Cynical Nation

McCain looked like 90+ year old yesterday in the debate. I think the chances of "president McCain" are essentially zero.

That sort of doublethink can lead one into the moonbat land. If Mcpain wins the nomination you will find out how much they really love him.
At the risk of repeating myself- Keating five, gang of fourteen, campaign finance reform, amnesty, tax increases. Yes, he is a war hero, so is Murtha.

>At the risk of repeating myself- Keating five, gang of fourteen, campaign finance reform, amnesty, tax increases. Yes, he is a war hero, so is Murtha.

Keating Five, huh? Well, now you've gone and revealed yourself to be at least as old as me. :-) All right, fair enough. I happen to view McCain as a fairly peripheral figure, whose involvement was exaggerated to provide a thin veneer of bipartisanship to the scandal.

Gang of fourteen? I have a different take. I think McCain routinely pulled this rope-a-dope tactic on gullible Dems, who would hold up "Saint John" as an example of a "reasonable" republican, boost his profile, and then be left naked when John turned around and delivered the goods to conservatives. In this way we got both Roberts and Alito on the High Court, while (as PE pointed out) preserving the filibuster, which may prove quite useful a year from now.

CFR? Yeah, you're right. That was an abortion.

Amnesty? I'll have to say that this is not a hot-button issue for me, even though my gut inclination is likely in line with yours. But there are precious few heroes on this issue, and I suspect that McCain is simply more honest here than his rivals.

Yeah, he screwed up in not voting for Bush's tax cuts. I honestly think he was just pissed at the president for what happened in South Carolina. But at the same time, his cover story (insisting on spending cuts) seems valid as well. If McCain hasn't always been as stalwart on tax cuts as he should have been, he's certainly been a lone voice of sanity on spending restraint. Surely that's at least a wash, no?

I've certainly had my disagreements with McCain, but I like much more than I dislike. He has a lifetime ACU rating of 82, and I think he can *win*. Given what we have to choose from this time around, who've you got that's better?

I believe that Barry's pretty much right.

The "gang of fourteen" actually allowed for the Alito confirmation, which could've wrongly been brought down by a Dem filibuster.

I believe even McCain now recognizes that McCain-Feingold is a disaster and that his vote against the Bush tax cuts was a poor and regrettable decision...and like Romney, Giuliani and others, he has seemed to have change his tune over ILLEGAL immigration, which I'm really glad has become a hot button issue for sucha huge majority of Americans!

ALL of the remaining GOP candidates seem poised to move to the Center (Left of where they are now) come the general election, just as the leading Dems all seem poised to move to the Right and back toward the Center for that "vast middle" support.

The true believers on both sides will, as usual, be disappointed to varying extents.

I'm glad that it's seemed to have come down to Romney vs McCain and Hillary vs Obama.

I worry about Rudy precisely because he has nearly as high "negatives" as Hillary does and, like Hillary, he has an abrasive personality that's hard to like.

Huckabee's a huckster and comes close to espousing that vile "Liberation Theology" that perverts Jesus teachings into ones very close to those of Karl Marx.

OK, I was never much into religion (but I did attend private Catholic schools for 12 yrs)...and what I got out of it, is pretty much that the central tenets of Christianity are (to paraphrase); (1) every man for himself and (2) I got mine...look someplace else for yours.

Again, I acknowledge I was never all that much of a theologian...I admittedly prefer Nietzsche's ideas to those that pass for Christ's. I agree with Nietzsche that "Charity is the curse of Christ" (Christianity), and like Nietzsche I believe that Christ's real teachings (he was an anti-government, anti-Roman activist) were obscured by the Church that became the moral force behind "The Holy Roman Empire," using the teachings of Paul, rather than Christ's.

I don't think there's any question that Nietzsche was right that charity circumvents natural selection and allows the dysfunctional (the poor, the slothful and the stupid) to not only survive, but sadly, often to thrive.

For that reason, at least to me, Huckabee's even scarier than Edwards. At least I know that deep down, Edwards is a regular guy - a regular guy who cried with the very Katrina victims that the companies he was heavily invested in were foreclosing on (seriously, you've gotta LOVE that), but I fear Huckabee really believes that crap about "no one should have too much," and "one person's having more, often means others have to do with less."

I'd take either McCain or Romney over either Giuliani or Huckabee, just as I'd take either Clinton or Obama over Edwards.

For staters, I believe that Clinton is poised to move very comfortably to the Right, in fact, very close to the views on the WoT as McCain and Rudy now hold.

And I don't think Obama really has any convictions. He's a political chameleon. Given the prevailing winds on ILLEGAL immigration, I'd expect him to support cracking down hard on illicit employers and supporting border enforcement.

McCain, Clinton, Romney, Obama - you're not going to see much substantial "change" from ANY of those folks, but I'd take a McCain or a Romney over either Clinton OR Obama any day.

McCain's vote against the Bush tax giveaway to the rich was correct. Dynastic wealth is the most corrosive thing possible to capitalism. It has been repeatedly proven that the rich do not start businesses with their newfound wealth, they just squander it on foreign goods, like yachts and polo horses.

Bush cut taxes for the rich, and they took it and tanked the economy anyway. Why? Because they are sending all of the work overseas. Americans don't have money to spend.

The greed of the rich is destroying America. Giving them money and allowing them to keep dynastic wealth, handing it down to their evil, retarded children (for instance, President Chimp) has effectively destroyed the country.

The rich give far less to charity or community causes than regular Americans, by percentage. They do not spend corporate tax cuts starting new businesses. It is not good to allow them to control the entire media from print to airwaves.

Look at what happens to poor retarded firement like JMK when they can only get one source of propogandized information?

Reagan was a dotting, senile old stooge.

Bush is an idiotic frat boy with no concept of honor.

McCain is a better man that 99.9% of all Republicans.

"Bush cut taxes for the rich, and they took it and tanked the economy anyway. Why? Because they are sending all of the work overseas. Americans don't have money to spend." (anonymouse)

There are NO/ZERO "rich" income earners, as the Kennedy's, Gates, Helmsley's and Trump's DO NOT rely on income for wealth.

There are almost none of the top 0.01% INCOME EARNERS among the "richest 1% of Americans."

Bush cut tax rates across the board - a 3% cut for an individual earning $2,000,000 ($40,000) is proportionately the same as a 3% cut for an individual earning $200,000/year ($6,000)...it's the same 3% cut.

I'll gladly take my $6000 without complaint and without begrudging those who PAID so much more, their same 3% cut.

And it's NOT "rich" vs "poor" that is contrasted when "charitable giving" is quantified, but Red State vs Blue State. In a recent study, the people of Bismark, North Dakota gave far more (not just proportionately more, but more) than the people in San Francisco. The study compared two Salvation Army kettles, one in the middle of very Blue San Francisco and one in the middle of very Red Bismarck, North Dakota...and the people of Bismarck gave significantly more, and that pattern seems to hold throughout the rest of the country.

Whoops! Wrong on a number;

"Bush cut tax rates across the board - a 3% cut for an individual earning $2,000,000 ($40,000....NOPE! $60,000) is proportionately the same as a 3% cut for an individual earning $200,000/year ($6,000)...it's the same 3% cut."

I'll STILL gladly take my $6000 without complaint and without begrudging those who PAID so much more, their same 3% cut.