"Eric, don't call my bluff. I'm going to the American people on this," the president said, according to both Cantor and another attendee. "This process is confirming what the American people think is the worst about Washington: that everyone is more interested in posturing, political positioning, and protecting their base, than in resolving real problems."
Cantor, speaking to reporters after the meeting, said that the president "abruptly" walked off after offering his scolding.
“He (Obama) lit up Eric Cantor like he’s never been lit up,” said one in the room.
Light him up, baby. And the rest of the Tea-rants with him.
Mitch McConnell at least has the good sense, a day after revealing his hand, to go full weasel. Admitting abdication of governance for pure Party politics, admitting it in public, no less:
Watching silently was McConnell, who had used a conservative radio interview earlier in the day to bluntly warn his party it was setting itself up for a fall at the polls in 2012.
“I refuse to help Barack Obama get reelected by marching Republicans into a position where we have co-ownership of a bad economy,” McConnell told his host, Laura Ingraham. “The reason default is no better an idea today than it was when Newt Gingrich tried it in 1995 is that it destroys your brand and would give the president an opportunity to blame Republicans for a bad economy.”
He's already (and often) said that thwarting President Obama's reelection is his single goal as Senate Minority Leader, so McConnell admits he is only concerned with making the President look bad, not with getting America back to work, not with putting guardrails on the greed that caused our most recent financial meltdown, not with saving the planet from destruction. Not even bringing peace to the Middle East.
That not governance, that's certainly not statesmanship.
The whole Cordoba House debate is designed to take your mind off of actual needs of the American people. It's kind of a stupid strategy on the part of the GOP since the economy is not recovering quickly enough, and if they had a real plan besides continuing the ruinous Bush tax cuts favoring the rich at the expense of the deficit, they'd be primed for traction on that. But since they have no plan, they'd rather distract from the actions that have been taken by serious-minded Democrats (agree with them or not).
So you have moronic ex-Governor Tim Pawlenty trying to negate his wussy personality by coming down hard on the Imam of Cordoba House and the government for using him n outreach to better U.S. relations with Muslims around the world. However, that began with his lecture to the FBI under the Bush Administration, so Tim is essentially slamming his own. Not that it matters in his Fox-ruled world. (And, ironically enough, Fox is actually partly owned by a Saudi prince who's family rules by the very Sharia Law it enjoys fanning fears of coming to the U.S.)
Richard Hanna, the Republican congressional candidate in NY-24, was the rare Republican who supported the proposed Cordoba House plans. That is, until his Democratic opponent, incumbent Rep. Michael Arcuri, announced his own opposition to the "Ground Zero mosque."
Now, Hanna says that "building a mosque near Ground Zero is insensitive."
Maybe the most shameful such political tool since 9/11 was used by Bush/Cheney to sell the Iraq War to America? Even a politician not taking a side manages to use it for political points:
Politico reports that (New Jersey Gov. Chris) Christie (R) was speaking at a bill-singing in Trenton, and said "I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day at the hands of radical Muslim extremists," but "it would be wrong to so overreact to that, that we paint Islam with a brush of radical Muslim extremists that just want to kill Americans because we are Americans."
He added that "what offends me the most about all this, is that it's being used as a political football by both parties."
"I don't believe that it would be responsible of me to get involved and comment on this any further because it just put me in the same political arena as all of them," Christie said.
But I reserve special contempt for the ex-President who has revealed his balls of clay today in the simplest terms possible (via TPM):
As the "mosque" debate boiled over this weekend the big question was whether George W. Bush was going to weigh in.
TPM asked, and the response from his spokesman today was simple:
"President Bush has no comment."
In addition:
Assistants for Karen Hughes and Condoleezza Rice declined to comment.
Yep, this post's title is just a little over the line, but somehow "McCoward" didn't seem to go the distance.
Beginning with the non-vetted selection of blunt object Sarah Palin as his running mate and flowering with the desperate William Ayer smear injected directly into the bloodstream of his campaign this past week, John McCain has gone from the lesser candidate to national disgrace. His entire legacy is on the line, and as USArmyParatrooper explains at MyDD, it's looking grim:
If Obama wins he will forever be ingrained in history books on a level few Presidents share, if for no other reasons because he will be the first black President.
Since we live in such a media rich age his rise to power and his roadblocks will undoubtedly be well documented and retold throughout time. Because of this John McCain is destroying his legacy on an enormously long-term basis. 200 years from now our history books will talk about Barack Hussein Obama, the first black President and the country's reaction. It will be told how his political opponent went to great lengths to portray him as a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer, how in McCain rallies death threats were shouted. It will be told how many on the right tried to portray him as Muslim during a time when few accepted the Muslim faith in the land of the free. It will be told how John McCain and the right questioned his patriotism and his dedication to the troops. It will be told how they even shamelessly went after his wife, Michelle Obama. As our young students learn about American history they will look back on this period thinking, "how sad." Just like we view our wrongdoings in the past with regret, so will we in the future.
Just imagine during the Jetson era young children sitting in school watching beautiful, historic and inspirational Obama speeches, and then watching John McCain and the right's ugly rhetoric. McCain has been out to make his mark in history, but I don't think he's thought about what that mark will look like. Sad indeed.
The upshot is that McCain's attacks are exceedingly cowardly, as glaringly revealed by his lack of cajones on Tuesday night in not saying any of it to Obama's face. Which the Obama campaign has clearly taken up, calling McCain out in what I assume is a totally strategic move. It started with the boss himself (thanks to TPM):
Then Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack took up the charge:
“All of the things they said about Barack Obama in the TV, on the TV, at their rallies, and now on YouTube and everything else,” Biden said — referring to McCain and Palin tying Obama to Weatherman bomber Bill Ayers and accusing him of “palling around with terrorists.”
“John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him,” he said to cheers. “In my neighborhood, you got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.“
With McCain's famous temper, this could be an attempt to draw the foul and get him to bring it up in the next debate, where Obama will be just as ready as he was with his "don't understand" killer.
McCain's moral cowardice has been one of the subtexts of this campaign ever since he wound up the nomination and turned his attention to Barack Obama. But I did not realize it would reveal itself in such a physical dimension...
...He ever swaggered on for a couple days about how he was going to 'take the gloves off' when he met up with Obama in Nashville. But when the two of them were there in each others physical presence ... nothing. By a myriad of gestures and reactions Obama owned him...
...And now Obama can lightly taunt McCain with that very cowardice, his inability to just say it to his face. And if my take on the inner workings of McCain's mind at the moment is right that should simply unhinge him even more.
John McCain is not man enough to own his shit. John McCain will not openly confront Obama with his smears and lies and innuendo. John McCain will not come out and talk about Ayers, he has to be asked. That is why he goes to places like Fox News, so he can be asked. What a coincidence.
John McCain is a coward.
John McCain would rather hide behind his wife and Sarah Palin than say it himself.
John McCain just wants to throw shit out there, and “raise questions” about Obama, and hope his supporters connect the dots, because he is too much of a coward to directly push this toxic stew. He would rather hide behind right-wing bloggers, surrogates, and scummy websites staffed with wingnut welfare recipients like the NRO and the Weekly Standard.
This is what kills Presidential candidates the most: being seen as unmanly. Fair or not, it killed Gore and it killed Kerry. And now it's the skinny intellectual from Hawaii and Harvard who's looking like a real man in this contest.
Even the mainstream media is calling bullshit on the smear-by-association:
So how long until the term "coward" starts leaking into the mainstream media itself?
I predict Sunday morning they'll be debating whether it's fair to call John McCain a coward or not. And at that point, he's lost the issue.
