Althouse: McCain's...

December 18, 2007

McCain's...

... momentum.

22 comments:

Joaquin said...: Consider this 'momentum' a mere bleeep on the political radar screen.
McCain has alienated so many Republicans on so many issues that it would take divine intervention for him to get anywhere near the front of the pack.

GOD SAVE THE AL.; 12/18/07, 8:14 AM
Amexpat said...: Hope for his sake it's not Jomentum.; 12/18/07, 8:19 AM
Bill_45 said...: Another link to Reason magazine and Matt Welch about the John McCain endorsements:

One of the reasons my John McCain book was subtitled The Myth of a Maverick instead of, say, An Ideological Portrait, was that you couldn't adequately paint the latter without scraping off the scum of the former. The four-decade love affair between the media and the son/grandson of four-star Navy admirals so distorts any basic discussion that it's necessary to first point out that much of what we think we know about the man -- that he's a "man of the people," a straight-talker, a world-weary pragmatist on foreign policy -- is provably false by the senator's own words, no matter how many times you read otherwise in your morning paper.

Take this weekend's McCain endorsements in the Des Moines Register, Boston Globe, Manchester Union-Leader, and Portsmouth Herald. Not content with supporting a candidate they feel affinity for, each of these newspapers are backing a man who, in fact, does not exist.; 12/18/07, 8:25 AM
Anonymous said...: The New York Times will soon endorse McCain, and thereby end his presidential ambitions.

The Boston Globe endorsement is your precursor.

Anyone the Times and Globe want to be President is automatically erased from my consideration.; 12/18/07, 8:29 AM
paul a'barge said...: John McCain is not suitable to be the President.

Here's hoping the folks in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina send him packing.; 12/18/07, 8:41 AM
rhhardin said...: Somebody will probably bring up McCain on free speech , if not on amnesty, and remind voters what they're facing, a guy with a steel trap mind.

That free speech position is probably what the NYT likes most about him. Illegals are just a bonus.; 12/18/07, 8:42 AM
hdhouse said...: Ohhhh mo. He hasn't gone ballistic in a while..just a few snides and a couple crimsons..but not that famous Mc C temper. Just waiting for that.

In the mean time, I noted in the picture the good Senator from Connecticut pushing him off the GOP cliff...now there is real mo.; 12/18/07, 9:53 AM
rcocean said...: Wow, Lieberman and the Register have endorsed him. Add Ted Kennedy and the New York TImes and he's unstoppable.

What color is the sky in Manhattan, is it blue?; 12/18/07, 9:55 AM
Swifty Quick said...: If they had remade The Caine Mutiny a few years ago when he was a wee bit younger, I know who I would've wanted to see in the Humphrey Bogart/Captain Queeg role.; 12/18/07, 10:16 AM
MadisonMan said...: It's bizarre to me that McMomentum comes as a "Democratic" Senator endorses him. Are there really Republican Primary voters who care what Lieberman thinks? Does the endorsement carry any weight at all?; 12/18/07, 10:46 AM
Simon said...: MM, that was my thought. And it seems to me that the NYT is just hedging its bets - either the GOP nominee or the Dem nominee will be President, so push for the GOP to nominate the candidate that's closest to your own position just in case they win.; 12/18/07, 11:17 AM
hdhouse said...: simon...it might also be, as rush limberger just said, "you have to doubt the sincerity of the NYT" because (paraphrasing) it is the most unbelievable MSM source and it is there purposfully to throw republicans off track and not vote for him...a vote for McC is a vote against the times.

i just love this.; 12/18/07, 12:10 PM
Simon said...: Well, y'know, when Burger King starts recommending selections off McDonalds' menu, you do rather wonder what the motivation behind it is.; 12/18/07, 12:59 PM
hdhouse said...: well hold the lettuce simon. actually i don't think the nyt's goes to that length but it is a nice thought. i would more think that they like to toss that stuff out and see who goes crazy...rush is always a gullible target.

i'm sure sean, savage, etc. will join in the fools chorus tonight...and o'really...he will put this right up with hijacking christmas; 12/18/07, 2:46 PM
blake said...: "...highly sought newspaper endorsements..."

Heh.; 12/18/07, 3:23 PM
Ruth Anne Adams said...: Hope for his sake it's not Jomentum.

Hey! Joementum beat 'Nedrenaline' in Connecticut. It could help. Let's hope it's not just Joe-vo-Cain and numbs everyone.; 12/18/07, 3:26 PM
blake said...: I don't get the accusations of conniving, however. Any group is going to endorse the candidate that most agrees with their views on things, hence the Huckaboost and the McCain "mo".

Someone pointed out that the Des Moines Register endorsement was the kiss of death amongst Iowa Reps.

It's sort of silly to think that endorsements are always helpful. Didn't Al-Qaeda endorse Kerry?; 12/18/07, 3:26 PM
Anonymous said...: In addition to his stands on amnesty, free speech, and all the other quibbles here, he purports to be against torture, yet he himself caved under torture and gave accurate information. I'm not criticizing him--I'm sure I'd do the same--but how does that square with being against torture because o/w others will torture our guys (they already have, him and many others) or that it produces no accurate information (he gave accurate information).; 12/18/07, 5:45 PM
Anonymous said...: Gee, Pat, if torture is so effective, why don't we use it on everyone arrested. After all, we know they probably did it, whatever it is. Start up a campaign for "Waterboards Across America," Pat. Let's put one in every police station. Two or three in the high crime areas.

As for those foreigners you mention who torture, they also lop people's heads off with some regularity and no due process. Since they are going to do it anyway, I imagine you are all for matching them tit for tat there too.

On AmbivaBlog, Simon has wonderfully appropriate quote from Abraham Lincoln:

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Those who are so ready to overturn our nation's laws, long-standing practices and historical ideals because "everyone else is doing it" are kith and kin of those ready to shred our civil liberties in the name of "security" or "the public good." It is they who will destroy this nation from within, not the loud and lazy leftists they so noisily and busily point to, warning all and sundry "Beware! The Enemy in our midst!" But the real enemies of our freedom are those who are happy to sacrifice it at the altar of fear.

Care to sample the Kool-Aid, Pat?; 12/18/07, 10:28 PM
blake said...: Geez, Randy, was there a strawman blow-out at Wal-Mart this weekend?

It's a far cry from "torture is obviously effective in some cases" to "let's use it in domestic cases on U.S. citizens!"

I'm guessing there was a blue-light special on moral equivalence, given your subsequent leap to "let's saw their heads off while we're at it."

It'd be like someone on the other side saying, "So, Randy, you must think we shouldn't vigorously question terrorists even if it would save a billion lives."; 12/19/07, 1:52 AM
Fen said...: Randy: Care to sample the Kool-Aid, Pat?

*digs through Randy's platoon of strawmen, searching for the root cause of his retreat*

Ah, here it is:

How can McCain claim torture is not effective when it was used effectively on him?

/and do strawmen gather in gaggles or herds? A murder of strawmen? hmmm...; 12/19/07, 2:33 AM
Anonymous said...: Randy,
You're taking the easy way out of an argument you don't want to engage: ad hominem attacks, moral superiority, emotional hysteria. McCain has also avoided dealing with it.

I think you're misconstruing Lincoln's point, but after all he revoked habeas corpus, so he must be just another Fascist. Check your history a little closer if you think our current delicate, high minded sensibilities were always so.; 12/19/07, 1:38 PM