God bless 'em. Think Progress has an uncanny ability to flush the crap out of the political toilet. Remember that maverick? The man who rides the fence, shoots from the hip and lassos dumb females to ride by his side? You bet'cha - it's none other than Sen. John McCain, R-AZ.
Looking defensive and threatened when asked by CNN's John King whether or not he was going to vote to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, the maverick said, in effect, "duh, I don't know." Actually what he really said was that he was "going back and forth." That's a switch for the man who has a history of flip-flopping. Think Progress lists 44 of them.
McCain clarified that he is “undecided” now because she would “be an inspiration to millions of other Americans, particularly young Hispanic or Latina women.” So much for clarity.
Later in the interview, McCain said Republicans “have to do a lot more” to appeal to the Hispanic voter. “We have a lot of work to do there,” McCain said of the GOP’s political problems with Hispanics. “We have a very, very deep hole that we’ve got to come out of.”
Now, who's racially motivated here? Listen up.
I will give the perfunctory thanks to Senator McCain for his service to our Country. Thank you for your service to our Country Senator.
ReplyDeleteNow on to reality. Senator McCain, while spending his political career trying to achieve celebrity and power through maverickism, in reality, isjust not up to being any more than what he is. He may not even be up to being an effective senator in the mold of Edward Kennedy. You gotta know your limitations. Senator McCain never understood his. The Nation finally saw them with his poor judgement when picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. She shares McCain's deluded opinion of self importance and intellectual capacity.
Nice blog Ms. Parsley.
I have never understood this maverick label. The guy shoots from the hip. Is that being a maverick? Also, the man was cited by his colleagues for using poor judgement for his participation in the Keating 5 scandal.
ReplyDeletePublic memory is short, which is what scares the hell out of me with the current right wing fear tactics. It's beginning to sound a lot like McCarthyism or the John Birch Society.
Now, I'm going to visit your blog. Took a quick peak one time and was at first totally turned off of your pic at the top - and then I took another look. Snicker, snicker.
Durn - didn't even see the compliment. Thank you very much. I have a lot to learn but I'm having lot's of fun and I enjoy the people I'm meeting.
ReplyDelete"I have never understood this maverick label."
ReplyDeleteI have. McCain sponsored campaign finance reform legislation with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold (which passed), health care reform with Teddy Kennedy (the Patients' Bill of Rights, which did not pass, at least not in the form McCain and Kennedy originally intended and neither voted for the final bill), and was the leading Senate advocate for normalizing relations with Communist Vietnam in the 1990s. For all of this he does deserve legitimate credit, and in all three instances he took massive flak from fellow Republicans on all three issues, especially the Patients' Bill of Rights and Vietnam.
In 2000, during the presidential primary, he was very outspoken in attacking the influence of televangelists and talk radio crazies in the GOP. This, and his original pro-amnesty position on immigration reform. cost him dearly in the 2008 primary and it was only after he repudiated his previous attacks on the religious right and talk radio 'pundits' that he stopped tanking in the polls... and only after the success of the surge in Iraq that he started to climb to the top.
McCain's problem is not that he is not a 'maverick', but that he is not a particularly deep or critical thinker. He did not stop to consider the consequences of his involvement with Keating. He did not stop to consider the results of choosing a wholly unqualified running mate to pander to the hard right. Nor did he understand that it was the very qualities that made it so difficult for him to win the GOP nomination in two tries were the qualities that would serve him most effectively in attracting moderates of both parties and independent voters in a general election. His personal and political judgment are soundly lacking, and judgment is the single most important qualification to be president.
He also has an abysmal track record in the practice of personal ethical judgment (not only the Keating scandal but also his decision to abandon a handicapped wife, who waited for him while he was a POW, for a hot bimbo with money)and a lack of executive experience that was accurately described by Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark in the tv interview Obama later repudiated.
I think that interview cost Clark a job as SecState or SecDef for which he would have been far more qualified than Hillary Clinton or Robert Gates, and that is unfair to a man who spoke the plain and unvarnished truth and was accused of making an 'unfair' attack.
You're right about the times he has crossed the aisle but I've always suspected his motivations. I think he is a political opportunist who enjoys being the center of attention/controversy.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of psychologist friends who think that he has a whopping case of PTSS, which is understandable in light of his Vietnam experiences and which we heard about ad infinitum during his campaign. Still, it can make for an unstable individual, which I think is very apparent here.
And then there is the relationship he had with his father. Again, the out of proportion need for attention and approval.
I don't know if he has PTSD or not. I do think he, somewhere along the line, started believing his own press releases and thought he was the best thing to happen to the GOP since Teddy Roosevelt. This has led to a certain degree of entitlement that's led to immensely snarky pity-party moments when thwarted. I'd say he's quite a bit more intelligent than W. Bush, but he has a lot of the same aristocratic/elitist failings.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a Republican I loved John McCain. When I first changed party registries, I still would have probably voted for McCain over Gore had he been nominated in 2000. I had seriously considered voting for McCain over Hillary, had she been nominated in the last election. Suffice it to say, after this last election cycle, I wouldn't vote for McCain for dogcatcher.