According to Nicholas Kristoff, McCain’s penis tastes like chicken:
What sets Senator McCain apart isn’t so much his physical courage in Vietnam; many of his fellow prisoners also showed immense bravery under torture. But the United States Congress tends to be a courage-free zone, so Mr. McCain’s orneriness toward Republican primary voters makes him a lionheart in the political world.
It’s a pleasure to see candidates who don’t just throw red meat to the crowds but try to offer vegetarian options.
Consider torture. There was nary a vote in the Republican primary to be gained by opposing the waterboarding of swarthy Muslim men accused of terrorism. But Mr. McCain led the battle against Dick Cheney on torture, even though it cost him donations, votes and endorsements.
And then he promptly failed to vote for banning it last week.
The rest of the piece goes downhill from there, if you can believe that.
wvng
The Times seems oblivious to the utterly justified ridicule that a number of their editorialists inspire. I would suggest that maybe perhaps they should assign a “doesn’t pass the laugh test” editor to the page. With Kristol, Dowd, lit’l Tommy, and Friedman, a fair number of their posts should never have seen daylight.
Prospero
Uhh, I think that’s a double negative there.
IanY77
Yeah, and now my keyboard tastes like coffee. Thanks a lot, John.
jake
Oh look. Another round of “Poor people are rude and obnoxious, rich people are refreshingly outspoken,” crapola.
See? McCainiac may be a cranky, nasty, lying dickhole of a man, but because Kristoff assumes he would admit he is a cranky, etc, etc. that makes him a fitting leader.
No. Bzzzt! The world’s supply of golden paint was exhausted by BushoPhiles. There’s none left for gilding the turd that is McCain. Thank you for playing. GtFo.
jcricket
John McCain is not a maverick. He is not independent. He is not moderate. What he is, is a very media savvy conservative Republican, who managed to get the media to latch onto him in a positive way about 10 years ago and has been riding that labeling ever since.
Even Specter, who barely registers on the national scale, benefits from the media’s love of anyone who even mumbles “I’m a moderate”.
Much like the press couldn’t go two minutes without calling Al Gore wooden (no matter the crowd’s reactions), John McCain will sail through this election season without really being called into account for his continued failure to stand up to Republican orthodoxy on any issues that matter.
As much as I want to purge the he-said/she-said style of reporting, I always want to purge the idea that being/saying you’re a moderate (Broder and Gandelman, I’m talking to you) and elevating the idea of “bi-partisanship” is any kind of inherent moral high-ground or important position to take.
This goes both ways too. Sullivan is a Republican toadie, in all ways that matter. His “opposition” to a few token Republican bad ideas (torture) matters little in the end.
The time to stand up and oppose Republicans, on every issue, is now. Torture, immigration reform, national healthcare, international diplomacy, Iraq, Afghanistan, poverty, drug law reform, taxation policy – on every issue, they are wrong.
If they “get on board”, then we can be bipartisan. If not, they can stand on the sidelines bitching, moaning and attempting to obstruct the progress this country needs to make.
IanY77
Oh, BTW, the PAA extension expired at midnight last night. What family members do you have left? I think I’m down to my father and a cousin in Virginia. Damn you, Nancy Pelosi!!
IanY77
sorry, wrong thread. Meant to put in in today’s open thread. Please delete if you wish.
Robert Johnston
Maybe Kristol slipped Kristoff a Benjamin Franklin to write something so stupid that Kristol would no longer be the Times’s greatest embarrassment. I can’t think of any other explanation for this tripe.
Dug Jay
And he probably never even set foot in the Hotel Saigon, did he, John?
conundrum
This brings to mind one of my observations about McCain.
When he is merely a Senator, he is willing to deviate from the rigorous Republican lockstep dictates and behave like someone that could be described as having statesman-like qualities.
When he is a candidate, he tries his pathetic best to suck up to the party faithful – regardless of the cost to any consistency or public service reputation.
I think that is a form of flip-flopping albeit not as blatant and observable as Mittens Romney’s when changing from a state consituency to a national constituency.
Just found your blog and I like what I see.
Bob In Pacifica
This is kind of on topic.
Has anyone else noticed that many brands of corndogs have chicken as the meat ingredient?
tBone
Fixed for redundancy. Every good Republican primary voter knows that Muslim men are automatically swarthy (and/or dusky) terrorists, Nicholas.
Pug
. . . he is abysmal at pandering.
From what I saw on Stephanopoulous’ show today when they were discussing Rush Limbaugh, he is bad at pandering.
Now, groveling, sniveling and scraping and bowing he seemed to be very good at. Maybe he learned that in 2000 from George W.
jake
Question: Did anyone ever trot out the “
Can’t keep his stories straightSuXors @ teh Pandering,” line for Mittens?Maybe people were too busy gushing about his shoulders.
Jinchi
There was nary a vote in the Republican primary to be gained by opposing the waterboarding of swarthy Muslim men accused of terrorism.
Lets see, “nuke Mecca” Tancredo burned out before the election even started.
“I tortured criminals in NY” Giuliani rarely eked out more than 5% of the vote.
and “Double Guantanamo” Mitt Romney, couldn’t even buy the Republican nomination.
Sounds like Republican voters aren’t such suckers for torturers after all.
jake
Holy Mother of Troy.
Just saw McCane on TV. If he gets elected we should call his Veep “President-in-Waiting.”
Hillary Rettig / The Lifelong Activist
jeez louise, John, have mercy! not in the lede!!
another good reason to go veg, in my opinion!
Hillary
AnotherBruce
Has anyone else noticed that many brands of corndogs have chicken as the meat ingredient?
This is outrageous! Because I never want to know what actually goes into a corndog. Nor Nick Kristoff’s mouth.
SenderC
McCain has the jowls to hang the hopes of the nation on.
dj spellchecka
as bad as this column is, it wasn’t the worst thing in today’s op-ed section. that distinction goes to Maureen dowd who wrote an entire column explaining how she doesn’t really know what’s going on in the primary season.
HyperIon
logical fallacy!
that Tancredo, Romney, and Giuliani did not survive the primaries does not necessarily mean that they failed because the voters rejected their views on torture. Kevin Drum recently posted something about how a focus group listening to McCain failed him miserably as soon as he started his “torture is wrong” spiel. it boggles the mind. or my mind anyway.
TenguPhule
Unless you count McCoward’s ‘Waterboarding is fine!’.
Better trolls please.
Jinchi
that Tancredo, Romney, and Giuliani did not survive the primaries does not necessarily mean that they failed because the voters rejected their views on torture.
Giuliani’s whole campaign was based on the idea that Republican voters, in particular, would clamor to a candidate who wasn’t afraid to break a few rules to defend against the Terrorists War on Us. (They didn’t).
Romney’s ridiculous “double-Guantanamo” comment was supposed to appeal to the idea that civil liberties were going to get us all killed.
Tancredo and Hunter were if anything more nuts than the other two.
The fear mongering didn’t manage to get them a majority of the Republican vote (combined), despite the fact that Giuliani and Romney were considered front-runners before the voting began.
Unless you count McCoward’s ‘Waterboarding is fine!’.
Which happened last week. When did McCain clinch the nomination again? Being publically against torture didn’t cost McCain anything.
TenguPhule
Refer to “Torture ban, nixed” of 2006.
Spectoring, Spectoring, Spectoring.
mercurino
seems like it tastes more like filet mignon.