The Shameful Irony of McCain's New Orleans Speech

For all of the vitriol that I've thrown in Hillary Clinton's direction, it's nothing compared to my contempt for John McCain. I don't know if he's been a millionaire in Washington D.C. for so long that it makes him completely tone deaf to the experiences of others or if he's just a world class dickhead, but it takes a superhuman level of gall for him to go to New Orleans, which still hasn't fully recovered from Hurricane Katrina, and say this:

The wrong change looks not to the future but to the past for solutions that have failed us before and will surely fail us again. I have a few years on my opponent, so I am surprised that a young man has bought in to so many failed ideas. Like others before him, he seems to think government is the answer to every problem; that government should take our resources and make our decisions for us. That type of change doesn't trust Americans to know what is right or what is in their own best interests. It's the attitude of politicians who are sure of themselves but have little faith in the wisdom, decency and common sense of free people. That attitude created the unresponsive bureaucracies of big government in the first place. And that's not change we can believe in.

Here's a shining example of what happens when McCain is called upon to break with his party and fix the "unresponsive bureaucracies of big government" (via Mark Ambinder):



That was McCain in 2005, two weeks after the destruction of New Orleans, voting in lockstep with his party to avoid investigating just what went wrong. The same John McCain who had the temerity to use New Orleans as a backdrop to bash Barack Obama joined George W. Bush in his opposition to a plan to "examine the Federal, State, and local response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina...and make immediate corrective measures to improve such responses in the future".

Two and a half years later, in general election mode, John McCain changed his tune :

"We know we didn't have the right kind of leadership ... where government agencies were getting information from watching cable television rather than have a flow of information," McCain said during an event at Xavier University in New Orleans.

"It was not only a perfect storm as far as its physical impact ... it was a perfect storm as far as the federal, state and local governments' inability."

"Never again will there be a mismanaged natural disaster," he said, later assuring the crowd that "it will never happen again in this country; you have my commitment and my promise."

John McCain has always had the "guts" to break ranks with his party and say the obvious when he's being flattered by the media and if it's politically convenient, but when the people of New Orleans needed him, he refused to take a stand against his President and party and demand answers. Of course, holding the President's feet to the fire might just invite unpleasant reminders about what both men were doing while the people of New Orleans were drowning and the rest of us were glued to our televisions :



While citizens in the Gulf Coast were begging for help, John McCain had a birthday party. Two weeks later, when the American people demanded answers, he joined his fellow Republicans in helping protect the President. Now that he's running for President, he finally recognizes the "perfect storm" of governmental failure, but do we really want a President who stands in the way of government accountability?

John McCain is in the midst of trying to give voters the impression that he, like Barack Obama, is an agent of change, but when the American people needed him to show some leadership, he failed. If John McCain was the great leader he claims to be, he would have supported the Clinton-sponsored and Obama-supported efforts to examine the failures at every level of government in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I suppose we should be grateful that John McCain eventually realized what a monumental disaster Katrina's wake represented, but as far as I'm concerned, changing your mind long after you could have made a difference is the "wrong kind of change".

Comments

[luziannagirl]

McCain's choice of locale for his speech and his choice of talking points is way beyond irony. It also shows a high level of contempt for the intelligence of Republican voters. He figures he can continue the Bush-Cheney-Rovian Orwellian propaganda machine and his voters will never know the difference, because they go for the trick hand every time.

I just wish I could be a fly on the wall of the Republican campaign jet and hear the jokes the Bush-McCain crew crack at the expense of their own voters.

[noamjunior]

McCain's New Orleans speech illustrates one of the classic truisms of Amerian Politics

Conservatives always say the government is too currupt and incopmetent to be trusted with your Tax $ or to be relied on in tough times.

and whenever elected- they prove themselves right

[philistine]

To quote P.J. O'Rourke: "The Republicans always say government can't work, then they get elected and prove it!"

[oldwiseone]

Ironically, or typically, they seem, when they recognize their failure, to think that they need to do a better job by doing more of the same. They might think this is sad, but I find it great, because they reveal themselves for what they. If they weren't so greedy, they may have been more deliberate and gotten away with it all. They are trapped by a fish oook, the more they struggle, the deeper it sets itself. But maybe I shouldn't say anthing lest they figure out that they are sinling in quicksand

[markusmarkus]

And we've seen prima facia evidence during the last 7+ years supporting Conservatives' notion that "...government is too currupt and incompetent to be trusted with your Tax $ or to be relied on in tough times."

Obama08

[jesselee26]

its time we begin to refocus our collective energies and concentrate our efforts on beating mccain this fall.

act 2 to this strange, national saga has arrived. and finally we can lock sites on the true adversary.

[obamagal]

McCan't isn't the first to jump on the bandwagon of Barack's change meme. Hillary wasn't very successful at it. McCan't won't succeed either.

People are more savvy than they were 8 years ago, heck, even 4 years ago. It won't work and now that McCan't is going to be right in the sights of the media, I have faith Americans from all across the country will come to realize this Straight Talking Express Maverick is now just a pandering old man doing anything he can, saying anything he can, to live in that big white mansion.

I used to respect him. No more.

[independent32955]

i respected him as well, back in 2004. I can't believe he's changed this much all for the love of winning a nomination, because there's no way he wins the general. He's spending too much time moving to the right just to secure a group of people that won't ever truly trust him anyways.

He's lost independents and will continue to lose them as he lines up to pledge his support for continuing bush's policies and as much as he and his team hope they can get HRC supporters to their side, that is a waste of time as well!

I'm predicting Obama with over 300 electoral votes in the fall!

[lennix]

we have to make sure that the msm do it's job this time they are giving him all kinds of passes about the crazy things he has been saying but have a fild day about a flag pin that he do not wera his self we got to stop this man if we don't we will still in a rut and the world will pass us by

[MikeyG]

McCain's speech in New Orleans was a classic example of the old repugnican one-two.

First, the gross incompetence of the Bush administration leaves the residents of that city to fend for themselves.

Now, McCain uses that response as an example of why you shouldn't trust government to solve your problems.

The reality is that FEMA was working fine before Bush got his incompetent mitts on it and appointed dumb and dumberer (Brownie and Chertoff) to run it. The moral: Don't expect government to work when you elect people who want to eliminate that government to run it.

[Oklad]

"....but have little faith in the wisdom, decency and common sense of free people. "

You might want to rethink the wisdom and common sense part of that comment Sydney or was it wisdom and common sense that elected george W. twice?

[bkcarter87]

And 65% of Republicans still think Bush is doing a GOOD job. That is the most frightening poll statistic I have ever read.

[Rayosun]

"That is the most frightening poll statistic I have ever read." (i.e. "And 65% of Republicans still think Bush is doing a GOOD job.")

WHY? What's surprising about the fact that people stupid enough to vote for such a jerk are too thick to ADMIT that they were that stupid - twice !- ?

During the run up to the 2000 election, I published my http://LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/Bushrecord.html web site showing what a dishonest and incompetent politician he was - in contrast to what the mainstream media was persuading Americans to believe.
During the runup to the war, as a Christian clergyman, I was amazed at the almost unanimous objections of so many church leaders to the war, as they are usually either too cautious to state such strong opinions, unless they are in favor of the government's position - which is so often the case -. I published many of their statements, and most conservative "Christians" chose to believe the crooked politician, rather than the leaders of so many churches. The most amazing thing is that they opposed Bush even BEFORE they knew what a load of crap all of his reasons for the war was.
In any event, it's clear that these people worship G.O.P., not GOD !

[DietrichMoody]

McCain showed that he does not know how to take charge. He squandered the moment, like he squanders everything. Speech in Kenner,LA ?, a suburb of New Orleans and so far removed from the worst hit in New Orleans during Katrina?. His experience told him to make this speech? at this place, with those people in the audience It was an insult, and insult to change and hope, and Rebuilding. And then he has the nerve to MOCK CHANGE.


But if you are going to go after him, I disagree with the example you used. McCain argued "no more big government" One can argue that establishing a commission to investigate what happened during Hurrican Katrina just creates more bureaucracies and adding to big government. And this is a fair argument on his part to make, but this is a bad example to illustrate McCain real big problem.

McCain's real big problem, he is that he is always on the wrong side of the major issues of our time. And he has been part of this big bureaucracy for 25 years. McCain IS part of the bureaucratic problem, he's just hides it really well. He's always voted crafty, so he can look like a Maverick. Wrong side on the big issues during President Bush's Disasters, Incompetencies, including, Mining safety., US Attorney Scandal, Torture, Tax Cuts, the Environment, Diplomacy, the Alienation of US Allies and getting out of Iraq, He's thoughtless.

[pahpah25]

MCCAIN was born into government/military and never left it..........he has lived on the government payroll his entire life........like newt gringrich........he dumped his first wife when she was ill and latched onto a rich.,well -connected second wife......he has been feeding at the 'trough' his entire life.

[happyblackman]

Man, if only the media reported on every false statment, and tall-tale that McCain spits out of his mouth!

When the American people really look at the "double-talk" that McCain has perfected, this election will be over in a week!

[gnomic]

I can't figure out if he's an outright liar, has dementia, is senile, has deluded himself into believing his own PR (like Hillary), or is so moronic that like bush, he thinks what he says rewrites history because he says it. But it really doesn't matter, this guy isn't the straight talker he claimed to be and is lying out of all orifices. He isn't for the troops, he isn't with the people, and he isn't in his right mind. And he doesn't have a shot in hell running on Bush's policies and coat tails because the truth is out on Bush and his lies that started this war.

Let the impeachment hearings begin.

[trailblazer]

It's very simple - the man just doesn't have the intellect to be president.

[akaJohnQ]

Neither does Bush !

[pmorlan]

Great piece, Greg. This should have been widely reported both times that McCain went to New Orleans but wasn't. Let's hope that sometime during this campaign the media does it's job and lets the voters know that John McCain is NO straight talker when it comes to New Orleans.

[AFPISCES]

Thank you for this article. When I found out he was giving his speech in New Orleans I was a little mystified. I was thinking didn't he vote against giving additional assistance to the victims of Katrina? And wasn't it just a month a so ago that he said they could fix or do away with the 9th Ward? Or something to that effect. Is it possible he forgot? Again?

[CaptainZero]

"Big government just doesn't work. Elect us and we'll PROVE it!" - Republican Party

[KarlRoves3rdchin]

OMG -after writing a post thanking you for your great article, I went to another site and found this (below) on another site.

"After opposing Everglades funding, McCain uses park as a political prop.
Tomorrow, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will visit the Everglades to boost his environmental credentials. But as the Wonk Room explains, a year ago, McCain aligned himself with President Bush and opposed "spending $2 billion on restoring the national park.""

The unbelievable gall of this guy!!

[luziannagirl]

KR3C

Oh, but see you missed the whole point.

McCain and his Republican Small Governmenteers view the Katrina tragedy as New Orleans' and the Gulf Coasts' GOOD fortune.

Katrina swept away the non-performers, leaving only those tiny ew able to comfortably pull themselves up with their own financial resources, and attracting those big and connected enough to move down to the area and suck up lucrative government rebuilding contracts. McCain supported the rebuild, alright, but just not in the fashion 90+% of pre-K New Orleanians would likely approve. You know, that "tough love" thing where you let a loved one hit rock bottom before helping.

R-strategists figure those who don't know the inside scoop on the "recovery", (mostly because of mainstream media's refusal to do substantial follow-up pieces), won't know the difference anyway. Even if they were likely to care.

Very Orwellian, yes. And very easy to do, ever since Ronald Reagan (OK, AND Grover Norquist) drowned both government AND the 4th Estate in the bathtub, handing control of all branches of government to the K-Street Cabal.