Ten devastating paragraphs

I've read dozens of articles about McCain and Palin the past couple of weeks. But nothing I've seen has so thoroughly gutted the McCain-Palin ticket as this column from Michael Ventura.

(Ventura has written some great columns; one of my favorites, "Lessons from Guernica," was about the strange way that wars lead countries to commit acts they would have considered abhorrent before the shooting began.)

He was a Hillary supporter, and he's not a big fan of Obama. But if you are still thinking about voting for McCain after reading "A Vote for McCain-Palin?", well... I guess I don't know what to say except, "I'm sorry."

Like most citizens, I want a president devoted to noble principles but who recognizes that compromise is always part of governance – who, when necessary, compromises fairly and wisely, without caving in to powerful special interests. In South Carolina, during the 2000 primary, John McCain backed off his stand that the Confederate flag is a "symbol of racism and slavery" and called it instead "a symbol of heritage." He's since admitted: "I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So I chose to compromise my principles" (The New York Times, Jan. 1, p.10). McCain has spoken forcefully against torture, and, as we know, he was severely tortured for five years. Yet he voted against a bill to "curtail the Central Intelligence Agency's use of harsh interrogation tactics" (The New York Times, Feb. 17, p.27). He used to be against water-boarding; now he won't rule it out (The Economist, July 5, p.18). "[H]e favors a proposed referendum in Arizona that would ban affirmative action, reversing a position he took a decade ago" (USA Today, July 28, p.14). He was against the Bush tax cuts and offshore drilling until recently, and "he has surrounded himself with former protégés of Karl Rove, whose tactics he once denounced" (The New York Times, Sept. 4, p.1). Well, taxes, energy, and Rove-ish tactics are expediencies I expect from politicians. But expediency on issues like racism and torture – does one want to vote for that? McCain may be steadfast on foreign policy, but he has a long record of giving in to the far right.

And what about foreign policy? McCain pushed for what's known as "the surge" in Iraq, risked his candidacy on it, and the surge has made a great difference – I was sure it wouldn't, but it has. What is less known is that not a month after the 9/11 attacks, and offering no evidence as to why, McCain told CNN, "Very obviously Iraq is the first country" on America's to-do list; in fact, as early as Jan. 2, 2002, McCain "was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: 'Next up, Baghdad!' ... Mr. McCain began making his case for invading Iraq to the public more than six months before the White House" (The New York Times, Aug. 17, p.1). Anyone contemplating a vote for John McCain needs to read that twice. McCain pushed for this useless, wasteful war long before Bush and Cheney. What does that say about his judgment?

... Let's see, what else? Like Bush, John McCain wants to privatize Social Security (The Wall Street Journal, March 3, p.1). "On the day Hurricane Katrina hit, McCain laughed it up with [Bush] at a birthday photo-op in Arizona" and didn't criticize the Bush administration's response to the disaster until last April (The New York Times, Aug. 16, online). He's "[railed] against a piece of pork he in fact voted for" (The New York Times, Aug. 4, p.WK15). In his acceptance speech, McCain declared, rightly, "Education is the civil rights issue of this century" – but his sincerity is suspect, since McCain "didn't even include an education policy on his Web site during primary season" (The New York Times, Aug. 24, p.WK9). As for alternative energy, "McCain deliberately avoided voting on all eight attempts to pass a bill extending the vital tax credits and production subsidies to expand our wind and solar industries" (The New York Times, Sept. 3, p.25). On the economy, McCain "has offered big tax cuts for business and the rich that he is unable to pay for. ... People on middle incomes would see little benefit. Independent analysts agree that Mr. McCain's plans would increase an already huge deficit" (The Economist, Aug. 28, p.13).