As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."
Monday, October 13, 2008
The Kristol Prefigure
Bill Kristol is an insufferable fool and wrong about everything, but over and over in this campaign he has flown trial balloons in this column that have inevitably been picked up by John McCain. So if you want to see what's going to happen at the final debate on Wednesday, consider his column today a blueprint.
Of course, the idea that McCain can junk everything with three weeks to go and start over, while people are voting early, and expect the electorate to react favorably, is... well, it's a Bill Kristol idea, so I don't have to tell you how stupid it is. But as much as anything, it's an honor restoration strategy, not really a strategy for winning. They actually started this over the weekend, when Rick Davis responded to John Lewis' comparison between McCain rallies and the ugly race-baiting of George Wallace by saying, oh yeah, well John McCain was a POW. Which suggests a return to the wounded warrior status, the "how dare they attack me" backlash strategy.
...And sure enough, here comes the McCain reboot. Bill Kristol is a genius! In the same way that the guy holding the puppet strings knows exactly where the marionette is going to go!
Here's LA Times blogger Andrew Malcolm, who was Laura Bush's press secretary in 1999-2000, trying to make something out of nothing and playing John McCain's POW card for him:
As part of its effort to show the 72-year-old Republican Sen. John McCain as old and out of touch, the Democratic Party's hip campaign of Sen. Barack Obama, which frequently says it honors the former POW's military service to his country, Friday released a new ad.
As noted Friday by our blogging colleagues over at the Technology blog here, the ad says, among other things: "1982, John McCain goes to Washington. Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn't.
"He admits he doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an e-mail."
Like many of his generation, McCain does not like to talk details a lot about his wartime experiences, certainly not about any lingering physical symptoms. To be honest, it could sound like complaining and, as he's ruefully noted, unlike many others, McCain did come home [...]
Here's a passage from a lengthy Boston Globe profile on McCain that was published the last time he ran for president. It was headlined "McCain character loyal to a fault." It was written by Mary Leonard.
And it was printed more than eight years ago, on March 4, 2000.
It is available online, where Jonah Goldberg of The Corner blog at the National Review found it.
"McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan -- Ted Williams is his hero -- but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball."
BRZEZINSKI: Does John McCain, does he use the internet? Does he use email? [...]
DAVIS: He actually is, he always is grabbing people's Blackberrys on the bus. In fact, no reporter's Blackberry is safe from his prying eyes. He loves to tool around on the internet, he especially loves the videos that get produced that usually poke fun at him. I think that's his most entertaining part of the internet.
Now, maybe his thumbs work and his fingers don't, but considering that he said in the same article that he's learning to get on the Internet by himself, I highly doubt the veracity of this. Oh, and here's Tucker Bounds claiming he travels with a laptop:
“John McCain travels with a laptop,” said McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. “This is a senseless tactic from Obama’s campaign because they’re struggling with the realization that the American people understand he is not equipped to deliver change because his record has no bipartisanship or significant legislative accomplishment in it.”
It's kind of odd how big a role Der Spiegel is playing in the Presidential campaign. First Nouri al-Maliki essentially endorsed Barack Obama's plan for Iraq in those pages, and now Arnold Schwarzenegger explains how he was prepared to self-censor at the Republican National Convention before the budget crisis kept him at home.
SCHWARZENEGGER: The speech I would have given is the one that Fred Thompson gave. I gave him my speech because I did not go to the convention. It was a great speech because it talked in minute detail about McCain’s torture and his being a POW, and that’s the speech that the party wanted me to give. Why? Because this way I don’t go and talk about centrist politics and maybe rub some people the wrong way. That’s another stage.
We all know that there's tight message control around these conventions, and virtually all of the speeches are written by the respective campaigns. Still, it's interesting that Mr. Post-Partisan Maverick McCain, who always puts country above party and who very rarely talks about his POW experience, was willing to go to these lengths to muzzle Arnold.
(Also, who else thinks it would've been a bad idea to have the guy you handpick to present the story of torture and prison camps do it in what amounts to a German accent?)
• The media narrative of this convention is that Democrats aren't doing enough, they're being too boring, they're not giving enough specifics, they're not attacking McCain enough, they're attacking McCain in the wrong way, they're too divided, Michelle Obama mentioned Hillary too much... I mean it's all over the map. I wish we had an adult campaign for serious, adult times, and everybody quit with the blather. Republicans, by the way, will not have to do anything at their convention.
Mrs. Clinton, preparing for her own speech Tuesday night, appeared before emotional members of her home state delegation this morning. She urged the party to come together while taking a shot at new campaign commercials by Senator John McCain that seek to foster division between Clinton backers and those of Senator Barack Obama, the soon-to-be nominee.
“Let me state what I think about their tactics and these ads,” she said in an appearance at a downtown hotel. “I’m Hillary Rodham Clinton and I do not approve of that message.”
This PUMA thing is the most media-savvy non-story in history. Celebrilawyer Gloria Allred was at the California delegation today claiming that she had been "gagged," and she had a gag around her mouth and everything.
• The recent polls I've seen, none of which really matter before the convention, are somewhat mixed, but it is notable that McCain can't win his own state handily and will probably have to campaign there.
Very exciting. Email doesn't seem to be working though. Let's see what's on the Internet!
Mark Halperin, in case you didn't know, is the dumbest man alive, but fortunately, he's not running Democratic campaigns, though his mindset is pervasive. I think Obama is less concerned with what the opposition is going to say about him than your average Democrat (oh noes! Rev. Wright! Bill Ayers!).
John McCain is digging such a big hole on this POW defense he's going to hit China. Even MoDo is starting to mock him for this. Apparently the McCain campaign thinks it's a winner.
Advisors say if Obama gets "nastier" on that issue that opens the door for them. Advisors say the "Rezko deal stinks to the high heavens." They will be prepared to show McCain's "home" in Hanoi by using images of his cell. They claim they have not overused the POW element and insist they have "underused it." They say Americans think most people in presidential politics are wealthy and will point out that Obama "made himself a multi-millionaire after he entered public life."
OK, it worked in 1982 when you said it in a debate ONCE. It's now beyond parody.
Florida and Michigan will have full delegations at the convention.
Hilariously, the McCain campaign put together a new ad today as well, and it opens with - I kid you not - "Celebrities don't have to worry about family budgets, but we do."
Yeah, I guess when you don't even know how many homes you have, a family budget is hard to set. Who knows how many mortgages you're paying?
I think this is a case of McCain punching himself out. The "celebrity" sneer is just pathetic considering McCain's fabulous life, and even the "You can't say that to me, I was a POW" defense is ringing stale among the punditocracy. McCain's one-note, totally negative campaign is sinking.
Good for the Obama campaign to keep the pressure on.
This really is quite amazing. I didn't imagine that every response, every excuse by the McCain campaign would be tied to his POW service, all the while keeping up the fiction that he's reluctant to talk about it. But that's exactly what's happened, to an embarrassing degree.
Speaking to the Washington Post, aide Brian Rogers, in full damage-control mode, acknowledged that his boss had "some investment properties and stuff," but added: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison."
That the McCain campaign could incorporate his service in Vietnam into a campaign spat over his property portfolio is not so surprising. The Senator has, rightfully or not, used his history as a POW shrewdly and repeatedly throughout this campaign. Earlier this week, for instance, amidst speculation that the Senator may have received in advance the questions to a values forum between him and Obama, spokeswoman Nicole Wallace declared: "The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous."
When Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Senator John Edwards, ridiculed McCain's health care policy, his aides didn't respond with a substantive retort. Rather, they declared that their boss knew what it was like to get inadequate care "from another government." Even earlier, when the topic was about earmarks, McCain criticized Sen. Hillary Clinton for proposing funds for a museum celebrating Woodstock. He didn't know what there was to celebrate, he said, because he was "tied up" during the music festival.
The Senator has even brought his military record into discussion of his music tastes. Explaining that his favorite song was "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, he offered that his knowledge of music "stopped evolving when his plane intercepted a surface-to-air missile." Dancing Queen, however, was produced in 1975, eight years after McCain's plane was shot down.
There are a dozen more of these. And it's actually offensive at this point. Brandon Friedman at VoteVets has had enough.
1. Being a POW is not an excuse for everything.
The bottom line is that we're sick of hearing about this as a justification for everything John McCain does or doesn't do. This instance is only the latest example, as others have noted.
The fact is, John McCain's service during Vietnam was honorable and he sacrificed a great deal. But his service to the country carries no more weight than that of any other POW. Likewise, while McCain has given so much to his country, thousands of veterans--past and present--have given as much or more. In this war alone, thousands of troops have lost limbs, been paralyzed, and been burned beyond recognition. So to see McCain resort to playing the POW card when answering legitimate questions, in my mind, cheapens that experience. And by cheapening his own experience in war, he degrades all of our experiences in war. He turns the horrific incidents we've all seen, touched, smelled, and felt into a lame excuse to earn political points. And it dishonors us all [...]
But there's also another issue here:
2. Thousands of veterans are homeless--that is, they have ZERO homes.
John McCain seems to forget that while he and his wife own at least eight houses, there are currently over 150,000 homeless vets on America's streets. The only "houses" they own are cardboard boxes under a bridge. Many of these vets served alongside John McCain in Vietnam. Some might have even been POWs. Either way, thousands of them have suffered immeasurably overseas, in the service of their country.
It's really crazy and it's reaching the level of out-and-out parody. Every time anything happens to McCain, troll liberal blog comments and you'll get half a dozen "but he was a POW!" If that acerbic stance goes mainstream, forget it. McCain is shot. I can't believe he's still trying this.
But it's just like a loudmouth pundit to have absolutely no self-awareness.
Why do the media idiots love him? Because he’s one of them.
Why do they give him a pass on his totally fraudulent references to elitism? Because they do that shit all the time.
Why do they love his insanity-based foreign policy? Because he says all the absurd, superficially strong-sounding stuff that makes good TV.
They love him like Chris Matthews loved Tim Russert. They love him like David Brooks loves Tom Friedman loves Richard Cohen loves Fred Hiatt. They love him like the Slate editorial board loves any idiot with a contrary position. They would go to bat for him because it’s tribal, because they get him, on a fundamental level. He’s good TV people. He’s one of them.
Keep defending him, guys. And make sure you repeat the quote when you do it. Because you don't actually have a whole lot of credibility anyway, and as long as you mention clearly that John McCain doesn't know how many houses he has, people will get the message.
In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?
According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.
Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of "long-time standing" that victims of Bush's torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely "enhanced interrogation."
And he sort of follows up on this, but most who have linked to this haven't - given that McCain himself supported the Military Commissions Act, which allowed for enhanced interrogation from the CIA, and since he's consistently opposed stripping the ability of the CIA to engage in this, JOHN MCCAIN doesn't believe that John McCain was tortured.
The reason that we're going to need a draft in a McCain presidency is because he's a reckless hothead who's default setting is more wars and more carnage.
In an apparent effort to regain the offensive, the Obama campaign launched a broad attack on McCain today, portraying him as reckless on foreign policy, a hot-head who's too willing to use force and not willing enough to apprise himself of facts on the ground before urging military action.
On a conference call with reporters just now, senior Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice argued that there is "a pattern here of recklessness" when it comes to McCain's approach to various national security issues. She pointed out that McCain reacted too quickly with "aggressive and bellicose" rhetoric on the Russia-Georgia crisis, and contrasted that with Obama's measured response to the dust-up.
"There's something to be said for letting facts drive judgment," Rice said, also referring to McCain's desire to target Iraq right after 9/11.
Considering their reluctance to attack on these terms before, clearly there's been an alarm bell at the campaign, and a need to start defining the opponent. This is a good start, especially if it's amplified by surrogates. The DNC sent out a host of quotes by Republicans who know McCain saying they don't trust him with his finger on the button.
GOP Senator Thad Cochran: “The Thought Of His Being President Sends A Cold Chill Down My Spine.” “Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who has known Senator John McCain for more than three decades, on Wednesday endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Cochran said his choice was prompted partly by his fear of how McCain might behave in the Oval Office. ‘The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine,’ Cochran said about McCain by phone. ‘He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.’” [Boston Globe, 1/27/08]
Former GOP Senator Rick Santorum Said McCain’s Anger Is A “Legitimate Cause For Concern.” “Former Senator Rick Santorum… said Mr. McCain, of Arizona, deserved credit for having gone through the entire campaign ‘under stressful conditions’ without any memorable outbursts. ‘Does he have a capacity to control it?’ asked Mr. Santorum, referring to Mr. McCain’s detonations. ‘Over the course of the campaign, I think he has managed to. But I think it is a legitimate cause for concern.’” [NYT, 2/17/08]
Former GOP Senator Bob Smith: “His Temper Would Place This Country At Risk In International Affairs, And The World Perhaps In Danger. In My Mind, It Should Disqualify Him.” “Former senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican, expresses worries about McCain: ‘His temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him.’… Smith admits to not liking McCain, a point he has often made over the years to reporters. ‘I've witnessed a lot of his temper and outbursts,’ Smith said. ‘For me, some of this stuff is relevant. It raises questions about stability. . . . It's more than just temper. It's this need of his to show you that he's above you -- a sneering, condescending attitude. It's hurt his relationships in Congress. . . . I've seen it up-close.’” [Washington Post, 4/20/08]
GOP Senator Pete Domenici: “I Decided I Didn't Want This Guy Anywhere Near A Trigger.” McCain’s “ire is all too real. This has prompted questions about whether his temperament is suited to the office of commander-in-chief or whether it might handicap him in a presidential campaign against either Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton, who are not known for such outbursts. ‘I decided I didn't want this guy anywhere near a trigger,’ Domenici told Newsweek in 2000. […] McCain's temper hinders his efforts to make peace with his critics and rally Republicans behind his candidacy for president. That could be a big problem, because his most persistent foes — conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson — talk to tens of millions of people each day. […] McCain's tone was certainly on Dobson's mind when he issued a stinging anti-endorsement on Super Tuesday. He mentioned various issues, but Dobson also said the senator "has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language." [AP, 2/16/08]
Former Arizona Governor Jane Hull: McCain’s Anger Is “Something That John Has To Keep Control Of.” “The state's most popular politician and fellow Republican, Gov. Jane Dee Hull, has defied political custom and endorsed Gov. George W. Bush of Texas over the home-state candidate. An important reason, say people close to Mrs. Hull and Mr. McCain, is the Senator's dismissive treatment of her. … Mrs. Hull described her relations with Senator McCain as ‘not particularly warm.’ Pretending to hold a telephone receiver several inches from her ear, Mrs. Hull explained in an interview this week how she reacted to Mr. McCain's occasional eruptions at her. ‘You've got to hold it out there for a while, and let him calm down,’ she said. "We all have our faults, and it's something that John has to keep control of.’” [New York Times, 10/25/99]
There are other lines of attack, to be sure - Obama has consistently hit McCain on being part of the "same old Washington" of George Bush, and now, Jack Abramoff (that's a great ad, and it's running specifically in Georgia, another example of these local ads that can make a difference) - but the "hothead" one can be tied to everything. McCain wants to recklessly privatize Social Security. He wants to recklessly give control of your health care over to insurance companies. He wants to recklessly drill for oil offshore instead of moving to a clean energy future. He wants to recklessly get everyone you know involved in multiple wars.
He's a hothead. A flyboy. Remember the last one of them we had in the White House?
I also want to distance myself from this. While it's clear that McCain can't manage his military service or his own family, it's unclear what you can get out of attacks on his POW record, like this and this and this and this, and this video:
I don't know why he won't unseal his POW records. It seems curious, but it's none of my business whether or not he gave secrets to the enemy.
... I should add that Josh Marshall is right - demanding that the other campaign stop attacking you is a fool's errand. Today's round of attacks are far better.
So as I suspected, the Alexander Solzhenitsyn "cross in the dirt" story was apocryphal, and frequently told in Christian conservative circles. If you ask me, that makes it MORE likely that McCain just made it up. It's been in the wingnut ether for some time - apparently Chuck Colson was a prime mover on this thing:
Of course, it's still possible that McCain or Salter picked this up from the sort of right-wing circles that it first originated in. After all, this tale was bandied about by Chuck Colson and many other wingnuts for years; McCain or Salter could have picked it up from such circles, as the notes from Colson's 1983 book, Loving God, explain:
"The story about Alexander Solzhenitsen and the old man who made the sign of the cross was first told by Solzhenitsyn to a group of Christian leaders and later recounted by Billy Graham in his New Year's telecast, 1977. It has been retold subsequently, most publicly by Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC)."
It's a short hop over to the McCain campaign in 2000, where this story first gets told by all accounts. At the time, while McCain was raging against "agents of intolerance" on the religious right he still was burnishing his war hero credentials, and as I've said the impulse to embellish your personal biography to reach an emotional connection with the electorate is powerful for politicians.
Fellow Naval Academy classmate and POW of John McCain Phillip Butler is shrill.
John was a wild man. He was funny, with a quick wit and he was intelligent. But he was intent on breaking every USNA regulation in our 4 inch thick USNA Regulations book. And I believe he must have come as close to his goal as any midshipman who ever attended the Academy. John had me "coming around" to his room frequently during my plebe year. And on one occasion he took me with him to escape "over the wall" in the dead of night. He had a taxi cab waiting for us that took us to a bar some 7 miles away. John had a few beers, but forbid me to drink (watching out for me I guess) and made me drink cokes. I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year and he unbelievably managed to graduate though he spent the majority of his first class year on restriction for the stuff he did get caught doing. In fact he barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates [...]
John was awarded a Silver Star and Purple Heart for heroism and wounds in combat. This heroism has been played up in the press and in his various political campaigns. But it should be known that there were approximately 600 military POW's in Vietnam. Among all of us, decorations awarded have recently been totaled to the following: Medals of Honor - 8, Service Crosses - 42, Silver Stars - 590, Bronze Stars - 958 and Purple Hearts - 1,249. John certainly performed courageously and well. But it must be remembered that he was one hero among many - not uniquely so as his campaigns would have people believe.
I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.
Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60's and 70's. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John's age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.
I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.
It is also disappointing to see him take on and support Bush's war in Iraq, even stating we might be there for another 100 years. For me John represents the entrenched and bankrupt policies of Washington-as-usual. The past 7 years have proven to be disastrous for our country. And I believe John's views on war, foreign policy, economics, environment, health care, education, national infrastructure and other important areas are much the same as those of the Bush administration.
Wow. It's stunning to see someone who knows McCain lay this all out so specifically. And he hits everything - the age, the temper, the flyboy antics, the policies right in line with Bush. It's all there.
Dr. Phillip Butler has been writing op-eds for Military.com and elsewhere for quite a while. This is not some new arrival to the scene.
Barack Obama today went to the VFW and did the "shame on you" bit, condeming McCain for questioning his patriotism and calling for a real debate, while "honor(ing) Senator McCain's service."
There's a difference between huffing and puffing and targeting shameless Republicans for shame, and telling the truth. Phillip Butler told the truth. And he should have some fun with his newfound not-stardom, with all the not-appearing on news programs and not-being cited in the print media. Because what he said, you can't say on television.
Mold infests the barracks that were set up here a year ago for wounded soldiers after poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center triggered a systemwide overhaul, soldiers say.
Twenty soldiers, who spoke to USA TODAY early last week, said their complaints about mold and other problems went unheeded for months. They also said they had been ordered not speak about the conditions at Fort Sill.
Officers at the Army base last week ordered that ventilation ducts in two barracks be replaced and soldiers be surveyed, anonymously if they wished, about any concerns. Maj. Gen. Peter Vangjel, the commanding officer, said it was "inappropriate" for soldiers to be ordered not to talk about the mold.
If A Nose Grows In A Forest, And No One Is There To Hear It...
Last night, John McCain, he of the Pinocchioproblem, retold the story for the Saddleback Church congregants about his time in the Hanoi Hilton (John McCain is very reluctant to talk about his POW experience), when a guard loosened his ropes and, later, on Christmas, drew a cross in the sand, in solidarity with McCain the prisoner, a simple expression of faith. The crowd loved it.
McCain has been telling this story since at least 1999, in his book "Faith of Our Fathers." In 2000 he told the story and it involved the guard drawing the cross with a sandal. I guess the stick was better for the visual of the ad that ran this year:
Now there's the revelation that the story of the cross is remarkably similar to a possibly apocryphal story attributed to the late Aleksander Solzhenitsyn. There are a number of Christian books that tell a similar tale about Solzhenitsyn's redemptive moment with a drawn cross. Here's one from 1997:
Along with other prisoners, he worked in the fields day after day, in rain and sun, during summer and winter. His life appeared to be nothing more than backbreaking labor and slow starvation. The intense suffering reduced him to a state of despair.
On one particular day, the hopelessness of his situation became too much for him. He saw no reason to continue his struggle, no reason to keep on living. His life made no difference in the world. So he gave up.
Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.
As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.
As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.
Solzhenitsyn slowly rose to his feet, picked up his shovel, and went back to work. Outwardly, nothing had changed. Inside, he had received hope.
[From Luke Veronis, "The Sign of the Cross"; Communion, issue 8, Pascha 1997.]
Here's the same story in a 2002 book. And here's another from a book in 1994, which could be the original source. It seems to have spread like an email forward, and most authors source it to Solzhenitsyn's book The Gulag Archipelago, though it's unclear whether the story actually appears there. But it was mentioned a number of times following Solzhenitsyn's death this month. I can't find McCain referring to this story before 1999's Faith of Our Fathers, not even in this incredibly detailed account of his POW experience for US News and World Report published in May 1973.
It's entirely possible that this type of scene happened at a prison camp more than once, and there are differences between the two stories (in McCain's telling, the drawing is performed by a guard; in Solzhenitsyn's, it's a fellow prisoner). The similarities could be entirely coincidental. This is not something you can prove or disprove.
That didn't matter in 2000. Al Gore said he invented the Internet and that he found Love Canal and that he and Tipper were the inspiration for Love Story. That's what happened and there was no shaking anyone in the media off of that, and they were going to use those and other nuggets to build a story about Gore's serial exaggerations, and make that character issue far more important than any policy or point of difference between him and George W. Bush.
Here's my point. I don't actually care about stuff like this. I find it much more relevant and vital that McCain was quicker to begin the invasion of Iraq after 9-11 than even Bush and Cheney, or that he believes in his personal grandiosity so much that he imagines skirmishes on the Russo-Georgian border to be world-historical events that demand action, or that his health care plan would literally cover about 5% of those currently uninsured, or that he wants to continue Bush's policies of inequality by cutting taxes massively for the rich, or that he thinks anyone who makes less than $5 million a year isn't rich, and on and on. Stories about politicians embellishing parts of their personal biography for dramatic effect are fairly routine and show little more than that they're... ambitious politicians, looking to connect emotionally with voters to gain an advantage. Remember how Ronald Reagan convinced himself that he served in World War II? Hillary Clinton's "sniper fire" in Tuzla? Barack Obama's book actually admits that characters are invented and time compressed. So this is nothing new. And I wish ALL of it were ignored, because the thin strand connecting these gaffes and exaggerations to the actual character of the nominee is tenuous at best.
But the media goes ga-ga for this kind of stuff and offers little else, for the most part. I'm pleased that CBS is going to do 35 long segments on every aspect of the candidates' policies this fall, but let's face it, that isn't going to drive the debate of the chattering class. They are uniformly uninterested in the issues, and they would much rather obsess over minutiae and speculate about character, whether the candidates "look Presidential" or "have what it takes" to win. In the LA Times today, there are two articles that speak to this. One is a critical review of broadcast news by media critic Mary McNamara:
SO MUCH has been said about the media's handling of this campaign that it's almost embarrassing to address the topic. But after watching hours, days, weeks of it on television, the cry of anguish cannot be suppressed: For the love of all that is holy, how did one of the most important presidential races in history, between two men who embody such disparate political possibilities, wind up looking like a montage sequence in a Will Ferrell movie?
"Bias" has been the watchword, but watching the nightly news loops, it seems less like bias than just plain old fear. Fear of missing the moment, of boring the viewers, of relying on the old-model thinking -- who, what, when, why, where -- while everyone yawns and returns their collective attention to their new iPhones.
"No, no, wait," news outlets seem to shout like desperate screenwriters in a rapidly deteriorating pitch meeting. Nevermind those boring old proposed policies or the contradictory voting records or any of that stuff, look at this, you're going to love it, it's The Big Reveal.
Indeed, this is a major component of how the news media covers modern campaigns. The other way is through horse-race discussion, taking those gaffes and nuggets and bits of character effluvia and judging how they will "play" with core constituencies. The latest practitioner is Chuck Todd, and he comes out and admits that he's a sportscaster:
Less than an hour later, Todd sat in a third-floor studio for his only practice run anchoring on MSNBC before the conventions. It was his first time behind the desk, and he anxiously checked with the floor director throughout the hour to make sure he was getting his cues right. "This is big-boy TV now," he said.
The Miami native wasn't looking for a television career when he first arrived in this city as a student at George Washington University, already fascinated with politics. "I thought I wanted to manage a presidential campaign," he said. But after working on a few races, including Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin's 1992 presidential bid, he decided "it was more interesting to do it as a sport than trying to be a hired gun."
Here's the thing, though - in the case of the Village, it's more like a home-team sportscaster. The guy who is paid the Raiders to cover the game, and he hates every other team and has no problem shaping the story to benefit his guys. The refs are always against his team and the other guys are always cheating. Their draft pick is forever the savior of the franchise and the free agent they let go was a bum anyway. They give you the "inside story" without ever being critical of the guys who write the paychecks.
If there was an even spread from the media of damaging stories or unfavorable narratives on both sides of the political divide that'd be one thing. But the idea of John McCain as a serial exaggerator in the way that they painted Al Gore would be unthinkable, despite the fact that the evidence is the same, and actually even more so in the case of McCain. So we get media types arguing that infidelity like that of John Edwards disqualifies someone for higher political office without applying that to McCain or indeed several of the GOP field this year. We get them defending Republican military veterans from attacks they deem scurrilous and baseless yet not Democrats of the same rank. We get the same paint-by-numbers narratives of Democrats as weak and feminine and Republicans as strong and patriarchal year after year no matter who the candidate, no matter what the policy, no matter what.
I'm focusing on this gross double-standard in the comparison between Gore and McCain because I think it's the most salient example and it shows to what extent their thumbs are on the scale. The influence is deeply felt by those who watch politics, especially those who see it more occasionally. And when there was a perception on the other side of the aisle that the media was too liberal, they mounted an effort to relentlessly criticize them to make sure their perspective was represented. I don't necessarily want a perspective represented; I'd like to see campaigns covered with a reliance on facts and not fiction, substance and not style. But if continuous, vigilant criticism is what's warranted, well... have laptop, will travel.
(incidentally, this is the third instance that I can remember of McCain possibly fudging his POW record, which he of course is extremely reluctant to talk about. The more extreme Rovian in me wonders whether or not McCain's handlers are just trolling for a response from the opposition, so they can freak out about people denigrating his military service. Hmm...)
Walter Isaacson asked John McCain about McCain's inexplicable love for ABBA. McCain played the POW card:
“If there is anything I am lacking in, I’ve got to tell you, it is taste in music and art and other great things in life,” McCain joked. “I’ve got to say that a lot of my taste in music stopped about the time I impacted a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane and never caught up again.”
That would be a two-week story on Al Gore, with much chortling to be had by all.
Not to mention the all-timer, a combination of lying and pandering that went down the memory hole so fast you couldn't even see it:
While visiting Pittsburgh, John McCain said that while he was captured, he really loved the Steelers! The 1967 Steelers were 4-9-1. (thanks to Scarce)
"When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information… I named the starting lineup, defensive line, of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!” — Sen. John McCain
McCain also said the same thing about the 1967 Green Bay Packers. McCain was a POW from late 1967 to early 1973 [...]
In McCain’s best-selling 1999 memoir “Faith of My Fathers,” McCain writes:
“Once my condition had stabilized, my interrogators resumed their work. Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship’s name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant. Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line, and said they were members of my squadron. When asked to identify future targets, I simply recited the names of a number of North Vietnamese cities that had already been bombed.”
In 2005, A&E ran a movie version of “Faith of My Fathers.”
And McCain discussed that precise clip on CNN.
The actor playing McCain, asked to name the men in his squadron, says: “Starr; Greg; McGee; Davis; Adderly; Brown; Ringo; Wood.”
Cut back to real life. The CNN anchor asks McCain: “For those who don’t know the story, were those NFL football players?” “That was the starting lineup of the Green Bay Packers, the first Super Bowl champions, yes,” McCain responded.
It would be irresponsible not to speculate that the accumulation of these lies and exaggerations bespeaks a craven personality that cannot be trusted as a world leader.
Cokie, take note.
...by the way, John McCain is extremely reluctant to talk about his POW status. Discuss.
...in the interest of being fair and balanced, I will note that Obama did take his shirt off at the beach. This was the actual subject of a McCain campaign attack yesterday. It's true, shirtless at the beach - he's just not like you and me.
So McCain's surrogates and his BBQ buddies in the media spent all last week claiming that he's never used his POW status as a rationale for his candidacy, yet in the first 10 seconds of this ad, McCain contrasts himself from the dirty (black) hippies by exalting his being shot down over Vietnam and refusing an early release.
You can set aside the value of this service; I find it honorable but irrelevant to the task of the Presidency, which involves judgment on key issues like wanting wars to end and jobs to return to America. But this is in direct contrast to all that blather from last week. McCain is running on his bio in such a way that makes John Kerry look like he never mentioned Vietnam once.
Not that he has anything else to run on, but this is really jarring. Will the media notice? Signs point to absolutely not.
I am a film and video editor, stand-up comedian, and blogger. My editor resume is here. A sample of my stand-up is here. The blog is what you're reading right now. Wasn't that easy?
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