John McCain (POA) Prisoner of Ambition
John McCain has been the presumptive presidential nominee of his party for some time now , a position that is accompanied by increased scrutiny and skepticism from the nation’s political press. Or at least that’s what ordinarily happens.
Now that Barack Obama has become the presumptive presidential Democratic party nominee the already sharp contrast between Obama and McClain will intensify. The 2008 American presidential campaign will likely be one of the most interesting but also one of the nastiest in history.
John McCain used to be a respectable politician who often bucked the Washington, D. C. agenda. In his long ago Vietnam service to his country McCain still is a man who deserves respect. More recently McCain has become a prisoner of his own ambition.
While I certainly commend his stands against issues such as torture and farm subsidies, unfortunately, in his ambition to become president he has become just another politician who sells his soul for votes. Look at his views on McCain-Fiengold, Immigration reform and Iraq. On Iraq he’s on the wrong side of too many issues for me to support him, and some of those stands seem to be motivated by political expedience rather than a grounded moral conviction. John McCain isn’t a candidate for conservatives to rally around, he is the candidate that stands in the way of an Obama presidency.
Over the course of the campaign I expect that McCain will become dead in the water. Making speeches and being contrasted with Obama and Obama’s attraction to the youth of the country will eventually do him in. Even McCain’s own supporters admit that McCain is a terrible wooden speech maker. McCain does far better in a cosy town hall presentation setting and has challenged Obama to a series of ten town hall like debates on the issues. Even there McCain risks looking old and worn out against the young and energetic Obama.
Then there is the issue of issues. McCain is a neocon’s neo con and his views of America having the right and duty to serve as the policemen of the world have by now been proved to be completely invalid. As Americans listen to McCain in the general election campaign surely they will realize that this man is as dangerous to world peace and American prestige as George W. Bush.
On immigration McCain pushed for amnesty and the American people defeated it. The at one time “straight talking express” McCain has become a prisoner of his own wild ass ambition. He went on to say that “illegals may choose their crimes; but we don’t have to accept them, pay for them, forgive them or tolerate them. Why is their behavior never looked at in terms of their prejudicial attitude against US citizens? Illegals already in the country got to stay and there was very little in the way of enforcement of immigrations laws, and many, many more illegals came in.” What is his position?
John McCain is not a conservative champion. But he deeply believes, and strongly champions, many conservative principles, many Goldwaterite principles. John McCain is committed to deploying effective missile defenses to reduce the possibility of strategic blackmail by rogue regimes and to secure our homeland from the prospect of missile attack by present or future adversaries. John McCain is so old he remembers when Terry Chimes was still on the skins and his ideas reflect his age.
Senator McCain is just a symptom of what is wrong with the Republican party, they are psudo-democrats. In the past while one of the key leaders in congress he seemed to take his leadership from the office of Senator Clinton, and was doing her bidding. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa said in an interview that he was so upset by a McCain tirade that he didn’t speak to him for two years. Grassley, who said he will make no endorsement, nonetheless says McCain is the most qualified among the five GOP candidates to be president. McCain has been running for president for so long that therefore he has not had much time to get anything done in the Senate.
Here is a McCain comment on gay marriage. “Could I just mention one other thing? On the issue of the gay marriage, I believe if people want to have private ceremonies, that’s fine.” Which is to say that if gays want to have ceremonies that are not legally binding it’s OK with him. To me that is sort of a cop out on the issue.
John McCain invented a new campaign style. He rented one of those bus/RV things, and he would sit on that bus and talk. Thus was born the “Straight Talk Express.” This strategy was a hit with reporters who cover the primary elections, so McCain got so much media coverage that a lot of people in New Hampshire thought he was already the president. The fact that McCain invited reporters to his Arizona ranch for BBQ didn’t hurt.
But simply by using potential public money as collateral, McCain effectively did opt into the present corrupt campaign system. That means he effectively agreed to cap his campaign spending at $54 million prior to the GOP convention in September.
On Iraq McCain is even more hawkish than Bush. Says McCain “these young men and women are doing their duty like no other. But I do not believe that anyone should make promises as a candidate for president that they cannot keep if elected. To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests, and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility.”
McCain goes on the say that we can win the Iraq war by 2013. No, that not a misprint, the year 2013. That would make it a ten year war. Imagine that. A military widely regarded as the best in the world, certainly it is the most expensive, taking ten years to defeat a rag tag enemy who has no navy, no air force, and no uniforms. Perhaps the no uniforms part is at the heart of the problem. At least 95% of the “insurgents” are Iraqi civilians who want the US out of their country. The US should know by now, although the fact has escaped Senator McCain, that it is very tough, really impossible, to defeat an insurgency when the movement has the support of the majority of the local population.
McCain did not win traditional Republican states in the south or west, carrying more Democratic-friendly territory in the northeast as well as California. Perhaps some people noticed that our duty to the Iraqi people has helped to cause the premature death of 1,000,000 or so of them and the displacement of about 20% of the total population of 27 million. McCain has never to my knowledge shown any genuine concern for the plight of the people of the nation that we have destroyed.
Whatever the final outcome of the war I doubt if the relatives of those killed and members of the displaced families will look upon the war as an American victory. Most Iraqis just want the occupiers out. ASAP. That is except for those few who have ripped off billions of American dollars made easy to do by our own incompetence. Those few Iraqis would be happy to see the war go on forever while they observe it from their Dubai multi million dollar condominiums.
The Washington Post states “Unlike a previous trip to Iraq, in which he was criticized for his optimistic pronouncements about progress and security, McCain’s visit on Sunday was largely out of the public view.” McCain has showed a great deal of ignorance about Iraq and the Mid East. In my view it’s a presidential candidate’s job to know these things.
In addition, my view is that should McCain gain victory in November 2008 the entire rest of the world would be dismayed. It would lead to even more disgust at American policies. People in the US and around the world want a change in American politics and policies. A McCain presidency, in my view, would be a disaster for US interests around the world.
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