Is anyone else saddened by how vile John McCain has become?

[last1standing]

Maybe I'm an idealist, but I firmly believe there are honorable republicans who truly believe in conservative policies. In this group I put Lincoln Chafee, Chuck Hagel, Richar Lugar, and formerly, John McCain.

I never agreed with McCain's policies but I always thought he was working for causes he believed in. I always thought he was honest and of high moral character.

Now I see him standing next to anti-Semites like John Hagee and Kenneth Copeland welcoming their endorsements. I find he callously cheated in the first contest with the aid of Rick Warren and lied about it. I watch advertisement after advertisement calling Barack Obama's personal integrity into question even to the point of suggesting he's the anti-Christ. He sends his minions out to stoke racist sentiments. He doesn't even respect the time honored traditions of civility for campaigns and is planning to run commercials during the Democratic Convention.

Are lies, racism, pandering and insults all that has become of John McCain?

Is this how he want to be remembered to history?

I like to think that there was once a good man named John McCain, but the guy we see today isn't him.

I think most of America will agree with me.

[Muttocracy]

1. Honestly, I think Biden is. Which is a good thing now. nt

[MorningGlow]

2. Yes

I actually liked him once, a number of years ago, when he used to hit his fellow Repubs between the eyes with some true "straight talk". No longer. He's sold his soul. But hey, he's made his choice. Good thing we have truly honorable individuals stepping up to the plate.

[bigwillq]

3. Should we use this as a talking point?

:shrug:

[renate]

6. I think it's *essential* to use it as a talking point

I was talking today to a friend who was as flummoxed as I am about why Obama and McCain are so close in the polls. We follow politics closely but most people don't, and the average, low-information voter doesn't know (yet) that the McCain 2008 model is very, very different from the 2000 model.

They'll find out soon.

[LiberalFighter]

4. Has become?

[C_U_L8R]

5. He's going out on a splat and a whine

...a terrible way to tarnish his career... so self-absorbed and blinded by ambition.
The only word I can think of to really describe it is greed.

[panader0]

7. You think he went bad just recently?

Naw, it was many years ago.

[NotThisTime]

36. Agreed, many years ago to get the next nom he went bad. Hell, people don't even recognize it - that

is truly sad and pathetic.... People should open their friggin eye's

[pitohui]

8. unfortunately suffering crushes the heart

yes i am sad but i suspect he has pretty much always been one of the bad guys since he entered public life

suffering doesn't enoble, it kills the soul 90 percent of the time

we believed he was a nice guy in 2000 because we wanted to be kind and give benefit of the doubt

[Iggo]

9. I think he's always been this vile.

I think that the older he gets, the less he's able to hide it. That doesn't sadden me at all.

He was never a good man. He's exactly what you see.

[Hansel]

10. No, I'm actually not surprised. The bear hug with Bush in 2004

showed me exactly what this guy was. If anyone ever treated my family the way Bush and Rove treated McCain's there is no fricking way I would be seen with him, much less hug him.

McCain showed exactly what he was that day.

[Cosmocat]

19. YEP ..

He sold out. He learned from the 2000 loss, he learned that in order for an R to win, you have to play the game the Bushco way. And, he learned it well.

[Egnever]

29. Good call there

[uponit7771]

43. Good point

[frogcycle]

11. The John McCain you thought you knew is no more

It's like the old movie "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

The rovists take someone they want to front their cabal and suck out the brain through a tube, put in a robotic control and a radio receiver. It used to require an external powerpack (remember the bulge under bush's coat?) but now they have miniaturized it.

The creature you see with the yellow teeth and awkward smile is not John McCain the "maverick." It is only the remains of John McCain, being operated by Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

[mamalone]

12. Remember the "straight talk express"?

The very idea is laughable now, but McCain used to stand for something... he used to be willing to be his own man and confront the Repubs. I had some respect for the man... but now all I have is disgust. For me the worm turned when he refused to stand up to the Repubs when they savaged his family during the primaries years ago. After that he sold his soul just for the hope of hanging on to power and having a shot at the White House. Well, now he's got that shot, but he'll never accomplish the very things that (supposedly) drove his ambition in the first place... even if he won the election- God forbid- he's placed himself on a completely different road.

I agree it is sad... sad and pathetic.

[CitizenPatriot]

13. Greedy McSame

Weird that you used that word, because it is the one I settled on this weekend about him. He is so greedy, he looks like a dog in the desert who's spied some water. How sad that his ambition/greed cost him his soul.

I'm not sure he ever had one, given his history and the McNasty stories from his youth, but if others say he did, I'll concede to their perceptions. but now, he is one foolish looking liar. He has lost any and all integrity. He's shamed himself and sold out to the devil (aka rove/bush/cheney).

I sometimes look at him and feel an overwhelming sadness. then i remember his bomb bomb bomb bomb iran joke and recall his finger next to the red button and wake up screaming "for the love of god keep him out of the wh!".

[napi21]

14. I agree with you. I actually changed my registration in PA. to vote

for John in the primary. I detested Shrub so much from the first time I heard his promoters say he had so much money, there was no way he could lose! (Then I changed it back to Dem to vote in the GE.

Now, John is not the guy I saw and heard. I guess the Rover coached him well!

[Robeson]

15. Am I surprised that country club Republican, from the military aristocracy...

...acts like a country club Republican? No, I'm not.

[Erin Elizabeth]

16. I think he's probably always been this bad, it was just

easier to hide and cover up when he was younger. Younger being a relative term with him, by younger I mean in his 50s and 60s.

[AlCzervik]

17. Maybe you're saddened by a McCain that never was. I'm thinking about all the stuff

that was done to him in 99 and then i think about how he sold his soul to those same people, i'm thinking the McCain of 8 years ago is the same McCain of today. I think the press tried to make him into something he wasn't back then and he played along.

[rwheeler31]

18. We were thinking the same. I used to respect this guy.

What happened?

[jesus_of_suburbia]

20. I am. I would never vote (R), but I respected McCain in 2000. I don't anymore.

McCain 2008 is NOT McCain 2000.


That is very important to stress in our ads this year.

[Danger Mouse]

21. He sold his soul for power, a power he will never have.

[Yavin4]

22. Read and See "Lord of the Rings"

People will say or do anything for power.

[lumpy]

23. We just don't need anymore vile nutballs in the WH.

Period

[budkin]

24. Yes, I used to actually respect him. No longer.

[BlueIdaho]

25. He has been a fucker since before the Keating 5

His greatest asset has always been his ability to look into the camera and lie his ass off...

[americanstranger]

47. You got that right.

He established his whole 'maverick' persona by admitting to what he'd done with Keating - only after he'd been caught and risked having his ass thrown out of Congress.

He's been a fraud for many, many years. And after you've lied for so long to so many people, it winds up being impossible to reconcile the lies with the truth.

There is no 'old' McCain versus 'new' McCain. There is just McCain and he is what he's always been. An opportunist, a suckup to power, a con artist, a liar.

- as

[ramapo]

26. It is the Republican way

This is how they win because they can't win on issues. They are very, very good at it. If his vile attacks succeed, he will not be remembered for these attacks but rather as the guy who beat the first black, the oldest president, the pow president, and so on. Most Americans really don't know what to think...that is why the Republicans tell them.

[Median Democrat]

27. I Gave to him back in 2000...

But he is the direct opposite now of what he represented back then. I was somewhat disillusioned by Bill Clinton, and I knew that Gore was going to be the Democratic nominee. So, in order to avoid getting shut out of the primaries, I ehecked out the Republicans and McCain seemed to represent the closest thing to what I was looking for among the Republicans, and I respected him calling out the Evangelical Right for what they are, agents of intolerance.

However, things have changed. McCain has completely changed, and maybe this is what he was all along. I don't know what is worse. That he changed or that he was as dishonest as he is now all along. Signing up the guys who smeared you and your family to run your campaign? It is amazing how easily lieing comes to him now. For example, i believe that McCain does know how many homes he has, but he wanted to blow off a reporter asking an embarassing question. so he lied that he needed to have someone check. Of course, lies have a habit of getting caught on occassion.

He lied about John Lewis and the cross in the sand story. He is lieing about taxes, since he himself opposed the tax cuts he now purports to champion. Finally, the past 8 years has shown how wrong the neocons are with respect to foreign policy, yet McCain promised to expand the neocon agenda and rhetoric.

So, it saddens and angers me, at how McCain became just another Karl Rove desciple.

[Renew Deal]

28. I am.

I believed that McCain meant what he said about honor. But he's proven to the world that it's all bullshit. He is a disgrace.

[On the Road]

30. I am Saddened Too

He is unrecognizable.

On Edit: And a really poor candidate. I thought for the last two elections, McCain would have been the best Rebuplican nominee. That seems really mistaken now, although I really don't know who would be better.

[TTUBatfan2008]

48. A really poor candidate is right...

and yet he's very close in the polls with our guy right now. I don't know whether to laugh or cry about how fucktarded this country is. In any other democratic nation in the world, after 8 disastrous years like we've had with a one party occupying the executive branch of the government, they'd be sent out on a rail 60-40 or even worse on election day. But no, not in this country. Sometimes I just don't get it.

[GreenPartyVoter]

31. I wanted to like him back when he seemed to care about Clean elections.

[Top Cat]

32. You have meet the real John McCain...

[Clovis Sangrail]

33. no... it's what I expect from him

To some extent I respected McCain pre-2000 and I didn't start to think really poorly of him until 2003.
To see him hugging GW After what was done to him in 2000 ... at that point I lost all respect for him.

Since then his stances on Iraq, torture, the economy, and a host of other things have made me really loathe him.
He's a fucked up senile old coot who isn't qualified to lead a parade much less a country.

[HughMoran]

34. Angry yes, saddened - no. Republicans are a scum party

I have no sympathy for the hate party at all.

[katandmoon]

35. I've never read a thing about him that indicated he was ever anything BUT vile

Like Bush, he was a typical privileged punk whose path was smoothed every step of the way for him and he never had to lift a finger. He never experienced empathy for anyone. His nickname in high school was McNasty. Nothing seems to have ever changed since then.

[gblady]

37. saddened, no

disgusted, yep!

[last1standing]

39. I'd have to say that I'm both saddened and disgusted.

I knew he had changed when he began worshiping at the altar of jerry falwell. I just didn't realize he would sink this low for a petty power grab.

Yeah. I'm saddened and disgusted.

[Coexist]

38. I knew it wasn't just me, when Jon Stewart called him on his scumminess.

[Zomby Woof]

40. "Become"?

He has always been a crassly opportunistic leg-spreading, forget-the-crisco-and-give-it-to-me-you-big-naughty-corporations, colostomy bag asshat.

He's just gotten worse at hiding it. Any "other" John McCain is a media-constructed myth, and one would have to be gullible and naive to the extreme to have believed otherwise. He was damn lucky to have escaped too much scrutiny with the Keating 5. That was the tip of a very rotten and decaying iceberg.

[tyedyeto]

41. Here in southern AZ, he was a RINO 3 years ago and now...

is considered the favorite son, AKA god, to the Repukes.

[uponit7771]

42. Yes, I'm very very disappointed in McSame. I thought he was smarter than what he's shown and had....

...more of a back bone enough to stand up to BushCo.

[PatSeg]

44. He definitely is a different person

I would have never voted for him, but I used to like him. That guy he is now is abhorrent to me, no convictions whatsoever. He'll just do or say anything to get into the White House. Now that I've read more about his history, I'm not so sure he ever was the nice guy I thought he was.

I love Lincoln Chafee. I wish he'd just go ahead and cross over to the Dems. He sounds awfully liberal to me.

[liberaldem4ever]

45. All I see in him now is a lust for great power

Any morals he had he gave up and he and his minions will do ANYTHING to win.

[goodgd_yall]

46. Well, I think he did go against the Republican grain at one time

But ever since he's the presumptive nominee, he's shed any integrity he might have had around rattling his fellow conservatives.

But, no, I'm not saddened by it; disgusted is more like it.

[bushisanidiot]

49. I used to like McCain, but I had no idea what an elitist asshole who constantly uses his POW history

to explain gaffes away and to pander for votes. it's disgusting and disgraceful. not the type of slime i want in the white house working for ME!!