Awful McCain Mistakes on Foreign Policy

In a week in which the Dow lost 1,000 points on Monday and Wednesday, John McCain was insisting the economic fundamentals in America were strong. Wha???????

OK, the economy is, by his own admission, not his strong suit. So does he have a strong suit?

The media has attempted to portray McCain to have knowledge on foreign policy, but his repeated mistakes prove he is not intelligent enough to handle that, either. As a recap, here are some of McCain's recent foreign policy gaffes in which he said that:

1 - Iraq and Pakistan share a border.

2 - Czechoslovakia still exists.

3 - He was confused as to the difference between Sudan and Somalia.

4 - He was confused as to whether it was more U.S troops or more NATO troops he wanted to send to Afghanistan.

5 - He was confused as to what troop levels are in Iraq.

6 - He was confused about Iran's relationship with Al Qaeda.

7 - He was confused about the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

8 - He referred to Russian President Putin as being the leader of Germany.

9 - He jokingly sang about bombing Iran.

10 - His running mate spoke of bombing Russia.

11 - And now this week, he has referred to our friendly European ally and fellow democracy, Spain, as being our adversary, and...

12 - being located in Central America.

McCain is showing himself to be weak-minded, weak-willed, lacking judgment, lacking intelligence, lacking stamina, and choosing the worst, most unqualified running mate in U.S. history (supplanting even Dan Quayle).

Apparently, he does not have any strong suit at all.

Despite the media's attempts to keep the race close for their own ratings benefit, John McCain is showing such a lack of ability to be president as to even overcome that propaganda to register in the polls whose methodology already favors the republican candidates by skewed selection of those they poll.

Red Sox Add by Addition

Some are arguing the Red Sox accomplished addition by subtraction this week by trading Manny Ramirez and acquiring Jason Bay, meaning they took a step back by making the switch, but accomplished more in the long run by removing a problem player.

They’re wrong. The Red Sox have added a more accomplished player in Bay.

Those who don’t like the deal are only looking at the raw numbers:

Ramirez - .303 BA, 21 HR .936 OPS through 8-3-08.

Bay - .283 BA, 23 HR, .906 OPS.

Those are the UNADJUSTED stats. Adjust for all of the factors and you’ll see Bay is the superior hitter and player.

Factor #1 - Ball Park

Ramirez played home games in Fenway park, a hitter’s park. His stats were inflated because of where he played half of his games.

Bay played his home games in Pittsburgh, a pitcher’s park that made hitting stats worse.

Factor #2 - Pitching staffs

Ramirez didn’t have to face above-average Red Sox pitchers so his numbers were compiled against slightly below league-average pitching. That made his batting statistics better than if they were against average pitching in the league.

Bay didn’t get to face below-average Pirates pitchers so his numbers were compiled against slightly above league-average pitching. That made his batting statistics worse than if he got to face average pitching in the league.

Factor # 3 - Defense

Ramirez was often replaced late in games to allow a better defensive outfielder to play in LF. When David Ortiz was out with an injury, Ramirez moved to DH, a spot he’s more suited for.

Bay is better in the field and can stay in ball games to provide good fielding with his range and his arm.

Factor # 4 - Speed

Ramirez was slow on the base paths, and that’s when he actually tried to run. Ramirez could have gotten extra hits by running harder on misplayed ground balls he assumed would be outs. With him, they were because of his lack of effort.

Bay has always hustled in his career. He plays the game with full effort and won’t accept an out as automatic. This season he is 7 for 7 in stolen base attempts.

Factor # 5 - Age

Ramirez is 36.

Bay is 29.

Factor # 6 - Contract

Ramirez makes $20 million a year and is a free agent after this season.

Bay is signed through 2009 when he will make $7.5 million.

Factor # 7 - In the Clubhouse

No one will ever say that Jason is just being Jason - in a bad way, that is.

An Awful Week in McCain's Political Life, but the Media Covers it up

If John McCain weren’t the darling of the media, he would be in BIG trouble after this past week. I cannot remember a politician having such a disastrous string of mistakes, missteps, and misstatements in so short a time. Yet, it's almost being completely ignored by the media.

First, McCain promised to balance the budget by the end of his first term from all the money he would save by winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan even though he has said in the past that there’s no reason to bring troops home if they’re not getting killed anymore. Of course, he has also said that we can’t bring the troops home as long as they’re getting killed. In other words, we stay if we are getting killed and we stay if we’re not getting killed. So where does the money being saved come from?

He then attacked Barack Obama for not voting for something he didn’t vote for, either - the Kyl-Lieberman amendment.

He claimed to have a record with veterans that he really doesn’t have. It was Barack Obama who supported the G.I. Bill and John McCain who refused to vote for it. That just backs up all Veterans’ groups overwhelmingly scoring McCain’s support of soldiers among the worst in the Senate.  

McCain ignored the Iraqi Prime Minister calling for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq even though McCain had said before that if the Iraqis wanted us to leave, we would leave.

McCain joked about wanting to kill Iranian civilians by giving them lung cancer.

On Monday, McCain described social security as a total disgrace, not saying that it needed to be fixed, but saying, “We are paying present-day retirees with the taxes being paid by young workers in America today.” That just happens to be the entire premise of social security, which he has stated he wants to privatize.

McCain’s top economic advisor, Phil Gramm, who largely caused the mortgage crisis in America by creating the Enron loophole while a Senator, called Americans a bunch of whiners for an economy he said was only in a mental recession. Despite this, he got to keep his campaign co-chairman position.

Another top economic advisor, the formerly ousted Hewlett Packard CEO, Carly Fiorino, told reporters that McCain was just as upset as she was that insurance companies cover Viagra for men, but not birth control for women leaving McCain befuddled and bewildered on his campaign bus when reporters asked him about it.

Finally, McCain lied about his own life story just to pander to a Pittsburgh TV morning show. When McCain was held in Vietnam by the North Vietnamese, he had always said he gave false information under torture to make the torturers stop. He even stated it in his autobiography and the film that was made about it. Instead of naming his squad mates and squadron commander, he named the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers - the best team in football in the 1960s.

At the time, the Pittsburgh Steelers stunk. They were completely insignificant with no outstanding players although they would later become the best team of the 1970s well after McCain left Vietnam.

In talking to this Pittsburgh TV reporter, McCain changed his life story by saying he named the Pittsburgh Steelers famous defensive line of the time just to show what a great Pittsburgh fan he was. Too bad the famous Steel Curtain defense didn’t exist yet!

Furthermore, he formerly used this Green Bay Packers story to illustrate how ineffective torture is. A victim generally says anything just to end the pain. Of course, McCain completely changed his anti-torture stance under the direction of the Republican dictatorship who used incorrect information gleaned under torture to justify the irresponsible spending of American blood and taxpayers’ dollars in Iraq.

It’s a good thing for McCain that the media is the lapdog of the Republican machine or else he’d never hear the end of this week’s gaffes.

McCain, Republicans - No (truthful) Energy Plan Whatsoever

The latest atrocity being pushed by John McCain and the Republicans is that we need to boost oil production by drilling off the gulf shore shore and in the Alaskan National Wildlife Arctic Refuge (ANWAR).

Virtually every reason they give for this is, at best - completely baseless; and, at worst - a total lie.

The fact is that the Republicans’ stance on energy and oil has been abysmal and that McCain has no plan whatsoever to offer other than to keep doing what Bush is doing - subsidizing oil companies like Exxon-Mobil who made $8 billion per year when Bush took office, but who now make over $40 billion per year giving them the largest yearly corporate profit in the history of planet Earth.

We also have no reason to need it. The oil companies are sitting on 68 million acres of leased drilling land in the United States and purposely NOT drilling on it. They are hoarding at our expense and their republican backed puppets are floating other abominations now.

Misrepresentation #1 - Increasing offshore drilling will help bring down the cost of oil quickly.

Fact - Increasing offshore may produce a little more oil by the year 2025 or so, but the amount will be only a slight fraction of the nation’s total output. Republicans are basing this on the theory that we can drill our way out of the problem.

This is truly the most ludicrous of all their arguments. The United States has two percent of the world’s oil, but use 25 percent. Increasing that to 2.02 percent in 20 years will not make up the difference. If it was a difference maker, why won't they drill on the already secured 68 million acres they're sitting on? Because we're already refining oil at our full capacity. More oil won't get us more gasoline or lower prices.

Misrepresentation #2 - Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 did no damage to the environment from offshore oil platforms. McCain said, “They’re safe enough.”

Fact - Hurricanes Katrina and Rita forced 700,000 gallons of oil to spill during the hurricanes. The chance of further disasters not related to weather also factor into a possible catastrophic disaster to not only the ecology, but also the gulf states’ industries along the coast, such as the seafood industry and tourism on the beaches.

Misrepresentation #3 (actually a blatant lie) - “China is drilling off the coast of Florida...” (optional aside - “with the help of Cuba.”)

Fact - It’s a LIE. This rumor has been alleged by Vice-President Dick Cheney, Republican Congressmen John Boehner and Roy Blount, and media personalties Michelle Bachman and George Will over the past week. Dick Cheney actually apologized and corrected himself the day after this assertion, but it has a life that lives on thanks to Bachman and friends at the Republican Headquarters known as “Fox News.” It simply happens to be a fabrication.

Misrepresentation #4 (and the most fanciful of all) - ANWAR helps caribou in Alaska because the pipeline is warm. One Republican congresswoman from Minnesota even said the caribou will have coffee klatches with such a warm pipeline! I’m not making that up.

Fact - This is the silliest one yet. Think about it a second - the animals native to Alaska... are freezing??? Wouldn’t they have moved or become extinct long ago if they needed more warmth? And oh, by the way, why would we be HEATING the oil to such a degree that it will make the outside of the pipes warm? Is there some reason we’d need to do that? Would we need portable heaters along the pipeline to keep it warm the entire length? If not, then why has no one ever proposed simply putting in heaters FOR THE CARIBOU?

The simple truth is that the wealthiest corporations in the history of civilization, who are already being subsidized with additional tax dollars paid by hard-working Americans, want more. The Republicans are just the people who will rob the bottom 99 percent to make it happen.

Bobby Jindal - Puppet, Heretic, Exorcist

Bobby Jindal is the Indian-American, 36-year-old governor of Louisiana and the only non-white Republican to hold high political office in the United States.

Some have thrown out his name as a possible vice-presidential running mate for John McCain. It won’t happen because, if for no other reason, the age difference would make John McCain look really old.

Jindal has been appointed to most of his positions by upper-echelon Republicans who taught him to obey, and he has throughout his career in Congress and, now, Governor. He has voted with George W. Bush more than 95 percent of the time and kissed up to every conservative politician who came into the state.

He was a Hindu until converting to Catholicism at 15. But it was revealed this week that he admitted to committing one of the most  egregious sins in the Catholic church when he took the role of a priest in performing an exorcism.

That’s right - he performed an exorcism - on a girlfriend he once knew. He wrote about it in a magazine article.

In the Catholic church, only an ordained priest can perform an exorcism, and, even then, it takes quite a high authority to appoint a priest to that function.

Obviously, Jindal thought rather highly of himself to appoint himself to this task.

He said it worked. He claimed the demon was cast out of the girl’s body.

Furthermore, Jindal said he also cured her of cancer!

It’s too bad he can’t use some of those magical powers to keep some his campaign promises about transparency in the Louisiana governor’s office regarding ethics.

Maybe the devil made him do it.

Obama's Record on New Orleans

I wrote yesterday about more misstatements by John McCain about Iraq and New Orleans.

Obama's record in speaking out against Republican lies on Iraq is well-documented, but less well-known are his actions regarding New Orleans. Here's a rundown of what Obama has done for this area. Here's what the blog, "Think On These Things," compiled through February 2008.

 

Sept. 2, 2005: Obama holds press conference urging Illinoisans to contribute to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

Sept. 5, 2005: Obama goes to Houston to visit evacuees with Presidents Clinton and Bush.

Sept. 7, 2005: Obama introduces bill to create a national emergency family locator system

Sept. 8, 2005: Obama introduces bill to create a National Emergency Volunteers Corps.

Sept. 8, 2005: Obama co-sponsors the Katrina Emergency Relief Act of 2005 introduced by Senator Harry Reid

Sept. 8, 2005: Obama co-sponsors the Hurricane Katrina Bankruptcy Relief and Community Protection Act of 2005 introduced by Senator Russ Feingold

Sept. 12, 2005: Obama introduces legislation requiring states to create an emergency evacuation plan for society’s most vulnerable

Sept. 15, 2005: Obama issues public response to President Bush’s speech about Gulf Coast rebuilding.

Sept. 21, 2005: Obama co-sponsors bill to establish a Katrina commission to investigate response to the disaster introduced by Hillary Clinton

Sept. 21, 2005: Obama appears on NPR to discuss the role of poverty in Hurricane Katrina.

Sept. 22, 2005: Obama and Coburn’s Hurricane Katrina financial oversight bill unanimously passes Senate committee.

Sept. 22, 2005: Obama’s amendment requiring evacuation plans unanimously passes Senate committee.

Sept. 28, 2005: Obama and Coburn issue statement about the need for a Chief Financial Officer to oversee the financial mismanagement and suspicious contracts occurring in the reconstruction process

Sept. 29, 2005: Obama and Coburn investigate possible FEMA refusal of free cruise ship offer

Oct. 6, 2005: Obama and Coburn issue statement on FEMA Decision to re-bid Katrina contracts

Oct. 6, 2005: Obama co-sponsors Gulf Coast Infrastructure Redevelopment and Recovery Act of 2005.

Oct. 21, 2005: Obama releases statement decrying the extension of FEMA director, Michael “Brownie” Brown’s contract. Obama calls Brown’s contract extension, “unconscionable.”

Nov. 17, 2005: Obama and Coburn introduce legislation asking FEMA to immediately re-bid all Katrina reconstruction contracts.

Feb. 1, 2006: Obama gives Senate floor speech on his legislation to help children affected by Hurricane Katrina

Feb. 2, 2006: Obama introduces legislation to help low-income children affected by Hurricane Katrina

Feb. 23, 2006: Obama issues statement responding to a White House report on Hurricane Katrina. Obama noted that the top two recommendations that the report had for the federal government were initiatives he had been working on since immediately after the storm hit. Obama called the administration’s response “delinquent.”

May 2, 2006: Obama gives speech about no-bid contracts in Hurricane Katrina reconstruction

May 4, 2006: Obama’s legislation to end no-bid contracts for Hurricane Katrina reconstruction passed the Senate.

June 15, 2006: Obama and Coburn announce legislation to require amendment to create competitive bidding for Hurricane Katrina reconstruction for federal contracts over $500,000. Although it passed previously, the language was stripped in conference.

June 15, 2006: Obama releases podcast about his pending Katrina reconstruction legislation in the Senate.

June 16, 2006: Obama and Coburn get no-bid Hurricane Katrina reconstruction amendment into Department of Defense authorization bill.

July 14, 2006: Obama and Coburn’s legislation to end abuse of no-bid contracts passes senate as amendment to Department of Defense authorization bill.

August 11, 2006: Obama visits Xavier University in New Orleans to give Commencement address

August 14, 2006: Obama and Coburn ask FEMA to address ballooning no-bid contracts for Gulf Coast reconstruction

Sept. 29, 2006: Obama and Coburn legislation to prevent abuse of no-bid contracts in the wake of disaster passes Senate to be sent to President’s desk to become law.

Feb. 2007-Present: As Obama begins his Presidential campaign he references Katrina as a part of his stump speech as he travels around the country in his familiar line, “That we are not a country which preaches compassion and justice to others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of a major American city. That is not who we are.”

June 20, 2007: Obama co-sponsors Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act of 2007 introduced by Senator Chris Dodd.

July 27, 2007: Obama and colleagues get a measure in the Homeland Security bill that will

investigate FEMA trailers that may contain the toxic chemical, formaldehyde.

Aug. 26, 2007: Obama outlines a detailed Hurricane Katrina recovery plan.

December 18, 2007: Obama calls on President Bush to protect affordable housing in New Orleans.

February 16, 2008: Obama releases statement on toxic Gulf Coast trailers.

And something tells me he's not finished speaking to the problems in the Crescent City.

More McCain Blunders - Iraq (again), Iran (again), and New Orleans

Because I've been away for awhile, I haven't been able to keep up with all of the recent John McCain goofs. Still, the last seven days have shown us that even upon reflection the best McCain can do is compound the errors with more mistakes.

On his least knowledgeable topic, the Middle East, his seemingly unending streak of misstatements, foul-ups, and lies continued last week with his assertion that troop levels in Iraq were below what they were before the Republican escalation of the war in January 2007. WRONG!

In fact, troop levels are higher now. So he tried to “correct” that the next day by saying he meant they would be below pre-surge levels by July.

Again, that simply wasn’t true. The ending of already Republican-extended troop deployments will force levels to reduce somewhat this summer, but they will still be a full 10,000 troops above what they were before the January 2007 troop escalation.

The week began on Monday with McCain speaking to the conservative Jewish group, AIPAC, and bashed Barack Obama for proposing to speak with other countries before beginning to bomb them. McCain made his point by speaking about the divestment campaign against South Africa and how that lead to the end of apartheid. If only he were president, he would begin a divestment campaign against Iran as well.

That was all good, except for three BIG problems.

First, the Senate already proposed an Iran divestment bill last year. It was written by Barack Obama. Oops. In case you think it was a democrat version, it wasn't. In fact, the bill was co-sponsored by conservative republican Sam Brownback.

Second, John McCain voted AGAINST the bill he's now proposing. Double oops.

Third, he had also voted years ago against the divestment bill against South Africa, the very example he held up as a basis for pursuing one against Iran!!! WHAT A MORON!!!

McCain continued his sightseeing tour of forgotten truths this week when he was asked why he twice voted against independent investigations into governmental failings before and after Hurricane Katrina. McCain said, I’ve supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the tragedy." WRONG!

In 2005 and in 2006, Democrats proposed an independent commission to look into the problems regarding the handling of the worst natural disaster in American history. It would have been comprised of non-federal-government analysts appointed by both Democrats and Republicans.

McCain and his fellow Republicans killed both proposals.

Again, McCain tried to later “correct” his misstatement by saying he voted against the bills because they were filled with pork barrel projects that had “billions for projects and programs that had nothing to do with the recovery of the city of New Orleans.”

Once again, McCain’s attempt to explain away his earlier incorrect recollection was completely wrong. The bills would have provided $3 million for the projects, but had no allocations for anything else.

McCain’s Magical Misery Tour continues.