Me and John McCain Break Up Over 7 Things (I Hate About Him/You)

Once upon a time, when this blog was updated near-daily, with weird Larry-King-like posts, I wanted to see John McCain run for president, so that I could vote for him and Christine Todd Whitman, and life would become better and better every day. Because he was a Responsible Conservative who would Rescue the Republican Party from People like this. And thereby usher in a new era of bipartisanship where Dems and Pubs got along and ate cotton candy and rode ponies together. Pony rides!* In Washington! O what a day it was going to be!!!11!!!!1!

But then something happened. John McCain ran for president again. And he promptly lost his frakkin' mind.

A not-so-comprehensive list of reasons I used to love John McCain but now can't because he believes something completely different now that he started trolling for votes in Hillsdale, MI and Huntington, IN.**:

1) Sen. McCain used to be a fiscal moderate [Part I]. I know this because he originally opposed the Bush tax cuts. McCain on the Senate floor: "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief." Now he wants to make them permanent. Ostensibly it's because of the financial mess we're in. And I get that from a Righty McRight-Right perspective. But this is "The Maverick starring Mel Gibson" we're talking about. Why not extend them for another year or two until we're out of this mess, then let them quietly expire, so we can get back to balancing this crazy-ass budget deficit? Or am I making too much sense for you right now, Senator? 

2) Sen. McCain used to have principles [Part I]. He used to oppose the torture of human beings. "We’ve sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists," he said while asking President Bush to support a bill that would ban all sorts of torture for anyone in US government custody, including waterboarding. He even made a good case against waterboarding, too: "All I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today…It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture." Then he voted against a bill which would have made the CIA abide by the same rules in the Army Field Manuel, which specifically bans waterboarding as an information gathering tactic. I don't get it. I really, really don't. I guess everybody needs a buddy sometime.

3) Sen. McCain used to stick up to bullies [Part I]. Once upon a time, McCain stood up to the NRA. After saying that "the NRA is entitled to their advocacy. I don’t think they help the Republican Party at all, and I don’t think they should in any way play a major role in the Republican Party’s policy making," the NRA labeled him "one of the premier flag-carriers for enemies of the Second Amendment." That is until he spoke these words at the NRA's national convention: "President Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton would put the rights of ‘law-abiding’ gun owners at risk." More buddies! The list just keeps on growing.

4) Sen. McCain used to stick up to bullies [Part II]. Another once upon a time, McCain called a duck 'a duck.' He railed against Jerry Falwell and other leaders of the Religious Right as “agents of intolerance.” After announcing a run for president, however, he delivered the commencement address at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's school, after which he was the guest of honor at a reception and private dinner which included a number of conservative church leaders. Sure, endorsements are nice. But so are principles.

5) Sen. McCain used to have principles [Part II]. John used to be a big fan of immigration reform, including creating ways for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship without forced deportation. He even co-sponsored a bill in Congress (that eventually failed to pass). This year he admitted that he wouldn't even vote for his own bill today “because we know what the situation is today. The people want the borders secured first.” Mr. McCain, the people are often wrong. Two and a Half Men is the most watched sitcom in America. Yet How I Met Your Mother is clearly funnier. Sometimes, you have to fight for what you believe in. I believe in Slap Bets. You believe in sorting out this immigration mess without resorting to building huge fucking walls along the entire length of our southern border. Good for me. Good for you.

6) Sen. McCain used to be a fiscal moderate [Part II]. He used to argue for the "essential morality" of the estate tax, explaining that he “consistently voted against repealing this tax because of the impact it would have on the deficit, as well as the possible chilling affect it could have on charitable giving in this country." Now he calls it "one of the most unfair tax laws in the book." I like taxing dead people. Because over-taxing the living just plain sucks. We earn what we have as Americans. Everything else is just plain royalty.

7) Sen. McCain used to have principles [Part III]. Sen. McCain used to oppose a federal ban on gay marriage: “The constitutional amendment we’re debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans. It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them.” Wow. Now that's great statesmanship. And plausible conservatism in an age when conservatives can't tell whether they love big government or hate it. Yet, one more time, while on the Votes and Endorsement Trail, he told Jerry Falwell he would support a federal marriage amendment to the Constitution if a federal court were to strike state constitutional bans on gay marriage. Not a complete about-face, but he's definitely trying to have his small government cake and eat it, too.

Conclusion: Sen. McCain, I used to love your freakin' guts. Now, I just feel sorry for you. Sorry that you felt you had to turn your back on evertything that made you "you" in order to appeal to the American public, or at least the part of the American public that is pro-America. Because those anti-America parts of the country can fall into the ocean and die. Or they can elect our next president. I forget my point...

Oh, that's right. Sen. McCain, you just lost my vote.***

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*Pony rides do solve everything. Because ponies are constitutionally non-partisan.

**Town names chosen completely at random, having nothing to do with those two great institutional influences of my formative years.

***Well, you kind of did about a year ago, but you know what I mean.

Where do we go from here?

I had been working on a post yesterday about a recent op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman, titled "Green the Bailout" -- A little ditty that encouraged our government to look beyond the bailout and work toward a Green buildup.  The idea is that plenty of countries do fossil fuel extraction and gasoline fueled autos better than we do. So why don't we switch our focus to the next step in energy -- green energy. If we can't be number one in the old way of powering the World, why not be number one in the new way? Why not replace lost blue collar jobs with what author Van Jones is calling "green collar" ones? It was going to kill.

Then the shit hit the fan and Congress gave into millions of Americans who can't bother to read a newspaper.

Whoops. Guilty as charged. I'm a print-journalism elitist. CNN and Fox News can kiss my ass.

The House of Representatives should be ashamed of themselves. Instead of taking the lead, getting out on the stump, bumping elbows with folks at potlucks and community centers and Wal-Marts all across America, convincing Americans that though this plan isn't perfect, it would help regular Janes and Joes as much as it would help the Big Bad Banks on Wall Street, they sat back and went with whichever way the wind blew. Good job, Leaders of the Free World. You may have just won re-election....but you're completely responsible for where we go from here.

Two Americas

One that thinks this picture is brimming with awesomeness, and one that is bewildered and crapping their pants.

Seriously. Is the political Left really this far out of touch from the average American? I mean, don't we all don crazy Viking hats every other Thursday? From the Economist:

Gloria Steinem, the founder of Ms magazine, says that “Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton”. Kim Gandy, the president of the National Organisation of Women, dismisses her as a “woman who opposes women’s rights”. Debbie Dingell, a leading Michigan Democrat, said that women felt insulted by the choice. Joe Biden says that, if Mrs Palin becomes the first female vice-president, it will be a “backward step for women”. “Eighteen million cracks”, says the New Republic, (referring to Mrs Clinton’s 18m votes and the glass ceiling) “and one crackpot.”

Sometimes I think "the culture wars" are just lazy journalism. Americans agree more often than we disagree, right? We all bleed red, white and blue. We would never criticize someone simply because we don't understand them or their values, right?

Right?!?!

Good job alienating 50 million Americans Biden. Just because President Bush does it every other day doesn't make it right.

Energy Schmenergy

O the plans! O the ruin! O my brakes are failing! O this blog sucks!

So little to say, so much to not care about.

The Straight Dope on Energy Policy in the Midst of Electioneering

On the Media, that bastion of media critique which airs while I ought to be at church, says great things. Why just last week, they said great things about energy independence. An excerpt from the oh-so-short piece follows in transcript form:

DAVID FIDERER: An example I wrote about in Huffington Post was John Harwood, who writes for The New York Times and is also a political correspondent for CNBC, talked about how the Democrats now are talking about building new nuclear plants because gasoline is selling at four dollars a gallon.

BOB GARFIELD: And there is no relationship between the price of oil at the pumps and nuclear anything, correct?

DAVID FIDERER: That’s correct. Nuclear is used for generating electricity. Oil is used in the United States primarily for transportation. And there’s no viable way of converting nuclear energy into fuel for transportation.

BOB GARFIELD: Now, since both John McCain and Barack Obama and every other national politician are talking about energy independence, can we just establish a few things about that premise?

DAVID FIDERER: Sure.

BOB GARFIELD: Like given the way petroleum deposits are distributed on Earth, is it reasonable to imagine the U.S. being fully independent of foreign oil, ever?

DAVID FIDERER: Not if we consume oil at anything close to the rate we have for the last 50 years. If we consumed oil at the rate we did in 1965, we would still be importing 40 percent of our oil.

BOB GARFIELD: Another contentious issue is that of offshore oil reserves.

DAVID FIDERER: Yes.

BOB GARFIELD: The Republicans want to start [LAUGHS] drilling tomorrow, and they portray those against more drilling as tree huggers willing to put our nation’s energy security at risk to save a few whales. At least that’s how the media has been framing the controversy.

DAVID FIDERER: Even if all the oil reserves were there that the most optimistic oil person says is off the coast of California or Florida, it still wouldn't have a major impact on the price of oil. It still would take at best five years to bring production to market and it still wouldn't change our dependence on foreign oil in any major way.

Let's review:

1. Nuclear energy, with plenty of long-term problems not discussed here, does nothing to curb our dependence on foreign oil (unless we all drove electric vehicles, which we don't, because we love blowing things up and NASCAR and driving up rugged mountaintops).

2. Unless we create a time machine, or harness the power of Einstein-Rosen bridges, we will never become dependent of foreign oil unless we drastically change the way we consume and produce energy.

2-a. Absolute best case scenario if we allowed offshore drilling? The price of gas would finally drop by 2013. Best. Case. Scenario.

This is why politicians are stupid, and stupid politicians are running for president.

Chicago: "Saul Bellow is a rascist!"

Bellow's remarks on race haunt legacy in Hyde Park (Chicago Tribune)

Alderman Toni Preckwinkle refuses to name a city-something after the very much dead Pulitzer Prize winning Chicago author, and declines to tell the Trib why.

Somewhere on Lake Michigan, Sufjan Stevens is crying himself to sleep.