McCain's Today debacle

A few days ago, John McCain appeared on NBC's Today, and I don't even know where to start to comment about it. During his 7+ minute appearance, he turned into a virtual gaffe machine.

First, his plastic, creepy smile is enough to give me the chills, but his words made up for my skeeviness, because I was belly laughing in no time.

It's so blatantly obvious that he's doing whatever he can to appeal to the GOP's base, especially the people who remain in la-la land, who believe that cutting taxes is the answer to our significant economic ills.

Enter McCain's proposed "gas tax holiday," which is a complete joke. I just don't know how else to describe it.

When asked by Matt Lauer what he or Barack Obama could do about gas prices, McCain lamely responds, "We could give them [American consumers] a break." Does anyone, and I do mean ANYONE with half a brain, honestly believe that if the federal government stops collecting the gas tax, that prices would go down at all?!? You don't have to be an economist to conclude that Big Oil would simply take up the slack by raising prices by the same amount or more (not to mention OPEC). Another highly undesirable result of suspending the gas tax - the federal government's deficit, which has already reached astronomical heights, would have another huge hole blown in it by another unaffordable tax cut. Not to mention our crumbling infrastructure (which, thus far, neither candidate has addressed in any significant way), which is already underfunded by Congress, would crumble even more. (The gas tax largely funds highway and infrastructure improvements.)

However, my favorite part of the segment above is when Matt Lauer asked McCain what he thought we would be paying for gas by election day. To be fair, it's a "Gotchya Question" (Nice job, Matt, and I don't say that often), but McCain handled it about as bad as he could have...

I'm not sure, because I think part of it depends on how we are making advances in alternate energy.

Lauer came right back at him with, "In that short amount of time?" It was great watching McCain hem and haw after that, saying we could come up with "a battery that could take a car 100 miles or more." Gimme a break. In six months?!? I sure hope I'm wrong and he's right. And those batteries? They've already been invented, senator, but thus far, automakers haven't been putting them in cars in significant numbers. (For those of you who are interested, see the movie Who Killed the Electric Car? for loads of more insight.)

More kudos to Lauer (!) for mentioning the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan tax group, which has analyzed both candidates' tax plans, and has concluded that 80 percent of McCain's tax proposals would go to those Americans who need it least. Draw your own conclusions there. It is worth noting that McCain was very disingenuous when he talked about "millions of Americans" being affected by raising the Social Security income cap. Yes, that's true, but those affected by raising the cap, according to Obama's proposal, would be well into six figures, NOT lower income Americans. The same goes for capital gains taxes. However, most outrageous of all is how McCain wants to lower the corporate tax rate. Obama should use that as a political cudgel for the rest of this campaign, period.

McCain really was at his "best" when questioned about Iraq...

LAUER: Do you have a better estimate on when the troops can come home in Iraq?

McCAIN: That's not what's important. What is important is the casualties in Iraq.

Really? It's not important when Americans can come home? He's gotta be kidding. I can only hope that any family with a soldier in Iraq heard that comment (and soldiers in the field as well), and I hope they remember it in November. Of course, now that there's an uproar, McCain will undoubtedly reverse himself, but that reversal will be merely out of political necessity and not a reflection of his true feelings. Remember, McCain is the guy who said that we could be in Iraq for the next 100 years. (He later shortened it by saying that troops could be coming home by the end of his first term - how reassuring.)

I also tire of people like McCain citing Korea, Japan and Germany as examples of our troops being permanently being stationed overseas. A substantive political discussion of our military can never be had without a World War II reference. Too bad that those three examples are from the Cold War, something that ended long ago. Comparing the so-called War on Terrorism and the Cold War is like comparing the NFL to Pop Warner football. The two are simply not analogous.

I also found it interesting that McCain mentioned that General Petraeus is going to testify to Congress next month about when we can begin drawing down our troops. I've got a Benjamin that says he'll testify "another six months" or something similar, which is testimony he has repeatedly given Congress since he took over command in Iraq. I've written it before many times, and it bears repeating - it's foolhardy to ask a military general when troops should be withdrawn from the field of battle, because no general is ever going to say, "You know what, committee? What I'm doing in Iraq is a miserable failure. Bring those boys home." It's setting the system up for failure. The last time I checked, our military leaders take orders from civilians elected by the American people in this country, not the other way around. I've little doubt that our command structure in Iraq and elsewhere have the best of intentions at heart and that they do a terrific service to our country, but these repeated Congressional bull sessions where commanders are asked whether they are failing or not are simply ridiculous - it's a broken record every time.

Our corporate media gives a lot of credence to the fact that McCain knows a great deal about foreign policy. I think the man's clueless. And let's not even get started on the economic issues here at home. (Which, by the way, polls say is the most important issue this election season.)

I just don't see how anyone but the most rabid Republican partisan can possibly cast a vote for this guy.