Seventeen Tired White People In a Room: John McCain Gives the Single Worst Speech In the History of American Politics

First of all, John, you weren't in New Orleans.

You were in Kenner, Louisiana. I have spent a fair amount of time in both Kenner and New Orleans, and believe me, the people who live there are acutely aware of the difference. (And, should they forget, they can always check the address on their mail, or ask a neighbor.) The competition in CYO basketball alone runs at fratricidal levels. So your very first words were stunningly dumb.

And not only wrong, not only dumb, but wrong, dumb, and mis-pronounced: it's not New Or-lee-eyens, as any resident of New Orleans (or Kenner) will insist on telling you: it's New Or-lins. Down there in New Orleans -- sorry, I mean Kenner -- these are life-and-death issues.

So: one sentence into the single worst speech in the history of American politics, in front of what looked like seventeen tired white people in a room, John McCain -- comb-over plastered down, grinning inanely, with his strange collection of jowls and wattles a-quiver at various tempos (a separate flopping-rhythm to every fleshy sac, in a display of trembling facial-jelly unmatched since the heyday of Jesse Helms) -- had:

a) proved he didn't know where he was,

b) showed he was too lazy to even ask a random passer-by the name of the city he wrongly believed himself to be in, and

c) beamed out to America -- for the first but unmercifully not the last time on a crucial night of political theater--that bizarre frozen rictus of a grin that he quite wrongly thinks is charming and down-home.

Mere seconds into an address that gladdened Obama supporters everywhere and drove giant ripples of buyer's-remorse down the gut of every Obama-hating white Clinton supporter, John McCain had proudly displayed his Wooden Soldier persona to the world.

It was a miscalculation of stunning proportions -- not just by McCain, but by the once-fearsome Republican strategists who'd propped him up in front of that eye-torturing green backdrop. How the mighty have fallen: last night, we witnessed the arrival of the Anti-Reagan, the pitiful obverse of the Great Communicator. Here, instead, was the Grating Obfuscator, mangling an already-terrible speech like some mildewed Howdy Doody being worked by an arthritic puppeteer.

His ideas were puerile -- and his ideas were the best part of the speech. He turned instantly-forgettable phrases into unforgettable moments of black comedy, at one point so garbling the phrase "change in strategy" that it almost came out as "strange in tragedy" -- which would have been a far better description of his support for the war than any he gave in his remarks.

For the love of God, you should pardon the expression, is nobody coaching this man? At several points he actually spoke the phrase "heh-heh-heh" as if reading it from a Teleprompter. He paused after what he believed to be winning lines, blatantly milking applause from those seventeen worn-out white folks (and here's a Note to John: when the applause is so sparse that you can actually hear and identify the separate clapping-patterns of individual clappers, dispense with the dramatic pauses.)

Worst of all was The Blinking. It should be against the law to hustle John McCain in a poker-game, because his "tell" is so freaking obvious: whenever he's spoken a lie that he knows flat-out is a lie, he stops dead in his tracks and suddenly performs a nightmarish combo of The Rictus and The Blink, a rapid eye-flutter that reads like a Bettie Boop parody and should not be attempted by anyone even vaguely male.

Do I focus more on theater than on substance? Well, so did McCain. And so did Ronald Reagan, for that matter, but according to popular opinion -- one I have always been unable to share, since my loathing for the man put the whammy on objective judgement -- Reagan played his games of political three-card-monte with skill and charm. The fact that the Republican Party has fallen on such hard times that it can only offer a John McCain as their presidential candidate means that not only have they lost their Reagans, but they have lost their Michael Deavers, Lee Atwaters, and (vintage) Karl Roves as well. And that loss is the truly critical one.

Case in point: Republican strategists knew that Obama would be taking the stage an hour later to deliver a typically hypnotic speech in front of an SRO house of ecstatic devotees. So the fact that they threw McCain into the gladiator-pit of American TV armed only with his own charisma -- which, of course, is to say without any weapons at all -- is further proof that it's now Amateur Hour at the GOP. To which -- John Hagee and Jeremiah Wright aside -- one can only say: thank God.

Related:
Read more from Huffington Post bloggers on Barack Obama clinching the Democratic nomination for president

Comments

[TheRebel82]

Hilarious posting! You had me cracking up! McCain is in deep trouble for november.

[Livvy]

the speech was awful. the green was awful. the sad little crowd was awful.

Most disturbing of all was the smile. Its like they had been giving him stage directions to be likable and he is a really bad actor. It wasn't just odd it was creepy.

[WorkingClass]

The Republican party is a dead man walking. McCain is the best they could come up with. "Mildewed Howdy Doody"? Keep up the good work John.

[BJMS]

The fake smile and evil chuckle were disturbing...GREAT review!!!

[kappa08]

"John McCain -- comb-over plastered down, grinning inanely, with his strange collection of jowls and wattles a-quiver at various tempos (a separate flopping-rhythm to every fleshy sac, in a display of trembling facial-jelly unmatched since the heyday of Jesse Helms)"

This why you're on my list. That is some rich sauce man....really good stuff.
Keep banging. Your smack actually deflates my rage...something I never thought was possible.

[WAstateliberal]

"So the fact that they threw McCain into the gladiator-pit of American TV armed only with his own charisma -- which, of course, is to say without any weapons at all -- is further proof that it's now Amateur Hour at the GOP."


For me, this was the classic line.

[ReadyNow]

Why is everyone on the Hufff post so mad all the time......you should be happy your guy got the nom!

If Obama wins, you will be mad at him by Valentines day......

[DragonMama]

Sure, some of the Progressive Fundamentalists will be, but most of us are a bit more sane than that. And we're mad because we've been suffering in silence so long, now that we've found our voice we're ROARING.

[nibblybits]

The video montage on TPM.com of McCain's speech with the conservative pundits cringing is worth a watch. It's hilarious. They are sooo embarrassed that McCain is the nominee. They look like they are in actual pain.

And spliced in are portions of McCain's speech with his weird child-molester creepy smiles. OMG. If I had to support that, I suppose I would refuse to admit I was a Repub until after the election. McCain, are you really that poor of a public speaker? Just godawful.

[ObserverinVancouver]

At least the Republicans had the brains to have Sen. McCain speaking before Sen. Obama rather than after.

[ReadyNow]

Too bad Obama is scared to talk to "bitter americans" in the town hall format. Obama is only good in front of his groupies reading off a prompter.

I don't think he will be able to use a prompter when he talks to Iran

[DragonMama]

My family went to see Obama at a town hall meeting in Parma, Ohio before the March 4th primaries. Search for it, I know for a fact at least some portions of it were on YouTube (my baby started crying during part of it when Obama was answering a question about health care and Obama stopped to say something like "see, that baby's so upset about not having universal health care, he's crying!") Seriously, if you think that McCain stands a chance against Obama in ANY public speaking format, you're sorely mistaken. He was completely without a script, even when he did his shortened version of his stump speech before taking questions from the audience. This was in a high school auditorium, seating capacity between 500-1000. And he rocked the house.

And Northern Ohioans are plenty bitter about what NAFTA has done to our manufacturing jobs. We now have big-box franchise retail (including Walmart, Best Buy, and Home Depot) where one of the largest factory employers in Cleveland used to be.

[agachieng]

LOL....
I don't know how Mr. Eskow composes himself and gathers his hands to put this in writing...­hilarious.

I struggled with my sanity trying to come to grips with what it is that Sen McCain thought he was doing, displaying his inadequacies right on TV screens, on a night that he knew the entire world would be watching Obama. His idea of ditching Bush actually made the president look much much much better....­comparativ­ely.

[LulaB]

I have never seen him give a speech before. After watching him, I felt really sorry for him. It looked like he was in pain.

[MickyD10]

I've seen McCain give several speeches. For what it's worth, it was one of his better ones. That doesn't say much for him though, huh? Obama is likely to rip him to shreds in a debate. Still, McCain can't wait to debate Obama. It's not like he can win in a debate. He probably knows that going in. He just wants to know what it feels like to have more than a hand full of people show up to hear him talk.

[PatriciaB]

Excellent writing!!!
Even the Repubs are embarrassed by Mc Cain/Mc Pain!!!!

Want 4 more years of the same--then vote for McCain!!

I think the repub party will split. I listened for a short time to Hannity Insanity on the radio last evening with George Will as his guest. They both said they were Conservatives NOT Republicans!!!

[waverly]

Has anyone besides me noticed that he appears to be as dumb as Bush? Maybe it's just his age....?

[CalexenderJ]

Wow that's harsh. I can't stand McCain either, he gives me the willies, I don't object to your ripping apart his weak speech, or his halting delivery, the bored crowd, or his ghoulish grin and chuckle. But I'd give him a pass on his jowls, and comb over. This shouldn't devolve into a beauty contest, there are so many other issues at stake.

[MrKnuckles]

I was stunned by how badly timed the beginning of McCain's speech was, thus allowing Clinton's non-concession speech to effectively cut off his stilted litany of mangled sound bites to an abrupt but merciful end.

And could any political slogan be more tragic and imitative than McCain's, "A Leader You Can Believe In"? What a pitiful and anemic ripoff of Obama's campaign slogan. Man, I even felt a bit embarrassed for the old guy.

[BassMent]

HIlarious analysis of a performance that initially struck me as funny but ultimately seemed kind of sad and creepy. I was chuckling at first, but then felt like I was laughing at someone with a disability, which is definitely not cool.

As a friend of mine put it, "McCain's speech was embarrassing to me as an American."

[ObserverinVancouver]

Don't any of you get lulled into complacency by a bad speech.