Do Tell

What does the overturn of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy tell us about a McCain-Palin White House? Quite a bit. Even when the Gay community thought Obama was just paying their cause lip-service he and his Republican Secretary of Defense were using their respective pulpits to fight for this issue. Even a few Senate Republicans in this not-so-lame duck congress eventually embraced the cause. However, McCain has been the passionate defender of the status quo. Andrew Sullivan summarizes:

Like 2009’s removal of the HIV ban, which was as painstakingly slow but thereby much more entrenched, this process took time. Without the Pentagon study, it wouldn’t have passed. Without Obama keeping Lieberman inside the tent, it wouldn’t have passed. Without the critical relationship between Bob Gates and Obama, it wouldn’t have passed. It worked our last nerve; we faced at one point a true nightmare of nothing … for years. And then we pulled behind this president, making it his victory and the country’s victory, as well as ours.

We also know now what a McCain administration would have done: nothing. The disgraceful bitterness and rancor and irrationality that the Senator has shown these past few months reveal just how important it was to defeat him and his deranged, delusional side-kick in 2008.

The Change Candidate?

Today, John McCain tried out a new campaign platform: Change. Sound familiar? It worked so well for Barack, Johnnie has adopted it for his very own. The only problem is this. John McCain has served for 26 years in the very “government” that he is saying is so out of touch with the American people and their problems and pain. So, where was John McCain while the “government” was turning a deaf ear to our needs? Why was he so ineffectual for 26 years? It’s like McCain has just lit up an exploding cigar. McCain can run a credible campaign based on experience. He can run a believable campaign promising continuity of Bush foreign policy. But change? The champion against Washington ineptitude? The man has been a part of his alleged ineffectual federal government since 1982?  Just crazy!

Comic and Chief

Maybe not Commander and Chief, but definitely more comic presence than Obama or Clinton.

Pump power

If you can’t lower the bridge, boys, raise the river. If this administration can’t lean on the Saudis, Exxon-Mobil or successfully invade an Arab country and consficate their oil, at least they can do something. I know what! Let’s eliminate the gas tax. After all, Republicans love giving tax breaks. And it’s an election year. So let’s give it to everyone, even the poor. Well, when John McCain announced his idea today, I had to admit, I liked the sound of it. I even liked it 12 years ago when Bob Dole said it when he was running for President. And best of all, it’s an economic policy that’s tangible, that people actually can grasp. And the GOP has got to like any bill that doesn’t disrupt Exxon-Mobil’s greatest record earnings in the history of the US economy. After all, those boys have earned it.

Foreign policy that listens

It sounded like a line out of a Barack Obama speech. Or a John Kerry speech, for that matter. John McCain’s recent address on international policy was all about us listening more to our allies. About being less unilateral in our global dealings. About not being the proverbial bull in the proverbial china shop. Just one problem. John McCain is far better at grasping diplomacy than doing diplomacy. Like the time he went off on Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister of Germany. And Joe Lieberman had to calm him down. You know Germany? One of those allies we need to listen to? (This guy Lieberman is like McCain’s back-up brain or something. Does he live on McCain’s shoulder? Is he like always there hovering. Crazy!) Listen, McCain has got the right idea. But so does Obama and Clinton. The question is who has the right temprement to pull it off. We’ve had enough of hot-headed, knee-jerk diplomacy. Next time, we need to get it right. After all, one day Joe Lieberman might not be there.

Cuisinart politics

In case you’ve forgotten just how scary outspoken black visionaries can be, a helpful staffer with the McCain campaign has put together this handy YouTube video. Through a series of slap-dash edits and artful juxtapositions, we see candidate Obama not saluting flags, not wearing patriotic label pins and not disowning his audacious pastor. But surely, there’s more. To make the articulate, smooth-talking Obama sound… you know… a little more foolish and awkward (think: President Bush in any given interview), McCain’s editorial whiz kid has sliced and diced the video to make the calm, collected Barack appear to stutter and stammer like some tongue-tied Max Headroom wannabe (think: the current president on any given day). Stir in a liberal amount of Reverend Wright getting all John the Baptist on our ass. Top off with an incendiary clip of the Black Muslim leader, Malcolm X (he even looks like Obama!). And serve. Translation: White people, be afraid. Be very afraid. Sadly, the inventive McCain staffer was voted off the island. Not to worry, the Clinton Campaign can certainly use and enterprising fellow like this. And don’t think they haven’t.

Got experience?

On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, it is an appropriate concern that the next US president have the right experience, the right knowledge and the right judgment to be Commander-In-Chief. Arguably, the president we got 7 years ago could have benefited from a little more seasoning, a little better grasp of international affairs. So it is a bit alarming when one of the candidates currently running for the highest office in our country seemed to believe that Iran is busy training al-Quaeda. This candidate, in fact, was emphatic about this so-called intelligence. It was, to quote them, “common knowledge.” If anything the American electorate has learned over the past five years it is to be highly skeptical of politicians who begin their sentences about the Islamic world with the words: “It is common knowledge.” It was sentences like these that assured us that it was common knowledge that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. It was common knowledge that Saddam was in some way behind the events of 9-11. All such knowledge turned out to be dead wrong. 4,000 American lives dead wrong. But perhaps the most perplexing thing about this week’s statement concerning al-Qaeda and Iran is that this presidential candidate obviously confused Sunnis with Shiites. Iran is Shia and al-Qaeda is Sunni. These guys hate each other. Iran isn’t training al-Qaeda, they are trying to exterminate them. This, if you will forgive the phrase, is sort of “common knowledge.” And a candidate that is this inexperienced, this uninformed, this befuddled, is clearly not ready to occupy the Oval Office. Perhaps, they could use a few more years of seasoning. You think? The funny thing is, the candidate that made this curious error, was John McCain. The guy with all the experience. The guy–– who like current guy––got things dead wrong.

Another first

Well, New York has it’s first black governor! And better yet, he is legally blind! Wow! A twofer! If only he was a woman! It makes me warm all over. Nausea does that. Listen, I have nothing against blind black guys. Big fan of Ray Charles, in fact. But I buy Ray’s albums for the same reason I vote for someone. The person’s proven abilities. Not their disabilities, their race or their gender. So I am a little annoyed by all this Obama would be the first African-American president. Or Hillary would be the first female president. Or John McCain would be the first tortured Vietnam vet president. This election should not be about having to publish an updated edition of the Guinness Book of Records. It should be about the candidates’ proven abilities. Their record, their gifts, their judgment. This election should not be a referendum on how far blacks, blondes or blind folks have come in this country. Of course, not everybody votes the way I do. And I guess some people buy Ray Charles records because he’s black and blind. So if all that you care about in this election is whether the next US president wears pants, a pinafore or a flag pin…go for it. And excuse me, while I go throw up.

Yay, Ron!

It’s official. John McCain is the Republican candidate for president. He has his full complement of delegates. Huckabee has finally bowed out of the race. And Ron Paul, who quietly dropped out a month ago, came in an impressive third.  Paul garnered a whopping 5% of his home state’s vote.  Sadly, he fared better in left wing Vermont at 7%. Maybe Ben & Jerry will name a flavor after him.  Nutty Peacenik Choco-Libertarian. Then again, maybe they won’t.

The Armageddon Express

San Antonio televangelist John Hagee has declared that John McCain is God’s man. You see Hagee, who can’t wait until we go to war with Iran and get this Armageddon thing cranked up in earnest, feels McCain has the right family values. Blowing things up and what not. Of course, Johnny Mac was happy to get the endorsement. Maybe he’ll make Hagee Secretary of Defense. One potential problem: Apparently, in Hagee’s eschatology this nasty Tribulation business will all be over in just 7 years. Which is a far cry shorter than the one-hundred years John McCain has been promising. Lord, I love the GOP! Praise God and pass the nuclear weapons.

A natural born president

One of these candidates may not be constitutionally qualified to be President. It’s not the one with the foreign-sounding name and the international up-bringing. It’s the guy from Arizona who was actually born just south of Tucson in a place called the Panama Canal Zone. So, technically, he’s not a natural born citizen. Which is a bit of a rub, particularly for a guy who is a strict constructionist. Now you would think they would have passed a law that would get around this unfortunate accident of birth. And you would be right. The law declared anyone who is born of American citizens should be considered “natural born.” The only problem is that law is no longer on the books. All of which may argue that Hillary Clinton is truly the best qualified candidate to be President. US-born. And a name that doesn’t sound like an al-Qaeda suicide bomber.

Another New York Times endorsement

The New York Times: All the news that’s fit to print. You know, like a tawdry sex scandal. So the New York Times has caught the senator from Arizona with his knickers down. Are we sure we aren’t talking about the NEW YORK POST? Well, this thorough bit of reportage says that Washington lobbyist Vicki Iseman had had an affair with McCain, a man many years her senior and, oh yeah, kinda married. And that became the news cycle. So I guess Mike Huckabee just got his miracle. And Rush Limbaugh at last has proof that McCain is a conservative.

Maverick? What maverick?

John McCain. Straight talker. Maverick. His own man. That’s what we love about him, right? That’s what Limbaugh hates about him, right? For instance, he’s not afraid to take a bold, balanced ––albeit, unpopular–– position on illegal immigration. Again, he breaks from the pack and takes a brave, outspoken and biographically-consistent position against torture. And against his party. He stands his ground. He tells it like it is. Well… apparently, Johnny has finally drunk the GOP Kool-Aid. This week, he did a complete one-eighty on his position against torture and voted against the Senate torture bill. This, only days after his pansy-pants promise to the GOP base that he will now be revising his unpopular position on immigration. Uh, huhhh. So, that thing that we love about John McCain? Yeah. Pretty much over. Hey, more independents for Barack, right?

I vote for me

Let me get this straight. Romney got the Mormon vote, Huckabee got the Evangelical vote, Hillary got the women-over-60 vote and Obama got the black vote. And John McCain pretty much got the nomination. This being the guy that the Republican wing of the Republican party can’t stand. The guy that appeals to independents and former Democratic Vice Presidential candidates. The guy that sponsors bills with folks named Kennedy and Feingold. The guy that offers amnesty to Mexican illegals. Okay. That’s more like it. A candidate that appeals to people other than their mirror image. And yes, to be fair, Clinton did very well with Latinos. Thankfully, there wasn’t some candidate named Hernandez on the ballot.