Excellent, Judis. Excellent.

I wish that all political journalists would shut up already with theories about "the real John McCain." (Or any other politician; McCain is simply the subject at hand, but this kind of writing is common and insidious whether it's about McCain or "the real George Bush" or "the real Hillary Clinton.")

Your values are what you do. Period. Your values are not what you say, they're not what you might prefer to do in your deepest heart of hearts. Your values are -- you are -- what you do. The "real" John McCain is the guy we see, based on the things he does. And the "real" John McCain is the kind of guy who lies about "suspending" his campaign, who lies about "rushing" to Washington, who chickens out of debates, and who is willing to hold a revolver to the temple of the nation's economy in order to score political points and get a photo op. A man of deep, true personal honor could not possibly behave as McCain has behaved in the last nine months (including savagely attacking his GOP rivals with outright lies, up to and including calling them traitors to the country).

The McCain we have is the McCain who is. There is no other John McCain.

A McCain defeat became imperative the minute his running mate was announced.  Any conservative with an ounce of integrity must now be willing to admit that.

If America elects those two, then it will get EXACTLY what it deserves, and its subsequent disasters will be its own damn fault.

Hear, hear!

And I agree with every word of what Rhubarbs says above.  McCain's "intentions" or secret code of honor are meaningless ciphers.  You are what you do.

Always right to the heart of the matter rhubarbs.  Bravo again.

I read that Brooks column.  What a schizophrenic pile of dogshit.  Brooks spends 90% of the column telling us that McCain has articulated no coherent rationale for his presidential bid, no coherent governing vision, saying that McCain can't seem to reconcile his conservative and progressive impulses and in consequence seems to behave reactively, tossed about by the winds of circumstance, only to turn his own argument on its head in the concluding two paragraphs, asserting without evidentiary support that should McCain be elected he *will*--given without qualification--"retain his instinct for the hard challenge" and "run the least partisan administration in recent times."

And then the concluding sentence: "Amid the stupidity of this season, it seemed worth stepping back to recall the fundamentals — about McCain today and Obama on some other day in the near future."  

What does that even mean?  How can one "recall" something about someone in the future?  That dispensed with, is he saying that Obama lacks the fundamental qualities of character that McCain possesses (but of which, by Brook's own admission, McCain has revealed little evidence during the current campaign) and yet predictably will gain them in the near future?  What a ridiculous thing to say!

David Brooks is such a sad character.  Time and time again his heroes let him down.  And he *recognizes* that they have let him down.  And yet time and time again, despite his better instincts, he rallies to their defense.

" It should have been the end of McCain and Bush and all those people."

Including Biden?

"But I do question his motives in inserting himself into the attempt by the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, and the Congressional leadership (excluding the usual suspects from the Republican House delegation) to fashion a plan for preventing a Wall Street crash"

FYI:

Harry Reid on Tuesday:

"We need the Republican nominee for president to let us know where he stands and what we should do."

"CBS News reports that John McCain suspended his campaign as a response to a call from Henry Paulson to rescue the bailout plan, which would have headed for defeat without his leadership. Bob Schieffer reported this morning that McCain flew back to Washington to help reach a compromise that would allow Republicans to support a form of bailout, and that without his help, efforts to resolve the crisis would have collapsed:

I am told, Maggie, that the way McCain got involved in this in the first place, the Treasury Secretary was briefing Republicans in the House yesterday, the Republican conference, asked how many were ready to support the bailout plan. Only four of them held up their hands. Paulson then called, according to my sources, Senator Lindsey Graham, who is very close to John McCain, and told him: you’ve got to get the people in the McCain campaign, you’ve got to convince John McCain to give these Republicans some political cover. If you don’t do that, this whole bailout plan is going to fail. So that’s how, McCain, apparently, became involved.

He has gotten what he wants, he’s going to have this meeting, kind of a summit today with the president and Barack Obama. I’m told that the leaders of both parties are getting close to having some kind of a bill. The question, though, is whether rank-and-file Republicans, especially, are going to vote for this."

"That brings me back to David Brooks' column. David thinks that beneath the surface of McCain the craven campaigner, that the man who nominated an ill-prepared  Sarah Palin as his possible successor and has lent his energies to blocking a financial bailout, there still sits a "real McCaim"

You are smearing Brooks and McCain. Brooks didn't write "has lent his energies to blocking a financial bailout"  Brooks didn't  talk about Palin You just made it up. You lost your mind and your integrity.  It's Obama and you John B. Judis  who is Putting Country Last . Obama defeat is now imperative.

Bravo, Judis.

I liked McCain in 2000. That McCain is gone.

The selection of Palin is stunningly craven. John McCain has shown a reckless disregard for his party and his country in pursuit of his personal ambitions. I believe that is the bond he shares with the Clintons.

I  wish that all political journalists would shut up already with theories about "the real Obama ." (Or any other politician; Obama  is simply the subject at hand, but this kind of writing is common and insidious whether it's about Obama  or "the real George Bush" or "the real Hillary Clinton.")

Your values are what you do. Period. Your values are not what you say, they're not what you might prefer to do in your deepest heart of hearts. Your values are -- you are -- what you do. The "real" Obama  is the guy we see, based on the things he does. And the "real" Obama  is the kind of guy who does nothing but talks.

Let's all take a moment to applaud jacob for his stunning mastery of his computer's cut and paste options.

www.johnmccain.com/.../Read.aspx

"While Senator McCain has suspended campaigning in order to return to Washington and lend his assistance to the negotiations now underway on the Hill, Senator Reid has put out a statement informing McCain that his presence would "not be helpful." In fact, this is quite a reversal from yesterday, when Senator Reid told reporters "We need the Republican nominee for president to let us know where he stands and what we should do."

Unfortunately, Senator Reid is putting partisan politics ahead of the business of the American people. But there should be no mistake: 24 hours ago Reid and his Democratic colleagues on the Hill couldn't have been more desperate for Senator McCain's help in resolving this crisis. Now they've got it."

Brooks - another McCain like airhead.  

Right on Rhubs. I was one of those who supported McCain in 2000, and hoped he would join Kerry's ticket. Oddly, that could have put him in the VP slot. What we see now is a man who realizes it is his last shot, that winning is above everything else. You don't spend two years living into that distorted self-centeredness and then 'revert'. You are what you do.

In fact, a more thorough investigation of McCain's "Maverick" actions seem to display more of a drama queen than a Maverick. Many of his Don Quixote causes have not succeeded. Some were admirable, like his immigration stance. Some were ok, like his dealing on judges (which he now repudiates on the stump), but no matter what, McCain grabbed a lot of attention when he made these moves, got in the papers. Is that what this is all about? Would he lurch from crisis to crisis, some manufactured by his own bordom?

And what is with his left eye, seems like it is partly closed in most recent pics I've seen of him. That raises the Palin specter even more!

jacobt1:

Glad to see you came out of your cave. Take a look at the Palin interview clips with Couric posted on these pages yesterday and come back with a straight face and tell us how we should judge McCain positively based on "the things he does". His choice reflects his values. Period.

JT: McCain's spin is not what we need. What is clear is that the Republicans are planning on leaving the Dems holding the bag on this. McCain leads the Republican party now, it is up to him to say where he stands, and he has not. Reid isn't looking for his help, he's looking for his position. That doesn't require suspending a campaign, Obama has been as active as Reid needs, provides his input, works thorough the issues with his advisors. It's called multitasking, and every president has to be able to do it.

WSJ this am "Bailout negotiations in disarray", looks like McCain is helping out a lot...

www.commentarymagazine.com/.../32741

The Senate GOP has been working with everyone to try to get something done.

You’re also correct that in the House, they don’t need GOP votes, but Pelosi doesn’t want to do it without substantial GOP support. I assume that’s because she doesn’t want to expose her members politically, and it’s probably a fair concern, but it seems silly to then blame McCain exclusively for making things difficult.

Now, there is a kind of deadline, but it’s not hard-and-fast. Today was the scheduled adjournment date, and everyone was initially working to be done by today (witness how quickly the CR came together), and that was essentially on track (more likely Saturday) until last week’s developments. Now, people seem to be using Monday as a deadline to work against, in part because it’s not unusual to work through the weekend right before a scheduled break, but mostly because of Rosh Hashanah, when we wouldn’t be in session anyway. Reid and Hoyer have suggested the possibility of coming back later next week, but I think people want to try and just get things done.

Here’s the semi-new info about what went on yesterday. While there was certainly a lot of politics and wrangling over policy, a lot of what happened yesterday was irresponsible reporting. The Democrats rushed their announcement on negotiations earlier in the day in an attempt to preempt McCain, but there was never a deal. But the press reported there was a deal (see AP: Lawmakers: Financial bailout agreement reached), which is why Boehner and McConnell released statements saying negotiations continue, but no deal yet. Then, when it became clear there was no deal coming out of the White House meeting, the reporters all filed new stories saying “Deal collapses!” and then Reid and company took the opportunity to attempt to pin it on McCain coming in. One of the worst headlines came from ABC, who had a story around 6:30 last night headlined “No Deal Yet: Bailout Agreement May Be Dead.” (That same story is now Bailout Talks Go on Amid Presidential Scuffle)

But jacob, Obama has generally not done any of the dishonorable things, nor flip-flopped on so many core principles, as McCain. So very few people other than his opponents spend time speculating about what's really in Obama's heart or who the "real Obama" is. You, for example, have spent much of the last year trying to tell people that the "real Obama" is a Jew-betraying terrorist supporter who secretly agrees with Jeremiah Wright about 9/11 or whatever. Nothing in Obama's record of actions justifies any of your claims, but you assert that there is nonetheless a "real Obama" whose values are contrary to the man's empirically observable public actions.

You, in short, are part of the problem I rail against. Rational moral assessment requires us to judge a person's character by his actions, by what he does, not by what he might prefer or what we might prefer to wish he preferred. I only wish you would take the words of mine that you retyped to heart and start aligning your moral judgments with the real actions of our elected officials, not with your deepest fantasies about what your personal heroes and villains think in the secret recesses of their souls.

jacobt1, if its programmer's are listening, you need to upgrade the software.  It's OK at doing word substitution - s/McCain/Obama/ - but I don't want to read the same thing again.  They need to add the ability to generate a new opening sentence so that at least the person will be hooked.

To remind everyone, in a recent thread jacob recently stated:

"blacks are stupid."

He is a racist troll, ignore the little pos please.

THE 'REAL' MCCAIN.... It's been unnerving for quite a while to see apologists for John McCain rationalize his descent into a shameless partisan hack. To hear them tell it, there's a real John McCain, and the one we're watching isn't...

PEOPLE: Jacon is not a sentient being; it is a computer algorithm dreamt up by a * special* juvi criminal.  Ignore him and Ye shall find peace of mind.  

Rhubs: Excellent.  I never liked the cad McCain and have always thought him a phony.  You had a measure of the man in the South Carolina confederate flag flap.  You had an even better measure of the man when he proceeded to campaign for Bush, twice, after he was buggered senseless, his family besmirched and his "honour" dragged in the mud; you what kind of a base jackass you're dealing with when he mocks the teenage daughter of his political opponent; not to mention, of course, his treatment of his first wife, but that's history.

Hey you conservatives, you're the ones who keep insisting that Islam's message of peace and brotherhood, and Jihad's internal struggle are all bunkum because of what Islamist extremists do.  Well, having lived in an Islamic theocracy, I actually agree with you: find the measure of the man not in what he professes or even believes in, but what he does.  I don't care how peaceful Islam is; Islamism is violent and dangerous.  And I don't give a flying frack about McCain's "honour"; he has acted dishonourably for so long that to associate him with the word is to sully the word.

Jacob, you, uh, got any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or were you just going to plagiarize other people's conservative talking points for us? Or is that your thing, copy-paste, argument by inversion, sniffling whining?

You're a waste of time.

Rhubarbs said:

"You, for example, have spent much of the last year trying to tell people that the "real Obama" is a Jew-betraying terrorist supporter who secretly agrees with Jeremiah Wright about 9/11 or whatever. Nothing in Obama's record of actions justifies any of your claims, but you assert that there is nonetheless a "real Obama" whose values are contrary to the man's empirically observable public actions".

Nothing in Obama's record of actions justifies anyting. There is no record of actions. There is a record of inactions but talks.  

Rhubarbs, you are awesome.  I really think you should be made a regular contributor to TNR.  You are always spot on.

jacobtl is a troll computer program as others have said.  Please everyone just ignore him.

Oh, btw, has anyone checked out Kathleen Parker's "Palin Problem" article on NRO?  Take that girl off the barbie, she's done my friends!  

"And then the concluding sentence: "Amid the stupidity of this season, it seemed worth stepping back to recall the fundamentals — about McCain today and Obama on some other day in the near future."  

What does that even mean?  How can one "recall" something about someone in the future?"

To be fair, I read this to mean that he was today writing about his fundamental understanding of John McCain, and in some future column he would use the same tea leaves to recall the innards of Barack Obama.

Of course, that doesn't take away from the larger superficiality of the exercise.  I don't care what Brooks sees in McCain's soul any more than what Bush sees in Putin's soul.  McCain has demonstrated himself unfit to govern and I'm not interested in gambling on what honorable things Brooks thinks he'll do some day down the road after he's stabbed, lied and smeared his way into the White House.

John B. Judis said:

"That brings me back to David Brooks' column:"

" My friends in the Obama cheering section get huffy about them, (McCain's ads)  while filtering from their consciousness all the dishonest ads Obama has run — the demagogic DHL ad, the insulting computer ad, the cynical Rush Limbaugh ad, the misleading Social Security ad and so on. If one candidate has sunk lower than the other at this point, I’ve lost track."

Wow.

A similar article on Obama would have you blowing a gasket.

McCain reminds me of Michael Jackson. Sure you really like the Thriller album and you think Billie Jean is a classic pop song. But then MJ starts to let the history of the Jackson 5, fame, money and moniker 'King of Pop' go to his head to such a degree that his descent into incoherent ramblings, sleeping with children and dangling his child from a balcony as completely normal things for the 'King of Pop' to do. But what ends up happening is people start to realize that Michael Jackson is a shell of his former self. You get the sympathizers who will stand by him and those who walk away.

McCain has spent the last twenty-six years in Congress letting the history of his days as POW, his DC philandering, power and moniker/myth of the 'Maverick' go to his head. His descent into incoherent ramblings on economics, energy, short-fused temper tantrums and the dangling his pop star VP in public as being completely normal things for the 'Maverick' to do. But what ends up happening is people start to realize that McCain is a shell of his former self. No longer acting as a 'Maverick', McCain descends into acting the myth of a maverick and the delusions of grandeur take over.

So we can have sympathy for McCain's descent into incoherency and yet walk away knowing that we can't put this man in office.

"Nothing in jacob's record of actions justifies anyting (SIC). There is no record of actions. There is a record of inactions but talks."

Jacob has consistently proven that he/she/it has no cognitive capacity to actually make relevant posts on any subject except to copy, paste others words with name substitutions with assumption that there is actually a correlation between Jacob's ability to post intelligently and Jacob's ability to post.

Typical said:

"McCain has demonstrated himself unfit to govern and I'm not interested in gambling on what honorable things Brooks thinks he'll do some day down the road after he's stabbed, lied and smeared his way into the White House."

A good example of  filtering from their consciousness all the dishonest ads Obama has run.

singlespeed said,

"Nothing in jacob's record of actions justifies anyting (SIC). There is no record of actions. There is a record of inactions but talks."

Plead guilty, I'm no better than Obama. I also don't  have  any original ideas.

Hello.  My name is Ed and I am a lurker.  Hello, Ed.

I must tip my hat to roi and rhubarbs and yard.  I must be leaving out others but these three stand out every time.

I have a question:  Why does anyone respond to jacob, ever?  Is it part of some written or unwritten blogging code?  As I said, I am a lurker and may not understand the rules.

"A good example of  filtering from their [sic] consciousness all the dishonest ads Obama has run."

Without getting into the who's sleazier argument, I wasn't referring to McCain's ads.  He has compromised all of his supposed core principles in the pursuit of power and his advisors seem to run roughshod over him except when he makes an impulsive and ill-informed decision against their wishes.

THAT is why I don't care what Brooks thinks of McCain.  Obama's ads have nothing to do with it.

Contra this jacobt1 creature, I've actually gained a good measure of respect for Obama in the past week: He's not a markets and finance guy.  He's not trying to be a markets and finance guy.  He's let the people who know do the work.  Not once has he said that his presence in the "bailout" process meant anything.

That's a leader: someone who shuts up and projects calm while people who know get down to brass tacks.  Man's got leadership to spare.  What a class act.  I may not agree with him on a lot, but that dude just got my vote on his own merits, no longer just because McCain must be defeated.

No Jacob, you are a racist chickenshit troll. Cookie and I have called you out for what you are and you have chosen to slink under you mommies bed. You are a coward and a cur.

ed, jacob makes for a very easy punching bag, he is so utterly easy to destroy that sometimes people can't stop themselves, until recently I didn't care except for his last thread where he wrote that "blacks are stupid." That was it for me, now I simply want to kick his pimply faced ass. This is TNR, out and out racist trolls deserved to be beat down, so whenever I see that miserable little coward I will call him out for the scum that he is.

Everyone at that thread can attest that he wrote "blacks are stupid" for voting for Obama for the Senate (not people from Illinois, but blacks) total asshole.

I did not spend time interviewing McCain, so I'm not in a position to question Judis's assessment of the -- let's not say "real" -- old McCain based on that or other close observations.  I, like everyone else, heard about things he has done in the past that I liked the sound of -- campaign finance reform, for example, as well as denouncing the popular hate-mongers on his side as "agents of intolerance."  The fact that the base didn't like him was a good sign.  The fact that he was fucked by Bush in 2000 was cause for sympathy.

But what if the old McCain masked the real McCain, and the real McCain is what we're seeing now?  I am becoming more convinced that McCain would be as bad a president -- perhaps worse -- than Bush has been, and for many of the same reasons.  Those are, impulsive gut-level decision-making, stubbornness, lack of interest in the facts or analysis of them, lack of literacy on economic policy and even, in some respects, foreign polciy, apparent susceptibility to capture by right-wing ideologues on everything ranging from judges to taxes to culture war issues, a penchent for counterproductive bluster on the world stage, a willingness to engage in Orwellian misrepresentation of his own positions and those of his political opponents, a willingness to engage in sleazy, dishonest, smear tactics,  and a willingness to repeatedly and starkly place political interests ahead of American interests.

If a deal was genuinely foundering on Republican objections when McCain made his big announcement, which is contrary to the *bipartisan* deal announced before McCain even landed in Washington (finally), why didn't he start getting on the phones, or otherwise press the hold-outs.  Hell, he could have just made the campaign's views -- which were all over the map -- known.  Instead, all he did -- ironically for those who falsely accuse Obama of being all talk -- was talk, and not to the people who ostensibly needed talking-to.  He talked to Katie Couric, and the Clinton Global Initiative, and essentially held campaign events to announce the dramatic and gratuitous suspension of his campaign (which he didn't even do in any sense) and unprecedented demand that the first debate, with a little over a month before the election, be postponed.  Meanwhile, the spotlight that followed him to Washington, or else the fear that a deal would make McCain look foolish, prompted the Republican hold-outs to make a show of their disapproval thus threatening to undo the progress that had already been made -- all as the markets watched nervously.

He could have intervened quietly and quickly to calm whatever jitters the base was having.  If that was necessary, and if he did it, he could have even taken credit for it after the fact, and he might have even looked to many observers like a politician who gets things done.  But, of course, that would mean admitting that he is responsible in some measure for a bail-out deal that is unpopular with his base.  This way, he still has to make that argument -- to justify the stunt -- but he can overshadow dissatisfaction with the bail-out with his big show of Country First-iness.  Obama is right to point out two things:  First, the suspension of the campaign and postponement of the debate are not justified by any action from McCain that was even plausibly necessary or helpful.  Second, even if action from McCain or the McCain campaign would have been or will be helpful, and that's far from clear to me, the glare of the campaign spotlight that McCain unnecessarily brought with him by turning this into a campaign stunt can only prolong negotiations and imperil a deal.

I don't think jacob is a word processing algorithm because, in that case, it would generate a grammatically and syntactically more readable English.

I'll add just a couple of points to John's devastating critique over at The Plank of David Brooks's

Sheesh - I was joking when I said TNR's columnists wrote like they had the vapors.  

Yo, jacobt1...kinda feel it slippin' away?  

Typical  said

"Without getting into the who's sleazier argument, I wasn't referring to McCain's ads.  He has compromised all of his supposed core principles in the pursuit of power"

Do you mean that he changed this stated positions to win primaries and then elections.

Of course he did. So did Obama as well as any politician ever  elected to any office.

blackton  said

"Everyone at that thread can attest that he wrote "blacks are stupid" "

obviously I didn't write that. I've written a parody on one the local tnr most vicious hater.

You don't need to smear me. there is no point. Relax,

jfelliott - "Obama's not a markets and finance guy.  He's not trying to be a markets and finance guy.  He's let the people who know do the work..."

That's fine, assuming your "people who know" actually know the depth and dimensions of the problem. The public can be forgiven, however, for assuming that the men who told us-- only six months ago-- that there was no problem at all, nothing to worry about, do not really know what they're dealing with.

In view of which, it seems more than a little prudent to resist their Cheneyesque demands for sweeping authority to refashion our financial system on the fly.

There has been some discussion of David Brooks' s turn today as a weirdly downbeat McCain apologist

Rhubarbs gets the laurel wreath. Comment of the Day, dangit!

Today's been busy, between the bailout machinations and debate news, so we've decided to roundup

Zeitgeisty. It cannot be said any better.

Countrywide First!

"McCain doesn't know a thing about finance and is no position to help work out an agreement."

Yeah, it's not like McCain is the nominal head of the Republican party or anything.  Oh, wait.

McCain directly sabotaged the negotiations during the Bush meeting.  He threw a bomb into the center. of the negotiations, then walked away from the mess.  He destroyed without having the knowledge or termperment to build.  It was pre-meditated, cold and frightening.

Judis, you are the only commenter I've read who raised this.  That's even more frightening

OK, tep, I put my trust (well, *not all* my trust) in you let the big boys and girls handle the details of the so-called bailout, without crying and stamping or tearing my hair out. I don't really understand any of the theories and believe me I've really tried.

One thing, however, still nags at me: why are the lil' folk taxpayers like me left so out of the loop that we are notified at the last second about a train wreck in progress, and asked to decide what we think ought to be done (or not done) about it? My thought is for such lack of due diligence by our lawmakers, every dad-blasted one should be thrown out of office, sooner the better.