Nearly two years ago, I posted this on the very day Arizona Senator John Sidney McCain, III did his ritual pander dance for those fundamentalist flying monkeys of the far right by delivering the commencement address at Liberty University, an institution founded by televangelist Jerry Falwell, now deceased. (Feel free to insert your own favorite snarky comment here...) I entitled that essay "Profiles In Perfidy: John McCain" because I believed at that time--and NOTHING has subsequently occurred to alter my belief in the slightest!--that this individual is deceitful, untrustworthy and hideously incompetent. Since then, he has managed to secure the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States. I believe he he is altogether unfit to hold this office and my reasons should become clear presently.
McCain was all but counted out of the race last year due to internal staff shake-ups, financial reversals and a general lack of interest. At the time, Rudy 9iu11iani, Willard "Mitt" Romney, Fred Thompson and Rep. Ron Paul were sucking up all the oxygen and a mostly colorless Senator from Arizona could barely catch a break in the news cycle. That early Republican field presented a fascinating study in the rightwing version of diversity: Among his opponents were authentic Theocrats (Huckabee, Brownback), pathological liars (Tancredo, Giuliani), one somnambulist (Fred Thompson), one unmitigated nutwackeroo (Paul) and one cyborg created in Top Secret RNC stem cell labs to be anything GOP voters wanted him to be (Romney).
On August 10th of last year, very nearly at the end of his rope, McCain applied for federal public campaign funds--that is, taxpayer dollars--for the primary election and the Federal Election Commission announced that he had qualified later in the month. He received it in January.
Now he's got a problem: It seems he used the promise of incoming federal money to get himself a loan...and that's AGAINST THE LAW. You see, public funding comes with spending limits, not just overall, but also by state. Further, a candidate who accepts funding is prohibited from raising cash from private sources; he's locked in. To top it all off, McCain cannot plead his case before the FEC because that august body does not at present have the quorum necessary to meet and regulate. If he is forced to rely only on the money he's already got--and which he has mostly already SPENT--he'll be largely MIA during the remainder of the primary season...which ends at the Republican Convention. That's in, uh, September. The Democratic National Committee has already filed a complaint about this with the FEC and the results of this dust-up are being eagerly awaited.
Meantime, his campaign has encountered headwinds on a number of other fronts; he hasn't had an easy time of it anywhere along the line. Let us not forget here that his top strategist back in 'way 2001, John Weaver, was making overtures to Senator John Kerry about not merely becoming a Democrat, but about becoming the vice presidential nominee!! For the GOP, this is tantamount to treason...and members of his own party have been ragging on him steadily about not being a conservative. Let's enjoy it while we can, though, because in the end they ALWAYS fall into line...
The situation has, however, led to a bizarre series of circumstances which have put him squarely on the defensive, forcing him to ratchet up his Iraq rhetoric beyond all boundaries of sanity, contradict himself on abortion rights, the Bush tax cuts, his knowledge of the economy, Rumsfeld's resignation, confederate flag imagery, gay marriage...even whether he, himself, is an Episcopalian or a Baptist. Perfidious. There has surely been no lack of entertainment value in watching his verbal contortions thus far and I can only imagine it will improve when the Democrats have decided on which candidate of their will have the fun of holding his feet to the fire.
This is apparently a man who is not even entirely sure of what he thinks...and certainly cannot articulate it the same way twice running. If this were anybody but "Saint" John, the "Maverick Straight-Talker," our compromised corporate media would be all over him like flies on dog turds. It just so happens, however, that they LIKE him because he affords them nearly unrestricted access, makes them feel important by stroking their enormous egos and feeds them lavishly.
An excellent example of the preferential treatment he is afforded was recently offered by the prolific Digby over at Hullabaloo who pointed out that of the ones who attended his recent barbecue bash, those who write about it described his Arizona property as a " cabin." No one--not one single, solitary soul!--bothered to mention that this "rustic weekend cabin" has a guest house by the pool and was once featured in Architectural Digest! In my previous post on him I mentioned that, according to Media Matters, he is featured TWICE AS MUCH as any other politician on the talking head shows and they routinely give him a pass on things for which they hammer Democrats. Witness, for example, the difference in the way Senator Barack Obama's retiring pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is handled compared with McCain's "consultant," John Hagee and his "spiritual advisor," Rod Parsley. His scandal with the female lobbyist was summarily glossed over and any whiff of illicit sex was flatly ignored--while they STILL smirk about Elliot Spitzer's sexual indiscretions and say nothing whatever about the fact that McCain's campaign staff is still lousy with lobbyists. I don't know about you, but I'm convinced that anytime a few spareribs can cause our media coverage to deteriorate into near non-existence, this country is in DEEP trouble.
This past weekend, on the taxpayers' dime, John McCain paid his eighth visit to Iraq. Does anybody recall his little stroll to the market there...accompanied by 100 heavily armed troops, three Blackhawk choppers and two Apache gunships while wearing a bulletproof Kevlar vest? Then he came back and claimed--with a completely straight face, mind you!--that "there are neighborhoods you could walk through freely?" True fact. Well, one year later, that Shorja market is controlled by Iraqi cleric Moqtada al Sadr's Madhi Army and is too unsafe for Americans to go anywhere near the place...not that it was any Swiss picnic the first time!
Perfidious.
I could go on, but what would be the point? This man has already shown he has no moral compass by embracing the opponent who trashed him so viciously in the South Carolina primary in 2000. Why he even has Turdblossom Rove and Ken "Closet" Mehlman consulting on his campaign these days.
Is this the kind of individual you want sitting in the Oval Office for the next four years..?
{Cross-posted at Conceptual Guerilla's Strategy & Tactics. Please stop by and take a look around...}