle America.

Steady at the helm. Experience counts for a hell of a lot, and it showed.

(Damn, I sure wish Hillary had been the nominee now.)

The difference between the candidates, as I've just described it, could be very significant, if the country is endangered in any way between now and Election Day.

And Palin? Oh, if McCain were elected, I've no doubt she would soon discover that her newborn with the special needs really demands all her care and attention; so (in a very slick piece of political choreography), she would do the right, the very, very noble thing, and resign the vice-presidency. Exit, stage right; lots of applause, lots of fond farewell wishes from the press and the public. Enter someone more capable. Done.

That's my impression of tonight's debate. Will be interesting to see what the pundits make of it tomorrow. Right now I feel ill, so good night from Texas.

McCain's Big Lie

People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough, people will sooner or later believe it.

Shades of the Third Reich: McCain has won tonight's debate! Even though, as I write, the debate won't begin for another two hours yet.

But not to worry. The Washington Post reports that this morning, at least two ads proclaiming the fact of McCain's victory appeared on the website of the online Wall Street Journal: click here to see the screenshot.

And of special interest, as Reuters reports, this was before McCain announced that he had changed his mind and would indeed go to the debate! "McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said the ad posting was a mistake by the Wall Street Journal. Oops."

And you thought McCain really meant it on Wednesday when he said he wasn't going to show at the debate. Ha-ha, fooled you. And me. And the whole country. Oops, hell.

As a commenter on another blog asked, Will he announce next week that he has won the election, too?

Well, let's remember the old saw: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Does anyone need more proof that this utterly reckless man has no business being President?

I've said it before and I will say it again: the rotten-to-the-core Republican party is patently unfit to govern this nation ever again. It's got to go. And the sooner, the better.

Fun while it lasted . . .

. . . so say the crowds of conservative columnists and bloggers as they jump for the lifeboats from the foundering Palin shipwreck. One of today's most prominent is Kathleen Parker, columnist for the National Review, emphasis mine:

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted. . . .

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

What to do?

McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

Of interest here, taking a sharp-eyed view of all four candidates, is conservative columnist George F. Will's observations in his Sept. 3rd column on the necessary qualifications for the presidency: experience and character and good sense, both political and constitutional.

Will calls Obama "the least experienced person to receive a presidential nomination in the 75 years since the federal government became a comprehensively intrusive regulatory state and modern weaponry annihilated the protection the nation derived from time and distance."

Well, that may be so; and that's partly why I voted for Hillary in the primary last spring.

But having read Obama's Audacity of Hope and watching his performance in the campaign, I have faith that he will indeed rise to the occasion, as have other lightly-experienced Presidents in our history.

Lincoln's executive experience was rather short too, as I recall, when he got the job; but he earned a marble monument and a hallowed name in the annals of democracy.

Palin's name, I'm afraid, will go down in history as nothing more than the butt of wry jokes. And deservedly so.

But perhaps this manifest farce will spell the end of the "image politics" that began with Reagan's election: the triumph of style over substance.

Let us pray.

Lesbian rumors sank Condi's chances?

Seems that fact is that unmarried Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice for a long time owned a California house with a close friend, Randy Bean--a woman whom Condi says she bonded with over "a love of football." Originally a gay man who worked in the Clinton administration was a co-owner of the house too, but he sold his interest to the two women.

Along with these demonstrable facts, various queer bloggers are repeating the rumor that McCain really wanted Condi as his veep choice; but staffers convinced him that her sexuality was a no-go for the campaign.

As Mike Signorile puts it, quoting an unnamed Republican source interviewed by another blogger, "“In Washington circles, it’s just assumed Rice is gay and nobody really cares. But in the glare of the media spotlight, those rumors were bound to get magnified a thousandfold and the mainstream media would have had an excuse to reveal the facts that would have caused conniption fits among the Republican base.”

On bended knee

Historic scenes are being played out in Washington as things go from the ridiculous to the incredible, the San Francisco Chronicle reports, "Atmosphere borders on panic as bailout falters," emphasis mine:

In a panicked atmosphere and amid flaring tempers, Democrats and some Republicans announced before the White House meeting that they had the outline of an agreement, but GOP leaders refused to sign off on it. Liberal and conservative interest groups railed against the bailout, while business groups insisted that Congress pass the plan with all speed, warning that tight credit already is sharply slowing business activity.

At the White House, Republican leader John Boehner expressed misgivings about the plan, and McCain would not commit to supporting it, people from both parties who were briefed on the exchange told the Associated Press. In the Roosevelt Room after the session, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to withdraw her party's support for the package over what Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal, according to the New York Times.

The NYT itself, reporting on the same scene, adds this tidbit of very revealing dialogue:

“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”

Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.”

Paulson is scared shitless. But scared for the country? Or for himself? Or for his political masters? Stay tuned. Tomorrow's episode should be ripe.

A Bush Plan to "Rule from the Grave"?

The Votemaster at electoral-vote.com makes a disturbing speculation on McCain's bolt to Washington, and the whole snatch-and-grab bailout tactic:

If nothing else, McCain's sudden move got his falling polls and the lobbying of his campaign manager off the front pages. Score a win for McCain today. But he's betting the farm that the American people won't see this as a campaign stunt.

The NY Times also has an analytic article on the politics of this. The view there is that Republican members of Congress know very well that throwing $700 billion at Wall St. in a big hurry with no oversight is not popular with the voters. On the other hand, they don't want to buck their own President who still has a modicum of popularity with the the Republican rank and file. They are hoping McCain can bail them out. Democrats don't want to be seen as obstructionists, but they also see the bailout for what it really is: a ploy to spend so much money that a future President Obama's hands would be tied for lack of money. In effect this move is Bush's attempt to "rule from the grave" by severely constraining what the next President can do. Oddly, it might constrain McCain more than Bush since he (McCain) has spending plans, too. Obama could propose a massive tax increase for the rich claiming Bush's folly forced him to do it. When you read that this "crisis" is about economics, don't believe a word of it. It is 100% politics, pure and simple. Yes, something needs to be done, but if the markets know that Congress is working on it, they will wait a few weeks before dissolving in a puddle.

Bush and his puppetmaster CheneyRove know Obama is going to win, even if McLame and Miss Wasilla don't. So--we contrive to neatly tie Obama's hands for the next 4 years economically, and any other way we can, right?

Don't think they would never dream of doing such a thing--these are the people who made torture an official policy of the United States Government, for chrissakes. Who as a previous video post proves, want to prolong the war in Iraq for political advantage at home. Who have shown themselves in all kinds of ways to be the most morally corrupt administration ever in the history of America.

Jeezus, what a time to be living in. God help us all.