{"id":8509,"date":"2006-09-19T15:11:13","date_gmt":"2006-09-19T19:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8509.html"},"modified":"2006-09-19T15:11:13","modified_gmt":"2006-09-19T19:11:13","slug":"the-mccain-is-crazy-meme-gets-started-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-mccain-is-crazy-meme-gets-started-early\/","title":{"rendered":"The McCain-is-crazy meme gets started early"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8509","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=8509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}