Political analysis
McCain’s War on Reality
- By The Beast
- August 02, 2008
The guy has referred to “Czechoslovakia” at least four times this year, after it was already a minor gaffe for him in 2000. He’s called the Sudan “Somalia.” He’s referred to “President Putin of Germany.” He’s worried about the “Iraq/Pakistan border” — perhaps an oblique reference to Iran? He doesn’t know Shiite from Sunnis, and thinks the Iranians are helping al Qaeda. He thinks the surge caused the Awakening. All of these mistakes would be deeply damaging to a less coddled candidate. But McCain is an elderly war hero, and there is a natural tendency to hold back on blasting him for his poor information retention.
But what about the football story? McCain has been telling a story, at least since he wrote it in Flags of our Fathers in 1999, of substituting the names of the Green Bay Packers defensive line for his squadron mates when pressed by Vietnamese interrogators. It’s a great story, as All-American as can be. He discussed it in 2005, when A&E did a movie version of the book, including the inspirational scene. Again in 2005, McCain used the story to illustrate how torture yields bad information. On July 9th, McCain told the story again at a press conference in Pittsburgh—only this time is was the Steelers defensive line.
Setting aside the rank stupidity of destroying a great piece of image work for a cheap hometown shoutout to a regional media market, this fib stabs at the heart of McCain’s straight-talking war hero mythology. It’s a breathtakingly brazen and completely unnecessary lie, at least as bewildering as Hillary Clinton’s “sniper fire” silliness, except that, Hillary wasn’t running as a special forces agent. It calls into question every unconfirmed detail about McCain’s POW years—how many other stories is he just making up? And what kind of man would sully his service with such pointless embellishments? But, dissimilarly to Hillary’s sniper snafu, McCain’s Packers/Steelers switcheroo slid by largely unnoticed, chuckled at by the media momentarily and tossed away. And they’re in the tank for Obama?
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McBush is the biggest flip flopper since the character created by the Swift Boat Veterans for “Truth”. He originally opposed indefinite detention of terrorist suspects until the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion. then he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
McBush was also once for kicking Russia out of the G8 before he was against it.
108 days ago by PileofBonez
Given all his lapses in memory, none are as bad as Obama, who couldn’t remember ever hearing Rev. Wright spewing anti-American rhetoric. Lapses in memory are not a good thing, but are they worse than concocting stories about how one’s father was brought to the US by the Kennedy Clan? Forgetting stuff is acceptable. It happens to the best of us. Adding embellishments to stories that took place well over forty years ago…who cares. But Obama has created fiction for the past ten years. Remember how Selma got Obama born? Remember the ethics bill? Remember how he swore that he wouldn’t run for anything in ’08? Should I go on? I’ll take McCain’s stories any day over the Progressive Lib’s lies.
99 days ago by Glenn D'Abreo - Reaganite