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Why McCain Lies
Below, is an excerpt from a very insightful online article about John McCain's dual honorable/dishonorable behavior form The American Conservative magazine. The author, Daniel Larison, presents an absolutely fascinating hypothesis for why McCain can lie so overtly while also seeming to believe that he is the most honorable man in any room.
"McCain exploits the concept of honor and frames every disagreement in terms of honor and dishonor, so it is particularly revealing that he is willing to launch dishonest and dishonorable attacks, because this drives home how much his concept of honor is intertwined with his own visceral reactions to opponents and with his self-interest. Contrary to the conventional pundit interpretation that McCain has “sold his soul” and abandoned his once-honorable former self, the thing to understand about McCain’s lies in this campaign is that he invests these misrepresentations with his utter contempt for his opponents. From McCain’s perspective, this infusion of contempt seems to transform shoddy, baseless attacks that disgrace him into indictments of the other politicians."
Here the link to the full article:
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/09/19/mccains-political-style/
Comments (1)
"Because McCain’s views are visceral, not intellectual, and he is not interested in policy detail, everything is a morality play, and it goes without saying that he thinks he is the hero."
A few years ago, McCain gave a speech in which he claimed to advocate GWB for his third term, in lieu of putting his own candidacy forward. When questioned on this,
"his shoulders sagged, and he said, 'It's easy to knock someone who's at 30% in the polls.'"
Maybe he gave himself away more than he thought.
September 19, 2008 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
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