Based on last night’s interview campaign commercial Scott Pelley shot with St. McCain, It’s clear "60 Minutes" isn’t immune to the mancrush our media has on him.
First, Pelley tees up St. McCain on the Great Surge:
When 60 Minutes traveled with him to Iraq last April, two thirds of the American people were against the surge.
"I believe that we can succeed and I believe the consequences of failure are catastrophic. Those who say just withdraw, then you say, ‘What next?’" McCain asked in the 2007 interview.
"I wonder at what point do you stop doing what you think is right and you start doing what the majority of the American people want?" Pelley asked.
"Well, again, I disagree with what the majority of the American people want. Failure will lead to chaos, withdrawal will lead to chaos," McCain said at the time.
"That was not what the American people wanted to hear at that time," Pelley pointed out.
"That’s exactly right. It’s not what they wanted to hear. I can read the polls very well," McCain said.
"But you said it anyway," Pelley said.
"Well, I said, at the time I’d much rather lose a campaign than lose a war. Now, more and more Americans are believing that the surge is succeeding. I’m very glad of that," McCain replied.
Surge success helped win New Hampshire.
Never mind that, objectively, the surge has failed and that 68% of America doesn’t think it made a damn bit of difference. St. McCain was steadfast and we must listen to him, because he’s a Straight-talking Maverick.
Next, Pelley gives him a pass on torture.
"So the United States has been torturing POWs?" Pelley asked.
"Yes. Scott, we prosecuted Japanese war criminals after World War II.
And one of the charges brought against them, for which they were convicted, was that they water-boarded Americans," McCain said."How did we lose our way?" Pelley asked.
"I don’t know the answer to that. I think one of the failures maybe was not to listen more to our military leadership, including people like General Colin Powell, on this issue," McCain said.
For some reason that only he knows, Pelley didn’t bother to ask St. McCain why he voted against a ban on torture just last month.
Finally, this:
Asked what he says to those who say he can’t beat a Democrat in November, McCain said, "I say ‘I know that I can.’ But I also believe that America is a right-of-center nation. And I think that Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, with all due respect, are liberal Democrats. And I’m a conservative Republican. So I believe I can make a better case to the American people."
And of course, Pelley let that claim stand unchallenged, failing to note that the country hates the GOP. Great job, Scott!
It’s going to be a long campaign.
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You expected anything else from the BBQ rib lovin’ media? They were just soooo delicious!
Good morning Blue Texan!
Wait…the surge isn’t working?
A lot of people listened to colin “the mendacious” powell as he spoke before the UN about trucks and white powder. McBus is full of shit. Pelley I don’t know about, never heard of him and have never seen him.
March 13th-16th: Support The Troops!
Howdy, Blue Texan…
It is according to St. John of Arizona.
I will never forgive you for putting the words “John McCain foot massage” in my brain this morning. Blergh….not enough coffee in the whole of the world to wash that one out today. *g*
I FREAKED when I heard the questions about torture.
“you were tortured?”
“Yes”
“water boarding is torture? ”
“yes”
“where did we lose our way?”
HUH? I thought he was going: And so WHY did you vote against the water board torture ban this fall when you previously supported a bill banning it?
And, to follow: Do you believe the Army shouldn’t torture but it’s ok for the CIA to? Why?
NO, just a “where did we lose our way?”
Unreal.
That the whole interview wasn’t about his continued support for a war that is bankrupting our country, has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and has no fixed aim or exit conditions, is a sign that the media is prepared to treat this election as lightly as they did the previous two.
But that would catch him in a contradiction.
We mustn’t ever do harm to the notion that McCain The Maverick Is A Straight-Talker.
It’s gonna be a long year.
Oh! Well then. I stand corrected.
The MSM is contractually obligated to support any Republican Candidate. It’s in the fine print.
Suckers
Unka Karl.
OT
Right now on wnyc.org a segment on phamaceuticals in the water supply, including feminized male fish in Jamaica Bay & elsewhere.
Issue is that waste water processing plants don’t remove pharmas before the treated water is released into the water supply. And pharmas are bio-changing, with some new evidence that this occurs even in trace amounts.
The problem is, they do it voluntarily.
I still think the picture with this post makes McCain look like he’s afraid he just shit himself with that last fart.
Word is that the straight-talk express doesn’t even have a steering wheel. Says St. John the Unswerving, “I don’t care where the road goes. None of this turning left or turning right nonsense for me, just for the sake of convenience and pavement. I’m just a straight-ahead kind of guy, and if you don’t like it, well, you can just stay out of my way.”
Drivers like this are the drivers your parents warned you about. “You may be a safe driver, but there are idiots out there behind the wheel too, and you have to watch out for them.”
Even better, of course, is to take them off the bus and take away the keys.
It already *has* been a long campaign. :-(
eCAHN -
Hmmmmm….wonder if they’ll work as well on feminizing the male of the human species? If it worked some kinks outta the blood thirstiness gene, that might produce some good end. *g*
One caller asked if he should be afraid of kissing his girlfriend because there might be some female hormones in her saliva. *g*
First the food now the water. We are a nation of pharma drugged out automatons.
Oh. for an Ed Bradley. Or an Ed Murrow.
How to end the foot massage: leakage of McBush medical records, the copies of the originals that exist from before the scrubbing they are getting right now. Those records have passed through many hands, they’re out there. Both physical & mental health records would be helpful.
Repubs would be shocked outrage by such a leak but since V. Plame, it’s all fair game…
A commenter wrote that maybe this is the way that pharmas are finally being made available and affordable for everyone.
Asked in all seriousness? OMG! It’s really true there’s no underestimating the utter stupidity of some percentage of our population.
Wonderful LOL
What i find absolutely funny about this is that one of my favorite TV shows out of the UK? Torchwood? In the VERY first episode the protagonist leader has a long rant about estrogens in the water supply and in the rain. (which includes him never getting pregnant AGAIN) Because he’s from the 51st century and they’ve solved that problem.
So it seems the rest of the world is aware of this, but we’re finally waking up to it.
I think this is great the Main Stream Media is protecting McCain from the reality of the war. What is so great about that you ask? Well the press never asked McCain his plan to win the war.
Or the obvious follow up question if you had this plan why didn’t you tell anybody about it before? Or why will your plan work?
So since nobody is asking McCain the tough questions he is unprepared for the reality of American voters this election.
Us voters are showing up to vote in record numbers for the Primaries because we are paying attention this time!
So now is not the time to try and slip one by us like we can still win in Iraq.
I think I will call this the Reverse Tweety effect where the MSM’s love of a candidate turns off voters and/or the press’s softball questions lets the candidates assume that they can get away with stuff because the people don’t care, but it turns out they do.
At this point I’d settle for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
Seriously, he actually asks hard questions, unlike the neutered MSM.
“So you were tortured in Viet Nam… and that’s why you’re so bat#@%! crazy now?”
No, not asked in seriousness, which is why I included the *g*. He was trying to get at the issue of order of magnitude. The A was that, though there are only “trace” amounts (precisely the point of the caller) in the water we consume, unlike saliva in kissing, we consume water in large amounts every day, and for all of our lives. So the issue is that trace amounts in every sip might accumulate. Furthermore, pregnant women, old people, people with other medical problems consume water, and we don’t know what the influences on fetuses and sick people might be.
You might be interested to know that communities participate in these studies on the condition of secrecy, so that we may not know about it. AP reporters who did the study don’t agree with the secrecy.
Jesus H fucking Christ! You vote for them to be tortured, you vote for our troops to be tortured. How hard is it to get this relatively simple concept?
Every time I see that picture, he acutely reminds me of Austin Powers’ mini-me.
Waccamaw,
BTW, this is NYC we’re talking about, so people don’t feel required to issue snark alerts. *g*
RE: Torture, etc. SMU has mostly voted to accept the W Library on its site. The Divinity school is still actively against the plan. Maybe anyone who wishes can support the Divinity school, the Methodist structure, anyone in the area with moral sense: it is not completely a done deal. With the torture vote in full view, maybe there is a stronger arguement against honoring the sadistic W. I am sure you can contact the Perkins Divinity school with your thoughts.
Michael Cooper (MCC BBQ) has a piece in the NYT on McCain’s finance plans.
But doesn’t once mention his FEC opt-in, opt-out issues.
I say we hang 60 minutes and the rest of the media for being too easy on McCain and leaving him unprepared for the real world outside the Washington press corp.
Broder, Brooks etc may claim to love the “common man ” and somehow they think their Maverick McCain can inspire the common man. But have they listened to John McCain give a speech?
Have they looked at the polls? A strong personal story does not work if nobody listens to you and if they disagree with everything you say you stand for. Also unlike previous elections people care this time…allot
For example Hilary,Obama whomever was our second place winner in any given primary state’s vote has beaten McCain how many times?
I have never heard of this happening before but the press by being silent is not alerting McCain to the danger!
Their lies will give us the victory!
They should have told him “yes” and asked him to call back in a month to see how things are going.
1,782 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen ThingsComeUndone and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
“Since nobody is asking McCain the tough questions he is unprepared for the reality of American voters this election.”
Absolutely right on…but I have believed for the last few months that the fascist grand strategy is for the Chimpenfuehrer to exit scorched earth on the war and the economy. They sacrifice McCrazy in the fall and leave such a mess for the Democrat that he/she will be one term and the crypto-Nazis come back in 2012 with a complete takeover.
I think ,however, that they are seriously underestimating Mr.Obama and, by extension, the Amerikan people. This is a VERY smart guy and he has figured more’n a very few moves ahead…we’re in for an economic depression that is gunna devastate the United States and leave North and South America in ruins. A move to the left on social and economic policy will go unnoticed by the greater population and the long overdo redistributive correction in wealth and political power will be accomplished by historical inevitability. Lotsa a screamin’ stuck pigs left over but only those that don’t jump outta skyscrapers or end up in Leavenworth. (Oh well, a fella ken dream can’t he?!!)
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION GOD AIN’T DONE WITH US YET!!
Piss on the MSM. They want to present him as a stern warrior. I look at him and see a frail old man who might be entering his dotage. The guy scares me. He did an interview with Anderson Cooper a while back and it was the creepiest thing I had seen since Rummy. He was talking about the “trascendent (he likes that word a lot)danger” presented by radical Islam. The thing was, as he said it his eyes went half closed and he got this look of his face like he just creamed his jeans. I still want to shudder when I think about it.
Excuse me while I go download Firefox. It appears that I really need the built in spellchecker.
To brainwash people properly 60 minutes aside from reporting so well of McCain must also connect McCain to the idea of voters personal wellfare and positive feelings.
Which given GOP control of everything the last few years this might be hard to do.
After all where was McCain when we invaded Iraq instead of Pakistan to get Ossama? Where was McCain when KBR was giving our troops bad water? Where was McCain when defective helmets were getting troops killed.
The Senate Armed Forces committee? Wait don’t THEY investigate this stuff? If John McCain had been doing his job in the Senate and investigated this WOULD WE BE LOSING IN IRAQ NOW?
If the media would do its job they would be asking these questions.
Check out the video from The Daily Show wherein McCain talks about following A Q to the gates of hell. Stewart points out the odd grin on the McCain face after he makes the remark. It is very odd, indeed.
It doesn’t penetrate.
I’ve tried telling this to some conservatives. They say, well they’re already doing bad stuff to us.
And then they go into the “what if there were a ticking time bomb, and if you could only torture you’d find out where it was” scenario.
They aren’t in the military, they don’t have kids in the military, and they evidently don’t give a s*** if some lowly enlisted man has to be tortured.
As someone who grew up with the press & Watergate, I cry when I look at our “media” now. Good grief, asking intelligent questions of a presidential candidate isn’t even up there with digging out facts in Watergate, yet these weasels can’t get it right.
What a powerful force the combination of a) beating up on the media; b) corporate media concentration; c) transformation of news departments to “profit centers”; and d) desire of “reporters” to be invited to the best cocktail weenie fetes has been to destroy our once-proud and worthy press.
Well, score one very small gold star for AP for at least reporting about the presence vs. covering *that* up…..guess nobody thought to bribe them with a BBQ. And @31…my snark detection meter has never been well-developed, especially on-line. Maybe in the South we rely more on face-to-face tonalities for clues. Naw……I just got short-changed on the detection gene. *Sigh*
A two year old could have knocked the questions asked of McDrain out of the park – asleep.
With all respect to the media that really does asked tough, to-the-point questions (few of them left but not many) Scott Pelley is a DWEEB! I thought that Ailes/Murdoch had some influence with Faux news but this was awful.
You’d be better off spending your time, and learn more, watching cartoons…
Pass me another dube please……
Tone-of-voice is always difficult in writing, regardless of your geography or you gene complement.
I think McCain would be vulnerable regarding how he expects the United States to deal with any additional military threat. The fact is that we don’t have any way of dealing with any serious prolonged threat, like another ground war, other than the use of nuclear weapons or the draft. Either one should be a political third rail.
Two weeks ago, Pelley reported on the Siegelman case, slapping down Rove and the GOP with some hard-hitting journalism, and then he did this love-fest yesterday. He must be getting whiplash.
Either that, or he wants to help St. John repay Karl Rove for the ads he ran against McCain in the GOP South Carolina primary in 2000.
If the surge is working, then why is there a spate of violence in Iraq in the past few days? And on NPR’s Morning Edition this morning, a report said Al-Qaeda has now reconsolidated back to the level they once were before they were routed out of Afghanistan. So much for the War on Terror….
Thanks NorskeFlamethrower:)
” They sacrifice McCrazy in the fall and leave such a mess for the Democrat that he/she will be one term and the crypto-Nazis come back in 2012 with a complete takeover.”
That was the President Ford sacrifice to Carter that led to Reagan play right?
However I’m thinking that the same conditions that caused Hitler and Reagan also led to Stalin. Or on a more peaceful note Europe’s more Lefty view of government.
Your right Obama is smart with money he spent his on a 50 state plan. I still can’t get over an African American winning in Idaho and Wyoming.
Either people really really hate Hilary or America is not as racist as we thought. Still it took money to get the message heard it took brains to get it heard in all 50 states.
Regardless of who wins I will keep pushing whomever wins to be more LEFT.
MSNBC -
Five US soldiers killed in bomb blast in central Baghdad.
From the Beeb:
Rove is working for McCain, now, though.
I disliked Pelley during the Monica Lewinsky affair. He was horrified from a morality standpoint, rather than any relationship to effective government. He seemed frustrated that he could just not change public opinion by getting across what a sin it all was.
McCainBot!
bizarre they think hillary and obama are liberal
and bizarre that they don’t know the vast majority of americans happen to fall into THEIR definition of “liberal”
we are not liberal, we are center, they’ve just been able to call us liberal for so long it sticks
No they really don’t give a shi-.Lamenting about what I consider the needless deaths of our soldiers, my conservative friends on several occasions have made the comment” Well it is too bad, but after all they volunteered!” What kind of detached mentality is that? How can we have any hope of connecting to people like this and changing their minds with logic and reason? (Rhetorical question)
and according to him, he’s working for liarman also
The fact that most Americans still get a majority of their information from the MSM does not bode well for the Democratic nominee in Nov. The press is very good at self-censorship when it comes to Republicans and have little hesitation in pushing right wing framing and talking points. A corporate controlled media whose celebrity newsreaders and pundits know which side of their bread is buttered is as big a problem as the criminal conspiracy known as the Republican Party. The MSM will treat McCain with kid gloves and will be ruthless with Democrats.
Note the exact quote is that more Americans believe the surge is working.
This is exactly the short-term, quarterly reporting mindset that enables long-term failure.
Move the goalposts.
The surge doesn’t have to actually work.
It’s all a matter of perception.
According to the military, it’s not a trend.
Upswing in Iraq attacks not a trend: U.S. military
Will they ever notice that no one from Bush’s family is willing to participate in Bush’s war?
bingo, change the dialogue and then match your new dialogue since your original claims utterly failed
I just read he’s from San Antonio, which is also Noron’s hometown.
Coincidence? I think not!
Here comes the shit.
I don’t know that he’s actively working for McCain, as in drawing a paycheck from the campaign. He has offered them advice, though.
If he were working for the campaign itself, there’d be a lot more news about it — and him. And Rove couldn’t do his TV and media appearances as a political commentator unconnected with any of the campaigns.
I’ve asked this before-McCain has written that he attempted suicide while a prisoner. Under any other circumstances we wouldn’t even consider a person for president who had done this. Why are we now? If you are tortured it is OK to kill yourself? Most people probably would say yes, but my question goes to the thought processes needed and to what it might have done to his psyche for all time. Might he want pay back against North Vietnam, and all he needs is the opportunity and the power to do so. Maybe he hates the Russians or the Chinese for helping the Communists. Real questions-troubling potential answers. Why isn’t anyone asking them?
I’m gonna stand up for Norah here. I think her reporting has matured over the last few months, she’s done some really good stuff on the elections.
Voting to allow the US to engage in torture, on the other hand, seems not to bother Pelley so much.
For the press to keep brainwashing the public against us Lefties it would help if Bush had not been wrong about everything his entire presidency. It would help if we had not been right.
The press laughed at us when we said Iraq was a disaster. The economy was in trouble, Home loans, Hedge Funds, Banks etc BUT WE WERE RIGHT!
The press needs to make us look like threats to the average American’s welfare not prophets!
We own end the war. We own better healthcare! We are expressing the people’s desires and that desire is only getting stronger!
man did I just nail it, according to krystol, he wants lieberamn to be mkkkains running mate
think progress
Early example of the Tweety Effect.
off to work, see all much later
The weak dollar is the result of all these years of Republic policies. It’s not difficult to understand. Yet, the MSM will blame high oil prices on increased demand and not on the diminished dollar. Bush and the Republics escape blame for something they are so clearly repsonsible.
That is Great News!
McCain/Lieberman, now that is a dream ticket, lol.
We are nearing a tipping point. I don’t know when how big or how long but its coming.
There is no one to speak for the left. Pelosi and Reid are colorless leaders, essentially nonentities.
I hear you.
Logic and reason doesn’t work.
The school of hard knocks works but not near fast enough.
Yeah, he was a local newscaster on the Dallas CBS station before he got on the national news. He seemed OK, but during the Lewinsky affair, I got the strong impression that he had a conventional Sunday school upbringing and couldn’t get outside that prism, unlike Bill Moyers, who had the same upbringing but a much broader understanding.
I would much prefer Clarence Thomas as McC’s VP pick. Get the idiot off SCOTUS and have a R running for VP who never opens his mouth. The jokes write themselves.
Even Thomas isn’t dumb enough to give up a lifetime welfare gig like he’s got now. Vote like Scalia says and get paid? That’s gotta be great.
Badwater @ 76–
imho, Reid and Pelosi are a BIG part of the problem– as are their fellow ”elected” cowed sheep.
I know, but since it was mentioned by Kristol, I allowed myself a brief moment of fantasy.
From the Beeb:
My bold. (From the same link as earlier.)
I personally wouldn’t favor that approach. It’s essentially the one that Rove used to undermine McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary. It’s pretty much associated with the swift boat type attack. We’ve had a number of former POW’s who served in the Senate and House, as well as veterans of combat circumstances which could call someones subsequent sanity into question. If you want to delve into that sort of thing, I think it would be better to look at why he did not continue his naval career from Captain to Admiral. If he was passed over, it was because an official board found him not suited for promotion at that time. Actually, though, even that is a little cheesy, because they only have so many slots and don’t give away admiral stripes.
Well we do try here:)
More from the Beeb:
of course they are. They are reaping Millions of dollars from the Mllitary Complex. Depends on where their stocks are.
Megpiepieat 87 ( They are reaping millions from the Military Compex)
Was he passed over? If father and grandfather were admirals and he didn’t make the cut, that might explain a desperation to become president for the wrong reasons.
60 Minutes – Comments
I don’t know if he was or not. If he was not passed over, he obviously decided that he would be.
Good morning, pups
I’m glad that I didn’t subject my brain to that segment of 60 minutes last night. As already stated multiple times, no big surprise
Good point-However (of course) the question isn’t even getting asked. Perhaps another tack to take is- What effect does his kind of confinement and his reaction to it have on his overall lifetime mental state? Could this account for his anger outbursts? Could it account for his embracing of Bush after the abominable treatment of McCain in the 2000 campaign? How could McCain forgive the Bushites after that? Stockholm syndrome maybe? See what I mean-
With the media in full genuflecting mode to the GOP, I do not believe that November election will be an automatic dem win. They plan is to make the dem look like a monster, so even McCain will look better than the ‘other guy.’ If they could get Bush reelected in ‘04, they can do anything.
And my question of the day, is Obama hitting back at all on the nasty comments on the media? I heard a republican claim that if Obama wins, the terrorists will be dancing in the street. Obama should make very loud noises that say Bush let the terrorists go in the first place and is ignoring the bigger terrorist threat to fight a losing battle in Iraq.
Please Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton, speak up will you? I could not stand another Kerry debacle.