You know, I have never cared for John McCain's politics, because he is an unabashed conservative, who would only rarely take a stand against his conservative brethren on anything important. But I always respected him; even though I disagreed with him, he had principles, and stood by them most of the time. If he has won the Republican nomination in 2000, and beaten Al Gore, I wouldn't have liked it, but we would have been better off than we ended up.
But that John McCain is gone forever, I'm afraid. When he decided to run for president, he apparently sold his soul to the right wing devils. Instead of rightfully referring to the religious right as "agents of intolerance," he now has his tongue in their ears, and he's promising to bear their children. Instead of laughing his ass off with derision at assholes like Newtie and the Fox News bunch, he's kissing their asses and offering to have their children.
In other words, not that he cares what I think, but John McCain has moved gone farther down on my shit list than Ralph Nader, and that's a pretty hefty drop. I have no respect for the man anymore; he's now become 100% political whore, totally lacking in principles, and he's forgotten everything he used to stand for. I don't know about you, but after the personal shit Bush threw at him in the 2000 primaries, no one with principles would ever have carried water for that man again. I mentioned his tongue kissing of the religious right. But the most distressing aspect of John McCain's political sell-out has to be his treatment of veterans and veterans' issues. He's essentially a military hero, who's apparently forgotten what it's like to be a military hero, or even a veteran.
I thought for sure that, once McCain lost the election, he would begin to revert back to the old McCain; the conservative McCain, with a principled streak.
I was wrong, and it's a damn shame.
As I'm sure you're all aware, there is a close race for a Senate seat in Georgia, between Democrat Jim Martin and Republican Douchebag Saxby Chambliss. Since it looks as though Ted Stevens will probably lose in Alaska, and it's quite possible Al Franken could win the seat in Minnesota after a recount, you would think I would be concerned about this seat because it would mean 60 seats for the Democrats.
You would be wrong.
Oh, it would be nice to have 60 seats, but to be honest, I don't think we'll need them, for the most part. After the drubbing the GOP received last week, I have a feeling it won't be a difficult feat to get at least 2-3 Republican moderates to stop the obstructionist filibusters going forward, at least on most issues. And since one of the 60 would be Lieberman, anyway, I'm not really all that sure we can count on 60 votes on foreign policy issues, anyway.
But the reason I want Chambliss gone has more to do with Max Cleland than anything, and John McCain should be ashamed of himself for supporting scum like Chambliss, given what he did to Cleland, in order to get into office in the first place.
For those of you with short memories, Max Cleland is a decorated Vietnam war hero, who left three of his limbs in Southeast Asia, and who served the state of Georgia for many years faithfully. During the campaign in 2002, Chambliss actually had the balls to attack Cleland "for breaking his oath to protect and defend the Constitution."
When confronted about his attack, Chambliss sent out a press release, claiming that Cleland had "broken his oath" because he voted for an amendment to the Chemical Weapons Treaty that eliminated a ban on citizens of terrorist nations being on U.N. inspection teams in Iraq. The problem was, it wasn't a 99-1 vote; in fact, 56 Senators voted for it, and the majority included Bill Frist, who at the time was Chairman of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, and who personally chose Chambliss to run for the seat.
Later, the Chambliss campaign ran an ad which essentially compared Cleland -- again, a war hero who lost three limbs fighting for his country -- to Osama bin Laden.
It wasn't just Chambliss, either. The entire Republican propaganda apparatus geared up to attack Cleland, to the point that none other than Ann Coulter - the clown prince of the right wing (and yes, I spelled "prince" correctly) actually told anyone who would listen that Cleland was no hero, because he wasn't injured the right way, or some such nonsense.
Look; it’s one thing to support your party, but why is it necessary for a Vietnam war hero to support a man who is only in the position he's in because he slandered another Vietnam war hero? I don't expect McCain to say nasty things about Chambliss, but to personally go down to Georgia to brag about what a great guy scumbag Saxby Chambliss is, well, that's just reprehensible.
I guess Charlie Daniels was correct; the Devil Did Go Down to Georgia, and he found a lot of souls to steal.
