A Slick Politician Trapped in a Politician's Body

ASPEN, Colo. -- It was a Sunshiny day indeed at the Aspen Institute with Senator John McCain supporters crawling out of their hummers and Range Rovers to hear his speech and fundraising quotes. I live in Woody Creek, so I've been coming to Institute speeches for years.

I've said that my late husband Hunter S. Thompson, was a teenage girl trapped in the body of an elderly dope fiend, and His Holiness is a teenage girl trapped in the body of a Dalai Lama. What I saw Thursday is that John McCain is not a "creepy old white-haired guy" at all. He's simply a slick politician trapped in the body of a politician.

I came to hear this Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services (and yes, he's also the presumptive Republican Nominee) talk about how he might handle this Russian Crisis. My little sister and father live in Kiev, and my mother's side living throughout Poland, so I'm more than a little stressed.

But the agreement signed between Poland and the U.S, which has been in the works for 18 months (a clue that the CIA HAS been paying attention) with Poland that American soldiers will staff air defense sites in Poland oriented toward Russia, and that the United States would be obliged to defend Poland in case of an attack with greater speed than what is required under NATO, of which Poland is a member. This is more than simply a missile purchasing deal (that Joe Circincione really dislikes).

McCain was quick to say that yes, Russia's invasion is the "greatest military tragedy since the Cold War" and said it with a little less accusatory tone than his last gaffe inadvertently accusing the U.S. of doing what Russia did to Georgia: "Invade an innocent country."

He was far more slick and laid back than normal, according to some of his press core that I was sitting with. This is the first time I've seen him in person. The reason for his mcSuavo attitude is simple. Aspen is one of the richest tiny communities on the planet, and if you have 160 "bundlers" in your audience (supporters who have solicited donations for McCain's campaign directly (up to $2,300 apiece) and to the Republican Party and friendly political action committees (up to $28,500 apiece), you tend to show your relaxed inner self (yep, the slick politician trapped in the body of a politician.)

When Walter Isaacson pressed him on what should be done about this crisis, such as expelling Russia from the G8 or speed up the process of making Georgia a member of NATO, the senator gushed about Georgia being a "brave little country ... the first to convert to Christianity ... " Gee Wiz. That's what a suave politician says when he's just accidentally likened ourselves to Russia re: invading other countries. We certainly can't say that Iraq or Afghanistan were the first to convert to Christianity!

Isaacson pressed him on some other important questions such as McCain's comments that the recent Supreme Court declaring a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that denied federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions from the detainees seeking to challenge their status. McCain went into Suave-mode again, going on about talking to a high ranking Al Qaeda member who said it was Abu Ghraib that made Al Queda able to recruit 20,000+ men.

Isaacson interrupted him with "You said this Supreme Court decision was the worst in history!" McCain responded with "Na, na, na," put his head down an laughed and said something like, I sometimes get roused up ..." applause and huge laughter.

He continued, Oh ya, I know the "Supreme Court Justices are supposed to be up in the clouds, unaffected by political situations" more laughter, then he continued, "Hey, the Court voiced frustration that we haven't moved forward" (on these torture issues).

They went back and forth about some more campaign talk. Because Thursday was the 73rd birthday of Social Security, Isaacson did ask him why not treat Social Security Investment like Energy investment, by putting everything on the table to consider.

McCain said yes. But when the topic of tax increases for Social Security comes up, No Way. Isaacson comes back with a "but that's not putting everything on the table." McSlick replies with "I can't be for tax increases." Silence.

So, what's a rookie pseudo-journalist like me to do? Yesterday was different for me from other Institute speeches because I had a press badge instead of a ticket. I'm crammed in the back with my people, the press, whom I've grown to love in the years working with Hunter. I was sitting with David Frey, Andrew Travers of the Daily News, and managing editor of my Woody Creeker Magazine, Kit Seelye from The New York Times, CBS News' Ryan Corsaro, Stone from The Aspen Free Press, and Charles Babington from the AP. I know there will be no way in hell I'll be able to ask McCain a question (more on Poland and Ukraine), as we are roped off way in the back corner.

Before the bizarre music for McCain's entrance began, a lovely young girl with a badge walked up to us, and I thought, how sweet, she's going to ask if we have everything we need. No she said we must leave our chairs immediately and move to the back. Wow. A lot has changed since Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail' 72. Or has it? I wish I could just make one call to Hunter. I got the sense that most of the press also miss his voice and courage to walk past the out-of-bound lines.

Comments

[curtiskleen]

After 48 hours of nonstop republican convention coverage I got paranoid and wanted to crawl underneath my bed. Who are these strange face expounding on family values and a commitment to 100 years of war at the same time. Hopefully everyone is paying attention and realizes how transparent McCain is and what kind of political games he is playing- he must think we are complete fools. It was a desperate strategic move to use Hurricane Gustav as a reason to cancel the first day of the republican convention and therefore have to cancel the Bush/Cheney presentation endorsing McCain. Bush didn't even set foot in Louisiana, he was certainly not too busy to be at his own party's convention in person, a tradition for sitting presidents. Just what does it mean when the president is banished to communicating to his own party via satellite? And is McCain really hoping to win the soccer mom vote by bringing the last desperate housewife to pensylvania ave. jesus/god where is hunter when we need him?

[sufi66]

I miss Hunter's voice.

He may or may not have gone to hear McDunce. What would be the point? Every Republican candidate since 1980 has been snorting the Reagan snake sauce, so why waste an evening?

I'm sure the spectacle of the super-rich of Aspen coughing up dough to preserve their tax breaks would hardly surprise Hunter. He knew evil when he saw it.

[AnitaThompson]

You're right, I don't think h would be surprised.

[Whinger]

Seems more like a failed comedian trapped in the twilight zone to me!

The world would be a safer place if we could send him there!

[Interested Party]

Anita - It won't be funny if McCain is elected President.

[AnitaThompson]

I agree.

[clevelandchick]

McCain's more than just a slick politician....one of his campaign chairs was a lobbyist for the Georgian government and just up until recently represented them. I don't believe in coincidences when the parties are that closely related.

The GOP knows the people are stressed....beyond 9/11....the economy....the idiotic Iraq occupation costing billions....their only card is fear so they've orchestrated a new cold war. I hope to God it doesn't work. Honestly I don't think it has. Nobody I work with gives a flying bagel about what is happening in Georgia...let alone Darfur. They're too busy trying keep their own lives together with ailing parents, work and kids.

I cannot be afraid of Russia and what they'll do to Georgia when I'm afraid I won't be able to pay my winter heating bill. I think the GOP and McCain's desire to dredge up the Cold War is going to be met by a few shrugs and a lot of 'grow up'.....I mean...don't we live in a global economy now? The generation that watched the Berlin Wall fall in their youth was Gen X, we're famously cynical and jaded. We see a bullshit story when it's presented. Too bad the 'greatest generation' can't.

[AnitaThompson]

I hope you're right. It's good to hear that Gen Xers are leery of politicians. But I hope, for the first time in history, they VOTE.

As for the GOP versus Democrats, the Whig party that existed from the 1830s to late 1850s. The Whig Party managed to get two of its candidates in the president's office (Harrison and Taylor) in those two decades. It has taken the Democrats THREE decades to have two presidents in office (Carter and Clinton).

I do hope you're right, though.

[Leskenoi]

When I hear sentiments from so-called "GenXers" like "Nobody I work with gives a flying bagel about what is happening in Georgia...let alone Darfur," or "we're famously cynical and jaded" my impulse is to stick my finger down my throat. The idea that these are admirable qualities, or things to congratulate oneself over, makes the narcissism of the baby boomer generation seem puny by comparison. Behind the empty Gen-X posturing of unearned world weariness lies a kind of neo-Know-N­othingism. If I were the commenter, I wouldn't rush to compare her generation to "the greatest generation" quite yet. That's not a comparison likely to favor the Gen-X ilk, who give small indication of making any positive contribution to the world, and often seem concerned only with consuming and fashion. However, it may turn out that, like the hippies, the Gen-Xers who adopt that label are just falling, despite their claims to see through media hype and deception, for a generational category that is completely a media hoax, and adopting it uncritically as a term of self description. I do take heart in the youth who are not settling for striking poses of jadedness and cynicism, but becoming politically engaged for the first time. That is a hopeful sign, because it will take a lot more than being "famous" for being "cynical and jaded" to deal with the very real and present danger of the neo-con revival of the Cold War we are witnessing.

[JimR]

I really hope that not everyone from your generation is as jaded, cynical AND clueless as all that. I am not a member of the greatest generation, but I don't feel the need to boost my self-esteem by mocking them and ignoring their very real contributions. At least they did something to better their lives. They didn't just sit around and complain.

[AnitaThompson]

nicely put.

[rucognizant]

DON"T ASS-U-ME things about the Greatest GEN! Their society was FAR MORE LIBERAL than today's; I believe the "conservative, right wing GG GEN. people are a myth created by the RW propaganda machine. They are magnifying a small number of people to look like a large group!
I think those quavery voiced cranks who call in to cspan on the Repug line are paid operatives!
I certainly CAN"T EVER GET THRU on the line for Democrats!

I was there, as a post GG / preboomer, child, with a killer memory!
We endured the McCarthy era. We are the ONLY ones who remember how America was, & is supposed to be!
I have a theory.....that the murder of JFK, mass traumatized the Boomer Gen, They were adolescents, a vulnerable time. I was an adult, several of my neighbors, & babysitting co-op members sat on the Warren commission. Another did an independant investigation.
Duck & Cover further added to that trauma. ( they didn't have those drills when I was in school.)
SO it is the BOOMERS who have bought in to the 'cold war" propaganda. Then after people began getting killed (Kent State) went over to the dark side figuring money & power would work better than protest! Except A LOT of them got that power, and were corrupted by it!
WE ARE YOUR ALLIES GEN X: agreed the Georgia/Russia thing is a crock-o- bull----!

[bayside]

There is something going on that I dont understand..Why when we have all these satalites george didnt tell his friend georgia who he egged on to invade, that russians were massing against them. Something is fishy.

[AnitaThompson]

"Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?"
-- Bob Dylan

[docallen001]

I agree something is fishy. Or it could just be another another example of an administration that has proven it is the gang that just can't shoot stright, but I am leaning towards fishy.

[NeoLiberal]

Excellent point.

On the other hand, Russia has loads of oil and natural gas that it could, with the flip of a switch, cut off from western Europe.

Motivation may be not to get Europe more riled up against us than they are now.

[musselmanm]

They can cut off the oil if they want and start a chain reaction which would not benefit them or their people. Not that they care.
The number one deterent to your thought is income. Income even makes Russia go round. Plus the people of the world will have to pay more for their gas and oil. This would drive their customer base farther from buying their commodaties and most of their goods.
We have shown what cutting your own throat looks like with our administration and Congress of the last 7, if not 30 years.
I know russia is getting beligerant at this time but we made it possible by ruining our military infrastructure.

[LizDexic]

...just wondering what your take on Katharine Seelye's blurb in the New York Times, entitled,
"On the trail with Hunter's People". It gave the impression that "Hunter's people" were on the
campaign trail with McCain. (This is par for the course from the reporter who helped spread the lie about Gore claiming he invented the internet.)

[AnitaThompson]

Reporters and Journalists were Hunter's people. He often wrote about how a press room is home sweet home for him in any city in the country. Hunter referred to many as his people. his readers, his lawyers, his fellow writers, his fellow political junkies. Even Pat Buchanan, yes, was even one of his people.

[loper2008]

So McCain was pandering when he made his Supreme Court remarks????

No big surprise. He is in the right wing's pocket.

[AnitaThompson]

could be.

[JennyJay]

The folks at the Aspen Institute are probably a fairly intelligent bunch of people, so it puzzles me
as to why you didn't keep hearing a SEVERE GAG RESPONSE coming from the people attending.
I don't get, will probably never get, that intelligent people would want McCain for their president.
How can that possibly be? McCain lives in the 70's, does the same hold true for everybody there?
Is that the answer? Those people don't want, nor need, any kind of change in their lives?
Only RICH PEOPLE could possibly think like that. The rest of us, with our lives and planet headed
toward the sewer WANT SOME CHANGES BIG TIME!

[AnitaThompson]

The crowd was not necessarily older, just much more conservative than other events I've been to. The Aspen Institute goes out of it's way to engage in IDEAS from every angle. It actually is a good thing to have both sides of the pendulum. (Dalai Lama and Bill Clinton a few weeks ago, and McCain on Thurs.)

In general, in this country, and Europe, I agree with you that young are people dying for change. You are very passionate about it, and that's great. I hope the enthusiasm translates to votes... Are your friends going to vote?

[Beaux510]

Anita, if I am lucky enough to have you read this, then let me say thanks to both you and your late husband. Even though I never met him, as a burgeoning writer I consider him a mentor who has helped me to write exactly what I think, without filter or remorse. He is the standard to which I aspire.

You're right about this not being Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail '72. These days, a certifiable madman like Peter Sheridan couldn't have come within twenty par-secs of any candidate, much less on someone else's bar-coded and scanned security pass, drink all of the free gin on the train and then assail the candidate themselves. These days Peter Sheridan would have been muscled down by a pair of jack-booted SS and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay with a black hood over his head, a form of request for a kosher meal, and a public defender's busniess card shoved into his pocket.

I've been commenting quite a bit as of late, about the similarities between this race and the one in 1972. Hunter's words from '72 come back to me on a daily basis, and honestly, it's not comforting.

I've a horrible feeling that my November is going to resemble that very short chapter in the book.

My best to you and yours. If I were a praying man, I'd offer one for your family, but since I'm not, I'll just hope Hunter is watching over them.

[AnitaThompson]

Thank you for your nice comment. Yes, I worry too about this being a repeat of 1972, the best minds are worried too.
Remember though, McGovern's campaign started to implode in July of 1972 with the Eagleton debacle. I don't think Obama will make that same mistake.
Thanks Again for your comment.

[Deparis]

What more did you expect from the old fella? The man says things he's been fed by his handlers and when you ask him questions in retrospect even on his own statements, he mumbles some nonesense then cracks an idiotic joke to kill time and hopes that you give him a slack by not calling him on it. It's a shame the Repugnantcans could not come up with a candidate with some bearings left.

[AnitaThompson]

Well, he was very amusing to watch.

[darker]

Yikes, more and more, one realizes McCAIN is BUSH ALL OVER AGAIN.
All hats and NO BRAIN. Americans DON'T NEED ANOTHER BUSH!

If Americans VOTE IMMATURELY, EMOTIONALLY and think voting is A SPORT LIKE FOOTBALL--which Republicans WANT DESPERATELY!--then Americans WILL SCREW
THEMSELVES once again.

NO MORE REPUBLICANS!
Republicans proved they only USE GOVERNMENT to shift wealth from middle income Americans
to the REPUBLICAN NANNY STATE FOR THE RICH and their corporate welfare queens who don't care who gets hurt [USTroops!!] as long as REPUBLICANS GET RICH!

SCREW REPUBLICANS LIKE THAT. We DON'T WANT Republican
MASTERS OF DECEIT AND CONCEIT anymore, folks.