The Daily Lie

I should have started this weeks ago...

Every day for the rest of the campaign, I'm going to give you one of the brazen lies of John McCain or Sarah Palin. The hard part will be choosing which one...Let's kick it off with this one:



Prove it, you lying asshole. Video? Audio? Hell, even a still photo or pencil sketch?

Yeah, that's what I thought...

Some Context

An excellent comment from a thread at John Cole's:

If Bill Ayers is such a scary terrorist, why are Bush, Cheney, and McCain just letting the guy walk around free? If he’s the most evil person ever, shouldn’t McCain spearhead some sort of operation to capture him? Laura Bush has killed more people than Bill Ayers. I think the only people to die from a weatherman bomb were a couple of people from the group who blew themselves up. I mean, we’re talking about terrorists named after a Bob Dylan lyric for Chrissakes.

I don’t want to defend any sort of bombing, but you gotta remember that during that period, black people would get KILLED for looking for a job in a white neighborhood. JFK, RFK, and MLK were all KILLED. the national guard KILLED students at Kent State. There dozens and dozens of riots. Uprisings at Ivy League schools. Even the daughter of William Randolph Hearst became a terrorist. It was a violent time in America. People drove through riot-burned streets only to go home and watch the news which showed their children coming home from the other side of the world in a body bag. There were concerns amongst the rightwing that the black soldiers coming home from war would be starting a guerrilla war revolution in the streets of American cities. It was a crazy crazy time. And Obama was about 8 when all that was happening.

Nylund October 9th, 2008 at 10:22 am

That Laura Bush line is the Quote of the Freaking Month. But it's true, these Weatherman guys were more Keystone Cops than al Queda—even the bombs they DID manage to plant, they called ahead to warn everyone to get out. And considering the state of affairs of the day, I'm not sure anything less would've attracted attention. [NOTE: Not a defense, morans.]

The Knight in Shining Terry Cloth. . . [with updates on phones and fools]

Total. Fraud. [link]

After declaring he’d return to Washington to help with the bailout negotiations immediately after last night’s debate, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) never went to Capitol Hill today. In fact, McCain stayed largely holed up in his Arlington apartment, leaving only to go to his campaign headquarters just around the block, the New York Times reports:

Asked why Mr. McCain did not go to Capitol Hill after coming back to Washington to help with negotiations, [McCain adviser] Mr. Salter replied that “he can effectively do what he needs to do by phone."

Yeah. 72 hours ago the planet was tipping off its axis, tv appearances canceled, campaigns suspended, and debates should be rescheduled so Johnnie Drama could fly to D.C. to personally, with his bare hands, wrest an economic solution from a hapless Congress, Treasury and President...

But today, when nobody's paying attention, McCain can handle his "role" in the negotiations in his bathrobe from one of his thirteen houses.

UPDATE [even better]: I suppose that's understandable, because when he DID show up in person it went like this

Bush turned to McCain, who joked, "The longer I am around here, the more I respect seniority." McCain then turned to Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to speak first.

Boehner was blunt. The plan Paulson laid out would not win the support of the vast majority of House Republicans. It had been improved on the edges, with an oversight board and caps on the compensation of participating executives. But it had to be changed at the core. He did not mention the insurance alternative, but Democrats did. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, pressed Boehner hard, asking him if he really intended to scrap the deal and start again.

No, Boehner replied, he just wanted his members to have a voice. Obama then jumped in to turn the question on his rival: "What do you think of the [insurance] plan, John?" he asked repeatedly. McCain did not answer.

If there were video of that exchange it would end this thing right fucking now.

UPDATE 2: Josh Marshall has the next two paragraphs...

[...] McCain did not answer.

One Republican in the room said it was clear that the Democrats came into the meeting with a "game plan" aimed at forcing McCain to choose between the administration and House Republicans. "They had taken McCain's request for a meeting and trumped it," said this source.

Congressional aides from both parties were standing in the lobby of the West Wing, unaware of the discord inside the Cabinet room, when McCain emerged alone, shook the hands of the Marines at the door and left. The aides were baffled. The plan had been for a bipartisan appearance before the media, featuring McCain, Obama and at least a firm statement in favor of intervention. Now, one of the leading men was gone.

Awesome. THAT is the difference between tactics and strategy, Senator McCain.

UPDATE 3 [you can't make this stuff up]:

This morning on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) praised Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for returning to Washington to help the bailout negotiations, saying his presence was vital to the negotiations:

"John didn't phone this one in.... You can't phone something like this in. Thank God John came back."

Seems to me, the only time progress WAS happening was when McCain was nowhere near negotiations—the deal is almost done before he parachutes in, he screws it all up, sits on his hands in the big meeting, and then backs down and goes to the debate. He then spends Saturday hanging around the house LITERALLY PHONING IT IN, drops by the campaign office and then he and Barbie go out to dinner with the Liebermans.

Yeah, sounds like he played a VITAL role, Sen. Huckleberry. As Benen said,

""Thank God John came back"? There's partisan hackery and then there's THIS kind of partisan hackery."

The Motive

Anonymous Liberal, via Benen:

"I think the McCain campaign knew the Couric interview would be a disaster as soon as it was done taping and spent much of the day frantically trying to think of a way to push it out of the headlines," A.L. explained. "The clincher for me is the fact that McCain cancelled his Letterman appearance at the last second and instead sat down for an impromptu interview with, of all people, Katie Couric. The hope was to bump the Palin interview even on the CBS Evening News, which otherwise would have hyped and teased the Palin interview all afternoon and used it to lead the broadcast. Instead, CBS devoted most of its coverage to McCain and played segments of the Palin interview almost as an afterthought. Mission accomplished."

How bad was it? See for yourself...



From the comments at John Cole's place:

I’m still in shock over how terrible the Palin/Couric interview was. “Train wreck” is being charitable – it was more like a train derailing on a bridge, tumbling a thousand feet into a canyon and landing on a pile of old dynamite and gas drums. And then a jumbo jet crashed into the flaming wreckage. Followed by an earthquake that caused the whole mess to slide off a cliff into the sea, where the few miraculous survivors were eaten by sharks.

And let's not forget they had to bump the about-to-explode story of McCain's campaign manager being exposed as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Freddie Mac.

OF course those are the rational excuses for this behavior when it might just be McCain's insane need to be the knight in shit-covered armor. Or his gambling problem.

Late Night Awesome

Don't leave Dave Letterman holding the bag and expect him to cover for you...



John McCain gambles and loses AGAIN. He cancels on Letterman, telling him "he's needed immediately in Washington and the campaign is suspended"...then he goes down the street and tapes an interview with Katie Couric.

Bad move.

Letterman leads the show with five solid minutes of just wailing on McCain, and then brings in Keith Olbermann to fill the time!

Which video is going to be passed around the internet and watched by more people? Letterman's drubbing or Couric's foot massage?

I don't think that's even close...

UPDATE: This morning on ABC News radio: A wrap-up story on Letterman hammering McCain, including a clip; zero coverage of Couric interview.

His Campaign Has Fallen And It Can't Get Up

And everyone seems happy to kick McCain when he's down...
Ezra:

He's a kid pulling the fire alarm because final is coming up and he hasn't studied. Such a panicked response to declining poll numbers and major national events does not inspire confidence. You don't get to call time out when you're president.

Big Media Matt:

I think walking and chewing gum at the same time is part of the president’s job.

Dr. Josh

What's changed today in the financial crisis other than John McCain's poll numbers tanking? Isn't this the campaign equivalent of faking an injury when you're down late in the 4th quarter?

Benen:

McCain, who has played no direct role in the negotiations thus far, wants to swoop in and tell everyone what they need to do. This from a man who hasn't shown up for work at all in literally months.

Rep. Barney Frank:

"It's the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys."

Obama, FTW:

Obama, speaking to reporters in Florida, turned down McCain's offer to delay the debate. "Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time," he said. "It's not necessary for us to think that we can do only one thing, and suspend everything else."

"Did I Say 'Surge?'"

After completely botching and/or lying about the timeframe of "the surge" in Iraq, McCain tires a new tack...



Got that?

"Surge" no longer refers to a "surge" in the number of troops by tens of thousands...McCain is pretty much trying to pretend that "surge" is short for "CounterinSURGEncy."

As an aside, he looks so fucking old in these videoes, it's creepy.