The Real McCain

[NorthCarolina]

Meet the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear War
The Real McCain

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

04/09/08 "Counterpunch" -- - It's November 19, 2004, a mere two weeks after the election that returned George W. Bush to power, and Senator John McCain has traipsed off to New Hampshire to give a speech calling for 50,000 more troops to be sent into the quagmire of Iraq, press flesh and raise money for an expected run at the presidency in 2008. John Sununu, former New Hampshire governor and Bush family consigliere, wryly quipped about McCain's junket to the Granite State, "What took him so long?"

The press corps, already bored with Bush and election post-mortems, tags along. McCain's the darling of the moment, the opinion press's favorite senator, a media-made maverick, who was sedulously courted by both John Kerry and George Bush. McCain, true to form, flirted with them both and sniped at them both, but in the end remained wedded to the GOP, even as the party fell further under the sway of neo-cons and Christian fundamentalists that McCain publicly claims to abhor.

But that's all part of the McCain profile. He is the senator of the hollow protest. McCain is nothing if not a political stunt man. His chief stunt is the evocation of political piety. From his pulpit in the well of the senate, McCain gestures and fumes about the evils of Pentagon porkbarrel. He rails about useless and expensive weapons systems, contractor malfeasance, and bloated R&B budgets.

But he does nothing about them. McCain pontificates, but never obstructs. Few senators have his political capital. But he does nothing with it. Under the arcane rules of the senate, one senator can gum up the works, derail a bad (or good, though those are increasingly rare in this environment) bill, dislodge non-germane riders, usually loaded with pork, from big appropriations bills. McCain is never that senator. He is content to let ride that which he claims to detest in press releases and senate speeches.

A recent example. In late October, McCain went on 60 Minutes to decry a footnote in the Defense Appropriations Bill of 2004 that transferred billions of dollars from so-called Operations and Maintenance accounts for US troops in Iraq to porkbarrel projects, such as gold mines and museums, in the states of powerful senators. In his stern voice before the cameras, McCain made congressional looting sound like a treasonable offense. But what he failed to disclose is the fact that he actually voted for the bill. Not only that, he was personally approached by each senator who wanted just such a transfer of funds and gave it his seal of approval.

McCain the Maverick is a merely a fine-honed act, underscored by these kinds of casual hypocrisies.

Article continues here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20689.htm

[ShockediSay]

1. Can Anybody Document the Hypocrisy, if not the the Schizoid, Nature

of John McCain?

I must confess I don't have a handle on the documentation, however,

after railing against torture of POWs he votes in a way to give Bush a free hand to do what he wishes in the name of national security.

after trumpeting how he is ready to step into the job of commander in chief, his initial primary campaign falls apart, until he brings in his lobbyist cronies, to rescue his campaign.

Again, railing against 'special interests,'
he supports the guy who is supplying him with a private jet. McCain initially claimed no contact with said individual, which was proven a misrepresentation. Convenient Alzheimers? Plus some effort by McCain to obtain favorable treatment for his 'client' before the instant regulatory agency ??FCC?

Way back when, Sen. McCain sought to obtain favorable handling of the Keating corrupt individuals.

A Maverick? More likely a loose canon with a short fuse. Bush was a Maverick and a cowboy. Do we need another?

Finally, if McCain gets the military power he seems to crave, he's going to want to re-institute the draft. There's no other way our military could possibly keep up with this commander in chief's objectives. And what would Palin say here? Yessir, whatever you want.