Friday, August 22, 2008

John McCain: Liar and Hypocrite

A great little article from the L.A. Times, which truly does highlight the economic differences between the two Presidential candidates and, perhaps more importantly, the difference in attention to speaking honestly to the very people they wish to elect them.
McCain is a liar and a hypocrite.

"...The goal is to be seen as a man -- or woman -- of the people.Recall George H.W. Bush, the senator's son and scion of upper-crust Kennebunkport, Maine, munching on pork rinds on his way to presidential victory in 1988. Four years later, he marveled aloud at his first apparent encounter with a supermarket bar-code scanner -- and lost to Bill Clinton, who knew the price of a gallon of milk...
Remember that McCain is the man who told a bunch of bikers at a rally that he would rather listen to them revving their hogs in his honor than anything else. To him, he said, it was the sound of freedom...all that gas being wasted and exhaust being propelled outward (and among those many bikers were representatives of outlaw gangs that traffick in drugs, guns and murder). Then, remember this is the man who "jokingly" claimed that being wealthy involved being worth or making in a year $5,000,000. Further, remember this is the man who claimed that he would run a civil campaign, but stood to the side while his staffers questioned Barack Obama's patriotism, religious affiliation, closet cigarette smoking and even his familial heritage. Then, McCain said to the press that he was proud of these ads and didn't see them as negative or underhanded.
"...Bloggers already have made light of McCain's standard footwear: black leather Ferragamos that retail for $520. But no presidential candidate has ever owned so many homes that he couldn't come up with a number when asked.... "
And remember when we thought John Edwards's $400 haircut was outrageous?
...Most of Obama's income stems from his two bestselling books and an advance on a children's book. He and his family stayed at a friend's home last week in Hawaii, where beaches, in fact, are all public. Obama spent part of his childhood in Hawaii, and his grandmother lives there...
So, "elitist" doesn't seem to play as big a factor in his vacation as McCain said it did. Also, it is McCain who doesn't like to get up before 8 a.m. on the campaign tour and who regularly hides out on the weekends in order to "rejuice his battery". There's an oldness factor in play here that scares me. McCain claims he should be the one with his finger on the red button, but is he really the one who should be woken up at 3 a.m. when a national crisis occurs? He would be the oldest president ever elected. Nothing wrong with the wisdom that comes with age, but he has actually admitted he gets tired easily sometimes and needs extra rest. And this is before he even takes the most important office in our country, which stresses and taxes even the seemingly young and ages them beyond their years.
"...McCain, who huddled with advisors [sic] at his desert compound in Sedona, Ariz., said nothing in public. A nine-car motorcade took him to a nearby Starbucks early in the morning, where he ordered a large cappuccino. McCain otherwise avoided reporters..."
I have a co-worker who, two weeks ago, was fretting that she wouldn't be able to make it to the company's summer picnic, because she didn't know if she could afford the gas. And the picnic was at our office, which means one more trip to work than she would have done in a regular week. How would she feel upon finding out that McCain needed nine cars to get to and from a Starbucks for his precious cappucino?
I may not be totally enamored of Obama Barack, but I am definitely outraged by John McCain and his supposed connections to the common working class person. He has less in common with me than any evidence of past life we may someday find on Mars. At least, extinct Martian lichen may have one day breathed the same type of air as me. McCain never has held a real job in his life, one that involved getting a paycheck from an employer who provided no vacation or sick leave or medical insurance or one that involved balancing the weekly budget to find out what small luxuries could be afforded (like a movie or a dinner out or an evening down at the local watering hole. No, he was born into wealth, went into the military, crashed 4 planes, went straight into politics (via his family connections) and eventually married a beer fortune heiress after cheating repeatedly on his first wife. Oh, and along the way he spent time in a Vietnamese prison camp (the last plane mishap), which he gladly trots in order to prove he's a better American than almost everyone else.
McCain is a liar and a hypocrite. And, in my opinion, a sad commentary on our society's inability to parse the difference between those who try to do positive things for the country and those who claim entitlement through sheer happenstance while denigrating anyone who stands in their way.

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