sounds like an asshole I used to know

Senator Barack Obama quietly reaches out to Senator John McCain, McCain says "I’ll get back to you on that," Obama waits, and then McCain goes public with a self-serving, grandstanding statement.

Does that sound familiar? It sure did to me.

From a post I wrote on February 7, 2006:

On a weekend when his party was air-testing the “Hillary Clinton is too angry to be president” message, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain publicly rebuked Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) in what Matt Stoller called “the single most bitter, nasty letter I have ever seen from any Senator.”

Obama had approached the Senator from Arizona about working together on ethics legislation, and then sent a letter asking if McCain would think about co-sponsoring a plan drafted by moderate Democrats.

"I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform were sincere," McCain writes.

When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership's preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter. . . . I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won't make the same mistake again.

And just to make sure Obama really, really understood how he felt, McCain closed with:

I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party's effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness. Again, I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn't always a priority for every one of us. Good luck to you, Senator.

And McCain’s motivation in breaking with the time-honored tradition of not publicly criticizing other members of the millionaire’s club? Atrios puts it this way:

The real subtext of this story is that McCain wants an opportunity to preen in front of the cameras and an adoring media as he waxes nonsensically about ‘reform’ for months as we head into the presidential primary season. Oh, and that McCain is pretty much an asshole.

Pretty much.

I had pretty much backed off using the McAsshole epithet in recent months in an effort to concentrate on the epic failures that are McCain’s policy positions, but when you read about the events of Wednesday—September 24, 2008—I really have to call a. . . well, I have to call an asshole an asshole.

It seems pretty clear now that the Obama campaign reached out to McCain first about issuing a joint statement on the economic crisis and bailout. While team Obama waited, either for a response from the McCain camp or for language to further negotiations, McCain unilaterally contacted the press to announce that he was “suspending” his campaign and returning to Washington to. . . actually, not sure what he plans to do except parachute into an institution that he hasn’t visited since April and, um, preen in front of the cameras.

That this move was anything but a political tactic, an attempt to reverse course on a really bad ten days on the Good Ship McCain, has been belied by the day’s events, the fact that nothing changed in the financial markets or on Capitol Hill between Monday and Wednesday, the 52% showing for Obama in Wednesday’s WaPo poll (along with many other bad numbers for McCain), the continued front-page focus on McCain’s lies about campaign manager/lobbyist Rick Davis’s ties to Freddie Mac, revelations that McCain hadn’t spent enough time prepping for Friday’s debate, Johnny Mac’s meeting with rich backer Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Chris Dodd’s comments to Rachel Maddow that the Connecticut Senator had heard from Obama “numerous times,” but had “never heard from McCain on the issue” of the economic crisis, the comedy-rich cancellation of McCain’s appearance on David Letterman (only to be caught using the time to sit down with Katie Couric), and the fact that McCain is, as of this writing, still in New York, likely on his way to shake a few hands at the meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, before he finds his way to DC for what has now become a White House photo op.

And, of course, there was that accidentally leaked memo telling McCain surrogates how to spin this “suspension” to the press.

One’s gotta ask, “Just what does ‘suspend the campaign’ mean?”

Oh, wait, let me rephrase that: “Just what does ‘suspend the campaign’ mean, asshole?


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

country club first

By now most of you know about McCain’s call to suspend the campaign, as well as Friday’s debate, in order to concentrate on fixing the Bush-McCain-Gramm financial crisis. That’s supposed to make him look all presidential, above the fray, putting, as they love to belabor, “country first.”

But the timing of this—and the timeline of McCain’s Wednesday behavior—tells quite a different story.

The day started with Team Obama contacting the McCain campaign to draft a joint statement detailing what both presidential candidates could agree upon moving forward on this week’s bailout debate. While Obama’s people were waiting for a response, however, McCain was exercising his leadership skills by taking a private meeting with Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the superrich international financier who once supported the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, but recently tried to make a big deal of her switch to McCain because she believed that Barack Obama was. . . wait for it. . . “elitist.”

So, to recap: Obama takes the lead by trying to hammer out a joint statement, McCain leaves Obama hanging while he rubs elbows with a rich backer, and then McCain announces he is “suspending” his campaign.

The Obama folks are still waiting on McCain to get back to them about the statement.


(h/t Gem Spa)



Just Breaking: Still President Bush has now weighed in with a McCain bailout plan (that would be a plan to bailout Sen. McCain, not any actual plan to fix the crisis that could have been authored by the Arizona blowhard), inviting both presidential candidates to the a White House powwow with other congressional leaders on Thursday. Obama has already accepted.


And Now Breaking: The two campaigns have finally released that “Joint Statement.” When I find the text, I will post a link.

The American people are facing a moment of economic crisis. No matter how this began, we all have a responsibility to work through it and restore confidence in our economy. The jobs, savings, and prosperity of the American people are at stake.



“Now is a time to come together – Democrats and Republicans – in a spirit of cooperation for the sake of the American people. The plan that has been submitted to Congress by the Bush Administration is flawed, but the effort to protect the American economy must not fail.



This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. Now is our chance to come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country.

But, Obama wanted to say more. . . . Quoting the official Obama-Biden blog:

Speaking for himself, Senator Obama outlined the following principles that he calls on Senator McCain to support:

I believe that several core principles should guide this legislation.

First, there must be oversight. We should not hand over a blank check to the discretion of one man. We support an independent, bipartisan board to ensure accountability and complete transparency.

Second, we need to protect taxpayers. There should be a path for taxpayers to recover their money, and to turn a profit if Wall Street prospers.

Third, no Wall Street executive should profit from taxpayer dollars. This plan cannot be a welfare program for CEOs whose greed and irresponsibility has contributed to this crisis.

Fourth, we must help families who are struggling to stay in their homes. We cannot bail out Wall Street without helping millions of families facing foreclosure on Main Street.

Fifth, we both agree that this financial rescue package should move on its own without any earmarks or other measures. We have different views about the need for other action, but this must be a clean bill.

This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe. This is not a Democratic problem or a Republican problem – this is an American problem. Now, we must find an American solution.

To me, this reads as if the first paragraph was hammered out pretty easily, early in the day—it’s really hard to disagree with much there—but Sen. Obama wanted to go further, and was waiting for feedback from McCain. After a day of waiting while McCain suspended his campaign by talking to a wealthy campaign contributor, and later to CBS anchor Katie Couric, and then holing up in New York with his soul running mate, with events moving forward, the Obama team decided to just agree to release what they had and reiterate the additional points, the ones that the Illinois Democrat has been stressing all week.




(cross-posted on The Seminal)

MORE on Wednesday's campaign antics now up on capitoilette. . . .