Sullivan links to the new McCain ad:
McCain has also made me mad. McCain/Feingold is unforgivable, and his willingness to serve (with Lyndsey Graham) as the grease on the torture machine’s wheels as he provides just enough opposition to torture and this administration’s behavior before backing down has been well-documented here by Tim.
Time and time again, on the issues that he claims to care about and that really impact the future direction this country will take, when push comes to shove, the maverick became the pushover. That is maddening, too.
John McCain may be a marginally acceptable US Senator. He is unfit to be President.
August J. Pollak
McCain/Feingold is unforgivable
Can someone, someday, explain why to me, please? I don’t mean, say why it’s bad. Of course it’s bad. It was a flawed bill that didn’t serve its purpose and only opened new loopholes in campaign funding. But compared to the abortion of democracy that has been everything else the guy’s supported since Bush took office, why does this infuriate people so badly?
I understand why a lot of people might not like CFR or McCain/Feingold; I an flabbergasted at how many people use terms like “unforgivable.” We elect drunks, killers, philanderers, drug addicts, and pedophiles to the Senate but OMG no ads 30 days before the election DEATH OF THE REPUBLIC!!! Really? Really?
Zifnab
It was certainly a failure, with loopholes big enough to drive a swiftboat full of truthful veterans through. But it was an object lesson for reformists who think they can take a chainsaw to the ant hill of campaign financed free speech.
Probably the worst of his actions in the Senate.
But the most laughable was his position on Spending. Really? Spending? Call me crazy, but I can’t remember when he filibustered the Bridge To Nowhere or voted down the Medicare Plan D drug bill. He certainly hasn’t been interested in staunching the gapping financial wound our adventure in Iraq has inflicted on us. And his opposition to no-bid contracts,
graftprivatization of social services, increasing politicization of infrastructure funding, and Big Oil handouts has been… non-existent.Any sitting conservative who wants to put the adjective “fiscal” in front of his ideological affiliation needs to receive a John Cole style swift kick in the junk. A worse group of tax-cut and spend Congressmen I have never seen.
Buck
Maybe opening new loopholes in campaign funding was its purpose.
Rick Taylor
That may be true, but I still think he’s the best choice among the Republican nominees. If you want someone who opposes torture, has a decent grasp of foreign affairs, and hasn’t called for a return to the gold standard, he may be your only choice, sad as it is.
Dreggas
You mean you haven’t figured it out yet Zif? All Saint McCain needs to do is get in front of a camera and say “I am the last honest republican” and the sheeple of the country will nod and “bah” accordingly. Why? Because they tend to be too lazy to do the real research and really look at a candidate. You and I know McCain ain’t worth the skin he’s printed on, but we follow politics. Take Joe Schmoe who doesn’t and all he sees is what’s in a 30 second sound byte or what is shown on the “news”.
Mr Furious
Unfit to be President = Best candidate the Republicans have to offer!
Hilarious. No, wait… pathetic.
Mr Furious
How his Spectoring on the topic is still treated as “opposition” to torture is fucking beyond me.
He sold out on the issue every goddamn time. And coming from a guy who still visibly bears the scars from torture it is perhaps the most craven political sellout of all time.
Maybe that makes it a touchy subject for reporters or opponents, but he is getting away with murder by claiming anything close to fighting the Bush Administration on torture when it was actually gametime.
Might be the single most infuriating topic of the entire election.
The Other Steve
So then he’s certainly as qualified as George W. Bush.
4tehlulz
I don’t see what the problem is; McCain has been pretty consistent in his opposition to publicly discussing torture.
Zifnab
It’s almost worse than that. I’ve talked to a McCain supporter, and tried to point out how he hasn’t actually gone the distance and stood up for any of his alleged position. Torture, Spending, Finance Reform. He’d never heard of half the legislation I was reciting, but it still didn’t really sway his opinion. I don’t really expect every Tom, Dick, and Harry to know what a Hold is or understand how or why a bill would die in committee. But my friend was actively disinterested in finding out. He just wanted to vote for the candidate McCain called himself, and be done. Maybe I’m just bad at discourse, but it looked like politics was physically distasteful for my friend, beyond the surface.
4tehlulz
Christ, isn’t that how we ended up with Bush?
jcricket
On the first day of Christmas my new blog gave to me… One kick in the junk!
No, seriously, “moderate” Republicans cave on every important issue, so they basically serve to give cover to the rest of the (I guess “extremist”) Republicans to enact whatever crazy policy it is they have. Republicans get to claim they “debated” the issue “seriously”, when really they just sent their patsies (McCain, Specter) out in front and then called them back.
The whole gang of 14, really, can just suck it. Blue Dog Democrats and the “moderate” Republicans are pathetic tools of the right-wing Republican party these days. No room for their wishy-washy bullshit when there’s important stuff at stake.
Dreggas
Zif,
A couple weeks ago I was hanging out with some friends having a few drinks and one actually asked our opinion saying she was going to vote for McCain (oh btw I was in Phoenix AZ at the time). The entire table scoffed. She, too, had no idea what a two-faced asshat he was.
TenguPhule
And that’s why McCain is a normal Republican shithole.
That he flipflops like a pancake pumped full of joyjuice is just butter on the side.
His manly slobbering embrace of Bush says so many things that it’s hard to pick a place to start.
laneman
John, and when you say unfit, I am assuming you mean completely and utterly scary?
ThymeZone
Speaking as an Arizonan, I’d have to say that one has to be rather generous to make even the former statement, and that the latter goes without saying.
ThymeZone
I sat down for an imaginary conversation with John McCain:
Me: Tell your views on torture.
McCain: Well, I’ve endured torture for this country, and the truth of it is, look at me now. I’m pretty healthy for my age, and I have a lot of life left in me, and I’m a contender for the presidency. If that’s the legacy we are creating for people who we deem need agressive interrogation, then I don’t think we should take that tool off the table. Sure, they’ll be taken out of their comfort level for a time, but it won’t kill them. Would they give us the same consideration? I think not.
jake
So the message is: “Vote for me, I piss people off”?
I love the way he sticks a mention of the media in there so those who haven’t been following politics will hear a buzzword that they can latch on to.
Zzzz! Huh? Wha? Media Mad? Mmmm. McCain Good! zzzZZ!
Cindrella Ferret
Anyone who voted for the Military Commissions Act should be closely scrutinized as to qualification to be President. An argument can be made that this legislation would allow the President to hold an American citizen–that he or she deems a terrorist, and taken into custody on American soil–without the right to challenge that detention in a court of law. In other words if the President says you are a terrorist you have NO Civil Rights. Habeas Corpus has effectively been suspended under certain circumstances. Period. None. Nada. This provision of the Act has not been tested in a court of law so we don’t know if it would withstand scrutiny in a court of law … And, as exciting as the thought of Tom Delay being frog marched in shackles–never to be heard from again–is to me, I wouldn’t want it to happen to people I like. So … I guess … I’ll just leave that possibility to my dark, fetid fantasy world.
The Gelding, formerly know as the Maverick,John McCain voted for that legislation. Since he decided he wanted to be President. Again. The Gelding chose the Rovian path of 50% + 1 vote path to the White House. That really broke my heart and he lost my respect when he began this ridiculous trek.
I don’t agree with McCain on many issues that are important to me, but I always thought he would be a good President. These flip-flop’s on war, prisoner treatment, and such, have convinced he would not be a President I could be proud of. The only way I can see myself voting for him is if HRC is the Democratic candidate. Other than that I can’t pull the lever for him.
Of course it could be worse. HRC on one side and the little man in search of balcony (Rudy) on the other. That could quite easily be the signal that the American Dream is on its death bed and life support is being removed from the now terminal patient. But, don’t call me paranoid! One of them could not tell the simple truth if waterboarded and the other would allow your local jack-booted thugs to waterboard you for a traffic ticket. Jesus! Is it really getting that bad? Not yet. Not yet.
But … a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse.
Tsulagi
Yep. Can’t stand that bastard anymore. Or that bullshit in the press when he’s labeled a “maverick.” Thankfully don’t see that much anymore. The new millennium “maverick” can out-specter Specter any day of the week.
His behavior on the MCA “Save the Torture/Shred the Constitution” legislation was beyond contempt. While he was striking his “maverick” pose, a group of senior JAG officers testified they considered MCA unconstitutional, violated Geneva Conventions, and was not a path the nation should go down. Risking their careers, they were offering McCain political cover to find his balls.
The very next week he left them twisting in the wind in his rush to graduate from Fluffers for Bush to Snowballers for Bush. He’s a maverick like that.
kchiker
It’s funny…the media consensus about Hillary Clinton is actually more true about McCain than it is about Clinton. Rank dishonesty? Check. Incoherence on many policy matters? Check. (Any hard look at 2000 will make this old news to you. See Bob Somerby.) Total willingness to abandon principal in order to become president? Check. (Note his public embrace of the man whose people completely smeared his family in 2000 and his employment of some of those same people for 2008).
Sully believes that a McCain vs. Obama 2008 matchup would result in an adult and dignified presidential race. Believe that and I have a McCain filibuster of a bridge-to-nowhere to sell you….
jcricket
Yeah, And Fox News will stop putting up “Osama” and running ads about McCains illegitimate black child.
Sully likes to think there’s some set of candidates that would turn American politics into British parliament (if that’s even what we think it is). I got three words for you (four if you’re GW)
Not. Gonna. Happen.
America is a massive country full of special interests, and it’ll always be that way. There’s no high-mindedness that will “rescue” us from what is our fundamental condition. Sully (bless his heart) is basically falling victim to the “concern troll bipartisan” mentality (“must be a moderate way out of this, I’m just so tired of the both sides”).
I think it’s perfectly rational, especially now, to be radically opposed to the Republican way of doing things – from their framing of situations, to their policies and tactics. Being all wishy-washy about stuff gets GW elected. Twice.
glasnost
John Cole, I want to know exactly what you think is so wrong with McCain-Feingold. I notice you’ve been quick to mock politicians being caught by the FBI for openly selling out lawmaking opportunities to the highest bidder. I assume you dissaprove of this. So what exactly is your problem with legal attempts to cut that ugly stuff off at the source?
I think McCain-Feingold has already done some good for the political culture of this country. It’s just not in the spotlight, or easy to measure, because it has to be compared with the counterfactual.