Man of the world been everywhere

Sullivan points to this post from Matt Steinglass. Since it succinctly makes the point that I have been talking about since almost my first regular post on this blog (it was, in fact, as much as anything else - along with the fact that Wes Clark's comments on McCain were and remain true - the main unifying theme of this blog at its inception) - despite the general population's celebrity-media-distorted impression of John McCain - I am going to quote it in full.

Andrew Sullivan has been trying to explain over the past few days that Sarah Palin matters because the decision to elevate “this unstable, erratic, know-nothing beauty queen” to a potential Vice Presidential or Presidential spot reveals tremendous cynicism and irresponsibility on the part of John McCain, FOX News, and the Republican establishment. I think that’s largely true, but perhaps not entirely the way he’s thinking of it.

Sullivan writes “McCain knew full well that Palin was unqualified to be commander-in-chief.” But here’s the thing: John McCain is unqualified to be Commander-in-Chief. McCain is a guy of rather mediocre intellect, little curiosity, and very poor and impulsive decision-making skills. He’s vain and headstrong, and he easily turns opposition over matters of policy or politics into personal vendettas. He became a political commodity in 1973 because he embodied the right-wing working-class value of patriotism under duress at a moment when patriotism and the white working class felt under attack for their complicity in a disastrous foreign war. And he was seized upon by a desperate Republican Party in political free-fall; in the thick of Watergate, the Nixon administration launched him as a political celebrity. He then parlayed that notoriety into a political career a few years down the road. He certainly has a substantial amount of charm and an instinct for playing the press, and he’s hardly the dumbest guy in the Senate. But he is not a responsible or serious person. And to a great degree, when he met Sarah Palin, he probably felt he was looking at a younger version of himself. Which is to say that the “rot” in the GOP, the eagerness to substitute celebrity and resentful pseudo-patriotic gibberish for real political discussion, goes back a lot longer than 8 years.

Here's what I was saying back in the beginning:

Andrew Sullivan keeps telling us how a campaign between John McCain and Barack Obama would be a dignified campaign of ideas, principles and substance and a break from the partisan hackery that we've experienced for much too long. But this quote is another example of the deep misjudgement of John McCain's dignity and honor that is so pervasive in the minds of many. If Hillary Clinton made anything resembling that statement from McCain, Sullivan would be apoplectic.

Or this:

When it comes to McCain, I don't think Sullivan, or much of our media, gets it. There is no "Good McCain, Bad McCain." It's just John McCain. That's who he is. He feeds what he believes will be eaten up. He is portrayed as a man of principle. But he's not. He's a man who knows how to play the media. Sullivan got punk'd by McCain, and when the evidence was presented, he just gave a soft rebuttal (because, as we know, that's just not the real McCain, right?). McCain makes a half-hearted (and likely disingenuous) statement to the purveyors of the North Carolina attack ad, and gets praised profusely for his integrity. He equates Obama with Hamas and Sullivan basically just notes the comment for the record. Because it doesn't fit the narrative of John McCain as an honest, straight-talking man of principle.

If either statement came from Hillary Clinton, Sullivan would be all over her. But, like Chris Matthews and the bulk of the broadcast media, he doesn't share the cynicism about McCain's condemnation of the North Carolina ad because, well, nobody wants to believe that McCain is like that. He's a maverick, a war hero, who tells it like it is.

But the evidence that McCain is indeed the type of person who plays dirty politics, twists facts and will do anything to win is all over the place. In what sense has John McCain, in his words, "done everything that [he] can to repudiate and to see that this kind of campaigning does not continue"? By making a statement and sending an email regarding the North Carolina race-baiting ad, but keeping the story alive so the ad keeps getting play in heavy rotation on the cable news channels? McCain is vying to be the leader of the Republican Party and, more importantly, the nation. So either he's too weak to stop his surrogates, or he doesn't want to stop them.

As always, McCain is getting the best of both worlds -- Obama gets smeared, but McCain gets to look like the good guy who stood up to those mean folks who are saying all those nasty things In the meantime, McCain uses the cover of his stand-up guy comment to launch an attack of his own, which will, in typical fashion, be dismissed as meaningless, just campaign stuff.

Cause we all know that McCain is a good man, right.

Classic John McCain, all of it.

Or this:

Count me as one who doesn't ascribe great leadership (but does ascribe great media savvy) to the man saying exactly what the polls indicate the public wants to hear, given the general consensus on issues such as the problems with money in politics or the risks to the environment.

But the argument that McCain is so bold and bipartisan with respect to the Gang of 14 is just absurd. As Pawlenty points out, the Gang of 14 led to the placement of Justices Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court. It effectively eliminated the judicial filibuster from the Democratic arsenal, getting the agreement of a sufficient number of Democrats to vote for cloture -- to abandon for their party the right to "filibuster" -- and put through the conservative selections to the Court. As Matt Yglesias has pointed out, it was a great tactical move by McCain (made great by the decision of some Democrats -- either due to poor tactics on their part or an attempt to legitimize their weakness on blocking the nominations by hiding under a banner of bipartisanship) which enabled the appointment of conservative justices. McCain didn't go against conservative Republican principles; instead, he advanced them in a way that created an illusion of bipartisanship.

All to the benefit of nobody more than John McCain.

Or this post, discussing Matt Tiabbi's Rolling Stone article on McCain:

Beyond the profiles in McCain's cowardly abandonment of anything resembling principles, the profiles of his supporters really bring the direction of the McCain campaign home:

Even the briefest of surveys of the supporters gracing McCain's events underscores the kind of red-meat appeal he's making. Immediately after his speech in New Orleans, a pair of sweet-looking old ladies put down their McCain signs long enough to fill me in on why they're here. "I tell you," says one, "if Michelle Obama really doesn't like it here in America, I'd be very pleased to raise the money to send her back to Africa."

One of these lovely elderly ladies, blessed with the surname Berg, goes on to make sure that the author does not confuse her for a Jew.

That last post quoted about could have easily been about Sarah Palin and her rabid supporters, but for the fact that nobody other than animal rights organizations appalled at her policies of shooting wolves had any idea who she was back then. Which makes complete sense because the frank reality is that John McCain - with all due respect for having been a prisoner of war - has never been any better than Sarah Palin. The fact that Sarah Palin's cynical selection as McCain's running mate convinced enough Americans that there was too much risk in electing McCain was fortunate, but not because of the risk of a Palin presidency, but rather because you would have gotten the exact same thing with McCain.