McCaca
When you run for President you have to make a lot of compromises. No one escapes that logic, at least no one who intends to actually win.
But John McCain has gone way way too far as of late.
I've never been squeamish in confessing a certain admiration for him. I made no illusions about his conservative core beliefs, but I found in him a refreshing degree of integrity and at least a trace of political courage and independence.
Some of the positions he took on official use of torture were both commendable and necessary to offest the skew of the Bushies. His recent surrender on the matter, then, only heightened the disappointment.
And two of his most recent moves are equally intolerable and unforgiveable. Josh Marshall takes McCain to the woodshed for the Arizona senator's ludicrously partisan assertion that the Clinton administration was primarily responsible for allowing North Korea to go nuclear. Marshall reminds the Senator that while the North Koreans were most likely cheating on the agreement they had struck with Clinton, Bush came into power intent on breaking all agreements with Kim. The White House made good on its promise and so have apparently the North Koreans. McCain belittles and sullies himself in distorting the origins of the crisis just to take a cheap shot at probable rival Hillary Clinton.
Then there was McCain's rather unexpected endorsement the other day of dead-meat Republican congressional candidate Randy Graf. Graf, a pro-Minuteman fringie is such a loser candidate that the national Republican congressional campaign pulled all of its proposed advertising for him, essentially ceding the district to Democrat challenger Gaby Giffords who is currently running 15 points ahead. Said McCain in making the endorsement:
"Randy Graf's record as a state representative has demonstrated his commitment to the values important to the people of Arizona," McCain said in a written statement provided to the Arizona Daily Star. "His voting record on issues such as supporting our military, reducing taxes and reining in election and welfare fraud bodes well for his future in the U.S. Congress," McCain wrote. "I urge the voters of the 8th district to support him on November 7th. It would be a pleasure to work with him in Washington."Graf, to be sure, is delighted to get McCain's endorsement. He most pointedly didn't get the nod from the man who is he trying to replace, retiring Republican Jim Kolbe. If Kolbe (and a other Arizona elected Repubs) wouldn't endorse Graf, what prompted McCain other than sheer, transparent and craven opportunism? Graf has built his entire single-issue, close-the-border campaign on dissing the comprehensive immigration proposal co-authored by Ted Kennedy and... John McCain. Oh yeah, John, we can only imagine what a "pleasure" it would be for you to have Graf to work with in Washington! Fortunately, for all of us, it ain't gonna happen. McCain? You mean McCaca.
October 11th, 2006 at 7:38 am
Marc,
you are right. Mc Cain really disappointed me.
My hope is that this endorsement will not change the outcome of that district.
Thank you Marc!
October 11th, 2006 at 8:48 am
Don’t you get it? McCain has never been good, or moderate, or honest. His one signature issue that brought him attention to goodgov types was the very limited McCain-Fenigold, which was purely political buffing after his Keating involvement. His one stab at seeming honest/non-partisan was a politcal tactic for the 2000 repug primary. It like the faux moderation/good republican nonsense about Powell.
October 11th, 2006 at 9:14 am
I’ve thought for a long time that a great title for a piece on McCain would be “The Hero as Whore.” All along, it’s been obvious that McCain will say or do anything to become president, and the media slobbered over him almost as much as they once did over Bush.
October 11th, 2006 at 10:12 am
Somehow I feel that it is McCain’s endorsement of Graf (which I would expect a Republican to do) rather then his really lame – and inaccurate – criticism of Clinton over the N Korea Nuke than got your dander. It has been obvious for some time that Mr “Straight Talk” has a forked tongue!
And no pride! Embracing the man who trashed his family in 2000? And finding Falwell not so evil after all? Only the really committed Clinton Haters (like your buddy Chris Hitchens) would still stick with this man in 2008 in Hillary is his opponent. The correct position would be neutrality.
October 11th, 2006 at 10:44 am
What we need, and what are radical journalists never provide, is some stright talk on the Military’s pernious over influence on our goverment. McCain’s credibility mostly stems from his service record; containing as it does instances of great bravery.
Alas, such valor in the field does not much suggest credibilty is sizning up things in general. McCain’s comments in the 80′s finally killed off the discusting right wing pimping of tall tales about American servicemen still being held in Vietnam. They only question was, what took him so long?
Now Dems are playing the same game; and the best the right can do is try and piss on their service records. But such rank evil aside; McCain is just another dope who thinks Vietnam was a noble effort lost because a faluire of nerve.
Which takes him to the night of the Iraqi Invasion; yucking it up of Fox News with Hanniday, cheering on our misguided missles as they take out some guy’s whole family who made the mistake of being in what Bush thought was Saddam’s bunker.
“The war is over when the Preisdent says it’s over” McCain told a questioner in an interestesting interpretation of the founding fathers. True, his answer will change when and if the other party assumes the White House. But Republicans tend not to think that far ahead.
October 11th, 2006 at 11:41 am
I think a service record is a good thing for a politician to have on their resume…and not for the PR value. It guarantees nothing, but in general folks with serious military service tend to be less glib about using the military than not. One of the most impressive service records of anyone in American politics ever was George McGovern’s. As for the Maverick John McCain, his name is Chuck Hagel. I don’t want Hagel to be President, but he’d make a very good Defense Secretary in any Republican
Administration. I can’t stand John McCain – it’s been obvious he’s a phony at least since his embrace of Bush. I will say this for him, though. I don’t believe John McCain – although he supports the war in Iraq – would have been so stupid, dishonest and reckless as to launch it had he actually been President. A McCain administration would not likely have been populated with a Veep Run Wild and a general culure of incompetents/kiss-asses, leavened only by a few nutcases and wackjobs. Hell, Chuck Hagel might have been Secretary of Defense. As I said, I can’t stand McCain and consider him to be nothing more than a PR-saavy right-wing opportunist with a modicum of common sense and Senatorial collegiality, so it’s a testament to how bad BushCo really is to recognize that even John McCain with something like an 80% ACU rating would have been a better President by a significant margin. A large enough margin that if there had been, in some alternate universe, a McCain, Bush, Nader three-way for President, I’d have voted for McCain without blinking an eye.
October 11th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Apropos of nothing except the front pages that offer little or nothing for anyone scratching their head about Lil’ Kim’s intentions, here’s an article from the Atlantic by Robert Kaplan that is more revealing than anythiing I’ve read recently of what’s really at stake and what “worst case” scenarios might actually look like to people who spend their lives dealing with it. I’m not endorsing Kaplan’s views, but it appears that he’s far better informed regarding regional strategy and interests of players than most of the usual suspects and hacks filing copy on this story.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200610/kaplan-korea
Also, if you haven’t seen this yet, it’s incredible (well, not really, but it should be):
George W. pulled (Saudi Prince) Bandar aside.
“Bandar, I guess you’re the best asshole who knows about the world. Explain to me one thing.”
“Governor, what is it?”
“Why should I care about North Korea?”
Bandar said he didn’t really know. It was one of the few countries that he did not work on for King Fahd.
“I get these briefings on all parts of the world,” Bush said, “and everybody is talking to me about North Korea.”
“I’ll tell you what, Governor,” Bandar said. “One reason should make you care about North Korea.”
“All right, smart alek,” Bush said, “tell me.”
“The 38,000 American troops right on the border.” …”If nothing else counts, this counts. One shot across the border and you lose half these people immediately. You lose 15,000 Americans in a chemical or biological or even regular attack. The United State of America is at war instantly.”
“Hmmm,” Bush said. “I wish those assholes would put things just point-blank to me. I get half a book telling me about the history of North Korea.”
(end clip) from Bob Woodward’s “State of Denial”
October 11th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
There are still serious questions whether McCain will be able to stomach this run for two more years. Really, it is the next 15 months or so that is the test. Can he continue making the kinds of mini-deals with the devil that he seems willing now to make? He (and Hillary RC, similarly) are test-cases for opportunism. Does it get easier each time one sells a piece of one’s core being, or does each deal bring the seller one step closer to collapse? I’ve never known the answer to that question.
In a previous thread on the McCain question, I suggested that he probably won’t be able to slog thru 18 months of prayer breakfasts that lay between him and the Republican brass ring. Maybe that was wrong. I’m not sure whether I hope I was or was not wrong about him.
October 11th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
That conversation, incidentally, assuming that the Bush family insider Bandar, who was obviously the source, is to be believed, took place in 2000. Hell, I knew what the deal was with North Korea, the attempts to constrain their nuke program, that Lil’ Kim was one of the more erratic and potentially desperate despots, etc, etc. in 2000, and this moronic, hollow fuck is put up as a front man for the Presidency by folks with the juice to pull it off. What a degenerate version of the world we see through the prism of GOPer politics…
October 11th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
My larger, sader point was that any American adult who by 1968 didn’t relize the Vietnam war was wrong in every sense of the word probably lacks the brains to be president.
Which brings us to the great political non-insult insult “opportuinst.” Would you think it fair for others to disrepect you because you took advantage of opportunities? If we really believed such things, Marc Cooper would be chasing Arnold around with a cruciifix.
It’s probable that the best and the smartest don’t have the opportuinity to run;
so I say drop the whole concept.
October 11th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I use the term “opportunist” – and I get your point – in much the same spirit that I use the word “hypocrite”. It’s a matter of degree and context before it becomse meaningful. And so are we all opportunists and hypocrites on a daily basis; the wheels must be greased; public faces are conducive, if not essential, to what’s considered reasonably diplomatic social interaction; politics in particular is about compromise and pragmatism more than principle, etc, etc. but there’s a point at which it becomes seriously corrosive, especially if one has traded relentlessly on a counter-image. If Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton are going to be derided for their opportunism or pandering, certainly John McCain deserves no less – particularly when he shamelessly and knowingly sucks up to midgets and morons and after he and his adoring press have carefully tended this “straight talk”, principled pol vestment, which is pure bullshit. I’d cut a lot more slack for someone who doesn’t try to come across as holier-than-thou. I’ve never had any illusions about who the Clintons are, except that they’re tougher and smarter than I had initially realized. I took a couple of years making up my mind about McCain and I resent that waste of energy.
October 11th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
I don’t think the straight-talk image was a cynical creation. For a while the guy was simply willing to talk more candidly than most pols. Of course this image also served his presidential primary interests before Rove hit him below the belt and brought him down. Since that takedown, his natural (and commendable) candor has consistently lost out to his ambition. What’s interesting is how easy it’s been for him to maintain the maverick image by taking non-partisan positions once or twice a year and then quickly backing down.
October 11th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
John McCain wowed the press in 2000 because he was candid and also because, if the truth be known, I think the boys (and girls) on the bus knew just how deficient GWB was. But McCain would have been a more competent, if equally belicose, president. I cannot think of a single foreign policy venture where his instinct isn’t to use military force. Sometimes, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, I agree with him. In the case of Iraq no. But he is certainly the most warrior-oriented politician since his hero Theodore Roosevelt – the man that Richard Hofstedter described as the “Conservative as Reformer.”
I do see that at least one Republican is too much for McCain. He cancelled an appearance for Rep Reynolds of the RNCC and Foleygate problems. But then I doubt he can help in 2008 no matter what.
Lest we forget. The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health puts the death toll of civilians in Iraq at 650,000. Bush has hit the trifecta:
1. More deaths than under Saddam
2. More torture (according to Human Rights Watch) than under Saddam
3. A worse quality of life for the average Iraqi than under Saddam
It makes you so proud to be an American!
October 11th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Wait!
Its all Bill Clinton’s fault!
(Probably was flying that light plane that crashed into the highrise in NYC today too!)
October 11th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
No, the plane was flown by Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle. They take losses harder than I thought.
October 11th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
“I cannot think of a single foreign policy venture where his instinct isn’t to use military force.”
There’s an article by John Judis in this week’s New Republic which argues that McCain has become much more hawkish in recent years under the influence of neocons.
October 11th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
It’s pretty funny that we had an Arab petrostate foreign minister explaining the Tripwire Strategy of forward deployment in Korea to our soon-to-be President. Maybe Bush was forced to endure those long, puzzling briefings about North Korea because his briefers simply *assumed*, reasonably enough, that he already understood the basic elements of the situation, and was asking for more background.
As for McCain becoming more hawkish under the influence of neocons, well, that’s called Leading Under the Influence, isn’t it? All the more reason not to put youself under the influence of neocons. It happened to Colin Powell, it can happen to just about anybody. Don’t Let Them Bite You.
600,000 excess deaths in Iraq because of the U.S. invasion? This one is kicking off some pretty hasty and nonsensical commentary. (For a while, the Google News lead story on this had a miscoded TITLE html directive so that it came up as “000 Excess Deaths”. The very next linked story said “More than 600,000″ when the study itself expresses estimates — appropriately — in terms of statistical confidence intervals.
Here’s a good sample of “criticism”:
“For instance, while the researchers give as their best estimate for excess Iraqi deaths due to the war the number 654,965, they also say it falls within the range of 392,979 to 942,636 deaths. That’s a pretty large range.”
Yeah, that’s a large range, but LOOK AT THE LOWER FIGURE! It’s an order of magnitude higher than Iraq Body Count’s.
“The study is a retrospective, backwards-looking one. Those are less reliable than prospective studies that select a sample of people, then follow them into the future, recording deaths as they happen.”
Future? What future? They’re not studying patterns of uptake in breastfeeding and natural childbirth in the Pacific Northwest. How much difference is a prospective study going to make anyway? As much as 20%? You’re still looking at hundreds of thousands of excess deaths.
Juan Cole’s take on this study is pretty good. He doesn’t call his blog “Informed Comment” for nothing.
October 11th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Now that you guys have had all day to pat each other on the ass while enjoying the cool echo effects, daddy’s home and it’s time to get off your ass and face some reality reverb.
Your bitch Hil and old lib Harry started this low class political shit at a time our country needed some unity. Big John may be alot of things, but one of them ain’t yelling for mommy after being bitch slapped and bastid’ batted.
What did he say about the Appeasement Policy of the Democrats under Bill that wasn’t true?? He was willing to let it slide until the shrill one opened up. Unlike Bill, John wasn’t going to stand by and be badgered by the bag. In fact given just a little private time with her, he would have her trained to give Bill good BJ’s, saving his reputation and legacy…….oh, too late.
Fact is the the Appeasement Policy cost us billions in dollars, a nuclear technology transfer, a nuclear reactor, and absolute nothing but a promise from this thug not to use it for bomb. It was all take and no give, all carrots and no sticks, all naive finger crossing hopeing an old girls charm could turn this nut job into a civilized human.
Well you know and I know, she’s the one that got charmed and S Korea’s Sunlight Policy ended up with Li Kimie shining that light right back up were ours don’t shine.
CaCa indeed.
Jesus Reg, you done this to me. I didn’t use to be like this.
October 11th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Daddy, you’re a child molester and I just reported you to county welfare services.
October 11th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
Mr. R, you get one phone call. I’d suggest Fred Kaplin over at Slate.
October 11th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
“Appeasement?” Hmm….are you aware that the Clinton Administartion was within a hairs breadth of bombing North Korea over this? Read The Two Koreas for more detail. It would have been a bad idea, but that doesn’t really count as appeasement. Instead they engaged in serious, mature diplomacy in a very difficult position, with a very difficult person, and as I understand it, we didn’t really live up to our end of the bargain. Whether that precipitated the brinksmanship Korea is engaged in or not, I don’t know, but not every international problem can be solved with F-16s, much as you would like it to be so. Real diplomacy ain’t all that sexy; it’s not very John Wayne at all, sadly.
On the topic in general–the whole thing is just scary. There is no real way to stop proliferation long term; more and more countries are going to get the bomb either as a matter of prestige or as a desire to have deterrence on the cheap, and it seems inevitable they will be used in the not terribly distant future.
But also, I wonder how it is that we can pontificate to everyone else in the world, that their having nuclear weapons is totally unacceptable when we have many tens of thousands of them. It’s gotta stink pretty badly on the other end of that message. If I’m nihilisitc about anything it’s this. It’s merely a matter of time.
October 12th, 2006 at 10:59 am
JR – if I’m in any way responsible for that comment of yours, I want to apologize to everyone here.
Really, truly sorry I drove JR to write that piece of crap. The special pleading and lack of substance alone was enough to shame me into forever shutting up. The “bag” bit was also particularly unseemly.
So sorry. Deeply sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
October 12th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Shorter Marc Cooper: I don’t like Al Gore because he, he…….he’s a big fat poo-poo-head. I like McCain because he smells like freshly cut lawn.
October 13th, 2006 at 7:34 am
Look Reg, While we have a sociopath on the loose that has just tested an atomic bomb and directly threatened us with it, while we are trying to get a difficult agreement in a close to useless UN to get this wild animal caged, while if we can’t the civilized world and their children will have to live with a gun to their head by a crazy person;
would you agree it is just not a time to get partisan in our own country?
Would you agree Mr. ill, and the hapless UN, are watching and listen to us, and that the first thing they here is two significant leaders in our own damed country step up to blame, not Mr. ill, but our own damed president?
I am sorry I used the word ‘bag’. It rymed with ‘baggered’. It was a poor choice, made on the spur of the moment. After more consideration, dangerously selfish, patheticly partisan, political ‘hag’ would have been the better choice.
McCain, being the stateman she is not and jealously knows it, did our country a service by attempting to mitigate her damage by pointing out this problem is not a US leadership failure, it is clearly a N Korea leadership disaster.
What is it with self hating Americans.????
October 13th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
“it is just not a time to get partisan in our own country?”
Tell it to Karl Rove and the scum that surround him…
October 13th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
JR – the problem of North Korea has existed, apparently without any cognizance from then-Governor Bush, for years and Bush’s handling of it since becoming the accidental President has been a study in zero leadership and zero strategy. It’s impossible for me to impact every piece of crap running authoritarian wastelands, but it scares me to death and becomes a political issue when our own leadership drops the ball and doesn’t even attempt dealing with this through any strategy other than bullshit rhetoric they can’t back up, and for a period of years as the problem can only get worse. I don’t even think this is arguable in the light of how long it took them to devise a strategy. Clinton’s strategy, at worst, stalled the process and bought time. Time that was then squandered by Bush. And John McCain is full of crap…he might as well go write scripts for ABC MiniSeries or David Zucker, for all of the credibility his comments on this issue carry.
October 17th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
I can’t believe you actually ever believed/conceived/thought he had even a scintilla of integrity.
March 1st, 2009 at 11:56 pm
There is no real way to stop proliferation long term; more and more countries are going to get the bomb either as a matter of prestige or as a desire to have deterrence on the cheap, and it seems inevitable they will be used in the not terribly distant future.
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