New Obama Ad: "Steel"

Strong ad, painting McCain as lying, erratic, a Bush clone, and risky.

Endorsement

Financial Times, not exactly a bastion of socialism, goes for Barack Obama. (The Financial Times is that weird peach-colored newspaper that gets left on the first class seats of airplanes.)

[A} campaign is a test of leadership. Mr Obama ran his superbly; Mr McCain’s has often looked a shambles. After eight years of George W. Bush, the steady competence of the Obama operation commands respect.

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In responding to the economic emergency, Mr Obama has again impressed – not by advancing solutions of his own, but in displaying a calm and methodical disposition, and in seeking the best advice. Mr McCain’s hasty half-baked interventions were unnerving when they were not beside the point.

On foreign policy, where the candidates have often conspired to exaggerate their differences, this contrast in temperaments seems crucial. For all his experience, Mr McCain has seemed too much guided by an instinct for peremptory action, an exaggerated sense of certainty, and a reluctance to see shades of grey.

He has offered risk-taking almost as his chief qualification, but gambles do not always pay off. His choice of Sarah Palin as running mate, widely acknowledged to have been a mistake, is an obtrusive case in point. Rashness is not a virtue in a president. The cautious and deliberate Mr Obama is altogether a less alarming prospect.

McCain/Palin: "They Know They're Losing"

Dumb and dumber appeared together for an interview with Brian Williams, and this is what NBC political director Chuck Todd thought:

Chuck Todd: Well, Chris, I wouldn’t blame Brian for wanting to say this. There was a tenseness between, first of all, between the two. There’s no chemistry. I couldn’t see chemistry between John McCain and Sarah Palin. It was.....I felt as if we grabbed two people and said ‘here sit next to each other, we’re going to conduct an interview.’ There wasn’t, they’re not, uuugh, not comfortable with each other yet.

The other thing about it is that you can tell they know that they’re losing. There’s an intensity there, they’re drained, the entire campaign staff is drained. The two candidates seem guarded, they seem on edge. It’s not as if they were rude or anything. It’s not as if they weren’t trying to be forthcoming. It’s just, they just seemed, it’s a negative intensity. I don’t know how else to describe it. But you’ll see that when you see the two of them together, the chemistry is not all there.....you do wonder "is John McCain starting to blame her for things, blaming himself, is she blaming him?" You just wonder what’s going on inside their heads are they upset with how the other has treated them and is that why her the numbers low? It’s just a negative vibe that you get in that room.

New Obama Ad: "Erratic"

I saw this ad at Politico, which calls it an "unreleased ad" yet says it has already run once in Virginia.

I don't really like these completely negative ads, but this one is accurate. From the "The fundamentals of our economy" statement on, McCain has been bouncing around like a pinata. And the ad is smart in that it takes the criticisms directly from the press.

McCain-Palin Rallies: Document the Atrocities

Johnstown, Pennsylvania, October 11, 2008:

Obama: McCain is "Erratic and Uncertain"

It's the economy, stupid, and the fundamentals of our economy are not strong.

Temper, Temper

And read this story about John McCain blowing his top at the gambling table when someone other gambler dares to ask him to take his hands off the edge of the table. "Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am?"

Michael Kinsley, The Daily Beast: At the Craps Tables With John McCain
How the Senator Lost it at a Puerto Rican Casino

John McCain's Losing Pisses Me Off Express

Angry, angry, angry:



McCain laughably claims that Obama gets touchy or angry when his credentials or policies are questioned, but of course the person who really does that is Ragin' John McCain. Just read this editorial by one of the editors of the Des Moines Register, who sat in on John McCain's clenched-jaw performance last week:

Basu: Is McCain too thin-skinned for presidency?

John McCain is angry.

You can feel it in the clenched muscles in his throat, the narrowing of his eyes, the controlled tone with which he handles a question he doesn't like, as if struggling to contain something that might spill out. We've seen that body language on TV. But around a Des Moines Register table Tuesday, the anger and tension were palpable. And unsettling.

McCain's volatility has been written and whispered about by staff and Senate colleagues: the mercurial temper, the quixotic outbursts of reproach, then jocularity. But those alleged episodes were behind the scenes. The combative, prickly McCain we saw was seeking the Register's endorsement. He already got it in the caucuses.

He took frequent offense at questions, characterizing them as personal viewpoints of the questioners rather than legitimate topics. True, he was asked some tough, pointed questions about his running mate and his honesty. But America is having those discussions, and you'd expect he'd be ready, not defensive. It takes a thick skin to be president.

McCain says he is angry because "people are angry." But his behavior suggests it's more than that. Maybe it's because his poll numbers are falling, his running mate is being ridiculed and his attempt to play fixer on the bailout failed to launch. Or maybe, a more worrisome prospect, this is the real McCain - who can't deal with stressful situations without feeling attacked, who lashes out when he feels threatened.

Fairytales

Rolling Stone: Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

McCAIN FIRST

This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

Be sure to read the two other essays Rolling Stone has on Old Spice/Bible Spice '08:

The Double-Talk Express
From tax cuts to torture, John McCain has flip-flopped on a host of issues - including his own immigration bill

Mad Dog Palin
The scariest thing about John McCain's running mate isn't how unqualified she is - it's what her candidacy says about America

McCain's Temperment

Olbermann last night on McCain's temperment:




To me this was the most telling exchange, about the ad McCain ad claiming Obama was in favor of comprehensive sex education for kindergartners. (a bill supported by the PTA, btw).

Q: How can you go about building trust, without, I would content, absolute 100% truth?

McCain: "Because I have always had 100% absolute truth, and that's been my life of putting my country first. And I'll match that record against anyone's, and I'm proud of it, and an assertion that I've ever done otherwise, I take strong exception to. And you'll have to provide better proof than a bill that Senator Obama supported, that clearly called for the teaching of sex education to young children, so....

And be sure to watch for the tongue-jutting. Creepy.

The Real John McCain

On display at the Des Moines Register Editorial Board yesterday:



Sarcasm, anger, barely controlled fury. That's the real John McCain.

Notice the tongue-jutting after he defends the "Obama wants to teach 5-year-olds sex ed" commercial, at about 37-40 seconds on the tape, and at the end after he claims that the only conservatives who don't like Palin are "Georgetown cocktail party conservatives".

You can watch the rest of the videos at the Des Moines Register site.

Two Interesting Analyses of McCain

FiveThirtyEight.com: The Tongue Jut

Last night on The Colbert Report, Dr. Stephen T. Colbert (DFA) noted that John McCain was doing something peculiar with his tongue. The upshot of the joke was that McCain was repeatedly sticking his tongue out like a reptile.

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Retired FBI agent Joe Navarro, a Bluff Magazine columnist and author of Read ‘Em and Reap, a book on poker tells culled from his professional interrogation experience, has written about the “tongue jut,” which is exactly what McCain was doing in the Colbert debate clips. Its significance?

Tongue-jutting behavior is a gesture used by people who think they have gotten away with something or are “caught” doing something. I have seen this behavior in flea markets both in the United States and in Russia, among street vendors in Lower Manhattan, at poker tables in Las Vegas, and in business meetings. In each case, the person made the gesture – tongue between the teeth without touching the lips – at the conclusion of some sort of a deal or as a final nonverbal statement. This behavior has several meanings – depending on specific situations – but is usually associated with one of these: I got caught (taking candy from a drawer), gleeful excitement (look at what I just did, Mom), I got away with something (and I didn’t get caught), I did something foolish, or I am naughty.

Read the rest to see exactly at which points in the debate McCain gave us this telling "tell".

BAGNewsNotes: Finally Taking His Turn, Mac Suffers Palin Too

Michael Shaw dissects six still images from the weird John McCain/Sarah Palin joint interview with Katie Couric

It's one thing to watch interviewers respond to Sarah Palin's odd mixture of bravado and gibberish. It's another to observe McCain along for the ride. As such, I offer you a breakdown of McCain's "micro reactions" in the first first forty-four seconds of last night's interview with Katie Couric.

Off the bat, Couric asks Palin about her statement, made over the weekend, that "the U.S. should absolutely launch cross-border attacks from Afghanistan into Pakistan" given McCain's admonition that you don't say that kind of thing out loud.

In the first shot, McCain's eyes bulge, then he shoots a glance to someone off camera, after Palin quickly and presumptuously launches in with: "We had a great discussion with President Zardari..."

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McCain Mutters "Horseshit" During Debate

Sure sounds like "horseshit" to me. And that fits in with all that we know about the real John McCain, the bad temper, the mean streak, the coarse language, the sense of entitlement.

The Nation: YouTubers Ask if McCain Swore at the Big Debate?

George Will's Acorn*

George Will says McCain is unqualified to be president because of his temper.

George F. Will, WaPo: McCain Loses His Head

Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.

Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."

*Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.

Johnny Hothead On Display

Via Hullabaloo, here's video of McCain berating a woman who runs a POW/MIA organization for daring to criticize his committee's work. Remember while you are watching this video that McCain has all the power here. He will win. His committee will come to a decision and that is what the government will do. All this woman is doing is criticizing the decision his committee has made to shut down the search for POW/MIAs in Vietnam. He is yelling at a private citizen, a woman, Dolores Apodaca Alford, whose brother disappeared in Vietnam in 1967. He is kicking someone who is already down.

I do not want this man anywhere near the nuclear football.

Johnny Hothead

John McCain is a hothead. He has a terrible temper. His brain is wired "impulsive", which is probably why he picked Sarah Palin, someone he had met just once, as his running mate. (Would you make someone guardian of your children that you had only met once? Of course not. But McCain just rashly chose the guardian of your children's government -- on a whim.) Tellingly, when McCain was a two-year-old, he'd have tantrums where he'd hold his breath until he passed out! He is not wired for calm, reflective leadership.

Kansas City Star: McCain's history of hot temper raises concerns

John McCain made a quick stop at the Capitol one day last spring to sit in on Senate negotiations on the big immigration bill, and John Cornyn was not pleased.

Cornyn, a mild-mannered Texas Republican, saw a loophole in the bill that he thought would allow felons to pursue a path to citizenship.

McCain called Cornyn's claim "chicken-s---," according to people familiar with the meeting, and charged that the Texan was looking for an excuse to scuttle the bill. Cornyn grimly told McCain he had a lot of nerve to suddenly show up and inject himself into the sensitive negotiations.

"F--- you," McCain told Cornyn, in front of about 40 witnesses.

It was another instance of the Republican presidential candidate losing his temper, another instance in which, as POW-MIA activist Carol Hrdlicka put it, "It's his way or no way."

There's a lengthy list of similar outbursts through the years: McCain pushing a woman in a wheelchair, trying to get an Arizona Republican aide fired from three different jobs, berating a young GOP activist on the night of his own 1986 Senate election and many more.

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At age 2, McCain's tantrums were so intense that he'd hold his breath for a few minutes and pass out. His parents would dunk him in cold water to "cure" him, he wrote in his memoir, "Faith of My Fathers."

Totally Not Safe For Work

You will remember that John McCain called his wife Cindy a cunt in front of a group of reporters while running for Arizona Senate in 1992. This video discusses how this incident would be treated if McCain were, oh, I don't know, maybe a ... Democrat? Don't watch with kids in the room!

McTemperment

A funny parody with a serious subject: McSame's very hot head.