Writes d-day in a long comments thread that began last Friday.
What you need to understand, d, is that I am plagued by a vivid imagination. It's easy to look at Obama and see what you don't like. Whenever you do, think about what McCain would have done and spin the wheel forward a few turns. That's what I do. I think McCain would have played nice with Congress. And the Republican Party would be in shambles instead of scrambling to get its act together for the next election.
Here's my original 2008 election post-mortem — "How McCain Lost Me". Excerpt, beginning with a quote of something I'd written just before the election:
"Usually, I prefer divided government, but that doesn't mean I need to support McCain. I've seen McCain put way too much effort into pleasing Democrats and flouting his own party, and I can picture Obama standing up to the Democratic Congress and being his own man. What, really, will he owe them? McCain, by contrast, will need them. And we've seen that he wants to be loved by them.Yes, yes, I know. The "clarification" is killing us, and once we're dead, there's no coming back. And Obama isn't standing up to the Democratic Congress, unless he's doing it in some really subtle way that one day I'll appreciate.
"Sometimes, I think that letting the Democrats control everything for 2 years would work out just fine. Let one party take responsibility for everything. When they can't whine and finger-point, what will they actually step up and do? It will be interesting to know. And it will do the Republicans good to retool and define themselves, with an eye toward the 2010 election. I'd like to see this clarification after so many years of obfuscation."
This goes along with my problem that McCain had abandoned the effort to define himself as conservative. I could see myself voting for a conservative. I would like some good conservatism. But I did not see it in McCain. Certainly, just bringing in Palin was no substitute for having his own clear principles.
It's hard, but I still have my...
... Althousity of Hope.
पोस्ट्स
६६ टिप्पण्या:
I wish I had time for this, but work calls :)
the professor pictured Obama standing up to a Democratic Congress, not what we have now, Congress standing up to a Democratic Obama.
Still, it's divided government, n'est-ce pas?
Is there no analog to Sim City or Second Life in which we could simulate a McCain-led country?
. I think McCain would have played nice with Congress. And the Republican Party would be in shambles instead of scrambling to get its act together for the next election.
This is also along the lines of what I have said. With McCain we would have continued the slow drifting towards a completely socialist society, as has been happening for the last 40 years or more. The changes are slow and not very noticiable to those who don't pay attention or don't study history.
I've likened it to the proverbial frogs in the hot water bath who don't realize they are being gently boiled alive, until it is too late.
With Obama, the left got too cocky and suddenly turned up the heat to full blast and woke up the sleepy frogs. Too much too soon and now we are awake and aware of the danger.
Thank you Obama for making people become active and finally attempting to take control of our own destiny. If it means that we have to remove all of the complacent old school politicians in the Republican party, like McCain, you have done us a great service by being a far far left radical and stirring the pot.
In addition to your althousity of hope, you have all your fingers attached, which is more than some people can say.
How much worse does Obama have to get before Althouse decides McCain would have been better?
I like that question because it frames the question quantitatively instead of qualitatively. It posits that that there is some tipping point where Obama's performance can measurably dive beneath the level of performance expected from a hypothetical McCain presidency. Assessing this quantitatively is still difficult. I suggest as a starting place asking whether each accomplishment of the Obama presidency would have happened under McCain. Start with trying KSM in NYC.
I voted for McCain because, however wretched a politician he was, he had a decent track record on budget issues. I can't imagine any president surrendering authority to Congress the way Obama has. (Why name Rahm Emanuel as your Chief of Staff if you're just going to give power away?)
I think many people expected Obama to do better on process. He talked about transparency. He had good economic advisers. He sounded like a good technocrat. Then he was elected and all the only Obama that showed up for the job was Marketing Obama. Welcome to Washington Mr. Spokesmodel.
But as time passes, to argue that McCain would have been better is an increasingly cloudy hypothetical. McCain could easily have been awful in unexpected ways, in the manner of Churchill protege Anthony Eden, or former war hero U.S.Grant.
I think Althouse is right about the longer-term benefit to the Republican Party. Goldwater to Reagan took 16 years, but 8 years of Keynesian Nixon didn't help.
I just glanced through the comments in that thread you linked. What happened to madawaskan?
I miss madawaskan.
How much worse does Obama have to get before Althouse decides McCain would have been better?
This was discussed last week. Sorry, but after I vote, I dispense with what ifs. How do they help?
The choice was between two Senators, for God's Sake. McCain was behaving very erratically -- everyone remember the campaign suspension? The odd Vice Presidential pick (Who picks someone who will eclipse them?!)?
I'm confused: Does the "Althousity of Hope" involve hoping your right or hoping your wrong?
The logic seems to imply that Stalin would be an even better President than Obama. That is cruel neutrality of the highest discipline. Bravo!
When they can't whine and finger-point, what will they actually step up and do?
Whine even louder, and point even more emphatically.
I wonder if the question is "have you changed your mind now?" or "knowing what you know now, would you have changed your decision then?"
Two different questions.
I can see having buyer's remorse as the situation changes, but I can also see holding fast to a foolish decision because it was a decision you made.
Your call.
This was discussed last week. Sorry, but after I vote, I dispense with what ifs. How do they help?
I kind of agree with you there MM. I'd rather see a discussion on the merits of voting against candidates as a general principle. I think it's relevant then and will be in the future as I suspect many voters will be voting against candidates and their agenda on both sides.
I'd also like to hear from people besides Cedarford and JAC on this because while I appreciate their interest in the matter, I already know what their answers will be.
no FLS, it is not divided government. what you have is a few blue dogs against the crazy lemming wing of the party.
I myself have a hard time believing that McCain could ever have been as terrible as obama has been so far. When you have a lively debate about whether this guy is just clueless, or up to some evil master plan, it is a bad, bad sign. no, i didn't enthusiastically vote for mccain, but again, it is simply unimaginable that mccain would be so utterly incompetant.
There seems to be a lot of one sided analysis involving Obama being better than the worst possible McCain.
I didn't like McCain, but he had a long record of not being a disaster and the other was simply some mystery guy who was not him. No experience, no record, not even college transcripts. Just a job interview where he refused to answer a lot of questions. An irresponsible choice.
Obama is bad, but at the time of the election, there was no proof that he would not be even worse than he is. Now, imagine how bad an ambitious, unknown, untested leftist narcissist with delusions of grandeur could be. That was the choice before us.
I think this is your best defense. Yes, Obama is transparently unfit and always was. Yes, you and a lot of other otherwise intelligent people fooled yourselves into thinking he is something no clear-eyed person would think he is. But the alternative was McCain.
The Republicans will (might) get their act together like they would not have if McCain had won and, as with the Carter aftermath, America will soon be free of the scourge liberalism for another generation.
It's an after the fact rationalization, not a before the fact reason, but in the long run this may be the better outcome.
I can see having buyer's remorse as the situation changes, but I can also see holding fast to a foolish decision because it was a decision you made.
How does "holding fast" even come into play here? It's not as if we can un-elect Obama if enough minds were changed about him.
I think it's clear that Ann is disappointed in Obama's performance. She hoped he would be pragmatic and independent of the partisan scolds in Congress. She was wrong about Obama, but she wasn't wrong then to hope, and she's not wrong now about it, either.
I agree with DBQ that a McCain presidency most likely would have been a nightmare for conservatives, and Obama's over-reaching has had the unintended effect of getting people to pay attention as he tries to remake our country. We have a chance to recognize this existential struggle for what it is, and thus have a better chance than is historically typical to survive it as a nation.
"Sometimes, I think that letting the Democrats control everything for 2 years would work out just fine. Let one party take responsibility for everything. When they can't whine and finger-point, what will they actually step up and do? It will be interesting to know."
Well now we know. If given control the Democrats will destroy the economy, bankrupt the government, offend our allies and grovel to our enemies.
I think a lot of people are guilty of magic thinking, that somehow by voting for another person they have transferred their own way of looking at things and at making decisions to that person.
You are a logical, detail oriented person. You see Obama and you like him, so you vote for him, thinking "I like him, and since I'm logical and detail-oriented he will be, too."
Then he acts like who is is - ditherer, drifter, and grifter - and you have to take back your transfer of attribute - if you're honest.
Obama - the Man-Child President, remember - is someone who will do what is best for him. It's all about the adulation he receives.
By "holding fast" I mean that many or some of the people who decided to vote for him will not now determine they were wrong in deciding; instead, they will simply hold fast to their decision in spite of the evidence.
And yet, I agree there are no do-overs in elections. Thus the beauty of elections vs. polls.
My criteria two criteria for determining whether McCain would have been worse than Obama:
1) Between now and 2012, does Obama pass an amnesty for illegals?
This would have been McCain's top priority, his equivalent of health care. McCain would also have had a better chance of passing amnesty than Obama, because he would have brought more Republicans along. And amnesty would be worse than ObamaCare: A bad health care bill can at least theoretically be repealed or changed, but amnesty is forever.
2) Between now and 2012, does Obama get a chance to change the ideological balance on the Supreme Court (by replacing one of the four conservative justices or Kennedy)?
If the answer to both of these questions turns out to be no, then I will agree with Althouse that once the GOP was crazy enough to nominate McCain, Obama was the less bad of the two alternatives, for basically the reasons she cites.
But really, I did not want to vote for McCain - but by the time the primary came around, Giuliani and Thompson were gone. IIRC, Huckabee and Romney were left.
My only issue with Romney was his inauthenticity - a guy who ran in Massachusetts suddenly became someone who'd never heard of Massachusetts politically.
I never considered Huckabee. Nothing personal, but didn't find he was all that dynamic.
Your post, in my opinion, perfectly exemplifies what was wrong with the 2008 election.
We, as an electorate, knew far too little about Obama. Unfortunately, the press did little, if any, vetting of him.
Worse yet, people ignored the fact that the man had accomplished so little, had so little experience to recommend himself for an executive position (let alone head of the executive branch).
Too many people - whether Democrat or Republican - saw Obama as some empty slate upon which they could project their beliefs. I can't say I blame them - we knew so little about him and he had, for the most part, done so little while in office.
His supporters felt that, once given the head of the executive branch, he would show leadership (even though, he had no executive experience and had never shown leadership while in Congress...).
That was either completely naive or an example of someone willfully ignoring his track record. He had never once stood up to the leaders of his party. He voted with his party almost 100% of the time.
I agree that Obama has done more to revitalize Republicans than McCain could do. However, even the most strident conservative hard-liner would have to admit that the cost for such revitalization could be very great. Democrats completely control the government. If it weren't for their ineptitude and overreaching to this point, they would have been able to pass much more of their agenda. We now have a crippling deficit that could be greatly increased before the nexte election. Prior to 2010, Democrats will get a large number of items through Congress. It is still possible that they could enact their health care reform (in some form) and, if so, we will have a massive entitlement system to cripple us for years.
Obama has left governing up to Pelosi and Reid. He is, for the most part, content to merely make campaign speeches and television appearances. He appears more concerned with his celebrity status (or his historical significance) than governing.
How could 57% percent of voters elected someone who is more interested in being a celebrity than the President?
At some point, I believe, even Obama supporters - like you Prof. Althouse - need to come clean and admit that your support was in error, right?
57%? I thought it was like 53:47
So if a decision turns out good, but does it through means exactly opposite of the reason for the decision, is that a good decision?
Good point. That was probably the number...couldn't remember off the top of my head.
My apologies. Same point applies.
Joan,
"She was wrong about Obama, but she wasn't wrong then to hope, and she's not wrong now about it, either."
Sure she was: The O team did their best to suppress any real information about their candidate, but though his record was sketchy, it wasn't completely blank. Those bits that did leak out didn't have the slightest hint of transparance, pragmatism, or centrism. Nor do most of the things he's done since in office.
This is a silly proposition. McCain died years ago didn't he?
Wait! You mean that guy standing next to Palin is McCain? Wow.
I agree that Obama has done more to revitalize Republicans than McCain could do. However, even the most strident conservative hard-liner would have to admit that the cost for such revitalization could be very great
Many of the terrible ideas and legislation that are being proposed by Obama can be undone, if we can change the composition of Congress substantially in 2012.
However, you are correct there may be some long term if not irreparable harm to our economy from this radical socialist agenda. We CAN recover from a Tax and Cap type of bill, but when we have completely destroyed the health care industry, there may be no going back.
Unless a new Congress makes quick and decisive moves to undo much of the economic harm and encourage private industry and small businesses to grow again, we are probably looking at a deep double dip recession if not an actual depression that will last for quite some time.
I meant 2010 for the Congressional changes.
Should we have Obama's administration for another 4 years in 2012, there is really no hope whatsoever for the United States.
Ann has a point, but only so far. Yes, we'd have gridlock for the most part(not always bad), but we would also have amnesty and cap-and-trade, thanks to McCain's willingness "to reach across the aisle to our friends in the Democratic Party".
What we wouldn't have is ObambiCare, the GM bailout, stimulus, czars (commisars(sp?) is what they really are), bowing and apologizing, weakness with the Russians, Red Chinese, and Iranians, KSM tried in a civil court in NYC, and dithering on A-stan.
Ann, you need to admit that, yes, Obama really is worse than McCain.
That's the second part of the therapy.
Aaron said...
no FLS, it is not divided government. what you have is a few blue dogs against the crazy lemming wing of the party.
After last Saturday, you can toss that one. The difference between the loyalists and the dogs is only price.
miller said...
But really, I did not want to vote for McCain - but by the time the primary came around, Giuliani and Thompson were gone. IIRC, Huckabee and Romney were left.
My only issue with Romney was his inauthenticity - a guy who ran in Massachusetts suddenly became someone who'd never heard of Massachusetts politically.
I never considered Huckabee. Nothing personal, but didn't find he was all that dynamic.
...
57%? I thought it was like 53:47
On the first point, you and me both.
On the second, to quote Satan's Consultant, you're right, they're wrong. The point is, though, that Miss Sarah kept it from being 57:43.
I voted for McCain. I respect him. I agreed with more of his positions than BO's and as a "former independent" I liked his ability to "reach across the aisles".
So far BO is exactly what I thought he would be. I don't demonize him but I still wouldn't vote for him.
Would McCain have been a poor president? Maybe but hey I've voted for Reagan, Clinton and Bush II so I'm okay with not batting 1,000%.
PS And I get to vote for McCain again next year.
The question that puzzles me: How much worse does Obama have to get before Republicans decide that Romney would have been better?
Romney, who had been governor of a state far more populous than Alaska.
Romney, a Republican governor elected in a profoundly leftist state, used to accomplishing things in the face of divided government.
Romney, who had spent his career in money management.
Romney, whose understanding of business, capitalism, politics, and government administration dates back to his earliest childhood as son of auto mogul/Governor George Romney.
Yet, the bulk of Republicans were attracted to shiny objects, and away from the solid, stable, experienced administrator Romney.
Only the media saw McCain as "shiny", and only until he got the nomination. It was virtually impossible for the Dems to have lost in 08. Independents are always where it is at and they were not going to vote for a strong conservative at that point in history. Repubs were just looking for someone who could get independents. Unfrotunately, for many like Ann, imaginary candidates were more attractive than the real ones and Obama was blank enough to draw a clear fantasy on.
When they can't whine and finger-point, what will they actually step up and do?
"When fish can no longer live underwater and must, instead, travel through the air on unicycles..."
Independents are always where it is at and they were not going to vote for a strong conservative at that point in history.
So why did McCain perform his conservative makeover after he got the nomination? Why did he throw so much red meat in the form of Palin to the GOPs conservative base?
The safety play would have been someone like Kay Bailey Hutchison.
OK, I'm better able to appreciate Althouse's reasoning than I was when she decided to vote for Obama (or against McCain).
But I still reject it.
It's true that the Republican Party will now have better chances in 2010 and 2012 than they would have, had McCain won, if for no other reason than the fact that people would be tired of Republican presidents and would be willing to elect any Democrat just because of an irrational weariness.
This is the same reasoning that causes me to root against my favorite NFL team, the Kansas City Chiefs, for the remainder of this miserable season, so that they can get high draft picks next year. But there's a difference here: Chief losses this year don't mean much. Obama's socialism does real damage.
If they pass health care "reform", cap-and-tax, and card check, along with both indirect and direct tax increases on S-corps, then our company will be done. This isn't just our team versus their team; this shit has real consequences and will destroy people's lives and livelihoods.
A McCain presidency might have hurt the conservative movement, but after 4 years of it, our company would still have been in business. That's my top priority: Our company supports most of my family, immediate and extended.
Althouse misjudged just how bad Obama would be. She saw a nice young law professor, and naturally projected her own centrism and pragmatism onto his blank slate. (I think she also got caught up in the "cool" factor of that will.i.am video). She thought that the moderate Obama would buck the liberals in congress.
If Obama was less bad, or if we had any reason to think that McCain would have enacted half of the crap Obama will try to force through, then her reasoning might have been sound. But McCain will oppose the health care reform bill, and cap-and-tax, and card check, and tax increases; so obviously he would never have proposed or signed any of this had he won.
No matter how vivid your imagination is, I don't know how you could imagine anything worse from McCain, or from his likely Democrat successor.
"So why did McCain perform his conservative makeover after he got the nomination? Why did he throw so much red meat in the form of Palin to the GOPs conservative base?"
Desperation. And the base did not turn out. He lost, but he would have no matter what. He was running against an imaginary post racial, moderate candidate as evidenced by Ann's decision.
McCain does not mentally spit on Americans.
And if President McCain had pushed through some form of cap-and-tax, it would have looked nothing like the coup de grace to American manufacturing that these idiots are going to ram through.
"When they can't whine and finger-point, what will they actually step up and do? It will be interesting to know."
Apparently they will continue to blame Bush from here to eternity. In some cases they will blame the other members of their own party.
And...sorry to string comment after comment like this...McCain's commitment to cap-and-tax would probably have wavered in light of Climategate, and the debunking of the hockeystick, and the apparent and newly discovered connection between Earth's climate and sunspot activity.
McCain actually favored some form of cap-and-tax because he actually believes (or believed) that climate would be affected.
Obama will go full-steam ahead with cap-and-tax, despite any evidence against AGW, because, to Obama and Emmanuel and his cohorts, AGW is just a means to an end, to replace the old "grey" capitalist model with a new green socialist economy.
McCain might have been a useful idiot in our long, slow slide into socialism, but Obama and his handlers are the people who have been doing the pushing.
Was I alone here in basing my primary selection criteria on international politics and the former gwot, and not the tanking economy?
It seemed evident to me that McCain has a firmer grip on the essential values needed to succeed in that regard than Obama does. And while I don't know what McCain would be like as a president, I've seen nothing in Obama that would prompt me to reconsider that assessment.
"America will soon be free of the scourge liberalism for another generation."
I don't know. Its not like Reagan completely tamed the regulatory beast. We are still living with the scourge of liberalism, we were before bush jr. took office, or even before clinton did. it is very hard to turn this thing around.
Sorry folks. There is no depth that Barack Obama can sink to where Althouse will say it proves McCain would have been a better President.
It's like jobs "created or saved." There is simply no way to measure such a metric.
Look folks ... there are a lot of undesireable consequences to being an attorney and an academic to speaking honestly about Barack Obama.
I don't foresake Ms. Althouse for her cowardice.
I'm sure she wants to fight him from the inside and so goes along to get along.
It's why she announced she'd vote for him so half-heartedly. To not do so would end her government sinecure at the University of Wisconsin - a tenured perch from which she screws off most of the day writing blog posts instead of teaching students.
Obama is the cure for the psychosocial disease of liberalism. Whether we can survive the cure remains to be seen.
FLS
Yeesh, talk about inverted reality.
Yeah, Romney's big accomplishment was... socialised health care... that is bankrupting his state. He has more experience, running his state into the ground, although to be fair, he probably would have been better than obama.
And i guess by the shiny object you mean palin. But the funny thing is that in my mind, Romney was always the slick one, the too-slick businessman with the frozen grin. Palin struck me, meanwhile, as slightly prettier version of the average PTA mother.
And its rich for any liberal to complain that conservatives are being shallow, given their fawning over President Oba-Mao.
But then again, according to you it is wrong for a governor to try to get a trouper fired if she believes he threatened to murder her own father, so reality and you are only passing acquaintences.
I certainly think, and have long thought, that Romney would have been better. I'd have voted for Romney over Obama if he had been the candidate (unless something strange emerged about him in the campaign).
Henry - Henry said...
I voted for McCain because, however wretched a politician he was, he had a decent track record on budget issues.
Not really, Henry. McCain was the master of APPEARING to be a budget hawk. Namely, voting for 100 billion dollar new programs or new wars or Bush's unfunded prescription drug program or hidden 60 billion mandates in new funding for Vets, soldiers bennies, SS COLAs...then trotting out in front of cameras to say he found 32.5 million in "useless ridiculous earmarks" he was "fighting". Then would go behind closed doors with his "good friends" and negotiate to restore most earmarks.
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Had McCain been elected, we would have had Amnesty, cap 'n trade, a huge direct cash bailout targeting "poor homwowners deceived into buying a 600K home when they could only afford a 280K one.
And McCain really, really wanted a war with Iran to help "Our Special Friend". Plus more troops in Iraq, more in Afghanistan, and something about troops to stabilize Somalia, troops to "Save the Noble Darfurans", and sending troops to Georgia to help the "Freedom-Lovers" fight the Russians where Nazis were the last foreign "liberators" of the Georgians...
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FLS asks a better question. How about Republicans having Romney regret. Romney was discarded in favor of the "old man who deserves a shot because he says he suffered so." By Republican voters who disliked his religion, who decided that changing an opinion he had on abortion flagged him as a non-true believer - and a flip flopper. And because, well, he was someone from north of Virginia.
Romney Regret....
What if Romney had run with a solid well-respected Kay Bailey Hutchinson?
What if voters had thought Romney as a nominee was far better-equipped to deal with the Bush-Democrat created massive economic problems as a Turnaround Maestro than the silver tongued new kid?
Romney alsways did well in debates. Far better than the erratic, often incoherent McCain did.
Alas, it is alternate history.
But I think the lasting regret will be not that McCain was not picked...it will be that Republicans had the wrong candidate.
And in another year, likely they will be joined in regret by a whole host of Democrats believing they really screwed up in picking The One over the cynical, manipulative, but competent Hillary.
Beth nailed it a while ago: there's a creepy vibe to this effort to get you to confess to wrong thinking.
I think most people will not admit "voter remorse" because they know that there is nothing that they can do for three years.
How many years after that to undo what the "one" has done is another story.
We are a strong country, and will survive, and eventually flourish!
Yes yes yes!
We've heard it all before.
It is better to drive off a cliff at 150mph and instantly die, than believe you won't go over the edge.
Blahblahblahblahblah.
McCain, blahblah! Not a dime's worth of difference, blahblah!
Libertarian blahblah.
Palintologists. Blahblah, blah.
Conservative not Reblahblican, blahblah.
The problem with dying is that it's a lot harder to do anything effective.
Hosers.
You cannot step twice into the same moving stream, said the first intellectual. But the streams of yesteryear are burned into our souls. I think Bob Dylan thinks that. What do you think about the new GOP Governor of Virginia named McDonald? He is Palin's only real opposition coming up because he connects to Palin's base as well as she does.
Sorry, that is Bob Mcdonnell. Either spelling he is still from my Scottish Clan, and that Clan is known for skills in Governance.
It's simply poor reasoning to me to assume a known like McCain could suddenly become disastrous, while a complete unknown like Obama (especially considering who his influences were)would be moderate and level headed.
One thing was always clear: the job opening was for a decider and Obama always had an aversion to making a decision. To me, he was uniquely unqualified based on what we did know.
Confess! Confess!
Don't make Dust Bunny Queen -- or worse, Florida -- bring out The Comfy Chair!
The question that puzzles me: How much worse does Obama have to get before Republicans decide that Romney would have been better?
That's like asking how much worse does Obama have to get before Democrats decide that Clinton would have been better. It's a valid question but it is one step removed from the choice last November.
The question that puzzles me: How much worse does Obama have to get before Republicans decide that Romney would have been better?
People already think that, I’m sure. At this point, the list of people who would have been better than Obama includes pretty much everybody.
I think Romney had already dropped out by the time it got the primaries in Arkansas. I voted for McCain in the primaries mainly because I wanted to vote against Huckabee, because he bugs the crap out of me.
how much worse does Obama have to get before Democrats decide that Clinton would have been better.
Easy question. Clinton would never have been better. Even wonkier, with less of a sense of how her words and actions appear to others, she would be the uber-Obama. Imagine Obama's speeches, littered with her phony laugh.
fls: littered with her phony laugh
Ain't that the truth.
I had this thought that Democrats would have to deal with reality once they were in charge. They'd have to stop complaining and start taking responsibility...
How's that working out?
I don't see Democrats so much defending the government's decisions as attacking their critics and predecessors.
So, on that point I was 100% wrong.
The Democrats, despite having a huge majority and the Presidency, still act insecure. Why is that?
I don't see Democrats so much defending the government's decisions as attacking their critics and predecessors.
If Democrats attacked Republicans in proportion to how the Republicans whined in 2001 about a few allegedly missing keytops, Republicans would be ashamed to show their faces in public.
But Republicans are quite shameless, having contracted amnesia as of Jan. 16, 2009.
. . . spin the wheel forward
Makes sense if you see Obama's uber-leftism as setting up another political pendulum swing. And I agree that McCain would have been terrible. But it's horrible reasoning if you see these political shifts as ratcheting up of statism. Republicans getting their act together isn't enough to counterbalance what we're getting.
But I still want some benchmarks. We can argue over just how bad McCain would be on the economy (merely bad or wretched). So how about the one area where we know, indisputably, that McCain wouldn't have made the same decision? Civilian trials for the Guantanamites. What will you say if the show trials lead to attacks?
Although maybe that change your conclusion. Now that I go back and see how McCain lost you, I see that this one non-spin difference between the two candidates didn't matter. You picked Obama based on "economics, the most important issue."
McCain is the reason that Obama was even allowed to run. His arrogance that he was above the law allowed another Non Natural Born Citizen to run. Resolution 511was a sham, McCain, born in Colon, Panama, is NOT a Natural Born Citizen, and neither is Obama, who's father was not a citizen when Obama 2 was born (even if he was born in Hi.). NEITHER candidate was a Natural Born Citizen. Obama's allegiance to foreign powers is now on full display, and the blood of the Constitution is on McCain's (and every other member of congress' hands. Cheney is equally liable since he sought no objections at the electoral college. Have you ever talked about this Ann? Or are you as clueless about the Constitution as most lawyers.
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