Filed for future reference...

[tagryn]

full WT interview here of McCain on Bush's administration:

"We just let things get completely out of hand," (McCain) said of his own party's rule in the past eight years. "Spending, the conduct of the war in Iraq for years, growth in the size of government, larger than any time since the Great Society, laying a $10 trillion debt on future generations of America, owing $500 billion to China, obviously, failure to both enforce and modernize the [financial] regulatory agencies that were designed for the 1930s and certainly not for the 21st century, failure to address the issue of climate change seriously," McCain told the Washington Times when asked to name his criticisms of the current president.
...
In addition to the long list of failures he attributed to Mr. Bush, Mr. McCain blamed the president for supporting the Medicare prescription-drug bill, saying, "They didn't pay for it. They put a trillion-dollar debt on future generations of Americans, then allowed the liberals to expand it so they're paying my — they're paying for my prescription drugs. Why should the taxpayers pay for my prescription drugs?" he said with exasperation.

He rejected Mr. Bush's use of issuing "signing statements" when he signs bills into law, in which the president has suggested that he would ignore elements of the bills, labeling them potentially unconstitutional. "I would veto the bills or say, 'Look, I don't like it but I'll obey the law that's passed by Congress and signed by the president.' I think the signing statements was not a correct implementation of the power of the executive. I think it was overstepping," he said.

And Mr. McCain emphatically rejected Mr. Bush's claims of executive privilege, often used to shield the White House from scrutiny. "I don't agree with that either. I don't agree with [Vice President] Dick Cheney's allegation that he's part of both the legislative and the executive branch," he said.
...
The Republican also targeted his own party, saying they got drunk with power and lacked the resolve of President Reagan.

"I think, frankly, the problem was, with a Republican Congress, that the president was told by the speaker and majority leaders and others, 'Don't veto these bills, we need this pork, we need this excess spending, we need to grow these bureaucracies.' They all sponsor certain ones. And he didn't do what Ronald Reagan used to and say, 'No'; say, 'No. We're not going to do this.'"

Comments

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Mr. McCain is quite correct. They shouldn't pay his prescriptions, he's stinking filthy rich, still married to his second "trophy plus prize money" wife, and still has Keating money stashed. He doesn't NEED it.

That bill wasn't passed for rich privileged people, it was passed for the people who NEED the medical support because they otherwise have the choice between dying of hunger, dying of lack of medical treatment, or dying of exposure when they're tossed on the street. That's the whole idea behind "safety net" and the one place where conservatism has failed most completely, as the so-called "compassionate" conservative seems to be a crocodile crying, because the sheer stingy miserliness of the treatment of the "unworthy" is based entirely in stereotypes of the people who need the safety net, and in the utter lack of empathy for those people, the inability to put themselves, even hypothetically, in the place of anyone else who isn't part of their privileged, wealthy world.
It wasn't "liberals" who said yes to the bill, and he should be ashamed of himself (well, that's already a given since he threw away his professed principles to accept the Rovian choice of Sarah Louise the Anointed as his VP candidate) for slandering the "liberals" as the majority who passed the bill were still very much conservatives.

He's also right in that Bush and Cheney used the Constitution as toilet paper, but he failed to mention that Cheney has basically pillaged the US treasury by his manipulation of this whole thing. Yes, he's been very effective about removing himself from the company and nothing he's explicitly received from them has been illegal, and he's assigned his _current_ stocks to charity. He's been very careful to ensure that nothing goes to the office of the Vice President regarding the contracts, operation of the company, etc; of course we all know that in the world of big business/big government, there is no such thing as a "good old boy network" and there are no "quid pro quo" deals taking place as a result of hints and innuendos, and that there is no possible way for Cheney to influence the deal behind the scenes. Of course.

There's nothing preventing him from going back to Halliburton on the 21st of January, and I would be very surprised if he does not. And of course Halliburton isn't the only company profiteering off the war, but it's the only one that Cheney has public ties to.

[tagryn]

As noted in the wikipedia entry for the bill, Congress was given deliberately inaccurate estimates about how much the bill would cost when it was voted on. To his credit, McCain voted consistently nay on the bill. I figure he knows exactly what changes were made behind the scenes, and for who, to line up the votes for passage.

I also think if McCain had thrown away all his principles, as you say, he've never gone on record as extensively as he did here. He also called out the GOP in Minneapolis for the same things, an unheard-of event at a national convention that didn't get the attention it deserved. But hey, you obviously hate his guts, and once someone's past the point of no return like that, no point in trying to argue it out.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

It''s now safe for him to resume his principles since (1) it lets him distance himself from Bush, who has become a liability, and (2) he no longer has to pander to the other bits of the power structure to keep his funding.

Why do you think I hate his guts? Because I recognize that he has physical illnesses that would disqualify him for the office of President? Because I remember his involvement with the Charles Keating influence-and-bribery scandals, and that he got off where the people he recruited did not? Or because I think that he is allowing himself to be used by utterly unethical and cynical people in order to acquire political power and office, some of them the very people who slandered and lied and viciously attacked his character and his person during his attempt at the candidacy in 1999? That he allowed the "choice" of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running-mate, a woman of massively inadequate qualification for the office and a woman who is a hand-picked pawn for a religious cult which has clearly stated their intention to ensure that McCain dies and she becomes President so they can trigger the Apocalypse that God hasn't gotten around to doing?

I don't hate him. I am sorry for his illness, I am saddened by his capitulation to the Rovian side of politics, but I don't hate him. I wish he had been president rather than bushCheney. But that was eight years ago.

[tagryn]

"I don't hate him. "

If you say so. But considering your first thoughts when McCain is mentioned are "stinking filthy rich, still married to his second "trophy plus prize money" wife, and still has Keating money stashed. "

...yeah, that's pretty venomous for being the first things to pop into one's head about someone. I don't think hate is too strong a word for that.

I was against the whole demonization-of-one's-opponents when Clinton was getting it from the GOP, I was against it when Bush got it from the Democrats, and I'm against it when both McCain and Obama are doing it to one another. Being unable to work together on solutions is a big reason why this nation's gotten to where it is, and why so many folks have checked out of the political process...resulting in even more polarization, with the remainders being even more likely to think the other side are not just wrong, but evil, and so on in a vicious cycle downward. And here we are.

The facts as I seem them are, both Obama and McCain are well-intentioned guys working within a corrupt system, and trying to do their best to make things better as they see it. Their visions and perspectives are different. I would actually go so far as to say that Bush is also a well-intentioned guy who tried his best, but trusted the wrong people with too much power...but that deserves its own post, which I'll do at some point after the election.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Tom, please. You know how to put a statement into context as well as anyone. I responded to the context of John McCain saying that he didn't need Medicare to pay his prescription costs with a pointed "clearly he doesn't" based on the man's wealth and the way he got it. If this is what you see as "hate" then you have lived a sheltered life. Hate would be me wishing him harm, rather than wishing he had stuck to his principles.

And frankly, based on his performance as a senator and on Obama's performance as a senator, it isn't McCain who wins at "being able to work together on solutions" ... considering that McCain was busily portraying himself as a rebel against the uniform corruption while he was himself caught up in it, and as a rebel against the party platform while he voted with it the majority of the time, even when he spoke out vehemently against it. I suppose that could be considered "working together" ... but when he honestly thought the party was doing the wrong thing, honesty should have him voting against.

As for the trophy wife thing...
McCain came back from Vietnam to a wife who had faithfully waited for him, but who had suffered a car accident and was crippled and maimed. So while he was stationed in Hawaii and still living with his wife, and for about a year, he continued to live with his first wife while cultivating his future second wife. He claims that they were separated but his testimony on the divorce application says otherwise. This is what they call an "affair" and while it's not uncommon, it's also not in any way admirable.

Recognizing this fact is not hate. The situation does reveal his character, and while it's no worse than perhaps half the presidents this country has had, we are finishing off eight years of one who was arguably the worst, or in the close running for the worst, and I'd like to have a president who can show a positive example.

McCain was Keating's close friend and received political donations, money, gifts, vacationed in his private resort, and his wife and in-laws made substantial investments in Keating's personal businesses, which were successful and profitable.
McCain made all appropriate and required efforts to dissociate from Keating when the investigations into Keating's violation of regulations, fraud, and bribery were finally exposed. There wasn't any admissible evidence against McCain or Glenn to show their depth of involvement, but again, McCain was a friend of Keating after having been called upon by him to help ward off the "intrusive" investigation of the regulatory agency which was investigating Keating's S&L.

I have no qualm with saying that McCain is well-intentioned, but I don't think he's up to the job. And I think Sarah Palin is sufficient of a risk to mean that even if I had thought McCain was better for the job I would have voted against him because she is the baggage that comes with him.

As for Mr. Bush's intentions, remember what they say about good intentions and how they make great paving stones.

[tagryn]

Let me give an example of what I mean. There's a big difference in tone between "Clinton probably lied on the stand under oath, and he shouldn't have done that, but the GOP went too far, too." and "Clinton's a f**king p**ck l**r who's a disgrace to the office and should go to prison for what he did!" The first is my take, the second is the Rush Limbaugh caller perspective (or at least was at the time). Your initial response was way closer to the second than the first, and that's not good. I think maybe you're too close to it to see how it comes across.

McCain's admitted that how he handled his first marriage was one of the great failings of his life, and he's not proud of it. I don't see it as a big issue. His involvement in the Keating 5 is more troubling, but it was two decades ago and, like his marriage, appears to all evidence to have been a one-time mistake that he didn't repeat (as Rezko seems to have been a one-timer mistake for Obama).

It'd be nice if we had a clear-cut this-is-a-good-guy-and-this-is-a-bad-guy choice for POTUS, but they're both imperfect. McCain voted with Bush 95% of the time in recent years, while Obama voted with the Pelosi/Reid block 97% of the time. Not too much to choose between them on that. There's not a long enough record to know exactly what we're getting in Obama on working across the aisle*, but McCain's bipartisan record is just much stronger and lengthier than his. Yeah, I know I'm not going to convince you on that, but that's how I see it.


* - although, if the election comes out the way the polling is indicated, Obama'll be in a position to say to the GOP "I don't need to listen to you" since he'll have filibuster-proof majorities in Congress. I think his temperment is to listen to all sides, but he's never been in a position like POTUS, either, so he may well get frustrated enough after a while to just throw up his hands and ram things through.

[donnafair.livejournal.com]

""trophy plus prize money" wife"

Wow, way to demean a woman with a Masters in Special Education, who taught special needs children, and who has worked for several decades to help children in the USA and many other countries get access to otherwise unattainable medical intervention. Her dad worked very hard and became wealthy, and because of that she gets painted with a vacuous ladies-who-lunch brush?

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Demean? Nothing keeps a trophy wife from also being a successful and admirable person. The term doesn't require that the second wife be a useless bimbo, as that wouldn't be nearly so nice a trophy. McCain tossed his first wife, who had been crippled and maimed in an auto accident while he was in Vietnam. He replaced her with a much younger, prettier, richer model. That is the very definition of a trophy wife. It's a remark about McCain, not about her.

[donnafair.livejournal.com]

As you cannot recognize that the term "trophy wife" mocks the woman involved, there is obviously no reasoning with you on the subject.

With regard to McCain's first wife: since she has managed to forgive him and move on, shouldn't you?

[foomf.livejournal.com]

How does recognizing an action or behavior on the part of a person somehow make me "unreasonable" when I describe the effects and appearance of that action?

From my perspective, it is the person who discards a spouse in favor for the "trophy" model, not the person they marry, that deserves any opprobrium for the act.

I have just as little respect for a woman who discards a poorly aging, worn-out, injured, or sick husband and marries a much prettier, younger model, and that's not an entirely uncommon thing either. Nor is the phenomenon one that's found only among the wealthy and famous.

In neither case does it necessarily cast any shame on the person being used as a "trophy" ... it's their own actions that will commend or condemn them to society at large. If they were part of the breakup then they are at fault for interfering with someone else's vows of faithfulness; if they were unaware of the previous marriage, or lied to about the status of that marriage, and are only apprised after the fact, then they are obviously not at fault, and it's between them and their new spouse whether they want to remain in a relationship that started in a lie. Some people are good enough to rise above that sort of thing, and make something positive out of it, but I cannot help thinking that McCain's current wife never quite trusted him to the degree which she could have.

As for "forgive and move on" ... clearly she has the power to forgive his sin against her. I don't have to forgive anything, but I certainly don't have to "move on" from the example that this presents of his underlying character. Whether or not he has since become a trustworthy person would be shown in his ability to hold to principles, keep his word, and remain open and honest in all things, acting according to the principles he claims to hold. There is a significant gulf between the principles he claims to hold and the actions he has taken, especially in this campaign.

While our common human state says that nobody is perfect, nobody is without failure or screw-up, when I choose a person for what has become a far-too-powerful office, I want someone whose failures and screw-ups don't come as a result of failure to follow his claimed principles, I want someone who at least tries to examine things completely and fairly, and I do not want someone whose first response to challenge is always (or even usually) to try to cover up or blame someone else. I don't think Mr. McCain can be that someone, not after this campaign.

[scavgraphics.livejournal.com]

She's a bimbo he met in a bar. Granted, an educated millionaire bimbo, but no less a bimbo, met in a bar, that he cheated on his wife with.

Why do you think the Regans despise(d) McCain?

Ask Ross Perot what he thinks about it?
(granted, Perot will quickly veer off talking about Cindy into how McCain betrayed every POW who wasn't named John McCain, but that's a different topic).

[donnafair.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing!!!