The strangest McCain praise ever

February 17, 2008

The NYT’s Nicholas Kristof’s column today is so odd, I had to read it a few times to see if he was kidding. I realize media adulation for John McCain is often embarrassing, even to the point of sycophancy, but this piece just doesn’t make any sense.

Even for those of us who shudder at many of John McCain’s positions, there is something refreshing about a man who wins so many votes despite a major political shortcoming: he is abysmal at pandering.

What sets Senator McCain apart isn’t so much his physical courage in Vietnam; many of his fellow prisoners also showed immense bravery under torture. But the United States Congress tends to be a courage-free zone, so Mr. McCain’s orneriness toward Republican primary voters makes him a lionheart in the political world.

As far as Kristof is concerned, McCain deserves praise for two character traits, which happen to contradict themselves: 1) McCain doesn’t pander; and 2) McCain does pander, but he’s bad at it. Kristof really gets into trouble when he offers examples.

Consider torture. There was nary a vote in the Republican primary to be gained by opposing the waterboarding of swarthy Muslim men accused of terrorism. But Mr. McCain led the battle against Dick Cheney on torture, even though it cost him donations, votes and endorsements.

Even more than his time as a prisoner in Hanoi, that marked Mr. McCain’s most heroic moment. He risked his political career to protect Muslim terror suspects who constitute the most despised and voiceless people in America.

Kristof’s timing could have been better. He’s praising McCain for taking a firm, unpopular stand on torture — just three days after McCain abandoned his position on torture to pander to his party’s far-right base.

Then there’s immigration. While other Republican candidates revved up the mobs by debating how high a limb is optimal for hanging illegal immigrants, he patiently explained that it’s a complex problem with unsatisfying solutions, including creation of a path to citizenship for illegals.

Really? At this point, McCain has said he wouldn’t vote for his own immigration bill. For that matter, McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school. Now, to make the nativist elements in his party happy, he’s against it.

For years, Mr. McCain denounced ethanol subsidies, which exist mostly because every ambitious politician in America wants to win the Iowa caucuses someday. This year he claimed that he liked ethanol after all, but he was so manifestly insincere and incompetent in this pandering that the episode was less contemptible than amusing.

I see. McCain deserves praise for abandoning his position in order to pander, but it’s fine because he’s “insincere and incompetent” about it.

Granted, his pride in “straight talk” may arise partly because he is an execrable actor. When he does try double-talk, he looks so guilty and uncomfortable that he convinces nobody.

This isn’t a good thing. When a politician shamelessly panders and flip-flops to make right-wing activists happy, it’s not worthy of praise. When a politician routinely abandons principles to curry favor with his far-right base, it’s not worthy of praise.

When a politician is so clumsy about it that they look ridiculous, it’s definitely worthy of praise.

I had the same reaction when I read this piece. I couldn’t figure out if it was meant as dry ironic satire or if it was real. Thanks for taking it on point by point.

  • He pandered on the Confederate flag in South Carolina in 2000, he pandered to Falwell this time before Falwell died, he switched from not wanting to overturn Roe v. Wade in 1999 to wanting to overturn it now. He’s clearly remade himself from a maverick to a clone, now that the circus ringmaster has let him drive the lead clone car.

  • McCain is a ‘maverick’ because is brave and resolute enough to go against his own convictions. Nor is he afraid to reject common sense to achieve his own naked ambitions. His ability to take a stand apart from himself on the issues of the day, is in part what makes his blurry vision for America so compelling – whichever way the wind blows, you can count on John McCain to lead you there.

  • In 2000 McCain centered his campaign around eliminating the “Iron Triangle” (lobbyists, money, legislation). Now his campaign manager is lobbyist Tom Davis. He had 58 federal lobbyists raising money for him. I’d call that hypocrisy, not “execrable acting,” which better describes his claims that he has been right from the beginning on the Iraq war.

  • Greetings. Just wanted to say hello, this is my first visit to this blog. Excellent job btw.

    Hehe. Looks like a case of doublethink or triplethink or reverse doubletriple upside down think. “I voted against torture before I voted against torture.” I swear reading the NYT causes brain damage. Writing for them seems even more of a health hazard.

    Anyways I think it’s time that Dems end the circular firing squad and start compiling ammo for the general election IMHO.

    Peace

  • It’s George Bush time redux. Chimpy always looked “insincere and incompetent”, but he was the guy they wanted to have a beer with. Bush took cocaine; McCain is a serial adulterer, so both are so much more human than, for example, Hillary who merely suffered anguish with Bill and has no real transgressions to denounce.

    The McCain storyline has begun. Any inconsistencies are either cute or so highly principled that it transcends our true understanding.

  • John McCain the maverick is roughly akin to George W. Bush the compassionate conservative.

    Though i get the feeling from reading history that he used to be a moderate Republican with a free-thinking maverick streak. Either his time in D.C. has worn him down or he knows that free-thinking and Republican presidential nominee go together like oil and water.

    I really wish that one of these candidates would call out corn ethanol for the scam that it is…the only people it benefits are the shareholders of Monsanto. Since they put Bt corn (GMO) on the market in 1996, our corn exports have declined by 90%. If there is a trace of genetic modification, it cannot be exported…and even farmers who aren’t growing Monsanto seed are finding traces from cross-pollination. Ethanol is the only way for Monsanto to keep those farmers buying their seed. Then again, at least one prominent, Democratic Senator is on record saying that Monsanto is a “Democratic company.”

  • We can expect to hear a lot of strange praise for John McCain between now and November.

    It isn’t strange to praise him for his courage in Vietnam.

    Praise for his legislative accomplishments? Not so much.

    Praise for his diplomacy and temperament? Not so much.

    Praise for his ability to find common ground with those who disagree with him? No, his profane outbursts kind of rule that out.

    Praise for standing resolutely by his principles? No, not Mr. Pander Bear.

    Isn’t there something besides Vietnam to praise McCain for?

    Bueller? Bueller?

  • I had the same reaction when I read this piece. I couldn’t figure out if it was meant as dry ironic satire or if it was real.

    My reaction, too. I kept waiting for the punch line. Then I realized it was Kristof.

  • Talk about phoning in a column. “Insincere and incompetent” describes Kristof’s piece as much as it characterizes St. John.

  • You go with the nominee you have, not the one you want.

    Have they learned nothing, when a candidate doesn’t seem to know much and looks “insincere and incompetent” while pandering, it’s means he really is stupid and could care less about the panderees.

    And since when do you write an article praising McCain and the only war you mention is Vietnam.

    “Even more than his time as a prisoner in Hanoi, that marked Mr. McCain’s most heroic moment.”

    Replace Hanoi with Gitmo, and we have a bunch of heroes in Cuba, pleaze. Heroes are defined by what they do when they have a choice, not by getting tortured. I am a Vet and I respect McCain for his service, but he is no hero for Hanoi.

  • It was entertaining to read the comments section to Kristof’s piece. Especially the comment by Arizona resident Filmex . My opinion is it is likely the worst column Kristof has ever written. If the NYT hadn’t brought Bill Kristol on board recently I would call the column far below NYT standards.

  • We have a president with the power to destroy the world with nuclear weapons and he pronounces the word “NuCUlar.” Confidence inspiring isn’t it?

    Now the GOP’s likely presidential nominee likes to sing “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran!” Confidence inspiring isn’t it?

    When Bush was re-elected in 2004 I knew that this country’s best days are behind it. We are a nation of easily manipulated sheep bought off with trinkets listening to Ipods and baaaaaaaaaaaaing into our cell phones about last night’s TV shows.

  • Many of the right-wing corporate propagandists “writing” for the NY Times are in a total tizzy because the end of the Bush gangster regime is near. They can’t believe it. They are all freaking out. Insane McWar will not stave off the Democratic/Obama landslide and the turning out of the Bush gangsters. 2009 ought to be “a really good show…”
    BYW, mavericks don’t goose-step…

  • I see these comments about the “Democratic landslide” – but then all we hear about from the press is about the “maverick” John McCain. WHAT is it going to take to get the “real” picture in front of the American voters? This really concerns me – and I think it needs to be THE focus of the Democratic party. And so far they ain’t making it happen – or haven’t over the last four years.

  • What about McKain’s arrogance: claiming he knows more about fighting the Iraq War than the Generals on the ground. And saying that anyone who worries about how long our troops stay in Iraq doesn’t understand war and is sort of insulting (someone,s he doesn’t say, who) intelligence. Talk about Chutzpa. He’s insulting our intelligence. I’m with ScottW714. McKain was a Navy Fly Boy who didn’t even fly that many missions. He basically sat out the Viet Nam War. How could anyone with an ounce of sense believe he knows more about fighting on the ground, in jungles, in city streets house to house than ground grunts trained in Infantry tactics? The man is senile. His logic is so flawed as to be nonsensical: “We’ve got troops in Kuwait for years, in Korea since 1950, in Germany….” Hello? The troops in Kuwait, Germany, Japan and Korea aren’t being killed by the natives. They aren’t facing roadside bombs and suicide bombers and heavily armed insurgence trying every day to kill them. In short, our troops aren’t at war or occupying those other countries. His “logic” here is clearly that of a man flirting with senility. And the stress of a tough campaign might give McKain a stroke.

  • A good column on McCain was in yesterday’s NYT; written by Gail Collins:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/opinion/16collins.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

    Kristof… His heart may be in the right place and he’s done some very good writing on the plight of women in 3rd world countries. But he should stay out of US politics; his naivete is showing. Though I must say that the general premise of his article — that a politician with a flexible spine is marginally better than one with no spine at all — is sound enough. Even if it does damn McCain with very faint praise.

  • I don’t take any columnists at the NYT very seriously anymore, with the exception of Krugman and Rich most of the time, so Kristof’s convoluted faint praise of McCain just struck me as inane. If Kerry was a flip-flopper in ’04, then what is McCain now? Romney flip-flopped his way through his four years as governor here in Massachusetts, and everyone, at least locally, saw it for what it was immediately. So much goes down the memory hole these days, and if there were a decent MSM, which there isn’t, the kind of reality manipulation we have been subjected to in recent years would be much less.

  • McCain’s courage in Vietnam was the courage of a cornered rat. Were he not an incompetent as a pilot, he’d never have had the experience.

    As a lifelong Democrat and a vet (Viet Nam era draftee), I find this remark just as offensive as the purple-heart bandaids worn by delegates to the 2004 Republican convention.

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