The carefully cultivated myth that John McCain is a “straight talking maverick” is what Republicans are counting on to pull them to victory 7 weeks from now. Just today I heard Sarah Palin refer to him as “The Maverick of the Senate”. I don’t believe that it’s possible for a sane person to cling to those fantasies after seeing these four short videos:
McCain selling the Iraq War, the Iran War, and our wonderful economy (3:14)
Lying about our success in IraqThis video begins with McCain lying to the American people about how safe we have made Iraq. He says that neighborhoods in Baghdad are safe, and to prove his point he walks through a Baghdad neighborhood, presumably without body armor. What he
neglects to tell us is that he and his delegation were guarded by more than 100 American soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships. McCain says that General Petraeus “goes out there every day in an unarmed Humvee”. Then, confronted with a Petraeus quote that contradicts that lie, McCain stumbles around before reversing himself.
Pimping for war with Iran by lying about their ties to al QaedaBut the Iraq War isn’t enough for McCain. He wants to go to war with Iran as well. To prepare the ground for that he has stated several times that Iran
harbors al Qaeda. The video shows McCain stating that lie once again, Joe Lieberman whispering in his ear to correct him, and then McCain reversing himself.
Bragging about how he would have handled Hurricane KatrinaThe video shows a reporter quoting McCain as saying that if he (McCain) “were in charge during Hurricane Katrina he would have been on the ground helping”. It then pans to a picture of McCain
celebrating his birthday with President Bush at the time that Katrina hit New Orleans.
Flip flopping on the economy and taxesThe video shows Tim Russert quoting McCain as repeatedly saying “I know a lot less about the economy than I do about military or foreign policy”. McCain asks where Russert got that quote from, and Russert shows that he got it from McCain himself.
On the current state of the U.S. economy McCain is shown
flip flopping back and forth between “Yes” and “No” on the question of whether Americans are better off than they were 8 years ago.
And he is shown first opposing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in accord with his “maverick” image, and then steadfastly
supporting them when it came time to shore up his support with the radical right.
McCain flip flopping on cultural issues (2:50)
Gay marriageDuring a single interview, McCain first says that yes, gay marriage should be “allowed”, and then a few minutes later says that it should not be legal. In another interview, when asked if he supports civil unions for gay couples, McCain stumbles around and becomes virtually speechless, like a deer caught in the headlights. And McCain’s flip flopping on this issue has been
much more extensive than what is shown on this video.
The Confederate flagTo appeal to moderates and independents, McCain said about the decision of South Carolina to fly their Confederate flag in public, “The Confederate flag is offensive in many, many ways, as we all know. It’s a symbol of racism and slavery”. But three days later, in an effort to appeal to South Carolina voters just prior to their Republican primary, he said “Personally I see the flag as a symbol of heritage”. Initially, McCain defended his flip flopping on this issue. But finally,
after being repeatedly confronted about his flip flops, he admitted that it was “an act of cowardice”.
The Iraq WarPrior to going to war against Iraq, McCain was eager to talk about
how easy the war would be. But once the occupation of Iraq turned into a quagmire, McCain said about the Iraq War, “The American people were led to believe that this would be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very very difficult undertaking”. Yes John, many of us fully understood that.
The radical religious rightTo emphasize his separation from the Republican Party, McCain previously referred to Jerry Falwell as an agent of intolerance and being on the outer reaches of American politics (which he of course is). In this video McCain is shown repudiating those words and
cuddling up to Falwell.
Supporting religious extremism and violence (1:47)
This video features the Reverend Rod Parsley, whom John McCain has called his “
spiritual guide” and
with whom he has appeared on stage during his 2008 presidential campaign. Here are some of Parsley’s words in pursuance of his anti-Islam crusade:
Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends, through violence, to conquer the world…. America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed. Mohammad received revelations from demon spirits… America has understood herself to be a bastion against Islam in the world… In fact, I don’t believe that America can fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam… We get off on warfare.
Make no mistake about it. Those are precisely the kind of words that have so often triggered genocide or aggressive, needless war in our world. And don’t think it couldn’t happen again if enough Americans adopt Parsley’s attitude. The Bush/Cheney regime, with the active help of the U.S. corporate news media, too many Congresspersons like John McCain, and the passive support of too many of the American people, has already started down that road, with its preemptive war against Iraq, its threatened war against Iran, and its
indefinite detention and torture of thousands of Muslims throughout the world, without the benefit of trial or even of charging them with an offense.
Parsley makes no distinction between Muslims who practice terrorism and the vastly greater number of Muslims (
nearly two million or more who live in the United States) who want to live in peace with their neighbors. As a matter of fact, neither does John McCain when he claims that our
slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians is part of our war against terrorism.
McCain’s inexplicable refusal to support veterans’ benefits (4:23)
This video shows John McCain praising our troops and veterans, as well as several veterans lamenting McCain’s numerous decisions to vote against veterans’ benefits, especially the most recent
G.I. bill sponsored by Senator Webb.
McCain has consistently
voted against health benefits for veterans,
against minimum rest periods for troops in Iraq, and
against adequate safety equipment for our troops. Barack Obama
voted in favor of our troops and veterans on all of these issues since he became a Senator in 2005. But McCain, in order to support the Republican Party’s ideology against social programs that are paid for in any part out of the taxes on the wealthy, voted consistently
against them.
McCain has adopted an interesting and cynical way of disposing of
Obama’s criticism of his votes against veterans. He simply
indignantly asserts that Obama has no right to criticize him on veterans’ issues because Obama isn’t a veteran:
Republican John McCain said Thursday that Democrat Barack Obama had no right to criticize McCain's position on military scholarships because the Illinois senator did not serve in uniform.
"And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did," the Arizona senator said in a harshly worded statement...
Well then, maybe it wouldn’t be beneath his dignity to respond on this issue to Senators Webb and Hagel, who are both veterans and sponsors of the bill, and who are shown in the video defending it.
John McCain the straight talking “Maverick of the Senate”The idea that John McCain is straight talking or the “Maverick of the Senate” (or any kind of a maverick at all) is absurd and transparently false to anyone who has any significant familiarity with his positions and actions over the past eight years. It is as absurd as the idea that George Bush and Dick Cheney are
compassionate conservatives,
reformers with results, or give a damn about spreading “freedom and democracy” to the millions of innocent Iraqi citizens whom their war has slaughtered or displaced from their homes.
Yet there are millions of Americans who believe that McCain is a straight talking maverick simply because they have heard it repeated so many times and because McCain has spent years cunningly cultivating that false image with the help of our corporate news media. Those are the people who need to see videos like these before Election Day 2008.
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