Sensen no Sen: Dennis Prager, Mendacious Hack
Rumproast: The giant teeter-totter of racism.
What About Our Daughters: Action-oriented citizens put up billboards about missing Black women.
Facing South: The politics behind Lindsay Graham's vote for Sotomayor
Jonestown: But hey! If Obama wanted to wipe out seniors, he could find a more cost-effective way than this healthcare reform rigamarole!
McCain booster Sen. Lindsay Graham has his talking points and he's not going to deviate from them, no matter how much logic and reality may interfere.
Even though highly visible (and amazingly, still respected) Republicans have openly criticized the choice of Sarah Palin for vice president and endorsed Obama, Graham will have you know that Palin has energized the base like no other. Pay no attention to those polls, people. Strangely, Graham asserts that even though her appeal is to the Republican base, if she was a Democrat, she'd be more popular than "sliced bread". How does that work, Huckleberry?
But incongruously, even though that base is energized by Palin, McCain is still that mavericky man unafraid to take on his party. Does Graham think that might depress the energized base? Maybe this is where those sliced bread Democrats come in. But even more incongruously, Colin Powell (that 'not-real-Republican', according to Graham) is nervous about McCain's SCOTUS picks, which would be just like Bush's selections of Roberts and Alito. How mavericky that is.
My head is spinning from this bizarre, logic-free rationalizations of a campaign without a clear narrative and imploding on itself. So I'll merely leave with the best line from Graham:
Governor Palin is what John McCain has been trying to do in Washington, she has done in Alaska. She has -- filing a complaint against a sitting attorney general of your own party with a Democrat takes a lot of guts. Taking on the oil interests, you know, cutting taxes. She is -- running against an incumbent governor. John sees in her many of the qualities he sees in himself.
I think this is a major problem. Tom Daschle does some good things, but during FNS he fell down on the job. You cannot let Lindsey Graham or any McCain surrogate call Obama's campaign liars, especially when it's not true. The Republicans are trying to exploit the race issue and will stoop as low as they can go over it. Graham was foaming at the mouth in denouncing Obama for using the "race card."
Graham: ...To say that Barack Obama did not intentionally inject the idea that he was going to be a victim of his name and his race is a lie.
...he said Bush and McCain are going to make you afraid of me. he doesn't, he's got a funny name. You know he doesn't look like those other presidents on those dollar bills. To say that that's not trying to interject the idea that you're a victim of John McCain, trying to make fun of your name and your racial background is lie. Now that needs to be admitted to. We're not going to run a campaign like he did in the primary, every time somebody brings up a challenge to who you are or what you believe---you're a racist. That's not going to happen in this campaign.
Daschle: First I will say that John McCain is not a racist since nobodies every accused him of being that, but you've just seen the evidence. You've just seen exactly what Barack was talking about.
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Lindsey is the liar. He knows it, but they figure they can get away with repeating lies all day long and nobody will object to it in the media. They will just ask for an opposing opinion. We've seen what's been going on. Poor John McCain is not a racist. He just loves MLK day, that's why he tried to block it and then lie about it.
Tom has got to hit him with a sledge hammer if he's going to call Obama a liar. This trying to look above it stuff will not work in the general. The culture of Rove knows only one thing. Character assassination and they are playing it big time against Obama. When Graham calls you a liar you don't say McCain is not a racist. You point out that McCain's camp ran an ad that had Obama's face on Mount Rushmore and dollar bills.
We have the white women theme in the Britney/Paris ad. You bring up the Muslim internet rumor attacks. You pummel him with the way Republican operatives have attacked his middle name. They do it over and over again. I mean. WAKE UP! You must go on the offensive. Sitting around trying to run out the clock will only lose the election. How many times do we have to see a replay of the same---lame---tactics?
Lindsey Graham is a very slick and smarmy operator. I wanted to scream at the TV and ask him if that with over 4000 troops killed---thousands with serious injuries and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi people dead and still suffering, how could he possibly act so smug and say it was all worth it to get rid of Saddam? The cost of this insane war against a country that did not attack us is unfathomable to me and nothing these warmongering apologists can say will ever change the truth of the situation. Al qaeda wasn't there and these are a people that would never let Iran control their country.
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BLITZER: ... Senator McCain was, in his words, basically a cheerleader for the war. And he sees that as the biggest blunder in U.S. foreign policy since the Cold War.
GRAHAM: Yes, all I can tell you is that a world with Saddam Hussein is not a better world.
In the Obama world, Saddam Hussein would still be in power. And you know how the U.N. oil-for-food program was working. I'm glad Saddam Hussein's out of power. I'm glad he's dead. And I'm glad we have a chance to create, in the heart of the Arab world, a Democratic government, where Sunni, Kurds, and Shias can live in peace, reject Iran, and deliver decisive blow against al Qaeda.
On Meet the Press, Sen. Graham flopped on his original positions on off shore drilling in his neck of the woods and Sen. Biden laughs at his phony argument at about the 2:40 mark of the clip and cuts his flipped positions into itty, bitty pieces. Most of us know that we can't drill our way out of the problem, but McCain and Graham are turning into Wall Street Zombies that now believe ANWR and off shore drilling will be the answer.
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MR. WILLIAMS: Senator Graham, this is what people are talking about. Myrtle Beach Sun News, "The Senate ... may consider lifting bans on exploring for oil and natural gas along the East and West coasts of the [U.S.] ... `I feel terrible about that,' Graham said. `The worst thing we can do as a nation is taking the easy way out. ... If you start opening up offshore drilling, then you are buying time and you are not addressing the fundamental problem with fossil fuels.'" So you see the argument, you made it.
Biden: hahaha
Goober Graham says that the price increases on oil and gas have changed his mind and position. Why should it? Before he didn't want to take the "easy way out" on our energy crisis, but know....well...McCain needs his help. The prices reflect badly on conservative principles that have governed our country under Bush. Since Graham is a co-conspirator to the Bush administration---why should we even consider his views on energy and oil at all? They have no credibility and should be ignored. At least they should be challenged by the media instead of having two different camps debating about it. Change in leadership and political philosophy is needed not Lawrence Kudlow talking points.
If only the media would take the time to explain the issues to the peeps instead of reading press releases. As Biden said---it'll take ten years to even begin getting any oil. And why didn't Williams ask Graham to explain himself after Biden's answer? He went to another topic. Full transcript below the fold via MSNBC:
The NY Times has the latest from the ever changing Iraq narrative from BushCo. So, what are we fighting for?
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With American military successes outpacing political gains in Iraq, the Bush administration has lowered its expectation of quickly achieving major steps toward unifying the country, including passage of a long-stymied plan to share oil revenues and holding regional elections.
There have been signs that American influence over Iraqi politics is dwindling after the recent improvements in Will the US then stage a coup and oust Maliki to put in a Chalabi type puppet in his place? This war and their supporters represent the term "absurd" in the extreme. security — which remain incomplete, as shown by a deadly bombing Friday in Baghdad. While Bush officials once said they aimed to secure “reconciliation” among Iraq’s deeply divided religious, ethnic and sectarian groups, some officials now refer to their goal as “accommodation.”...read on
So now their goals have changed to one of accommodation. It's CRAZY TALK@! Bush wants this war to continue so that when he leaves leave office he can hope that Michael Gerson writes the official version for all our history books. It's all about his legacy, you see. What a joke.
I've been saving the above clip for a few weeks now and I think this is the right time to post it. On 10/14/07, Lindsey Graham (CNN's Late Edition) said that if by the end of the year---the elected government of Iraq, run by Maliki---doesn't get the job done he should be removed. WTF?
BLITZER: ...But what happens if they fail to divide up the oil, if they fail to get those elections, they don't disband all the various militias by the end of the year? Then what does the United States do?
GRAHAM: ...So I am hopeful that some of these people at the local level will have a stronger voice. And I'm hopeful that Talabani, Maliki, and Hashemi and all the major players can have a breakthrough.
I'm asking them to do things they say are important for their country. The conditions are right now and, quite honestly, if they can't do it by the end of the year, I have real doubts that this group will ever do it so we need a new political strategy to find a group that can.
Find a group that can? Ladies and Gentlemen this is a major clusterf*&k and the scaled down violence is only an excuse to perpetuate this atrocity. Will the US then stage a coup and oust Maliki to put in a Chalabi type puppet in his place? This war and their supporters represent the term "absurd" in the extreme.
