Hey at least they aren't directly saying he's john Kerry... like uh... the current Democratic assaults on McCain.

It's the exact same thing on both sides.

Come on, voting records and political ideologies are completely fair game.  I agree that McCain will run his administration much differently than Bush, but I, someone who does like McCain, have been shocked at how many Bush policies McCain has adopted and is willing to maintain, especially the Bush tax cuts.  What happened to fiscal responsibility?

Fearmongering is completely different than attacking someone on issues.  Obama is pretty liberal, and I think it is fair game to talk about that, but the video makes it clear that many of these attacks are just from the Old Republican Bag O' Tricks that tap into America's distaste for "elitists" and "foreigners."

Isn't that exactly what fox news was doing?  Agrees with his party 97% of the time.  Changed his Iraq War policy etc.

Those are fine.  But watch the whole video, there are plenty of things completely unassociated with Obama's political stance.  When Anne Coulter shows up it gets really bad.

And by that logic McCain has flip-flopped on fiscal responsibility and his attitude towards the Bush tax cuts:

"I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief."--John McCain, May 2001

"He voted against tax cuts in 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005, and this year he's for the tax cuts in the reconciliation bill. It looks like he did it for political reasons."
--Grover Norquist

And what happened to the whole balanced budget talk?  That is the McCain I want to see.  McCain can talk about pork barrel spending all he wants, but the only way we can get ourselves out of the fiscal whole we are in is raising taxes and cutting spending.  You can't just cut your way out of EVERYTHING.

One thing I would just like to add is ... You should look at a person's voting history in the context of the political/ecconomic climate that they're going to be running the country in ...

If you have voted with your party 97% of the time and the senate and house are controlled by your party there really is no checks and balances in place that would prevent the country from being run towards an untested (and probably flawed) ideology. (Note: I'm not saying the Democrat's ideology is flawed, I'm saying most ideologies are flawed).

On the other hand, if you have voted with a below-average president 90% of the time and the senate and house are controlled by the opposition party it will be very difficult to do anything that is (generally) not considered to be in the best interests of the citizens.

To put this another way ... George W. Bush really wasn't that bad of a president, and the Repbulican controlled house and senate were (also) not that bad, what was bad was the Republican's were offered a mandate which eliminated all checks and balances in the Government. Giving a mandate that is free of checks and balances to the Democrats is going to cause just as many problems as the former Republican mandate produced; they will just be different problems which may or may not be worse.

He did.  Which is why he should be asked why he wants them around now?

Which I believe the reason is "When the economy was good we didn't need it to stimulate the economy, now that it's bad we do."

McCain hasn't stopped about talking about a balanced budget... and you can cut your way to a balanced budet.  You really can.  If your willing to cut ties politically.

Also, Obama really was endorsed by Fidel Castro and Hamas.  Isn't that new worthy?

I think the Hamas one is true (was withdrawn shortly afterwards), but Fidel Castro isn't even in office, so there is no weight behind his endorsement assuming it was made in the first place.

But did these people ever stop to think maybe if we didn't elect leaders who the rest of the world hated and do things that made the rest of the world hate us that those countries would have no reason to attack us?

When did terrorism take off?  Once we started poking our dick around in the Middle East in the Gulf War and with the whole Iran Contra fiasco.  Did you hear about terrorism before that?  No.  It pisses people off when you fuck around with their countries just to manipulate them either directly or indirectly (which is generally the perception of the foreign country even if that isn't true).

And whatever happened to the ideals of the Monroe Doctrine?  Why the hell are we sticking our dick in so many different places, especially when it involves miliatry force?  Bonds formed between countries based on economic relations are far more stable in the years to come than bonds based on military relations. 

Just look at how our relationship with Russia collapsed right after WWII because we got into a pissing contest with them over who could blow up the world more times over and indoctrinate more countries with an ideology.

The Hamas one is true.  Was withdrawn... not shortly after... it took a few weeks of Obama talking up Israel.  The Castro one did exist too...

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0508/Castro_blasts_and_praises_Obama.html

I heard of terrorism before the gulf war.  Though we also screwed around in the middle east a lot before then as well.  I mean Kennedy for one set up Iraq for genocide.  Nixon I think was another who screwed around in Iraq.  There are probably more.

The Gulf War was actually a good war... even most of the middle east wanted Iraq stopped.  Including Iran.  They were happy we got involved there.

Our relationship with Russia collapsed right after WW2?  Our relationship wasn't great with Russia during WW2 other then having a common enemy.  Aside from which... the USSR was a horrible inhumane regime that was likely at least as bad as Nazi Germany.

Stalin has a much worse head count then Hitler.

Amusingly though I do think the current president should meet with Hamas.  Democratically elected government and all.

Actually, if you look at the history of terrorist acts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents) there are lots of terrorist incidents that started happening in the 1800s ...

In the 1970s international terrorism really started to take off (primarly) because mass communication allowed people to become much more interested in the world outside of their borders. In a large part due to the "Immoral" and "Excessive" lifestyle that Americans live (and because of their massive cultural influence on the world) they became the scape-goat for everything that people saw entering into their culture that they did not like.

Through most of Bill Clinton's presidency there were terrorist attacks against the United States of America and his presidency was (mostly) free of any form of intervention in other countries affairs; in fact, George W. Bush was on track to become just another care-taker (do nothing) president when Terrorists attacked the world trade center on 9-11.

The fact is that international terrorism has far more to do with the internal politics of other cultures (in particular fundimental islamic nations) than it has to do with the acts of the United States.

My point on the Gulf War is more that we left troops stationed on holy land after the war was over, which REALLY pissed a lot of people off.  That is why Osama bin Laden, who supported and fought with the support of the US before then, became a terrorist.  Its really risk to leave troops in a foreign country, ESPECIALLY when religion gets involved.  This was really one of the core reasons behind the big rise in Jihad in the last decade or two.

The Iran Contra thing was just bad all around.

I am not in the least bit surprised we have been messing around in the Middle East that long either for political or finacial reasons or both.

I agree the USSR was a a horrible regime, but I guarantee relations between the US and the USSR would have been a lot smoother if we were mutually dependent on each other's economies.

A modern corollary is the US and China.  China still does a lot of questionable things, and their record on human rights and abiding by a modern standard of law in which people aren't unreasonably accused of things they didn't commit and given almost no chance to exonerate themselves is just plain awful.  Hell, if you deny that you committed a crime they take it like you have insulted the government in claiming that the government could make a mistake.  This is gradually improving, but there is still a lot of work to do.

The US does plenty of questionable things too, for that matter, we just see things through our own form of shaded goggles.

But the US and China get along pretty well.  You know why?  Because our economy's are intertwined.  We can't fuck with them and they can't fuck with us because it will fuck both of us.  That is really the best part of the global free market.  This is why we really don't even need to get involved militarily in the Middle East.  Its like trying to build a network of ropes that bind you together with a hammer.  Its just not the most effective way to do it.