Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

By Ron Beasley

I was late to endorse Obama - late January. I was afraid that he was not up to fighting the Republican slime machine and that he was an empty suit - lots of talk and little substance.  I haven't seen anything at this point that would lead me to believe I was wrong.  This is very disturbing because the though of John McCain as president truly scares the hell out of me.  At he first sign of trouble he looks for somebody to hit.

Response to 9/11 Offers Outline of McCain Doctrine

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain arrived late at his Senate office on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, just after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. “This is war,” he murmured to his aides. The sound of scrambling fighter planes rattled the windows, sending a tremor of panic through the room.

Within hours, Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria.

“There is a system out there or network, and that network is going to have to be attacked,” Mr. McCain said the next morning on ABC News. “It isn’t just Afghanistan,” he added, on MSNBC. “I don’t think if you got bin Laden tomorrow that the threat has disappeared,” he said on CBS, pointing toward other countries in the Middle East.

Within a month he made clear his priority. “Very obviously Iraq is the first country,” he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: “Next up, Baghdad!”

Now if that doesn't scare you it should.  Digby as usual says it very well:

I remember writing a long time ago that John McCain is the man George W. Bush was pretending to be, right down to the flight suit. The Real Thing is actually far more dangerous than the cheap imitation. If he wins this thing, we could find ourselves in a very, very serious crisis, of both economic stability and national security ---- and very likely of our government itself. This man is unstable.

But she also gives us a branch of hope.  The corporate types know this and they also must know that Armageddon would be bad for business.

The funny thing is that I don't think the Big Money Boyz expect the Republicans to win this election so they didn't think there was much danger in putting Buck Turgidson on the ballot. You can't help but wonder if they are having some second thoughts about allowing for even that slim possibility.

All those tax cuts and deregulation won't be worth much if the hot headed John McCain brings on a nuclear winter.  That said race still a lot closer than it should be because Obama is not connecting with the average voter and he needs to go after John McCain.  Obama already has a handicap.  We don't like to talk about it but he is a black man running for president in the US of A.  John McCain has some handicaps as well.

• His age - there is nothing wrong with making that an issue.
• He's a Republican.
• He didn't have the "right stuff' to be an admiral.
• He admits that we are worse off than we were 4 years ago but plans to continue Bush policies.
• He's a hot head.

And that's just a few.  Use them all.  I'm sorry, but nice guys usually finish last in US politics and this is too important.