Why should we ask John McCain harsh questions? Because we need to even the playing field. You see, if Barack Obama had McCain’s background, ignorance and bad character, the election would have been over months ago. The news media is holding back, though. Those media barbecues appear to be paying off.
So it’s time to even the playing field. Since the media keeps asking these sorts of disparaging and insulting questions to Barack Obama, it’s time to ask these same sorts of questions to John McCain. I admit that a few of these are outrageously unfair, just like many of the questions repeatedly posed to Obama.
Most of these questions are fair, though, and the news media has refused to dig deep and really get the answers Americans need. If you have additional questions that the media needs to ask John McCain, please submit them in the comments. I’d like to make this post a place where reporters are free to visit for ideas. As you can see, I’ve attached explanatory links to most of the proposed questions.
Unlike Barack Obama, McCain has a lot of explaining to do about what kind of person he has shown himself to be and portrayed himself to be. Let’s get started:
Generally Puzzling
Isn’t it true that you personally now oppose several bills that you yourself co-sponsored?
Why is your smile so creepy and fake?
Do you really believe that the President of the U.S. virtually functions as a dictator?
General Character Deficits
Isn’t it true that you aggressively courted your current wife, a 25-year-old beer heiress while you were still married to your first wife?
Is it true that you obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to your first wife?
How is it that being imprisoned in Vietnam or being shot down while flying a plane qualifies you to be president? Why shouldn’t we think that Vietnam messed up your head and made you erratic?
I notice that you aren’t wearing a crucifix around your neck. Is that because you hate Jesus or is it because you think you are better than God?
You have said some harsh things about a black man who is running for President. Prove to us that you and many of your supporters are not bigots.
Isn’t it true that you are not born again? How many times have you even been to church this year? How does that compare with last year, which wasn’t an election year?
How can we be sure that your wife won’t abuse drugs at the White House if you are elected President, or cover up her abuses of drugs?
Did you marry your current wife more for her great wealth or because she offered you social connections that advanced your career as a politician?
During the Vicki Iseman scandal, your wife Cindy suggested that because you were a man of character, you would never have an affair. But isn’t it true that you started dating Cindy while you were still married to your first wife?
Why did you work so hard to help spread false anthrax stories in 2001? Isn’t it true that your conduct in spreading those stories that Iraq was responsible for that anthrax enabled the Bush Administration to expose the lives and well-being of our soldiers in Iraq?
Isn’t it true that you broke your promise by not being in isolation while Barack Obama was questioned by Rick Warren?
Did you have any moral qualms when you left your first wife – a former swimsuit model – after she was disfigured in a car accident and put on a few pounds?”
Does the Religious Right know that you give talks before gatherings with dubious family values, including suggesting that your wife enter a topless beauty contest?
Aren’t you too old and forgetful to be President?
Why won’t you release all of your medical records? What are you trying to hide?
How many letters did you send for the purpose of interfering with an FCC investigation on behalf of your beautiful lobbyist friend, Vicki Iseman?
How much financial help have you and your supporters given to your lobbyist friend Vicki Isley to help her disappear since your close relationship was revealed?
Have you been sexually faithful to your current wife?
Shouldn’t you be concerned that your wife is too “icy” to effectively serve as First Lady?
Shouldn’t it raise huge red flags when people who run for high office refuse to make their family’s tax returns public? Why should your wife Cindy be an exception?
To be president, is it enough that one is an old wise-cracking, hot-tempered, and often confused and forgetful guy?
Ignorance of facts regarding major issues
Give us the names of some prominent economists who really support your “economic plan.”
Why do you seem to know so little about Iraq?
Tell me everything you know about the history, culture and religions of Iraq. You can have as much time as you need.
Out of touch with ordinary people
Didn’t your wife say that the only way to get around Arizona is by private jet? and see here.
You don’t even know how many houses you own, do you?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlZ-_Sstt5I&eurl=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/21/obama-tears-into-mccain-f_n_120359.html[/youtube]
Tell us about some of the ways we could have wisely invested one trillion dollars in America had we not wasted it in Iraq? Take your time and talk about how we could have improved American with that vast sum of money.
Isn’t it true that you are a poster child for affirmative action for the wealthy and well connected (having both gained admittance to and barely survived the Naval Academy at the bottom of his class as the son and grandson of four-star admirals)?
You don’t know what it’s like to work a real job, do you?
Isn’t it true that you opposed increased Internet access for schools and libraries and backed large mergers to benefit the telecom industry? Isn’t it true that you are proud of your ignorance regarding the Internet and that you barely know how to use a computer?
Tell us what you are doing to investigate all of that illegal bundling money flowing into your campaign through the help of your rich friends.
Isn’t it true that you owe your entire career national politics to your wife’s wealth and family connections?
What is the fair market value of each of the many homes your family lives in?
How can you possibly understand the problems of ordinary Americans when you wear $500 shoes? I know that you’ve said that you are not good at economics, but how many $50 pairs of shoes could ordinary Americans buy for the price of one pair of your $500 shoes?
Isn’t it true that Barack Obama’s story is an admirable one, that Obama was raised in a broken home, his father left at a young age and he was raised by a single mother? Yet isn’t it also true that you are portraying him as an out of touch elitist?
How do you explain your lack of ability to use the Internet until 2008?
Why are you fighting so hard to give generous tax relief to the wealthiest individuals of our country at the expense of lower- and middle-income American taxpayers.
Isn’t your wife too out of touch to connect to ordinary Americans? Is that why she is refusing to disclose her tax return to the American public? And see here.
Lack of plan to fix the economy
You think that the US will be just fine 20 years from now, without any major changes in how this country is run?
The Bush Administration has severely devalued the dollar by running huge budget deficits, resulting in a 40% devaluation of the dollar relative to the Euro since 2002. Why are you planning to further ruin the dollar by running further budget deficits by continuing Mr. Bush’s irresponsible ways?
If deficits are such a good idea, why don’t we just quadruple the last years deficit?
Why don’t we just install machines to print free money to hand out in shopping malls?
Energy
How many members of your family made lots of money in the oil industry? Haven’t 22 of your close advisors lobbied for the oil industry? Tell us all the ways this has biased your world view?
Isn’t your energy plan nearly identical to the Bush administration’s failed National Energy Policy unveiled by Vice President Dick Cheney in May 2001 and written largely by industry executives?
Didn’t you fail to attend all eight Congressional votes regarding alternative energy this year?
Isn’t it true that you missed those eight votes regarding alternative energy but that you denied missing any of those votes?
Tell us how much you will be influenced by all that oil money that pours into your campaign after you take a pro-oil position.
You ridiculed Barack Obama for suggesting that we could save lots of oil by properly filling our tires. Don’t you owe him an apology now that you know that he was correct? You claimed that the tire-filling strategy was a major part of Obama’s energy plan. You were also wrong to say that, weren’t you? In fact, in 2008 you said we could save energy by driving a block less and turning out the lights 5 minutes earlier, didn’t you?
Is your $300 million battery contest idea and your preference that we drill for more oil your most innovative ideas for making America energy independent?
The war candidate
You recently suggested that we should bring back the draft, right?
Why do you keep pulling out the story that you were once a prisoner of war? How is that experience relevant to anything a president does?
As a reason to be suspicious of Iranians, did you really say: “they sure don’t share our Judeo-Christian values”?
It appears that you are locked into the Iraq War mindset. Why haven’t you learned anything about terrorism based on the Iraq debacle?
Isn’t it true that the Vietnam War was fought on the basis of lies (including the alleged Gulf of Tonkin incident)?
You authorized the occupation of Iraq based on lies (WMD), right?. If you are elected, how many more bloody and expensive wars do you plan to initiate based on lies?
You claim that this campaign is about character? Didn’t you show yourself to be a moral monster when you laughed and sang a song about dropping bombs on people?
Didn’t you write this in a book: “Presidents just didn’t get much better than Teddy Roosevelt. He transformed the American navy from a small coastal defense force to an instrument for the global projection of power”?
Prove that you aren’t a warmonger.
Approximately how many the bombs did you drop on civilians in Vietnam? About how many civilians were vaporized and burned by your bombs? How many of those were children?
Why won’t you release all of your military records? What are you trying to hide? Why did you lie about being offered admiralship?
Set forth the conditions you would require to pull all combat and combat support troops out of Iraq?
The rights and well-being of Americans
What will you do for sick and unemployed Americans other than telling them that they are on their own?
Isn’t it true that you want to overturn Roe v. Wade? Therefore, you think that big government should have more control over women’s lives than they currently do, right?
Should women to freely allowed to purchase any form of birth control they choose without any restriction by government?
Should pharmacists be allowed to tell women that they can’t purchase birth control pills? Would you support a federal law that requires pharmacies to honor all prescriptions submitted to pharmacies by women?
Lack of a coherent message
How many times have you vindictively cut off access to news reporters when they dare to write something about you that you don’t like?
Do you keep trying to distract the country from serious issues because you have nothing positive to say about your plan for leading America.
Environment
Many states, including your home state of Arizona are swiftly running out of water. Why do you insist on believing that the “free market” will solve this problem (and many other problems) that it actually caused?
Are you ready to admit that “clean coal” is a fantasy and that relying on coal burning electrical plants for America’s power is dangerous?
Quoting Erich:
"Incidentally, private sexual conduct has nothing to do with whether a person would be a competent president. Consider that each of the following presidents reportedly had affairs: Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy , Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland (who had a child with his mistress) and Thomas Jefferson. "
http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/02/22/smear…
:p
"Isn’t it true that you are a poster child for affirmative action for the wealthy and well connected (having both gained admittance to and barely survived the Naval Academy at the bottom of his class as the son and grandson of four-star admirals)?"
He nevertheless didn't use the influence his family to get out of Vietnam.
"How can you possibly understand the problems of ordinary Americans when you wear $500 shoes? I know that you’ve said that you are not good at economics, but how many $50 pairs of shoes could ordinary Americans buy for the price of one pair of your $500 shoes?"
And what about Edwards and his superexpensive haircut? Something that might last for two months and then you have to get another haircut, unlike shoes.
You're getting too carried away with your criticism on McCain.
Explain how your own campaign did not violate McCain-Feingold.
Were you really tortured in Viet Nam? How was your treatment any different than recent methods employed at Guantanemo Bay?
Are you Saved? Have you been Baptized?
What is the average income of an American family?
When was the last time that you needed something and didn't have enough money to buy it?
Have you ever pumped your own gas?
Have you ever bought anything online?
When was the last time you shopped at Wal Mart? Sears? Neiman Marcus?
Proj: You've written good and fair responses. The reason I challenge the media to ask these questions is that shallow-minded reporters are constantly asking similarly ridiculous questions of Obama, and those QUESTIONS (not the answers) are pulling down his campaign.
By not fighting back, by playing fair, a candidate for national office is guaranteed to lose in this jury-rigged media system. What is the option to challenging the media to stop asking these sorts of ridiculous questions to McCain (but keep in mind that many of my questions are fair)? Should we ask the media to stop asking those Rove-like questions to Obama? They haven't stopped and they won't stop, because the sordid conflict driven by these questions drives Neilsen ratings.
The options are these for Obama:
1. Play fair and lose the election, or
2. Challenge the media to start attacking McCain the same way it has been attacking Obama.
And BTW, I feel in my heart of hearts (I can't prove it yet) that these nasty questions launched at Obama (like why don't you wear the flag pin–a question that was asked of him at a nationally televised debate) are proxies for racial bigotry.
Yes–it's time to put an end to all of this bullshit, including questions about sexual fidelity–but it's not going to happen. Shooting back to show the public how mere QUESTIONS alone can kill a candidacy is an attempt to teach a lesson. It's an attempt to even the playing field.
What would it do to McCain's campaign to ask him about the sordid way in which he left his first wife; what if the media started a two-week campaign to follow McCain everywhere to ask him these questions? It would cripple his campaign just the way the ridiculous questions about Michelle Obama's love of country and Barack-the-elitist-celebrity have recently turned the presidential race back into a neck and neck contest.
It is all so very very sad. And it matters, because 8 years of what we've already had, and what McCain is about to deliver more of, is causing America to sink toward 3rd world status.
Do I hate suggesting that we ought to ask these bullshit questions that ostensibly go to "character." You bet. You tell me, though, what is the option when an entire country is riding in the balance, when the the new shill for the corporate-military-industrial complex (Bush's replacement, John McCain) is gunning to start a new unjustified war even before he's elected.
I would also add "If you believe that life begins at conception, how can you also support stem cell research?
If you were in the military for 22 years and in Congress for 24 years why do you know so little about domestic issues?
When was the last time you or your wife was in a Grocery store other then for a photo-op?
McCain's latest gaff is apparently an inability to remember the number of houses he owns. Yet, amazingly, his campaign has tried to brand Obama as "elitist." Go figure.
Another one I don't quite understand is the effort by many McCain supporters to brand Obama as "arrogant" — we heard this often after Obama's tour of Europe. I wish someone would explain to me why, after eight years of applauding one of the most arrogant presidents in U.S. history, Republicans supposedly have a problem with arrogance? Exactly what "arrogant" things has Obama done to rival Bush's flouting of the FISA court, the Geneva Convention, the U.S. Constitution, etc., to say nothing of Bush standing in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner or his "bring 'em on" rhetoric?
I think the unfair questions are only of use if you also post the unfair questions that previous Democratic candidates had to face. This list of question only does half the job of pointing out the hypocrisy of the media.
Proj: I can give a good answer in a single phrase: the Philadelphia "debate." See here for the a front row seat on how to tank a campaign with mere QUESTIONS, where the questioner doesn't give a shit about the answer because the mere question does the damage. It's the classic technique that all lawyers are aware of, represented by this well-worn example: "How many times have you beat your wife? Even if the answer is zero, the question has done the unfair damage. See here for details on the Philadelphia debate: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/…
Proj: here's another example. Check out this headline from MSNBC today:
"What could break race open: Obama has 70 days to fill in the gaps in his leadership profile."
This headline was on the front page of MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/). The article advertised on MSNBC is located at Newsweek, and it does NOT have a headline that smears Obama. Rather, it is an Eleanor Clift article with this headline: "Anatomy of a Tight Race: The factors that could break the campaign wide open." Here's the link: http://www.newsweek.com/id/154714
So why, WHY, is it that only Obama is singled out (in the MSNBC headline) for needing to shoulder this burden of proof? Why is it suggested that Obama has "gaps in his leadership profile"? And what has McCain yet done, anywhere and any time to show that he has no "gaps in his leadership profile?" In fact, McCain has fully demonstrated that he is woefully ignorant about Iraq, Iran, the economy and virtually everything else he discusses.
Yet this MSNBC headline shouts to readers that there are question marks about Obama that don't exist regarding McCain. And this is from a relatively friendly media outlet, MSNBC. It's not from FOX. This is why I argue that the corporate media as a whole has consciously agreed to promote the talking points of conservatives. It is truly shameful.
And where in the Clift article is there any evidence that Obama has "gaps in his leadership profile?" There is no evidence. It is an article by and about pundits and pollsters, spinning wildly. Out of this absurd nothingness, we end up with a headline that says succinctly and with certitude that Obama has "gaps in his leadership profile," whereas the evidence is that McCain is ill-informed and misinformed on every topic on which he has spoken in this campaign. As we've learned recently, he claims that he doesn't even know how many houses he owns. So let's add shamelessly dishonest to McCain's salient qualities, and start pasting up headlines that scream the questions I've listed in this post.
Isn't it true that you play the POW card on almost every issue you "answer"? See here.
Didn't one of your key advisers recently pull out all stops to get the U.S. committed to starting a war against Russia over Georgia? [this, according to Pat Buchanan]
If you want more evidence that the corporate media is mouthing the talking points of the RNC, take a look at this "news," from the first paragraph of today's AP story on Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his Vice-President:
The full story is here. Therefore, Obama's "weakness" in foreign policy is now a fact rather than an opinion?? It's apparently a "weakness" compared to the guy who once sat in a Vietnamese prison, even though that ex-prisoner can't get his facts straight when it comes to foreign policy.
As I've argued before, the corporate media has placed the burden of proof on Obama for this election, deeming McCain tried and true from the get go, despite McCain's borderline dementia.
Let them eat cake? Here's more about McCain, who accuses Obama of being an elitist:
Here's the full article.
Further, McCain has a history of hiding his wealth from his constituents.
And for the record, McCain knows how many houses he has. He certainly knows that it's more than four, for example. Why isn't the media just saying that McCain lied when he said that he didn't know how many houses he owned? He lied because owning seven houses tags one as being a elitist. Really, I don't know anyone who owns more than two, and I know several well to do people.
Here's another "problem" with McCain: his claim that he is fully supported by veteran's organizations and that he has supported them legislatively. Not true, according to MSNBC (with the help of Paul Rieckhoff):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qRy4PnmNu8&featur…
One more thing: What do POW's think of McCain? Here's what at least one (who speaks for many more) thinks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFhhvaIXA9A&NR=1
[You'll see that these two guys are McCain haters from the right. I don't agree with them on everything they say. Now can I vouch for the accuracy of these claims, but I do wonder whether the videos the Vietnamese videos McCain made are still classified (as the caller states) and not available to be watched by members of the public. Is this true? If anyone knows anything about these videos, let me know]
Is your imprisonment in Vietnam irrelevant to anything at all? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vqnkatmS9g
Here is a comprehensive list of recent incidents where John McCain used his former POW status to avoid answering a question. Here's the full article.
And consider Maureen Dowd's article on McCain's overuse of his POW status.
More AP reporting bias re Obama. http://www.opednews.com/articles/ANOTHER-EXAMPLE-…
Erich wrote, "Here is a comprehensive list of recent incidents where John McCain used his former POW status to avoid answering a question…."
Isn't it interesting how much mileage McCain gets from his POW experience? One of his first television advertisements in my city explicitly mentioned how he was "shot down, bayonetted and imprisoned…." That stuff happened forty years ago and was merely something that was done to him, not something that *he* accomplished. How is it relevant to his qualifications to be president today? More importantly, how would it affect the decisions he would make if he were elected? We've already seen him flip-flop on the issue of torturing Gitmo prisoners — first denouncing it and now tacitly defending it. Seems to me his POW experience doesn't affect much of anything he believes now…except perhaps his desire to keep American troops in Iraq indefinitely, so they can someday come home (in his words) "with honor and victory." It's interesting that he is so fixated on that expression. Seems to me he's trying to use the occupation of Iraq to repair his own feelings of frustration and failure about the Viet Nam war. That's certainly something I can see being with him today even though the Viet Nam war happened so very long ago.
Many others are noticing how much magic wisdom John McCain is claiming as a result of being a POW. Here's a recent example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW4msHu_9EQ
Hey, now Biden can say; "Every sentence McCain utters has a noun, verb and 'POW'!"
Can you tell is in detail how your father in law Jim Hensley made all of that money with which you bought all of your houses? Here's a recap: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/26/the-amer…
Here's another: Why does your wife assert that she is "an only child" when she actually has a half-sister? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/28/cindy-mc…
Mr. McCain, are you really opposed to net neutrality and is it true that you don't care about America's long slide in Internet technology? http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/08/29/lawre…
Tell us what was going through your mind when you told what has been described as a "downright nasty joke making fun of Janet Reno, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton"? http://www.salon.com/news/1998/06/25newsb.html