John McCain has always been a phony & a scumbag; want proof?

*yawn*

politics as usual from a typical liberal windbag.

Re: BBB


So you won't be voting for Obama either I guess.

Re: BBB


Obama's incompetent?

At what?

Cycloptichorn

John McCain: The Devil You Don't Know
John McCain: The Devil You Don't Know
by Paul Jenkins
June 9, 2008

John McCain's insistence that Americans know so much more about him than they do about Barack Obama echoes Hillary Clinton's "tested and vetted" rhetoric, and is an equally misleading preemptive strike to convince the media there is nothing more to see.

Like Clinton, McCain has his share of shabbily scrutinized scandals, but, at least as importantly, it is his political positions that remain utterly confusing. That is quite a feat after 26 years in Congress and two presidential runs under his belt: it is hard to think of another veteran politician whose political philosophy is as murky as McCain's (with just one term as governor, Mitt Romney does not qualify.) This has usually been seen as a good thing: unfettered by partisanship and rigid orthodoxy, McCain supposedly gives us common sense solutions to the problems conservatives and liberals are unable to tackle objectively. McCain's much-vaunted "straight talk" usually takes the form of a confident or humorous sound-bite happily regurgitated by an ever-pliant media. The problem is that hours, days or months later he will typically give an equally confident or humorous sound bite on the same topic, but one that is often mutually exclusive from his original position.

It is completely understandable that many Republicans can't stand McCain: he is hypocritical, holier than thou, disloyal and inconsistent. He won a plurality of the primary vote in a particularly weak field, and he has clearly not won the hearts, or even the minds, of most conservatives, struggling until the end to win 70% of an uncontested vote. But this alone should not be enough to make him the darling of independents, let alone Democrats: when he does have a clear position, there is not one issue on which he agrees with the majority, or even a large minority, of either group.

With a carefully cultivated veneer of "independence," McCain has been able to bob and weave, leaving an impression of moderation, and even bipartisanship, to the many voters who weren't looking closely. From abortion to Iraq, campaign finance to gay rights, and everything in between, McCain has succeeded in playing both sides in a way that makes Bill Clinton look amateurish.

McCain overwhelmingly picked up the pro-choice vote in the Republican primary, despite the presence of Rudy Giuliani, who is actually in favor a woman's right to choose, and Romney, who also was, kind of, until recently. In New Hampshire, half the voters, normally a pretty well informed bunch, were unaware of McCain's position on abortion ("Roe v Wade was a bad decision.") Even among Republicans and independents, this was not necessarily a problem, as pro-choice voters constitute a more significant share of that electorate than generally thought, especially in some of the larger, urban states. But in a general election, with a number of Clinton voters, women in particular, disenchanted with Obama, it becomes crucial that McCain's anti-choice position be clearly understood. And that the fact he is not as strident as, say, Rick Santorum does not make him more favorable to choice.

Abortion is one of the more glaring examples of the disconnect McCain has been able to establish between his actual positions and voters' perception. Campaign finance, in many ways, is another. Few remember or know about McCain's involvement in the sleazy Keating Five financial scandal, which he says prompted his change of heart on campaign finance. In truth, McCain, a dreadful fundraiser who is overly reliant on his wealthy wife's perks, recently rewrote the laws completely to his advantage (including the loophole for use of a family member's jet.) A crusade to make campaign finance more McCain-friendly is hardly the progressive reform the Senator makes it appear to be. And, of course, the fact that his campaign staff has been replete with some of the sleaziest lobbyists in America does not bode well for the spirit of the reform.

Besides campaign finance, economic issues in general are not McCain's strength, as he recently made clear. At least on this topic, it is difficult to find too much inconsistency, as McCain essentially has no opinion whatsoever. He is equally as dumbfounded on environmental issues: McCain's relative global warming bona fides are belied by his indifference to the looming disaster in the Everglades, one of the more pressing "green" issues in the US, not to say in Florida, a swing state in which Obama may be struggling.

On Iraq, McCain appears to have received a majority of anti-war Republicans' vote, a fantastic achievement for a cheerleader of the permanent surge. Now, realizing that his Vietnam war record will not be enough in the general election to make up for his support of the war in Iraq, he is trying a new tack: he hates war, he says in a new ad. Rather than make a powerful statement about the horrors of war from a former POW, it simply looks like the fortuitous switch that it is. This war was necessary (although, we are now told, hateful) but the execution was bungled (that is, until the president listened to him and sent yet more troops.)

How McCain feels about Christian fundamentalists, and religion in general, is also a great mystery. Not so long ago, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell were "agents of intolerance". This has all changed: McCain now happily accepts endorsements from anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic pastors and pays homage to Falwell's Liberty University as if nothing had ever happened.

On same-sex unions, including marriage, it is equally hard to grasp what it is that McCain is for, or against. This is considered great by some, including a group of sad and dwindling gay Republicans. But, again, just because McCain doesn't publicly say gay people will burn in hell, this does NOT mean that he is in any way in favor of anything remotely approaching equality, as evidenced by his opposition to pretty much any form of benefits, civil unions, etc.

Twenty-five years younger, Obama has, of course, had less time to change his positions the way most politicians do sooner or later. But the problem is not only the extent to which McCain has "adapted" over the years, as it is how quickly he can change his mind and, when he doesn't change his mind, how aptly he is able to obfuscate what he really stands for. If voters were aware of his positions and chose to overlook some of them because they liked the overall package, that would be one thing. However, as some of the numbers quoted above illustrate, many voters have no idea what McCain stands for, and seem happy in their ignorance. By November, it should be clear where both McCain and Obama stand and, given the choice, the Obama package should be far more attractive to them, even if every one of his positions isn't.

Make No Mistake: McCain's a Neocon
Make No Mistake: McCain's a Neocon
Sunday 08 June 2008
by: Robert Parry, Consortium News


John McCain may fancy himself a maverick, but according to Robert Parry, he's a neocon through and through.

Since clinching the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain has sought to hide the forest of his neoconservative alignment with George W. Bush amid the trees of details, such as stressing differences over military tactics used in Iraq.

But the larger reality should be clear: McCain is a hard-line neoconservative who buys into Bush's "preemptive war" theories abroad and his concept of an all-powerful "unitary executive" at home.

From McCain's pre-Iraq invasion speeches to his campaign's recent embrace of Bush's imperial presidency, American voters should realize that if they choose John McCain, they will be locking in at least four more years of war with much of the Islamic world while selling out the Founders' vision of a democratic Republic where no one is above the law.

Take, for instance, an address that McCain gave to the Munich Conference on Security Policy on Feb. 2, 2002. In the speech - with the ambitious title, "From Crisis to Opportunity: American Internationalism and the New Atlantic Order" - the Arizona senator laid out the "full monte" of a neocon agenda.

In those heady days after the U.S. ouster of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, McCain hailed "a new American internationalism" designed "to end safe harbor for terrorists anywhere, to aggressively target rogue regimes that threaten us with weapons of mass destruction, and to consolidate freedom's gains through institutions that reflect our values."

To McCain, this meant that the United States had a fundamental right to invade any country on earth that was viewed as an actual or potential threat, a theory of American exceptionalism to international law that was at the heart of Bush's strategy of "preemptive war."

"Americans believe we have a mandate to defeat and dismantle the global terrorist network that threatens both Europe and America," McCain said. "As our President has said, this network includes not just the terrorists but the states that make possible their continued operation.

"Many of these are rogue regimes that possess or are developing weapons of mass destruction which threaten Europeans and Americans alike. We in America learned the hard way that we can never again wait for our enemies to choose their moment. The initiative is now ours, and we are seizing it."

Neocon Forerunner

McCain even presented himself as a forerunner to Bush's neoconservative policies.

"Several years ago, I and many others argued that the United States, in concert with willing allies, should work to undermine from within and without outlaw regimes that disdain the rules of international conduct and whose internal dysfunction threatened other nations," McCain said.

"Just this week, the American people heard our President articulate a policy to defeat the 'axis of evil' that threatens us with its support for terror and development of weapons of mass destruction," McCain said in reference to Bush's warning to Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

"Dictators that harbor terrorists and build these weapons are now on notice that such behavior is, in itself, a casus belli. Nowhere is such an ultimatum more applicable than in Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

McCain then reprised what turned out to be the bogus case for invading Iraq.

"Almost everyone familiar with Saddam's record of biological weapons development over the past two decades agrees that he surely possesses such weapons. He also possesses vast stocks of chemical weapons and is known to have aggressively pursued, with some success, the development of nuclear weapons," McCain said.

"Terrorist training camps exist on Iraqi soil, and Iraqi officials are known to have had a number of contacts with al-Qaeda. These were probably not courtesy calls," McCain added in the smug, sarcastic tone common to that period.

As it turned out, the "vast stocks" of chemical weapons and the prospect of nuclear weapons were non-existent. The "terrorist training camps" on Iraqi soil were hostile to Hussein's secular regime and were located outside Baghdad's control in areas protected by the U.S.-British-enforced "no-fly zone."

Evidence collected after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 revealed that Saddam Hussein rebuffed overtures from al-Qaeda, which he regarded as an enemy in the Arab world. Those contacts were not even "courtesy calls."

Rush to War

However, in February 2002, McCain was a leading voice in the neocon rush for war in Iraq, as an extension of Bush's "war on terror."

"The next front is apparent, and we should not shirk from acknowledging it," McCain said. "A terrorist resides in Baghdad, with the resources of an entire state at his disposal, flush with cash from illicit oil revenues and proud of a decade-long record of defying the international community's demands that he come clean on his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.

"A day of reckoning is approaching. Not simply for Saddam Hussein, but for all members of the Atlantic community, whose governments face the choice of ending the threat we face every day from this rogue regime or carrying on as if such behavior, in the wake of September 11th, were somehow still tolerable.

"The Afghan campaign set a precedent, and provided a model: the success of air power, combined with Special Operations forces working together with indigenous opposition forces, in waging modern war.

"The next phase of the war on terror can build on this model, but we also must learn from its limitations. More American boots on the ground may be required to prevent the escape of terrorists we target in the future, and we should all be mindful that such a commitment might entail higher casualties than we have suffered in Afghanistan," McCain continued.

"The most compelling defense of war is the moral claim that it allows the victors to define a stronger and more enduring basis for peace. Just as September 11th revolutionized our resolve to defeat our enemies, so has it brought into focus the opportunities we now have to secure and expand freedom."

McCain's full embrace of this neocon global theory - both in its grandiose substance and its grandiloquent rhetoric - marked the over-the-top hubris that contributed to the suppression of any serious pre-Iraq War debate in the United States and then to the ill-considered rush to invade Iraq.

As the war in Iraq turned sour and anti-Americanism swept the Middle East, McCain began criticizing the Bush administration not for its imperial overreach but for not reaching even farther. McCain began advocating a larger U.S. expeditionary force to pacify Iraq, a policy that gave rise to the "surge."

"League of Democracies"

Despite these tactical differences, McCain has shown no sign of rethinking his vision of an alliance of "willing" nations going around the world challenging and replacing disfavored governments. Indeed, he has made this neocon concept a centerpiece of his presidential campaign.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has proposed a "League of Democracies," which would apply economic and military pressure on "rogue states" when the United Nations Security Council refuses to do so.

Though McCain has dressed up his League of Democracies in pretty language about respecting international law and spreading freedom, its essence is to make permanent Bush's "coalition of the willing" concept used in Iraq.

McCain insists his League won't supplant the Security Council, but it would do just that, fulfilling a long-held neocon dream of voiding the international system that U.S. leaders fashioned after World War II to enforce the Nuremberg principle that aggressive war was the "supreme" international crime.

McCain's League would create for the U.S. President a standing organization for engaging in aggressive war against "rogue regimes" whether they are an immediate, potential - or imaginary - threat.

The irony is that when McCain and Bush talk about the danger of "rogue regimes" operating outside international law and threatening other nations, that is exactly what their neocon theories have made the United States: a country that - along with a few allies - becomes a law onto itself.

Similarly, McCain and Bush share the view that the President of the United States should embody and personify these new imperial powers. Just as the U.S. government can act in any way it sees fit under these neocon theories, its Commander in Chief also can do whatever he wants without legal constraints.

That was spelled out by a top McCain adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, declaring in a letter to the right-wing National Review that McCain agreed with Bush's assertion that the President may override laws that he deems an impediment to fighting the "war on terror."

Holtz-Eakin said McCain supports Bush's program of warrantless wiretaps despite the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and a 1978 law requiring the Executive to gain approval from a special court for intelligence-related wiretaps inside the United States.

"Neither the administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and trial lawyers, understand were constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001," Holtz-Eakin wrote in describing McCain's position.

Article II Powers

Holtz-Eakin further cited Article II powers of the Constitution in explaining how McCain would act as President, suggesting that McCain - like Bush - would exercise virtually unlimited executive powers for the duration of the indefinite "war on terror."

McCain also has announced that he would appoint Supreme Court justices like Samuel Alito and John Roberts who - along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - represent four votes in favor of reinterpreting the Constitution to grant the President the broad powers claimed by Bush and McCain.

If a President McCain gets to replace one of the five other justices with another Alito or Roberts, the new court majority could, in effect, rewrite the rules of the American Republic to declare the imperial presidency "constitutional."

If that happens, the American people would no longer possess "unalienable rights," as promised by the Founders and enshrined in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The President would possess what the neocons call "plenary" - or total - power.

That means the President would have the authority to arrest anyone as an "unlawful enemy combatant," deny the person the right to a lawyer or a trial by jury, and subject the individual to any treatment that the President sees fit, from indefinite imprisonment up to torture and death.

This neocon vision also holds that the President - on his own authority - could take the nation to war anywhere in the world for whatever reason.

In essence, the United States would cease to be a democratic Republic with citizens guaranteed fundamental liberties and with an Executive possessing limited authority constrained by the Legislature. All meaningful power would be invested in the President as a modern-day monarch.

John McCain may criticize President Bush on the edges of neoconservative policies, such as failing to prosecute the Iraq War more aggressively, and he may differ with Bush on the efficacy of torture, given McCain's own mistreatment as a Vietnam prisoner of war.

But there should be no doubt that a McCain victory would give the neocons another four-year lease on the White House. And, after those four years, there might be no feasible way back for the great American Republic.
------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, "Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush," can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, "Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq" and "Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'ProjectTruth'" are also available there.

Re: BBB


And the "ANSWER" is Obama?

woiyo
woiyo, I think you will recall my first choice for president was superbly qualified Senator Joe Biden; my second choice qualified Senator Hillary Clinton. I've watched and been imprssed with Senator Barack Obama's growth into a qualified candidate during the campaign. He knows a lot more now than when he started. Obama certainly will be a better president than Senator John McCain.

BBB

Now that you've made your usual expected "liberal" attack, what do you think about the facts in John McCain's history. Or do you ignore them because he is a Republican and they can do no wrong?

BBB

Someone who genuinely doesn't understand something he reads, gets some kindly person to explain it to him, then just goes off elsewhere to re-post his original nonsense is merely a fraud, as exemplified for instance here >

http://www.able2know.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=3076696#3076696

> but if, in addition, he starts posting the vilest sort of calumny with no supporting evidence whatsoever, that makes him a scumbag in addition to a fraud.

HS, there's a lot more to the US economy then the stock market... how about the deficit and debt incurred by the government?

The stock market gains during Bush's term may look nice, but when compared to the additional debt, the situation is terrible...

Cycloptichorn

Cycl - LOL. Sometimes - in your 2-millisecond response times - you sound like an AI program on the blink. Read the whole page before commenting, if you must comment at all

I did read the whole page, thanks

Cycloptichorn

Thank you, Cycl, then you see that the item you mentioned was wholly peripheral. However to get back to this thread I find the title here appalling, not to say repulsive, and unrelated to documented facts.

Of course BBB is motivated by only the most benign of intentions. McCain presents such a pattern of unmitigated evil so as to overcome her progressive, Democrat scruples and therefore justify this unique indulgence in personal attacks, so utterly unlike good Democrats everywhere. In doing this she is in no way imitating the "swift boaters" of the Republican party she has so assiduously criticized in earlier posts. She is here in the grip of circumstances so overwhelming as to render the stink of hypocrisy that hangs over her behavior, meaningless in this instance.

Yeah, sure.

It is no more repulsive then those who would examine Obama's life for supposed 'proof' of moral failings.

I for one find McCain's inability to keep his wedding vows to be despicable. I suppose that doesn't matter so much to Republicans, though, who aren't especially big on morality.

Cycloptichorn

Let him who is without sin....

Interestingly, that scumbag McCain himself refused to participate in the "Swift Boating" of John Kerry. He had too much class for that.

One would think that all those who are so eager to tar and feather Obama - to insinuate various things about his morality or lack thereof - would show the same willingness to examine McCain's oath-breaking, and ask themselves: is this one who can be trusted to run the country? Why would he keep promises to the American people, when he cannot do so to his own wife?

Do you bunch not think that this is indicative of moral failings on his part?

Cycloptichorn

you called?

'getting your ass kicked', pretty mild by the standards being set by the the US, don't you think, Bill. Any comment on that?

And you know this, the underlined part, how, Bill?

Maybe Carol knows just how miserable her life would be, just how quickly the medical payments would be cut off if she told the truth.