"Benjamin was the oldest animal on the farm, and the worst tempered. He seldom talked, and when he did, it was usually to make some cynical remark—for instance, he would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies." - Animal Farm
McCain, one of the Senate’s leading hawks, did not specify how the communist regime in Pyongyang should be replaced, but he added: “I’m not talking about military action.” McCain said the “key” to resolving the crisis... was cooperation from China, the North’s closest ally. China "could bring the North Korean economy to its knees if they wanted to," McCain said in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “Unfortunately, China is not behaving as a responsible world power."
McCain isn't dim enough to think starting a third war would be popular or even feasible (though we should probably set our clocks for a Sarah Palin war drum-beating). Even Christopher Hitchens, who still defends the Iraq fiasco and wants to open a front in Iran, when surveying the horrific hermit kingdom, could only suggest the creation of an underground railroad for North Korean expatriates.
The NOH8 Campaign is a photographic silent protest created by celebrity photographer Adam Bouska (http://www.bouska.net) and partner Jeff Parshley in direct response to the passage of Proposition 8. Photos feature subjects with duct tape over their mouths, symbolizing their voices being silenced by Prop 8 and similar legislation around the world, with "NOH8" painted on one cheek in protest.
So okay, it's against "Prop 8 and similar legislation." Hmmmm.... What about John McCain's vaunted stance, then? What does he stand for? That depends on when you ask him. Last May (emphasis mine):
With the November elections looming, they don’t want to wait for the Defense Department’s study about how the implementation of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ would affect the military’s battle effectiveness and morale in a time of war. Wait a year for the study to be complete? They don’t want to hear that. They want to repeal the law, and then look at the study. It’s just crazy.
I will listen to our military leaders, and not a study that is leaked....All four service chiefs are saying we need a thorough and complete study of the effects, not how to implement the repeal, but the effects on morale and battle effectiveness. That's what I want, and once we get this study, we need to have hearings and we need to examine it and look at whether it's the kind of study that we wanted. It isn't in my view.
I think part of the reason John McCain is so uncomfortable with Rovian smears and bullshit artistry, even as he engages in it, is because he himself was once on the receiving end of some of the absolute worst that Rove had to offer.
Rove, you will recall, is widely believed to have been behind a South Carolina push poll that implied McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child, in reference to his adopted Bangladeshi daughter. It lost McCain the Republican nomination to George W. Bush in 2000.
The selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was easily the lowest point of John McCain's career. Whatever infighting there may have been behind the scenes, McCain has never publicly acknowledged the cynicism and cravenness of that decision, and has since then been content to splash around in the most shallow and muddy of politics.
Doing whatever he can to get elected makes McCain a most cynical politician, but what makes him probably even more despicable is that on some level he is completely aware and ashamed of this amorality. His maverick reputation was always something of a media creation, and he could be genuinely cruel, even to those he loves. But there have been certain moments where he was visibly uncomfortable with the electoral nastiness into which he had gotten himself. There were his belated attempts to quell the ugly tone and rhetoric of his supporters during his presidential campaign, and his classy concession speech, delivered to a crowd of Tea Partiers-in-waiting.
Most telling of all are his comments at the beginning of his descent. It's hard to believe now, but once upon a time McCain was one of Jon Stewart's favorite and most frequent guests, due to his moderation amid his party's gross abuses of decorum, power, and responsibility. But in the very early stages of the 2008 presidential campaign--which is to say, the very early stages of the 2006 midterms--he began to reverse himself on the matter of Jerry Falwell, whom he had dubbed an "agent of intolerance." McCain scheduled a speech at Falwell's Liberty University, and Stewart, smelling a rat, brought him onto the show to explain himself.
"You're not freaking out on us? Are you freaking out on us?" Stewart asked.
"Just a little," McCain said.
"Cuz if you're freaking out on us and you're going into the crazy base world ... Are you going into Crazy Baseworld?"
"I'm afraid so."
Though few if any knew it at the time, it was a Rubicon moment for McCain. There was some hope that conceding to the religious right would be temporary, a box to be checked on the road to nomination, whereafter he could play to the center, as he had been the past few years.
The political winds had turned against the Republican brand by then, though, and so McCain's only chance at viability was to bear to the right as much as possible. But the base has never trusted him, and for good reason. So like a lover nervous about getting dumped, McCain has born an affectation of affection and constantly showered them with gifts to prove his loyalty, the best of which, Sarah Palin, keeps on giving.
Karl Rove is cynical enough to blast Obama for deficit spending after having gone on record saying "deficits don't matter." McCain knows better, but he engages in the ugly farce anyway, perhaps for the greater good, perhaps to save his job, perhaps because for him there is no difference now between the two.
Stinkbugs are swarming this season, and scientists are not sure what to do about it yet, calling for more research:
The department is spending $800,000 this fiscal year on stink bug research, double last year’s budget, Mr. Hackett said. But he estimated that seven more full-time researchers were needed, at a cost of about $3.5 million a year for salaries and research expenses.
How long until John McCain fires of some bitchy anti-science tweet or soundbite? I'll save him the trouble of writing it:
$3.5 mil a year for stinkbug research? Something smells.
It must be quite liberating to be able to say anything when you know nothing.
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