All Those Houses. . .
I've not been all that excited about the McCain "I don't know how many houses I've got" gaffe. (I have to admit though that Josh Marshall's take on it does get the heart racing a bit.)
I know others who aren't tuned into such details and they'd make fine national leaders. One can be out of touch with a lot of things -- numerous homes, paying bills on time, remembering to put gas in the car, knowing which drawer the kitchen utensils are in (that's one of my regular screw-ups), and so on.
But Rogue Columnist captures the beyond-home implications of the gaffe that we should be concerned about:
President-elect McCain's inability to recall how many houses he owns fits into a larger and more troubling pattern. The problem is not just that he is an out-of-touch rich guy.This is the candidate who repeatedly confused Shiite and Sunni -- all the while trumpeting his expertise on the Middle East. At one point, his sock puppet Joe Lieberman had to whisper the facts in his ear. He couldn't tell Sudan from Somalia. He kept talking about a nation that hasn't existed for years. Iraq and Pakistan share a border, the senator wrongly said, and the Sunni awakening happened 'after' the surge (edited out by CBS). He said he didn't know much about economics, then denied saying such a thing. He spoke of a withdrawal timetable one day, then denied saying it later. He volunteered Cindy for a topless contest. Then there was the stupendous dead space and mumbling when he was questioned about claiming Obama was playing the race card. He claimed he walked through Baghdad without body armor or protection, etc., etc. Most of this has been captured on tape.
What's going on? Neither obvious answer is comforting. He's either going senile as he nears 72, or he's lying and unprepared on critical issues without realizing how easily this can be caught in a YouTube era. (Whether the duhs and ignos -- those 'undecided voters' and angry Clintonites -- will care, is another, depressing matter). Either one of these answers should disqualify him for the White House, particularly because so many of his misstatements, confusions and subsequent lies come about issues where he claims superior experience and judgment.
I turn 46 on Wednesday next week -- during the Democratic National Convention -- so I'm feeling particularly vulnerable to age challenges. I don't care if McCain is 72. I care whether he is functioning mentally, intellectually, and emotionally in full form.
This is a candidate who has already decided that Russia is the dark villain and Georgia's Saakashvili the white knight in the scrape-up between Russia and Georgia. In that case, did he talk with his advisers to make sure that he had his facts straight and intelligence right? Wait, one of his top national security advisers is a paid lobbyist for Georgia. . .so, let's change that to "Did McCain ask his biased staff members to recuse themselves and then ask others to help him get his facts straight?'
Or did he just decide what was what all on his own when he issued his condemnation of and not so veiled threats toward Russia?
I don't care if folks see the Georgia-Russia mess as a black and white situation or a problem with lots of gray, if McCain is making fast judgments but often has a poor grasp of detail. . .and let's put some "emotional outbursts" on top of that. . .then that's not a trivial problem.
-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note
Just curious...do you come from an upper income family Steve? Because to people who worry how their taxes will be paid, about friends and family members who have talent and can't get work. Well, they do care about a guy who's so wealthy he doesn't have to care about money from his wife's family that they're living off of. When she's so wealthy she got annoyed at not being able to get into one million dollar ocean front property so she bought another in the same building. To discover they're so cavalier with a commodity others hold precious and life transforming is a major turn off.
But if you're well off in a building with a doorman and elevator, who gives one.
August 23, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
kravitz,
sure it's a turn-off to some people, but, steve's right that it is irrelevant to his qualifications and vision for america as president.
unless, of course, it is part of a larger pattern of senility, virtue or vision.
but, it is a hot button for many people and i think is an effective ad for the reasons you suggest.
August 23, 2008 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain's 'vision' for America seems limited to:
(1)Saying or not saying whatever necessary and supporting any policy that will help him to get elected.
(2)Keeping the Karl Rove branch of the Republican Party employed and active and running the country for another four years.
(3)Burying for good all the law breaking, lies and subterfuges of the Bush/Cheney/Gonzalez bunch, being a Loyal Bushie as President.
(4)'Winning' in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Iran by having Americans 'persist' in paying the price in lives and trillions in debt.
(5)Ensuring that his wife's taxes on her $100 million plus fortune do not increase to pay for any of the wars.
(6)Continue his close and profitable relationship with well connected well heeled lobbyists puppeteers while continuing to say the advice and money they provide him doesn't affect his judgment, if he still is capable of any.
(7) Running up the nations debt until the nation is mortgaged for seven generations (an inverse Republican version of the Iroquois creed)
August 23, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've not been all that excited about the McCain "I don't know how many houses I've got" gaffe.
That's the problem with Democrats. If Karl Rove's opponent had made a similar gaffe, do you think Rove would be so indifferent? Not only would he be excited about it, he'd be doing everything in his power to ensure everyone else was excited about it too. Fox news would have 24 hour coverage. And the Weekly Standard and New Republic would be boiling over. When there's blood in the water you gotta start salivating. And you gotta bite.
Here's my question: Did that philanderer John McCain cheat on his first wife--the disabled one who stuck with him through the Vietnam ordeal--just to marry a drug-addict, drug-stealing bimbo with so much money she doesn't even no how many houses she owns and who carries six-figure credit card debt?
If the Democrats had any pulse, they'd be asking that question all over TV right now.
But instead they're yawning, saying no big deal. I can't find the kitchen utensils.
Oh god, I'm gonna get sick.
August 23, 2008 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, you can read more about McCain's ex-Wife in the UK press:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html
And how about the Keating Five scandal? Why haven't we heard anything about that? This McCain guy has a pretty ugly and checkered past but everybody ignores it because he was tortured and he pretends to be a "maverick." But the real McCain seems to be pretty creepy. Where are the Democrats? Where is the press?
August 23, 2008 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think anyone cares about McCain's bimbo. Launching attack ads against her would do nothing except make Obama look bad.
There's plenty of stuff that the Obama campaign is or shortly will throw at McCain. These folks know what they are doing.
It's good old fashioned Chicago politics.
McCain is going to get a good old fashioned Chicago ass whipping!
August 23, 2008 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not the bimbo we should be going after, it's McCain's creepy character. Ordinary Americans will react viscerally and highly negatively to the image of the self-centered philanderer dumping his loyal, crippled wife, the mother of his children, who stuck with him for all those years while he was in Vietnam and had been injured in a horrible car accident. Combine that with his other affairs (there were several after vietnam) and his various scandals (especially the Keating scandal that was part of the S&L disaster that cost taxpayers billions) and you start to see a picture not of a war hero but of a self-centered, creep, always looking for an angle to advance himself. Someone should be asking why McCain dumped his swimsuit model first wife once her looks were destroyed to marry another model--with a big pile of cash to complement her looks? It's a bit unseemly, I'd say. And I bet a lot of Americans would think the same, if only they knew the story.
McCain is a creep. He's a self-promoter. He's a cheat. He's prone to angry outbursts. And he's senile. It's not a pretty picture. So why aren't the Democrats painting it for the American public?
August 23, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
But on ET they were talking about Cindy's hair styles.
Cindy could be like a celebrity. She (recently, for the first time) even went to a NASCAR event too. Americans love celebrity gossip, MSM knows it takes folks minds off how bad the Bush economy is, or how many houses John and Cindy have.
We could talk about which hairstyle Cindy should use as First Lady. The frizzy informal look, the royalty-like Audrey Hepburn, or the serious and a little frigid pull back bun! Cindy's hair
August 23, 2008 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do think that the house gaffe is very significant, but it wouldn't have been as a stand alone goof.
The fact that he didn't know the answer to this is actually part of a perfect storm that allowed the Obama campaign to go on a dogged offensive.
The house gaffe acted like the fake rabbit at the dog track. The dogs have been there all along, but the rabbit allowed them to open the gates on the other stuff.
Contrast that with the McCain camp which has been opening up the doors all along.
McCain is now defined permanently as the more negative campaigner, the one who is running ads that are dishonest, and who is avoiding talking about himself at all - most of all avoiding how he is different from George W. Bush.
It's very impressive to me that the Obama campaign is showing this disciplined, carefully thought out strategy as it contrasts with McCain's scatter shot, undisciplined approach, because I think it speaks volumes about just what kind of President each of these guys would make.
McCain hired the Rove protege's - he knew exactly what bed he was sleeping in.
I say Obama will be up more than the 15 points the McCain people were predicting after the convention bump.
McCain will not recover from this. He's dead meat.
August 23, 2008 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a '2-fer!' It demonstrates to Americans in economic crisis that McCain is way out of touch with their problems, AND it also adds evidence to the suspicions that he's got some cognitive problems.
August 23, 2008 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
The house thing followed from his $5 million definition of rich, and his pricey shoes, and mainly from McCain having started this fight.
He asked for it by trying to paint Obama into the windsurfing elitist corner. Go for the knockout.
When someone shoots first, it's OK to shoot back.
August 23, 2008 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, it is sick. Why are we forgiving their gaffes? We should be taking their gaffes and blowing them so far out of proportion that even after we're corrected people wind up with the impression that outrageous things are true even though they aren't.
Because that's what they do. And that's how they win.
August 23, 2008 11:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly.
August 24, 2008 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama said he'd be taking a gun to a knife fight, but instead the Democrats are showing up with tea and crumpets.
August 24, 2008 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the problem is that Clemmons really likes McCain, at least on a personal level. Indeed, he's posted tons of positive McCain stuff on this site. The worst he says is that McCain isn't the maverick he once liked and admired. Too bad since the truth is that McCain was never a likable or admirable maverick.
August 24, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain is a guy walking around with a hammer looking for all the nails in the world, and that's scary.
August 24, 2008 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
People who get paid to think about policy for a living, like people who get paid to do plumbing for a living, are certainly entitled to tell the world-wide web their ideas about politics, as Steve Clemons has done here, but their opinions are worth about the same. Actually, since the electorate contains way more plumbers than policy wonks, a plumber's opinion on the '7 houses' kerfuffle would probably be more valuable than Steve's.
Dubya's favorite political philospher did not preach to the multitudes in policy papers, but in parables. He knew what He was doing.
-- TP
August 24, 2008 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
These houses are likely investment properties that act as a hedge against inflation. Given the housing market that isn't so great at the moment. The bottom line is McCain has more money than he knows what to do with and that is more than a little troublesome for a presidential candidate in these hard times. This campaign is more than a little bit about haves and have nots. He is clearly reluctant to draw attention to the fact he is a lifetime member of the haves while the majority of Americans relative to himself are members of the have nots.
The contrast between himself and Obama is causing a lot of trouble for McCain. It places an inconvenient emphasis on the class struggle going on in this country. Voters have become all too aware that tax cuts, simply because of the arithmetic, overwhelmingly benefits persons with seven figure incomes. On that alone McCain is facing an uphill battle. It is a major piece of the republican thrust. But from a voter perspective he probably loses the vote of people who think that is very important.
August 25, 2008 5:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you actually serious? Not knowing how many houses you own is a detail. Do you know how many people are homeless? Do you know how many people are renters? Do you know how many people out there are paying mortgages? How many of them are at risk of losing their homes? Do you realize that for most Americans, actually owning their own home is the big dream. That Home Ownership is the single significant asset that most American families will ever have a shot at?
Yet, we have a man running for President who is so wealthy, so ignorant, so out of touch and oblivious that this 'detail' is irrelevant.
Give me a farking break.
August 26, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink