I used to admire John McCain. I am grateful for his military and civil service and for taking on his own Republican party when they were just plain wrong. But the John McCain I see in this campaign is a shell of the man I once looked up to.

His general election campaign is being run not on the premise of bringing out the best in America, but rather by playing on the worst. He has stopped being the conscience of the party and instead has become beholden to its lesser angels. It appears that John McCain learned exactly the wrong lessons from his defeat at the hands of George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary. He learned that winning at all costs is more important than how the game is played.

In that primary, the Bush campaign targeted John McCain with an underground thrust of push polls and personal smears to undercut the momentum the McCain campaign had built from beating the Bush campaign in New Hampshire by 19 percentage points. Rumors were distributed that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually the illegitimate offspring of an affair with a black woman. The New York Times reported:

Literature began to pepper the windshields of cars at political events suggesting that Mr. McCain had committed treason while a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, that he was mentally unstable after years in a P.O.W. camp, that he was the homosexual candidate and that Mrs. McCain, who had admitted to abusing prescription drugs years earlier, was an addict.
“You had a sense of besiegement daily,” said Mark Salter, a longtime aide to Mr. McCain.

The McCain team had trouble nailing down the origin of the dirt.

“One time in Hilton Head, we chased these punks down the block who were handing them out,” said State Representative James H. Merrill, the Republican state majority leader, “and when we got to them and asked them where they got them, they said some guy in a red pickup truck said, ‘Hey do you wanna make $100?’”

The Bush campaign denied any involvement in the smears but the last eight years have since well demonstrated the credibility and integrity of President Bush and his staff. John McCain ended up losing South Carolina by 11 points. The McCain campaign never fully recovered personally or politically from the loss in South Carolina and is now generally regarded as the key turning point that led to the nomination of then Governor Bush. Since then, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have made a mockery of the law, the Constitution, and sullied the good standing and reputation of America around the globe.

My personal opinion is that 21st century American history would be dramatically different had John McCain won in South Carolina eight years ago.  And he knows it also.

Since the Republican convention, Senator McCain has applied the mislearned lessons of South Carolina and run one of the most negative and personally insulting (as a voter) campaigns I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness. John McCain likes to characterize himself as a maverick and at one time that description was apt, but now it rings hollow.

Choosing a vice-presidential nominee is effectively a candidate’s first presidential act. John McCain failed himself and the nation in this task multiple ways, the least of which was in selecting Governor Sarah Palin.  Palin is clearly not even close to having the level of general knowledge, professional acumen, and thoughtfulness I expect to see in a candidate- especially one that is next in line behind a 72 year old man with a history of cancer. Her ability to think on the fly and express herself coherently is abysmal. John McCain failed in his first presidential decision not by choosing Sarah Palin, and not by doing such a poor job in vetting his VP pick, but by bowing to pressure from the Christian conservative base and not choosing who he wanted as his VP nominee.

Senator McCain wanted to choose Senator Joe Lieberman or former Governor Tom Ridge as his nominee. According to the NY Times:

But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.

Perhaps more important, several Republicans said, Mr. McCain was getting advice that if he did not do something to shake up the race, his campaign would be stuck on a potentially losing trajectory.

With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later. Advisers to Mr. Pawlenty and another of the finalists on Mr. McCain’s list described an intensive vetting process for those candidates that lasted one to two months.

Maverick John McCain failed to stand up to his own party when it mattered most. Rather than choose a vice president, he chose a running mate. For someone who claims to not be in the pocket of special interest groups, he’s given in to pressure on his very first presidential decision. He’s placed politics over country and is willing to pass the fate of the country at this historic and critical juncture into the hands of someone who is clearly in way over her head.

Senator McCain, that isn’t “country first.” That’s winning at all costs. Being beat in 2000 by a Bush campaign the believed the ends do indeed justify the means doesn’t excuse your adopting the same strategy. Experience only matters when the correct lessons are learned from it. While I remain grateful for your past service, I will not vote for a person who willingly sacrifices their integrity and their best judgement for a chance to reside in the Oval Office. We, the nation, need and deserve better.

John McCain recently seems to have little problem uttering such blatantly false and idiotic statements that it  makes President Bush look like a statesman.

Today, Sen McCain said that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong, but these are very, very difficult times.”

He said this the same day that investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch narrowly missed insolvency by selling itself to Bank of America. Saying that while two of the four remaining large investment banks on Wall Street give up the ghost is a rather clueless statement but he managed to top that later in the day by redefining what economic fundamentals are.

And my opponents may disagree, but those fundamentals — the American worker and their innovation, their entrepreneurship, the small business, those are the fundamentals of America, and I think they’re strong

It’s not just that his opponents disagree, the entire field of macroeconomic theory disagrees with him. American economic fundamentals are the inflation rate, gross domestic product (GDP), unemployment rate,  and other hard measurable factors.  According to Forbes magazine, core inflation “is up 3.6% over the past twelve months, the fastest unadjusted annual pace since May 1991.” Real GDP has been shrinking each year since 2004, and unemployment has gone up considerably since August 2007 from 4.7% to 6.1%. The sky may not be falling but these are not strong fundamentals.

This isn’t just a misstatement or an unusual errant assertion. Senator McCain has increasingly been making statements that are a blatant denial of reality.

Setting aside the normal political blather and partial truths both campaigns have engaged in, John McCain actually had the gall to publicly state that “in the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations” after Russia invaded Georgia last month. Upon hearing that, I was half-expecting his head to implode from cognitive dissonance or to see him struck by lightning for saying it.

I expected a much more honest and higher level of discourse from him. For a man who sells himself as a straight talker, he’s been anything but the past couple months. What happened to you, John McCain?

I was duped. Even though I take a critical eye to political language in this blog, I failed to take that same critical eye to the use of political imagery in my previous post. That got me thinking about how much political imagery gets faked and more importantly, how much of it is the general public even aware of?

Photographer Jim Goldstein writes about recent political photo manipulation and also links back to Dartmouth University Professor Hany Farid’s impressive collection of Photo Tampering Throughout History. Make sure you click on the images there to see the original and the manipulated result side by side. It’s amazing how many iconic images there are that are fakes.

On the political language front, Author John Ridley writes an impressive post demonstrating how Republicans change characterization of similar circumstances facing their nominee and the Democratic nominee to fit their political perspective.

Voter beware!

The political euphemism glossary, which is non-partisan and being built gradually, is a catalog of the tools, words, and phrases used by political minds to shape how we think or worse, lull us into such a complacency we fail to critically think at all.

The next euphemism to enter the complete glossary is below. Click on the phrase below for the political definition and description.

Energy Recovery

The political euphemism glossary, which is non-partisan and being built gradually, is a catalog of the tools, words, and phrases used by political minds to shape how we think or worse, lull us into such a complacency we fail to critically think at all.

The next euphemism to enter the complete glossary is below. Click on the phrase below for the political definition and description.

Support The Troops

The political euphemism glossary, which is non-partisan and being built gradually, is a catalog of the tools, words, and phrases used by political minds to shape how we think or worse, lull us into such a complacency we fail to critically think at all.

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Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

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The next euphemism to enter the complete glossary is below. Click on the word below for the political definition and description.

Undocumented Workers

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University today brought out the best and worst in modern American culture. Columbia University President Lee Bollinger showed courage in inviting such a polarizing and controversial figure to speak. There were calls to cancel the Iranian president’s invitation and now some politicians want to cut funding to Columbia University because he was allowed to speak at all. First I’ll speak about the man before I explain why he should be allowed give his speech and why those who wish to prevent him from doing so are performing a disservice to their country.

Ahmadinejad is without a doubt a smart, though intellectually dishonest, politician. Some may say that I’m being redundant but I want to make clear he’s not an idiot. He knows what he’s saying and why he’s saying it. He’s a talented speaker which only gives credence to the deceptions he bandies about.

But let’s be clear about one thing; he is not the source of power in Iran. He is largely a figurehead president who executes the wishes of the Leadership Council.

Article 113
After the office of Leadership, the President is the highest official in the country. His is the responsibility for implementing the Constitution and acting as the head of the executive, except in matters directly concerned with (the office of) the Leadership.

Ahmadinejad may be elected but that only gives the presidency a veneer of democracy on what is actually an autocratic theocracy. He doesn’t command the armed forces, he doesn’t issue binding decrees except as confirmed by the Leadership Council, and is only responsible for that which the Leadership Council has decided is not important enough for themselves to decide. The real power lies in Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has held that post since Ayatollah Khomeini’s death in 1989 and also appoints the members of the Leadership Council. So let’s put to rest the notion that Ahmadinejad is the source of Iranian foreign or domestic policy. He’s the true-believing, media-savvy puppet of Khamenei and the Islamic revolution.

The American constitution guarantees our right to free speech. Period. No exceptions.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Iranian constitution does not have such a blanket guarantee.

Article 24
Publications and the press have freedom of expression except when it is detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam or the rights of the public. The details of this exception will be specified by law.

It is those exceptions that set Iran’s form of government apart from America’s. Any time allowance is made for exceptions to a fundamental right, it ceases to be a fundamental right. It is that exception that allows governments to dictate its’ opinions on those who would disagree and thus strip them of their ability to exercise that right.

You want to criticize the the U.S. President? Americans do it everyday without fear of being jailed for it. That is the beauty of the first amendment. You can say the most rancid, vile and moronic things and you’re safe from criminal prosecution.

You want criticize the Iran’s Supreme Leader? You better have a high tolerance for pain. In 2005, the Committee to Protect Journalists reported on how the independent media was faring in the face of the ascendant power of Iranian hard-liners.

Bloggers instantly became a popular source of dissident news and opinion, drawing the ire of Iran’s powerful judiciary, which launched a wave of arrests. All the bloggers detained in a 2004 crackdown were released except for Mojtaba Saminejad, who was sentenced in June 2005 to two years in prison and denied appeal. He was convicted of “insulting the supreme leader.” Many of the released bloggers said they were tortured in jail. Former Iranian president Mohamed Khatami ordered an investigation into the torture claims, but the judiciary threatened those who made the complaints. Since conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in June 2005, little has come of the investigations.

Does this mean Iranians can criticize the Supreme leader as long as they don’t insult him? What’s to criticize? He’s infallible. Just ask him.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that his authority is indisputable, apparently rejecting criticism from reformists who say he is not above the law.

Iranian radio quoted Khamenei as saying that the “true meaning” of the Iranian concept of “velayat-e-faqih,” or the authority of the leader, is that “the person in charge of the Islamic government does not make mistakes and if he does he will not be the supreme leader from that moment.”

“This is an obvious point that must be understood well and spelled out properly,” the broadcast quoted Khamenei as saying.

Free speech is a constitutionally protected right in America and that protection is what sets us apart from Ahmadinejad and the tyrannical regime he represents. This is one of the very things our troops fight and die for everyday. So when Congressman and presidential candidate Duncan Hunter to threatens to cut off all federal funding to Columbia University for allowing Ahmadinejad to speak, he does a disservice to this country and the very troops he claims to be standing up for. The same goes for the New York state and city legislatures who are beating their chests in indignation that the Iranian president was allowed to speak. They are claiming that the university is legitimizing what he has to say and are therefore threatening to cut state and municipal funding. Allowing him to speak doesn’t legitimize what he has to say but it does reinforce the legitimacy of the first amendment. As the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words.

It is painfully simple; you can’t protect free speech by restricting it. It is important for Ahmadinejad to be able to give his speech not because what he has to say is important, but rather that he can say it all. If you don’t like what he has to say- protest, write, yell, or get yourself invited to a university to share your view of the world, no matter how ridiculous it may be. If you want to restrict free speech, move somewhere that endorses that principle- like Iran.

The political euphemism glossary, which is non-partisan and being built gradually, is a catalog of the tools, words, and phrases used by political minds to shape how we think or worse, lull us into such a complacency we fail to critically think at all.

The next euphemism to enter the complete glossary is below. Click on the word below for the political definition and description.

Legislatively Directed Spending

The political euphemism glossary, which is non-partisan and being built gradually, is a catalog of the tools, words, and phrases used by political minds to shape how we think or worse, lull us into such a complacency we fail to critically think at all.

The next euphemism to enter the glossary is below. Click on the word below for the political definition and description.

Surge