{"id":16325,"date":"2008-07-23T10:00:15","date_gmt":"2008-07-23T14:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16290.html"},"modified":"2008-07-23T10:00:15","modified_gmt":"2008-07-23T14:00:15","slug":"mccain-abandons-decency-sense-of-propriety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mccain-abandons-decency-sense-of-propriety\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain abandons decency, sense of propriety"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a presidential campaign. The candidates have very different ideologies, strongly disagree with one another, and want to take the country in very different directions. It’s bound to lead to some sharp criticism, especially on issues as important as a war.<\/p>\n

But John McCain — you know, the one who vowed to the nation that he would run a positive, substance-driven campaign — continues to push the decency envelope to the breaking point.<\/p>\n

Take these comments<\/a> yesterday in New Hampshire, for example.<\/p>\n

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For those who can’t watch clips online, McCain told a town-hall audience, “[T]his is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.”<\/p>\n

For months, the McCain campaign has been itching to go after Obama’s patriotism. Apparently, they’ve figured out how they’d like to proceed.<\/p>\n

Not to put too fine a point on it, John McCain effectively accused Obama of treason yesterday. He didn’t use the word, but he suggested Obama deliberately wants to lose a war to improve his political standing.<\/p>\n

Time’s Joe Klein, who up until recently praised<\/a> McCain’s decency as a candidate, responded<\/a>, “This is the ninth presidential campaign I’ve covered. I can’t remember a more scurrilous statement by a major party candidate. It smacks of desperation. It renews questions about whether McCain has the right temperament for the presidency. How sad.”<\/p>\n

I’m not sure if “sad” cuts it.
\n
\nKlein added on CNN<\/a> last night:<\/p>\n

“McCain has been overstating his case throughout, in part for effect. I suppose the question is, does he really believe this? But what he said today — and David Gergen is absolutely right about this — what he said about Barack Obama being willing to lose a war to win an election is the most scurrilous thing that I have heard a presidential candidate say in the nine elections I have covered.<\/p>\n

“Scurrilous things have been said before, but they’re usually said by aides, and the fact — or by spokespeople. And the fact that John McCain would choose to do this by himself is a very significant moment in this campaign.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quite right. If some pseudo-independent 527 launched this as part of some smear, it wouldn’t be especially surprising. But John McCain is supposed to be an honorable man, running a respectable campaign.<\/p>\n

I’d just add that the remarks in New Hampshire may have been off the cuff, but they weren’t accidental. Less than a week ago, McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, offered an almost identical message<\/a>, and Marc Ambinder added that the attack is now part of McCain’s talking points<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’ve long felt that the challenge of being a good political writer is knowing, or at least learning, how to express an emotional reaction without losing one’s cool. It’s tempting to let one’s frustration out, writing in all-caps, and using every expletive that comes to mind — maybe even making up some new ones — in order to fully convey one’s sense of disgust. But that, in some ways, is too easy. It’s more of a challenge to convey the same sense of revulsion without flying off the handle.<\/p>\n

So, I’ll just say this: John McCain is not an honorable man. Political candidates of strong moral character do not do what John McCain is doing.<\/p>\n

Maybe it won’t matter. Perhaps voters aren’t paying enough attention. Maybe just enough Americans will be scared by email smears, Obama’s middle name, and the color of Obama’s skin to tilt the election in the other direction.<\/p>\n

But John McCain has no business leading the greatest nation on earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a presidential campaign. The candidates have very different ideologies, strongly disagree with one another, and want to take the country in very different directions. It’s bound to lead to some sharp criticism, especially on issues as important as a war. But John McCain — you know, the one who vowed to the nation that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}