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How To Think Like John McCain
How to think like John McCain in six easy lessons.
So let's see. According to John McCain,
1. The bad guys of the economic crisis are greedy bankers. They foisted homes and mortgages on innocent, unsuspecting middle Americans who couldn't afford them and (presumably) shouldn't have gotten them.
2. The Federal Government must buy up all these mortgages so that these people can stay in the houses they can't afford and shouldn't have gotten.
3. Why? Because home ownership is central to the American dream. Even Americans who can't afford a home should have one, and if they happen to get one, which they shouldn't, but might, thanks to unscrupulous bankers, the federal government should step in to make sure they don't lose it.
4. The crisis won't be resolved until house prices start rising again, thus making the American Dream unaffordable to more people.
5. He doesn't believe in a "litmus test" for the selection of Supreme Court judges, as long as they interpret the law and don't start making things up like rights and stuff.
6. Anyone who thinks there is a right to abortion in the Constitution is making it up.
Did John McCain have any idea what he was talking about last night? He delivered one nonsense line after another, each time leaning back with a satisfied "that'll show'em" grin. His delight in the witless line about "Joe the Plumber" who wanted to keep his money and not let Obama "spread it around" was unjustified to the point of weirdness. Why did he keep repeating it? Obama, meanwhile, calmly shot down each personal accusation: Bill Ayers, ACORN, obscure votes in the Illinois legislature—nothing could get through to injure him. If only Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative worked so well.
My favorite moment was the one where McCain was proposing some major federal initiative relating to children with autism, and Obama asked him how he could expand this program if he was planning an across-the-board spending cut. That seemed to be a genuine debating point, rather than a pre-rehearsed speechlet. Unfortunately, the silly presidential debate rules prevented him from driving the point home.
Check out other opinions on the debate from The Daily Beast team.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Michael Kinsley is a columnist for the Washington Post. He was founding editor of Slate. He has been editor of The New Republic and Harper's, editorial and opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times, American editor of The Economist, and managing editor of the Washington Monthly. He has written for numerous publications including the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, and Condé Nast Traveler. For six years he was co-host of CNN’s Crossfire.
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Michael Kinsley is a columnist for the Washington Post. He was founding editor of Slate. He has been editor of The New Republic and Harper's, editorial and opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times, American editor of The Economist, and managing editor of the Washington Monthly. He has written for numerous publications including the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, and Condé Nast Traveler. For six years he was co-host of CNN’s Crossfire.
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Michael Kinsley is a columnist for the Washington Post. He was founding editor of Slate. He has been editor of The New Republic and Harper's, editorial and opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times, American editor of The Economist, and managing editor of the Washington Monthly. He has written for numerous publications including the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, and Condé Nast Traveler. For six years he was co-host of CNN’s Crossfire.
Spot on!! You are the first I've seen to mention the remark that Obama made about research into autism being impossible if a spending freeze was in force. I do think I would have added that in order to think like him you'd have to think that Palin would be a great VP even though she violates ethics rules and thinks the VP should have even more power than Cheney tried to incorporate, but you really hammered it.
"My favorite moment was the one where McCain was proposing some major federal initiative relating to children with autism, and Obama asked him how he could expand this program if he was planning an across-the-board spending cut."
That should have been #7: Money! We don't need no stinkin' money!!
All we need is transparency and the programs will magically pay for themselves, right?
In the post-debate, I loved all the conservative pundits howling, "But how will Obama pay for it all?" And I was thinking.....which part of, "we'll stop spending $10 billion EVERY SINGLE MONTH in Iraq, and we'll appropriately tax the wealtiest 2%", are they not getting?
And then I remember, it isn't that they don't get it, it's that they still believe they can stop US from getting it.
Too late, that ship has sailed.
wow, cross the boards cuts on the budget...real smart cut the meat and leave the fat...i'm tuff i don't care if the program works, about about and intelligent appraisal of government spending determine what works and what doesn't.taking a hatchet now that's grow up...i think mccain and the republicans just don't understand how it works
I have the greatest respect for John McCain's service to this country, and the sacrifices he made while a prisoner of war.
I also feel that this country and every citizen owes him a big debt of gratitude, and he should be rewarded generously, but there have been untold thousands of others who have also sacrificed. Our country has ways of trying to compensate those who have made sacrifices. These ways certainly seem lacking in comparison to the degrees of loss our brave service people have suffered, but they're the best benefits we presently offer ... and now is not the time to try and create a new reward - like the Presidency.
Extend his disability pay, provide him with tuition, give him another medal, pay his medical bills, do anything else we can for him and others who have served, but please - do not make the job of President a benefit for past service, instead of one solely rewarded for fitness to serve.
I was solidly behind Mac until the debates. He really is incoherent. It's like a kid whose so excited to be in the store he can't talk straight. Weird
The point that I thought was the most telling was his use of "Health" as a charge against Obama. If McCain has an interest to bring independent voter towards his campaign - this could not have helped.
What was most consistent in McCain's mental frame opposition towards government regulation can solve problems - which seems to beg the question why he would want to be president!
Did anyone else notice that McCain kept referring to Palin's infant son as having Autism when in fact he has Down Syndrome?
I guess the war is not even a topic anymore. Obama wont use scare tactics to help us decide in his favor. He knows we dont need to be over in Iraq. Its not a white flag of surrender if Iraq steps up to the plate.
The logic of your piece is, as usual, pretty unassailable.Too bad you'll still see the McCain/Palin mobs roaring approval at this nonsense. On the other hand, the # of die-hard McCain supporters is shrinking faster than all our 401-k balances. Glad to see you posting here. I used to love watching you on Crossfire and Firing Line all those years ago.
I like paying taxes - not 100% of my income - but a reasonable amount. I live in New Orleans and I know exactly what taxes do because for several months, I lived without the services that taxes provide.
Taxes pay for the street in front of my house. The sewerage and water systems beneath those streets. The lights that automatically come on at night to assist the police officers and fire fighters who help to protect me and my loved ones in the neighborhood. The schools where my friends send their children. I have no children, but I gladly educate other children because they are the future doctors, scientists, explorers and inventors, educators and artists of the world that I inhabit. The more education these children have, the less I have to pay for prisons, drug abuse programs, victims assistance programs, etc. Taxes also pay for the military, the training of military personnel, the benfits of their retirement and health care. The legislature that creates laws in concensus. The judiciary. The presidency.
To argue for no taxes is to argue for the end of civilization as we know it.
How did everyone miss the accusation that Sen. Obama refused to vote for "Breyer and Roberts"! Last time I checked Justice Breyer was appointed by President Clinton and took his seat on August 3, 1994. Its no wonder that Obama did not vote for Breyer! Oh well just another brain fart...
Yes, Michael, I agree, McCain was basically incoherent and rambling--again--with many mental disconnects that left me wondering about his mental health; it's hard to deny a certain senile temperament at work in his illogical jumps to and fro as he tried hard at points to even finish sentences. And trying to turn the tables on charges of his tacit approval of Palin's recent reckless, mob-baiting campaign by blaming Obama for over-reacting was just pathetic. Junior high school girls fight with more class than old Major John.
Re the "that'll show 'em grin" - McCain's look brought to mind Charlie Chaplin in his later years - his eyes, blinking away, seemed like the glass eyes you used to see in dolls, the kind that click closed when you lay the doll on its back. One looks in vain for something there...
I'd like to link directly to Kinsley's blog, but it appears that I can only link to individual posts - help webmaster - please create a permalink for the blog itself and not just individual articles!
Thank you.
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