Supporting statutes that allow for torture while pretending to oppose it is the true sign of a maverick:
McCain served four years in the House and has been in the Senate almost 22 so far. But he, too, has authored fewer than a half-dozen major laws. Trying to fix immigration counts for something, but nothing passed. So while McCain deserves credit for the landmark 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill, the only other major law on which his office says his “name appears” (Palin’s standard) is the “McCain Amendment” prohibiting torture in the armed forces. But that has little meaning because of a bill this year, supported by McCain, that allows torture by the CIA. Under longstanding government practice, military intelligence officers can be temporarily designated as CIA officers (“sheep-dipped” is the bureaucratic lingo) when they want to go off the Army field manual. In other words, the government can still torture anyone, any time. McCain caved on an issue he insists is a matter of principle.
Well played, McMaverick.
Chuck Butcher
But, but…he’s John McPOW.
mellowjohn
mcsame has principles?!?!
who knew?
Keith
This is an oldie-but-goodie Onion quote that I never get tired of repeating: “They say we get the government we deserve, but I don’t recall ever knife-raping any retarded nuns”.
I really do wonder how history will truly (rather than wishfully) judge this point in time.
malraux
And in many ways, McCain’s change on this worked against the actual attempt to control torture. Because he flipped at the last minute, he took the attention away from those who actually oppose torture. Him doing nothing or not pretending to be mavericky would have been better.
Hawise
I really wish that people would remember that Maverick just means oppurtunist. Original maverick- cattle baron who stole his neighbors cows. TV Mavericks- conmen. Political Maverick- conmen who will steal your cows.
SGEW
I’m very impressed that this made it into Newsweek. We’ve been yammering on and on about it, but it’s as if it never happened. I wonder if it’ll have any legs?
. . .
Yeah, right.
jake
Well you see, McPOW didn’t object to being tortured per se. He objected to being tortured by the Viet Cong. If they’d dressed up like intelligence agents he wouldn’t have minded one bit.
This crackpot is Dubya with the thin veneer of Aw Shucks scraped off. He even has the same whiny voice. The only good thing about having his ass in the White House would be seeing the ReThugs in full flop-sweat mode as the angry mobs closed in. “It’s Clinton’s fault! It’s Clinton’s faaaauuult!”
Darkness
HEY, McCain really is a Maverick:
Maverick |ˈmav(ə)rik| Noun 1: an unbranded range animal ; especially : a motherless calf; belongs to the first person who puts a brand on it.
That’s what happened. Poor confused McCain was wandering motherless and hungry and the GOP found him while riding the range, trussed him up and stuck their sign of the beast on his lily white bottom. Fits for me.
Tax Analyst
Typical McCain from what I’ve seen. He takes a stand, but doesn’t actually walk-the-walk when it comes time to count the votes. All you have to do after that is wait to see when he will “apologize” for not doing the right thing. But he is consistent, though…he does the same with his personal affairs, too.
His apologies are bullshit. He knew what he was doing when he “did the wrong thing”…chances are it was the politically expedient thing to do at the time to please some area of the Republican base. He knows that he has always received a pass on it when he apologizes later. His “apologies” are just pre-emptive motions to innnoculate himself from later criticism.
People need to stop enabling this bullshitter. Whether he was any better before or not doesn’t matter, because at this point in time he’s totally toxic in word and deed. Even if he isn’t intentionally trying to screw us his judgment is so completely piss-poor it’s pathetic. One need look no further than how he pulled Sarah Palin’s name out of some nutbar conservative Cracker-Jack box and nominated her for VP…with the full knowledge of his own particular health history.
I don’t know how anybody who has the nation’s best interest at heart can honestly rationalize voting for John McCain.
Delia
Hmm. No Palin threads today, so I’ll post this here. New reason for Palin’s firing of Commissioner Monegan: she wanted to hire a christianist wingnut to improve her cred with the elite fundies. Oh yeah, and the guy she hired is a sexual harasser.
joe from Lowell
So, it’s just taken for granted that the CIA can torture, and the big deal is that military intelligence can do so under McCain’s bill, too.
Well that’s just great.