Posted on 04/09/2010 10:44:45 AM PDT by BradtotheBone
It’s an old story by now -- John McCain saying or doing something that thoroughly undercuts the image that first made him a national political star 10 years ago. His bizarre effort this week to deny that he's ever been a maverick is only the latest example.
Believe it or not, though, McCain does -- sort of -- have a point: For all of his boasts over the last decade, he hasn't been a classic maverick nearly as much as he's been an opportunist -- and a bit of a sore loser.
Just consider the origins of the maverick reputation. In the fall of 1999, the Republican presidential race had boiled down to George W. Bush and Everyone Else. The non-Bush candidates were desperate to distinguish themselves. So, with Bush raising record money and piling on endorsements, McCain played up his own sponsorship of campaign finance reform, hit the road in the "Straight Talk Express," and charmed the press in nothing's-off-the-record bull sessions. He had nothing to lose.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
MUST SEE!
This one is hilarious and VERY accurate!
FLUSH THE JOHN! Johnny’s got to go!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJobkdeho88
Life is rough for McCain when even Salon hits the target.
Hey, the other side said this about McCain, I didn’t.
But the depiction is just about dead on, and pretty accurately reflects the attitudes of the “squishy middle” as concerns how they viewed McCain.
I would say that some 20% of the vote McCain got in the election, were solely because of his running mate. Otherwide he would have been drubbed SO much worse than the final numbers showed.
Maverick, defined:
1) An unbranded range animal, especially a calf that has become separated from its mother, traditionally considered the property of the first person who brands it. (http://www.answers.com/topic/maverick)
2) a political maverick involves a willingness to defy a party and its base (http://askville.amazon.com/usual-definition-political-maverick/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=15720313)
McCain would be a maverick. Going with the flow ... the flow of making him more important and to elevate himself as high as he could be.
McCain once claimed he was a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. Now I don’t agree with all TR did but I think TR had better ethics and stuck to what he said more often than McCain ever has.
“McCain has emphatically reclaimed the hard-right turf that he abandoned when Bush took office”
Is this satire?
John McCain Is Not the One
No conservative and especially Sarah Palin should never support John McCain. Besides his problems of granting amnesty to illegal aliens and restricting freedom of speech, he is severely deficient in the areas of national security and integrity.
John McCain lacks leadership for the War on Terror. His leadership codified the Army interrogation manual making terrorists legal combatants. His leadership granted terrorists American citizenship rights under Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. He thereby ensures information vital to defeat terrorists remains sacred and unobtainable. Terrorists are unresponsive to direct questioning and psychological gambits. Therefore, interrogators need all stress and coercion techniques our military encounters in survival schools. McCain embraces liberal orthodoxy considering those methods torture, but his searing experiences call forth contrary insights he must suppress.
McCain understands the impossibility of fabricating an association of terrorists with Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions, when they participate in international armed conflict, lack pacific character in regard to hostilities, and do not meet any definition of legitimate armed forces. Instead he understands that Article 13 of the First and Second Geneva Conventions and Article Three of the Fourth Convention must be consulted. McCain knows terrorists are not insurgents or freedom fighters; when captured, certainly not prisoners of war. They are not armed forces, militias, or volunteer corps of any country or authority. These killers are not members of organized resistance movements carrying arms openly. They have no distinctive identifier. Terrorists cannot even qualify as spies or saboteurs destroying infrastructure required to support military operations.
McCain understands Geneva Conventions intended to isolate such forces, provide them few protections, and allow destruction with any overwhelming furies needed to crush their abominations. Knowing these factors he promised to close Guantanamo Bay, inviting terrorists into our legal system. He decided to accommodate their extraordinarily savage behavior within our country and thereby checkmate national laws intended to manage simple murder and kidnapping, and render Posse Comitatus a crumbling deception.
McCain especially appreciates from our Constitution that laws guaranteeing civil liberties presuppose operation within an invincible society. He understands Alexander Hamilton’s words that the reality of devastating, unforeseeable perils must lead deliberations about national security. The primary responsibility of the Federal government’s three branches is to pursue Hamilton’s admonition that powers exist without limitation; providing capabilities thwarting looming dangers as well as responding to attacks. McCain understands powerful warfare capabilities require potent intelligence acquisition and exploitation before and throughout campaigns.
The framers of our Constitution and the Geneva Conventions held powerful positions throughout the darkest times of our country and the world. They were our Founding Fathers, and parents and grandparents of the Greatest Generation. Their words expressed durable morality earned in our fight for freedom, and against the ultimate bloody deluges of the 20th century. These first generations expressed principles derived from confronting shattering tragedies, and earning peace through victory.
John McCain’s actions are particularly reprehensible because he turns a blind eye to the council of these people. McCain continually seeks popular advancement on national security issues by placating those coveting luxurious, asymmetrical morality requiring shelter from perilous choices and awareness of danger. His crime is repudiating military and intelligence professionals facing hard choices when confronting shrewd, ruthless enemies obscured behind frightening uncertainties.
McCain displays a boundless absence of integrity as he follows the success of Bill Clinton, who cemented in politics for both parties the idea that character did not matter. There are no principles, but only ideas that secure possession of an office. John McCain is the most prominent Republican example of this new direction towards possession of political power through careful exploitation of perceived expediency.
Politics is the art of compromise and leadership is the art of principle. Abraham Lincoln used superb political skills to implement some of the most cogent and insightful principles to guide this nation. John McCain has used political skills to implement compromises consistent with increasing his personal acclaim among liberal media and politicians. Lincoln is now dead and McCain is alive, but dead to principles unrelated to his immediate personal advancement. He is now using this aspect of his character to proclaim profound revelations concerning the value of conservative principles.
John McCain succumbed to the terrible addiction of political power. The same addiction expressed itself differently in fellow Navy officer Randy Cunningham, who was the Navy’s first Vietnam ace. Over the decades the honor and moral authority of both were gradually traded away for influence in the political arena. There is a vast, immeasurable gulf separating John McCain from the genuine people who dealt with the issues sponsoring the Geneva Conventions and our Constitution. He much more equates with the parasites now feeding upon the prosperity and security so painfully forged for their benefit. We now suffer imposters like him with such extraordinary mental athletic prowess as to scale unheard of heights of arrogance and studied ignorance to achieve unparalleled duplicity.
To me McCain is like a cadaver prepared for viewing. The removal of blood and organs equates to the trading away of honor and moral authority. The reputation that remains is like the cosmetics applied for viewing a corpse at the funeral. It is easy for anyone to get onto the same sort of gently downward sloping path. The final result is tragic, but we should not suffer such pathetic and contemptible modern day Macbeths or Hamlets as Republicans in the Senate or any other public office.
Good points!
Be sure to see this thread.
Indians, Lobbyists and Arizona Politics...OH MY!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2440173/posts
Excellent post...and so telling about McCain.
Which is why I cannot support Sarah Palin or other politicians who actively support McCain....against a more conservative candidate. A McCain defeat helps conservatism....a McCain victory is anathema to conservatism
That is great. Thanks for posting.
FINALLY!
someone sees the truth!
McCain was nothing but a SORE LOSER!
When you think about it, McCain was the 'perfect' Republican-candidate for Obama (or Hillary) since he was the most 'beatable'. A list of McCain's defects as a presidential candidate would take up too much bandwidth.
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