Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiWill the real John McCain stand up? Actually, I don't expect him to, now that he is the Republican presidential candidate, pandering to the irrationalities that drive his party. Nor is it likely that the fawning mass media will pressure him to the point of clarity. But I remain genuinely confused as to what makes him tick.
McCain is the most confounding of candidates, veering as he does from the stance of provincial reaction to sophisticated enlightenment within an almost instantaneous time frame. He did it last week, when he blasted Barack Obama for being soft in appraising America's adversaries while in the same moment, calling for sensible rapprochement with Vladimir Putin's Russia on nuclear arms control. While such unpredictability can be appealing in a senator, it is unnerving in a possible president.
Unpredictability is welcome as evidence of fresh thinking, but not when it suggests inconsistencies that may be born more of crass opportunism than of insight. There are major contradictions in the McCain America has witnessed over the years that are truly troubling.
One is squaring the Mr.-Clean-of-the-Senate McCain, who teamed up with the remarkably principled Democrat Russ Feingold to sponsor historic campaign finance legislation, with the McCain who has brought big money lobbyists into the center of his Senate office and campaign operation. Those connections with the Beltway bandits remind one that McCain was previously one of the "Keating Five"-senators whose support of deregulation, a code word for undermining legitimate government oversight of business shenanigans facilitated the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s and '90s. Not a happy association, at a time when the consequences of bank deregulation surfaces as the subprime mortgage lending scandal that is wrecking the U.S. economy.
Then there is the heroic-warrior McCain, who rose above his own wounds to team up with fellow Vietnam War hero, Democrat John Kerry, to pave the way for normalization of relations with Vietnam. McCain had the courage to reach out to Hanoi, despite a very strong domestic opposition that accused him of betraying the MIAs left behind in Vietnam by negotiating with the former enemy. The subsequent progress on that issue, where U.S. teams could more freely investigate plane crash sites in Vietnam, vindicated McCain, who has favored other diplomatic overtures, including a controversial suggestion of meeting with Hamas. Yet he now attacks Obama for saying he would meet with the leaders of Iran.
On a related point, it is difficult to square the ex-POW's unequivocal condemnation of torture with his accommodation to President Bush's torture policy. Holding Senate hearings on torture, McCain brought the weight of his own experiences against the administration's flimsy rationalizations. He even held to that principled position during the early primaries, but then ended up voting for legislation that has helped make torture legal, at least in the eyes of the president.
The third major gap between the principled-Sen. McCain and the presidential candidate McCain concerns his stance toward the military-industrial complex that has seized upon the fearmongering in post 9/11 America to justify the biggest peacetime military budget in any nation's history. As a senator, McCain was a rare and forceful voice against enormous waste in the military budget for programs designed to fight an enemy that no longer existed and which could not be justified in the name of fighting terrorism. Thanks in part to McCain's vigilance, a defense contracting scandal he exposed resulted in a Pentagon procurement officer and the CFO of Boeing being sentenced to federal prison, when it was revealed that the Air Force was leasing unneeded air tankers at an initial cost of $30 billion.
It was not the first time that McCain had risen on the Senate floor to accuse the Pentagon of being in cahoots with defense industry lobbyists, and he does deserve high marks for being one of the few members of Congress willing to hold the military-industrial complex accountable. But we hear little from that McCain these days as he goes on and on praising a pointless war in Iraq that has become the main excuse for wasting trillions in so-called defense dollars.
This last is the deal breaker. It is simply not possible to be a genuine small-government-give-taxpayers-a-break president while planning to pour trillions more down the rat hole of failed imperial adventures.
Robert Scheer is the author, most recently, of "The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America," to be published this week by Twelve Books.
Copyright © 2008 Truthdig, L.L.C.
48 Comments so far
Show AllOK, go to a place McCain is and take a picture off his pants. He, I am sure and I can't find the shot has DEPENDS on. He is an very easily controlled very sick old person who is in free fall.
Watch his speeches, he is so scripted he is out of it so much.
QUESTION
With all the smart Reps in America ( there is a few) this is the best they can come up with? I feel the Reps WANT to sit the next election out and set up the DEMS big time. OR they know Hilary will be Pres after Obama well you know.....
Thanks, Siouxrose. I think you're right, but I also think the 'Great Wheel' is gradually turning. For example: I read about six or eight months ago that Hollywood studios were green-lighting scripts that featured 1960s-style 'anti-heroes' who were against war and violence. Apparently the big blood 'n' guts, shoot-em-up epics like Rambo and tough-guy films glorifying war are starting to lose money, even in the international market. And the high-paid male action stars of the last couple of decades aren't being offered the kind of money they were making even a few years ago. The highest-paid male actor last year -- and this surprised me -- was Will Ferrell.
While it will take awhile before we beat our swords into plowshares, times are definitely a-changin' -- I never thought we'd have a serious black presidential candidate in my lifetime and here we are.
RSJ: Excellent posting and analysis of Bush/McCain. The larger, more evocative question may be WHY the American public resonates with this behavior as PROOF of STRENGTH! It's because Hollywood has so glamorized the image of warrior, while sports has championed the modern day equivalent of merciless gladiator, while religion has applauded WAR against infidels (or the current "enemy" du jour), while media has made these characteristics appear as leadership material. The US needs a cosmic enema, time to get rid of the detritus that allots to MARS a worship that only translates to the recurrent cycles of slaughter.
IF our nation began to destroy all its weapons, if it turned its overseas bases into shelters for the poor, and put the same energy into peace pacts that it puts into war planning, strategy, deployment (and then the NEED to restock all that used of inventory, by developing the next "generation" of lethal weapons, each one more gruesome and efficient in its mandate to KILL or maim) we'd see even NATURE turn around to provide us with a time cushion to enact more sane sustainable technologies.
The priorities of so-called leaders are bankrupt and setting so much to die, processes in accelerating if still slow, motion. But the people have been trained like Pavlov's dogs to see in the most despicable traits PROOF of leadership! Therein lies the poison in the paradigm!
John C [June 5th, 2008 7:14 pm], I see nothing wrong with McCain getting treatment either, but it doesn't fit the Big Media profile of a War Hero. To put it another way, what if the POW had been John Kerry instead of John McCain, and he had given more than his name, rank and serial number in return for medical treatment to alleviate his physical pain? What would the BM say about that these days? Wouldn't we have had the Hanoi Hilton Vets for Truth conducting right-wing funded attacks on that 'weak Dem traitor' Kerry?
dmgreenaz [June 5th, 2008 7:16 pm] wrote: "Beholden to the people would be nice, so long as they don't want wars for oil."
I heard on the radio the other day that it's reaching the point where it's not worth it to bring the oil out of the ground. To paraphrase Michael Corleone, the oil cartels are finished, even they know that. That's why BP and some other companies are jumping on the Green Energy bandwagon, trying desperately to figure out how to make a profit from wind, solar and hydrogen. BTW, you read that GM closed four of its SUV plants recently and Toyota is now the number one car company on the planet? Toyota pioneered the hybrid car, and you have to get on a list to buy one in my area. It's the only model that's backlogged.
amitola [June 5th, 2008 11:40 pm] Junior Bush shows signs of the classic sociopathic personality, and McCain shows signs of it as well. Here's a quote from Dr. Justin A. Frank, from a Buzzflash interview last year:
"I think what he [Bush] does is he turns everybody who disagrees with him into his father. It doesn't matter whether it's actually the concrete representation of his father, like Baker, or the voters who vote against staying in Iraq. We have become his father. We are the people he is now defying. He will turn everybody, any authority, anybody who disagrees with him, into a father figure who he'd have to defy."
-- Justin A. Frank, M.D.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/049
"A sociopath is someone (to grossly generalize) who exhibits external and surface empathy and amiability, but internally cannot actually empathize with the pain and suffering of others. In fact, a sociopath may take hidden pleasure in being able to cause emotional distress, suffering, and even death to others, while -- on a day to day basis -- appearing as Mr. Affability."
-- From the Buzzflash interview introduction.
Notice that Bush seems to come alive whenever he's talking about inflicting pain, humiliation or death, and he has no problem pronouncing his words, either.
"Bush is not an imbecile. He's not a puppet. I think that Bush is a sociopathic personality. I think he's incapable of empathy. He has an inordinate sense of his own entitlement, and he's a very skilled manipulator. And in all the snickering about his alleged idiocy, this is what a lot of people miss."
-- Mark Crispin Miller, from "Bush Anything But Moronic, According to Author," Common Dreams, Nov. 28, 2002.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1128-02.htm
Mr. McCain, as well as his buds, Cheney/Bush et al, suffer from mental illness - or, rather I should say, all of us suffer because of their mental illnesses.
McCain and Bush in particular, both have Daddy problems, which caused them to try to a) overachieve (in McCain's case) or, b) to underachieve (in Bush's case). In each case, they failed. They are sociopaths, plain and simple.
Neither has a conscience, they have paranoid tendencies, they tend to be authoritarian, etc. I can't remember all the signs - but you can look them up - trust me, these are sick puppies. And both of them are being manipulated by even worse folks (Cheney, Bush crime family, Rove, etc.).
I'm betting Johnny will display his rage in a very public way or have a complete breakdown during the campaign. Either way, the neo-cons will have one of their own waiting in the wings to be their real standard bearer.
>>dmgreenaz [June 5th, 2008 6:43 pm], that must mean that Obama is beholden to the people, since he's gotten all of his money from individual conributions, most of it in donations under $200.
Beholden to the people would be nice, so long as they don't want wars for oil.
"McCain had the courage to reach out to Hanoi, despite a very strong domestic opposition that accused him of betraying the MIAs left behind in Vietnam by negotiating with the former enemy"
It is also said of McCain that he does not relish the thought of ressurected MIA's appearing to tell of his "cooperation" with enemy propaganda in return for better treatment and hospital care.
Of course, to be honest about it, I see nothing wrong with a POW cooperating to avoid torture or denial of hospital care. Self preservation trumps loyalty to the military, in my opinion. It is digusting for the military to try to deny that primordial human drive to a POW. In fact, the Congree ought to prohibit the military from making such demand.
jesusofjonesboro [June 4th, 2008 10:54 am] wrote: "Any understanding of John McCain must begin with one major realization: the man is just not that bright."
An aspect of McCain that our fawning Big Media have yet to cover -- he's actually a dope.
canuckchuck [June 4th, 2008 12:45 pm] wrote: "either McCain is a political slime bag that bends over any way the big money or chance at high office requires, or he is an Alzhiemer's ridden former leader who had forgotten his way."
I pick option A, Chuck -- his record shows that his entire political career has been advertising himself as a 'maverick' who works for the public against special interests in Washington but, when his contributors need him, he's Johnny on the spot, using his influence to ram through bills or heckling FCC commissioners.
NateW [June 4th, 2008 4:08 pm], I think McCain will lose a lot of votes to Barr. Libertarian Republicans who despise the Christopublicans and the neocons, only putting up with them when the party was winning, will drop McCainiac like a turdblossom this time around. In fact, I have a tough time finding anyone who really likes McCain besides the Big Media and Bush. As Tweety Bird Matthews said of McCain and the BM, "We're his base."
Thomas More [June 4th, 2008 5:17 pm] wrote: "I would suggest that Rudy, Romney, Huckabee and the Republican party don't think he's stupid. Think back to last year about this time. Where was McCain? Where is he now."
McCain was flying Coach and carrying his own bags just before New Hampshire, and then there was a sudden miracle infusion of money and lobbyists to run his campaign. Then he got big play in the NH media, after nearly being forgotten. While no Big Media outlet has covered this, where did that money and that press coverage come from, especially when many were saying McCain was the weakest candidate? I agree with Siouxrose [June 4th, 2008 6:31 pm], I think it's likely that the Bush Family arranged for both the money and the media to go to McCain -- perhaps they want him to lose in a landslide in 2008 to make way for Brother Jeb in 2012 -- then Jeb can blame it all on the Dems, after they've cleaned up some of Junior's mess.
Thomas More [June 4th, 2008 5:17 pm] wrote: "Don't underestimate this guy like Hillary underestimated Obama. And Mark Penn isn't running his campaign."
No, but Charlie Black, who works for Mark Penn and has close ties to the Bush Family, is running his campaign.
SDnative [June 4th, 2008 8:26 pm], why not just vote for Ralph Nader in those states where Obama is a lock, as an email from Nader's campaign suggested in 2000, a week before the election?
daveg [June 4th, 2008 9:44 pm] maybe the racists will vote for Obama's white half. Things are much different than they were in 2000 or 2004 and the people have noticed and are waking up. once they get to know Obama, they'll see him as sane and sensible, as opposed to the goofy flip-flops of McCain. All Obama has to do to win is keep running an ad with that shot of McCain hugging the worst president in history.
dmgreenaz [June 5th, 2008 6:43 pm], that must mean that Obama is beholden to the people, since he's gotten all of his money from individual conributions, most of it in donations under $200.
I think the meat thermometer is already in McCain's goose and it's registering 225F -- he's a terrible campaigner and in debate with the cool and collected Obama, he's going to look like a shaky, confused old man, not up to the job. He may even fly into a rage and sink himself.
'Tax and Spend Liberals'
- or - '
Don't Tax and Spend on War Conservatives'
Both are beholding to the contributors that elected them.
So, will we chose Tick or Tock to wind the corporate clock?
"I remain genuinely confused as to what makes him tick"
McCain can be described in one encompensing phrase: - "a power seeking, unpredictable, loose cannon, with big balls, in lieu of brains"
If you apply that phrase to everything you have read about John McCain, it fits.
I do not consider McCain's flip-flops (documented here http://youtube.com/watch?v=9H_Lb2XWjDQ ) either as "crass opportunism" or Alzheimers. I think, rather, he has a chaotic mind and sees no need to reconcile what he said yesterday with what he's saying today, simply because he does not see any difference between the two--even if they're separated by 180 degrees. Remember Orwell's concept "Doublehink"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink
That's McCain. And it's nothing new.
What makes McCain tick? Ask the NSA.
The way he underwent such a bizarre personality change after the 2000 election can probably be explained by sifting through the dirt the Bush administration dug up on him and others once they started spying on their own countrymen. Rather than face exposure and disgrace from his former political rival, he allowed his "good name" to be cheaply bought and used to lend legitimacy and an appearance of appeal to moderates to the current administration.
It must be hard for him, after having sold out so badly, to never be quite sure whether or not he's re-earned their good graces or their further contempt.
Republicans know they have no chance of holding the Whitehouse this election (through any normal means, that is). By allowing McCain to run and lose the fascists at least manage to "purify" the GOP and push it further right.
"Damien Thorn / Joe Lieberman in 2012"
Like many presidential aspirants, McCain thinks, acts and speaks in terms of demographics and voting blocs. So that is one key to understanding him. Another key, I believe, is that he apparently reads The New York Times, religiously. This sets him apart from most of his fellow Republicans, and helps account for his maverick streak. Also, as a result of his terrible suffering as a POW, he may well be convinced he was destined for greater things. And, finally, like many in the GOP, he seems to have a genuine belief in the moral superiority of Republicans, accompanied by a genuine (if self-righteous) disdain for Democrats.
Mahalo Siouxrose! And I just got back from the dentist (cleaning only), but the metaphor is apt.
Rinse, spit.
At least McCain is a straight shooter and told us his plan: 100 years in lraq and bomb,bomb,bomb,bomb lran..._
He's going to win, you know. There's no f*cking way the American people are going to elect a black guy named Hussein. The Karl Rove types on the republican side are spoiling their trousers in anticipation of stirring up the idiots with attack ads. This is going to be the meanest, nastiest campaign ever, and in the end we're going to have crazy President McNasty.
OPELU... dang! It's that tricky retrograde Mercury... I am making lots of typos! I mean you WAX lyrical... lo siento!
WSWS.org: Funny posting, more like tragi-comedy. Makes me think of a scene where all the old senators can't even HEAR the proceedings in a film done of Vonnegut's writings, "From Time to Timbuktu."
OPELUBOY: You was lyrical this eve...
As per the expression "the nation gets the leadership it deserves" this sure is a bi-polar moment! I mean even if their policies are not both influenced by big money/clandestine elites on their FACES one is an angry warrior... which certainly speaks to a sad proportion of our national demographic. The other speaks of hope, a unified nation, a new version of "I had a dream." Given that our nation IS involved in several nightmares of its own making, that DREAM feels good. Now maybe we'll wake up to greater demons only to find no escape in dreams, but I'd take just about anything over McCain... the guy is a loose canon and we've already seen too much of the world turned to senseless fodder.
Thanks to this forum and MANY marvelous writers (including the actual authors of the articles) I realize how deep into this darkness American history goes. Do we have a better shot waking from our bloated sense of exceptionalism with a maniac at the helm, or using the analogy of going to the dentist, if there's rot that has to come out, do we opt for the anesthesia?
All I can say is after watching his feeble, embarrassing speech last night I am nearly drooling in anticipation of him having to share the same stage with Obama. Young, sharp, informed and charismatic man with a resonant baritone vs. old man yells at cloud.
And now for equal time, here is Senator John McCain retorting.
SENATOR MCCAIN: My wife is consorting? With who?! Goddammit, I'll kick his ass!
Schadenfreude, n. satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone's else's misfortune (Schaden-harm + Freude-joy)
FrederickJohnson,
I never knew how to say it but you framed it rather well. Frankly, I'm so sick and tired of the Democrats playing slacker and then losing again and again. Shit, I'm surprised they "won" in 2006 though I'd say it was a fluke. Just look at the way they've moved further to the right of the GOP.
Has spending gone down in Iraq? Every time a spending request from the president comes through, the Democrats give in as if they were the GOP.
Have our civil liberties come back from the siege? Certainly not what with the "Patriot" Acts I and II getting strengthened and giving spying powers to the president and the corporate interests.
Has Big Government stopped giving corporate welfare checks known as those silly tax rebates/cuts? Oh yeah, I'm sure a few hundred dollars of a tax rebate will ease the fucking housing crisis ! And why is Donald Trump getting richer? And why no push to repeal the Bankruptcy Overhaul in 2005? Oops, I forgot, the Democrats caved in and supported it big time !
And what about curbing "free" trade? The Democrats made it clear that they're for more NAFTA having passed one controversial "free" trade extension of NAFTA after another especially Columbia.
Anyone who wants to lecture me about the need for Democrats to take control of both the White House and Congress should taken a gun, stick up its ass, and pull the fucking trigger !!
VOTENADER.ORG !!!!
AMERICA: John McCain, America is calling you!
JOHN MCCAIN: ... Eh? ... What's that you say, young feller? Can you speak up a bit.
AMERICA: Sir, what we said is -- America is calling you!
JOHN MC CAIN: No, she's not in, she's out getting her hair done.
AMERICA: No, no-no, Senator. What we -- the people -- are saying is that AMERICA IS CALLING YOU!
JOHN MCCAIN: Would I like some tofu? No, never touch the stuff. Gives me the runs.
AMERICA: No, no-no. (Exasperated): Fer crissakes, we're calling you, Senator. AMERICA IS CALLING YOU! ... you doddering old fool, you!
JOHN MCCAIN: You have a sample of my stool? Well, where the *hell* did you get that from? Goddamn that National Enquirer, have they been looking up my ass again?
AMERICA: Oh, Jesus H., we give up. ... OK, so America *isn't* calling you. ... It's actually your proctologist. He says you're #1. Unfortunately, you're also #2.
JOHN MCCAIN: I have a bad case of the flu? So *that's* why I'm mainlining Robutussin! I'm all futzed up, ain't I?
AMERICA: You sure are. You're hopeless, you know that.
JOHN MCCAIN: Oprah is fat? Ain't she though. When she moves that ass, take cover, soldier.
AMERICA: Operator, please ... just cancel the call, k?
Once again, I would suggest that in order to understand some of the "waffling" of John McBush, one needs to digest the machinations that the disciples of the University of Chicago Graduate school of Economics (under the guideance of the late Milton Friedman et al) as Naomi Klein has so thoroughly and precisely laid out in her book "Shock Doctrine". John McCain is certainly one of the followers of that sect which seeks to run not only our own country, but the world through their globalization policies and their disaster capitalism and their process of privitization of everything for the benefit of the wealthy few - - it's the prescribed method of the neo-con gang of thieves and thugs!
Dave A, 5:20pm post bears re-reading and deserves our rapt attention.
He's right. It is the rage.
It is huge rage, all-consuming, and ever-present, hiding just below that affable facade he shows the press. It is a tremendous struggle for him to keep it under the surface. You can see how difficult it is for him when he gets questions from reporters that infuriate him (both the reporters, whom I've noticed are usually women--maybe this is just a coincidence--and the questions). The scariest part is when he shows his teeth while enraged and that nerve in his cheek tics. He thinks he is smiling, but it is a creepy expression that reminds me of sociopath characters in movies I've seen. Dave: "More than [any] other candidate in living memory, McCain is an ego-ticking time bomb, desperately trying heal his fragmented psyche by taking up residence in the only mental institution worthy of his self-importance — the White House.
Like Nixon, it's likely McCain will fully explode there if enough voters are crazy enough to check him in."
It is suicide to allow this emotionally crippled man to hold the office of the President of the United States. He will prove irrational, perhaps lethally so. He's so much more volatile than Nixon. (I can't believe I said that.)
McCain is a stiff! I don't know if he has a shoulder or elbow problem, but check-out the way he holds the microphone when he speaks; it looks like he's ready to salute or take flight at any moment. Also, take note of his phony smile when makes a remark about Obama...every muscle in his face and neck just screams superficiality!
McCain's entire posture wreaks of "inflexibility". And let's not forget that the mind and body work as a unit; one cannot function without the other. Contrast McCain's posture with the "fluidity" of Barak Obama and ask yourself which candidate is more likely to listen to the opinions of others.
What we don't need is another inflexible dictator running this country.
Souixrose has it dead on. Even as we kvetch, Newt Gingrich is in the grasp/employ of both the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute studying the fund raising machine Obama and his people put together. Newt's message in 2012 will be well organized, well funded and well received by the American boob-wa-zee. The propaganda from the mouths of the corporate hirelings who fill our tv screens will be non-stop in carrying out their assignment to discredit the democrats...and it will work.
Danforth *thinks* merwan is a drunken flith.
merwan,
YOU sound like an obsessed filth and a drunk one at that.. Daniel David is right. You're trying to discredit him is just pile of sh*# in itself.
You need to go learn more before concluding like rest of your kind on thinking you can clean your crackhole better than others.
The American Peasant,
Thank you.
I just learned alot from your posting...
McBrainfarts is old and confused. Once you understand this, you understand his snuffling.
This is the best the Republicans can do? If this evil moron is elected, all hope for reason and sanity in this country is lost. Will the real McCain stand up? No. Sit down and shut up!
THE AMERICAN PEASANT: And how Republicans love a winner! If the public only knew of the details of your account. Or is McCain being tossed into the fire because the Republicans are going to take a strategic time-out and let the SHIT fall on who's ever NOW in office. Americans have such short attention-spans, it'll be so much fun for Rove and his pals to see citizens blame OBAMA for the Iraqi debacle, the broken US treasury, the years wasted on NOT investing in green infrastructure, the continued melt-down based on the sub-prime debacle, etc ad nausuem.
DAVE A: Great analysis.
DOOM & GLOOM: Excellent punch line!
John McCain was forced on the naval academy by his father, Admiral McCain. He finsihed at the bottom of his class. He hot-started his jet,cooking off a rocket from the jet parked behind him, then freaked out and dropped his fuel tank on the deck of the USS Forrestal resaulting in a conflagration that killed 132 of our own sailors. His father immediately transferred him to another ship where he wasn't known.He lost 4 jets while in service, the last being when he got himself shot down over Hanoi after dropping a bunch of napalm on Asian children. He failed to exit the jet according to instructions, resulting in the damage to his collar bones. Being afraid of torture from the Vietnamese for his war crimes, he sang a song (wrote and recorded)for them 32 times. He was called "the songbird of Hanoi". He served divorce papers on his cancer-ridden wife that he could marry a rich Jewess who might help his career. He takes instructions from Joe Leiberman, a Zionist shill if ever there was one,and two days a ago he prostrated himself before the very same Zionists at AIPAC who ordered the attack on those defenseless American boys on board the USS Liberty. It is no wonder. After Israelis surrounded and murdered our sailors, wounding and crippling an additional 170, Admiral McCain personaly threatened the survivors with prison if they talked about that Zionist Jew stab in the back. John McCain (the son)is an incompetent, drooling fool of the lowest order. There isn't enough perfume in the whole world to cover up the stink of a turd like John McCain.
FrederickJohnson, do you have any idea what "schadenfreude" means?
I never claimed that McCain's campaign is fading.
Obama's "campaign people" did not make race an issue in the Democratic primary campaign; Hillary's folks - specifically Geraldin Ferraro did so.
And BTW, the words "populist," "progressive," and "liberal" do not necessarily belong together.
jj
jesusofjonesboro, "Daniel David", et al,
If you really think Mccain is going to fade, I have bad news for you. In red state America, efforts have and continue to be made to further bolster the "evangelical" turnout. In addition, the media is out there defending him even more than they defended Bush and even Reagan back in the 1980s. And let's not forget that for the last 3 decades, the cons have perfected their framing and spin to get more voters stuck to their way of thinking so that they'll even blindly vote GOP no matter what the candidate's made of. In the meantime, for the last 3 decades, the Left has drowned themselves with SCHADENFREUDE. Bread and circuses may be fun, but nothing beats coming out with a real populist progressive/liberal agenda and going on the offensive with it. Let's see if Obama can do that this fall rather than stick to letting his campaign people make "race" an issue which worked in the primaries but would TORPEDO his candidacy come November should he stay that course.
Look - McCain does what he's told by the Rove Election Stealing Inc. Stop trying to analyze him already, it's not worth it.
If there were a large number "real" conservatives left, Congressman Ron Paul would be the GOPathological's candidate. He's not, which tells us all we need to know about the "party" of war crimes, massive theft and Constitution-hating.
Needing to use the presidency for his own personal healing is what makes McCain tick - this and a sense of elitist entitlement that strike me as worse than even Hillary's.
Beyond this and his tendency to violent rages - which he publicly camoulfages with help from the press - McCain's positions on the issues (always wrong but constantly shifting within the wrongness) are what ought to show the electorate his unfitnes to hold public power at any level.
More than another other candidate in living memory, McCain is an ego-ticking time bomb, desperately trying heal his fragmented psyche by taking up residence in the only mental institution worthy of his self-importance -- the White House.
Like Nixon, it's likely McCain will fully explode there if enough voters are crazy enough to check him in.
I would suggest that Rudy, Romney, Huckabee and the Republican party don't think he's stupid. Think back to last year about this time. Where was McCain? Where is he now.
Don't underestimate this guy like Hillary underestimated Obama. And Mark Penn isn't running his campaign.
McCain politically prostituted himself so much to those and their friends whom in 2000 he called correctly "Agents of Intolerance" in order to gain the Repug nomination this time around as to render him a choice behind the slime bag whom the Libertarians nominated, Bob Barr. Simply put, McCain sold his political soul for a chance to run in 2008. Like a character out of a Dante story, he will rue doing so for the rest of his days...unless the Alzheimers takes over.
It's simple, the right wing hates him, they think he's a "lefty". So he's bending over backwards to appease them. Unforntunately for McCain, he's in a lose-lose situation. If he goes back to being a "lefty", the party base abandons him. If he remains on the right, Obama skewers him for being like Bush.
I was for McCain in 2000, but watching him now is kind of like watching that horrible news report a few years back about the guy who'd had a bomb strapped around his neck, and all anyone could do was stay clear and wait for the clock to run out.
The man didn't learn a thing in his cage, and never should have been let out.
McCain represents the wrong policies in the wrong Century. He will be widely renounced in this election. This old dog can't even do his old tricks.
either McCain is a political slime bag that bends over any way the big money or chance at high office requires, or he is an Alzhiemer's ridden former leader who had forgotten his way.
either way he should never darken the door of the oval office
I agree with jesusofjonesboro... McCain is just not very bright, combined with a lot of mostly hidden rage and a lot of misguided ambition. God help us if he´s elected.
Anyone see McCain's speech last night? The guy really creeps me out.
Daniel David, you're showing signs of obsession. Excuse me for interrupting the anti-beer tirade you've been on for the last couple of days, but with all respect, the drinking of beer (and therefore the making and selling of it) is a perfectly legitimate choice for mature people to make.
There are better ways of conducting a presidential contest than going after a candidate's spouse and the source of her wealth, when the profession that yielded that wealth is legal and legitimate. And if it's strategy you're interested in, there have got to be nobler strategies than the one you're suggesting - which is pretty much on a par, in my view, with attacking Barack Obama for being "Muslim" - a charge that ALSO rings loudly in the ears of evangelicals.
What makes (and made) John McCain "tick" is the BEER money he married into with second wife Cindy which helped propel his first run to Congress. Without it, he would never have been on the national stage at all.
This is the real history of Senator John McCain that every evangelical must learn and know. Being a former prisoner of war is just NOT what started him on the road to where he now finds himself.
Any understanding of John McCain must begin with one major realization: the man is just not that bright.
The complexities and cross currents of American politics create inconsistencies for all candidates who rise to the national level, including Clinton and Obama.
More than a desire to remain an honorable individual, John McCain wants to be president of the US. The closer he has gotten to that goal the more he has been willing to abandon his principles in order to appeal to the Bush crazies. I don't think that he's smart enough to understand his own dilemma
jj