John McCain Should Probably Stop Calling Barack Obama "Dr. No"

"While John McCain is putting the country first with the best ideas from both parties, Barack Obama has become the Dr. No of energy, refusing to accept any idea that will contribute to solving America's energy crisis."

-- McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds

"In addition to being the Dr. No of energy policy, Barack Obama also has revealed that he doesn't understand the fundamentals of a modern financial market..."

-- McCain policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin

"It's just very clear at this point that Senator Obama is Dr. No on energy security."

-- McCain spokesman Brian Rogers

Hugh Hewitt: "Last question, Senator. About your nuclear plans for 45 new plants, and congrats on that, by the way, Obama said today that it's not serious, it's not new, it's not the kind of energy policy that will give families the relief they need. Your reaction, Senator McCain? We've got about a minute."

John McCain: "Dr. No, Dr. No, Dr. No."

In case you haven't picked up on it, John McCain and his guys think Barack Obama is kind of like Dr. No.

Dr. No -- get it? He doesn't like nukes, or a gas tax holiday, or a national drilling spree - that's the "no" part. And he also thinks he's sooo smart -- that's why he's a "doctor."

He's such a killjoy, always shooting down all the coolest ideas, just because they don't make any sense in terms of "economics" or "science."

It's a zinger all right.

You can also see why, on a purely personal level, the "Dr. No" tag would strike McCain as such a gutbuster:

1) It's a novel about a guy who gets heroically captured by Asians and has the crap tortured out if him.

And

2) It's from 1958.

--

It's too bad Hillary didn't get the nomination. He'd be getting her good for her resemblance to Mame.

--

You get the feeling that selling John McCain an idea is like tricking your math teacher out of giving you a test by asking him about the war.

--

But did anyone on Team McCain stop to think this through? Before they all went out to repeat this knee-slapper, did anyone bother to skim through the novel? They really should. Because saying "Dr. No" over and over and over and over is either a brilliant subliminal appeal to racists who enjoy mid-century genre fiction or it's a really, really tone deaf thing to call a man with a mixed-race background.

Dr. No is the illegitimate son of "a German Methodist missionary and a Chinese girl of good family." But you wouldn't know it from looking at him, since he admits, "(I) "had all my hair taken out by the roots, my thick nose made thin, my mouth widened, my lips sliced."

He's an ambitious intellectual: "I hid myself in the academic world," he brags, but only as a means to an end:

"I would proceed to the achievement of power -- the power, Mr. Bond to do unto others what had been done unto me."

He's an ideologue, but he's also in it for the money. The Russians are behind him now, but he's open to other offers:

"Perhaps communist China will pay more. Who knows? I already have my feelers out."

And he's got name issues:

"I changed my name to Julius No - Julius after my father and the No for my rejection of him and all authority..."

(... and Hussein, because it means "stud" in Arabic. No, I added that part.)

And what evil is afoot in Dr. No's Jamaica, besides hating America? Miscegenation.

"(The Chinese) keep to themselves and keep their strain pure." Pleydell-Smith laughed. "Not that they don't take the black girls when they want them. You can see the result all over Kingston - Chigroes - Chinese Negroes and Negresses. The Chigroes are a tough, forgotten race. They look down on the Negroes and the Chinese look down on them. One day they may become a nuisance. They've got some of the intelligence of the Chinese and most of the vices of the black man."

Okay, you and I know it's just a happy coincidence of slurs, and it's not like John McCain wrote it. But, then again, it's not like Barack Obama ever said goddamn America.

It's not that Dr. No is a bad book -- nearly a tenth of it is about torture, and torture is swell -- it's just not the sort of book you want to introduce into this campaign.

But is it really such a big deal? (There's nothing I hate more than petty gotcha politics about symbolic minutia. Like, I dunno, flag pins or the words "bitter" and "cling.") All they're doing is comparing the Democratic nominee to a half-breed communist super villain. Let's turn it around. What if Obama spent the next week calling McCain Dracula?

No offense, right?

He wouldn't really be calling him a macabre horny corpse that only sunlight can stop. He'd just be kidding around. About his energy policy.

--

We're told that Obama doesn't understand foreign affairs. Here's some clear-eyed realpolitik from Dr. No:

"The Jamaican is a kindly lazy man with the virtues and vices of a child. He lives on a very rich island but he doesn't get rich from it. He doesn't know how and he's too lazy."

"The British come and go and take the easy pickings, but for about two hundred years no Englishman has made a fortune out here. He doesn't stay long enough... It's the Portuguese Jews who make the most."

We're told that Barack Obama might be good with words, but words aren't everything. Here's how black people talk in Dr. No:

"Somepn comin' across de water, cap'n! It de dragon fo sho!"

Comments

[RJKruger]

John McCain is doing his Mitch Miller impersonation again! Or, is it Lawrence Welk? Maybe he'll sport black face and call himself Al Jolson. If you're younger than 50, you may have no idea what I am talking about. And that is the point. John McCain is Odd Job. I'll send him my 82-year-old mother's Perry Como albums and he can start to relax. Have you seen McCain do his Eddie Cantor routine? Out-of-Touch, Out-to-Lunch McCain. Thanks for the in-depth, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Dr. No, but Were Afraid to Ask. How's that for an oldie?

RJ Kruger
Bakersfield, Calif.

[SayLessDoMore]

Hey, too much fretting on both sides of this one.

Kelly has it about right -- not because it's an analysis that had to be done, or even matters that much. But not only does McCain shoot before he thinks; he keeps his finger on the trigger. Of COURSE McCain didn't -- doesn't -- (probably) mean or even understand the metaphors he provokes. W. won two elections (well, one anyway) repeating moronic one-liners while 527's kneecapped the opposition including by-the-by, John McCain. Why wouldn't he think it wil work again?

Except it won't. Maybe, finally, people are paying enough attention to listen past the first 15 words uttered about every issue.

And that's what this blog (I think) is really about. Not just that McCain doesn't get it -- he doesn't -- but that a lot of people actually do.

[InformedSources]

Dr. No, Dr. Shmo. It's just the usual infantile name-calling from the right wing. Since their politics are based solely on the hidden agenda of servicing the wealthy and powerful, they must always rely on smoke and mirrors rather than reason and substance.

Obama is at a slightly higher level--although he, too, will have to kneel to wealth and power, albeit, to a lesser extent--I hope. If so, it will make some difference in the average Joe or Jane's quality of life for the next few years, and possibly beyond.

If his environmental policies are what they should be--and Al Gore's endorsement gives a certain margin of confidence in that area--it can make a huge difference to the health of the planet. And that will do a hundred times more for our national security than the Bushites' trumped-up War in Terror.

[Horus]

Yeah, I'm sure Mccain and his boys read the entire book and felt it was just racist enough for them to use. Please. You're looking too far into it. I'm a Barack supporter and I don't have any love for Mccain, but you're reaching pretty hard and it comes off whiny and nitpicky.

[elan4444]

Did you think that maybe John McCain is not referring to this novel, that maybe he just made the term up? You really should find out, before you tar him (yes, I did say that, does everything have to be pc?) with all that baggage you dredged from the book. Certainly the man is not my favorite person, but he does deserve the benefit of the doubt.

And people with mixed-race backgrounds will just have to get over it by now. Life happens, and we can't keep running around holding a basket under the man in case he falls off a podium. He's either got it, or he hasn't. Just like your kids. One day they will step into the adult world, and you can only hope that you have raised them to be able to function in it. Obama knew what he was getting into, and the more time that is spent on the subject of race, means that less is said about global issues or the environment. Certainly I'm not dimunizing racial issues, but I think we have made enormous strides, amazing strides, after all, he did get the nomination, didn't he? Now let's move on.

[alltwisty]

If only.

[cindy4america]

We will give him as much benefit of the doubt as he has given Obama and further, Michelle.

[oscartucker]

The commercial is of the James-Bond genre with the movements and appearance of Bond.

[JennyJay]

I am so utterly amazed that - - - no matter how grown up they appear - - - grown men can have such small, inmature, liitle pea brains. Poor OLD McSame, just a little insecure child, deep down inside.
Resorts to name calling - - like he was still out on the playground at school.. . .tsk . . .tsk. . .tsk
Not at all what I want in a president (or Senator, for that matter).

[yeswecancan]

Not only these problems ... but Dr. No was actually pretty powerful in the energy department if memory serves me. Maybe McCain's campaign couldn't come up with the equivalent of another puke green background to match the Senator's maniacal low laugh and jack-o-lantern smile ....hehehehehe!!

[wiseapple]

This country is in a sickened state and needs the services of a good doctor. I don't care what the last name is!

[Maximum]

Mc. Cain is old and tired, he should be relaxing in assisted nursing home and forget politics and leave that up to the younger generation and give them a chance, just like Mc Cain has gotten his chance. He knows he has no chance to be become president, he is indeed too old for that now and that angers him very much to an extent that he starts talking dirty about Obama in the hope that the people will turn against him, it is if he is saying: "If I don't become president then nobody else will become president either" He has become childish, some people do become that way when they get old, like they become a child again. Most of us will have to learn to accept this as a way of life. But we must understand that to put such a man as this to lead a Nation would be very irrisponsible of us. Maximum.

[Peddler]

Maybe Obama needs to address McCain as "McMinimi-Me."

[Greygolla]

As for name calling, I am sure I heard Obama call McCain "Mr. Barnacle" on the today show.

[karela]

What a hoot? The book's from 1958 and the movie is even pretty ancient. No wonder Senator McCain has a problem with computers. He thinks Dr. No is new and fresh. What a doofus line of schtick to use. Somebody should put up an on line Obama ad that's a few decades more modern. That would make a nice contrast. The politics of the future showing next to the politics of the pre-cambrian world.

[srtjsrtj]

John MCCain is for Big Oil Just like President Bush. John McCain and the Republicans will do anything to secure wealth for the Rich and Big Business;

Sen. McCain Voted against Oversight in Iraq NOW 9 BILLIONS DOLLARS IS MISSING AND UNACCOUNTED FOR

Let’s see what the honest answer is to this question including how giving Tax Cuts to the Rich has affected hard working Americans.

The War in Iraq has balooned the National Debt from a Surplus in 2000 to 5.7 Trillion in June 2001 when the first tax cuts (For The Rich) were enacted to $9.4 Trillion Today 6/9/2008. That’s 3.7 Trillion in New Debt just as Medicare and Social Security are reaching Crisis proportions. A Significant amount of the Deficit is owed to Foreign Banks.

CNN: America is borrowing 2 Billion Dollars a Week from China to finance the war.

CNN: The top 1% (The Rich) of Americans received 99% of the growth in America within the last 7 years. The remainder of the American People 99% received ¾ % of the growth.

[lpeggy]

McSame has a new Obama is Dr. No ad out today...sigh...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Zy50Dy6Zk

[UdvarHazy]

Dr. No? Let's hear it for The Manchurian Candidate!