First Door on the Left

Here is why Johnny McCain is suffering from a case of the sour grapes today (see previous post)…

Obama Speaks to Germany on European Ties

BERLIN — Senator Barack Obama stood before a sea of people here Thursday evening and issued a call for cooperation, imploring America and Europe to bridge differences and rekindle old alliances in an effort to restore global stability and better confront existing and unforeseen threats.

“If we’re honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart and forgotten our shared destiny,” Mr. Obama said. “In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe’s role in our security and our future.”

Pausing for a moment, the Illinois Democrat added: “Both views miss the truth.”

Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who is on a weeklong international tour, delivered his address at the base of the Victory Column in the Tiergarten, a sprawling park in the center of the city.

He looked out toward the Brandenburg Gate, where President Ronald Reagan implored the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down that wall” and end the Cold War, and spoke to crowd that the German News Agency DPA estimated at 200,000 people.

“I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before,” Mr. Obama said, confronting the delicate issue of campaigning abroad. “Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen — a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.”

The full text of his remarks, as prepared for delivery, may be read here. I will add video when it becomes available.

Video:

P.S. The absolutely blind hatred emanating from the rabid right is amazing (if not more than a little sickening).

Johnny McCain is not having the best of weeks (or months or years, for that matter) is he?

McCain says he’d prefer to speak in Germany as president

(CNN) — Sen. John McCain sharpened his attacks against Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday, saying he’d rather give a speech in Germany as president than as a presidential candidate.

Obama was in Berlin for the latest leg of an international trip intended to bolster his foreign policy credentials at home and set out his vision for a new era of transatlantic cooperation.

McCain was campaigning Thursday in Ohio, focusing on health care.

Speaking to reporters outside Schmidt’s Restaurant and Banquet Haus, a German eatery in Columbus, Ohio, McCain responded to Obama’s Berlin speech, which attracted large crowds at the Victory Column.

“Well, I’d love to give a speech in Germany … a political speech or a speech that maybe the German people would be interested in,” he said. “But I would much prefer to do it as president of the United States rather than as a candidate for the office of the presidency.”

Sounds like the old geezer has a case of the sour grapes, doesn’t it? Buck up, Johnny, it’s not going to get any better.

UPDATE: You know, I knew Johnny McCain reminded me of someone, but I could never quite put my finger on who it was. It took the above cartoon to bring it on home…

It isn’t even August yet. The parties have not even held their national conventions yet. And still, the McCain campaign has hit rock bottom. Is it really too late for the Republicans to pick someone else?

I’m a visual kind of guy. Really. Take a few moments and look around here. Lots of images. To me, a picture really does say a thousand words, and more. (Which may explain my magazine collection dating back to my teen years… all kinds of magazines… and that’s a lot of years.)

The use of images to spread propaganda particularly intrigues me. Especially propaganda of the political kind. Which, I guess, is why I found these two images I happened upon while browsing the internets this afternoon quite fascinating. I cannot fathom in my mind why right wingers (and even some on the left) would not find both of them equally amusing. I know I do.

The first, by the way, is a cartoon (in case you cannot tell). It depicts how some on the right believe some on the left feel about Senator Obama. (I have met him in person. He did not seem to be quite that skinny… though he did definitely appear to be fit… and he has a very firm handshake.) The second is an actual poster distributed by the McCain campaign (and a true tribute to the art of airbrushing). Nothing really says “peace” more than a red sky full of fighter planes unless it is a red sky full of fighter planes being watched over by the huge visage of Johnny McCain. Again, I personally find them both equally amusing, if not downright silly. I do not understand how some people can chuckle while viewing the first and yet take the second quite seriously.

Clicking on either image will make it appear bigger.

P.S. For Melissa Couthier: Does Mr. McCain’s pose in the above pictured poster remind you of anything?

This is about artistic tone. The profile view. The serious expression. The shading. When I saw the Obama flier picture McCain poster, my mind immediately called up this Hitler image and I was struck by how similar they are in feel the color choice differences aside. Unnerving really.

Sheesh. Stupidity really does rule the right, doesn’t it?

Jed Lewison (The Jed Report) has put together another excellent video. If you are even thinking of voting for Johnny McCain, you need to watch this video. If you know anybody who is even thinking of voting for Johnny McCain, you need to share this video with them. John McCain’s Neverending War…

(I have closed the comments on this post. If you have a comment about this video, please leave it on Jed’s blog. It’s okay, however, if you tell him that I sent you.)

P.S. Videos such as the one posted above really do make stories such as this one appear all the more ludicrous. Besides, does anyone actually watch “World News with Charles Gibson?” (Do any of the major media outlets have anybody on staff who is not receiving a weekly check from the RNC?)

I don’t pay much attention to Robert Novak. Neither should you.

The Odd Couple

Can you just imagine the screaming and outrage from the right had it been Barack Obama showing this level of ignorance? It seems to be alright, though, when it comes from Senior Citizen McCain.

See also: “McCain shows his expertise on foreign policy.” The old codger also believes that Czechoslovakia still exists.

John McCain

Last week The New York Times published an op-ed column written by Barack Obama in which he laid out his plan for Iraq. This week the paper has rejected a column written by Johnny McCain in response to Senator Obama’s column. (Read Mr. McCain’s column here.) The reason given is that the McCain column contains no new ideas nor does it any way articulate what Mr. McCain’s plans are for the ill-begotten war in Iraq. All it does is claim that Senator Obama’s ideas and plans are wrong. (The newspaper of record has never, to my knowledge, promised that any column written by any candidate, no matter how trivial and inconsequential, would be published.)

Of course, the right wingers are all up in arms, once again claiming they are the victims of the so-called “liberal” media. What they fail to mention is that The New York Times has offered to publish Johnny McCain’s article, but only if he will rewrite it so it contains some substance. The McCain people have, of course, refused this offer. Substance is not what the McCain campaign is about. All they care to do is crow on about how the old codger is a hero because he spent five years sitting in a prisoner of war camp four decades ago and complain about how everybody else is wrong about everything while claiming that Senior Citizen McCain is the only person in the entire world to ever get anything right.

Now they’ve even got an ad out blaming Barack Obama for high gasoline prices!

Typical. Rather than telling you how Johnny McCain plans to solve our energy crisis and bring gas prices down, they tell you that it is all Senator Obama’s fault we have a crisis and prices are high. The next thing you know they will be blaming him for hurricanes (there is one heading for the Texas coast right now), floods and wildfires.

Our Republicans are a laugh a minute, aren’t they?

Meanwhile…

Gen. David Petraeus flies with Sens. Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel from Baghdad International Airport to the International Zone. (Photo credit: SSG Lorie Jewell, US Army)

Sen. Barack Obama, left, shakes hands with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, July 21, 2008. (Photo: AP Photo/Iraqi Government)

(That’s gotta burn!)

P.S. Remember a few months ago when Senator Obama talked about bitter people who cling to guns, religion and antipathy? Well… I found them. (That’s some really funny stuff right there that is.)

Update: “New York Times To McCain: Cut The Crap.”

Also see: “The Times and the McCain Op-Ed.”

Our next president met with Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai today. Johnny McCain and Rudy Giuliani went to a baseball game.

Obama Meets Afghan Leader and Discusses Terrorism

Karzai and Obama

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 20 — Senator Barack Obama met with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan for nearly two hours on Sunday and “conveyed that he is committed to supporting Afghanistan and to continuing the war against terrorism with vigor,” an Afghan presidential spokesman said.

The meeting, which continued over a traditional Afghan lunch of chicken, mutton and rice, was conducted in a “very friendly environment,” the spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, said.

Mr. Obama and the two other senators traveling with him — Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska; and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island — reaffirmed the United States’ bipartisan support for Afghanistan. And Mr. Karzai asked that the senators pass on the “immense gratitude” of the Afghan people to their constituents and the American public, Mr. Hamidzada said at a news briefing after the lunch.

In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Mr. Obama said: “We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front on our battle against terrorism.”[..]

Mr. Obama’s visit to Afghanistan is part of a weeklong tour that will take him to Iraq, Israel and Western Europe in an effort to build impressions, and counter criticism, about his ability to serve as president in a time of war.

Mr. Obama arrived in eastern Afghanistan, near Pakistan, on Saturday to get a firsthand look at the region where American troops are feeling the brunt of increased attacks from militants infiltrating the border. In selecting Afghanistan as an early stop in his first overseas trip as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Mr. Obama was seeking to highlight what he says is the central front in the fight against terrorism.

“Losing is not an option when it comes to Al Qaeda, and it never has been,” Mr. Obama told CBS News. “And that’s why the fact that we engaged in a war of choice when we were not yet finished with that task was such a mistake.”

Kudos to His Honor the Mayor for getting Johnny McCain out of the house on a weekend. He usually spends the weekends at one of his wife’s houses recuperating.

To begin the weekend Johnny made a guest appearance on NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien where he feigned having a heart attack and keeling over. (The official line is that he was faking falling asleep because, you know, he’s so damned old.) Notice how the audience cheered. Nobody appeared to be awfully concerned that perhaps the old codger was not pretending…

One would think that at least one member of his Secret Service detail would have come running to his aid.

(More here.)

Was it really a mistake, or is somebody in the Bush White House looking out for the future of the country? Perhaps we’ll never know…

White House Tips Press Off to Maliki Interview

WACO, Tex. — The White House is quick to distribute its point of view in e-mail messages with headings like “News You Can Use,” “In Case You Missed It,” and “Setting the Record Straight.” So it was a surprise on Saturday morning when the White House distributed an article by Reuters that offered an endorsement of Senator Barack Obama’s Iraq policy by the leader of Iraq.

“Iraq PM backs Obama troop exit plan,” the headline read over a story about an interview of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in the German magazine Der Spiegel, in which he expressed support for the senator’s plan to withdraw American combat brigades from Iraq over the next 16 months.

“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months,” Mr. Maliki told Der Spiegel, Reuters reported. “That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

Turns out it was a mistake by the White House clipping service, which had intended to distribute it internally but instead sent it to thousands signed up to receive the administration’s press releases, transcripts, statements and other documents, drawing attention to an interview that might otherwise have received less.

The timing compounded the mistake. It came a day after the White House announced that President Bush, in a significant shift, had agreed to a “general time horizon” for withdrawing American forces, though not on the strict timetable Mr. Obama favors. Mr. Maliki’s remarks suggested a position not entirely in line with President Bush’s, despite Friday’s announcement.

Troops meet future Commander-in-Chief

Related: “Obama Opens a Foreign Tour in Afghanistan.”

Wait a minute…

McCain gets Social Security but criticizes system

John McCain

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Although Republican presidential candidate John McCain has called Social Security “a disgrace,” he still cashes his own retirement check every month.

“I’m receiving the benefits, the system is broken and, unfortunately, my children and grandchildren, according to the trustees of the Social Security system, will not have the same benefits the present retirees have,” McCain told reporters Thursday on his campaign bus.

McCain’s 2007 tax return shows Social Security benefits of $23,157 for the year, an average of $1,929.75 a month. He said he started receiving the payments “whenever I was eligible.”[..]

McCain, who will turn 72 next month, was eligible to receive full-retirement benefits when he turned 65. In 2008, the maximum benefit for a person retiring at full retirement age was $2,185.

McCain reported a total income of $405,409 in 2007. As a senator, he is paid $169,300 a year. Last year, he donated $105,467 to charity, his return shows.

McCain’s wife, Cindy, reported a total income of more than $6 million in 2006, according to the campaign. She files her tax return separately from her husband and has received an extension for 2007. Heiress to a large Arizona beer distributorship, she is reportedly worth more than $100 million.

People are not required to take Social Security payments, according to B.J. Jarrett, a spokesman with the Social Security Administration.

(Emphasis added.)

In addition, Senator McCain’s pension from the senate will be the average of the highest 3 years of his salary (currently $169,300). If, gods forbid, he is elected president, his annual salary will increase to $400,000. Will he still collect Social Security?

So, basically, this hypocrite is sucking at the teat of the animal of which he is so critical. (Not right, Johnny. Not right at all.)

I would say he’s a typical Republican, but… Oh, what the hell? He’s just a typical Republican.

If the old coot had any dignity at all, he would be paying the government back for all the Social Security benefits he has received. Plus interest. What does the old geezer need money for anyway? His wife pays all the bills.