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Get Out Your Barf Bags
In the history of America, the concept of an honest politician has seemed somewhat more concept than reality. However, two of our most revered presidents were at least historically remembered for their integrity - George "I cannot tell a lie" Washington and Honest Abe Lincoln.
Our current White House resident can make no such claims - understatement of the year - but his erstwhile successor likes to be known as John "Straight Talk" McCain, with a little "maverick" thrown in. Now, I won't debate Obama's honesty quotient at the moment, other than to say that I believe it soars far above that of Mr. Straight Talk.
There are numerous examples of McCain's duplicity and lack of candor, but one that stands out for me, mostly because it means that you and I will have to suffer through yet another election cycle marred by base, incomprehensibly nasty lies, distortions and smears. So here McCain's promise of a clean, honest campaign, while it was never really believable, was something I really would have liked to have seen.
But it's clear from the recent changes in McCain's campaign leadership, his absolute lack of follow-through on his promise to reign in the 527 groups, and his own campaign's recent response to Gen. Wesley Clark's statements that the McCain strategy is going to be more of the Rovian McSame.
On the issue of Wesley Clark's statements, I think we see a real example that casts shame on McCain. The willful distortion, misrepresentation and vindictive attacks on Clark are incomprehensible coming from a fellow Vietnam veteran and, at least by his own account, loyal soldier such as McCain. To disagree is one thing. To villify and demean a 4-star general, ex-commander of all NATO forces, and a war hero in his own right is a violation of all that McCain claims to stand for.
Clearly, McCain is scared that if Clark's statements - the real ones - were to be believed, it would cut the legs out of his biggest claim of superiority over Obama - namely, that he has the better claim over our security and military matters by virtue of his military service. So it's not too surprising that, like a cornered animal, McCain struck out at Clark with such vehemence. But what is suprising is that this so-called patriot would reduce himself to lie and misrepresent another military officer who has simply stated the truth as he sees it.
Let's face it, despite what the MSM and McCain camp say, Clark is a very credible source, and he has been martyred to McCain's ambition. And I, for one, think McCain should be thoroughly ashamed of having treated someone of Clark's accomplishments in this way. He should apologize immediately if he wants to continue to have any moral stand. But, alas, morality is no longer McCain's strategy, if it ever was, and we're in for a very ugly campaign.
Get out your barf bags.It's going to be a bumpy ride.
Comments (18)
Recc'd. Sad to say, I'm starting to agree. I've always respected McCain and still feel that (unless they had a Huckabee who believed in evolution) the Reps are nominating their best candidate. But his campaign is becoming painful and unseemly.
July 5, 2008 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reps are nominating their best candidate.
And for a limited time, I am offering on my web site, the world's most highly-polished turd.
July 5, 2008 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Elizabeth2:
I am startled by your assertion that you've "always respected McCain." However, because I respect your points of view on almost every issue, rather than listing all the reasons why I think that was an error in judgment on your part, it might be more illuminating to hear why he garnered affirmative reviews from someone I think so informed?
July 5, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
wwstaebler: McCain used to be respectable. He seemed to tell the truth and fight for a moderate GOP. He lost it, of course, when he gave his sweaty-armpit-hug to George W. Bush. That moment was when he forfeited all of his moral and political credibility.
July 5, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Evidently McCain learned some deep lessons about fear and loathing in his 2000 run for his party's nomination. Now he’s practicing what he learned.
Yes, it will get expectedly ugly, expectedly because in my lifetime, the Repub party has always run ugly.
July 5, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rec'ed
McCain is a paper maverick and better described as a closet opportunist. His ties to unsavory characters go back before the 2000 election. I have posted some of this before.
I agree that this election will go Rovian but it will be more difficult for him to keep his advisers underwraps. BHO is a formidable opponent and he will pull out all the stops.
The key to debunking his myth is to expose his past and current associates. This will reveal the script that he is playing in this farce of a campaign.
July 5, 2008 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for your comments wwstaebler - I'm flattered. And I regret that I can't precisely tell you why.
I'm not really an "issues" person, more of a proceduralist. I look at how people do things, what steps they take, how they think, whether they make sense (even if I don't agree with them). And it's probably a pretty shallow test but being a political junkie, I see a lot of politicians speak or read what they have to say ---- and I guess sort of have my own mental ratings of the 'good ones' and 'bad ones' and 'not much of anything ones.'
There are Republicans I've disagreed with but still respected. I mean, there's there's a lot of difference between a Lincoln Chafee and a Ric Santorum, after all! Gerald Ford was one -- of today's in the Senate, I'd say: Arlen Specter, Richard Lugar, Olympia Snow, some others - even Orrin Hatch on rare occasion. And McCain was always in that group, towards the top. If there is an issue under discussion, then I'm interested to hear their views and I would go out of my way to hear them speak.
In fact, I did in Jan., I'd been up there working for Obama (wanted to work for Biden but couldn't find a headquarters) and on my way home I stopped off in some little town and spent two and a half hours at one of McCain's NH town halls. I was very positively impressed and I suspect most even on this board would have been also. I could easily picture that person sitting down and having a calm, interesting, respectful, with touches of humor, conversation with my father (Maybe that's my standard - my father is the one who led me into political junkieism).
Anyway, my favorite Meet the Press shows were always when McCain and Joe Biden were going to be on: because you knew that while the conversation would be partisan, there would be more attention to the issue being discussed, there would be some meat on the bones, it would be civil and respectful, and some pretty good humor along the way. (Which is why I think Biden would be such a good VP pick -- he would appeal to people who also like and respect McCain as he's usually been and who are attracted to the long, proven service.)
That's not much of an explanation, is it? "Gut instinct" as much as anything. And while I grew very fond of Mike Huckabee as a person, I do think that McCain was the best of the line-up of potential Republican candidates, and I always hope for the best of both parties to be in the race (Carter/Ford was the only time I had to agonize over a choice, because I *liked* both --- and that was a wonderful experience!)
Anyway, I agree with the others: something
"broke" in him in 2004. When he made the decision to give his endorsement (and that sweaty arm-pit hug) to the man who had .... well, who had let Karl Rove loose on him in 2000. (As to Karl Rove and some of the things he did, I've just re-found a 2004 article from the Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green
To be the victim of that sort of thing - to know what they had done to Max Cleeland and others - and then to embrace, literally, Bush when he was running against someone McCain had come to truly admire (Kerry) ........ that would just have to do something to you inside, inside your head and inside your heart as well. It's not eradicated entirely the person I've admired/liked (he was there at the Town Hall) but there's something broken inside nonetheless.
(And since I am a proceduralist, you can probably imagine how I feel about Rove and Bush. There are not words bad enough.........)
July 5, 2008 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
This made explicit for me why you're one of my favourite posters here, Elizabeth!
Watching the `apparent integrity` decline of McCain has been just one of the many rotten consequences of the Bush/Cheney ascendancy.
For me it's also just one more in the endless examples of the costs of democracy - the need to try to appeal to most of the people most of the time makes a nonsense of most of our highest ideals and, perhaps even more important, is completely at odds with good policy choices and outcomes.
But when I can set aside the emotive force of the choices of this election, I'm finding it increasingly fascinating: ie what these guys actually stand for and the conundrums involved.
One of Obama's central premises is the `One America` theme. The aspirational `not red states not blue states but the United States...` It's classic buzz word stuff - rhetorically powerful - and he bases it on the premise that we all want what's best for America and therein we can find common ground. But it completely ignores what I see as the more real truth: that we do have two opposing forces who have totally different, diametrically opposite, ideas about what that `best for America` is. Democrats look to the supportive community solution whereas Republicans look to individuals as separate atoms bouncing around in a fierce competitive energy that inadvertently produces the optimum outcome (and tough on those atoms that miss out - they'll soon find and curcially, need to be left to find, that they need to compete better/more and there's some inherent character deficiency in those who won't (in their world view it's never can't).
So Democrats look for increased taxation. redistribution and an expanded government input, while Republicans want to shrink government, lower the taxes on the rich and industry, and put their faith in trickle down. Market solutions for everything - including health care, education, issues to which the profit motive is inimical ...
The reason McCain has had such appeal for independents and why many of we Democrats used to like him is that, for a while there, he seemed to come to a middle ground. He actually opposed Bush's tax cut for the rich. But now he's out there - way on the extreme of the partisan divide.
The point I'm trying to make is that the actual policy grounds of this contest are completely at odds with Obama's central theme.
Similarly, he's said he rules out character attacks - but one of the main features of McCain that I've come to react strongly against is this new awareness of his intemperate character - irascibility. And it's one of the powerful arguments for why he is unsuited to be President.
The whole thing's fascinating.
July 5, 2008 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Elizabeth2, for taking the time to offer a thoughtful description of McCain in his better days; in particular, your perception of him as "one of" a group of Republicans -- including Arlen Specter, Dick Luger and Olympia Snow -- who were/are worthy of our respect, even when we disagree with some/many of their opinions.
My own more cynical view is that, even then, the Republicans of character you cite merely provided McCain with a cover of reasoned respectability. Because his actual mentor was John Tower, founding fanatical neocon and remorseless, risk-taking player in every sense of the word.
That choice in role model was then, and is now, truly worrying. It reveals that, long ago, post-POW McCain -- who had every reason to build a career in which he endorsed diplomacy as a better way to resolve global problems -- instead chose to align himself with Tower's freeze-framed view in which "answers" to global problems are only to be found in escalated military action. And it demonstrates that his checkered personal history (as well as his tone deaf, grotesque jokes like "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," etc.) are not recent gaffes or aberrations; but, rather, spring impulsively, and without remorse, from an entitled, egocentric view in which no other's wants, needs or opinions matter if they conflict with his own.
July 6, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
In case it needs to be said, John Tower was *NEVER* on that list of admired ... nor was Phil Gramm!!! The McCain I saw and believed was the real one was the guy who could come to be genuine friends with John Kerry (whose voice he heard played aloud as propaganda while in the prison camp) and who would work as respectful equals with Joe Biden. ------- And maybe they are all legitimate parts of a complex person. But this campaign ... and probably back to 2004 when he made *the* decision, it's pretty clear which part is in the ascendency now and that's what matters. -------
But I still wish he'd won the nomination in 2000!! (There is a tape somewhere of McCain and Bush and an interviewer, during the primary I believe - and McCain is talking to Bush about the Rovian campaign that had been waged against him in S.C. That's a real person and it was so clear from the Bush in that tape that he simply didn't get it..... didn't see what was wrong. A good glimpse ahead at his presidency.)
I don't understand how anyone who spent five years in a POW camp can turn their back on habeas corpus. His comments on that decision and his literal 'embrace' of Bush in 2004 both shocked me to the core. I fear you are all right.
July 6, 2008 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Definitely, you are turning out to be one of the better posters here. I always look forward to reading your comments.
(I like you, too, Cricket4, though your foxy avatar plays a part as well as your writing style).
July 6, 2008 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Joe Conason (above) on why no one should ever think McCain ever had much in the way of a conscience or good judgment. McCain has been closely tied to Rick Renzi (R) who was recently indicted on 35 felony counts for land fraud, extortion, insurance fraud - McCain says he hasn't read the indictment but removed Renzi from his campaign organization. There is nothing to respect about McCain. Robert Scheer has called him
The Man Who Would Be Bush a goal which only a deeply flawed man would pursue.
July 5, 2008 11:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the compliment, and I love your name -- tho it does make me thirsty......
Character attacks -- I share that concern but have to have faith in Obama to deal with it somehow AND to know his limitations. Did you see the debate (SC, I think) where he tried to come out and really launch attacks Hillary? He was lousy!! P**s poor, actually. He just plain doesn't do it well. There is a kind of zen or something about his approach and, hey, it's worked pretty well. He won and, despite all the squawking (which we're hearing again) he did it without going into those attacks. He's not going to stand in the way of McCain revealing his flaws, but the attacks, I think, go against his nature ..... and for whatever reason, he does a really lousy job at it.
Your comments re: the marked differences between Democrats and Republicans. You're right .... and you're wrong. (In my opinion, I should add.) The differences you describe are not goals but different ways to get to goals that (if you sat down and asked each individual Rep. and Dem.) all we Americans pretty much agree on. The worst thing that has happeend to America in my lifetime, I think, are Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. ---- I'm old enough to remember a time when there was a great deal more non-partisan legislation and politics in general. It's possible. It's just been so long and gotten so ugly, it seems a mirage. But there have been in the past and I pray will be in the future statesmen (and women) on both sides of the aisle who get together when need be and did things beacuse they were *right* and because they *worked.*
Things change (thankfully!!). Hey, it used to be the Democrats were known for being the party that ran up big deficits and started wars! And forget about about a woman or a black seriously running ...... who would have thought we'd see it happen AND have the woman criticized for being too 'tough' and the black critizised for being too 'elite.' The thing about life, and politics, is that sometimes you get really NICE surprises. So you (or at least I) just keep backing the people who have the most principles, whatever badge they're wearing.
Oh, and the sneaky, nasty truth about all those ways to get to the goals -- in truth we need increased taxation in some areas and decreased in others, we need expanded government input on some things and market solutions are best for some other problems, and so on. And I *think* Obama sort of gets that. When he was asked about taxes increasing or decreasing (I forget which) and he said that that wasn't the question, the question was whose taxes got increased and whose got decreased, I thought to myself .... hey, this guy may really be different.
I so wanted it to be a contest between Obama and McCain ................. but the McCain I wanted to see really, honestly debating these important things with someone who sees it all through a slightly different prism, sadly he seems to be missing.
July 5, 2008 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is nobody better at putting lip-stick on a pig than Rove.
July 6, 2008 2:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
... and Dana Perino.
July 6, 2008 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great post, raider.
As with Elizabeth2, I too thought, in 1999 and 2000, that McCain had substance while all Bush had was an 'image' crafted by his handlers and puppetmasters, namely Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.
Today, it is obvious that McCain abandoned his personal substance and is allowing himself to be handled and pulled around like a puppet by the very same operatives who did that with Bush. Just look at what has happened in his campaign organization: all the same Bush team campaign players, even Rove as 'unofficial' advisor.
July 6, 2008 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
But speaking of barfing.........
"Every living soul on this planet has some highly-justified anger. Everyone. If you know anybody who was a P.O.W. for any time, they can be going on for years and all of a sudden something will happen that will trigger all those bad memories," - Bill Clinton, Aspen Ideas Festival, yesterday.
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/bill_clinton_on_unstable_expow.php
July 6, 2008 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the great discussion. I was gone all day and night climbing a big tree and sleeping at the top. So I missed the opportunity to comment, but it was a good one.
July 6, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
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