Making his 19th Sunday show appearance of the year, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) got a little unhinged on CBS's "Face the Nation," equating the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi with the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon presidency.
For those who can't watch clips online, McCain, apparently letting his contempt for President Obama get the better of him, argued, "You know what, somebody the other day said to me that this is as bad as Watergate. Well, nobody died in Watergate. But this is either a massive cover-up or an incompetence that is not acceptable service to the American people."
As a substantive matter, the Republican senator can't back up these criticisms with any evidence whatsoever. McCain is just recklessly throwing around unfounded charges on national television the week before an election, hoping something might stick.
What's odd, though, is how weak this smear campaign really is. Remember, Mitt Romney tried to capitalize on the deadly attack in September, and it backfired. He tried again during the second debate, and was left looking ridiculous. By last week, the Republicans' entire line of criticism against the administration had begun to unravel, and in the third presidential candidate debate, Romney didn't even bother to go after Obama on this.
And yet, there was McCain, referencing Watergate -- there's that comparison again -- and assuming his careless rhetoric will ensure he won't have to wait long for his 20th Sunday show appearance of the year.
Leave a Comment:
Talk radio is pushing this "story" like there is no tomorrow. Over the weekend I had a conversation with a dyed in the wool dittohead. He was saying that the Benghazi story is worse that Watergate and it will be the story that turns the election for Romney. No sign anybody outside talk radio and Fox Nation is excited by the story. Most people think it is one week before the election hype from the unhinged who are afraid they are going to lose.
Articles of Impeachment in 3...2...1...
(This topic is right up there with Obama Ate My Dog)
Agree. This is about the 15th invented-scandal-of-the-week-gate. But what else have they got with just 8 days until the voting ends?
John McCain has become a bitter old man, and he has surrendered his integrity and honor for Republican Talking Points. What would McCain and Fox News call the following: National Memo article written on 9/11/12 concerning 9/11/01 ‘He Kept Us Safe’: Bush Ignored Repeated Warnings Of Terrorist Attack
"That those words – “he kept us safe” – could be uttered in public about that leader is a testament to our national affliction of historical amnesia. The harsher truth, long known but now reiterated in a startling report on the New York Times op-ed page, is that the Bush administration’s “negligence” left us undefended against the disaster whose anniversary we will mark again today. New documents
uncovered by investigative journalist Kurt Eichenwald show that despite repeated, urgent warnings from intelligence officials about an impending Al Qaeda attack, Bush did nothing because his neoconservative advisers told him that the threats were merely a “ruse” and a distraction. http://www.nationalmemo.com/he-kept-us-safe-bush-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-terrorist-attack/2/
I'm kind of surprised that McCain is taking talking points from blog comments. This Benghazi >= Watergate because people died thing has been pushed for a couple weeks online.
Could someone please clarify the issues around Benghazi?
I understand why the Republicans are making such a big deal over it, seeing how they don't have anything else to discredit Obama and it is a pivotal election...I don't understand what their "concerns" center around? Thanks.
Remember the ATF gun walking crap. Same lame crap based on hype to try to discredit the prez.
How about an apparent cover-up. The more info that comes out points to incompetence. When I worked, if you didn't have an answer, you brought in consultants to do a study. Obama is dodging.
Tom, did you just fall off the turnip truck. We have been at war for 11 years, but apparently you have never heard the phrase "fog of war" before. Exactly what was the President of the United States covering up? Lots and lots of Americans have been killed since 911. Many of them in situations that sound similar. If there was anything to cover up it was Paul Ryan cutting the budget for embassy security.
Thanks, Tom. I have indeed heard those very words, but cover-up of what? Incompetence about what? Dodging over what?
What is the accusation?
Mainstream media continues to aggressively challenge this President for misleading (as they call it) statements following the Benghazi tragedy while completely ignoring the unprecedented number of misleading statements from Mitt Romney that are easily verifiable lies. The Benghazi tragedy is as close as they can get to Pres. Obama lying and when faced with the stature of a presidential debate even Candy Crowley defended his statements declaring it an act of terror leaving Mitt Romney with the beautiful deer in the headlights look.
Is there a neocon word for cutzpah?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/25/1149438/-Humongous-piles-of-chutzpah?detail=hide
says it all
Hey More Coffee, I do not understand the thinking by some of the critic's of Pres. Obama. WE do not Know what all happened. Some base what the president should have done on the very 1st claim made by a group. My 1st question to those critic's, How many threat's does OUR country recieve daily and based on that, do we attack all of those that have made a threat? When an incident happen's, How many group's actually claim responsibility to what happened to promote their cause? It was mentioned that a Gunship was overhead,So I ask, How many of the Mob on the ground was actually involved, 5? 15? hundred's? So we wipe out everyone within a 1000 yard vicinity of the Embassy? Seriously, Cover-up? I am right there with you, This was a very sad Incident, Not all is known.
Sick...,
I'm sure those on the right have a variety of self-congratulatory euphemisms for "chutzpah".
Thanks, Sarge.
People died. President did not jump in front of the bullet.
Neither Did Romney while on the Beaches of FRANCE during the VIETNAM WAR
jst1voice - Of course you left out the part of how Crowley later apologized to Romney and recanted her defense of Obama during the debate because it was obvious that when Obama used the word "terrorism" in the Rose Garden on 9/12/12 he was referring to it generically.
Incompetence. That's Wet-Start Johnny's real area of expertise. A lifetime's experience of it.
Ask him one more time, what was the sign language that was used between the men on Hamburger Hill?
Some folks are addicted to alcohol.
Some folks are addicted to drugs.
McCain is addicted to TeeVee. (especially on Sundays)
No, he's just insanely jealous of Obama. It blinds him. And sends him into hyperbolic overkill.
I do have to ask why the GOP is always looking to tar a Democratic president with false scandal, 'another Watergate', 'another Katrina"? Because when their party screwed up it screwed up SO BADLY they would like to erase the blot by being able to say, "You, too!"
Too bad the whole GOP can't get psychotherapy. It would help them get over their guilt, shame and horror at what they've done.
So-is he saying that the republicans are involved in an illegal attack on the consulate? That would explain why R had a press release really early-maybe he knew it was coming, because it was politically planned-like watergate. Then it would be like watergate, after all. There is certainly plenty of undisclosed money from the GOP PAC.
Please ask Obama what he knew before flying to Vegas to raise funds. The more the facts come out, the worse it is for Obama. Please accept the truth. Investigations are a dodge to put off the truth. Obama is nothing more than a puppet for the Chicago machine.
Doesn't anyone care that the entire country was lied to about why this happened?
We were told over and over again it was because of a video. Obama and all of his cronies knew it was a terrorist attack from the minute it was happening. Why did Obama tell Rice to tell the fib about the video. Because it made Obama look bad that just recently he told America Al Quida is on the run and desimated.
The whole thing is a cover up. We'll find out more as we delve into it. So how can you trust anything Obama says if he lies about something so obvious.
From the man who still claims Palin was "absolutely" qualified to be commander in chief. From the man who displays all the classic symptoms of histrionic personality disorder.
This is also the same man who talked about vans full of illegals driving down the freeways of Arizona "intentionally causing accidents." That statement created a hailstorm of telephone calls to the Dept of Public Safety and the Arizona Dept of Tourism asking if our roads were safe to travel on. There's no way of knowing how much that ridiculous statement cost the state in tourism dollars.
This same man also made the statement that 'there is substantial evidence the fires were caused by illegals' when talking about the Wallow wildfire that burned 600 square miles through Arizona, becoming the worst fire in this state's history. The 'substantial evidence' was never forth coming, however, and as it turned out, the fire was started by campers, who were not only citizens, but, BTW, white.
McCain has become like the rest of the GOP. Just lie and make up things, and even if called out on it, simply deny you were lying and double down. It, appears to work.
It is too bad the John McCain who was so highly respected not too long ago seems to be struggling with dementia. He has reached a point that he needs to retire and get some rest before he totally destroys the honor he so richly deserved.
It is sad to watch.
What honor? Sending southern Spain into a region-wide blackout because he pulled down the main transmission wires with the tailhook of his Skyraider while out "flat-hatting" (in violation of the rules)? Killing 177 of his fellow sailors on the Forrestal and sending the carrier into repair for a year at the height of the war for a "joke"? Being stupid enough to turn around and fly back over the place he'd just bombed? The only "honor" Wet-Start Johnny deserves is for proving the old truth that "the first generation makes it, the second generation keeps it, and the third generation loses it." We would be a better country if Wet-Start Johnny's ejection seat had failed back in 1967, so he could be a "Hero" on a Wall for eternity.
Now that Mitt is in hiding, he will not have to answer for any absurdities that his psychohants try to hype to further delude his wooly coated electorate.
Our American tragedy is the projected derangement of our brethren on the far Right. To take a foreign policy tragedy and equate it to a political dirty trick where our democracy was threatened by the ambitions of Richard Nixon is to debase all of us!
Shame on McCain, shame on all who would seek political gain from a terrorist attack!
Shame on all who would seek political profit from the death of an American diplomat!
Whomever pushes this tragic story to satisfy his political need for power deserves a pox upon his entire house! -Kevo
well how about a look over there while we pull tricks over here. see where Anonymous has send a warning shot over Roves bowl about trying to oh lets say shift the out come. (steal)
So what if Benghazi was trivial? For forty years the Republicans have been trying to convince the country that Watergate was trivial, so the comparison is still good.
McCain is just an angry old man carrying the weight of a grudge on his back.
That guy will say anything.. I wonder if he gets paid for it, other than his overpayment as a US Senator from the state of Crazy?
McCain is one sad dude as he knows darn well there's a good amount of intelligence involved. And besides, this pales in comparison to the Iraq con-job, Valerie Plame being outted, etc. He oughta change his Depends and crawl back into his worm hole. We should''ve put Bush and Cheney on trial, and then behind bars.
I enjoy the fact that can't travel outside of this country for fear of being arrested. At least the rest of the world understands what they did.
Absolutely, thanks for reminding me. My hackles are up this morning. I guess Dubai is a safe zone.
Was Watergate as bad as the Keating Five, Johnny?
I sent this out to my political group this weekend with the title 'Dementia? You decide.' McCain is a bitter old man that lives in the world of 'what could have been'. And for all you 'bots that think Bengazhi is a 'coverup' I guess you think the CIA report, the 'on the ground' reports are just all made up and some crazy cranky demented old white man that is running for the microphone every day to 'attack' the President gets any better information than the President. The GOP 'uses' this assassination as a weapon with no bullets and then santimoniously sit back and say the PRESIDENT is incompetent? Huh.
I guess John John forgot about his little Keating 5 scandal.......
He didn't forget, he just hopes we will. And he just made it more perfect when he abandoned his signature campaign finance reform law.
Along with picking Sarah Palin, he succeeded in creating a totally different legacy than what he believes he's due.
No one died in the Keating incident.
How many people died when Dubya & his crew lied their way into an unnecessary war?
I truly believe Nixon would have had someone killed if he thought it would have stopped the scandal.
Why does anyone even listen to McCain, he has no credibility. I guess the reason he is on these shows is that the is so much air time to be filled and it's hard to find enough people to fill the time.
Why did the Obama administration continue to blame a video for the assasinations of four innocent Americans in Benghazi when there is ample evidence now that they knew all along it was a well planned act of terrorism? Why is the guy who made the video still in jail? I guess we're supposed to believe this was a Libyan movie review that got out of hand, to paraphrase Mark Steyn.
Why do those on the right continue to peddle obvious fabrications? Because that is the sort of people they are.
Justwant...you got your head up your ass...the entire incident was provoked by that obscene video and the attack was just taking advantage of the uproar...and all of this has been well documented except to the right who are desperately looking for anything to smear the president with.... Go look at the archives at think progress who documents the time line of events and stop listening to the FOX or GOP TV propaganda.
anyway, poor John McCain, he has just lost his crediblility and does not know how to show support for his fellow Republican friends. it is sad to this man go douwn this way, he could have helped himself by helping President Obama with Immigration Reform. changing the subject; the Keystone Pipeline is going to be built next year, The President is just waiting for the final studies and we are good to go. we are going to see better grouth numbers in the next four years.
If they would just answer the questions: what did you know, when did you know and what actions did you take? I would feel a lot better about Obama.
its so funny how a comment about a jeep has inspired 135 (at the moment), and a terrorist attack that killed 4 americans, that obama most likely watched real-time and did nothing about has only come up with 24 comments. wow, can't believe msnbc isn't covering this...shocker. no, really. shocked.
I agree, and now, people are still dying in the aftermath of Sandy and yet, no real coverage of that disaster and how Obama has let them down