Neal Gabler wrote a NY Times op ed column this week claiming that John McCain has the press eating out of the palm of his hand. It was an interesting and slightly scary (if you don’t want McCain to be president) article. But I guess Gail Collins never rode the Straight Talk Express (she’s “off the bus”) because she’s written one helluva funny column eviscerating McCains’ economic policies and just about everything else for which he stands:
The theme for his mortgage speech this week was basically McCain to Homeowners: Drop Dead. It was, he said sternly, “not the duty of the government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly.” The good news, he noted, was that out of 80 million American homeowners, only 4 million are in the tank, while everybody else is “working a second job, skipping a vacation and managing their budgets” the way Countrywide Financial intended them to.
He did, however, leave the door open for some vague, amorphous, undefined aid to good homeowners, as opposed to irresponsible ones who … did something irresponsible. Like taking that vacation.
I used to think Maureen Dowd was one of the funniest political satirists around. Fuhgedaboudit! Gail Collins is the new It Girl of columnists. She has a deft touch and is funny as hell.
I find the apparently affable John McCain scary as all hell, as in Dr. Strangelove scary. The man has a robotic sameness about him that various putative journalists seem to love, as they might some kind of wind-up toy with several programmed possibilities. Maybe, Bush-fashion, he has pet names for them, puts one arm about them and offers a friendly stomach poke or two, whatever. In the past few days, we have even been hearing him sounding a bit like FDR with his declarations about hating war, he who not so long ago was joyfully singing about bombing Iran. Good joke that – fuck all the resultant dead, it’s hah-hah-hah all the way – but then he was, or is, the hero who enthusiastically participated in an utterly obscene war we should not have been engaged in as, during his nearly two dozen flights before being shot down, he went about killing people from on high, detached, above it all, and only doing his duty. Then the sometime maverick, depending on which day of the week, quite recently voted against banning the CIA from using torture, he who once upon a time seemed to think torture not a very good idea. Well, it does go on and on with this person whom Hillary herself declared a man perfectly ready to serve as commander-in-chief, good old military Hillary did. With all this said, I am happy Gail Collins has decided to do a bit of windmill tilting.
I’d like very much to recommend Cliff Schecter’s piece in the present AlterNet, titled “The Top Ten Craziest Things John McCain Has Said While You Weren’t Watching“. Here’s the first paragraph:
“John McCain has been saying a lot of downright nutty things lately. You’ve probably come across some of them, such as his admitted lack of knowledge about economics or his excitement at the prospect of remaining in Greater Mesopotamia for the next ten decades. Yet, alas, much of his craziness has been lost in the fog of the ongoing battle between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. So here’s a recap of some nuggets of wisdom you may have missed — from McCain’s mouth to Bellevue’s Ears.” And here’s the link to Schecter’s offering: http://www.alternet.org/story/80622/.
It is my hope that Obama will become the official Democratic nominee sooner rather than later should Hillary and entourage see and accept the light and decide not to opt for a Lieberman ploy and instead encourage her to return to that admittedly insulting post of New York’s junior senator, where her war-making decisions will perforce be limited. In any case, whatever might transpire, we can only hope that the holy trinity displayed so prominently a few days ago in Iraq of Geriatric John, Warrior Joe and L’il Lindsey will be so deeply attracted by the Arizona sunset that they will head off toward it somewhat disappointed that they might then do only limited harm.
Interesting item.
Here in Britain, many of us […those who have an interest in these matters at all – of course!] can see exactly where John McCain is coming ‘from’ – and where he likely to take us all ‘to’ – should he become the next President of The United States of America…
Here is a link to an astute observer of truth – writing for the UK’s ‘Independent’:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-dont-be-fooled-by-the-myth-of-john-mccain-773072.html
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By the way Richard [Silverstein] – I appreciated your article being posted on ‘The Guardian’ comment website!
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_silverstein/2008/03/acting_in_ignorance.html
It is still receiving responses.
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All the best!
I didn’t think anyone could be worse than Giuliani, but McCain just might be. Besides the “100 years in Iraq” thing, McCain has said that Americans should expect “more wars” and that he supports the further militarization of American society. But at least McCain is transparent about all of this, in contrast to Bush, who said as a candidate that he advocated a “humble foreign policy” and then proceeded to carry out the most insufferably arrogant foreign policy imaginable.