’60 Minutes’ touches on McCain vulnerabilities, but brushes past them

March 10, 2008

A couple of weeks ago, “60 Minutes” featured fairly long segments on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and last night was John McCain’s turn. If you missed it, CBS has helpfully posted the entire 13-minute segment online.

What’d we learn from the interview with CBS’s Scott Pelley? That it’s difficult to get too many answers, or delve into too much depth, in 13 minutes.

Pelley: The United States is going to be in Iraq for years to come. Afghanistan is not going well. Osama bin Laden is at large. And the economy is slipping into recession…. How do you make a case for a third Republican term?

McCain: I can make a case that a less government, lower taxes, less regulation, safer America is what I can give America. But I don’t underestimate the size of the challenge.

I found the answer interesting, because the question offered McCain a chance to present himself as a “different kind of Republican.” Sure, he could say, there have been problems over the last eight years, but John McCain is not George W. Bush. But that’s not what he said, preferring instead to make the generic “less government, lower taxes, less regulation” pitch. Voters are going to go into the fall skeptical, to put it mildly, about a third Republican term. If this is McCain’s message, I like the Dems’ chances.

But the interview was at its least helpful when the subject turned to torture.

Pelley: Is waterboarding torture?

McCain: Sure, yes, without a doubt.

Pelley: So the United States has been torturing POWs.

McCain: Yes. Scott, we prosecuted Japanese war criminals after World War II; and one of the charges brought against them, for which they were convicted, was that they waterboarded Americans.

Pelley: How did we lose our way?

McCain: I don’t know the answer to that. I think one of the failures maybe was not to listen more to our military leadership, including people like General Colin Powell, on this issue.

This all makes McCain look and sound great, but would it have been too much to let viewers know that when push came to shove, McCain refused to back his own position? It happened a few weeks ago; there was plenty of time to mention it in the segment.

There was also this exchange:

Pelley: In your town hall meetings, you’re fond of saying that you will follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell.

McCain: Yeah.

Pelley: With respect, following him to the gates of hell was easy. What’s hard is putting several divisions of US forces on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. What are you willing to do?

McCain: Well, the first thing is not to tell Osama bin Laden what I’m going to do, but I’ll get him.

Great, we’re back to McCain having a secret plan to get bin Laden. If he has an idea on what to do, why not share it with the administration now?

All in all, it’s hardly a compelling pitch.

The media likes playing softball with McCain, instead of covering important issues they wase our time with Obama-Rezko stories

  • Disgraceful that Pelley did not follow up his torture questions with McCain’s pro-torture vote and expected pro-torture sustaining of Bush’s veto.

    Egregious example of press fluffing. Glad I wasn’t watching — my TV would not have survived.

  • The corporate media is never going to tell the truth about McCain, because McCain’s party protects the corporate media from us.

    Here’s what needs to be done:

    1) Buy an LCD projector, and rig up an inverter so it can run off your car’s 12V system (beware of load issues)
    2) Make a movie clip morphing McCain and Bush.
    3) As often as possible, project the movie in a repeating loop onto any surface visible to as many people as possible. Let the worst president ever do the convincing.

    4) If you believe… pray.

  • “McCain: Yes. Scott, we prosecuted Japanese war criminals after World War II; and one of the charges brought against them, for which they were convicted, was that they waterboarded Americans.”

    He concedes that people performing and authorizing waterboarding should be convicted of war crimes ? This statement makes me sick to my stomach. At least Bush has enough sense to pretend that we don’t do it. Not McCain, he agrees that we do it, just doesn’t have the balls to do anything about it. The Maverick strikes again.

  • The epithet “McSame” really says a lot about John. He’ll be the same as George because to gain the title he so covets he’ll do anything anyone tells him to.

    But what really sucks about John is his faux earnestness. The shaking his head and muttering “mistakes were made” or having his super secret bin Laden plan are nice little tricks John has learned along the way to get the media’s empathy and call the dogs off his trail. What a petty manipulator. We’ll deserve what we get if we fall for what passes as his charms.

  • The worst thing I heard on 60 Minutes (which naturally went unchallenged) was McCain’s scoffing at the Democrats’ health care plans and offering his own: $5000 tax credits to buy private insurance. I’m no expert, but that sounds basically like a transfer of wealth from the federal treasury to the insurance companies. Except it’s money the federal treasury won’t collect, so it’s adding to the national debt.

  • petorado (5): Absolutely right. And don’t forget the way he proves his “straight talk” persona by admitting disasterous conditions, but without offering solutions. For example he finally admits the economy is terrible, and it won’t be easy to fix. (applause, applause) Meanwhile his only solutions are to cut taxes. That sounds like a pretty facile solution to me.

    Or how about when he said these jobs aren’t coming back to Michigan and there will be more wars. When your reputation for honesty is based on this simplistic logic without solutions, shouldn’t the adjective be merely “cynical”?

  • McCain: I can make a case that a less government, lower taxes, less regulation, safer America is what I can give America.

    Less government: The military is gettingbigger, what services are you going to cut?
    Less regulation: Like regulating home mortgages. How’s that working out for you?
    Safer Ameridca: Lead painted toys & tainted food products, need I say more?

    Oh, that the media would follow up on crap like this….

  • Grumpy @ 6,
    Not only that but you can only get a tax credit against taxes paid. The little people aren’t paying $5000 in taxes, so this will only be good for mid- to upper-income folks. Most mid-income people are provided health insurance through employers, so this will primarily go to upper-income self-employed / entrepreneurial types. Sounds like more taxcuts for the rich!

  • rickles… good point. Plus, if you hold shares in financial service companies that sell health insurance, you get a bonus coming & going.

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