Campaign update
Faced with the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, one that shows no signs of miraculously getting better, John McCain yesterday nevertheless insisted "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."
(Actually, what he said was "The fundamentals are, of our economy are strong," stammering and gasping through what he knew to be a pathetic, desperate lie: watch the video and you can see the terror in his expression as he uncorks this whopper. He honestly looks like he’s worried that the collective audience is about to laugh him off stage.)
Since McCain knows he cannot possibly win on his record or his policies, his campaign has no choice but to hurl meaningless distractions and lies, commonly known as "bullshit," into the media manure-spreader. To distract voters from his current inarguable position (oh, wait, did you hear? When he said "the fundamentals of our economy" he didn’t mean things like stock trading, housing starts, inflation, food prices, real estate prices or consumer spending — he meant the proud souls of the American workers, and how DARE you suggest that he meant anything else, how DARE you suggest that the souls of the American workers are not stronger than ever!) he know he’ll have to come up with a lie so big, so outrageous, so patently untrue that it cannot help but dominate the news cycle. Let’s see, he already lied about his VP pick being a reformer, and he’s already tried to tar his opponent as a child molester, hmm, it doesn’t seem like he could push it any further than that, but —
Aha! I know, he’ll claim that he invented the Blackberry! That’s right, John McCain, who claims that he cannot use a computer, cannot send an email, cannot open a website, does not know about the internet, nevertheless invented the Blackberry. Bravo!
So, check this out. A few days ago, the National Review, a dead-end conservative rag, defends McCain’s technological impairment from those mean, mean Democrats by claiming, you know what, John McCain can’t use a Blackberry because — yes, that’s right — he was a POW. How DARE the Democrats pick on a POW for being unable to use a Blackberry, how DARE they! He can’t type with his fingers or lift a Blackberry to his ear because of the terrible, terrible wounds he received as a POW.
Oh — except that he does. All the time.
Next, we will hear that he invented the telephone — why not? He was alive back then.
UPDATE: McCain, not even kidding, now claims to have invented cell phones and wifi as well.
“The Party invented the helicopter, and eventually the Party will have invented the airplane.”
The war injury just makes it hard and painful to type on a keyboard, among other things. McCain still reads and uses email, and has for years.
I’m baffled why McCain would insist that our economy is still fundamentally strong. It’s true, but I just don’t see how repeating it helps him.
Here you go. Drink up!
I think he’s trying to use the fairly honest fact that the underpinnings of our economy are still strong to conveniently ignore all the huge, glaring things about our economy that are nonetheless very badly wrong, and also at least partly the result of the same policies he and his advisors either now support or have supported for years.
By using the small truth to gloss over the larger one, he’s only making moderate-to-liberals like me consider him more out of touch. Of course, to my grandma (one of my grandmas, anyway), he is of course heroically defending our great nation against the scary black man who wants to steal our money from us and give it to Somebody Else.
— N.A.
Our fundamentally strong economy just saw the worst day of Wall Street losses since 9/11.
I know, right? It just looks silly. Even before this, we’ve had a string of these little disasters, one after the other. Now, to most of us, it won’t matter all that much, but what’s the the point to insisting that economy is fundamentally strong? How McCain thinks this helps him McCain win votes or support, I do not know.
Well I suppose he’s trying to appeal to the people who don’t want to believe that the economy is seeing a downturn, and I’m sure those people exist.
I wish when McCain stood in front of a “Country First” sign that he’d leave mine the f*ck out of it.
The BlackBerry was developed by Research in Motion, a telecommunications company up here in Canada.
John McCain as Doctor Evil’s father “My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament…”
Re: I wish when McCain stood in front of a “Country First” sign that he’d leave mine the f*ck out of
Yes, yes; this point has been relentless repeated all over the place, as has the point that McCain didn’t personally say this; it’s just a gaffe by McCain’s economic adviser. It might be more useful to examine the underlying point, which is that McCain has worked tirelessly to reduce regulations and taxes on the telecom industry (which made the Blackberry, etc. so ubiquitous), and was this really such a good idea, considering the state of US wireless service vs other developed countries?
Re: I wish when McCain stood in front of a “Country First” sign that he’d leave mine the f*ck out of
Yes, he has worked tirelessly to reduce regulations on the telecom industry — which is why, shortly after he’s elected, you will not be able to read blogs like this. Mazel tov!
Re: I wish when McCain stood in front of a "Country First" sign that he'd leave mine t
Is he John McCain and does he “endorse that message” or doesn’t he?
The underlying point, is that he has no idea what he’s saying half of the time, and the other half of the time he’s lying. But he’s a former POW – HOW DARE WE ask him to get SOMETHING, *ANYTHING* straight.
This citizen of a developed country, the country who developed the IT in question, is wondering what the Hell he is talking about when he says this nonsense or allows THOSE WHO ARE REPRESENTING HIM to say the same kind of nonsense.
I hope it’s, at least, a TASTY kind of Kool Ade you’ve got there.
Re: I wish when McCain stood in front of a "Country First" sign that he'd leave mine t
“I hope it’s, at least, a TASTY kind of Kool Ade you’ve got there.”
This made me laugh out loud. Thank you.
It is quite tasty, with a healthy dose of “brownies” and a beer from the creepy guy eyeing us up all night.
Re: I wish when McCain stood in front of a “Country First” sign that he’d leave mine the f*ck out of
It’s not a “gaffe” by McCain’s economic adviser, it’s a carefully constructed lie, which has gone un-retracted, designed to spread more bullshit around the media.
Re: I wish when McCain stood in front of a “Country First” sign that he’d leave mine the f*ck out of
That economic adviser guy said it only this morning, and he didn’t even name the Blackberry; he just waved it around for visual effect. That’s from your own source. I think the actual claim made bears scrutiny, but the claim about inventing the Blackberry is purely fabricated –not even really worth addressing seriously.
Re: I wish when McCain stood in front of a “Country First” sign that he’d leave mine the f*ck out of
“the claim about inventing the Blackberry is purely fabricated”
Oh good, so you agree it’s a lie.
“not even really worth addressing seriously.”
Which is how I feel about the entire McCain campaign, except that for some reason they’ve decided to run the guy for president so it feels like maybe it’s kind of a big deal to pay attention.
Incidentally, when he was confronted with this lie he decided to compound it by adding that he had invented cell phones and wifi, too. Just the sort of genius we need in the White House after eight years of straight-shooters Bush and Cheney.
Re: I wish when McCain stood in front of a “Country First” sign that he’d leave mine the f*ck out of
If that point “has been relentlessly repeated allover the place”, why was the National Review defending it a few days ago?
Are you *ALL* liars, or do you just prefer their company?
Re: I wish when McCain stood in front of a “Country First” sign that he’d leave mine the f*ck out of
It looks like the dog in your avatar will never wake up. I wonder if you will?
Re: I wish when McCain stood in front of a “Country First” sign that he’d leave mine the f*ck out of
He voted against the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which laid the foundations of most of what we’re seeing today. The legislation he has supported (most of which hasn’t passed, fortunately) has mostly been of the sort that would benefit the big companies and not the consumers; you can call that de-regulation, but I still don’t think it would have been a good idea. And sure, he didn’t vote against the Internet Tax Freedom Act — but only three people did, so it isn’t like his was a deciding vote, and he didn’t apparently think the legislation was important enough to co-sponsor.
In other words, I don’t think his record justifies him claiming much credit for the development of the industry.
As for it being “just a gaffe,” when it’s coming from a campaign even Karl Rove says has stretched the truth too far . . . yeah. I’m not inclined to cut even one centimeter of slack.
Ever since Al Gore invented the internet the Republicans have been looking for some equivalent.
Maybe McCain means that he invented the blackberry, meaning the actual fruit the phone-thing is named after. He’s certainly old enough to have done so.
McCain also invented radio:
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_Id=dcb97dd9-91fe-4580-a979-af7fe2a0c18f
the aerospace industry:
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_Id=5c3dca23-b131-470f-b7e2-f310fd306624
and boxing:
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=a1c9ddbd-b4a7-4c8d-a313-0faf42fbf847
Amazing what things one can get up to while chairing a Senate committee. Where does he find the time?
“In the Spring we made meat helmets…”
John McCain IS Doctor Evil’s father “My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament…”
Re: “In the Spring we made meat helmets…”
And then there’s that pesky low-grade narcolepsy.
Gee, does that mean that McCain is a secret founder of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics?
Is there a secret Republican base in the basements of the institute?
Do vampires count in the monster movie crusade?
For that matter, does the current GOP leadership?
— N.A.