McCain "suspends" campaign

[BSmack]

Meanwhile, Congress has already nailed down a working draft of the bailout plan that is all but ready to be voted on by the end of the week. Can you say grandstanding?

This fucknut is imploding before our very eyes.

[Mikey]

Is he still trying to chicken out on the Friday night fights?

[Tom In VA]

FDR wouldn't have done this in 1929.

[Mikey]

FDR wouldn't have done this in 1929.

How do you know?

[Tom In VA]

Ooooooooohhhhh

[rozy]

The old coot stole a march on the schvoogie. There no way for Onogga to come out of this without looking like the tool that he is.

"Call me if you need me." Oh....OK. Verry Presidential.

PRESENT!!!

He'll be too busy looking for a pick-up hoops game.

Call me if you need me... unreal

[BSmack]

Is he still trying to chicken out on the Friday night fights?

At last report McCain is still attempting to weasel out of Friday night's debate.

[BSmack]

OK,

I've had enough.

Good, then leave.

[Tom In VA]

Is he still trying to chicken out on the Friday night fights?

At last report McCain is still attempting to weasel out of Friday night's debate.

I think this just shows the difference between a veteran, senior Senator and a young upcoming rookie Junior Senator.

Seriously doubt with the media and "squeaky wheels" like yourself licking at Obama's taint, it will help McCain in the election, the fact is, McCain is showing the difference between leadership and politics.

I don't see Obama calling for a "putting aside of differences" and focusing on this situation at all. Has he contacted Sec. Paulson ? Congress ? Is he even engaged at all ?

Or is he just focused on discussing foreign policy with John McCain to showboat his oratory skills ?


McCain is doing the right thing here.

[Sirfindafold]

R-Jack,
Don't hold your breath waiting on an intelligent response from Bri. Better yet, maybe PUSFAN's rationale will make your voting decision a bit easier.

Seriously - I think we need a different approach - strong, intelligent, principled, and fresh. Obama seems to fit the bill for me best at this point.

[Mister Bushice]

If you keep this up R Jack, Bsmack is going to inundate you with YouTube links to Obamas speeches and then he'll say "see"?

[BSmack]

I think this just shows the difference between a veteran, senior Senator and a young upcoming rookie Junior Senator.

No, it shows the difference between a campaign that is on their game and a campaign that is in such desperate straits that they need to pull the mother of all grandstanding plays.

This bailout bill is just about a done deal. The time for McCain to have intervened would have been last week, when his input would have mattered. But he didn't. Probably because he wasn't sure where he stood. Or where his Chief of Staff wanted him to stand.

R-Jack,

I'm not going to waste my time trying to sway anybody. I'm here to run smack. I suggest you do the same.

[PSUFAN]

R-Jack,
Don't hold your breath waiting on an intelligent response from Bri. Better yet, maybe PUSFAN's rationale will make your voting decision a bit easier.

Seriously - I think we need a different approach - strong, intelligent, principled, and fresh. Obama seems to fit the bill for me best at this point.

I'd like to point out that the quote above was in regard to Clinton v. Obama. Not that I feel any diferently when it comes to McCain v. Obama...

[Tom In VA]

Not that I feel any diferently when it comes to McCain v. Obama...

Shocking.

Strong ? McCain
Intellegient ? Obama
Principled ? McCain
Fresh ? Obama

Deadlock IMO.

[Mikey]

I don't see Obama calling for a "putting aside of differences" and focusing on this situation at all.

"Putting aside of differences"...what a fucking joke. The first time McCain lives up to that will be...never.

WTF is there for them to focus on? These two are not writing any "bailout" bills. They're running for President. That's what they should be focusing on. Maybe they could debate the bailout.

At any rate I don't see McCain showing "leadership" here. I just a flailing attempt at making impressionable fools like you think he is.

[Tom In VA]

impressionable fools like you

Oh Christ, that argument. Look dude, you really need to consider growing the fuck up with all this "impressionable fool" bullshit. It's fucking childish for a man in your advanced years. If you really think that you're somehow not impressionable or being "persuaded" by Obama's handlers, strategies, and spin then you are a deluded unfortunate man and I feel sorry for you.

I see it for what it is, it's posturing. Leaders and leadership use it all the time, have throughout history and will continue to do so. Do I see this as grandstanding and posturing ? Yes of course it is, all leaders do it when they see the necessity to do so. McCain obviously sees the need to do so. I believe that is his motivation - based upon his experience and knowledge of leadership - moreso than "running from a debate".

Now kindly go fuck yourself and drink your Cherry Kool-Aid, while I drink my Grape Kool-Aid.

[War Wagon]

I'm not going to waste my time trying to sway anybody.

Well that's certainly a relief... if only that were true.

Yeah, right Bri, I've watched you bang your drum for over 8 years now, and all things being equal, you're one of the better ones at playing the political message board game. You never fail to build up to a marvelous crescendo during Presidential election years and I, for one, appreciate the effort even though I probably disagree with your spin about 99% of the time.

Some may think political threads don't belong in the main smack forum, but I don't agree. Afterall, what's more low down, dirty, and hit below the belt than politics? It's a free for all mud wrestling contest, no holds barred.

Keep on keepin' on.

As for the topic at hand: I have no idea why McCain would want to miss this opportunity to clean Obama's clock on foreign policy in a debate. He'd destroy him. The only thing I can figure is that maybe now's not the right time to be discussing said policy, while our economy teeters on the brink.

Maybe they just need to change the agenda.

[Tom In VA]

There are some other things he's hoping to change in a way you can believe in, but I can't remember them now. I think he used to be in favor of pulling our troops out of Iraq on a very short time table, but I think he's changing his mind and hoping to bring them home sometime later.

Yeah he changed his mind right about the time he realized if they started coming home before he was elected it would steal his thunder.

[War Wagon]

Obama is all about change. The kind of change you can believe in. And he's all about hope too. Hope you can believe in. Change and hope, mostly.

Bwa...

Pretty close, but mv said this best and I'll try not to butcher the quote:

Hope and change, the kind of change you can believe in... hopefully

[Derron]

There are some other things he's hoping to change in a way you can believe in, but I can't remember them now. I think he used to be in favor of pulling our troops out of Iraq on a very short time table, but I think he's changing his mind and hoping to bring them home sometime later.

Yeah he changed his mind right about the time he realized if they started coming home before he was elected it would steal his thunder.

I agree with that idea completely.

Sincerely,

Jimmah Carter

[LTS TRN 2]

Is he still trying to chicken out on the Friday night fights?

At last report McCain is still attempting to weasel out of Friday night's debate.

Yeah, I'm sure he was just trembling with fright to debate Buuuhhhhhrack on foreign policy.

Without Lieberhound at his elbow to tell him who's on Al Qaeda's side and who isn't, he'd be in very rough water. Face it, McBush is a moron. Not like the Chimp, or Harry Truman, but close.

As for Brood Mare, all Biden has to do in his debate is to start right off with a clear resounding rhetorical question: "If governor Palin had been a man, would such credentials have even brought the slightest consideration for the executive office?" And then just pound her absurdley embarrassing record of harsh and irrational views--from the punitive firings, the book censoring ultimatum, and of course the galling case of charging a rape vitim for her rape kit!

[Cuda]

Is he still trying to chicken out on the Friday night fights?

At last report McCain is still attempting to weasel out of Friday night's debate.

Yeah, I'm sure he was just trembling with fright to debate Buuuhhhhhrack on foreign policy.

The long & short of it is that Onogga got outmanuvered yet again, failed to recognize it yet again, and gave pretty near the worst possible response yet again.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

[War Wagon]

Face it, McBush is a moron. Not like the Chimp, or Harry Truman, but close.

...and of course the galling case of charging a rape vitim for her rape kit!

Harry Truman thinks you're an idiot... and a rape victim.

America needs you, Harry Truman... Harry you'd know what to do.

They'll be writing songs like that in fifty years about W's legacy, and that ruffles your cum stained dress, doesn't it?

[Mikey]

impressionable fools like you

Oh Christ, that argument. Look dude, you really need to consider growing the fuck up with all this "impressionable fool" bullshit. It's fucking childish for a man in your advanced years. If you really think that you're somehow not impressionable or being "persuaded" by Obama's handlers, strategies, and spin then you are a deluded unfortunate man and I feel sorry for you.

I see it for what it is, it's posturing. Leaders and leadership use it all the time, have throughout history and will continue to do so. Do I see this as grandstanding and posturing ? Yes of course it is, all leaders do it when they see the necessity to do so. McCain obviously sees the need to do so. I believe that is his motivation - based upon his experience and knowledge of leadership - moreso than "running from a debate".

Now kindly go fuck yourself and drink your Cherry Kool-Aid, while I drink my Grape Kool-Aid.

OK. You tell me I'm licking Obama's taint. Fair enough. I guess that's OK (maybe it's you that needs to grow up...) but if I tell you you're an impressionable fool you get all offended and tell me to go fuck myself.

I hate to say it but...nice melt. If you can't take it then don't dish it out, son.

I don't think you've seen me out here praising Obama up and down the boards, so that argument really doesn't fly. If you think that skipping out on the debate is in any way showing "leadership" then you are indeed an impressionable fool. What's more important in a Presidential race than being able to compare the candidates side by side? Oh that's right - it's how big the VP candidate's tits are.

And I don't drink Kool-Aid anymore. Pomegranate juice is the in thing now.

[BSmack]

Maybe you should be here to sway somebody, because you fucking suck at running smack.

Far be it from me to call myself any type of expert, but I doubt anyone's idea of "running smack" is going Newslink42 for anti-Republican spins and posting YouTube links. Last checked, most people who "run smack" do so with a pinch of humor and actually offer a little scathing insight.

You mean like the kind of insight that points out that the same fool who thought the "fundamentals of our economy were strong" is now screaming like chicken little that the sky is going to fall?

Sorry that went over your head. I'll try to dumb my posts down for you. Though I'm afraid that in order to be successful I might have to get KC Paul to write them for me.

[Mikey]

McCain has a really deep understanding of the economy. Don't believe me? Here's what the Wall Street Journal says (hate to go all Diogenes on you but...):

McCain's Scapegoat

John McCain has made it clear this week he doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does. But on Thursday, he took his populist riffing up a notch and found his scapegoat for financial panic -- Christopher Cox, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

To give readers a flavor of Mr. McCain untethered, we'll quote at length: "Mismanagement and greed became the operating standard while regulators were asleep at the switch. The primary regulator of Wall Street, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) kept in place trading rules that let speculators and hedge funds turn our markets into a casino. They allowed naked short selling -- which simply means that you can sell stock without ever owning it. They eliminated last year the uptick rule that has protected investors for 70 years. Speculators pounded the shares of even good companies into the ground.

"The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the President and has betrayed the public's trust. If I were President today, I would fire him."

Wow. "Betrayed the public's trust." Was Mr. Cox dishonest? No. He merely changed some minor rules, and didn't change others, on short-selling. String him up! Mr. McCain clearly wants to distance himself from the Bush Administration. But this assault on Mr. Cox is both false and deeply unfair. It's also un-Presidential.

Take "naked" shorting, in which an investor sells a stock short -- betting that it will fall in price -- without first borrowing the shares he is selling from an investor who owns them. The SEC has never condoned the practice, and since 2005 it has clamped down on short selling in any stock that shows evidence of naked shorting. The SEC further tightened its rules against naked shorting just hours before Mr. McCain excoriated Mr. Cox for doing nothing.

The rules announced Wednesday will increase penalties and close loopholes that exempted broker-dealers from the rules against naked shorting. They also make it clear that deliberately selling short a stock whose shares cannot be borrowed is fraud under the Securities Exchange Act. That's all to the good, we suppose; fraud is fraud. But regular short selling is not fraud. It adds valuable information to the market about what investors believe to be the price direction of a stock. Demonizing short-sellers as a band of criminals, or barring short-selling outright in financial stocks, as regulators in the U.K. did Thursday, removes information from the market.

Then there's Mr. McCain's tirade against the "uptick rule," a Depression-era chestnut that investors could only short stock after a rise in that stock's price. The SEC staff studied the effect of the uptick rule on prices for years, in a controlled experiment involving thousands of stocks. It found the rule had no effect. Other studies, including those that examined the uptick rule's effect on stocks disclosing bad news, also found that it "protected" no one. The SEC's permanent staff has long supported repeal and the SEC's commissioners voted to do so unanimously in June 2007.

While he was at it, Mr. McCain added the wholly unsupported assertion that "speculators pounded the shares of even good companies into the ground." It wasn't very long ago that he blamed speculators on the long side for sky-high oil prices. Then oil prices fell. Now Mr. McCain wants voters to believe speculators are responsible for driving mismanaged financial companies to ruin. The irony is that this critique puts Mr. McCain in the same camp as some of the Wall Street CEOs who have led their firms so poorly. They also want someone (else) to blame.

In case Mr. McCain is interested, overall short interest in financial companies actually declined by 20% between July and the end of August. That's right: Far from driving this crisis, shorts were net buyers of financial stocks this summer, as they must buy stocks back to close their positions and realize their gains (or losses).

In a crisis, voters want steady, calm leadership, not easy, misleading answers that will do nothing to help. Mr. McCain is sounding like a candidate searching for a political foil rather than a genuine solution. He'll never beat Mr. Obama by running as an angry populist like Al Gore, circa 2000.

[Tom In VA]

I didn't call you a taint licker. The Little Ball of Hate on the other hand is a different story.

Whether or not you choose to view McCain's decision as being motivated by his sense of responsibility and duty is your choice to make. Of course it is "symbolic". So is the big hype about the debate occurring in Oxford, so is Obama's speeches of the past several days where he is trying his best to be "Presidential", talking about "putting aside our differences", talking as if he's been in contact with Sec. Paulson "daily", and in communication with congressmen, he is grandstanding too. He's also doing his best to show his leadership. So is his "show must go on", it's a response to McCain's decision to grandstand - Obama's response is to grandstand back. It's a game. I believe if it wasn't for the debate being in a "place of historic significance" Obama would have done the same thing, maybe.

Because he is from a military background I can see where McCain actually sees his function as a Senator - right now - to be more critical to the nation's "needs" than his function as "presidential nominee". I don't necessarily "buy it", but I don't find it to be implausible. Only he knows for sure what motivated him.

From my perspective, if the house and senate have to do something - I'm not entirely sure they do but apparently Warren Buffet thinks they do and he's smarter than a lot of folks when it comes to the murky waters of high finance - then I do believe his duty as senator outweighs his personal ambition to be president. A decision that might even further kill his ability to fullfill that ambition - but that's life and sometimes doing the right thing requires sacrifice.

That being said, my confidence in their ability to do anything worth a damn to avert the upcoming economic clusterfuck we're going to face is .... nil.

Personally, I might vote for Obama because I don't like him. Simply because I wouldn't wish the next four years on somebody I like.

[Mikey]

OK...so I got all offended when I shouldn't have. That sounds more like my wife than me.



I just see it as a way for McCain to get out of the debate. Now they're saying that Palin will skip the VP debate unless there's a solution by Monday. Yeah, this is the biggest financial crisis in 80 years and the Repbulican candidates are going to hold their breaths until either they turn blue there's a quick two day solution.

I guess it's important for Sarah to be there to discharge her Senatorial responsibilties.

[Tom In VA]

I guess it's important for Sarah to be there to discharge her Senatorial responsibilties.

C'mon now, who is going to keep their eye on Russia while all the senators and congress are holed up figuring out this mess.

[Nishlord]

I'm starting to wonder what John McCain has to do to make the usual bigoted dregs on this board finally break down and admit that they've been wasting their time propping up a morally bankrupt cretin who is actually making people start to sympathise with President Monkey.

Seriously, what will it take? Masturbating on the mound at a Little League game? Curling off a massive shit in the middle of Ground Zero? Walking about naked with a hammer and sickle painted on his chest? The man is a coward and he thinks you are all morons.

[rozy]

[Goober McTuber]

Rack R-Jack for bringing the smack. It’s way past time that these repetitive droning threads got moved to their proper place in the Spin Zone.

[PSUFAN]

Any thread that gets started can contain smack. It's not as if moving the poli threads out of this forum will automatically result in a thicket of smack threads being started to replace them.

If you can't get a line of smack going in a poli thread - or any thread at all...then your game is pretty tired out. That fact has nothing whatsoever to do with the forum or the board itself.

Post something rackable, and it will get racked. Whining like a bitch is not any more entertaining than posting a dry, repetitive poli thread.

As for McCain...there is no reason for him to "go to Washington" this week and try to help here. He will not bring clarity or purpose to what they have to do there...that is a fact.

[Tom In VA]

As for McCain...there is no reason for him to "go to Washington" this week and try to help here. He will not bring clarity or purpose to what they have to do there...that is a fact.

RACK - able.

For my money, none of them will. In fact it's time they all left Washington - never to return - with few exceptions.

However, people in the "know" consider McCain's actions to be motivated by a sense of duty.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar ... on-do.html

Obama was probably agreeable at first perhaps even suggested the idea, but McCain sucker punched him.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_ ... mic_crisis

Or maybe they agreed to something else .... were going to make a joint statement .....

But McCain sucker punched him.

McCain sucker punched Obama

[Mikey]

However, people in the "know" consider McCain's actions to be motivated by a sense of duty.

Suddenly Bill Clinton is "in the know"?

Now that's fucking laughable.

Even among Democrats he now has about 0% credibility.
What made you have a sudden change of heart - his fatherly advice given so freely to Todd?

[Goober McTuber]

So McCain has to suspend his campaign in order to address one issue? I want a president capable of multitasking.

It's not as if moving the poli threads out of this forum will automatically result in a thicket of smack threads being started to replace them.

Balderdash.

[Cuda]

even multi-tasking requires assigning priority to the tasks, dipshit

face it, the old fuck outmanuvered the dumb jig, and as it turn out, he even gave him advance notice that he was going to do it.

[Tom In VA]

However, people in the "know" consider McCain's actions to be motivated by a sense of duty.

Suddenly Bill Clinton is "in the know"?

As to the inner workings of Washington and all that shit he's "in the know" a helluva lot more than I am - and I don't think I'd be going out on a limb to suggest he knows more about it than YOU or anyone else on this board.

[Nishlord]

Can't wait to see those McCAIN/PALIN 2009-ISH badges.