An existential reality?  Are they high?  I didn't think Republicans did that.

Not a bad response actually, but not enough to blast through the solidifying narrative.

Exsitential reality?

Just out of curiosity, me being an immigrant for whom English is a second language - what is an "existential reality"?

So since she owns the homes, does this mean the correct answer to the Politico question for him was zero? Maybe someone needs to ask him how he like being a kept man.

"...where Obama's charges "attack Cindy. She owns the homes. I thought he said the wives were off-limits."

I recognize THIS one! Its actually from Ted's playbook, play #1: "Mis-interpret your opponents arguments. Deride the argument. Deride your opponent for making the argument."

*That* is bipartisanship I can believe in from the McCain campaign! :)

This supposed rationale is so ridiculous it's depressing. If jacobt1 is any indication, there may actually be some McCain supporters who are stupid enough -- or else sufficiently blinded by visceral hatred of Obama -- to swallow it hook, line, and sinker.

And now that I think about it, maybe it's not so crazy. After all, their honorable, decent leader -- a five year prisoner of war -- would never ever mount such sleazy attacks, unless he was forced to do so as a way of defending his wife. (Never mind that, in the past, he was too self-absorbed and indifferent to her well-being to even notice her past drug addiction or drug theft -- until federal agents informed him of it.)

It was actually *Cindy* who first used a "wife attack," albeit obliquely, when she waved a flag at a press conference a few months ago and said, basically, "I don't know if you heard those comments, but *I've* always been proud of my country." Laura Bush, by contrast, had the class to acknowledge that Michelle obviously meant she was *more* proud of her country now (even) than she'd been in the past. I understand that Cindy McCain has done admirable charity work and is otherwise a decent person... but from that moment on I lost all respect for her.

The republicans stink to high heaven... and they may win this election as a result.

Actually, Obama's pushback on the McCain homes doesn't attack Cindy. Unless of course McCain's idea of marriage is a lot different from a normal American's idea of marriage. I mean, it's not like McCain has to sleep in a nearby hotel when his wife stays in one of her houses, right? When Cindy uses her fortune to buy a fancy meal and a bottle of wine at a restaurant, does John bring a brown-bag bologna sandwich and a can of Schlitz because that's all he can afford on his own? Besides, Cindy isn't the one who said she didn't know how many homes she owns and had to ask her staff. That was all John, and that's what he's being hit for saying.

But even so, I'm not sure that the guy who's married to the admitted narcotics felon is wise to start a battle about wifely character. We've only ever had one president and one vice president with criminal records, and they're both Republicans. Does McCain really want to risk making the public aware that his election would give us our first First Lady with a rap sheet? And regarding patriotism, how patriotic is it to sleep with a married military officer? Especially when adultery by an officer can be a violation of military law.

So maybe McCain should keep Cindy out of it; I just don't think it's a good idea for him to hide behind her. (Besides, what kind of a schmuck would even try to hide behind his wife like that anyway?)

"(Besides, what kind of a schmuck would even try to hide behind his wife like that anyway?)"

The kind of schmuck who cheats on his sick wife with an heiress, and then talks endlessly and nauseatingly about "honor".

humm....seems to me that the GOP has already taken  their digs at Michelle and pardon me for bringing this up but both the GOP and tnr's crazy Grudge Holder himself, consistently attacked John Kerry for his community wealth with Teresa.

This whiners sure have a short memory. In fact, I do recall several digs at Teresa's multiple properties.

I expect this sort of thing from the GOP because as an organization, it is completely amoral but I always shake my head when peretz goes off on this. Talk about Pot meeting Kettle...

Remember when McCain talked about terrorism as a "transcendental challenge"?  And now we hear talk about "existential reality."  I never pegged these guys as big readers of Thoreau or Sartre.  Then again, Thoreau hated taxes and Camus's The Stranger, which George Bush supposedly read, was about a guy who kills an Arab and doesn't feel bad about it, so maybe what we're seeing is not mere illiteracy but McCain's true philosophy coming out.

After this orgy of Rovian filth I've wallowed in today, no strike that, that I've BECOME today, I feel like I used to a thousand years ago after doing coke all night and watching the sun come up: it was exciting, fun, banal and toxic and now I'm ashamed.

Wandrey, I hate to say it, but your description of an orgy of Rovian filth and doing coke all night sounds kind of sexy, in an 80's sort of way....

I know, tacky of me beyond belief to even say that, but I had to convey the level of self imposed slime I feel like I've wallowed in.  

Did I say something somewhere about POW's, doddering old people or social ex-ray wives?  Ugh!

I'm going back to Obambi land.  I don't belong in Rove world - its vicious and very fun, but morally bankrupt.

And like George Bush, when I was young, in college and foolish, I was young in college and foolish.  God favors drunks and children they say, I was both!

My favorite line: "They aspire to be rich, the [McCain] official said. They don't aspire to eat arugala or hang out with celebrities." John McCain doesn't hang out with celebrities? Really? The guy was a guest on Saturday Night Live. I mean, I know the quality of the SNL cast has slipped, but I think they're still considered celebrities, right?  :)

greenmiles, yeah right. Reagan was a freakin' actor, practically the modern definition of celebrity But if I were to say that, they would just have a blank look. Those people are just complete a-holes.

I hope Obama hits them over and over endlessly until election day. This is the kind of hardball politics that Joe sixpack voter respects. McCain has been angling for their votes with the silly bluster on Russia, and with all those below-the-belt ads he's been running. Now it's game on.

Correction: (Just to clarify) I didn't mean to imply that it was literally federal agents who informed McCain of his wife's problems. (I don't know if that's what happened, but I doubt it.)  What I remember hearing/reading is that he was pretty much oblivious to his wife's drug problem basically up until the time that she was caught by law enforcement.

Wouldn't want to practice Republican tactic of willful distortion.

According to wikipedia's entry for Cindy McCain, she informed McCain about her addiction in 1992, before DEA officials were tipped off in 1993.

The more I think about, the more it dawns on how fracking whiney this is.  First the "five and a half years in prison", then "wives are off limits" - what next? "Mommy, that big bad black guy hurt my wittow feewings"?  

Obama need not get angry at all - the ridicule approach (very different from the sneering of the McCain ads) is the best way to go about doing this.  And the more the Republicans bob and weave, the more merciless Obama should get.  Take no prisoners; give no quarter.

hemlock41 said

"This supposed rationale is so ridiculous it's depressing. If jacobt1 is any indication, there may actually be some McCain supporters who are stupid enough -- or else sufficiently blinded by visceral hatred of Obama -- to swallow it hook, line, and sinker."

You and I don't  any rationale. I want McCain to attack Obama with everything he has, while you want Obama to attack McCain with everything he has.  It's not about us.