McCain: Across this country, this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners... (Video)

John McCain told a crowd in Pennsylvania today that "[a]cross this country, this is the agenda I have set forth before my fellow prisoners. And the same standards of clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent." 

Comments

[shrimplate]

Prisoners indeed, of a failed corporatist rightwing ideology.

[Eric Jaffa]

A prison metaphor was used in the civil rights song, "Eyes on the Prize."

We're on the verge of an advance for civil rights.

"Paul and Silas bound in jail
Had no money for to go their bail
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on"

"Paul and Silas thought they was lost
Dungeon shook and the chains come off
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on"

[Dabodius]

Sometimes I think this whole world
Is one big prison yard.
Some of us are prisoners
The rest of us are guards.

If we agree with Dylan, then McCain, in his Bush-hugging version, is one of the guards.

[The Phantom]

Did you comment on these gaffes? I may have missed it

[The Phantom]

Did you comment on these gaffes? I may have missed it

[Eric Jaffa]

The Phantom -

Regarding Michelle Malin writing:
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And in perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama told a Portland crowd over the weekend that Iran doesn’t “pose a serious threat to us” — cluelessly arguing that “tiny countries” with small defense budgets can’t do us harm — and then promptly flip-flopped the next day, claiming, “I’ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave.”
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What Obama said isn't a gaffe:
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Iran, Cuba, Venezuela _ these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, 'We're going to wipe you off the planet.'
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[The Phantom]

I agree. That statement by Obama was not a gaffe.

Though Iran is a really, really big country. Just because a country doesn't have hundreds of millions of people does not mean it is small.

What about the other things Obama said?

This is the clever debate, where lefties slap thighs and roll on the floor laughing when McCain makes a misstatement and the conservatives do the reverse when Obama says something dumb? And we complain about the quality of last night's debate?

[Eric Jaffa]

The Phantom -

Some of the items on that list are gaffes, like Obama saying he's visited 57 states.

Some aren't gaffes, like Obama admitting he doesn't know much about the Hanford, Washington nuclear-waste situation.

[3waygeek]

Like McCain, we're all POWs -- prisoners of W.

[ol cranky]

I think McCain's just letting us know we will soon all be prisoners when he enacts martial law

[TB]

Michelle Malin?

Please.

[cfrost]

I doubt it means much of anything. He’s probably dog-tired and thinking about anything else but yet another one of the robotically delivered speeches he’s delivering out on the hustings. Notice that Palin registers nothing. She’s probably thinking about the moose jerky she’s got in her purse, while McCain’s hoping that his next lunch on the plane will be better than the fare he had as a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton.

Anyone running for president has to have his/her mouth running almost 24/7 and naturally there’ll be times when the clutch slips. The only significant thing here might be that the old man doesn’t have the stamina his younger competitor does and the clutch may slip more often.

Re: the Hanford, WA nuclear-waste situation. I’ve lived downriver from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation for the last twenty years and have followed the subject at least insofar as it is covered in the press and it relates to my job (Columbia River fish). The nuclear waste fiasco there is huge, complicated, and the cleanup involves a bewildering amount of technical detail that I dare say McCain has probably not completely mastered and Ms. Malkin knows shit about.

[Alon Levy]

Though Iran is a really, really big country.

By the standards of Iraq, it's big. By the standards of the US, Russia, or China, it's fairly small.

[Dabodius]

Phunny you would cite Malkin, Phantom -- with her defense of the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII, she's definitely one of the guards Dylan sang of.

[The Phantom]

Well, everyone in the 57 US states must agree that she's right some of the time

[TB]

Bob Harris has an interesting take on why McCain said the prisoner line:

http://thismodernworld.com/4504

[greensmile]

given what that poor man has been through, I don't think the rest of us want to live inside one of his flashbacks....could we get him some PTSD therapy?