But at last we have a brief fleeting moment of harmony, Arthur. It’s going to be a very long rest of the campaign season… I share the dread.

‘Nice going, Arthur… Link to a five day old piece from a second tier print media with a story all about how Obama is dominating the media coverage….’

Pretty much at random Mata.

Illustrates there is no shortage of trivia and useless information on each candidate.

Not quite as you put it, ‘No one in the MSM writes anything about him anymore…. He’s officially an “also ran”, nothing more.’

Put less delicately, that’s a lie.

And I’m certain you read the last sentence of the piece then. I know it filled me with dread…

“And to think, as the campaign tit-for-tat goes full bore, this is still only July, with weeks and weeks of the campaign left to tread.”

You made my point. Few stories we can post because there are few informative stories offered. As I pointed out in my Obama talks with Pakistan PM kept under wraps” post, I had to go to foreign media to find out if a conversation between JSM and Gilani even took place.

This crowd has little to say about the man or his candidacy. And I can’t say as how I blame them.

Many here have plenty to say about JSM. And most of us, while less than thrilled, support him because he’s not the Marxist Obama.

But at least he *has* a congressional record to look at… talk about bringing nothing to the dance. That’s His Messiahship in a nutshell.

‘Why not wait until someone here actually does a post where the principle topic is McCain?’

Then he attempted irony, a mistake:

‘Or do you just have all these attack lines itching at you to use them?’

Uh. That’s what you do Mike.

Mataharley answered:

‘Boy, Mike… we might be waiting a long time to post something on McCain. No one in the MSM writes anything about him anymore…. He’s officially an “also ran”, nothing more.’

Not quite.

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/1110636.html

But actually Mike was asking about ’someone here’ posting about McCain.

And the answer is simple.

This crowd has little to say about the man or his candidacy. And I can’t say as how I blame them.
One of the most cynical politicians ever who will grovel as needed to try and achieve what he most wants. A lousy congressional record and a man who brings nothing to the dance.

Wes Clark is right.

Why not wait until someone here actually does a post where the principle topic is McCain?

Or do you just have all these attack lines itching at you to use them?

Holy crap! I can’t even believe you’re going here! All you guys do is explain in detail everything that will happen with an Obama presidency, precisely as if it had already happened: all the missteps he’ll make with economics, foreign policy, and so on and so on. Many people here have predicted the literal downfall of the American system and its replacement with a Communist dictatorship on the Stalinist model. Have you taken a single one of those persons to task in the same way?

Shining light on the obvious to the oblivious… Predictions on an Obama presidency, and the financial and policy repercussions, are all based on campaign promises of what the candidate intends to do, given full cooperation with Congress. Ample scrutiny of the ballooned tax expenses from the proposed policy semi-specifics provided by BHO himself isn’t fortune telling.

The only thing that can change predictable economic and foreign policy fallout is if the candidate is a lying sack o sheeeet…. which is entirely possible, and would be welcomed by most of us.

By contrast, Doug is merely a citizen, predicting the future based on polls or what he thinks foreign leaders will do. He is not running for office, is not making campaign promises to act on, not in a position to formulate domestic or foreign policy. But, I do find him always entertaining and pleasurable with which to deal.

But Doug’s projected outrage from Maliki INRE the death of a relative of a raid? Didn’t happen. The SOFA predictions of failure? Clock hasn’t run out of those, and Iraq still insists they want an agreement. Thus all parties are still at the table and in negotiations. Even if a SOFA happens under the next POTUS, there will still be a SOFA or some agreement for US presence. His predictions for what’s upcoming in the Nov election? Way premature.

Thus, the batting average so far ain’t looking too good… and I think I’ll place more credibility in “Madam Rue”

****************

Doug, quote per your WaPo piece…

“In war,” he has said, “there is no such thing as compromise; you either win or you lose.” But he has not defined victory in Iraq, and many wars have ended ambiguously.

Quite frankly, most of these excerpts seem to revolve around Kaiser’s inability to comprehend what victory is. That seems to be a personal problem.

Only the most narrow minded of biased idiots can repeat the mantra today – “define success” – and expect the majority of the world to buy into that nonsense.

Fact is, the world has been told the definition of “victory” over and over, but it’s politically inconvenient to acknowledge the definition…. and for the anal retentive that may be present, I’ll say it yet again. Victory in Iraq is a nation with a freely elected govt that can sustain and protect itself, be a partner in intel and engage with the world in trade as a free nation.

Even liberal media who banked on failure are seeing the results of a nation emerging. To suggest any war is a failure because the country went askew after liberation is absurd. War cannot insure a rosy path for anyone, including our own nation. Had we ended up with a different form of government than we have now, would the American Revolution be a failure?

War and and successful liberation from tyranny can only provide opportunity for the benefiting nation to proceed – sans despotic rule. How people handle their freedoms is not controllable. However wars are fought because leaving them under oppression is not an option.

I knew I liked McCain for a reason.

In his 2002 book, “Worth the Fighting For,” John McCain offered this confession — an acknowledgment of a restless mind: “Although I seem to tolerate introspection better the older I am, there are still too many claims on my attention to permit more than the briefest excursions down the path of self-awareness. When I am no longer busy with politics, and with my own ambitions, I hope to have more time to examine what I have done and failed to do with my career, and why.”

A telling observation, or so it seems, and refreshingly candid for a public figure. But the words are not John McCain’s. They were written by his longtime aide Mark Salter, McCain’s literary alter ego. “Worth the Fighting For,” like McCain’s other four books, is by “John McCain With Mark Salter,” as they all say on their covers. This comment on McCain’s disinclination to commit introspection was “my surmise,” Salter said in a recent interview in his windowless office at McCain headquarters in Crystal City. He explained his technique:

“It’s his voice, but I’m going inside his head to speak some psychological truth about him. I’m drawing a conclusion based on my observation of him. I always show him: ‘This is what I’ve written. This is what I think about you. Is this fair?’ ” No one is closer to McCain than Salter, who has been with him since 1989. Their associates describe a “mind meld” that has created an extraordinarily close partnership. But even Salter sometimes has to guess what McCain might be thinking, particularly on sensitive subjects. “Things go on inside McCain’s head that rarely or never come out,” Salter explained.

Never mind about the things going in, what about the things coming out (as the piece describes):

McCain can be impatient with complicated answers to questions he considers straightforward, with gray when he sees black and white. For example, he sees no gray outcome possible in Iraq: “In war,” he has said, “there is no such thing as compromise; you either win or you lose.” But he has not defined victory in Iraq, and many wars have ended ambiguously.

McCain’s commentary on Iraq often echoes his descriptions of the Vietnam War. He can make both sound like classical military confrontations and rarely mentions their political complexities. Asked about this in the interview, McCain said the North Vietnamese won with a tank-led invasion of South Vietnam at a time when President Richard Nixon, hobbled by the Watergate scandal, could not respond by using American air power. “We lost in Vietnam because we lost the will to fight, because we did not understand the nature of the war we were fighting, and because we limited the tools at our disposal,” McCain has said, implying that the war could have been won — again without defining victory.

Is it possible that in both Vietnam and Iraq, “victory” was and is beyond the reach of the United States, because in both cases only locals — Vietnamese and Iraqis — could ensure a satisfactory outcome to the conflict by finding a political resolution? McCain is impatient with this argument. In recent days, he has all but declared victory in Iraq: “This conflict has succeeded,” he said in the interview. “All I can say is they [the Iraqis] are establishing the rule of law, they’re going to be having elections, and I think they’re becoming an effective government, which is what our strategy was, thanks to the genius of a guy named David Petraeus.”

McCain has repeatedly lambasted Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for failing to understand the Iraq war. McCain was asked about Obama’s warnings in 2002 that a war against Iraq was a bad idea that would require a U.S. “occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.” Wasn’t Obama more prescient than McCain, who gave repeated prewar assurances such as “the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators” and “we will win it easily”? McCain replied: “I think that’s a legitimate question.”

Then he added: “But the fact is, we did win easily. It was terribly mismanaged.”

A perfect example of pretzel logic.

And you do? Puleeeze! Do give me some stock tips, guy… BTW, are keeping tabs on all your predictions so we can go over them together and assess your accuracy rate? But I gotta hand it to you… few are so willing to go out on a limb and predict the future with some finality.

Holy crap! I can’t even believe you’re going here! All you guys do is explain in detail everything that will happen with an Obama presidency, precisely as if it had already happened: all the missteps he’ll make with economics, foreign policy, and so on and so on. Many people here have predicted the literal downfall of the American system and its replacement with a Communist dictatorship on the Stalinist model. Have you taken a single one of those persons to task in the same way?

‘What a shame that even idiots can vote.’

Amen. Jill certainly votes AND she knows who Jesus would pull the lever for!

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51121

Gregory Dittman offered:

‘Maybe he should watch The Last Emperor on what happens to leaders in bubbles.’

Certainly you’re aware Bernardo Beertolucci is a notorious Marixist & avowed communist. Be careful watching his films.

Commie agitprop at its best.

Personally, I didn’t need Dana Milbank to point out BHO’s arrogance. It became evident, and steadily grew, starting in the primary debates when he saw he was giving HRC a run for the Clinton’s big money and fan base.

So your claim, “as such it will evaporate quickly in the hot summer sun” – while a deliciously visual constructed phrase – totally depends upon BHO acquiring some humility. That, my friend, ain’t going to happen. Right now, he’s on arrogant-autopilot, buying into his own press hook, line and sinker. I suspect it will get worse before better…. unless something comes around to genuinely humble him.

in today’s media-presidency you have to be an egomaniac and delusionally self-absorbed; such an excessive self-love is apparent in their willingness to forgo meaningful ties of family and friends and live and dine with vampires and Ubermachs.

Mercy, even you describe him as “an egomaniac and delusionally self-absorbed. The difference between you and me is that’s okay with you, and very *not* with me.

Funny… GWB was far from that, instead projecting the good ol’ country boy with whom you would expect would be relaxed at a 91 year old’s birthday party in the back yard. Oh yeah… he did that, eh?

It’s really not a matter of changing the subject, although I’m sure that’s what you would like everyone to think that’s my goal; it’s a negative media forecast, based on a run of McCain’s weak points, found in surveys, and hence, it’s simply whether or not it will be used.

23% of the public, near a quarter of those surveyed, find McCain’s age a problem.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108712/McCains-Age-Seen-More-Problem-Than-Obamas-Race.aspx

If you couple that with PTSD and want to go negative, there is a formula available to do significant damage.

Milbank’s piece that sparked all this ‘ego-talk’ is a thin morning subjective mist, and as such it will evaporate quickly in the hot summer sun while the public is listening to their kids play in the front yard. But come fall, when the folks are camping around the tv, and Obama wants to poke a stick in McCain’s life past, he’ll have many things to hit, with many people to verify it.

As far as Obama’s arrogance goes, in today’s media-presidency you have to be an egomaniac and delusionally self-absorbed personality; such an excessive self-love is a requirement and is even apparent in their willingness to forgo meaningful ties of family and friends and live and dine with vampires and Ubermachs. To say McCain is above all that is absurd.

You all here seem to have no idea of what’s in store for McCain.

Gee, I think that’s a ‘trick question’.

Let me try it, too (but with some added reality nuggets): Many voters wonder about McCain, he would be our oldest elected president, his questionable health, being a cancer surviver, former POW. Yet what would happen if the Obama campaign ran an add that McCain may suffer from PTSD …from his years of captivity, torture, including three years in solitary and abuse …so extreme that, as he himself put it, “broke” him to the point he attempted suicide several times.

Therefore, The big question may become, can a man that certainly was traumatized, and submitted a 1400 page medical history –to only a few “media doctors” in just several hours without access to paper, pen, and electronic gadgets, for examination– be said to be properly medically and psychologically vetted of PTSD?

This lays in the wings for McCain.