Extreme Makeover: John McCain Edition 2008?

With his nomination all but inevitable, the Republican machine is ready to begin the process of selling John McCain as a maverick and a different kind of Republican. He will be presented as someone who appeals to Democrats and Independents, a unity candidate of the first order. The problem is that John McCain is not a mainstream candidate, he is a war-mongerer and has no intention of letting the American people decide what to do about Iraq. He will be another “decider” who knows better than the American public what is best for us. The MSM has already begun the John McCain make-over, the same folks who had pronounced his campaign all but dead in December are now trumpeting his “straight talk”, independent candidacy as right for America.

It has always amazed me how John McCain has been given this independent moniker by the MSM. To be sure John McCain has split with the Republican Party on some issues, but a look at his record reveals the true nature of McCain. A review of his voting record shows a troubling trend, Mr. McCain in a number of controversial votes has chosen to not vote. He has missed 56.6% of the votes during this Congress alone. How Senator McCain can be labeled an independent and a maverick while still voting with the Republicans 87.8% of the time is a mystery to me. I guess it is the same logic used to proclaim Senator Lieberman an independent, I guess that is why they have been inseparable during the later stages of this campaign; birds of a feather.

The same strategy that was used to get George W. Bush into the White House will be deployed again. Remember in 2000, Bush was going to be the great uniter, an independent Republican. How did that work out? For anyone who thought the Republican brand was DOA, I have news for you with McCain there will be the talk of change without any change. His nomination will allow the Republicans to spin his candidacy as a new direction for the country when in reality it will be the same old story. The Republicans will go for the best of both worlds, they have already begun to have George W. try to coalesces the Party faithful but I guarantee you once the primaries are over McCain’s campaign will dissociate itself from George W so fast heads will spin. The only policy that they will cling to is the most dangerous one, the Iraq War. With the Bush administration already laying the groundwork for freezing current troop levels and backing away from troop reductions promised at the last General Petraeus meet and greet, McCain will argue to stay the course.

If staying the course was bad policy last year, what has occurred since then to make it a good strategy this year? Oh yeah, the surge is working. This has to be the biggest crock of BS ever sold to the American public. And as the general election approaches make no mistake the chorus will become louder singing the praises of this false narrative. The problem is simply this, even if we keep troops there for a hundred years and the violence is reduced if the Iraqi’s do not make the tough decisions to reconcile their country we will still be in no better position than we were at the beginning of this fiasco. What these conservative clowns don’t understand is that this will never be resolved militarily and as long as we provide cover for the Iraqi government to drag their feet and solidify their gains we are only prolonging the inevitable and keeping our troops in harm’s way.

I find it almost comical that the McCain camp has stolen the “Day One” slogan from the Clinton campaign, he will be “commander and chief from day one” and will be able to escalate our involvement in both wars and if we are lucky will be able to start another one. As long as these fools can continue the nation at war scenario in need of a strong military President, this nation will be ill prepared for the reality that the rest of the world has no problem seeing. As we are seeing with the cracks in our NATO alliances, the rest of the world is not buying the Islamo-fascist war of our generation mind-f**k the warmongers are perpetrating. The closer the empire is to decay the harder the colonial task masters fight to cling to the myth. The decay begins long before the rust appears on the armor, it begins when the Empire forgets the principles that made it great in the first place. Is there any doubt that we no longer stand for those principles?

The social conservatives are already lining up to sell their principles to the highest bidder. There are a few of the rank and file who are clinging to their skewed principles and still supporting Mike Huckabee, but the leadership has already surrendered. We will now witness the transformation of John McCain into a social conservative standard bearer, “ a true conservative” if you will. We will watch as his record is whitewashed and purged of any votes that are not in keeping with a true conservative. Bush says McCain has some convincing to do, I can only interpret this to mean that he has some flip-flopping to do. The question then becomes does McCain lose his independent image in his effort to woo his social conservative base which without he can not win in November? The tight-rope act begins for McCain and I am not so sure he is nimble enough to pull it off, but with the MSM holding the net anything is possible.