Letters to the Editor
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The Psyco and The Monster
It sounds like a winning ticket to me.
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Re Democrats and Republicans Teaming Up
You guy-uys!...
Dems and Reps are supposed to cooperate for the good of the USA. They used to give lip service, at least, to this modus operandi. Just four years ago, this idea still survived, when Kerry and McCain actually spoke about cooperating.
Now, it appears to be dead and buried. Xrandadu Hutman, are you young? Are you too young to remember Liberal Republicans and Conservative Republicans? Does anybody still give any credence to the idea of non-partisan statesmanship? Does anybody believe in wisdom, in actual solutions, rather than just pre-conceived positions with enough votes?
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"What's he going to do with foreign leaders when he's supposed to be engaging in diplomacy?"
I'm guessing he deals with the people that REALLY matter (i.e. NOT the media) in a totally different way. Obviously, he has made it this far with his temper, so I'm not too concerned.
He's kind of like that boss you've had thats a total prick to his subordinates, but when he gets with people on his own level, he interacts with them in an entirely different and effective way.
It's kind of refreshing to see a politician be himself and let loose on reporters for asking stupid questions.
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What's not to get?
I thought the point of the article was, either McCain lied about having a discussion about being on the ticket with Kerry back then, or he's lying about it now. (That, and flying off the handle for no good reason). Maybe it's unsurprising for a politician to be "inconsistent" but it's still news, isn't it?
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McCain will lose it . . .
McCain will lose it all. Whatever goodness he may have had for challenging his Party on its allegience to the Religious Right, for speaking against Rumsfeld's strategy, for speaking against torture -- all have been self-repudiated in his desperate bid for the nomination. He's killed whatever claim he has had to "straight talk" or being a "maverick." And when he will lose the general election, badly, to any democrat under the sun, the Right Wing pundits will visciously attack him for failing, betraying the Party. He will be pariah. He will become the silent ghost of a Senator from Arizona for the rest of his life. It's sad, but I don't pity him.
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@Brian
I actually had the opposite response from you; I read the transcript first and responded--well, you can see my first post. I thought it was just the media's trying to fill in their "He's a hothead" storyline. But, honestly, after seeing the video you (or was it X?) posted, I can kind of see that this looks really typical for him and it's disturbing. Like tyrannical or something. I was particularly bothered by his talking over the reporter and continuing to bring up more points over her follow-up questions. He looks very much like a man used to getting his way, controlling others, and wanting to be surrounded by yes-men. I would absolutely not want to be a dissenter in his cabinet. All of a sudden, I think his personality is a highly relevant topic.
PS I think her "never mind" was relevant, too, don't you? It struck me as her being afraid to pursue.
But maybe this is the way it always is with reporters and their subjects. Maybe reporters have to suck up and be deferential and the celebrity/pol is always in the driver's seat acting controlling. Is this typical does anybody know?
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Maybe he can take Anger Management with Hillary
I mean, if it doesn't interfere with their Happy Hour.
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Few Comments
1. McCain hardly even lost his patience. And it's understandable that he would get annoyed by hearing this same old question for the thousandth time. As he said, everybody already knows he and Kerry had a conversation, so why ask like it's new news? He feels that she's trying to damage his credibility with Republicans. I'm not sure he's not right.
2. On the topic of Hillary giving her thumbs up to McCain's security credentials, you can read it a few different ways. The most charitable interpretation, and I think probably the one that's most accurate, is that she's trying to say this: McCain's the opposition, so whoever we nominate has to be able to go against McCain. McCain's strong on national security so that means our nominee has to be able to show he/she's qualified in that regard. I can do that; Obama can't. I really think that's what's going on here. Now, if you buy into the Machiavellian view of Hillary, you can say that, in addition, she's also trying to hamper Obama's ability to run against McCain. If he gets the nomination, McCain will use these comments in his ads, maybe get elected, and then she can run against him in 2012. He'll have inherited a weak economy and a mess in Iraq, one which he wants to prolong, so there's every chance she'd have an easy time knocking him off. I think that's possible too. For the most part, though, I think she's just trying to say that Obama isn't electable in an Obama-McCain race. Now, as to whether all this is "treasonous" or what have you, sure it is, if the Democratic Party is your guiding star in life. Otherwise, I think it's just smart politics.
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kufir77
"I'm guessing he deals with the people that REALLY matter (i.e. NOT the media) in a totally different way. Obviously, he has made it this far with his temper, so I'm not too concerned."
"He's kind of like that boss you've had thats a total prick to his subordinates, but when he gets with people on his own level, he interacts with them in an entirely different and effective way."
"It's kind of refreshing to see a politician be himself and let loose on reporters for asking stupid questions."
1. You guessed wrong. He has a reputation of being a hothead with people who REALLY matter, like other Republican Senators:
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1714082,00.html
Salon did an article about how people in the U.S. MILITARY think McCain is a bit of a hothead:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/03/06/commander_in_chief/index.html?source=search&aim=/news/feature
2. Who's to say that the media don't matter? The media is the means through an informed electorate learns about their elected officials. How are we supposed to hold our leaders accountable if every time someone in the media asks him a mildly uncomfortable question, he gets all pissy? Isn't that a sign of contempt for the electorate's right to know? Under a McCain presidency, are reporters only going to be allowed to ask questions that don't piss him off? (For the record, the media are not the president's subordinates - the press is only subordinate to the executive branch in totalitarian regimes where the newspapers are merely organs of propaganda.)
3. Is it a stupid question because it deals with apparent contradictions in McCain's public statements about whether he had a conversation with John Kerry about being his V.P.? If he said at the time that he didn't have a conversation with Kerry and then turns around to chastise the reporter because "everybody knows that we had a conversation," hasn't he admitted that he had originally lied about the matter? And if he's going to contend that he didn't lie, shouldn't he explain the apparent contradiction instead of just flipping out? Is that straight talk or stonewalling?