I hope you noticed the different receptions given to John McCain and Barack Obama at the Associated Press earlier this week. The supposed liberal, Obama-loving media offered McCain a love-fest, complete with his favorite donut with sprinkles and no follow-ups to some of his bizarre or controversial answers to questions. When Obama appeared, AP director Billy Dean Singleton, who has destroyed some of America’s best newspapers, asked the Illinois senator if he would favor shifting troops to Afghanistan to fight "Obama bin Laden." I am not making this up.
One of the biggest challenges to Democrats this year is that the mainstream media simply won’t report fairly on McCain, much less go after him the way it did when Obama made the "bitter" comment. Combined with Democrat self-destruction, the ignorance of much of the electorate, and the way Republicans steal close elections, I think McCain has a very good chance of winning the White House.
So based on McCain’s record in Arizona, his policy statements and temperment, let’s imagine the next four years.
–No exit from Iraq. He’s made it clear that the troop escalation, which the media call the "surge" adopting White House spin jargon, is his baby and it’s "working." He’s also made plain he will confront Iran militarily. He wants to expand the military, but without a draft that won’t happen soon enough to avoid the dangerous strain already on the force. With his buddies in the media, he can keep the American people distracted. Everything’s fine. Nothing to see there. Move along. Oh, he continues to vote against veterans’ benefits.
–The media keep calling him a "maverick" on global warming because of some murky support for cap-and-trade. In reality, McCain has one of the worst environmental voting records in the Senate. He did nothing to help urban Arizona gain transit projects ("pork") to offer alternatives to carbon-belching cars. He wants to eliminate Amtrak ("pork"). He opposed a plan to reduce congestion at the Grand Canyon ("pork"). The natural beauty of his "home" state is under assault while federal money for conservation falls ("pork"). In addition to his ideological rigidity, his age makes him someone who simply can’t imagine a nation that doesn’t continue widening freeways and building more sprawl, all dependent on cars. And until that mindset changes, there will be no real progress on global warming. Greenwash such as ethanol is a fraud, taking more energy to make than it produces and eating up valuable farmland as the Third World faces food riots. Meanwhile, McCain needs the money of Big Oil and Big Coal, so he will continue the Bush global warming foot-dragging. We will lose four years in addressing this global menace and probably even lose ground.
–He was against torture, and now he supports the president on "enhanced interrogation techniques." Combined with his tough-guy rhetoric, expect an unimaginable expansion of executive power, erosion of the Constitution and attacks on civil liberties.
–The tilt to the rich and powerful will continue, from deregulation, to trade deals, to privatizing Social Security into the capable hands of places like Bear Sterns. He needs their money to win.
–His economic policy: tax cuts. In other words, more of the same. Tax cuts mean cuts to services, infrastructure, scientific research, retraining workers, and rising debt to finance foreign wars. His gas-tax holiday is instructive: Let’s encourage Americans to keep driving, when every sign points to the need to begin making changes to address sustained energy price rises and global warming.
–Healthcare? Infrastructure? Education? Research? "Pork."
And this is just a thumbnail of what to expect. Are Americans going to be this dumb?
Everything you say is absolutely right on. I have railed against the national media and its fawning and use of the word “maverick” to describe a man who is anything but…Still, the worst coverage has been by the Arizona Republic, which has been afraid for years to write or report anything that will ruffle McCain’s feathers because upper management did not want to be on his bad side. Good stories routinely were derailed and hard reporting on him was discouraged. I had to laugh–or cry–the other day when the Republic finally did a story on McCain’s temper. Old news, old examples and done now that it is safe to criticize him. Actually, almost two years ago, there was a story on the Republic website that never ran in the paper because McCain’s then-campaign honcho, John Weaver, got upset about it. The Republic could have been at the front of pack, reporting on the real McCain. It chose not to and well, the chickens may well come home to roost in the form of a McCain presidency. The paper’s coverage of their hometown boy is a national embarrassment.
True, and to follow up: He’ll get probably 2 SCOTUS appointments, and you know what his litmus test will be. Goodbye Roe. Hello to his new “spiritual advisors” Hagee and Parsley, fine fellows there. As Jon said, if you’re a vet, forget about education or better treatment when (if) you get out. With all his supposed “support the troops” bravado, he still hasn’t signed the Webb-Hagel GI Bill. Yeah, that dismal voting record on environmental issues was actually a zero from the League of Conservation Voters. A ZERO, yet he’s talked about as the “maverick” of the GOP when it comes to global warming. Let’s get to the debates (where one hopes they’ll talk about more than flag lapel pins).