McCain's Straight Walk Express

"Just a closer walk with thee."

It should be the theme song of the McCain campaign, and the "thee" is George W. Bush.

John McCain has given up Straight Talk for a Straight Walk. He is walking in lockstep with the campaign's Invisible Man, George W. Bush, in a straight line in the same direction Bush has been taking the nation.

The direction of that straight walk is over a cliff, and the American people know it. Walking straight ahead at a time when 9 out of 10 American believe the country is heading in the wrong direction is plainly not a plan for either political or national success.

It is obvious to most Americans that the United States must change direction, and it should be equally obvious that following in march behind the crooked-talk, straight walk McCain will not provide that change of course.

Any remaining doubt was removed on Saturday when what might be the most important and least coveted endorsement of the campaign was made.

In effect, Dick Cheney invited John McCain on a hunting trip, during which he fired a blast with the full force of his own 18 percent approval rating at the Arizona senator.

"I'm delighted to support John McCain," Cheney said in Laramie, Wyoming. "He is a man who has looked in the face of evil and not flinched," declared a vice president who looks at the face of evil every morning while shaving.

Cheney's message to McCain in the campaign's dying hours is: Don't worry John, I've got your back! Apparently the back of his party's presidential nominee was irresistible as a target for the vice president's knife.

Sen. McCain's response to the latest endorsement of his straight walk with Bush is reportedly: Et tu, Cheney?

Historian Robert S. McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts & Letters at Millsaps College and the author of The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941 (Random House). His latest book is Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America (Crown).

Comments

[TheMediaRanger]

You know, it could be that Cheney loves the Republican Party so fervently that he believed his endorsement would knock all the national and state level candidates off their rails and give the party an opportunity to purge itself for a few years. Heaven knows, it needs it. Republicans, per se, are not evil. But the modern Republican Party let itself get warped out so bad that even the old-timers don't recognize or feel a part of it.

[Pacojam]

Cheney is worried that if Obama gets in he may be prosecuted for war crimes. That should be first on the agenda! It is the only right thing to do so no egomaniac politician in the future gets the same bright ideas.

[Teritt]

If McCain had any intention of NOT continuing Bush's 'legacy' , he would not have surrounded himself with former Bush administrators.

[Puller58]

Well if that doesn't finish off McCain, I don't know what will.

[tainoaz]

What is Mr. Cheney thinking?
Does he realize that he does Senator McCain no favors?

It's all good with me though,

Obama/Biden 08

[ektruiasjalfanmik]

Dr. McElvaine --
I have enjoyed your posts - and also "Grand Theft Jesus". Maybe Dick and Sarah can shoot some moose together in their impending time off...
As I'm right across the street from Millsaps, isn't it wonderful to entertain the possiblity that our great state will take a much-needed accounting of itself and do a hard left on Tuesday? We're sort of purple now -- can blue be far behind? One can only hope...

[Taxpayer194]

Please tell potential voters that people making less than $200,000 indeed pay taxes. If we pay less, that is not redistribution.