COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, February 04, 2008

The Inane and McCain

Things that drive me up a wall:
  1. When I hear someone say that they who will vote for a candidate based on racial identity.
  2. When I hear someone say that they will vote for a candidate based on religious identity.
  3. When I hear that someone will vote for the best-looking candidate.
  4. John McCain is a "war hero" and therefore deserves to be President.
Most regulars of the EB are well informed about John McCain but there seems to be a groundswell against him and maybe the message will reach a broader audience. Here, a wise man, Thomas Sowell rips McCain a new one:

_________________
McCain’s Crooked Talk
He lies about Romney’s record.

By Thomas Sowell

We have been hearing for years that Senator John McCain gives “straight talk” and his bus has been endlessly referred to as the “Straight Talk Express.” But endless repetition does not make something true.

The fact that McCain makes short, blunt statements does not make him a straight-talker.

There are short, blunt lies — and he told a big one on the eve of the Florida primary, when he claimed that Mitt Romney had advocated a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

Even the Washington Post, which supports McCain, said that the senator “has distorted the meaning” of what Governor Romney said, that Romney “has never proposed setting ‘a date for withdrawal.’ ”

During Mitt Romney’s ABC News interview that Senator McCain twisted, Governor Romney was asked by the interviewer whether he agreed with President Bush’s veto of congressional legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal, and whether Romney as President would veto similar legislation.

“Of course,” was Romney’s reply. There was no ambiguity.

Confronted with his lie on Wednesday night’s debate, McCain blustered and filibustered in a manner reminiscent of Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, when he was caught in a lie during a navy inquiry.

When confronted with any of his misdeeds, Senator McCain tends to fall back on his record as a war hero in Vietnam.

Let’s talk sense. Benedict Arnold was a war hero but that did not exempt him from condemnation for his later betrayal.

Being a war hero is not a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card. And becoming president of the United States is not a matter of rewarding an individual for past services.

The presidency is a heavy responsibility for the future of the nation, including generations yet unborn. Character and integrity are major qualifications.

The passing years and a friendly media have allowed Senator McCain’s shortcomings in the character and integrity department to fade into the background.

McCain was one of “the Keating Five” — senators who used their influence to try to protect a failing savings & loan company, which also became the subject of a corruption investigation.

During the 2000 primaries, the Associated Press reported Senator McCain’s joking about people with Alzheimer’s.

This went beyond bad taste because (1) it was known at the time that Ronald Reagan was suffering from Alzheimer’s and (2) the media to whom McCain was pandering hated Ronald Reagan.

It is especially ironic now to see McCain wrapping himself in the mantle of President Reagan.

With the momentum of his Florida primary win behind him, going into the “Super Tuesday” primaries, John McCain has now been restored to the position of front runner that the media gave him at the outset.

Other Republicans are jumping on his bandwagon. This may have less to do with McCain’s own qualities than with the prospect of getting Cabinet posts or Supreme Court appointments as rewards for their political support.

It may all look like a done deal. But the McCain-Kennedy bill giving amnesty to illegal aliens looked like a done deal two years ago — until the public realized the truth behind the spin and brought that sell-out to a screeching halt.

Super Tuesday may be the voters’ last chance to bring the so-called “straight talk express” to a screeching halt.

It should be called the “sell-out express” because McCain has sold out not only with amnesty for illegal aliens but also sold out the First Amendment with the McCain-Feingold “campaign finance reform” bill that was supposed to take big money out of political campaigns, but blatantly has not.

McCain also sold out on judicial nominations by making his own side deal with the Democrats, undercutting Republican attempts to stop Democrats from filibustering judicial nominees instead of voting them up or down.

This is quite a record for someone running as a straight talker.

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

3 comments:

  1. Fox News Network
    January 31, 2008 Thursday

    Reaction to White House Race


    COLMES: You, as a conservative and as a well-known conservative with strong opinions, you certainly have a preference in terms of who should get the nomination?


    GINGRICH: I'm not going to take sides right now. Governor Huckabee's a good friend of mine. I've worked with Senator McCain since 1982. I've admired Governor Romney a great deal. I've spoken, you know, admirably of Governor Romney's work.

    I thought last night, frankly, that Governor Romney -- just as an analyst, that Governor Romney won that debate.

    And I think that John McCain should quit distorting Governor Romney's position on Iraq, because I think it's pretty patently obvious last night that what Senator McCain was saying wasn't true.

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  2. Those four things drive me up a wall as well.

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  3. Though, you can substitute "anyone" for #4, for any office other than 'professional war hero.'

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