McCain recently released his tax returns for the past few years, but did not release his wife's tax returns. That's kind of a big deal, since his wife has all of the family money. About $100 million, to be exact. So while McCain tries to fool folks into thinking he lives off his poor Senate salary, his Social Security, and his pension, in fact John S. McCain III is the 8th wealthiest member of the Senate.
President Bush has hit record 69% disapproval in the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, the highest number they've recorded in their history. I'm predicting right now that as the recession worsens, as gas prices continue to climb, as more folks see their home values plummet, as violence continues in Iraq, this number will hit the 70s and maybe keep going.
Bush has not hit his floor. Trust me. And Democrats are gonna spend all of September and October remind voters that Old Man McCain has voted with Bush 89% of the time.
It will not be pretty for old McCain. Here is a chart of Bush's long, hard fall over the past eight years.
According to Gallup, Bush has fallen from a record high of 90% approval just after 9/11 to 28% approval now. That means his support has plummeted 62% during that time, a truly massive and historical collapse. In 2002, when Bush's approval ratings were still in the high 70s, Gore Vidal famously made a prediction:
Gore Vidal: Mark my words. He will leave office the most unpopular president in history.
Vidal was right, when so many others were wrong. And you can see why Mr. Most Unpopular Ever is going to be a weight dragging down not just John McCain, but every Republican in November.
So let's look at how politics is being played here in 2008.
Because a "church bulletin" overseen by the Barack Obama's former pastor gave an award to Louis Farrakhan, Obama faced weeks of criticism and outrage. He was questioned about Farrakhan multiple times in debates and other venues.
CLINTON: It is clear that, as leaders, we have a choice who we associate with and who we apparently give some kind of seal of approval to. And I think that it wasn't only the specific remarks, but some of the relationships with Reverend Farrakhan, with giving the church bulletin over to the leader of Hamas to put a message in. You know, these are problems, and they raise questions in people's minds.
Today we learn that Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, one of Hillary Clinton's absolute top supporters and surrogates in this campaign (and particularly in Pennsylvania) once gave a speech praising Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam:
So you would think, under these new rules where we answer not only for anyone we've met in our life, but also who our friends have lavished praise upon, that Hillary Clinton will now have to face weeks of outrage and criticism. After all, her top supporter in PA praised Farrakhan!
But for some reason I don't think things will happen that way. There is a double standard at play, and Barack Obama is given none of the common sense leeway that most politicians receive.
One thought that this video inevitably raises: what if Obama had ever said such a thing or been to such an event? Given what we know now about this campaign, would it not be the conventional wisdom that it would be the end of his candidacy? And yet, Rendell is still a pillar of the Democratic party, central to the Clintons' Pennsylvania strategy, and praised as a classic old-style white ethnic pol. I don't imagine his credibility or reputation will be affected one iota by this. Even if it were Rendell running for president this year, I don't think this video would have Hannity and O'Reilly and Steyn and Coulter in a lather.
What do we learn from this? That Obama has to be even more distanced from these things because he's black. That's all. Race matters. The double standard endures. And the MSM perpetuates it. As do the Clintons.
Don't hold your breath waiting for Hillary to "reject and denounce" Rendell, or to even criticize him. She's white, Rendell is white, therefore there is a different standard at play. It's the same thing with McCain and Rev. Hagee, or McCain and his other radical Republican pals. They can do or say anything and the press won't bat an eye. But if Obama even knows somebody who said or did something controversial, well then he'd better make an explanation or by golly nobody will vote for him.
This is how politics is being played in 2008. And this is what we have to change.
McCain: Gov. Health Care Good For Me, Not For Thee
Although I was distracted by McCain's weird facial ticks and creepy smile/laugh, the actual substance of his answers is what's really alarming. Obviously he hasn't seen SICKO yet.
So McCain has enjoyed a lifetime of U.S. government provided health care, but he thinks that health care is Bad and you shouldn't get it. For all his trash talk about Canada and England, I think those countries are actually quite happy with their health care systems. You don't see folks going into bankruptcy over health care bills, you don't see people dying because insurance companies don't approve needed care. And let's not talk about France, which probably has the best health care system of all.
No, McCain thinks government health care is bad because the Vietnamese military didn't provide him the best health care when he was a prisoner of war. The monumental stupidity of such an assessment is mind-boggling. He is saying that all government-run health care is bad because the Vietnamese-run health care for American POWs was bad.
What next? He'll say that all foreign food is horrible because the slop fed to him by the Vietnamese was horrible? Or maybe he'll say that all Asians are vindictive evil people because the Vietnamese prison guards were vindictive and evil. It's a terribly illogical argument.
Anyway, as nyceve says here, don't expect any real healthcare reform if McCain is elected president.
TeddySanFran at Firedoglake writes a post that warms our heart:
There are a lot of reasons not to elect St McCain, reasons we must talk up, press forward, and ensure voters understand. His campaign is infested with lobbyists. His understanding of economics does not surpass that of a third-grader. He may be a kept man. He embraces a man who libeled his own family to defeat him in the South Carolina GOP primary in 2000.
McCain wants young Americans to continue to fight and die in a war America was lied into, for reasons not yet made clear to us. He doesn't understand our enemies: who they are, whom their allies are, where they re-up, and why they fight. He wants America to fight more wars, against more enemies, for reasons that remain murky and poorly explained.
McCain voted for torture. McCain opposed a minimum wage increase. McCain voted against making the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr,'s birthday a national holiday and then fought it becoming a state holiday in Arizona. McCain won't support the Twenty-First Century GI Bill of Rights because, like the Bush Administration, he thinks it gives service-members too many reasons to leave the military.
McCain hasn't released his medical records, as he promised he would. His economic team is headed by the folks who brought America the Enron debacle and de-regulated our financial sector, so that we have this current mess uppermost in our minds, even though he doesn't. He has kissed the rings of the scariest preachers in America -- publicly changed his views of them and then openly sought their political endorsement.
[But] for when I have time for only two words to describe why John McCain should not be elected President, these two small words work just fine for me: too old.
