The Truth will prevail, But only if we Demand it from Congress!
9-11 Inside Job and Neocons Hacked 2004
AlterNet
By Max Bergmann, Huffington Post
Posted on July 12, 2008, Printed on July 12, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/91245/
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. 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.
But let's unpack McCain's week in a little more detail.
1. McCain unambiguously called Social Security "an absolute
disgrace." This is not a quote taken out of context. John McCain
called one of the most successful and popular government programs,
which uses the tax revenues of current workers to support retirement
benefits for the elderly "an absolute disgrace." This is shocking --
and if uttered from Obama's mouth would dominate the news coverage
and the Sunday shows, as pundits would speculate about the massive
damage the statement would cause him among retirees in Florida.
2. McCain's top economic policy adviser calls Americans a bunch of
"whiners" for being worried about the slumping economy. Words cannot
fully explain how devastating this statement should be from Phil
Gramm. You would think it would be enough to sink McCain's campaign.
Of course McCain only thinks that the economic problems are
psychological.
3. Iraqi leaders call for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, McCain
gets caught in a bizarre denial and flip flop. The Iraqis now want
us to begin planning our withdrawal -- McCain however wants to stay
foooorrreeevvveerrrr. So what does McCain say -- First, he refuses
to accept Maliki's statement as being true. Then he concedes that it
was an accurate statement, but was probably just a political ploy to
curry favor with his own people and WOULD NOT influence his
determination to keep US troops in Iraq indefinitely. Yet, McCain in
2004 at the Council on Foreign Relations said that if the Iraqis
asked us to leave, we would have to go. No matter what. But that was
apparently a younger and less experienced John McCain.
But let's just look at his comment that Maliki's statement is "just
politics." If that is true, then it must also be true that the
American military presence in Iraq is so unpopular with Iraqis that
the government is forced to push for a timetable in order to survive
at the ballot box. That's a reason to stay for 100 years.
4. McCain's economic plan to cut the deficit has no details and is
simply not believable. There are so many things here. McCain pledges
he would eliminate the deficit by the end of his first term (the
campaign latter flip flop flipped about whether it was four years or
eight years), but does not provide any details about how he would do
it. Economists on both sides of the political aisle said that this
was simply not believable, especially given McCain's other proposals
to a) cut individual and corporate taxes even further, b) extend the
Bush tax cuts and c) massively increase defense spending on manpower
(200,000 more troops) and d) maintain a long-term sizable military
presence in Iraq.
5. McCain's deficit plan includes bringing the troops home
represents a major Iraq flip-flop. Speaking of the long-term
military presence -- a story that has gotten absolutely no attention
is that McCain now believes the war will be over soon. The economic
forecasts made by his crack team of economists predict that there
will be significant savings during McCain's first term because we
will have achieved "victory" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The savings
from victory (ie the savings from not having our troops there) will
then be used to pay down the deficit. The only way this could have
any impact on the deficit in McCain's first time is if troop
withdrawals start very soon. So McCain believes victory is in our
grasps and we can begin withdraw troops from Iraq pretty much right
away --- doesn't sound that different from Obama's plan does it.
Someone should at least ask McCain HOW HE DEFINES VICTORY -- and why
he thinks we will achieve it in the next couple of years.
6. McCain campaign misled about economists support. In the major
press release the McCain campaign issued to tout its Jobs for
America economic plan that would balance the budget in 4 years, it
included the signatures of more than 300 economists who the campaign
claimed to support the plan. Only problem is that the economists
were actually asked to sign up to SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.
Um, hello?
7. McCain makes a joke about killing Iranians. Haha... that's just
McCain being McCain. I am sure that is exactly how it is being
reported in Tehran. This guy is running for President not to become
a talk radio pundit. Yet according to the AP this was just a
humanizing moment between candidate and spouse -- I am not sure when
joking about the deaths of civilians became humanizing.
8. McCain denies, flatly, that he ever said that he is not an expert
in economics. Are you kidding?
9). McCain distorts his record on veterans benefits in response to a
question from Vietnam Veteran, who then proceeds to call McCain out
on it.
10.) McCain demonstrates he knows nothing about Afghanistan and
Pakistan. McCain said "I think if there is some good news, I think
that there is a glimmer of improving relationship between Karzai and
the Pakistanis." Pat Barry notes how crazy this comment is..."Just
what "glimmer" is McCain talking about?? Maybe he's referring to
President Karzai's remarks last month, which threatened military
action in Pakistan if cross-border attacks persisted? Or maybe
McCain is talking about Afghanistan's allegations that Pakistan's
ISI was involved in a recent assassination attempt on Karzai? Maybe
in McCain's world you could call that a silver-lining, but in
reality-land I'd call it something else."
Any one of these incidents and comments would dominate the news
cycle if they came from the Obama campaign. Yet McCain barely gets a
mention. The press like to see themselves as political referees --
neutral observers that call them like they see em'. But they want
this to be a horse race and so all the calls right now are going one
way. How else can you explain the furor last week over the Obama
"refine" comment -- which represented zero change in Obama's
position on Iraq -- and the "swift boat" mania over Wesley Clark's
uncontroversial comments (psss... by the way McCain exploits his POW
experience in just about every ad -- yet he says he doesn't like to
talk about it).
This Sunday expect the ten incidents above to get short shrift from
pundit after pundit, because after all Jesse Jackson said he wanted
to cut Obama's nuts off.
AlterNet is a nonprofit organization and does not make political
endorsements. The opinions expressed by its writers are their own.
Max Bergmann is Deputy Policy Director at the National Security
Network and is a regular contributer to Democracy Arsenal.
© 2008 Huffington Post All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/91245/
