Mon 3 Nov 2008
My Final Argument - Part 2b - Why Not McCain / Palin?
Posted by Scott under John McCain , Politics , Sarah Palin , Scott's Posts[14] Comments
My previous posts in this series are
- HERE - Introduction
- HERE - Fixing What’s Broken
ON JOHN MCCAIN
In light of my argument that I’ve made on the evils of the Bush administration, my brothers and friends have reminded me repeatedly that our choice doesn’t include George W. Bush. Obama is running against John McCain, not Bush. I understand the point, but Bush and his administration does factor into this for one simple reason, which I will demonstrate by asking some questions. Which candidate in his demeanor, his campaign, his rhetoric and his voting can be trusted to wage the battle against the Bush Legacy? In other words, who is more likely to work vociferously to restore human and constitutional rights? Who is more likely to restore the Rule of Law? Who is more likely to pursue criminal and human rights charges against people in the highest levels of government? Who is more likely to show the rest of the world that America’s promise to be a beacon of justice and opportunity is not just a sham, but that America can live up to the IDEA of her greatest virtues. My Answer is - Not John McCain.
Before I tell you why, I would be remiss if I didn’t admit up front that there is much that I admire about John McCain. His record of service to our country as a Naval Aviator and the 5+ long years he spent as a POW must never be forgotten. Throughout much of his career, he really and truly has been a maverick, rejecting the ideology of his own party and reaching across the aisle in compromise. He has obtained some bitter enemies to his right over the years as a result, George W. Bush being one of them.
But something has happened to John McCain. I think he has wanted to be president for so long and with such determination that he literally made a conscious decision that he would do anything to win. He left his honor and his principles behind long ago. For example, in the last two years, he has voted with Bush 90% of the time in the Senate. There are many examples but to me there are two especially notable ones. First when he voted in February, 2006 to allow the CIA to use “Enhanced Interrogation” (i.e. TORTURE) techniques, some of which were used against HIM as a POW in Vietnam. A Boston Globe article said at the time
JOHN MCCAIN this week had a choice between his principles and propping up a failed president. He chose the latter.
The second obvious example is when McCain dropped support for his own immigration bill, that would’ve been a very good non-xenophobic compromise. But in the end he didn’t support his own bill because it was more important to appease the base than to stick to his principles. In a debate this February, he actually said that if his own bill had come to the floor, he would’ve voted against it. At the Carpetbagger Report (a liberal blog) a few days after that debate, Steve Benen wrote:
Over the last year or so, when John McCain was struggling to get his presidential campaign back on track, one of his more notable challenges was reinventing himself — again.
When he got to Congress, McCain was a rather conventional conservative Republican. After his role in the Keating Five scandal, McCain took on a reform-minded persona. By 1999, he was a self-described “maverick” and moderate, who would move the GOP to the center. By 2004, McCain was back to being a conservative again. By 2007, he had positioned himself as an establishment Republican, and when that didn’t work out, McCain decided he’d become some kind of hybrid of the various McCains of the recent past.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say McCain has very few core values, and is willing to shift with the wind to get ahead. It’s one of the reasons he’s flip-flopped all over the place throughout the campaign.
In addition to his more recent voting record, there are two more examples of McCain losing his principles and his honor for the sake of winning the election. The first one is how he has run his campaign. We’ve had a few arguments about this on this blog and in terms of who has run the less honorable campaign, with more smears, lies and distortions, I think McCain is the clear winner (although Obama’s campaign isn’t entirely without guilt). The really sad thing to me is that McCain used the exact same strategy (and even the same people and organizations) as was used against him in by the Bush campaign in 2000. I am just very glad that this time around this evil campaign tactics and smears have not worked against Barack Obama. I hope they analyze this thoroughly and that the experts conclude that that kind of campaigning doesn’t work anymore in this age of abundant information. I’m hoping.
The last reason I believe that McCain the maverick, McCain the reformer, McCain the centrist is actually gone, never to return, is because of his pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate. If he loses tomorrow, historians will look back and consider this to be one of the greatest campaign blunders of all time. There are two reasons. First, by selecting Palin, he made it clear he was making an appeal to the extreme evangelical right-wing of the party’s base, thereby destroying his credibility as a centrist. Second, by picking someone with so little knowledge and experience, he removed the most powerful argument he had against Barack Obama, which was his experience. His selection of Palin has pretty much sealed the deal for me.
ON SARAH PALIN
First I want to emphasize something very important. As we have discussed abortion on this blog, I have made the (admittedly cynical) case that the republican party is really disingenuous when it comes to abortion, that every four years they wave the pro-life flags, get the pro-life believers motivated and fired up and then don’t actually do much to end abortion after the election. I think there is a strong case to be made for that point, but I think the best example against it in this election is Sarah Palin. I think Sarah Palin is genuinely pro-life and has put her money where her mouth is. I love seeing Trig Palin at rallies and I don’t doubt one iota, Sarah Palin’s commitment to the cause. My own son, who has Down Syndrome and is named Brig, gets to vote in his first election tomorrow and we have had to work hard to explain to him that he won’t be able to vote for Barack Obama AND Sarah Palin. I am not sure how he will vote. When we talk to him about the election we have tried to be neutral, but on the other hand he does hear us every day speak admiringly of Obama, so who knows? Only Brig does.
That being admitted, let me just say that I can’t stand Sarah Palin. I think she represents all the worst things about the republican party. I’m talking about the christian evangelical, divisive, right-wing, xenophobic, liberty-hating, religiously intolerant, Culture warring, flag-waving, ignorant, unthinking, partisan part of the party. She fires up that group more than any other politician since Pat Buchanan. That group really makes me mad and I believe represents the biggest threat to our country in existence today.
The fact that Sarah Palin is one 72 year old heartbeat away from the presidency scares the crap out of me. Remember how I said that we must fix the colossal errors of the Bush Administration and many of you have pointed out that Bush isn’t running this election. My answer is yes he is, and his name is Sarah Palin. I think she is like Dick Cheney with lipstick, only way more ignorant, more partisan and more ideological than Bush. Not only do I not think she herself has the intellect to actually lead our country well, I think she will just be a tool of the worst kind of people in the Republican Party. She would surround herself with extremists, (her track record in Alaska bears this out) and then she would become their tool. Like the emporor in Japan before and during the second World War. Much like I believe Bush has been a tool of Dick Cheney. Now lets suppose that, for some reason (maybe the abortion issue), my brothers actually convinced me not to vote for Obama. I can tell you right now, I would do like a favorite blogger, Molly and vote third party before I would risk putting Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. If McCain wins this election, I will pray four hours a day for God to maintain his health and beg him to please keep Sarah Palin away from the White House.
Honestly, I may have hoped that John McCain would get into office and let his mavericky, centrist cream rise to the top of his ideological churn. Now the best I imagine is buttermilk, left in the garage, three weeks past the expiration date.
Scott