Dude, This Thing Is Just Getting Started By: Mark W Adams

GeeBus, is it possible that Armando is wrong again, as usual? He really needs to go back to strictly law blogging and leave the purely political analysis to someone who knows WTF they're talking about.

Believing McCain has more or less jumped the shark with his reverse swift boat maneuver on Wes Clark and Jim Webb, here's the latest wisdom from on High Atop the Big Tent, believing the faux outrage vis-a-vis "Ace" McCain's tendency to crash jets being a qualifier for the White House backfired, or at least it will.

The more I think about it, the more I think McCain may have lost all chance to win the election this week.

Me, I tend to be a bit more inquisitive before making pronouncements based on no more evidence than what emerges from my rectum, pointing at it and saying, "Eureka, a cure for cancer!" For instance, those who read tea leaves would be well advised to check out exactly what significance McCain's new campaign manager, a veteran smear merchant from the Rove/Atwater/Machiavelli school of goonery, might have on the tone of the campaign.

One might also ponder whether hitching up with the actual Swift Boat boys is a feature, not a bug, of the new direction McCain & Co. is going.

Ironically, Armando notes that McCain has no choice but to go seriously negative to have a hope. I agree, and evidently so do the Republicans. After all, it's what they do. But reading the tea leaves is not what Armando does well in any way whatsoever. Last February 10th, the very same day Hillary Clinton changed campaign managers, Armando had some Theories about how the nomination would play out. Maggie Williams taking over the campaign did not play into those predictions

Note that at that point, when Patti Stolis Doyle was ousted from the Clinton campaign and Obama was already ahead in the delegate count -- never to look back -- and in the middle of streak of eleven straight unanswered wins, Armando said, "Clinton is still the favorite for the nomination."

Fail!

Clinton was in trouble, and she knew it -- and went negative. McCain knows he's in trouble and just like he did when his primary run looked doomed he, like Clinton, changed campaign managers. He's doing it again and there is no doubt he'll be going more negative than Clinton did.

I'm not saying that going negative will win McCain the election. Boy I hope not. But it will serve, as it did Clinton, to keep him competitive. It's a desperate act to be sure, but it's been successful in the past.

I will put down my tinfoil hat long enough to say that the last week's distractions may have been more about keeping the rubes from really analyzing McCain's dismal military record than the start of the real mudslinging. There's no way they want to talk about McCain's tendency to crash planes and blow up aircraft carriers, and have his daddy the Admiral bail him out -- or his tendency to sing like a songbird whenever his captors fed him a cracker.

The GOP may have figured that the Democrats just don't have the stomach for a messy fight, and with this latest assault ensured that real scrutiny of McCain's military career is also "off the table" since it will make what they did to John Kerry seem even more outrageous -- if that's possible.

Even more amusement: Armando also predicted on February 10th that in 2012, Clinton will lose her reelection bid, after passing universal health care (What? Backlash for not waiting until the end of her second term like she promised?) to Bobby "The Exorcist" Jindal.

Interestingly enough, this came only two days after Jindal's name was first put out there by Rush Limbaugh as a possible VP choice for McCain. Now we know where Armando gets his talking points.