Requiem for a Maverick
By SilentPatriot Thursday Dec 04, 2008 10:00am
Matt Taibbi reflects on the failed McCain candidacy in perhaps the best and most-entertaining article of the entire political season. Here's a taste.
John McCain and Sarah Palin, after all, represented two completely different approaches to Republican conservatism. McCain comes from the school of politicking that goes after as many votes as possible by waving a flag and saying as little as possible, which is to say he was basically a third-way Democrat with a Goldwater fetish. His basic plan heading into the general election seemed strikingly similar to that of the dipshit vice president character from the uninspiring but weirdly prescient Chris Rock movie Head of State, who ran on a platform of "I've been vice president for the last eight years, I'm a war hero and I'm Sharon Stone's cousin."
McCain's shtick wasn't exactly that, but it was close. He was a war hero who married an heiress to a beer distributorship and had been in the Senate since the Mesozoic Era. His greatest strength as a politician had up until this year been his ability to "reach across the aisle," a quality that in the modern Republican Party was normally about as popular as open bisexuality. His presence atop the ticket this year was evidence of profound anxiety within the party about its chances in the general election. After eight disastrous years of Bush, they thought they had lost the middle — so they picked a middling guy to get it back.Which made sense, right up until the moment when they stuck him with Pinochet in heels for a running mate. Sarah Palin would have been a brilliant choice as a presidential nominee — and she will be, in 2012, when she leads the inevitable Republican counter-revolution against Obama's presidency. She's a classic divide-and-conquer politician, an unapologetic Witch Hunter and True Believer with a gift for whipping up the mob against the infidel. In a way that even George W. Bush never was, she is Karl Rove's wet dream, the Osama bin Laden of soccer moms, crusading against germs, communism, atheism and other such unclean elements strictly banned by American law.
Seriously...read the whole thing. It's well worth your time.
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A sad but true story, more or less.
That cartoon of Palin overboard is funny...and premature. The Repukes still need her sorry ass...before they throw her out of a fast moving vehicle.
It doesn't look like she's being thrown overboard, but rather bailing the Crazy Ship Lollipop and looking around for another boat to jump on and possibly take command.
That's insane.
The last 8 years have been insane.
We may have to rethink the old Navy adage that's it's bad luck to have a woman on board.
... to go down with the ship. But, doing the decent thing is not one of Palin's virtues—does she have any?
Love it.
Especially if, as now seems likely, St. Barry, the Changer, comes up measurably 'short,' as he will as the GOPukes obstruct and subvert even the miniscule changes he'll propose.
Pinochet in heels? loverly...
While "St. Barry"is pissing you(and Hannity) off, he's winning over moderate Conservatives. "Obstruct and subvert even the miniscule changes he'll propose" Sounds like wishful thinking from you. I see zero facts to support your argument thus far.
"Moderate conservatives"?
An oxymoron of historically hysterical proportions...
Hannity, Rush "kool-aid" drinkers? You do understand that moderates exist on both sides.
"Moderate conservatives"?
No such animal.
He won't be happy with any American politician with a chance of getting elected. He would have been much happier had Senator Obama run on a much more left wing set of policies, even though it would have resulted in McCain/Palin victory.
He and a few other are all set to wallow in the "both parties are the same" meme, despite the evidence to the contrary or the risk that attacks against the Obama administration from anyone the MSM can characterize as "the left" just give aid and comfort to the GOP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eyGxQ2QU24&fe...
Mike linked this in the roundup a few days back. Worth reading again, though. A great piece.
try never to miss his writing
How can we mourn the passing of someone who was never born to begin with?
McCain is not, and never was, a maverick. Unless the term "maverick" is an euphemism for "over entitled incompetent asshole, whose only achievements seem to have been getting his ass captured and marrying well after dumping his first wife... only to be involved in one of the biggest corruption scandals in the US senate's history"... which I doubt it is. Alas, what the fuck is a "maverick" really?
That TV show with James Garner?
I looked up "maverick" on some online dictionary or some such. They had the exact definition you gave and a picture of John McCain to boot. I think it was published by some beer distribution company.
has to mean sumpin'. Did someone in her posse yell 'burn the witch'?
I agree with the premise of this article except that it actually assumes that Palin has some competency. She is just another self centered looney tune Neocon hack that would appeal to the rigid wacko fringe of their sorry ass party. Once moderates and independents get a whiff of this political skunk they will run for their lives.
The image of her competence is a media invention and these MSM dupes and saps should get past their soap operatic delivery of news and softpedaling of her shortcomings and look at the sorry and utterly self centered person that she is. She is an insult to and blight on our political system. And anybody that can willingly consent to ignore the horror of animals being slaughtered 20 feet from her interview is a sickening sociopath with zero empathy.
I hope the dumbass Neocons run her in 2012. Obama will have fun ramming her into the shredder of political reality and marginalizing the Neocons for good.
Loved this (from the article):
was was talking in cocks, not in tongues?
Palin's "Early" First Birth
Palin's medical history revealed her first birth was full term, which means 9 months, plus or minus 2 weeks. Yet the baby was born only 8 months after her marriage. So it was conceived before her marriage! This, from the abstinence-promoting, fundamentalist, anti-sex education, "virtuous" politician! What a hypocrite!
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It seemed a bit mysterious, why Governor Palin's health records were such a secret, and only released on the eve of the election.
She was adamantly determined to keep those personal health records from advanced public scrutiny, a most unusual stance for a candidate for such high office. What on earth was the lady hiding so grimly?
Could it be that, since the date of her first delivery is known and also the date of her marriage, being a public record, is also known . . . that her health records would reveal to all that this first birth was not premature, but full term, and that it strongly indicated the conception occurred before her marriage?
And that is exactly what the medical record showed, that the birth of her first child was full "term," which means 9 months, plus or minus 2 weeks. Yet the lady gave birth only 8 months after her elopement marriage. Such marriages are often rushed, for pregnancy reasons, and that seems to have been the case here.
This certainly would have been damaging in the election for one who professes such fundamentalist views and such personal virtue as the Alaska governor. She, after all, has been an ardent promoter of premarital chastity and abstinence, and an equally ardent opponent of sex education.
Seems to make her a total hypocrite, no?
She sounds kinda like a xtian.
i still prefer 'bush in a skirt', but that is really good.
much like "fiscal conservatism", palin is her own worst enemy.
Sara Palin appeals to the, and I will be generous and say %30, of people that feel that the number one issue in the United States is getting more church into the government. Besides that she is empty of anything. Sure she can mimic talking points like a well trained parrot but anytime she has been ask to give anything more than what is on the script she becomes a somewhat good looking blank, devoid of anything. She knows the words but has no clue of their meaning. Also I was going to comment on the Hardball post from a few minutes ago and there does not seem to be a link.
In the "literacy bidness" in which I used to profess, we call it "barking at text." Speak, Sarah! Pretty Bird! It's what folks do when reading when they believe there's no ambiguity in words, because they've never paused to consider alternative meanings in differing contexts.
On the most recent post, the one about Chris Matthews, on the comment page there is no button to click to add a comment. Maybe the little hamster who turns that wheel has had too much eggnog.
they'll fix it...
but it sher messes up the game of 'firsts'
Yeah they will but we have to get a pot of black coffee into that tipsy hamster first.
Obama the trickster is what I now call they guy I spent my last dollar to help elect.
I'm one of the newly displaced Arizonians, who just got hugely screwed in several ways by Obama's strategic (and intentional?) gift to John McCain.
Think about this: we had 50/50 chances of defeating McCain in 2010; his poll numbers were dropping faster than a Palin 'postrophe and; the state became bluer with each election; and with the help of Napolitano, a Democratic Governor, she strengthened the Democratic party's grip to the point of finally taking a Senate seat - soon.
Had Obama not removed Napolitano from that picture - everything Matt said would have occurred, along with all of the above.
Now, I predict just the reverse, and a whole lot more will be true. Get this:
1. Obama just delivered the state into the hands of a hard core religious Republican neocon female from hell.
a. This election, the Right-wing's religious southern whackos flew in and dropped a bucket of money, preying on the Hispanic community's faith to finally pass the gay marriage ban.
b. Guess which whacko will fly in from the north to be our new Gov.s best friend and the country's' biggest nightmare from hell in 2010?
2. Joining those 2 whackos will be the newly empowered Joe Lieberman, along with the newly empowered and vindicated and re-elected John McCain, both of whom are now best buddies of Obamas, and will, you betcha', rejoin forces to became an even worse team from hell to destroy the Democratic party. In the Senate, the House and the country.
4. The real more likely finale? Lieberman, McCain and Palin are back bigger than ever. They strengthen the Republican party, who begins using religion to forge new very successful religious alliances within the Democratic party -to divide and conquer. A plan could work. Hypocritical national Catholic leaders are already at it.
Resulting in all of the gains made by Governor Dean's 50 state strategy to slowly erode into uselessness.
So, I offer this revised requiem: For the regression of civil rights, for women's rights, for all the gains put forward by a once bold and proud Democratic party and lastly for my state of Arizona, now headed back in time -where ol' boys rule and progress is 'radical'.
I have one conservative friend who voted for Obama because McCain is, and always has been, an ass hole. His temper has alienated many a colleague, and the image of him as a coalition-builder is as mythological as his maverick image. He may look like a maverick, but that's because he does not have many friends. Smart conservatives like my friend saw that he would be unable to get anything done.
We really dodged a bullet on this one.
http://www.rollingstone.com/blogs/taibbiunbou...
Matt's the male equivalent of Maureen Dowd. Not a whole lot of substance there, but he's clever and knows how to turn a phrase.
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