by Teh Nutroots | McCain vs. the editorial board at The Des Moines Register [h/t M. Ambinder]
Now for a little insider's insight.
Former McCain operative Mike Murphy says that the other "salty old pros" who used to win for the GOP, now sidelined, are "almost to a person dismayed by what they see as the stunning lack of competence in the McCain campaign."
One very smart consultant who knows McCain well sent me a link this morning to the video of McCain at Des Moines Register Editorial board interview. Set aside whatever you think of McCain's interview; this operative's point was purely technical and dead on correct:
What the Hell was McCain even doing there in the first place? (Swampland)
I.e., in a state that Obama is going to win, being interviewed by liberals who run that paper.
So there you have it. John McCain, doesn't like being forced to deal with questions from people who don't agree with him. And can't stop himself from letting everyone see he is inwardly seething.
Okay, kids! It's time for The Angry John McCain song! (FYI & NB: Funny and clever, but a couple of parts are in terrible taste---Damozel). Right:
I didn't know about the "I hate gooks" remark referenced in the song, but it seems he did say it. You can decide for yourself whether or not you buy his subsequent context-reframe. But what difference does it make, really, whether you buy it or not? What sort of impulsiveness problem does he have if he said it at all?
Rolling Stone---in an article mysteriously shown on the page as posted on Oct 16, 2008 (am I in a time warp?)---has the Bob Kerrey story, which the song has wrong. It was Grassley whom McCain called "a fucking jerk."
Even McCain admits to an "immature and unprofessional reaction to slights" that is "little changed from the reactions to such provocations I had as a schoolboy."...
In the Senate — where, according to former GOP Sen. Bob Smith, McCain has "very few friends" — his volcanic temper has repeatedly led to explosive altercations with colleagues and constituents alike. In 1992, McCain got into a heated exchange with Sen. Chuck Grassley over the fate of missing American servicemen in Vietnam. "Are you calling me stupid?" Grassley demanded. "No, I'm calling you a fucking jerk!" yelled McCain. Sen. Bob Kerrey later told reporters that he feared McCain was "going to head-butt Grassley and drive the cartilage in his nose into his brain." The two were separated before they came to blows.
Several years later, during another debate over servicemen missing in action, an elderly mother of an MIA soldier rolled up to McCain in her wheelchair to speak to him about her son's case. According to witnesses, McCain grew enraged, raising his hand as if to strike her before pushing her wheelchair away.
McCain has called Paul Weyrich, who helped steer the Republican Party to the right, a "pompous self-serving son of a bitch" who "possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain." In 1999, he told Sen. Pete Domenici, the Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, that "only an asshole would put together a budget like this." (Make-Believe Maverick)
And this is disturbing:
"He's going to be Bush on steroids," says Johns, the retired brigadier general who has known McCain since their days at the National War College. "His hawkish views now are very dangerous. He puts military at the top of foreign policy rather than diplomacy, just like George Bush does. He and other neoconservatives are dedicated to converting the world to democracy and free markets, and they want to do it through the barrel of a gun." (Make-Believe Maverick)
I don't know about you, but I don't need a mean grandfather.
The article also discusses at length McCain's inner hawk. Here's an excerpt.
Privately, McCain brags that he was the "original neocon." And after 9/11, he took the lead in agitating for war with Iraq, outpacing even Dick Cheney in the dissemination of bogus intelligence about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. "There's other organizations besides Mr. bin Laden who are bent on the destruction of the United States," he warned in an appearance on Hardball on September 12th. "It isn't just Afghanistan. We're talking about Syria, Iraq, Iran, perhaps North Korea, Libya and others." A few days later, he told Jay Leno's audience that "some other countries" — possibly Iraq, Iran and Syria — had aided bin Laden....
That December, just as U.S. forces were bearing down on Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, McCain joined with five senators in an open letter to the White House. "In the interest of our own national security, Saddam Hussein must be removed from power," they insisted, claiming that there was "no doubt" that Hussein intended to use weapons of mass destruction "against the United States and its allies."
In January 2002, McCain made a fact-finding mission to the Middle East. While he was there, he dropped by a supercarrier stationed in the Arabian Sea that was dear to his heart: the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the giant floating pork project that he had driven through over President Carter's veto. On board the carrier, McCain called Iraq a "clear and present danger to the security of the United States of America." Standing on the flight bridge, he watched as fighter planes roared off, en route to Afghanistan — where Osama bin Laden had already slipped away. "Next up, Baghdad!" McCain whooped....
Indeed, McCain's neocon makeover is so extreme that Republican generals like Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft have refused to endorse their party's nominee. "The fact of the matter is his judgment about what to do in Iraq was wrong," says Richard Clarke, who served as Bush's counterterrorism czar until 2003. "He hung out with people like Ahmad Chalabi. He said Iraq was going to be easy, and he said we were going to war because of terrorism. We should have been fighting in Afghanistan with more troops to go after Al Qaeda. Instead we're at risk because of the mistaken judgment of people like John McCain." (Make-Believe Maverick)
Some people put the slight bounce upward in the polls for Obama down to Palin. I'm guessing it's more an effect of the growing perception that John McCain's not the person we want in charge of....well, anything. This sort of response to what most people should admit are perfectly legitimate questions for a politician FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES ain't helping.
And nor is the Doofus ticket's association with this guy, the worst president ever (now at new and historic lows).
More at Memeorandum.
Comments