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Stranger Registered: 09/12/07 Posts: 415 Last seen: 9 years, 1 month |
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Part 2: the Spineless Flip-flopper
![]() John McCain's a Maverick, a renegade. He plays by his own rules, bravely eschewing Republican ideology to find common ground with Democrats. Or at least that's how every article about him would have us believe. This comes as little surprise, given that he's hosted friendly BBQs with our oh so skeptical and objective press; of course, they returned the favor by welcoming him with donuts(with sprinkles, his favorite!); top newspaper editors called Obama a terrorist(Obama sounds like Osama, get it! Hyuk!) Of course, if the press spent more time researching and less time in line at Dunkin Donuts worrying whether their buddy would invite them to another barbeque, they'd know that he's nothing of the sort. True, in the past, he has staked out positions that put him in opposition with hardcore Republican dogma, but on just about every issue, he's long ago renounced the errors of his ways and has drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak. At some points, he portrays himself as pro-science. In 1999, he dismissed creationism and said it should be up to local school boards whether or not to teach it. In 2005, he flip flopped: Quote: Yes, let's teach both sides of the controversy. Do babies result from the union of sperm and egg after sexual intercourse? Or do storks drop babies into chimneys? I don't know: let's teach the controversy. Is pi a rational or irrational number? I don't know: let's teach the controversy. Do objects fall to the ground because of gravity or because magical fairies sprinkle pixie dust on the objects causing them to fall? I don't know: let's teach the controversy. Apparently, there's no right-wing nutjob too stupid to pander to, no lowest common denominator for whose vote he's not willing to debase himself. What integrity. Speaking of lowest common denominators, McCain has also flip flopped with regards to radical right wing Dominionists. In 2000, McCain famously referred to the right-wing hatemongers like Falwell and Robertson as "agents of intolerance". He now rejects this view and has cozied up to these vile bigots. He has since made peace with Falwell in order to avoid a repeat of 2000's South Carolina Primary. The fact that Falwell has since said things like the following hasn't convinced him otherwise: Quote: Now to be fair, he issued a half-assed apology, saying: Quote: So he would never blame anyone except the terrorists, except the people he just blamed(again). So repentant. Here are some more wonderful quotes from that man: Quote: Nope, absolutely nothing to denounce here(or reject). No intolerance or bigotry to be seen here. He's also cozied up to John Hagee. In fact, Hagee claims that McCain actually sought out his support. So, let's recap: McCain does not attend Hagee's church, they do not know each other privately but have instead formed a purely political union, an alliance to advance each other's interests. So whereas Obama got slammed for sticking by a reverend with whom he had a deep and long-lasting personal and spiritual relationship, McCain sought out Hagee to advance his own political interests. Which is more distressing? So what has Hagee said that's so bad? For one thing, he wants to bring about the end of the world which will require a cataclysmic war in the Middle East as well as the conversion or mass murder of all non-Christian faiths. Having a presidential candidate who's been saber rattling against Iran and has (falsely and repeatedly) accused Iran of harboring Al-Quaida suck up to a preacher who "ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, “Jerusalem Countdown,” in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon (which will mean the death of most Jews, in his eyes) and the Second Coming of Christ" is terrifying. For another, he's said a lot of hateful shit: Quote: Sources: Wikipedia, NPR Interview. Likewise, McCain has sucked up to another reactionary hatemonger, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wik Parsley [/url], even going so far as to call him "my spiritual guide". Besides the typical homophobia, antisemitism, etc. that's commonly found amongst such preachers, Parsley is rabidly Islamophobic, arguing for genocide against Muslims. From his book, Islam: The Deception of Allah: Quote: This will certainly help us win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. I mean, could you possibly give Al-Quaida and other Muslim extremists a better propaganda weapon than "the President of the United States' spiritual adviser wants to exterminate Islam"? Being allied with the US is already the kiss of death to any moderate politicians in the Muslim world; are we really looking to alienate them further? He's also flip flopped on the issue of campaign finance reform. The McCain Feingold Act is amongst his most famous legal initiatives. Yet it's interesting to note that McCain burst upon the national stage via a corruption scandal. Although the Senate Select Committee on Ethics ruled that no laws had been conclusively broken, they did note that: Quote: The fine tradition of publicly crusading for "reform" while skirting around the law is still alive and well with McCain. As ABC News notes: Quote: You know it's bad when Bush is being less corrupt than your campaign. And not only has he broken the spirit of transparency that he supposedly touts, he's also broken his own law. You see, he accepted public financing earlier in his campaign(back when his fundraising efforts were lagging) and then used the public financing as collateral to procure a loan. By using the promise of public funds however, he has committed himself to using these funds, which he obviously doesn't want to do now that he's the presumptive Republican nominee. Unfortunately, the FEC can't do anything because it lacks a quorum since Congressional Republicans want all 4 nominees to be voted at once, instead of individually(which is a problem because one of the nominees is Hans Von Spakovsky who has been implicated in voter suppression and in the Attorney General scandal wherein the Bush administration was caught attempting to make the Department of Justice the armed wing of the Republican Party). So, he's for campaign finance when it makes him look like an anti-corruption crusader, but has no problem accepting shady financing and violating the law when it suits him. Another subject where his public image and his actual policy have little in common is torture. McCain himself was of course tortured in the Vietnamese POW camps and has to his credit spoken out against torture. Yet his voting record tells a different story. In 2005 he voted for the Detainee Treatment Act which "prohibits inhumane treatment of prisoners, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay; requires military interrogations to be performed according to the U.S. Army Field Manual for Human Intelligence Collector Operations; and strips federal courts of jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus petitions filed by prisoners in Guantanamo, or other claims asserted by Guantanamo detainees against the U.S. government, as well as limiting appellate review of decisions of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals and Military Commissions". Of course, Bush, following his unprecedented theory of the Executive Privilege which considers the Presidency as more of a dictatorship than an equal branch of government, attached a signing statement essentially saying "Nah nah na boo boo we can't hear you!"(except for the part about denying Guantanamo Bay prisoners habeus corpus, he had no problems with that). Since then, he hasn't pressed the issue and has in fact voted against every bill that sought to stop torture. For instance, in October of 2008 he urged Bush to veto a bill that would have banned the CIA from torturing. Apparently being tortured himself didn't motivate him enough to actually oppose it. Likewise, despite having served honorably in the Armed Forces, he's declared his intentions to vote against a new GI Bill. Although he claims that the way out of the military's growing problems with dwindling recruiting is "one of the thing we ought to do is provide them significant educational benefits in return for serving", he has stated his opposition to the bill that would do just that. Why? Because, as the Pentagon says, "The incentive to serve and leave," said Robert Clarke, assistant director of accessions policy at the Department of Defense, may "outweigh the incentive to have them stay." How dare those soldiers, many of whom have been deployed multiple times, think of themselves as anything other than cannon(or IED) fodder! In another thread on this same forum, people were discussing McCain's "plan" to temporarily suspend gasoline taxes. Such a halt would reduce the price of gasoline a whole 5 percent but would only increase the government's ballooning deficit. Now one way to reduce this deficit would be to end the war in Iraq which has so far cost us 3 trillion dollars and counting, at the rate of 12 billion dollars a month. However, as the previous part showed, McCain has a serious hard-on for the war so that's not going to happen. Which brings us to yet another in a long line of flip flops, the Bush tax cuts. In 2001, he was against them, saying "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief.” Now he wants to make them permanent. Of course, these tax cuts in a time of war are causing our deficit to balloon out of control. And it's a basic rule of economics that when there's such a large deficit, the value of the currency will likewise plummet. As the value of the dollar on the international market falls, oil becomes more and more expensive(in US dollars). In other words, his remedy for the skyrocketing gas prices will only make things worse. I could go on, but I think it's clear by now that McCain has sold every ounce of integrity he once had to ingratiate himself into the hardcore Republican fringe. As Bush and his now-discredited ideology becomes all the more unpopular , McCain seems all the more determined to take up Bush's mantle and continue his legacy of failure, economic foolishness, and pandering to the most vile elements of the far right. If you liked the last 8 years, man, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Edited by Yossarian22 (04/16/08 05:30 PM)
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...has left the Registered: 01/25/06 Posts: 1,021 Last seen: 15 years, 5 months |
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Quote: ![]() Newer... Quote: Great thread, by the way.
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