Login HereFor the first half of tonight's juxtaposition, here's Reliable Wanker David Brooks, salivating over that Paragon Of Manly Virtue, St. John McCain:
All of sudden, my friend interrupted the flow of gossip and said: “You know, there’s really only one great man running for president this year, and that’s McCain.”
The comment cut through the way we pundits normally talk about presidential candidates. We tend to view them like products and base our verdicts on their market share at the moment....
My friend’s remark pierced all that, and it had the added weight of truth. [Am I the only one who'd love to know who this "friend" is?]
(...)
The years and the Senate have smoothed some of his rebelliousness, but he still fights a daily battle against the soul-destroying forms of modern politics.
(...)
There have been occasions when McCain compromised his principles for political gain, but he was so bad at it that it always backfired. [Really? I have observed no such deficiency.] More often, he is driven by an ancient sense of honor, which is different from fame and consists of the desire to be worthy of the esteem of posterity.
(...)
Everyone will make their own political choices, and you might plausibly argue that the qualities John McCain possesses are not the ones the country now requires. But character is destiny, and you will never persuade me that he is not among the finest of men.
...And here's his archenemy, Reality (h/t Paddy):
FOX REPORTER: During an event in South Carolina yesterday, Arizona Senator John McCain was asked how he planned on beating his democratic rival Hillary Clinton. And his supporter used a term that rhymes with "rich."
MCCAIN SUPPORTER: How do we beat the bitch?
FOX REPORTER: McCain laughed off the comment and then he tried to change the subject.
So how's that battle against the soul-destroying forms of modern politics coming along, then?
Okay, okay, maybe it's unfair to hold him responsible for someone else's incivility (the Right's one unpardonable sin, as we all know). After all, it's not like he personally said anything inappropriate about the Clintons, right? Um, well, maybe just that one time... (h/t Teddy)
And as long as we're talking about what a great guy McCain is, remember when he was Dubya's loyal little campaign puppy in 2004 even though Rove smeared the bejesus out of him in 2000? Oh, or how about when he sucked up to the same people he used to call "agents of intolerance"?
My own personal favorite was when he teamed up with Lindsay Graham and John Warner to give Dubya a nice respectable-looking figleaf for the Military Commissions Act. Yes, John McCain, the actual factual Torture Survivor, gave cover to a bill that legalized torture. Retroactively. I bet that really burnished the ol' Esteem Of Posterity, yesireebob.
So please, I don't want to hear about his ancient sense of honor. John McCain's sense of honor isn't ancient, it's extinct.
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a Zed?
Eli!!!
Eli!!!
Steve!!! Neuro!!!
Eli!!!
(driving by for now, will come back later to read and join y’all)
‘Ah yes, I remember it well‘
;>)
Kerr
Hiya, LL!
LoudounLib @ 5
*waving at LL as she drives by*
Hi Eli!
I read the Broder piece of crap this morning. Twit.
Hi Elliott!
AZ Matt @ 10
I think you mean Brooks, but I have trouble telling them apart these days.
Pardon me, Eli, but…
EPU’d:
neurophius says:
November 13th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
I suggest the following use to which Ed*ard Teller’s Scroll of Hugh’s List could constructively be put:
Give it to Sen. Chris Dodd to read aloud on the Senate floor when he filibusters the FISA bill that grants immunity to the telecom companies for aiding and abetting the Bush Administration’s illegal spying on Americans.
mccain is clearly a zero-integrity guy.
does get the branding done pretty well, but clearly is a whore-in-thugs clothing…
neurophius @ 12
Great Idea. Make them listen to the crimes committed and know that the people are hearing it, too.
neurophius @ 12
That. Would. Be. Awesome.
Way OT..But today is Steve Gilliard’s birthday..he would have been 43 and he would have called bullshit on John McCain.
I think I first called McCain a whore in 03. Something about Iraq that’s buried in history. What a shame that a man who’s been thru so much turns out to be so lackiing in fundamental morality.
True that. Thank you Eli. I so appreciate this post.
eCAHNomics @ 17
But Brooks is still out there pimping him with everything he’s got.
Eli @ 19
Dodos of a feather flock…
Thanks, Eli. There are heroes and then there are HEROES. John McCain has let everyone down - especially himself.
Eli @ 19
yeah, well, a guy’s gotta make a living …
Eli @ 19
Remember that McCain called the press his base.
Twain @ 21
He had his chances, and he blew pretty much every single one of them. It’s been all downhill since he called the religious right “agents of intolerance”.
eCAHNomics @ 23
awfully honest of him …
lee5 @ 22
yeah but, he also has to live with himself
I missed why we’re holding McCain ‘responsible for someone else’s incivility’. It seems like we’re saying it’s wrong but doing it anyway.
lee5 @ 25
It’s a good strategy, but it only works for Republicans. All of them.
Balrog @ 27
That was just snark to set up the link to his Chelsea Clinton joke. For someone who’s supposed to be a man of integrity, he shouldn’t be laughing that kind of thing off.
Balrog @ 27
watching the video, it looks like McCain’s uncomfortable with the comment — at first. But then he laughs.
eCAHNomics @ 23
Then he was excluding the “have mores”?
One question I have is this: Has Sen. McCain gone through some sort of massive change since 2000? And if so, why and how?
Because if he has not, then I am not sure how he shaves himself in the morning without having the distinct urge to slit his own throat for cuddling up to the people who eviscerated his campaign in 2000 and who frankly have pi***d on the honor and memory of every soldier who ended up being tortured and/or in prison camps run by the North Vietnamese (and the Viet Cong - someone help me out with this please).
How can he go through this without having the distinct taste of hypocracy in his mouth? I don’t understand it at all.
All I can think of is that he wants to be elected president a whole lot more than he values his own sanity and personal values.
McCain is a man who has suffered from the effects of torture. He harbors a lot of anger and revenge. It has poisoned his mind and damaged his body. There is no way that he exhibits evidence of having gotten past those experiences….period. I can understand where he’s coming from, considering his experiences, but I do not feel that he in any way has the mental stability to lead a nation. W did not serve. He was not tortured. He has led a life of failure and deception. There is no way that he exhibits evidence of having grown beyond his experiences, nor do I feel that he in any way has ever had the mental stability to lead a nation.
These people need to go away.
Yes, I think St. John McCain left his Ancient Sense of Honor behind when he climbed on board the Bush Re-Election Bus in 2004…with his A.S.H. never to be seen again.
Maybe Brooks has a crazy old mother he could wheel out..
Eli @ 29
Check. Thanks Eli.
Totally, OT, but strange …
nytimes linky
Balrog @ 27
Why didn’t he demand others not speak of a fellow Senator or contender in the Presidential race in such a manner?
I think 9/11 set him off…pushed his repressed buttons.
darkblack @ 6
This is what I don’t get. These are three guys that should know better, yet caved in to Mr. 24%. It just goes to show McCain’s straight talk schtick was just that. He made a fool of the traditional media.
Maybe his campaign planted the question.
Eureka Springs @ 38
Because then he would have p***ed off people — by laughing it off, he made it look as if he privately calls Sen. Clinton the same thing, a typical method of put down.
smapdi @ 35
I can’t wait to see what Brooks writes Friday. I wonder when he found out what Hebert wrote. Is Brooks gonna whine because her thinks Krugman and Hebert are picking on him?
Toby Wollin @ 32
Hypocricy goes well with a slightly acidic white whine.
Loo Hoo. @ 41
Why ? Just so it could be picked up by some Fox news blog? And whispered endlessly, how he’s gunna “beat the bitch”? What would that accomplish?
Toby Wollin @ 42
I think he has probably called her much worse. This man is so desperate to be Prez that he will do anything. I can understand running (I wouldn’t run for a gazillion dollars) but not this desperation. It’s very sad to watch.
Eli @ 24
He’d be better off now if he’d stuck to his guns.
GordonM @ 31
They’re W’s base.
Which raises an interesting Q. There are so many R bases, just like with Ds. Why have Rs avoided the circular firing squad for so long?
McCain has an anger management problem, which he tries to keep under wraps, but you can feel the energy. Not good.
Balrog @ 27
He called out his own mom for saying something anti-Morman when discussing Romney. Certainly calling Hillary (a fellow Senator) is far more reprehensible.
Loo Hoo. @ 47
I think he’s counting on the media to simply *tell* everyone that he’s a man of honor.
It’s the Dubya strategy.
And hi to my virtual grandson/nephew, Balrog!
Loo Hoo. @ 50
“The views of the questioner are not necessarily the views of mine.”
LS @ 39
Is there going to be any long-term effect on the Rubber Stampers (R and D) that have felt compelled to support BushCo all these years?
Deep down, some of these clowns must know what they’re doing is wrong. Wrong on a personal level for some, wrong at a going to Hell level for others.
Someday there is going to be a rash of self-realization that is going to be very difficult to overcome for a lot of people.
Loo Hoo. @ 52
xoxo *slobber*
Your pal, WeeRog.
Balrog @ 54
you’d think.
lately I’m havin’ my doubts
I beg to quibble. I agreee with your point.
Not extinct. Extinguished.
1,658 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND..
Citizen Eli and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
“John McCain’s sense of honor isn’t ancient, it’s extinct.”
That remark is far too charitable because it implies that he had a sense of honor at some point. John McCain is emblematic of our politics today or should I say our lack of a politics today. Everything in our culture is corrupted, and the historical struggle to advance toward a “more perfect union” and reach a moment of social justice over. We must begin all over again. We must “think anew and act anew” but first we must purge our system of the toxic rot with which unregulated corporate capitalism has infected us.
We have found ourselves at a “revolutionary” moment while we were fighting to preserve what our forefathers (and mothers) had given us. We are at a point not unlike where Wiemar Germany was in 1932-33 and where the crumbling Russian Empire was in 1919…and we have to do better than either or the next 50 years on this planet are gunna make us disciples of Dante’s cosmology.
John Edwards and Al Gore in 2008!!
KEEP THE FAITH AND DON’T BE AFRAID, WE DON’T HAVE A CHOICE!!
eCAHNomics @ 48
Right (W’s “have and have mores” was to me the seminal Farenheit 911 quote).
Rove. Like any good salesman, he could convincingly promise to competing interests that they would get their fondest wishes real soon now.
Eureka Springs @ 38
And notice at the end of the clip he caught himself, and said that he would respect whomever is the candidate of the Democrat party.
Loo Hoo. @ 60
oo I missed that dig!
Loo Hoo. @ 60
Yeah, I did notice that. Charming.
Balrog @ 54
There have been suggestions made that they have been “listened in” to. Apparently, Dyncorp has the contract for all of the phones in Congress…the same Dyncorp that got in trouble in Iraq just in the last couple of days…Who knows what kinds of “deals” they have been making over years…
LS @ 63
Seriously? You have a link for this patented Stalinism?
smapdi @ 45
And I hate the overtones of domestic violence in this phrase. The wingers will love it.
Loo Hoo. @ 60
I’m one of few who think these semantics are overblown.
Are you a Republican or a Democrat? The answer is rarely “I’m a Democratic”.
More importantly, I fail to believe that the bozos who reference the Democrat Party are smart enough to do it consciously.
egregious @ 65
The weird (and creepy) thing about it being that the questioner was a woman…
GordonM @ 64
http://video.google.com/videop.....&hl=en
Ya gotta watch the whole thing.
Eli @ 67
Serious? That’s pretty sad. Then again, how said do you have to be to be a McCain supporter now? The guy got punked badly by Bush/Rove. He has no money presently. His mom was on Tweety the other day bashing Mormons. A real winner.
So please, I don’t want to hear about his ancient sense of honor. John McCain’s sense of honor isn’t ancient, it’s extinct.
McCain left the world of honour and integrity long ago. There was a time when he was indeed a decent man. What did some Sith Lord promise him to seduce him to the Dark Side? Mayhaps there’s something more to the ancient Keating scandal than we know.
LS @ 68
Thanks, LS. Bookmarked. At 31 min, I’ll wait till tomorrow.
Well, Judith Regan swore revenge.
Get your popcorn here!
Eli @ 53
I don’t know what McCain was trying to show. I wonder what Harry Reid thinks too. His being Mormon and all as well.
Balrog @ 72
Heh.
“Defendants were well aware that Regan had a personal relationship with Kerik,” the complaint says. “In fact, a senior executive in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.”
One of Ms. Regan’s lawyers, Brian C. Kerr of the firm of Dreier L.L.P., said she had evidence to support her claim that she had been advised to lie to federal investigators who were vetting Mr. Kerik and who might have sought to question her about their romantic involvement. But Mr. Kerr declined to discuss the nature of the evidence.”
With lots, and lots of real butter!!!! Maybe even caramel corn…
If I were betting, I’d put my money on that “friend” being… John McCain…
Balrog @ 72
Does anyone in NYC know the law firm Dreier L.L.P? Discovery on this one is gonna be fun. I wonder what executive(s) asked her to lie.
Joe Klein’s conscience @ 76
They hired Wetter L.L.P.
Fox’s “report” is inaccurate, as the video clearly shows. McCain neither laughed it off nor changed the subject: he referred to Senator Clinton in his answer, after giggling uncontrollably. Knowing he’d be on YouTube, he still couldn’t do the right thing: denounce the GOP harpy who queried him.
Probably she’s a TopGun or a Carrier-Crash-n-Burn or a TigerCager or a SkyKiller or whatever slick title McCain’s campaign came up with for their big donors and bundlers. I’m sure that’s why McCain’s “honor” prevented him from challenging her characterization of the former First Lady.
And his fellow Senator, for whom he claims to have such “respect.” So much for comity. So much for the most exclusive club in the world. So much for the world’s greatest deliberative body. Hillary should slap his face when she next sees him on the Senate floor.
Decency, honor, character, and integrity? Not a whit. The man’s a mysogynistic, senile crackpot who shouldn’t be allowed near the airplane ride at the State Fair, let alone the Oval Office. He proved that when he joked about the Clinton’s only child in 1998 — and he’s still running for President ten years later!
IOKIYAR
Joe Klein’s conscience @ 76
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…who’d a thunk it.
LS @ 79
works both ways
They will settle the Regan problem rather quickly I would think…and then…crickets…
The matter has been resolved.
Joe Klein’s conscience @ 76
Hmmm, let’s see now…I can see the requests now - “all IT back up tapes to 2001…”
Given that most IT departments tend to save their back ups (and not re-record over them as supposedly the White House and perhaps the RNC have done), this should be pretty fruitful. But then again, it all depends on the company’s records retention policy…and oh, yeah..whether or not people actually followed it.
Eli @ 15
heh. especially # 126:
and scattered about in various descriptions of the bush administration’s crimes the word “democrat” occurs in the same sentence as the word “caved”
even with 99% of the content about republican scandals, crimes and general wrong-doing… i have a hard time picturing any dem pol reading it out loud for the cameras.
LS @ 81
But it’s still all good. Munch munch.
LS @ 81
I know, how many times have we been disappointed this way?
LS @ 81
Wouldn’t say yes. Wouldn’t say no. Remember that there’s a big price for NewsCorp to pay by not beingexonerated, after Regan’s public charges. And Rudy. Kinda hard to keep it in the bag now.
Judith is going to rip them a new one: She has audio tapes…..
The tapes “not only bolster her position against News Corp, but may prove damning to more than a few Fox executives,” one source, who characterized the recordings as “juicy,” told us.
link
eCAHNomics @ 86
The hasps on those fake Gucci bags fail all the time.
Balrog @ 66
The bozos do it precisely to insult Democrats and they do it intentionally as a slur. Putting a noun where only an adjective works is intentional and McCain was doing it on purpose for his audience.
Just like I would not say,”that guy belongs to the Jew faith,” unless I was disparaging him, I would not say “that guy belongs to the Democrat party.” Someone belongs to the “Jewish religion” (not “Jew religion”) in the same way that I belong to the “Democratic party.” (not “Democrat party).
Is it a big deal to me? — Only to the extent I know McCain is saying it to be petty and to celebrate the pettiness of his crass supporters.
I heard him say it and I basically moved on because I expect it from him. It was, however, quite intentional on his part. This was not an innocent slip. Even these socially-promoted Republican morons know the difference between nouns and adjectives.
slainte,
cl
Caoimhin Laochdha @ 89
I would say that I find it more… revealing than offensive.
Caoimhin Laochdha @ 89
Except for Alexander Haig, of course.
Eli @ 90
. . . that’s the point I was trying to come around to making, you closed the loop for me . . .
cl
They are going to rip Regan apart…until she either can’t stand it anymore or runs out of money…they will pull out anything she has ever thought of or done…she will prevail, ultimately, but we might not know the bottom line…just sayin’. That is the way it goes most of the time. Scorch and Burn. Advise…go to Now with the story, now.
GordonM @ 91
. . . who turns them both into verbs.
slainte,
cl
GordonM @ 91
Glad you caveated that.
Caoimhin Laochdha @ 89
Agree to disagree. Happily if this is all they have, let them fuck it up.
OT — watched Nova’s show Judgment Day re the Dover School Board on trial for trying to introduce intelligent design into the school.
School board thrown out in the next election. Judge, a Bush appointee, ruled that members of the board were trying to push in creationism under the intelligent design re-wording [Frank Luntz–your dirty little paw prints in this one?]. Also that at least 2 committed perjury.
Excellent show–available at pbs.org.
And a question that occurred to the Sunshine household…is the intelligent design movement anti-evolution? Or anti-Semitic? Or both?
LS @ 93
Yay! I want pictures.
LS @ 93
You’re probably right. But this is the sleazoid who Rupe hired to do the OJ Mambo. She has some fangs of her own, I bet.
Caoimhin Laochdha @ 92
I was pretty much just agreeing. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be saying, “Oh my God, he called me a Democrat! How outrageous!” It’s more like a subtle, smirky fuck you, like a little kid whispering “…asshole” under his breath.
Laura Doty @ 95
707!