For gods sake STOP RUTTING!
I find this article from the Raw Story very revealing and quite frankly, hilarious.
It was very obvious that the media had picked John McCain to be the front runner for the Republican party. To find out the George W. Bush was uncomfortable about that is surprising. The picture of John McCain hugging George W. Bush and looking like a little piggy still burns in my memory.
According to a new book — excerpts of which are to be published in the next issue of GQ Magazine and detailed Tuesday — former President George W. Bush was incredulous upon learning that Sen. John McCain was having trouble drawing a crowd and called his campaign a “five-spiral crash.”
RAW STORY got a copy of the excerpts Tuesday. The excerpts are from Matt Latimer’s soon-to-be-published book “Speech-Less.”
Bush seemed to feel considerable unease with the choice of McCain as well. I think he liked Romney best. (The rumor was that so did Karl Rove.) My guess was the president hadn’t so easily forgotten the endless slights he’d suffered, but there was little he could do. To him, McCain’s defeat would be a repudiation of the Bush administration, so McCain had to win… I was once in the Oval Office when the president was told a campaign event in Phoenix he was to attend with McCain suddenly had to be closed to the press…
“If he doesn’t want me to go, fine,” the president said. “I’ve got better things to do.”
Eventually, someone informed the president that the reason the event was closed was that McCain was having trouble getting a crowd. Bush was incredulous—and to the point. “He can’t get 500 people to show up for an event in his hometown?” he asked. No one said anything, and we went on to another topic. But the president couldn’t let the matter drop. “He couldn’t get 500 people? I could get that many people to turn out in Crawford.” He shook his head. “This is a five-spiral crash, boys.”
Bush also is quoted as saying Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was “being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for” after McCain announced her as his vice presidential running mate.
“I’m trying to remember if I’ve met her before. I’m sure I must have.” His eyes twinkled, then he asked, “What is she, the governor of Guam?”
Everyone in the room seemed to look at him in horror, their mouths agape. When Ed told him that conservatives were greeting the choice enthusiastically, he replied, “Look, I’m a team player, I’m on board.” He thought about it for a minute. “She’s interesting,” he said again. “You know, just wait a few days until the bloom is off the rose.” Then he made a very smart assessment.
“This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for,” he said. “She hasn’t spent one day on the national level. Neither has her family. Let’s wait and see how she looks five days out.” It was a rare dose of reality in a White House that liked to believe every decision was great, every Republican was a genius, and McCain was the hope of the world because, well, because he chose to be a member of our party.
-John Byrne
When he was acting president he did everything he could to prove to the American public that under no circumstances will see a conservative or quite frankly a Republican. This is what happens when a person like Colin Powell, who commands respect due to his history and his accomplishments, speaks his mind without taking the party line.
morning radio address, Sen. John McCain said his administration would give every family a $5,000 tax credit to buy their own health insurance or keep their current plan. “And we will open up the national health care market to expand choices and improve quality,” he said. Obama, speaking at a rally in Newport News, Virginia, said it’s not that McCain “doesn’t care” about what people are going through, “I just think he doesn’t know.” “That’s the only reason I can think of that he’d propose a health care plan that is so radical, so out of touch with what you’re facing and so out of line with our basic values.”