Sunday, April 06, 2008

Lame remains

PRESCOTT, AZ (AP)--Senator John McCain called Saturday for a presidential campaign that is more like a respectful argument among friends over who should give the hooker carfare than a bitter clash of enemies over who should pay to have her killed, and said he is better equipped than either of his Democratic rivals to make that bitch disappear.

"We have nothing to fear from each other, although I have accepted Secret Service protection," the Arizona senator said, as he wrapped up a weeklong trip designed to broaden his appeal among voters who would rather have had Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee.

"We are arguing over the means to better secure our freedom, promote the general welfare and defend our ideals," he added, which apparently means invading Iran, lowering taxes on the filthy rich, and sucking up to religious wingnuts.

After a series of stops earlier in the week emphasizing how much more time than his opponents he has spent in prison or on fire, McCain spoke on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse. The late Senator Barry Goldwater, father of the modern conservative Republican party, launched his 1964 bid for the White House from the same spot, and similar results are expected this year.

McCain looked out at his largest crowd of the week--many of whom seemed irked to learn that the rumor of free barbecue was unfounded--as he recalled his early lessons in political bipartisanship. He described Goldwater and the late Arizona Representative Mo Udall, a liberal Democrat, as close friends who shared more than dashed presidential ambitions: they apparently car-pooled, as well.

McCain recalled also that shortly after his own election to Congress in 1982, Udall took him under his wing and told him Goldwater couldn't last much longer. "I intend to wage this campaign and to govern this country in a way that they would be proud of me," he said of Goldwater and Udall, two losers who will eventually vanish from America's memory.

And yet, he said, there are important differences to be settled on issues such as energy, the housing crisis, health care, the imaginary War on Terror; not to mention Medicare and other federal spending programs rich guys don't like.

"It is more than appropriate, it is necessary that even in times of crisis, we fight among ourselves for the things we believe in, whether they're true or not," McCain said.

McCain also said that if elected, he would attempt to govern in the same spirit for the first three months, and sharpened that theme in a news conference shortly after his speech.

"I have a record unmatched by either of those assholes, of reaching across the aisle," he said. He added that his record demonstrates "the environment for working together is clearly there, and if you can't see that you're just fucking stupid."

McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination a month ago by being the guy everyone's heard of and no one really knows, except that he sucks up to media types and makes them think he has a sense of humor. His weeklong nostalgia trip marked a new low in his campaign, but only for the moment.

In a series of speeches that recalled his days at the Naval Academy (where his daddy the admiral kept him from flunking out), his time spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam (where he kept from going insane with elaborate revenge fantasies about what he would do as president) and his post-war military career (when he began to plot his rise to power and ditched his first wife for Cindy-Lou the beer heiress), he repeatedly urged Americans to support a cause bigger than themselves (him).

The speeches barely touched the issues likely to dominate the campaign, including the military-industrial occupation of Iraq, which he supports, and the economy, which he doesn't understand.

That will probably have to change in the coming weeks, aides admit, as McCain is forced to commission a series of domestic proposals on taxes, health care, trade and other topics in which he has absolutely no interest.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

No one has quite been explain to me how being the guy that got captured and couldn't escape makes you a military expert.

shishkabob said...

I agree with Scott. Kinda qualifies him more as a professional prisoner than a president.