"simply because he does not have a whole lot of experience. And this is troubling."

Not one bit, IMO. McCain has not given me any reason to feel anything but dread and contempt. He is not just an affront to my left-wing leanings, but to my hopes for a financially stable America that keeps its whims in check and has a clear-cut foreign policy.

I find his experience, his company and his career to be his biggest liability and flaw. Obama isn’t a blank, mirroring sheet of metal in which I can see whatever I want to see. He is a very open and detailed object, not merely a subject. Even if he was a polished sheet of metal, I’d rather have that than a man whose maverick attitude and capacity to dissent is obviously being covered with sour verdigris. McCain is not "Satan", he is not "old" and is actually better than Giuliani or the two bowtie candidates. But he is transforming into a Rovian douchebag - to put it bluntly - and I cannot abide another Rovian douchebag.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=10935

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=10926

Like W., McCain is my moral inferior. He is campaigning in a way I would never do. To the dust heap with the man.

utsu,

Even though I also support Obama, I find that your comment reflects a type of dysfunction common on the left these days that makes it difficult for me to think of having any real common cause with your type of Obama supporters. The fact that you feel free to be vulgar in describing your political disagreements and the fact that you so easily equate political disagreements with moral failure indicates a severe ideological megalomania that is not healthy or helpful to political discourse. Why is it that you seem incapable of disagreement without demonization? When you use such language and such tactics, you alienate more than you persuade. Indeed, the times I like McCain the most seem to be immediately after dealing with your kind of Obama supporter for a while. Interesting.

Bottom line: Get over yourself already and try dealing with those you disagree with as equals instead of "moral inferiors" (your own words). Maybe then you will be able to generate reactions other than hostility.

Then again, maybe that is what you want. If so, then those who have called you a "troll" might have a point. It is up to you to tell us which you prefer. But you should be warned: if you claim the authority to deal with those you disagree with as “douchebags” and “moral inferiors”, you should expect to be treated with the same rudeness, dismissiveness, and exclusion in return.

“political disagreements with moral failure”

I’m not politically disagreeing with McCain over his campaigning against Obama. I’m disagreeing with that sort of campaigning with every moral fibre I have, hence “douchebag” or something to that effect. McCain brought things to a vulgar level with his Bush/HRC-style slander, not I.

“ideological megalomania”

Ideology was not a factor. Philosophy and reason is.

“Why is it that you seem incapable of disagreement without demonization?”

You should ask McCain that, not me.

“Indeed, the times I like McCain the most seem to be immediately after dealing with your kind of Obama supporter for a while. Interesting.”

Sure thing, the democrats behave and worry about offending standards of decency the republican’s candidate breach with every new ad. No - McCain seems to be like Bush in his campaigning; a bad, trite and lowly person. I won’t voice my disagreements with his moral character the way I voice disagreements with his policies. He doesn’t deserve that regarding these ads.

“Get over yourself already and try dealing with those you disagree with as equals instead of “moral inferiors”.”

I call as I see - McCain is doing things that are below me.

“If so, then those who have called you a “troll” might have a point.”

On some counts, they may have a point. Here, they don’t. If we honestly can’t call what McCain is doing for the douchebaggery it is then the trolls are running the circus.

 
Not only does Obama say he won’t eliminate the deficit in his first term, as McCain aims to do, he frankly says he’s not sure he’d bring it down at all in four years, considering his own spending plans. "I do not make a promise that we can reduce it by 2013 because I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America’s families," Obama told reporters this week when asked if he’d match McCain’s pledge.Obama’s flaw for me is that even though he pretends to be a moderate in effect he is nothing more then a politician pandering to moderates to win an election so he can do the above.Spend.At a time when our debt is staggering he wants to spend and spend freely.  That is why I oppose his candidacy.

utsu,

Thank you for making clear that you choose to be uncivil and abusive towards those you disagree with at your discretion. You may expect the same arbitrary and abusive standards in return as long as long as you choose to behave in such ways.

P.S. The attempt to discredit everything one dislikes by forcing the words “Bush” or “Rove” into it is so trite and overdone as to actually discredit the person attempting it far more than their intended target. Those who use such ad-hom-by-association tactics reveal only that they lack the capacity for substantive refutation and thus are forced to resort to throwing out the names of other persons they hope are universally reviled enough to do all the tarring-and-feathering work by themselves. You should try moving beyond dusty and tired old political scripts like that if you want to have any credibility as anything other than a partisan hack reciting pre-written talking points.

"Thank you for making clear that you choose to be uncivil and abusive towards those you disagree with at your discretion."

McCain is uncivil and abusive, and he is a worse troll than me because people expect more from him because of many factors, including his current ambitions. I couldn’t care less if he was a democrat - you don’t stand for ads of a certain nature or you are uncivil and abusive. I.e., a douchebag. I may be a douchebag for calling McCain a douchebag, but I am not running for president.

"forcing the words “Bush” or “Rove”"

You would have a point except Bush’s campaigning was according to Rove’s guidelines and it is obvious McCain is going by the same grain. It is Rovian. It is Bush and it is HRC. Scary associations, and perfectly justified. We do not need more people who choose to go by Rove’s recommendations, because it is obvious that people like him sow only bad things. I need to put my foot down against McCain for not having the guts to move away from Bush/HRC tactics, and I show my contempt by using a term I usually use to describe offenders of a more plebeian nature.

"as to actually discredit the person attempting it far more than their intended target."

McCain is already deserving of my explicit insults. I don’t expect to win the favor or approval of those who oppose the using of uncivil and abusive words towards the coarse, uncivil and verbally abusive scum that has soiled human history for eight straight years.

"Those who use such ad-hom-by-association tactics"

Association? You mean perfectly adhering to the discredited and vile tactics that have been used before simply because they prove effective. That’s no association, that is complete emulation. The offending ads in question are linked to all the sins, flaws, harmful tendencies and weaknesses the current political climate exhibits. My offensive words are nothing if not a fair response that shows on what level McCain is and wants his campaign to be. To suggest I am coarsening the level of discourse more than McCain is rediculous.

"throwing out the names of other persons they hope are universally reviled enough to do all the tarring-and-feathering work by themselves."

I’m describing McCain’s current plumage and that is that. It has Karl Rove, a bad and destructive person, written all over it. There doesn’t have to be any trifling or mincing here - it is cunning, low, memetic, utterly wrong, not reality-based and it uses common prejudices against democrats. It’s repetition of what is wrong in order to make people act as if it is not. I’ve had it.

All this from the mature straight-talk express conductor. It is even more jarring to come from a man who tries to act like something more, something more grown-up. McCain does not deserve more than insults, and I shouldn’t have to explain his offenses and their repugnance, let alone my very human reactions to them. This is about moral and societal values, and now McCain has taken it down to insults. His ads weren’t even political, they constitute deceiving propaganda. He is implying Obama is treasonous, (and that is not a political assessment) but I’m far more honest about my view of McCain.

"You should try moving beyond dusty and tired old political scripts like that"

You tell McCain that.

"have any credibility as anything other than a partisan hack reciting pre-written talking points."

Wonderful, that is exactly what you should tell him. This is for his DC office.

241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-0303
Phone: 202-224-2235
Fax: 202-228-2862

He has offices in Tempe, Tuscon and Phoenix as well, should I get the information for them too?

McCain isn’t posting or commenting here, thus, his behavior is not an excuse for yours even if “he did it worse” was a legitimate excuse for anyone older than a 5-year-old anyway.

When it comes to using name-calling, guilt-by-association, vulgarity, demonization, and other forms of rhetorical cheapness and lameness, I will say to you exactly the same I would say to Glenn Greenwald: Every time you do it yourself, you reduce to zero your legitimate ground to complain about it in anyone else. So if you continue to do it here, you will find it being done TO you without any recourse available to you. Or, if your vulgarity, name-calling, and subject-changing gets annoying enough, you might wind up eventually just getting yourself banned.

And stop spamming. Anyone who wants to contact McCain’s offices can do so without your “help”.

admin: use of vulgar language after warning can be grounds for banning. it will always be grounds for deletion of the offending comment.

Ignoring the Utsu Diatribe and back to the article at hand.  I would not that Cohen is no conservative (and I’m not either I guess) but I’m probably more right of center than he is (he’s probably a little left of center).  But anyway, he hits the nail on the head for me.  Experience matters.  I want someone who is willing to take difficult stands to try and GET SOMETHING DONE.  John McCain in that respect failed on immigration but succeeded on Campaign Finance and pre-empting filibusters.  Unfortunately he’s running in a bad time for Republicans against an opponent who is "historic" in nature and who speaks very well.

" I want someone who is willing to take difficult stands to try and GET SOMETHING DONE."

You mean like being the first to propose shifting the focus towards Pakistan and Afghanistan?

Or do you mean getting something done as in promising fake but popular solutions to the energy problem, or maybe proposing tax breaks that won’t help stabilize the economy one bit?

from Wikipedia:
A delusion is commonly defined as a fixed false belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception