B-b-b-but, she's a REAL AMERICAN! You can tell by her inability to conjugate verbs! You can't mock Real Americans©!

..the public option is a great idea, but there are realities on the ground that progressives seemed to have forgotten.

What kind of realities? POLITICAL CATNIP!

ME-fuckin'-OW!

Good point! If we wanted to honestly make sure that there was zero talk of healthcare reform, we should have voted for the status quo that was working so well from 2001-2008. Don't you hate naive people?

Don't blame me I voted for Kodos.

"Not true, McCain would not have been status quo. In politics McCain is the farthest you can get from Bush."

- JayCal3

John McCain in 2005:

"I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush."

- John McCain, June 19, 2005

Was he telling the truth or was he lying? If that's not the true John McCain then he was lying. I believe that's how honesty works.

"McCain is the most honest politician, a statement I can easily defend. Yes, he did make statements like the above, keeping in mind he was going to try for the Republican nomination"

- JayCal3

Ok. I guess I didn't post this in a big enough font. I'm not sure how to do that but here it is again - verbatim - what John McCain said in 2005:

"I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush."

- John McCain, June 19, 2005

Either he was telling the TRUTH or he wasn't. Again, that's how you define honesty. Excusing this as an understable lie since he was trying to get the Republican nomination, does not change a thing. It's either the TRUTH or it's a LIE.

"honesty is on paramount importance, and the only way faith can be restored in politics, and the rot halted."

- JayCal3

What you seem to be saying is that lies that are told for a reason you agree with are OK. How is that making honesty of "paramount importance" to you? Again, either McCain was lying or he wasn't. If he was lying, even to secure the GOP nomination, it was a lie.

I don't know. I went to school in the 1970's. Maybe honesty is different these days.

"I am not saying McCain has never lied. Yes, that statement was a lie. And for every such lie of McCain, I can find you one hundred by the average politician"

You're setting the bar awfully low for someone who says honesty in politics is of "paramount importance" to you.

McCain's 2008 strategy was to win-at-any-price, including sucking up to the very same religious extremists that he previously denounced as "agents of intolerance" (Jerry Falwell, et al). Not only wasn't that very "Mavericky" of him, it proved what he said previously about that faction was meaningless.

John McCain has sided with the GOP 95.4% of the time this year.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32480695/ns/politics-cq_politics/

His views reflect the overwhleming consensus of where the GOP stands as a party. I think we've all seen how conservative policies benefit America - a decimated economy, 2 optional wars without any strategy other than "Shock n Awe", the banking implosion, and a disappearing middle class.

Obama was certainly not my first choice, but to think the McCain/Palin ticket would have done anything other than remain status quo is fantasy. As little as the stimulus plan has done, there would have been none under McCain (his economic advisor was Phil Gramm, after all. The guy who said people were "whining" too much about the Bush economy). As far as healthcare, to think someone who sides with the GOP 95.4% of the time (the party that supports the elimination of both medicare and social security) would somehow roll up his sleeves and be all Mavericky on the issue is delusional.

I watched the Real Time episode last night and one of the most infuriating parts for me was when Jeremy Scahill asked Todd why the White House press corp asks nothing about what the Obama administration is doing in Afghanistan, to which Todd dismissed what he was saying with a smirk, saying that Scahill had basically gotten in his talking points. To Todd, everyone has talking points and an agenda. No one, including Scahill, speaks from the heart. To Todd, Scahill is trying to sell a book. From "30,000 feet" it might appear that he cares, but Todd's in the know.

It reminds me of something Bill Hicks once said to his audience:

"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself...

no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously.

I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart."

Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags!

"Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing."

Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!

"Presumably he believes that there is some covert plan to do something."

-- macgupta

If Blackwater is discussed on TV it will end up being a topic of discussion! And on TV no less! So you can see why that's not going to happen.