McCain Spokesman Refuses To Say Gramm Won't Be Treasury Secretary
By Nicole Belle Sunday Sep 21, 2008 1:20pm
Tucker Bounds, McCain campaign spokesman, is always good for a post when he's allowed to come on the scene, if only to show just how ridiculously inane the McCain campaign has to be to deflect attention from itself. On MSNBC, Bounds refused to commit to David Shuster that Phil Gramm will not be John McCain's Treasury Secretary.
Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse. Phil Gramm as Treasury Secretary? {{shudder}} The man most responsible for the repeal of the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act, which paved the way for our economic situation today should be in charge of the Treasury? You know, the man known as Foreclosure Phil who says that Americans are just whiners, imagining the crisis? The mind reels at just how reckless and risky such an appointment would be for America, and those are the exact kind of adjectives that McCain loves to describe his picks.
No wonder why Bounds sounds so anxious to project this as a "lie" on the part of Barack Obama, insisting that Gramm is no longer advising the campaign (something his own campaign proxies have denied in the past), as if this means he wouldn't be part of the McCain Cabinet. He even sneaks in a completely superfluous reference to Franklin Raines, a person the McCain campaign has repeatedly linked to Obama, even though major media outlets have said that McCain is exaggerating wildly the connection between them and Raines has denied any kind of advisory role. Sadly, time doesn't allow Shuster to call out Bounds for his typically GOP false equivalencies.
Transcripts below the fold
BOUNDS: ...Let's talk about tissues. Let's talk about honesty and which candidate is going to shoot straight with the American voters. And when Barack Obama says that John McCain has chosen Phil Gramm to be Secretary of Treasury when this election isn't even over, and he is not advising this campaign, he is lying. And when you talk about it with me over national air, I don't understand why we're doing it.
SHUSTER: You can make it clear right now. Can you assure that John McCain will not pick Phil Gramm as Treasury Secretary if John McCain wins the election?
BOUNDS: He is not even an adviser on this campaign, David. I don't know where the sorts of rumor mills come from.
SHUSTER: Why don't you put them down...
BOUNDS: But I think they come from the Obama campaign, straight to you, straight to us on air.
SHUSTER: Well, Tucker, you can make your point better just to say Phil Gramm-John McCain has told me Phil Gramm will not be Treasury Secretary under any circumstance in the McCain administration.
BOUNDS: It is an absurd thing to say. It would be as if I was to say Franklin Raines would head up the Housing and Urban Development wing for Barack Obama.
SHUSTER: Right, but the difference, Tucker, the Obama campaign said that will never happen and I have yet to hear you say -
BOUNDS: If I were to make that allegation, you'd call it a lie. You'd call it a lie and I'm not making it , but Barack Obama is.
SHUSTER: Tucker, Tucker. The difference is the Obama campaign will tell us flat out he will not be part of the Obama administration. I still haven't heard you say Phil Gramm will not be part of a McCain administration.
BOUNDS: It is inherently true. He stepped down from this campaign. He is not advising the campaign. I mean, these are the sorts of absurdities that we're talking about and it is all because Barack Obama gets away with saying things are not true and then people believe them to be some way based in fact. It is absurd.
SHUSTER: All right. Tucker, spokesperson for the McCain campaign. Pleasure as always.
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Like the saying goes... it can always be worse. Here's proof.
This is the kind of little twerp that would be found hanging on a coat hanger in the hall after the bell rang for class to begin. What a dishonest little piece of crapola.
Sadly, time doesn’t allow Shuster to call out Bounds for his typically GOP false equivalencies.
McCain really wanted his friend Alexander Hamilton, but he was unavailable.
kasinca @ 2:
Anyone who enables a McCain presidency should be found hanging............
Is it true that Tucker spent years as Senator Craig's underling?
these guys are sooooo doing each other.
Tucker was promised something for telling all of these lies and spinning, spinning, spinning. Eternal life, 40 virgins, what??
I have said before, McCain is not running his campaign. Nor will he, if elected, be running his administration. He will be same as Bush, a front man. McCain won't have any say in who is in his cabinet or who "he" appoints to prominent positions. McCain is already dead in the eyes of his Republican handlers; they have to prop him up and tell us what a change he will make in D.C. If McCain is elected we will see no change. Business same as usual. A secret government. Don't you see, it makes no difference if McCain or Palin is sitting in the oval office the show will be run behind the scenes. Does anyone honestly believe Cheney is going to give up so easily. He will be there in his secret hide-away. Palin may be a little more difficult to handle than McCain however. Hope she makes life a living hell for them.
They will not be satisfied until we are all living in the street, penniless. I suppose that I'll lose what's left of my firefighter pension - and nobody willingly hires cripples.
Thank goodness that the billionaires will be flush with our tax dollars.
Oblivion is looking better every day.
**** it.
Uppity Blue Lensman @ 6:
or bathroom buddy.
Is there anybody on the Mcflop's camp that doesn't whine like a little 3 year old?
Waaaaaaaa .
off topic
Bill Moyers NOW, on PBS, has a poll on Palin
http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html
The Republican party.....where telling the truth is a sign of weakness.
McCain and Palin, mavericks and reformers, won't stand up to any Bushies, and Cheney will be Secretary of Defense.
I was just watching the financial guy on FUX say that the market was up 200 points - while the big red number with the minus sign was on the screen - and the anchor didn't correct him.
With financial geniuses on the right like him and Phil Gramm, we are all seriously screwed.
9 Mick -- Try to hang in there. Sometimes I feel the same, but I'll be damned if I'm going to roll over w/o a fight. "Living is the best revenge."
Now I know why the Republicans refer to Carlson and Bounds as The Tucks. They must find them very soothing.
"tissues"?
I love watching this guy. Kinda reminds me of the old Baghdad Bob pressers.
JL@16 Oops - that post looked kinda dire, huh? Naw, nothing like that; I'm just kinda happy that I'm closer to the end of life than the beginning.
Pacifists dilemma - revolution is necessary but I will not cloud my karma with violence, whatever the hell that means.
BennyP Says: off topic
Bill Moyers NOW, on PBS, has a poll on Palin
http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html
Is Sarah Palin Qualified....
Yes 51%
No 48%
Aaah...the American Public...they never disappoint me.
The Dems should submit this counter proposal:
All resign in disgrace and lawyer up for the investigations.
Pelosi bring in the Clinton team and fix this mess.
Its Me Ya Krazy @ 10:
Tucker's no "top."
Bottom Bounds?
Sounds about right...
motherjones july/august issue 2008
But the Enron loophole was small potatoes compared to the devastation that unregulated swaps would unleash. Credit default swaps are essentially insurance policies covering the losses on securities in the event of a default. Financial institutions buy them to protect themselves if an investment they hold goes south. It's like bookies trading bets, with banks and hedge funds gambling on whether an investment (say, a pile of subprime mortgages bundled into a security) will succeed or fail. Because of the swap-related provisions of Gramm's bill—which were supported by Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury secretary Larry Summers—a $62 trillion market (nearly four times the size of the entire US stock market) remained utterly unregulated, meaning no one made sure the banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses they guaranteed.
In essence, Wall Street's biggest players (which, thanks to Gramm's earlier banking deregulation efforts, now incorporated everything from your checking account to your pension fund) ran a secret casino.
McCain allowed the Political Campaign Monster to suck out all his morals and decency. He is now nothing more than a political human Trojan horse. If he gets in the oval office he will split open and all the freaks of the republican political world will pour out. At that point out country will officially be fu*ked for four more years, if there is anything left to fu*k.
getalife @ 22:
Like inviting an arsonist to a bonfire...
The "Clenis" Team was led by Robert Rubin who flacked for the Gramm/Leach/Blilely act and urged the Clenis to "proudly" sign it...
New Gallup Poll Results:
Obama 48%
McCain 44%
To be honest, we still will be in a financial crisis with or without Phil Gramm as Sec. of the Treasury. And the rich will continue getting theirs regardless. It's a racket.
CMINCA Says: New Gallup Poll Results:
Obama 48%
McCain 44%
Within the margin of error.
woody, tokin librul Says:
Ah, a Clinton hater.
Shame you do not hate the gop as much.
Pathetic.
And he also refused to rule out Osama Bin Laden as head of Homeland security and Larry Craig as transportation secretary (to oversee airport men's rooms).
21 Liberal AND Proud Says: BennyP Says: off topic
Bill Moyers NOW, on PBS, has a poll on Palin
http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html
Is Sarah Palin Qualified….
Yes 51%
No 48%
Aaah…the American Public…they never disappoint me.
-----------
Put this into perspective: her polling results have continued to drop precipitously. Also, Bidens are always much much higher. I think Biden was 73% or 78%.
I'm sick of snarky, glib Republicans named Tucker.
Also, tired of the Skip's and Buffy's but that TUCKER name has got to go!
CMINCA @ 32:
it's nit picking to some i like the question does palin have the 'experience'.
"Are you better off now than you were 5 years ago?"
Tucker Bounds is an asswipe. Literally. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when McCain loses. You just know he's going to go off on all his surrogates and campaign staff. Something to the effect of, "F*&K YOU!" perhaps?
GOP "spokesman" are chosen based on whether or not they have soft, white hairless heinies.
By the way, I have never understood the disengaged, low information undecided voter. Best video EVER of interview with the much ballyhooed, courted by the media "undecideds:"
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=129462&title=squab...
This was the last election and remember these fools mostly broke for Bu$hco. and gave us four more years!
What a lying POS! Not that it matters..you can be assured that in a Republican administration, every cabinet position will be filled by a criminal.
Next headline: McCain camp accuses Shuster of going "over the line" with Bounds interview. Pulls Palin from the VP debates until the news media shows them the deference and respect they deserve.
BennyP Says: off topic
Bill Moyers NOW, on PBS, has a poll on Palin
http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html
Is Sarah Palin Qualified….
Yes 51%
No 48%
Aaah…the American Public…they never disappoint me.
It"s a good thing breathing is an involuntary reflex because half this country is so dumb that they would asphyxiate, otherwise.
I find it ironic that when regular people complain about the economy and their personal financial situation, Republicans call them whiners. Yet when the heavies on Wall Street scream about the dire situation and cry for help they get an immediate response from these same Republicans, in the form of an emergency bailout.
getalife@30 I don't hate the Clintons - but Woody is right. Not only that, but Clinton signed NAFTA into law. Some say Clinton was the best repug since Eisenhower.
We've been getting a bi-partisan screwing for years.
Yeah, I'm still voting for BO. Mainly to protect SCOTUS.
But I'm not audacious enough to hope for much...
Tucker Bounds is not an asswipe.
He may be in need of one after a closed door GOP caucus...but he is not an asswipe.
Liberal AND Proud @4:
"McCain really wanted his friend Alexander Hamilton, but he was unavailable."
Yeah, because Cheney shot him in a duel. (Although, he was actually trying to shoot Jefferson at the time.)
Huffpo reports that Bush demands that no one can release any information about bailout bill. NO one can review it or no court can judge it or no lawmaker can have any say over it. Bush demands complete control of the US budget and all money therein. Am getting e-mail about it saying pretty much the same thing.
35 Liberal AND Proud Says: “Are you better off now than you were 5 years ago?”
_____________________________________________________________
I've rarely gotten off.
43 Liberal and Proud
Tucker may not be an asswipe. But I don't want him anywhere close to my ass!!!
Pericles @ 39:
Yep, Shuster better be careful. When people are mean to little tucky, big, bad Johnny takes away their lollipop.
"Bounds refused to commit to David Shuster that Phil Gramm will not be John McCain’s Treasury Secretary."
The Bamboozler Express chugs on.
I'm in favor of calling toxic waste what it is, toxic waste.
"Old man and his pig Says: Huffpo reports that Bush demands that no one can release any information about bailout bill. NO one can review it or no court can judge it or no lawmaker can have any say over it. Bush demands complete control of the US budget and all money therein. Am getting e-mail about it saying pretty much the same thing."
My simple response....STFU George, you insignificant little pissant. The best part of you ran down your old lady's leg. You pathetic little shit. If your old man had been anyone other than George H W Bush, you'd be sorting mail in the Kennebunkport Post Office. You are the single greatest failure in the history of the planet. Not as President, but as a person. You are an insult to everyone that has ever graduated from an institution of higher learning. You are an insult to every person that ever had to work for a living. The country will now be shackled for years with the results of your ignorance, your arrogance and sheer...almost mind boggling level of incompetence. I hope the rest of your life is short and painful.
Drop dead.
Back in the day these Republican mobsters would be frog-marched off to the gallows...their day in court would be held at the 'Pearly Gates'. Longing for back in the day.
I pointed this out a few days ago at firedoglake and it's good to see kucinich is on it;
the public is funding these bailouts, the public BETTER have a ownership in these businesses, stock options for each and every man women and chold to the tune of the bailout
profit from these stock options would fund retirement and health care accounts.
liberAL Says: 43 Liberal and Proud
Tucker may not be an asswipe. But I don’t want him anywhere close to my ass!!!
Don't worry. He wouldn't be able to find your ass...unless he can look out of his brown eye.
Liberal AND Proud @ #50
I couldn't have said it better...your words are truth and wisdom.
L&P@50 I wish I'd said that.
It is really simple: Phil Gramm will not be Sec. of the Treasury because McCain will not be President of the United States.
Now, lets make it happen!
This morning on his Q and A, Howie Kurtz mentioned that McCain has not given an interview to any of his traveling press corps for over a month. I asked why this wasn't bigger news. Kurtz said it was "medium news," and that the straight talk express is dead.
I thought that was a telling remark, coming from a Republican party hack like Kurtz. Still, though, I don't know why the refusal to grant interviews isn't a bigger story, given that McCain soared to popularity largely because he made himself readily available to the media.
On the bright side of all this mess is that we only have about 55 days to put up with these bastards and then we can storm the polls, and it will be a storm.
Can any of us ever believe we may somday have media that works, talks and acts as if they are humans, that care about the well being of man kind?
Can we believe we will have a President that honors truth and justice, whom is a real intellegent human being that will be able to represent us honorably?
AS USUAL, the filibuster is granted to this clown.
McLiar is mostly befuddled like a forgetful oldtimer, grandpa Simpson...or someone on crack and meth, more likely the latter.
gramm will be in charge of fetching the Coca-Cola
They'll call it ordering a gramm of Coke.
regarding palin, on a wingnut talk show this morning, he had on someone who alleges that she is the biographer of palin
he asked her about her college years and why she attended so many different colleges
she started with hawaii, that she and her friends went as a lark, to go somewhere where it was warm...but that neither she nor her friends realized that hilo gets alot of rain (guess they didnt do alot of research before applying to college) so she transfered out
then explained that the reason she kept switching colleges was because she had to pay herself and at times had to take off a semester to do so
problem is, that isnt reflected in the record and i guess that sarah never heard about a thing called student loans, which is how i and the rest of my friends made it through without having our parents pay
still doesnt explain why she had to keep switching colleges, nor why she changed her major from biz to journalism (and never worked on a school paper or on the college tv or radio stations)
yet the wingnut host thought this was remarkable and compared her to the "elites" who's parents pay for everything
truly amazing
Figger Obama'd promise not to name Robert Rubin?
Nah, me neither...
kasinca @ 2:
Hey! I was that kid too. I turned out alright (I think...)
Liberal and Proud@50
Thank you. You make me proud to be a Liberal.
PS. YOU WERE TOO KIND TO HIM.
50 Liberal AND Proud
Funny thing if boosh is allowed to quash any debate or dissent, even though it's Congress bailing out the all these major corporations with taxpayer money, if anything goes wrong with that approach, the repubics will say it's the Democrats fault for not engaging in any debate or dissent at the time.
There are some "liberals" who come on this site all the time trying to spread the blame for the economic meltdown and Iraq in this fashion, which is like...so retro.
Tucker Bounds is the most absurd person on TV today.
ABSURD
Can someone please flush that turd Tucker once and for all? PLEASE! Damn cretin keeps floating back up.
Phil Gramm has got the economy WRONG every single time. Someone needs to torpedo that dude's career pronto. I'm sure after this latest bumblefuck, George W. will pin a medal on him.
ysbadden....this "no debate, no review" BS has Karl Rove written all over it. It has the neocon agenda written all over it.
The GOP is once again...playing politics with the country. Just as they did on 9/11, just as they did with Iraq, Katrina, abortion, gays...it is simply reprehensible.
The level of dishonesty of these people is mind boggling.
We've joked in here about the guillotine...but the fact is...THAT is exactly what populations in the past did when their governments applied tyranny to them. History is strewn with leaders beheaded or hung from trees because they believed themselves omnipotent.
ysbadden...cities in this country burned during the Civil Rights movement.
This government is playing with fire. Americans may be slow to act...but when they are finally motivated...they are a force to be reckoned with...and not so easy to reason with.
If people become frightened enough or desperate enough...this will not end well.
castanea @ 57:
When McCain added Rove's crowd to his campaign they cut McCain off from the media so McCain wouldn't make any gaffes. They cut down the time he could use his cell phone as well because they said they wanted to keep him on message. From that time on the press has been kept at more than arm's length from him. Even his traveling press is pissed he does not spend the time with him that he used to.
Uncle Joe Mccarthy @ 62:
Yeah, they try to spin the unspinnable. Even if she had to take off a semester or two to "work," she probably would have returned to the same college when she had enough money. Transferring institutions takes a lot more money than plugging through just one, especially when you consider that not all credits you take at School A follow you to School B.
And from past experience on the Argonaut at the UI, the j'ism students who didn't write for the paper, or didn't work on KUOI (the student radio station), weren't exactly the brightest of the bright, to put it politely.
73 castanea
Heh...heh...heh...
You said j'ism.
Yeah...yeah...YEAH!!!
I shoulda knowed that sarah palin got ahead through j'ism.
Phil Gramm created subprime loans.
Tucker Bounds = McCain slime-merchant extraordinaire
Republicans = debt & dishonesty
"This is the kind of little twerp that would be found hanging on a coat hanger in the hall after the bell rang for class to begin. What a dishonest little piece of crapola."
Five bucks says he was easy to make cry. I bet you could look at him threateningly and he'd start bawling while pissing himself. Hell, I bet you could do it to him now.
In 1990, while Daddy Bush was president, Austin, Texas was boarded up, there was a banking scandal and homes were foreclosed everywhere. Then as soon as Shrub became governor in November 94, he, Gramm, Rove, and Daddy Bush began their plans to bankrupt not just Texas but the entire country. The demise of our great nation started in Texas.
And then they send their little cheats, like Lance Armstrong from Austin, to compete internationally representing the United States of America with his Lonestar flag instead of the Stars and Stripes.
Correct me if I'm wrong
If someone asks you to make a declarative statement
and you make a declarative statement
wouldn’t that be STRAIGHT TALK
and most anything else isn’t?
Barack Obama gets away with saying things that aren't true? That's a good one coming from this joker.
Why can't you just say 'Look, answer the question or we're done... i don't want to hear anything out of your mouth next but yes or no, and if i hear something different you are gone and you're never coming on this program again.' ?
Would that be so hard to do when these sociopathic leeches start up their acts?
Jesus christ.
Tucker bounds is such a scumbag. He will lie through his teeth about anything.
This guy should be in a carnival, spinning is his specialty. How old is this guy? How did he learn to be so slippery at such a tender age? Do you think he really believes the shit he shovels. I loved when Campbell Brown couldn't get him to answer the question "what decision has palin made directly with the national guard?" Next night, the grumpy old candidate canceled his Larry King gig for punishment. Huh, wha?????
Gramm won't be Secretary of the Treasury. First, because McCain is going to have his ass handed to him in the election. Obama wil be so far ahead in the polls that even Premier Election Systems won't be able to tamper with the electronic ballots. Even making the assumption that McCain is somehow installed, a Democratic congress would never approve Gramm for the post.
One thing I cannot stomach is picturing Tucker Bounds as the next press secretary. When I looked at the last screen shot of this Shuster interview, I saw a man--Bounds--who knew he had just done his job and his campaign would be very happy with his performance.
He reminds me of every College Republican I have ever known, the kind that would rather hang out their "bros" than they would their girlfriend. The kind of people who grow up to be Mark Buse
I watched it live and wrote about it here
Tucker is an embarrassment. I can't believe that Republicans don't feel this. If Mccain was smart, he would send Tucker to the same place as the former spokesperson and HP CEO.
So you have to work on McCain's campaign in order to be considered for a position in his administration? Sounds like 'heckuva job' Brownie all over.
This is deregulation made possible by Phil Gramm.
McSame was the campaign manager for Phil Gramm for president in 1996. The are deregulation buddies.
Obama lying? Please. Nice to see Tucker using a classic play in the repubs play book. Accusing your opponent of doing exactly what you are doing
Tucker is like a house of cards, challenge him with a follow up question and he crumbles.
BTW Phil Graham is McCain’s chief economic advisor. Graham might be gone but his economic plan isn't
PS Gramm is as of now a lobbyist hired by a Swiss bank to get in on this trillion dollar " bail out " ( give away ) , lobbying to bail out foreign Banks and investment too . This douche bag should be locked up ( and preferably turned lose in general population ) along with the rest of them . Stop your whining , all of this is just your imagination .
Snake in the grass!
Wind the *ucker up and get *ucker Bounds to mention Obama and
a whole cascade of *ucking verbiage comes out of *ucker's
mouth that he could never back up. He combines the drill
they practice at Regents Law School with similar tactics used by the
homeless on park benches. At Regents & Liberty U Law Schools two "adversaries" face
each other and just scream nonstop w/o losing their train of non-thought.
Homeless guys have similar matches with each doing run-on
*scream-of-unconsciousness" rants facing away from each other at
opposite ends of park benches trying to get the other guy to leave
so it becomes possible to stretch out. I used to like seeing Second City
do that improv.
.
The problem, as I have come to understand it, is largely due to legislation passed 9 years ago, spearheaded by PHIL GRAMM (he was a senator from Texas) called The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act. This opened the gate to practices on Wall Street that have caused this meltdown. PHIL GRAMM was JOHN MCCAIN'S financial advisor and some might recall a statement he made several months ago about the economic crisis in this country being just psychological ... all in our minds! After he made that statement, McCain distanced himself from Gramm, but some are guessing Gramm will become the Treasury Secretary if McCain is elected.
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