Skip to content
Categories:

A surge for all seasons

Post date:
Author:

What can I say, John McCain just loves surges.

Reading from a prepared text at an event in Ohio today, McCain said, “What we need today is an economic surge. Our surge in Iraq has succeeded militarily, now we need an economic surge to keep jobs here at home and create new ones. We need to reduce the tax burden on businesses that choose to make their home in the United States of America. We need to open new markets to U.S. products. And we need to reduce the cost of healthcare. And we need to end the out of control spending in Washington that’s putting our debt on the backs of our children.”

I’m a little surprised McCain didn’t mention the role of energy policy in his economic plan, but whatever.

The important thing to remember here is a point we discussed the other day: If you’ve got a problem, John McCain has a surge.

In Iraq, of course, McCain loves the surge so much, he’s willing to credit the surge for events that occurred before it even began. When a policy starts working before it actually begins, you know it must be an effective policy.

In Afghanistan, McCain opposed sending additional troops, that is until a few weeks ago, when McCain announced he supports a … wait for it … surge in Afghanistan.

Over the last several days, McCain has become so enamored with this child-like formulation — surge = problem solved — that he’s now willing to extend it to policies that have nothing to do with the military or foreign policy. On Saturday, addressing the Urban League, McCain talked about his approach to inner-city crime. He recommended a surge.

“You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control,” he said. “And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement.” The way he described it, his approach sounded an awful lot like the surge.

It’s become so reflexive, the McCain campaign, two weeks ago, was talking about the debate over energy policy, and said, in relation to Obama’s position, “This is the domestic policy equivalent of the surge.”

But this is especially odd given today’s remarks about the economy. What’s the difference between McCain’s economic policy yesterday and his new-found support for an “economic surge”? Nothing, except now, McCain’s policy is surge-rific.

I’m curious — if McCain was challenged to give a speech without the word “celebrity” or “surge,” could he do it? I really doubt it.

Comments

  • Lance

    says:

    JSMcC*nt “You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control,” he said. “And you provide them with a stable environment and then they cooperate with law enforcement.”

    I think the Clintons already did this. 100,000 new cops?

    You know, old age is often described as a second childhood.

  • slappy magoo

    says:

    We have to declare surges on everything, we’ve already declared war on everything – war on poverty, war on drugs, war on AIDS, war on terrorism, war on crime, war on whatever – so all that’s left now are surges to aid to those wars.

  • Dale

    says:

    A McCain surge is a big expensive well-publicized effort that quietens the news media and yet fails in its primary goal of creating real change. Yeah, he’s got that.

  • a-mao

    says:

    Overheard in the McCain bedroom:

    “The surge is working! The surge is working!”

    “Not tonight, John, I have a headache.”

  • Jesse

    says:

    Sure, the attempt to remind people about the success of the surge is a bit of a stretch, but what about the policies Sen. McCain is proposing? It sounded like he listed a few good goals to shape his economic plans. It’s rare enough for McCain to discuss anything resembling substance, let’s take this opportunity to engage with that, not just make fun of his stylistic choices.

    So. Lower healthcare costs, open new markets, support US-based businesses, etc. Are these good ideas?

  • joey

    says:

    I wish you would stop using the word “odd”…it’s not odd…its ignorant, stupid, trite etc. but is is certainly willful…it doesn’t just occur as in “odd”.

    1)economic problem, high gas prices, crime etc.
    2)surge
    3)??
    4)fixed
    5)profit

    It’s just like when he says he would sit the Sunni and Shiites down and say “stop the bullshit”. Never how he will achieve the end results. It’s always “we gotta fix the problem…???…and then it will be ok”.

    “…“You go into neighborhoods, you clamp down, you provide a secure environment for the people that live there, and you make sure that the known criminals are kept under control,” he said. As to how you do that he hasn’t a clue. If that was all there was to it…it would have been done years ago.

    Same with everything McCain talks about… It starts with “We gotta'” and ends with “And then it will be fixed”. McCain lives in a fantasy world of illusion and really is too ignorant and lacks the intelligence for deliberative thinking. How many more times do we have to have it demonstrated that republicans, McCain especially, don’t know what they are talking about and are seriously destroying our democracy in the name of private interests.

    McCain: Wrong On Everything…And Lying About It.

  • joey

    says:

    Not finished…”You go into neighborhoods…(who goes in…the police…troops…blackwater…hire more enforcement personnel?) You clamp down (??? marshal law…what???) Secure it (curfew etc…what???) known criminals??? they are usually already in jail…it’s the unknown criminals that are successful…and what if some of them are police??)….”

    Se what I mean…McCain literally has no idea what he is talking about and acts like he’s talking to idiots who he just wants to clap after everything he says. Marching around the stage talking about leadership…it’s hard to keep from laughing at him. People attending the event made up their minds before ever hearing a single word McCain had to say…he was trying to “rabble rouse” and wasn’t even good at that. Just pathetic and his supporters have closed their minds and ears to reason. Just depressingly pathetic

  • Chad

    says:

    What is your problem with the word ‘surge’? Just because it reminds the left of their huge miss on it’s effectiveness in Iraq? That’s what I think.

    You make it sound like it’s a bad thing to take action on fixing our economy. If the word ‘surge’ reminds American’s of success, then by all means, McCain has every right to say such a thing. I don’t see Obama saying we need a surge to end global hunger, he would just look stupid using that word.

    Maybe if the Dems would stop taxing companies out of this country, things would be a litte different and better here now.

    To touch on the unemployment rate, anyone else notice that unemployment went up shortly after the minimum wage was raised?

  • Gridlock

    says:

    #10 Jesse.

    Yeah, that’s a great list of ‘needs’ that McCain spouted. But I didn’t hear any of his ideas on how to address the needs.

    Come back when McCain starts talking substance. I won’t use pen to mark my calendar.

  • Davis X. Machina

    says:

    To touch on the unemployment rate, anyone else notice that unemployment went up shortly after the minimum wage was raised?

    It also went up after the Giants, and not the Patriots, won the Super Bowl.

    Better trolls, please. With the current crop, I’ll take the billygoats gruff and give the points.

  • Eeyore

    says:

    What #10 Jesse just said….

    Where’s the details?

    And to follow up on this “surge” nonsense….

    Are the Republicans supposed to be for limited government, individual freedom and responsibility, and drowning the federal bureaucracy in a bathtub? How can to talk about surges as solutions when you’re supposed to be AGAINST government?

  • Gridlock

    says:

    #16 Chad

    You have to stop listening to Limbaugh man. Don’t you have any concept of market economies or the law of supply and demand?

    Did you notice how the unemployment rate went up after Bush’s Fed raised rates forcing homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages to start missing payments forcing the Banks (which pushed for tighter bankruptcy laws) to have to raise capital and lay off their workers? Oh yeah, and then McDonald’s had to stop hiring minimum wage workers because they had to shell out 50 cents more an hour.

    BTW, McCain sounds stupid using the word surge too. Everyone does. Why they just don’t call it ‘troop reinforcements’ is beyond me. Oh wait, reinforcements reminds people that what was going on before resulted in deaths.

  • Davis X. Machina

    says:

    Why they just don’t call it ‘troop reinforcements’ is beyond me.

    “Troop reinforcements’ didn’t focus-group well in key demographics. But it did score better than ‘escalation’, especially among voters aged 50 and over.

  • Fiona

    says:

    It’s always so interesting to me watching an Obama video and then watching a McCain video.

    In the Obama video, everybody looks amped and is cheering.

    And in this video, if you look at the people behind McCain, they’re shifting restlessly, and have bored, blank expressions on this page. They look like they were paid to be there.

  • BuzzMon

    says:

    It’s sad reading comments from folks like Chad @ #16.

    Did political reconciliation happen in Iraq (the objective of “the surge”)
    No
    The surge was a failure. That failure cost the lives of how many American troops?

    Boilerplate taxes = bad.
    Hey, Chad, taxes are how we pay the bills, or do you skip out on your obligations like Republican politicians? What percentage of our national debt was accumulated under presidents named Reagan or Bush? 90% or so? How many Jobs were produced in the higher tax days of Bill Clinton’s Presidency?

    And it’s funny, there are a lot of countries that have higher tax rates and are dong fine, as well as providing universal healthcare for their citizens.

    And there was this thing called “The Great Depression” that happened after a prolonged stint of government by Republicans. I noticed that there was a bit of unemployment that happened at that time. Without the “Socialist” policies put in place by FDR, the recent bank failures would be the start of the next depression.

    Chad, gitcher self some learnin’, boy. It’s been proven that watching Fox makes you stupid. That’s a hint.

  • chrenson

    says:

    Yesterday the Republicans were saying that talking about offshore drilling has actually lowered the market price of oil.

    I maintain that the recent drop in violence in Iraq has nothing whatsoever to do with the surge, but instead is directly linked to Barack Obama calling for a timetable for withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq.

    So, McCain can talk about surging all he wants [does that make him The Surging General?], but it’s talking about issues that actually solves them. Not surging them. But then, what if you’re talking about surging them?

    Shit.

  • MsMuddled

    says:

    if you look at the people behind McCain, they’re shifting restlessly, and have bored, blank expressions…

    And all lily white.

  • Eeyore

    says:

    Has anyone besides me noticed that in all these YouTube clips McCain is reading from notecards, while Obama speaks extemporaneously, without notes? (And, of course, sounds much more knowledgeable and, well, real).

    My fantasy moment at the debates: Obama turns to McCain and says “John, tell us in your own words and without using notecards PRECISELY what you want to do about X…”

    My bet is he wouldn’t be able to.

  • Aaron

    says:

    chrenson – the only way that makes sense is if you are admitting that the insurgents are planning to lay low until we leave and then start up again after we’re gone. Their goal isn’t to get the US out, it’s to take over no matter who is in charge.

    BuzzMon – git yer own lernin’. FDR exacerbated the Depression, take a look at when he took office. WWII is the thing that fixed it, whether it was our industries supplying materiel prior to our entering the war, or building our own military up as we entered. And the budget commitment that he made on “behalf” of all future generations have been killing us ever since. Not to mention that even FDR did not intend for Social Security to EVER be anyone’s exclusive or even primary income after retirement. Also, there are very few countries who have higher corporate tax rates than the US, and the health of individual private citizens is none of the governments business. It is up to each individual to take care of themselves. Self-sufficiency is what has always made this country great, and O-Waaaaah-ma would have us abandon it. The job of the government is to make sure the pie gets bigger, the size of your piece is your own fault.

  • chrenson

    says:

    Aaron: So then you’re saying that, if we stop talking about drilling, the market price of oil will go back up? And then you’re also saying that the surge didn’t work because the insurgents are still in control and are just holding back until we’re gone. That means the insurgents are already in charge.

    Right?

    And you’re also saying you didn’t get that I was joking to make a point. Right?

    “The job of the government is to make sure the pie gets bigger, the size of your piece is your own fault.”

    How big a pie are we talking about? Just big enough for that top .1% of Americans to eat on their yachts? Does that leave any pie for the hard working people who don’t own Blackwater or Halliburton? The last I checked our government was created to form a “more perfect union,” not help rich people get richer. And if you’re pissed off about high corporate taxes you must be apoplectic about the hundreds of billions of your tax dollars vanishing down a spider hole in Iraq. And people who can’t afford their own health insurance are a drain on the people who can. How much easier life would be if we’d adopt a national healthcare system like those in Canada, England and France.

  • Aaron

    says:

    chrenson,

    We should never aspire to be more like France, England, or Canada in any way. We fought a little war a couple of hundred years ago to make sure that we could be distinctly and fundamentally DIFFERENT IN EVERY WAY from them, remember that? The entire point of all of the systems that you mentioned is to ration care and keep you away from a doctor. The quality of care in the US is far superior to anywhere else in the world. Go find the data on life expectancy when diagnosed with anything from diabetes to cancer in the US vs those places. The dosage of Marxism that we already have in this country has dragged us to mediocrity, you would have us go down further? History teaches that increased central planning leads to a decline in the society, from Greece through the modern day. China has started to figure it out, that is why they have lessened government control and subsequently prospered. When will we get it?

  • Chad

    says:

    McCain likes surges like Obama like change and hope.

    Change & Hope, hope & change, hope, hope, hope, change, change, change.

    I have hope and change in one hand, and a pile of crap in the other. Which weighs more?

    This is my impersonation of an Obamaton: “Oh, Obama just gives me so much hope, I’ve got hope oozing from my pores. Hope makes my world all rainbowy and glittery. I love staking my own personal emotions on who my president is. Right now I can’t hope because my president is evil, but once Obama is president, hope and change will happen and hope will change, and change will hope, and we’ll all be hopefully changing and changing hopefully. Puppies and kitties will walk down the streets side by side. Racism, wars, indifference will end if we just have hope and change. Iran will stop making nukes if we hope strong enough for change. the middle east will calm down if we change our hope…”

    Yes, McCain likes the word ‘surge’, but it’s not as sickening of Obama’s mantra of hope and change.

  • Always hopeful

    says:

    Did you know that only 40% of corporations even pay taxes????

    Well, we should just eliminate taxes altogether and let China pay all our bills. Then when they own us, as they are already on the way to doing, there will be no more USA. That must be what Republicans want.

  • libra

    says:

    We need to reduce the tax burden on businesses that choose to make their home in the United States of America. — John Sidney McCain the third (and least impressive)

    Sure they make their *homes* in America; Cindy McC has 8 of them. But the only jobs they produce here are for those who clip their hedges, not their hedge funds; the rest are “off-shored”, as are their bank accounts (the better to avoid paying taxes, m’dear).

    To all the other word plays — in-surge-ents, surge protector, Surge-on General — I offer an addition: brain surge-ry. As in: McCain. In need of.

  • chrenson

    says:

    Aaron: By your pathetic lack of reasoning we never should have allowed the British to join the “Coalition of the Willing.” After all, 200 years ago they were the enemy.

    And the quality of care in America is really good, if you can afford it. I hope for your sake Aaron you don’t work in one of the many industries that are “tightening their belts: right now. Because chances are, you and your family would lose your health insurance, like millions of other Americans who cannot afford “the best healthcare in the world.” Of course, they don’t deserve healthcare because they’re not proper capitalists like you. Still, they’re the three-part-time-job lackeys that pay for the proper capitalist’s health care coverage.

    And say, aren’t our instances of cancer and diabetes going steadily up over time? You’re saying that a wealthy person with cancer deserves treatment [and therefore deserves to live] whereas a poor person with cancer is not as deserving of treatment. Why? Because they didn’t work as hard? I know a lot more hard-working poor and middle class people than I know hard-working rich people. And I know some rich people. Does Justin Timberlake work harder than Justin Snyder who works the night shift at Wal-Mart and a day shift at SubWay to pay for college [but can’t afford health insurance]?

    By the way, the U.S. is currently 30th in average life expectancy, behind: France, Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Australia [we love you, amen] and a bunch of others. And you, of all people, are suggesting we need to emulate China? They’ve had to shut down all the factories near Beijing for a month to try and clear the air before the Olympics. How’a that for government interference.

    History also teaches us that unchecked military spending coupled with a pointless war in the Middle East followed up with a free market economy equals disaster. Look at Russia. And yet, their story sounds strangely familiar.

    History also teaches us that, every time republicans get their way, the economy tanks and every time the democrats are in charge the economy improves.

    History also teaches us that nation building is a surefire way to destroy your own nation. [Iraq X 2] Failing to meet the basic needs of the impoverished in your own nation is a recipe for bloody revolution [Africa, France, Russia, etc., etc.].

    And Marxism has dragged the U.S. into mediocrity? Really? You’re going to have to cite an example or two there, pal.

  • Aaron

    says:

    At no point did I mean to suggest that we emulate China, just citing the undeniable fact that their economy took off when the government took their hands off. And the single greatest reason that healthcare costs are spiraling in this country is that government is the largest payer, and yet people expect that government can provide the same quality of care as private industry with anything approaching efficiency. And Marxism = mediocrity? How about our public schools? 500% increase in spending in 25 years, decrease in the quality of education. Corporate taxes: “off-shoring” happens because it is cheaper for companies to export work and import product than vice-versa. And as far as the Justin Timberlake/Walmart guy comp: no one said hard work equals wealth. Markets do not necessarily reward effort, they reward scarcity. There is, apparently, only one Justin Timberlake. There is more than one Walmart guy (and more than one of me also, but that is my fault for not separating myself to this point).

  • William

    says:

    Never in my entire life have I heard such a ridiculous crock of SHIT come out of a politician’s mouth. He’s now topped GW! An economic surge was when GW Douche decided to blow your grandchildren’s tax revenue contributions on to invade Iraq. That was the economic surge, please Mr. Obama, repeat this, just run the sound bite and bury this cock sucking asshole! John McCain, bullshit first, country last.

  • Bruno

    says:

    Please stop feeding the Chad troll

    If he wants to get answers to his questions he should take an Econ101 class, or at least stop acting like ‘The Chad’ in Charlies Angels.

  • joey

    says:

    Saying the surge was a success in Iraq militarily is like saying bombing Hiroshima was a success militarily. Nuking Iraq would be a success militarily by McCain’s definition because it would have brought the violence down.

    It was a stupid idea that eventually helped but was unnecessary and the alternative plans could have saved over 2000 American lives not counting Iraqi lives and injuries and displacement of millions of people. the only reason Chad likes it is because it’s easier to say than troop escalation and ethnic cleansing by bombing neighborhoods.

    This surge rabble rousing gets as pathetic as the statement “I would just sit the Sunnis and the Shiites down and say stop the bullshit” Small minds think alike huh Chad?

    Why did Bush create the surge thinking it was necessary to bring violence down…because HE CAUSED THE INSURGENCY and the rise of criminal militias in the first place by allowing Bremer to fire or dis-band or un-employ the Iraq army. When US forces hired the Sunnis back(the Iraq army) and PAID them to fight al qaeda and the criminal militias…violence went down immediately. But rather than l;earn from that and continue putting the country back to work…Bush created the surge…which incompetent McCain supported…which enabled and protected contractor profiteering preventing Iraqis from rebuilding the country themselves…keeping them out of work while Americans made huge profits. Now the splurge went of work killing all the insugents (Sunnis), walling them off and displacing them by the millions till there was virtually few people left to kill.

    What a huge success..Only still no political reconciliation, only few hours of electricity, the country remains divided…but America did secure the oil contracts…What an Iraqi success. You never learn Chad or Jeff…just open up and swallow those republican talking points…the very people you support rely on you remaining uninformed and emotionally charged so you can’t think or see their bullshit.

    The surge was a military success like bombing Hiroshima…which was the result of an earlier “surge”

  • AgentX

    says:

    Wow, the zingers are flying fast and loose today!
    Yes, an economic surge would be nice, McCain. How about going into Congress and surging some of that Iraq War money back into this country? That’d be a big help.
    I’d like to see you invest in an intellectual surge for yourself by reading some books on the economy. You know, that issue you’ve said you haven’t studied enough.