Res Ipsa Loquitur
by $8 blue check mistermix| 77 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Lindsey Graham's Fee Fees, Clown Shoes, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?, WTF?
by $8 blue check mistermix| 77 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Lindsey Graham's Fee Fees, Clown Shoes, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?, WTF?
This post is in: Lies, Damned Lies, and Sarah Palin, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?
Lost in the general haze of stupid/evil that hangs over Sarah Palin was a grace note in her recent speech supporting indictment-in-waiting Joe Miller, her cherished anti-Murkowski senatorial candidate.
In a sparsely attended rally for the fading Teabagger senatorial candidate, Palin recalled Miller’s military background, and asked “are we even fit to tie his combat boots?”
Are we fit?
Seriously?
Well yes – and what makes this so dangerous is not just that Palin is once again being Palin, but that after a decade of warrior worship, this kind of nonsense is staining more and more of our national fabric.
The end point of such hagiography is pretty well mapped out. If people persuade themselves that the military offers a unique reservoir of virtue — and especially if the uniformed officer corps come to believe it…then the next move is obvious.
…which brings me to an article published last month that I don’t think got enough attention.
Writing in the National Defense University’s Joint Force Quarterly, United States Marine Corps Lt. Colonel Andrew Milburn found within himself the courage to say exactly what he thinks:
“There are circumstances under which a military officer is not only justified but also obligated to disobey a legal order. [italics added]
And there you have it: a claim that the US military should take the hard duty of deciding national policy when – in the view of the officer corps – the civil powers are incapable of doing so properly.
by DougJ| 68 Comments
This post is in: Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?, Our Failed Media Experiment
The Vanity Fair piece on John McCain is well worth reading, not because it pushes the “he was never a maverick” angle well (personally, I don’t completely agree with that angle), but because it paints an interesting portrait of an old man who only knows life in the Senate and can’t adjust to new political realities:
“McCain doesn’t understand, at a fundamental level, media and communications in the modern age. All of this stuff that’s changed in very rapid fashion—the Twitter, the this, the that, or the other. For him it’s the Sunday shows, and things like that. It’s kind of like, ‘Where’s Johnny Apple?’” (R. W. Apple Jr., the late New York Times correspondent and editor, had been a friend since their days in Vietnam.)
[….]The Senate is McCain’s whole life, his reason for being. “This is what he does,” one former aide says. “He is a United States senator. This is his ecology. It’s a big job, but it’s a really small world. It’s like a killer whale born in captivity in SeaWorld; it doesn’t know any better. It doesn’t know it’s supposed to be in the Pacific Ocean.”
The reason he hates Obama (the article describes in detail his dislike for Dr. Utopia) is “who the hell are you, punk, I’m John fucking McCain, king of the Senate”. It’s not so different from Marty Peretz “I’m the fucking editor of the great New Republic, who are you to call me a bigot.”
I’m not sure that there ever was a time when very many people cared about the Sunday shows or took The New Republic very seriously. But there was a time when there some kind of pretense of that. That time is over now and it’s tough for people who spent their entire lives buying into that pretense to adjust.
by John Cole| 72 Comments
This post is in: DC Press Corpse, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?, Mainstream Media's McCain Mancrush, Our Failed Media Experiment
This morning, I wondered which beltway hack would be the first to embrace McCain’s penis mavericky credentials and give them the tongue bath they so desperately need, and little did I know that David Broder had already put a spit shine on things:
Now that John McCain has taken care of his political business in Arizona, it is time for him to return to Washington and the responsibilities he bears as a leader of the Republican Party and the nation.
I did not begrudge him the $20 million he spent to win Tuesday’s primary, or whatever amount it was. Nor was I bothered by the doctrinal compromises the senator made in order to convince Arizona voters that he was, in fact, a conservative. McCain has always been a realist, doing what is necessary to survive a North Vietnamese prison camp or a tough political trap. His 2000 embrace of George W. Bush — a man he had every reason to dislike — showed his practicality, and it made possible his own presidential nomination in 2008.
I think I’m going to vomit. I wish Broder would say something that would offend AIPAC so we could get his worthless ass fired.
This post is in: Assholes, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?, Our Failed Media Experiment
The Washington Post attempts to make lemonade:
Two years after his bitter loss in pursuit of the White House, the 73-year-old McCain now begins a final 10-week push and will be the heavy favorite. The Democratic race was still undecided, but whoever emerges will have an uphill fight in heavily conservative Arizona.
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That means McCain will likely be back in the Senate next year, raising a number of questions about the future of a gridlocked Washington.
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Will he work with Democrats again? Will he play a role in immigration legislation? Will he be Obama’s chief nemesis?…
(h/t commentor SuibhanDuinne for the heads-up)
Another Not-Win for the TeaBaggers (& Bible Spice)Post + Comments (67)
This post is in: War, Assholes, Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?, Mainstream Media's McCain Mancrush
Mean old man McCain starts the prepwork for the invasion of Iran the next time the GOP gets control of the WH again:
My friends: I believe that when we consider the many threats and crimes of Iran’s government, we are led to one inescapable conclusion: It is the character of this Iranian regime – not just its behavior – that is the deeper threat to peace and freedom in our world, and in Iran. Furthermore, I believe that it will only be a change in the Iranian regime itself – a peaceful change, chosen by and led by the people of Iran – that could finally produce the changes we seek in Iran’s policies.
The world dodged a bullet when that crazy prick and his idiot sidekick lost.
by DougJ| 333 Comments
This post is in: Did You Know John McCain Was A POW?, General Stupidity, Good News For Conservatives
Steve Benen highlights a great exchange between Obama and president McCain:
The tone of the exchange makes it pretty clear that McCain still hasn’t accepted the fact that he lost the election.
I realize I say this over and over again, but it bears repeating: everything in Washington is about social status. McCain was a big man inside the beltway for years, he had Dana Milbank regularly fellating him until about a week ago, and then some nobody waltzes in and starts acting like he’s in charge. And that’s hard for McCain to take.