http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1713490,00.htmlThis shit could have been written by a McCain campaign flunky. This has been the preferred media narrative from the beginning. That McCain is some sort of superman beholden to the Republican Party but somehow warm and fuzzy and comfortable to Democrats. That even though they can't find a single bill of consequence where he voted against the Republicans, he's still a maverick who goes against his party. It's all a crock of bull.
McCain is as partisan as they come. In 2000 people felt sorry for him because of the way the party just chewed him up and spat him out, and because of this they entertained the notion that he was somehow different from all the other Republicans destroying our country. He was special, if he had just won that election somehow we'd be living in a wonderful land of bipartisan agreement and cross aisle love.
McCain has spent the last 8 years crawling so far up Dubya's ass that he could probably blow his nose for him by now. The lesson he learned from 2000 was that he should abandon all independence and become a mindless party hack so he can become President and unleash his horrible Manchurian design upon this unsuspecting nation. The media ignores all this though in the service of their favorite candidate. I hope we can come to realize that he isn't this wonderful "maverick" candidate we've all been waiting for (he's not even as good as he was in 2000 since that ordeal damaged his psyche in ways I'd imagine we'll never fully know). If we don't, we may end up falling for the same trick we fell for in 2000 when we elected George "compassionate conservative" Bush.
who is widely regarded (everywhere except inside the Republican Party itself) as honest, courageous, likable and intelligent.I've never heard anyone call him these things other than Republican party flacks and nightly news anchors (and Joe Lieberman but he fits into the category of Republican Party flacks).
There is a word for it when a political party chooses a presidential candidate with more appeal in the opposition party than in his own.There is no proof that he enjoys widespread popularity in the Democratic Party. Unless Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are pulling unprecedented amounts of Republicans across party lines, the poll numbers tend to suggest he's not getting many Dems at all other than Lieberman and the Blue Dog Traitors.
Only a couple of years ago, there were noises that McCain might admit he was much too nice to be a Republican and might run for President as an independent--or even as a Democrat.That possibility existed solely within the Beltway and the depraved minds of the moronic Washington media elite. That would have been a case of the Democratic Party surrendering and running a Republican in order to win.
Democrats swooned and said they would vote for McCain because he was "honest."That never happened. In 2000 he was floated as being better than Bush (which is like saying Mussolini is better than Hitler) and was perceived as a more palatable alternative. That doesn't mean Dems are going to jump ship in droves to vote for an emotionally destroyed quasi-corpse just because he seems like their old, crazy Grandpa. It certainly didn't happen "a couple of years ago". A couple of years ago we were kicking the Republicans asses up one side and down the other in the '06 elections.
McCain is perceived as authentic, which is a deeper form of honesty than mere truth-telling.Only to beltway media elites, Bush was "authentic" to them too. That's another word for Republican in their book so they can paint Dems as effeminate fakes.
He says he's antiabortion? Oh, he doesn't mean that.That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Among current or recent figures in American public life, only Colin Powell shares McCain's mystical ability to make liberals believe he secretly agrees with them, no matter what he actually says.I feel bad for Colin Powell since he was hung out to dry by the neo-con elements in his party. I still wouldn't vote for him for President, Secretary of Defense maybe if he changes parties, but not President.
Then they choose the very guy many Republicans most suspect of being a witch.That's funny since he's been the heir apparent for the better part of the last four years since he proved himself trustworthy by giving up all his convictions and endorsing Bush in '04.
If you doubt that the whole thing was staged, just consider who the runner-up was. How could a party truly dedicated to self-destruction through ideological purity end up with the choice of McCain or Romney?The Republican establishment has always been interested in victory at all costs much more than ideological purity. They pay lip service to the ideological morons because they're the ones who man the trenches but they secretly make fun of them at their tea parties in Georgetown.
But the parallel stops there. McCain is widely admired among Democrats, and many Democratic Hillary haters will be happy to vote for him. By contrast, there is no constituency for Hillary among Republicans who can't stand McCain. Nor, for that matter, will many of them vote for Barack Obama.Bullshit. Is this guy Joe Lieberman's press secretary? As I said before, unless the polls are lying, there just aren't that many Dems running to Papa McCain. A lot of the most loyal Republicans are very unhappy with their party's choice. Many of them could vote for Hillary as a protest (as Ann Coulter has half-heartedly suggested) or more likely they'll just not vote. Anyone who can stand there after the showing that Obama has made among independents and Republicans and say that no Republicans will cross for him in November is an idiot.
If it's Hillary, people's growing dislike of Bush, his horrible war, his crumbling economy, his tiresome smirk, will help McCain. Even though McCain is the candidate of the President's party and even though he is the biggest supporter of the Iraq war outside of the Administration, McCain is the one who will seem like a new broom that sweeps clean.This is what passes for journalism in Washington. Hillary will suffer for making a few pro-war votes because she's tied to the war in people's minds (by people's, he means the people he meets at cocktail parties in Washington). Meanwhile, McCain (the most vocal and enthusiastic cheerleader for Bush's disastrous war) is somehow completely untarnished by his 5 years of ass kissing and will be seen as a fresh start even though he wants us to be there forever (he's said up to 10,000 years).
Hillary, meanwhile, has been transformed by the Washington press corps in the past few weeks from the first woman with a serious chance of becoming President into a two-headed monster always referred to as "the Clintons."That's not her fault, the Washington press corps is a bunch of self-important morons who really love the Republican Party.
If McCain were half the principled gentleman he pretends to be, he would drop out now in favor of Rush Limbaugh. Now there's a Republican you can sink your teeth into.I can only imagine the impassioned missives that Michael and his buddies would be writing right now if Limbaugh was the Republican candidate. I think it would look a lot like what he wrote about McCain, but with McCain's name replaced with Rush Limbaugh's name. In the end, this was the same narrative they set up about Bush v. Gore (Bush is an authentic "compassionate conservative" who goes against his party when he needs to and Gore is a fake, girly man). This is the same narrative they'd set up about any Republican. Believe it at your own, and our country's own, peril.
