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Texpat

No different from Bush mistakenly referring to Australia as Austria a few months ago that had the critics howling.

BO does it and it's an honest mistake? Bullshit.

I won't criticize either, but I will call a few posters here hypocrites -- Stroller and Corporal Carey.

sabang

'We are all Hypocrites'.

Noam Chomsky

sabang

So far, I've found the politicking of McCain and Obama to be above board. Hillary dragged things down, in a desperate bid to revive her moribund campaign, and of course the Republican Right has been predictable in it's mudslinging- but who really listens to them except the Republican Right?

Now that we can basically write off Hillary (much to the chagrin of the GOP it would seem), is the electioneering going to take a turn for the worse, reminiscent of the Rove school of bare knuckles and dirty tricks? This article suggests so-


Slanging matches between potential White House foes John McCain and Barack Obama, more typical of an election's frenzied last days than its opening shots, could set the tone for the slog to November.

Despite both pledging to elevate the tone of US politics, the senators are trading pithy personal jibes, as suspense ebbs from Obama's marathon Democratic race with Hillary Clinton and eyes turn towards a general election.

Each man wants to negatively define the other in voters' minds in an early test of mettle before the long run-up to November's presidential vote.

Republican McCain is painting Obama as naive, weak and dangerous, arguing he is an opportunist whose poetic rhetoric masks inexperience and no record to back up his promise to drain US politics of partisan bile.

Obama's offensive so far is encapsulated by one of his new attack lines: "John McCain has decided to run for George Bush's third term."

The strategy is to shackle the Arizona senator to the unpopular president and to suggest his policies on everything from international relations to economics are simply a retread of a failed approach.

Obama also seems intent on proving that he is no soft touch after Democrats despaired over previous nominees, like 2004 pick John Kerry, who many saw as cowed by Republican attacks.

While there is mutual respect between Washington veterans Clinton and McCain, it is equally clear there is already festering antipathy between McCain and freshman senator Obama.

The 46-year-old Illinois MP in fact seems to get right under the 71-year-old Republican's skin.

"For a young man with very little experience, he has done very well," McCain sarcastically told supporters in Florida last week.

The Arizona senator is already attacking Obama and his ideas, including his offer to talk to the leaders of US foes, as a dangerous risk in a world thick with threats and uncertainty.

In one recent swipe, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded to Obama's idea for an easing of restrictions on contacts between Americans and Cubans as "weak" and "reckless" and reeking of "political expediency."

Stressing Obama's inexperience is also a veiled way for McCain to defuse the age question. If the Arizona MP wins the election, he will become, at 72, the oldest president ever inaugurated for a first term.

McCain is also taking pot shots at Obama's character, and ridiculing his brand of "new" politics.

He hammered Obama this week after the Illinois senator criticised his stand on a veterans benefits bill.

"It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of," McCain said.

He sharpened his attack further by highlighting his own Vietnam war heroism, and Obama's lack of military service.

"I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did," McCain said.

Obama's strikes have been less personal but still mocking, with subtle digs about his likely opponent's age.

He jokes that McCain's signature bus the "Straight Talk Express" has taken a diversion - and has provoked McCain by painting him as a neophyte on economics, as many Americans feel the financial pinch.

But his calculated decision to launch a full-bore attack on McCain from the Senate floor, where ungentlemanly conduct is frowned upon, appeared to be a deliberate attempt to tweak his foe's reputed temper.

"I respect Senator John McCain's service to our country ... but I can't understand why he would line up behind the president in opposition to this ... bill," Obama said.

"I can't believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans."
Obama has also sought to tie McCain to Bush in foreign policy, frequently saying his fellow senator would be happy to wage a 100-year war in Iraq.

The attack is no less effective for being a selective use of McCain's words at best. When he made the infamous remark, McCain seemed to be talking about a long-term peacekeeping mission not a hot war.

Obama, while careful to show respect to McCain, has also subtly referred to his age, talking about how admiring he is of the Arizona's senator's "half-century" of service to the United States.

McCain/Obama slanging tipped to be nasty - Breaking News - World - Breaking News

__________________
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

stroller

For what? Have I commented on the Austria/Australia thing, or Obama's blunders?

On second thought, don't bother...

Norton

Should make for some entertaining live debates.

raycarey

^
it makes mccain seem cantankerous, and well...old. i think someone else may have posted this already, but he reminds of the old guy who told the kids in neighborhood not to play football in front of his house.

anway, the obama campaign has plotted a new election map strategy. they've thrown out the old paradigms concerning 'red states and blue states' and are targeting their message at individual voters.

Obama looks westward in electoral map play - Carrie Budoff Brown - Politico.com

it's early days, but from my perspective this seems like a good strategy.

chinthee

Oh, my goodness, I keep getting these emails from posters begging me to come back to shed some light on issues.

Yes, McCain is old, but then some of his detractors are just shy of 35 years old, and as they've proudly proclaimed: anybody north of 40 (merely five years older than them) is an 'old timer.'

I guess that makes Obama an old timer. I guess that makes myself an old timer. Gee, I guess that makes most of the competent people in the world 'old timers.'

What to do?

**hey wait, is a 34 year old teacher from Pennsylvania an old timer? I guess he's pretty close to that isn't he? No, he's quite young, at least five years younger than the rest of us. Could he be delusional?

stroller

Obviously quite a tortured character, he has quite a cross to bear with his Nazi and Jewish genes sending conflicting messages to his confused ego.

Oh well, not much different from the other losers who choose social "sciences" as a "career" I suppose.

I bet Beth only married him because the trust-funds from his parents promise a comfortable life-style without making any effort.

And all the fuss he makes about his dog, the quarantine taking it to more than 20 countries must have cost him a fortune. If he was a true socialist, he would have donated the money to Greenpeace or some other anarcho-environmentalist organisation.
Quite an unbalanced character he is.

One wonders if he manges to shave without assistance in the mornings.

Boon Mee

From looking at his pic, a wee kitten could lick the peach fuzz off!

raycarey

the DNC rules committee met this weekend to determine how the delegates in MI and FL would be divided.
as the committee was explaining its decision, supporters of the clinton and obama campaigns had a disagreement....



Party seats Fla., Mich. delegations - Decision '08 - MSNBC.com

Norton

Must be long standing TD members.

raycarey

i set 'em up, so you can knock 'em down.

Norton

Speaking of knocking them down.

Based on the outcome of the meeting, any hope (dreams) Hillary has of winning this thing are surely now dashed. The rancor between the two camps is evident if the demonstrators are any indicator. It is far past time for her to stand up concede and do all in her power to convince her supporters to unite behind Obama. Continuing will only bring her further disrespect and alienation among the Dems.

__________________
There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

Woodrow Wilson

Milkman

And hopefully Hillary's chances are not only finished in this election, but for forever.

She's the most disigenouous candidate I've seen in that I can recall.

And I am not saying this because she's a woman.

__________________
Military men are dumb, stupid animals, to be used as pawns for foreign policy

raycarey

who knows what she's going to do after tuesday...i could imagine any number of possibilities: bow out (semi) gracefully, suspend her campaign, keep it alive and vow to take it to the convention floor, file a lawsuit or who knows what else.
if she doesn't get out by the end of the week, i'd think (make that hope) that the remaining super delegates would FINALLY move towards obama in a public manner.

Butterfly

can't understand why the bitch won't let go

attaboy

I don't think she's a gambler. That's is to say she won't run for NY governor and then run against McCain's VP come 2012. She won't give up her powerful and prestigious Senate seat to make a risky run at the presidency from the NY governor position. She'll stay in Congress and work her way up the ladder of power within the Senate.

__________________
As a kid I always thought my nickname was "attaboy" until I realized they were rooting for the dog: "Attaboy, get 'em! Get 'em!".

attaboy

Hopefully, their presidential ambitions are finished.

She won't be the VP. Bill has proven himself to be a major liability. He is so egotistical that he would be constant embarrassment. Obama doesn't need to spend his time as president explaining what Bill meant by his words or actions. He doesn't need to spend his time cleaning up after Bill. Bill has the attitude that if you don't like what I,m doing why did you offer to have me over. He is who he is and he's not going to change for anyone else's sake. He is selfish and self-indulgent to the max.

Eventually, Bill's chummy attitude he uses to barge into your party, wedding, funeral, etc. will stop being novel. Can a sixty year old man be a wedding crasher? Is it still hip, cool and irreverent at that age?

The last day of the campaign, South Dakota and Montana are voting, and he can't keep his mouth shut. He has to call the author of the Vanity Fair article a "scumbag". He doesn't know when to shut up. He doesn't realize that it isn't his world. The other people around you are real, Bill, they live and breath too. For the sake of other people shut up Bill.

Hillary and Bill should have no official or unofficial position in the Obama administration that Bill Clinton can exploit and bring embarrassment to.

attaboy

^ The ripest time for taking shots at Bill is getting down to moments. I'm sure Bill will pop up on the scene in the future, but now is ripe.

machangezi

Hillary begging members of Democrat for nomination although she's trailing Obama! Funny.