A novel defense for McCain's policy reversals
By Steve Benen Tuesday Jun 24, 2008 7:30amTwo months ago, the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen noted in passing that John McCain has “fudged and ducked and swallowed the truth on occasion.” Cohen, however, said McCain deserved a pass because he had “understandable” reasons for his mendacity. And what, pray tell, were these “understandable” reasons? Cohen didn’t say. They were just, ipso facto, understandable.
Yesterday, Cohen added a little substance to the claim. McCain may be a flip-flopper, but that’s fine, Cohen argues, because he’s also a former prisoner of war. Seriously.
Cohen notes from the outset that McCain has “abandoned his maverick persona of old and moved to assure the GOP that on most matters, he is devoutly orthodox.” Cohen then lists six issues on which McCain “has either reversed himself or significantly amended his positions.” The WaPo columnist then boasts, “There, I’ve said it all.” (He hadn’t said anywhere close to it all — Cohen missed about 42 other issues on which McCain has reversed course.)
And then Cohen concludes why none of that matters.
McCain is a known commodity. It’s not just that he’s been around a long time and staked out positions antithetical to those of his Republican base. It’s also — and more important — that we know his bottom line. As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over. This — not just his candor and nonstop verbosity on the Straight Talk Express — is what commends him to so many journalists.
Obama might have a similar bottom line, core principles for which, in some sense, he is willing to die. If so, we don’t know what they are. Nothing so far in his life approaches McCain’s decision to refuse repatriation as a POW so as to deny his jailors a propaganda coup. In fact, there is scant evidence the Illinois senator takes positions that challenge his base or otherwise threaten him politically. That’s why his reversal on campaign financing and his transparently false justification of it matter more than similar acts by McCain.
None of this makes a lick of sense.
Yes, I will gladly concede that McCain endured torture and abuse as a POW that I can hardly imagine. The nation will always owe him a debt of gratitude for what he endured. But what this has to do with McCain reversing himself on dozens of issues four decades later is a mystery.
To hear Cohen tell it, McCain’s service during Vietnam is the ultimate trump card, freeing McCain of political responsibility. Indeed, Cohen feels justified in comparing McCain’s days as a POW to Obama’s reluctance to stray from liberal orthodoxy. Talk about comparing apples to oranges, Cohen is comparing apples to carburetors.
Obama’s reversals matter more than McCain’s, because McCain’s POW past proves … something or other that doesn’t have anything to do with his actual stances on the issues. Or something like that. It’s unclear whether Cohen means that McCain’s flip-flops don’t matter as much as Obama’s substantively or whether they don’t matter as much politically. But either interpretation makes this equally ridiculous. […]
If Cohen ever served, it isn’t reflected in his official bio, and you probably couldn’t ask for a more perfect demonstration of this Vietnam envy phenomenon than Cohen’s column today.
(To clarify, Cohen joined the National Guard during Vietnam, did basic training, and then never got around to completing his service requirements.)
I don’t know what’s gotten into the WaPo pundits lately. David Broder argued the other day, “McCain benefits from a long-established reputation as a man who says what he believes. His shifts in position that have occurred in this campaign seem not to have damaged that aura.” It’s a similar argument to Cohen’s — McCain’s been flip-flopping, but that’s fine because the media elites can vouch for him.
If guys like Cohen and Broder spent more time examining McCain’s radical transformation, and less time rationalizing why it doesn’t matter, the electorate might actually gain some important insights into the man vying to be president.
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How long can they milk this POW business? Weren't there other POWs?
No, giving him a pass on everything because he was a prisoner of war, doesn't work for me. Being president isn't a gift we give someone to be nice to them, it's a duty that is earned. McCain's forever changing mind, doesn't make me feel he is earning that duty, he just wants it.
Wasn't John Kerry a "known commodity"?
Shouldn't he have been given the benefit of the doubt instead
of being labeled an elist, wind-surfing, flip-flopper?
Give me a break.
As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over.
Pure speculation. Give Cohen a hanky.
I saw this also and was confused:
If I'm not mistaken, after torture, McCain denounced the United States. I don't blame him for this. I probably would also after being tortured. But if that's the case then he DIDN'T have a "bottom line." He wasn't "willing to die" for that "core principle." As a matter of fact, we know that under the most extreme, dire circumstances, McCain will not hold to his principles. Granted, by this argument, Obama is an unknown, but McCain can be counted on to crumble under pressure. So Cohen's entire argument is baseless.
It doesn't matter how they try to prop up McCain. When push comes to shove, I don't think the Bible Belt Jesus freaks will turn out in droves to vote for an admitted serial adulterer.
New bumper sticker: McCain - Same, Old, Same, Old
“McCain benefits from a long-established reputation as a man who says what he believes. His shifts in position that have occurred in this campaign seem not to have damaged that aura.”
Shorter Broder: He spoon feeds me shit and I love it.
That core of honor seems to have shriveled a bit since then. Thank you for your service, Senator, but that doesn't constitute a free pass to the White House.
A kiss-ass apologist by any other name is still one!
Being a military man doesn't mean much when it comes to being president. Grant was a military man who helped win the civil war, but made a terrible president. McCain wasn't even that good at being a pilot, seeing as he crashed five planes in a very short time. Becoming a POW is a terrible thing and I feel sorry for what he went threw, but that has nothing to do with if he would make a good president. The two have nothing to do with each other.
I have to think that if I had been tortured (as McCain claims he was), I might be a little mental. It could happen...
Cohen's just using the standard Rove methodology: attack your opponent's strength from your weakness. McCain's become so callow and mendacious that Cohen has to come up with something. Obama didn't abandon a position on campaign finance: McCain did. McCain the co-author of the damn campaign finance law. (Cohen didn't mention that, did he?) So, Cohen fabricates some transgression of Obama's. Obama's position on campaign finance wasn't unconditional. It depended upon the GOP abandoning its attack committees. They wouldn't so why should Obama play patty-cake with them? Cohen doesn't say. (Why? Because Cohen's a stooge. That's why.)
This is getting kind of pathetic. Few people have gone into the details of Obama's decision on his campaign finance and even fewer people give a damn. When the price of gasoline is passed on to each of us from all different directions, how Obama handles his campaign finances just isn't on anyone's mind.
Yet the media takes this change of plan that Obama made and tries to make it important. It isn't. But they are so busy trying to prop up McCain to make this election interesting that they grab at any straw.
The more ahead Obama gets, the less attention will be paid to the media and they know that. They have been telling us what to believe since before the Iraq war and we know how that all worked out for them. The media is desperate for attention but that doesn't mean we have to pay attention to a damned word they say about who our next president should be.
“McCain benefits from a long-established reputation as a man who says what he believes. His shifts in position that have occurred in this campaign seem not to have damaged that aura.”
Hard to damage that aura when there is an army of sycophantic press hacks willing to buff up that aura every time it gets dirty. According to them, McCain has such a rep for steadfastness that all his flip-flops shouldn't matter.
"This — not just his candor and nonstop verbosity on the Straight Talk Express — is what commends him to so many journalists."
There it is. Plain as day.
It doesn't matter that if McCain gets elected he will continue Bush policies that are disastrous for this country. No, journalists like him.
It's hard to comprehend how bad the press is in this country. But they will stick to their fairy tales until the planet explodes.
McCain can contradict himself and say anything that he wants because he was a POW? I think that is called "secondary gain behavior." For example, a chronically ill person believes they have special license to say or do or treat people any old way they choose. It is a pathological coping behavior. Yeah, I want that in my president...
Fine, let the journalist vote for McCain. Shows you where their values are. Just because he endears himself to the likes of Cohen, doesn't mean a damned thing about what kind of president he would make.
how far did the north vietnamese find mccain would go? he spent 4 days in the hanoi hilton and then was transferred to a prison the other pows called the plantation for its easier conditions. there he made 37 propaganda tapes and became a star of vietnamese primetime television starring as p.w. songbird in his very own show. compare that to admiral stockdales experiences. mccain will sell out for very little. the way he backed down to bush and rove in 2000 and his sucking up to them for the last 8 years proves his willingness to sell out........very cheap. bush sold this country down the river time and again for the benefit of a select very few. mccain only wants his opportunity to do the same.
Service for the country didn't stop them from attacking Max Cleland. Of course he was just hit by a grenade and lost limbs and wasn't tortured, so I guess he was still an unknown quantity who hadn't really proved himself.
Being a POW should disqualify him.
His captors mentally destroyed him.
He can't make decisions (flipflop).
Strait talk = strait bull shit.
It will make sense to the REPUG inclined in our population...and that's all that matters to the likes of this fool! Who, with a functioning brain, reads him anymore?
McCain's justifiable flip flops are due to his years as a POW, the price of tea in China, and the fact that I personally enjoy cornbread. Connect the dots, people!
Bush (and McCain) claim they can't do anything about high gas prices. Don't be surprised if gas goes to 98 cents a gallon on/about October 1st. Of course, after McCain is elected it will go back up to $6.00 -- let the obscene profits continue.
After Newsweek's poll showing Obama ahead by double digits, another one released yesterday reportedly showed the same. If Obama's so-called post-primary bump doesn't evaporate soon, I predict we're going to "dirty tricks" from the Repubs. that will make Watergate look like nothing more than a playful, good-natured prank. As evidenced by Broder and Cohen, they're already hysterically incoherent.
It's not supposed to makes sense. Then it would be too easy for the sheeple.
It's similar to the Catholic Masses and bibles written in Latin.
..nothing in Obama's life to compare with McCains.....
Perhaps. certainly not everyone gets to be captured and tortured for a few years.
However, I would say there is little if nothing in McCains life which would compare with Obama's.
McCain was born into the elite. Obama was born into the lower middle class, and was raised by his grandmother.
McCain got an appt to the naval academy, not due to any great ability on his part, but as a legacy.
Obama wokred his way through law school, eaning it every step of the way.
Mccain dumped the wife who had been raising his family and married money; which he then used to run for office.
Obama is still married to the same woman.
Frankly, I prefer Obama's story to McCain's.
jimbow8 @ 4:
I was thinkin that too...not exactly a watertight argument...but hey...they're republicans...they don't NEEED no stinkin logic!
You know what Senator McCain? I think Americans are just about sick of hearing how we owe you the presidency because you were a POW. Fuck you.
Shaw @ 22:
mmmmm.... cornbread. I guess I will vote for McCain after all. :)
Based on Cohen's bizarre, shitty analogy, every prisoner who broke while being waterboarded, ratting out their comrades to the enemy at GITMO, is qualified to be President.
As a commenter before me at the WaPo stated succinctly: It is waaaaay past your retirement time Cohen.
ChrisM70 @ 2:
Right on, Chris. You've hit the nail on the head. Wish we could get Cohen, Broder et al to respond; if we're extraordinarily lucky, someone will pose this question at some point. Kerry's worth less than McCain because he didn't get caught?
McCains plan for lower gas prices is to open up off shore drilling along our coasts and giving more tax breaks to oil company's. Oh, and I almost forgot, we will give a prize to anyone who comes up with a better battery. Now there is a energy plan that we can all get behind. Hahahahaha...
CafeenMan @ 28:
Straight to the point...I like it.
If this is all Cohen can come up with, then McSenile will receive 23% and Obama will receive 73% of the vote in November. Unfortunately for the neo-cons, the American people have become very good at reading between the lines. If it looks like crap and smells like crap, then it’s crap.
Unfortunately, he created a bigger piece of propaganda for them. He became a hostage: "Admiral McCain, we have your son." He is still being held hostage to this day. Why else would he be so virulently anti-veteran?
It makes perfect sense: He is more pliable than Bush. He most likely, is dealing with the end results of brain trauma.
If his inability to make up his mind, stick to a decision or even talk in a coherent manner, is indeed due to his captivity, do we really want a man so scarred by his war experience that he may be even more pliable than our current president is?
pissed off patricia @ 1:
Other POWs who were imprisoned with McCain have been strangely silent. It does stand to reason that if the man had been some incredible hero some of them would be standing by his side, right?
So... where are they?
CafeenMan @ 29:
Indeed, this has certainly changed my opinion of McCain.
Wait, my opinion just changed? Guess that means there's even more reason to feel an affinity for McCain.
If mccain's collaboration with the Vietcong makes him so qualified to be president then why wasn't Jane Fonda elected years ago?
What if McCain had never been a POW, would he be the candidate now?
Gretchen @ 37:
I've been wondering the same thing. Where is his band of brother? Why aren't they telling their stories about McCain's bravery?
(To clarify, Cohen joined the National Guard during Vietnam, did basic training, and then never got around to completing his service requirements.)
ahhhhh a real bush man there!
Let's summarize the logic here: McCain sells out his principles for political gain, but not to save his life (at least 40 years ago he didn't -- maybe), therefore his current sellout status is acceptable?
And this isn't something new, remember McCain admitted to supporting the Confederate flag against what he knew to be right, just to advance himself politically.
He was a POW because he was an incompetent aviator! Only the reich-wing would celebrate and worship incompetence.
McSame's lack of synaptic activity in the brain is becoming quite clear even to the most uninformed of americans. He can't seem to keep his thoughts and beliefs straight these days. One day he says one thing/another day it's reversed.
I believe that his handlers are making a serious error in judgment at this point to continue to remind people of McShady's very suspect, shady military career. For openers, the truth will come out in it's ugly entirety about what really happened on the USS Forestal. For another, his PTSD dx following his imprisonment and subsequent counsel from his psychiatrist that "he never fly again" - which he promptly did against the doc's orders and crashed his "5th plane". Error in judgment?? Disdain for authority?? Egomania?? Or simply dementia?? Take your pick - none of the conclusions are savory. It should be sounding familiar, however, since these are precisely the sociopathic characteristics of the Shrub in Chief right now.
This is why Mc ShadyGrandpappy reminds us all that he's perhaps an even more demented, diabolical version of Chimpy.
His handlers need to ease up on the POW bull and soon. It's providing insight into a military career which, as we will discover, is quite different from the "spin" of heroism and patriotism they're attempting to interpret.
So now the appeal is not that the president should be your drinking buddy, the president should be the guy on prescription anti-depressants, wearing a depends and sporting a hair-trigger temper.
Now I get it!
CafeenMan @ 28:
My sentiments exactly. Thank you for your service; now go snuggle that GILF and get the fuck out of my way.
What in the world is this man talking about? Hey, how do I get his job? A job that pays so much money just to write nonsense.
I'll ask my friend at the WaPo if he can get some drug-sniffing K-9s to check out Cohen's desk.
The Vietnamese knew exactly what they were doing when they sent this fraudulent, ill tempered, womanizing, privileged(with his mistress/wife's silver spoon stuck up his ass) fool back to America. If McDumb was truly a "hero", he would be too modest to talk so often about his POW experience.
http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd60.htm
pissed off patricia @ 40:
No, he'd be living under a bridge somewhere. And O'Really would say he didn't exist.
And Cindy would be banging some 50-year old Hell's Angel from Apache Junction.
"While a prisoner of war, McCain was treated as a "special prisoner," with privileges including being given his own private and affectionate nurse. "
"Ted Guy, a former Air Force Colonel held 5 1/2 years by the Vietnamese and McCain's senior ranking officer (SRO) in the POW camp, told the U.S. Veteran Dispatch he cannot remember the communists ever laying a hand on McCain."
http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/mccain.html
pissed off patricia @ 41:
they have told their stories. it's just not politically palatable to publish the accounts of the other prisoners of war because it really shames mcC*nt on all counts.
Don't forget we have got a fight on our hands, I was watching Dan Abrams last night, and he said that for Sen. Obama to attack McCain on the things said by Charlie Black will back fire, but then went on to attack Sen. Obama about the 2 women remove from the back ground, and I said to my self, what the hell, here is a man saying killing of more Americans is a good thing, and removing 2 women is a bad thing and should be talk about everyday, but not killing Americans, what is going on in the MSM.
They're working on it...
"I think it was on the fourth day [after being shot down] that two guards came in, instead of one. One of them pulled back the blanket to show the other guard my injury. I looked at my knee. It was about the size, shape and color od a football. I remembered that when I was a flying instructor a fellow had ejected from his plane and broken his thigh. He had gone into shock, the blood had pooled in his leg, and he died, which came as quite a surprise to us - a man dying of a broken leg. Then I realized that a very similar thing was happening to me.
"When I saw it, I said to the guard, `O.K., get the officer.'"
"An officer came in after a few minutes. It was the man that we came to know very well as "The Bug." He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends that we had to deal with. I said, `O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.'"
John Sidney McCain May 1973 in U.S. News and World Report
pissed off patricia @ 40:
He wouldn't even be in congress or married to money.
......
pissed off patricia @ 41:
Do we even know who they are? Let's go find them, because as was said, if he was such a "hero" they would have come out by now. What IS the definition of HERO by the way?
john @ 55:
The media talking heads are trying to make themselves important. Sen. Obama, as far as I have heard, did not say anything about Black. Abrams et al, are just trying to make us think what they say is important. It isn't. We don't need the opinions of these guys to make our decisions, we can think for ourselves.....they just don't want us to.
What an amazing crock of shit spewed by Cohen. I will now refer to him not as Richard, but as DICK Cohen!
lj @ 60:
I would think they would be proud to stand by his side as he runs for president. I would think they would love the attention too.
In a roundabout way I guess what he's trying to say is that: Yes, John McCain was tortured. Yes, he broke during his torture. Meaning the man has no solid principles or enough self respect for himself to take a serious stand on an issue.
Or am I read WAY to much into that?
The term hero is used way to much. Getting shot down and becoming a pow does not in of itself make a war hero. I was a grunt in Viet Nam, and the only real hero's I know are dead. Being a war hero means you did something above and beyond the call of duty. McCain does not fit the, above and beyond call of duty thing.
Most Vietnamese view McCain as being one of their own.
http://www.mysinchew.com/node/12995?tid=18
I agree, America "owes" McCain NOTHING, especially the presidency, for his years in a POW camp. I'm sure it was a scary environment where he had no control over what was happening to him and suffered painful injury along the way. What he doesn't realize is that that describes most Americans' experiences too. A scary environment where he had no control over what was happening to him and suffered painful injury along the way. People without health insurance have this experience constantly. The lack of infrastructure that hastened Katrina's devastation. The politicization of the Justice Department and Civil Rights Division in particular. The Patriot Act and FISA capitulation. Hell, even DEBT qualifies as the kind of life-long pain and suffering that one has little say over.
AMERICA is suffering, and McCain lives in the lap of luxury.
Somebody please help me out? Was McCain the "ONLY" POW in American History?
That's all McCain has got to run on, just like Bush's claim to fame was that he was a "born-again faux christain!"
Does anyone see the close resemblance between Charlie Black and Ralph Reed? Is Charlie Black Ralph Reed's daddy, and if so who begat that hypocrite on society? From whose loins did Reed emerge from?
biff diggerence @ 3:
Sure Cohen. You ARE referring to "Songbird", aren't you? Your manlove for McBush is sickening.
pissed off patricia @ 63:
Maybe so, but as with Kerry's fellow servicemen, there were those who degraded him (falsely and for $ as I remember) and basically negated his "under fire" service. Not that McCain critics should lie, but at least put some alternative perspective to McCain heroism.
Big difference between living in "survival mode" and living amongst the world's elite.
lj @ 60:
BaScOmBe hearts Lara Logan @ 59:
BaScOmBe hearts Lara Logan @ 54:
Most or all of McCains injuries came from bailing out of his damaged jet, not from torture. The msm plays up the torture thing because it sounds better. Other POW's who were in the same camp as McCain have said as far as they know, there wasn't any torture going on.
If we elect this dickweed, we deserve him.
It's even simpler than that: McCain's been flip-flopping, but that's fine because we say so.
BaScOmBe hearts Lara Logan @ 54:
Thanks! And yes Lara Logan is terrific.
Has any of you seen the movie Manchurian Candidate? I'm just saying......
"Been around a long time?" Didn't this idiot get the memo that whined about the Dems using code to call McCain old?
He's old. He's a flip-flopper who will say & do ANYTHING to get elected. McCain would be a step DOWN from the incompetent & crooked administration that we have now.
With McCain in the WH, you'd STILL have Rove & the the rest of the neocons behind the scenes with the ability to continue their rape & murder of America.
Richard Cohen appears to talk in circles. The issue is his friggin decision-making and mental set NOW. Not forty some odd years ago when he was a wreckless aviator. Based on his comments over just the past couple of years, case is closed.
If John McCain is a war hero for being a POW then aren't we making lots of muslim war heros at gitmo?
I emailed Chris Cillizza (sp?) about this the other day, asking why there's been no examination of McCain's opt-out, opt-in, opt-out again regarding public financing in the primary. The WaPo's argument seems to be: "A flip-flop matters if we say it does; it doesn't if we say it doesn't." There's no critical reasoning attached to this at all.
Haven't received a response.
My six year old comes up with better excuses.
Normally I wouldn't want to speak poorly of someone's military service, but I just remembered all of those assholes at the 2004 Good'Ole boy Party convention wearing those disgusting purple band-aids mocking John Kerry's service, so fuck'em! How many propaganda films did John McBush star in for the Viet Cong? Is his SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card still current? I know, I know...2 wrongs don't make a right, but sometimes you've gotta fight fire with fire (insert additional cliche' here).
You said:
"If guys like Cohen and Broder spent more time examining McCain’s radical transformation, and less time rationalizing why it doesn’t matter, the electorate might actually gain some important insights into the man vying to be president."
I say:
As if "informing the electorate" was in any way the intention of Cohen or Broder.
Not to mention how John McCain got to the Hanoi Hilton in the first place. The plane crash that took him there was his fourth. The first three were in the domestic US under no enemy fire. His flight records (such as have been released) consistently show him at the bottom of his class, as he was at West Point. Most pilots with a record of three non-combat crashes would not be flying combat missions, if at all, yet McCain "somehow" kept flying. Must be nice to be an Admiral's son...
Once he was in the Hanoi Hilton, he was tortured, did sign a "confession", and came out alive. Somehow this makes him a hero, despite no action on his part. He was merely acted upon. I guess survival is pretty heroic in those circumstances, but its nothing to base any further assumptions about his character on.
Check out: http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_mccain_lost_five_u.htm
and many other sources for details
http://www.google.com/search?query=mccain%20plane%20crashes&num=10
pissed off patricia @ 40:
He wouldn't even be a Senator! Seriously, what is there in his background that qualifies him the be in high office?
He was a weird kid, prone to rages; got a free ride to the Naval Academy on Daddy's and Pappy's epaulets, where he promptly sank to the bottom of his class; be came a Naval Aviator - but crashed 5 planes, killing a bunch of his fellow sailors; ended up being captured by the enemy with whom he cooperated in some sense; came home "a hero" and promptly dumped his wife for a rich bimbo; ran for office based on pity for his time as a POW; has been involved in a couple scandals (Keating 5 comes to mind); and has flip-flopped on every so-called principle he stood for (the photo of his face in Dubya's armpit says it all).
I think the Repukes just let him have the nomination because: a) they know that they have no chance to win back the Presidencey after Bush's act; or, b) they're planning to use the Charlie Black strategy - stage another terror attack and scare the folks into keeping BUsh or voting for McPain.
Whoops, sorry I pushed that red button. I'm an ex-POW.
Cohen and Broder:
"In gratitude for his military service, during which he was captured in North Vietnam after his last crash, suffering injuries to his arms and shoulders that interfere with normal movements, we'll toss his salad for him whenever he needs us to."
If this is the only criteria for electing McCain, why didn't he beat Bush in the 2000 primary and go on to be installed in the presidency then?
my suspicion is that cohen's column and a lot of the other mccain support in the media are all just fancy ways of saying obama might not be "solid" on israel.
If McSame has "core principles" for which "he is willing to die," then maybe it's time he gave us a practical example of this.
As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over.
WTF does THAT mean???
Carrying this Vietnam logic all the way, the North Vietnamese Generals ended up running the country. Surprisingly, being a military general didn't make you good at running a country economically and politically. In fact, they weren't very good at it at all.
After all, the Republican Party couldn't stop making that argument that just because being in Vietnam for the Democratic candidates didn't mean they'd be good at running the country (see Al Gore (civilian reporter, wasn't it?), John Kerry).
the reputhulicans are ALL just
a bunch of fucking loonies. reality
is what they do in the honey bucket
for lunch.
Goggle: Richard Cohen,picture
Click on 1st picture in the upper left, then scroll down to the 3rd picture, stopping briefly at the 2nd picture for a good laugh, then proceed to Richards picture!
We should start calling the moron John McCaindy.
Go watch the Tom Hans/John Candy movie "Volunteers" (1985) and watch the scenes where John Candy's character is tortured by communists.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090274/
McCaindy flip-flops as easily as Candy when slapped with the left or right hand.
Same as saying that George W. Bush does dumb-ass things because he is stupid.
i think that mccain is viewed as a "known commodity" by the predominantly white, male msm, because they identify with him as a white male . . . since they identify with him, they always ascribe to mccain the best of intentions
when barack or michelle obama speak, they are "other", and thus are not afforded the msm's benefit of the one-of-us doubt . . . besides, given the white male's history of oppressing the "other", the msm is a little afraid of them . . . is that knuckle bump a terrorist fist jab? is obama secretly an islamofacist operative? is michelle obama suddenly proud of her country because she's a radical, black power supporter?
racism in the country is pervasive, and the biases of a white male dominated media will, consciously or not, keep it that way
So not knowing what Obama's thinking is scary, but not knowing what McCain is thinking is fine and dandy. It doesn't matter if Obama is younger and less psychologically-damaged, because he's black. Let's get that out in the open, because it's really what's being argued here.
How would Cohen know what "journalists" like? Hey Rich, real journalists check their facts!
The comments are getting pretty ugly, folks. Is it really necessary to ridicule and discount McCain's experience as a POW in order to criticize his politics and his campaign? I hope not.
"is a known commodity" do they trade BS on the Chicago board of trade??
The MSM are so out there in Bizarro land I think they need a kick in the ass to set themselves straight ( not to mention it'd make the rest of us feel a whole lot better)
He was a POW there were more than a few POWS can we put them all in office?
How many boats did Kerry sink while in vietnam Mccrazy graduated towards the bottom of his class and lost quite a few planes even before he went to vietnam.
They had a thing about Mccrazy on the CBS early morning news- it was on at work- can't believe all the spin-like something out of the exorcist without the pea soup- Mccrazy was this Mccrazy was that what about all the bad crap he should have in jail at the very least for some of that crap
If mccrazy is best the gop can come up with stick a fork in it it's done now just to get rid of the demo enablers
bshock @ 92, he promised to if the Rethugs lost their Congressional majorities in '06 but he flip/flopped on that too.
Peteena @ 102, if you mean my putting up information I've found about the candidate, it's not my opinion but just the truth and I didn't put any of it up to ridicule mccains being a POW but to ridicule cohens BS about it. There's a big difference there. And I think the same goes for most of the comments here.
jhill123 @ 90:
because he wasn't in the next barstool! boosh was.
kathleen @ 91:
no. it's just the media's way of saying that they are willing to gorge themselves on repugliKKKan private parts.
innocent bystander @ 99:
mcC*nt is the repugliKKKan candidate. start there.
now remember that the media is pulling out all the stops to get the repug elected.
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