This is Not the John McCain New Hampshire Once Loved
What happened to John McCain? What happened to the man so many of us in New Hampshire have admired and respected for so long? The fierce bipartisan warrior, the straight talker, the maverick whose ideas nearly everyone found some common ground with now seems missing in action. He seems to have betrayed the very attributes that originally commended him to us and earned our earlier trust and support.
We continue to stand in awe of his heroic service to his country during Vietnam, but now he shamelessly uses those experiences at every opportunity, as if it excuses him from having to answer any really tough questions about the economy or foreign policy. The answer to everything is not to mention his admittedly harrowing POW days. My experience interviewing heroes of war is that most prefer to deflect attention from themselves and let their record speak for itself. McCain seems to think that it buys him a permanent pass. But it is impossible to know how to fight the new wars if you are hopelessly lost in the old ones.
Surrounded and programmed by the lobbyists he once despised, the man who once effortlessly straddled the aisle and spoke from the heart now carefully hews to a prompter-read, soulless far-right agenda.
This is a man who once denounced and purposefully avoided the politics of personal destruction, having felt firsthand its painful consequences in 2000 in South Carolina, but who now wants to win at any cost. By ridiculing his opponent's commitment to public service, he has undermined the very reason we were drawn to McCain in the first place. By trying to steal the mantle of change from the Democrats, he demonstrates only the riskiness of his shoot-from-the-hip style. That may have worked in the Senate and on the campaign trail, but it is hardly presidential. In fact, it is frightening in the extreme and bespeaks an instability difficult to reconcile considering our complicated world and its myriad problems.
More to the point, he continues almost daily to demonstrate that instability and other judgmental and temperamental concerns, issues and complaints that originally brought a slew of challengers into the Republican primary contests. And in the most important decision of his candidacy, he cynically and irresponsibly chose the supremely unqualified Sarah Palin, cheapening the race as if it were some high school popularity contest or the latest "American Idol" competition.
Even the most ardent true-believers among us must be privately shaking in their boots contemplating a heart-beat-away Palin presidency during these difficult times. When Putin acts up, who do you want whispering in your President's ear: Joe Biden or Sarah Palin?
McCain is a man who once championed openness and fairness in government, who now wants to continue the failed policies of the current administration and who increasingly wants to make the crucial decisions of our democracy behind closed doors with the same cronies who got us into this mess in the first place. And he has shown a profound indifference to and often startling ignorance of economic affairs just as our country inches toward depression.
That threatens to make him the next Herbert Hoover if he should win. And his old strong suit, foreign policy, is slipping away too, as gaffe after gaffe displays his fundamental shortcomings. I want my President to know the difference between a Sunni and Shia. John McCain does not.
We in New Hampshire bear some responsibility, I suppose. Thinking we had the old McCain, we gave him a decisive victory in our primary that permitted him to vanquish those challengers. But he betrayed us. If you have to say you're a maverick in your ads, it's clear you're not. The real maverick turns out to be Barack Obama, who bucked his party's establishment and whose once-lonely positions have been adopted by nearly everyone including even the Bush administration. Nearly everyone, that is, except John McCain. So what happened to him?
That's what Granite State citizens have been asking the last few months. The answer is enough to turn us blue.
This article first appeared in the Manchester Union Leader.
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I agree completely. I am from Nashua, NH and even though I am a strident Democrat, I always liked and admired McCain; to the point I would have easily crossed my party line to vote for him (even though I liked Obama). However, this J McM seems to have thrown the old J McM under the bus.
This J McM doesn't seem to have a problem lying and being mean. Also, the fact that he picked Sarah Palin to be his VP was a political move that shouts out that he cares more about winning than what's good for America; because he's got to know she is in no way competent to be VP, forget lead our country if something should happen to him. I listen to him and feel great sadness for that man that is no longer there.
I don't know why so many are dismayed because John McCain has betrayed the voters. Betrayal is part of his life as was apparent by the betrayal of those who trusted him most, his wife and family. Not a one time "meeting in a living room to campaign" but years of cheating and dishoner of those who should have been his most concern. Even with his current wife he carried on an affair for months while still living with his first wife. Maybe he has changed but he did way more in the way of not being trustable than did Obama by holding a political meeting in the home of a reformed activist. Maybe John has changed and his loyalty is not in question any longer and so maybe has Ayres.
McCain is no maverick, he is a gelding. A self-serving opportunist used to getting his way and will do or say anything to get what he wants, the hell with everbody else.
Ken, the kind of lobbyists McCain despised were the ones from organizations like the Friends Committee on National Legislation and NAMI who came around looking to see him soften his conservative stance. He has always had an open door to the monied ones: just look at how he rubbed elbows with Keating and his crowd.
Once owned you are always owned unless you get guts or a heart.
Can we settle this "maverick" business once and for all? For Sen. McCain, he is a maverick in the dictionary's first sense: "An unbranded or orphaned range calf or colt, traditionally regarded as property of the first person who brands it." Johnny, we hardly knew ye after the ol' drover, Mr. Rove, put the iron to ye. Head 'em up - but more importantly -move 'em out!
Love this, thanks!
Agree. thanks
Good one!!!
McCain is giving a bad name to mavericks.
McCain is a stooge of the neocons and a proponent of American military domination of the Middle East no matter how many wars need to be fought is support of theis idiotic program and despite the fact it is obvious that the huge American military presence is itself a cause of much of the Islamic militancy in the region. An ardent Russophobe, McCain is guaranteed to cause needless problems with Russia even though Russian assistance is vital for achieving stability in the Middle East.
Has anyone else noticed the extreme difference between how Democrats are treating John McCain's service in Vietnam, versus how Republicans in 2004 treated John Kerry's service in the same war? Obama and Biden never forget to salute McCain's "heroic service," while Republicans backed the Swift Boat smears and handed out "Purple Heart" bandaids at the Republican convention to ridicule Kerry’s wounds. That disparagement of Kerry’s service was in support of a President and VP who were totally for the Vietnam war as long as they did not actually have to serve there. Talk about putting party ahead of country! Anyone who really cares about honesty and decency in campaigns cannot vote for Republicans without being totally hypocritical.
Thank you for this post!
Everyone should read it.
Well said. The comparison is stark.
I agree with you on the whole. In their world view, it's not a hypocritical double-standard because Kerry repudiated his role, and America's role, in Vietnam after the war. In their world view, that's the ultimate heresy and the beginning of their visceral--- rather than intellectual or philosophical--- antipathy toward liberals. By contrast, John McCain has never spoken out against America's role in Vietnam, and even seems determined to fight the Iraq war to "victory" in order to assuage America's defeat in Vietnam.
How eager I am to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans, born in the 60s, for whom the question "What did you do in Vietnam" has no relevance.
Great article, and very sobering.
McCain has lived a lie for many, many years. He is the greatest manipulator of the
press since Eugene McCarthy. The problem is: McCain is far more dangerous
The 'press' is the last great bastion of democracy and truth.
Finally, McCain is being exposed, as the fraud he really is
I don't find McCain dangerous. I think he doesn't know how to play the hard-ball rep game and his choice of Sarah Palin proves it. She's dangerous though.
You don't see McCain's propensity for "shooting from the hip" as dangerous???
Dear Mr. McCain,
It is with great dissapointment and anger that I write to you today. There was a time when many Americans considered you an honorable man. We suffered when you were run over by the Bush-Rove smear machine and even considered the possibility of having you alongside a Democrat on a Presidential ballot.
You sir, have fallen farther and lower than any of us could have ever dreamed. Your decline began when, in a NY minute, you went from battling the Bush Junta to standing side by side with him and supporting his every move. It has reached a crescendo during this electoral campaign by running a demeaning, dishonest campaign which, ultimately, is disrespectful to the American people. You choose, as a cheap political trick, a running mate that is an offense to women of substance, to intelligent Americans and to a country on the brink of disaster.
You sir, do not have the monopoly on heroic war acts. John Kerry, along with thousands of Vietnam Veterans, came home with honors, after doing their duty in spite of their opposition to that filthy and illegal war, to fight against it. They struggled to save the soldiers left behind in that hell and to keep more young men and women from being sent there to die for naught. You backed Bush in yet another illegal war and I fear that you would get us into a future one.
We no longer believe in you.
Sincerely,
A Voter
As with everything I have ever read or heard that you have done, this article is powerful, compelling, and ELOQUENT!!! BRAVO!!!!
See Steven Crandell's Profile
Well written. Usually candidates wait until after they are elected to break their promises. Your point on Palin is salient. See http://www
But the big question I have is for you, Mr. Burns. When will you take on perhaps the most critical issue of our time -- nuclear weapons -- and the US role in creating them, proliferating them and one day, I hope, leading the world to get rid of them. Fascinating, human story. And the stakes could not be higher.
John McCain is and has always been a narcissist. Everything he has ever done is in life has always been about him. If truth be known, he probably wasn't tortured as much as he would have you believe. I'm sure it wasn't pleasant for him in the Hanoi Hilton since he was accustomed to a much more lavish lifestyle. Spoiled little rich kid, he is and always will be.
The Rollingstone magazine article is quiet long but it also holds many insights into the making of John McCain.
http://www
If you really care about getting to know the "real" John McCain do yourself a favor and take the time to read this article.
I just read this Rollingstone article, it is chilling.
I have tried to read as many articles on all of the candidates as possible
How he gets away with this crap is beyond me. He has NO SHAME!
Same McCain, but also the same liberal, left-wing sympathizing, devious, sneaky media! They only favored McCain in order to prevent true conservatives from winning the primaries. We knew and predicted that the media would turn on him once he became the nominee. This is nothing new in the way of media behavior.
McCain's not changed.
May I suggest a book for you: "Conservatives Without Conscience" written by A CONSERVATIVE, John W. Dean. It might enlighten you on who these "true conservatives"you speak of really are. And you are right, perhaps McCain has not changed, he just had us "fooled some of the time".
So the media picked Sarah Palin as his running mate?
Oh Yeah, Blame the media for all his lack of judgment. I believe it was the Senate ethics panel that called him on his bad judgment, shame on the media for reporting it.
It's very simple in order to get the White House he was denied in 2000, he sold his soul. This has been a character flaw all of his life.
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