by Teh Nutroots | Heh. Steven Benen calls it "The Prickly Talk Express." "Note to reporters: this isn't the guy you fell in love with. He was replaced with an angry, overly-scripted ideologue."
Pandagon calls him "Prickles the Candidate." (Check out the illustration).
Hehhehehheh
One of Benen's commenters sums it up as follows:
"Hey, kids! Get off my tire swing!"
Benen provides some context:
John McCain became a media darling by offering extraordinary access to campaign reporters. The candidate and the journalists would spend hours hanging out on a bus, enjoying the gabfests, on and off the record, about any subject that came to mind. The media ate it up, and rewarded McCain with the kind of fawning, sycophantic coverage most politicians can only dream of....
That was, of course, before Karl Rove's team took over the McCain campaign operation. Howard Kurtz recently had a good item detailing the remarkably curtailed access the senator now offers reporters, and the ways in which McCain replaced "straight talk" with stale talking points. To see just how dramatic a transformation this has been, take a minute to read this fascinating interview between McCain and Time's James Carney and Michael Scherer.
Man, he is pissy. An excerpt from the excerpt:
There's a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us?
Read it in my books.I've read your books.
No, I'm not going to define it.But honor in politics?
I defined it in five books. Read my books.... (TIME; more)
Wonkette (under the heading GRUMPY OLD MEN) addresses this refusal:
Th-that’s n-not straight talk we can b-believe in!
Jesus, if you can’t give some rote definition of honor when your entire campaign is built around your Honorable Patriotism bullshit, you should really just hang it up, let Mitt or somebody take the nomination.
McCain gets bonus Nasty Points for demanding that people buy five of his goddamned books to figure out how he might define “honor in politics,” even if you’ve already read them.
Also, he didn’t write any of “his” books — they were all written by his loyal propaganda aide, Mark Salter.
Back to the excerpt:.
In 2000, after the primaries, you went back to South Carolina to talk about what you felt was a mistake you had made on the Confederate flag. Is there anything so far about this campaign that you wish you could take back or you might revisit when it's over?
[Does not answer.]....You do acknowledge there was a change in the campaign, in the way you had run the campaign?
[Shakes his head.]...You don't acknowledge that? O.K., when your aides came to you and you decided, having been attacked by Barack Obama, to run some of those ads, was there a debate?
The campaign responded as planned.Jumping around a bit: in your books, you've talked about what it was like to go through the Keating Five experience, and you've been quoted as saying it was one of the worst experiences of your life. Someone else quoted you as saying it was even worse than being a POW ...
That's another one of those statements made 17 or 18 years ago which was out of the context of the conversation I was having. Of course the worst, the toughest experience of my life was being imprisoned, so people can pluck phrases from 17 or 18 years ago ...I wasn't suggesting it as a negative thing. I was just saying that ...
I'm just suggesting it was taken out of context. I understand how comments are taken out of context from time to time. But obviously, the toughest time of my life, physically and [in] every other way, would be the time that I almost died in prison camp. And I think most Americans understand that....
A lot of people know about your service from your books, but most people don't know that you have two sons currently in the military. Can you describe what it means to have Jack and Jimmy in uniform?
We don't discuss our sons. (TIME; more)
Pandagon's Jesse Taylor lets fly:
If John “I Drink Patriotism And Piss Honor” McCain can’t define the basic concept of his campaign beyond “go read my books, kid”, he not only has problem but - dare I say? - sounds like a prima donna professional athlete who can’t be bothered to sign an autograph or even say “Go Team” without cash in his hand and an endorsement deal on the table....It’s like the little parasite in his head has incomplete access to the archives, and is just picking out the ten most recent phrases.
Harry Reid has said he doesn't think McCain has the temperament to be president.
"I just think he doesn't have the temperament to be president," Reid told Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston during the taping of "Face to Face," in Denver on Wednesday. The show airs on a Las Vegas, Nev., cable channel.
"I've served with the man 26 years," Reid said. "Do I have the ability to speak with experience about someone who has abused everyone he's dealt with? Someone who does not have the temperament to be president, who's wrong on the war, wrong on the economy, wrong on nuclear waste. What am I supposed to do? Walk around talking about what a great guy he is? I don't believe that. .... "
"There isn't a Republican serving in the Senate that's happy he's the nominee. Now, they're all supporting him, but I'll tell you they have told me. I've had Republican senators tell me they don't think they'll vote for him," Reid said. (AMERICAblog)
Josh Orton at MyDD notes:
You hear "John McCain is my good friend, but..." line from many Dem Senators as a pretext to criticism the Republican candidate. But no such qualification from the Majority Leader: Reid told Lieberman he "can't stand John McCain." But more than that, I think now is precisely the time to begin introducing this aspect of McCain's personality - right when the traditional media is discovering the same thing.
So maybe to know Elmer McFudd really isn't to love him. Apparently there is a certain chill in the air between the McCain's and some of Cindy's relatives.
For someone from the party of "family values," McCain's sure having trouble rounding up the votes of his relatives. Us also reports that [Cindy's half-sister's] son, Nathan, plans to back Obama as well. Nathan had some harsh words for both McCains.
"I wouldn't vote for John McCain if he was a Democrat," he said. "I would not vote at all before I'd vote for him." He went on: "I question whether Cindy is someone I'd want to see in the White House as first lady. (Salon)
This might explain why Cindy's half-sister is voting for the other guy. You know. The Dem.
Though it might be more that Cindy dissed her pretty fricking definitively..
"I'm not voting for McCain," Kathleen Hensley Portalski tells Us. "I have a different political standpoint.
"I'm voting for Obama," the Phoenix resident says. "I think his proposals to improve the country are more positive and I'm not a big war believer."
Portalski, 65, and the potential first lady, 54, have the same father: Jim Hensley, the founder of the beer distributor Hensley and Co. that Cindy McCain now chairs.
In an interview with NPR News' All Things Considered last week, Portalski said she felt "like a non-person" after Cindy McCain described herself as an "only child." (US Magazine)
Huh.
Anyway, to get back to McCain. Jeff Fecke is as blunt as Harry Reid:
[R]emember the mythical “John McCain” of 2000? The gregarious, open, honorable guy fighting for his country? Yeah, he’s not here anymore. In his place is John McCain, a nasty, snippy, petulant jerk, one who is more than willing to go as negative as possible, to tear down his opponent, to harm his country if it will get him to the White House.
Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast says:
It's somewhat surprising that with even many people who should be on his side leery of John McCain's anger management problem, Johnny McCranky should allow the dark side of his personality out to a publication that's historically been friendly to him.
She also draws attention to something that I thought was really quite remarkable: the sense he conveys of entitlement. John McCain doesn't have to answer "tough" media questions. John McCain was a POW for five years.
Memeorandum has more blogger-chat here.
RECENT POSTING
McPrickles: McCain Snarls His Way Through an Interview with TIME
The Daily Show: John Oliver Tries to Heal the Party, Restore Unity
Hillary Kills the Roll Call, Calls for Nomination by Acclamation
Comments