Shorter Grumpy Old Man: I got your change right here, ya little bastards. Now get the fuck offa my lawn.
[Update: If McCain wants to cut the shit and compare Obama's actual positions and proposals to McCain's own, then he should step the fuck up and do so. Because from all I've seen and heard, McCain's got plenty of high-handed rhetorical bromides of his own, but on actual issues, McCain promises more of the same.
There's a slogan for ya: Like Fredo's crazy uncle.
Anyone who says they're sick of the war, or want a better economy, and still votes for McCain is either an idiot or a lying sack of shit, period. And it will not (well, should not) take long for either Democratic candidate to start picking McCain's substantive positions right apart.]
Well, yeah, they're gonna start looking more closely at his recent record, after he gets the nomination -- so what? Do you think restating the obvious ("He was against torture before he was for it" ; "He was a maverick before he became Bush's bitch") is going to change the mind of anyone who was even considering voting for this short-tempered old crank?
ReplyDeleteNo. And it's clearly not because people might not know enough about what he's been up to since 2000. Depressingly, it's because they've come to see those things--endorsing toture; prolonging the Eternal War for the Re-subjugation of Brown People indefinitely; giving head to religious lunatics on the fringe Right--as acceptable behaviour in the first magistrate of the "Republic." Hell, some of them think it's even desirable! And it's also not because of overly simplistic explanations--like, they've been watching too much Jack Bauer shit or something. The malaise is a great deal more profound. It amounts to the fact that too large a part of the country's constituency has lost the appetite for and understanding of what it is to live like a free person. A general dulling of the nation's sense of decency, creeping sociopathic attitudes in the citizenry at large, and a pervasive consumerism that's invaded what used to be part of the moral sphere--like, basic principles and such--has resulted in a populace that's unfit to govern itself via a truly democratic republic. Instead, they just wanna be told what to do and think, and be allowed to buy ever more ruinous gizmos.
It was Bush's glorious insight (or rather, Rove's) to see that for the first time since they Sixties. McCain is just repackaging the original offer. And the fact that he's so popular, despite everyone knowing how he's changed tune, shows that it's not only Bush's dead-enders that continue to long for a morally coward, ill-tempered and authoritarian caudillo. The so-called "independents" want that, too.
If I'm wrong about this, seventy percent of the electorate would have risen up in outrage the first time it became obvious that this administration tortures people, and thinks it's quite OK to spy on its own citizens. The fact that they haven't, depressingly, shows that I must be onto something here.