Lots of folks have noticed John McCain's tendency to flip-flop during
the presidential campaign, but over the past week he's sort of burst
the sound barrier on self-contradiction, like the verbal Top Gun he
is. In fact, he has so loosed the surly bonds of consistency that
you've got to start wondering if there's some deeper meaning behind
the constant double-talk.

On Monday, for example, after the bailout bill collapsed, McCain did
a 180 in one breath: "Senator Obama and his allies in Congress
infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the
time to fix the blame, it's time to fix the problem."

Then on Tuesday, just minutes after the candidate publicly decried
the lack of "bipartisan good will," his campaign released an ad that
accused Obama and the Democrats of blocking the reforms that he is
certain would have averted this crisis. (Not so, says Factcheck.org).



When ABC's Ron Claiborne asked McCain that same day how could he
insist he wasn't assigning blame while pointing fingers at Obama
and the Dems, McCain stared like a porcelain doll and denied
blaming anyone.



It's similar to his denial that he ever said he didn't know much
about the economy--though that, too, is on tape.

Actually, the Janus-faced statements are marbled throughout McCain's
campaign. "The fundamentals of the economy are strong"/the
fundamentals are f***ed; I won't debate till the bailout deal is
sealed/I'm hustling down to the debate even though the deal just
collapsed. We could go on and on, and not just during this campaign--
remember how the Confederate flag was bad, then good, then bad again?
Or how Jerry Falwell was an agent of intolerance, only later to be
elevated to good people? (See the full "My sister! My daughter!"
drama here and here.)

All this fits inside the framing flip-flop between Senator Honor and
McDirty Campaigner. McCain ran for the Republican nomination
promising an "honorable" general election fight over the issues with
his preferred opponent, Hillary Clinton (Bill Clinton even
barnstormed the nation saying such a campaign would be civilized and
super for the country). But when confronted by the unexpected rise of
Barack Obama, McCain quickly resorted to the Paris Hilton ad, the Obama-is-a-sex-
perv ad, and the ad insinuating Obama was in the pocket of an African-
American former Fannie Mae CEO (who isn't even an Obama advisor,
though he does share Obama's skin color).

It's not just that McCain lies (though he does). It's not just age or
forgetfulness or a tendency to phone it in on policy (though his
campaign, "concerned about his tendency to adopt the last opinion he
has heard," does try to restrict McCain's cell phone use, according
to the New York Times).

His reversals go far beyond the usual political hypocrisies--it's as
if he's turning inside out, daily, hourly, sometimes minute-by-
minute, right in front of our eyes.

And, inevitably, as his manner has begun to seem increasingly
erratic, the McCain problem has come back, again and again, to
torture. And not to his flip-flop on the Bush administration's use of
torture, either, but to his own experience of being tortured during
his five-and-a-half years in a POW camp.

I'm not suggesting McCain is a Manchurian Candidate, not at all. But
let's think about the nature of McCain's heroism, which is both his
chief claim to fitness for office and his gob-smacking comeback to
any criticism whatsoever. His hero status grew out of a series of
reversals--one minute the indomitable flyboy, next minute the
helpless victim; one minute the son of the admiral commanding the
fleet that was pounding Hanoi with heavy ordnance daily, the next,
North Vietnam's most-prized prisoner, singled out for particularly
vicious treatment. Offered early release, he refused, nobly
insisting that he be treated no differently than the other
prisoners. Yet even in claiming he was one of them, he was
simultaneously asserting that he was somehow special.

To come home as a war hero and then become a congressman after five
years of captivity and torture--well, that's a big reversal right
there. Now he's holding out for victory in Iraq not unlike the way he
held out in the Hanoi Hilton. And why not? Neither victory nor defeat
can touch John McCain, because whichever way the vectors point, he
remains true to himself, and wins. At least, in his own mind. (Of
course, the one spot that suggests McCain's torture and temperament
are a problem is ad non grata on TV.)

Today McCain seems addicted to alteration itself, and for its own
sake. One minute he's angry and aggressive and the next, passive and
indifferent (as Peggy Noonan put it, McCain is either "zero or 60,
with no in between"). It wasn't only the ironic, self-deprecating
John McCain that charmed the press for so long, but the fragile hero
with an almost childlike innocence, whose halt-and-lame look invited
the press to protect him from going through anything like a tortured
interrogation ever again. Even if it's merely media questioning.

If you do "interrogate" him, you shall feel his wrath, as the
editorial board of the Des Moines Register did on Tuesday, or as did
Time magazine reporters to whom the newly cloistered candidate coldly
denied that he and the press had once enjoyed freewheeling good times
aboard the Straight Talk Express.

This duality of passivity and aggression is disturbing enough, but in
times like these it makes Obama's consistent emotional tenor all the
more reassuring. (After the bailout failure, Obama came out with his
own accusatory ad, but it looks forward, and blames McCain primarily
for years of supporting the trickle-down theory that helped create
this mess.)

Still, McCain keeps putting himself forward for rejection and hurt as
if he wants to plumb the depths of what they feel like once more.
Dostoevsky said every compulsive gambler plays to lose, not to win.
Let's hope McCain achieves that buried wish Nov. 4, so he doesn't
feel the need to keep gambling with our future.

McCain is downright dangerous.

What no one has come to Mc Cain's rescue?

That was a great article but they never mentioned how Mccain collaborated with his captors, earning the nickname of "song bird Mccain" from his fellow POW's

mad man, you inspire me sometimes.

I wasn't going to touch this.

oops, I did.

McCain has had alife lived before the American people.

He has the dough, so why bother?

Yeah, dig on him.

They all have skeletons in their closets.

I give them a shout out, all, for their thick skin , but I am perplexed at why they ever bother given the nature of politics.

The founding fathers were mudslingers.

the historians were mudslingers. Case in point-Custer's last stand.

Revisionism is alive and well in the classroomms of America, and still, mudslinging is the national sport.

But McCain plowed through over the years, learning as he went.

He had inadequate backing at the begimming of this primary and was not in contention.

Then something happened.

He hit the nail on the head that moved the establishment to implement his ideas about the war in Iraq and Pteraeus was known for holding the same view and had a plan that echoed mcCain's rant.

Here we are with McCain the cadidate from the right with the least chance and the least backing and the least charisma.

But it is the toughness of McCain that gets people listening.

He is nt a quitter.

He has been through hell and back and has served this nation with his life and all that is in him.

Why?


I will leave that for others to figure out.

All I know is that he says government spending must be reined in.

No one else says that at all.

The National Debt is an imminent instrument of mutually assured destruction.


Inbelieve him when he says he will do his best for the American people's best interests.

solely because of that.

But that does not mean I will vote for him.

He cannot do anything alone, but he can stomach crossing the aisle. I can't and I won't enable him to do it either.

Barack cannot do it alone. I cannot stomach him, period. He is not ready.

He lied to his constituents. He promised to serve his term in Cngress the full 6 years.

F*ck That!!!!!!

oops.



that's just how I feel.

glad i am not voting?