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August 24, 2008
McCain's integrity and credibility
Posted by: Andoni
I guess any politician can mis-speak, misremember, or embellish. That is entirely human. I've already wondered here and here whether Senator John McCain's neurons are operating properly because of the high number of inadvertent errors he has made. The problem now is why is he making a large number of errors that cannot be described as inadvertent. These are purposeful misstatements that I believe demonstrate a problem with McCain's integrity and credibility.
Let's list these:
1. his falsehoods with respect to his first marriage and divorce
2. his lying with respect to the cone of silence
3. his invention (or plagiarism) of the cross in the dirt story
4. his twisted accusation of Obama's "ambition" to be president
5. his lie that John Lewis is someone he would consult with
Chris recently exposed how McCain has tarnished the sanctity of marriage. Here is the story from McCain's friends in more detail of exactly what happened. And this story from the LATimes (along with Chris') nails how McCain started lying about it.
When McCain appeared at the Saddleback Church with Pastor Rick Warren, he was supposed to be in a "cone of silence" the entire time Obama was answering the questions. McCain did not comply with this arrangement. When McCain appeared on stage he did not tell Warren that he was not in the cone the entire time, instead he allowed the lie to be perpetuated. He was complicit in the lie.
McCain's story of the guard in the Hanoi prison during Christmas of 1969 has been analyzed and there is strong evidence that this story was made up for his book and run for the presidency in 1999. It was never mentioned prior to 1999, including in a 12,000 word report on his captivity or in his prior writings about his Christmases in captivity. There is further suggestion that the story was borrowed from Solzhenitsyn. Andrew Sullivan does a good job of getting to the bottom of this here, here, and here.
Earlier this week, McCain ran an ad criticizing Obama saying it was ambition that made him want to be president, suggesting this was a bad thing and implying it didn't apply to himself, McCain. However, it was soon shown that Obama was not the only one with ambition, that McCain himself had admitted ambition when he ran for president in 2000.
Finally, at Saddleback McCain said that Congressman John Lewis is someone he admires and would consult with. When someone says something like this, one would assume that the two know each other, have a relationship, and speak occasionally if not regularly. McCain was clearly trying to have the audience believe that John Lewis is someone he talks to and consults with. However the next day, Lewis said that although he knows McCain, they are not buddies, do not speak and McCain has never consulted him. There may be another name for this. I call it a lie. At a minimum it was an outright attempt to deceive, and in my book, this is a lie.
Clearly one has to wonder where McCain's integrity and credibility are at this point.
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Comments
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Notwithstanding McCain's sacrosanct POW status, he, like Ronald Reagan, is shaping up to be a pathological liar, in the clinical sense - and not just on immaterial matters.
Reagan was often cited for conflating his own experiences with his various movie roles - and certainly his Alzheimer's in later years exacerbated this pathology.
McCain, likewise conflates allegory with reality, a la the cross-in-the-sand shtick.
But frankly, I am more concerned about his confusion on matters of war and peace - such as the distinction between Shiite and Sunni - and the existences of countries which are no longer countries. This is very serious business.
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MARTY on Aug 24, 2008 4:30:56 PM:
The McCain of 2000 was the "false" McCain and the "real" McCain is who we are getting now. McCain 2000 was performance art to further his ambition, whereas 2008 is more his true colors and, well, more desperate due to the sands of time.
Marty - I tend to disagree with you here --- as I think the Maverick Express of 2000 was the original scrappy, secular, pro-choice, fiscally conservative McCain. What we're seeing now is a Rovian avatar, featuring the McCain's DNA transplant of GOP corporate money - and his Frankenstein transformation into a jack-booted Neocon. Now admittedly, McCain's warmongering temperament provided an easy springboard, but his total buy-in was required to get the GOP blessing. Fucking scary - either way!
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If this is the best you've got, Obama is in worse shape than I've thought. There is so much more to criticize McCain about than this tripe. Probably the most ludicrous here is the claim that he supposedly plagiarized Solzhenitsyn. Two other ex-POWs have come forward and have backed up McCain's story. If folks like Sully are going to try and do some 'swiftboating' at least make it a bit more credible than this.
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RE/
John on Aug 24, 2008 9:52:34 PM:If this is the best you've got, Obama is in worse shape than I've thought. There is so much more to criticize McCain about than this tripe.
John - I don't consider this tripe. The cross bullshit has been elevated to urban legend status among the god-squad. There are so many elaborately differentiated references to this same sappy tableau so as to be laughable. It only makes a good campaign tale if you're already in McCain's pocket and are looking to canonize him in your own mind.
If you're seriously trying to vet the man, it makes him look like a sententious old fool.
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All of that is null and void with the Big O's choice of Biden for VP...
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"The cross bullshit has been elevated to urban legend status among the god-squad."
Who cares? The Religious Right will latch onto anything to further their goals. This doesn't mean we give creedance to bogus slander because we dislike them.
"There are so many elaborately differentiated references to this same sappy tableau so as to be laughable. It only makes a good campaign tale if you're already in McCain's pocket and are looking to canonize him in your own mind."
No, it's a nice story that at least two of his fellow ex-POWs have come out and validated. Both candidates are going to have these kinds of feel-good stories which are nice, but not The Reason to vote for either of them.
"If you're seriously trying to vet the man, it makes him look like a sententious old fool."
And latching on to the trite objections to it does nothing more than validate the nutjobs who've questioned Obama's religion and birth certificate.
Vote for either man because you agree with some, most or all of their policy stances, not because of nonsense like this.
The comments to this entry are closed.
MARTY on Aug 24, 2008 4:30:56 PM:
Two things I have seen surmised about McCain 2008 that I found thought-provoking --
[a] The McCain of 2000 was the "false" McCain and the "real" McCain is who we are getting now. McCain 2000 was performance art to further his ambition, whereas 2008 is more his true colors and, well, more desperate due to the sands of time.
[b] That McCain has been trotted out by the Republicans because they know they will not win this election and they especially know McCain could not win and are out to embarrass him as retaliation for his previous non-towing of the party line.
I am still deciding if I agree or disagree with either of these surmisings, but I have found them thought-provoking and am passing them along in hopes it gets others thinking, too.