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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHis political honor... has fallen victim to the way that Obama has gotten fatally under his skin
http://prospect.org/article/bitter-twilight-john-mccain<snip>
That one, John McCain famously snarled in a presidential debate four years ago, referring to his opponent who was a quarter of a century younger and who had been in the Senate three years to McCains 20. Its difficult to imagine a better revelation of the McCain psyche than that moment, but if there is one, then it came yesterday at the meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, convened to consider the nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. The McCain fury is something to behold, almost irresistible for how unvarnished it is in all its forms. In the instance of the 2008 debate, McCains dumbfounded antipathy had to do with facing an opponent he so clearly considered unworthy of him. In the instance of the hearing yesterday, McCains bitter blast was at somebody who once was among his closest friends, a former Vietnam warrior and fellow Republican of a similarly independent ilk, who supported McCains first run for the presidency in 2000 against George W. Bush but then appeared to abandon the Arizona senator eight years later.
In the time since, two things have happened McCain. One was the Iraq War, the worst American foreign policy blunder of the post-World War II era, which McCain wholeheartedly supported from the beginning and about which hes never intimated a second thought. The other was Barack Obama, electoral politics upstart lieutenant whose bid to become five-star general, bypassing stops along the way at captain, major and colonel, wasnt just temerity to a man who waited his turn to be released from prison, but insubordination. Those two things converged yesterday in McCains prosecution of Hagel, no less sorry a spectacle on McCains part for the fact that Hagel handled it so unimpressively. Perhaps Hagel was startled, figuring his one-time compatriot would be tough but not vicious. If thats the case, then he never knew McCain as well as he thought or hoped, because if he did then he would know that McCain is a man of grudges. In his memoir Faith of My Fathers, in which words like gallantry appear without embarrassment (and which no one has more earned the right to use), McCain himself acknowledges being the congenital hothead of legend whos nearly come to blows with colleges. Half a century later, he recalls every altercation with every Naval Academy classmate; as a child, rage sometimes drove him to hold his breath until he blacked out. No need to indulge in untrained psychotherapy from afar to surmise that the ability to nurse such a grudge may be what gets you through half a decade of cruel incarceration.
At any rate, what happened yesterday wasnt about Hagel at all. It wasnt even about the Iraq Wars 2007 surge, which McCain is desperate to justify because he can never justify the war itself that finds Hagel moved to the right side of history while McCain remains stubbornly on the wrong. Its about that junior senator from Illinois who crossed McCain early in some obscure backroom Senate deal no one can remember anymore, then denied McCain the presidency in no small part because Obama understood the folly of Iraq better than McCain can allow himself to. McCains personal honor in Hanoi was too hard won to be stained now by almost anything he does, including how hes allowed temperament, pique and ego to steamroll the judgment and perspective that we hope all of our elected officers have, let alone presidents. But his political honor, not to mention whatever might once have recommended him to the presidency, has fallen victim to the way that Obama has gotten fatally under his skin. Even if this once-noble statesman should succeed in denying Hagels nomination as he denied Susan Rices prospects for Secretary of State (and even the most devout Hagel supporter would have to acknowledge that the Defense nominees performance before the Committee was often a shambles), McCains unrelenting obsession with the grievance that Obama has come to represent to him is the saddest legacy in memory. The very fact of Obama and all things Obamic has turned McCain into something toxic, maybe even to himself.
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Can DUers imagine what Obama winning a second term has done to McGramps?
babylonsister
(171,079 posts)malaise
(269,144 posts)One more stupid entitled ReTHUG who can never admit he was wrong.
If I were Hagel yesterday I would have exploded.
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)jollyreaper2112
(1,941 posts)I fault Obama for not politically destroying them. Same thing with the Civil War, those who had power in the South retained it and were allowed to construct their own false narrative about the war and its causes.
We should have politically anihillated all Republicans after Vietnam along with the vichy Dems who supported them. We didn't and now they're able to spin a tale of BS about how we won the war because the rest of the dominos didn't fall.
McCain is actually trying to spin the story that the Surge worked and we had good ideas in Iraq. Nobody is suffering the consequences of supporting an immoral and illegal war. There are no consequences.
These shameless motherfuckers should be destroyed, ruined, no longer able to show their faces in public. They should be hounded to their graves and the very dirt they rot in salted and cursed.
Instead they get to retain their seats of power and fuck things up for future generations. We're a nation of fucking cowards and what we've got coming we deserve.
malaise
(269,144 posts)Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)because, it wasn't Kennedy and Johnson who got us into it in the first place? Technically, if you want to get right down to it, it was Truman, telling De Gaulle "no, General, that's fine, you can have your colonies in Indochina back" at Potsdam (going back on Roosevelt's insistence on decolonisation at Yalta), and the later saying "here, we'll even send you some military advisers" during the first French-Indochina War.
David Brinkley interviewing JFK:
The President: No, I believe it. I believe it. I think that the struggle is close enough. China is so large, looms so high just beyond the frontiers, that if South Viet-Nam went, it would not only give them an improved geographic position for a guerrilla assault on Malaya but would also give the impression that the wave of the future in Southeast Asia was China and the Communists. So I believe it.
http://web.viu.ca/davies/H323Vietnam/JFK.Dom.htm
Under Kennedy the number of military advisers in South Vietnam increased to 16,000, up from 900 under Eisenhower. Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated by a CIA-backed coup...again under a Democratic administration. It's not like politicians of either party had clean hands.
jollyreaper2112
(1,941 posts)Did you miss the part about "vichy Dems?" Yes, yes you did!
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)you might try reading yourself, the history of the whole Vietnam era would be a good place to start (and Kennedy and Johnson, "Vichy"? LOL.)
jollyreaper2112
(1,941 posts)They supported a republican war. Vichy.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)what part of "Truman sent the first advisers to Vietnam" do you have a hard time processing, exactly? And I'm not sure how you can call it a "Republican war" when it was JFK and then LBJ who were responsible for first troop increases and then a full-on strategy of US involvement in combat and not just in an advisory role.
FSogol
(45,514 posts)McCain is the all-time miserable sore loser.
Greybnk48
(10,170 posts)but rather the norm. Age may have exaggerated it a bit, because that happens, but wasn't his nickname in high school "McNasty."
wonkette.com/375248/meet-president-mcnasty
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)to his talking points, and avoided the multitude of traps and bait laid out for him. It wasn't a job interview, it wasn't like Kerry's hearing at all. It was a political spectacle. Anytime he started to elaborate or defend himself, he was cut off. He was demanded yes-or-no answers to sentences taken out of context, without further explanation, like he was answering lawyers in court instead of Senators. I'm not sure who would come off looking strong after eight (largely unnecessary) hours of mostly ambush--but that was the GOP's plan.
Jennicut
(25,415 posts)Ask any of his former friends.
whathehell
(29,082 posts)like the fashion model he married, and the second, whom he reportedly called a "cunt"
in the presence of others, while on a campaign bus.
It's a good thing he wasn't married to me, because if I didn't murder the mofo
for that, I would have at LEAST called a press conference to reveal how the "hero"
speaks to his wife and mother of his children in public.
I do understand that she no longer lives with the effing bully.
tularetom
(23,664 posts)McCain's "personal honor in Hanoi" is at best questionable.
And any reference to McCain as a "once-noble statesman" is enough to make you .
malaise
(269,144 posts)I have long wondered about his honor
Downtown Hound
(12,618 posts)McCain has always been a petty, jealous, rage-a-holic, and a staunch Republican asshole.
niyad
(113,513 posts)and wasn't he flying an unauthorized mission when he crashed and was captured? as I recall, some of his fellow pow's had some very unflattering things to say about his conduct.
the man needs to retire, should have done so long ago. he is past being an embarrassment, he is beyond despicable.
healthnut7
(249 posts)I wonder if McCain's family is ever embarassed as to how he reacts. Kind of makes you wonder what happens at home
when his wife ticks him off??
I think the anger towards Hagel DOES have to do with Pres. Obama. First being that he can't let go that the young black
whippersnapper beat him and took away his right to be the President...
Now Chuck Hagel, his once closest friend, is going to work with that guy and maybe just maybe he thinks he should have been picked
to be in that job. God Forbid!!! Plus of course that Hagel turned against R's policies about wars.
As far as Kerry being smooged like he was by the R's I think has more to do with their ulterior motives. Getting rid of one more Dem in
the senate and hopefully getting Scott Brown back in to beef up their numbers. They were just too friendly to Kerry, IMO, makes me wonder why.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)"gallantry" which "no one has more earned the right to use"?
Who wrote this drivel? McCain has been an under-achieving, unethical, entitled brat since his Academy days. Without his family ties and his second wife's money he would be nobody. The fact that this was finally made clear to the world is what sent him around his last bend.
Boomerproud
(7,962 posts)that article was puke-inducing. I think McCain is past saving-he's like Nixon, whose hatred of JFK was his fatal flaw.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)oldandhappy
(6,719 posts)We need to swamp his office with emails requesting ethical behavior. He needs some look in the mirror treatment.
copperearth
(117 posts)This man acts insane. And he now has a sidekick in Lindsey Graham. McCain and Me Too Graham ask the wildest questions and go over the same ground and never change message. You can't please them no matter the person or issue involved. They are an embarrassment to the Senate and the country and they are holding us all back.
Blue Palasky
(81 posts)hopefully the worst. not even going to act nice towards these "people" anymore
malaise
(269,144 posts)He's an entitled ReTHUG scumbag who throws tantrums when he doesn't get his own way (which is a lot of the time).
Ian_rd
(2,124 posts)FTA: "At any rate, what happened yesterday wasn't about Hagel at all. It wasn't even about the Iraq Wars 2007 "surge," which McCain is desperate to justify because he can never justify the war itself that finds Hagel moved to the right side of history while McCain remains stubbornly on the wrong."
malaise
(269,144 posts)pansypoo53219
(20,987 posts)sarah palin.
BumRushDaShow
(129,313 posts)Mclame has become a caricature of himself. A foaming-at-the-mouth obsessive rightwing loon. He fancies himself a modern day Ahab. Well we know what happened to Ahab.
indepat
(20,899 posts)their graves as their progeny continues to sully that proud name.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)malaise
(269,144 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)He is an example of what not to be when you grow up. A bitter old man that blames everyone for a lifetime of failures, well everyone but himself.
TeamPooka
(24,242 posts)pacalo
(24,721 posts)his own bad decision to invade Iraq. No doubt that Obama, & particularly his choice of Hagel to run the Defense Dept., was too much for McCain's ego. He's got no class.
spanone
(135,857 posts)lindsey graham can kiss my ass too.
glinda
(14,807 posts)politicasista
(14,128 posts)Zorro
(15,748 posts)McCain has always been an asshole, even when he was cultivating his "maverick" image.
Divorcing his first wife -- who steadfastly waited for his release from his prison cell -- was clear evidence of his prima donna assholishness.
He needs to FOAD. A grateful country will welcome it.
An arrogant, opportunistic, below-average, entitled ReTHUG scumbag.