Category: John McCain

Podhoretz Writes a Powerful Paragraph

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Actually, he writes far more than a paragraph, but he really brings home his point in this one:

Yes, if ever you wanted circumstantial evidence that the sources within the McCain campaign who spent October 2008 dumping on Palin anonymously might have included [Nicolle] Wallace and [Steve] Schmidt, you need look no further than HBO’s Game Change. The movie presents a moral case for the disreputable conduct of aides who, we can presume, fearlessly drop dirty dimes anonymously to save their own standing in the liberal culture from which they desperately wish not to be excluded.

Podhoretz makes an excellent point, and one which might have been extended to book length to address the Culture of Backstabbing that so dominates the Republican Party nowadays.

What is lacking, I would suggest, is the sort of humility that evangelical Christians have in mind when they employ the term “a servant’s heart.” Many GOP political operatives are more self-righteously judgmental than any Pharisee whom Christ ever denounced, and their only loyalty is to their own selfish ambitions. They are the type of people who are temperamentally incapable of admitting error, and therefore are always seeking scapegoats whom they can blame for their own failures.

If Wallace and Schmidt are prominent examples of this tendency, certainly it was fitting that they should have been employed by that most eminent Pharisee, Senator John Sidney McCain III.

UPDATE: I’ve noticed I’m getting a bit of Google search traffic on a post I wrote in October — thank you, HBO!

‘Swarmin’ With Mormons’

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John McCain, Luis Fortuno and Mitt Romney during
rally at Lanco & Harris, Orlando, Jan. 27, 2012

ORLANDO, Fla.
If you don’t vote for Mitt, why do you hate America? That was the fundamental theme of Friday’s super-patriotic rally for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at an industrial warehouse here.

After a three-hour drive from Jacksonville, I arrived slightly late and was stunned by the size of the crowd, as evidenced by the cars parked streetside and in every parking lot near the Lanco & Harris warehouse. Four TV satellite trucks were parked near the loading dock, and as I walked up the ramp into the warehouse, some cranky geezer was onstage ranting about how he was fed up with all these darned debates.

“Nineteen of ’em! I’m tired of the mud wrestling!” the geezer said, provoking applause from the crowd of about 500 packed into the warehouse. As I got closer to the stage, I recognized the cranky geezer as Sen. John McCain, who then said: “Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!”

OK, maybe I just imagined that last quote, which didn’t show up in Maggie Haberman’s report for the Politico, but I’m sure I got the trademark cranky-geezer tone just right.

Exactly why the Romney campaign wants this elderly loser campaigning for them, I don’t know. McCain lost Florida by 200,000 votes four years ago. But there are lots of grumpy old folks in Florida who are registered Republicans, and maybe having McCain stumping for Mitt generates some sympathy or something.

Anyway, the crowd was big and enthusiastic, and I worked my way around to the other side of the stage where I saw Eric Ferhnstrom, one of Romney’s top advisers, and asked him, “Y’all got this pretty much locked up, don’t you?”

The polls show Romney pulling away here in Florida, but Ferhnstrom wouldn’t admit the obvious: Mitt’s going to win this one in a landslide. Instead, he merely agreed that “the trend is encouraging,” and said, “Mitt hasn’t won a day since he won South Carolina.”

Which is true. For the past week, Newt’s been swinging wildly, and desperation is not attractive. He’s headed for a failure of Perry-eque proportions here, and the none-too-subtle assertion that Newt’s the victim of an Establishment conspiracy — a myth that even Sarah Palin has apparently bought into — only makes it more embarrassing.

The main point of tonight’s rally was for Mitt to collect the endorsement of the Governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuno who, in keeping with the super-patriotic theme, praised Romney for being “committed to protecting the homeland, and that includes Puerto Rico.”

It was hard to miss the implication that, if any of the other Republicans gets the nomination, Puerto Rico will be overrun by Iranian terrorists. But the subtexts of campaign rhetoric are generally lost on crowds of jazzed-up enthusiastic partisans, so Fortuno’s comment was cheered by the audience with the same fervor as they had cheered McCain’s earlier darn-these-stupid-debates comment.

Anyway, the crowd was large and as rabidly as pro-Romney as any crowd I’ve seen and they didn’t seem any more “Establishment” than any other GOP crowd you might find during this campaign.

Eventually, I found Sarah Rumpf, who had an assistant shooting video of Mitt’s speech. And then afterwards, I bumped into Dave Weigel, who was wondering what percentage of the audience might be Mormon.

“All of them,” I said. “They’re everywhere. We’re surrounded by ’em. The place is swarmin’ with Mormons.”

Which might be about half-true. Sarah had told me that there are a lot more Mormons in Central Florida than most people suspect. Nobody has any solid statistics on how many LDS there are in the Sunshine State, but they are sufficiently numerous as to give Romney a solid “base” of core supporters, in the same way that dopehead college kids give Ron Paul a solid base, or angry middle-aged guys form the core of the Gingrich grassroots.

And that’s probably enough raw slander for one night. I’m supposed to be driving down to Naples, where Dan Collins‘s parents have a condo they’re not using. There aren’t any campaign events near Naples tomorrow, but I’ve got unlimited mileage on this rented Chevy, so what do I care? Besides, I need some rest, before I get all cranky and start grumbling about these darned debates — “You kids get off my lawn!”

— 30 —


The Mitt-maniacs were out in force.

The rock-star candidate shakes hands after his speech.

Sarah Rumpf (right) and her assistant, whose name I forgot.

‘F*** JOHN McCAIN!’

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That was the complete text of a Twitter message — except I spelled out the first word — I sent when I heard about this:

Mr. McCain mocked Tea Party-allied Republicans in the House for believing — wrongly, he said — that President Obama and Democrats will get the blame for a default if Republicans refuse to increase the nation’s debt ceiling.
By that flawed logic, “Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced budget amendment and reform entitlements and the Tea Party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth,” he said, quoting a Wall Street Journal editorial.
“This is the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell into G.O.P. nominees,” he jeered, referring to two losing Tea Party candidates for the Senate in 2010.

(Video via Eric Scheiner at CNSNews.com.)

If there were any justice in the world . . . Well, it probably wouldn’t be wise to finish that sentence. But I think you see why I supported J.D. Hayworth in last year’s Arizona primary, and why I bragged on Election Day 2008: “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Bob Barr.” However, I felt it necessary to apologize to my Twitter followers today:

And this seems like a good time to remind readers that I’m raising money for a shoe-leather trip to Iowa.





UPDATE: Ed Morrissey offers a Tolkienesque rejoinder:

By the way, just in case in you don’t recall … the hobbits win in Lord of the Rings. They got a lot of ridicule from the elite and the powerful along the way, but they end up saving the West from ruinous destruction.

And just in case anyone’s discouraged by these RINO gestures from twerps like Crazy Cousin John, remember that the Democrats don’t have their act together, either:

Dem lawmaker: ‘Nobody I know’ has seen Reid plan

UPDATE II: This is the fun stuff:

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he ordered GOP lawmakers to “get your ass in line” behind his debt proposal during an interview Wednesday on a conservative radio show.
“My goal is to continue to work with all our members so we get them to the point where they say ‘yes,’ ” Boehner said on Laura Ingraham’s radio show.

UPDATE III: As of this writing (3:18 p.m. ET) the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down nearly 200 points. I blame John McCain.

UPDATE IV: Ace of Spades has some good stuff.

John McCain’s Idiotic Advice on Libya

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Obama never saw a problem that couldn’t be solved by tax increases. By the same token, John McCain never saw a problem that couldn’t be solved by more bombing:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Monday he feared a “stalemate” has developed in Libya that would lead to a more radical government in that country.
McCain, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the U.S. should revive its air attacks to incapacitate forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.
“All we need to do is get sufficient air power in there to really nail Gadhafi’s forces, and we can succeed,” McCain said on KFYI radio. “A stalemate is a terrible outcome, because if you have a stalemate you open the door for radical Islamists to come in and hijack this revolution.”

OK, maybe some of my more hawkish friends will have no problem with Crazy Cousin John’s dubious use of the first-person plural (“we can succeed”), but exactly how much bombing does he suppose will be necessary to allow the half-assed Libyan rebels to defeat Qaddafi?

Tuesday will be the one-month anniversary of the start of “Operation Odyssey Dawn,” and in the past four weeks the rebels have demonstrated their absolute dearth of military ability. You could assemble any random group of 2,000 JROTC cadets, issue them the same weapons possessed by the Libyan rebels and expect a better results.

I’ll defer to the good advice of Geraldo Rivera (“I swear to god, if you give these people weapons more powerful than they have right now, they will be a grave danger to themselves and others”) because at least Geraldo has seen the rebels first-hand. John McCain just sits around stateside and yells, “Bombs away!”

While I am not prepared to rule out the possibility that Qaddafi will soon be overthrown (perhaps by a military coup), it should be bloody obvious by now what’s gone wrong in Libya:

  1. After the relatively quick and easy ouster of Mubarak in Egypt, Obama got the idea that Qaddafi could be overthrown just as easily.
  2. The French were, for some unknown reason (perhaps related to Sarkozy’s domestic political situation), very eager to see Qaddafi overthrown, and started militating for a NATO-led intervention.
  3. Like some other American presidents of recent memory, Obama listened to advisers who told him this foreign adventure was going to be a cakewalk — a chance to “look presidential.”
  4. With little or no accurate intelligence about the Libyan rebels, and with a U.N. Security Council mandate for “humanitarian” intervention, Obama then approved a limited short-term U.S. military action, thinking that would be sufficient to tip the balance against Qaddafi.

Well, guess what? It was a bad idea.

Either we go to war or we don’t. You can’t halfway fight a war. Either we should have resolved to do whatever was needed to overthrow Qaddafi, or we never should have gotten involved in what is, after all, somebody else’s civil war.

And another thing: Odyssey Dawn? What the hell kind of name is that for a military operation? Sounds like a disco cover band in lime-green leisure suits playing the Holiday Inn circuit in 1975.

At this point, then, I’d say Obama’s got two choices:

  1. Either resolve to win this thing at all costs; or
  2. Leave it to the Europeans and blame it all on Hillary Clinton.

Whatever you do, Mr. President, don’t listen to John McCain. He’s crazy, you know. Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Bob Barr!

UPDATE: Peter Heck at American Thinker:

I’m hoping someone can help me. I left on vacation last week, and when I got back, an entire war was missing. . . . Although I’ve found hints that it still exists somewhere, President Obama’s Libyan War is officially missing in action.

Exactly. If Obama’s Excellent Libyan Adventure had led to the quick toppling of Qaddafi and the liberation of Libya, the MSM stood ready to pronounce this a stunning triumph for the Commander-in-Chief. Now that it’s beginning to look like a complete botch, they can scarcely be bothered to notice.

Meanwhile, here’s the latest video report from Misrata:

A Fine Point Of Correction For Thrasymachus

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by Smitty

Over on the Meghan McCain appreciation thread, Thrasymachus offers the following:

Meghan is a juvenile egomaniac and attention whore, just like her father.

Sir, there is a difference between juvenile and Juvenal, whose birthday roughly equates to that of Meghan’s father.
Subtle, I know.
Anyway, back to the video editing. Come back in an hour or two for Mike Pence in seven delightful, readily linkable sections. Meghan may be an attention whore, but we are link whores. Which is a whores of a different color.

The $21 Million Arizona Sell-Out

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The Keen Observer at Townhall.com:

It only took a measly 21 million dollars for John McCain to buy yet another 6-year term in the most exclusive club of aristocrats the world has ever known: the United States Senate.
And all for a job that pays 174K a year, plus a few fringes. Fuzzy math indeed; but nice “work” if you can get it.
But curiously, most of the 21 milion was LEFTOVER from his bizarre presidential campaign of 2008, where McCain exhibited “extraordinary restraint” in not attacking Barack Obama head-on . . .
Now contrast with the way McCain went directly after the jugular of fellow Republican J.D. Hayworth — choosing to attack the hapless ex-congressman unrelentingly over FOUR consecutive months, in one the dirtiest, most-misrepresentative TV campaigns in recent memory.

You may read the whole thing, if you wish. My question is for Arizonans who love liberty, who care about the Constitution, who oppose John McCain’s big-government RINO agenda: Are you for sale?

Will you betray your principles for $21 million? Or is it so important to elect a senator with an “R” beside his name that you will now roll over, bite your tongues, and pretend that America will somehow be safer — our freedoms more secure — if John McCain gets re-elected?

Will you, in other words, become a willing accomplice in foisting this fraud upon your fellow citizens?

Michelle Malkin has declared, “John McCain is the problem,” and I completely agree. If we agree that this two-faced backstabbing disgrace to my family name is the problem, what is the solution? On Tuesday night, when the results of the primary in Arizona became known, I said:

Say hello to Libertarian Party candidate David Nolan. He’s also on Facebook.
David F. Nolan is a great American, and I’m his new best friend.

As his new best friend, allow me to make the proper introduction, from his official biography:

David F. Nolan is the principal founder of America’s largest and most successful third party, the Libertarian Party.
He holds a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and enjoyed a successful four-decade career in advertising, marketing and publishing.
In 1970, he created a new map of the political world that has all but replaced the old-fashioned left-right linear model. A Google search for the phrase “Nolan Chart” recently turned up 350,000 references!
This groundbreaking achievement earned Mr. Nolan a listing in 2,000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 20th Century, published by the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England.
David lives in Tucson with his wife Elizabeth.

Many of my friends, I know, are saying to themselves, “This guy can’t possibly win.” That’s what they said about Joe Miller until Tuesday night. And some of you may be looking at Nolan and saying, “Dude, he’s a hopeless geek. If we support him, we’ll look like idiots.”

Yeah? Well, let me remind you of another hopless geek:

Nov. 4, 2009
SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. — If a Hollywood producer were casting for the role of a revolutionary hero, no talent agent would send Doug Hoffman to the audition. Yet the Hoffman congressional campaign has ignited a revolution within the Republican Party, the results of which are already being felt.
Even while the Hoffman campaign’s early-evening “cautious optimism” gave way to concern — with staffers huddling in the “war room” here at the Hotel Saranac — one official of New York’s Conservative Party was already in a celebratory mood, laughing as he yelled into his cell phone: “Guess who will not be representing the 23rd District? Dede Scozzafava!”

Exactly my point. We can win back the 23rd District this fall — go contribute to support Doug Hoffman now — but if conservatives are afraid to stand up for principle, if conservatives are willing to roll over and buy into the GOP establishment’s lesser-of-two-evils defense of a two-faced backstabbing RINO like John McCain, why should conservatives expect to be treated with any respect?

If not now, when? If not us, who?

We have started a revolution, and we cannot quit it now. It’s time to take a stand, my friends, to draw a line in the sand and proclaim our vow, “This far, and no further.” Who’s with me?

DAVID NOLAN for U.S. SENATE

Dear Michelle Malkin

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Guess who’s coming to Colorado?

DENVER (AP) — Arizona Sen. John McCain is headed to Colorado this weekend to campaign for Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton.
A spokeswoman for Norton says McCain will be in Grand Junction and the Denver suburbs Sunday for fundraisers and public rallies for Norton.

Gee, Mrs. Malkin, we know how much you love that Maverick and his Establishment Republican friends:

In Colorado, McCain and his meddlers infuriated the state party by anointing former lieutenant governor Jane Norton to challenge endangered Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet. She’s a milquetoast public official who has served on a lot of task forces and GOP clubs – and who happens to be the sister-in-law of big Beltway insider Charlie Black. . . .
The mini-McCain of Colorado claims to oppose “special interests,” but has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from D.C. lobbyists at McCain’s behest – stifling the candidacy of strong conservative rivals led by grass-roots-supported Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, an amnesty opponent whose aggressive illegal immigration prosecutions have earned him the rage of the far Left and big business Right.

So I’m sure you’ll want to roll out the red carpet for Senator Shamnesty when he visits Colorado, Mrs. Malkin.

Perhaps you should organize some sort of informal reception for your distinguished guest. Perhaps — oh, I don’t know — something like a Sunday Tea Party?

KEN BUCK for U.S. SENATE

NRA Endorses John McCain, Prompts Outrage Among Membership

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 Barbara Espinosa is furious at the NRA sell-out:

Yesterday we posted the endorsements U.S. Senate candidate J. D. Hayworth received from former NRA President Bob Corbin and from the Gun Owners of America. Yet the NRA, which has previously referred to John McCain as “one of the premier flag carriers for the enemies of the second amendment,” inexplicably gave McCain their endorsement.
In endorsing Hayworth, the Gun Owners of America (GOA) said: “John McCain has gone out of his way to earn the ire of conservatives and gun owners in his 20-plus years as a U.S. Senator from Arizona.”
Watch this GOA ad exposing John McCain’s efforts to constrain our First and Second Amendment Rights. Then read what GOA’s Political Victory Fund says about McCain here.
This indefensible approval is akin to the shameful endorsement of McCain by Arizona Right to Life (AZRTL) which resulted in members of the board and PAC leaving the organization and calling the endorsement of McCain an “egregious affront.” . . .

Read the whole thing at American Freedom.

J.D. HAYWORTH FOR U.S. SENATE