The Final Distraction: McCain/Palin Worse Than Bush
We all know McCain has sold his soul to win. Big mistake: the Democrats are taking the GOP bait, especially on Palin. She is the ultimate distraction. If we're not careful she'll be the final distraction. The perfect new celebrity -- Sarah Barracuda -- to capture the message in the 24-hour spin orgy, all the while attacking Obama as an elite celebrity. Any narrative that focuses on her -- any -- is a win for Republicans, carrying an undercurrent of race wars, gender wars, class wars. All ending with a debate on God and a return visit to Rev. Wright.
Palin is a gateway drug to a back-alley brawl Obama can't win. A Joseph Conrad-produced reality show/sitcom with Palin replacing Roseanne Barr fighting for the little guy with sass and sex. Wonderful.
Watch McCain repeat "maverick" 300 times a day, like a mantra, 'til Election Day. Republicans and hockey moms against corruption and Lear jets. Orwell for second graders: distraction and chaos, phony scandals and bullshit patriotics from the crew that would install an inexperienced neophyte -- not even put through the crucible of the national stage -- a heartbeat away from the greatest nuclear arsenal the world has ever known, and not blink. Darkest reptilian politics that speak to the ultimate calcified cynicism of Republicans.
Democrats need to ignore her -- unless she speaks about policy -- maybe she can explain and solve the collapsing world markets -- and keep the focus relentlessly on the disastrous results of Bush/McCain/Republican rule. They need to remind voters of the disasters of the last seven-plus years. Specifically. And as people have been saying, we need to be mad as well as inspired.
John McCain is the Republican Party as much as Bush -- we need to be constantly reminded of the policies (and, yes, the crimes) that are threatening this country from within.
Obama must hit Republicans ten times harder. Let's hear about war profiteering, taxpayer-funded mercenary armies and privatizing core functions of state, habeas corpus and warrantless wiretapping and presidential signing statements, and Katrina and justice department politicization, and phony intel and Abu Ghraib, rendition and torture.
If the Democratic leadership wants to disregard its base and continue to disregard the rule of law, they deserve to lose...and will. Let's hope the Obama campaign doesn't come to this conclusion 10 days out. He needs to articulate his vision of the future, but he also needs to articulate a version of reality. The fiercest urgency is needed now.
But some other fundamentals seem to be lost in the frenzy. McCain is no maverick, but it is worth understanding why the rabid right wing is cheering his call for government "reform" and to change "how government works at every level."
McCain won't just be more of the same -- it will be worse than Bush-Cheney -- using the disasters of the past eight years and the actual crises we face to double down on the American Enterprise/Heritage Foundation vision of government that desires, as Grover Norquist said, to shrink government until "we can drown it in a bathtub."
I would recommend a return visit to the groundbreaking Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
McCain, who said he knows nothing about economics, will surely hand over the reins to the Friedmanites and neoconservatives who have sent the country on a path to ruin. Anyone looking at his team could tell you that. Palin and the interests she represents are even further to the right.
Now, no one in their right mind -- including reasonable independents and Republicans -- wants to double down on neocon ideology, but here comes the "maverick" and his economic advisers to use the crises we face to implement more "change" and "reform" to the system by privatizing everything in sight. Is this what the American people want? When they are aware of it, the answer is always no. It's the same bullshit re-branded.
It may happen in a shock therapy in the first 100 days, or financial chaos may force them to wait until things stabilize, but sooner or later they will follow their fundamentalist creed. Ruin the government you are purporting to run and turn it over to privatization frenzy, creating a shadow government of private corporate rule. That's the whole idea.
So let's brand bust this maverick gibberish but understand the coded language that belies their true mission... we should take them at the true meaning of their words.
Not just more of the same -- worse than the same. Times of crisis are great opportunities to implement the radical agendas we usually reject.
That's also the idea.
McCain and the neocon ideologues won't "reform" government, they will gut government and privatize everything in sight in the name of responding to the crises they helped engineer through Bush and Cheney. Their view of government is the reverse of the Hippocratic Oath: do harm and then when the patient is sick, give the wrong medicine, watch him die, and sell off the body parts.
They will destroy the Department of Energy, HUD and anything else they can get their hands on. With this crew, all you need to do is destroy government, privatize it and get out of the way, and then a magic utopia appears. Well, actually it doesn't, but a lot of connected people get rich, and in the privatized war business, blood money flows and a fuck of a lot of innocent people die. The numbers and the misery are staggering. The legacy of Bush/McCain is a legacy of shame. Any man that stood with this criminal administration should be forced to answer for it.
The Republicans have been ruinous and most of it stems from an ideology that leaves the government in ruins. McCain has been on board hook, line and sinker. He voted with Bush over 90% of the time. End of story.
It is fundamentally corrupt and dishonest to call it reform when leaders want to cripple government, then hand it over to private industry, usually subsidized by taxpayers, but for other people's profits. More like contempt for government.
Red meat for dummies... a horror show for the rest of us.
Obama needs to explain to the country what this will cost us in real terms -- however many billions a day in Iraq and what that could buy, repair, fix, and allow in human terms -- ask us if can we afford it, and Obama must -- to use imagery the neocons can understand -- knock them down, put his boots on their throats, and never let up.
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I stand up and applaud you.
Outstanding.
Outstanding! My biggest concern is that The Obama/Biden ticket isn't as outraged or outraged enough to put up a fight. Every time I hear or see a "hard-hitting" response from the Obama camp; it's tepid at best. They have this staggering litany of failed policies and corruption at their disposal and they choose to create a commercial that compares John McCain to Rubik's Cube? This is the best they can come up with? I get it, he's outdated. How about calling him out on his record and the bald-faced lies that he and his running mate continue to tell and defend? This should be a lay up but yet again I'm watching the Democrats seemingly do everything they can to lose this race. FOR GOD SAKES, PUT UP A FIGHT, PLEASE!!
A question for the red meat crowd.
Do we defeat what we find abhorrent by becoming it? If the Obama/Biden ticket adopts the gutter tactics of the Bush/Chene
Barack Obama is on another plane, an intellectually more elevated plane. He employs a level of discourse the McCain thugs see as weakness. He is outraged, deeply, but he isn't going to allow those he finds so abhorrent to goad him into a brawl. He's been called an elitist, by those who fail to see the hypocrisy inherent in the words they spew. Civility and intellegence are concepts they don't, can't and won't grasp.
Senator Obama can fight, he will fight, but he will do it in a time, place and manner of his choosing. Until then I'm content to take whatever swipes I can at those Constitutional illiterates running the Republican party.
I agree completely, Nick. They must hit them and hit them hard. Really all they have to do is show McCain speaking in clips of all his flip flops and neocon pandering. He is most certainly a different person than he was in 2000......
While I agree with most of what you said here I have to say Obama has stepped up his counter attacks to meet all the Republican lies and to remind the voters that it was the Republican's filerbusters and Senate rule that gave Bush free reign to push forward all his failed policies that have put us where we are today !
Obama's numbers have risen to where they were before the Republican convention and McCain's bounce has stopped .Media finally got the message and stopped their constant consentration on Palin and started to address the lies coming from the McCain camp and have started to get back to the issues on the American peoples minds. It seems to be working ! My hope is that American's thinking of voting for McCain and against their best interests will finally wake up and remember what party has been in power for 8 years and what that has done to our way of life here in the United States and our world standing abroad .
Your post is not just comprehensive in its entireity John but also highlights the cobwebs of malaise that rid the Obama campaign! Brilliant and to think that you are one of the "Hollywood types"!! So much for stereotypes!
All that you have stated about the Republicans is true and the list of their sheer idiocy is even longer. One could write chronicles in a dozen volumes covering their buffoonery since the days of Nixon. It is also a fact that this is one of the worst times in the history of this great Nation and Bush, not surprisingly, has been the most disasterous President ever!!!
But, here comes the "but" ... BUT, ironically, in these troubled times, the Dems have chosen a nominee with the smallest/thinnest resume. Now add to that your justified criticism of Obama taking on Palin. That comparison has further highlighted his inexperience and brought into the limelight that all he has delivered to date are, speeches. It is not surprising therefore that in just today's Rasmussen poll, 72% and 65% respectively feel that McCain and Biden are ready to be President while 45% feel Obama is. Just 38% feel Palin is but then she is at the bottom of the Republican ticket while is Obama is at the top of the Democratic one
This notion has sunk in fairly deep and no amount of Obama "attacks" can dispel this ...
Outstanding article, and I agree with those who have commented that it should win a prize! (Oh, and neither my wife or I have ever forgotten your superb performance in 'Say Anything'.
Appreciate your effort, but think the majority of this country still won't get the message--and probably won't even understand it if they hear it. Unfortunately, the people who voted Bush into the Whitehouse were not the people reading the Huffington Post or the people with the time or money to see your movie. The machine behind Republican politics works subtly and behind the scenes. It is a ghost spreading inuendo over the easily-influenced and indecisive in America. Blatancy, fact, truth, is veiled, and the ignorant and uninformed fall victim. I am afraid that your reach, John Cusack, is not extensive enough in this format. Insanely, it is almost those in politics who seem most apathetic and disconnected who seem to take hold. It is a very sad state of affairs in this country when conscience falls second to the almighty dollar.
Worse than Bush? McCain who crossed the aisle to work with Ted Kennedy on education and Feigngold on campaign finance reform? Palin, a female governor who fought corrupt state officials (even those in ther Republican Party) and cut earmarks? If you're comfortable with Obama and his "change theme" (allthough, I'm still not sure how his career Washington insider as a running mate has anything to do with change), be my guest. An awful lot of people don't know enough about him and frankly Joe Biden is a poor choice for a running mate. He was a disaster at the polls in the 88 and 2008 primaries. Ralph Nader would have been a better choice if he really wanted "change."
Palin "cut earmarks"? Are you aware by now that she has brought in more money per capita in earmarks than any other governor? Perhaps we all forgot because of the last 8 years of Cheney, but the VP's only constitutional duty is to break a tie between the senate. This is why we should focus on McCain. Pulemerci, there's a reason why McCain has lost the bid for nomination before, and it isn't because he's too good for the job. He's absolutely wrong! You're example of campaign finance reform is really more of an argument for why Feingold and Kennedy should have a good idea for who should be the next president, since they authored the bill. They support Obama.
Remember everyone to VOTE, and not just blog!!!
I'm an outdoors woman who votes, believes in equal pay for women, and a strong education system. I'm voting for Barack Obama!
Which one of Obam's accomplishments as a US Senator are you most proud of?
Pulemerci. With all due respect you are just parroting the same GOP talking points. This is exaclty what Mr. Cusack was writing about. If you took the time to compare Bush's nomination acceptance speech of 2000 with McCain's of this year, they are identical in their policies. Not similar, but identical. The ultimate hypocrisy is that now McCain has also stolen many Obama talking points of change and reform. Is there anything he says that is original or his own?
Sarah Palin has proved herself to be terribly inadequate in even understanding the most basic policies in the country. For her to not know what the Bush Doctrine is, is inexcusable.
Sarah Palin is no reformer. She took $27 million in earmarks as a mayor of a very small town. She took over $300 million in earmarks in her short time as Governor. She has a history from her days as mayor on through her term as Governor of trying to fire people who don't do her bidding. Ask the librarian at Wasila who Palin tried to fire for not banning her book list. I'm sure now you will say that this latest invesitgation is a Democratic attack on the newly nominated GOP VP candidate. But before you go off on that lie, remember that the inquiries into her actions occured well before she was even thought of by the McCain people. Also, the fact is that this investigation was fully by-partisan.
the palin investigation wasn't just non partisan it actually had a Repub majority. Of course now that she's the Repubs pick for VP, the GOP attorneys are all up in Alaska trying to get the investigation thrown out. Don't think they're not strong arming the Repubs into changing their minds.
McCain used to be a man of integrity, but he sold his soul for a chance at the presidency.
There are many Americans that are so self-involved that they think that Republicans are what's best for the country...
This is just about the best blog I've ever read on this site or any site, it should get a prize.
WOW JOHN CUSACK! You can sure pack a punch. Now Obama needs to do the same!
O should have Cusack campaigning for him, what a catch he would be.
Good job getting some free marketing John. Your opinions are like a nose, everyones got one. But, I'm sure even an actor knows that.
Better than Britney smacking her gum and telling us we should just stand by the president no matter what. I rather have someone with some intelligence giving their opinion than some one with half a brain.
Awsome book! Awsome blog! I love people who are not afraid to use their own brain. People who are not afraid to speak up. Mindless zombies freighten me!
Nice, words we need to hear! The GOP think that we are weak.
The Dems. are used to fighting for everything we get, but,
we need the be the Democratic Party of the past, hard-hitting,
hard-nosed, fearless, and kicking down doors-
I agree with you, if we want this election, we have to go out there
and take it from the GOP. Out-yell them, out-fight them and
ruin them for the next twenty years!
John, I think you expressed the feelings of most Americans and our friends around the world! The time is NOW for all of us to fight back and stop this destruction by Bush, McCain and others. Obama was right - this election fight isn't about him, it's about us. It's about us regaining our passion and concern for the well being of all of humanity. We can not let the McCain campaign fool us or any others into believing they will be a positive change. Their changes would only be worse!
Great passion John, how do you propose we break so many from the trance they have been seduced into.
Your industry has been part of the behavioral science of mass marketing for years, how do we wake them from there walking stupor? I know there are thinking people behind those glazed over eyes. I have seen a flicker of light from time to time. What is the antidote to the mass marketing mind scrub? How do we shake them from this condition without breaking the message machine that sends it's subtle signal of seduction that the sleeping accept as gospel?
GOD help U.S.!
What a brilliant article and what a great writer he is.
abby : Agreed.
Thank You John !
( Spread the word. )
-ralph
I'm trying, I'm trying...
Excellent article John! You really need to talk to Barack. You have great ideas. Have you noticed that the internet media and some tv media point out all the dumb, insane and contradictory things about McCain and Palin, but when a reporter gets in front of one of them, they don't really call them out face to face so much. They start to, but then seem to accept the same lie or some non-answer and move on to something else. Are reporters under contract to keep "PC" with them? Who's in charge of these interviews? I want to see a show down! I want to see if and how they handle it! They need to be asked the hard questions. They need to be told they are lying right then, on the spot. They need to be shown on paper or on a screen, right then during the interview, that they are lying. We need to demand they explain themselves. The American people deserve tougher reporters. We deserve the truth. Charlie Gibson tried a little with Palin, the women on The View did an okay job and Jon Stewart comes through sometimes, but I think prime time, major station reporters need to get tougher when they are face to face with the nominees. Reporters need to confront them on everything you said in your article!
Thanks John!
Cathy
I fyou want a journalist who will confront politicans and refuse to back down look no further than Britian's own Jeremy Paxman.
some examples:
You may not recognise all of these people, but I don't think you really need to in order to get my point.
http://www
Hopefully you'll know who this guy is.
http://www
I'm sure he'd enjoy the experience of grilling your presumtive leaders immensely. They might not feel the same though.
Thank you for the videos. That's what I want to see more of from reporters. I've seen others writing about the same thing. One person basically said the initial question is good or tough, but there is never a good follow up question when a stupid answer is given. Hopefully the reporters are reading some of these blogs and internet articles and learn some things. Or maybe Jeremy Paxman should teach a class. Thanks again!
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