It's stunning to me that McCain polls better than Obama on National Security

[Quixote1818]

and Foreign Policy after Obama opposed the war in Iraq which was a complete blunder beyond the pale and John McCain was for it and said it would be easy. And here we see that the world LOVES Obama and McCain is threatening to bomb Iran and a half dozen other countries and thinks Al Qaeda is in Iran among a dozen other things he got wrong on foreign policy in the past two months.

This country is stunningly ignorant and out of touch with reality! So out of touch, it's frankly terrifying.

All I can say is we have our work cut out for us to educate about 100 Million dumb asses on the fact that John McCain is an idiot on National Security and Foreign Relations. Bush II and I can't believe anyone wants to see that shitty fucking movie again.

[polichick]

1. "it's frankly terrifying" - Sure is!

[FrenchieCat]

2. They think the way the media tells them to think.

That's why the media is not our friend.

[Egnever]

6. Bingo!

The internet is leveling the playing field very quickly though!

[FrenchieCat]

7. Not quickly enough.....

and the corporate assholes are infiltrating that...which is why some of us can't wait till Halperin farts or Politico burps to post it and spread it around.

[Quixote1818]

9. They will take over the Internet sooner or later. We should enjoy it while it lasts. nt

[Triana]

3. ...and that means the lame$tream media are doing their job for the GOP...

...keeping Americans so out of touch that they vote against their and their country's best interests - time and time again.

[Mz Pip]

4. POW POW POW

Good enough for the sheep.

[Gabi Hayes]

5. Obama's surrogates have done an almost criminally incompetent job of defending him on that.

McCain said he'd STILL invade Iraq, even knowing what he knows now!!!

how can they NOT use that EVERY single time anyone raises the question of his experience in foreign affairs?

it sickens me to death that I almost never hear this from ANY of his surrogates, much less Obama himself

I certainly hope they start using that retort on EVER occasion, and hammer MCC on how he was one of the very EARLIEST supporters of this bogus war, including membership of that horseshit Committee for the Liberation of Iraq

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Committee_for_the_Liberation_of_Iraq

................................

The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq:
PR Spinning the Bush Doctrine
By Kurt Nimmo
CounterPunch
November 19, 2002

The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq bills itself as an NGO comprised of a "distinguished group of Americans" who want to bomb Saddam Hussein out of existence. Of course, NGO is a misnomer for this particular organization because its advisory board is stacked with former government types, including George Shultz. The president of the Committee is Randy Scheunemann, Trent Lott's former chief national-security adviser. Last year Scheunemann worked for Donald Rumsfeld as a consultant on Iraq policy. The Committee chairman is Bruce P. Jackson, the former vice president of the mega-defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Jackson chaired the Republican Party Platform's subcommittee for National Security and Foreign Policy when Bush ran for president in 2000. Jackson was also big on expanding the role of NATO -- think of all the new weapons that will be required -- and headed up a campaign to get Congress to ratify NATO's eastward expansion. Other NGO types include former Senator Bob Kerrey and former "Drug Czar" Barry McCaffrey. You may remember McCaffrey. As a two-star general and Gulf War "hero," McCaffrey ordered the massacre of hundreds of retreating soldiers and civilians on the Basra road from Kuwait to southern Iraq.

On November 15 US Newswire released a Committee press release. "The Committee was formed to promote regional peace, political freedom and international security through replacement of the Saddam Hussein regime with a democratic government that respects the rights of the Iraqi people and ceases to threaten the community of nations."

The Committee press release, however, mentions absolutely nothing about how these objectives will be achieved. But then, considering who is involved with the Committee, we don't need much of an explanation -- in essence, the Committee is a PR front for the Bush attack Iraq policy currently under way full steam ahead. The Committee is little more than an extension of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), an "educational" organization packed with neocons such as William Kristol and Robert Kagan. PNAC, according to its web page, is "dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle." In other words, Pax Americana installed unilaterally by way of bunker-buster and cluster bomb diplomacy. Lest you think PNAC and the Committee are not joined at the hip, consider who agreed to be an officer of this new (non) NGO -- Gary Schmitt, PNAC's executive director.

The devil is in the details. One such detail concerns retired four star General Wayne Downing, an erstwhile lobbyist for the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the CIA bankrolled "opposition" to Saddam Hussein. It is estimated the CIA forked out between $60 and $70 million to get the INC rolling back in the early 90s. Another detail is Ahmed Chalabi, head of the INC and a former businessman and son of a wealthy banking family who has not stepped foot inside Iraqi since 1956. In 1992, according to the BBC, Chalabi was sentenced in absentia by a Jordanian court to 22 years in prison with hard labor for bank fraud after the 1990 collapse of Petra Bank, which he had founded in 1977. Regardless of Chalabi's questionable, Enronesque character -- as well, the State Department has accused the INC of profligate spending habits and accounting irregularities -- Scheunemann, while working for Lott in 1998, drafted the "Iraq Liberation Act" authorizing 98 million dollars for the INC. Clinton never got around to spending the money and the Pentagon has since taken control of it to train the INC. We can only imagine the sort of training the Pentagon is offering.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/credib/2002/1119bush.htm

[Quixote1818]

8. I agree, Iraq is probably our best issue and we are losing on it because they

have changed the narrative to the surge.

[sandnsea]

18. OMG. People should already know

It's simple. Bush's War or not.

White men are just too goddamn chicken shit to tell their beer-bellied buddies that they're voting for a Democrat. That is ALL that is wrong with this country.

[Union Thug]

10. Geez, it's so easy. If you are captured by 'the enemy,' you are automatically

qualified to be 'presdint.' It's that simple. I think it's in the Constitution somewhere, isn't it?

[Quixote1818]

11. Thats why Saddam Husein was such a great president

he was a POW.

This video explains the phenomenon. It's quite amazing really:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW4msHu_9EQ

[depakid]

12. Not really all that stunning

The campaign hasn't made much effort to define McCain as dangerous or to hammer home the fact that he doesn't know the difference between Sunni's and Shiite- and still thinks there's a country called Checkoslovakia.

His advisors (probably the Kerry 04 guy Robert Gibbs) apprently thought it was fine to just give the guy a pass on that.

[SalviaBlue]

13. Shouldn't these polls have an "*"

*amoung people with land lines. I don't think I know anyone under 30 with one. Kinda skews the poll IMO.

[Zomby Woof]

14. The recent poll ranking McCain higher on the economy

...was especially disturbing. They get people lathered up about taxes, scaring them into thinking Obama is going to raise their taxes (and these are people making $10.00/hr who consistently vote against their interests), and other RW bogeymen. It is fucking INSANE that anyone would think McCain could manage the economy, or sign legislation helping working people, paying down the debt, etc.

I can't fathom the depth of media-assisted ignorance at times.

[Quixote1818]

15. P.T. Barnum said it best

"There is a sucker born every minute". Low information voters are terrifying to me. They need their asses kicked into doing some research to see which side is being truthful and which one is yanking their chain. And the fact that Republicans have been caught screaming wolf a hundred times doesn't faze these people. As the saying Bush loves to mangle goes: "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" only it needs one more line for these people: "..... fool me 100 times by Republicans and I need my ass kicked because I have the brains of a stump!"

[WinkyDink]

16. He's an expert on being a POW. Now what?

[BlooInBloo]

17. Americans are stupid. It's not a new problem.

[fujiyama]

19. As far as I know

Ted Stevens has a lot of "experience". That doesn't mean he has any good judgment.

What has McCain done with his experience? The Iraq war was a colossal disaster. Nothing was ever accomplished in Afghanistan. Our tin pot in Pakistan is out of power.

And McCain supports ALL of it. I'm almost thinking Dems want to keep losing. The surrogates on the Dem side are ineffective. Harold Ford? Paul Begala? Carville? A bunch of hacks whose loyalty is still for the candidate that lost? Purge these fuckers. Well not from the party completely (though Begala and Carville can go get hit by a bus as far as I'm concerned). And Feingold? He's basically not even questioning the media script. "McCain is a maverick. He'd make a good leader. Oh BTW, I'm voting for the other guy?" WTF!? These are who are getting coverage.

Only a few supporters have been forceful like Durbin, who is awesome...and Kerry has kicked ass. The rest are pretty much useless!

[Cha]

20. Polls mean shit to me but those who think

mccain is better must like that BOMB BOMB BOMB policy.

I know they're not in the majority.

[Quixote1818]

21. I agree those that like the "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb" policy are not in the majority

but I think the problem is we haven't reminded them that that is what John McCain's policy would be. They still have this image of John McCain the Maverick and they think he is responsible for the surge working. They don't even take the time to think that McCain helped get us into this mess in the first place.

I think Obama's people are saving the most harsh attacks for later. Hopefully once those start hitting people will be reminded who John McCain really is and the polls will switch on these issues.

[Cha]

22. You

Got IT.

[Johonny]

23. I think it's simple

Republicans are the major ones scared about national security. They pretend Bush is doing a good job. So they no doubt can pretend McCain is good at it too.

[Orsino]

24. ...among zombies who believe in the Daddy State and who don't want to have to think. n/t

[flpoljunkie]

25. That's because the corporate media is still pretty much McCain's 'base' and aren't doing their jobs!

[moondust]

26. LOTS of Americans

don't have much interest in or know much about foreign affairs. Some wingnuts actually think it is somehow treasonous to even spend time learning about a foreign culture rather than learning more about your own. And the M$M constantly conflate the terms "foreign policy" and "national security" and "national defense" and "military policy" and maybe a few others.

In general Republicans don't have the patience or the skill for diplomacy. If somebody gets in their way they'd just as soon blow them away as spend time trying to reason or negotiate with them. Time is money. Their focus is mainly military policy.

And that's one of the big welcome changes Obama brings. He, and us, are going back to the use of diplomacy as the main tool of an actual full-blown foreign policy. Militarism is going to ride in the back seat for a change.

</mini-rant>

[TTUBatfan2008]

27. When half the country actually believe Obama's a terrorist...

you have your answer right there. The smears against this guy have been among the nastiest in modern politics (post-1900).

1. Look at his name, he must be a terrorist.
2. He's a black nationalist.
3. He's the anti-christ.
4. He doesn't know the words to the national anthem/pledge of allegiance.
5. He wasn't sworn into the Senate on the Bible.

I could keep going, but it starts to get redundant after a while.