The Forgetful Mr. McCain

[Photo of McCain and Jerry Falwell - an agent of intolerance.]

McCain was way out west on Wednesday speaking to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. He said several things which might indicate that he would take a new and different road than President Bush when it came to working with other countries around the world.

"Our great power," he said, does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies."

McCain also said he wants to create a new global compact consisting of some 100 democratic countries "to advance shared values and defend shared interests." This would be known as a League of Democracies.

According to the Associated Press, "McCain also distanced himself from Bush by reiterating positions that run counter to the president: he favors a ban on torture, the quick closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists, a successor to the Kyoto climate treaty, a global nuclear disarmament effort and a renewed commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."

Well, it seems the AP is blowing smoke:

In 2007, McCain said that if elected president, he would reduce our nation's nuclear arsenal. But at the same time, he also said that "It's naive to say that we will never use nuclear weapons."

Mccain now expresses a "renewed commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty." That may be a good thing. I wonder, though, if Mr. McCain forgot that in 1999 he voted against the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty?

McCain has said he's against torture. The good senator from Arizona must also have forgotten that just a few weeks ago he voted against a bill that would have required the CIA to use only interrogation methods allowed by the Army Field Manual. When the bill passed, he urged Prezident Bush to veto it.

It must also have slipped the mind of Mr. McCain that in 1997 he voted against the Kyoto Treaty.

While Mr. McCain indicated he wanted to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, he forgot to mention that he wants to move the prisoners to the military maximum security prison, Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas. But then why in January of 2006, when expressing concern about the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, did he say he didn't care where the prisoners were held - "in Guantanamo or Des Moines, Iowa."


McCain forgets a lot of things, and he goes flip-flop.

Up until just recently, McCain favored reform legislation which would require, among other things, that conservative groups reveal their financial donors. That got him in trouble with the right-wingers, and after they protested, he arranged to have that particular provision deleted.

Back in 2000, McCain said that Bush's tax cuts were a "sop to the rich," and he voted against them when Bush became prez. Last year, however, McCain voted to extend those same cuts.

In 1999, McCain orated that "even in the long term," he would not support the repeal of Roe v. Wade. But...flip-flop! In November of last year, he said he now favored repeal because "I don't believe the Supreme Court should be legislating in the way that they did on Roe v. Wade."

In 2000, McCain became very angry with Sam and Charley Wyly. The Wyly's are Texas businessmen and they fed money to the Bush campaign which was used to produce anti-McCain ads. McCain said their "dirty money" didn't belong in national politics. Then Mr. McCain changed his mind, figuring, I guess, he could use a little of that dirty money. So he took $20,000 from them, and set them up to chair a McCain fund-raiser. [Unfortunately, the two brothers are under federal investigation and McCain had to give the money back!]

McCain evidently believes that national politics and state politics are different. He has voted against a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, while at the same time supporting an Arizona referendum that would have banned gay marriage in that state.

In 2006, McCain was quite clear that Creationism should not be taught in public schools. That was a flip from the year before when he suggested all points of view should be represented. But crazy is as crazy does: McCain is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a gathering sponsored by none other than the Discovery Institute, one of the major players pushing creationist nonsense.

McCain also can't quite remember what church he belongs to. In 2007, the AP reported McCain said he was a Baptist in spite of the fact he has, in the past, said he was an Episcopalisn. Note that he insisted he was Baptist while in South Carolina, a state with big bunches of Baptists. He kinda flip flops around from being a Baptist to being an Episcopalian. There is one way to find out - if'n he's not been dunked all the way under the water in a baptismal service, he's no Baptist!

McCain skipped Iowa when campaigning in 1999. He was anti-ethanol then. In 2006, McCain campaigned in Iowa. He was pro-ethanol then.

On the immigration issue, McCain has similar flip-flopping problems. In fact he is now very much opposed to his own McCain-Kennedy Immigration bill. At one time he thought illegal immigrants should receive Social Security benefits; now he doesn't.


McCain's call for working more closely with our democratic allies, and listening to what they have to say, sounds all right when you first hear it. But, think of how arrogant this must sound to the Europeans. The United States, in all its power and glory, is going to finally deign to listen to other countries. Why should they care? While the U.S. is still quite powerful, it is in deep trouble. We are mired in a god-awful mess in Iraq with no end in sight, and a growing mess in Afghanistan. Our economy is in the toilet. The dollar is sinking fast. Our internal divisions are creating great stress and anxiety. We are so deeply in debt that some wonder if that alone could sink us.

What does the United States have to offer these other countries? And, in the past eight years, they have learned that our leadership cannot be trusted to be truthful or forthright. In the minds of many leaders around the world the United States is a huge question mark.

Furthermore, McCain comes to this discussion with his own baggage. He has shown little inclination in the past to listen to or "respect" the views of our allies. In several TV appearances in 2003, McCain made derogatory comments about our allies. For example, he said that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq was nothing more than Schroeder's "us[ing] an anti-American card to get reelected."

He also complained: " And what I say is both the French and Germans and Belgians have vetoed, for the first time in history of the alliance, a planning for the emplacement of defensive weaponry in Turkey. I mean, that is unheard of. It's so far over the line that we've never seen anything like it. They've made clear their intentions to use whatever means to block our military action in Iraq no matter what we do. So they have to be, I think, treated for what is is, a -- an election ploy on the part of the German leader. And in the case of French, simply kind of classic French misbehavior."

I wonder if the Germans and the French remember these comments? McCain said that the French "remind me of an aging movie actress in the 1940s who's still trying to dine out on her looks, but doesn't have the face for it." Then he added, "[T]he cynical role that France is playing proves that if -- if you are not -- you cannot be a great nation unless you have purpose."

The New York Times reported in February of 2003 that McCain decried the French attitude this way: "The Lord said the poor will always be with with us, and the French will be with us too. ... This is part of a continuing French practice of throwing sand in the gears of the Atlantic alliance."


Mr. McCain is obviously a complex man. Also a confused man. And a forgetful man. We should remember, too, that his comments in Los Angeles did not signify a great departure from the policies of Mr. Bush. As someone else noted, "Bush's foreign policy approach has moderated significantly in his second term, with greater outreach to European allies and a willingness to strike deals with countries such as North Korea.

"In essence, McCain suggested he would embrace Bush's policies on terrorism, Iraq and Afghanistan while extending his willingness to meet allies halfway." That's not really any change at all.

For the rest of it, who knows? Today it appears that McCain is riding the same trail as Bush in terms of abortion, torture for terrorists, tax cuts for the rich, sucking up to the Religious Right, signing off on faith-based programs, defending the teaching of creationism in public schools, etc. McCain did say he would not use signing statements in the same way that Bush did, but he could easily change his mind on that issue tomorrow.

Mr. McCain forgets.

A final observation: If McCain should be elected president, he would be the second occupant of the White House in a row to frequently fail to speak in correct grammatical sentences! Yikes!