Mccain: 'What the F- - - would I want to lead this party for?'

[galaxy21]

"McCain was never comfortable playing the front runner. His comment when he first walked through headquarters was "It's awfully big." McCain was ill suited to be the establishment's man. He was suspect to the true believers on the right, the Rush Limbaugh "dittoheads" who regarded him as a RINO (Republican in Name Only). While the Republican right wanted to build a wall and keep out all the immigrants, McCain was trying to forge a compromise—with Ted Kennedy, no less. The party stalwarts had reason to be doubtful about McCain, who could be salty in his private denunciations. To a couple of his closest advisers he grumbled, "What the f––– would I want to lead this party for."


Okay, its from Mccain, but that's a great line.

[SuperTrouper]

1. This has been a wonderful week. They're cannibalizing each other in the GOP...

[Earth Bound Misfit]

2. Is that from the Newsweek article? n/t

[galaxy21]

3. Yes

[wyldwolf]

4. In a way (a very small way) McCain is a tragic political figure

[knowbody0]

5. I agree

this, as the end result of so many decades of confused alliances. His only friend Lindsay Graham.

[PatSeg]

7. He is

He sold his soul to the devil and the world will never look at him the same again. I started to feel sorry for him and then I remembered some of the awful things he's said and done.

[galaxy21]

10. He's a good guy, but he always felt he was owed the presidency

Because of what happened in Vietnam. But it doesn't work that way. You don't get to be president because you suffered more than the other guy.

Mccain isn't as easy to hate as Palin or Bush. He has good and bad qualities. And, in another time, maybe he would have been a good president. But, in 2008, Americans needed Obama.

[Obamanaut]

11. There were several hundred others with him in his POW days. There

just isn't enough room for them all to be president. I don't think "former POW" is a presidential qualifier.

[PatSeg]

12. And then there are those who got left behind

and McCain used his power in the senate to make sure any information about them was classified forever.

I still have mixed feelings about him, but those feelings are more on the negative side after this election.

[Obamanaut]

15. My feelings have never been mixed. I don't/didn't/won't like him. nt

[chappydog26]

17. My 86-yr-old WWII-vet Papa

said the same thing. He thought it was terrible that McCain based his whole campaign on that.

[Obamanaut]

19. I married into my wife's family in 1968. One of her uncles was

captured on Guam in WW2, and spent the rest of the war as a POW. From 1968 until he died about 5 years ago I never heard him say a word about his POW experience, and my wife said she never heard anything before then.

edited to add WW2

[camera obscura]

20. I think he is but in the sense of a Greek tragedy

not a typical tragedy.... because McCain had some traits like his entitlement that would make him unlikable as a modern character.

But when you consider that Bush basically screwed him over twice, that's pretty pathetic. In the Greek sense. ;)

[kwolf68]

6. OK MCCain..

You got one chance...Help President Obama move this nation forward...work with him for the bettermeant of mankind and the planet. You have 4 years to stand behind Barack and REALLY PUT COUNTRY FIRST.

What say you Senator? You either leave the public square beaten and bloodied with absolutely no integrity still intact. Or you actually stand by your once-empty campaign slogan and give our new President the bi-partisan support he'll need to accomplish great things.

The ball is in your court Senator...you will never be President, but you can still help the nation you love.

[Solomon]

9. This is exactly what's going to happen. I read the tea leaves when

somebody on his side said that if they thought he was a maverick before, they are really going to see what a maverick is now. That can only mean one thing.

He will redeem himself.

[PatSeg]

13. I hope so

He has a lot of "making up" to do if he wants to salvage any of his legacy.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

16. I agree

He looked as though the weight of the world came off his shoulders when he conceded. I admit to a certain liking for the McCain of 2000 because he was such a refreshing Repub alternative to the Reichwing suckup Chimp. I couldn't be mad at a 'pub who publicly attacked Falwell and Robertson. If that McCain had run this year he might well have won, and I honestly believe he is sorry that he didn't.

The Rovians gamed him and his own ambitions got the best of his better political instincts. Kristol and his RW fanboy buddies foisted Palin on him (detailed at length in a recent New Yorker article that is online somewhere) and wouldn't even let him pick his own VP. McCain does not want to be remembered for this campaign. Somewhere, he is ashamed of himself for the last six months.

Hopefully he can go back to being his own man - the man he was eight years ago - and truly put country first during his remaining years in the Senate. Will he? Who knows? But one can hope.

[ashling]

8. n.a.

when the prior responses finally showed up on my computer (after I posted) my question was irelevant.

[frickaline]

14. "What the f––– would I want to lead this party for."

Did he not know the result of being President?

[qwlauren35]

18. I hope that Maverick McCain returns.

He's been MIA for 4 years. His captors should release him, he is no longer a useful pawn in the game. And the war has been won by the other side.