Let’s hear it for Wesley Clark!

It has taken what…a year…for someone to expose the myth of McCain the fighter pilot and POW as Commander in Chief!!!

It’s infuriating that the press and the public have bought into the absurd conflation of McCain’s military service — honorable though it is — into his being qualified to be president!

John McCain has served his country well, but he has commanded NOTHING. Getting shot down in war and serving time as a prisoner does NOT make you capable of leading a nation.

Behind the “hero” facade, McCain is the ultimate empty suit who appears to be even less bright than Bush.

By Steve Levine on Jun 30, 2008

Wesley Clark would be the ideal running mate for Obama. It would be pretty hard to argue about the foreign policy credentials of the Democratic ticket if it boasted a former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO.

By Joshua Rosenstock on Jun 30, 2008

Agreed…and I think the chances are pretty good that it will happen.

By Steve Levine on Jun 30, 2008

Read my first post.

The issue isn’t McCain’s military service. He did his duty with courage. The issue is whether that service qualifies him to be president. It doesn’t.

He has lived off that war story for years, and because of it, the public has ignored his constant flip-flopping on virtually every issue. Mr. “Straight Talk,” my ass!

And the issue isn’t MY military experience. Like McCain, I’ve commanded nothing. But I’m not claiming to be qualified to be president.

By Steve Levine on Jun 30, 2008

“Sharper than Bush” doesn’t say very much, does it?

But I think as we see more of McCain in the coming weeks, he’ll be exposed as ill-informed, confused, (he voted AGAINST the Bush tax cuts before he voted FOR them) and perhaps even dumber than Bush.

By Steve Levine on Jul 2, 2008

Rather than continue to trade opinions about McCain, I thought it would be helpful to look at the facts — McCain’s own record, in his own words:

From The Nation:

“On issue after issue, and from every side of the journalistic political spectrum, a campaign of deception and distortion has helped to ensure that McCain’s extreme positions and politically inspired flip-flops remain far from the consciousness of the average voter. Just as the media-promoted notion that George W. Bush was the kind of guy with whom one might enjoy a few beers managed to obscure the predictable catastrophes that lay in store for this nation once he became President, so too can the deep-seated media denial of McCain’s extremist policies and addiction to political expediency mask the fact that his victory in November would result in a continuation–and even, in some instances, an expansion–of the very policies that have brought the nation to the brink of irreversible disaster.

It is a challenge to find an issue on which McCain has stood his ground in the face of opposition from his party’s extremist establishment. “How about abortion?” you ask. Well, speaking to the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle in August 1999, McCain explained, “Certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America” to be subject to “illegal and dangerous operations.” And McCain today? “I do not support Roe v. Wade–it should be overturned.” McCain says he favors a rape and incest exception for abortion prohibitions, but his party’s platform refuses to allow for any such exceptions. If the candidate plans on fighting to get this restrictive party plank changed, however, he has kept that information secret so far. What’s more, McCain has voted for every one of Bush’s judicial appointments, all of whom oppose a woman’s right to choose.

What about gay marriage? In 2006 McCain was one of only seven Republican senators to vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment; two years later he told Chris Matthews, “I think gay marriages should be allowed” when states decide to legalize gay unions. Today McCain not only opposes gay marriage but favors denying benefits to unmarried couples, period.

McCain’s addiction to politically convenient flip-floppery is even evident regarding the issue with which his “maverick” reputation is most closely associated–political reform. Recall that much of McCain’s reputation as a reformer derives from the partnership he forged with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold to try to reform the nation’s campaign finance laws. He did so, he said at the time, out of a sense of remorse over his involvement with the “Keating Five,” when he helped himself to free flights on Charles Keating’s jets and asked regulators to go easy on the corrupt financier during a period when his wife happened to be Keating’s investment partner. McCain received an Ethics Committee reprimand, and he has consistently pointed to his regret over his role in the scandal as his primary motivation for his commitment to the issue, over the objection of many in his party.

In early June, Times reporter Charlie Savage revealed another crucial McCain flip-flop: as recently as January, McCain said he opposed George W. Bush’s unconstitutional wiretaps on American citizens, explaining, “I don’t think the President has the right to disobey any law.” But as with so many of McCain’s more moderate positions, that was then. Today, according to his top adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain has decided that “neither the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001.”

Then there are the so-called “social” issues. It’s not just that McCain’s strong antichoice position is out of step with that of most Americans. No less worrisome are his close ties to some of the most radical leaders of the Christian fundamentalist movement. McCain has repeatedly attempted to distance himself in a vague and imprecise fashion from the more extreme statements of the Catholic-hating, Hitler-admiring Pastor John Hagee, whose support he had previously worked so hard to earn. He was also forced to distance himself, quite belatedly, from the support he had so energetically pursued from the Rev. Rod Parsley, who has called hate crimes legislation a “deceptive ploy of [the] liberal, homosexual agenda.” Parsley has also advocated criminal prosecution of adulterers, compared Planned Parenthood to the Nazis, and refers to Islam as an “anti-Christ religion” and to the Prophet Muhammad as “the mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil.” Before May, when McCain finally repudiated Parsley (together with Hagee), he told reporters that he felt “honored” to be associated with “one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide.” The number of flip-flops–indeed, back flips–McCain has performed with regard to his party’s intolerant Christian fundamentalist base resists easy calculation. Recall that in 2000, when faced with religious-right attacks on his campaign, McCain labeled Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson “agents of intolerance” and “corrupting influences on religion and politics.” This time around, he happily went to kiss the late Reverend Falwell’s ring with a speech at Falwell’s Liberty University.

Let’s take a moment to sum up:
the anti-torture candidate supports torture.
The pro-immigration candidate opposes immigration.
The candidate who opposes tax cuts for the rich supports them.
The pro-campaign finance reform candidate has a campaign that is run almost exclusively by lobbyists, and exploits loopholes in the law to skirt spending limits–even the laws the candidate wrote.
The candidate who opposes “agents of intolerance” in the Republican Party embraces them.
The candidate with the foreign policy experience frequently confuses Sunnis and Shiites and misreads Iranian influence in the region, but is proposing permanent war.
The candidate who claims to be a fiscal conservative wants to bust the budget.
The candidate who claims to take global warming seriously does not want to take any serious action to address it.”

I’ll say it again: Straight talk, my ass!

By Steve Levine on Jul 2, 2008

This just in:

Today, a brave reporter finally asked John McCain the question I’ve been wanting to ask him: “In what way did your military service prepare you to be president?”

After showing visible annoyance at the question, (”Oh, please,” said McCain), straight-talking John answered, “I learned to love this country when I was deprived of it.”

It’s a line I’ve heard him use before, but it’s not exactly on point, is it?

Perhaps that’s because he can’t manufacture a response that plausibly connects his military service to the qualifications that are required in the Oval Office.

More reporters should be asking this question and pursuing this issue!

By Steve Levine on Jul 2, 2008