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Stranger Reged: 09/12/07 Posts: 415 |
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Part 1: the short-fused warmonger I had mentioned this before, but I feel it deserves to be discussed at length. Much has been made of both Democrats' minor foibles, from Clinton's Bosnia lie to Obama's "I go to a black inner-city church" "scandal". But so far McCain's very serious faults have escaped notice, partly because the two Democrats are still battling it out and partly because the press has yet to dislodge McCain's penis from its collective mouth. Now, McCain has a temper. He won't deny it, but usually spins it as being passionate about the issues. Of course, being passionate is good, and if you don't get mad about a lot of politics these days, you're either not paying attention or on Thorazine. However, there's a difference between channeling your outrage into effective and tenacious advocacy and simply losing your cool and making a fool of yourself. When you get mad, not only do you lose sight of what the smart move is, you also make your audience and your opponents defensive and all the more determined. Now, finding instances where McCain lost his cool and broke the most basic rules of decorum are not hard to find. But here are a few snippets. From The Washington post: Quote: For reference, the curse words used (since the Post are a bunch of pansies apparently) were chickenshit and "fuck you" respectively. Now, Cornyn is an asshole and as much as I'd like to see him called out, it's not a Senator's job to do so in such a manner. In 1998, McCain made a joke at a Senate fundraiser that received little media attention. The joke? " "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?/ Because her father is Janet Reno." Now I know some of you will probably laugh, but think about this for a second. He called an 18 year old young woman who held no elected office ugly, and implied that the sitting first lady and Attorney General were lesbians. Now, I like off color jokes, too, but I tell them in private amongst friends. To tell this joke in public where the targets of the joke would undoubtedly hear about it is not just cruel but stupid. Amongst other public outbursts are the following: Quote: And while I hate to use NewsMax as a source, there are quite a few juicy snippets here, such as: Quote: Now, reports are leaking that according to a new book on McCain, The Real McCain, he publicly exploded at his wife: Quote: Now let's think of the problems this will cause if, God forbid, he gets elected. The job of President is a very frustrating one. He will almost certainly be facing a strong Democrat majority in the House and Senate and the strongest public anti-Republican sentiment since, well, ever. He's going to have to deal with foreign leaders and diplomats who don't share his goals or outlooks and will have been emboldened by the precipitous decline in the esteem and influence that America holds. In short, he'll have all sorts of opportunities to get pissed off. Now, these kinds of temper tantrums are bad enough for a Senator to have. But in the Senate, the damage is minimal. When he explodes at Republicans, they'll usually try to keep it quiet in the name of the party, and when he explodes at Democrats, well, they're usually at odds with each other to begin with. Moreover, since they spend a great deal of time together(more than say, the President and a foreign ambassador or leader does), the wounds can be quickly healed. Also, he represents only his home state, not the nation as a whole. However, as President, he will be not only the "Commander in Chief"; he will be the figurehead and public face of the American government. If the President calls Angela Merkel a "cunt", think of the international repercussions. If McCain were to explode at the Chinese embassy officials, think of what could happen. Even if we're not talking about military actions, it could easily scuttle or at least delay trade deals or rapproachment. It would further alienate the US in a time when its status on the international stage has never been lower. As President, he'll also be in charge of managing the country's diplomacy and will have the ability to send American troops to war. Now, we all know how much McCain likes war; he is the Senate's main cheerleader from the surge even though he apparently understands less about the conflict than the average Newsweek reader. Here are some choice anecdotes: In the wake of the recent Basra offensive, in which the Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki, backed by the Iran proxy group the Badr Brigade as well as American forces attacked the Southern Shiite city of Basra as well as Sadr City in Baghdad, McCain had this to say: Quote: Now let's examine just how stupid an interpretation of events this is: Maliki got the US troops to attack rival militias and did so unsuccessfully. The government's troops made little progress, the country erupted in protest, and Maliki's diplomats had to go to Iran to plead for a cease fire with al-Sadr. It was a humiliating defeat. Now given that McCain had visited Iraq only a few days previous and expressed shock at the events, the whole thing serves to highlight how little we know what's going on and how well Iran has managed to get the political upperhand: the ceasefire was negotiated and signed in IRAN; the most popular Shia leader, al-Sadr, is living in Iran, and the main partner in the government alliance, the SCIRI, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was founded in Iran and has close ties to the Iranian government. He wants us to stay in Iraq for a hundred years and yet he doesn't know the difference between an encouraging victory and a humiliating defeat(Yes, I know- he was referring to a Japan or Korea-like occupation, but the fact remains that for Iraq to be so pacified, we'd have to continue brutal counterinsurgency fighting for at least a decade if not more. And given that most of the ruling or potentially-ruling political parties in Iraq have lose ties to Iran and see the American military presence either as an insult to Iraqi sovereignty or their personal thugs, we'd also have to play some funny tricks with that whole "democracy" business we have going on) Another stupid slip-up: McCain accused Iran of harboring Al-Quaeda: Quote: Now McCain claims he "misspoke". This would be credible if he only said it once or if he mistook Al-Quaeda for a similar sounding group. However, he said it several times in different speeches and his correction was "extremists", which is not exactly a homonym of Al-Quaeda. Kind of reminds of the time I misspoke and said to my girlfriend, "Gimme a beer now, you stupid cunt" when I really meant to say "Sweetie, have you seen the remote?" This isn't simply a gaffe; this indicates a very serious and profound ignorance of the Middle East. Iran is ruled by Shia revolutionaries. Al-Quaeda considers Shias to be heretics and has targeted Shiite pilgrims and destroyed amongst the holiest sites in the Shia sect. Moreover, Iran was fighting al-Quaeda and the Taliban before it was cool: remember the Northern Alliance? Guess who was supplying them? Moreover, Iran already has more clout amongst the ruling political groups, the SCIRI and al-Sadr than does the US. Why support a Shia-hating guerrilla group when you've got the government in your pocket? It doesn't make any sense, and McCain would know that if he know a damn thing about Iraq before cheering for more American soldiers and money to go to a war he apparently barely understands. Now, he is either grossly incompetent in the realm of foreign affairs or he's lying to create another Iraq by spreading obvious falsehoods and rattling his saber. Either possibility should preclude him from holding office. Now, one of the major failings of the Bush administration's foreign policy has been its complete dismissal of diplomacy. Or at least anything a normal person would recognize as diplomacy: the Bush version of diplomacy seems to be "Do what we say or we'll attack you". If we are going to restore our political clout and international goodwill, this jingoistic warmongering has to stop. The problem is that McCain shows just as little tolerance for diplomacy as Bush does: when he doesn't get his way, he explodes; his first impulse is military agression as demonstrated above. Moreover, despite having served time in a Vietnamese POW camp, being tortured, he seems not to have developed any aversion to unnecessary wars and even saw the US' defeat in Vietnam as a vindication of his bellicosity and not the glaring refutation it clearly was. From The Nation: Quote: Clearly, his superiors were idiots because they realized that attacking a USSR military ship could very well set off WWIII. For McCain, war is the answer no matter the question. Diplomacy, politics, all is secondary to military aggression and supremacy. While he touts the "success" of the surge, he fails to realize that we are no further to finding peace, which will depend not on how many soldiers are on the ground but on political compromise and stability, than we were before. His strategy for Iraq and the Middle East in general is ignorance, aggression, and a complete dismissal of politics or diplomacy. In short, he will make Bush look like Mahatma Ghandi in comparison. Vote McCain at your own(and the rest of the world's) peril. Me, I'm working on my bomb shelter. Edited by Yossarian22 (04/15/08 11:00 AM)
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