John McCain has essentially abandoned the bus he rode in on. Whether it was embracing Jerry Falwell, or joining up with George Bush’s Republican ditto heads, or being against tax cuts before being for them, he has more or less abandoned straight talk for whatever-it-takes talk. This isn’t exactly an original tact among politicians, but because of McCain’s earlier foray into the presidential swamp in 2000, when the Straight Talk Express™ had an aura of authenticity to it, after making a 180 degree turn eight years the same ploy rings a bit hollow. Of all the sad cave-ins to straight talk, his embracing the fear tactic - about immigrants and terrorists - is the most disheartening and unforgivable.

View John McCain talking about his 100 Years War in this clip on YouTube.

A classic video from :

May 1, 2003. A Navy jet makes a dramatic tailhook landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln somewhere off the coast of San Diego. The jet has been dressed up with new decals identifying it as “Navy 1”; “George W. Bush Commander-in-Chief” is painted beneath the cockpit window.

The war in Iraq is over.

The Commander-in-Chief dressed up for the occasion too. Wearing a dark green flight suit and carrying a helmet under his arm, and looking like an extra in Top Gun, George W. Bush gazes up at a giant banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”.  He gives a big thumbs up sign.

Later that evening, the President gives a speech from the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier’s flight deck announcing, that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”

That was almost five years ago.

But as far as Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy to Osama bin Laden, was concerned - nothing had ended. The following September, he said, “The American defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan has become just a question of time… The Americans are between two fires. If they remain [in Iraq] they will bleed to death, and if they withdraw they will have lost everything.”

We’ve been bleeding in Iraq ever since. So have the Iraqis.

Nearly 4,000 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq; more than 29,000 wounded.

Over a million Iraqis have died since the invasion.

And the U.S. economy has been fatally wounded as well

Nineteen young men armed with $3 box cutters started a war that has the U.S. spending $3,000,000,000 per week in Iraq.

Our current economic woes are inextricably linked to the war in Iraq. And it’s not just the huge sums of money we’ve spent -money we had to borrow because of irresponsible tax cuts. (Historically taxes have been increased to pay for wars.) And what about oil? There’s no denying that one of the reasons we chose to go to war was to protect our “oil interests in the Middle East”. Oil was under $30 a barrel when Bush landed on that aircraft carrier. Today it’s over $100 a barrel, and climbing. Admittedly, this is a gross over-simplification of the economics of the situation, yet the result of our actions is clear. Financial ruin threatens us every bit – maybe more so – than Al Qaeda. We’ve jeopardized our financial future because of the hubris of our leaders – George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Were it not for their maniacal rush to war to depose Saddam Hussein, we would likely be in a far better place today.

This fall we’ll have an opportunity to choose a different destiny. Americans will have a clear choice: John McCain will keep us on our present course – Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will point us in a new direction. I would think that would a simple decision for most voters.

From a story by Hans Nichols at Bloomberg.com:

” John McCain is at least as determined as George W. Bush to stay the course in Iraq and more confrontational than the president on foreign policy issues ranging from Russia and China to North Korea.

The perception that McCain is less bellicose than the administration is belied by his own positions. He’s skeptical about Bush’s plan to provide nuclear fuel to North Korea. He has signaled he would be tougher on China. And he called Russia’s elections ‘rigged’ even as Bush said he wanted a ‘close’ relationship with the president-elect

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From the Democratic Party website:

“ On the campaign trail, John McCain tries to bolster his “maverick” image and brand himself as a “different” kind of Republican by claiming to be above the fear and smear tactics that Bush Republicans have used for the past seven years. In reality, McCain has consistently used exactly the same kind of tactics to try to bring down his opponents and scare the American people when it suits his political needs.

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Another excellent post from S.W. Anderson, over at Oh!pinion:

“ Sen. John McCain’s transparent bid to have it both ways regarding Pastor John Hagee’s backing makes clear McCain has traded in his bus, the Straight Talk Express, for a garbage truck.

We call his new rig the Anything-to-Win Wagon.

What’s so bad about Hagee? Here’s one part of what the San Antonio spiritual guide of tens of thousands of churchgoers, and even more who watch his TV outlet, is about:

The televangelist, San Antonio megachurch leader John Hagee, has referred to the Roman Catholic Church as “the great whore” and called it a “false cult system” and “the apostate church”; the word “apostate” means someone who has forsaken his religion.

He also has linked Adolf Hitler to the Catholic church, suggesting it helped shape his anti-Semitism.

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John W. Lillpop, writing at the Post Chronicle:

“ Those who believe that Senator John McCain is above using fear mongering as a campaign strategy need a brief history refresher going back to the summer of 2007.

During that summer, McCain decided that fear mongering was essential in trying to sell his amnesty snake oil to a skeptical and increasingly suspicious public.

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Asked why the U.S. doesn’t make a real effort to deport illegal aliens, like France does, McCain said:

From one of my favorite blogs, Oh!pinion:

” The problem for McCain and the Republicans, of course, is that they have no credible, positive domestic agenda to campaign on.

For example, to a public neither impressed nor much benefited by President Bush’s three oversized tax cuts, there’s no enthusiasm for making those cuts permanent. That’s especially true when people see fresh evidence at every turn that services and protections they look to their federal government for have been cut back or made ineffective by Bush and congressional Republicans’ budget choices.

Fear of terrorism, the war in Iraq and rattling sabers at Iran are almost all McCain and congressional Republicans have to talk about. Plus, of course, the usual smear-and-jeer swiftboating, this time seasoned with none-too-subtle racism.

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