The Real McCain

As this WaPo article says, if this is what the general election is going to look like, "we're in for an ugly 6 months." Discussing, of course, "the honorable" John McCain's attempts to associate Obama with Hamas, as well as our honorable president's smear of Democrats while addressing the Israeli Knesset. As James Rubin, the author says, "It is hard to remember any president abusing the prestige of his office in as crude a way as Bush did yesterday" by engaging in domestic partisan politics while addressing the parliament of a foreign nation. An absolute disgrace.

washingtonpost.com

Thank goodness McCain isn't engaging in hypocrisy in order to win an election. Oh...except McCain is on record as saying of Hamas, "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

So which is it, McCain? Saying that you'd speak to Hamas under the appropriate conditions (renunciation of violence, etc--ie, all the same conditions that you and Barack Obama agree on) is appeasement? Or is it only appeasement if a Democrat does it?

On a larger scale, more importantly than just this issue, what I believe we are seeing is the Real John McCain we'd get as President. Not the "straight talk" media darling. We're starting to see the Keating Five, "I'll never apologize for calling them gooks," McCain. And it's going to get ugly for everyone.

The irony here is that McCain is seeming more like Hillary Clinton every day, she of the Richard Mellon Scaife interviews. Here's a guy who wants the office so badly that he's taking advice from none other than Karl Rove, the man who accused him via pushpolling calls in 2000 of having fathered a black child out of wedlock. The fact that Rove was referring to his adopted Bangladeshi daughter apparently hasn't stuck in McCain's craw; a fact that would in my family, I promise you, forever put Rove on a sh*t list from which there would be no escape. How do you go back and work with someone who does that to your child? It's unconscionable.

And, in my opinion, it gets to the heart of why a McCain presidency would be a disaster for America. Because anyone who will say or do anything to get elected will have no problem saying or doing anything once elected. And we've already had 8 loooong years of that.

**And, in fairness to HRC who I ding constantly, props for her response to Bush's remarks: “President Bush’s comparison of any Democrat to Nazi appeasers is both offensive and outrageous on the face of it, especially in light of his failures in foreign policy. This is the kind of statement that has no place in any presidential address and certainly to use an important moment like the 60th anniversary celebration of Israel to make a political point seems terribly misplaced. Unfortunately, this is what we’ve come to expect from President Bush.”