The McCain-is-crazy meme gets started early

September 19, 2006

There are so many legitimate, substantive reasons to criticize John McCain’s policy agenda that it bothers me when the far-right drags out the “he’s crazy” line. Conservative activists used it in South Carolina in 2000, and if last night was any indication, the argument may make a comeback.

Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, former New York Senator Al D’Amato (R) and Bill O’Reilly debated Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) insistence that the U.S. follow the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of all detainees. D’Amato said McCain should receive “a pass on this” because he was “so traumatized by the events that took place” during his captivity in the Vietnam War.

The trauma, D’Amato argued, put McCain in such a mental state that he was not in “a position to consider the impact of what his restrictions would do.”

Right. Poor crazy McCain couldn’t possibly speak intelligently on the issue of detainee abuse because he lost his mind in Vietnam. That’s basically D’Amato’s argument.

It’s hardly surprising, but such a tack is low, even by D’Amato’s standards. What’s more, it’s likely a sign of things to come. As much as I strongly disagree with McCain on most policy issues, I hate to see this kind of treatment of any veteran.

If getting wounded or losing your limbs makes you a wimp, then of course being a POW makes you unqualified to discuss torture.

Let me put it another way. If Bush says it, it’s true. If Bush does it, it’s legal. If it helps him, it’s right. If it hurts him, it’s unpatriotic.

Bush is America. Why do you hate America?

  • “There you go again” forgetting about the GOP playbook. First hand knowledge and experience never ever trumps political loyalty. McCain criticized Bush therefore he loses his ability to have a valid opinion.

    The real question here is who the hell dug up Alfonse D’amato to be on The Factor Fiction? Was Rudy Boschwitz unavailable?

  • Hmm. McCain is “traumatized.” Powell is “confused.”

    What cretins these mortals be. How is it the right wanks can adore war and worship a draft dodger and at the same time insult those who actually served our country?

    Must be uniform envy. Or the envy the coward feels towards the brave man. Creeps.

    However, I think D’Amato’s comments will come back to haunt him in the form of angry vets who were tortured and don’t appreciate being called crazy. Let the backpedalling begin, jackass.

  • So D’Amato is saying torture can drive people crazy and make their judgement unreliable, but it’s the best means of extracting information from terrorists? Not quite sure I follow that logic…

  • I really wonder how much it will take for the vets to rise up and give these slanderers and chicken-hawks a serious, and literal, ass-whipping.

    And while I tend to agree with CB about hating to see any vets treated this way, McCain was a little soft during the Swiftboating, and I don’t recall him appearing at Cleland’s side to urge voters to reject the sleaze of Saxby Chambliss. So my sympathies are limited.

    Besides, Widbag Al may be on to something: “crazy” is about the only explanation for McCain’s about-face on Bob Jones, or wanting to get cuddly with Falwell. eeewww.

    A minor tangent: here is how you react with honor when you are in a party of rabid weasels.

  • Live by the slur, die by the slur. McCain has given his odd bedfellows cover and now he’s getting the treatment back. Slurring vets is a major m.o. of the right.

    Crazy to be against torture. The world has grown crazy.

  • Republican’ts. Can’t understand morality when it spits in their eye.

    Al D, he has really lost it this time. No surprise he had to go on O’Liely to spew this nonsense.

  • There’s a huge difference between calling someone crazy and disagreeing with them on issues. I disagree with John McCain on most issues, won’t ever vote for him for president, but still have great respect for his service in the past and currently during this moment of crisis in our country.

    On the other hand, the Grand Old Looting Party is up to their old tricks, but the fact they have to scrape up Al D’Amato to deliver the “crazy” line shows they are getting desperate for spokesliars.

  • NEWS FLASH, THIS JUST IN
    People who never served in the military think they are more qualified on military operations then the men/women who actually serve/served.

    Schwag, nailed it.

    It really is a sad state of affairs when a POW is not qualified to debate torture because that very torture drove him crazy. What the hell does McCain know about torture anyways, I am sure the techniques we use today would make his ordeals seem like rainbows and butterflies.

  • Wow… I *still* can’t get used to the idea that we’re having a debate on whether torture is a good idea, so I *really* can’t wrap my mind around the idea that they’re calling someone who opposes torture (out of personal experience) too traumatized to have a valid opinion.

    How low we have sunk. It’s going to be crowded in hell.

  • McCain has taken worse insults than d’Amato’s from people whom McCain has later come back to get in bed with. I have no sympathy for the man anymore. And, of course, I have nothing but contempt for d’Amato. A plague on both of them.

  • I can’t believe that Repubs are eating their young – ie John McCain, the presumptive 2008 front-runner…obviously, the Bush camp is unamused by McCain’s opposition to Dubya’s torture shop, but who else benefits by discrediting McCain???…George Allen, Jr. is going down in flames, Bill Frist looks like a mortician from Central Casting (ain’t gonna happen…), maybe Mitt Romney???

    My guess is that the Bush/Rove machine is so enraged by McCain’s disloyalty that succession is being prepared for Jeb…and, of course, it’s better insurance that Dubya, Cheney, and Rummy will be pardoned after the War Crimes Tribunals start ramping up…

  • Anybody else aware of the fact that Al D’Amato is going to be co-host – with Mayor Bloomberg – of a major fund-raiser next month for their good buddy Joe Lie-berman??? Ah yes, he’s such a progressive – after missing almost all votes on Iraq this past year, he says a vote for him will be a vote for “bipartisan common sense” in figuring out the issue of torture.

  • So D’Amato is saying torture can drive people crazy and make their judgement unreliable, but it’s the best means of extracting information from terrorists? Not quite sure I follow that logic…
    — Schwag of Tulsa (7)

    I wish you’d post more often; that’s one of the best comments I’ve read in a while.

    My own “value added”: McCain is damned lucky since he lives in US and not in post WWII USSR; there, if you managed to survive (escape) a POW camp, you got “tried”, condemned and shot *automatically*, for being a traitor. Stands to reason; if you were “questioned”, you’d have spilled the beans and then some. Who better to know, about the effectiveness of the interrogating techniques, than us?

    Over the past 6yrs, I’ve been watching US blending into the hard-core (pre-1956) version of USSr with wide-eyed awe; I never thought those mistakes would be repeated, especially not in a country which has always prided itself on hating communism.

  • All of the above posts have great thoughts about the matter, including some real head turners. The one thing that crystalized for me out of all the commments is that the Republican party is only good at tearing things down and not building things up. Hence, they can destroy a nation, but could never nation-build. If the only tool in the Republican toolbox is a wreckingball, they will never have the capacity to build anything greater than what they destroy.

  • McCain is not crazy. Most people know that. But his political record is election reform that did not work and a ‘tough’ compromise undercut by a Bush signing statement. Other than that, he has an unending record of sucking up to a President whose every policy failed.

    He’s a veteran and a hero, but as a politician, his leadership has been that of a Nowhere Man on the way to Nowhereville.

    One hopes the electorate has higher aspirations for our country than more of that.

  • Doesn’t D’amato’s argument about McCain just reinforce the opposite of what D’amato is advocating? McCain can’t make a rational decision about torture because he was made crazy by being tortured. So, the logical conclusion is that torture causes people to speak irrationally. Why do we want to get irrational answers from tortured prisoners? The information is, by definition, inaccurate, unreliable and irrational.

  • Well, the cheery kool-aid drinkers on Fox & Friends this morning were commenting on how tired and harried McCain looked, so it looks like he is either too crazy or too tired to realize that we need to be able to torture prisoners.

  • Yes, amazing what the GOP is doing to one of their own. And all of you make great points however, one thing that is getting very little play in the media when talking about these torture bills is what both bills will be doing to habeus corpus. As many of you know, habeus corpus gives us the right to a fair and speedy trial. Both bills would strip that right away for all of us. This is the cornerstone of our constitution. We left the King for this because he could just throw you in jail and never to be heard from again. Yes, I know it something that is happening already but this just clarifies this for them. So not only is the BushCo wanting to continue it’s torturing and they also want to escape charges later, they will be taking a fundamental right from all of us. I urge you to contact your Sen. to vote for the Spector-Levin amendment which would keep habeus corpus intact. It is a shame we even have to have any of these bills or discussions.

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