{"id":1054,"date":"2008-09-13T11:01:43","date_gmt":"2008-09-13T18:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1054"},"modified":"2008-09-13T11:56:35","modified_gmt":"2008-09-13T18:56:35","slug":"the-john-mccain-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1054","title":{"rendered":"The John McCain Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much of the focus of John McCain’s campaign for president has been on his reputed experience (and just as often, the alleged lack of same for his opponent). But there has been sparse actual examination of how that argument should be measured. Is spending five and a half years in a prisoner of war camp 40 years ago preparation to run the largest governmental bureaucracy in the world? If so, then, as Jon Stewart said, “Guantanamo Bay isn’t a prison, it’s a leadership academy.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Is 36 years in Congress the yardstick for executive readiness? Or is it two years as governor of the third smallest state in the nation, preceded by the mayoralty of a frosty township of 6,000? McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, appear to disagree on this issue:<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/object><\/p>\n

For the record:<\/p>\n

Palin<\/a>: “[W]e’ve got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics as usual<\/strong> and somebody’s big, fat resume<\/strong> maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment<\/strong>.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

McCain<\/a>: “I am prepared. I am prepared. I need no on-the-job training<\/strong> I wasn’t a mayor<\/strong> for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor<\/strong> for a short period of time<\/strong>.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Palin doesn’t think that McCain is qualified to be president, and McCain doesn’t think that Palin is either. This Mutual Unappreciation Society makes for a bizarre and foreboding ticket. And it has to raise the question: Why did he pick her to be a 72 year old heartbeat from succeeding him in the first place?<\/p>\n

The paramount cause for concern stemming from this has less to do with Palin’s supreme inadequacy, than it does with McCain’s dangerously deficient judgment. Whether he selected her for her extra X chromosome, her missionary zeal, or her appeal to his base of Neoconderthals, it is clear that his determinative criteria was harvesting votes. He obviously considers winning the election more important than the well being of the country. For that alone he must be rejected.<\/p>\n

As always, the media is about 26 miles behind the curve, and it doesn’t seem fit enough to run a marathon. There is a persistently ignorant thread running through the coverage of this race. There is an obsession with trivialities like “who is the pig?”<\/em> and “what does lipstick represent?”<\/em> Yet very little inquiry into how the so-called candidate of experience would put the fate of the country into the hands of someone who knows almost nothing about it; who has only crossed it’s borders once or twice; who only met with the top of the ticket once before being crowned. She had a more rigorous competition to become Miss Wasilla.<\/p>\n

John McCain’s cynical and desperate ambition to be president<\/a> borders on the treasonous. He confessed his intention following his first bid for the White House:<\/p>\n

“I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You know, if everyone just took McCain at his word, no one would vote for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much of the focus of John McCain’s campaign for president has been on his reputed experience (and just as often, the alleged lack of same for his opponent). But there has been sparse actual examination of how that argument should be measured. Is spending five and a half years in a prisoner of war camp […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[152,1],"tags":[103,83,381],"class_list":["post-1054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election","category-general","tag-john-mccain","tag-jon-stewart","tag-sarah-palin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-h0","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1115,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1115","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":0},"title":"A McCain\/Palin Halloween","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/31\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Boo! John McCain and Sarah Palin celebrating Halloween as Joe the Plumber and Rev. Wright.","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1066,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1066","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":1},"title":"Free Sarah Palin From Rupert Murdoch!","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/25\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"While John McCain is consumed with personally resolving the nation's financial crisis, Sarah Palin is cavorting with the glamor set (elitist?) and the uber-conservative media barons who are propping up the Republican ticket: \"Sarah Palin schmoozed with controversial media tycoon Rupert Murdoch at a swanky charity gala here Wednesday night.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art\/Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Art\/Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1070,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1070","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":2},"title":"Random Thoughts: McCain, Palin And Olbermann","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/27\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Just a few things that are running through my idle mind: On John McCain: In last night's debate, McCain suggested that folks check the website of Citizens Against Government Waste to confirm his allegations about Obama's congressional earmarks. What he didn't say is that CAGW is a McCain front group\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1055,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1055","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":3},"title":"No One Wants To Play With John McCain","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/15\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"As an illustration of how shallow the media analysis is of the so-called \"Palin Effect.\" a picture is indeed worth a thousand words: Here are 68 words from the Washington Post: Republican presidential nominee John McCain held his first rally without running mate Sarah Palin today, and let's just say\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1064,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1064","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":4},"title":"CNN’s Campbell Brown: Free Sarah Palin","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/24\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It would be a mistake to get too bogged down on the Republican spokesmodel for vice-president, Sarah Palin, but this commentary by CNN's Campbell Brown is notable for diving straight to the point: This is also notable because Brown herself has not been a particularly bright light in the media\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1466,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1466","url_meta":{"origin":1054,"position":5},"title":"Fox Uses False Video (Again) To Inflate Sarah Palin’s Crowd","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/18\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Just one week ago, Jon Stewart exposed Sean Hannity for inserting video of a rally last summer to make a less successful rally this month look like it was well-attended. It was a blatant distortion that could not plausibly have happened by accident. Nevertheless, that is exactly the excuse Hannity\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}