The Maverick
By Capt. Fogg
You hear the word Maverick tagging along after John McCain fairly often. I suppose he'd like you to understand it as meaning he's independent; belonging to no one, but of course that's not really John McCain and like John, Maverick has more than one meaning. It's also defined as a free range animal, belonging to the first person to brand it and it often seems as if the beast in question is sporting that old GOP brand on its haunches.
No matter how often waterboarding has been used by the United States, and we know it has been, it's torture. We know that as torture it's banned by the Army Field Manual. We know that we hanged Japanese officers for using it during WW II. We know that we don't want such things done to any American captured by an enemy. Administration doubletalk notwithstanding, it's torture and hypothetical scenarios about saving the world from destruction set aside, it elicits bad and unreliable confessions that can be used to further illegitimate agendas.
The Senate passed a bill yesterday that establishes a uniform standard of conduct which implements the Army Manual interrogation guidelines. John McCain, the Maverick, voted against it. I'm sure that like the rest of the Republican herd, he had his reasons.
Cross posted from Human Voices
You hear the word Maverick tagging along after John McCain fairly often. I suppose he'd like you to understand it as meaning he's independent; belonging to no one, but of course that's not really John McCain and like John, Maverick has more than one meaning. It's also defined as a free range animal, belonging to the first person to brand it and it often seems as if the beast in question is sporting that old GOP brand on its haunches.
No matter how often waterboarding has been used by the United States, and we know it has been, it's torture. We know that as torture it's banned by the Army Field Manual. We know that we hanged Japanese officers for using it during WW II. We know that we don't want such things done to any American captured by an enemy. Administration doubletalk notwithstanding, it's torture and hypothetical scenarios about saving the world from destruction set aside, it elicits bad and unreliable confessions that can be used to further illegitimate agendas.
The Senate passed a bill yesterday that establishes a uniform standard of conduct which implements the Army Manual interrogation guidelines. John McCain, the Maverick, voted against it. I'm sure that like the rest of the Republican herd, he had his reasons.
Cross posted from Human Voices
posted by Libby Spencer at 9:47 AM
5 Comments:
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McCain scares me! Lousy temper! And he might just fool independent and even some Democrats and cost Obama the election!
By the way, where has "The Daily Curmudgeon gone?"
Well, obama '08, here's one moderate that's going to vote for McCain for I feel that Obama is fooling everyone.
My reasoning for voting for McCain is simple, for that's what I do best. The evangelicals hate McCain, the conservatives hate McCain and liberals just don't trust him.
He must be doing something right.
Curmudgeon stopped posting a while ago and I haven't been able to persuade him to resume.
Jim,
You're joking of course - aren't you? Why not pick someone everyone on earth hates and vote for him? Same logic just taken a bit further. Sure Obama is full of inspiring vagueness and Clinton inspires irrational hatred, but McCain is a Party animal despite the maverick clothing and we are all mightily sick of the GOP and its GOD and its wars and corruption and incompetence and gratuitous authoritarianism and dark secrecy - and John shows no sign of being disturbed by any of that.
McCain is just as guilty of everything I can criticize all the others for - except that he's not as religiously demented as Huckabee - unless he has to seem that way sometimes.
In McCain I see a weak striver with no substance and a strong ambition that comes before integrity. He doesn't support torture except when he needs the votes of torture supporters. He's not a fundamentalist except when he needs the apocalyptic nut jobs to vote for him, etc. etc.
Three quarters of the country want out of Iraq and he wants to make it a possession - what's to like about him? We don't need another imperial president who doesn't care what the electorate thinks and does what he damned well pleases when ever it suits him.
I know this is a little off your point, but I've always been fascinated that the word "Maverick" is the one that's been attached to McCain.
If he were to choose a term, that would likely be it because it echoes his pilot days and makes him seem dashing.
They could just call him "codger," "spoiler" or somesuch.
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