Mar 27 2008

Is McCain going to start dishing it out?

Posted by Neocon in 2008 Race, McCain, Obama

Here are a few shots across the bow of Obama from the good ship McCain.

“If America is looking for a second term of the Jimmy Carter Administration of high taxes at home and weakness abroad vote Obama. I doubt they are.” — A McCain Staffer

Hot Air:

After Obama criticized McCain this week for speeches the Arizona senator delivered on the economy, a McCain spokesman issued a statement saying that Obama is guilty of smear politics.

“Sen. Obama’s blatant mischaracterizations aren’t the new politics he’s promised America, they’re the old attack and smear tactics that Americans are tired of,” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said. “Barack Obama’s diagnosis for our housing market is clearly that Barack Obama knows best — raise taxes on hardworking Americans and give government a prescription to spend.”

And then Ed reminds us of the deliciously sarcastic letter that McCain sent to Obama after the Messiah flip-flopped on McCain’s anti-lobbying push for political reasons:

I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership’s preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter to me dated February 2, 2006, which explained your decision to withdraw from our bipartisan discussions. I’m embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won’t make the same mistake again.

So are we seeing the first glints of the high-brow McCain campaign’s knives? Only time will tell.