A Little Somethin' Regarding McCain

A few years ago (and even more recently than that) John McCain was the recipient of so much praise and admiration from the media you would've thought that he was a superhero or a resurrected Founding Father. He was adored, even by the New York Times, which nowadays won't publish an opinion piece that he had penned. Seems like a long time ago, but it wasn't.

So, what has changed? Has McCain marched radically to the right and become a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan? Based upon the latest stuff out there, you wouldn't be wrong to think so. But he really hasn't. In fact, he has stayed his usual self: a moderate, right-of-center Republican who does not march lockstep with his party on every issue. He disagreed with basically everyone on the surge, which has turned out well. He sponsored the McCain-Feingold bill to reform campaign finance, has called for amnesty of illegal immigrants, and now points his fingers at Wall Street, which is always an easy target. Suffice to say, I don't delight in these latter three. But they show you something: If John McCain is a right-wing ideologue, then I am Simon Bar Kochba.

His call for more regulation in the financial sector is contradicting his message for less government (which annoys me), and it's also dumb beyond words because it was over-regulation, not deregulation, which is largely why we got into this financial mess. Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd pushed lenders to offer loans to uncreditworthy borrowers, because it's the government's duty to make sure everyone fulfills the American Dream (sarcasm), and what happened is that the industry was overfed and ultimately shat all over itself and everyone else. I don't know when the next laundry cycle will come around to get this stain completely out, but it might be awhile because the government is slow and lazy when it comes to actually doing the laundry (like me), although it talks about doing it. They demand that you let them borrow your pants, they defecate in said pants, and then give them back to you claiming that they didn't do it - their brother did, their cousin did, their stepfather's niece's best friend's collie did. But if you take a stool sample, it will show you that the government is the culprit. The government pooped your pants.

Before I get out of control here with the poop stuff, I must say with a measure of level-headedness that there were most assuredly instances of greed and wrong-doing outside of the government. But the government's steering of Fannie and Freddie, and the pressure it put on lenders to be "fair" (playing the race card, no doubt), was wobbly and misguided.

Anyway, back to McCain. When I watched the debates, it seemed as though Obama and McCain were trying to "out-socialist" one another. "Well, I'll put this much money into it." "Well, I'll put this much money into it, so take that." Throwing money at things doesn't make them work. Ingenuity does. Entrepreneurial and analytical thinking, along with mechanical, technical, and a million other skills, make things work.

McCain has it wrong here. I don't see too much of a difference between him and Obama on this issue, and I think McCain likes his role as the maverick (a word that has begun to annoy me due to its overuse). He couldn't deny the temptation for demagoguery. How about: throwing the facts out there about how Congress and the federal government was largely at fault here, instead of trying to out-Huey Long Obama? The American people hate Congress (last I saw, it had a 9% approval rating, making George W. Bush look like motherhood and apple pie), they think it's terrible, but somehow they think more government is going to make everything dandy. That doesn't make sense, and it won't. Government is no panacea. What does a guy sitting in a cubicle in Washington, D.C. give a shit about you and what you need? The profit motive, folks, as much as we hate to think it, is very powerful. More powerful than just "goodness". Because when it comes down to it, most people aren't saints. But, if given a chance to earn something for themselves, they might care a bit more. And it works. A person who is sick gets his medicine and the dispenser of that medicine gets his money. I know it sounds bad, and I really wish it were otherwise, but unfortunately it's the world in which we live. We are humans, after all.

A lot of that was tangential to the point at hand. Basically, to sum it up, McCain is not a radical right-winger. In fact, it is hard to really see much of a pattern to his politics at all. I'm not in love with the guy trust me - I'm more voting against Obama than for McCain. But the crap being thrown out there at him is largely unfair. So I'm gonna get his back.

The new theme that the media is harping on is that McCain is a big ole meanie. Obama is the skinny twit at school being picked on by the big bully. And Obama's black too, so that makes him a big racist bully. The only ones making an issue of race out of this campaign are Obama and his minions. He preemptively accused McCain and the Republicans of racism and, since any criticism leveled at Obama is racist, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one has made fun of his name or attacked his ethnic background, except for maybe a few extremist jerks. The McCain campaign has certainly done no such thing. How is asking about Obama's ties to a WHITE terrorist racist? I guess because Obama is black? Look, if McCain or anyone on his team attacked Obama for his race or anything like that, I would be appalled and decidely turned off. I would never write a post doing anything but bashing him. But this hasn't happened. This country is increasingly knee jerk and hyperbolic. Bush = Hitler. Guantanamo = Auschwitz. Questioning Obama about anything = Jim Crow-level racism.

McCain's reputation is being sullied for no legitimate reason. Agree or disagree with him, he is a man of honor, and these lies are despicable. This is the same man that the media deified when he defied Bush (those words look weird in the same sentence and are oddly similar in spelling). It's the same guy who ran against Bush for the 2000 Republican nomination and gained so much kudos for his honor and integrity. But now that he is atop that ticket, he no longer has that integrity? Why? Just because he questions (and even attacks) Obama over policy differences, that does not mean he is a schoolyard bully. If it does, then so is Obama. And so is every candidate who has ever run for any position anywhere ever. Stop your crying and finger-pointing hysterics. Get over it. McCain did not run for the presidency to lie down and lose with grace. I know that is what is expected of him. I know that he is an obstacle barring the door to Paradise. A nuisance. It is Obama's time, etc. This is a presidential election in a democracy, so McCain, unfortunately, has the right to fight back.