SCLM Missing in Action (Again)
When will the mainstream press — you know that ubiquitous “liberal media” we keep hearing tell of — shake themselves free of their enthralled love affair with “maverick” John McCain and actually start reporting in earnest on some of his more egregious flip-flops and catastrophic blunders? I mean aside from the highly partisan folks at Countdown that is?
Would it surprise you to learn that in addition to catting around on his crippled wife with a fetching young beer heiress, McCain was also a bigamist — at least in the sense that he had a marriage license with wife #2 before his divorce to #1 had been finalized? Although this was discretely mentioned in the LAT earlier in the week and caused some tittering amongst a few liberal blogs, can you imagine the relentless exposure this would get if it were Obama (or any other Democrat) and not McCain?
As John Avarosis put it:
Imagine if Barack Obama had two marriages at the same time. Imagine had Barack Obama lied about living with his first wife while having a mistress on the side. Imagine that all this happened while Obama had promised to speak out vocally about how gay people are a threat to marriage. We’d never hear the end of it from the Republicans and the media.
How exactly does McCain’s behaviour when he was an “amoral dingus” (to quote Wonkette), square exactly with the “family values” that Republicans are always mercilessly beating everyone else over the head with?
And what of McCain’s utterly bizarre revision to his own autobiography last week? Campaigning in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, on Wednesday McCain told Pittsburgh TV station KDKA that he recited the names of the Steelers defensive linemen when he was asked under interrogation for the name of his squadron mates.
When I was first interrogated and really had to give some information because of the physical pressures that were on me, I named the starting lineup — defensive line — of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron-mates!
It’s a great story, but there’s one tiny problem — it’s not true. When McCain was shot down, the Steelers were one of the worst teams in the NFL, in a stretch of six straight losing seasons. As a navy man stationed on aircraft carriers around the world, McCain would have been highly unlikely to have ever seen the mid-60s Steelers play a game.
Moreover, in his own autobiography Faith of Our Fathers, McCain claimed that the names of the starting lineup he passed off as squad mates to his Vietnamese captors were those of the Green Bay Packers!
In the book he wrote: “Pressed for more useful information, I gave the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line…” When his life story was made into an A&E cable TV movie in 2005, the Green Bay version of the story was acted out, complete with the names from the Packers’ 1967 defensive lineup: “Starr; Greg; McGee; Davis; Adderly; Brown; Ringo; Wood,” the movie McCain repeated.
Maybe it’s not a big deal, but it’s definitely more than a little weird to needlessly prevaricate about something that’s so essential to McCain’s “character” one would think. His campaign sloughed it off as nothing more than “an honest mistake” which seems like a highly implausible excuse all considered. More likely it was a case of shameless pandering and as such, doesn’t that speak to McCain’s integrity? Surely it would be spun that way if it were anyone else. The alternative would be to regard it as yet another example of McCain’s shoddy memory — or “a senior moment” as Fox News anchor Britt Hume charitably called it when the so-called “expert” on the Middle East repeatedly confused Shia and Sunni factions in Iraq.
When Obama mistakenly credited his great-uncle, Charlie Payne, as being among the U.S. troops who liberated the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, the RNC seized on this gaffe issuing a memo saying that Obama’s “frequent exaggerations and outright distortions raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief.” Shouldn’t that same standard apply to John McCain? Not according to our drowsy press corps it seems.
13 Comments
July 12, 2008 at 8:52 pm
When will the mainstream press — you know that ubiquitous “liberal media” we keep hearing tell of — shake themselves free of their enthralled love affair with “maverick” John McCain and actually start reporting in earnest on some of his more egregious flip-flops and catastrophic blunders?
Never…
But at least the ‘Family Values’ issue is going to be very difficult for the Repulicans to raise this year, unless that is, they want to alienate their more Conservative base even more, with Senator McCain’s questionable past (contrasted with Obama).
July 12, 2008 at 8:59 pm
That’s a good point. It could provide for some rather “awkward” moments if McCain was to get all holier than thou on the “family values” front. Mind you, it never seemed to stop Newt “served divorce papers on dying wife in hospital” Gingrich.
July 12, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I was thinking the same thing, with Newt and the hypocrisy of the Republicans and their ‘Family Values’ sharade. But then again it’s kind like how the Liberal Party of Canada still polls higher than Conservatives when it comes to ‘who do you trust with Canada’s Environmental problems’, considering their less then stellar record during power.
July 12, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Good point. These perceptions don’t seem to have much to do with reality. A lot of times it’s more just who talks the better game.
July 12, 2008 at 9:40 pm
‘who do you trust with Canada’s Environmental problems’, considering their less then stellar record during power.
I think that’s mostly because, during their time in opposition, not only did the Reform-a-Tories not confront the Liberals on their environmental record, they denied there was even a problem.
I think the question is probably “Who do distrust less?
On the SCLM giving McCain a pass: I can’t help thinking that it’s simply of functions of how the the partisans react to these things. Liberals (small-l) usually acknowledge the moral slip-ups of their own candidates (at the most, they’ll remain silent…they certainly won’t devise elaborate arguments to justify them), whereas “conservatives” have this uncanny ability to simply not react to them, or to spin them in a positive way (He said he’s sorry for having sex with that goat…look, he’s crying! What a beautifully honest person!).
So, if Obama slips up, it’s an issue both for his supporters (who’ll argue the thing to death and provide “journalists” with more copy) and his detractors, who’ll be outraged. Thus, for the SCLM, it’s just a more sensational and complex issue and will have a longer life in the news cycle.
A McCain slip-up, in comparison, seems boring. As I heard on Bill Moyers last week, he’d pretty much have to hit an old lady with his Buick to get negative press.
The other explanation is that it’s just a big corporate conspiracy, and that “journalists” are taking their orders from their corporate masters.
July 12, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Steelers, Packers… and when he he’s Cleveland it was the Brown’s lineup he recited as squadron mates.
Hellooooooooo Cleveland.
July 13, 2008 at 4:33 am
McCain has cultivated a relationship for years & years with the MSM. So they tend to like him as he’s been so “nice” & “intimate” with them. Thus the tendency to not focus on all the gaffes & flip flops & lies, etc. Or at least just fleetingly.
Also, it’s been a kind of standard that Repubs have scandals (Vitter, Craig as the more recent ones), again for years, so it’s become acceptable to most people including the press, in a way. But Dem scandals are pounced on & not let go & are magnified to the extreme. Think Spitzer.
Put simply: double standards.
July 13, 2008 at 6:25 am
There goes the idiot “johnathon” again, under the guise of SD.
I have to admit that I do appreciate seeing the true conservative nature he is displaying & that such a lot of others will see the con ignorance & depravity & lack of coherency. He is the CON’s poster boy non?
July 13, 2008 at 7:11 am
Deleted and banned. Took 5 seconds. He totally wasted his time. What a fool.
July 13, 2008 at 9:53 am
Why isn’t Obama – or, at least, his campaign – throwing all this back at McCain??
It’s time to go Karl Rove on these bastards…
July 13, 2008 at 10:06 am
“But at least the ‘Family Values’ issue is going to be very difficult for the Repulicans to raise this year, unless that is, they want to alienate their more Conservative base even more, with Senator McCain’s questionable past (contrasted with Obama).”
I doubt it. Family values has always been a myth anyways so the Republicans can always use it – and will. If they can convince millions of people that a former alcoholic, coke snorting, playboy is a great representation of family values, while also convincing the same millions that the other candidate who lived a straight and narrow life and married a girl from highschool is a poor representation of family values then they can do anything.
July 13, 2008 at 10:41 am
The question is, why do people keep buying into this bullshit?
July 13, 2008 at 11:33 am
The question is, why do people keep buying into this bullshit?
Dunning-Kruger.