McSame: Not Able To Connect The Dots

But enjoyable as it's been to watch conservatives flee from the GOP, something about all this leaves me feeling a little down. Because as the more respectable, literate conservatives distance themselves from the GOP, increasingly, the only ones left on the right are paranoid, rage-driven, xenophobic nuts. Bitter? You betcha! Twisted too!

This just proves the point, that McSame - while he may have been a good choice about a year ago to run for President - has fallen into the trap of following the advice of people with the same mindset as those who have advised W. And, the people are getting sick and tired of leadership by faith over fact, derision and division over unifying high quality values and morals, and fear mongering over a message of hope.

As evidence, on just need look to the debate last night. On more than one occasion, it looked like McSame was trying to connect the dots between talking points, but was wildly unsuccessful in doing so because bullet points don't comprise a high quality discussion about what's ailing the economy.

Let's have a look:

MCCAIN: Energy -- well, first -- second of all, energy independence. We have to have nuclear power. We have to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much. It's wind, tide, solar, natural gas, nuclear, off-shore drilling, which Senator Obama has opposed.

And the point is that we become energy independent and we will create millions of jobs -- millions of jobs in America.

OK, what -- what would I cut? I would have, first of all, across-the-board spending freeze, OK? Some people say that's a hatchet. That's a hatchet, and then I would get out a scalpel, OK?

Because we've got -- we have presided over the largest increase -- we've got to have a new direction for this country. We have presided over the largest increase in government since the Great Society.

Government spending has gone completely out of control; $10 trillion dollar debt we're giving to our kids, a half-a-trillion dollars we owe China.

I know how to save billions of dollars in defense spending. I know how to eliminate programs.

SCHIEFFER: Which ones?

MCCAIN: I have fought against -- well, one of them would be the marketing assistance program. Another one would be a number of subsidies for ethanol.

I oppose subsidies for ethanol because I thought it distorted the market and created inflation; Senator Obama supported those subsidies.

I would eliminate the tariff on imported sugarcane-based ethanol from Brazil.

I know how to save billions. I saved the taxpayer $6.8 billion by fighting a deal for a couple of years, as you might recall, that was a sweetheart deal between an aircraft manufacturer, DOD, and people ended up in jail.

But I would fight for a line-item veto, and I would certainly veto every earmark pork-barrel bill. Senator Obama has asked for nearly $1 billion in pork-barrel earmark projects...

Holy Smoke - A man that is this scattered on a fairly direct question is asking for line item veto? The Republicans have been trying for that for so long and it's been shot down every time. Why do they persist? Because they suck as negotiators. Veto is another key indicator that the politicians have failed to reach a compromise that is acceptable. To introduce line item veto would allow the President to sit and lord over congress rather than work with them to craft well designed bills.