HuffPost: John McCain: The Sell-Out Express

[seafan]

Thank you, Mr. Uygur, for describing so succinctly the hollowed-out rhetoric of John McCain. And this truth has been painful to watch. It's best that Americans discover now, the terminal weaknesses of this politician, before voting for the continued destruction and dumbing-down of our country.


John McCain: The Sell-Out Express

by Cenk Uygur
April 2, 2006


snip

I voted for John McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries. I thought he would have made an excellent president. I was proud to support this American hero and rare courageous politician.

So, it is with profound disappointment that I say that we have lost John McCain. He has become what he warned us against. He has turned into a pandering politician who will stop at nothing to get elected.

snip

Instead of fighting back on his own terms, unfortunately, Senator McCain has apparently learned the terrible lesson: if you can't beat them, join them. He has sold out what little there was of his remaining principles. To pander to Falwell of all people - it is not only terribly disappointing, but also, nakedly, awkwardly obvious. It is bowing your head to the agents of intolerance.

McCain had a chance after 2000 to say that he was going to do it his way, the right way - even if it meant he would never be elected president. He should have kept the faith. Now that Bush's numbers are tanking, he would have seemed a natural alternative in 2008.

Instead he chose to embrace the people who tore him down and who have torn this country down. He hugged Bush during the 2004 election. He backed this disastrous war in Iraq. He didn't complain when the administration shamelessly linked the war to 9/11. He didn't complain when they demagouged the country with their fear tactics. He didn't complain when they hid behind the troops to justify their political decisions. He bowed his head and complied.

But worse than all of this is his reaction to what President Bush did to his torture amendment. He fought the administration on torture - and gave us hope again that there were men of character left in politics. He won. His amendment called for the US to stop any and all torture of detainees.

President Bush pretended to go along when it was obvious he had lost the political fight. Then afterward he signed a signing statement that gutted the amendment. In essence, his signing statement attached to the bill said that he would not follow the law. Torture would continue.

And what did McCain do in response? Absolutely nothing.

Here's the difference between the average Republican voter and John McCain - John McCain knows. The average voter can claim that he had no idea what Bush was up to, or in this case, what a signing statement means. Senator McCain can't make this claim. He knows exactly what they are up to. He knows exactly what that signing statement means. And he bows his head.

snip

McCain has gone so far off the deep edge now that he suggests we teach intelligent design along with evolution. You might be able to convince me that Rick Santorum or George Allen is ignorant enough to doubt evolution, but McCain knows. He is not that dumb - and that's why his pander is all the more inexcusable.

What's next? Will he call voters and ask them if they know about his opponent's black children? How low can he go? Where does the Sell-Out Express stop next?

snip

Apparently, McCain believes that Bush was right - politically. That the way to win in the Republican Party is to appeal to the intolerant and the ignorant. That doesn't turn him off. Instead of fighting against that, he now embraces it. He is a shell of his former self. It's a sad spectacle.

Politics has corrupted the last good man. It is complete. The Vietnamese couldn't break him, but eventually his own ambition did. It is a sad, cautionary tale. It will be brought to its natural conclusion when he loses again this time, ironically, because he embraced Bush and the agents of intolerance too much.

snip

There might be no good men left, but at least there is some justice in the world. And in 2008, McCain will feel the wrath of that justice.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/john-mccain-the-sellout_b_18327.html

[wake.up.america]

1. Once had respect for him, That went out the window when I saw him hug..

Bush.

[saltpoint]

2. I hear you. I wanted to like the guy after that refreshing win in

the 2000 New Hampshire primary, but those days feel very long-ago now.

[barb162]

7. Yes, it's as if he's gone off the deep end or something.

AFter Bush just trashed him and LIED through his teeth about McCain, he caved. And not only caved, but hugged Bush. And hugged Bush with a SMILE.

[liam_laddie]

3. McCain on MTP this a.m.

Wow, Timmy Boy laid into the Senator with lots of his previous statements;
made John look like a completely-without-principle politician, which is,
of course, exactly what he is, but tries to hide. For once, I say, Russert did
a number on a reich-wing guest. (IMHO)

[wake.up.america]

4. Yep, it was not Bush who used Gestapo tactics against him...

it was members of Bush's staff. I do not believe that was what he said at the time.

[LuckyLib]

5. He and Hillary need to go dancing off into the sunset hand in hand.

They are both so busy tap-dancing they can't even focus on the music.

[EST]

6. As I suggested at huffpost,

McCain has to be viewed as a dangerous man. Besides his reported irrationally vile temper, he is a tortured, driven man.
This is his last and only chance to achieve the crowning glory of his life and, should he be elected, he would be starting as president three years older than that demi-god of repugnant right, Ray gun Ronnie.
He is certainly not as fit as forty and probably figures not to survive his term, pointing up the fact that his guiding light is to be elected, not necessarily to serve.
The desperation forced upon him by the clock, his "do anything" attitude, and the decay of his ethical compass will either make him as much a danger as chimp-in-chief, or turn him into the pathetic laughing-stock of the nutso right wing clerics.

His epiphany and agonizing image reconstruction after that brush with other financial scoundrels has gone for naught, it seems.

[katty]

8. McCain's political track record: always been a sell-out

he's an opportunist of the first order.