It’s amazing that the Mainstream Media has bought the whole “Barack Obama is different” line of attack hook, line, and sinker. If they’d pause for just one second to take a look at how much John McCain shares with the average American they might discover who the truly out of touch candidate is. Luckily, there are still some out there making the point. Bob Cesca on The Huffington Post reached his breaking point:
This week, for example, Cokie Roberts and Michael Crowley, along with a creepy monster squad of Republican stalkers, have been trying to peg Senator Obama’s vacation in Hawaii as proof that the script is accurate. Hawaii, they say, is only for exotic elitists. Senator Obama is in Hawaii. Therefore, Senator Obama is an exotic elitist. See how that works?
Never mind that this Hawaii-is-exotic-and-elitist gripe came from a not-elitist millionaire with the not-exotic name “Cokie.” This Cokie phenomenon is a solid example of the script’s paradoxical, fictitious awfulness. Despite similar griping from the McBush Republicans, the truth is that Senator McCain is far and away the more elitist and exotic of the two candidates. Fact. No bias here.
Let’s start with Hawaii and do the list.
Senator McCain met and fell in love with his current wife, Cindy Hensley, while on vacation in… exotic and elitist Hawaii. He was 42, she was 24. He was still married to his first wife at the time, who was disabled as the result of a car accident, by the way. The whole scene — Hawaii, cheating on a disabled wife with a super-rich beer heiress — is just about as exotic and elitist as it gets according to the standards of the script.
Cesca continues on to talk about how Cindy McCain’s beer distributorship pulls in upwards of $300 million annually, how the McCains have 8 houses, how they have a private jet and more. Is that relate-able to by most Americans? Or would most relate to the man who has been happily married to the same wife his whole life, just paid off his student loans, was raised by a single mother from Kansas, and wears shoes that cost less than McCain’s $520 loafers?
Look, I hate the whole idea of even debating these issues; they’re worthless points. But the fact of the matter is that McCain’s consciously and strategically leveraging a narrative of Obama as unamerican while he is woefully out of touch with the average American. I actually don’t take issue at all with McCain’s background (save for his possible disloyalty in marriage, which is still unclear anyway) and wish we could move on, but as long as he’s wielding this sword, I think it’s time for the light to shine in the other direction…
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“Americans Have Much Less in Common with John McCain”… than they do with Barack Obama.
Until we have a real public financing system, there will never be a presidential candidate who is “one of us.” Where is “one of us” going to come up with several hundred million dollars?
We could start the process by rejecting the obvious BS put out by the Talking Heads about exotic Hawaii and how John McCain is somehow a common man of the struggling American people. His life has been one of privilege and certainly not comparable to the average American. The guy has more homes than most guys have pairs of shoes.
“His life has been one of privilege and certainly not comparable to the average American. The guy has more homes than most guys have pairs of shoes.” That is so funny because it is so true. I definitely do not have 8 pairs of shoes.
Let’s not forget that most Americans know how to use a computer as well. Jon couldn’t even log on to MNPublius. Scary!!!
John McCain has adulterated and divorced his wife. That’s pretty common.
That’s true. Most Americans don’t have a multi-generational history of military service and most Americans haven’t been tortured in a POW camp.
Chris, I agree 100%,
Americans haven’t been tortured.
Great Job!!
Most Americans have not had a marriage license with one woman while still being married to another.
Most Americans did not graduate third from the bottom of their class in flight school.
Most Americans did not wreck five fighter planes.
Most Americans don’t live high on the hog because of their millionaire trophy-wife’s family fortune.
Most Americans who are strongly against torture didn’t vote to allow the American government to practice a form of torture which has been illegal for sixty years.
lojasmo,
Now that’s funny! Pretty soon you’ll be saying that if John McCain were a real war hero he wouldn’t have ended up in the Hanoi Hilton in the first place. Keep trashing the guy, it will show the rest of America just how Obama really isn’t the new kind of politics man he’s fooled people into thinking.
P.S. John Kerry is also divorced and traded up wives to a billionairess.
P.S.S Jon Kerry isn’t running for president and Ted Stevens isn’t a Republican. Chris you have no credibility. Your opinion, even just on MNPub, means less than nothing. Keep it up though!
P.S.S.S. - That opinion you just typed, your presidential candidate of choice couldn’t even log on to this site, Much less type and send a message for us to read. Vote for him!!!
Zach,
Senator John (not Jon) Forbes Kerry was your party’s nominee four years ago, largely funded by his billionairess wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. And what’s this crap about Ted Stevens not being a Republican??? You’re out to lunch pal. And by the way, I don’t care whether or not McCain uses the internet. I hope whomever the President is, he’s not emailing and shopping at Amazon.com all day long.
Chris, do you know that if you shoot down 5 enemy planes you are considered an Ace? John McCain could easily be considered a North Vietnamese Ace for his destruction of 5 of the planes he flew. He was a war hero for both sides! What a man!
amuseinc,
Yep, the Obama campaign should be really proud of its “new” kind of politics. I hope you’re writing commercials for them because your pathetic and mean sprited comments about McCain will most assuredly guarantee a landslide for McCain. And even though I don’t agree with McCain on several issues, I have a hell of a lot more respect for him coming back after more than five years in a POW camp and supporting his fellow soldiers instead of trashing them like you do.
Chris how old are you? 12? I have watched Republicans for 50 years trashing War Heroes whose only crime was being a member of the Democratic Party. Why is John McCain not able to take the same kind of crap thrown at Democrats by Republicans for all those years? Are you people such wimps that you can’t play hard ball politics when it is done to you instead of by you?
Chris, drop the false bullshit holier than thou pose… want a lesson in Republican dirty tricks, lies and political skullduggery? This is not about Obama it is about the Republican tradition or should we call it the Republican disease.
What is good for the goose is great for the gander, even when that goose wants to wrap himself in a tattered American flag of being tortured 30 years ago. John McCain cheated repeatedly on his severely injured wife with a much younger woman about the same amount of years ago… if I can’t hold his adultery against him because it happened so many years go, why must I credit him for his 5 years in the Hanoi Hilton the same many years ago?
Come on amuse. You can’t expect Chris to hold McCain to the same standards. Edwards cheating on his wife bad. McCain cheating on his wife? He’s a war hero! And Kerry got a divorce too! Never mind that Kerry met his second wife two years after the divorce making Chris’s attempt at drawing a comparison a complete farce. War Hero! POW!
amuseinc: You do a disservice to our side of the line when you make comments like this: “John McCain could easily be considered a North Vietnamese Ace for his destruction of 5 of the planes he flew.” John McCain is a real American hero. And, yes, I know that he wasn’t God’s gift to fighter pilots, and yes, I know that he capitulated to Viet Cong demands when captured, but these are trite, short-sighted critiques of a man who has been deservedly honored as a true patriot. When he was offered early release as special treatment for his family’s status he refused to leave without his fellow soldiers, this after being brutally beaten and tortured for months. So, I’m sorry, I wouldn’t even care if he accidentally shot down 5 American planes; as poor a pilot as he may have been, he was a true hero when it came time to test his mettle.
We will win because Barack Obama offers a new direction for this nation that stands in stark contrast to John McCain both in its breadth and ingenuity. We will win because we believe that America is at its best when we stand together hoping for a new page turned. We will win because the solution to 8 years of Presidential catastrophe isn’t 4 more of the same. So, please, feel free to attack John McCain where he deserves to be: his lack of foresight in the war on terror (lambasting Obama for calling for a return of attention to Afghanistan), his years of shortsighted votes on domestic social policies (voting against MLK Jr. Holiday), and his complete and utter lack of knowledge when it comes to economic issues (admitted time and time again that he doesn’t know “much” about economics). But please don’t embarrass yourself and your party by making light of heroism.
I apologize for the response because I really do enjoy your comments here, but this is something that I feel very strongly about.
Addendum: I do, however, feel as though McCain’s adultery is fair game. It is incredibly unfortunate that it is because these issues are a distraction, but he can blame himself for putting this type of garbage on the table. When McCain mobilized the right-wing attack machine to attack Obama’s “American-ness,” he opened the doors up to allow questions about his own life choices. And SeanH is right, it’s not important who on what side cheated on their wife, it’s all bad. It’s cowardly, selfish, and immature behavior that indicates a character flaw no matter who perpetrated it; be it Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, or John McCain (Kerry didn’t cheat on his wife). Now tack on the fact that McCain clearly jumped ships for political reasons and married the heiress of a billionaire family 20 years his younger and, well, questions will be asked.
Matt I respect your concerns. In fact, I respect John McCain’s service to America and feel he should be honored for his heroic actions while captured during the Vietnam War. What I do not think is that he is above ridicule because of his personal history. Read General Welsey Clark’s criticism of McCain’s executive abilities and use of his war record as a rationale for his candidacy for a more nuanced approach.
Unfortunately in just recent years we have seen scurrilous attacks by Republicans on the following list of decorated Democratic war heroes. The republicans have given up any right to complain about how a Republican military man is treated because of in recent history:
John Kerry
Tom Harkin
John Murtha
Not to mention, George McGovern, who flew 35 high-risk bombing missions in WW2 piloting B-24’s. These missions saw more than half of the squadrons shot down, yet he continued to pilot them. He was decorated for his valor, but when he ran for president in 1972, Nixon and the Republicans derided him as too weak to fight the Commies. His was the first campaign I ever worked on… a long time ago. Nothing has changed… the Republicans still throw mud on Democratic War Heroes and call foul when Democrats even bring up Republican foibles with old men like Bob Dole and John McCain.
amuseinc,
The difference between McCain and the rest of the people you site is that McCain came back from the war and he didn’t turn on his comrades. He didn’t throw his medals over the White House fence and he didn’t testify to Congress that, “They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country,” like John Kerry said.
Yeah, truthful testimony is such a bad thing.
Chris, you mean the stories I heard from every jungle-stomper I ever got drunk with for years after they came home… or the stories my brothers who both did tours told me… or the facts as presented by sworn testimony by soldiers put into that hellhole? John McCain bombed people from 10,000 feet, every vet I heard those horror stories from killed people up close and personal on orders from the United States government.
What is your excuse for Republicans trashing other Democratic War Heroes? Or is it only acceptable for Republicans to question the honor and bravery of decorated heroes? John Kerry fought in that war and was decorated for his service… the FACT that he used his citizen rights of Free Speech after his service does not give Republican slime merchants the right to lie about him nor does it take away any of his honor to have done so.
McCain deserves no better treatment than Republicans have handed out for years to decorate Democratic war heroes. You folks are the ones who came up with the purple band-aids making fun of wounded American soldiers everywhere… bluntly you people suck with your coward president and draft deferred 9 times vice president sending brave Americans off to war on lies and misinformation.
I’m so confused. First it matters that someone tried to avoid the draft then it didn’t matter. Once it mattered that someone cheated on his wife then it didn’t for the next guy. 4 years ago, being a Vietnam veteran was a liability now it’s the only qualification for president (we apparently don’t need the elections). Additionally what John McCain did and went through 40 years ago matters but the fact that he cheated on his wife 25 years ago isn’t a big deal, but it is a big deal for the guy who isn’t running for president (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db_9orm-vdM). Please make it stop!