McCain forgets, again, that transcripts aren’t his friend

February 17, 2008

About a year ago, John McCain boasted that he knew the war in Iraq was “probably going to be long and hard and tough,” and that he was “sorry” for anybody who voted it thinking it would be “some kind of an easy task.” That night, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann read off a list of McCain quotes saying the exact opposite in 2002 and 2003. “Senator,” Olbermann said, “we keep all the tapes of these interviews. C’mon!”

I thought of that this morning when McCain told George Stephanopoulos that he’s unimpressed by Democratic arguments about aiming tax hikes at the wealthy.

For those of you who can’t watch clips online, Stephanopoulos noted that Clinton and Obama have both unveiled tax plans that only raise them on the wealthy. McCain was incredulous: “Oh, yes, sure, the wealthy, the wealthy. Always be interested in when people talk about who the, quote, ‘wealthy’ are in America. I find it interesting.”

Senator, we keep all the tapes of these interviews. C’mon!

Matt at ThinkProgress sets the record straight, noting that McCain, back when he opposed Bush’s irresponsible tax cuts, used to be plenty concerned about the “wealthy.”

“There’s one big difference between me and the others–I won’t take every last dime of the surplus and spend it on tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy.” [McCain campaign commercial, January 2000]

“I am disappointed that the Senate Finance Committee preferred instead to cut the top tax rate of 39.6% to 36%, thereby granting generous tax relief to the wealthiest individuals of our country at the expense of lower- and middle-income American taxpayers.” [McCain Senate floor statement, May 21, 2001]

“But when you look at the percentage of the tax cuts that–as the previous tax cuts–that go to the wealthiest Americans, you will find that the bulk of it, again, goes to wealthiest Americans.” [NBC’s “Today,” Jan. 7, 2003]

McCain, as a rule, would be in much better shape if we lacked the ability to check everything he used to say and believe before he was running for president.

Always be interested in when people talk about who the, quote, ‘wealthy’ are in America.

WTF is he even implying? That Democrats have such a broad definition of “wealthy” that it includes the poor?

If it means anything, it could mean, ‘You — poor people — listen up when people talk about The Wealthy, because in America, anybody can become wealthy, and therefore they’re talking about you!’

  • McCain’s a phony and no amount of media BJ’s can stop people from understanding that as long as we keep proving it.

    And frankly, I don’t understand what his point on “the wealthy” was supposed to be. But all the same, I encourage McCain to keep getting people interested in talking about the wealthy. I suspect quite a few Americans know exactly what we mean.

  • Now he is being told what to say whereas before he was trying to think for himself.
    Notice how he is now framing it as “tax hikes” for the wealthy rather than doing away with their “tax breaks” and making the field more income equal.

    It’s not tax “hikes” when they’ve been getting tax “cuts” for years. And btw McCain…I don’t remember anyone voting “for war”. This administration “chose” to do that all on their own.

    Thank god I don’t have to worry about this man ever being president…legally that is.

    NOTE; bjobotts will now be posting by his first name…Joey. I’m not new but from now on will be posting as Joey instead of bjobotts.

  • If McCain wants to understand the economy a little more, particularly in terms of taxes, he might go to the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. At least he can’t say it’s liberal. They devise a formula to predict how well a country can grow it’s economy, and include such things as tax rates, spending policies, labor protections and corruption. Then they fluff it up with things like an independent banking system, currency stability, ability to start and close a business, etc.

    The rankings show the US at 5, despite rather low rankings on tax and spend policies, which HF says are imperative for success. For example, the US taxes 26.8% of GDP, while spending 36.6%. By contrast Norway, which leads the world in millionaires/thousand (Merrill Lynch-CapGemini), ranks third in per capita income (World Bank 2006) and requires over five weeks paid vacation per year to employees, taxes at 43.6% of GDP and spends at 42.3%. Naturally, Heritage Foundation ranks them much lower.

    If you’re looking for countries that do better than the US on the tax and spend issues, try Russia at 24% of GDP taxation and 31.9% spending. Or we could emulate Kenya at 19.4% tax vs 22.5% spending.

    It’s a fun site to browse.

    http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm

  • What’s interesting is that, in general, most politicians have yet to get used to the fact that just about everything they’ve ever said is now easily looked up and inconsistencies (or flip-flops if you will) can be exposed with no problems at all. They are still apparently steeped in old-school political thinking which comes down to “if it’s not reported in the newspaper, it never happened…and even if it was, it’s not likely that the professional press will hold me accountable for past statements.”

    Up until now, the main thing they’ve had to worry about in this respect is opposition research which is more easily controlled through the “You don’t bring that particular subject up and I won’t talk about the many instances we know of where you’ve spent a few afternoon hours in a motel with a man who was not your wife” method of coercion.

    It’s clear that what is thought of as the mainstream media seems to have no sense whatsoever of history beyond possibly the last few days, if that. It’s exactly like a sort of Alzheimer’s in which the “latest” thing is the “only” thing they can wrap their collective heads around.

    The idea that actual citizens may be watching carefully, have very long memories (or really good search engines) and are starting to hold them accountable for past statements has yet to trickle down into their consciousness. This, I think, is potentially the most profound long-term shift that internet web sites, blogs and other forms of citizen journalism can effect. If the mainstream media won’t do it, then someone else will…and those someone else’s are moving into the vacuum created by news organizations that have clearly lost their way (and audience).

    At some point, it is to be hoped that the political class will wake up to this fact, re-examine their core values (if they actually have any) and start speaking from them.

    Idealistic perhaps but a real possibility over time.

  • The media could so easily build a database of all these issue clips and if the interviewer were intelligent enough could instantly bring up the right clip on the fly on the tv. I guess they would call that “gotcha” journalism for quoting a interviewee.

    McCain tries to vague his way through interviews by alluding to but not completing rightwing talking points as if they are so standard that everyone will go along with his inferences. like in ““Oh, yes, sure, the wealthy, the wealthy. Always be interested in when people talk about who the, quote, ‘wealthy’ are in America. I find it interesting.”” is implying that Dems set the mark for wealthy too low. It’s going to be funny to see Obama or Clinton slap him around with actual facts when they debate him.

    As fate would have it I have a baseball cap with an O on it I picked up a couple of years ago. I guess that makes me an Obama supporter although I usually tell people it stands for Orgasm.

  • McCain is just an old fart that probably thinks the Internet and Google serve only for e-mails and amusement.

  • This was covered in a post earlier ‘The strangest McCain praise ever’.
    Both the R’s and D’s have conceded McCain’s lack of pandering skills, hence this:

    “Oh, yes, sure, the wealthy, the wealthy. Always be interested in when people talk about who the, quote, ‘wealthy’ are in America. I find it interesting.”

  • Is it just me or does anyone else get nauseated just watching McCain speak? He’s such a condescending authoritarian who is just not all that bright but certainly thinks he is. He’s just irritating, plain and simple.

  • [….] inconsistencies (or flip-flops if you will) can be exposed with no problems at all. — Monica Wolf, @5

    They *can* be but *will* they be? It doesn’t seem to me that the potential is often realized, even by the printed media (never mind the audio-visual ones).

    Bjobotts@3/Joey@5,

    Why the change? “Joey” is a cute marsupial (baby kangaroo) but, as a scren name, much less distinctive…

  • Is it too much for Stephanopoulos to just ask him ” What does that mean Senator?”. Or can he and the rest of the talking heads only ask what is written in advance, either by choice or a prior agreement with whomever they are interviewing?

    McLame – “straight talk”, saying the first thing that comes into my head.

  • Kerry, inexplicably failed to explain that what he meant by wealthy was homes >$200,000

    Maybe the DLC told him his money would dry up if he did?

    That was the last figure I heard as qualifying for the “wealthy” label.

    At less than six figures, I am content to let that definition stick, even if it’s a bit generous.

  • Top 50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.03% of Income Taxes (2001 data, i.e. they pay more now.)

    Are the top half millionaires? Noooo, more like “thousandaires.” The top 50% were those individuals or couples filing jointly who earned $26,000 and up in 1999.

    Why does the Democratic Party want to keep people dumb and poor? (HINT: What party does the bottom 50% of wage earners vote for?)

  • Unfortunately, John McBush knows his buddies in the media will go easy on him, so his flipflopping will probably go unnoticed by most of America.

    One of the things Republicans love to criticize is hypocrisy, and McCain’s trying to set the bar for hypocrisy on several issues that are unpopular with Republicans, so now we’ll get to see whether Republicans care more about hypocrisy or solidarity.

    The Dems should do an ad that shows how the “maverick” is now rebelling against his own stated positions, and show how got his “maverick” reputation by taking somewhat sensible positions, which the American people and of course the Democrats already held. But now that he’s the Republican front man, those rare moments of sanity have been disowned, and the Maverick has the Republican saddle fastened on and he’s sitting in their barn. Maybe he used to be a maverick, but the positions he took to get that name… what happened to them?

    There’s so much horse shit in that barn, must be a maverick in there somewhere.

  • Seaberry: According to National Election Study surveys (link to krugman), 51% of the bottom 1/3 income voted Democratic between 1976 and 2004. 44% of the middle third and 37% of the top third did the same. In 2006, according to CNN, 60% with incomes under $50,000 voted Democratic. Maybe they are realizing more and more that the Republicans don’t have their best interests at heart. What do you think?

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/even-more-on-income-and-voting/

    http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/US/H/00/epolls.0.html

  • McCain – lying now or lying then?
    It’s hard to tell, and he no longer remembers.
    Elect somebody else.

  • The top 50% were those individuals or couples filing jointly who earned $26,000 and up in 1999. — Seaberry, @ 13

    Don’t know where you got those numbers. Maybe they’re correct, for ’99 (almost 10 yrs ago, when not only gasoline but even milk cost half of what it does today). And maybe those people *were* in the top 50% of earners (though, for a *couple* to earn 26K, ie about 13K per person, seems mighty thin living to me, especially if they had kids. And 50% had *less* than that???)

    How about giving us some numbers about the earnings of the top *1*%? Or, even, the top 5%? And then what their contribution to the society as a whole is vis-a-vis taxes? And please include your sources. Reputable ones. That is, other than something pulled off McCainiac’s website…

  • Well, Seaberry, people who eat at McDonald’s are disproportionately fat. Obviously McDonalds wants to keep people fat so more people eat there. And, of course, older people spend more money on doctors than younger people do, so doctors obviously try to keep old people sick to make more money.

    Or, maybe, you should learn that correlation does not mean causation. Because, not understanding that basic tenet of statistics, you come across as a bit of an idiot.

  • ” Is it just me or does anyone else get nauseated just watching McCain speak? He’s such a condescending authoritarian who is just not all that bright but certainly thinks he is. He’s just irritating, plain and simple”

    Joey, I’m with you 100% on this. Apart from his rabidly bellicose policies, his transparent pandering, his simmering rage-o-holism & the appalling party he’s running for, I just can’t physically stand watching or listening to the guy. It’s a deeply visceral loathing, scarily akin to the way I felt about Dubya way back in early 2000.

    What I hate most is the soft, almost whispering cadence of his voice. It’s a Reaganesque, Kristol-ish, Brooks-ian simulacra of reasonable-ness while smirkingly championing apocolypse. It truly sends shivers up my spine. It reminds me of the murmuring sanctimony of bin Laden, the smiling affability of Ahmadinijad, the soothing tones of Netanyahu, or Tony Hopkins portayal of Hannibal Lecter. It creeps the hell out of me.

    Watching him is almost as bad. Those hasty, insincere grins that warn you how hard it is for him to not lose his mind and kill you on the spot.The blinking, red-rimmed, rheumy eyes that remind you he hasn’t long to live and may choose to take us all with him. That wispy white hair that seems to sprout from everywhere but the top of his head, reiterating his imminent mortality and apparent inability to (a) either comb his few remaining hairs or (b) retain a hairdresser that doesn’t hate him. And, most recently, his increasing, clearly disastrous abuse of Botox which have given him the alarming rictus of a stroke victim. Alongside his frozen-faced wife, the pair could be poster-geriatrics for the perils of cosmetic botulism.

  • Grumpy,

    I believe Dale is correct, i.e. that McCain is “implying that Dems set the mark for wealthy too low.”

    Right-wing talk-radio bloviators constantly claim that Democrats define “wealthy” as anyone making over 40k a year (!). I have heard this repeatedly from those who listen to Limbaugh et al. The implication being that the Democrats want to raise taxes not on the rich, but on the struggling middle class.

  • To be clear, Seaberry’s post is entirely copied from an article posted on RushLimbaugh.com from about 5 years back.

    It’s been thoroughly critiqued all over the internet, but here’s one of my favorite analyses: http://www.moderateindependent.com/v1i15taxnumbers.htm

    “Do you know what the top 10% of us earn as opposed to the bottom 10%? Oops, Rush left that number out. We won’t bother with tricky percentages or different size groups or anything. Here are the simple numbers for this past year: The top 10% make $92,754 or more, the bottom 10% make $5,121 or less […] Now, do you see some reason whey the first 10% percent of us would not be paying any taxes? Right, BECAUSE THESE ARE NOT ACTUAL WORKERS MAKING ANY MONEY, RUSH YOU IDIOT! I’m sorry, but even our paltry minimum wage brings people in far above $5,121 a year. […] Yes, about 50% of the nation pays only about 4% of the taxes, but, Rush, they make only about 5% of the taxable money.
    “50% of the nation makes only 5% of the taxable income. What a headline that could be! Half the nation completely used and abused as virtual slaves by the other half. If rush were a lying liberal instead of lying right-winger he could make that case, which would be no more accurate.
    “No, Rush, 50% of the money is not earned by people making $26,000 or more. Even if you go by AGI, which already allows for people to make it seem like they earned less than they did, you have to get up to people who earn about… ready?… $90,000 to get to who earns half of the money each year. That’s right, it is not people earning over $26,000 who earn 50% of the money (and yet are unfairly hit with 96.4% of the taxes, as Rush cried.) Nope, 50% of the money in the 2000 year Rush used was made by people who earned $90,000 or more. I guess Rush didn’t really mean “thousandaires” but “hundredthousandaires.” “

  • MonicaWolf @5, an excellent point; it is far more important, in my opinion, than the internet as a tool for organizing or discussion…by Google we shall know thee.

    Here’s an idea of Sen McCain, and it works as well for the “tax and spend” Democrats as it does for the borrow and spend Republicans. Balance the freakin’ budget and live within our means so that when recession comes along, we can deficit spend our way out. And when i say balance the budget, i mean use the previous year’s tax receipts to fund the current year…rather than borrow the money first and pay it back with taxes later. I want low taxes too, but that’s rather impossible if we spend a trillion dollars per year on the military. But i am willing to pay high taxes if we all get something for it besides new weapons systems and bridges from nowhere to nowhere. Wait, i take that back…i’d like to visit nowhere someday, so as long as the bridge starts somewhere i’m good with it.

    I’m not nearly as longstanding as bjobotts, but i see the point of the change, Joey. I’ll go along. Henceforth i will post with my real name too, Lex. That’s right, the word and/or the law depending on which ancient language you prefer. Actually my real name is Alexi, my mom liked it because no one would ever shorten it; then she started calling me Lex on the day i came home from the hospital…go figure.

  • limbaugh tools hate details…

    Report Says That the Rich Are Getting Richer Faster, Much Faster

    DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
    Published: December 15, 2007

    The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows.

    The poorest fifth of households had total income of $383.4 billion in 2005, while just the increase in income for the top 1 percent came to $524.8 billion, a figure 37 percent higher.

    The total income of the top 1.1 million households was $1.8 trillion, or 18.1 percent of the total income of all Americans, up from 14.3 percent of all income in 2003.

    The total 2005 income of the three million individual Americans at the top was roughly equal to that of the bottom 166 million Americans, analysis of the report showed.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/business/15rich.html

    that’s right….the top-3 million same as bottom 166-million….

    heckofajob

  • There is only one thing anybody needs to know about McCain

    McCain for Preznut = Military war draft.

    You know, McCain is the 100 year war man. Gota love those lied about wars. What an complete ass.

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