Salon.com > John McCain

McCain, Lieberman and Graham: The Senate’s three war-crazed amigos

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:30:00 +0000

When John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman join forces, you can be sure of one thing: It will involve state-sponsored violence. Today, they want us to arm Syrian rebels. Though, you know, what they really wanted to call for was actually bombing the hell out of Syria, until there is freedom. They're just taking it slow.

The Senate's three most predictable and least credible warmongering "moderates" frequently join forces to publish joint Op-Eds or hold press conferences and the one thing they always, invariably want is for the United States to have just a little bit more war than it currently has, somewhere far away. Sure, we could draw down in Iraq ... or we could listen to McCain, Lieberman and Graham and draw back up. We could draw down in Afghanistan ... or we could stay the course and keep sending troops there until we win! Americans may be tired of endless war with no coherent goal, but on the other hand, "only decisive force can prevail in [whatever country John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman are talking about now]."

Sarah Palin’s Hollywood ending

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:45:00 +0000

HBO's "Game Change," airing this Saturday, is not actually an adaption of the book "Game Change," by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. It is "Sarah Palin Goes Rogue," the movie, with a couple of anecdotes borrowed from the notoriously gossipy account of the 2008 election as a whole. (Or, arguably, it's an adaptation of Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe's "Sarah From Alaska.")

That is sort of a shame. The Palin thing is the most heavily over-covered story line of the entire 2008 campaign, so focusing on it might be totally logical from a marketing perspective, but it's unfortunate from an artistic one. The film re-creates various moments of YouTube campaign ephemera very well -- remember when that old white lady called Obama an Arab and McCain looked uncomfortable? When it takes us behind closed doors, it's to witness scenes any moderately close observer of the election and its aftermath could've dreamed up him- or herself. It might have been fun to see a TV movie about the Democratic primary fight; the personality clashes of the disastrous Clinton campaign would have made for entertaining television, and Mark Penn is surely a creature crying out for a grotesque Emmy-winning portrayal by, say, Paul Giamatti.

GOP’s Latino problem gets worse

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:00:00 +0000

“We have to fix our problems with the Hispanics,” said John McCain last week when asked by MSNBC’s Chuck Todd about the Republican Party's competitiveness in the Southwest in the 2012 election.. “It starts with a way to address the issue of immigration in a humane and caring fashion, at the same time emphasizing the need to secure our borders because of the drug cartels and the people who transport people across our border and treat them terribly.”

A tip for McCain, front-runner Mitt Romney and other Republicans: drop the “the” in front of references to Hispanics. Use of the definite article sounds a bit too much like the cringe-worthy “that one” line McCain dropped on Barack Obama during their October 2008 presidential debate in Nashville, and smacks of the sort of “these/those people” phrases that only turn away the groups described. This week, Romney smartly released his first Spanish-language campaign ad, a positive sign. But language is only a small part of the GOP’s problems with minorities, and Latino voters in particular.