Friday, September 12, 2008
This is Not About Inventing the Internet
John McCain has sold his soul. He is responsible for the biggest series of lies since "WMDs." And we all know how that turned out. The scary part, if he is willing to deceive the public so blatantly just to get elected, imagine what he is capable of when he has real power.
Brave New Films says it rather well:
¶ 4:53 PM
Brave New Films says it rather well:
¶ 4:53 PM
Comments:
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It must be nice to live in a world where your candidate is an innocent, facing dishonest daily attacks by his opponents.
Leaving aside the possibility of finding similar items falsely smearing the Republican ticket (Palin especially), I would like to point out that you can't really prove that a McCain claim is a lie by quoting Obama or a liberal columnist.
Take the first, sex ed, claim. The video's "proof" amounts to Air America host Rachel Maddow quoting Obama saying that it is shameful for McCain to so attack "a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators."
That may have been Obama's intent, but the bill in fact says that "Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV."
Perhaps there is an "age appropriate" way to do this, and I would not find his support for the bill dispositive to my vote, but I think a parent could reasonably be aghast, and McCain can properly try to make him so.
Leaving aside the possibility of finding similar items falsely smearing the Republican ticket (Palin especially), I would like to point out that you can't really prove that a McCain claim is a lie by quoting Obama or a liberal columnist.
Take the first, sex ed, claim. The video's "proof" amounts to Air America host Rachel Maddow quoting Obama saying that it is shameful for McCain to so attack "a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators."
That may have been Obama's intent, but the bill in fact says that "Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV."
Perhaps there is an "age appropriate" way to do this, and I would not find his support for the bill dispositive to my vote, but I think a parent could reasonably be aghast, and McCain can properly try to make him so.
dw.....The Republicans and McCan't, out of what seems to be desperation and fear, are not talking about issues, but are instead putting on a comity show and mud slinging. Why is that? Can you say.... John Bush McCain! Just another Republican lying sack of shit.
No Dave, the evidence that the McCain camp is intentionally distorting the Illinois Education Bill is how it was intended to be, and how it is being implemented in Illinois.
It is absolutely disgusting to take a piece of legislation intended to help keep kindergartners safe from pedophiles and then say Obama wanted to teach them about sex.
Disgusting.
It is absolutely disgusting to take a piece of legislation intended to help keep kindergartners safe from pedophiles and then say Obama wanted to teach them about sex.
Disgusting.
Greg,
Note that you are judging the bill by what was "intended" by its backer(s). Is it illegitimate, in your eyes, to instead judge the bill by what it actually says?
What exactly was the distortion?
And why is this distortion worse, say, than:
Obama's attacking McCain for being out of touch and not using email, when in fact McCain has been highly plugged in to the internet for years, reading email and websites, but doesn't often send emails because the Vietnamese beat him to the point where he can still hardly type?
Or Obama claiming that McCain "says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq" when McCain said we might be there for "maybe 100 years... if Americans are not being harmed," as we have been in Germany and Japan for the last 60 years?
If such distortion is dispositive, you can't vote for either man, can you? (I don't think I can.)
Note that you are judging the bill by what was "intended" by its backer(s). Is it illegitimate, in your eyes, to instead judge the bill by what it actually says?
What exactly was the distortion?
And why is this distortion worse, say, than:
Obama's attacking McCain for being out of touch and not using email, when in fact McCain has been highly plugged in to the internet for years, reading email and websites, but doesn't often send emails because the Vietnamese beat him to the point where he can still hardly type?
Or Obama claiming that McCain "says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq" when McCain said we might be there for "maybe 100 years... if Americans are not being harmed," as we have been in Germany and Japan for the last 60 years?
If such distortion is dispositive, you can't vote for either man, can you? (I don't think I can.)
I guess the new GOP spin point is that he doesn't use all them fancy-pants computizin' devices because the g--ks broke his arms in the Hanoi Hilton. Jonah Goldberg (aka "Doughy Pantload") said the same thing (WARNING: Link is to National Review Online, a place of such ignorance, stupidity and dumbassery that you shouldn't go to the site without having some more intelligent reading material handy for afterwards; one example of "more intelligent" would be a plot summary of the average episode of The Dukes of Hazzard).
And you know what? It's simply not true.
We knew the entire McCain campaign was going to be Noun Verb POW. This just clinches it.
WF
And you know what? It's simply not true.
We knew the entire McCain campaign was going to be Noun Verb POW. This just clinches it.
WF
Wes,
Way to double down on offensive.
One of your links shows McCain using a Blackberry. Another says he's on the web, with a helper driving. Sounds like he uses technology in a manner and to the extent suitable to a man who has physical problems typing.
Note also that Forbes Magazine reported the following 8 years ago (5/29/2000):
"In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate's savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. "She's a whiz on the keyboard, and I'm so laborious," McCain admits."
Way to double down on offensive.
One of your links shows McCain using a Blackberry. Another says he's on the web, with a helper driving. Sounds like he uses technology in a manner and to the extent suitable to a man who has physical problems typing.
Note also that Forbes Magazine reported the following 8 years ago (5/29/2000):
"In certain ways, McCain was a natural Web candidate. Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate's savviest technologist, McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. "She's a whiz on the keyboard, and I'm so laborious," McCain admits."
It's the fact that they are playing the POW card for Every. Single. Thing. that's doubling down on offense, Dave. We get it. He went through hell - but even going through hell doesn't innoculate you from criticism. He's a lousy candidate, and he'd be a lousy President. We need to get OUT of Iraq ASAP, not stay in. We need to seriously look at the budget and our needs, not just reflexively cut taxes. We need to protect the rights of all, not nominate "strict-constructionist" (read: "beholden to corporate scum and the Religious Right") judges. We need to fully fund alternative energy research, not "drill baby drill." Yeah, it sucks that he was a POW, but that doesn't change the fact that he is consistently wrong on the major issues of our time.
McCain is starting to sound like that guy in the bar who, no matter what the occasion or circumstance, tells about only one event in his life. McCain has waaaaay more to his life than 'Nam - there's the finishing near the bottom of his class at Annapolis, getting into flight school only as a legacy admission (an affirmative action far more odious and offensive than anything involving race or class), cheating on and then dumping his first wife when she was no longer a beauty queen, moving into Arizona - a place with which he had no historical connections - the day a Congressional seat came open, helping cover up his second wife's drug and embezzlement problems, the whole Keating Five situation, plying the press with BBQ and a comfortable bus ride, selling out what few "maverick" principles he had to cozy up to George W. Bush, Jerry Falwell, etc...
...OK, come to think of it, maybe the POW thing is the best thing.
WF
(who thinks that bad ideas expressed calmly are still bad ideas, and good ideas expressed with "offense" are still good ideas.)
McCain is starting to sound like that guy in the bar who, no matter what the occasion or circumstance, tells about only one event in his life. McCain has waaaaay more to his life than 'Nam - there's the finishing near the bottom of his class at Annapolis, getting into flight school only as a legacy admission (an affirmative action far more odious and offensive than anything involving race or class), cheating on and then dumping his first wife when she was no longer a beauty queen, moving into Arizona - a place with which he had no historical connections - the day a Congressional seat came open, helping cover up his second wife's drug and embezzlement problems, the whole Keating Five situation, plying the press with BBQ and a comfortable bus ride, selling out what few "maverick" principles he had to cozy up to George W. Bush, Jerry Falwell, etc...
...OK, come to think of it, maybe the POW thing is the best thing.
WF
(who thinks that bad ideas expressed calmly are still bad ideas, and good ideas expressed with "offense" are still good ideas.)
The "Straight Talk Express" is no more. McCain and Palin are engaging in the same deceptions, half truths and little lies that we have come to expect from the current administration. The Obama campaign has made a few too. But the preponderance of mud is the daily untruth the McCain people are making about Obama and the news media is consumed by it.
Important issues have fallen by the wayside, and that is just the way the Republicans want it. They can't win based on the facts. So we get lies.
To say that McCain will be four more years of Bush is an understatement. It will be worse.
Consider this. Someone with no knowledge of using a computer and only fragmentary knowledge of current technology is in no position to make decisions about weapons systems and other technological questions.
Obama may not have years and years of executive experience, but at least he is smart and keeps up with things, unlike McCain, or, for that matter, Palin.
I would rather have a smart person, even if they are um, uppity, in the White House rather than someone whose idea of straight talk is constantly stating half truths about their opponent.
Important issues have fallen by the wayside, and that is just the way the Republicans want it. They can't win based on the facts. So we get lies.
To say that McCain will be four more years of Bush is an understatement. It will be worse.
Consider this. Someone with no knowledge of using a computer and only fragmentary knowledge of current technology is in no position to make decisions about weapons systems and other technological questions.
Obama may not have years and years of executive experience, but at least he is smart and keeps up with things, unlike McCain, or, for that matter, Palin.
I would rather have a smart person, even if they are um, uppity, in the White House rather than someone whose idea of straight talk is constantly stating half truths about their opponent.
Larry, amen and amen.
And with that, I'm out for the night. My folks were just in town, and it was great to see them (not snarky - they're in their early 70s, and I know these times together are fleeting, so I savor them)...but now Jawa Girl and I must go have adult beverages and swear a lot.
WF
And with that, I'm out for the night. My folks were just in town, and it was great to see them (not snarky - they're in their early 70s, and I know these times together are fleeting, so I savor them)...but now Jawa Girl and I must go have adult beverages and swear a lot.
WF
Back to the original comments:
Dave, please show me the age appropriate guidelines that the legislation mandated be drawn up by the IL Dept of Education. The please highlight the part about 5 year olds.
When you do that, you will discover, not only the intent, but the ACTUAL effect of the law.
As I said: Disgusting.
As for the McCain claim of POW and the internet, that's pure horseshit. McCain said that aides not only do his typing, but PRINT OUT web sites and "surf" for him.
As you know, it doesn't take much dexterity or computer literacy to use a mouse.
He said, ruefully, that he had not mastered how to use the Internet and relied on his wife and aides like Mark Salter, a senior adviser, and Brooke Buchanan, his press secretary, to get him online to read newspapers (though he prefers reading those the old-fashioned way) and political Web sites and blogs.
“They go on for me,” he said. “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.”
Asked which blogs he read, he said: “Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously. Everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics.”
At that point, Mrs. McCain, who had been intensely engaged with her BlackBerry, looked up and chastised her husband. “Meghan’s blog!” she said, reminding him of their daughter’s blog on his campaign Web site. “Meghan’s blog,” he said sheepishly.
As he answered questions, sipping a cup of coffee with his tie tight around his neck, his aides stared down at their BlackBerries.
As they tapped, Mr. McCain said he did not use a BlackBerry, though he regularly reads messages on those of his aides. “I don’t e-mail, I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail,” Mr. McCain said.
If this guy was the Senate point man for internet tech from 2002 - 06, that explains a whole helluva lot why the rest of the world leap-frogged us in accessibility, speed and interconnectability.
Dave, please show me the age appropriate guidelines that the legislation mandated be drawn up by the IL Dept of Education. The please highlight the part about 5 year olds.
When you do that, you will discover, not only the intent, but the ACTUAL effect of the law.
As I said: Disgusting.
As for the McCain claim of POW and the internet, that's pure horseshit. McCain said that aides not only do his typing, but PRINT OUT web sites and "surf" for him.
As you know, it doesn't take much dexterity or computer literacy to use a mouse.
He said, ruefully, that he had not mastered how to use the Internet and relied on his wife and aides like Mark Salter, a senior adviser, and Brooke Buchanan, his press secretary, to get him online to read newspapers (though he prefers reading those the old-fashioned way) and political Web sites and blogs.
“They go on for me,” he said. “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.”
Asked which blogs he read, he said: “Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously. Everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics.”
At that point, Mrs. McCain, who had been intensely engaged with her BlackBerry, looked up and chastised her husband. “Meghan’s blog!” she said, reminding him of their daughter’s blog on his campaign Web site. “Meghan’s blog,” he said sheepishly.
As he answered questions, sipping a cup of coffee with his tie tight around his neck, his aides stared down at their BlackBerries.
As they tapped, Mr. McCain said he did not use a BlackBerry, though he regularly reads messages on those of his aides. “I don’t e-mail, I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail,” Mr. McCain said.
If this guy was the Senate point man for internet tech from 2002 - 06, that explains a whole helluva lot why the rest of the world leap-frogged us in accessibility, speed and interconnectability.
The McCain supporters are in full panic spin mode right now. Their candidate has completely left reality behind and is hanging his campaign on a blizzard of provable lies. If I were a Republican, I would be pacnicking, too: unlike 2000 and 2004, the media is beginning to show signs of actually being interested in whether a claim or attack is true or false.
Dw tries to cite the McCain education attack ad as an example of something that "could" be interpreted as true, and therefore perfectly within the bounds of the GOP "attack and smear" politics that we all know so well. Except, it isn't even remotely true. Here is the link to Factcheck.org which explains why:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/off_base_on_sex_ed.html
Factcheck is well respected as impartial by the McCain campaign, even to the point of their using it to lie some more about Obama. Predictably, Factcheck has taken issue with this:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/mccain-palin_distorts_our_finding.html
Having been a naval aviator myself, I can say pretty definitively that McCain has left whatever sense of honor he once had, far, far behind him. This record of lies would be enough to destroy his career if he were still in the Navy. Hopefully it will be enough to do the same to his pursuit of power at any price.
Cap'n John
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Dw tries to cite the McCain education attack ad as an example of something that "could" be interpreted as true, and therefore perfectly within the bounds of the GOP "attack and smear" politics that we all know so well. Except, it isn't even remotely true. Here is the link to Factcheck.org which explains why:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/off_base_on_sex_ed.html
Factcheck is well respected as impartial by the McCain campaign, even to the point of their using it to lie some more about Obama. Predictably, Factcheck has taken issue with this:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/mccain-palin_distorts_our_finding.html
Having been a naval aviator myself, I can say pretty definitively that McCain has left whatever sense of honor he once had, far, far behind him. This record of lies would be enough to destroy his career if he were still in the Navy. Hopefully it will be enough to do the same to his pursuit of power at any price.
Cap'n John
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