Not surprisingly, The Dallas Morning News fell into line this morning, and unapologetically endorsed John McCain for President. Not surprisingly, The Dallas Morning News is exactly wrong.
Editorial: We recommend John McCain for president
11:00 AM CDT on Saturday, October 18, 2008
The United States is in crisis. The economy is melting down. Our military is at war on two fronts. Americans approach this election in understandable fear and anger, especially at the incumbent Republican president who, however unjustly, bears the brunt of the blame for the crisis.
The economy is melting down…under the reckless deregulation of McCain’s party, the very reckless deregulation he still wants to expand.
Our military is at war on two fronts…with nothing to show for it and no reason to continue. Ostensibly, these wars were about Osama bin Laden and stopping terrorists. George W. Bush and his Republican leadership, of which John McCain is a very prominent member, have been unable to even find Osama bin Laden.
Americans are angry and fearful. They’re angry at the Republicans, whom, having been in almost complete control of the government since 1980, have driven the US into debt and decay. Americans are fearful that John McCain represents a continuation of the failures of the Bush administration. Americans are exactly right on that count. John McCain is George W. Bush, and George W. Bush undeniably owns the blame for what he and his party have done.
Americans want change, yes, but banking on change alone is a risky proposition. Both Barack Obama and John McCain offer new deals to a tense, weary nation.
Yeah, well, you’re half right. Saying John McCain offers a new deal is the half that’s so clearly wrong that the McCain campaign must have written it for you. A tense, weary nation doesn’t need a cranky codger jumping from one idea to the next like old Uncle Wilford at the nursing home, talking about the nurse’s cleavage one second and the Krauts and Tojo the next.
In better times, America could afford to consider entrusting the White House to an appealing newcomer like Mr. Obama and giving control of the presidency and Congress to the same party.
And since times are bad, we have to hand over the keys to the White House to an unappealing oldcomer, so we can have gridlock at precisely the time when we need government to make some bold moves.
But in this time of great anxiety, the American people need a leader of experience guiding the ship of state. Mr. McCain offers the continuity, stability and sense of authority people want, as well as a decisive break from the Bush years.
Experience is only valuable when it’s a learning experience, not when it’s just time on the job, rubber stamping George W. Bush’s policies. Mr. McCain does offer continuity. He offers continuity with an administration as popular as Richard Nixon’s when he left office.
I don’t know if people want a sense of authority, but it’s doubtful that they would get that sense from McCain, who is as uncertain and undirected as any candidate for president from either party has ever been.
John McCain…a break from the Bush years? What do they pump into the climate control system at the Mourning Nudes, stupid gas?
The Democrat talks about change, but only the Republican has made change happen. Only one candidate has a solid record of standing up to his own party on principle and working hand in hand with legislators from the opposing party to get things done.
The Democrat talks about change; the Democrat is change. The Republican talks about having made change happen, but has no record of being anything other than a Republican apologist.
I’m no longer convinced that the Republican Party has anyone qualified to even count change, to say nothing of making change happen.
That candidate is John McCain, a progressive conservative we recommend.
One of these things is not like the other.
A progressive conservative? Pardon? That’s the most-least, right-wrong, smart-stupid thing I’ve ever read. I’m positive-negative that I must have misread that phrase. Nope, you really did use the phrase ‘progressive conservative’. McCain can’t be both a progressive and a conservative. He chose his path many years ago when he hitched his wagon to the conservative party.
The experience gap
It’s easy to see why the admirable Barack Obama has won so many hearts this year. He’s as smooth and charismatic as his opponent is raw and irascible. But voters aren’t electing a debater-in-chief. They should keep their heads – and their eyes – focused on the record.
Dear Editor, words are powerful. Franklin Roosevelt used his voice to reassure people during the Great Depression and World War II. Winston Churchill’s speechwriting and speaking ability were vital in holding his country together.
Voters aren’t electing a debater-in-chief; they are electing the chief debater. His ability to communicate clearly and hold the interest of the American people is vital. Have you ever noticed that most of the presidents people can name off the tops of their heads are the presidents who are notable communicators?
The ability of a president to communicate effectively is inextricably linked not only to his success in office, but to how he is remembered by history.
Voters should keep their heads-and their eyes-focused on the future. The record is clear. John McCain’s record is George W. Bush’s record.
Mr. McCain has shown the bipartisan leadership Americans want. For example, the Republican maverick has worked with Democrats on campaign finance laws, immigration reform and climate change. When party infighting brought the Senate to a standstill on judicial nominations, Mr. McCain led the way to an audacious compromise that broke the logjam.
Mr. McCain isn’t bipartisan. He might be bipolar, if his recent erratic behavior is any indication. He’s a fiercely partisan conservative. When Obama doesn’t agree with him, that’s ‘dangerous’, ‘out of touch’, and ’socialist’. Those aren’t the conciliatory words of a bipartisan politician.
Moreover, Mr. McCain has often opposed his own party when he believed it was the right thing to do. For example, though he supported the Iraq war, Mr. McCain emerged early as a critic of the Bush strategy at a time when the safe Republican move was go along to get along. His leadership was arguably a key factor in forcing the Bush administration to change its ways, adapting a strategy that finally worked.
Your example isn’t at all convincing.
McCain is a warmonger, so when the war wasn’t going well, his answer was to get in deeper by throwing more cash and bodies into the fire.
Iraq has since quieted a bit. Whether that’s due to the surge, or thanks to the factions completing the ethnic and religious cleansing of their respective areas remains to be seen. One thing is certain: In order to keep American puppets in Iraqi leadership roles, the American military is now stuck there for the foreseeable future.
We have Senator John McCain and George W. Bush to thank for the ongoing brutal and expensive occupation of foreign soil.
The Arizona senator’s change agenda didn’t always bear fruit – but he fought nobly even in defeat. For example, Mr. McCain believed so strongly in comprehensive immigration reform that he nearly destroyed his presidential campaign to fight for it.
At one point, John McCain wanted to have a guest worker program, a path to citizenship, and more secure borders. To win as a Republican, he ended up just wanting to crack down on the borders.
He’s a flip-flopper.
That takes guts – the kind America will need from its leader in the difficult days ahead.
Fighting for one idea, then changing direction to win an election doesn’t take guts.
That takes pollsters.
Deficit hawk
How difficult? Beyond the immediate credit crisis looms a monumentally larger threat, a $53 trillion entitlement-spending catastrophe that threatens to sink the nation under a sea of red ink. Mr. McCain has a solid record of trying to control Washington’s spending habits. This issue, more than any other, is why Americans should put Mr. McCain in the White House.
Yes, well, Mr. McCain has been recommending a spending freeze, a monumentally ignorant idea if there ever was one.
I don’t know which entitlements you’re talking about, but I assume it’s social security since that’s the one conservatives always want to take away. Old, poor people are such easy targets, aren’t they?
The Social Security Trust Fund, by the way, is projected to be exhausted in 2041. The additional revenue required to allow Social Security to pay all scheduled benefits for the next 75 years is $4.3 trillion in today’s dollars.
US defense-related spending is $1 trillion per year.
Can anyone think of where we could skim off $4.3 trillion over the next 75 years?
He clearly has set himself apart from Mr. Obama on federal spending. Mr. McCain is the one who promised to freeze domestic spending his first year and then limit it to 2.4 percent growth the rest of his term. He also has been clear about the urgent need for entitlement reform.
To a Republican, ‘reform’ means privatizing Social Security, and cutting payments to the sick, injured, disabled, young, and poor, while simultaneously giving tax breaks to their friends on Wall Street, who hedged and leveraged us into this mess.
You don’t see that kind of independence with Mr. Obama, who has marched in spending lockstep with his party and mostly ducked questions about entitlement reform and budget cuts.
Obama has marched in lockstep?
John McCain is intimately familiar with marching in lockstep.
The last time the nation saw Washington make real progress on deficit reduction was the 1990s, when a Democrat controlled the White House and Republicans held Congress. True, Republicans failed to cover themselves in deficit-reduction glory when they held the executive and legislative branches, but we read that as an argument in favor of divided government.
Well, you’re not much for readin’, are ya sparky?
Can you read simple graphs? Try this one:
See the debt how big it’s grown? It kind of looks like we’re trying to come down from the WWII spending spree. There are minor variations, but it’s basically a downward. Jimmy Carter even had Democrats in the House and Senate and the national debt decreased.
The most obvious change was the ‘Reagan Revolution’, which resulted in massive deficit spending and a ballooning national debt. You cats at the Mourning Nudes love your conservative, spendthrift politicians, don’t you?
President Clinton brought down the debt, actually handing George W. Bush a small surplus. George W. Bush knew exactly what to do with that, as you can see by the skyrocketing debt.
Progressive conservatism
As inspiring as Mr. Obama’s history-making presidential bid has been, it is risky to take a chance on an untried leader at this point in our history.
What exactly are John McCain’s leadership qualifications? I’m not talking about Washington experience. I’m talking about leadership. I don’t think he was even a community organizer.
To be sure, a McCain vote also involves an element of risk. His bellicose temperament causes concern, chiefly about his impulsive judgment. If this election were about congeniality and cool, Mr. Obama would easily prevail.
Yes, how understated you are with the phrase ‘an element of risk’. John McCain is an enormous risk to the entire world. He loves war. He’s promised us there will be more wars, and then he picked some small town mayor who was blessed by a witch hunter and thinks the earth is 4000 years old as his prospective Vice President.
Did I mention that he’s old and frail?
But electing the president is not a popularity contest. Mr. McCain has better policies. He has more experience. And he has proven independence of mind.
All elections are a popularity contest. That’s why sometimes the class clown wins the show of hands. Right, George W. Bush? John Kerry and Al Gore weren’t adorable. George W. Bush was perceived as a harmless dufus. As it turned out, he was just a dufus.
Senator McCain doesn’t have independence of mind; he has interdependence of mind with George W. Bush. In fact, they may be sharing a mind with Sarah Palin, because none of them seem to be able to communicate anything beyond simple gestures and antagonistic catch phrases.
In these tough times, John McCain is the right man for America.
FAIL!
Tags: Biden, Bobby Goldsboro, Dallas Morning News, debt, deficit, democrat, election, experience, George W. Bush, Gore, kerry, McCain, Obama, Palin, progressive conservative, Reagan Revolution, republican
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