My John McCain Dilemma
John McCain has always been an opportunist. He and I began careers in Arizona about the same time, so he has been part of my political landscape for a quarter century. I watched him trade on his military service and family connections to become a safely entrenched Congressman in 1982. Four years later Barry Goldwater retired and McCain easily won his Senate seat. He's been safe and conventional ever since. So I don't trust him. Then I read something like this in the Washington Post Magazine profile of McCain:
Still, there are times when his passion boils over. "I get a little emotional when I see this nativist -- and that's the kindest word that I can use -- backlash" against illegal immigrants, he told a group of Republican activists and potential campaign donors in Miami one night in July. "Yes, they came here illegally; yes, they broke our laws; yes, they have to pay a penalty for doing that. But the thought of rounding up 11 million people and sending them back to the country they came from . . . is an insult to your intelligence and, frankly, a direct contradiction of what America's all about."
He was just warming up. "I have bitten my tongue until it's bleeding and said: Look, we want to reach out; we want to talk to our friends on the right; we need to have a dialogue; we all agree that the problem has got to be solved." But, he added, "I'm not interested in calling some soldier in Iraq and telling him that I'm deporting his parents. Under this House bill, if a young woman is illegally in the United States of America, and she is raped, and she goes to a rape counseling center, the people running the center are guilty of a felony. Is that what America is supposed to be about?
"I don't think so." (emphasis added)
Almost makes me think I could trust this man.
UPDATE 08.30.06: Digby offers some additional thoughts to help resolve this dilemma.
posted by Rez Dog at 7:09 AM
2 Comments:
from a recent returnee to arizona, don't fucking trust mccain. his ambition has compromised his integrity time and time again. remember the keating debacle? he owned up to that, citing his overweening ambition as the reason. because he stood up and took his lumps i gave him a pass on that. but now, sucking up to bush whose machine defamed mccain's family, called him crazy from his time as a prisoner of war (which still amazes me for it's selfless courage), and his pandering to the fundamentalist christians who were part and parcel to slandering him. nope, can't go there. goldwater himself in his final days was distancing and grieving the loss of true western conservatism to the likes of these assholes.
Thanks for the reminder. I always wonder why the MSM never picks up on his long history of opportunism.
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