Ace McCain

The Onion's "War For The White House" Blog includes a (mean but funny) post by McCain's (fictitious) Viet Cong torturer on an actual LA Times story about McCain's poor flying record. Take it away, Dac Kien:

Still, you have to admire the man. After all, he was a brilliant fighter pilot, right? At least, that's what I always thought, back when I used to pass the time by seeing how long old Johnny could hold his breath for. But then, just yesterday, I saw this.

According to his Air Force flight record, apparently my pal Johnny was something of a "Betsy butterfingers" when it came to flying jets. His flight commanders even gave him the sarcastic nickname "Ace McCain" because he crashed so many times!

Maybe one too many times for your own good. Isn't that right, you big pussy? Ha ha.

I'm just kidding you, John McCain!

"Oh if you become VP, Oh it's Canada for me!"

There's alot of concern among voters as to whether Sarah Palin has what it takes to lead. This song sums up their feelings.

McCain's POW Secrets [October Surprise!]

Sydney H. Schanberg, the longtime New York Times reporter and editor and Newsday columnist -- and author of "The Killing Fields" -- has written a 9000-word investigative piece on John McCain and his longstanding efforts to, as Schanberg asserts in his lede, "hide from the public stunning information about the live Vietnam prisoners who, unlike him, didn't return home."

[Via Editor & Publisher]

76 McCain Flip-Flops

It's like an end of summer liquidation sale! So many flip-flops! We're just giving them away!

Jason Bourne Calls Palin VP Pick "Disasterous"

Near as I can tell, it seems assured that Matt Damon read these articles before he made this rant, "McCain and the politics of mortality" at Politico (re: "actuary tables") and any one of Maureen Dowd's recent NYT's columns on Sarah Palin "Vice in Go-Go Boots?" or "My Fair Veep" ("bad Disney movie" joke). Other possible sources cited include: on the book-banning or "library censoring" issue, the Boston Herald; and on the question of whether or not she's a creationist, Wired Science.

McCain Gets Tough On Veterans' Biddies

From McClatchy's Washington Bureau:

Back in Washington, families of POW_MIAs said they have seen McCain's wrath repeatedly. Some families charged that McCain hadn't been aggressive enough about pursuing their lost relatives and has been reluctant to release relevant documents. McCain himself was a prisoner of war for five-and-a-half years during the Vietnam War.

In 1992, McCain sparred with Dolores Alfond, the chairwoman of the National Alliance of Families for the Return of America's Missing Servicemen and Women, at a Senate hearing. McCain's prosecutor-like questioning of Alfond — available on YouTube — left her in tears.

Four years later, at her group's Washington conference, about 25 members went to a Senate office building, hoping to meet with McCain. As they stood in the hall, McCain and an aide walked by.

Six people present have written statements describing what they saw. According to the accounts, McCain waved his hand to shoo away Jeannette Jenkins, whose cousin was last seen in South Vietnam in 1970, causing her to hit a wall.

As McCain continued walking, Jane Duke Gaylor, the mother of another missing serviceman, approached the senator. Gaylor, in a wheelchair equipped with portable oxygen, stretched her arms toward McCain.

"McCain stopped, glared at her, raised his left arm ready to strike her, composed himself and pushed the wheelchair away from him," according to Eleanor Apodaca, the sister of an Air Force captain missing since 1967.

Cindy McCain $300,000 Convention Outfit

Oh, Vanity Fair. It takes one to know one, doesn't it? Here's their breakdown of Cindy McCain's super elitist and out of touch RNC convention outfit — which at my old salary would take me over 6 years to afford! (If I never paid taxes, ate food or did anything else ever!)

Cindy McCain

Oscar de la Renta dress:
$3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch:
$4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings:
$280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace:
$11,000–$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown:
$600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100

I don't want to raise anyone's ire, but it does at least look good. Let's also mention that it's only 6k shy of the starting MSRP for the most expensive Volvo on the market: the XC90. It's also worth 30,000 cups of the most expensive latte in the world, or 23,077 pounds of Organic Baby Arugula — based on a $3.99/ 5 oz price tag (feel free to check my work). There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there's being chairwoman of Hensley, the nation's third-largest distributor of Anheuser-Busch products.

More On The "McCain Trailblazer / Haiti Telcom" Scandal

Lucy Komisar just published the documents on her blog.
This is, of course, re: this.

McCain Camp Admits Ad Was False

After the NYT's and WaPo get on their case. [via Daily Kos]

More On Whom The Associated Press Associates With [Hint: John McCain]

Ron Fournier — the AP's acting Washington Bureau Chief, and the man most responsible for its recent shift toward less objective and more 'analytical' coverage — was vigorously pursued by the McCain campaign, in March of 2007, for "a senior advisory role” in communications.

How much damage will RF bring to the most omnipresent and neutral-seeming name in journalism once the story has played out? God (R–HV) only knows.

McCain "Trailblazer" And Lots Of Other GOP People in Haiti Telcom Scandal

So, in the wake of his firm receiving a $1.3 million fine from the Federal Communication Commission, Jim Courter (one of John McCain's top fundraisers*) has stepped down from the position of national finance co-chairman for the candidate's presidential campaign.

New Jersey-based IDT — of which Courter is CEO — was fined by the FCC for failing to file a contract for telephone service to Haiti in 2004. More interesting, however, as Lucy Komisar points out:

Its work with Haiti has been put under scrutiny since a former employee, Michael Jewett, then IDT’s manager for the Caribbean, sued the company. His suit claims he was fired when he balked at negotiating a scheme that routed a portion of the company’s long distance revenue from Haiti calls to a shell company owned by then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. [...] In a quarterly S.E.C. report filed June 6, IDT's balance sheet shows $365 million "income taxes payable," meaning the sum is put aside for back taxes. The figure was zero last year.

All the executives below Courter involved with the Haiti deal are gone. The June report announced the "involuntary" departure of the chief legal officer.

Top-tier Republicans have also bailed out.

William Weld, former G.O.P. governor of Massachusetts, was head of corporate governance at IDT but resigned after the Jewett complaint was unsealed in July 2005.

IDT announced in October 2006 that its entire board would not seek reelection, including former congressman and vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jeane Kirkpatrick, former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, former Minnesota Senator Rudy Boschwitz, and former Washington Senator Slade Gorton. [Note: I posted all their faces at the above left. From top to bottom: McCain with Gorton; Courter; Boschwitz; McCain with Kemp; Kirkpatrick; and, lastly, Gilmore with an eye patch photoshopped on by another blogger.]

"Why do you put very powerful politicians on your board. Because you like them, you think they’re capable and they buy you protection," said Herbert Denton, president of the New York investment firm Providence Capital, which owned IDT stock. "Why do they leave at the same time? I speculate there’s something rotten in Denmark."

I hope this story gets some traction.

[*He seems to get a lot of his coworkers to donate.]

AP: McCain visits German restaurant — in Ohio

(WARNING: This post contains at least one pun.)

A funny/endearing headline for McCain, courtesy of the AP — who may or may not be in the tank for him at this point.

WaPo picked it up as well — because, basically, this is a joke too tasty* to turn down that I'm sure the McCain campaign lunged for in an effort to redirect some media attention toward their candidate on Obama's big day in Berlin.

From "the Trail":

Asked whether he was trying to make a point by coming to a German restaurant while Obama was in the real country, McCain took a mild swipe at his rival.

"Well I'd love to give a speech in Germany to [sic!**]-- a political speech -- or a speech that maybe the German people would be interested in. But I would much prefer to do it as president of the United States rather than as a candidate for the office of the presidency."

"Oh, Burn!" These petty, yellow snowballs are probably why nobody follows the news (well, that and all the depressing stuff).

*[Chortle.]
**[For shame, WaPo copy editors!]

McCain Thinks "Rape" Funny Ha-Ha

A joke John McCain made to a reporter in 1986 is coming back to haunt him. Recently, when his spokesperson was asked about this incident, they said:

"He's long said that he's said and done things in the past that he regrets," Rogers said. "You've just got to move on and be yourself -- that's what people want. They want somebody who's authentic, and this kind of stuff is a good example of McCain being McCain."

Here's McCain's infamous joke:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, "Where is that marvelous ape?"

More here from the Huffington Post.

Take a Stroll Down Neocon Lane

GRRRRR

Unfortunately, we must face the facts. John McCain is a Neocon. For those of you not in 'the know', that's neoconservative.

Reuters: "John McCain is almost a wholly owned subsidiary of the neoconservative movement when it comes to foreign policy," Carpenter said.

A "neocon" is more inclined than other conservatives to support vigorous government advocacy of morality and interventionist foreign policy. Neoconservatives such as former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz were key architects of the Iraq war and Bush's doctrine of military pre-emption.

Air Bud: Divorce Attorney [Feel Like McCain Love]

The L.A. Times has all the gory details on the dissolution of John McCain's first marriage: how it soured his friendship with the Reagan family (Nancy especially); how his public statements on it have not always matched the court record; and how his POW cellmate and former-"Swift Boat Veteran for Truth" Bud Day represented him as the attorney suing for divorce.

More Offensively Hawkish Humor From The Candidate

So, a fun experiment—while this blog is still on the topic of McCain's "Free Ride" with the press—might be to find out how much coverage there is of this gaffe, wherein our beloved presumptive nom suggests that exporting cigarettes would be "a good way to kill Iranians."



So far the coverage = not much.

Like the "Bomb, Iran" Beach Boys parody McCain sung a while back at a town hall meeting, this is pretty much (IMHO) the most tasteless and inexcusable thing I can imagine a candidate saying.

Raining McCain [News Briefs]

• Kind of obnoxiously sexist Times UK headline delves into how Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard CEO, is fast becoming an effective "cheerleader" for McCain—and wooing away (former/diehard/ladytown) Hillary Clinton supporters.
  
• Did McCain rough up a Sandinista? And if he did, won't that just make him more popular with red state hawks?
• More great stuff from tpm: 1.) Two lazy AP journalists, Steven Hurst and Jennifer Loven, have written nearly identical "analysis" articles on Obama's run to the center, both likely based on McCain/RNC camp research; 2.) a breakdown of McCain's retinue of lobbyist-campaigners, -employees, -friends, -handlers, etc.; and 3.) a new-ish McCain Ad attacks Obama on the Hispanic vote front.

McCain Takes Money From Swift-Boat Backers

"USA Today points out this morning that John McCain has had no problem accepting $70,000 in donations this cycle from backers of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth in 2004, despite his condemnation of the group at the time." [verbatim from tpm election central]

Air Bud: Dog And Pony Show [Wherein The McCain Campaign Has A Former Kerry Swiftboater Defend McCain's War Experience]

This is George Everett "Bud" Day—a former U.S. Air Force pilot who served during the Vietnam War, was a POW cellmate of Sen. John McCain, and spoke out against John Kerry in the above Swift Boat Veterans For Truth ad.

You would think they'd pick a less controversial member of the "McCain Truth Squad" to deal with the recent Wesley Clark non-troversy, but they didn't(!), and so, life is hilarious again.

Despite McCain being one of the first to condemn the ads attacking Kerry's war record in 2004, his campaign had Bud refute Clark's statements during one of their regular conference calls with the press—audio of which can be heard here at tpm election central. In addition to McCain's record, Bud also defended his own participation with SBV's4T saying, "The Swift Boat 'attacks' were simply revelation of the truth."

I hope this makes it on the Daily Show tonight! This is like a "gotcha back quote" for this unfair "gotcha quote."

Some Basic Information on the Candidate

Here is the Wikipedia listing for John McCain and his current wife, Cindy.