Richard Cohen, a columnist formerly in the tank for McCain, has a column on how McCain has soiled himself with dishonor. The stain has been growing since 2000, Cohen says, when McCain lied for political gain by concealing that he abhorred the Confederate Flag during his campaign against George W. Bush. According to Cohen, the stain became permanent this past week on The View.
Last week, one of the co-hosts, Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig — an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners.
“We know that those two ads are untrue,” Behar said. “They are lies.”
Freeze. Close in on McCain. This was the moment. He has largely been avoiding the press. The Straight Talk Express is now just a brand, an ad slogan like “Home Cooking” or “We Will Not Be Undersold.” Until then, it was possible for McCain to say that he had not really known about the ads, that the formulation “I approve this message” was just boilerplate. But he didn’t.
“Actually, they are not lies,” he said.
Actually, they are.
Cohen says that McCain has “always” conducted himself honorably and held himself up to a different standard which makes his fall all the more disappointing. I would argue that his marrying into Cindy McCain’s beer fortune before the ink was dry on his divorce papers and his subsequent involvement in the Keating 5 scandal (a scandal that is eerily familiar with banks dropping all around us) cast doubt on how committed to honor McCain has been in the past. Self-promotion seems to be his defining characteristic.
But, if Cohen thinks it’s McCain’s moment on the view when he officially jumped the shark, I guess we’re just quibbling over the details. Based on less information than I have today, I supported McCain in 2000. But, for me, he jumped the shark sometime around when he embraced the agents of religious intolerance he castigated in 2000 and or the disastrous Bush tax cuts he was previously against.
Like the United States, he has recently become less than he was, and we need to look forward instead of backward to regain our stature and our promise.
McCain’s been a reckless, pompous turd almost his entire life. His POW years were the 5% of his life that doesn’t match the other 95%. They don’t appear to have transformed him in any good or useful way.
I agree. I just wish there were somebody besides Obama, who I trust even less than McCain to get good things done. My vote will probably be “wasted” on a third party this year.
So… you think Obama would be worse than the last eight years? Let’s hear your argument.