BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

Talk about a week that should not have happened to anyone, much less the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States.  This was it for John McCain.  If he gained any votes this week, they have to be sympathy votes.  Hell, I’m one of those old white women who isn’t supposed to vote for Barack Obama, but if I had ever entertained the notion of casting a vote for John McCain (and I haven’t), that idea would have evaporated this week.

McCain started his week off visiting the the GOP’s daddy, George 41.  The picture of McCain and Papa Bush getting out of 41’s golf cart at the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine made me think of… and forgive me for this one… the old men and the sea.  Nothing against 41… he was better than 43… but McCain needs to surround himself with young people occasionally.  It’s a shame when we begin to feel that we need to check the obits for political news before we look at the rest of the New York Times. 

By sharp contrast, the Change We Can Believe In machine pulled off an energetic week of fast moving appearances, straight talking and straight walking through the Middle East to Europe.

Perhaps, the Republican National Committee or John McCain’s campaign has given up.  That’s the only reason they could have designed his weekly schedule to look like a parody of Obama’s trip.  I swear, it is too bad for all of us that SNL is in reruns for the summer.  They have missed some great material.

By Wednesday McCain was shopping with a mother and her two children and giving an interview beside the dairy case in the market.  The very idea of that makes me think of those old ads with the man in the plaid jacket hyping mattresses in B-grade television commercials.  Of course, by McCain’s own admission all the A-grade journalists were jockeying for seats on Obama’s plane.  I’m not knocking the press that remained in the States.  However, it seems that McCain considers them less than optimal, passing out ID’s that were labeled “JV.”

When asked about Obama’s speech in Berlin, McCain expressed an interest in speaking before a large crowd in Europe, but only as President of the United States.  Oh, please.  That is assuming a lot.  First, McCain would have to be elected President.  (Tell me that isn’t going to happen!)  Then, he would have to learn to speak before a crowd, something that has eluded him to date, even with three teleprompters running simultaneously at eye level and directly in front of him.  Maybe it isn’t speaking that trips him up.  It could be reading.  Let’s assume that McCain could be elected, could learn to speak or read well enough to make it sound like a real speech.  Now for the real question.  Where are 200,000 people willing to stand in the street and listen?

That brings us to the New York Times rejecting his essay this week.  Although McCain has been published in the NYT on several occasions, when he needed to respond to Barack Obama’s Op-Ed piece from the previous week he could come up with nothing new.  And, let’s face it, to put it bluntly, the New York Times is a “news” paper, not a history text.  Nothing new.  Nothing published.

As Obama prepared to walk onto the platform to deliver his Berlin speech,

 Mr. McCain had a bratwurst lunch with the owner of a car dealership and other local business people at a German restaurant in Columbus.

Oh, by the way

The campaign’s choice of restaurant was consistent with the Republican National Committee’s decision to run anti-Obama advertisements in Berlin, N.H.; Berlin, Wis.; and Berlin, Pa.

I told you this was SNL material.  Not enough?  As Barack Obama heads to Paris to meet with President Sarcozy, John McCain’s campaign countinues the parody.

… at an appearance with Lance Armstrong, the cyclist and cancer survivor, on Thursday night, … Mr. McCain could not resist a swipe at the throngs of journalists accompanying Mr. Obama. “My opponent, of course, is traveling in Europe, and tomorrow his tour takes him to France,” Mr. McCain said with Mr. Armstrong at the Columbus event, according to his prepared remarks. “In a scene Lance would recognize, a throng of adoring fans awaits Senator Obama in Paris — and that’s just the American press.”

Get it?  Obama heads to Paris on his tour and McCain pulls out the man known for the “Tour de France,” Lance Armstrong.  Well, McCain had said in an interview earlier in the week that he had something planned for Thursday evening.  And, Lance Armstrong was it!  Whew!  Can’t stand too many more of these big surprises.  (No disrespect intended for any cancer patient or cancer survivor.)  But, the timing for the appearance couldn’t have been better timed.

McCain was supposed to talk about the economy this week, and energy and healthcare.  But, all the news blips have been McCain talking about Obama’s trip, all too often with a bitter tone and sharp tongue that may be telling us more about John McCain’s attitude and temperament than he wishes us to see.  Whatever happened to grace under fire?

For weeks McCain has been insisting that Obama go to Iraq and Afghanistan before discussing foreign policy.  Obama took up the challenge and has rubbed McCain’s face in it.  But, McCain didn’t need Obama to make him look less than the expert on foreign policy.  McCain did that for himself.

Mr. McCain repeated a mistake by referring to Czechoslovakia, a nation that has not existed since 1993, and got into a tangle after an interview with CBS News over whether he was historically correct in saying that the troop escalation began before the Anbar Awakening movement in which Sunnis joined forces with American troops to fight the insurgency in Iraq.

Let’s not forget that foreign policy is McCain’s strong suit.  Now, it appears that Obama is trumping him on that, too.  Maybe McCain should have stuck to the economy… ah, but he has admitted that he doesn’t know much about that, and once said that he had read Wealth of Nations as his economic study guide.  Nothing wrong with that book, but why bother?  The economic woes we are experiencing are mostly psychological anyway.

And, what about all that economic talk McCain was going to do this week?  Well, according to one of his advisers, Mark Salter

“I think he’s getting his message out — go look at some of the local press and the local TV packages,” Mr. Salter said. “It’s John McCain on energy and the economy.”

Well, yeah… but… let’s just look!

(On Thursday in Pennsylvania, The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre prominently featured Mr. McCain’s comments in the state on Social Security; The Morning Call in Allentown covered Mr. McCain’s stop at the grocery store, including his remarks that $4-a-gallon milk was putting a strain on American families.)

According to the NYT

On Friday, Mr. McCain is to move beyond domestic milk prices and meet with the Dalai Lamain Aspen, Colo. — Mr. McCain called the Tibetan spiritual leader “a transcendent national role model” — and then he will head home for a weekend at his Arizona retreat near Sedona.

I know McCain must be worn out after this week.  He needs a weekend at the Arizona retreat.  He probably should have stayed at home this week.  The rest of us certainly need a break from him.  Besides, we need our rest before we meet Obama at the airport when he returns home.