McCain to Fund Healthcare by Cutting Medicare

Obama hammered McCain at his Roanoke rally today for proposing to cut Medicaid to pay for his $5,000 a year healthcare credit. See if you can tell who's the liar. Here is an article from the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 6, which says McCain will do just that:

John McCain would pay for his health plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, a top aide said, in a move that independent analysts estimate could result in cuts of $1.3 trillion over 10 years to the government programs.

The Republican presidential nominee has said little about the proposed cuts, but they are needed to keep his health-care plan "budget neutral," as he has promised. The McCain campaign hasn't given a specific figure for the cuts, but didn't dispute the analysts' estimate.

In the months since Sen. McCain introduced his health plan, statements made by his campaign have implied that the new tax credits he is proposing to help Americans buy health insurance would be paid for with other tax increases.

But Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Sen. McCain's senior policy adviser, said Sunday that the campaign has always planned to fund the tax credits, in part, with savings from Medicare and Medicaid. Those government health-care programs serve seniors, poor families and the disabled. Medicare spending for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 is estimated at $457.5 billion.

What Obama said at the rally via the Swamp:

Citing a recent Wall Street Journal story, the Illinois Democrat charged that Sen. John McCain would make $882 billion in Medicare cuts to "pay for an ill-conceived, badly thought-through health care plan that won't provide more health care to people, even though Medicare is already facing a looming shortfall."

Appearing in front of a crowd estimated at about 8,000 at the Roanoke Convention Center, Obama suggested cuts of "more than 20 percent" were possible by next year under the McCain plan.

"If you count on Medicare, it would mean fewer places to get care, and less freedom to choose your own doctors," he said. "You'll pay more for your drugs, you'll receive fewer services, you'll get lower quality care."

Obama said McCain has "voted against protecting Medicare 40 times" during his 26-year tenure in Congress.

What the McCain camp said in response:

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded that Obama was "lying" in a statement issued by the Republican campaign.

"Unlike Barack Obama' risky plan, John McCain's plans for health care do not punish struggling businesses with fines and taxes, and they certainly do not cut a single benefit for Medicare or Medicaid," he said. "For Barack Obama to talk about the hope of America and then proceed into misleading and hypocritical accusations only underscores what voters already know: Barack Obama is not who you think he is."

I love that last line, which is supposed to make us pee our pants or something.
Here's the video of Obama speaking about this at the rally:

Obama Thanks McCain Tucker Bounds Lies

Obama thanked McCain for calling off the mob -- it didn't work. At least McCain tried. But it was too late.

Swamp: "I want to acknowledge that Senator McCain tried to tone down the rhetoric at his town hall meeting yesterday," Obama said, referring to a raucous gathering where voters urged McCain to get tough on Obama. "I appreciated his reminder that we can disagree while still being respectful of each other."

And Obama also noted that McCain served the country with honor "and deserves our thanks for that." McCain is a decorated Vietnam veteran who was held as a prisoner of war in Hanoi for five and a half years.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds says McCain's supporters are angry about the economy, which is a flat out lie. They're angry because they think Obama is a terrorist, thanks largely to wingnuts and Palin giving them the confirmation they needed. A Gallup poll out today says McCain's supporters are voting him because of his "values." Values means opposing gay marriage and abortion. In this election, values has another meaning: I don't want to vote for the terrorist black man.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded: "The tone of this election is not fueling voter outrage, it's that Americans are frustrated knowing that Barack Obama's plans to raise taxes during a down economy and his proposal for a trillion dollars in new government spending are the absolute wrong answers to our economic crisis."

Then the reporter went on to say that Obama continued the harsh rhetoric by digging McCain on the economy. That's not a dig. That's what he's supposed to do.

Still, as Obama hit the first of four Philadelphia rallies, he couldnt resist following his thanks to McCain with a dig: "But when it comes to the economy and what families here in Pennsylvania are going through, sen McCain still doesn't get it."

Obama to Preempt McCain's Assaults

Obama's fighting the gruesome twosome, who are trying to shift the focus away from the issues because they're losing. Obama will preempt McCain's attacks with the truth: McCain is like a squawking chicken in a crisis. Never mind Palin.

Politco: Branding his opponent as “erratic in a crisis,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is preempting plans by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to portray him as having sinister connections to controversial Chicagoans.

Obama officials call it political jujitsu – turning the attacks back on the attacker.

McCain officials had said early in the weekend that they plan to begin advertising after Tuesday’s debate that will tie Obama to convicted money launderer Tony Rezko and former Weathermen radical William Ayers.

But Obama isn’t waiting to respond. His campaign is going up Monday on national cable stations with a scathing ad saying: “Three quarters of a million jobs lost this year. Our financial system in turmoil. And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy. No wonder his campaign wants to change the subject.

“Turn the page on the financial crisis by launching dishonorable, dishonest ‘assaults’ against Barack Obama. Struggling families can't turn the page on this economy, and we can't afford another president who is this out of touch.”

....

“We think the McCain campaign made a huge error by telling the press that their strategy was to distract from the most important issue facing voters,” a senior Obama official said. “Every attack going forward will be easy to characterize for what it is – an attempt to distract from the Bush-McCain economic record."

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds hinted at the tough new line Saturday on “Fox & Friends.”

“There are associations that are important to who Barack Obama is as a candidate, who he’d be as president,” Bounds said.

Obama-Biden communications director Dan Pfeiffer said about the new ads: “If John McCain thinks he can ‘turn the page’ on the economic crisis facing American families, he is even more out of touch than we imagined. Now there may be no good answers for John McCain due to his erratic response to the financial crisis, but his desire to avoid discussing the economy is something we will remind voters of everyday for the next month.”

Media Responds to GOP Attacks

They were like animals in the lead up to McCain's speech. Frankly, I've never seen anything like it and then McCain acts as if he's a uniter not a divider. Sounds familiar.
Anyway, the media was caught up in the GOP show, which cast stones at everyone who wasn't a republican. See the video they're hollering about here. Media responds:

Swamp: After several primetime speakers at this week's Republican National Convention unleashed a barrage of attacks on the news media for their coverage of vice-presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, network news executives defended their coverage and dismissed the charges as a stale political strategy meant to distract viewers from legitimate election issues.

"It's a time-honored marketing ploy and, every time they bash the media, it means they're not talking about a vision or a plan," CNN president Jon Klein said. "But the best antidote to cynical marketing is solid reporting."

CNN had a dustup with the McCain campaign earlier this week after Campbell Brown's persistent questioning of McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds on Palin's foreign-policy experience as governor of Alaska prompted the campaign to cancel McCain's scheduled appearance on Larry King Live. (Bounds and CNN have since patched thing up.)

"America has been presented with a total unknown who might be a heartbeat away from the presidency," Klein said of Palin, "and Americans have every right to expect as much information as possible about this person so that they can make an informed choice. Certainly our critics are in favor of Americans making an informed choice, aren't they?" more

McCain's Comedic Campaign

This explains the juvenile comedy coming out of the McCain camp:

CNN: "It's August, and in August it's harder to get attention from the electorate -- and the issues, while they're important, often take a back seat to people's personal schedules," said campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. The McCain team "made a cognizant decision" to spice up their approach, said Bounds.

CNN asks is it working with the general public?

I think McCain has made a fool of himself. I loved the first ad but he went a bit too far and then he was upstaged by Paris Hilton and that's never a good thing for a president to be. Not to get all arugula (I've never eaten it either, couldn't even tell you what it looks like) but as far as I can see the ads worked for their targeted audience, the uneducated white working class.

McCain's campaign has been filling the traditional late-summer news lull with a string of stunts featuring a prickly humor that could come from the insult comic's act. It could prove a potent political weapon against Sen. Barack Obama or it could bomb in his face like a bad joke.

There are irony-laced videos. There are eBay-friendly props. And there is McCain himself, who has incorporated some of the best laugh lines into his stump speech.

The McCain camp's comedy-lined assault effectively rankles Democrats -- but does it work on the press and public?

It will be interesting to see what the McCain camp does for attention now that Obama is on vacation.