Matthew Yglesias » McCain and FCS

Sep 13th, 2008 at 1:02 pm

McCain and FCS

I noted this briefly the other day, but among other deceptions over the past week, John McCain pulled an underhanded move where he tried to portray Barack Obama’s opposition to the Army’s Future Combat System program as opposition to “future combat systems” for the Army. McCain should know better because, after all, he, too, is a critic of the Future Combat System. At any rate, the Army Times has a solid piece laying this out.

Comments
37

37 Responses to “McCain and FCS”

lfv Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I was hoping this was about McCain’s feelings on the FCS vs FBS in college football.
Don Williams Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
None of this would matter if Obama had a set of balls — or could find a surrogate pair somewhere in the Democratic Party.

Like I said, I’m beginning to think the reason Obama could raise a shitload of money during the primary is because he’s a Mole. Sent to collect the progressives and drag them down into the abyss.

I’ve seen boxing matches –and this is looking an awfully lot like a dive.
Don Williams Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I can just see Karl Rove having a drink with Dick Cheney –when, with a grin on his face, Rove looks over at Cheney and whispers “Change You Can Believe In”. Whereupon Cheney collapses and pisses his pants laughing.
Xmastime Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I’ll say this about McCain’s near constant lying. He’s kinda at the point of no return with it all, isn’t he? On one hand I keep waiting for him to all of a sudden break off in mid-sentence and say “christ, I can’t do this shit anymore” and walk off into the sunset. On the other hand, why not just fucking put the pedal to metal, no gov’ner fucking floor it? Just pile lie on top of lie and never stop; who knows, maybe it’ll work. Just like my theory with Bush’s mountainous pile of fuckups HERE, I think it’s possible for McCain to simply keep lying so much that we all become inured to it, we stop even noticing, kinda simply gazing past everything with a mild “….hmmm, really, hmm…” I mean, it’s only been a few weeks now, and can you even keep track of the lies that have piled up? Do you even notice anymore, does a McCain lie even surprise you now?

I think in a weird way when that happens people somehow set a sort of “reset” button – after weeks and weeks of it their brain is SO jumbled with lies that rather than deal with them they all get wiped away; their last few steps to the poll booth all of a sudden their mind clears and they’re back where they started before: “oh yeah, McCain…maverick war hero!”
observerfrommars Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
McCain just doesn’t know what his own position is. He should ask E. O’Neal to clarify it for him. Since E. O’Neal doesn’t know anything about anything, he’d be the perfect advisor to McCain.
Don Williams Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I mean, what’s David Plouffe’s current brainstorm? Story of the week. Major counterattack to the bitchslapping Obama’s been getting the past two weeks.

“McCain doesn’t do email. Naya Naya.”

Gee, that’s going to doom the fucking Republic, isn’t it?

I can just see 50 million peasants out in the hinterlands getting all stirred up, waving torches and pitchforks, over that issue.
Mary Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I have come up with the perfect explanation for John McCain’s behavior, which should stop all the head scratching on McCain’s mendacity. He sold his soul to the devil to win this campaign. It explains everything. And I think it’s time we talk about what this means and what it means for the country if he becomes President.
Don Williams Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Campaigning suspended for Sept 11 and now for Hurricane Ike.

Plus we have Constitution Day, the Fall Equinox, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Columbus Day, Navy Day, and Bosses Day coming up. So maybe we should just take the whole month off and come back on late October. No wait –that’s Mother-in-Law’s day.
msw Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Honestly, I think the Obama camp is just waiting for McCain to implode.
Now they are lying about crowd size

Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher estimated the crowd to be 8,000, not the 23,000 cited by the campaign. “The 23,000 figure was substantiated on the ground,” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said. “The campaign is willing to stand by the fact that it was our biggest crowd to date.”

Each and every lie will tarnish McCain so badly that when the Obama camp does hit back (if they need to at all) the attacks will stick.
Jason Harbin Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Don W:
The point of the “attack” (actually a statement of the truth, but “attack” and “truth” are considered synonyms by Rovites when “attack” isn’t synonymous with “lie”) is/was that McCain, by his own admission, has little or no mastery or even understanding of the internet. That the “fifty million peasants” (where’d you pluck that number from) don’t care about that doesn’t mean that the potential 21st century president of the greatest country in the world shouldn’t care about it.
I even heard a McCain supporter use the POW excuse for this one. Injuries he received while in prison nake it difficult/impossible for him to use the keys, etc. What garbage. There’s plenty of technology (is that a word McCain knows?) out there that enables those with disabilities to work successfully with their computers.
Mary Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
McCain’s selling his soul to the devil also explains why he has failed to get himself baptized in that new church of his. I’m telling you, my theory explains everything.
Jason Harbin Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
“So maybe we should just take the whole month off and come back on late October”
Yeah, if we’re going to waste time intentionally misinterpreting the use of the word “lipstick” in a metaphor — and make false and misleading statements about Obama’s position on a sex education bill, maybe we should wait until election day.
I could certainly survive without all the campaign ads. Maybe we would all be better off reading factcheck.org or snopes.com between now and then.
G C Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Here’s a list of McCain camp lies I’ve seen exposed in articles I’ve read just in the last half-hour.
Seitz Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Hey Don, get a fucking grip. Either that, or start your own damn blog. You really didn’t to post three times to say the same thing.
msw Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Jason,
Here’s Jerome Armstrong on MyDD

You know why this attack is so stupid? The guy can’t lift up his arms, to type on a keyboard, due to his POW injuries…

The guy can’t lift up his arms! How does he eat a meal?
I bet Max Cleland can use a computer and send an email.
Adam Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Well, if he can’t lift his arms enough to type, he clearly can’t shake anyone’s hand. It’d look pretty goofy to have a president who ends meetings with heads of state by nodding at them.

Bush must have given him temporary magical powers to enable the hug in that famous picture.
Don Williams Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Re msw’s comment “The guy [McCain] can’t lift up his arms! How does he eat a meal?”
———–
So if a 72 year old former POW doesn’t want to send email, what are you going to do? BEAT HIM until he does?

Gee , my 50 million peasants are going to like that. And their votes are a LOT more than the 10 or 15 people who maybe understand the point you guys and Obama are trying to make here.

Hey, I have an idea. Follow up by claiming that McCain is “divorced from the concerns of the common citizens”. Following the Great Email Dispute, the irony will make the 50 million peasants collapse in laughter and maybe they will forget to go vote.
msw Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Don,
I think we all agree that the McCain stuck in the 70’s commercial was stupid, but calm down. McCain’s interview on The View did more to hurt him than anything the Obama camp could have done.
Luke Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Do, did you ever think that Obama “isn’t attacking” the way that Gore “didn’t attack” and Kerry “didn’t attack” and Dukakis “didn’t attack” because the press only reprints Republican (and apparently Clinton) attacks?

Look at the “lipstick on a pig” bullshit. The press is saying that Obama was attacking, but they don’t repeat the actual attack–they repeat the part that the Republicans SAY was an attack.

Obama’s “not attacking” because Democratic talking points go into op-eds; Republican talking points go onto the front page.
Don Williams Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Re “the press only reprints Republican (and apparently Clinton) attacks? ”
———–
Fuck the press.

What’s the point of having Several hundred million dollars if you don’t use it?

Obama could cut through the bullshit by sending a letter to every household in the country for what — $10 Million? Less if he asks people to send the letter on to their friends– the nuclear fission approach.

Of Course, it has to be a letter that shows REAL leadership about REAL matters — because the American people work long hours, have children to cook and care for and elderly parents to take care of. They don’t have time or patience for obscure chickenshit.

Or “attacks” that resemble the yapping of a little lapdog.
Don Williams Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Come to make of it, make that letters. One every three days until the election. For the News Media and their filters. Everyone knows they’re a packing of lying whores. In fact, Obama could point that out in his letters.

The Founding Fathers created this country without the cooperation of Fox News and the money of Haim Saban. Google Committees of Correspondence.

Of course, they wanted to win.
kafka Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
“None of this would matter if Obama had a set of balls — or could find a surrogate pair somewhere in the Democratic Party.

Like I said, I’m beginning to think the reason Obama could raise a shitload of money during the primary is because he’s a Mole. Sent to collect the progressives and drag them down into the abyss.”

Having a set of balls isn’t what Obama’s campaign contributors (many of whom are also McCain’s contributors – an example of a political “hedged” investment) are paying him to do.

I’m just about ready to vote for McCain, just for laughs. I mean, in a contest between 2 GOPs why accept the xerox copy when you can have the original?
Don Williams Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Correction: “For the News Media and their filters” should have read “FUCK the News Media and their Filters”
too many steves Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Who are these “50 million peasants” who don’t use e-mail? This isn’t 1997 — everybody’s online. I mean, not everybody, but half of everybody. And only half of everybody votes. I bet the overlap between voters and people who use the Internet is damn near 100%.

You guys (and by “you guys” I mostly mean Don Williams) need to chill. All these little pebbles McCain is tossing — the press has even stopped buying his bullshit. There’s no need to have an anuerysm over every stupid ad.
Craig Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
It seems like a program called the “Future combat systems” is extremely likely to be wasteful. Who could cut a program with that name? Opponents of the program should pass an initiative to change the name of the program. Then a separate initiative can be brought up to eliminate it.
LarryM Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Look, I’m a big critic of the Obama team vis a vis their lack of counterattacks myself.

But really, this dialog is so three dars ago. Since then, despite the poor computer commercial*, they have really started to hit back, hard. True, I’d like to see it come from prominent surrogates (not Obama himself), such as Biden, but really it’s a pretty damn good start – they are hitting him on his honest and lack of honor. That’s one of the main places they need to go.

Moreover, the dishonesty narrativ really does seem to be taking hold in the media.

*Note also that (a) therecent commercial has presumably been in the pipeline for a while, and is irrelevant to evaluating the response to the recent attacks, and (b) does contain some good stuff, aside from the painful to listen to computer/e-mail stuff)
Jason Harbin Says:
September 13th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
“The Founding Fathers created this country without the cooperation of Fox News and the money of Haim Saban. Google Committees of Correspondence.”

Yep. Of course that was over two hundred years ago-no e-mail then, either. No superhighways. No airplanes. No light bulbs. Back when men were men and women were women. No automobiles. Let’s see: No baseball. No football. No basketball. Um. They did have the printing press and movable type. And electricity. But not harnessed for human use. I just can’ wait ’til the Republicans drag us back there.
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McCain and FCS

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