Republican Intellectualism At Its Finest

Enough said:

Associated Press Finally Realizes What We Already Know About McCain

He's a conservative! Congratulations to the AP for actually printing it, despite making sure he gets his favorite donuts. What we on the left have known since McCain was making himself present on the stage of the U.S. Senate many years ago, the AP is starting to catch on. Instead of going along with the "maverick" crap that so many in the media have, they actually (gasp) looked at his record and found that the so-called moderate is much more to the right than McCain's friends in the media let on.

From The AP/Huff Po:

The likely Republican presidential nominee is much more conservative than voters appear to realize. McCain leans to the right on issue after issue, not just on the Iraq war but also on abortion, gay rights, gun control and other issues that matter to his party's social conservatives.

The four-term Arizona senator, a longtime member of the Armed Services Committee, criticized the earlier handling of the war but has been a crucial ally in President Bush's effort to increase and maintain U.S. forces in Iraq.

Besides the war, McCain agrees broadly with Bush and other conservatives on:

_Abortion.[...]

_Gay rights.[...]

_Gun control. [...]

His conservatism could be a problem for McCain _ particularly if this November's contest is as close as recent presidential elections, which were decided by independent-minded voters in the center of the political spectrum.

But he might avoid this problem to the extent people know him as an independent-minded politician. And many do view him that way.

"People see him as a centrist. They don't see him as a conservative," said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

People see him as that because the media hasn't been doing their job, but if the rest of the "journalists" out there would report on McCain's record and issue positions instead of eating ribs at the ranch in Arizona, maybe Americans would see the "Maverick" for who he really is. Despite this one article however, most coverage of the Senator is extremely favorable. That is why I won't be holding my breath for the traditional media outlets to do their job, so the blogosphere will continue to do theirs.

Why The Press Loves McCain

There are many reasons to speculate on why the national press loves John McCain so much. He talks to them on his bus as if he were their friend, he invites them to barbecues, he uses self-deprecating humor and to top it off, he has the record of being a war hero. All of that and then some come together to shape what Neal Gabler calls the first postmodernist candidate. He is able to go into the hearts of what we know as journalists today and exploits them for all they're worth.

From The NY Times:

Seeming to view himself and the whole political process with a mix of amusement and bemusement, Mr. McCain is an ironist wooing a group of individuals who regard ironic detachment more highly than sincerity or seriousness. He may be the first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency — the first to turn his press relations into the basis of his candidacy.

Of course this is not how the press typically talks about Mr. McCain. The conventional analysis of his press popularity begins with his military service. If campaigns are primarily about narratives, he has a good and distinguished one, and it would take a very curmudgeonly press corps to dismiss it, even though that is exactly what a good portion of it did to Senator John Kerry’s service record in 2004. Reporters also often cite Mr. McCain’s bonhomie as the reason for their affection. As Ryan Lizza described it last month in The New Yorker, a typical campaign day has Mr. McCain rumbling from one stop to another on his bus, the Straight Talk Express, sitting in the rear on a horseshoe-shaped leather couch surrounded by reporters and talking “until the room is filled with the awkward silence of journalists with no more questions.”

The Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, citing the conviviality during the 2000 campaign, wrote that “a trip on his bus is, well, a trip.” And as the party master, Mr. McCain is no longer the reporters’ subject. He is their pal.

Gabler goes on into the intricacies of how McCain works his magic and how the press gleefully responds in the way the "maverick" desires. The press is almost like a pack of dogs being guided by a skilled trainer who knows all the tricks. Here on the left we scream and shout at the press to wake up and become independent of the campaigns and report fairly and accurately, but as Chris "Tweety" Matthews joyfully exclaims, 'they're his base.'

What needs to happen is a constant barrage of truth from the progressive media and blogosphere, coupled with the Democratic campaigns/nominee's steady stream of attacks on McCain. Obama is doing quite well with this so far and tries to stay away from the "wonkiness" that the press hates all the while coming back to the base to talk about concrete programs that will help our nation come back from the disaster that is the Bush Presidency. It is a fine line that Obama (and Clinton) must walk in order to appease the current system of how the media (doesn't) works for the sake of ratings and not to inform average Americans.

The Maverick Of Inconsistencies

John McCain loves being called the "Maverick," and for the most part the media dutifully falls in line with the infected blankets he's selling. Thankfully there are a few journalists out there that do not fall for his crap (and probably aren't invited to McCain's special getaway for the press). There are a few outside of the punditry class that will actually highlight what McCain says versus his record as a Senator.

From The NY Times:

Mr. McCain, who derided his onetime Republican competitor Mitt Romney for his political mutability, has himself meandered over the years from position to position on some topics, particularly as he has tried to court the conservatives who have long distrusted him. His most striking turnaround has been on the Bush tax cuts, which he voted against twice but now wants to make permanent. Mr. McCain has also expressed varying positions on immigration, torture, abortion and Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary.

Mr. McCain’s advisers say that he has evolved rather than switched positions in his 25-year career in the House and Senate and that he has been remarkably consistent on his support for the war in Iraq and the American troop escalation there.

“But he also believes in getting things done, which requires legislative compromise sometimes and putting aside some goals to address more urgent goals,” Charles Black, one of Mr. McCain’s senior advisers, said Sunday in a telephone interview from Mr. McCain’s Arizona ranch.

Hmmm, so the one thing he stays consistent on is the thing Americans are most united against. Then when his adviser says that he will compromise to get things done, he really means getting things done like winning the White House. McCain will do and say anything to get that radical right-wing base behind him, even if it means forgoing those things like principles.

Yes, Abramoff Thinks You're An Insider Mr. McCain

The "maverick" likes to tout himself as a moderate reformer, or at least he used to before bowing/pandering to the religious right to win the Republican nomination. Well, those former assertions are starting to ring hollow as campaign contributions to the Arizona Senator are analyzed. While McCain rhetorically tells people to go visit Abramoff in prison to see if he's a Washington insider, he might not want people to know the answer to that question.

From The Huffington Post:

A review of campaign finance filings shows that the Arizona Republican has accepted more than $100,000 in donations from employees of Greenberg Traurig, the very firm where Abramoff once reigned.

Those donations include several thousand dollars from registered lobbyists who represent, or have represented, businesses such as NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch's media empire; Spi Spirits, a Cyprus based company that has fought with the Russian government for the rights to the Stolichnaya vodka brand name; El Paso Corp, a major energy company; General Motors; and the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a group of businesses and trade associations "concerned" about the shortage of lesser skilled and unskilled labor.

All told, McCain has received more than $400,000 from lobbying firms, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And among his major fundraisers ("bundlers") 59 have been identified as lobbyists by the non-profit organization Public Citizen.

I was once told by a wise man that the people you consider friends tell a lot about you. By the looks of what is listed above he likes to drink non-Russian stoli while screwing over GM workers and supporting immigration so that employers can have access to cheap labor, all while watching the propaganda being spewed on Fox News. Sounds like an immoral life to me, no wonder all the purity-obsessed evangelicals hate his guts.

Who's Maverick Is McCain?

Here are just a few of the Senator's fans:



Of course they fail to say exactly how he can claim this status, the answer to that is anyone' guess.