Opinion: McCain's problem with integrity

Kaaaayaa!! McCain should now be called Mr. Miyagee. Not everybody can go above the flip-flopping nature of politics, and duck, dodge, karate chop, and occasionally utilize Jedi mind tricks like John McCain. He can vote against tax cuts before voting for them like no other. In the land of McCainia there is nothing but extremes. He was one of the most vocal critics of Bush’s tax cuts, and now nearly every orifice of his body is dripping with the seminal fluid of Bush, Cheney, and their big businesses buddies who love these tax giveaways. This is no longer ‘00 McCain, because ’08 McCain loves tax cuts! This is some magnificent ducking and dodging.

    Perhaps one of the most wretched things this old fool has done is utilize his military service to further his career. His imprisonment in a Vietnam camp has become what 9-11 is to Giuliani. But I am going to shit all over McCain for one reason. He criticized John Kerry in 2004 for mentioning his Vietnam service. He went so far as to say, "I'm sick and tired of re-fighting the Vietnam War. And most importantly, I'm sick and tired of opening the wounds of the Vietnam War, which I've spent the last 30 years trying to heal." But McCain has no problem running television ads citing his services and detention. McCain has no problem making this a strategic linchpin in his campaign. Has this wretch managed to stay consistent on any message? When he criticized John Kerry he said it was “clearly a tactical or strategic move.” And McCain’s isn’t? He’s not attempting solicit votes from a sympathetic America, this isn’t an attempt to cover up his failures with the Iraq War? He said that bringing up his service was “offensive to me, and it's angering to me that we're doing this. It's time to move on.” It is time to move on; it’s time he apologized to Senator Kerry.
    In the land of McCainia you can bend spoons with your mind. You can also be a climate change guru, who firmly opposes offshore drilling, and then magically, like some Bruce Lee acrobatic stunt, suddenly change your mind. In ‘00 McCain was against destroying our environment, and was for alternative energy sources, but ’08 McShame is ready to jackhammer the Atlantic and carve up the Pacific. What was most interesting was the fact that McCain said this to a bunch of oil men in Texas. Now that’s some pandering! I have to correct my previous statement (this is not flip-flopping), Mr. McCain is indeed leaking the seminal fluids of Bush and Cheney, but I forgot to mention he has sprung an oil leak, which is oozing from his Pinocchio nose. Either it’s his old age, or you can only stuff a turkey so much. 
    Super national security man, who once supported the closing of Guantanamo bay, and opposed the torture of prisoners, and the lack of rights given to combatants, has had a new baby; either that, or he aborted it and just adopted a new one. Wait, I can’t quite remember, is McCain pro-choice or pro-life these days? He sure is shifty! Now McCain is assailing the Supreme Court for granting the Guantanamo detainees rights in civilian courts. I thought he was for humane treatment of prisoners? Wait, maybe McShame had another abortion! Oh the pro-life activists are going to rattle there sabers on this one.
    Apparently, McCain, with his Miyagee-like, super ability to kaaayaa! any criticism transcends international waters. When Iranian leaders call America the “Great Satan,” it is McCain’s duty to sing “bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran.” But when McCain calls Washington D.C., the capital of the United States, the “city of satan” it is quite alright. That’s right, last month, while stumping in Atlanta, McShame said it was hard to do the “lords work in the city of satan.” Mind you, McCain has served four terms in the Senate. But this is just a few months after he said he was never “really proud of America” on Fox News. He wasn’t proud until he was locked up in Vietnam. Maybe we should send leaky old Pinocchio over to Iran and kill two birds with one stone. After all, old drippy McShame is a ticking time bomb.
    But what do I know, I am just a rich American making it on my forty thousand dollars a year, living in this booming economy, as McCain believes. Aside from brushing it off the recent economic struggles as being merely “psychological,” McCain said “I am not convinced that we are necessarily going into a recession.” A few weeks later, he answered a question at a debate, “Are we in a recession...I certainly think so.” This has to hurt. I mean this is what we would call the forced flip-flop. He denied, denied, denied, and then wham reality kicked him in the face, and he had to admit it.
    The list of judo master denials and high karate ducking and dodging is too immense to describe. It’s like our national budget; it continues to grow every second. First McCain is against pandering to “far reaches” of America and “agents of intolerance, such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.” Then he gives a commencement speech at Falwell’s Liberty University, and accepts endorsements from pastors Rod Parsley and John Hagee. The former has called for the annihilation of Muslims, and liberal Christian pastors; while the latter has criticized Jews and denounced Catholics. But the high flying acrobatics don’t stop there. As far as energy policy is concerned, he supported and introduced legislation in support of cap and trade to combat climate change, and then stated that he does “not support caps.” Ok, I know everybody is scratching their heads right now, wondering is this guy for real. Yes, he is; well he is attempting to be.
    This is the guy who was having a birthday party on the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall! And guess who was there…….none other than President Bush. It makes sense coming from a guy who says he supports rebuilding and restructuring Katrina, but has voted against Katrina funding bills, and voted against an investigative commission on Katrina. Maybe it was a result of the influence of the lobbyists on his campaign that helped create the “Enron Loophole,” which has significantly contributed to higher gas prices. And it was McShame that voted for this loophole, which economists say if it was abolished, it would cut oil prices by as much as 50%.
    The war mongering, criminal pilferer, doesn’t even have the gumption to support troops that he will send to war. But this mastery of flip-flopping requires a lot of work. First, he has to act really tough, which requires a build up of his military credentials, such as touting military services or assaulting tiny squirrels in the park. Then he has to threaten war with anything that moves. This is unfortunate for most mammals, except the sloth, who for obvious reasons will not escape McCain’s wrath. After this, he is free to vote against major veterans’ bills, such as funding mental care; $200 billion veterans support measures; and education expansion programs. The most pathetic thing has to do with the last item mention. McCain feels expanded education would give troops “too much of an incentive” to get out of the military and go to college. People, I am not making this up.
    Captain karate McCain may be nimble and agile when it comes to taking a stance on a position, but this is not what America needs. America doesn’t need a President who wishes to imitate the weather, changing every five minutes. However, I guess there would be some benefits. He would serve up a variety of views and opinions on a daily basis. It would be amusing, like a magic eight ball…just shake for a new answer. Don’t shake too hard, though; you don’t want to kill the old buzzard. He would be a president that would take a firm stance for his position, yet he would be open to change…and then changing again….and yet again. But amusement, no matter how fun it is, is not what we need. We need a leader, not a jester or caricature. And John McCain is not the right person for the job. His inability to be honest and forthright with the American people shows a lack of credibility that is needed to restore honesty to the White House. We don’t need to vote for Bush III.

A posting on Perspectives.com reveals some more of McCain's flips and flops.
In another sign of the media's sheepish acceptance of the Barack Obama "elitist" story line, the New York Times on Tuesday described the Illinois Senator as "tagged as elitist." But just as disturbing as the Republicans' apparent success in establishing the "out of touch" narrative as a fixture in campaign coverage is John McCain's seeming inoculation from it.

After all, John McCain isn't merely fabulously well off, courtesy of his wife Cindy's $100 million beer distribution fortune. At almost every turn, the Republican presidential nominee has shown almost a total ignorance of - or yawning disinterest in - the real lives of American voters. From the growing financial hardships of the economic slowdown and the foreclosure crisis to the disintegrating American health care system and the dangers U.S. troops face on the streets on Baghdad, it is John McCain who is truly "out of touch." Yet voters and pundits alike agree that the supposed maverick is treated with kid gloves by the press, an elitist masquerading as a man of the people.

Here, then, are John McCain's Top 10 "Out-of-Touch" Moments:

1. Economic downturn is "psychological." Having on multiple occasions admitted his limited understanding of the economy, Senator McCain instead turned armchair psychologist to diagnose the U.S economic slowdown. In April, McCain told Fox News' Neil Cavuto that "a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological." Apparently, four months of job losses, oil at $120 a barrel, record gas prices at the pump, 47 million uninsured and a devastating home foreclosure crisis are merely a figment of Americans' imaginations.

2. "Great progress economically" during the Bush years. If Americans' financial woes are all in their heads, John McCain's assessment of George W. Bush's economic leadership is pure hallucination. Asked by Bloomberg's Peter Cook on April 17 if Americans would say they are better off today "than before George Bush took office more than seven years ago," McCain replied:

    "I think if you look at the overall record and millions of jobs have been created, et cetera, et cetera, you could make an argument that there's been great progress economically over that period of time."

Mugged by reality, McCain's firm response to the classic Ronald Reagan question ("are you better off now?") lasted exactly 24 hours. The next day on April 18, the so-called maverick acknowledged Americans are "hurting badly" and concluded, "Americans are not better off than they were eight years ago."

3. eBay is the answer for poverty and recession. During his so-called "Forgotten Places" tour last month, John McCain offered the people of the economically devastated regions in Martin County, Kentucky and Youngstown, Ohio a path out of financial desperation: eBay. "Today, for example," McCain said, "1.3 million people in the world make a living off eBay, most of those are in the United State of America." If that sounds like something McCain's national campaign co-chair and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman might say, it's because she did. In March, she told Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, "We have about - around the world, about 1.3 million people make most, if not all, of their living selling on eBay." (It should come as no surprise that President Bush, too, extolled the virtues of Americans' economic futures as sellers on eBay.)

4. "Tear down" New Orleans? McCain kicked off his tour in New Orleans, where he lambasted George W. Bush's handling of the Katrina disaster. (As it turns out, McCain's criticism was choreographed with the White House as part of a coordinated effort to create the facade of distance between McCain and President Bush.) There, McCain would not commit to the future of the city's devastated 9th ward:

    "That's why we need to go back to have a conversation about what to do about it. Rebuild it? Tear it down? Ya know, whatever it is."

Just three days later, McCain claimed selective amnesia about his New Orleans comments, saying, "I don’t remember ever saying it." Perhaps John McCain remembers celebrating his 69th birthday with President Bush on August 29, 2005, just as Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore.

5. Irresponsible, undeserving homeowners. In his widely panned March 25th address on the economy, John McCain essentially blamed American homeowners teetering on the brink of foreclosure for their plight, insisting "any assistance must be temporary and must not reward people who were irresponsible at the expense of those who weren't." Facing a backlash, McCain just two weeks later on April 11 rolled out new proposals, claiming his "priority number one is to keep well meaning, deserving home owners who are facing foreclosure in their homes." As the New York Times concluded:

    In both tone and substance, Mr. McCain's remarks were something of a departure from a speech the senator delivered last month in California in which he warned that "it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."

6. Work a second job, skip a vacation. In that same March 25, 2008 speech, the Republican nominee made it clear that selling Barbie dolls or Hummel figurines on eBay isn't John McCain's only prescription for Americans facing economic difficulties. The other? Just work harder. McCain encouraged Americans to emulate the 51 million homeowners "doing what is necessary -- working a second job, skipping a vacation, and managing their budgets -- to make their payments on time."

7. "Protect the privacy" of Cindy McCain's tax returns. Asking cash-strapped, over-worked Americans to labor harder is easy to say for John McCain. After all, his beer heiress second wife Cindy has a fortune estimated at $100 million, more than enough to provide the candidate with private jets and still fund the McCain's 8 homes and the charitable contributions funneled to the elite private schools attended by their children.

But asking John McCain to release his wife's tax return is another matter. His campaign claims, "Cindy McCain will not release her tax returns to protect the privacy of her four children; details of their wealth are included in her filing." Of course, in 2004, then RNC chairman and current Bush counselor Ed Gillespie insisted that the content of Theresa Heinz Kerry's tax filings was "a legitimate question." By a whopping 64% to 22% margin, Americans believe that John McCain should make public his wife's tax information.

8. Opposed to SCHIP expansion, McCain speaks at children's hospital. Last October, John McCain joined George W. Bush in opposing the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), calling Bush's veto a "right call by the president." Of course, that didn't stop McCain from rolling out his health care proposals last week at Miami Children's Hospital, a Florida medical institution which last fall publicly supported the S-CHIP expansion he opposed. In a further irony, while McCain decried "new mandates and government regulation," 9 year-old Jake Bernard who was spotlighted at the event received treatment for his cleft palate thanks to a statute passed by the state of Florida. So much for McCain's pledge to "work to eliminate the worries over the availability and cost of health care."

9. Baghdad safer than some American neighborhoods. John McCain's isn't merely out of touch when it comes to Americans' real lives at home. He is consistently nonchalant about the dangers – and casualties – U.S. troops face in Iraq.

Wearing a bulletproof vest and guarded by "100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead," McCain on April Fool's Day 2007 briefly toured a Baghdad market to demonstrate that the American people were "not getting the full picture."

    McCain recently claimed that there "are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today." In a press conference after his Baghdad tour, McCain told a reporter that his visit to the market today was proof that you could indeed "walk freely" in some areas of Baghdad.

In March 2008, Senator McCain returned to a tried and untrue Republican talking point: Iraq is no more dangerous than most major American cities. McCain announced, "There's problems in America with safe neighborhoods as we well know." In this case, at least, even McCain realized his statement was nonsensical on its face and sounded the retreat. "I'm not making that comparison, because it's much more deadly in Iraq obviously," he said, adding, "But it's kind of the same theory." Apparently, McCain's theory applies whether the United States maintains a permanent military presence in Iraq for 100, 1000 or even a million years.

10. "I'm not running on the Bush presidency." On April 1, 2008, John McCain offered Americans another April Fool's joke, proclaiming "I'm not running on the Bush presidency." McCain might want to check his campaign's position papers. After all, in his eternal quest for the Republican nomination, McCain has adopted virtually the entire Bush agenda, often reversing long held positions and compromising supposed core principles. From Iraq, tax cuts for the wealthy, broken promises on the deficit to opposition to SCHIP, tax credits for health care, overturning Roe v. Wade and a right-wing Supreme Court, John McCain represents a third Bush term. It's no wonder Mr. Straight Talk said in February:

    "I would be proud to have President Bush campaign with me and support me in any way that he feels is appropriate. And I would appreciate it."

So would we.

http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/001056.htm