John McCain's debate performance last night was an affront to reason. It grated on every precept of logical discourse and good taste.
Listening to McLame attempt to explain why he has been lying about Romney's record on Iraq war policy was a crash course in all that is wrong in politics. The kind of answers McCain gives, full of obfuscation and topic jumping, are part of the reason why so many non-political junkies are so disenchanted with politics and politicians. And listening to John McCain drone on generically and uninspiringly last night, I don't blame them. The only time John McCain said anything interesting or exciting was when he was relentlessly reinforcing his lies and circling the wagons in defense of his mind-bending twists and turns of the truth.
"Romney supported a time table for withdrawing American troops from Iraq like Hillary Clinton does."
No, categorically wrong. This accusation is a complete and intentional mischaracterization of Romney's philosophical and literal position on the Iraq war.
Romney batted down all of McCain’s intentional misrepresentations of the facts last night immediately and forcefully. By any kind of objective standard resembling anything close to the truth, Romney trounced McCain last night. But to listen to the pro-McCain CNN 'experts’ after the debate, the fact that Romney effectively confronted each and every fraudulent charge directly, honestly, and succinctly was unremarkable. The CNN panel must not have been watching the same footage I was. In fact, I’m not sure how any adult who comprehends the English language could watch last night’s debate a conclude that McCain came out on top.
If I was in a coma for the last 5 years and just woke up in time to watch last night’s debate, I would come away with the same conclusion I do now. Because, regardless of the issues, I would see how illogically and churlishly John McBlame was behaving. He debates like a Democrat, which shouldn’t come as a surprise since he is one. He rarely answers a question or charge directly, if at all. For example, the final question of the debate last night was:
“Would Ronald Reagan endorse you? And if so, why?”
McCain responded:
“Ronald Reagan would not approve of someone who changes their positions depending on what the year is.
Ronald Reagan -- Ronald Reagan came with an unshakable set of principles, and there were many times, like when he had to deploy the (INAUDIBLE) cruise missile to Europe and there were hundreds of thousands of demonstrators against it, he stood with it. Ronald Reagan had a deal in Reykjavik that everybody wanted him to take, but he stuck with his principles.
I think he knows that I stick with my principles. I put my political career on the line because I knew what would happen if we failed in Iraq.
I hope that the experience I had serving as a foot soldier in his revolution would make him proud for me to continue that legacy of sticking to principle and doing what you believe in, no matter what.”
Summary? Rather than answer the question, McCain took a final cheap jab at Romney, mentioned some Reagan history and finished up with a general platitude.
If that same answer had come from Romney, Anderson “in-the-tank-for-McCain” Cooper would have followed up with something like, “So… does that mean that he would endorse you or not?” But at after 10 o’clock on a Wednesday night, the vibe with old man McLame was, just move on, it’s getting late and McCain is getting (more) angry and tired. Cooper was too afraid to press John McCranky, so he just let it go. Another bad moment for McLame swept under the rug by the MSM, whose bias was on full display last night.
In fact, CNN was running a clinic on leftie media bias last night. Anderson Cooper completely blew off the results of an entire Frank Luntz-esque focus group in which Mitt Romney scored extremely well. He listened to the report on the focus group from Erica Hill and then went directly to commercial promising to “discuss the results [of the focus group] after the break”. When the program returned from commercial, a long clip of Ron Paul played followed by a lengthy panel discussion about how great McCain and Huckabee were in the debate. How stupid CNN must imagine people are. If you are going to take the time to run an in depth focus group, you should at least address the results in any panel discussion that follows. But because the results were so overwhelmingly pro-Romney, they swept them under the rug. It was a moment that exceeded even some of the most brazen and careless examples of media bias I have ever seen. It was a Stalin-esque moment of straight up censorship and reverse propaganda.
Conclusion? CNN is biased and Anderson Cooper is a twit. He would not shut up at certain points to let the candidates explain themselves, stammering over Romney’s attempt to bring some clarity to the discussion of his own April 2007 Iraq comments. "How is it that you're the expert on my opinion on Iraq?" Romney turned and questioned McCain. And just when Romney began to make progress and really make McLame look bad, Anderson Cooper shouted over him, brusquely changing the subject back to one where Romney was again on the defensive.
If I were on the left side of the aisle, I’d be rolling in the aisle watching last night's debate. The idea that Democrats are afraid to face John McCain in a general election is a red herring, by the way. If I'm an Obama supporter, for example, I'm looking forward to seeing my guy run circles around a confused, backward looking, angry old man in John McCain. And the MSM will turn on McLame so fast in a general election, it will make your head spin. Right now they're holding back and even propping up McLame. All of the bogus charges the left and their like-minded pals in the MSM have come up with have already been leveled at Romney, while McCain has been issued a temporary free pass. It’s so obvious what is going on here with McCain, the left, and the MSM. They want McCain as a fall back plan if somehow Americans are not yet ready to elect an anti-war woman or far left African American.
If Republicans are collectively too foolish to figure out what is going on and they continue to vote for Huckabee in droves, for example, then they don’t even deserve to win the presidency anyway. Dark days will be descending on Republicans and conservatives if we continue down the dreary path that is a John McCain nomination.
6 comments:
As I wrote on RFL, CNN called the entire three hour block "The Republican Debate," yet they spent the entire post-debate segment (around 90 minutes) discussing the Democrats.
You are right on! I can’t believe how the media is spinning this for McCain. By them making it seem like he is the front runner and best candidate to beat the Democrats, that is what the general population-who doesn’t take the time to do any research of the candidates themselves, will think. It drives me CRAZY! Listen to any well-known conservatives and they hate McCain. Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh… WAKE UP PEOPLE! McCain is a disaster!
Wait and watch - if McCain gets the nomination, the MSM will destroy him. Think they could have pressed him during the debate now? Wait until it’s him and Hill or Obama - the “moderator” will show no mercy. McCain will be made to look foolish - old and not aware of what’s going on. Then we’ll see that McCain anger and the wheels come off the general election bus.
Rick Santorum and Laura Ingraham both came out tonight in support of Romney. I’m not sure what they have been waiting for however, because it may be too late. I pray that is not the case. It’s not enough to simply be anti-McCain, we have to rally behind Mitt immediately.
The misgivings some conservatives have about Romney are so minor, in the grand scheme of things. Such as, he was effectively pro-choice 8 years ago. Well the man is telling you now that he is pro-life, why won’t pro lifers take yes for an answer? Is he somehow lying? What evidence is there that Romney is not an honorable man?
It just frustrates me that it took this long for many of us to come around on Romney. The McCain bandwagon train has left the station at this point. And with scant few days until super Tuesday, only now are conservatives beginning to coalesce behind Romney. The man can’t do everything himself, he needs our vocal support! Conservatives have let him twist in the wind for far too long while they idly shopped around for a candidate. Well the store is closing now, please bring your final selections to the check out lane. There are only 3 days left to save the conservative movement.
I’m beginning to think that there is, like so many things in life, a method to the madness (I also heard Hugh say last night that Michael Savage of all people came out in Romney’s favor). The final two days before Super Tuesday are going to involve laser-like focus among voters who care about these things; and even perhaps an interested focus among people who generally don’t get involved in politics.
While as a media “lay person” my natural reaction is that I wish these endorsements had come out earlier, it is possible that media professionals realize the shelf-life of a story, and how many hours they can devote to an issue. Basically, each and every one of these conservative pundits has six hours to get their message out before the majority of Americans vote on Tuesday. Six hours of honing the message on why Mitt’s the best hope for America and stands between us and a McCain disaster, by professionals who know how to hit talking points and completely undress a phony like McCain.
As bloggers, we’ve got a little more time.
I think that is great point and I hope you’re right. I feel a little better about Mitt’s prospects now. Although it seems that the time to rally behind him was before/during the the winner-take-all Florida primary. With McCain winning Florida, we are all now behind the eight ball at this point. It’s really getting down to the wire.
In our first discussion we debated the theory of evolution and Mike Huckabee. Like Romney on abortion I have “evolved” on the subject. Well… kind of.
My conception of Mike Huckabee has progressed to the point where I would now be willing to suggest that the Romney campaign may want to at least consider co-opting the Huckabee campaign and base of support by offering him the VP slot.
This would obviously be a purely tactical maneuver designed to consolidate the social conservative vote rather than divide it.
The main problem is that Huckabee seems to be a big fan of McCain and hates Romney. But cannot an appeal be made to Huckabee’s better nature? The man is not a complete moron after all. Can’t it be explained to him that, in terms of ideology, he has more in common with Romney? What sort of supreme court justices would he want appointed for example? Wouldn’t he favor a strict constructionist pro-life judge like Romney would? In the unlikely event that McCain becomes president, who knows what sort of appointees we could see.
Given McCain’s proclivity to stick his finger in the eye of conservatives, we’d be more likely to get a Ruth Bader Ginsburg than a John Roberts.
This plan also assumes that the Romney people would be able to swallow some pride and do what is tactically the strongest play in the interest ultimately winning the nomination. And Huckabee’s irrational dislike of Romney seems to supercede his supposedly conservative principles.
Like Huckabee’s fair tax, this idea might be too radical in the end to be workable, but if it could be pulled off I would feel a lot better about Romney’s chances and the likelihood of conservatism not coming to a screeching halt in the form of a McCain nomination.
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