The New Republic

Your last paragraph undermines your penultimate one.  For someone who saw the performance to go on and "exactly one year later [] enthusiastically support the decision to topple the Iraqi regime by force" is simply criminal.

- icarusr

July 17, 2008 at 11:14am

Actually, the Saddam quote has been out there in the blogs for quite some time, but thanks for picking up on it again.

I remember Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay quoting it in their book America Unbound. www.intellectualconservative.com/article4010.html

- fbacon2

July 17, 2008 at 11:27am

"Still, it does make you wonder why that encounter didn't shake McCain's faith in Bush as the guy who'd be leading us into Iraq--or, at the very least, prompt him to question Bush's management of the war sooner than he did"

McCain choose to play ball with the Bushies because he wanted to be the next president. What is there for us to wander about?

--

- hepneck

July 17, 2008 at 12:10pm

"What is there for us to wander about?"

Whether McCain is really the guy who was appalled by shallow intellect and callous disregard, or McCain is really the talk tough, take no prisoners war hawk, or if he is really just an amorphous blob of DNA that is ready to take any form and tell any story his present context requires in order to bolster his own prestige.

I'm starting to lean heavily for option #3, which is depressing because I actually liked McCain prior to all of this.

- GSpinks

July 17, 2008 at 12:55pm

This goes to the question of leadership. Can anyone cite an example from his political career in which John McCain has ever acted like a leader? Like the old cliche goes, McCain seems to be good at following and getting out of the way. But not leading. This anecdote is all about John McCain, loyal follower and yes-man. His "maverick" schtick is all about getting out of the way -- he doesn't try to change his party, he just does his own thing in isolation, usually therefore with little to no practical impact. John McCain Takes an Independent Stand sounds like an impressive theme, until you realize that to McCain, "independent" means "alone."

Where is the example of McCain striking out his own position and then doing the work to bring his party with him? There's nothing wrong with being a follower or a lone wolf -- as long as you're not running for president.

- rhubarbs

July 17, 2008 at 1:29pm

...Where is the example of McCain striking out his own position ...

The Surge; calling for Rumsfeld to be fired; McCain Feingold; standing against ear marks; and before his career --refusing to leave war prison to let others next in line leave?

- basman

July 17, 2008 at 1:41pm

Leaving other issues aside, where I slightly disagree with Rhubarbs, McCain had a total failure of leadership in regards to Iraq. Somehow his campaign thinks that because he criticized the way the war was managed after he already voted for that war somehow makes things ok. It doesn't and it shouldn't. As Barack Obama noted in his 2004 convention speech, you don't go to war in the first place without enough troops and without a coherent exit strategy. The fact that McCain criticized the way the war was administered after we had already invaded the damn country shows poor judgment, failed leadership, and maybe worst, the failure to take responsibility for his own decision's in the first place.

- jyunis

July 17, 2008 at 2:27pm

basman, I didn't question McCain's willingness to strike out on his own; I questioned his willingness to do so in a manner that leads his own party to follow him. I can be a "maverick" and say the sky is green; that's not leadership. Leadership is convincing other people to believe that the sky is green and to act on the belief. As far as the points you raise:

McCain's "stand against" earmarks hasn't prevented him from actually using earmarks to direct funding to his pet projects, which he does, so that's out. McCain-Feingold got passed, yes, but McCain's own party continues to stand almost uniformly against it, most actually calling it unconstitutional, and McCain now says that he wants to appoint more judged to the Supreme Court in the mold of the ones who've already declared McCain-Feingold to be unconstitutional. McCain called for Rumsfeld's head, yes, but by the time he did so the bandwagon was already pretty full. When everyone else is already doing something, and you start doing it too, that's called "following."

The surge might be the one thing you raise that shows legitimate leadership, in terms of actually getting others in his party to follow him. Of course, McCain claims that he had believed something like the surge was necessary as early as late 2003. If you believe urgent action is necessary to stop your country from losing a war but you keep quiet about it for a couple of years out of deference to your party's leader, that's actually the exact opposite of "leadership."

- rhubarbs

July 17, 2008 at 3:13pm

"[S]choolyard bravado."  "'F___ Saddam,' he said." "We're taking him out."  Why are those quotes, attributed to the imbecile-in-chief, so credulous?

Why of course. A drunk, a (supposedly) man, who grew up at 40 years old, who failed upwards--thanks to daddy--walks as if he is John Wayne (himself a jingoistic, war-mongering, WWII (!!) draft dodger), suffering from Oedipal complex.  That's why.  

- tec619

July 17, 2008 at 3:48pm

What an extraordinary story. How could you people vote for him....twice!

- The Ignorant Populist

July 17, 2008 at 4:25pm

Iggy - the other guys were worse.

- butchie b

July 17, 2008 at 4:41pm

jyunis : I'd like to add that a country shouldn't enter a war based on lies. (Intelligence failures my ass. CIA and DIA analysts were caveating the shit out of their roundly ignored reports.) Mendacity, undermines the whole enterprise. That particular matter should be of great importance to those so-called Christians our there. Guess not.

- tec619

July 17, 2008 at 4:42pm

tec, you know I admire your comments a lot, but the Duke was 4-F.   Let's leave him out of this.  

- boneill

July 17, 2008 at 6:13pm

boneill: Sorry, such is not the case. The below information is from Wikipedia, but other sources are available.

Wayne was exempted from service owing to is age (34 yrs old during Pearl Harbor) and received a faimily deferment. (Apparently, all the other fathers wanted to orphan their kids. hell, that's why FDR created Social Security.)

However, other older stars--with families-- still managed to enlist. A couple examples (including at on Dec 7, 1941): Clark Gable (41 yrs, USAAF, five European combat missions, observer-gunner); Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (34 yrs, USN, Navy Beach Jumpers ); Henry Fonda (36 yrs, USN, LTjg, Air Combat Intelligence); Jimmy Stewart (33 yrs, USAAF, flew mission bomber missions over Europe at 36 yrs old).

F-ck(!!) John Wayne. Today's conservatives-- (most notabley Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Rush Limbaugh adn on and on) emulate the Duke's jingoistic, cowardly, selfish model.

Read below.

WIKIPEDIA

America's entry into World War II resulted in a deluge of support for the war effort from all sectors of society, and Hollywood was no exception. Established stars such as Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (USN, Silver Star), Henry Fonda (USN, Bronze Star), and Clark Gable (USAAC) as well as emerging actors such as Eddie Albert (USN, Bronze Star) and Tyrone Power (USMC) rushed to sign up for military service. Most notably, James Stewart (USAAC, Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, Croix de Guerre) had already enlisted in the US Army Air Corps, surmounting great obstacles in order to do so.

As the majority of male leads left Hollywood to serve overseas, John Wayne saw his just-beginning stardom at risk. Despite enormous pressure from his inner circle of friends, he put off enlisting. Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status, classified as 3-A (family deferment). Wayne's secretary recalled making inquiries of military officials on behalf of his interest in enlisting, "but he never really followed up on them."[17] He repeatedly wrote to John Ford, asking to be placed in Ford's military unit, but continually postponed it until "after he finished one more film."[18] Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing Wayne, especially after the loss of Gene Autry to the army.[19] Correspondence between Wayne and Herbert J. Yates (the head of Republic) indicates that Yates threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract, though the likelihood of a studio suing its biggest star for going to war was minute.[20] The threat was real, but whether Wayne took it seriously or not, he did not test it. Selective Service Records indicate he did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but apparently Republic Pictures intervened directly, requesting his further deferment.[21] In May, 1944, Wayne was reclassified as 1-A (draft eligible), but the studio obtained another 2-A deferment (for "support of national health, safety, or interest").[22] He remained 2-A until the war's end. John Wayne did not "dodge" the draft, but he never took direct positive action toward enlistment. Wayne was in the South Pacific theatre of the war for three months in 1943–44, touring U.S. bases and hospitals as well as doing some "undercover" work for OSS commander William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan, who thought Wayne's celebrity might be good cover for an assessment of the causes for poor relations between General Douglas MacArthur and Donovan's OSS Pacific network. Wayne filed a report and Donovan gave him a plaque and commendation for serving with the OSS, but Wayne dismissed it as meaningless.[23]

The foregoing facts influenced the direction of Wayne's later life. By all accounts, Wayne's failure to serve in the military during World War II was the most painful experience of his life.[24] There were some other stars who, for various reasons, did not enlist. But Wayne, by virtue of becoming a celluloid war hero in several patriotic war films, as well as an outspoken supporter of right-wing political causes and the Vietnam War, became the focus of particular disdain from both himself and certain portions of the public, particularly in later years. While some hold Wayne in contempt for the paradox between his early actions and his later attitudes, his widow suggests that Wayne's rampant patriotism in later decades sprang not from hypocrisy but from guilt. Pilar Wayne wrote, "He would become a 'superpatriot' for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying home."[25]

- tec619

July 18, 2008 at 12:53pm

"the other guys were worse."

HAHAHA!

I will concede that neither Gore nor Kerry were wonderful options. But America lost its bearings when it decided that any halfwit could do a grown man's job.

- GSpinks

July 18, 2008 at 3:02pm