Some Perspective on St. McCain

His candidacy as a “maverick” is a Potemkin charade

Those who know me personally, or have met me online, know I have absolutely no use for John McCain, whether he runs as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, a Green; whatever. He could run as a Communist for all I care. And to be clear: I’m not, nor would I, disparage the fact that he was a genuine P.O.W. who suffered horribly in another useless war for no purpose. Ten or twenty years from now the nation is going to see large numbers of men and women running for office with a background very similar to his.

Why I find him so repulsive is all this nonsense about him being a “maverick.” The press (who unsurprisingly can’t get their minds around the fact that this is real life and not an endless replay of “Top Gun”) has gone overboard with this ridiculous, Potemkin storyline, and McCain’s eager adoption of it as truth puts him—as hardcore and stalwart a GOP loyalist as they come—into parody territory.

But beyond that comes the heart of the issue: his constant playing in every campaign he’s run of the “torture” card for cheap votes. A bizarre reflection of Guiliani’s endlessly and tastelessly trying to leverage the events of 9/11 in which he played only a peripheral part, both men have managed to crudely degrade wide-scale tragedy and intense personal agony into simply another tacky campaign slogan; undiluted bullshit repeated endlessly for no other reason than to stroke each man’s ludicrously outsized ego in the hope that enough gullible voters would buy into it and shovel them just over the edge into office.

Take a glimpse of the photo at right for all the proof needed about how much of a “maverick” McCain supposedly is. It’s all a media creation, just like the cypher he’s disgracefully hugging (even after this same man and his nasty political hit team were responsible in 2000 for destroying McCain’s candidacy and slandering his wife and adopted daughter). What kind of “maverick Marine” would dare put up with that? And what type of “maverick” would embrace the individual responsible for signing off on that ugly Rove-led Swift Boating except one who could easily sweep his own principles—and family—under the proverbial carpet in service of his own desire for the ultimate trophy, the ultimate medal?

John McCain has arrived at what most would call the “sunset” of his life; most men would accept that with some dignity and repose and not turn themselves into a caricature. But McCain is unable to stop; he’ll keep talking up his grim experiences under torture on the campaign trail while turning his head away as he votes to keep soldiers in Iraq for “a hundred years.” The requisite platitudes will be mouthed opposing the administration’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” but he’ll vote like he’s told on the Senate floor.

There are a good amount of people in the country who will vote for him because he’s not only the (likely) Republican nominee, but because he’s a former P.O.W. But that card has already been played out; he has no business ascending to the nation’s highest office, considering the amount of destruction wrought over the past eight years by his party and his apparent willingness to continue policies that have long since proven to be abject failures. It is time for John McCain to quit the charade he’s continued—in the dark, long after the music has stopped and the parade has ended—and exit the stage along with whatever “beliefs” he happens to hold at the moment. A weary nation would be grateful.

Agitprop has more thoughts, worth reading.