Inspired by the audio of McCain calling for Combat Air Traffic Controllers I heard this afternoon:
I don’t know what it is, but I am so sick of that asshole looking to get the US involved in more combat missions. He’s never seen a conflict he didn’t want the US engaged in. I actually think he might be going crazy. Or maybe he’s recently gone impotent and this is his effort to compensate (Hint: I think Viagra would be more satisfying AND kill fewer people).
He has actually turned into something rare today: An open and unapologetic warmonger.
I think I am especially steamed because I actually liked him for president in 2000, and would probably have voted for him had he received the nomination. The last few years I have been trying to figure out if I was blind then, or he is different now.
I would expect a combat veteran to view the use of troops as a more grave decision, but who knows. Maybe he looks back on his time in the Hanoi Hilton fondly, like one remembers a hazing ritual years later.
And all that’s to say nothing of the questionable results (at best) of these policies. Which he must surely understand.
Fuck you John. I think you used to be a good man, but you’ve thrown that all out the window.
It’s all part of the strategy: Obama may never be seen to do something correctly.
If Obama did exactly what McCain asks for, he would fall silent – never praise Obama for cooperating – while a shit-ton of other Republicans would start right in on criticizing Obama for putting troops in harm’s way, allying with Muslims, betraying the Kurds, betraying Israel, and so on.
McCain may just possibly be so damn drunk he really does believe what he’s saying, but, ultimately, it’s all part of the anti-Obama rope-a-dope.
It’s another term for forward observers, or targeters. They guys who shine an IR laser on a target, so the bombs/missiles have a higher probability of a direct hit.
And…it isn’t a bad idea, in terms of military strategy. McCain is not absolutely wrong in suggesting this. It would enhance the effectiveness of our air strikes significantly.
He just is completely inept if he thinks it’s a good idea politically, because it damned well isn’t. The U.S. populace is strongly against this, mostly being happy that we’re getting the fuck out of land wars in Asia. McCain is a clod for suggesting escalation in a time when that isn’t what We The People want. It would be damaging to the Administration, and, frankly, wouldn’t do Congress much good either.
It’s true that the GOP plays rope-a-dope attacking Obama from opposite sides (“too militaristic” / “not militaristic enough”; “too active” / “too passive”; etc.) relying on the FauxNews viewer not having enough attention span to grasp the contradictioons. However, McCain himself is an independent thinker and doesn’t let the GOP wag his tail. Like many, I admired McCain in the 20th century, but he never was very smart and by now is way past his use-by date.
The choice of Sarah Palin for V.P. should have convinced even the most avid McCain supporter that it was time to let McCain out to pasture, but another incident from the 2008 campaign seemed most revealing to me. Recall that the world was facing the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s; that a prompt government response was needed, that there was agreement; except for the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, on the way to move forward; and that McCain, with great publicity, had ordered a halt in the Presidential campaign to return to Washington and personally orchestrate a solution.
[QUOTE=Game Change, a book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin]
McCain … knew next to nothing about the issues in play around the bailout…
[Since] his campaign aides were legally prohibited from doing so, a young aide [on John Boehner’s staff] named Mike Sommers, who had been in the thick of the fight over the Paulson plan, was assigned the task [of staffing McCain at the White House meeting]. Sommers rode with the nominee to the meeting, prepared to provide McCain with more detail on what House Republicans were looking for. McCain, after all, was now their de facto champion – and he was headed for the high-stakes gathering he’d requested. But McCain spent the trip down Pennsylvania Avenue talking on the phone to Cindy.
“I’m on my way to the White House,” he said. “What are we doing for dinner tonight?”
When they arrived at their destination, McCain and Sommers hopped out of the car beside the West Portico. As they walked toward the door, McCain suddenly stopped and looked at Sommers blankly. “What do I need to know about this meeting?” he asked.
Obama, meanwhile, had strategized extensively with Reid and Pelosi, who agreed to defer to him.
…
[At the meeting, after initial discussion] Obama more or less took over. House and Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans are ready to make this deal, Obama said. We can’t be going forward and creating a new one. (One Republican in the room mused silently, If you closed your eyes and changed everyone’s voices, you would have thought Obama was the president of the United States.) The meeting was now more than forty minutes old. McCain had yet to contribute.
“Can I hear from Senator McCain?” Obama asked, as if he really were running the session … [McCain’s] comments sounded like introductory talking points, presented as if the first forty-five minutes of the meeting hadn’t happened…
“John, what do you think?” Frank asked sharply.
“I think the House Republicans have a right to their position,” replied McCain.
“Fine. You agree with that position?”
“No, I just think they have a right to their position.”
Bush had heard enough. “You ready to end this?” he said to Reid, who signaled his assent. “All right, I think we understand where we are,” said Bush. “We have work to do, and all I’m asking you is to make sure we go forward.” Placing his hands on the table for emphasis, he stressed how important it was that some kind of deal happen quickly.
…
Bush was dumbfounded by McCain’s behavior. He’d forced Bush to hold a meeting that the president saw as pointless – and then sat there like a bump on a log. Unconstructive, thought Bush. Unclear. Ineffectual. McCain told his aides the reason he was silent was that, from the moment the Democrats deferred to Obama, he knew that the meeting would accomplish nothing. Their disruptive behavior at the end had only confirmed his opinion… in the face of a determined Democratic resistance, McCain had failed even to wire the outcome on the Republican side…
“If you’re going to come riding into Washington on a white horse to slay a dragon, you better have the dragon tied up and tranquilized and ready to die,” a longtime friend of McCain’s concluded. “You don’t come in and not slay the dragon and walk out with a whimper.”
…
FOLLOWING MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, the Paulson bailout plan was voted down in the House of Representatives, 228 to 205; not a single Republican pulled the lever in its favor. The stock market immediately plunged nearly 800 points. Five days later, Congress finally passed a slightly modified, but still $700 billion, version of the bill. But by now, all confidence was gone. The following week, the Dow fell by almost 2,000 points, losing more than 18 percent of its value – the biggest weekly percentage drop in the 112-year history of the Exchange.
[/QUOTE]
This story clarified for me that it was Obama, and not the “more experienced” McCain, who was ready to take the highest job.
He’s now just another crotchedy geezer, still bitter about not being President. If he weren’t in politics he’d spend his time writing angry letters to the editor and yelling at the clouds. Yes, it’s sad.
McCain is a perfect example of why we need term limits. the man is senile-he wants to send the army into every war in the world. imagine if two years ago, he got his way (war against Assad’s army)? He needs to retire ASAP.
OK, thanks. I had never heard that term used like that.
Sadly, it’s not just McCain. There are lots of Republicans who agree with him. McCain gets more press because he’s an ex-presidential candidate, but I don’t think his position is any different from Graham’s, who is currently a presidential candidate.
Personally, I think Obama knows exactly what he’s doing, and knows that his strategy isn’t going to accomplish his goal wrt Daesh. And maybe this drives McCan and the like crazy, because they want him to either admit that or ante up. But the new Obama is like the honey badger-- he don’t care!!
They do that, but USAF Combat Controllers are much more; they’re literally combat air traffic controllers as well as forward air observers and pathfinders.
I agree. The fact that he could envision for even one second putting that mouth-breather one heartbeat away from the presidency, let alone actually putting her on the ticket, is by far the worst thing he’s ever done.
Actually, it was around the time of the 2008 campaign that I started wondering about him. Since then, I have noticed that every time I hear him on the news, it seems he is advocating military action somewhere.
