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Politics "Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule -and both commonly succeed, and are right." -H.L. Menken

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Old 07-11-2008, 12:11 PM   #1
CptSternn
 
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Question McCain Adviser Refers to ‘Nation of Whiners’

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/us...l?ref=business

BELLEVILLE, Mich. — Senator John McCain has spent the week trying to tell people that he feels their economic pain. So it was more than a little unhelpful when one of his top economic advisers was quoted Thursday as saying that the United States was only in a “mental recession” and that it had become a “nation of whiners.”

The adviser, former Senator Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas, sought to clarify his remarks Thursday by saying he had been referring only to some of the nation’s leaders.

But it was too late to keep from complicating things for Mr. McCain, who has been trying to strike a more empathetic tone after sometimes struggling to maintain a balance between displays of optimism about the nation’s future and demonstrating an understanding of Americans’ economic hardships.

Senator Barack Obama, noting that Mr. McCain had previously said an expansion of offshore oil drilling might have a “psychological” benefit for the country, seized on Mr. Gramm’s remarks, made in an interview with The Washington Times.

“You know, America already has one Dr. Phil,” Mr. Obama said at a campaign stop in Fairfax, Va. “When it comes to the economy, we don’t need another.”

Mr. McCain himself repudiated Mr. Gramm’s comments.

“The person here in Michigan that just lost his job isn’t suffering a mental recession,” he told reporters after a town-hall-style meeting at a factory in this city west of Detroit.

And when he was asked whether Mr. Gramm — McCain campaign co-chairman, UBS Investment Bank vice chairman and former economics professor — might serve as treasury secretary in a McCain administration, the candidate replied with a flash of his sometimes tart humor.

“I think Senator Gramm would be in serious consideration for ambassador to Belarus,” he said, “although I’m not sure the citizens of Minsk would welcome that.”

Mr. McCain has been spending the week in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan pushing his economic proposals and trying to show a grasp of workers’ financial struggles.

During the gathering here Thursday, held at Bayloff Stamped Products, which provides metal components to car manufacturers, he tried to fend off the skepticism of some Michigan workers about his support for free trade and said more than half a dozen times that people were “hurting.”

“America is hurting today,” he said. “Michigan is hurting today. The automotive industry is hurting. And we’ve got big problems, and we’ve got big challenges.”

Questioned about manufacturers’ moving their plants elsewhere because of free trade, he replied, “I have to tell you — and I know that it’s not popular — I do believe in the overall benefits of free trade.”

In recent months Mr. McCain has recalibrated the way he talks about the economy, often noting that it does not matter whether the technical definition of a recession has been met, given that so many people feel as if they are in one. The tone is in contrast with the one he struck during the primaries, when he sometimes placed more emphasis on optimism.

His struggle to find a balance was on vivid display at a Republican debate in January, when he was asked whether the country was better off now than it was eight years ago.

“I think you could argue that Americans over all are better off,” he replied, “because we have had a pretty good, prosperous time with low unemployment and low inflation, and a lot of good things have happened, a lot of jobs have been created.” Then he added: “But let’s have some straight talk. Things are tough right now.”

At the factory gathering Thursday, Mr. McCain repeated a statement that was used against him to great effect in the Michigan primary, which he lost to Mitt Romney.

“I’ll look at you in the eye again and I’ll tell you that there are some jobs that won’t come back,” he said.

But, the optimism hardly out of reach, he added that the lost jobs would be replaced with new ones to create more environmentally friendly technologies and other innovations.

“I have to tell you that the innovation and the technology and the entrepreneurship of the world still lies in the United States of America,” he said. “Every technological advance we’ve made in the 21st century and throughout the 20th has come from the United States of America.”
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Old 07-11-2008, 12:19 PM   #2
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Now, some make take issue, like the 4 million households who have lost their homes to forclosure, to the fact McCains top economic advisor refers to them as 'whiners'. The same could be said about the hundreds of thousands who have lost their jobs, thanks the McCain's counterpart bush who has cost America many, many jobs.

I however thought the last line in the article, the direct quote from McCain was more offensive and needed to be explored.

ALL technological advances in the 20th century were American in origin?! I mean seriously, the man said, and that is a direct quote, that ALL technology that came from the 20th AND 21st century have all been American in origin.

Does that bother anyone else? I mean, is he really that ignorant, or is he pandering to an ignorant audience trying to get votes? Either way to discount all the technological achievements of the last hundred plus years and say they are all due to Americans seems not only stupid, but something that can easily be disproved.

I'll start with this link alone...

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa121599a.htm

Thats every technological advancement that was documented between the years of 1900-1999. It includes such minor inventions as the disposable razor. Just browsing a few will show that America was far from being the ONLY country to make any significant breakthroughs.

I mean, he is discounting the Japanese, the Germans, hell - the rest of the world, not to mention so many inventions that I can't even begin to copy and paste the list.

Anyone else offended by this?
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Old 07-11-2008, 06:56 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CptSternn
...
Anyone else offended by this?
You're right. It should be "WORLD of whiners".


Just kidding. Seriously, this is the same kind of fatal faux pas that Kerry's wife (Heinz-Kerry) made about Laura Bush in a previous presidential election. McCain will never recover from this arrogant, bourgeois comment made by people close to him. Birds of a feather.
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Old 07-13-2008, 01:55 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CptSternn

Anyone else offended by this?
Oh, stop your whining.
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Old 09-13-2008, 06:08 AM   #5
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To be rather blunt, I do not think many Americans will really stop to think about the absurdity of his statement...if they even noticed it at all.

We've become a complacent nation that has handicapped itself with laziness and apathy. There are so many laws that have been passed in the last 6-7 years that it seems no one understands or even takes the time to learn about how they infringe on our freedoms or are just plain illegal. All in the name of being "safe from the terrorists".

I think the thing that really just blows my mind is the fact that even though polls show that most Americans are against this war - coupled with the fact that going into Iraq was a personal agenda that Bush tried to come up with reasonings for after the fact - and yet we've still done nothing.

Bush has not been impeached and any talk against him or the war in Iraq (Atleast in the media we receive here and most people you talk to) is compared to treason.

The man literally said he was above the law.

And then to be blunt once more. I do not think that McCain will be too terribly much different than Bush.
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