You really can't blame McCain for his bizarre behavior. He hasn't been able to think straight since Governor Palin winked at him.

I've been wondering for 2 weeks if he's in early stages of dementia, or on some Rx that is affecting his behavior. Or drinking heavily. His erratic behavior and memory are abnormal, imo. It's very worrisome that he might be elected.

Writers?
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/howdy-doody.jpg

Alzheimers. The guy is addled. Not trying to be insulting here. Just making an observation.

Clearly, he's channeling Sarah Palin. He's become too panicked, angry, and reflexive to do his standard made-up accusations and explanations. Those never made sense, but they weren't patently absurd to the average voter.

You know how you feel tired at the end of the day? Well, Obama is the one you want to blame. He stood by and did nothing while the human species evolved to be tired at the end of a long day. John McCain knew that was a bad idea, he would have made sure that we all would have felt great at the end of the day.

But worse than that, you know how food goes bad after awhile? Another bad idea of Obama's. John McCain is a war hero, and he knows the value of a good meal, so he would have made sure food never spoils.

Even more worse than that? Remember the last time you stubbed your toe? Obama was in your house rearranging your furniture. John McCain knows what suffering means, and he would make sure your furniture moved out of your way if he was in charge.

Obama, responsible for everything that might ever have gone wrong... ever.

John McCain, uniquely qualified to identify what will make things better, but apparently uniquely unqualified to do anything about it but complain later.

"In 21 months, during hundreds of speeches, town halls and debates, I have kept my promise to level with you about my plans to reform Washington and get this country moving again. As a senator, I’ve seen the corrupt ways of Washington in wasteful spending and other abuses of power, and as president I’m going to end them – whatever it takes. I will propose and sign into law reforms to bring tax relief to the middle class and help to businesses so they can create jobs. I will get the rising cost of food and gas under control. I will help families keep their home, and help students struggling to pay for college. I will make health care more accessible and affordable. I will impose a spending freeze on all but the most vital functions of government. I will review every agency of the federal government, improve those that need to be improved and eliminate those that aren’t working for the American people. I will confront th e ten trillion-dollar debt that the federal government has run up, and balance the federal budget by the end of my term in office."

John, I wish I could believe you, but how on earth are you going to achieve all of this?

Your effort to balance the budget is particularly suspect. I am also concerned about your statement about agencies in the federal government. How will you determine which one's aren't working for the American people?

Clowns are usually amusing, at least...

Everything McCain, Palin and their various spokepersons are saying is consistent with the idea that they still believe they can say whatever they want, no matter how blatantly false, no matter how preposterous or nonsensical, no matter how sleazy, and the corporate-owned mass media will do its part to brainwash Americans by obediently, slavishly amplifying and promoting it as the new "narrative" of the campaign.

They have good reason to believe this, since that is exactly how the corporate-owned mass media behaved throughout both Bush-Cheney campaigns, and that is pretty much how the corporate-owned mass media has behaved towards McCain for years.

It remains to be seen whether or not they are right.

We continue to see the price of delay today as the markets continue to fall.

Talk about off-message. Bush said today it would take time for the bailout to take effect. So a four day delay wasn't the problem. And you have to wonder who McCain was calling. None of the Arizona delegation voted for it.

The very sad thing is, he's hoping that he doesn't get called on this and all the other B.S. ; then - only his message will get out there.

...sigh.

For a republican, it is more important to be confident than to be right.

I think Obama has to come down HARD on McCain if he tries to pull any of this shit in the debate tomrrow.

He really needs to humiliate the guy at every opportunity.

Steve, Steve -- "It's hard not to wonder if there is something genuinely wrong with this guy [McCain]..."? Yes. There is something "genuinely wrong" with a guy who's done the many loathesome things this guy has done: dump his first wife because she was hurt and barely survived (but with scars, oops, can't have that); used the vilest epithet for women in English on his heiress young wife who not incidentally bankrolls him; voted repreatedly against women's fair treatment in work and health; been up to his neck in bad dealings with fraudmeister Keating; gambles not just with his second wife's money but the future of the nation by picking tryant-in-training, mud slinging Sara Palin; campaigned as a foreign policy expert, a winner of wars, and and experienced guy when it is pathetically, horribly clear that he doesn't know Spain from Sunni from Shia, hasn't ever won a war (but has lost a lot of planes), and is a mean, vicious bully who reduced a POW sister to tears in an open hearing because she asked what he was doing (nothing) about finding her brother. He's a bad, bad guy, and the least of it actually is the increasing evidence of his "confusion" about simple facts. I admire your restraint, Steve, but sheesh!

It's Obama Derangement system. Barack has really gotten in the old coot's head.

The McCain base BELIEVES. And their belief is that belief, nothing more and nothing less, makes it so.

Truth, responsibility, reality, honesty, consistency, logic and ethics are meaningless concepts. Belief is all that matters. And so they believe.

donuts with sprinkles on them anyone ?

"Syndrome" that is. I seem to have some neurological damage of my own. ;)

Right-wing alternative reality doesn't require actual facts, just repetition. Dittoheads have a religion where assertion becomes tantamount to proof. Underlying that is the evangelical trait of sincerity. As long as you lie sincerely, you're not really lying. Fervent belief means you're infused with holiness, turning the dross of everyday reality into the gold of certitude.

When Dr. Hemlock's family member was suffering from Alzheimer's -- though the family member and the family did not know it at the time -- he exhibited the same sort of disconnect from reality that McCain seems to be.

It was almost a kind of Tourette's -- he just blurted out these weird non sequiturs that were "sort of" related to the discussion at hand but not quite (at Thanksgiving Dinner: rhubarb-rhubarb-rhubarb-pass the salt "I LIKE HOLLANDAISE" rhubarb-rhubarb-pass the pepper).

The doctors at the time thought his case had been accelerated by the stress he was undergoing at his retirement after 40-odd years with the same company.

McCain under much stress lately?

John McCain's "Up is Down" World Tour continues I see. He is melting down faster than our economy and flailing like I've never observed in politics. I've seen chimps fling less feces. As Secular asks... will the Media give him a free pass on his habit of saying anything regardless of veracity?

This is all fabulous ammunition for Obama at tomorrow night's debate. It should be quite a show, especially since it is a town hall. McCain's jaw may lock, or his head may just explode. Obama's memory, knowledge, and wit will all come together to produce spontaneous combustion....in John McCain's head. Keep talking, McCain, keep talking......

John McCain must think we're stupid.

(man, I could save myself countless hours here, all I gotta do is cut and paste the line above into every single comment thread ;)

Axe to grind on McCain's pate:

So John how is that idea of allowing folks to invest their social security savings in the market looking today?

I continually find myself motivated by the McCain campaign to say, quite simply, 'wow.' Can the campaign get more desperate? More stupid? More mindlessly libelous? Wow.

The twin themes of the McCain/Palin- or is that Palin/McCain- campaign have been 'Country First' and 'Change is Coming.' OK, let's take the second one first- that would be change from the party and ideas which have gotten us into this mess to... the same party + ideas which have gotten us into this mess. Again: wow.

As for 'Country First,' I really have to wonder if anyone in their right mind believes this about the McCain campaign. I highly doubt that even Steve Schmidt could say this now. 'Power First,' would be more accurate, or at least more honest.

I've seen suggestions before that the GOP explicitly wants to tank this election, hoping to run against a weakened Democratic administration in 2012. Fair enough- I suspected that even before the primary season. But are they really cynical enough to see the country sent into a second Great Depression- as many people suspect is happening- merely to win an election? Perhaps so. Again: wow.

Yes, there's every chance that the US public, with its typical political memory of 2 years, will have conveniently forgotten the 30+ years of GOP policies which got us into these troubles and vote the GOP back into power in 2012. But there's a better chance that some of the remaining sane figures in the GOP- surely, those number in more than the single digits, although I'm not at all certain about that- could purge the party of the manics who did this. And there's still a *better* chance that the three parts of the party which have co-operated over the past 30 years- the theo-cons, the neo-cons, + the money-cons (and I use 'con' in the more colloquial sense in each case)- could split apart into 3 separate parties.

We could be seeing the beginning of another period comparable to post-WWII, where liberal principles were deeply-ingrained into society. We can hope, at least.

Paranoia does rear its head, but it would likely take fraud on a historic level to defeat Obama at this point. I'm not putting it past the GOP, though.

-Z

"Does McCain hire clowns to write his speeches?"

Well, I just checked and yes, Bozo and Ronald McDonald are now his chief speechwriters. Apparently they are talking to Pennywise as we speak.

I will review every agency of the federal government, improve those that need to be improved and eliminate those that aren’t working for the American people.

John, given the state of your campaign, how do you propose to judge anyone or anything else as dysfunctional?

Speaking of loons and clowns, Glen Beck has officially gone nutters (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/01/beck.future/index.html). Seriously, he is very imaginative. But I lost any respect I might have had for him by treating the current times to be a joke and a farce, enough to be summarized by "sending a fax from the future". Puh-lease. I thought we were out of high school and done with the "Pretend you are you, but 20 years older. What would you tell your "younger" self?"

SecularAnimist: "They have good reason to believe this, since that is exactly how the corporate-owned mass media behaved throughout both Bush-Cheney campaigns, and that is pretty much how the corporate-owned mass media has behaved towards McCain for years."

That's certainly true of the useless host of an MSNBC show I tuned into yesterday afternoon for a bit. The guest, a Republican strategist, blathered on about Obama's relationship with Ayers and his raising taxes (all debunked numerous times) and the "host" just listened and didn't challenge anything. Might as well let the Rs run a (dis)infomercial during that time slot instead.

Sen. Obama is associated with the ACORN groups that put pressure on banks to give loans to people that could not afford them. To say he didn't, is being reckless with your country's future. Ayres, Saul Alinsky, Wright, they are all radicals for the US to become a Socialistic regime. It shouldn't happen, as once we turn to the Animal Farm, it will only get worse trying to get back to a Constitutional Government. This could be the end of our country.

McCain and Palin are talking to base and ONLY their base. The strategy at this point is to energize their core voters and turn them out at the polls.Then throw out so much mud that it suppresses independent and new voter turnout (who will vote overwhelminly for Obama).

All the McCain camp wants to do at this point is keep the margin of victory for Obama close enough that a little jury-rigging in Ohio and Florida gives McCain the win.

There really is no other viable strategy left for the McCain camp at this time.

Delmar,

Neither you, nor any of the countless other Freeper trolls who lurk around these message boards have even the slightest fucking clue as to what socialism actually is and means.

Here's a hint - it's NOT Obama or ANY politician currently elected in the United States.

Until you pick up a book and can actually discuss the varying ideologies on the political spectrum...Kindly Shut the Fuck Up.

Delmar, that's the wrong George Orwell book.

Sheer desperation at this point. He'll do anything, say anything. And he must be heartened that Bush managed to scare the bejesus out of the Democrats, so much so that they practically begged him to accept $700 billion to bail out his cronies.

So maybe McCain thinks he can scare the bejesus out of the electorate, firing charge after charge that Obama is a domestic Muslim terrorist who will destroy America, and all sorts of other horrible things.

And maybe he can. I'm still shocked that the Democrats rolled over so easily after eight years of being bullied by Bush, when they held all the cards finally. Bush just huffed and puffed and blew them away. Astonishing.

Of course McCain has contributed more to the present crisis than most. I apologise that this is longer than I would like it to be but what is happening here doesn't fit on the back of a postage stamp.

Like many I am hopping mad, even more angry that what they are doing now is next to useless, that they layered on pork to pass a bad bill, that media has done nothing to educate the public or promote an informed debate, and that society seems incapable of discussing possible solutions in a cooperative way both here and abroad, or of making fiscally responsible decisions. In this sense the crisis is shaping up like the crash of '29 as we are embarking on an international race to the bottom. And at every step the administration, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Secretary have been way behind the curve. It's looking ugly.

Major economic crises are orphans that usually have a large family of accumulative contributors. It's not like lesser but recent examples aren't there to guide us but the experts seem deaf and blind to them. I refer to both the dot.com bubble and, previously, the S&L-housing-junk bond combo of the late 80s and early 90s which also came after continuing deregulation -- a lot of which was needed -- but, combined with lack of oversight and tinkering with accounting standards, dammed up the problem until it could be held back no longer.

The basis of the present lack of credit and liquidity in the world market is severely eroded capital ratios. Banks and many other financial entities are holding a huge amount of paper generated in the US that noone can value because they are too opaque as to their inherent possible risk. Thus the value of the assets they hold, this paper, has dropped precipitously. Nobody knows how much risk any one entity is sitting on so there is no trust. This paper in turn was generated to bundle an indeterminate proportion of high risk sub-prime loans that were specifically encouraged to boost the economy along through a property boom, cheap money and plenty of it thanks to a Federal Reserve that under Greenspan and 20 years has never seen an impending hiccup in the economy that wasn't answered by opening the liquidity spigot. Alongside, an administration -- with the cooperation of Congress -- who are spendthrifts, have added $3.5 trillion to the national debt in 8 years, and haven't seen a form of government oversight they haven't underfunded, understaffed or outright diverted from the responsibilities and public interest with which they are charged. Every advanced economy has had property bubbles at one time or another, including the US, and they are never sustainable. On top we have a huge continuing burden that will fall on this economy long after we pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, an overburdening medical system, entitlements and social security that everyone kicks down the road.

Paulson's and Bernanke's solution, as presently framed, is heading us toward stagflation. Seemingly mostly unquestioned in Congress or the media on its principle to buy up the toxic paper. What does that achieve? They can't value it any better than the market and have considerably less expertise in doing so and trading away later. Does that recapitalize the banks? Not one bit. They have to realize their losses and therefore deplete their capital directly unless the taxpayer overpays for the assets.

Thinking we can spend our way out of any pain after the accumulated excesses is unreal. It's how we got here. Someone has to bight the bullet and propose it's time for fiscal responsibility.

What needs to be done is that each institution suffering these losses needs to be recapitalized, sold (if a buyer can be found), or let go to the wall on a case by case basis. That means the taxpayer is buying a stake and the correct people are bearing the loss: the shareholders of improperly run entities whose managers and executives failed to protect their capital. The government doesn't have to get into trading CDOs or any other funky paper, only oversee how banks and any other institution with public equity are being run. Which is exactly what government did and succeeded in doing post WWII until they deliberately and consciously failed to do so for the whole finance industry, believing that "markets are self-correcting".

Well they are. In the long run. Funny how we keep returning to Keynesian economics every time the markets gang agly.

OK. That's my rant. Can't believe nobody is pointing this out. There's no conspiracy. A number of crooks but mostly greed, stupidity, wishful thinking, and a lack of clear headed thinking; overall, fiscal irresponsiblity. We're not following market precepts or keeping it simple. And it's looking very ugly indeed.

"Did McCain hire clowns to write his speeches?"

Obviously not. If he'd hired clowns his speeches would make much more sense.

portraits of scum.

http://strategicperceptioninc.com/people.php

http://strategicperceptioninc.com/people.php

http://strategicperceptioninc.com/fred.php

Paranoia does rear its head

Into our airspace?

Desperation is too kind a word. Not even an on-side kick like this can save McShameless now. Obama/Biden can take an early knee.

It shouldn't happen, as once we turn to the Animal Farm, it will only get worse trying to get back to a Constitutional Government.

Delmar, which political party declared that the Constitution is null and void during wartime?

Which political party insists that the Vice President forms his own fourth branch of government and therefore can't be investigated by either the executive or the legislative branch?

As usual, you're projecting the actual actions of the Republican Party onto your fears about liberals. While you've been watching Obama for signs that he's the Antichrist, the Republicans have been selling the Constitution down the river.

The McCain base BELIEVES. And their belief is that belief, nothing more and nothing less, makes it so.

Sure, you've got those people in either party's base. But you can't win an election with just them, you've got to seem at least remotely connected with reality to more than just the base to come close to winning an election. And it should be clear by now that whatever the past has been, he's not getting a free ride on this stuff from the public or even the mainstream media (heck, even Fox is calling him on it from time to time.)

It's like McCain hired Baghdad Bob as his communication director.

You know, it's just not that hard to find something mildly coherent to cut and paste if that's your thing. Not one of these idjits slapping up forwarded rants about Saul Alinsky a) has the faintest idea who he was, and b) is aware that he's been dead for something like 35 years. The stoopid burns like battery acid.

Steve, it turns out that yes...yes, indeed... McCain has hired a clown to write his speeches.

Is it too late to replace him ??? If he were to die tomorrow would Palin take over running for president ??? Could Ron Paul step in ??? Would Ron Paul step in? Will aseroids hit the earth and wipe us out completly?
Yeah, that last one most likely.

I don't begrudge the man his criticism regardless how out off balance they are, but if you think for a moment, Barack Obama spent just about as much time in DC as McCain did. He didn't need to faux-suspend anything. He didn't contemplate the postponement of not one but two debates. He just changed the campaign schedule a bit. He also said more than McCain in the meeting requested by the president on McCain behalf.

It must be an awful feeling McCain is experiencing. Because you know it is at least twice as bad as it looks.

When it's all over and done with, McCain will blame it all - behavior and loss - on the Ambien.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Politics/Story?id=4919842&page=1

Lots of people expect McCain to step down for health reasons. The GOP has switched their signage ("SARAH!")to all-but-obliterate McCain from the package. He is in the early stages of dementia, and someone with backbone in the GOP camp needs to step up sooner than later.

McCain forgets that Obama called him first to go over the bailout- then McCain decides to grandstand and "suspend" his campaign. Can someone run Steve Shmidt out of the country please!

Next thing he'll accuse Obama of is taking money from Charles Keating.

First, I welcome Delmar. I remember him from "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" and I'm pleased that he can operate a computer at his advanced age.
next, we should remember that an older citizen from Mississippi may not have had the same cultural context that we do, but Delmar was both saved & friendly to Tommy Johnson back in those days.