Reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin serve up a spicy smorgasbord of observations from the 2008 campaign — including, the McCain campaign people at one point seriously discussing the possibility that Sarah Palin was mentally unstable.
In ‘Game Change,’ Insight on the 2008 Campaign, New York Times’ Michiko Kakutani reviews the book: ” ….The authors write that one of Mrs. Clinton’s ‘senior-most lieutenants‘ watched her ‘bitter and befuddled reaction‘ to her loss in Iowa, and thought for the first time, ‘This woman shouldn’t be president.‘”
They write that during debate preps, some staff members assigned to Sarah Palin by the McCain campaign discussed the “threatening possibility: that Palin was mentally unstable.”
They add that several of Senator John McCain’s lieutenants agreed that if it looked as if their candidate might actually win in November, they would have to discuss how to relegate Ms. Palin “to the largely ceremonial role that premodern vice presidents inhabited”: “it was inconceivable” that “if McCain fell ill or died, the country be left in the hands of a President Palin.”
Mr. Halperin and Mr. Heilemann write, that the strategist John Weaver suspected the rumor Cindy McCain had a “long-term boyfriend” in Arizona “was rooted in truth,” and that the McCains “fought in front of others, during small meetings and before large events, to the amazement and discomfort of the staff.” The authors say that Mrs. McCain accused the senator of ruining her life, that she never wanted him to run again for president, and that “when it came time to film campaign videos of the couple, the camera crews had to roll for hours to capture a few minutes of warmth.” [ READ MORE ]
John McCain has run a nasty message-less campaign.
Mr. McCain gambled and ignored his long-established qualities and selling points, instead he chose to run a standard GOP fear-hate mongering campaign. To make matters worse, McCain allowed George Bush’s THUGS to hijack his outfit, and transform it into a stinking smear churning machine.
The sadness in this for John McCain, is that it is the same Bush operatives who derailed him in the 2000 presidential primaries, using the same exact tactics he has been using against Obama. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, George Bush’s goon-squad circulated church fliers that labeled McCain ‘the fag candidate.‘ They slurred McCain as having fathered “illegitimate children,” in Vietnam, and insinuated taht McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi daughter was “black.”
Bush’s criminals also alleged that McCain was both gay and cheated on his wife, and that his wife Cindy was a drug addict.’
Eight years later, McCain has deployed the same “WINNING Bush Tactics.”
McCain’s pitiful attempts to scare voters, seems to have failed miserably. Other than the nasty, racist and illiterate right-wing faction of the GOP, who are already drowning in hate, I don’t see many other voters responding favorably to McCain’s barrage of hate and innuendo.
Even the most mentally challenged of voters will stop and think twice — when confronted with mean-spirited McCain mailers that portray Obama as a CRIMINAL, a TERRORIST, a BABY-KILLER, a MARXIST SOCIALIST, a REDISTRIBUTIONIST or even a GANG-BANGER.
Why? Because it doesn’t make sense!
In twenty one months of campaigning, Obama has never displayed anything close to being a TERRORIST, or any of the the things listed above. Instead he has shown remarkable poise, confidence, maturity and supreme intelligence. Nothing close to what McCain and his despicable “moose-cow,” Sarah Palin would like everybody to think he is.
Eight years ago George Bush floored McCain with HATE and INNUENDO. In 2008, he has done it again!
That “Joe The Plumber,” a tax cheat and a con-man is McCain’s main attraction, with five days to go, is measure of how appalling McCain’s circus of a campaign has become.
McCain has lost his brand as a maverick, and is henceforth a cheap small-minded partisan, with questionable judgement.
He has severely damaged his reputation, and all the hard work he put in during his 20+ years as a lawmaker, to cultivate a credible “maverick image,” has been flushed down the toilet.
Expert analysis predicts an Obama win, and I firmly believe that REASON will trounce RACIAL FEARS next Tuesday, and America will get its first black president.
As for the yelping side-kick Sarah Palin — she might have a future, as the leader of the Republican BASE, comprising of right-wing blockheads — rotting and choking in racism, bigotry and religious mediocrity.
If Sarah Palin hopes to run in 2012, as she has hinted, then I suggest she run for president of Alaska, after she secedes the state from the union.
Other than that, she should never be allowed on the national stage again.
I find her intoxicatingly inept — an intellectual midget of Bush proportions, a ‘category five moron,‘(per Bill Maher), who must never be allowed anywhere near the highest office in the land.
A Russian parliamentarian recently had this to say: ‘Palin, the shreiking cow from Alaska is the joke of American politics. She is a ‘housewife, chosen by mere chance.”
I strongly agree!
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Obama’s 30 min Infomercial — American Stories, American Solutions
Obama Mocks McCain’s ‘Socialist’ Attack
Joe The Con-Man — The McCain Team’s Official MASCOT
Campaign Comments by Keith Olbermann: Who does Joe think he’s fooling? — In a Special Campaign Comment, Keith Olbermann asks ‘Joe the Plumber’ to give up playing the role of McCain/Palin campaign prop because he is either supplying false information or making a fool of himself.
References:
1.How John McCain ran against himself — The maverick of days past might be deadlocked with Obama now if he hadn’t let the Republican right hijack the Straight Talk Express…By Walter Shapiro
2.Watching for a Republican rout — Democrats are poised for another wave of victories in Congress. A guide to the key races, and GOP lawmakers on the run.
The McCain-Palin HATE MEETINGS are affecting Obama supporters worldwide — In a London street, a man wearing an Obama T-shirt was shot three times. Dube Egwuatu was shot three times in street by racist gunman. Mr Egwuatu, a data analyst with Croydon Council, said: “The venom in his attackers voice was frightening.” McCain and his side-kick Sarah Palin, are a sick, racist, divisive and deluded monster couple, unfit to lead a country struggling to dump it’s sordid racial past!. Click Here For HOPE
Republican racist bigots realizing that Obama is for real, are in frenzied panic. Barack Obama has momentum and John McCain cannot stop the Obama train. The McCain-Palin Ticket is in Racist ‘Kamikaze’ Mode.
And, it has spread all the way to “Cousin-Land,” Great Britain ….in London, where Dube Egwuatu was shot three times in street by racist gunman – for wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt. Mr Egwuatu, a data analyst with Croydon Council, said: “The venom in his attackers voice was frightening.”
After two debates, McCain has nothing to offer but FEAR and RACIST INNUENDO.
First it was Sarah Palin, McCain’s sidekick barracuda, now he has thrown all he has left into the mix — his “Beer Inheritance,” Cindy McCain.
Invoking son’s military service, Cindy McCain said: “The day that Sen. Obama cast a vote to not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body let me tell you,” Cindy McCain said in introducing the GOP ticket. “I would suggest Sen. Obama change shoes with me for just one day. I suggest he take a day and go watch our men and women deploying.” READ: OBAMA IS UN-PATRIOTIC, YELLOW and DOES NOT BELONG
A couple of days ago Sarah Palin accused Obama of “Paling With Terrorists,” … in reference to Obama’s association with fellow Chicagoan, Bill Ayers, a reformed 1960’s anti-war radical, who is currently leading a productive life as a professor at the University of Illinois.
Ayers was protesting the VietNam War — another illegal war America lost, during which, just like in Iraq, U.S. military personnel often went on civilian LYNCHING rampages.
The spectacle of John McCain’s Town Hall campaign meetings reminds me of a Saturday Evening Lynching Meet ups in the not too distant past of America.
Lynching of black people in the United States often took place on “Market Days,” during which families accompanied by their young children would watch blacks humiliated, killed by hanging and sometimes by burning. To demonstrate a ritual of power, mobs sometimes tortured the victim first before hanging them.
1935 lynching of Rubin Stacy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Lynching was(is) highly associated with Southern efforts to retain and enforce white supremacy after their defeat in the American Civil War.
Many lynchings still happen today and go unreported, and they are not necessarily by rope or burning.
Guns, beatings and NOOSES have been hung on trees to afflict MENTAL LYNCHING on African-Americans.
McCain’s Town Hall Meetings have turned into Lynch Mob Meetings during which McCain, Cindy and Sarah Palin intentionally, knowingly and willfully, by using code-words have incited RETARDED Republicans to help them bring down Barack Obama, by hook or crook.
The BLOOD-CUDDLING braying goes like this:
“KILL HIM!”…. “TREASONER!”…. “NIGGER!”…. “NOBAMA!”…. “SOCIALIST!”…. “COMMUNISM!”…. “SOCIALIST SWINE!”…. “OBAMA IS A MUSLIM TERRORIST!”…. “SLEAZY SCUM OF THE EARTH!”…. “OBAMA REGISTERS DEAD PEOPLE!”…. “BARACK ‘HUSSEIN‘ OBAMA!”…. “OFF WITH HIS HEAD!”…. “OBAMA WILL PAINT THE WHITEHOUSE BLACK!”…. “OBAMA IS A BLACK MUSLIM TERRORIST!”….
Here is Sarah Palin calling Obama a Terrorist & Racist ScumBag
Republicans Responding in Kind.
“Obama is a Moslem Terrorist” ….McCain event in Bethlehem, PA
Terrorist!
The Sheriff’s GESTAPO Also Joined In — In FULL UNIFORM
[Enlarge] Joining in the chorus, a local Black talk show host, a Mr. James T. Harris, took great umbrage in begging McCain to “HIT” Obama.
“I am begging you sir, I am begging you — take it to him,” pleaded the Mr. Harris, earning himself a standing ovation!. “We have the good Reverend Wright. We have [the Rev. Michael L.] Pfleger.
We have all of these shady characters that have surrounded him,” Harris bellowed. “We have corruption here in Wisconsin and voting across the nation. I am begging you, sir. I am begging you.
CNN’s Campbell Brown Laments McCain’s “Hate Speech”
As you can see McCain-Palin campaign is inciting violence and racial hatred against Senator Obama.
They call it “Rallying Their Base.” A base consisting of the most despicable racists on earth.
And it is no surprise that Sarah Palin feels mighty comfortable in this setting. She has a history of association with Alaskan Extremists. Right-wing extremists Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll helped launch Palin’s political career in Alaska, and in return had influence over policy. “Her door was open,” says Chryson — and still is. …. [READ MORE]
Any little respect I had for McCain is gone forever.
Mr. McCain you are racist pig not fit to lead a nation trying so hard to progress beyond bigotry and racism. You are unfit to run this country.
You are totally sick, divisive, “Viet-Cong deluded,” monster!.
That you referred to a crowd at one of your rally’s as “My Fellow Prisoners!” instead of “My Fellow Citizens” …in a “Prepared” speech!, ….is proof that you have lost your mind,…completely!
“My Fellow Prisoners!”
As for Sarah Palin, first, you are a RACIST, next let me paraphrase the RUSSIANS: “Palin, the shrieking cow from Alaska is the joke of American politics. You are a “housewife, chosen by mere chance.” A Mrs. Nobody “know-it-all.” You are a “Hockey Mom” housewife-cum-small-town gossip merchant and cheap little guttersnipe. You pith-headed little bimbo from the back of beyond. Keep your mouth shut and while you’re at it, make sure the members of your family keep their legs shut too.”
I didn’t say that, the Russians who are equally pissed off at you did: Read PRAVDA
On The Issue of McCain’s Character
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By: bcblue84’s
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I forgot to mention John McCain was a POW. While John McCain was a POW, he endured torture, and he dreamt of his beautiful wife and children back home. Carol McCain was John’s first wife. She kept the faith back home. She and her 3 young children struggled to get by. While he was still imprisoned, Carol McCain was in a horrific, near fatal car accident, which left her alive, but crippled and disfigured. Carol McCain endured and whispered not a word of these horrors to her husband because she wanted to spare him the agony and worry. Upon his return from Vietnam, seeing his wife was not the woman he once knew, John McCain, forsake his marital vows, and forsake his wife and his family. John McCain committed an act that women all across America fear. He deserted his wife in her hour of need. He turned his back on her, and took a second wife, a woman nearly 20 years his junior.
This truth makes me uncomfortable. This truth reveals to me the horror of who John McCain really is. He is a man who would rid himself of a woman who he had sworn to protect, who he had sworn to build a life with. He is a man who in his lust for political power, and his overriding vanity, would abandon his first wife, crippled and disfigured, in favor of a blond beauty, nearly 20 years his junior.
John McCain does not embody honor or sacrifice or duty. John McCain embodies a man who would abandon his wife, a man who places no value on sacred marital vows, a man who does not know the meaning of family sacrifice or family commitment.
John McCain and his campaign does nothing but call a lie to the sacrifice and earnest endeavors of military wives. He presents himself as a man with whom Military families can identify. But would they still identify with him if they knew he abandoned the wife and family who supported him when he was in the military?
For every woman who devotes herself to her home and her family, John McCain embodies their worst nightmare. John McCain is the husband who would instantly and arbitrarily discount the work and devotion a wife commits, for a lifetime, to her home and family, the husband who would toss her aside for a younger woman, the husband who would dismiss his solemn marital vows as “a mistake,” the husband with no conscience and no heart and no smidgen of duty. Would the women of America stand by John McCain if they knew even the smallest hint of his first forgotten wife?
How can Cindy McCain voice a need “to make sure the American people understand what we have to say, what we stand for as a husband and wife” when what they stand for is adultery, betrayal, privilege, entitlement, and cover up. Maybe Cindy thinks she deserves respect and instant credibility because she is John McCain’s second wife, or because she is rich and wears $280,000 earrings, or because she owns 8 houses so she has perspective on the economic crisis because she can retreat to one of those 8 houses and wait till her stock portfolio recovers
One Nation Under Fear: Scaredy Cats and Fear-Mongers in the Home of the Brave (And What You Can Do About It) — by Bob Cesca
Editorial Reviews
“Bob Cesca is easily one of the most incisive political writers on the scene today. Nobody else can make me think, laugh and cry–all at once–by simply giving his take on the corrupt political establishment that runs things in Washington.” — Cliff Schecter, Author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn’t
“The great irony of this book is that Bob’s writing is totally fearless. That’s what I love about it. Are you allowed to write a fearless book about country living under fear? Whether he is allowed or not, Bob has done it.” — Cenk Uygur, “The Young Turks”
“Fearless and funny, Bob Cesca captures the smart brawling style of today’s blogosphere, while putting the press and Republicans on notice.” — Eric Boehlert,Media Matters
“As a liberal blogger of profound depth, righteous outrage and sly humor, Cesca’s like a combination of Molly Ivins, H.L. Mencken and Wavy Gravy. I’m not sure what that means but it looks nice in a sentence.” — Steven Weber,Actor/Hockey Mom
Product Description
In post-9/11 America, authoritarians and politicians are happily leaning on the panic button for fun, profit, and the ongoing oppression of a frightened populace. This timely book examines that fear: where it came from, how it’s promoted, and what can be done about it. Author Bob Cesca hits a bracingly wide range of targets — the right-wing noise machine, climate change deniers, creeping fascism from the Bush White House — before presenting a sober, sensible plan for fighting and overcoming this potentially irreversible trend.
The GOP goes back to its ugly roots — McCain is resurrecting the GOP’s oldest tactic: Smearing Obama as a scary black terrorist sympathizer. But he may meet the same fate as Barry Goldwater. — Gary Kamiya ..[ more ]
As Obama holds a steady lead in the polls, the slime-ball McCain campaign has switched gears — and become a decrepit and segregationist “swift-boating” morass of Racism.
Fear and Smear is the new economic policy of McCain and Palin.
At a time when most Americans are really anxious about their economic future, John McCain has unleashed the “racist syphilis” in him, which is being peddled from state to state by his wicked witch – the shallow fork-tongued interlectual midget, and now, the female-bigot from Alaska, Sarah Palin.
“Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” Palin told a group of donors in Englewood, Colo. “This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,” she said. “We see America as a force of good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism.”
This despicable smear slyly suggests that Obama is a terrorist, scary, alien, un-American, a subversive, a traitor and a criminal….”like every other black man.”
McCain’s rallies have become HATE MEETINGS, with some braying for Obama’s life!
Last week’s VP debate, which only the “delusionally sick” believe Palin won, has emboldened Sarah the bigot.” She is now trotting around with the hardened resolve of a hardcore prostitute, squealing like a pig at feeding time.
Palin’s statement(s) seem to be the “whistle” the pack of Syphilitic Nincompoops at Fox News, led by the in-house Nazi Sean Hannity, have been waiting for.
They are trying their utmost best to portray Obama as some “Manchurian Candidate” who will sneak into the White House and then nuke every city in America. To them, Obama is from the “politically soiled and filthy culture of Chicago,” unfit to be an American — maybe he is a member of the Chicago mob, a recipe for a tragedy!
The sickest of them all at Fox news is Sean Hannity — who has repeatedly mis-characterized Obama’s “air-raiding villages” statement, among many other distortions and outright lies.
On his show, Hannity & Colmes (O’Hannity & Coward), Sean Hannity praised Gov. Sarah Palin for citing Sen. Barack Obama’s remark that more coalition forces are needed in Afghanistan “so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there.” Hannity did not note that Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently offered Afghans “sincere condolences and personal regrets for the recent loss of innocent life as a result of coalition airstrikes” and that news outlets have repeatedly reported that U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan have resulted in civilian casualties…. [ More Here ]
On his radio show(s), Rush Limbaugh (the other big right-wing scum-bag on radio) has made numerous false statements about Obama’s health-care plan, his employment history, his legislative record, his work on behalf of veterans, and whether he puts his hand over his heart during the national anthem…. [ More Here ]
McCain is using the same tactics Bush used on him in the 2000 Republican Primaries, when Bush waged a nasty smear campaign against him.
In 2008 McCain has become McBush:
“What Bush did to McCain in the 2000 S. C. primary”
Bush Supporters Called McCain “The Fag Candidate.” — In South Carolina, Bush supporters circulated church fliers that labeled McCain “the fag candidate.” Columnist Frank Rich noted that the fliers were distributed “even as Bush subtly reinforced that message by indicating he wouldn’t hire openly gay people for his administration.”
Bush Supporters Questioned McCain’s Sanity — Some of George W. Bush’s supporters questioned Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s fitness for the White House, suggesting that his five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam drove him insane at the time.
McCain Was Accused of Fathering Illegitimate Children and A Drug-Addict Wife — Among the rumors circulated against McCain in 2000 in South Carolina was that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually black, that McCain was both gay and cheated on his wife, and that his wife Cindy was a drug addict.” Carl Rove (who is now working for McCain), Bush’s strategist took it further — claiming that McCain had committed treason while a prisoner of war, and had fathered a child with a black prostitute.”
The Bush Campaign Used Code Words to Question McCain’s Temper — Using the code word “temper,” a group of Senate Republicans, and at least some outriders of the George W. Bush campaign, spread the word that John McCain is unstable. The subtext, also suggested in this whispering campaign, was that he returned from 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam with a loose screw, and that he shouldn’t be entrusted with nuclear weapons.”
5. McCain’s involvement in the Keating Five – Savings and Loans scandal, which almost derailed his career. The Keating scandal is eerily similar to the financial crisis of today.
KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis
….and a lot more.
Obama being the “nice man” that he is, might not be willing to stab McCain right through the heart, but I strongly feel that he should at least kick him hard in the groin by bringing up the issue of Carol McCain — McCain’s first wife, who he dumped immediately after he came back from Vietnam, for Cindy and her “Beer Inheritance,” and because he couldn’t stand her disfigured body — after a terrible car crash in 1969.
John McCain is a sleazy, racist opportunist.
Keith Olbermann takes a shot at McCain/Palin below:
Olbermann: It’s Palin doing the Palin
The Governor needs to fact check herself before making accusations
McCain Returns To The MUD
Palin Struggles With Geography
References:
1.Will Palin’s Obama-Terrorist Speech Backfire? — John McCain occasionally looks back on decisions with regret. He has apologized for opposing a holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. He has apologized for refusing to call for the removal of a Confederate flag from South Carolina’s Capitol. When the 2008 campaign is over McCain might regret appeals such as Palin’s perhaps more so if he wins.
5.Ugly Time — There seems to be no bottom for the McCain campaign. The candidate himself joined his running mate in the gutter Monday, with a stream-of-consciousness rant against Obama in New Mexico
6.Dishonorable — McCain-Palin ad distorts Obama’s remark on Afghanistan and support for troop-funding bills.
Hillary cried sexism to cover up her incompetent management of her campaign, and now Republicans have picked up that trick. But when you use sexism as an across-the-board shield for any legitimate question, you only hurt women. And that’s just another splash of reality.
Hillary Clinton Meets The Bad Guys
Unable to stop the onslaught of wild soap opera story lines erupting from the Palin family, the McCain campaign offered a new mantra: “Life happens.”
Since John McCain played craps first and sent the vetters to Alaska afterward, Republicans have been defending Governor Palin by saying that, while she has no foreign policy experience — except, as Cindy McCain pointed out, that “Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia” — she has a lot of domestic policy experience as a supercharged P.T.A. and hockey mom.
Even as they push Sarah Barricuda as the glamorous but tough hunting and fishing mom who can juggle it all — she’s the only nominee, as Fred Thompson bragged in his convention speech, “who knows how to properly field dress a moose” — they rant at reporters who wonder how she will juggle it all and question some of her judgments……[ more ]
Reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin serve up a spicy smorgasbord of observations from the 2008 campaign — including, the McCain campaign people at one point seriously discussing the possibility that Sarah Palin was mentally unstable.
Editorial Reviews
