archived: xx - xx Mar, 2008 Back Next
UPDATED: MAR 2, 2008
THE MCCAIN MUTINY PART II
I can’t help it, but McCain’s face and demeanor reminds me of Captain Kweeg of the USS Caine, the fictitious ship in the 1954 movie, “The Caine Mutiny.” The beady eyes, the detached stare and soft-pedaled words mumbled so lightly that one can hardly hear them. Humphrey Bogart did a smashing job of portraying the disturbed captain of the Caine. Often, he was at a loss for words when he knew he was caught like the time he forgot to correct ship’s course when reprimanding an officer and Kweeg ran over his own tow line. Master of denial, Captain Kweeg said the line was defective, and denied that he caused the ship to run over and cut the steel tow line. Captain Kweeg is a character pregnant with delusions and examples of mental instability that endangered the ship and the men aboard the Caine. And that is the subject of much concern because Senator John McCain appears to have some of the same signs.
First, McCain cannot seem to get it right when it comes to the conservative agenda and GOP talking points. He vacillates on illegal immigration, and he even considered running as John Kerry’s vice president. I bet conservatives almost passed out over that little absolute no-no.
McCain voted against Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, a cute little deviation from conservative lockstep that probably made Rush Limbaugh reach for the big bottle of Oxycontin. Sure, McCain wants to continue the war, but 100 years, egad! The chap will have his staff looking for an imaginary key to his motor home food locker before long. Described by classmates at the US Naval Academy as “McNasty,” “Nasty,” and that “mean little f---er,” McCain admitted: “I acted like a jerk.” Many years after The Naval Academy, John McCain acquired other monikers. Known as Senator Hothead amongst his colleagues, McCain’s eruptive tendencies is well known still in the halls of Congress. McCain’s lack of coolness under fire or when McCain is annoyed at someone who disagrees with him is not high on the list of presidential qualities we seek, I would think, from yet another temperamental, angry-brat Republican in the White House.
It is troubling that McCain rationalizes reality much the same way as did Captain Kweeg of the USS Caine. First, McCain endures the unthinkable when Bush dirty tricksters demonize him in the 2000 Election as having fathered a black illegitimate daughter. When Bush just happened to speaking at Bob Jones University in South Carolina (a college that prohibits mixed dating) just before the state primary, the story about McCain hit. Push pollsters (more like high-grade Rove rat f---ers) called voters around the state and asked how they would vote if they knew that McCain had fathered a black daughter out of wedlock. In short order a professor at Bob Jones, Richard Hand broadcast an email to South Carolinians that McCain had fathered a child out of wedlock. The news services picked up the story, and before McCain could decry the lie, Bush won the South Carolina primary and the nomination. He snatched it from McCain’s grasp before McCain knew what hit him.
And the point of all this discourse is about what ensued. The story that McCain never got to tell was that he and his wife had adopted a dark-skinned Bangladeshi girl as their daughter from Mother Theresa’s orphanage. But too late, the SC voting levers had been pulled. It’s no surprise that Rove and Bush are capable of such demented atrocities, so what’s the point, one might ask?
The point is McCain’s milque toast non-response. Why wasn’t McCain mad as hell and outspoken about it all? Shoot, McCain, for votes and for the sake of the GOP embraced Bush as the GOP nominee against Kerry, gave pro-Bush speeches, and acted true to the party in lieu of such a smear that cheated the GOP and the nation out of a duly nominated candidate, John McCain, himself. It seems bizarre that McCain could be so trauma-bonded to go back to the GOP cigar lounge after such a monstrous act, but he did. Seems like misplaced slinky logic and ripped integrity to me. Does McCain seem to vacillate when it comes to courage? Is it me? Or is it that he knew that, bottom line, he could run as a sloppy seconds president after Bush II?
It appears that McCain has some trauma-bonding issues that go back to his days at the Hanoi Hilton. And I do not fault him for it, if true. I empathize with McCain for having had to endure the torture of long captivity in North Viet Nam. I just shudder at his occupying the White House and having his fingers on the buttons when he seems unsure and disturbed as to who his enemies and friends are.
McCain considered Jerry Falwell, minister and president of Liberty University in Virginia, to be an arch enemy and said so. Falwell had tipped the scales of the Moral Majority in favor of Bush in 2000, and McCain resented it all to high heaven for years. And then when the 2008 campaign started McCain knew that getting into bed with former enemies like Falwell who did him wrong just like Bush did, was necessary if you wanted the votes. No matter how low you sank to get those votes (and kissing Falwell’s ring is lower than kissing the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia’s ring) you just closed your eyes and thought of sitting in the Oval Office as top gun, and all the compromised principles and breach of character played second fiddle to the votes. So McCain spoke at the Liberty University commencement ceremonies, and Falwell smiled his approval and his support for McCain like a rotund possum in persimmon land, and they kissed and made up. Ugh! Has McCain no shame? It’s that flip-flopping from one-time enemies to best friends that troubles me the most. Who else will McCain whore himself out to? And for what price? What new and arbitrary roads will McCain lead us down in the next 100 years he says we are to be in Iraq as an occupation force? It’s chilling to think about.
While the White House spins, fast joining the ranks of the poor are millions of Middle Class Americans who walked away from their mortgages, their homes, and their lives. And McCain thinks Bush is a swell president. And McCain approves of the GOP congressmen who supported Bush’s wars and Bush’s reckless disregard for the Constitution. Do you believe it? Is Bush McCain’s pimp or what? And is McCain Bush’s bitch? The city of Cleveland, Ohio has to deal with the problem of 8,000 ransacked, abandoned houses they are turning into sticks and broken mortar with bulldozers. Homeowners walked away. And they took the kitchen sink, and water heater and copper from the AC compressor. The mayor has filed suit for damages, but not against the homeowners who took a walk. He’s suing the mortgage lenders for wrongfully enticing homeowners to take out unrealistic loans they could not afford. The Mayor thinks the mortgage lenders are culpable and liable and should pay to clean up the mess they created. I agree. And the houses are terminal rubble. McCain seems to think it’s bad stuff and all, but I haven’t really heard him say anything with passion about what to do about the mortgage meltdown. Does he even know?
McCain seems totally in a daze over it all. He generalizes a lot about the economy and the loss of American jobs without saying much of anything. He admits in public to not being too sharp in economics. McCain wants us to stay in Iraq indefinitely and really says little about why we should. I guess he thinks the extra 3 Trillion dollars Bush added to the National Debt by borrowing from the Chinese to finance his Iraq War is splendid economics in action. He seems totally neutral about it all. At best he seems confused. And that troubles key Republicans as well as Democrats and Independents. He flirts with Democrats which annoys Republicans. Old Poppy Bush called Reagan’s economic plan, “Voodoo Economics.” I bet old Poppy Bush thinks the same thing about Junior’s wanton borrowing and spending us into the toilet, but Barbara would probably slap Poppy across the mouth if he let on.
McCain said, “All I can say is I’ve had a record of reaching across the aisle. I’ll match my legislative accomplishments with anybody. You can’t accomplish that unless you have a working relationship with your colleagues.” Sounds eerily like the words of Captain Kweeg when he tooted his own horn a bit before the officers in the wardroom in the movie. Kweeg had screwed up and he knew it. But you could tell that Kweeg just didn’t get it, and he seemed to know that much, but he still wanted stay in denial and to brag on himself while asking indirectly for his officers’ help in making the Caine a fine ship of the line. The troubled eyes were the dead giveaway.
John McCain’s eyes are troubled too. It appears he knows he’s out of his element. He wings it with platitudes a lot, things that he thinks will sound good but is deaf to the dissonance of stuff like, “We will probably be in Iraq for the next 100 years.” Or singing the song “Barbara Ann” with his own substituted lyrics of Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran. I don’t think even the great communicator; Reagan could have pulled that one off. But keep your eye on McCain. If he goes for the steel ball-bearings in his right side coat pocket, we’re in big trouble.
Last Update: 03/09/2008