The HuffPo:
This is the week that should have effectively ended John McCain’s efforts to become the next president of the United States. But you wouldn’t know it if you watched any of the mainstream media outlets or followed political reporting in the major newspapers.
During this past week: McCain called the most important entitlement program in the U.S. a disgrace, his top economic adviser called the American people whiners, McCain released an economic plan that no one thought was serious, he flip flopped on Iraq, joked about the deaths of Iranian citizens, and denied making comments that he clearly made — TWICE. All this and it is not even Friday! Yet watching and reading the mainstream press you would think McCain was having a pretty decent political week, I mean at least Jesse Jackson didn’t say anything about him.
And that isn’t even all of it. Here is Carly Fiorina caught dead to rights trying to lie about McCain’s position on issues important to women, here is McCain flubbing a reporter’s question about Fiorina’s comments (video of the tragic encounter found here), and as a Steeler fan, my personal favorite McCain moment:
And then McCain told a rather moving story about his time as a P.O.W. “When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the pressures, physical pressures on me, I named the starting lineup, defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron mates.”
“Did you really?” asked the reporter.
“Yes,” McCain said.
“In your POW camp?” asked the reporter.
“Yes,” McCain said.
“Could you do it today?” asked the reporter.
“No, unfortunately,” McCain said.
Here’s one reason he likely couldn’t do it today — the Steelers aren’t the team whose defensive line McCain named for his Vietnamese tormentors. The Green Bay Packers are. At least according to every previous time McCain has told this story. And the McCain campaign just told ABC News that the senator made a mistake — it was, indeed, the Packers.
Liar.
What is most amazing about all this is that he keeps getting away with it, and the media refuses to hold him responsible for the things he says. Imagine if Obama had done all these things this week- they would be doing post-mortems on the failed Obama candidacy on the Sunday shows. Compare the reaction to the whiners comment and the Obama bitter remarks. Those seats on the new Straight Talk Express must be really hard to earn.
Two quick side notes. I don’t want to be unfair, but it is my general impression that Carly Fiorina’s crowning achievement in business is to destroy the reputation of Hewlett-Packard. I wouldn’t even consider buying one, and haven’t for years. Am I wrong about this impression? If not, why on earth is she considered such an asset for McCain?
Second, I know I have turned fiercely partisan for the Democrats recently, but I honestly do not remember McCain being this bad. I never much cared for him and, in fact, supported Bush over McCain in 2000 (awesome judgment there, I might add), but I don’t remember him being this bad. Am I imagining things? Or is he far worse a candidate and aperson than he was ten years ago?
Catpain Haddock
Please, this is trivial compared to the bullshit-fest that was the Gore/Bush and Kerry/Bush campaigns.
cleter
No, it’s not your imagination. He’s far worse.
TR
Yep. She managed to destroy about 70% of the stock value of that company, before bailing out in a sweet golden parachute for herself.
Of course, if the media is still treating a constantly wrong man like Bill Kristol as Someone Whose Opinion Matters, it shouldn’t surprise us that those morons are genuflecting in front of Carly either.
montysano
This video of McCain scrambling about while trying to answer the Viagra/birth control question is deeply disturbing. He’s either mentally unfit to be president, or a terrible liar, or maybe both.
KCinDC
At this point I’m not sure you were wrong. Maybe if McCain had won we’d now be in an even worse position — say, already at war with Iran. Then again McCain 2000 was a completely different guy from McCain 2008, so maybe his presidency would have matched what he was saying then.
jon
I honestly think that McCain crafted an image for an election eight or twelve years ago, kept to it, and is now a Man Out of Time (as Declan McManus would say.) He’s been playing the Reagan heir for so long that now he’s playing the Reagan for real: impervious to reason, unable to come up with a coherent economic plan, we can’t tell if he’s joking or really believes this stuff, but there certainly is a bunch of people who really do believe or at least want to believe what he spouts.
matt
No, he hasn’t always been this bad, it’s depressing.
I think it would be interesting if you expanded on your reasons for this.
JL
McCain actually does better when he has his sidekicks, Lieberman and Graham, whisper sweet nothings in his ears.
nightjar
I was actually seriously considering voting for him in 2000, until it was apparent he wasn’t going to get nominated.
Watching the powder puff coverage he is getting now, it is embarrassing to watch the media fawning over his comedic candidacy. I can’t figure out if it’s because of sympathy for the afflicted senior, serious support for the “maverick”, or reporters aware of who the brass wants to win. Or maybe all of the above.
jrg
“Vote for McCain, Pussy!”
Yesterday, I talked to (yet another) HP ex-employee that cannot stand Carly. He told me the same story about how she hung her picture in the lobby above and between the two founders of HP, and how they played “ding dong the witch is dead” over the PA when she got canned.
It amazes me that McCain is having Carly stump for him. Everyone who knows who she is has a negative opinion of her.
Conservatively Liberal
Hewlett-Packard has always made junk, and that didn’t help them one bit either. My first four HP products all failed, and two of those products were the grounds for a class action lawsuits they lost. I would never recommend or use HP products ever again.
The John McCain of 2008 is a worn out and tired shell of the McCain of the past, and the only saving grace for him now is that the MSM is more than willing to give him all the great press he needs.
Gotta keep those invites to McCain’s BBQ! Priorities!!!
stevie314159
You are absolutely correct about Carly and HP, but before that, she was a top dog at Lucent and screwed that up big time too.
By the way, when Meg Whitman starts doing her PR for McCain, let me know…I tutored her in math at Business School and have some stories to tell.
PaulW
I saw McCain in person about 3 or 4 years ago at the UF Commencement. He seemed focused, prepared, receptive, human. The only thing I can think has happened to him now is that he’s surrounded by Bush/Rove idiots who are dragging him down to their level of Teh Stupid.
Gary
Depends on how exactly you mean. No, he hasn’t always been this senile. But yes, he has always been a total media creation and he has always been the patron saint of flip-floppers. He did not magically turn into a different person after 2000, he’s been that way since he first came to the House in 1982.
KCinDC
OT: Can someone explain the joyous frenzy among LGF and others in the rightosphere about a fake photo of Iranian missiles. I guess I get that it fits their “all news is fake, therefore we can believe whatever we like” theme, but isn’t it a little problematic for the Islamofascistophobic rejoicing that the fakery was to make it look like Iran was more of a threat than it is?
baldheadeddork
What’s happening with McCain reminds me of a story that George Plimpton told.
His parents had a party during one of his visits home from prep school. George said that the neighbors and his parent’s friends all wanted to talk with him about how school was going, typical stuff. But one guest, an elderly judge, unloaded with a horrible, ugly racist diatribe about “those people” (Plimpton didn’t say who it was aimed against) ruining the whole goddamn world.
Plimpton later told his father about the encounter. He finished the story and, trying to sound more adult, said “Old man Worthington is losing it.” Without missing a beat his father replied, “No, he’s losing his ability to hide it.”
That’s what is happening with John McCain. He’s always been this way but he used to do a better job of hiding it. I was one of his constituents in Arizona from the start of the Keating Five scandal through the mid-90’s and there have always been glimpses of this craven behavior if you were paying attention. Those who know him and weren’t riding his coattails tried to tell people about this in 2000.
TR
Flipping between CNN and MSNBC, and both morning shows are talking about what Obama needs to do to improve his campaign.
Yes, Obama. Not McCain — the one who’s trailing by 5 points nationally and getting clobbered in several key states, the one who had a horrible week, and the one who just had a campaign shake-up.
No, no, let’s all bloviate about what Obama needs to do to improve his campaign.
cleek
because, when they bring her on for interviews, as NPR did this morning, they announce her as “Carly Fiorina, former head of Hewlett-Packard, who is now advising John McCain on economics”. it sounds good, when they leave off the part about how she’s a giant fuck-up.
here’s another classic McCain moment – the guy can’t remember which votes he made.
javafascist
What is most amazing about all this is that he keeps getting away with it, and the media refuses to hold him responsible for the things he says.
Amazing? Sadly, no. The media is bought and paid for and has been for quite some time. We’ll get another 4 months of McCain fluffing and all because Grandpa Simpson invited them to his BBQ. It’s a sad, sad, sad, sad world.
montysano
Yeah, much thanks to Phil Gramm. We do appreciate it.
I know I’m a few days late, but I’d also like to thank the McCain campaign for ticketing a protester at one of their events. Wait….. it was a librarian? Fantastic! Described as diminutive? Dood, totally a bonus! Your campaign should do this at least once a week, just to show the DFH contingent who’s the boss.
Please?
Dennis - SGMM
This is the same media that uncritically accepted every bullshit statement from the Bush administration in the run up to the Iraq war. The same media that didn’t bother to do five minutes’ worth of research on the Niger yellowcake document. The ones who trumpeted the idea that a third-tier country that had been under UN sanctions for a decade and that had been fought to a stalemate in a war with next-door Iran posed a threat to America that was so dire that we had to attack pre-emptively. The media latched on to a narrative then and they’ve latched on to one now. Anything that doesn’t fit is ignored. Lather, rinse, repeat.
pinola
I don’t know, John. I really couldn’t figure out why you guys didn’t want him in 2000. I seriously did not get how Republicans chose Bush over McCain. I thought the war hero stuff was just gold and yes, at that time, I thought McCain was a sane, reasonable man and certainly more intelligent than Bush, although now I realize how little that says for the man.
patrick
I’d say that’s the case…he’s much different than in ’00….this lifelong democrat might have jumped ship in ’00 and voted for him if he had secured the nomination.
cleek
same here.
these days, i think that’s just because i didn’t know enough about him, back in 00. i’ve learned.
Zifnab
McCain lost the nomination in 2000 because he refused to cater to the wingnut base. 8 years later, he’s learned what it takes to win the primary, but he is totally lost on how to win a general election. Everyone with an ounce of influence is hand-feeding McCain nothing but love, and he’s still trailing some five points in the polls and losing support every day.
His base barely supports him, and that is mostly because McCain is running on the “I’m not Barack Obama” platform. He can’t act sane, because his constituency will eat him alive for it. So he’s throwing out as much red meat as he can, and denies it fervently every time an independently-viewed media source calls him on it.
McCain was screwed the moment he accepted the nomination. He’s actually handling it better than Romney or Huckabee would have done, in my opinion.
michael
Fiorina will go down in history as the CEO who spied on her board of directors because she was trying to prevent unauthorized information leaks. she really took her corporate actions right out of the Bush-Cheney playbook.
I forget how the case played out. But i think she could have faced jail time for her actions.
th
Crusty Dem
baldheadeddork nailed it. He’s got early dementia, not too bad, but he can’t juggle all the balls any more, so to speak. The first thing you lose is your “mask”, or ability to respond to the world around you with what is expected, rather than what you really think. I’d say he’s not all the way there. But it definitely poos up (“bomb Iran”).. He’s still functioning well enough to lie, but he’s no longer able to do it cleverly, or to always tell the proper lie. If elected, I’m sure he’ll get the full “Reagan treatment”. Very limited access, few press conferences, etc. The press will be flummoxed, but continue fluffing.
BottyGuy
As an electronics engineer that “grew up” using H-P test equipment I thought it was a mistake when Carly spun off the test equipment business as Agilent, to focus on the
high marginlow margin PC business.I see now that it was a brilliant business move that saved the test equipment business from destruction under Carly’s managment. Thanks Carly!
John Cole
I remember in the early 1990’s trying to fix my my friend’s POS Packard-Bell, and the way they had essentially soldered this crap sound card to the motherboard made me want to kick puppies. Of course, back then, IBM was going through their BS microchanneling, so the only option I felt was to own a Gateway.
HeartlandLiberal
I am an IT director of a fairly large key dept at a major university. After what Carly Fiorina did to HP, we will no longer even buy their printers. We spend our happy, peaceful days supporting over 600 desktops (majority Windows, about 50 Apples), laptops, over 100 printers, and about 24 servers (Windows, Apple, LINUX).
We used to refuse to buy a printer if it were NOT an HP branded model.
Now, you could not GIVE me HP printers, much less, OMG ONOZ HP computers. I would rather revert to doing all my work on pads of paper with pencils and knives to shave points onto the pencils than to have to support HP computers.
But don’t take my word for it. Just ask your friend The Google: Search The Google for Carly Fiorina HP disaster. You will discover that Google is indeed your friend sometimes. But it is NOT Carly Fiorina’s friend, 17,400 times over at the very least in this case.
BC
Regarding the media – they have their narrative, they think they know and understand McCain, so anything he says on the campaign trail is just what needs to be done to get elected. David Broder actually said this on one of his online discussions back in April or May. To the media, McCain doesn’t care one whit about domestic policy, so he will just sign whatever the Democrats pass. The best of both worlds to them: Democrats will run the domestic side, Republicans will be in charge of foreign affairs. A true bipartisan government, in their view.
HeartlandLiberal
Quoth John Cole:
Around about 1989 I bought my Northgate 386. That year in Infoworld’s review of PCs it was the top rated machine. With a 40 Megabyte drive, no less. Retail was just over $5,000.00. That was going price for top configured PC at the time.
Today that PC’s motherboard has a place of honor, mounted as first in a vertical row of it and each subsequent Intel motherboard generation based on key CPU advances, on the wall to the left outside my downstairs study door.
Makes for great art, if nothing else. It is a shame that Gateway suffered from such bad management, also, and completely imploded about 6-7 years ago, at the height of the dot.com boom/bust cycle. Its management thought it could go all upscale, and move management to California. While producing poorer quality machines. Did not work out so well for them.
Mary
Maybe Canadian HPs are different, but I’ve had a couple of decent HP desktops, and currently own a scanner, laser printer and media computer from HP that all give me absolutely no problems.
But yeah, McCain is being fluffed like mad by your media. He ain’t getting much love up here, though. Our media even reported on the fuck-up with the media materials that named the wrong organization and city when he spoke in Ottawa a few weeks ago.
cleek
i’ve had good luck with HP printers. but i absolutely despise the software they ship with them. HP seems to think my computer’s primary purpose should be as a platform for their suite of utilities.
there’s an HP software shop on the floor below me right now. one of these days, i’m gonna slap one of those guys.
RAM
The interesting thing to me (I agree with the early dementia suggestions by baldheadeddork and Crusty Dem above) is what happens if it gets worse? I’ve seen cases where it progresses rather rapidly, and that was in folks not subject to the extreme stress of a Presidential campaign. Some cynics will say this happens every election, but I’d really like to know what happens if the GOP finds itself with a physically healthy but mentally unfit candidate. This could be a REALLY interesting campaign.
4tehlulz
You know, there are some moments, like Phil Gramm’s comments, like “Bomb bomb Iran”, that I think the McCain campaign is just epic trolling.
Then I wake up and realize that no, this fucker actually wants to run the country this way.
Then tell them.
Gregory
Hell, imagine if Obama had done any of these things this week.
Elvis Elvisberg
I’m inclined to cut him a lot of slack on the Packers/Steelers thing. The Steelers and Packers are both classic franchises of the Midwest (which, as you know, begins about 10 miles west of Philadelphia).
I was talking to someone yesterday who mixed the Packers up with Notre Dame. If you’re not a sports fan, and I don’t think most politicians are, what McCain did wasn’t off the wall. It’s not like he confused them with the Seahawks or the Panthers or something.
pinola
Excuse me, but the Steelers/Packers story is directly related to John McCain’s military service and is, therefore, OUT OF BOUNDS!
Leisureguy
My impression is that John McCain is not aging well at all and his general mental competence has declined sharply from what it was ten years ago. It will be interesting to see whether his temper also gets worse, with more outbursts when questioned or corrected.
carsick
My family was in denial about my father’s weakening condition. It wasn’t until an old friend came in to town and visited then pulled my mother aside to ask if my father had had a stroke that we realized he was in the throws of Alzheimer’s disease.
I’m not saying McCain has Alzheimer’s, but someone should pull the media aside to have a word. The old man is showing his age.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Are you attacking John McCain’s integrity!?
Sorry, had to get that out.
On HP, we still have a bunch of Laserjet 4s hanging around here ten/fifteen years on. The newer Laserjets… well, they’re OK, but the old ones are true warriors. And don’t get me started on HP/Compaq PCs. We inherited a bunch in a merger, and I didn’t think I would find myself appreciating Dells as much as I am now.
cleek
McCain was 2 when Chamberlain made his famous trip to Munich.
grey_hawk
RAM says:
The GOP has 7 years of practice with this very issue already.
Punchy
We have a weiner. The media doesn’t just want him to win, they need it. That’s why they’ll go for broke to see it happen.
Obama will be smeared by every possible angle, comments twisted, and finally, in late October, some unsubstantiated rumor about an Obama gay tryst in college leading to an abortion in which he used a coat hanger while high on coke will surface. And Bob The Shiff will demand he refute all of it with proper proof and witnesses.
My predicition: this election will seal the fate of cable news networks, as their actions will become so biased, embarrassing, and desperate that nobody will take them seriously again.
MattF
I dunno about McCain changing. People in the politics biz, here in DC, say he’s a bully and can’t be trusted. His problem may be that he’s stumbled into a situation where lying and bullying are visible and (ultimately, I think) dysfunctional. But we shall see…
liberal
In election 2000 I found McCain scarier than Bush.
Bush seemed completely insincere and full of sh*t.
McCain came across as a nutjob.
Notorious P.A.T.
But, these are the kinds of things that the reptile-brained Republican base *likes* from their candidates. They think there is no recession and people who say there are are whining. They don’t care about boring economic plans with lots of words and fancy book-learnin, etc.
Reminds me of 2000, when people went around with video clips of Bush, saying basically the same thing.
rts
Actually, at first I thought the Steelers-Packers thing was entirely silly and trivial but then I actually thought about it for a moment. The Steelers dynasty began after McCain was released by his captors (they won their first Super Bowl in January 1975). So how in the world could McCain have recited the Pittsburgh starting defensive line (Dwight White, LC Greenwood, Joe Green and Ernie Holmes) when he was imprisoned? After all, he was in the Hanoi Hilton for 5.5 years and was released in 1973. Joe Green was not even in the NFL until 1969, years after McCain was captured. I’m sure he watched the Steelers in the ’70s and is confusing those teams with the Packers of the ’60s.
Crusty Dem
I was in Texas for the entirety of the Bush Governorship. He was not horribly incompetent, and really did appear to work with democrats to get bills passed. Of course the Texas governor has no actual power, so he didn’t really have any choice but to work with democrats (who controlled the state senate at the time). That said, I was not a fan of Bush, and during the campaign he (and the glowing media treatment he received) just got worse and worse. The low moment was after the debate where Gore was deemed a “liar” by the MSM because a FL HS principal denied students were standing in his school because they couldn’t afford desks (even though multiple newspaper articles demonstrated that they were); in the same debate, Bush took credit for Texas’ patients bill of rights, which he vetoed and then didn’t sign when his veto was overridden.. In other words, Bush blatantly lied about his own direct actions and was not called on it, Gore told the truth and was universally decried as being unable to tell the truth.
Sorry, a little OT, just wanted to point out that I can understand the positives seen in Bush in 2000 (although I thought they were far outweighed by his complete lack of positive experience). We’re talking about McCain here (and I’ve been been talking about his senility/mental limitations), the point I was originally going to make is that there’s no comparison between Bush of 1994, Bush of 2000, and Bush of 2004 and on. There are some great youtube videos chronicling his descent from clear speaker w/demonstrable skills and knowledge to the idiot cowboy he has become. I’m pretty sure McCain is not the only one suffering from cognitive decline.
jukeboxgrad
“I remember in the early 1990’s trying to fix my my friend’s POS Packard-Bell”
FYI, there is no connection between that company and HP.
Other than that, I agree with everything you’ve said about Carly and HP.
Scott H
Can we get someone to ask McCain to explain the threat of a nation that has to photoshop its military might?
Michael
Story here
John Cole
I had no idea they were separate companies.
The Other Steve
Packard-Bell wasn’t the same as Hewlett-Packard. PB was a brand name that used to make high quality radios in the 40’s and 50’s… the radio on Gilligan’s Island was a Packard Bell. It was purchased by investors in 1986 solely for the brand name, and they used it to sell absolute shit into the 1990s.
Oliver's Neck
Not that you were necessarily saying otherwise, John, but Packard-Bell and Hewlett-Packard are unrelated companies.
According to my friend who did tech support for them in the early 90’s, Packard-Bell had been a radio manufacturer for much of the early-mid 20th century and the name was bought in the 80’s by a sleazy investor who wanted to give his cheap PC clones some brand support.
Jim Henley
In 1969 the Steelers HAD no defense. Therefore McCain is lying. QED.
Gregory
Don’t forget these ate Texas Democrats. As the late, great Molly Ivins once observed, as Governor, Bush united conservatives and ultra-conservatives.
Sarcastro
Count me as another one who swears by HP printers. Wouldn’t buy their PCs for the life of me (helps that we’re a predominantly Mac shop) but from a support perspective I’d much, MUCH rather have HPs than anything made since the Apple Laserwriters (the ones with the indestructible Canon internals). Of course the Macs don’t have to worry about all the crap HP tries to make you put on a PC when you install them. We’ve got 12 HPs, 4 Laserwriters (over a decade old!) and one brand new Ricoh workgroup printer that takes as much of my time as the rest of the printers combined. I’m never listening to my CDW rep again when it comes to printers.
stickler
I think McCain has always been a bit of a loose cannon, it just didn’t show nationally too much. My father warned me in 2000 that McCain couldn’t be trusted, he’d surely say something disastrous on camera, and therefore only Bush was, in the end, going to be electable.
But in 2008, not only is McCain eight years older than he was in 2000, he’s trying to run hard to the fundagelical base. Or at least pretend like he’s trying to please them. He doesn’t pander very well. McCain may be a hard-right conservative, but he’s mostly been a Goldwater-type conservative (same state, remember?), and they’ve never gone in for the panty-sniffing that the Confederate wingnut contingent loves so much. He’s insincere on a lot of their program, and it shows.
Remember, too, that McCain thought he’d pulled some glorious national defense jiujistu when the Iraq Study Group recommendations came out: he demanded that the US send more troops to Iraq, not start pulling out. … And then, instead of doing the sensible thing (listening to the ISG), Bush goes and launches The Surge!(TM). This boxes McCain into a “victory in Mesopotamia” position that is simply ludicrous. So he’s casting about for a coherent message, and he’s not coming up with much.
But if the teevee bobbleheads were to acknowlege any of this, it would be disastrous for them, too. First of all, they like McCain, for his BBQ and for his story. Makes for good TeeVee! Secondly, if McCain is seen to be imploding in July, who the hell is going to pay attention to the Presidential race? No horserace, no eyeballs watching ads for Viagra and GMC Yukons and Princess Cruises.
hilzoy
He was never as good as people thought, but imho he is dramatically worse now.
I have completely steered away from age, etc., thinking: the whole point of bringing it up would presumably be to suggest that he might at some point become confused, and since he is in fact quite demonstrably confused, for whatever reason, why gratuitously insult all those seniors who are sharp as tacks?
That said, it’s the best explanation I can think of. Though, as I said, imho he was never as good as people thought. I mean: there truly is no possible explanation for his having been in the Senate and not knowing the things he doesn’t know. Not even, say, age: in my experience, at least, age blocks your ability to learn and assimilate new stuff, but leaves your basic grasp of things you have known for years intact for quite a while. My grandmother was pretty demented in the 90s; the OJ trial and the LA riots just washed right over her, but she knew a whole lot about gardening, and could discuss it quite intelligently, until very, very late in the game. (Well after she started reading the same page of a book over and over without noticing.)
To anyone who had been in Congress for 26 years, absolutely basic stuff about policy ought to be the way gardening was for my grandmother. For McCain, it plainly is not.
The Audacity of HYPE
So becuase McCain said a different defensive line thats makes him a liar on everything?
O.K. lets go with that.
Than that would mean Obama is a liar as well:
2004-“I think I’ve been very clear. Ah-ah-mumble-mumble, there’s a presidential election in four years. I’m not running for president in four years.”
2006-On the January 22nd edition of “Meet the Press,” Tim Russert and Obama had the following exchange:
Russert: “When we talked back in November of ’04 after your election, I said, ‘There’s been enormous speculation about your political future. Will you serve your six-year term as United States senator from Illinois?'”
Obama: “I will serve out my full six-year term. You know, Tim, if you get asked enough, sooner or later you get weary and you start looking for new ways of saying things. But my thinking has not changed.”
Russert: “So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?”
Obama: “I will not.”
2007-“There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama,” he said, “because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama”
Obama was born in 1961, and the Selma march occurred four years later, in 1965. The New York Times reported that when the senator was asked about the discrepancy later that day, he clarified: “I meant the whole civil rights movement.”
2007-On March 25th, the Chicago Tribune reports that an extensive search found no basis for an episode Obama recounts about a picture he ran across in Life magazine of a “black man who had tried to peel off his skin” in a failed effort to use chemicals to lighten it. Obama writes that “seeing that article was violent for me, an ambush attack.”
The Tribune continued: “Yet no such Life issue exists, according to historians at the magazine. No such photos, no such article. When asked about the discrepancy, Obama said in a recent interview, “It might have been an Ebony or it might have been … who knows what it was?”
At the request of the Tribune, archivists at Ebony searched their catalogue of past articles, none of which matched what Obama recalled.”
2007-On May 8th, Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died.
“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser.
The death toll was 12.
2007-Seven months ago, Obama told the Sun-Times his “best estimate” was that Rezko raised “between $50,000 and $60,000” during Obama’s political career.
However, Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Additionally, Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.
2008-Obama promised to use public funding in the general election if the Republican candidate would do so also. Well, McCain has agreed to it, but now Obama wants to back out of the deal. After all, when he made the promise, he didn’t have a chance of raising more than the public’s $85 million stipend. But now that he can raise $300 million, well, what’s a little untruth between the waited-for one and his people? Yes, he can.
Rick Taylor
I also get the impression that somewhere between 2004 and 2008, McCain started making lots of slips; I started noticing when he talked about how because he was able to visit a Baghdad market, things were improving there, and saying the Petraeus went out in an unarmored Humvee.
Nonetheless, looking back, he may have been the best of the Republican nominees. I certainly can’t look at any other nominee and say, oh he was clearly better, they should have nominated him. Romney? Giuliani? Huckabee? It’s stunning to me how bad the field was.
Michael G
1: Back in the day when they were making kickass oscilloscopes and calculators, HP used to be the dream job for engineers–probably the closest equivalent today would be something like Google. Really!
2: As people have pointed out, Hewlett-Packard and Packard Bell are unrelated.
3: But nobody has mentioned that Hewlett-Packard and the Green Bay Packards are also unrelated.
4: When Carly finally quit, there were reports of “dancing in the aisles” of HP. I have heard that many groups held meetings to discuss that basically ended up turning into parties.
5: HP also gets a lot of hate because they pioneered the practice of gouging on inkjet ink prices.
6: That being said, I think that the HP PCs that I’ve recently seen aren’t that bad, and I might even call a few of them quite good. But they’ve got a huge karmic debt to pay back at this point.
Rick Taylor
“There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through today”
This should have taken him down as a serious Presidential candidate long ago.
Mike35
The other day, Race for the White House brought up the hypothetical pairings of McCain-Carly and Obama-Biden. I dropped to my knees and prayed for this to happen.
And I wanted McCain in 04 to get the Dem’s nomination. He’s just come completely unglued since that point early in the primaries where it looked like he was toast. But they’re Republicans, so that sort of thing nets you the nomination.
The Audacity of HYPE
So because he said the Steelers once instead of thr Packer that means he is a liar?
O.K., I’ll go with that.
That would mean that Obama is one of the biggest liars out there.
2003-“I happen to be a proponent of single-payer universal healthcare coverage. That’s what I’d like to see.”
In January, 2008, Obama claimed in a nationally televised debate:
“I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single-payer.”
2004-“I think I’ve been very clear. Ah-ah-mumble-mumble, there’s a presidential election in four years. I’m not running for president in four years.”
2006-Russert: “When we talked back in November of ’04 after your election, I said, ‘There’s been enormous speculation about your political future. Will you serve your six-year term as United States senator from Illinois?'”
Obama: “I will serve out my full six-year term. You know, Tim, if you get asked enough, sooner or later you get weary and you start looking for new ways of saying things. But my thinking has not changed.”
Russert: “So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?”
Obama: “I will not.”
2007-As another example, consider Obama’s stirring tale for the Selma audience about how he had been conceived by his parents, Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham, because they had been inspired by the fervor following the “Bloody Sunday” voting rights demonstration that was commemorated March 4. “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama,” he said, “because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama”
Obama was born in 1961, and the Selma march occurred four years later, in 1965. The New York Times reported that when the senator was asked about the discrepancy later that day, he clarified: “I meant the whole civil rights movement.”
2007-On March 25th, the Chicago Tribune reports that an extensive search found no basis for an episode Obama recounts about a picture he ran across in Life magazine of a “black man who had tried to peel off his skin” in a failed effort to use chemicals to lighten it. Obama writes that “seeing that article was violent for me, an ambush attack.”
The Tribune continued: “Yet no such Life issue exists, according to historians at the magazine. No such photos, no such article. When asked about the discrepancy, Obama said in a recent interview, “It might have been an Ebony or it might have been … who knows what it was?”
At the request of the Tribune, archivists at Ebony searched their catalogue of past articles, none of which matched what Obama recalled.”
2007-“In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser.
The death toll was 12.
2007-Seven months ago, Obama told the Sun-Times his “best estimate” was that Rezko raised “between $50,000 and $60,000” during Obama’s political career.
However, Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Additionally, Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.
2008-Obama promised to use public funding in the general election if the Republican candidate would do so also. Well, McCain has agreed to it, but now Obama wants to back out of the deal. After all, when he made the promise, he didn’t have a chance of raising more than the public’s $85 million stipend. But now that he can raise $300 million, well, what’s a little untruth between the waited-for one and his people? Yes, he can.
2008-Contrary to a recent hyperbolic campaign ad, it wasn’t “courageous” to give his 2002 anti-war speech, primarily because he delivered it at an anti-Iraq war rally.
At the last debate, America’s former co-president claimed that it was easy to give that speech, and it wasn’t a gamble for him because he wasn’t in the US Senate and therefore wasn’t in a position of responsibility. Obama’s impassioned reply was, “I was in the midst of a U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high-stakes campaign.”
Wrong. In reality, Obama did not announce his intentions to run for the US Senate until January 2003.
I have to assume you will hold Obama to the same standard as McCain, right?
If not, then that would make you all hypocrites.
jukeboxgrad
“I had no idea they were separate companies.”
Yes. But here’s another little-known fact: the Steelers and Packers are actually the same team. They just switch names around for marketing reasons. See, so McCain is just exceptionally alert and well-informed. It’s just hard for him because the rest of us don’t know all this cool inside stuff that he knows.
“nobody has mentioned that Hewlett-Packard and the Green Bay Packards are also unrelated.”
Good one!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
From your lips to God’s ears Punchy, but I don’t expect it to happen. Our news media is a flaming radioactive trainwreck of stupidity, but nobody seems to notice or care. I think deep down too many Americans just don’t want to be bothered with paying attention to the news – make it fun or make it go away. It seems to have gotten much, much worse in my lifetime, but that may just be nostalgia talking.
Also, just to echo what others here are saying, Carly is a four-letter word to anyone who has recently been associated with or knows about HP-Compaq.
Clio
As someone who supported McCain in 2000 but then voted for Gore because something about Bush unsettled me (pretty proud of that), he has absolutely changed for the worse in the last 8 years. For me, you can chalk it up to the fact that it has become blatantly obvious that he wants to be President more than he wants to do what is right or stick to ANY type of principle. The former POW who was tortured equivocating on torture? The Bush hug? The full throated support of the criminal policies of the Bush administration? The speech at Liberty University? He was one of the few (along with Colin Powell) who, if he had had the courage to speak out, could have actually made a difference in waking up the public to what was going on long before they woke up. His craven political opportunism in throwing asunder everything that he claimed to stand for has disgusted me since 2003ish. I have frequently had the thought of “Well, he’s either a total cynic or he actually believes the crap he’s spouting…either way, he doesn’t need to be the President.” He’s worse because his true character has been exposed to many (clearly not the MSM), so I know I’m not so willing to overlook gaffes and mistakes as I once was.
limbaugh's pilonidal cyst
I’ll vote yes, as has already been said he’s running as if it were 8 years ago, plus he’s trying to do it while he’s 8 years older than he was then. And in his case, as in the case of all of the other republican candidates, he has demonstrated absolutely no capability to run this country if elected president. Like all of them, he’d be an unalloyed disaster. As awful as Hillary Clinton’s campaign was she’d still have made a better president than any of them, at least most of her policy positions are pretty sound.
But the media needs a close race so the ratings don’t tank so they play down McSame’s horrible gaffes and those of his spokespeople while playing up whatever minor little kerfuffle arises around Obama. If they played it evenly Obama would be up by a ton and David Gregory wouldn’t be gettin’ any love.
But I’m reminded of a story, perhaps apocryphal, of how Ethel Barrymore was appearing in a play where there was a young and ambitious actress who slept her way into being the understudy for the leading role. One night, the lead actress was taken ill and the understudy was called to go on for her. As they were standing onstage waiting for the curtain to rise the nervous young actress asked Ms. Barrymore if she had any advice for her before the play started and Ms. Barrymore replied “Yes, just remember that you can’t f*ck the audience”. Maybe not entirely apt, but I think the same principle sorta applies here.
ThymeZone
She certainly managed to suck the equity out of the company by crushing the stock price. The products are doing fine:
The firm has done better since she left:
Personally I think Fiorina is a fraud and always has been, but that’s just me. She has her fans. Somewhere.
Chris Johnson
It’s just so weird that basic media can become so Pravda-like INFORMALLY. Says a lot about psychology, is worthy of study- one would assume you’d have to directly hire people and pay them and order them to get this behavior, rather than just play them and be contemptuous of them.
It’s rather like those awful books about how to dominate women. The idea is that you hook them and begin intentionally jerking them around to make them your slave. The media is either frantic to get the Right Wing a beer and rub their feet, or throwing hissy fits, turning lesbian and hating all politicians indiscriminately.
Chris Johnson
I’m thinking Olbermann as the lesbian media rep. So filled with reflexive righteous outrage, so quick to seek out situations where it is entirely justified. It’s not his fault that politics is so happy to comply, but it’s worrisome how eagerly he throws himself into the role.
Still, it beats the hell out of not having anybody throwing a hissy. We can’t sit around forever waiting for Tweety to have another ‘what did Chamberlain do’ moment. Also note that that moment was directed against a meaningless talk radio hack and not an important politician…
ThymeZone
He is the same self-serving, lying and pandering corrupt moneygrubbing piece of shit he was on the day that his involvement in the Keating scandal hit the newspapers.
But yes, just looking at him as a candidate, he is worse. He is more inept, less coherent, less able to pull of the phony “maverick” imitation than he was. His performance this week is probably about the best he can do. He’s at his peak right now. That should give you some idea where we are headed in the next 100 days.
theturtlemoves
I worked for seven years for the good old cow box. Yep, the management was hideous. When I started, we had 25,000 employees worldwide and when I left it was down to under 2,000. They tried to expand too far, too fast, and Ted really wanted to not live in North Sioux City anymore, as he couldn’t drive his convertible sports cars there in the winter and the cold was hard on his bald, pony-tailed head. Plus, if the rumors are true, it may have been hard for him to score blow in SoDak. It started going downhill after the move to San Diego, likely earlier when they hired a bunch of former AT&T execs to take the helm. Nothing meshes as well with a youthful, upstart company as imposing ancient corporate behemoth culture on it…
slag
I have a theory about this. It’s that John McCain is too f’in boring for the media to cover in any depth.
Rome Again
Two words: Keating Five
Now you tell me.
Rome Again
Whoops, I should have read comments first. Thank you TZ, I echoed your sentiment.
Jane
The media love Obamaa, don’t kid yourself. Quit being so mean and negative. You’re just like everyone else in the Obama campaign— mean and negative. I like McCain: he’s a stand-up guy.
Jeff
No single CEO screwed up company culture and morale as much as she did. Early in her reign, they asked all employees to take a 10% pay cut or use a certain amount of vacation time to help the company and prevent layoffs. It was voluntary; but, everyone did it.
We later found out she gets a huge bonus and layoffs were still in the works. It was always about Carly, not HP.
By the end of her stay at HP, people were leaving the company specifically because of her and what she had done to HP’s corporate culture. There was much rejoicing when she was fired.
Rome Again
Hmmm, I thought it was so that the powers that be could try to fix another race.
BombIranForChrist
I am with you, John. I don’t remember John McCain being this bad either.
I knew he was as corrupt as any other member of congress, if not more so, but I thought he was at least politically competent, but this just doesn’t seem the case. He’s just plain awful as a campaigner. If the Dems don’t win this election, they should be exiled.
Sloegin
He’s 72.
Everyone seems to forget basic mortality and mental acuity. Many people are sharp and spry late in life, but just as many start to lose it at that age.
Occam’s razor.
DougL
One of my favorite Carly incidents was back around 2002, when Microsoft was doing it’s big rollout and promotion of what was then supposed to be the next big thing in computing – the Tablet PC (that turned out really well – I mean, you just see those *everywhere* these days</sarcasm>).
Bill Gates, Carly, and a handful of other representatives of what were to be hardware OEM partners producing Tablet PCs were all on stage proudly showing off their shiny new Tablet PCs. Everybody, except Carly, that is. Instead of a shiny new Tablet PC, Carly held up her old skool legal size portfolio. The look on Bill Gates’ face was *priceless*.
I think the Register (theregister.co.uk) had a picture on their site along with the story at one point, but sadly, I can’t seem to find the picture online anywhere.
G H Diel
My friends, I am 84. I am nowhere near as aware of events around me and goings-on in the country and the world as I used to be 10 years ago, (nor do I care to be). When I was 70 I was nowhere as attentive as I was when I was 60…and neither is John McCain.
jukeboxgrad
Just changing the subject from Carly to Cindy and Carol (I guess he has a thing for women with 5-letter names starting with C).
McCain cheated on his first wife, and then lied about it in his book. He wrote that he was separated from his wife while he was running around with the younger woman (he was 42; the new woman was 24). But he wasn’t.
I guess no one seemed to notice this until just now. Today’s LAT.
jukeboxgrad
Remember, it’s not the sex. It’s the lying.
bago
Many of the older types still into “handwriting” like the tablet, but for us younger folks who have written nothing on paper since they turned 18 except for employment forms really don’t see the point.
worn
HP anecdote:
I had decided years ago to give HP a wide berth when they began putting chips in their laser jet ink cartridges that signal to the printer they were exhausted, thus negating the ability for users to be able to use refilled cartridges. The printers would still see them as empty. Something about that attitude toward customers sat sideways in my craw, even though I’ve never actually done any refilling.
But then they came out with Lightscribe technology for cd burners and, having been sorely disappointed with my experiments in using paper labels, I was fascinated. So, against my previous judgement, I gave them a chance and bought one.
It failed within 4 months of purchase.
This led to my encounter with their outsourced “customer support” department, located in India. It ultimately took me two freakin’ months to finally get an RMA for the broken drive, and this at the cost of great frustration and endless email volleys in which it became clear that their support personnel, while ostensibly “English speakers”, had a most tenuous grasp of the language.
But get the RMA I did and after several more weeks I received a (in all liklehood refurbished) replacement. This drive literally failed 8 days after installation.
Unwilling to dive back into the god-awful RMA process again, all I could say was “Fuck ’em” and buy a competitors product. They won’t ever get my money again, that’s for damn sure.
timb
Carly Fiorina may be a fraud and was certainly a failure, but I bought my HP laptop in 2005 for much less than I could get a comparable one and after three years of constant use and abuse it’s doing fine.
In 2007 I purchased a HP desktop, again for a cheaper price than comparables, and I the only problems I have relate to microsoft’s media center.
I am not a tech guy, but I am cheap and I like a good deal.
Nonetheless, Ms. Fiorina just makes me remember the wonderful words of Ann Richards regarding beneficiaries of inherited wealth and their high self-esteem (“He was born on third base and thought he hit a triple”).
Chuck Butcher
McCain has never been real good campaigner and despite what some Democrats wanted to believe in 2000 he was what he is today. It should be noted that he has the additional burden of supporting some GWB’s more assinine moves, like tax breaks and Iraq.
I have an HP printer, print only as I don’t like complications and its one difficulty is that more than about 8 copies cause it to lose part of the print data. It’s about 2 years old and has done it from the outset. Mine previous one blew up and I needed one immediately, so…
I’m curious to see, going forward, how the media treats McCain. I’m not satisfied at this point and wonder how McCain’s underdog status will work into this. They behave as though they’re in love with him – for some damn reason.
John is nicer to McCain than I am.
greg
haha…dates and quotes of outright lies….no responses
let me guess? the context is different? the saturday night live skit earlier during the primary was hiarious because it was so true. get over yourselves obama supporters. you would not care at all about this guy if he was white. you know that deep down too. racists.
Michael D.
I’ve been using Lightscribe for over a year, quite heavily. I haven’t had a glitch.
limbaugh's pilonidal cyst
Well, that just goes without saying, deznit?? Still, I dunno if even the powers have the power to fix this one as long as McSame remains the candidate, unless they can figure out some way to keep both he and his surrogates from uttering another word between now and election day. This is about the biggest bunch of flat-dicks I’ve ever seen running a presidential campaign, and I’m including the Kerry, Gore, and Dukakis campaigns. But in this media climate any generic Democratic candidate automatically starts his/her campaign in a 20-point hole so McSame just might pull it off.
worn
Michael:
I actually love the technology and use it regularly. In fact, the competitor’s drive that I bought is Lightscribe enabled. My only complaint is that I wish it provided more contrast.
It was the quickness of the HP (branded) hardware failing, the absolutely hair-pullingly abysmal customer support I received, and then the subsequent repeat of hardware failure (eight days of installation, probably 5 or 6 burns) that pissed me off. Having bought the drive to, you know, be able use it to burn stuff like system backups, that much down time was simply unacceptable to me. Which is also why I declined to contact Banglore once more.
croatoan
John McCain is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.
Rome Again
That’s why I said “try“.
McCain cannot win without the active support of the media to constantly cover up his gaffes and point attention in another direction.
limbaugh's pilonidal cyst
Guess I wasn’t doing nuance when I read that ;-)
Notorious P.A.T.
How is this “hook” done? I promise to use it for good only.
Redhand
This seems to me to be spot on. After the eight-year Bush-Cheney trainwreck, I shudder to think of this demented asshole at the helm.
Dayv
Absolutely seconded. Probably fourthed or so, scanning other comments.