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An Itemized Guide To How John McCain Stays Classy |
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 by Daniel Koffler, May 9, 2008 |
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Two weeks before Cindy McCain swore to NBC's Ann Curry that her "husband is absolutely opposed to any negative campaigning at all," Commentary's Jennifer Rubin spoke to John McCain on a conference call and baited him into describing Barack Obama as --- simultaneously --- the stealth candidate of Hamas, the Sandinistas, and the Weather Underground. Obama responded yesterday on CNN, saying that McCain was "losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination."
How would the campaign Abe Greenwald assures us is the veritable Platonic form of
Senator Tamburlaine the Great: McCain's Potemkin stroll through a Baghdad market in April 2007 allowed terrorists to set up an ambush that killed 21 people...and provided his campaign with a fitting metaphor maturity and masculine wisdom react? Why, with a near-instantaneous hysterical shriek from senior aide Mark Salter, of course. Salter, who seems to have earned his seniority as the campaign's point-man on hysterical shrieking, wants to make it clear just how offensive was Obama's "not particularly clever way of raising John McCain's age as an issue" --- presumably at least slightly more offensive than when Salter called Arianna Huffington "a flake and a poser and an attention-seeking diva" for telling the truth about Salter's boss.
But Salter's real point is to make sure the journalists on his mass-mailing list clearly understand the difference between "legitimate" and illegitimate campaigning. For example, calling your opponent an enemy of the state is a totally "legitimate question...about his judgment and preparedness." However, for Obama to respond to that charge with the charitable interpretation that it's an example of the toll running for president can take on someone's mind (rather than, say, an asshole being true to his nature) is an illegitimate attempt "to delegitimize" the legitimate question of whether Obama is an enemy of the state.
Now, I confess that I can't quite see the conceptual distinction the McCain camp is trying to draw, but then, I didn't learn virtue from a segregationist who taught me to put aside any "reservations about my destiny" of dying an honorable death in battle and going to Valhalla, so I'll have to defer to the expert. Here goes:
| Legitimate | Illegitimate |
| Offering voters bribes in exchange for their vote and their commitment to pollute the environment | Being the sort of liberal in a "chauffeured limo" who turns down McCain's bribe |
| Holding up a bill providing education benefits to veterans because GIs might not sign up for new terms of duty if they have decent alternatives | Accurately describing what McCain was doing, as one decorated marine veteran did |
| Proposing to occupy Iraq for 100 years |
Quoting McCain saying that 100 years in Iraq are "fine" with him without appending the footnote that he's only fine with staying in Iraq if no Americans are dying there and the country has become like Germany or South Korea |
| Proposing to continue fighting in Iraq unconditionally at absolutely any cost in blood and treasure for as long as it takes (100, 1,000, 10,000 years, etc.) to transform the country into Germany on the Euphrates so that we can then preside over a peaceful 100 year occupation | Choosing to run 30 second ads quoting McCain's approval of a 100-year occupation rather than spending exponentially more money on ads demonstrating that the "100 years" line is even more revealing in its full context -- revealing, that is, of McCain's profound ignorance of the nature of the Iraqi conflict and callous willingness to send unlimited numbers of Americans to their death to satisfy his honor code |
| Proposing to occupy a completely pacified Iraq for 100 years utterly oblivious of what offering such a proposal in any context says about one's hold on reality |
Citing McCain's full quote about Iraq to demonstrate his total break with reality |
| Promoting the idea --- and apparently believing it --- that Germany and Korea provide useful optics through which to view Iraq | Explaining what McCain's belief that Germany and Korea can be informatively compared to Iraq says about his competence in foreign affairs |
| Planning to destroy the international system and instigate a new cold war for its character-building qualities |
Pointing out McCain's plan to destroy the international system and start a new cold war without also dwelling extensively on the free trade agreements he backs, or explicitly conceding that McCain does not in fact literally believe Russia is an arm of al-Qaeda |
| Claiming that Hamas endorsing your opponent calls into question his judgment and preparedness (see above) |
Observing that McCain proposes continuing the war in Iraq because, according to Osama bin Laden, it's "the central battleground in the battle against al Qaeda" |
| Claiming an ability to abhor war "as only a man who has experienced its horrors can do" after going more than a decade without encountering a foreign policy problem that shouldn't be solved by war | Noting the contradiction |
| Admitting to three separate newspaper editorial boards that you don't understand economics, then lying about having said so when asked |
Asking McCain if it's a problem for his campaign that the economy is the top issue for voters, given that, by his admission, he doesn't understand economics |
| Lying about having discussed legislative favors for her clients with lobbyist Vicky Iseman after admitting to it in a deposition | Asking McCain follow-up questions about said lies |
| Attacking your opponent for reneging on a pledge to accept public financing | Reminding McCain that he accepted public matching funds for the primary, thereby binding himself legally to the public finance system, then used certification of the public funds as collateral on a loan in possible violation of campaign finance law, then attempted to wriggle out of public financing and its spending limits despite being bound to them, then spent months effectively refusing to comply with the FEC and accepting the Bush administration's helping hand of sacking a FEC commissioner who was troublesome to McCain, and has flip-flopped at least four times on public financing since 2002. |
| Trying to bolster the credibility of your support for the Iraq war today by claiming to have been "the greatest critic of the initial four years" of the war who "knew it was probably going to be long and hard and tough," as opposed to those who "thought that somehow it was going to be some kind of an easy task" and therefore "didn’t know what they were voting for" | Noting that in September 2002, McCain proclaimed that "success [in Iraq] will be fairly easy" and denied that the war would involve "house-to-house fighting in Baghdad" or "a bloodletting of trading Iraqi bodies for American bodies"; that in January 2003 he predicted "we will win [the war] easily"; that he predicted in March 2003 that "the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators" and remained confident that "this conflict is going to be relatively short"; that he declared in April 2003 that "the end is very much in sight," perhaps because he also thought at the time that "Sunnis and Shiahs [sic]...can probably get along"; that in May 2003 he described the war as "a massive victory" that would allow us "to end aggression with minimum overall loss of life"; that in June 2003 he argued that there would not have been a "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln if the mission were not, in fact, accomplished; declared flatly in December 2003 that "this is a mission accomplished"; that he declared himself "confident" in March 2004 that "we're on the right course"; that he explained in October 2004 that "the initial phases of [the war] were so spectacularly successful that is took us all by surprise"; and that he remained sanguine in December 2005 that "we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course" for one more year |
| Smearing anyone who wants to end the disaster for which you bear direct personal responsibility as "raising the white flag of surrender" | Sanity |
So: Unfortunately I still don't get it. Maybe the McCain line between legitimacy and illegitimacy looks incredible to you, too, perhaps even evidence of a candidate having lost his bearings in pursuit of the presidency, but that just goes to show that you and I need to study the Episcopal School Code of Honor a little harder.
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naftali
Didn't you question whether a form letter entitled Top Secret is real? Aren't you just a wee bit skeptical of that?
Then I clicked on your link, holding up a bill. I saw other reports on this--McCain thinks that there should be more benefits given for the longer time you spend in service. He feels if the benefits are maxed out after three years of service, it discourages folks from spending longer time in the service. This is a reasonable position.
I sure hope you're not going to bend and twist everything for the stretch run--making Obama the savior and McCain the incarnate of irrational evil.
I am hoping that you are going to try to be fair.
Daniel Koffler
Gas tax scam is a satire of those Nigerian letters, the point being that the Clinton-McCain tax holiday is about on a par. Veterans' benefits are one of the things I break with libertarian orthodoxy over; I think the government has an obligation to take very good care of vets and not deny them benefits to boost retention levels. (Here's a thought: really generous benefits packages will increase first-time enlistment.)
naftali
Front load hefty benefits and backload heftier benefits, a compromise both would agree on.
But that's not my point. If that chart were a pinball machine, it would be on perpetual 'tilt'. You don't have to write like that.
You know how congress works--someone comes up to McCain, "John, we have an idea for veteran's benefits, what do you think?" "No, it's too front loaded, I couldn't support it". McCain doesn't support Veteran's Benefits. That's their game of BS, and I don't think writers should play along. If you want a more honest government, if you want the kind of new Washington Obama is claiming he wants, then call them on their gamesmanship.
So, you wouldn't claim McCain wants 100 years of conflict in Iraq, because that's not what he said, and you wouldn't claim that he says the economy is good, because that also is not what he said, and wouldn't say it was ridiculous for McCain to talk about how Hamas wants Obama--because Malley just resigned or was fired because of his contacts with Hamas, and you wouldn't make the claim that McCain's solution to everything is war, because the piece you linked to reads as a desire for clear and firm diplomacy. In other words, if the old way is to paint the opponent as a caricature, then don't do that.
There is a difference between understanding economics as a senator and understanding economics like Milton Friedman--or Galbraith, if that is closer to you tastes. It doesn't literally mean he doesn't know enough about the price of oil to know that increasing the supply of oil would drive down the price.
I'm not going to get upset that Obama said there were 57 states in the US, and you shouldn't get upset that politicos either contradict themselves or outright lie--unless of course, the politico is claiming that he or she will not be like the others, when in fact he or she is just like the others.
Regarding Iraq, McCain criticized the soft footprint approach--which made this thing last this long, and wanted a hard footprint, which, within a year of its implementation, has shown this conflict will be winding down--unless Iran decides to become a major player, as Hezbollah has become in Lebanon.
I'm saying that if you want a new politics, it's going to require a new discourse. I'm hoping you'll be doing this. I know that you can.
Anonymous
"I'm not going to get upset that Obama said there were 57 states in the US, and you shouldn't get upset that politicos either contradict themselves or outright lie--unless of course, the politico is claiming that he or she will not be like the others, when in fact he or she is just like the others."
"I'm saying that if you want a new politics, it's going to require a new discourse. I'm hoping you'll be doing this. I know that you can."
There is a new politics, Naftali. It's called distinguishing between serious policy proposals like a gas tax and relating off-the-cuff, last-minute, irrelevant details to the press about how many states you've campaigned in. Of course, it's not surprising that such distinctions elude you when you assert some kind of moral equivocation between a contradiction and a lie.
naftali
No, I'm saying that there are things the press and commentators jump on or distort, and they've done this for as long as the US has had politics.
If you wish to debate or discuss policy, it's best to do it without presenting the opposing side as some kind of straw man or caricature. Treat both sides as if they are thoughtful and intelligent, and the discussion will go farther and deeper. Besides, it's just good journalism.
If we want to start counting the lies that Obama tells and the lies that McCain tells or has told, that's another discussion. You want to have it, then have it. But I don't want to be in the role of a McCain defender. But that discussion wouldn't be new politics.
Nevertheless, let's start there. I hear the words 'new politics', let's get this term defined. And do we the citizens have a role in this other than just casting a vote? Perhaps we have to think and discuss things differently than before also.
Anonymous
"If you wish to debate or discuss policy, it's best to do it without presenting the opposing side as some kind of straw man or caricature."
Including the one they make of themselves? Including going to Bosnia with Sinbad under "sniper fire"? And repealing the gas tax was a policy proposal, duh. No straw man or caricature there.
"Treat both sides as if they are thoughtful and intelligent, and the discussion will go farther and deeper."
Right. Even when the other side says that economic analysis is tantamount to "elitism".
Your problem, Naftali, after scores of posts where you see how intriguing a twisted argument you can conjure just for the hell of it, is the degree to which you discount reality. It's fine to live in an internal reality that you've essentially invented - as Clinton does, incidentally - but the fact is that Clinton is casting herself as the "common person" caricature who claims to know better than people who've actually studied these proposals -- people whom SHE caricatures as elites. For those who don't invent their own reality, but are actually curious about looking at the external world as it is, we call those people individuals who seem to have a better handle on knowing what they're talking about.
"Besides, it's just good journalism."
It's everything that's wrong with journalism and helps explain the slow demise of the major televised and print news media as it's existed up until now. Comparing empiric observations with beliefs and attitudes in and of themselves is a huge waste of most people's time.
naftali
You first point has to do with character, not caricature. Do you trust Hillary? Is the fact that Hillary has a tendency to lie an issue, does it affect her qualifications to be president? We have no disagreement there, that's an issue. Or, if you support Hillary, it may not be an issue. She was trying to say that she has experience, when she has none. Is that an issue? I don't see how these questions are disconnected from reality, nor do I see this as a twisted argument conjured for the hell of it. It gets down to tone of a conversation, and having a conversation instead of a shouting match.
The second point is that in an election that will probably be about economics, no candidate is willing to come forth and talk about economics unless it is in some pandering way. You can say the gas tax holiday is bad, but what is good, what is it that is really needed? If you want politicos to stop pandering, then raise the dialogue to a point where pandering is a bad strategy. I have no idea if Obama is talking about imposing tariffs when he opposes NAFTA, I have no idea what he thinks about working in a paradigm of supply and demand--that is, work to increase the supply of energy to bring prices down, and I can say the same thing about McCain. That is reality. They aren't saying what needs to be said.
Your third point has to do with journalism. We both agree that circulation is down, and something is rotten in Denmark. I think the problem is that the print media is all too eager to simplify, slant, distort reality to fit a preconceived position. And literally, people aren't buying it. They are tired of the position--who are you going to believe, what we write or your own eyes. People are deciding to believe their own eyes. That is reality.
I wouldn't have had any disagreement with that chart--but by reading other sources, even clicking on the available links, showed that chart to be mostly false. The same amount of energy could have been put into a chart that is mostly true. I really don't see a problem with wanting that, nor do I see how that is disconnected from reality.