| |||||
|
Arts & Entertainment Books Comics Health & Body Media Mothers Who Think News  PeoplePolitics2000 Technology - Free Software Project Travel & Food  Columnists - - - - - - - - - - - - Salon People is sponsored by Lexus - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon People stories, go to the
People home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon - - - - - - - - - - - - Salon Columnists - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon People Nothing Personal People Feature Nothing Personal Brilliant Careers Nothing Personal - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Pols, guns and androgyny
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Feb. 23, 2000 | McCain's cult followers in the Northeastern media still look stunned from his
embarrassing loss to Bush last weekend in the South Carolina primary. What
fun it was to watch them squirm and pout as they tried by rote to blame
McCain's defeat on "negative ads" or on Bush's visit to Bob Jones University
(which few people have ever heard of and even fewer care about). Bush
triumphed because he got his ass in gear after flubbing New Hampshire and
because South Carolina Republicans fought back Trojan Horse Democrats trying
to sabotage Bush by voting for McCain -- a guerrilla strategy that worked
against Bush in Michigan. Vice President Al Gore, unfortunately the likely Democratic nominee (I'm a Bradley supporter), would wipe the floor with McCain in the general election on matters of both content and form. Try to imagine those two head to head, or rather head to hip! McCain -- surprise, surprise -- is only 5-feet-7-inches tall, but thanks to the sleight of hand of liberal picture editors, he is constantly shown in heroic photo angles from below. Like it or not, with few exceptions (e.g., Jimmy Carter) the taller presidential candidate always wins. Camille Paglia Camille Paglia's column appears in Salon People every third Wednesday.
There's a primitivistic sorting device going on in most searches for leaders -- which is why women have so rarely gained the topmost post in modern democracies. After a slow start, Gore is outgunning Bradley on the road in sheer vitality level, and Bush, an inarticulate lightweight, has come on like gangbusters. It's brute raw energy that won the presidency for the relatively unknown Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992. Political reporters keep doggedly judging candidates by their skill in stagy debates, but the electorate is sick and tired of glib Ivy Leaguers who parse every word. Clinton stormed onto the national stage like a barb-tufted Arkansas boar but degenerated over time into a celebrity schmoozer and indolent diddler of big-boobed creampuffs. McCain's nastiness nicely surfaced in his concession speech last weekend -- forcing his nerdy liberal flacks (who would vote Democratic this fall even if the nominee is Attila the Hun) to tsk-tsk nervously. Hey, wake up and smell the axle grease: This guy was always a jerk! The real victim of Bush's South Carolina sweep was the credibility of the inside-the-Beltway press corps, who blushingly giggled and sighed their way through McCain's factitious ascent. What a wok of genderless wet noodles they are! My long suspicion of McCain turned into utter disdain during those stomach-churning tales of teenagers weeping or being alleged to weep because Bush's bully boys (terror by telephone!) had maligned McCain's character and record. This barrel of unctuous schmaltz, straight out of the "Sally Jesse Raphael Show," was swallowed by the media in one big burp. Thanks to Rush Limbaugh for replaying an exchange on Chris Matthews' CNBC show "Hardball" when McCain, facing a Clemson University audience three weeks ago, was flushed out of his usual slippery doubletalk about abortion. McCain admitted he believes Roe vs. Wade should be overturned on constitutional grounds and returned to the states for judgment; then he declared he would want the states to declare abortion completely illegal. As a pro-choice member of Planned Parenthood, I condemn the liberal media's censoring of this vital detail about McCain's reactionary views. McCain's use in campaign events of large onstage posters of himself as a young Navy flier is inappropriate and propagandistic. His experience as a POW, however admirable, is irrelevant to his suitability for high political office. (It was equally objectionable when the feisty Lt. Col. Oliver North wore his Marines uniform to testify before Congress during the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings.) The presidency requires managerial and administrative skill -- exactly what McCain, the choleric, megalomaniacal loner, has never excelled at in his 17 years as a senator. Furthermore, McCain's longstanding open-door policy with reporters is a sign not of candor but of weakness and even neurosis. It suggests a craving for distraction to avoid being alone with one's thoughts. Those with a strong sense of self and a rich inner life (like the often too-Olympian Bradley) need privacy and know how to draw lines. McCain's compulsive, seductive schmoozing resembles the sociopathic conference-hustling of the academic elite, who are most themselves when sashaying their whimsical way through shallow, boondoggling panel events. Many Salon readers have sent support of my anti-McCain position. For example, M. Bateman says: Thank you for telling the truth about John McCain. To hear the media tell it, John McCain is a family-values moderate with a squeaky clean financial past. Nothing could be further from the truth. He has the same voting record as Jesse Helms, yet his fans in the press, many of whom despise Jesse Helms, shower praise on McCain and portray him as a "moderate."
| ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
Next page |