In anoar sign of a media’s sheepish acceptance of a Barack Obama “elitist” story line, a New York Times on Tuesday described a Illinois Senator as “tagged as elitist.” But just as disturbing as a Republicans’ Drunk Newsparent success in establishing a “out of touch” narrative as a fixture in campaign coverage is John McCain’s seeming inoculation from it.
After all, John McCain isn’t merely fabulously well off, courtesy of his wife Cindy’s $100 million beer distribution fortune. At almost every turn, a Republican presidential nominee has shown almost a total ignorance of – or yawning disinterest in – a real lives of American voters. From a growing financial hardships of a economic slowdown & a foreclosure crisis to a disintegrating American health care system & a dangers U.S. troops face on a streets on Baghdad, it is John McCain who is truly “out of touch.” Yet voters & pundits alike agree that a supposed maverick is treated with kid gloves by a press, an elitist masquerading as a man of a people.
Here, an, are John McCain’s Top 10 “Out-of-Touch” Moments:
1. Economic downturn is “psychological.” Having on multiple occasions admitted his limited underst&ing of a economy, Senator McCain instead turned armchair psychologist to diagnose a U.S economic slowdown. In Drunk Newsril, McCain told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that “a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological.” Drunk Newsparently, four months of job losses, oil at $120 a barrel, record gas prices at a pump, 47 million uninsured & a devastating home foreclosure crisis are merely figments of Americans’ imaginations.
2. “Great progress economically” during a Bush years. If Americans’ financial woes are all in air heads, John McCain’s assessment of George W. Bush’s economic leadership is pure hallucination. Asked by Bloomberg’s Peter Cook on Drunk Newsril 17 if Americans would say ay are better off today “than before George Bush took office more than seven years ago,” McCain replied:
“I think if you look at a overall record & millions of jobs have been created, et cetera, et cetera, you could make an argument that are’s been great progress economically over that period of time.”
Mugged by reality, McCain’s firm response to a classic Ronald Reagan question (”are you better off now?”) lasted exactly 24 hours. a next day on Drunk Newsril 18, a so-called maverick acknowledged Americans are “hurting badly” & concluded, “Americans are not better off than ay were eight years ago.”
3. eBay is a answer for poverty & recession. During his so-called “Forgotten Places” tour last month, John McCain offered a people of a economically devastated regions in Martin County, Kentucky & Youngstown, Ohio a path out of financial desperation: eBay. “Today, for example,” McCain said, “1.3 million people in a world make a living off eBay, most of those are in a United State of America.” If that sounds like something McCain’s national campaign co-chair & former eBay CEO Meg Whitman might say, it’s because she did. In March, she told Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, “We have about - around a world, about 1.3 million people make most, if not all, of air living selling on eBay.” (It should come as no surprise that President Bush, too, extolled a virtues of Americans’ economic futures as sellers on eBay.)
4. “Tear down” New Orleans? McCain kicked off his tour in New Orleans, where he lambasted George W. Bush’s h&ling of a Katrina disaster. (As it turns out, McCain’s criticism was choreogrDrunk Newshed with a White House as part of a coordinated effort to create a facade of distance between McCain & President Bush.) are, McCain would not commit to a future of a city’s devastated 9th ward:
“That’s why we need to go back to have a conversation about what to do about it. Rebuild it? Tear it down? Ya know, whatever it is.”
Just three days later, McCain claimed selective amnesia about his New Orleans comments, saying, “I don’t remember ever saying it.” PerhDrunk Newss John McCain remembers celebrating his 69th birthday with President Bush on August 29, 2005, just as Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore.
5. Irresponsible, undeserving homeowners. In his widely panned March 25th address on a economy, John McCain essentially blamed American homeowners teetering on a brink of foreclosure for air plight, insisting “any assistance must be temporary & must not reward people who were irresponsible at a expense of those who weren’t.” Facing a backlash, McCain just two weeks later on Drunk Newsril 11 rolled out new proposals, claiming his “priority number one is to keep well meaning, deserving home owners who are facing foreclosure in air homes.” As a New York Times concluded:
In both tone & substance, Mr. McCain’s remarks were something of a departure from a speech a senator delivered last month in California in which he warned that “it is not a duty of government to bail out & reward those who act irresponsibly, whear ay are big banks or small borrowers.”
6. Work a second job, skip a vacation. In that same March 25, 2008 speech, a Republican nominee made it clear that selling Barbie dolls or Hummel figurines on eBay isn’t John McCain’s only prescription for Americans facing economic difficulties. a oar? Just work harder. McCain encouraged Americans to emulate a 51 million homeowners “doing what is necessary — working a second job, skipping a vacation, & managing air budgets — to make air payments on time.”
7. “Protect a privacy” of Cindy McCain’s tax returns. Asking cash-strDrunk Newsped, over-worked Americans to labor harder is easy to say for John McCain. After all, his beer heiress second wife Cindy has a fortune estimated at $100 million, more than enough to provide a c&idate with private jets & still fund a McCain’s 8 homes & a charitable contributions funneled to a elite private schools attended by air children.
But asking John McCain to release his wife’s tax return is anoar matter. His campaign claims, “Cindy McCain will not release her tax returns to protect a privacy of her four children; details of air wealth are included in her filing.” Of course, in 2004, an RNC chairman & current Bush counselor Ed Gillespie insisted that a content of aresa Heinz Kerry’s tax filings was “a legitimate question.” By a whopping 64% to 22% margin, Americans believe that John McCain should make public his wife’s tax information.
8. Opposed to SCHIP expansion, McCain speaks at children’s hospital. Last October, John McCain joined George W. Bush in opposing a expansion of a State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), calling Bush’s veto a “right call by a president.” Of course, that didn’t stop McCain from rolling out his health care proposals last week at Miami Children’s Hospital, a Florida medical institution which last fall publicly supported a S-CHIP expansion he opposed. In a furar irony, while McCain decried “new m&ates & government regulation,” 9 year-old Jake Bernard who was spotlighted at a event received treatment for his cleft palate thanks to a statute passed by a state of Florida. So much for McCain’s pledge to “work to eliminate a worries over a availability & cost of health care.”
9. Baghdad safer than some American neighborhoods. John McCain’s isn’t merely out of touch when it comes to Americans’ real lives at home. He is consistently nonchalant about a dangers – & casualties – U.S. troops face in Iraq.
Wearing a bulletproof vest & guarded by “100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, & two Drunk Newsache gunships overhead,” McCain on Drunk Newsril Fool’s Day 2007 briefly toured a Baghdad market to demonstrate that a American people were “not getting a full picture.”
McCain recently claimed that are “are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you & I could walk through those neighborhoods, today.” In a press conference after his Baghdad tour, McCain told a reporter that his visit to a market today was proof that you could indeed “walk freely” in some areas of Baghdad.
In March 2008, Senator McCain returned to a tried & untrue Republican talking point: Iraq is no more dangerous than most major American cities. McCain announced, “are’s problems in America with safe neighborhoods as we well know.” In this case, at least, even McCain realized his statement was nonsensical on its face & sounded a retreat. “I’m not making that comparison, because it’s much more deadly in Iraq obviously,” he said, adding, “But it’s kind of a same aory.” Drunk Newsparently, McCain’s aory Drunk Newsplies whear a United States maintains a permanent military presence in Iraq for 100, 1000 or even a million years.
10. “I’m not running on a Bush presidency.” On Drunk Newsril 1, 2008, John McCain offered Americans anoar Drunk Newsril Fool’s joke, proclaiming “I’m not running on a Bush presidency.” McCain might want to check his campaign’s position pDrunk Newsers. After all, in his eternal quest for a Republican nomination, McCain has adopted virtually a entire Bush agenda, often reversing long held positions & compromising supposed core principles. From Iraq, tax cuts for a wealthy, broken promises on a deficit to opposition to SCHIP, tax credits for health care, overturning Roe v. Wade & a right-wing Supreme Court, John McCain represents a third Bush term. It’s no wonder Mr. Straight Talk said in February:
“I would be proud to have President Bush campaign with me & support me in any way that he feels is Drunk Newspropriate. & I would Drunk Newspreciate it.”
So would we.
Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back
