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Last night, I heard a lot about McCain’s war record and little about his tax policy, his criticisms against the Democratic platform and few new ideas of his own. I didn’t get a lot of content. Apparently, neither did the dailies. Headline this morning reads “McCain Vows to End Partisan Rancor.” Really? After a week of having every GOP also-ran and moose-skinner he can dig up to level every zinger and jump on every sound bite they can (much of which bears no scrutiny when matched against the truthiness of verifiable reality), after this week’s video campaign that has been repeated criticized by fact-checking organizations as misleading at best and outright fabricated at worst, now he wants to run a white glove campaign about the nasty fray of politics? Oooookay. Considering that his campaign has been floating nasty rumors to shoot them down (like the Sarah Palin affair with her husband’s business partner dealio), maybe he would like to speak to the boys in the front office about that. Anecdotally, I can tell you that his inner sanctum features some of the nastiest political free-for-alls a campaign has seen in the past thirty or forty years, so getting his own advisors to quit sandbagging each other would be a good start.
I heard the same call to bipartisanship last Thursday. Unless the public has a real short memory, they’ll recall that Obama agreed:
But what I will not do is suggest that the senator takes his positions for political purposes, because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and each other’s patriotism.
The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain.
The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together, and bled together, and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a red America or a blue America; they have served the United States of America.
So I’ve got news for you, John McCain: We all put our country first.
America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices. And Democrats, as well as Republicans, will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past, for part of what has been lost these past eight years can’t just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose, and that’s what we have to restore.
We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.
The — the reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.
I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in a hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.
You know, passions may fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.
But this, too, is part of America’s promise, the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.”
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My Beautiful Wickedness 
Bridgett:
I do not demonize republicans. I demonize reptilicans like McCain and his ilk. They are NOT people who love the USA; they are people who love the USA of their fantasies. The USA where they can get what they want while denying others a decent standard of living, a reasonable level of affordable healthcare and freedom of expression about and association with whatever belief system (or nonbelief system) they choose.
John McCain is an arrogant, opportunistic bastard who has over his lifetime made self-aggrandizement of his “qualities” a virtual industry. He is NOT a war hero. I don’t give a rat’s ass that he spent time in a POW camp. What I do care about is that he has used his status as a POW as a stepping stone in his quest for public office and as a shield to deflect legitimate criticism. My opinion of John McCain is not of recent vintage. The first time I ever saw him on television, after his release from Hanoi, I thought, “Here is a guy who will make his career out of this.” And that is precisely what he has done. As for his running mate, what can be said that is favorable?
I have republican friends. We often disagree about politics, obviously. At the moment, most of them are either very conflicted or keeping mum.
I understand what you are saying and I will be happy to discuss legitimate differences with anyone, but when people who are otherwise intelligent start spewing GOPalin talking points I cannot have a discussion with them.
Comment by democommie September 5, 2008 @ 7:16 amNo, he’s not a war “hero.” Wars don’t create heroes. They land rather ordinary people in crazy circumstances where they often have to do extraordinary things. Uniforms don’t produce magical special qualities in a person, but circumstances might refine the better angels of your nature (or bring out those lurking asshole tendencies). I think it sucks that he had to suffer for a misbegotten foreign policy that accomplished nothing but the furtherance of the Cold War, the killing of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and Laotians, and the immiseration of South Vietnam. My compassion for his suffering forty years ago does not make me want to vote for him for President today, though. My dad used to call him “Johnny Asshole” and that pretty much sums up where I am with him.
And yeah, he has used his service record as a chip. (What solider-politician doesn’t? We’re war-obsessed in this country.) He used his family connections as chips, he used his wives as chips. He’s a ruthless ambitious guy. If I were his new friends on the Religious Right, I would be looking at his track record of backstabbing and cutting people loose when it’s no longer of advantage to him.
Comment by bridgett September 5, 2008 @ 8:00 am