In retrospect, I could've swapped the title "John McCain Explains the Economy" with a real headline from McClatchy Newspapers and it would've worked out just great. That headline is "McCain picks failing Ohio factory to laud free trade." Seriously.
Standing before a nearly shuttered factory pocked with broken windows in a city devastated by the erosion of its industrial base, John McCain on Tuesday urged Americans to reject the "siren song of protectionism" and embrace free trade.
He used his own recent political fortunes -- a dramatic fade followed by an unexpected comeback to secure the Republican presidential nomination -- to illustrate that depressed Rust Belt cities such as Youngstown can rebound.
"A person learns along the way that if you hold on -- if you don't quit no matter what the odds -- sometimes life will surprise you," McCain said in a speech at Youngstown State University after meeting the five remaining workers at Fabart, a steel-fabricating factory that had more than 100 employees a few years ago.
I feel I have to point out that this isn't satire, this is the news. When you're talking about Baghdad John, sometimes it's hard to tell. In a speech lauding free trade policies that have sent American jobs overseas, McCain chose a nearly abandoned factory for his backdrop. I wrote a satire of McCain as a ridiculous boob and then McCain himself outdid me.
And McCain's real-life confused ramblings may have already made my satire redundant.
Washington Post, via Think Progress:
Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.”
Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.” A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate’s ear. McCain then said: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda.”
Just how wrong was John McCain here? Remember that scene in Animal House where John Belushi asked, "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"
It's that wrong.
And this is John McCain putting himself across as a foreign policy expert. What he thinks he knows and what he actually knows are two distinct species, with almost no relationship to each other. For McCain, it seems that the middle east is just the place where all the bad guys live and the difference between Sunni and Shia, Iran and al Qaeda, are just spots on the same breed of dog -- you can tell them all apart, but it's really not all that important that you do so. The differences are minimal and a mere trivial detail. Like old racists used to say, "Chinese, Japanese -- it's all the same to me."
Combine this with McCain's legendary anger management problems and you've got a president who'd invade Norway because Cuba pissed him off.
Sound familiar? I've said before that, no matter who the GOP nominated, the Democrats would do best running against Bush. John McCain isn't just identical to Gearge W. Bush, John McCain is George W. Bush exaggerated.
The reason I bring all of this up is because a form of Democratic madness is popping up its fevered head again. There are a significant number of dems who seem to be threatening stupidity.
USA Today:
In a Quinnipiac Poll released last week, 26% of Clinton supporters in the Keystone State said that if Obama were the Democratic nominee they would vote for McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, in November. Meanwhile, 19% of Obama's backers said they would support McCain if Clinton were his Democratic opponent.
That's not good news for Democrats in a state with 21 Electoral College votes the party might need this fall. Rendell, a former national Democratic Party chairman, says Democrats won't get the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency without winning at least three of four big swing states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Florida.
I've said it before and it bears repeating; there's a word for this voter. Dumbass. Any Democratic voter who believes that Obama or Clinton would be worse than McCain could be outsmarted by a wood screw. This is so stupid that I'm having trouble expressing just how stupid it really is. I need a linguist to make up new words.
If McCain wins, we are screwed. Royally screwed. The man has no business within a mile of the nuclear football, barely understands what economics even are, and can't tell the difference between Finland and Canada. On top of all that, he's in the hip pocket of lobbyists -- just like Bush before him.
John McCain is Dubya and Reagan and Nixon all mixed up into one awful, repulsive stew of suck. Who would you rather have making appointments, not only to the Supreme Court, but to Courts of Appeals -- John McCain or just about any random Democrat at all? Who would you rather have negotiating treaties and trade deals -- John McCain or a freakin' monkey?
I'm guessing that a lot of these voters are making idle threats, trying to bully supporters of the other candidate into voting for theirs. But for those who really mean this, for those so stupid and foolish and petulant and immature that they'd actually vote a sour grapes ticket, consider this my slap upside your fool head.
In fact, I did just slap you. Physically and literally. If you really mean to vote for McCain, you're dumb enough to believe it. I slapped you. Call a cop.
--Wisco
Technorati tag: politics; elections; 2008; Pennsylvania; Republican; Democrats who would vote for John McCain over Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama are morons -- that's an inarguable fact
