Naturally we couldn't make it through another Sunday without our corporate media bringing on Sen. John McCain to prove he's living in Republican upside-down land.
I don't have much to add to Steve Benen's take on this, and please go read the entire post, but here's part of it -- McCain: Americans 'don't want compromise':
It’s safe to say Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) doesn’t have his finger on the pulse of public opinion. [...]
In every meaningful way, McCain’s assumptions are exactly backwards.
What the conservative senator seems to be arguing here is the notion of a mandate: Republicans campaigned against taxes, Republicans won, ergo Republicans can’t allow a compromise that imposes any tax increases on anyone ever. It’s an “elections have consequences” kind of approach.
And that’s not a bad pitch, if McCain were in any way correct about the details, but he’s not. For one thing, Americans elected a Democratic Senate. (McCain may have forgotten, but his caucus is still in the minority.) If voters left us with a Republican House and a Democratic Senate, how exactly does McCain perceive this as an anti-compromise electorate?
For another, the evidence is overwhelming that the American mainstream absolutely supports additional revenue as part of a larger debt-reduction deal.
And naturally we got no follow up from Crowley on just how wrong-headed McCain's assertions are or why he thinks it's acceptable to call something a "negotiation" when one side is completely unwilling to compromise.
McCain also floated the idea that the GOP might be willing to consider "certain revenue raisers" as long as no one dares call them a tax increase, but of course he refused to say just what those "revenue raisers" are.
Full transcript below the fold.
CROWLEY: let me bring you back home to the domestic problem that is hanging up congress at this point, and that is increasing the debt ceiling and the comparable part to this puzzle, which is lowering the U.S. trade -- the U.S. deficit, sorry.
Would you in the spirit of compromise, would you, Senator John McCain, not speaking for the Republican Party, could you see your way clear to voting for some sort of tax increase, whether it's closing a loophole of oil companies or charging those who have private jets? What would be so wrong with that?
MCCAIN: Well, I think that if we did those small things you're talking about, they would have very small impact. But the principle of not raising taxes is something that we campaigned on last November, and the results of the election was that the American people didn't want their taxes raised and they wanted us to cut spending.
CROWLEY: But what about compromise?
MCCAIN: I would argue that if we do otherwise -- well, you know, the American people, as the president describes it, administered a shellacking. They don't want compromise. They want us to balance the budget. They want us to stop mortgaging our children and our grandchildren's futures. And they don't think they need their taxes raised, and I don't either.
And I think that this catastrophe or short-term meltdown that we're facing is not nearly as bad as the meltdown we're facing unless we get our deficit under control.
CROWLEY: No way no how would Senator John McCain vote for anything, a closing of a loophole or tax hike of any sort?
MCCAIN: Candy, Jon Kyl was in negotiations as you know with the vice president. And he said there were certain revenue raisers in other areas that perhaps we could work on. But to somehow say that we're raise American's taxes, anybody's taxes I think is something that a principle that we promised the American people last year November and that we have to stick to.
CROWLEY: Could you share what sort of revenue raisers might be OK with you?
MCCAIN: No.
CROWLEY: You're no fun. Thank you very much, Senator John McCain, we appreciate your taking the time this morning.
MCCAIN: Thanks for having me on, Candy.
