Liberal Democratic Politics, Discussion and Snark

So John McCain’s gas tax holiday turns out to be just another campaign retread. Not to mention a bad idea. What a loser.

You may have heard the Republican presidential nominee propose something similar before — 12 years ago when the GOP nominee’s name was Dole, not McCain.

Nice. Not only is he a bad candidate, but he likes to steal ideas from other losers in his party.

Last week the press was in a furor over supposed “near gaffes” by Democrats, all the while ignoring the fact that John McCain doesn’t even know the difference between Sunni’s and Shi’ites. There is a reason why TV ratings are in decline and newspaper circulation and ad revenues are down. People can tell when they’re being fed a load of horse shit.

Here’s a nice summary of the media’s abject laziness (and GOP’edness) from Firedoglake:

Things that the US press freaked out over last week:

– OMG! Hillary lied about a sick woman! (Not really, as it turns out.)

– OMG! Barack was picking on people! (Not really, as it turns out.)

Things that the US press did not freak out over:

– John McCain’s breaking campaign finance law (though they did a number of pieces on public financing of political campaigns).

– John McCain’s constant stream of gaffes, lies, and worse (though they did play up a McCain attack on a non-gaffe by Obama).

The more and more crap that American’s get shoveled into their eyeballs by the corporate owned media, the more and more turned off they are, the less informed they become, and the more likely they are to end up voting for a complete asshole who thinks torture should be legal.

Cliff Schecter drops a gem in his interview with Bob Cesca on the Huffington Post:

With the Obama/Hillary Thrilla in Manila still going on, it seems many have dug in and are more content to bash the other one than McCain. Which is a problem, as he is a scary guy, and people need to know it.

And basically, that’s the deal. Let’s just forget about Hillary and Barack for a moment and focus on why John McCain is a clear threat to America. He’s pro torture, and he’s a giant flip-flopper.

* McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” in 2002, but has since decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans “deserved” the 9/11 attacks. (Indeed, McCain has now hired Falwell’s debate coach.)

* McCain used to oppose Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy, but he reversed course in February.

* In 2000, McCain accused Texas businessmen Sam and Charles Wyly of being corrupt, spending “dirty money” to help finance Bush’s presidential campaign. McCain not only filed a complaint against the Wylys for allegedly violating campaign finance law, he also lashed out at them publicly. In April, McCain reached out to the Wylys for support.

* McCain supported a major campaign-finance reform measure that bore his name. In June, he abandoned his own legislation.

* McCain used to think that Grover Norquist was a crook and a corrupt shill for dictators. Then McCain got serious about running for president and began to reconcile with Norquist.

* McCain took a firm line in opposition to torture, and then caved to White House demands.

* McCain gave up on his signature policy issue, campaign-finance reform, and won’t back the same provision he sponsored just a couple of years ago.

* McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.

* McCain was anti-ethanol. Now he’s pro-ethanol.

* McCain was both for and against state promotion of the Confederate flag.

* And now he’s both for and against overturning Roe v. Wade.

Nice. Real nice.

Well, we already knew that the Bush Administration was a bunch of criminals, but here’s the proof that they knew it and tried to make it okay:

The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president’s ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.

This particular memo was penned by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. John C. Yoo is the Administration’s architect of torture. There is zero way to make this funny or lighthearted. John Yoo is unamerican and deserves to be held responsible for destroying our constitution, our national dignity and our standing in the world. Not to mention all of the crimes committed in Liberty’s name due to his vicious pen.

Glenn Greenwald puts some excellent perspective on the John McCain “centrism” fallacy. He writes:

At the very core of the media’s reverence for John McCain is the blatant, tired myth that he’s a “centrist.”

Like Lieberman, McCain may deviate from right-wing dogma on discrete issues when it comes to domestic policy questions. But on questions of foreign policy, national security and war, McCain — and Lieberman — are as extremist as it gets in the mainstream political spectrum. On those obviously central issues, there simply is nobody and nothing to the Right of McCain.

McCain marks the absolute outer ideological boundary of American militarism, imperialism and war-making, particularly (though not only) in the Middle East. That’s why he’s long been enthusiastically supported by the country’s most crazed warmongers — such as Bill Kristol, James Woolsey, most of the PNAC crowd, and Lieberman. In no meaningful sense are such individuals “centrists,” and neither is McCain.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Honestly, anyone who votes against a ban on torture, or willingly subjects our troops to unnecessary violence in order to prolong a failed war is nothing more than a fundamentalist. A fundamentalist with sub-par singing and songwriting skills.