Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 228 Editor's Choice: 9
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@ Elephantman - gotta call it like we see it, with facts backing us up.
[Read the article: McCain's crazy debate gambit]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Don't any of you feel the least bit stupid making claims like, "McCain is chickening out"?
Gotta call it like I see it.
1. McCain and Obama aren't needed by the Senate at debate time on Friday - so there's no actual need to reschedule
2. McCain's taken a horrendous pounding over his ridiculous statements, shifting non-positions, and overall economic ignorance
3. Obama's campaign is continuing to gather steam
4. Rescheduling the debate gives McCain a chance to break Obama's momentum, gather steam, and make it look like McCain is more Presidential.
Point 4 backfired, of course, because Obama very smartly (and Presidentially) stated he would prefer to stick to the schedule, and that Obama was at least sure that he could handle it.
By the way, the McCain campaign is now trying to reschedule the VP debate, by attempting to reschedule the Presidential debate for that day. The clear call there, is that they're chicken to put Palin next to Biden also. (Altho it is also possible that they're trying to game expectations. But Palin really is clearly an ignoramus on foreign policy.)
When McCain is simply saying, "Let's have this debate next week, after the stabilization bill is passed."
Well he's not going to say "I want to stall for at least another week, 'cause Obama's killing me." That's just the only plausible explanation.
The Friday debate's agreed subject matter was "foreign policy." Is anybody clamoring for that debate on Friday, instead of, say, Tuesday?
No, what we have is McCain clamoring to not have that debate, and Obama calmly and firmly ready and capable to have that debate as scheduled.
Are the Obamabots that anxious to see the Obamassiah flash all of his high-powered foreign policy credentials? (Smoking dope in Hawaii doesn't count as foreign policy experience.)
On the other hand, being a dope on foreign policy matters, specifically the most important one of the last 20 years, Iraq, does count as foreign policy experience. Bad experience.
So yes, I look forward to those debates - and apparently McCain looks for a way to put it off.
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@ Elephantman - in what alternate reality?
[Read the article: McCain's crazy debate gambit]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The reason that McCain needs to be part of the legislative discussion is because in just a few months, he is going to be President, nominating a new Secretary of the Treasury, and working with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. He'll be a leader, just like he's doing right now.
Even if McCain:
- buys a thought helmet from Dr. Doom, so he can mentally commands everyone who is not a Christian Fundamentalist to think Palin is qualified
- hires Dr. Who to straighten out the time paradoxes in his deregulation-regulation wormhole
- gets Brainiac to force-teach him the fundamental realities of economic policy
...he'll still be the guy who tried to use an economic crisis as a way to avoid a debate he wasn't up for.
That's not leadership. That's excuses.
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@ T. Suarez - what position?
[Read the article: Reid: McCain, Obama "would not be helpful" in negotiations]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It seems like McCain *tried* to put Obama in an untenable position - but Obama just walked right around it, and said "No, John; the situation isn't really that bad, we really aren't needed back in Washington right now. We can go ahead and debate, and that will be good for the American people to see." And so McCain is stuck in the corner, by himself.
No one respects a grown man who freaks out, and who avoids a situation because he isn't capable. Now, maybe McCain is very capable in debate against Obama. We'll see.
But what McCain looks like is a man who has had no coherent economic policy, who just recently flip-flopped from 26 years as a deregulator to suddenly being a populist regulator, and whose campaign aide has just been found to be taking $15,000 a month from Fannie Mae...
...who now has just totally lost his water, either about the economic crisis, or about facing Obama, or both.
And as much as you might like it be different, that's how it looks on the ground.
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You know what? From the description of "Life & Times of Tim", it sounds pretty hilarious.
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maybe I'm just sick. But I found myself laughing out loud at the description of Tim going to work after an incredibly lame bachelor party, and suddenly having to deal with his whole office thinking he's been raped by a homeless man.
Perhaps Heather just isn't the demographic?
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Seems like more McCain apologetics to me
[Read the article: Who is the real John McCain?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Take this example, the author's criticizing Begala's criticism:
"Under the Bush-McCain economic policies, the American economy has created a little over five million jobs. By contrast, the Clinton-Democratic policies brought twenty-three million new jobs." Ergo, not only will McCain continue Bush's policies, he shares responsibility for all those policies' failures over the last eight years.
Well if McCain wholeheartedly supported those policies, voted for them, and then praised those policies later, I don't see how it's a stretch to say he shares responsibility.
I think it's the idea of McCain that people fell in love with, including the late, lamented and usually incisively smart David Foster Wallace. The real McCain as revealed in politics is quite a different story.