Who’s Ready to be President?
March 7th, 2008 at 03:55am Mark Noonan
From Politico:
Said Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice on a conference call today of her candidate and Hillary: “They’re both not ready to have that 3 a.m. phone call.”
Which is pretty much exactly the case John McCain wants to make to the American people this fall.
Over to you, McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker:
“We agree wholeheartedly that neither Sen. Clinton nor Sen. Obama have the experience or judgment necessary to lead the United States in the struggle against violent Islamic extremists who seek our destruction, or to address the complex global environment that our next president will face. Only Sen. McCain is ready to serve as commander in chief from day one.”
Hillary and Obama are neatly writing the GOP’s fall campaign - because, of course, neither of them really has any business aspiring to the mightiest office in the world. While Hillary is marginally more experienced than Obama, neither of them can hold a candle to John McCain - heck, neither of them can hold a candle to the last Democratic President, Bill Clinton and he wasn’t exactly a foreign and defense policy whiz, ya know? How the Democrats wound up with two such people battling for the top spot is a bit of a mystery - and it might just boil down to Democratic voters being so entirely uninformed that they are voting on pure emotion.
We GOPers are behind in this race, amazingly. But we have the far better man, and the vastly superior plan - if experience and policy count for anything, we should do well in the fall against either of these two zeros.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats, Republicans
13 Comments
1. LibSweepinNov | March 7th, 2008 at 4:38 am
i will certainly grant you the point that McCain is old. Very old.
But - for the love of god - what experience did George Bush have on Foriegn policy in 2000?
2. Retired Spook | March 7th, 2008 at 9:48 am
If Hillary ends up being the Dem nominee (and, at this point, I wouldn’t bet against her) I’d like to see McCain run a variation of 3AM phone call ad against her.
Can’t you just picture a 2 part ad where a Hillary look-alike is chasing a Bill look-alike around the White House residence quarters, screaming “for God’s sake, she’s only 19 years old”, and throwing ashtrays and lamps at him as a phone in the background rings and rings and rings while in the second part, a sleeping John McCain wakes to the sound of the phone next to his bed; picks it up on the 2nd ring and says to the voice on the other end, “I’ll meet you in the situation room in 5 minutes.”
3. majoriot | March 7th, 2008 at 10:40 am
That is, of course, if your only concern is war…and the promotion of it.
McCain is obviously a one trick pony, and you can be sure concervatives will try to make sure that, and with apologie to the Beatles, all we need is fear.
4. kjstrouble | March 7th, 2008 at 10:52 am
McCain, a one trick pony? My God, have you really no idea what the man is about? Is that the new lib talking points on McCain? A - he is old (oh such an awful thought) and B - he is a one trick pony only interested in war. If it is, this campaign may not be as hard for him to win as I thought it might be.
5. Joe | March 7th, 2008 at 10:57 am
kjs… please explain his other tricks.
6. Almiranta | March 7th, 2008 at 11:41 am
“….it might just boil down to Democratic voters being so entirely uninformed that they are voting on pure emotion.”
Gee, do ya THINK???
Emotion is the mainstay of the Dem Party. Just look at the hysteria about Obama—the hysterical applause after every sentence, the shrieking, the weeping, the raised hands, the fainting. My Gawd, I heard such fanatical response to him telling people to read to their children at night, you would have thought he had just delivered the answer to all the world’s problems. Good thing he didn’t tell people not to poke themselves in the eyes with sharp sticks—they would have been rolling in the aisles and speaking in tongues instead of merely passing out because of the wisdom of his oratory.
They haven’t turned on Hillary because she has changed, or they have altered their philosophies. No, it’s just that Hillary doesn’t make them FEEL as good as Barack does.
Joe, how typically low of you to refer to McCain’s many accomplishments and credentials as “tricks”.
I don’t agree with a lot that McCain has done in the Senate, and he is not my first choice. But I do acknowledge his experience, both personal and political, and find that kind of broad experience not only helpful but necessary in a leader.
Hillary at least has a clue as to what is expected of a President. Barack is clueless. He seems to think that being a rock star is enough, that he is naturally so darned smart that it will come easily to him, as has everything else. But world leaders will chew him up and spit him out.
His rah-rah cheerleading of equally callow and naive followers won’t mean a darned thing when he has to make the big decisions.
And the other new Lefty mantra, “fear” is quite a hoot. You guys go on telling us that it is foolish to “fear” armed people who are telling us they intend to kill us, and have shown us they are both serious and capable. Yeah, that’s the ticket—-laugh at the idea of being aware of the threat posed by such people. It’s ever so much easier than addressing the problem.
And at the same time, using your other face, while accusing the Right of “FEAR-mongering” for acknowledging a real threat, you just keep on doing the real fear-mongering of the campaign, telling people we are in a recession when we are not, pumping up the foreclosure thing as much as you can to generate as much fear as you can about theconomy.
So, Joe, go be snotty somewhere where snotty is appreciated. There are plenty of rabid Lefty blogs that absolutely THRIVE on snotty. It’s pretty clear that’s where you pick up your talking points, before swinging on over here to deposit them.
7. Joe | March 7th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
ok Ranty. Geesh… you aren’t long-winded or anything.
Anyway… the posts I was responding to were calling McCain a “one-trick pony”. It is a figure of speech that apparently is lost on you. It is as if saying “He has one strength”.
kjs said he is not a “one-trick pony”. Again, it is a freaking figure of speech.
My question was what were his other “tricks”… as in… what are his other strong suits. So cut the crap with your condescending speech.
So please expand… he was in Vietnam. he was a POW. he was/is a Senator. How does that qualify him more than others?
World leaders will chew up Obama and spit him out? You claim it, but don’t back it up.
As for your other “points” that you try to make. FEAR. We aren’t saying laugh at and ignore people that are threatening us. What is being said is to deal with it, but don’t live your life under your bed thinking that Islamo-facist, extremist, insurgent, Al queda, crazy terrorist is lurking outside your window waiting to take down an ice cream shop in main street of small town America. Don’t try selling fear that these terrorsits will “follow us home” if we leave Iraq.
But I really love this piece of your rant —
you just keep on doing the real fear-mongering of the campaign, telling people we are in a recession when we are not, pumping up the foreclosure thing as much as you can to generate as much fear as you can about theconomy.
Are you friggin’ kidding me????????????
Are you seeing the same U.S. economy that the rest of the WORLD is seeing? I don’t even know how the hell to respond to your bullshit.
Foreclosures at an all-time high. That would be what is called a FACT.
2nd straight month of job loss just reported today. Largest loss in 5 yrs.
And on and on and on.
Are you saying the economy, if not in a recession, is not teetering on the edge? Are you saying it is just going along great??? If so, then I am completely convinced you are blind to any reality what-so-ever.
8. GOP4ME | March 7th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Joe,
Without pointing me to Barry’s website, tell me what the golden boy’s tricks are (besides working real estate deals and other projects with an indicted fund raiser on trial for fraud)?
Oh and no raising “W” either…
No comments from the leftys on the actual post? Deny, deflect and cry “Bush”, deny, deflect and cry “Bush”… you guys have become as predictable as the Nixon administration…
9. js | March 7th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I dont get these nimble brained nut job liberals.
They piss and moan because Bush was “only” in the reserves and Kerry was active duty, and now they piss and moan because they cant figure out how being in the service and a POW has anything to do with serving your country because OBAMA never joined any of it……
10. Joe | March 7th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Talk about deflecting… WOW.
Comment #3 — “McCain is obviously a one trick pony”
Comment #4 — “McCain, a one trick pony? My God, have you really no idea what the man is about?”
Comment #5 (my comment) — “please explain his other tricks”
So instead of answering what McCain’s other tricks are, you want me to rehash what Obama wants to do. If that ain’t deflecting, I don’t know what it.
Do you people understand what the term “one-trick pony” is? It means that McCain can talk about Iraq and that is it. He has self-described himself as weak in economics. So what he will stress is that he will “keep America safe”. Since he was in Vietnam, that apparently makes him smart in foreign affairs.
Both Dem candidates however are speaking to things like jobs, housing crisis, healthcare, energy issues and the enormous gap between wealthy and poor. So yes. The Dems appear to be bringing up more issues and more important issues.
McCain will bring up Iraq.
11. Joe | March 7th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
An excellent point js.
The argument in 2004 was that Kerry’s Vietnam record didn’t mean much and it didn’t matter that Bush didn’t serve. Bush was still better.
You are now making the argument that McCain’s Vietnam experience makes him MORE qualified that the Dems that didn’t serve.
Why do YOU want it both ways?
12. Michael | March 7th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Wikipedia says:
“One Trick Pony is a 1980 movie starring Paul Simon, it also has a partial soundtrack album of the same name.”
I think you owe Paul Simon an apology. Just sayin’
13. Almiranta | March 8th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Joey, you seem to think that whining because you can’t keep up with me is somehow an insult to ME. Poor baby. Maybe your problem is your short attention span.
But thanks for admiring my work. Since you read my posts referring to Ranty Rhodes, you have picked up on the name, and use it a lot, no matter under which name you yourself are posting. Sincerest form of flattery, etc…………
Yes, Joey, we DO understand the term ‘one trick pony”. But thanks for the condescending sneer. My comment was regarding the continued use of the word “trick”.
The rabid Left was always going to pile on to any GOP candidate. We always knew that. When it looked like it might have been Mitt, we were already seeing shots at Mormons, at his appearance (”used car salesman” came up a few times) and when Huckabee was coming on strong we had the fully expected hysteria about THEOCRACY!!!!!!!
So of course we expected you to try to morph McCain’s experience into simply being “old” or to find other ways to denigrate his history, both military and political.
I see you had to resort to your only standby, “BS” when you couldn’t address my comments about Lefty fearmongering. No doubt you love it when a national anchorperson refrers to our “recession” as if it were a fact, when in fact we have no statistical data to support that assertion. No doubt you find no fault with the Agenda Media constantly playing up the “mortgage crisis” and “people losing their HOOOOOOOMES” and so on.
Tell me, joey, how many of those undergoing foreclosure lived in those homes more than, say three years? To hear the Agenda Media go on and on, these people are being driven out of family homesteads. But in fact most of them bought their first homes when the standards were lowered so low that they could qualify. Before that, they rented. They bought homes for more than they were worth—let’s all blame Bush for that, OK? They signed onto mortgages which they could only afford at the early, highly discounted rate, fully aware that in a year or two or three they would be expected to pay more than they could afford, but they did it anyway. Let’s hang Bush for that one, shall we?
They usually got in with little or no down payment. So one way to look at it is that they have been renting from the bank since they signed those mortgage papers, and now the rent has gone up and they have to find a cheaper place to live.
They still have the income they had when the bought their houses. They are not really out all that much if they walk away, except for the hit to their credit. And if they had good credit they would not have been sub prime anyway. They will be returning to the same rental lifestyle they had before, sadder but hopefully wiser—maybe they have learned not to buy things they can’t afford.
But let’s not ever look at this in a clinical way, not when hysteria can be brought to bear.
Hope you could keep up, joey. I typed verrrry slowly, but there is always going to be that intellectual disparity that will keep you whining about my posts, pretending that your real complaint is that they are just toooooo looooong.