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(...) I believe John's age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.

It is also disappointing to see him take on and support Bush's war in Iraq, even stating we might be there for another 100 years. For me John represents the entrenched and bankrupt policies of Washington-as-usual. The past 7 years have proven to be disastrous for our country. And I believe John's views on war, foreign policy, economics, environment, health care, education, national infrastructure and other important areas are much the same as those of the Bush administration. (...) (Dr. Philip Butler, "I Spent Years as a POW with John McCain, and His Finger Should Not Be Near the Red Button", military.com, AlterNet

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Originally posted by pogge:
In other news, apparently John McCain isn't sure how many homes he owns. In a show of good sportsmanship the Obama campaign offered to count them for him and supply the answer: 7.

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Originally posted by Le Téléspectateur:
And the poor Obamas, only one house and $4.6 million last year. Truly Barry is a man of the people.

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:
They (Barack and Michelle Obama) worked their way up, very different.

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Originally posted by pogge:

And even so, it might not be an issue worth pursuing if it wasn't the McCain campaign trying to present Obama as a member of an elite and out of touch with "the common people."

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The good news about the article is that it's from an insider, a fellow POW who's republican cred can't be attacked (I assume). Maybe some moderate Republicans (if there are any left) and independents will read this and take it to heart.

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Originally posted by bigcitygal:
GWB went to Yale and was able to, by the magic of right-wing corporate media, successfully portray himself as a "regular guy".

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That's different.

Bush didn't get into Harvard because of his intelligence, he got in because of his money.

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Originally posted by bigcitygal:
Shit, was it Harvard or Yale?

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[ 21 August 2008: Message edited by: bigcitygal ]

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Originally posted by pogge:

Harvard Business School.

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"In terms of who's an elitist, I think people have made a judgment that John McCain is not an arugula-eating, pointy headed professor-type based on his life story."

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Interestingly enough, the McCain campaign response to having seven houses brings the thread drift back to McCain's POW experience:

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"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.

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Originally posted by pogge:
In other news, apparently John McCain isn't sure how many homes he owns. In a show of good sportsmanship the Obama campaign offered to count them for him and supply the answer: 7.

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Originally posted by Doug:
Technically, they're probably his wife's. She's the one with the money.

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Originally posted by pogge:
In other news, apparently John McCain isn't sure how many homes he owns. In a show of good sportsmanship the Obama campaign offered to count them for him and supply the answer: 7.

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Originally posted by pogge:
That's the whole point. No one is really sure how many there are. I read one interview with Cindy McCain in which she said that they bought a beach house and then couldn't get any time in it because the kids were always using it. So they bought a second one.

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And now you can have a tour of the houses using Google Earth:

The Barenaked Ladies: Singing, of course, "If I had a Million Dollars".

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
It's Three.

And Democrats were in the White House for numbers One and Two.

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Originally posted by Bookish Agrarian:

Jeez, I must have slept through all those history classes I took. I never occurred to me that the First World War was started by an Amerocian Democratic President. Who knew.

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Senator John McCain arrived late at his Senate office on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. “This is war,” he murmured to his aides. The sound of scrambling fighter planes rattled the windows, sending a tremor of panic through the room.

Within hours, Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.

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[ 22 August 2008: Message edited by: Bookish Agrarian ]

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Originally posted by Bookish Agrarian:
Trying to enforce our values on those who lived in the past is a muggs game.

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Would it be ok for me to condemn slavery? Can I say something negative about the divine right of kings? What about the inquisition? Witch burnings? 80 hour work weeks for little children?

ETA: I agree, though, about blaming the Democrats. I blame them but not only them.

[ 22 August 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]

To use your example of slavery. Do you really believe that the North was a paridise of anti-racism and that exploitation of African Americans was only confined to the South? In other words, we cannot enforce our values on those who lived in the distant past, just learn from them. What they teach us was that it was abhorent, but to pick out one group as being at fault rather than an entire society is a very poor understanding of history.

ETA Seems we cross posted RosaL

[ 22 August 2008: Message edited by: Bookish Agrarian ]

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Originally posted by Bookish Agrarian:
M. Spector specifically tried to imply that World War 1 and 2 were connected to a Democrat being in office. That sort of claim is absurd.

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Just as absurd as assuming that McCain is more likely to start WW III than Obama, or that electing Democrats to the White House is some kind of insurance against World Wars. Which is the assumption I was responding to.

[ 22 August 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Originally posted by Bookish Agrarian:
M. Spector specifically tried to imply that World War 1 and 2 were connected to a Democrat being in office.

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Originally posted by Bookish Agrarian:
M. Spector specifically tried to imply that World War 1 and 2 were connected to a Democrat being in office. That sort of claim is absurd. Nothing happens in a cultural value. Those values were accepted by most of the people of the time. Blaming one group is foolish.

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It's true. That said, its pretty damn clear that FDR did everything possible to goad the Japanese into attacking the US before the war, as a device for getting the US into the war. Wilson, was elected partly based on his campaign pledge of strict neutrality, but asked Congress to declare war in 1917 anyway. As well, it was the Democrats who chose to bring the US into the main post war wars, such as Korea and Vietnam, with the notable exception of Iraq. Not only that the Democrats have been interventionist in the extreme in terms of covert operations, such as the one conducted by Kermit Roosevelt (aka "the Quite American") against the duly elected government of Iran.

In fact, prior to 1952, it was the party of Lincoln who were traditionally isoloationist, and against foreign interventions, and not the party of Jefferson Davis.

What lesson do we learn by all this? There is absolutely no tangible and clear ideological difference between Democrats and Republicans in how they conduct their foreign policy, except in terms of rhetoric, since the middle of the last century. Both parties foreign policy is conducted on the basis of what is considered geopolitically best for the United States in a "realpolitik" sense, by Washington insiders, think tanks and lobbyists without regard to ideology. Post war US foreign policy has been conducted within the terms defined by US global interests set out by democratic advisor George F. Kennan, regardless of which party holds power within the executive branch of the US government.

The Democrats in fact were the party of movement under FDR and Truman that set out framework of the agressive and interventionist US foreign policy of the post war years, in which the US established the empire, and they are generally quite proud of their achievements in this realm, as anyone who has read the braggings of Zebignew Brezinski can easily see.

[ 22 August 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

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Originally posted by Bookish Agrarian:
Why not assume if a Liberal is in office the British will get involved in a war, then Canada joins and then eventually the Americans will join in.

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[ 22 August 2008: Message edited by: pogge ]

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Originally posted by 500_Apples:

Damn, I can't imagine being that rich...

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Damn, I can't imagine being that rich...

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...Cindy McCain, the current wife of presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, owns one of the largest beer distributorships in the nation. Now she and her husband are making a huge profit from the sale of flagship American brewer Anheuser-Busch to a foreign company, the Belgian beverage giant InBev.

"If you like what happened to the price of gasoline with two oilmen running the government," Mrs. McCain said gleefully, "you'll love what will happen to the price of beer with a beerwoman as first lady!"

"If we can do for beer what Bush and Cheney did for oil," the wife of the GOP candidate calculates, "I would think a $30.00 six-pack could be within reach by our second year in office."

"This Bud's not for you!" Mrs. McCain shouted joyfully. "Unless, of course, you've got a lot of money."

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[ 22 August 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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[E]ven as the rich have redirected income towards themselves, they've managed to remove the issue of economic inequality from the agenda. Part of the strategy - honed by media-savvy conservative think-tanks and commentators - has been to redefine the notion of elitism to refer to those who belong to the liberal elite, and do things like drink lattes, maintain an international outlook and speak articulately.

Accordingly, Democrat Al Gore, with his commanding grasp of issues in presidential debates, was accused of being an elitist. Similarly, Democrat John Kerry was branded elitist for being able to speak French.

In the same breath, Conservatives somehow presented George W. Bush, a rich kid who'd barely held a job before running for president, as a populist and down-to-earth guy who'd be fun to have a beer with - presumably because he was inarticulate and barely functional in even one language.

Whether McCain drinks beer, latte or Ovaltine doesn't alter the fact that he supports Bush's massive favouritism towards the real elite - the powerful financial one that runs his country. That alone should prevent McCain from adding to his housing inventory the large white edifice on Pennsylvania Ave. - McQuaig

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