Ouch: McCain throws Lieberman under the bus
While waiting to do a segment with Neil Cavuto on Nancy’s Big Wind Boone-doggle, I watched John McCain’s press conference on the Russia/Georgia conflict. He was looking pretty strong and presidential, and made a high-minded statement in response to a reporter’s question about the Obama camp’s attacks on his aggressive stance. The reporter asked McCain what he thought of Obama foreign policy adviser #299 Susan Rice’s claim that McCain helped cause the war.
I’m paraphrasing here, but the gist was that McCain felt it was “no time” to indulge in partisanship and that the candidates needed to rises above that to put the interest of suffering Georgians first.
And then, it went downhill.
Fox News’s Carl Cameron smartly followed up by asking about Sen. Joe Lieberman’s razzing of Obama’s equivocation yesterday. Here’s what Lieberman said:
“The last few days, four or five days, we’ve seen one of the most unexpected crises in the world as the Russians moved into Georgia as aggressors,” said Lieberman.
“And if you read the statements from the beginning, Senator McCain and Senator Obama, one had kind of moral neutrality to it, that comes I think from inexperience. The other, Senator McCain, was strong and clear and principled and put America where America always wants to be.
Instead of backing up his Democrat friend and ally, McCain grimaced and repeated his initial statement that this was “no time” to engage in partisanship.
Another reporter, noting that Lieberman was standing right beside him, asked McCain to revisit the question. McCain again refused to back up Liebs.
Under the bus, Joe.
The Fox camera panned back and forth between McCain and Lieberman. Lieberman was stoic. But the skid marks are fresh.
What McCain should have said?
Here:
There is a fundamental difference between what my friend Sen. Lieberman pointed out yesterday and what my opponents’ operatives shamelessly claim. Sen. Lieberman provided accurate analysis. My opponents indulged in reckless demagoguery. And those who can’t tell the difference have no business being in a position of power on the world stage at this critical moment.
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I agree that McCain wasn’t dismissing Liebs. He clearly stated his position on such questions and then was asked another question of the same type. That he refused to discuss it further shows that he wasn’t talking in sound-bites but actually meant what he said.
I’m voting McCain more because I’m anti-Obama than because I’m a McCain fan, but I’ve gotta stand with Maverick on this one.
Just saw the President of Georgia on Glenn Beck. We have got to DO something for these poor people.
We need to put together some kind of mantra, like “divert all Javelins to Georgia.”
We are selling them to EVERYONE who doesn’t NEED them anyway.
Army Technology .com, some numbers:
UK: 18 Launchers, 144 missiles
Taiwan: 60 / 360
Australia: 92 / 600
Jordan (What!?!?) 30 / 110
New Zealand (Why?) 24 / Unknown
Norway (Huh?) 90 / 526
Ireland & Canada (Wasted on both! What are they going to do, shoot polar bears and leprechauns?) 200 / 840
UAE (Will end up being used on us one day:) 100 / 1000 (!)
Oman (Ditto): 30 / 250
Bahrain (Ditto): 60 / 180
USA (My estimate): 1000+ / 10,000+
So go borrow all the ones from our “allies” and those sitting around at Lockheed Martin warehouses and air drop them, ASAP!
See what these suckers can do:
Javelin on YouTube
They can be launched vertically and find their target. They can be launched from inside of a room and find their target. They can be fired from a moving car - the ultimate drive-by!
Gee, what a surprise. I didn’t realize he got the boot.
Heh! And, I was shocked to find out I was an “ingrate.” Imagine my surprise to find out how ungrateful I was not to appreciate him and his buddy, Shorts, bashing our hostess on at least the three threads I was looking at yesterday.
Mavericks have just got run free…?
I’m pretty sure, if he had not gotten banned, we would still have the pages filled up with his mindless rants today.
Wade said:
On August 13th, 2008 at 5:21 pm,
“I got a different feel McCain was dismissing the question, not Lieberman. He seemed upset that he had beenfrom this one. It seemed to me that asked yet another partisan question (the third, I think) after stating he didn’t want to politicize the issue right now.”
The probelm with that is both he and Obama have already addressed it politically.
With this goofiness he just fumbled the ball right into Obama’s hands and has, in effect, rendered himself incapable of any further comments. All Obama has to do now on this, or anything, for that matter, is say “There he goes politicizing —– again.” citing McCain’s own (self)objections. It’s an idiotic corner McCain has painted himself into here.
So, Barry, are you one of the “gun crazy hillbilles” that are “looking for” him?
You -must- be a “Christian Fundamentalist” from “the South”.
BZ on exposing that little turd, though.
Er, “hillbillies“
Oooh, Ed!
I hadn’t thought of that.
V-e-e-e-e-ery interesting, and a great point.
Listened to JC Watts talking to Hannity a month or so ago. He came really close to saying he was voting for Obama.
Those are the one-off troll types. Somehow they get aroused by spewing a psychotic rant and getting booted. Might make an interesting psycho-sexual study for some really bored shrink.
Hmmmm, do you think Powell is getting ready to climb aboard the Obamus?
It’s fair to say that the majority of black folks get excited at the prospect of even a somewhat black person, no matter how unqualified, being President.
Well, “Barry F.”
Mebbe’, you’d be kind enough to ’splain Ms. Malkin’s newfound luv-affair with po’ ol’ Liebermann.
Particularly, when Liebermann voted EXACTLY THE SAME as McCain on the immigration issue.
That’s just in public Bob, you know, so he doesn’t wake up some morning with a horse’s head in his bed.
This was hardly throwing Lieberman under the bus. Simply disagreeing with what he said. Had he agreed we probably would have had an hysterical “McCain panders to a democrat” post.
Gee, it’s fun to pretend, isn’t it?
We are less then 90 days away from the election. It’s hard enough to go up against the lavishly funded democrat machine without your supposed allies taking pot shots at you from behind.
By the way Colin Powell denied that he is going to the Democrat convention.
Well, I am from East Tennessee. So, I guess I might have to concede to being somewhat of a hillbilly.
My wife has been trying to get me to move to Alaska but I don’t think even the possibility of running across KevoTron is enough to inspire me to leave the foothills of Appalachia.
Okay, first, Michelle is married. If I recall proper etiquette, it should be “Mrs. Malkin.”
Second, what “luv-affair?” She views McCain’s comments as a slap in the face to Lieberman, who has stood by - literally, even, today - and supported McCain. I don’t think it’s breaking news that Michelle isn’t too crazy about The Maverick but it would be news to me if she had a crush on Lieberman.
I think both McCain and Obama better watch this 3rd party candidate:
http://www.news3online.com/index.php?code=9wMv218R593F90wGV0jG
Listening to Condi the other day I was getting the feeling she would endorse Barack.
So, it IS nothing more than a hit-piece on McCain.
Right?
Two things on that, 1. His hottie is better than Baracks and 2. He’s got a bus in case he needs to throw people under there.
And let’s look at exactly what McCain disagreed with:
“Senator McCain and Senator Obama, one had kind of moral neutrality to it, that comes I think from inexperience. The other, Senator McCain, was strong and clear and principled and put America where America always wants to be.”
Are you sure you want McCain to disagree with that?
Maybe in your imagination. But with this McCain actually did “pander to a Democrat”, namely Barack Hussein Obama.
I don’t care about Liberalman’s feelings. McAmnesty surrounds himself with non-masculine panty waste wimps like Liberalman and Lindsay Ghramnisty. “Reach across the aisle” while the gang of ten undermines conservatives? More like a “reach around” while he screws the country with his open border, amnesty policy.
Why couldn’t have Fred Thompson been awake while running and why didn’t the conservative blogs cover his first debate and support him with a passion?
Our days of greatness are behind us…
This melting pot thang is really working well yo.
Shep Smith said earlier that “everyone’s still trying to figure out who started it all in Georgia…” (or something to that effect). Is there something about being in front of live video cameras that gives you brain damage?
People we supported and encouraged are now abandoned, dying, and losing their freedom to a post-KGB thuggery and all we can do is… but you can figure out the rest.
Look,
Is the Russian invasion of Georgia something that politicians should come to an agreement about?…Or, Not?
Not ALL issues require opposition.
“Iraq” has been treated as a partisan issue, and look at the damage THAT caused.
Shall we go down that road again?
I don’t see a hit piece in what Michelle has said in this thread. She has been pretty equal opportunity on pointing out taking both candidates to task on their positions. If anything, she is easier on McCain. I haven’t heard her endorse anyone for POTUS in 2008. Do you know of an endorsement by her that I have missed?
LOL. That is a snark-parody comment, right?
Michelle, I think Tom and Bob are correct you should run for President.
Michelle delivers more thrashings of The Annointed One in one day than McCain ever has in his lifetime. Of course, that’s a pretty low bar to jump over given McCain’s fear of saying something upsetting about/to Obama.
McCain has (maybe “had” if he fired them) a few good people who bodyslammed Obama in the polls via some good ads a few weeks back, but McCain himself just doesn’t have the bark, nor the bite.
Face it, McCain knows that most of the GOP base will still vote for him as the lesser of two evils, so he doesn’t need to say or do anything that would appeal to Conservatives. Knowing that he is technically more Conservative than his Marxist opponent, he just needs to try to siphon off liberals.
He only panders to those who he doesn’t have a majority of support from.
I still think he’s a crapweasel.
I will concede that The One gets more raking over the coals but, like you note, McCain tries to keep from saying anything controversial, even if it ends up being controversial, despite his intentions. Obama is content talking directly to the interests of his base, which runs contrary to the beliefs of most everyone on this site. And, that make for plenty of fodder for a write/blogger, like Michelle.
I wouldn’t bank on conservatives falling in that “majority of support” category, yet. That could be just a little premature, just yet.
I’d say good luck to him with the “Leftists For McCain” drive. I hope too many Kos Kidz don’t get trampled in the frenzied rush to sign up; they’re annoying, but yet unintentionally amusing.
Can we have a floor vote at the GOP convention?
Yeah and even given the doubt that it could be matter of “damned if you do and damned if you don’t”, he should do/say the right thing even if it gets the media, the Dems or whomever all a-twitter.
It’s the same with Obama’s excuses for not visiting wounded troops. If it really were a DIYD&DIYDnt situation, it’s better to have taken the slings and arrows for doing the right thing.
Controversy resulting from doing the right thing is a net plus in the long run. America admires that trait.
God! Can the party dump this guy and get someone who actually, consistently, has a pair? In the morning he’ll be firing on all cylinders, yet at the day he’s sputtering in reverse.
McCain is sending his own personal diplomatic mission to Georgia. This is presumption on a scale far more vast than putting a seal on an airplane seat.
What you wrote Michelle is perfect.
Now lets take a page from the libs and claim;
“that IS what McCain said and meant all along, and then we will claim that is what he has always said.”
Is there a chance that a conservative could be nominated at the convention and McAmnesty kicked to the liberal curb from which he crawled?
Are you referring to Lieberman and Graham, both members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, by the way, going to Georgia? Probably not the smartest move for two U.S. Senators going into a hot war zone. But, their hardly a “personal diplomatic mission.”
I think your paranoia is getting the better of you…, again.
Lemme’ put it this way…
If Obonzo were president, Putin and his Puppet president Medeved would be slapping his pansy-ass like a circus-monkey.
Not so much, with McCain.
You mean like NanzyPanzy going to Syria? Those big-D congressmen going to Iraq before we deposed Saddam?
Did you say anything about that back then?
Aw, come on, Barry - if they were acting like real Senators they’d be bodysurfing in Hawaii and stutter out clueless “We are the world” Pooh bromides in the event of a major international crisis instead.
Obama sent his diplomats to Georgia a few days ago. They were last seen in a topless club in Atlanta.
Ah, so you were making a funny. Sometimes I don’t always catch ‘em, so when in doubt I ask.
Glad we got this thread back.
ED, don’t feed the troll.
Michelle, please keep an eye on this YUP (lgm clone), pretty please.
DON’T FEED THE TROLLS, it takes too long to sort thru the trash to read the real comments.
Open registration always has an adverse affect for about two weeks…it will pass like flatulence, but don’t light it up.
Yeah. “Citizens of the world, unite!’, off Oahu.
They should have gotten a Tom-Tom, instead of an Obama-bam, I guess.
To be fair, after someone explained it to Obama he did order them to go that other Georgia everybody’s talking about. But when he heard they could score some truly primo nose-candy in Atlanta, Obama reversed himself.
McCain didn’t throw Lieberman under the bus. He merely deflected the media’s questions because they wanted to “gotcha” him.
Lieberman did not get steamrolled. McCain didn’t push him under the bus. Though I think one person he should push under the bus (and into the path of an oncoming streetsweeper) is Tom Ridge.
I’m not sure how you get that, Sakaki. He’s supposed to take exception at his having the experience to better handle an international crisis?
I wouldn’t mind throwing Senator Liberman under a bus or two, figuratively of course. Or not.
For the life of me I do not understand Conservatives slathering over Senator Liberman. Yes the man is strong on National Defense, particulary the war on mohammedism. But on every other issue he is hard left.
We have our own RINOs to fill that niech, why import a Democrat?
I’ll have to go to CheetasII and see if there any left wing boobs there.
To those who have high-jacked this thread and especially YUP:
Please, I normally enjoy most all comments and debates on this thread. However, I find your discussion so off topic and crude that I will ask nicely that you please refrain from the vulgarity and take your private war elsewhere.
I have too much respect for Michelle to engage, so this is a polite request so the rest of us can get back to constructive discussion of the topic at hand, which bears no relation to racism, Powell, or sexual organs.
Thank you in advance.
McCain and Lieberman are looney-tunes aggressor peas in a pod themselves (Hey, Joe, wanna nuke Iran?), but they are just a little out of sync on politicking.
McCain in here in a war mode, calling for all Americans to rally around his plans to get us into a thermonuclear war with Russia. Lieberman is here in a campaign mode, blasting Obama. McCain’s war mode and Lieberman’s war mode are identical, and their campaign modes also; but in this case they are simply out of sync, McCain in war mode and Lieberman in campaign mode.
I cannot agree with the premise that McCain “threw Lieberman under the bus.” IMHO he was attempting to not make Georgia a partisan issue and wanted to avoid any hint of that at all costs. If he had responded he would have had to discuss Obama’s response to some extent. McCain had no choice, but to make the appropriate response that he did. I would bet you dinner that Senator Lieberman was not the least bit upset or hurt by MaCain’s remarks.
McCain is right. Georgia should not be a partisan issue. Maybe Lieberman should turn things down a bit on this issue. There are other issues he can go after Obama on.
JohnnyMac is always so quick on his feet.
It happens sometimes, and this thread is another example.
McCain could have picked Lieiberman up a little bit after everything Joe has give up to support him. In the end, it won’t matter. McCain has shown the ability to slam and attack Obama repeatedly throughout this summer. He’ll continue to aggressively attack him until the election. Joe Lieberman will continue his job as seeing eye guy and sycophant. Nothing to see here…
IMHO, it wasn’t a toss under the bus compared to the swift kicks by Obama, but rather a misguided attempt to appear presidential.
Michelle’s well thought example would have been ideal, but evidently McCain wasn’t thinking quick enough to seize the opportunity to fully capitalize on the situation.
My vote this November will be a vote against Obama, so it would make me feel much better if McCain had a little more speed in his synapses. (nose clip ready for November!).
That’s pretty much it. If only Jeffords had not jumped first, McMoron could be the Democratic nominee.
McCain didn’t throw anyone under the bus. Lieberman is taking the “Cheney” roll in this campaign. He get’s to be the bulldog and McCain is allowed to take the highroad.
I agree. McCain was wincing at someone saying something slightly negative about O-what’s-his-face. He bends over backwards to not be “partisan”… when that’s exactly what he needs to be!
I’d be surprised if he did, MsJ. As I mentioned upthread a few of his people administered a good pounding recently with some effective ads that took down Obama;s poll numbers. But McCain himself just doesn’t seem to have the killer political instinct.
In the primaries he got nasty with Romney, but that was just for a bit and he came off as a cranky jerk. I’m thinking here of a debate in particular where he repeatedly and intentionally misrepresented Romney on Iraq.
He doesn’t seem to be aware that the key is keeping Obama on the defense all the time. Even Bush I, not exactly an election-warrior, was able to pound the daylights out of a Dukakis 16 point summer lead with simple things like the pledge of alligience issue in ‘88.
purplepeep said:
Well, no, that isn’t “exactly” what McCain disagreed with. Liebermann spoke those remarks the day before even according to this hit piece that is now being echoed by the NY times which increasingly difficult to distinguish from this blog.
Lieberman is actually going to Georgia (along with Lindsey Graham) on McCain’s behest… Or is it going to be argued here that McCain is just trying to get poor “Liebs” (excuse me while I puke) killed because the bus didn’t quite do it?
Seriously, isn’t there enough wrong to latch on to without tossing out these completely skewed and unfair stories?
Let’s face it, McCain doesn’t know a friend from an enemy, and I’m not sure he has enough friends left to keep this up. We’re faced with the lesser of two weevils in the fall.
He said that did he? Actually I believe he is saying there is not much we can do for Georgia but we have to reassess our relationship with Russia–as in we shouldn’t have one. Mother Russia is on the march to regain her lost empire and we dare not be too close. But if we cut off all flights and ships from America/Russia, stopped all dollar exhanges and expelled all Russian passports from the United States we would all be better off for it.
But if you have a link please share.
I’m sorry, but I have to agree with McCain here. What’s happening to Georgia need not be apart of political gamesmanship. Part of being presidential is knowing when to use politics and when there should be a unified front.
McCain’s smart enough to realize that this is going to be a long standing issue that goes beyond our election cycle and America doesn’t need to be boxed into a policy that occurs because politicians are jockying for votes. American’s who are paying attention to this issue can clearly see the difference between the two stances without having to make this an election issue.
Quite frankly, I feel like both Obama and McCain should shut up and let the current president handle this. Anything less than a consistent message shows weakness to the commies, who will use this split to their advantage.
As for “theotherside’s” comments, there is no comparison between Lincoln and Obama. (You clearly forget that Lincoln was a VP candidate before being a presidential candidate); hence he was on the national seen for a substantially longer period than Obama, and was intimately involved in the most pressing issue of the 19th century (not to mention the fact that we wasn’t afraid of a debate, hiding behind puff pieces rather than answering questions, and pimping out his children even after he said it was a mistake)
purplepeep said:
“And let’s look at exactly what McCain disagreed with:”
Actually, it is. I noticed you were afraid to quote it. So let’s look - verbatum - at what you want McCain to reject:
“if you read the statements from the beginning, Senator McCain and Senator Obama, one had kind of moral neutrality to it, that comes I think from inexperience. The other, Senator McCain, was strong and clear and principled and put America where America always wants to be.”
You can deny that is what was said, but you’d only be self-deluding. I would add that advising McCain to reject his own worthiness as a leader in international affairs is not just counter-productive, but outright goofy.
That’s certainly a waste of time after McCain claimed he cannot comment on the situation because it’s “political” and because politicians disagree (how awful). He handed Obama a bat to beat him over the head with on that account.
If he back-pedals from his current no-comment position - as he surely will have to - he’ll be rightly skewed for flip-flopping. Obama and surrogates will be leading that charge.
McCain simply fumbled the ball on this when he could have passed for an easy touchdown.
As I said, you should be on watch for self-delusion.
However, in the interest of following McCain’s speak-no-evil kumbaya bipartisanship lead, you are obviously welcome to intervene in the ongoing blog entries where Michelle takes apart The One and stand up in the Obamessiahs defense so as not to upset him, the Dems, the media or to whomever McCain is defering.
But with McCain having took steady aim at foot and fired (at his own ability to lead), I don’t know that you’d really wanna follow his lead in so doing.
He’s almost saying “I’m not going to do the partisan thing here. I’ll let my surrogates do that. But I’m going to operate above that, because we have a serious, ongoing foreign policy issue.”
I actually was sucked into this post by the title; I was hoping McCain nixed Liebs as a VP choice. But that’s still not at all clear at this point.
On August 14th, 2008 at 12:59 am, purplepeep said:
Indeed, your dutiful regurgitation of something that was deliberately kept as ambiguous as possible to reflect as badly on the Republican presidential candidate intimidated the hell out of me.
If you can point out where I said that I wanted McCain to reject something by all means do so. Otherwise please do not ascribe a course of action that I have not advocated to me.
So yes, let’s look -
verbatumverbatim - at whatyou want McCain to rejectWhat was ACTUALLY said… Since Michelle didn’t link to any source that cited the quotations I dug it up:At his news conference today, Mr. McCain was asked whether his own comments in support of Georgia had not made the situation worse. He dismissed the question, saying this was not a time for “partisanship and sniping” between campaigns but about a human tragedy. He was then asked if Mr. Lieberman had not injected politics with his comments in Teaneck.
“I think that whatever we think at the moment, that we can all reserve that for a future time,” Mr. McCain said softly. “And I think judgments will be made about how we handled this situation, how we approached the situation in Iraq and how much experience and knowledge and background means in selecting the American people’s decision about who should be commander in chief.”
[…]
Asked again whether Mr. Lieberman had politicized the issue and if he was calling on his campaign to refrain from such comments, Mr. McCain said:
“I’m sorry to be repetitious. This is no time for that. This is no time for that. The time now is for the United States of America to act united on behalf of the people of the country of Georgia and not do a lot of partisan sniping.”
He said that when the crisis is resolved and troops are withdrawn, “then we’ll move on back to the back and forth of campaigning and comments back and forth.”
Gee, as it turns out, and let me quote it “- verbatim –” (good lord)
Was not quoted or, more importantly rejected.
According to someone who skewed the story. Whether or not he should have hammered it home that Obama is a boob rather then stating that politics should take a back seat I don’t know. It might have looked like he was trying too hard to capitalize on other peoples tragedies.
You have something on your nose again.
Again: It is a Loooooooooooong way from what was said as quoted above to get to:
Has everyone forgotten how Liberman trashed the Republicans during his VP attempt?
El_Guapo:
As I stated over at TIW:
I guess my 53 years on the planet and fighting wars has given me the ability to burn thru the chaffe and recognize the willful bashing McCain because he isn’t conservative enough.
Simply amazing.
Yeah. Let’s let Czarbama in the White House so he can enact thru Executive Order the Fairness Doctrine and then every conservative voice and blog will vanish.
Yep. GREAT plan.
Pathetic.
God, I hate ‘Political Correctness’. He is not throwing them under a bus, but stabbing them in the back.
He didn’t learn to be a Backstabber only after becoming a Senator, but learned it as a child.