Login HereAnyone who has ever seen some lame Democrat on television nodding their head in agreement with their Republican "opponent" and bemoaning the fact that those tasked with defending the progressive agenda on TV are so hopelessly inadequate thank their stars every night for Cliff Schecter. Cliff is that rare breed of progressive who has the natural charisma and forthright manner such that he's always on offense and never loses his cool. He's one of the only people we have with the media skills to handle himself on Fox without getting pwnd.
In a word, we need Cliff Schecter.
But Cliff's duties on behalf of the D's extend beyond his PR skills. He's now written a book about John McCain that is full of details that McCain's fawning fanboys just don't want to cover, like his very un-family values personal life, his hypocrisy when it comes to campaign finance reform and his hair-trigger temper -- and he's got McCain on the run.
Watch the YouTube attached and try not to smile as McCain is forced to go on Fox News and deny the stories in Cliff's book about his fight with Rick Renzi and his public reference to his wife Cindy as the "c" word.
But only this weekend, in the Washington Post article about McCain's temper (which by all reports has McCain -- with no small amount of irony -- "furious"), McCain's staff now confirms Cliff's story about Renzi:
Reports recently surfaced of Rep. Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican, taking offense when McCain called him "boy" once too often during a 2006 meeting, a story that McCain aides confirm while playing down its importance. "Renzi flared and he was prickly," McCain strategist Mark Salter said. "But there were no punches thrown or anything."
The Washington Post doesn't credit Cliff (lazy bastards), but it's no mystery where the story came from. In a media landscape where John McCain refers to journalists as his "base" and they won't print negative stories about him because they don't fit with their image of him as serious, honorable, knowlegeable and dripping with virtue, Cliff is one of the few to get any traction.
Teflon John, meet Velcro Cliff.
You can support Cliff's work by buying his book on Amazon.
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Cliff welcome to the Lake.
Welcome, Cliff!
Hi
Hi Cliff! Good to see you here!
Welcome Cliff!
Thanks for doing all the heavy lifting.
Hi, Cliff. Reading the book now. Well done!
Cliff, you trollop!
Thanks so much guys. It’s great to be here! And thanks Jane for that way-too-kind introduction.
Only my wife gets to call me a trollop!
Watching that YouTube, and the “if I lose the capacity to be angry, I don’t think I should be president” smarmy tone there at the end…too amusing. And utterly unconvincing, especially in light of all the backtracking they’ve had to do since that interview. *g*
Welcome, Cliff. Good to see you!
Thanks for spending time with us today Cliff.
Although come to think of it, I do plaster on the makeup a bit much at times…
Is Mrs. McCain the “c” word?
Thanks for all the welcomes guys, so, what do you want to know about Senator Angry-Pants?
Thank you, Mr. Schecter, for supplying us with the tons of useful information in your book. I’ve got two copies, one for me to highlight, and one to lend out to people who still think he’s a “maverick.” Great work.
You can pay me later.
Is it true that McCain is actually more stupid than GW Bush?
Cliff, for the last few weeks some folks here at the lake have picked up on the information about McCain being a “traitor” to his fellow POW’s while in captivity. I am a Vietnam Vet and was a member of the VVAW in the early 70’s. I know that Ted Sampley is part of the group that puts out this crap and I am wondering what your take is? In my opinion there is plenty of ammo to go after John with without resorting to this swiftboat style attack. Can you shed any light?
Well not in my world. I don’t use that word or my wife sends me to sleep under a bridge tonight. As should be the case.
By all accounts she seems to be a nice woman married to a not-so-nice man.
How the hell did you get those people to spill that now-notorious quote?
Cash or check?
McCain lies. Bush lies. They have alot in common. Besides playing footies with Joe Liarman.
Thanks for coming, Cliff! What I’ve read of the book so far exceeds expectations — it really should shake up the media narrative about St. John. I trust you’re booking cable appearances now …
Cliff, do you think any of your sources will come forward on the “c-word” story?
few dare use that word- Jane is among the courageous from time to time..
Interesting why one can’t say it- but one can’t.
Thank you Cliff.
I love calm, tenacious, stick to the truth peoples.
The truth can set us free, only if we get out of the way and let it be heard.
Thank you Jane for focusing on who the Real Opponents are.
You are one of a kind. Did I say I love tenacious?
McCain has the same lack of understanding of policy nuance as Bush. He doesn’t get, or care to understand economic policy. He obviously doesn’t understand the differences between Sunnis and Shia. He graduated third from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy.
So maybe not quite as dumb, but in the same league. I like to call him “George W. Bush who could finish reading My Pet Goat.”
Cliff, I bought your book, because Jane
toldasked me to. It was nice to see her mentioned in your acknowledgments.As per usual, she really nailed it here:
Welcome to FDL.
Hello, Cliff Schecter, and thanks for writing this wonderful book. I’m about two-thirds of the way through (highlighting slows me down!) and I want you to give away the ending, please: Is there any principle, any belief, any core that McCain has not compromised?
Is there anything he hasn’t flip-flopped on?
I really appreciate your terrific book. I know lots of us will use it this year to define the real McCain.
Hey David,
We’re trying. It is hard when so many in the cable media world love McCain. And the ongoing primary is making it tougher too. But because of all the great people out there who have helped this book sell at Amazon, we are talking to some folks. I expect tv will happen soon.
In the meantime it is the Internets and radio. And that’s cool too…
Thank you for buying it. And Jane deserved mention. She has been a great force for all of us in general, and in particular for those of us who try and make a career in this crazy business :)
how big is your backyard? Can you host a barbecue?
Hi Clif, and welcome (and thanks!) -
I have not yet received your book. Anecdotally, (oh, hell, this is such an LA angle) the woman who cuts my hair says someone she knows says that McCain is an insane driver - which, from my experience, goes to the anger issue…
I actually think the “c-word” story only works as part of a narrative - not that he has a temper, but that he is unable, at times, to physically control himself. I mean, I’ve gotten pissed at people at work, but never once have I come close to anything physical.
Yeah, I have always had the impression that Bush really hates intellectuals and pedants and views thinking and reading as wastes of time; and it’s a peculiar disdain that only those born to wealth have. McCain doesn’t seem to have that attitude — rather, I get the feeling he’s just a dim bulb.
Hi Christy,
Yeah, I love how pork barrel spending is a defense for attacking Renzi. Anyone see the connection? He is just spinning obviously. But there are way too many stories out there beyond what I found. And I am going to keep digging. The temper issue is NOT going away.
I’m gonna go with McCain’s temper flared in the wrong direction one too many times, and a group of hometown news folks had a grudge to settle. We have relatives who live in AZ, and there is not a lot of love lost for McCain in those parts among a whole host of people who used to support him, let me tell you. You can call him “Sen. Burns Way Too Many Bridges.”
Actually, I don’t think I have ever heard Jane use that word. Lots of other ones, but not that one — we have that in common, we girlies.
Wow, just what I’d look for in a President. A guy who excels at burning bridges.
[runs screaming out of the room]
That is the way I see it Raven. Look, the man went to Vietnam, whatever your opinion of that war. So I am not going to question him and don’t in the book, on those issues. My focus is his personal and professional hypocrisy, in how he flip-flops, moralizes and generally abuses his power.
We can beat him if we point out who he is politically. And that he shouldn’t be lecturing us on personal behavior. Hearing from John McCain about abstinence is like having Gary Busey lecture me about drunk driving
Cliff, I’m loving your book (despite the often sad and infuriating facts I’m learning there)….
and really loved the Senate’s use of “McCain” for a type of footwear…
Republicans: good for burning bridges and letting bridges collapse.
Seems as if maybe she used it in a post a long while back that caused a stir, but I may be misremembering.
Thanks
Cliff - what about Mrs. McCain Number One? What happened to her? What does she do? $17,700 annual alimony doesn’t go very far.
That is exactly right. He was called McNasty in high school. The story I broke on his fight with Rick Renzi began with his calling him “boy.” You brought up the wife story.
He likes abusing people. Being nasty to people. It is a part of who his is, a sadist, and the temper is only part of it.
Hi Cliff, thanks for being here.
Here’s my question, because the MSM seems to be in the tank for McCain, do you see the possibility of his temper somehow being spun as “good” for a McCain Presidency? You know, given the maverick image and all that crap.
btw, I hate ribs.
Ahh, the famous McCain flip-flops. I did enjoy learning about that one :)
Velcro Cliff: Is there a single issue that makes McCain the most vulnerable now? The book makes this guy sound like a federal disaster area of a person….
We can beat him if we point out who he is politically.
and if we can get the media to put down the chili dogs and actually report it.
how do you account for the whole “the media is my base” phenomenon?
Hi Cliff and thank you for your important work in exposing this corrupt man.
Do you have any insight as to why he would continue to embrace the very man who dragged down his daughter and Max Cleland?
Is it all about winning at any cost and that he really has NO moral compass or something else entirely?
Cliff, I am so grateful that you and your work have prompted MSM to raise the issue of his temper (of course, after he’s been cowing the boys and girls on the bus with the implict threat of another rage attack, one can see why the editors would be a bit timorous).
Thanks so much Marion. I appreciate that! I make the pitch to people that it’s only $10! And for that, we can get these stories out there!!
Haven’t read the book Cliff, do you cover any of the Abramoff hearing he chaired in the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs? If you did, what do you think he has hidden way from the public by withholding some of the info that came to the comittee?
Jane Fonda uses it. On teevee.
Welcome Cliff !
am mad for Cliff - taking out the faceless whitebread gooper boy - not just bec someone was representing our side but doing it so artfully and with the most deliciously wicked grin - he was enjoying it - coulda sworn I saw you pick your teeth with his bones:D
and now the McCain book - thanks so much!
Okay, if we all agree that John McCain would be bad, ie. four or more years of the same twisted, wrong policies, how can we unite behind a candidate to defeat him in November?
How?
Headliners say Stop That, Mods say Please stop that when people spin off in the wrong direction.
How can we move forward?
Cliff is spreading the good word.
If people would just listen. And, do the right thing.
He has been courting them for years. Also remember many of the “Neos” are in the media (Bill Kristol, David Brooks, etc.). Many also salivate over his service and “courage,” because they grew up watching John Wayne movies (see Glenn Greenwald’s book) and they so want to be someone like McCain in Nam
Cliff, Do you think that editors should avoid hooking reporters up with a specific campaign for a long period of time? It would seem to make the reporter more likely to print nice things in hopes of getting more stories. Why not rotate em weekly?
Welcome, Cliff. Thanks, Jane.
Cliff -
For all their selfrighteous purity Repugs surely have filthy mouths. It seems to be their forte. Trollop is something I’ve never heard a man use towards a woman and I’m around a lot of Liberals. The c..t word is beyond my imagination. McShame and I just travel is different circles. But Rebugs don’t seem to mind. Why is that?
Yes, I do go into how he protected his fellow Senators in a whole chapter in the real McCain (actually two) on how the reformer myth is just that. Lobbyists are only part of the story (and Christy has done a great job on that!), but he has many ties to many corrupt people, much closer than Obama and Ayers…
McCain’s nicknames aren’t even as creatively cruel as Junja’s. I mean, really, how smart do you need to be to call Lindsey Graham a “little jerk?”
Do you have any sense, Cliff, of which stories particularly rankle McCain? Presumably he’s worked out answers for some of them (”Didn’t happen” leads the pack for now….) but are there things that bug him a lot? I’d like to see him asked if he’s a kept man, but I’m not sure how to get his base to ask that question.
Things that go to his manhood, I’d guess.
Maybe “pilot crash an burn”?
This is exactly right. The media sources who spoke to me are still there (3 of the 4 are) and are scared for their jobs. I understand why. A major European newspaper was going to write a piece on my book and the McCain people called and threatened. Called me a liar and “unstable” (that is funny, isn’t it, McCain’s calling someone else “unstable”) and bullied them into not reporting on my book.
There are many who know these stories. But they are only willing to speak off the record. Because McCain will destroy them otherwise…
Sounds worth reading (your book I mean) guess I’m gonna have to cough up some more cash.
But I’m sure that will all change if he becomes President.
I’m with the questioner upthread who’s wondering about Wife #1. She says it’s all hunky-dory, but living with a disability on an alimony check isn’t the life she waited seven years for, even if she did get the house.
This is the kind of thing that shakes a lot of middle-class women to their bones. It’s not what a stand-up guy does — and McCain’s whole image is built on being a stand-up guy.
Straight out of the Rove playbook.
Yeah, he defninitely has convinced himself that his image is reality. So questioning whether he’s a reformer, or corrupt, or tempermental, etc., personality-based questions that go against the CV, that will set him off.
Like when that reporter recently asked about his approaching Kerry to join the ticket in 2004. He lost it on that, because he has to be a “Reagan Republican” now…
Cliff
Also liked your article in Campaign for America’s Future yesterday. It’s nice to see it pointed out that McCain’s health care has been taken care for 7 decades by taxpayer dollars. That should be a good Dem talking point.
Don’t worry. Only $10 at Amazon. C’mon, the price of a beer in New York or a home in Oklahoma! :)..
Ok, ok, I bought the book. Man that one-click shopping is dangerous.
When are you going on television again? You’re great on tv.
McCain is not a “stand up guy” - McCain is cut out of the same bolt of cloth as Gingrich and Giuliani — family values are all well and good until you get bored…or a bigger meal ticket is available.
I agree. Look, when politicians lecture the rest of us about our personal lives, theirs become fair game. He cheated on his first wife with Cindy, left her for Cindy (after she took care of the kids for 5 years while he was in Hanoi and she suffered a car crash), and married Cindy six weeks after he left his first wife.
This is a story that many Americans who vote on “values” need to know about McCain…
I assumed the anger issues were some form of PTSD from being a POW. I guess it’s a character flaw. That’s worse.
there was an interesting discussion over at Eschaton yesterday about his getting full disability status while fully employed as a U.S. Senator.
OK Ten bucks isn’t bad. I think the last one of these book discussions cost me 17.
John McCain has said he gets righteously angry when he sees people “behaving badly”.
Where will he send U.S. troops first — Iran or San Francisco?
Thanks so much. As I think I said earlier, the primary has sucked some of the oxygen from the McCain stories. But it will be soon. Possibly a major station as soon as this weekend. But many irons in the fire on this…
And thanks for the compliment!
Hi, Cliff!
Would be great if you could share some of the info from your book on McCain’s sorry record on jobs/economy.
And welcome!
Tula
Why do you say that if people speak out that McCain will destroy them? I realize that he belongs to the “most exclusive club in the world” but what can he actually do to people or reporters, especially since most don’t seem to like him.
Definitely based on meal ticket and a fresh new slab of meat.
Yes it is worse, as it has been going on his whole life. The PTSD could have made it worse still, but he has always been this way…
Great to see you here Cliff - and what a book!
Six weeks- Wow- that’s quick. How’d he get unhitched so fast? What was the big hurry?
Abramoff hearings -
I don’t have the book yet - but believe along with the outbursts is the mo of retribution and threats to ‘destroy’ his perceived enemies - right ?
also believe McCain does nothing that isn’t self serving so I don’t believe any of the greatest friend of native americans tripe -
okay - so were those hearings about destroying Abramoff or some Abramoff flunky ??? just wondering if somehow Jack pissed him off and how - did he make him sit next to the kitchen at Signatures ?
Great. The very last thing we need now is another petulant hothead in the White House.
Hi Tula,
Well as you certainly know, McCain’s plan, plain and simple, is to continue Bushenomics. You know, corporate tax rates cut from 35% to 25%, because Exxon might make a shade under $8 billion next quarter.
His economic advisor, Phil Gramm, is someone who bears much responsibility in the housing crisis, as he literally was an extension of the banking industry in Congress. McCain also voted to eliminate the minimum wage and against SCHIP.
Heartless, economically unsound and WRONG.
Thanks so much Siun! And great to be here of course. It’s very comfortable here. I hope to have more time to come around in the near future :)
Do you know why Vicki Iseman hasn’t been interviewed, or even surfaced?
Well, he’s just announced that he’s going to wage war on poverty.
Exactly. He is petulant, uninterested in policy, stubborn and in bed with lobbyists and other corporate types. Remind you of another president?
For the CEO who only makes $925K to get up over a million!
Now that would be wonderful … fingers crossed!
OK
I ordered the book
Dont give away the end ok
Hi Cliff,
Thanks for all your hard work. We need more progressives who don’t flinch.
Has McCain ever been asked about if he believes the official government account of the 9/11 attacks? How do you suppose this line of questioning would effect the race for presidency? Will McCain, if elected, insist on seeing the pentagon footage from the attacks?
With respect and kindness.
Now where did he hear that expression? I know it as an old expression among non-violent groups used when prisoners are abused, war is declared, anti-personnel weapons of mass destruction are dropped on villagers burning their skin off their body. It is not a term that is an excuse for DOING violence towards anyone.
The Abramoff hearings, like everything else McCain does, was self-interest and revenge (he went after Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, two long time rivals).
That describes McCain in a nutshell. Everything he does includes political ambition and vengeance. They sometimes are combined, and only when they clash, does the former take a backseat to the latter (see his relationship with George W. Bush or the late Jerry Falwell).
Just emailed Bill Moyers recommending he read Cliff’s book and invite him on his superb PBS show. Hope that may materialize. ;~)
Great question. I assume she is down with the team, and doesn’t want to lose her lavish lifestyle. Why would she give it all up, she has already sold her soul to help the worst corporate offenders..
Cliff, I haven’t read the book (it’s in transit) - do you go into the whole Keating Five scandal?
Cliff, what fascinates me is how sensible McCain sounded in 1990 WRT getting and staying out of Iraq. Contrast that with his attitude now.
Thanks so much! I would love to do Moyers show. Big fan…
I remember that bmaz from out in Arizona said of McCain that those who knew him thought he was “dense as a post.” McCain has been in the Senate for 21 years how is it that the media have failed to notice this? I mean we are talking 2 decades here.
This is very disturbing. Of course, if you publicize the fact that the McCain people are killing the book behind the scenes, they’ll just paint you as a paranoid …
Hi Cliff! Great freakin name!!!
Good question. Don’t count out the DC area. He can go after Dupont Circle, Northern VA and get two for the price of one. And he can be lazy. And not go that far away from home.
Isn’t McCain late on releasing his medical records?
and let’s not forget those socialists over at Barron’s refer to Phil Gramm as Mr. Enron - yikes
Thanks, Cliff:
It’s hard to see how he can be creeping up in the polls with lines like this:
“Listen, I understand economics,” he said. “One reason is
because they are really based on fundamental values and
philosophy.”
Not to mention his die-hard support of NAFTA. Your book is a great contribution to getting out the truth about the REAL McCAIN to the many who hear nothing but the panting of Timmie et al., over his supposed Maverick mien.
Cliff -
Will McShame make a comment on the great noble stone face, General Petraeus, a four star general, becoming Central Command chief? His plan is to stay the course because it is working, at least that’s what P says.
Guess that will show truth teller former Central Command chief, Adm. William Fallon. There will be none of that truth nonsense out of P.
Yes, they have tried that too David. I know of at least one cable show that WILL NOT have me on because McCain has threatened access. I can only do what I can. If he thinks he can get rid of me that easily, well, too bad he doesn’t know me very well. Every time he convinces a paper not to write about this book or not have me on tv, I am that much more motivated to come to places like this one, and make sure people know the truth. We have many months ahead of us. And I ain’t going nowhere Mr. McCain….
Perhaps that’s one reason to point out that he is America’s only ‘Reverse Ace’ having lost five planes during his time of service. Only one from enemy fire.
A notable achievement.
His fellow naval aviators called him ‘Ace’ behind his back as he was NOT well liked by them.
Ding, Ding, Ding. I for one would really love to see his medical records - those shaky hands of his are rather interesting.
What does that even mean?