Via the comments, the details emerging around John McCain just make him look worse and worse:
Woods said “it hurts” McCain to vote against legislation like the Dream Act after years of working on reform but said the senator felt betrayed when Latinos overwhelmingly supported Obama in 2008. “When you carry that fight at great sacrifice year after year and then you are abandoned during the biggest fight of your life, it has to have some sort of effect on you,” he said.
So then he screwed them because his feelings were hurt and proved them right about their instincts in 2008.
There ought to be a law against sociopaths serving in the Senate, but I’m really not sure they could get anything done with only Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown (and a few random others).
mr. whipple
The ‘maverick’ is a petty, mean, small, vindictive dick?
Who knew?
Zifnab
Isn’t, like, one of the first rules of politics that you don’t win votes by telling a constituent to go fuck himself? Serve the community and THEN you win the votes. Voters don’t “buy” your loyalty by getting you elected. That’s what corporate campaign donations are for.
beltane
I’d hate to hear what he thinks of Democratic voting Asians.
Why does Arizona elect people who are not just right-wing lunatics, but people who are also personally vicious and nasty?
schrodinger's catt
I think he is going to run again for the Presidency, hence he is spending time cultivating the wingnut base.
James
McCain is low on the list of sociopaths in Congress. Nearly every democrat in there is worse, and some republicans too. Bernie Sanders is in another ballpark entirely from McCain.
manwith7talents
That is the lamest excuse for being a dick that I have ever heard.
schrodinger's cat
I think he is going to run again for the Presidency, so he has to spend time cultivating his crazy base.
beltane
@Zifnab: To be fair, Republicans screw over the white working class every day and are still rewarded with their undying support. Maybe this type of endemic stupidity has spoiled the Republicans.
schrodinger's cat
It seems like the beltway media has finally outgrown their crush on their man McCain.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
Trent Lott was right when he said in 2000 that mccain was too unstable to be president.
Lolis
OMG, I know. I read that a couple hours ago. The whole piece is full of WATBs. McCain’s friends making excuses for why McCain is such a douche and a flippity flopper. One of the other WTF moments was someone claiming the Obama White House didn’t reach out to McCain so he just had to try to bring down Obama’s entire agenda. Poor McCain. Poor poor McCain.
max hats
The idea of a constituent group owing something to an elected official is a pretty mavericky concept of representative democracy.
gbear
I think he’s had a back alley meeting with the fact that he’s an empty shell. Washed up. And he’s just decided to take it out on everyone until they put him in the home. A major crash and burn in full public. It not going to be pretty.
Glad he’s not president.
El Cid
I hope this makes those damn Latinos feel bad for hurting John McCain so much, and maybe next time they’ll vote for the old man.
Maude
Somebody needs to remind McCain that it’s not always about him.
Cris
@Maude: “Remind” implies he knew it once.
rob!
I’d bet a million bucks that won’t happen, but man would I love to see it–to see Obama kick his ass AGAIN.
Bonus Points: in all debates, McCain would have to call him “The President” or “Mr. President”, which would mean all the networks would have to have buckets on stage to catch the bile flying out of McCain’s mouth, as it backs up from his stomach.
Maude
@Cris:
Oops! My bad. I’m getting tired.
jrg
Clearly, when you’re working with someone like McCain, the answer should always be “more bipartisanship”. Because everyone wants the best for the country, differences of opinion, blah, blah, blah, and shut up, that’s why!
jibeaux
But El Viejo gave lip service to actually doing something for them for YEARS and YEARS and YEARS, doesn’t that count for something even if when it came down to actually doing something he didn’t technically do it as such?
Silver
I can’t believe that for years (say 2000-2006ish) I bought into the whole bullshit narrative about McCain being an honorable outsider. It makes me throw up in my mouth a little…
JimPortlandOR
speaking of assholes:
I had a dream during my nap, and woke worried when Orly Taitz had disappeared from the news. (yeah, strange dream).
So, google obliged:
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/08/16/birther-lawyer-loses-at-supreme-court/
dms
@rob!: Instead of “That One.”
Chyron HR
@rob!:
I bet $50 internet dollars that whoever does run in 2012 will refer to the President as “Obama” to his face at the debates. At best.
(“Barry”, “Hussein” and “Obambi” are also strong contenders.)
Ana Gama
@Chyron HR: and Obummer.
Tom Levenson
Re non sociopathic senators: Kerry’s a stiff, but no sociopath.
Maude
@Tom Levenson:
He’s like that at formal things. When he’s relaxed, he is funny and very charming.
Silver
@Chyron HR:
My money is on “boy”.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Jesus, the old guy is even more whack than I thought he was. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible.
If Barack Obama is remember for nothing more than keeping McCain from becoming president …. he might be credited with saving the country from an unthinkable disaster.
joe from Lowell
What a bitchy little drama queen.
Lysana
McCain would’ve bombed North Korea over lousy service at a Korean barbecue restaurant. I wish I were less than half-serious.
sukabi
@Silver: that’s too bad… but McCain hasn’t changed from when he was a much younger man… A look at how he handled his personal life, and his military career would have told you all you need to know… He’s always been a “media creation”, the media is just now letting their coverage of him reflect the real man.
fasteddie9318
@Silver: Has anybody taken “mulatto” yet? Obviously I reserve the right to switch to “macaca” if George Allen gets the nomination.
bobbo
Absolutely mind-boggling. He makes it so personal. It’s not as if he actually knows any of the people he is screwing over.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@sukabi:
The scary part is that they need a new cast of invented fairhaired heroes …. so they will invent them.
Thune? Jeb Bush? Somebody is going to get the mantle. Some real asshole of an empty suit is going to get portrayed as the next Great White Hope.
fasteddie9318
@bobbo:
But they should know him, because he’s a Hero, yet they don’t seem to care to know him, so fuck them.
Cacti
Latinos’ instincts about McCain were completely on the mark.
The moment Teabagger bash-a-spick politics were en vogue in AZ, McCain went on a 20 million dollar advertising blitz to convince the cracker vote that he was an even bigger nativist than J.D. Hayworth.
Just Some Fuckhead
Stop making me beat you, honey.
Jody
“I’m really not sure they could get anything done with only Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown”
The hell you say.
bobbo
BTW, I hope some of the 46% who voted for this psychopath are starting to realize what a disastrous bullet we dodged.
LindaH
I personally think we would get some AWESOME legislation out of those two. Of course if they ever disagreed neither one could muster the votes to break a filibuster, so throw Kerry in as the filibuster tie breaker. He is relatively sane.
Mojotron
jibeaux: But El Viejo gave lip service to actually doing something for them for YEARS and YEARS and YEARS, doesn’t that count for something even if when it came down to actually doing something he didn’t technically do it as such?
Just like with torture- he was completely against it for years and years until it came time to do something about it, at which time he technically didn’t do it as such.
Jason T.
I kind of like Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey Jr., who strikes me as a very thoughtful, sincere guy, and who’s been active in very non-sexy areas — such as nuclear non-proliferation — that are unlikely to grab headlines for him. (Although he’s been pretty vocal about getting the START treaty ratified.)
On the other hand, Casey’s also a
littlevery boring. To paraphrase an old joke, Bob Casey is so boring, his Secret Service code name is “Al Gore.”Thankfully, Pennsylvanians have now had enough of Casey’s boring thoughtfulness, so we’re sending Pat Toomey to the Senate.
And I predict Toomey’s going to make Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum look like a reasonable moderate. Overton Window what?
HRA
McCain takes the adjective “privileged” to heart from the day he realized he could get anything he desired from it.
I was once fooled into thinking he was a very honorable person who fought on the right side of the current issues. During the presidential campaign I read about his early life in more detail. First thought was a spoiled child who carried it on through his young adulthood and now it’s evident he never left it and/or grew up.
M. Bouffant
Believe it or shove it, this was at Pajamas “Media.”
aimai
@Chyron HR:
Yes, or Barack. “Can I call ya’ Joe…” Palin set the tone.
aimai
aimai
Oh, what I meant to say was that Palin herself, McCain’s mini me, voiced the same kind of bewildered disgust when she described herself as enraged that liberals “went home” and voted for the Democratic Party even though she’d been nice enough to ask for their votes! How can you work with people like that, she asked? What a betrayal of her personally that people still had different political agendas and voted against her. They were made for each other–McCain and Palin. As someone said on this blog a few days ago Palin is starting to look like the better political figure of the two on that ticket.
aimai
Mike in NC
[Sound of crickets chirping]
Mojotron
@M. Bouffant:
Yeah, but read the comments and your (un)faith in PJM will be reaffirmed.
numbskull
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century): Hey, thanks for reminding me of that!
Triassic Sands
Yeah, if you’re a petty POS, you vote against perfectly reasonable legislation that isn’t even aimed at helping the people who voted against you. That way you “get even” by getting even with people who haven’t done anything to you.
I suppose if you’re a Republican, this kind of petty payback is considered admirable, but any decent person (that leaves out the GOP) would just be disgusted with McCain. It was a huge pleasure voting against him in 2008.
@bobbo:
Based on the November elections, I’d guess your hope is in vain.
Mumphrey
@Mojotron:
Man, I get so sad when I read things like those comments. I guess I shouldn’t let it affect me, but it does. I get sad for so many reasons: these people vote; these people have children, some of them, and this bile washes over the poor children for years; these people all seem so angry and fearful. I think it might be the last that saddens me the most. These people really don’t get anything good from their bigotry. Being angry and scared all the time is a shitty way to go through life, and these losers don’t even know there’s a better way to live. As nasty as they are, I just feel kind of sad for them. Nobody deserves to live a life of empty, bilious resentment, not even those clowns.
numbskull
@bobbo: They absolutely will not take that lesson from this. Absolutely not.
econlibVA
McCain, as usual, just doesn’t get it. McCain, until recently, has been a friend of immigrants. However, Obama might be the most immigrant-friendly candidate to ever run for president. Kennedy and Obama were the only two senators to march in the big pro-immigrant rallies a few years ago. Obama really wants to enact immigrant-friendly policies and Hispanics know this (although many are frustrated because comprehensive immigration reform hasn’t been passed). So, McCain got beat by someone who was even more pro-immigrant than he was. But, now, McCain shows his true colors as a real jacka**. Oh well…..
newhavenguy
John Kyl is a donkey raping shit eater, but McCain. Wow.
I never liked the man, and liked his politics even less. He was always an entitled little shit, and if he’d managed to crash only three Navy jets we’d have never heard of him and be better for it. He has maybe six years of his life in which he wasn’t a complete scumbag (not that we know of, anyway, but it’s hard to imagine him not being the very last POW you’d want to bunk with), and that’s more to North Vietnam’s credit than it is to him.
Still, it is a little shocking to see him become this much worse. Harry Reid isn’t the only Senator to have crafted a Legacy these past two years: just the only one who can be proud of it.
McCain was pond scum in 1986, and he’s pond scum now.
Shade Tail
@mr. whipple #1:
Matt Taibi, for one. That exposé he wrote back in 2008 was brutal.
BobS
Franken, Leahy, Feingold, Klobuchar, in addition to the several already mentioned.
Suffern ACE
@Mumphrey: Yep. And unfortunately, those are the “winning” arguments against the suggestion that toning down the dehumanizing rhetoric against humans might be politically prudent. Unfortunately, those appear to be winning arguments in elections as well. (Those officeholders who he refers to seem to still hold office). Those I note, that the commentators did respond and not refer to the hispanics as animals in most posts. Just as filth, rapists, marauders, thieves…
RalfW
@BobS: Franken is excellent. Klobuchar is in training to be a sociopath. She may avoid that fate, but it’s looking grim.
She’s trying to play the ‘moderate’ but what she really is is a finger in the wind, always trying to guess the strategic vote, not the moral vote or the best policy vote.
Yeah, I know, all pols do some of that. But she does it always. Just try to get a staffer to tell you how she plans to vote a bill, or whether she’ll sponsor, etc. They never know. Often even days before a bill that’s been blabbed to death for months.
It drives a lot of us here in MN nuts. And too many years of second-guessing the mushy middle, rather than staking out a territory and really knowing one’s self is a recipe for moral turpitude and eventual sociopathy in the Senate.
jo6pac
Yep be like jeb start now and then when the crazy complain bring in betrayus to be the vp
Ron
@BobS:
Can we keep Gillibrand too?
abrxas
Really, people, no mention of Wyden?!? Hands down the best senator in the country, IMHO. Single-handedly kept my state’s Death with Dignity act from being steamrolled by Christianist pols—twice. And he’s a solid progressive on any number of issues. And a mensch.
Still, we can probably count the non-sociopaths on two hands:
Sanders, Brown, Wyden, Franken, Merkley, Murray…who else?
Sasha
Like I said, the Abe Simpsonification of McCain is now complete.
jcricket
I know, we keep predicting the demise of the Republicans and it certainly hasn’t happened.
And who knows, Republicans could turn the ship around at some point and drop (or at least de-emphasize) the hatred of brown people, gays, religious minorities, etc.
But for the moment, we should thank the GOP for this – it’s probably all that stands between Dems and complete electoral disaster. Cause lord knows we don’t sell ourselves too good.
jcricket
@abrxas: The recently departed Feingold (may he get re-elected soon)… Uh, Cantwell’s alright (not great, but not quite corrupt enough for me to hate her yet).
DougW
@beltane: They elect them BECAUSE they are vicious and nasty… It didn’t used to be that way, but the tea party (I can’t dignify them with caps) has pretty much turned this beautiful state into a pile of shit.
The new ruling philosophy is “I got mine, and you’re screwed”. It wasn’t too long ago that the rabid republican meme was that Obama was going to institute “death panels” .
Governor Brewer of Arizona has now killed a couple of people by her very own “death panel” which decided that certain procedures were just too expensive and ineffective for the state to pay for.
Now they say they were given bad information (10% success versus 60% success for one procedure that effected a dozen people in the state of 6.5 million in one year). So someone HAD to die. This after several Physicians groups challenged the State with their so-called data.
Mojotron
@Mumphrey: Yeah, the comments there really did bug me. The original article M. Bouffant linked to seemed like it was common sense and good advice for the republicans not to offend a huge chunk of legal voters by comparing their former countrymen to animals to be rounded up and tagged. The “fuck you, I’ll poke my eye with a stick if I want and what are you, an illegal?” mentality that runs through almost every comment there is mind numbing. You have to get all the way to comment #41 to find someone who has a shred of humanity and common sense (it’s usually somewhere in the teens here:) to think that it may not be a good idea for the government to forcibly implant chips in people.
Sko Hayes
@DougW:
Spot on, DougW. Look at the adoration for Miller, with his storm troops, Chris Christie, bully of New Jersey, that Iraq war vet from Florida, who had been convicted for beating some Iraqi prisoners or something, and was just elected to the House. The Tea Party loves bullies.
At least the House will be more interesting to watch on C-Span. Should get some great video clips from these guys ranting and raving on the floor.
brantl
John McCain, MOF (Mean Old Fuck).
ed drone
@dms:
It’s President “That One” to you, bub!
Ed
ed drone
@Sasha:
Let’s all send McCain an onion, for his belt.
Ed
Tom Levenson
@Maude: I actually bumped into him (literally) at a party at some Harvard muckity muck some years ago. I turned around and by the grace of FSM didn’t pour my drink down the leg of guy who’s chest I nudged.
He was polite, but I can’t say we had a knee slapping conversation after that.
So I’ll take your word for the relaxed and funny bit.
b-psycho
Yes, McCain is a dick, but what would be so wrong with calling Barack…”Barack”? Calling someone by their first name is an automatic insult now?
Personally I think the idea that addressing the president as anything other than “Mister President” is insulting is ridiculous, and smacks of placing a crown on their head. I don’t give a fuck what position him or any other politician claims as a title, if I feel like calling them by their first name I’m going to fucking do it.
+4