June 5, 2008
Will the Real John McCain Please Stand Up?
The Nation: His Inconsistencies Speak More Of Crass Opportunism Than Maverick Impulses
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Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. gestures while speaking at a campaign rally Tuesday, June 3, 2008, in Kenner, La. (AP)
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Play CBS Video Video McCain Prepares For Combat Sen. John McCain is gearing up for the general election, trying to underscore the differences between himself and Sen. Barack Obama. But can he dodge President Bush's shadow? Maggie Rodriguez reports.
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Video McCain Courts Clinton's Core John McCain is focusing efforts on recruiting Hillary Clinton supporters who agree that Barack Obama's lack of experience will do little for the presidency. Chip Reid reports.
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Video McCain Takes Obama Shots "CBS News RAW": Speaking to supporters in Kenner, La., John McCain took shots at Barack Obama's lack of experience while maintaining distance between himself and the current president.
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Timeline McCain's Quest Mileposts in the Arizona senator's race for the GOP nomination and the presidency.
Will 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 US 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 US 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-Senator 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.
By Robert Scheer
Reprinted with permission from The Nation.
 | If you like this article, check out www.thenation.com for more investigative reports, timely editorials and incisive columns |
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 28 Commentstypical neo-con loser, someone makes an intelligent observation grounded in "reality", something conservatives have a problem with, and you resort to
personal attacks. neo cons are UN American.
Bush and McSame are Un American as well, their aristocratic daddies took them from their private boys school and got them into pilot training to keep
them safe, PERIOD! McSAME WAS JUST UNLUCKY, hardly a
hero,
AND he supports the NAZI ,Fascist bush and his cabal
they all belong in prison
Posted by joyous88 at 06:49 PM : Jun 06, 2008
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joyous88 - I was throwing a remark at know it all JERSupporter for his remark where he/she seems to think they set the rules of engagement:
Element51 - excuse me was I talking to you. MCWheelie deserves zero respect because he is a dying HATEFUL person obsessed with the Nazi Regime. Just like yourself, if you have not personally been to Iraq, talked with the people, then keep your ignorant opinions to yourself. Later
bailed out wall street,
but will not spend a penny on a disabled veteran
***
his job? to take as much money as he can out of the hands of normal americans and send it to the very wealthy,
remember the wall street bail out, but not one penny for disableed vets
Here''s how the media works folks:
Step 1: Refer to McCain as a "Maverick" until he is in the position of representing Republicans.
Step 2: Turn on the Clintons; because after all, there is someone even more nutty running.
Steo 3: Turn on the "Maverick" when it''s all said and done.
If only Americans did as much research on the next leader of the free world as they did on buying their next car, the media wouldn''t have the power to do this. We have only ourselves to blame for the disaster any of them will do to our country in the next four years.
typical neo-con loser, someone makes an intelligent observation grounded in "reality", something conservatives have a problem with, and you resort to
personal attacks. neo cons are UN American.
Bush and McSame are Un American as well, their aristocratic daddies took them from their private boys school and got them into pilot training to keep
them safe, PERIOD! McSAME WAS JUST UNLUCKY, hardly a
hero,
AND he supports the NAZI ,Fascist bush and his cabal
they all belong in prison
Posted by JERSupporter at 01:05 PM : Jun 06, 2008
So you speak what - Arabic, Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian or all of them ?
I am a Vietnam Vet as well, 101st and 82d Abn several tours, in the Infantry,
this game being played by the neo-cons is nothing but an--
Un American disgrace
bush ,McSame, the first anti american president of the US
the neo cons are completely anti military , usinmg our men and women for pawns in their game of GREED
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Again another misinformed vent from MCWheelie who has no clue what is happening in Iraq. If you do not believe the Iraqis are fighting each and every day - you are a fool.
McBushSame, McInsane, McSame, just another tired old,
greed driven, racist , nazi fascist, that looks like
GW Bush, the first anti american president.
Is this guy serious?
The author lost all credibility in the fourth paragraph (not that he had much to begin with).
Now that you have trashed Hillary you can now turn your "hate" to John McCain 100% of the time.
All Americans should shun this vile "magazine".
***OBAMA, Vote NO to a Jimmy Carter Second Term***
The U.S. learned the wrong lesson from Vietnam. One would think that from that experience, the U.S. would think very carefully before going in, and plan for every possible contigency. Instead, the (wrong) lesson it learned is to avoid humiliation, stay and try to "win" at all cost, even when there''s nothing to be "won" and no longer a reason to stay there.
Only when the public outcry becomes too great that the U.S. will begin pulling out, victory or not. Of course some people will then find reason to blame the "pacifists" for the pullout, and again the wrong lesson will be learned.
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Posted by linymo at 02:42 PM : Jun 05, 2008
Man from a combat vet I''m here to tell you it can NOT be said any better. The problem you face with just invading and staying is you can not leave. We can NOT "Give" people what we have... any Viet Vet who had to fight with the RVN Army knows what I''m talking about... THEY, the people of that nation MUST be willing to fight for it themselves. It''s just so sad that so many families have been hurt so bad by this arrogance.
What does Cindy McCain want?
After all, she pays all his bills, and controls the purse strings.
To think that little Cindy just does what John says is naive. More likely, she''s the power behind the throne.
What is her financial position and what are her financial interests?
Isnt'' a cowardly, a$$ kissing press ever going to investigate this woman.
Or does she get a free pass from the right-wing controlled press?
Maybe Rupert Murdoch doesn''t WANT us to know what she believes.
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