Monday, August 18, 2008

John McCain (II)

is getting more and more repulsive by the second.

Or should I say "scary"? I watched part of the "debate" at that mega-church (did you say homefield advantage?) and I think he's a very scary candidate. He seems to see all issues in terms of a ludicrous macho/military lens without any nuance. Evil has to be defeated; Russia has to be punished etc.

Adding to this impression, there was a good article in the New York Times on Sunday showing that McCain - though he now likes to pretend that he was critical of Bush's war ideas - was the biggest supporter of the Iraq War; he even wanted to open up war against Iran and Syria.

Those of you who are opposed to supporting Obama need to read that article.

In Sunday's Times I also liked - as always - Frank Rich's column, where he revealed that this fellow Corsi who has written the much-hyped bio about Obama, has written articles claiming McCain gets his funding from Al Qaeda and other brilliant instances of "scholarship." I wonder if we'll hear that on Fox News.

9 Comments:

Blogger Amish Trivedi said...

By the way, I believe life begins at 18.

I feel very strongly about this.

And yes, McCain is terrifying. Any relatives I can stay with in Sweden when we flee?

11:17 AM  
Blogger Vance Maverick said...

The homefield advantage goes deeper than the church setting -- Saddleback charged very high ticket prices, in the thousands US, guaranteeing that the audience would be rich, politically committed evangelicals. Obama will draw some votes, I think, from the general biblethumper population, but essentially none from this subset.

12:30 PM  
Blogger Max said...

My assumption about all politicians is that they're politicians.

McCain doesn't scare me. He just strikes me as grasping for far right support, since he knows that treating the issues such that he must distance himself from Bush is a losing game. He wouldn't be able to compete with a democrat in criticizing Bush's policies. So out of political necessity, he has decided that it's right-wing or bust. Hence his movement away from the "maverick" tag and into lockstep with the neocons. Whatever you want to say about McCain, he has disagreed with Bush in the past, as well as with the majority of his party. At one point, he was actually convincingly "independent" (say, circa 2000).

I don't really fear for Obama once the non-religion-tinged debates begin. Just seeing the two candidates side by side will be enough to sink McCain in the minds of most people. He is the equivalent of Dole in 1996: an elderly former presidential candidate (and loser) running a doomed campaign. The best he can hope for is to give the republican party one last facelift so people will begin to forget about Bush before the democrats take office.

3:02 PM  
Blogger Johannes said...

I don't care if he's independent or not - he seems to not be able to think of any other response than a military one. The NY Times article does a very good job documenting his rabid war-mongering and - perhaps more importantly - his utter cluelessness.

5:28 PM  
Blogger Max said...

Johannes --

Did you somehow expect John McCain to not be like this? I'm not vouching for McCain's "independence" or defending him. I'm merely pointing out that his distinct move to the far right is probably more of a political maneuver than anything else, because obviously he cannot win even on a moderate political platform. He's shoring up the hardliners and hoping that will be enough to give him a victory.

6:11 PM  
Blogger brian (baj) salchert said...

There's also an opinion article
written by two of Obama's advisors
about Obama's tax plan. It was in
the Wall Street Journal several
days ago. It can be accessed
through Obama's Campaign site.
I was prompted to seek out such
information because I received a
strongly anti-Obama email of
questionable origin.

6:20 PM  
Blogger brian (baj) salchert said...

And on his possumego.blogspot.com
Dale Smith has posted a lengthy
relevant essay by Amiri Baraka.

6:29 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

wonder if a year or two from now the president will be Romney . . . will he step up from veep when McCain resigns due to some "medical emergency": is the Republican campaign a bait-and-switch con game . . . i can't see how Obama can win: all it would take to sink him is one CIA-staged "terrorist" incident, one truck of explosives smashing into a mall entrance will do the trick . . .

2:27 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

the whole thing is a hoax: McCain is a front for stealth candidate Romney... McCain will win after Obama is pilloried and slandered by the fascist oligarchs who run this country: President McCain will be cancered out after six months or so and veep Romney will take over . . . that's the plan as i see it

11:25 AM  

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