A Noun, A Verb, and The Surge®

Josh Marshall has been doing yeoman's work smacking down the incompetent moves and the debilitating bullshit that has spewed out of the McCain campaign this weekend--and what a weekend it has been!

The McCain campaign has just come out with their response to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki's endorsement of Obama's withdrawal plan. I think the clotted, dodging-the-issue nature of the response communicates very clearly the box this has placed the McCain camp in.

Today, McCain 2008 Senior Foreign Policy Advisor Randy Scheunemann issued the following statement:

"The difference between John McCain and Barack Obama is that Barack Obama advocates an unconditional withdrawal that ignores the facts on the ground and the advice of our top military commanders. John McCain believes withdrawal must be based on conditions on the ground. Prime Minister Maliki has repeatedly affirmed the same view, and did so again today. Timing is not as important as whether we leave with victory and honor, which is of no apparent concern to Barack Obama. The fundamental truth remains that Senator McCain was right about the surge and Senator Obama was wrong. We would not be in the position to discuss a responsible withdrawal today if Senator Obama's views had prevailed."

The McCain campaign has wrapped itself around The Surge® because it's the only tenuous piece of moderate success that they can point to. It's their "a noun, a verb, 9/11!" refrain, isn't it?

Every time the McCain campaign talks about foreign policy, The Surge® appears like we're seeing Rudy try to stumble back into being relevant. No wonder the press sees every setback for the McCain campaign as "good news for John McCain." Out of respect for the fact that they're probably going to register it as their campaign trademark, I'll try to remember to add the "®" symbol.

McCain is simply Rudy all over again, flailing and sinking like a stone. "a noun, a verb, and The Surge®."

Oddly enough, no one thought of this moment--The Surge® is over. I know--bummer! What's next for the McCain campaign? Their only bright spot is over and they've got...what, exactly? That's right! A surge for Afghanistan! That way the tired old refrain can keep getting played: a noun, a verb, and The Surge®!

Seriously, he'll be shaking up his campaign again soon. This is some spectacularly bad advice. Rudy "the inevitable President" Guiliani can attest to that.

--WS

The National Review Online NAILS it!!!

Yeah! This is the kind of brilliant analysis we need right now!

[by someone named Deroy Murdock]
Now that he has embarrassed the “experts” and naysayers by clinching the Republican nomination and securing President Bush’s endorsement, Sen. John McCain can focus on picking his running mate. Three potential vice presidents merit the Arizona Republican’s immediate consideration. [we're just gonna look at 1]

Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, 63, would add considerable executive experience to a ticket headed by a legislator. His experience in managing a $40.2 billion government with some 216,000 employees would prove an invaluable complement to the political skills of a president who mainly has written legislation, debated, and voted on Capitol Hill since 1983. Giuliani’s counterterrorism credentials are sterling, and would burnish McCain’s reputation as a foreign-policy hawk who would fortify America’s national security. Giuliani is popular with fiscal conservatives, given his mayoral tax-cutting record, as well as his maintenance of Gotham spending at one percent below inflation - an achievement that seems almost pious compared to the free-spending bacchanal that Republicans hosted between 2001 and 2007.

Giuliani also could help make New York and its 31 electoral votes competitive for Republicans, along with adjacent Connecticut and New Jersey.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I can't stop laughing! The only person who would pick Guiliani to run as VP would be...well, I would. But I sorta want to see the Republicans lose.

You don't pick the guy who collapsed, who proved to be a terrible retail politician, who showed that he was inept, incompetent, and unable to find decent people to run his campaign to run for VP. You pick someone who will help. Not hurt you mortally and draw the stink of failure and big manure-loving flies.

Murdock actually BELIEVES that New York and New Jersey would actually go McCain's way if Guiliani were on the ticket? Who pays for this kind of analysis? What kind of wingnut welfare actually pays an adult to write something so goddamned ridiculous?

Here's how Guiliani did in Florida:

John McCain - 36% (Winner)
Mitt Romney - 31%
Rudy Giuliani - 15%
Mike Huckabee - 13%
Ron Paul - 3%

And here's how he did in the aforementioned New York and New Jersey, albeit, AFTER he got out of the race on January 30.

New York
Candidate Votes %
McCain----------------310,814 51%
Romney----------------168,801 28%
Huckabee--------------65,648 11%
Paul------------------38,918 7%
Giuliani--------------18,566 3%

New Jersey
McCain-----------------310,427 55.43%
Romney-----------------158,974 28.39%
Huckabee---------------45,781 8.18%
Paul-------------------26,952 4.81%
Giuliani---------------14,721 2.63%

Wow--McCain sure would like to get that whopping 3 and 2.6 percent that Guiliani got, wouldn't he?

You can't make this stuff up--the Republicans actually believe McCain would carry NY and NJ with Guiliani on the ticket. THAT'S delusional for you.

A Rant

This is just a rant. I can't decide which thing to do--a dismantling of something I found last week by Victor Davis Hanson or just the latest outrage.

Rudy Guiliani went on Meet the Press over the weekend and I am glad I didn't see it. Nothing ruins a Sunday Morning like the dishonesty of Meet the Press.

de·base (d-bs)
tr.v. de·based, de·bas·ing, de·bas·es
To lower in character, quality, or value; degrade

The Republican Party has decided that it cannot achieve anything in this country until it completely and utterly debases the culture to the point where we can accept the likes of Guiliani as a viable candidate for the Presidency.

Now, the first election I paid attention to was 1984. It was a disaster. Walter Mondale stood up and told the truth--we needed to raise taxes. They all laughed. Reagan won by assuring people that wasn't the case. Not too long after that, taxes were raised. That was an honest lie, as it were--a lie that didn't do anything other than trick the taxpayers and the voters. There's no shame in lying to the taxpayers and the voters, but there's also no shame in having those same people scream "bullshit!" and not vote for you. The rule of law is not flushed down the toilet when a politician breaks a campaign promise. The Republic is not shaken by a basic political lie.

Guiliani on Meet the Press is a debasement of everything decent. A man so self-involved and self-obsessed and convinced of his righteousness basically explains that his fucking girlfriend deserves to be protected by people being paid to the taxpayers.

In no other time in American history would something so open and dishonest have ever gotten past the laughing stage. As in, when I was much younger, Guiliani would be laughed off the national stage for what he's trying to say. I mean, where are the people who would basically walk up to him and scream in his face that he's a douchebag? Where is the collective hooting and hollering of an engaged, thoughtful population? Surely, the Republican Party is not THAT bad, is it? Perhaps it is. Perhaps they have gone from collapsing on the fainting couch at the idea that a man would get serviced in the White House by a consenting adult to embracing a man who used public money--the dollars of almighty taxpayer!--to pay for someone to watch his girlfriend walk her dog. While his wife and children were, umm, living in the official residence of his office, you know, on the dime of the taxpayers. While he lived elsewhere. Oh my!

A Republican Presidential candidate told the world that his mistress deserves Secret Service Protection. You can follow the link and go look at it yourself. That's what he's saying. And this country is utterly debased by the thought that this man is anything other than an insane crank trying to grab power with both hands.

Damned near every President has had girlfriends, mistresses, friends with privileges, whatever and whathaveyou. Some of those were boys, most were girls. This is not about being Puritanical or prudish. This is about tacitly having the least bit of shame and humility to kinda keep that shit under wraps and private.

Guiliani wants to live his immaturity and his infidelity out in the public. If he can get people to accept that he will fuck around on his obligations, cheat on his wife, humiliate his children, shack up with whoever looks good and lie about it, then he can have free rein as President to do whatever he wants. He wants to debase the process and bring into the open what you're supposed to handle privately and discreetly because he doesn't want to be discreet about ruining people and running around with more power than God himself.

This is a great country. I have great faith that this line of debasement will be rejected. I know it is. I'm not worried about whether Guiliani becomes President. I can't for the life of me see how he can be.

But if he does, then everyone decent better get the hell out of Dodge, because if you liked the matinee--Cheney and Bush--you better not stick around for the main event, which would be Guiliani and his goons running wild through this country like a free-for-all nightmare of police powers, corruption on demand, and blatant lies forcefed down the gullets of an unthinking population.

Associations with Kerik bringing scrutiny to Guiliani

Back when Rudy & Bernie were Buds...

The gift that keeps on giving? With friends like these? Lie down with dogs?

Pick one. Rudy's close associations with scandal-ridden Bernard Kerik, who Rudy personally recommended to president Bush to fill the Homeland Security position in 2004 are in for a scrutinizin' in the face of Kerik's pending indictment on a whole slew of charges, ranging from tax evasion to conspiracy to commit wiretapping.

Let me be clear here - Guiliani is in no legal jeopardy and is implicated in no wrongdoing. But the political damage could be extensive.

The case against Kerik that federal prosecutors are preparing could generate uncomfortable political attention for Giuliani because it focuses on Kerik's activities while the two men were in government together and were jointly running Giuliani-Kerik, which was paid millions of dollars for advising upstart companies, doing federal work and consulting with clients overseas.

Even as Giuliani prepared to announce his presidential bid, his political team had identified as a political liability the man who had stood stoically by the mayor's side after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, according to a strategy memo that surfaced in January.

Kerik's legal troubles could damage the law-and-order image that is the bedrock of Giuliani's campaign, said Republican political consultant Nelson Warfield, who is not aligned with any 2008 candidate. "Kerik has potential to undermine his image as a competent leader and someone best fit to fight terrorism," Warfield said. "Either he had fundamentally bad information about Kerik, or he was reckless in not knowing enough about a man who was that close to him." (emphasis added)

Either way, it just isn't very presidential, know what I mean? And any whiff of corruption and cronyism is a great big old red flag in the wake of the most corrupt, crony-driven administration ever.