I Know! Let's make a list of McCain's Debate Fuck Ups in one thread!

[FrenchieCat]

OK, I'm first:

When he announced, no more Ethanol Subsities!
There goes a few states, some which are Swing states.

Grantcart's analysis on that here.....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7215888&mesg_id=7215888

[and-justice-for-all]

1. "Kissenger never said that..."

Yes he did, liar.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. "I love the troops"

[all.of.me]

7. ...'and I will take care of them.'

:rofl: Did he snort after that?

[thoughtcrime1984]

3. His constant laughing, smirking, and sneering made him look like the little man that he is. nt

[Princess Turandot]

4. Could we have a 'just plain off-the-wall' sub-thread?

I'm still trying to figure out why he brought up Eisenhower and the Invasion of Normandy. (Okay, he was trying to make a weighty point about responsibility, I think, but it was an odd analogy to pick.)

[sarge43]

8. Emotive association with the last Repub POTUS most of us

respect or at least not detest. He did it again with the 'Ike said strong military, strong economy' meme.

If I were to sum last night, Obama spoke thoughtfully to the whole country , McCain, his base emotionally. McCain also tried needling Obama into losing it -- ooooo, angry black man.

[FrenchieCat]

9. Considering that the Eisenhowers that I know of have endorsed Obama

and since Obama's Grandfather marched in Patton's army, it was kind of weird. :crazy:

[Swamp Rat]

5. He showed up.

:D

[FrenchieCat]

10. That was his biggest blunder!

LOL!

[glowing]

6. Comparing Gen. Petreus with Osama Bin Ladin.. Now, wtf does that?

Are you saying that a terrorist is on the same equivalence as our General and that they agree on tactical missions? What was that.. No one compares them in the same sentence.

[chiefofclarinet]

43. I thought I was the only who noticed that!

For being a rabid Iraq war supporter, that is something you should never do. Comparing your commander of the region to your enemy is a idiotic move, no matter what the circumstance. Gen. Petraeus should be majorly insulted by that comment, and should come out and say that. (God, I would LOVE that!!)

[FrenchieCat]

11. Oh yes....

and Calling Pakistan a rogue state before that crazy ass general took over. That was wrong too!

[Doityourself]

12. Ock-ba-bin-de-jen-ba-bad! 'nuff said!

[TNMOM]

13. no looking Obama in the eye..

1. no rejoinder to Spain mishap
2. no rejoinder for "bomb, bomb, iran"
3. no rejoinder for "the war started in 2003, not 2007" or "you were wrong on Iraq" sequence
4. bringing up "maverick" running mate
5. not finding a way to say SOMETHING nice about Bush or the party he represents
6. mispronouncing Ahmadinejad (it was a Palin-eque fuck-up, after which he rolled eyes and his anger showed)
7. did not convincingly separately himself from voting 90% of the time with Bush
8. had no memorable soundbites. NONE.

[southern_belle]

14. I take care of the soldiers

[cloudythescribbler]

15. A few doozies, starting w/trying to palm off current financial crisis in terms of earmarks (!?!?)...

Several others include:

* the way he tried to place the financial crisis also at the feet of the SEC Chairman, likening him to Eisenhower on D-Day.

*Frankly, his total failure to explain his bizarre efforts to cancel the debates and suspend the campaign was a glaring ABSENCE which Obama could have much more effectively exploited. (I feel the debate was advantage Obama, but he had many opportunities to score real knockout punches that would have literally blown McCain out of the water and left the press with a near-impossible job of trying to sell McCain to the public. (My view is that the indicators are that press policy on key points suggests the fix is in, although it might very well have also been in against Clinton in 92 -- remember the NEWSWEEK cover, DURING THE ELECTION, of "WHY AMERICA DOESN'T TRUST CLINTON"?)

*McCain was totally behind on the Ted Kennedy issue, and opened with it. Obama was probably right not to have seized on that one (unless he could relate, eg, having spoken w/Kennedy or his family shortly before the debate or something)

*Trying to defend the role of the House Repukes, in KILLING THE DEAL (???????!) -- Obama should DEFINITELY have KO'd him on that one and didn't

* his point (another where Obama should have struck hard, but politely) about having 'warned' of the FMs and 'greed' and excess. The name Rick Davis should have been raised by Obama.

I understand that Obama is not a boxer by nature, but a consensus builder. But the debates ARE IN FACT boxing matches (I know polls show advantage Obama)

*blathering on about the fundamental "goodness and strength" of the American worker in response to the finance crisis, which is an almost senile non-sequitur

*McCain's ridiculous crack about "handing health care over to the federal government" which Obama should have used to clobber him, and to add focus on health care coverage and McCainian
privatization. McCain left another opening here which was not fully exploited.

*McCain's repeated references to "MISS ???" Congeniality?

*McCain in drawing lessons of Iraq War, where the indicating lines on CNN showed Obama consistently doing better than McCain (something the punditocracy seemed to miss), focused only on war STRATEGY and nothing about why we went in and weapons of mass destruction. He also implied that only STRATEGY was the lesson of the Vietnam War, later on suggesting "let us win" (something that if I were a Repuke supporter of imperialism, I would cringe at, seeing it as something at least better left unsaid)

TO GIVE McCAIN CREDIT, AT ONE POINT HE MADE A FAIRLY EFFECTIVE STATEMENT OF HIS CASE ON IRAQ, A CASE WHICH IS NOT STRONG FOR THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF AMERICANS:

MCCAIN: The next president of the United States is not going to have to address the issue as to whether we went into Iraq or not. The next president of the United States is going to have to decide how we leave, when we leave, and what we leave behind. That's the decision of the next president of the United States.

* Again, when McCain talked about "victory", Obama needed to get critical about that (eg you don't "win" an occupation). It was another potential vulnerability for McCain

*repeatedly bringing up the issue of Obama's subcommittee (on EUROPE) and Afghanistan, a gaffe Obama did exploit but not fully (actually, there is I believe another SUBcommittee more focused on Afghanistan). But the point was plain bogus (the supposed link being NATO)

* Another (political AND substantive) WINNER from McCain:

... Graham and me to attend a ceremony where 688 brave young Americans, whose enlistment had expired, were reenlisting to stay and fight for Iraqi freedom and American freedom.

There were others further on in the debate, though MOST of the worst blunders by McCain were in the first half.

(I could list more if people think that's really essential)

[K Gardner]

21. These are good, and I agree with the points that Obama could have hit on.. they were such

obvious vulnerabilities by McCain, I have to wonder if Obama's NOT hitting back was by design.

He always seems to have SOMETHING up his sleeve.. maybe he's waiting until the last debate to unravel Gramps.

[cloudythescribbler]

37. No, it's that Obama just isn't a basher/boxer personally -- he's an ORGANIZER & consensus builder

[sniffa]

28. Good list

:thumbsup:

[yy4me]

16. Several times I saw him grit his teeth and you could see the

anger in his face. I'm sure he wanted to make some kind of comment but the handlers told him to not say a word. You could see the anger in his eyes and in the line of his mouth.

[FrenchieCat]

17. More....History fuck up!

"President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion... letter of resignation to the United States Army for the failure of the landings at Normandy."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7217087

[K Gardner]

18. "Earmarks, earmarks, tax cuts for the rich, EARMARKS, SPENDING FREEZE, 45 Nuclear Plants, Earmarks!

[Coexist]

19. here's a good list

Friday night fight
By Bill Adair
Published on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 12:14 a.m.




SUMMARY: McCain and Obama spar at Ole Miss in their first debate. We check their facts and find a few blunders.

The debate at the University of Mississippi was supposed to focus on foreign policy, but with the nation teetering on the brink of catastrophic financial collapse, much of the talk was about Wall Street — and Main Street. Indeed, both Barack Obama and John McCain spoke of Main Street and said it should be the focus of any federal rescue effort.

The facts came fast and furious over the 90 minutes. We've checked the ones below, which include a few we've checked before, and we'll be checking more over the next few days.

We found Obama was on base with his claim that McCain wants to "give oil companies another $4-billion" in tax breaks. Obama is cherry-picking on McCain's plan, which would cut taxes for all companies, not just oil companies. But Obama's statement was specific to oil companies, so we rate it True.

McCain was pretty much on target with his claim that Obama has sought "$932-million of earmark pork-barrel spending, nearly $1-million dollars for every day that he’s been in the United States Senate." We docked him slightly for not specifying "working days" and gave him a Mostly True.

McCain was less accurate with his claim that Obama has voted to raise taxes on people earning as little as $42,000 per year. That's based on a budget vote, not an actual tax bill. We gave that one a Barely True.

McCain loves that line about the federal money being used to study bear DNA. We again found it was Mostly True.
Is Obama the most liberal senator? That's what McCain claimed once again. We found that was Barely True.

We found McCain was incorrect when he said that House Republicans "weren't part of the negotiations" on the federal bailout package. That one earned a Barely True.

And McCain was wrong with his recollection that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower prepared a letter resignation prior to the D-Day invasion. We rated that one False.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/sep/27/friday-night-fight/

[terrya]

20. Pushing that idiotic "spending freeze" crap.

How is that even going to be possible? It's bullshit and everyone knew it. A ridiculous, unrealistic promise.

[DangerousRhythm]

26. Spending freeze on all things non-military.

He's a NUT.

[paregdem]

22. Nearly every time his stubborn-ass spoke...

Oh wait! Cindy was not up there on the stage until after the debate ended.

At times, McCain sounded like a dictator last night and that scares the shit out of me given our current position in the eyes of the world (bent over at the waist). He showed everyone what a stubborn, crotchety, out of touch old man he really is. Regressive and recessive. BLAH!!!

[1corona4u]

23. Big one--- couldn't say amadkejadian... ahmadagenia.....Ahmadinejad

what a fucking moron.

[Willo]

24. Comparing the physical height difference between North & South Koreans

I really would like to know what point he wanted to make.

[FrenchieCat]

25. Oh yeah....That was bad too!

and some people say the debate was a tie! It's like......WTF????????

[Heather MC]

45. Oh yeah I forgot about that one, not one M$M has brought that up

That's was just dirty Odd

[K Gardner]

27. Didn't he reference Alexander the Great and Gulags? WTF was that about?

[FrenchieCat]

29. Ted Kennedy wasn't even in the Hospital when McCain

dropped his name. He even got that wrong.

[hexola]

30. Russia is an "existential" threat...

I think he said Russia - regarless - WTF is he talking about...?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

31. Massive increase in earmarks the past five years.

McCain's claim: Earmarks have tripled in the past five years.
Reality: They've decreased by 24%.

And it gets better. Taxpayers for Common Sense reports that Earmarks reached an alltime high in 2005 (who was in control of Congress) and the 24% decrease has occurred in the past three years (who's in control now).

So the take-away here is that John McCain is a liar who was completely ineffective in stopping the growth in earmarks while HIS party controlled the House, Senate, White House and Supreme Court.

I've got to run now, but I think this warrants a massive e-mail campaign (go to www.democrats.org) to call McCain on his bullshit. This is considered his "best pitch" on economic issues, so it's important to combat it.

[vaberella]

32. "South Koreans are 3" taller than North Koreans." --This was an out of control statement. n/t

[Willo]

34. I think he was headed for a bigger gaffe there

if he was able to complete his thought. I'll have to review the tape to see why he didn't get to finish.

I have several theories about where his train of thought was and none of it is pretty.

I would love for someone to ask him about it.

[BattyDem]

42. WHAT was that about?!?

I have no idea where he was going with that.

[FrenchieCat]

33. Keep it coming y'all.....

I think the only accurate thing that he may have said at the debates was...."I was a POW".

[mscuedawg]

35. SPAIN....and saying "horseshit" as Obama mentioned it...

Oh yeah...see for yourself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1rZBmk0DYU

[K Gardner]

36. Hard to discern, but it certainly sounds like that IS what he said !

[ladywnch]

39. OMG he did!!!! I missed that last night..... too good!!

[sunnybrook]

38. My pen is kind of old

ok whatever, that's nice, thanks for sharing...

[BattyDem]

41. I still don't understand why he said that

:shrug:

[FrenchieCat]

47. I think Reagan gave him a pen, and he still has it,

but got confused telling the story about it....cause he may have remembered that not everyone wants to hear stories when they are busy losing everything because of the ideology that he has pushed for the last 26 years.

[starroute]

40. Saying no one since Alexander the Great has ruled the Afghan border

My understanding is that Alexander the Great was the last outsider to successfully conquer that region and not be driven home with his tail between his legs. But plenty of local dynasties and governments have ruled over the area -- one notable example being the empire of Mahmud of Ghazni. (McCain, of course, would prefer to think of Afghanistan as a kind of trackless wasteland that has never known order except thanks to one brief western incursion.)

http://www.afghan-network.net/Rulers/mahmud-ghazni.html

Mahmud Of Ghazni
971 A.D. - 1030 A.D.

Sultan of the kingdom of Ghazna (998-1030), originally comprising modern Afghanistan and northeastern modern Iran but, through his conquests, eventually including northwestern India and most of Iran. He transformed his capital, Ghazna, into a cultural centre rivaling Baghdad.

Mahmud was the son of a Turkish slave, who in 977 became ruler of Ghazna. When Mahmud ascended the throne in 998 at the age of 27, he already showed remarkable administrative ability and statesmanship. At the time of his accession, Ghazna was a small kingdom. The young and ambitious Mahmud aspired to be a great monarch, and in more than 20 successful expeditions he amassed the wealth with which to lay the foundation of a vast empire that eventually included Kashmir, the Punjab, and a great part of Iran. . . .

After annexing the Punjab, and returning with immense booty, the Sultan set about to transform Ghazna into a great centre of art and culture. He patronized scholars, established colleges, laid out gardens, and built mosques, palaces, and caravansaries. Mahmud's example was followed by his nobles and courtiers, and Ghazna soon was transformed into the most brilliant cultural centre in Central Asia.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmud_of_Ghazni

Holt and Lewis state that "he shed no blood except in the exigencies of war" and was tolerant in dealings with his own Hindu subjects, some of whom rose to high posts in his administration, such as his Hindu General Tilak. . . .

In Afghanistan, Mahmud is celebrated as a national hero and a great patron of the arts, architecture and literature as well as a vanguard of Islam and a paragon of virtue and piety.

In modern Pakistan he is hailed as a conquering hero who established the standard of Islam upon heathen land. . . . Iranians remember him as an Orthodox Sunni who was responsible for the revival of the Persian culture by commissioning and appointing Persians to high offices in his administration as ministers, viziers and generals.

[Norrin Radd]

46. It was just a recollection from his youth.

[Time for change]

44. Thank you for getting this list together

Here's a few more:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7225006#7225893