I'd never actually read a detailed story of the life and times of John McCain. Rolling Stone has a really interesting article about his life (10 pages) that goes into quite a few gory details. So many surprising similarities between his life and George W Bush's. http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain From the first page:
While he's always clearly been a political animal, he did at least seem to be a moderate, reasonable one. I think losing to Bush, with the way the Bush campaign smeared him so viciously, changed him a great deal. It's the only way I can reconcile the current McCain with the McCain from 2000, whom I'd actually have been perfectly fine with winning the presidency. '
The article is basically written to smear McCain anyway they can. It's Rolling Stone. But I don't think it's going to change anyone's opinion of the man. Either you think he's an honorable man who's made incredible sacrifices to his country and has been a dedicated public servant, or you think he's a phony. I'm sure these same people objected to the attacks on Kerry so I don't understand why they do this.
Are you saying it's all false? Or just that publishing it shows bad intent? Oh, I dunno. Not everyone is a true believer, even at this late stage of the game. Some people may still be looking for more information. And we really haven't spent much time looking into who McCain is. Sauce for the gander. barfo
I don't know about that. I'd had far more respect for him before this article than I do now. As Minstrel said, I'm not sure I would have voted for him in 2000, but it seemed pretty likely. (I'd been pretty tired of the Clinton years. How naive I was.) The thing that sticks out the most to me is that he was involved in 4 different plane crashes, and he graduated so low at the academy. Neither issue is debatable, and I hadn't been aware of either fact. But it demonstrates a clear pattern of failure when he is allowed to make decisions on his own without a support staff or the safety net of nepotism. Is it a pretty biased piece against McCain? Clearly. But it doesn't make any wild accusations or cheap shots. It's a nice counterbalance to the rosy, unassailable patriotic image he's been building for himself for decades. If somebody could post a similar investigative article about Obama's biography I'd gladly read it, and I think a lot of my fellow liberals would too.
That isn't free, this is. I wouldn't have bought a McCain bio. Do you have a link to something equivalent to this? If so, I'd gladly read it.
I only read about three or four books a year anymore. None that are political. Sad but true. Too much internet to read, and too much time spent raising my kids. I'm certainly not asking any of the conservatives here to go out and buy either of Obama's books, so I'm a little surprised both of you think I need to go buy books that detail the dark side of Obama's life. I can't imagine you really think I will, anymore than I think either of you have bought those two autobiographies. Surely there must be something in the 1000 - 5000 word variety available for free that you think every liberal should read.
At your leisure: http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=archive&v=10/13
I read the first 5 editorials. To summarize: First two articles: Ayers hasn't left radicalism behind, as evidence by: - Ayers apparent lack of regret for his past - Ayers four "marxist pilgrimages" (wtf does that mean?) to Hugo Chavez - Ayers sits on the board of a Venezuelan think tank That stuff's interesting, I guess, but I don't read a lot there that tells me his thinking has influenced Obama much. I guess it's guilt by association (quite literally). How exactly does any of this Ayers stuff impact an Obama presidency? Are people worried Obama is going to tell his own government to bomb itself? That we should build up Chavez' government? *shrug* Doesn't seem very likely. I think that's why conservatives like to tell themselves it matters (and unsurprisingly, they agree with themselves) but it really doesn't have a lot of traction for the rest of us. No more than Charles Keating does on McCain, and McCain had very clearly been actively involved in Keating's skulduggery (man I love that word). Third article: Warren Buffet is a closet liberal. Huh. Ok. I guess he'll fit in with Obama, who is liberal but not terribly "closet" about it. Fourth article: McCain missed a lot of opportunities during the debate. No real earth-shattering story there. I've actually been pretty amazed at how badly both McCain and Palin have done in going on the attack in the debates. There's plenty of ammo there, and they mostly seem to go to the same tired talking points. Palin? I didn't realize pit bulls need a script to know how to bite. Obama was pretty bad too. Biden is the only one who has lived up to his billing. Fifth article: Obama is wrong about oil. Interesting read, but I think it missed the real point. Oil is last century's fuel. People who get all lathered up about the future of oil just sound anachronistic to me. The sooner we make oil irrelevant, the sooner we steal real power away from countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela. We'll never pump so much oil that we can undermine those regimes, but I have faith in US innovation that we can eventually invent technologies that render their economies into irrelevancy. In summary, other than Ayers I don't see a lot there in the first 5 articles that talk much about Obama's biography. And the Ayers one talks mostly about Ayers. I was really hoping to see something similar to the Rolling Stone article, something that paints an overall picture of his biography. This was just a list of pro-Republican editorials. I read lots of those. No overriding theme other than "Democrats are bad." Not much help to me in understanding a different side of Obama.
Back to the subject, I'd be interested in hearing conservatives' interpretations of the Rolling Stone article. I gave you the courtesy of demonstrating I'd actually read what was presented to me. I haven't seen much from the other side except, "Oh, it's Rolling Stone so it's a bad article." Not terribly convincing if you want to demonstrate you have an open mind about both candidates.
About oil. What I noticed around here is that a lot of businesses closed down when the price of gasoline hit $4 for a while. I'm talking ma & pop storefronts and restaurants. Before the finance industry troubles. Perhaps it was the govt. pushing next century's fuel (ethanol) that additionally pumped up food prices that did in most of the restaurants. Like it or not, it's still TODAY'S fuel, and will be in 10 years and 20 years and 30 years, too. Why is it that Investor's Business Daily is so anti-Obama? If he was good for business, they'd be all for him. Or so it would seem.
Judging from what Minstrel quoted, the article is a hit piece on McCain absolutely on behalf of Obama - it is his strategy (and Rolling Stone's) to tie McCain to Bush. Is that a clue?
Yeah, I guess there's no point in actually reading the sources that others link when you can make a quick 10 second judgment and neatly categorize every piece of writing into a tidy bucket. I won't bother following your links in the future either.
I read the piece. Minstrel just neatly highlighted the best bits. I'm not a McCain supporter, just not a fan of the Democratic Party in the least. Or the Republican Party for that matter. So maybe I can call them a little unbiased?
No. You didn't highlight the parts where you think Rolling Stone lied. Calling it a "hit piece" is all well and good, but if it is all factual, what's the problem?
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