Media Rebels Against McCain In Their Own Way
John McCain has long been a media darling. The mainstream media has loved him.
But this article shows the kind of media rebellion toward John McCain we can expect more of in the coming months as we approach the general election. The media needs to distance themselves from their previous love fest with McCain and find a reason to dislike him so they can like Obama.
This article comes out of Canada - but I’ve learned that sometimes (not always) you get the clearest reporting outside of the US.
The article goes on to say that while John McCain has been cast as a moderate Republican, in truth:
He has diverged wildly from conservative orthodoxy, but he has also reinvented himself so completely that it has become nearly impossible to figure out what he really believes.
The article goes on to remind us of the truth that John McCain was essentially a Democrat during Bush’s first term:
McCain’s voting behavior during George W. Bush’s first term is almost never mentioned in the press anymore. Yet McCain’s history is astonishing. During this period, McCain was the most effective advocate of the Democratic agenda in Washington.
On health care, McCain cosponsored, with John Edwards and Ted Kennedy, a patients’ bill of rights. He joined Chuck Schumer to sponsor one bill allowing the reimportation of prescription drugs and another permitting wider sale of generic alternatives. All these measures were fiercely contested by Bush and the GOP leadership.
McCain teamed with Carl Levin on bills closing down tax shelters and requiring businesses that gave out stock options as compensation to reveal the cost to their stockholders. These measures were bitterly opposed by big business.
McCain voted against the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. He co-sponsored bills to close the gun-show loophole and federalize airport security. All these things set him against the Republican Party.
By 2002, the Arizona senator had transformed himself beyond recognition.
More on McCain’s liberal leanings and his flirtation with running alongside John Kerry:
The Washington Post reported that, in 2001, McCain met with Democratic leaders to ponder a party switch. Reporters almost never mention it in their McCain coverage. They also rarely mention how, in 2004, John Kerry wooed him to join his ticket as vice president.
After the Kerry flirtation ended, McCain obviously decided that his only plausible path to the presidency lay with the Republican Party in 2008. So he set about reingratiating himself with the GOP establishment while maintaining his reputation as an unwavering man of principle.
And with respect to McCain’s two votes against Bush’s tax cuts:
McCain has begun to insist that he opposed Bush’s tax cuts only because they were not accompanied by spending cuts. This explanation makes even less sense than the others. If the absence of corresponding spending cuts was McCain’s reason to oppose the tax cuts, why would he later support those tax cuts given that the spending cuts never happened?
Anyway, at the time he opposed Bush’s tax cut, McCain did not say anything about wanting spending cuts to go with it. What he said was, “I won’t take every last dime of the surplus and spend it on tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy.” Well, the surplus is long gone, and income inequality has continued to skyrocket, but McCain says he wants to keep those tax cuts while insisting he hasn’t changed his mind.
And… speaking about John McCain’s greatest strength:
Sphere: Related ContentIt is a truly impressive skill McCain has — the ability to adopt new beliefs and convince his new allies that his conversion is genuine while simultaneously strengthening their belief in the immutability of his principles. I suspect that, in the end, it will come to tears for McCain’s new allies — just as it has for most of those, including me, who thought they had a bead on him in the past. But, really, who knows?
Filed under: Commentary