(1)
John McCain is clearly determined to make a fool of himself at least two or three times every single day.
Yesterday he followed up his previously proposed surge against inner city crime by calling for an Economic Surge.
What we need today is an Economic Surge to keep jobs here at home and create new ones. We need to reduce the tax burden on businesses that choose to make their home in the United States of America. We need to open new markets to U.S. products. And we need to reduce the cost of healthcare. And we need to end the out of control spending in Washington that is putting our debt on the backs of our children.
Now is the time for action, and when I am President, we are going to get it done.
We should probably be grateful he didn’t end by yelling “Git-R-Done!”
So everyone who has been worried about the economy can now officially stop worrying.
As soon as John McCain is President, and he can find a few spare brigades lying around somewhere that are not urgently needed in Iraq or Afghanistan (or, more likely, both), he will turn them loose on Wall Street, and let them go door to door with economic assault rifles, creating new jobs.
Or maybe it’ll be a strategy of clear, hold and build? They’ll clear the buildings of everyone who ever sent a job abroad (with extreme prejudice, to use a very old-fashioned phrase), take away everyone who protests at gun-point and hold them in a detention facility overseas for the duration of the War on the Economy (there’s your W.O.E., right there), and build new jobs from scratch right here at home using union labor and old-fashioned American ingenuity.
Reducing the tax burden on businesses that choose to make their home in the United States of America should be straightforward. McCain’s economic assault troops would just hack their way through the commercial jungle with standard-issue tax machetes.
As for opening new markets, that’s just a matter of a few well-placed bunker busters, right? Hell, we’ve surely got bombs to spare. Let’s do it right and re-open ourselves some old markets too.
In fact, if you think about it, any market that’s saturated with made-in-China products deserves to be opened up vigorously to U.S. products. But maybe it’ll be enough just to take out all the Walmarts in one huge pre-emptive strike?
Reducing the cost of healthcare? Even simpler. Dead people don’t need no healthcare, right? Just take ‘em out, guys. Shoot at will.
And who pray is responsible for all the out of control spending in Washington? It’s them Senators and Congressmen, innit? Or, wait! The moral dilemma of putting our debt on the backs of our children can also be resolved by simply eradicating all our children. And at this stage of the game, McCain has got to be thinking way outside the box. He may well be crazy enough to consider this an elegant way of keeping what his sense of honor will no doubt insist on regarding as a campaign pledge.
(2)
Apropos making a fool of himself at least two or three times very single day, here’s the runner up.
In a new campaign ad, unveiled yesterday, the celebrity millionaire who owns seven different homes tells America with a straight face (see “practice makes perfect”) that Obama is too big a celebrity to help ordinary families. But that wasn’t all:
Then, as images of wind turbines and McCain appear, the announcer concludes “Renewable energy to transform our economy, create jobs and energy independence, that’s John McCain.”
John McCain. Wind turbines? Renewable energy?
Coincidentally, yesterday Wolf Blitzer had on Mitt Romney in The Situation Room. Since Romney is now a leading McCain surrogate, Blitzer asked him: “Can you cite one legislative accomplishment that Senator McCain produced during those 26 years in Washington in order to achieve energy independence?”
The best Romney could do: “Well, I’m not a historian that goes through all of the pieces of legislation John McCain has worked on.”
That’s one way to say, “No sir, I sure as heck can’t.”
But, unfortunately, the Obama campaign is always more than happy to recite chapter and verse on all the times McCain has voted against renewable energy. Here’s a nice little list from July 21 (more details for each bullet point if you click on the link):
· McCain Opposed Legislation Extending The Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit; Recent Study Concluded More than 116,000 Jobs Could be Lost If the Tax Credit is Not Extended.
· McCain Repeatedly Voted Against Tax Credits For Renewable Energy Production.
· McCain Opposed The Farm Bill That Contained $300 Million in Renewable Biofuels Funding.
· McCain Repeatedly Voted Against Renewable Energy Mandates And Said “I’m Not One Who Believes That We Need To Subsidize Things.â€
· McCain Opposed A Fiscal Stimulus Package That Included Up To $3,000 In Tax Rebates For Plug-In Hybrid or Fully Electric Vehicles.
· McCain Called A $15 Million Earmark For Research For The Development Of An Electric Car “Egregious.â€
· The McCain Campaign Is “Guided By Lobbyists†That Includes 18 Campaign Advisers Who Have Lobbied For The 0il Industry.