McCain on JK on the Senate floor

[Inuca]

" I guess he was against Medicare cuts before he was for them" repeated once more to make sure that this pearl of commity, wisdom, and just plain human decency does not get lost. Could not belive my ears and am fuming!!

A couple of minutes later, he was asked very politely by Boxer for how long he intends to go on since there are people waiting to speak. He answered curtly "I do not know". What the hell happened to this man? I saw him quite alot on the Senate floor these last few days, and the nastiness, rudeness, poison is truly shocking.

[karynnj]

1. OMG, that is pathetic

He really is completely lost in his own nastiness. It really is shocking. What is stupid is that on Saturday, he brought that all of himself. Kerry really did make the case that McCain was saying opposite things in 2008 vs 2009 on cutting waste. The thing that could be really troubling for McCain's own Senate campaign is that he very clearly went against a McCain core value - cutting waste.

There is nothing in any of Kerry's comments on cutting benefits. So, his entire outrage was misguided and he looked out of control. I would bet that Kerry might be more concerned about McCain than hurt by McCain's nasty comment, which no one would believe. All I can guess is that his anger, which was well under control, is now not controllable. From many accounts he was always angry, even before Vietnam, which really did have to have had an effect, but this is worse than anything I ever saw. (There was one poster on Saturday, who mentioned that that was how he got on the POW/MIA committee - if so, he owes his later career to Kerry who helped him not explode.

[ProSense]

2. Exactly,

What a loser McCain has turned out to be. Instead of trying to make a difference like former Senator Hagel, he's decided to be a snide jerk.

[beachmom]

3. Andrew Sullivan has said repeatedly that McCain needs to resign

for recklessly thrusting Sarah Palin on this country, potentially occupying the WH if McCain had won, and then died in office. Andrew Sullivan said the Palin farse says much more about John McCain than Sarah Palin. He CHOSE this woman who had no business being on that ticket.

Thing is, John Kerry has been a good friend to John McCain since he returned to the Senate, but it seems McCain does not want to be friends, and has gone out of his way to being a jerk.

Edit: And if it isn't obvious, McCain is jealous of Kerry whose star has been on the rise this year.

Morrisey quote seems apt: "We hate it when our friends become successful"

[wisteria]

5. I am sure that is some of it. n/t

[Inuca]

6. And I agree with Sullivan

1000%. Palin is who she is and I do not have time right now to go through the long list of adjectives that describe her offensive emptiness, but for somebody with McCain's experience and supposed statemanship to put such a dangerous know-nothing in the position he put her in is beyond shameful and COMPLETELY unacceptable. The man should make for an interesting psychological study. I do not really believe that people change too much, especially late in life. So he must have been the same POS on a human level in the past, even if the nastiness was less obvious. How were smart and good people like JK or Hagel mentioned above fooled?

As to McCain's jealousy, it's possible, definitely. OTOH remember Kerry in 2005? The republicans in the Senate at least are treating McCain much better than the treatement JK got. At least what can be seen from the outside, of course. He has been the main attack dog in the HCR debate, and earlier in the year as well. Not to mention that he is all on the time on TV, so he continues to be a media darling.

[beachmom]

10. I love this appearance Andrew made on HLN:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x410983

Also, Sarah Palin had this to say about Copenhagen on Twitter (unfortunately re-tweeted by Marc Ambinder so the piling heap of you know what ended up on my Twitter feed):

Copnhagn Climate Summit;Obama should boycott in light of bogus "findings"Public leary re:snake oil science,he must take stand on climategate

Actually, I think the real climategate is: who were the hackers who hacked in those scientists' e-mail? That's what I want to know.

Also, to be clear this is not Sarah Palin talking. Her incurious mind has no real opinion on global climate change. She is merely doing what she is told by "advisors".

[wisteria]

4. He is vying for a Republican leadership position. You have to remember, he has very little clout now

And, Kerry went after him the other day. Sort of tit for tat.

[karynnj]

7. Exactly that hurt McCain

McCain was speaking was the Republican strategy - and Kerry exposed it as bogus. Cutting dollars does not have to result in cutting benefits - exactly what Mccain responded to Obama's unfair ad. It is almost head spinning that if you think of it - the factcheck favoring McCain in 2008, defends the Senate bill that McCain and others were attacking in 2009. Talk about whiplash!

The contrast of Kerry and McCain on the floor together was not just seen by us CSPAN addicts. It was seen by nearly all his peers because people were on the floor because of the upcoming votes. Kerry's calmness and command of the issue contrasted with McCain's aimless attack. McCain does want to be a leader and elder statesman. The behavior that could accomplish that is -- like Kerry's. The behavior that could prevent either is -- McCain's.

He has gotten a pass for years by media that has respected him for years - even though I honesty can't get why the media was so charmed by him. If it was his war hero background, Kerry's was shorter, but more impressive.

[beachmom]

8. John McCain will never be in a leadership position for the GOP.

He is too distrusted and despised by the GOP base. I saw a bumper sticker on a car in Florida and it was the McCain/Palin sticker except they blotted out McCain so you could only read Palin.

Rush Limbaugh & all of his listeners hate McCain. Frankly, I have no idea how he got the nomination when I think about it. I think it was because they felt Huckabee was really a "liberal" on government spending, Romney was a Mormon and a finger in the wind politician, Guiliani flamed out, Ron Paul was their party's Dennis Kucinich, and I can't remember who else was in the race (lol). The point being that the field was extremely weak, so they were kind of stuck with McCain.

I doubt Kerry made fun of McCain with a 2008 campaign slogan. So I don't buy the tit for tat argument. It is one thing to debate ideas, some of which came from the McCain campaign in 2008; quite another to use an insulting slogan when McCain apparently could not win on the merits of the debate. Think about it: McCain didn't use that "flip flop" phrase in 2004, yet he is using it now?

[wisteria]

11. I didn't mean to imply that Sen. Kerry was making fun of him, but that McCain was shown up by Kerry.

And shown to be spinning untruths on the floor.

[beachmom]

9. If anyone can locate video, I would love to check it out,

and see what Kerry said, and what McCain said.

I will endlessly be fascinated by this complicated "friendship", which, btw, is not over. I will never give up hope that that duo has one last great accomplishment in them. But it will take time. McCain is only a year into his electoral loss and I am sure the feelings are still raw.

[karynnj]

12. Here are the links

Saturday - Kerry first spoke briefly shortly after 12:30, he took a recent McCain quote and contrasted it to McCain's 2008 position. In 2008, McCain spoke of savings available in Medicare of over $1 billion. When Kerry finished, Burr said that Factcheck.org refuted this. Kerry said he hadn't seen the article, but the campaign never denied that they could make these cuts.

At shortly after 13:45, Kerry returned. He had the factcheck article which did NOT refute Kerry's point - just Obama's ad's implication that Medicare benefits would be cut. Kerry pointed out that that was exactly what the Finance committee and the bill did. Kerry then spoke more on home health care. When he finished, a seething angry McCain with his face throbbing red, started to speak. He seethed "I never said I would cut benefits" and he demanded the factcheck article be added to the record.

link to Saturday's video (and transcripts)
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/congress/?q=node/69850&date=2009-12-5

Monday - Here is the Kerry reference. (I see nothing wrong with what he says here, other than it is silly. It is silly as the 2003 amendment is not related to what is happening now. It is easy to blow away the argument that if you ask for an increase at any time, you need to ALWAYS vote to add more. The fact is you can take McCain's own record and see he is not all yes or no. I had not seen it before. ) (It also seems that this might be McCain fighting for Arizona - if he is right, it is wrong that FL was protected and AZ wasn't.


http://www.c-spanvideo.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id=9073154

The Saturday attacks are bad, but Monday really is not a problem.