Category: Politics & Elections

Stupidest policy moment ever?

The pandering and ignorance-across-party-lines represented by the John McCain-Hillary Clinton united front for a temporary reduction in the gasoline tax should make Americans hold their heads in their hands and moan. …

I can imagine that John McCain, who boasts about his sketchy command of economics, might consider this a good idea. But the master of policy, Hillary Clinton??

Please. This is embarrassing. It makes me long for the good old days of debating about flag pins on the lapel.

James Fallows

Fallows wonders “has there been bipartisan agreement to stupider effect in, say, the last fifty years?”

Racism

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has wriggled out…

Let’s stop right there, people. On its front page, The New York Times has just compared Jeremiah Wright to a snake (and it’s downhill from there). I sincerely doubt anyone can find over the past 7 years, say, a similar characterization of a white religious leader of Wright’s stature in the news sections of the Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, or any other mainstream daily newspaper, including the Wall Street Journal.

tristero, who also has:

“Assuming that Obama is the nominee, Republicans will make this a one issue campaign: the color of the next president’s skin. Oh, they’ll do it mostly with dog whistles, but they’ll do it. “

The worst kind of pandering

Senator Clinton has now joined Senator McCain in calling for a suspension of the federal gasoline tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It’s 18.4 cents a gallon, or less than five percent of the average cost. Worse, it is simply bad public policy.

Anyone advocating such a mindless scheme is simply unfit to lead this nation during a time of economic, energy and environmental crisis.

The price of gasoline has actually increased more than the federal tax since McCain suggested its suspension.

I’ll bet you didn’t know

… that John McCain doesn’t wear a flag lapel pin either.

McCain and economics speech

That’s him on April 15 about to deliver his economics speech in a photo copied from the official campaign site — John McCain 2008.

Think I’m wrong? Then find a recent photo showing him wearing the pin.

It’s not that I care. I think the pins are silly — like flare at Chotchkie’s. But if you doubt the political media has a double standard, how come McCain’s choice isn’t bandied about like Obama’s?

You may click the image for a larger version.

By the way, that is a seriously old looking dude.

The storyline

That has been the dominant media theme for the last two decades in our political discourse, and particularly in our national elections. Leave policy and ideology to the side. Just ignore it. What matters is that Democrats and liberals are weak, effete, elitist, nerdy, military-hating, gender-confused losers, whose men are effeminate, whose women are emasculating dykes, and who merit sneering mockery and derision. Republican right-wing male leaders are salt-of-the-earth, wholesome, likable tough guys — courageous warriors and normal family men who merit personal admiration and affection.

From an excerpt of Great American Hypocrites, newly published by Glenn Greenwald.

‘Over here on E Street, we’re proud to support Obama for President’

He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where “…nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.”

Part of a letter to “Friends and Fans” from Bruce Springsteen.

Best line of the day, so far

Yesterday Smokey, the apartment maintenance man next door, helped me haul a dead washing machine to the city dump. I asked him what he thought about the Obama thing.

“Huh?” he said.

He spoke for millions.

Joe Bageant

Bageant also tell us: “And I wouldn’t vote for any of the three even if they knocked on my door bearing a bucket of smoked pork ribs and a bottle of Jack Daniels.”

Is he stupid or just full of it?

Mr. McCain also called for wealthier Medicare recipients to pay higher premiums to qualify for the prescription drug coverage that President Bush and the Congress added to the program a few years ago, over his objections.

“People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet don’t need their prescriptions underwritten by taxpayers,” he said.

John McCain as reported in The New York Times

Hello! Bill Gates is 52. He’s not eligible for Medicare. Once again McCain’s example is a bad one.

Besides, even among the “wealthier Medicare recipients” just how typical is Warren Buffet?

This is just plan demagoguery — or stupidity.

Stupidest line of the day, so far

From MSNBC Live‘s Mika Brzezinski this morning:

“Less than an hour from now, John McCain will lay out a new plan to help Americans deal with high gas prices. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, McCain wants to eliminate the federal gas tax — that’s about 20 percent of the cost.”

The federal gasoline tax is 18.4 cents a gallon. Saturday I paid $3.209 a gallon. Let’s see Mika, three point two zero nine goes into point eighteen four — gee, it’s just 5.7%.

(Not to mention that the gasoline tax goes to repair roads and bridges and we all drive too much anyway.)

Item from Media Matters.

Best whole paragraph of the day, so far

Bitter? You ain’t seen nothing yet. And as much as people like Russert, Carville, Matalin, Schrum, and Murphy want to divert our attention from what’s really happening; as much as HRC and McCain seek to make political hay out of choices of words that can be spun cynically by the mindless spinners of the old politics; as much as demagogues on the right and left continue to try to channel the cumulative frustrations of Americans into a politics of resentment – all these attempts will, I hope, prove futile. Eighty percent of Americans know the nation is on the wrong track. The old politics, and the old media that feeds it, are irrelevant now.

Robert Reich.

Reich wrote seven paragraphs in all when he posted this yesterday. Go read the other six.

Oh give me a break

News Item: “Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain separately criticized [Senator Obama] as being out of touch with the middle class … ”

God love ’em. Senator Clinton and her husband have earned more than $100 million in the past seven years and before that she lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Senator McCain and his wife are also worth around $100 million and he has been an insulated elected official for 25 years.

But Obama is out of touch.

Update Saturday morning: Here’s Obama on being “out of touch.”

Most important line of the day, so far

“And by the way, liberals and independents wouldn’t impute to McCain a liberalness that isn’t there if the press stopped partying with the man long enough to report on him honestly.”

digby

All kinds of people NewMexiKen knows and likes and respects tell me that McCain at least is better than Bush because he’s OK on the environment or stem cells or the homeless.

But McCain would continue the war, keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and appoint 17th century thinkers to the courts. Keep your eye on the important things. He’s a crotchety old warrior.

Bad example

When Senator John McCain was asked here this afternoon how he plans to balance the budget, he said that he hoped to do so by stimulating economic growth – and approvingly cited the example of President Ronald Reagan.

There was one thing he did not mention during his response: the deficit nearly tripled during the Reagan presidency, partly due to tax cuts and increases in military spending.

The Caucus

The man is a moron — 894th out of 899 in his graduating class at Annapolis. (Jimmy Carter was 59th in his class of 820. Dwight D. Eisenhower was 61st of 164 in his West Point class. Even Ulysses Grant was 21st of 39 at West Point.)

Lawsuit: Woman can’t be president

In a lawsuit that legal scholars call “amusing,” a Reno man is seeking to keep U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton off the Nevada ballot with the argument that the U.S. Constitution prohibits a woman from holding the office.

Douglas Wallace, 80, contends that because the U.S. Constitution relies on the pronouns “he” and “his” in describing the duties of the president, no woman can hold the office.

Wallace argues the constitution would have to be amended to specifically allow a female president and accused Clinton of trying to make an “end run around the Constitution.”

Reno Gazette-Journal