McCain and his going to "crazy base world"

[Guaranteed]

I was just thinking about McCain and his interview with Jon Stewart.

McCain has been trying to get in tight with the Chimp-supporting base lately, in anticipation of his '08 presidential run. But, the funny thing is that he really doesn't seem to be that comfortable with it.

Anyone who saw that interview with Stewart knows what I'm talking about. Stewart asked him if, in going to speak at Bob Jones University, McCain was beginning a trek into "crazy base world." McCain looked almost ashamed about it, responding with something like "....Yep."

It was hilarious. This guy is just selling himself out. I, as I suppose is the case for all of us, never agreed with him about everything. But he knows he's doing something stupid with the "moving to the right" and playing to his base.

I think that, if he's going to do this, the best thing for us to do is to keep him there. Call him on it, and hold him to it. I think he's probably, politically, mistaken in doing so.

It sure was funny to watch him squirm.

[saltpoint]

1. Jon Stewart and David Letterman have a knack for interviewing

politicians.

I didn't see the McCain interview with Stewart, but I think you're right, BGL. McCain is gaining little moving right and losing a lot.

[napi21]

4. He already lot it! I really like McCain when he had the straight talk

express bus! I don't know now if it was all a fake then or a fake now, but cozying up to Shrub did it for me. Sorry he doesn't realize it, but he lost the RW back in 2000 and he'll never get them back, no matter how much he bastardises himself.

[saltpoint]

6. Hi, napi21. I agree with you that McCain is pretty cooked.

The recent footsie-under-the-table with Falwell probably did a little more harm than good.

[Dulcinea]

17. Agreed.

I saw him speak in 2000 on the campaign trail & he sounded pretty good to me at the time. Of course, this was before the South Carolina debacle. All he's doing now is pandering to the Bible-thumping mouth-breathers, & it won't work.

Senator McCain, it's always better to be yourself than what someone else wants you to be. The pious act's not working.

[Guaranteed]

5. And he just doesn't seem comfortable with it. I think he realizes

that he's sacrificing his integrity- which he probably believes to be not only wrong in itself, but also a political mistake.

McCain's integrity has always been his strength. Now he's cozying up to ChimpCo, who he previously hated.

If he's not careful, he's going to get called a flip-flopper. He's giving up his strength.

[saltpoint]

7. He was offered the vice presidential nomination by John Kerry but

turned it down.

I wonder if he ever thinks about how it might have been if he'd said yes. I would have loved to hear that conversation, where in private, I imagine McCain acknowledging that Dubya is a clueless twit.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. What McCain integrity?

S&L John?

[Guaranteed]

22. It's his image, at the very least. But, certainly, he didn't want to be

associated with the Repuke "crazy base world" before now. He has spoken out against religious fundamentalist leaders in the past.

And now he's speaking at Bob Jones University.

See what I'm sayin'? :P

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. The chimp-supporting base gets tinier every day.

McCain! You're a Maroon!

[AndyTiedye]

3. whatever it takes

[Panda1]

14. Hahaha

He's a WHORE...going for the dough.

[fujiyama]

18. The new pic is just great

Love the Sun Myung Moon pic and Laura's creepy vacuous zombie look. Hilarious.

But those two weirdos in the back should be replaced too...

[cboy4]

24. All I have to say is:

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[0007]

30. Terrific

[teryang]

8. McCain is crazy, so it's only fitting...

If you've never seen one of his temper tantrums nor heard his bizarre theories about war, you won't know what we're in for, if he ever get's in the white house. He is just as dangerous to world peace as any neo-con.

McCains superficial personable quality and the hail fellow well met affability of a lifetime naval aviator sells well. He is also intelligent and articulate.

People make the wrong assumptions about McCain. Because he was a war hero, exposed to the dangers and tribulations of a combat pilot during Vietnam and tortured as a POW, doesn't make him competent to be commander in chief. In fact it is just the opposite. He is very disturbed by his negative experiences.

His entire mission will be to to prove that we could have "won the war in Vietnam" by trying out his theory on some other poor nation. In this way, he is the essence of what is wrong with the neo-con clique. Hitler's disciples believe that Socialists sold Germany out during WWI. The humiliation of WWI was instrumental in causing WWII. PNACers and McCain are similarly motivated by an equally bizarre and incorrect analysis of what was wrong during the Vietnam conflict, leftists at home sold us out. If we had only "taken the gloves off" and "flattened Hanoi" and "bombed Vietnam back to the stone age" we would have won. Several hundreds of thousands of tons of more bombs dropped on people and several hundred thousands more troops would have assured victory. These are the innermost beliefs of John McCain. The war hero couldn't possibly have less insight into the nature of that war or the war in Iraq.

McCain is a time bomb waiting to go off, in more than one material sense.

[Guaranteed]

9. How do you know that's what he thinks about Vietnam?

It could very well be. But you're just characterizing him.

How do you know he thinks this?

[teryang]

11. This is my analysis based upon my association

with his community years ago and my military training.

I've seen him interact with colleages in the immediate period after the war and I've followed his career since. I worked with his colleages for years back in the day. I've seen him "go off." (he does have a bizarre belief system or military theory on why we lost Vietnam, I've observed it first hand in other POWs that I knew much better than McCain.) Ever seen him in the general quarters video in the Forrestal fire? The videos of his experiences as a POW. Anyone who thinks he could harmonize those experiences with an objective analysis of military and political failure is expecting way too much of McCain.

His public statements on the Iraq war are consistent with his views of why we failed in Vietnam, are consistent with his views about war in the mideast. He would mobilize the entire nation and commit all of its resources to war.

I admire his intelligence and courage and don't want to take anything from him. But he doesn't understand what happened in Vietnam, doesn't understand the limitations of brutal force in a popular war, and has severe personal shortcomings related to anger management and self control. He is the product of his upbringing and experiences. Bomb them into the stone age is built into the man, believe me.

[Poiuyt]

13. I don't consider John McCain to be a war hero

He gave away military secrets to get better medical help as a POW:

http://www.namvets.com/Reading/john_mccain_is_no_war_hero.htm

What is the real story behind his days as a POW? The U.S. Veteran Dispatch had an article in June of 1996 entitled "POW Songbird McCain Wrongly Described As A Hero." It recounted numerous instances where John McCain violated the Military Coda of Conduct, which specifically orders American personnel to give the enemy no information other than name, rank, serial number, and date of birth. It requires that they accept no favors from the enemy, and to make no written or oral statement disloyal to the United States.

The fact is, in exchange for better medical treatment, McCain violated this code four days after being captured on Oct. 26, 1967. In a U.S. News and World Report interview dated May 14, 1973, two months after he was released, McCain admitted that he exchanged military information in exchange for spending six weeks in a hospital normally reserve for North Vietnamese Military officers.

U.S. government records show that less than two weeks after he was taken to the hospital, Hanoi's press began quoting specific military information, including the name of the aircraft carrier on which McCain had been based, information about the location of rescue ships and the order of which his attack was supposed to take place. The records demonstrate, according to the Dispatch article that McCain continued to collaborate with the Communists after he recovered from his injuries. He did a number of propaganda broadcasts that were aimed at destroying the moral of American servicemen fighting in the jungles of South Vietnam, On June 4, 1969, a U.S. Wire Service story reported one of McCain's broadcasts.

[fujiyama]

19. I'm sorry

but I find that line of attack really low - worthy of swift boating. In fact, many that called him the "Manchurian Candidate" later went on to attack Kerry.

I think there's a lot to attach him about - if you want to go back to it, Keating Five, S and L...and of course more recently his ass kissing of Bush. Hell, I also think it's possible to question his judgement due to possible traumatic effects he experienced.

But I think it's real low to attack someone for breaking under torture.

[Poiuyt]

26. If someone is campaigning for president as a war hero, then the public

should know the whole story. BTW, these are things that McCain has admitted and written about

[retread]

28. What putrid, low life, piece-of-crap spreads this kind of shit?

*

[fujiyama]

29. The kind

that Swiftboated Kerry. It's the same group of ass holes.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. OH MY. That clip HAS to be played for every RW fundy nutcase

in case McCain does get the nomination.

[DaveColorado]

15. Courage is doing the right thing

McCain is not doing courage here.

And this from a guy who wrote a book on the subject.

[Guaranteed]

21. Do you have access to it?

Did you just watch it?

[JI7]

16. he is being the biggest whore of all

and yet the whore media claims he is some independent maverick straight talking guy. HAHHAHAHa, what a joke.

i wonder what he is going to do when he loses the nomination again.

[Guaranteed]

23. Yup- because he KNOWS what he's doing is wrong.

On edit: You know, this kind of thing leads to a funny ethical question- What if he lies a bit to get the support of his base, then, if he wins the presidency, governs in a centrist manner?

Would he be justified in doing so, even if he lied?

[bklyncowgirl]

20. McCain, the sad spectacle of a man willing to sell his soul for power.

Will the fundamentalists see through this sham and reject him for one of their own?

They have a liking for phonies there in Jesusland, after all they embraced Bush who does not even bother to go to church on a regular basis.

[Disturbed]

25. John McCain, Hypocrite

John McCain, Hypocrite
by Doug Ireland

John McCain, the media's darling, has found a clever way around his own campaign finance reform law to take big corporate bucks in furtherance of his political ambitions while carrying water for the corporate mammoth providing the dough. But the national press is ignoring the story.


The Associated Press first ran the story of John McCain's odorous but lucrative Senatorial service to the communications giant Cablevision on the afternoon of March 7. But, while some local papers in McCain's home state (like the East Valley Tribune) have run the story, nothing has as yet made it into the print editions of the New York Times, the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, or any of the half-dozen other big city dailies I checked (although, if one searches the hundreds of AP stories available on the Post's website on its Politics page by clicking on "Latest Wire Reports," one can find it there--but how many readers would bother to do that?) One notable exception: the Kansas City Star.


Here's what the AP's investigation found:


McCain repeatedly intervened on behalf of a policy Cablevision favored -- one which "congressional and private studies conclude could make cable more expensive" -- while his chief political adviser, Rick Davis (who's masterminding McCain's probable '08 presidential rerun) solicited $200,000 in contributions from Cablevision to an institute that promotes McCain and pays Davis a $110,000 annual salary.


The Reform Institute was set up to promote McCain and his issues--especially campaign finance reform, embodied in the famous McCain-Feingold law. This Institute is "a tax-exempt group that touts McCain's views and has showcased him at events since his unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign," and it "often uses the senator's name in press releases and fund-raising letters and includes him at press conferences," the AP says. And, of course, it provides a cushy sinecure with no heavy lifting for McCain's main man, Davis, as he prepares the pontificating Senator's next presidential run. Cablevision's contributions account for a whopping 15% of the Institute's budget.


http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0309-35.htm

[itzamirakul]

27. I can't stand that POS...

eom