Why does McCain get so much negative press?

Could stuff like this be one reason?

All Hands on Deck

McCain on the bailout --

"I'm an old Navy pilot," he said, never missing a
chance to mention his war record, "and I know when a crisis calls for
all hands on deck."

What Navy was he in? Nobody running the engines, nobody loading the guns, nobody making sandwiches? No wonder he can't win a war.

Fact Checking McCain's Speech

Continuing the thread on McCain's speech:

One of the things he said was
iv
"Executives don't get to vote present."

He was talking about the "present" vote option in the Illinois Senate that had been used by Obama a bunch of times.

But McCain is just wrong, the US President does have an option that's equivalent to the "present" vote.

"Present" is functionally the same as a "no" vote since a bill has to have a "yes" majority to pass. "Present" votes count as votes. A bill with 99 "yes" votes and 100 "present" votes will not pass in Illinois.

The US President can use a pocket veto to stop bill without actually doing anything. It's the same as a "present" vote.

Does McCain actually know the duties of the US President?

Fact Checking McCain's Speech

He said, "We believe in rewarding hard work and risk takers."

Well, okay, one way to reward hard work is with a minimum wage law.

But what does it mean to reward risk takers? If you can be assured that the government will reward you for taking risk then you aren't taking much of a risk.

The Spoiler Candidate

Nader has decided to waste his time running for President again.

Some are calling him a spoiler candidate, one who won't accomplish anything but draining enough votes from the democratic candidate to tilt the outcome towards electing McMcain.

But with him in the race I think the spoiler candidate is Hillary.

Before he joined the race she had some chance of winning the election. Not much, but some. If she can beat Obama then she might be able to beat McCain. It's not a sure thing that she could, but she'd have a shot.

Not with Nader in the race. With Nader an option there's no chance in hell she could beat McCain in the general election.

If she manages to win the nomination she will not get at least some of the votes that would have gone to Obama. That's a sure thing. That's whether Nader is in the race or not. But enough democrats will refuse to vote for a republican that she might get enough of the Obama votes to carry the election. But if they can vote for Nader then it's very likely that enough of them would rather vote for him and let McCain win than they would see Hillary in the White House.

That's the way I feel about it. Richardson or Edwards were candidates I could support. Obama is one I could vote for. McCain is one that I don't think I could vote for, but I think he'd make a better President in some ways than Hillary.

The problem with the Hillary McCain matchup is that they're both evil, just in different ways. You can't really say one is the lessor evil. So, in that case, to hell with it, just vote for Nader as a protest vote. In an Obama McCain matchup you have Obama as both a protest vote and a vote for a guy who might actually make a good President.

Hillary should give it up. For the good of the country.

Inflation and purchasing power

Double Blind has a good post about inflation and it's relationship to purchasing power. It's written by a Canadian, so the references to dollars are about Canadian dollars.

But it's a topic American's need to be paying attention to. The American dollar is losing purchasing power at a very dangerous rate. You can thank government policies about lower taxes and higher spending for that and I don't see any indication that Clinton or McCain will do anything to change that direction in a meaningful way. Maybe Obama will save us. Maybe he won't.

Drug warrior

I can't think of anything more un-American than to support the drug war. And John McCain is not only a drug warrior, he's proud of it.

War Hero

Why do people call John McCain a war hero?

When his planed crashed over Vietnam he was faced with a difficult fight/flight decision. His choice was, "I surrendor".

That's what America calls heroic?