Saying One Thing and Doing Another: John McCain's Duplicity

By: KathyinBlacksburg
Published On: 12/18/2006 3:00:00 AM

On Friday, daytime anchors on both MSNBC and CNN were aglow and gushing with pride over John McCain's positioning himself as a frontwinner and supposed future winner of the 2008 presidential race.  Did they get their talking points from the same place?

While the not-so-neutral anchors were positioning themselves too, as FOJ (friends of John),Bill Richardson (whom I will not be supporting in the presidential primaries either) had at least one good thing to say: that McCain is wrong about sending more troops.  Here's the link

That's not all McCain's been wrong about this past year.  Over and over again, John McCain says one thing and does another.  Here are just a few examples:
1. John McCain was tortured during the VietNam War, teamed with others to "oppose" torture this past year, and then caved, giving the president everything he asked for (including the ability to torture by any other name).

2.  John McCain claimed to be emphatically against the abolition of habeus corpus, but caved and gave the president everything he asked for.

3. John McCain first appeared to be appalled by NSA spying on Americans, but he and the other faux critics of administration policy caved and gave Bush everything he wanted.  His criticism seemed to be more umbrage at not being consulted than real opposition.

4. In 2000, John McCain was significantly abused by the Bush dirty tricks campaign machine, which created vicious, bigotted attack ads; rumors; and robo-calls, against him.  But John McCain has hired the vicious, malicious Terry Nelson, architect of the racist "Harold, call me" attack against former US Rep. Harold Ford (D) of Tennessee.  Nelson also was a party to the notorious, so-called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." Need I say more?

5.  John McCain positioned himself as a maverick, but is more hawkish than the Bush administration (and that's pretty hard to be).

6.  John McCain positioned himself as slightly less radical than the far-right's social agenda, but he wasted no time trudging into the lair of Jerry Falwell, the radical right politician/minister.

It appears we can only conclude that John McCain no maverick, but is instead pulling the wool over people's eyes.  His maverick ways were apparently little more than shrewd devices to pull in independent and Democratic voters by misleading them.  As for the photo above, the GOP thinks the so-called Dean scream (really just an enthusiastic yell before a noisy 3,000 person crowd) is a problem?

Comments



Absolutely correct (Dianne - 12/18/2006 8:40:45 AM)
And I hope that the Democratic contenders and Party use your excellent talking points in educating the voters!!!

Thank you for your usual excellent post.



Exactly!!! (Silver Fox - 12/18/2006 11:36:06 AM)
Kathy, you said exactly what I have been feeling about John McCain ever since he started courting the Falwell-type rabid right groups.  I thought he was going to redeem himself a bit when he spoke out on the Habeus Corpus and torture issues but you were right again...he caved...and that made me now unalterably opposed to him as a candidate for any office.  That's also why I would like to see someone really strong oppose John Warner if he runs in '08.  He caved on these vital issues too.  If Bush and his supporters continue unchecked, we will become what we are fighting and the Constitution will be in tatters.


McCain (Gordie - 12/18/2006 11:50:43 AM)
showed how weak a candidate he was in South Carolina in 2000. He practically cried at the debate that Bush should pull the ads about his war record.
Not that I agree with trashing anyones war record, but the way he faught back was almost like a cry baby who wants to pick up their marbles and go home. The flip flopping of John never seems to end.


The McCain Myth must be exploded (adshubert - 12/18/2006 12:01:15 PM)
I shocked my father the other day when I told him not only do I despise John McCain but that I consider him a gutless coward, the worst kind of political-finger-in-the-wind politician that we have seen on a national stage in years.  He absolutely wilts in the face of political pressure, caving in on nearly every major issue that he has supposedly taken a hard-and-firm stance on (despite his public statements).  And his one alleged signature accomplishment--campaign finance reform, designed to reduce the dominance of money in campaigns, well how's that working out for ya?
http://www.opensecre...

I went on to say that if Sam Brownback told me the sky was blue I would look up and still be skeptical, I respect him because he believes fully in his philosophy and has been consistent both in public and private, regardless of whether I agree or not.  The measure of a man is not what he does when everyone's looking, but when no one's looking.  In the latter, McCain shows his true colors.



Don't let up (Teddy - 12/18/2006 1:28:11 PM)
exposing McCain for the phony persona he has labored so to present to the world, or the slavish way the media keeps reinforcing the "maverick" schtick, and the "moderate Republican" classification. For more on Nelson and McCain's clear decision to go down the dark road and employ the very slime merchants who savaged him in the past, see my recent post http://www.raisingka...