Is McCain Senile?
 

McCain is a gaffe machine. Almost daily he is tripping over his own words saying things that are completely wrong. Is he senile, stupid, or blatantly lying?

Examples of this:

Iran is training Al'Queda:

Iraq borders Pakistan:

My new personal favorite, nations don't invade other nations (unless it is the US)

Others:

McCain confuses the Packers and the Steelers (or was he just pandering).
McCain volunteers his wife for a topless beauty contest...
McCain schedules a speech on an oil platform to promote offshore drilling but has to cancel because of a giant oil spill!
McCain's economic adviser says recession is just a figment of our imagination and we are just whining.
McCain refers to Czechoslovakia.
McCain says the sunni awakening happened after the Surge (sorry other way around).
McCain says no to a timetable, Iraq says yes...
McCain misstates the number of economists that support his plan.
McCain says he doesn't really know much about economics (on video) then says I never said that!

Combine this with McCain's numerous flip flops.

I'm sure I could continue for another few pages but I think I made my point

If Obama were to mess up like this he would be eaten alive by the media yet McCain gets passes on these. For example, Obama gives a speech in Germany the media says he is being presumptuous, McCain does his own diplomatic mission to Georgia...not one mention of him being presumptuous.

So what do you think is McCain senile, stupid, or dishonest?

Is there an option for "all of the above"?

And as much as my bias agrees with your bias, I have to admit that I don't see this discussion going well. Staunch McCain supporters will deny the media is giving him a pass and instead say that Obama is getting a pass, and/or claim that Obama flipflops more than McCain. Obama supporters will agree with you.

Unfortunately someone's inability to speak accurately seems to have VERY LITTLE effect on the electorate. I decried Bush's absolutely terrible understanding of English and his inability to report facts accurately in 2000, but to most people it doesn't seem to matter.

He's trying to lie, but he's a bit too far gone to do it as successfully as, say, a Bill Clinton or George H. W. Bush (W. Bush, of course, is simply not intelligent enough to convincingly lie).

It's a shame some people don't have "smart" on their list of presidential attributes. I'm not saying intellect is the end all be all of presidencies, but an oval office with under a 90 IQ is likely to see a lot of problems.

Give the man a break....he graduated 894th out of 899 in his class at the Naval Academy!

Maybe he figures...it worked for GW.

I think he sometimes just doesn't think before he talks--the "bold, free-wheeling, straight-shooting maverick" thing. Worked for him when he was actually campaigning on things he believed, but now his campaign has gone into tack-right pander mode, and what he has to say isn't natural for him anymore, and things get wacky.

His campaign has been saying very strange things lately about "keeping the candidate focused on the campaign's message". VERY strange thing to say. Makes one wonder exactly what we're supposed to be voting for, when we vote McCain.

Other times, I think he just talks out his ass and isn't used to having every utterance scrutinized. He pulled the "Iran training Al Qaida" thing straight out of his ass. It's clear he was making that up as he went along. And the "Iraq/Pakistan border" thing was a bluff--if you watch closely, he's practically daring us to check that fact. It's all over him that he wants us to think he knows something we don't. He wants to come off as informed, so he makes up some information that sounds plausible.

I think if he was seriously senile, it'd be harder for him to string thoughts together. He's not incoherent. He just has CRS syndrome.

Wasn't Reagan senile for most of his last term. Isn't he like Jesus for Republicans?

I think Americans like voting for people who remind them of their grandparents.

All 57 states are safe with Obama :)

Better than Grant... and he was the Supreme Union Commander AND President.

"you forgot ugly, lazy, and disrespect....SHUT-UP BITCH!"

I can't believe you wasted the time to put this together....I find it hard to believe you haven't heard some of the dumb shit Obama has said, but be my guest check it out on this cool thing called goodle or something where you can search stuff like that.

Obama must have early onset Alzheimer's, or probably got like a 200 on his SAT's and graduated 3 in his class of like a million. What an IDIOT!! He needs to be impeached cause if he wins he stole it probably using those hanging chads and butterfly's to fool older people in states that have them.

I almost want this guy to be elected. The future of America is almost not worth another 4 years of this shit.

By the way, anybody else think it's an indicator of the direction the wind's blowing that Obama's name is getting spelled correctly everywhere at long last, and "Mc'Cain" is getting a new apostrophe?

Ding, ding, ding.

Even I don't care that Obama said that, but if people are going to bullshit about McCain then it deserves to be brought into the discussion.

Look at his presidency; bad example :lol:

I've noticed this, too.

Mc'Cain? What the... :lol:

Is the pope catholic?

Is Obama an empty suit?

oh no he didn't! :rolleyes:

Yes.

Ugh! I can't believe that Stephen Harper is looking like the strongest, most competent leader in North America!

I'm fully aware of the gaffes Obama has made also. The difference is Obama's gaffes are talked about for a week on all the news stations that love to follow fox news' lead. McCain's are never mentioned.

Remember when Obama gave a speech that included words from a friend of his? He got accused of plagiarism for weeks. McCain just ripped part of his speech from Wikipedia and the media is mum on it. (Of course the true crime is he used Wikipedia as a reliable source....)

Now Georgia is the first serious crisis since the end of the cold war... i guess 9/11, Iraq 1, Iraq 2, etc were not serious....

The clip does not begin at the start of his comments, nor does it include the remainder of his commentary. It's possible that's all he said, but I firmly believe he understands all of these events in their proper perspective. I also believe it's disingenuous for the media to suggest otherwise. However, the consequences of unchallenged Russian aggression in Eastern Europe could easily eclipse any of those events you mentioned.

I'm not watching the clip, but I'll take a guess that the involvement of Russia was either implied or cut from the clip.

Of course what McCain fails to mention is Georgia was the aggressor and Russia responded to their aggression. I'm not saying Russia was right to do what they did but Georgia is not innocent at all. In fact, the closest example of this happening in the past was when Saddam invaded Kuwait and in response the US invaded Iraq. Anyway it is irrelevant to the fact that he is claiming that Iraq 1 & 2, 9/11, Afganastan, Darfur, Sudan, Kosovo, and many others were not serious.

The media has every right to question McCain's statements on Georgia in light of the fact that his top foreign policy advisor was, until very recently, a paid lobbyist for Georgia:
Just one of the many lobbyists with foreign government contracts in the McCain (the anti-lobbyist candidate) inner circle.

hahaha I was prepared the second thing.

omg! :shakehead:

Georgia was the aggressor? Perhaps like Hitler claiming Poland to be the aggressor in WWII.

Who attacked who first? Georgia attacked SO. Russia responded by liberating SO and then continued into Georgia.
-----Added 15/8/2008 at 08 : 03 : 08-----
From wiki:

2008 South Ossetia war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 2008 South Ossetia war began on August 7, 2008, and involves the country of Georgia, the Russian Federation and the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The war began after a ceasefire agreement between Georgia and South Ossetia broke down (each side accused the other of breaking the ceasefire), and Georgia sent a large military force into South Ossetia which reached the capital Tskhinvali.

Tell me how is Russia's invasion of Georgia different from America's invasion of Iraq during the first gulf war?

Yeah that's pretty much the way it's unfolded.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7553390.stm

What I can't understand is why Georgia would think Russia would sit back and allow this to happen. Talk about throwing rocks at a hornets nest.

Also there seems to be more then a little irony in the US government making statements like 'it's not alright for one country to be invading another in the 21st century." I had a neighbor from Denmark over for coffee the other morning. Bush made some comment like that and my friend started laughing so hard I thought he was going to fall over.

Between this, the middle east situation(s) and Russia now threatening action in Poland it seems like pretty serious times are afoot.

;) (Just yanking your chain...)

South Ossetia is part of Georgia. Georgia sent Georgian troops into Georgia and they are the aggresser?!?!

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Country profiles | Regions and territories: South Ossetia

A little more reliable than Wiki.

The problem being Ossetia voted for independence and didn't want to be part of Georgia. Russia supported the Ossetia independence, Georgia... not so much.

The problem, Tully, is that, unlike say Kosovo, everyone in the international community other than Russia thinks S. Ossetia shouldn't be independent. I mean, just look at a map -- it doesn't look like a separate county; it would still be almost completely surrounded by Georgia. Georgia sending troops into S. Ossetia may have been unwise, but it certainly was not an invasion of a sovereign country.

Yeah I know ;) For informal posts its ok but for public speeches, papers, etc don't even think about it ;)

All I'm saying is that Georgia basically fired the first volley here. There's a pretty long history of Ossetia trying to separate from Georgia:

BBC NEWS | Europe | Country profiles | Regions and territories: South Ossetia

As for "just look at a map -- it doesn't look like a separate county" What does a separate country look like? IMO, maps and logic make strange bed fellows. If you just looked at a map you have to wonder why Alaska isn't part of Canada. Or why Hawaii isn't it's own nation (which it was until the US forcefully removed it's royal family.) Heck just look at a map of Europe, how many countries are completely surrounded by other countries? So I'm not sure why looking at a map would help with deciding what area of land belongs to what country.

From everything I've read, as always I could be wrong, it seems the South Ossetia people want to be independent. They voted to be independent. Seems to me what they want should be taken seriously.

Except that they have been their own country for around 18 years now. Which does give them some claim to independence. If we had not invaded Iraq and Saddam would have sent troops into the north to reclaim the Kurdish regions how would the US have reacted? We would have likely invaded and liberated them and the Kurds never were their own country.

Now I'm not saying Russia was right in attacking Georgia but Georgia definitely does not have its hands clean.
-----Added 16/8/2008 at 10 : 41 : 56-----
Here is testimony from a 12 year old American girl who was there:


Pay attention to who she says was the aggressor.

What would we have done? Nothing... just like when he did it the last dozen times.

Oh yeah, and if Russia was really interested in people voting themselves independent they would have no problem with Chechnya gaining their independence.

And voting oneself independent isn't sufficient to be independent. Just ask South Carolina, or Scotland, or Ireland, or the Basques, or Belgium, or Hungary, or any other group which has desired independence, but hasn't gained it just by wanting it. This makes sense. I can' secede from the United States by voting myself out, right? And if my family decided we wanted to form our own country, we couldn't, right? Mere numbers of people can't be why the South Ossetians would have the right to secede.

When should a country be able to divorce itself from another country? I don't know; I've heard it suggested that there has to be some bad behavior on the part of the bigger country (eg, Serbia ethic cleansing Kosovo). This probably isn't the worse suggestion out there. And that's not the case here; Georgia certainly wants to cut down on the massive amount of criminal activity based in South Ossetia, but that's not ethnic cleansing.

Besides, they haven't been their own country for 18 years. As I pointed out above, everyone except for Russia views them as part of Georgia. The only reason they've been more or less autonomous is that there have been Russian troops occupying the region for most of that time, under the fictitious pretense that the South Ossetians are Russian citizens. Certainly the options are not a Georgian South Ossetia or an independant South Ossetia, but a Georgian (that is, free and democratic) or a Russian (that is, authoritarian) South Ossetia.

So by your logic the US is still part of Briton?

This situation is far more complicated then simply voting ones self out of a country. Go back 50 years and this area was part of the USSR, right? So the people of Georgia can vote themselves independent but the folks over in Ossetia cannot?

there seems to be a kind of anxiety at the international level about what constitutes a state, yes? in the sense of who gets to declare themselves one and who does not. if you think about it, the process is pretty arbitrary---mostly a matter of recognition on the part of other states. the ex-yugoslavia experience plays into things at this level---apparently not all bases for state-making are equivalent, and some Declarations are better than others. it seems that in this case the problem at bottom is there was no particular chain of recognitions of south ossetia and nothing else. so the status of the space is (obviously) ambiguous. this is the condition of possibility for everything that's happened around it.

and apparently, there is some ambivalence about the ethnicity=nation=nation-state slide. and there is even more ambivalence in this case because it is not obvious "who" the ossetians "are" in that goofy sense. personally, i think most of this has to do with a gradual erosion of the functional centrality of nation-states over the past 30 years or so--so the basis for the idea of a nation-state is wobbly--but there seems to be no particular agreement even that there is such a problem, much less what might plausibly be done to respond to it, or even if a response is necessary--so you have situations like this.

but if nothing but recognition constitutes the basis for a "legitimate" nation state, then (a) the united states is not still part of england but (b) south ossetia is not anything at all. a province of somewhere.

i sometimes go to a public house that is nowhere--at one end of the parking lot, a town begins--at the opposite end of the parking lot, another begins. it is in a hole. if you go there, it seems that time does not happen. this is just a story i felt like writing down, and now i have written it down and that is good.