McCain's Straight Talk Express Derails

In a speech last August at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, Barack Obama said, I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.
President Bush, confusing things as usual, said "I certainly don't know what [Obama] believes in. The only foreign policy thing I remember he said was he's going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad."
Then John McCain, taking the cue from his leader, criticized Obama for the statement, saying "Well, the best idea is to not broadcast what you're going to do. That's naive. You don't broadcast that you are going to bomb a country that is a sovereign nation and that you are dependent on ... in the struggle against (the) Taliban and the sanctuaries which they hold." He added that the US could not afford "confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally Pakistan."
Ally? From World Public Opinion: "Pakistani views of the United States are quite negative. About two-thirds (64%) do not trust the United States 'to act responsibly in the world.' Very large majorities believe the US military presence in Afghanistan and in Asia is a critical threat to Pakistan's interests (68 percent and 72 percent respectively). Only 27 percent feel that the cooperation between Pakistan and the United States on security and military matters has benefited Pakistan."
That is one weak definition of ally.

As for Pakistan being a sovereign nation, well, so is Iran. Of course, Obama in his speech did not threaten to invade or bomb Pakistan. Yet President Bush and McCain both felt free to put those words into his mouth. So would they object to anyone concluding that McCain intends to bomb or invade Iran? Here's what McCain said about Iran earlier this month at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC): I intend to make unmistakably clear to Iran we will not permit a government that espouses the destruction of the State of Israel as its fondest wish and pledges undying enmity to the United States to possess the weapons to advance their malevolent ambitions.
"Unmistakably clear ... we will not permit ...," sounds like invasion and/or bombing talk to me, if we employ the method of parsing that McCain used on Obama's speech and, of course, if we recall his "Bomb, bomb, Iran" "joke" sung to a Beach Boys tune.


And then there's this November 2007 example of McCain's "straight talk":
"Everybody says that they’re against the special interests. I’m the only one the special interests don’t give any money to." Even though he's received more than $500,000 from PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
And when McCain challenged Obama on public funding for the general election campaign, saying "I made the commitment to the American people that if I were the nominee of my party, I would accept public financing, [and that] I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people as well," he didn't mention that, in a letter to the Federal Election Commission dated February 6, 2008, he announced his intention to withdraw from the federal primary-election program, due--perhaps?--to an increase in private contributions now that he's the nominee-to-be.
I wonder, if it's good enough for the general election why not the primaries?
And, as the Guardian notes, that letter has drawn "unwelcome scrutiny from the agency that monitors US elections" since it "questions his ability to withdraw from the presidential public financing system – and avoid the spending limits that come with it."
As the Center for Responsive Politics concluded, "McCain's campaign has done a 180-degree turn in the last nine months, going from nearly broke after the 1st Quarter to recently emerging as the Republican frontrunner. It took early layoffs and a $3 million loan in November of 2007, but McCain managed to turn his campaign around and raise $41.1 million last year ...."

And what ever became of McCain's outright rejection of torture? He once said of waterboarding, "all I can say is that it was used in the Spanish Inquisition, it was used in Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia, and there are reports that it is being used against Buddhist monks today ... it is not a complicated procedure. It is torture." Yet he voted against recent Senate legislation banning the practice.

But let us not forget McCain's 2000 campaign speech in which he referred to the religious right's leaders as "agents of intolerance," denounced their strategy of "division and slander," and castigated them for their "corrupting influences on religion and politics." And now? In 2006 he said of the late founder of the Moral Majority, "Rev. Falwell came to see me and said he wanted to put our issues behind us — and I did, too. I believe the worst thing you can do in life, much less politics, is to hold grudges."
Grudges? Charges of intolerance, slander and corruption seem a good deal more serious than the mild lets-put-our-issues-behind us attitude.
Grover Norquist of the retrogressive/conservative Americans for Tax Reform, offered this assessment: "[McCain has] got to overcome the original sense of betrayal and the new sense of flip-flopping. This is not easy. You can't be the straight-talk express with two positions on every given issue."

Of course, one can shrug and say "politics," and that would be understandable. Except that it's John McCain who chose Straight Talk Express as his slogan, proudly displays it on his campaign bus, and has it on his website.
Truly, there's nothing like straight talk.
Except when it isn't.