Andrew Sullivan: McCain's Integrity

[nsd]

For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?

So far, he has let us all down. My guess is he will continue to do so. And that decision, for my part, ends whatever respect I once had for him. On core moral issues, where this man knew what the right thing was, and had to pick between good and evil, he chose evil. When he knew that George W. Bush's war in Iraq was a fiasco and catastrophe, and before Donald Rumsfeld quit, McCain endorsed George W. Bush against his fellow Vietnam vet, John Kerry, in 2004. By that decision, McCain lost any credibility that he can ever put country first. He put party first and his own career first ahead of what he knew was best for the country.

And when the Senate and House voted overwhelmingly to condemn and end the torture regime of Bush and Cheney in 2006, McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil.

(more)

[Peacetrain]

1. WOW!

that about says it all.. he really has let us down.. This could have been an election about ideas, but it is nothing but the evil coming out fo DC spewing again.. and an old man being taken down with it.

[Bread and Circus]

2. I personally think McCain is in the early stages of cognitive decline and is therefore

very susceptible to bad influence. He is as much a prop (a geriatric GI Joe doll) in his own campaign as anything. He just doesn't call the shots. I think the only thing earnest about him is that he wants to be President and is pretty much led around by the nose to get there.

[eShirl]

10. I think he's overmedicated

[xiamiam]

3. mccain and integrity...oxymoron..nt

[Supersedeas]

4. the Rove version of old John McCain fans must be a little disheartening

[SteelPenguin]

5. Great Full Article

It's a must read.

[the48er]

6. Please Click Through -- Read ALL of Sullivan's Post

Thanks very much, nsd, for posting this excerpt and for providing a link to the whole thing.

I strongly urge everyone to click through and read Sullivan's entire post.

Considering the source, I'd say this is powerful stuff.

[Window]

7. Bookmarked for later. Thanks.

[1776Forever]

8. Best part is at the end of the article - Wow this is so excellent!

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/mccains-integri.html#more

(snip)

Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.

McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States. And that is why it is more important than ever to ensure that Barack Obama is the next president. The alternative is now unthinkable. And McCain - no one else - has proved it.

...............

Yes for sure, more important the ever!

[nichomachus]

9. That's where you're wrong, Andrew

McCain only seemed "decent and honest," but he was always basically corrupt. Being in the spotlight has just allowed us to see what he's really about.

If Sarah Palin had been subjected to a year of intense scrutiny as a "wannabe" instead of a vice presidential candidate being treated with "deference," she wouldn't have lasted two weeks.

[mod mom]

11. "McCain again had a clear choice between good and evil, and chose evil." rec'd

[Sugarcoated]

12. Here, here!

I confess I once respected John McCain, though I've always been a Democrat. It was the election of 2000 that I completely lost respect for the Republican party - and, ironically, it was the way Bush/Rove smeared McCain in that election. The Repub party lost me then, if they ever had a chance of reaching me, they obliterated it.

The party that claims the high ground on patriotism, homeland security, and God, would smear a vet? A POW?

I realized then that, for today's Republican party, the end justifies the means - and that is evil.

John McCain has sold his soul. Anyone who an open unbiased mind see he's not running for us or for this country, it's all about cold hard ambition.

The Republican party lost me for life in 2000 . . . and now, with this dishonorable, shameful, gutter campaign, again, they contradict themselves. Sullivan speaks truth. I wonder if they realize they're probably going to lose a generation of young people, many will never give the Republican party a chance.

And, btw, Mr. Sullivan, you have an obligation to get out there into the MSM cesspool and SPEAK OUT!