The Orwellian chutzpah of John McCain

Mr. Orwell, call your office

The head of the Colorado Republican Party may have revealed more than he planned when he spoke to a reporter about the “war room” the Republicans have set up in Denver to counter anything said at the DNC:

In an alley behind a nondescript row of brick buildings on North Speer Boulevard, and on the other side of a large metal gate with armed guards standing in front, Republicans have set up a “war room” in Denver…

Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan said the team of nearly two dozen staffers at the opposition headquarters will be “fact-checking” statements made by the Obama campaign and by speakers during the convention.

“Just consider this the Ministry of Truth,” quipped Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

For those of you keeping score at home… yes, Dick Wadhams is the funniest name I’ve heard in years. And yes, he did just refer to their propaganda operation as the Ministry of Truth, the same name used by George Orwell in 1984 for the government agency whose job it was to lie. You can’t make this stuff up.

Glenn Beck campaigns for “jerk of the year” title

The execrable Glenn Beck is actually calling on his listeners to waste as much energy as they can in order to make up for the positive steps the Democratic National Convention is taking to reduce the environmental impact of the event. No, I’m not making this up:

And what we’re trying to do is to erase all of the carbon offsets for the Democratic party. What we’d like to do is we would like to raise 70 million pounds of carbon. Now, this is going to take a Herculean effort, it really is. I don’t know if we can do it. We can’t mandate it. I can’t say, hey, you’ve got to do this as a listener. What I’m just, I’m asking you to participate because it’s for the children. You go to the website. Now, how many, how many extra miles can you pledge? Can you drive five extra miles a day? Can you take the long way home, the long way to work? Can you just warm up your car? I know it’s August. Can you cool down your car? Can you get up like you do in the winter and just start your car? You know, it’s hot or it’s tepid when I get into my car. I would like it to be ice cold. Can you get up, start your car 15 minutes early and just let it run so it cools down. You know what I’m saying? Do your part. It’s for the children. Why do you not care about our planet? Can you give me an extra day of increased garbage, maybe two, maybe three? Can you throw away some stuff that you don’t really need to throw away? Can you not recycle? Can you throw your cans into the non-recycling bin just for this week?…

Can you turn your thermostat down unnecessarily? I know you probably like it at a nice 70 degrees, maybe 72 degrees. Can you turn it down to 68 just this week. Can you take an extra long shower. How many loads of laundry can you do? Can you pledge just a few extra minutes in the dryer, after your clothes are dry, just let it go a couple of extra minutes. Do you have any fluorescent light bulbs? Can you would you pledge, would you pledge just to replace one of your fluorescent light bulbs with an incandescent light bulb today, just one. That’s all we’re asking, just one. We’re trying to raise 70 million pounds of carbon and it’s not going to be easy.

Staggering, isn’t it? Even if you think the environmental movement overreacts and pushes policies you don’t like, only someone with the IQ of a turnip and the charm of an Ebola virus could possibly think that generating more garbage, using more fossil fuels, putting more carbon into the air, producing more pollution is a good thing. This guy is making Ann Coulter sound sane and rational by comparison — and that’s no easy task.

John Kerry: Gigolo. John McCain: Man of the People

Glenn Greenwald has a great post at his blog pointing out the utter hypocrisy of the pedestrian right when it comes to men who marry rich heiresses. Let’s see what Rush Limbaugh had to say:

I mean, [Kerry]‘s been there, but he’s basically a skirt-chaser, folks. He’s a gigolo. . . .Kerry is cheap. Most gigolos are. I mean — I think it — I think it goes with the, with the definition. . . .[W]hat do you consider a fair wage? John Kerry considers a fair wage a wife with 500 million. So, he had to find a company that had one. Well, there aren’t too many of these companies that have little heiresses running around that are single, have 500 million that some guy can marry into. . . .Because see, Al Gore’s daddy was a senator and Al Gore’s daddy worked his way up from wealth and power to wealth and power. I mean, he got more of it than anybody ever dreamed of for having as little to go on. I mean, he’s one of those old boys. You know how that worked back then. Then John Kerry’s daddy is his wives. (laughter) I mean, he’s a gigolo. Everybody knows this. There’s nobody in our party really has much respect for this guy and you can see it last night, but I can’t say that. I mean, you got sugar daddy wife back then. You got sugar daddy wife now. He worked his way up from a blue blood to a platinum American Express card, and it doesn’t have his name on it.

By the way, John McCain did even better. Forget the platinum American Express card, he’s got a Black Centurion American Express card, the one you get if you spend more than a quarter million a year on it (and coincidentally, his tax returns show that he spends more than a quarter million a year on household help).

How about Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity:

ANN COULTER: John Kerry can’t really speak to the middle class tax cuts, inasmuch as he is …

SEAN HANNITY: Yes.

ANN COULTER: … a kept man. He lives off the money made by other men and left to their daughters or wives.

And here’s Ann Coulter again:

ANN COULTER: Well, okay, then I don’t want to hear him talk about a middle class tax cut when he has made his living living off rich women. I mean, it is simply a fact that he has married two heiresses. His specialty in life, I mean, if he has an economic plan, I think the one I’d like to hear about is how to snooker millionairesses into marrying me and living off them.

The difference between John Kerry and John McCain is that Kerry didn’t cheat on his wife after a horrific accident and dump her to marry the heiress, while McCain did. You’d think that would make him much worse to the “family values” crowd, but that would be politically inconvenient so all that feigned outrage just magically disappears.

Effete Hollywood elitists for McCain

The Moonie Times reports on an upcoming fundraiser for John McCain that will feature some of Hollywood’s, errr, finest:

Mr. McCain will attend a fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton on Monday, the day the Democrats’ convention opens,bringing together top leaders from the Los Angeles business and entertainment communities, according to an invitation for the event obtained by The Washington Times.

Show business publication Variety reported that Angie Harmon, David Zucker, Jon Cryer, Lionel Chetwynd, Craig T. Nelson, Jon Voight, Craig Haffner and Robert Duvall are among those expected to attend.

OMG! John McCain thinks he’s a celebrity! I bet they’ll even be serving arugula at the event, and maybe swiss cheese too! No non-elitist True American in touch with the common people would consort with these effete, pampered Hollywood sissy boys. See how stupid that sounds? It sounds just as stupid when it comes from conservatives bashing Barbara Streisand or Sean Penn.

McCain’s “elitist” attack just gets more idiotic by the moment. His new ad actually includes this line about Obama:

“Celebrities don’t have to worry about family budgets. But we sure do.”

Well yes, John McCain has to worry about his family budget. That budget, as I mentioned above, includes $273,000 a year for “household help” — that’s $50,000 more every year just for servants, maids and gardeners than the median value of a family house in this country. But Obama, son of a single mother who sometimes went on welfare who had to work his way through college, he’s the elitist.

Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to buy this stuff? And why aren’t intelligent voters more angry at this insult to their intelligence?

A noun, a verb and POW

Joe Biden’s famous quip about Rudy Giuliani — “There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun, a verb, and 9/11″ — is rapidly becoming true about John McCain as well, just replace “9/11″ with “POW.” When Jay Leno brought up the fact that he didn’t know how many houses he owned, here’s how McCain answered it:

“Could I just mention to you, Jay, that, at a moment of seriousness. I spent five-and-a-half years in a prison cell,” McCain said. “I didn’t have a house. I didn’t have a kitchen table. I didn’t have a table. I didn’t have a chair. And I didn’t spend those five-and-a-half years because, not because I wanted to get a house when I got out.”

This kind of thing drives me up the wall. He didn’t answer the question, he just struck the victim pose. Can you imagine what the Republicans would say if Obama answered a question about, say, the Rezko controversy, by talking about the oppression of black people? They would accuse him — quite rightly — of changing the subject and dodging the issue. It’s as if McCain thinks that being a POW frees him from all ethical restrictions for the rest of his life. This is starting to sound like the guy who killed his parents and then asked the court for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.