Notes On The Candidates

[poliphilo]

They say old soldiers make peace-loving politicians because they know first-hand how horrible war is, but this doesn't seem to apply to McCain, who has already- and he's not even in the White House yet- threatened to go to war with Russia.  Maybe this is because his military service involved flying above battlefields, not slogging accross them.

I'll say this for Palin: she hasn't pulled strings or called in favours to keep her son out of her holy war.

As for Obama, he's supposed to be hugely intelligent, right? So why in the world did he make that crack about the pig and the lipstick when he- or his minders- should have known that the GOP attack dogs would be all over it? The more I see and hear of him, the flimsier he seems to be.

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I'm defending John McCain, but...his military service didn't only involve flying above battlefields, it involved several years (5 or 6, I forget) as a POW, being tortured on a regular basis to the extent of permanently damaging his body. That being said, I can't account for his attitude towards war. It's not from disengagement, that's for sure.

"Lipstick on a pig" is a common expression (particularly in Washington, where this happens so frequently), and I believe that Obama was speaking off the cuff. The accusation that he was speaking about Palin is ridiculous to the extreme.

[unbleachedbrun.livejournal.com]

The lipstick on a pig phrase is a common American idiom, and it has been used previously both by Obama and even by McCain (McCain used it in reference to Hillary Clinton's health care ideas). Having McCain operatives try to associate the comment with Palin's pit bull/hockey mom lipstick joke or even her personally was, I thought, quite disingenuous. I smell desperation.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

"I'll say this for Palin: she hasn't pulled strings or called in favours to keep her son out of her holy war. ."

Say it for McCain, too: his son did a tour of duty in Iraq a year or so ago. I worry a bit about Palin's son becoming a high-value target, as Prince Harry was thought to be in Afghanistan.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

They're going to clobber him for that "McCain doesn't get the internet" ad, too. There were articles in the Boston Globe and in Forbes way back in 2000 about McCain's savvy use of the internet.

True, McCain doesn't keyboard his own emails. According to an article in Forbes, back in 2000, he is in pain if he tries to type (another of his lasting souvenirs from his five-plus years as a prisoner of war), so he and his wife do his emails together. He reads them, then dictates his replies -- Cindy is apparently a ferocious keyboarder. He stays current on sites and blogs that are key to him, and he did well with pioneering online events such as an online town meeting back in the late 1990s or early 2000s.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Actually, the "lipstick on a pig" comment played out rather well for the Democratic ticket, all things considered. The Rethuglicans went into high-dudgeon mode for days, but much of the press somewhat surprisingly didn't buy into the faux outrage. The right-wing surrogates kept repeating the same canard, that Obama's audience obviously thought he intended Palin. It never really stuck. The phrase is just too common over here and twice in the past year McCain himself had used it in reference to Senator Hillary Clinton's health-care reform plan.

Nearly every news spot rolled the footage of Obama's supposed gaffe, often leading with it:

"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough."

Whether intentionally or not, using that phrase allowed Obama's core message to penetrate the fog of lies and diversions pumped out daily by the McCain-Palin campaign and dutifully replayed and amplified in the press. It also allowed the Democratic candidate to go on a popular late-night talk show and joke that, logically, Palin isn't the pig; she's obviously the lipstick on McCain's pig of a campaign. Rather clever, I thought, and also happens to be true.

The truth is that the economy, the issues, social demographics, public opinion, and history itself, are all on the side of the Democrats this year. Manufactured outrage, misleading attacks, and other diversionary tactics are the only way that McCain can win. If public dialog is allowed to turn to the challenges facing the US, the Republicans are toast and they know it. Consequently, there will always be flaps like this, no matter what Obama says, from now until the election. If he doesn't give them a pretense, they'll make one up. The "lipstick on a pig" statement at least directs attention to a simple, easy-to-understand fact of this electioin: McCain offers nothing new. Personally, I suspect we haven't heard the last of pigs and lipsticks.

And for the record: the most serious of McCain's injuries were not suffered at the hands of his captors in North Vietnam. He didn't tuck-in as he should have done, when he triggered his ejection seat. He broke in prison when he realized he wasn't going to get the medical attention he needed for his injuries and told them he was the son of the admiral in command of the Pacific fleet. The Viet Cong offered to release him after two years, I think, and he refused, remaining in prison for five and a half, disregarding the orders given any officer who might be held in captivity.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

McCain seems like a total fake to me. A man with no substance to him whatsoever- who jumps from foot to foot with a stupid jester's grin on his face while desperately trying to please and impress whoever he thinks has the power. He's a dumb little lapdog longing to ingratiate himself. There is no chance in hell he will exercise the power of the POTUS responsibly. His POW record? A real man would've taken release, then gone back and forcibly freed the other prisoners. Instead he stayed- because it was the easy way to impress.

'But he was tortured..' people say. 'That shows character.' I completely disagree. Him choosing to stay seems utterly manipulative, an immature attempt to win favor- knowing people back home would respect him for his 'bravery'. In knowing he didn't actually have to 'do' anything other than get by to be thought of as a hero. He wasted 5 years of his life trying to be like Mandela, when the situation was not at all similar.

He's completely empty, and he stands for nothing. He's amenable to coercion. Put him in a room with Obama for 10 days, and when he walked out he'd be cheering for Obama. He's the ultimate puppet-leader. I don't know how he stands it- but then his whole life has been a game, with him playing a part, so why should this be any different?