More Big Media Love For McCain

I’d like to extend a big hat tip to Adam Blickstein at Democracy Arsenal for this little gem from “Senator Honor and Virtue” last night on “Hardball” (I’ll try to have more to say about Chris Matthews later, by the way - and is it my imagination, or is McCain slowly morphing into Ed Snider, or is it the other way around?)…

MCCAIN: We can look back at the past and argue about whether we should have gone to war or not, whether we should have invaded or not, and that’s a good academic argument.

I don’t see anything “academic” about these numbers, I should point out.

MCCAIN: So what’s an area of disagreement? Climate change. Climate change. I believe that climate change is real. I think we have to act...

This takes you to more information on McCain’s atrocious voting record, in particular the following…

“Out of 535 Members of Congress, John McCain is the only one who chose to miss every single key environmental vote scored by the League of Conservation Voters last year. When it came time to stand up and vote for the environment, John McCain was nowhere to be found,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Every other Member who received a zero from LCV last year at least had the temerity to show up and vote against the environment and clean energy time after time. And unlike John McCain, I doubt any of them would claim to be environmental leaders or champions on global warming.”

Returning to the “interview” (what brilliant non-follow up by Tweety, by the way)…

MATTHEWS: You’re also- you disagree with (Dubya) on torture.

MCCAIN: Absolutely. And could I take a few seconds on that? Because I think it’s important because I think it’s what America’s all about and what kind of country we are. We should never, ever torture anyone who is in the custody of the United States of America.

That’s interesting given that John W. McSame voted against a bill “imposing sweeping new restrictions against interrogation methods used by the CIA” (here).

MCCAIN: ...So my point is that for the future of this country, we have to make sure that we remain a nation that does not do things that our enemies do. And I promise you, my friends, I’ll close Guantanamo Bay and we will never torture another person in our custody again.

If he’s serious about closing Guantanamo, then where does he plan to hold the commission hearings that Bushco is planning to hold there shortly (they’ve actually built facilities at Guantanamo for that purpose).

Jeffrey Toobin wrote a great article about what’s going on there that appeared in The New Yorker recently; here’s a link to an abstract – I have tons of technical difficulties when I try to view or read content from The New Yorker’s web site (hint, hint).

I could go on and on with John W. McBush over this stuff, but instead, I want to note that his wife Cindy was profiled in a USA Today cover story, yesterday for which she declined to be interviewed – the article does note her one-time addiction to painkillers (she says she’s recovered) and siphoning pills from her own charity…more from this Daily Kos link.

Also, from what I’ve read, it appears that our dear media cousins were trying to provoke a dustup between Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama in February over Obama’s “proud of my country for the first time” statement (as if that is actually news). Based on what I’ve read, I don’t believe Cindy McCain used that necessarily for one-upsmanship (if somebody thinks I’m wrong, fire away), and I think she deserves credit for that.

(And by the way, it sounds like "Senator Honor And Virtue" as well as MSNBC needs a math lesson too.)

Update 1: Speaking of Michelle Obama, I thought this was a nice comeback about you-know-what.

Update 2: And speaking of Mrs. McCain, does this now qualify as "(insert "scandal" name here)-Gate?"