John McCain: The Beginning of the End

In 2004, war heroes as we know them were persona-non-grata, as far as presidential candidates go. John Kerry was shunned like a member of the Viet Cong he so valiantly battled and George W. Bush, an alcoholic coke freak gone AWOL, was re-elected. But this year - 2008 - war heroes are once again in vogue, as John McCain steams ahead toward the Republican nomination. And now that we officially have a presidential race, it's time we set a couple of things straight. First of all, John McCain may be a “war hero,” insomuch as he suited up; that act alone would make every American who has EVER worn a uniform a war hero. Which is fine, but I wouldn’t quite deem just any veteran, past or present, as qualified for leading the country. And John McCain is “just any veteran” and nothing more. His examples of leadership both in the field of battle and in Washington are negligible. And as for being a thought-leading “maverick” … that’s a joke.

It’s no secret that in the past eight years he has gone with the Bush crowd 95% of the time. And before that, he prided himself on bi-partisanship – which is basically how Congress was run before the age of Reagan, when McCain came on board.

But more than anything else, John McCain is a phony. That smirk of his – always delivered immediately after a grim-faced McCain has delivered more bad news about the country or an opponent – is starting to piss me off after all these years. We’ve all seen it: At the conclusion of a statement, he’ll freeze, look around quickly for the camera with the red light on, and flash that pained, fake smile. However, I don’t think he’s going to being smiling too much in the coming months of Campaign 2008 – now he has Barack Obama to contend with and things are about to get a lot more serious.

McCain has criticized Obama as the nominee of “pundits and party elders,” ignoring the uprising the guy has generated, not to mention the rightly won delegates. He has claimed to be better qualified to lead a nation at war due to Obama lack of military service, which is a joke, considering McCain’s allegiance to Bush. Recently, McCain has asked how Obama could possibly know what is going on in Iraq since he hasn’t been there lately. Well, hell, I haven’t been to Iraq at all, but I sure as fuck don’t think I need to visit the damn place to understand how bitched up things are thanks to George W. Bush and the support of John McCain.

A few months ago, McCain claimed that this war could go on for another 100 years. Realizing the stupidity of that statement, just a few weeks ago he said he’d be able to end the war in four years time; over his first term.

My question is, if you know what it takes to bring these kids home, why not do it NOW? What are you waiting for? What have you BEEN waiting for?

It’s as if McCain is in a vacuum – vowing to continuing Bush policies in Iraq and at home, essentially giving us that third Bush term we’ve all been dreading, ignoring what American voters screamed in 2006: GET US OUT OF IRAQ!

Iraq. Jesus. A place we should have NEVER descended upon, and wouldn’t have if Dick Cheney hadn’t felt the need to pad his already plentiful bank account. Liberate the Iraqi people? I don’t give one good goddam fuck about the Iraqi people … do you? That rationale is about as insane as the argument used by Bush the First in 1991 – a war to “liberate the people of Kuwait?” Anyone who doesn’t know now – and didn’t know then – that the Persian Gulf War was about oil and money is a moron. And lest anyone think I’ve some sort of peacenik, my post-9/11 plan would have taken care of a couple of problems: On September 12, 2001, the carpet bombing would have commenced – Iraq, Iran, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and Sudan … wiped off the goddam map. The U.S. military moves in to surround Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, combining them to create the 51st state and WE own the world’s oil.

And we’d be paying about 25¢ a gallon for gas.

But things didn’t work out that way. And now this “war” goes on and on, though there have been signs of McCain backtracking on his heretofore support of Bush.

On the night of Obama’s clinching primary victories, McCain disavowed Bush in a mean and nasty way, while gushing over Hillary in a pathetic roundabout plea to her supporters; the same Hillary he’s spent years trashing.

Once a phony, always a phony.