Norm Coleman endorses a liar for President

[Update: see below]

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) switched candidates now that Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the Republican Presidential race. He backed Giuliani because he looked like the front-runner. Now he's switched to the currently annointed front-runner, John McCain.

"I have had the honor to work with John McCain since I first entered the senate in 2002. He is an effective leader who is the best person to lead the fight against radical Islamic extremism," said Senator Coleman. "John McCain is a committed conservative who will lower our taxes, stop wasteful government spending, and reduce the size of government. I am proud to support John McCain for president."

John McCain thanked Senator Coleman for his support, saying, "Norm Coleman is a friend with whom I enjoy working in the senate. He is a results-oriented leader who has served the people of Minnesota with honor and integrity. I am honored to have his support."
(race 2008)

So Norm switched from front-runner to front-runner and is anyone surprised? He switched from a man who placed NYC's emergency management center in WTC7 building despite many warnings from his advisors to a man who sing's "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." He switched from a candidate legendary for his petty resentments to a man legendary for his mendacity. He switched from a a man whose campaign theme was "noun, verb and 9/11" to a man who named his campaign bus the "Straight Talk Express" yet stretches the facts beyond any plausibility on a regular basis.

Actually, McCain probably is a better match. Both men will say anything to win an election. Both men regularly contradict previous statements they've made. Both men state some amazingly laughable lies and expect people to believe them. Here's a few of McCain's lies. You may seem some parrallels.

McCain biggest, latest lie is about Iraq. He now claims we could be there 100 years. You all may recall that Norm has said we're going to be there a "long, long time." McCain says he's sorry people thought that it would be an easy task. Of course, he was one of those people. Now he's ignoring his previous cheerleading lies.

In fact, during the run-up to war in 2002 and 2003, McCain repeatedly described the prospects of war in the rosiest terms, declaring the U.S. would "win easily":

"Because I know that as successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women." [CNN, 9/24/02]

"We're not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we're not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies." [CNN, 9/29/02]

"But the point is that, one, we will win this conflict. We will win it easily." [MSNBC, 1/22/03]

(Think Progress)

Captain Ed, a conservative blogger, talks about McCain's lies at the recent Republican debate about Romney's position on withdrawal from Iraq.

McCain not only looked old and tired, constantly leaning on his arms and speaking in a monotone, he made a very poor showing in trying to falsely stretch a Romney quote from April into an endorsement of a withdrawal. That's not only ridiculous, it's blatantly a smear. As I pointed out earlier, John McCain in January 2007 actually did talk about ending the mission if surge milestones didn't get met by the Iraqi government, making this a pretty dumb choice for a line in the sand. And even Anderson Cooper had to talk over John McCain to tell him he got it wrong.
(Captain's Quarters)

This may be the one thing they don't have in common. Norm would never lie about an opponent, would he?

Here's another McCain lie about Iraq:

"There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today."
(Dreams of Liberty)

He failed to mention that he walked through this neighborhood with about 100 heavily armed soldiers, a few tanks and several helicopter gunships to provide him security. Actually, Norm's done the same thing.

He lies about economic issues, too.

One of the most common-supply-side talking points is that tax cuts always lead to higher tax revenues. It's not really true (revenues crashed after the 2001 Bush tax cuts) but even if it were, it's misleading: Tax revenues tend to rise over time as a natural result of inflation, rising population, and economic growth. Taken at its face value, the supply-side logic would imply that tax hikes always cause revenue to fall, which is ridiculous on its face, and which explains why supply-siders never mention this silly corrollary to their claim.

Until now! John McCain is a recent convert to supply-side economics and still working on getting the talking points down. Speaking yesterday in South Carolina, the straight talker:

proclaimed himself a believer in the notion that cutting taxes increases revenue for the government by spurring economic growth. "Don't listen to this siren song about cutting taxes," Mr. McCain told supporters gathered here under a tent in a driving rain. "Every time in history we have raised taxes it has cut revenues."

What? Every time? Okay, how about we go back and look at the last time taxes were raised -- 1993. It's true that conservatives predicted revenue would fall as a result of the tax hike. (Typical quote: "Higher taxes will shrink the tax base and reduce tax revenues" -- Newt Gingrich.) But it didn't exactly work out that way:

(The New Republic)

Ron Paul exposes McCain's lies at Faux News Debate.

Actually, Norm and McCain perfect for each other, don't you think?

[Update:

Jane Hamscher at firedoglake perfectly pulls together all that McCain stands for:

McCain can't open his mouth without saying these two contradictory things -- we should've had more troops in Iraq, and we were spending too much money. Nobody ever calls him on it.

But with this embrace of "magical economics," he really does prove he's a conservative.
(McCain's Maverick Gibberish)

Doesn't this sound similar to Norm? It's kinda freaky if you ask me ... they both so casually make such blatantly contradictory statements. How is it that their heads don't explode from the cognitive dissonance? O yea ... that's right, they're Republicans.