"McSame?" Try "McShame"

John McCain has created a monster. No, wait. Two. John McCain has created two monsters.

One, of course, is Sarah Palin. This cute 'n' sassy Alaskan cookie, this g-droppin', moose-shootin' regular gal, this soccer mom who talks like a teen (and whose teen will soon be a mom), this utterly fearless and thoroughly shameless liar who looks like a stripper playing a secretary and who, like many a confident ignoramus, talks to reporters as though they're the idiots she thinks she's putting one over on: Forget those big-boob hotties in bikinis menacingly wielding power tools on calendars in body shops. This is the pinup babe for All-American Power Porno.

It's all here, from the pious jerkwater Christianity that flaunts its ignorance and waits for applause, to the dimpling, sexy-winking speeches not only devoid of content but actively, preeningly demagogic. Poli-sci, acting, and psych majors are encouraged to monitor Palin's stump appearances; it's the closest they'll ever get (if we're lucky) to watching a natural demagogue at work live and in real time.

It may be too much to hope that national leaders bring out the best in us (although, with Obama, it threatens to be possible), but here is a woman who brings out the worst in people. The lies, the smears, the disingenuous innuendo and high school cafeteria sarcasm, the religion- and terrorism- and race-baiting: this is someone whom sane grownups would censure and condemn if she were running for president of the Student Council.

With Palin we encounter the purest example, in our lifetime, of a candidate whose mere presence on a national ticket demeans and pollutes the very process. To watch her being interviewed is to behold someone not only unwilling, but constitutionally unable, to give a lucid answer to a serious question. As a commenter on a different blog said, This is a woman who is incapable of passing a Turing test, let alone acting as a Vice-President.

(And you, Reader: You can give a clear answer to a question, can't you? So can I. And, like me, you shouldn't be Veep, let alone Prez, of the U.S.)

Palin may, for all we know, also be inherently unable to give an honest answer in addition to a comprehensible one. It's one thing to lie, in the sense that "all politicians lie," by saying they're going to do X and then, when in office, not doing it. Palin's lies have been those of the compulsive liar. She's repeatedly lied about matters of fact, easily refuted via the public record and then, when they've been shown to be untrue, she's kept reciting them.

Is it calculated or reflex? Is she evil, or merely crazy? We don't know and, you can bet, the "patriot" who has inflicted her on us doesn't know, either.

We have John "Country First" McCain to thank for Sarah Palin. Or, rather, we have the current, most recent, appallingly monstrous John McCain to thank. Because that's the second monster he's created: himself.

You youngsters don't remember, but back in 2000 there were those Democrats who thought, "You know, that John McCain might not be such a bad feller. Not as egregious as your average Republican, not as self-evidently loathsome as your Gingriches or as transparently phony and mendacious as that what's-his-name...Bush. Yessir, that McCain might have a future in some centrist post-Cold War Pax Americana..."

The rest was, and is, history. Now there is not one admirable principle that McCain used to espouse that he has not, systematically and thoroughly, betrayed. Not only has he thrown honor and honesty (nee "Straight Talk") under the bus, he has halted the bus, flung its driver out onto the sidewalk, taken the wheel, and driven back and forth over them repeatedly until no CSI or SVU unit on television could tell you with any certainty what they once were.

To watch him in last week's debate was to watch Homer Simpson cast -- against his will -- as Teddy Roosevelt, then pushed out in front of tv cameras and told to recite the talking points, as augmented with affirmation-like incantations meant to convince, if not the audience, then himself: "I know how to catch Bin Ladin. I know how to win wars. I know how to balance the budget." And doggone it, people are going to vote for me.

The best thing you can say about McCain in that debate was that he refrained from actually calling Obama a terrorist then and there. God knows Palin would have done it if it were on the agenda. And she may yet; if their polls keep deteriorating, she may abandon the pretense of snarking about Obama's acquaintances and go all the way. She's on the brink of a success exactly consonant with her most fevered, narcissistic, dream-big, proudly "humble," God-blessed beauty-contestant ambitions. Who knows what a provincial woman that politically vulgar is capable of if it seems about to slip away?

Palin, in all her sashaying disgracefulness, is not McCain's creation; but she is his responsibility. And either he knows it, and still feels some residual shame in whatever small fragment of his soul still exists uncorrupted by his own ambition...or he doesn't, and he's as gone as she is. I don't have a sense which it is. It might be the former, in fact; he might be secretly appalled by what he's condoned and encouraged, but feel -- understandably -- that the whole juggernaut is out of his control and all he can do is hang on and hope, if not for the best, then the least bad.

Or does he perform small acts of penance in private? Does he rebuke La Palin behind the scenes? Does he care when her audiences yell "Terrorist!' and "Kill him!" about his opponent? Hillary Clinton rightly took heat for invoking Bobby Kennedy's murder in 1968; now we have Sassy Sarah prompting her worshipful thugs to shout for blood. Maybe, away from the glare and the cameras, John chides her as you would a "high-spirited" daughter.

No, you don't think so and neither do I. Dig McCain's shit-eating grin at the livid, content-free outburst of one citizen's comment here ). McCain, this "hero," has accomplished what many (including he himself) might have thought impossible: he has colluded in his own moral castration. Now he's Sarah's consort, happy to bask in the gamma rays of hate and rage she elicits by her mere presence on the podium. How long will it be before he refers to it as "the Palin-McCain ticket"? (Having already addressed the American people as "my fellow prisoners.")

Of course, McCain might assuage his guilt with the thought that it's all politics. And it is all politics -- debased politics, the worst kind of politics, the politics of the mob.

Someone -- one of his many "friends" -- should tell McCain that it's also the kind of politics you cannot foster and sustain and encourage (or even tacitly permit), and still hope to wake up the next morning with the same self-respect you had before it all started. Before, you tell yourself, you "had to" do certain things.

"Country First." It sounds like a savings and loan. No wonder it felt right as a campaign slogan. McCain may turn out to be the thinking man's -- no, the fighting man's -- Bush, endlessly acting out his Oedipal grudge and forever compelled to screw things up, crashing planes, his reputation, his country. That'll show the old man.

Cross-posted at What HE Said.

Comments

[Yohomegirl]

Our game now is Shame McCain, and the polls are going to do it. Send him home! Obama/ Biden 08!!

[Greg285]

McCain-Palin are a clear example of what's wrong with Washington and partisanship! These two (2) people are more polarizing than (Dare I say) Hillary Clinton...They are more divisive than Bush-Cheney and that’s saying something…

[thunderwolf]

. If you insist that Obama has not been properly vetted, after 22 months on the Presidential campaign trail, and being scrutinized and attacked by not only the Democratic candidates he ran against, but also the far right, and the Republican attack machine, then you are, as a polisci graduate, woefully uninformed about the issues of this election and the process of selection of a candidate. Perhaps you should demand your tuition back from whichever school gave you the diploma.

[Ex-GOP]

What do you expect from an ex-Mayor of Wasilla where they make raped women pay for the rape kit. What do you expect from a politician who wants to ban abortions to girls who are raped and become pregnant? What do you expect from a hunter who likes to fly her airplane and shoot wolves from the air? What do you expect from a politician who is a pathological liar? What do you expect from a person who waves an assault rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other?

[bakingmom]

Excellent piece. Like others have said, your writing has confirmed what I've thought and feared as I watched the news this past week. Thank you for articulating it so well.

[jfor]

The one thing McPalin has shown America is that no one is safe. There are millions of former McCain admirerers out there people who campaigned for, raised money for and put their own reputations on the line for who now are the enemy. If any of us yes I am a former McCain person go to a rally today and express ourselves honestly and point out how McCain has changed and how his rhetoric is nasty and any of the other negative things he has done to win has actually destroyed his chance to be President, we would be lucky to get out of there alive. Words like traitor, unpatriotic, terrorist, liar and any multitude of smears would be flung far and wide with anger and hate that no American should ever show another, especially a self proclaimed Christian.

[Coattails]

I know y'all hate Sarah Palin, but the way you talk just embarrasses yourselves.

The debate questions were all boring and both candidates brought forth a big snoozer, I want my 90 minutes back. McCain didn't invoke the terrorist connection because there were no questions about it, and there were no real ways to connect it with any of the questions asked.

Now, This was supposed to be a year where Democrats shouldn't lose, yet they nominated the candidate that brings about the biggest doubts, especially in judgment. The Republicans, who shouldn't have even been competitive rightly nominated a genuinely good person.

A big issue that made people admire McCain in 2000 was also his military experience and sacrifices, and think regardless of party lines people respect that kind of service.

However, when I see the nasty blogs and people shrieking and being on TV against McCain or for Obama, it actually turns me off the Democrats, it's actually becoming embarrassing.

And of course, I am a PolSci graduate, and I see this election as unique, but I see that Obama mostly has been the nominee of the press rather than the people. They see him as their dream story that beat the Clinton machine, even though it looks like he wasn't properly vetted early on and many issues were ignored.

Please, the only shame is for the people who don't see the big picture and acknowledge everything. People who don't make informed decisions are the weakest link.

[Freesia2]

I see the big picture, I make informed decision and I'm not sure you should be chastizing anyone about "properly vetted" considering the news coming out about Sarah Palin. McCain didn't vet her - he barely knew her. So you might not want to go there. Because unlike Obama, for Sarah there is most definitely a "there there".

You might want to go "here" though. Mike Lux made it very easy for people like me to address people like you on the questions of judgement and associations. Go there, inform yourself and see the big picture.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/guilt-by-associations_b_133758.html


Obama-Biden '08.

[TongoRad]

"With Palin we encounter the purest example, in our lifetime, of a candidate whose mere presence on a national ticket demeans and pollutes the very process."

Thank you for putting that into words.

[DeloresT]

I watch Homer Simpson all of the time.....John Mc"Cane" is no Homer Simpson.

[Thad]

Of course not. He's Grandpa.

[Forest]

LOL! Nor is he the King of the Hill.

[tomjones44]

yea, you're about 2 months behind the ball on the title of your article

[darker]

Wowie, TOTALLY CORRECT. That IS what's been going on and REPUBLICANS ARE IRRESPONSIBLE AND WRONG FRATBRATS who DISGRACE AMERICA!

[MadOzbo]

Thank you for expressing what my husband and I discuss on a daily basis. It used to be, "how was work, today, Honey?"
Now, it's "OMG, did you read or hear the latest foul hatred coming from Palin? McCain never says much of anything, and mumbles too much. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, speaks VERY clearly, and at a pitch hard to ignore...Like your mother screetching at you to get out of bed...

It is the blatent way they do NOT discourage the violent talk that is THE single most disgusting and disappointing behavior on McCain's part.

Disagree with your opponent, bad mouth them, but DON'T let people threaten violence. From a former (5 YEARS?) P.O.W., one would think, nay, EXPECT more humanitarian conduct from a potential President of this great Nation...

How can that man continue to look at himself in the mirror every morning? Is he truly this soulless? I guess so...

[Old time Dem]

These are people who will be charged with the rule of law and upholding our Constitution.

They've shown themselves in the smallest of venues - a political rally - to be unable to restrain themselves or their supporters.

Why would any American vote for these two people who clearly consider the law and respect for others of no use to them.

Yes, I too remember when I thought John Mccain was an honorable person - but that is long gone.- stripped away by palin and surrogates who are out of control and whom John Mccain can control no more than he can control himself.

[wingman1]

Tell it like it damn well is Eillis. Well said.

[salzy1]

I coudn't have expressed it better myself. The author of this blog was channeling my mind and said everything I would want to say, in its depth and breadth! A big THANK YOU!

[ProgressiveReb]

Even as America faces some of the greatest challenges in our history, McCain and Palin aren't addressing the issues at their rallies. Instead, they are leading gatherings where their followers focus on fear, anger and hatred. We need to tell them: it is time to stop.

We don't need more anger, division and hatred. We need hope and solutions. It needs to stop -- and only one person can stop it: John McCain. Tell him to stop it now, before it gets any worse. Progressive Future has an email tool that makes it easy to send John McCain this message: http://www.progressivefuture.org/enough. Please use it today.