Mike the Mad Biologist

By now, you might have heard about McCain’s forgetfulness about how many homes he owns (at least seven). But his campaign’s response is utterly absurd (italics mine):

The houses gaffe doesn’t matter because … he was a POW!

“This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison,” spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.

For those of you who haven’t kept track, the McCain campaign just recently cited McCain’s POW years in explaining away the Miss Buffalo Chip gaffe, and in dealing with the allegation that he broke the rules and listened in on Barack Obama during the Rick Warren forum.

Also, Rogers made sure to play the anti-intellectual card: “In terms of who’s an elitist, I think people have made a judgment that John McCain is not an arugula-eating, pointy headed professor-type based on his life story.”

I actually thought this was a gag post. Is there anything that can’t be excused by his time as a POW? (Answer: apparently not). And regarding the last bit, nothing says salt-of-the-earth like seven or more homes worth over $10 million.

Maybe the POW answer to everything routine has finally jumped the shark?

Update: Digby thinks so too (great minds think alike).

Comments

#1 pough
August 21, 2008

Jumped the shark nothing. He’s not angling for the white house, he’s trying out for a gig writing SNL sketches.
#2 Joshua
August 21, 2008

Sure, he owns seven homes, but he only lives in four of them. Just like your average Nascar dad.
#3 Woody Tanaka
August 21, 2008

“pointy headed professor-type”

‘Cause, you know, smart folks the LAST people we should look to to solve important complex problems…
#4 Kirs
August 21, 2008

To quote Thomas Schaller, who was inspired by Joe Biden: All that comes out of John McCain’s mouth is subject, verb, POW
#5 John McKay
August 21, 2008

Isn’t this about the third time in about a week that they have held up the POW crucifix to fend off questions as if they were vampires? This is getting more comical than the mayor of 9/11. At least Giuliani didn’t have a fawning press corps constantly saying he was too humble to mention 9/11 even as he managed to work it into every sentence.

I can imagine the two of them in a restaurant:

Have you decided what you want to order?

You know when my city was attacked on 9/11, I was having a club sandwich and swore I’d never have another club sandwich until bin Laden was brought to justice. I’ll have the crab cakes.

When I was in the Hanoi Hilton for five long years, I dreamed about club sandwiches and crab cakes every night, but when I woke up all we had for lunch was a kick in the head from a hob nailed boot. I’ll have the patty melt and have the cook cut the crust off.
#6 The Ridger
August 21, 2008

1. Obama eats ROCKET, dammit!
2. McCain can’t play that card without hypocrisy, because nothing done to him is unacceptable under the war powers act he supported… Of course, that won’t stop him. Because he was a POW, dammit!
#7 Pierce R. Butler
August 21, 2008

to the tune of “Age of Aquarius” -

When McCaaain is in his seventh house ♪
And Obama aligned with Spears ♪
Then Fox will guide the networks ♪
And suuurge will win the wars! ♬

This is the groaning of the aged P.O.W. ♫
Aged P.O.W.! ♩ ♪
O.W! …♪ ♫
#8 Pierce R. Butler
August 21, 2008

Oops – all those weird little glyphs showed up as proper music notes in Preview…
#9 Dunc
August 22, 2008

No, the McCain campaign has no decency.

This has been another instalment in the series “Obvious answers to rhetorical questions.”
#10 llewelly
August 22, 2008

Oops – all those weird little glyphs showed up as proper music notes in Preview…

The preview page has an edit box full of text, which you can edit if you feel the preview of your post does not look quite right.
You’d assume, naturally, that it would contain exactly the text you typed or pasted into the original ‘post a comment’ box.
You’d be wrong.
Preview has a horrible bug – if you use any html character entity references, the text in the editable box on the preview page is not what you originally typed into the editable box on the ‘post a comment’ form. Instead, Sb’s software replaces your carefully typed out html character entity references with the characters they are supposed to represent. Since those characters are not proper html, your attempts to use unusual characters are ruined. After previewing, you must re-edit the text in the box, and put all of your html character entity references back the way you originally typed them. You can’t trust Sb preview, unfortunately.
#11 khefera
August 22, 2008

dear baby boomers,
please die in a fire you self absorbed twats. you’ve ruined every election in my lifetime by turning it into a referendum on who did what in the ’60s. i don’t care. i don’t care about william ayers. i don’t care john mccain was a pow. both are completely irrelevant to the iraq war, the economy and health.
now kindly stfu and stop wasting our time with your circle jerks about what happened 40 years ago.
#12 Pierce R. Butler
August 22, 2008

llewelly – thanks for the explanation (though I’ll admit I fully grasp only the conclusion).

If there’s a “clever” substitution going on, why don’t the results of that substitution appear in the Preview display box?

FWIW, I didn’t carefully type out html character entity references, I (lazy sod that I am) just copied & pasted symbols found at http://www.danshort.com/HTMLentities/index.php?w=music (which have worked at other SB blogs)…
#13 Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD
August 23, 2008

At Long Last, Has the McCain Campaign No Decency?

So you think this is more flagrantly indecent than attempting to associate your opponent with the anti-Christ?