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What I'm stating is that Will had a strong dislike for this McCain advisor, and if you read Will's columns the past few years he has often had multiple agendas in his complaints.
Do I think that causes him to expand on issues beyond his "real" sentiments? Yes, I actually have observed this to be true (based on his subsequent columns on the same topic).
What I'm stating is that Will had a strong dislike for this McCain advisor, and if you read Will's columns the past few years he has often had multiple agendas in his complaints.
Do I think that causes him to expand on issues beyond his "real" sentiments? Yes, I actually have observed this to be true (based on his subsequent columns on the same topic).
How did he expand on this issue?
Will is clearly talking about a current event and how an un-presidential candidate (McCain) has conducted himself.
Despite his column, I think Will is taking out an old beef he has with the Congressional Budget Office on McCain.
Will has been a supporter of something called "dynamic scoring" of proposed tax cuts, while the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has insisted on "static scoring". An oversimplification of the difference between the two methods is that "dynamic" allows you to factor in assumed growth due to cuts while "static" doesn't.
One of McCain's economic advisors is Doug Holtz-Eakin, who as head of the CBO blocked conservative attempts to allow dynamic scoring for tax cut proposals, making them more difficult to pass.
Will despises Eakin, and has for many years.
Yes, there's a para about that in the editorial. But why would Will waste space, and theme, on McCain's personality problems if he actually wanted to work out a beef with H-E? They're not related at all. Why not attack H-E directly?
He could have done it easily. He could have pointed out that H-E's unfortunate candor makes him seem disloyal and unprofessional, and reflects badly on H-E's employer.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and current chief McCain economic advisor, is an honest man--which means he's something of a liability on the Straight Talk Express. A few months ago, he admitted to my colleague, Michael Scherer, that Barack Obama's economic plan would reduce taxes for most people. And now, in a forthcoming book by Fortune columnist Matt Miller, he makes it clear that the next President is going to have to raise taxes.
...
So why does tax-cutting mania persist among Republicans, I asked Holtz-Eakin, the McCain adviser--given...that, as Holtz-Eakin himself explain to me, taxes soon have to go up substantially in any event?
"It's the brand," he said, "and you don't dilute the brand."
Update: What Holtz-Eakin admitted to Scherer was that the Obama's plan represented a net tax reduction over ten years.[*]
The McCain Tax Increases--Continued - Swampland - TIME (http://time-blog.com/swampland/2008/09/the_mccain_tax_increasescontin.html - broken link)
McCain's own chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has reportedly said that it is inaccurate to say that "Barack Obama raises taxes."
Here is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's chief economic policy adviser. 'I used to say that Barack Obama raises taxes and John McCain cuts them, and I was convinced,' he told me in a phone interview this week. 'I stand corrected [about Obama's plans].' [brackets in original]
Not Holtz-Eakin-related but Im sticking it in here because Im going to lunch!
Moreover, contrary to Rove's assertion that McCain "opposes tax increases," McCain recently suggested he would be open to raising Social Security payroll taxes.
...
* ...when taking into account Obama's proposal to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and the "whole range of tax cuts, for poor seniors, working people, homeowners and parents, as well as for health-care expenses and even renewable energy" that Obama has also proposed, "[t]he net effect, according to experts in both campaigns and independent analysts, would be a reduction in government revenue over 10 years. In other words, a tax cut." - Media Matters ibid.
What I'm stating is that Will had a strong dislike for this McCain advisor, and if you read Will's columns the past few years he has often had multiple agendas in his complaints.
Do I think that causes him to expand on issues beyond his "real" sentiments? Yes, I actually have observed this to be true (based on his subsequent columns on the same topic).
You have got to be kidding right? Will is constant on this topic because he believes government intervention is wrong whether it is to individuals or to corporations. He also believes that on serious issues like this that a leader should not just go spouting off whatever the first thing that comes to mind. If you truly have followed Will, you would see this as a consistent message of his over time. To just dismiss this as a personal dislike of his is ridiculous.
You have got to be kidding right? Will is constant on this topic because he believes government intervention is wrong whether it is to individuals or to corporations. He also believes that on serious issues like this that a leader should not just go spouting off whatever the first thing that comes to mind. If you truly have followed Will, you would see this as a consistent message of his over time. To just dismiss this as a personal dislike of his is ridiculous.
someone needs to take george will's pencil away from him before he pokes his eye out. he has a personal vendetta against mccain (as evidenced by many of his previous columns) not being an ultra-conservative and now he is railing because mccain went after his friend. in a previous column in april he said that the subprime housing market was not a big issue. what makes george will even more unbelievable is that he has always railed against government regulation and now he is complaining about the consequences of lack of government regulation in the market. had john mccain's proposal been enacted in 2005 we would not be looking at this current financial situation and george will would not have egg all over his face.
George Will is but one among many GOP commentators\ observers who is highly critical of McCain. The obvious is that the "thinkers" in the Republican party are not happy with the Palin choice & McCain's erratic behavior.
If it isn't already clear to Republicans that McCain will lose the election then they are blind to reality.
The military, and an expansive view of the extent to which it should be deployed around the world, is at the very core of McCain's personal and political identity. His father and grandfather were both admirals, the former led Pacific Command during the Vietnam War, and the latter sailed in Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet and helped put down the Philippine Insurrection. McCain got his introduction to politics as a kind of bloody-shirt prop of the Nixon administration, which liked using the returned POW as a political club against anti-war activists. He became a frequent guest at Ronald and Nancy Reagan's dinner table, and his first political job was as the U.S. Navy's liaison to the Senate, where he helped spike a Carter administration effort to kill plans for a new "supercarrier." There's cynicism and opportunism aplenty in McCain's record, but it's the vision of leading America in a neo-Rooseveltian, neo-imperial direction that forms the part of the agenda that McCain is least willing to deviate from.
On another topic: Has anyone pointed out that McCain has NEVER held a job where his salary was not paid by the US taxpayer?
The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around." From"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."
Folks, that is GEORGE WILL talking... not Keith Olbermann, not Rachel Maddow, not Daily Kos.
McCainiacs need to face the fact that McCain's temper is a serious Achilles heel that renders him unfit to be President.
s/Mike
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McCain is frustrated & confused
McCain Loses His Head
