Take Back Your Slur, Senator McCain

Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have been leading the attack against President Obama's selection of Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the UN, as a nominee for Secretary of State in Obama's second presidential term. In that attack, John McCain has accused Susan Rice of misleading the public on the Benghazi attack in Libya, suggesting that she mouthed talking points of the White House and dismissing Rice's insistence that she was using information provided by the CIA.

Here is what Senator John McCain has said:

Those talking point (sic) that the ambassador used did not come from the CIA. They come from the White House. Who in the White House – was it the president of the United States? Was it one of his people? – who was it who gave her talking points that clearly indicated something for which there was no basis in fact? (Chris McGreal, "Republican senators set up showdown over possible Rice nomination," The Guardian, 15 November 2012)

Now CBS News has discovered the CIA talking points that Susan Rice was given, proving that Rice has been telling the truth all along: she was communicating information from the known intelligence at the time. See "CIA talking points for Susan Rice called Benghazi attack 'spontaneously inspired by protests,'" CBS News, Washington, 15 November 2012.

Take back your bitter, partisan-hack slur, Senator McCain.

(h/t, live updates from Richard Adams, for The Guardian)

 

More of the Same

In the first year after Baghdad fell to American forces, the American Coalition Provisional Authority set up its offices in Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace. The Bush administration chose young, inexperienced Republicans to put together the shattered Iraqi nation. George Packer describes the group in his book The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq:

Most of them seemed to be Republicans, and more than a few were party loyalists who had come to Iraq as political appointees on ninety-day tours. They were astonishingly young. Many had never worked abroad, few knew anything about the Middle East, and that first summer only three or four of the Americans spoke Arabic. Some were simply unqualified for their responsibilities. A twenty-five-year-old oversaw the creation of the Baghdad stock market, and another twenty-five-year-old, from the Office of Special Plans, helped write the interim constitution while filling out his law school application. (184)

While these young people were enthusiastic and devoted Republicans, they were unprepared for the seriously important work at hand. They were chosen because they were ideologically correct.

Again and again over the past eight years the Bush administration has put ideology over competence and experience, from the members of the Coalition Provisional Authority to the director of FEMA to the selection of District Attorneys.

In his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate, John McCain is illustrating this same kind of governing. The problem is not particularly with Sarah Palin herself, who may be a wonderful person. The problem is with what her choice tells us about John McCain. All the pundits on television who are heralding this choice as an indication that John McCain is a maverick have blank slates for minds.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Raining on the Democratic Parade

I had such mixed feelings when I learned of the announcement of Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, as McCain's running mate. The country hadn't fully processed the final speech of the Democratic convention when it was awarded with the historical announcement of a woman as vice-president on the Republican ticket. My first thought was that the choice was just too cynical, an attempt to woo all those die-hard Hillary Clinton supporters who don't think the party behind the person is important. And I also thought that the choice was evidently meant to make John McCain look like a maverick again in order to woo independent voters. And, who knows, it might work.

I would have a lot more respect for John McCain's choice of a woman as a running mate if he had chosen someone like Olympia Snowe. In short, my pithy and immediate response is WTF!

Over the past eight years, as I became increasingly angered and saddened by the decisions of the Bush administration, I also became more cynical. I have been worried that I would turn into a misanthrope. I've just been so distressed that too many people don't seem to care about the Bush administration's disregard of our privacy, of our constitution, of our national and democratic values. So we incarcerate people for years without giving them access to a lawyer? So we torture people now? So we eavesdrop on private conversations and troll e-mail and telephone conversations of millions of people? So we let millions of Americans live on the brink of disaster because they don't have access to healthcare? So we abandon a southern city in the middle of a devastating hurricane and then, finally, months and months later provide mobile homes that are health hazards? So we abandon diplomacy, bullying and blustering our way around the world?

Though I want a Democratic president, I would be a less worried citizen if John McCain were really a maverick and were planning to make major changes in the ways this country has been governed in the past eight years. But McCain's campaign choices and rhetoric have echoed that of the Bush administration. Choosing a little known woman as a dark horse running mate does nothing to alleviate my concerns.

Is That Sexism? You Bet!

Now, I hadn't decided which candidate I hoped would be the Democratic nominee for president. I like the front-runners for different reasons. John Edwards supports women's rights, he understands the needs of the poor, and he has a strong, smart wife whom I admire. Barack Obama is a fresh (minority!) face, with good ideas, a smooth presentation, and a strong, smart wife whom I admire. Hillary Clinton is tough and smart, but I've been concerned about her vote for supporting President Bush in the Iraq war and about her inside-the-beltway connections that seem a little too cozy.

However, the "how do we beat the bitch" question posed to John McCain by a white-haired woman has fired me up. A woman runs for president in the United States, and she's called a "bitch." And John McCain doesn't flinch from the language--using it, instead, to raise a lot of money for his campaign. Then Clinton gets tossed that "diamonds or pearls" question. !!!?

My mind is now made up. It's way past time that the United States had a woman president. I mean, good god, Chile has a woman president; Argentina just elected a woman president; Germany has a woman president--among others. Hillary Clinton for President!