Ed Pilkington on John McCain

Even the Brits are wondering what the hell is going on over here. 

I know many of you already know about this crass joke.  But I was surprised to learn tonight that many others, including some in the news media, did not.  So, keeping in mind that we can never be reminded of nastiness often enough (know thine enemy, n'est-ce pas?), I'm posting this column from The Guardian.

Comments

[Sir Charles]

I think I've posted about this before -- if Chelsea were my daughter, McCain would have been longing for the tender mercies of the North Vietnamese.

He's an asshole and the press has covered for him for years.

One of my law partners works in a volunteer group with a former military guy who was in flight school with McCain -- he can't stand him and indicated that McCain was wreckless as hell and disliked by his peers. The only reason he didn't wash out of the program was because of Daddy.

[oddjob]

McCain was wreckless as hell and disliked by his peers

And still is (as the unvetted Palin choice so vividly reminds us). Even if he had a GOP Congress to work with, as president he'd have a tough ride given how many fellow legislators don't like him.

[Lisa Simeone]

That's what worries me: his recklessness. The man is unstable. Dangerously unstable. I can see him dropping a bomb on Iran, nuclear bomb, and all the Kool-Aid-drinking morons around the country applauding wildly. It's scary. He's scary.

[Antid Oto]

My first reaction to this was "Karl Pilkington is writing for the Guardian?" I was hoping for some Monkey News. Disappointed.

[drip]

I have always found McCain to be stupid as well as cruel. He slinked out of the naval academy to become part of the Tailhook generation when the submarine service was where the talented went. Its very hard to reconcile his behavior with hes seeming popularity without concluding that we've become a stupid, mean, nasty people.

[Lisa Simeone]

I heard an interview with NYT correspondent David Kirkpatrick, who has covered the conservative Christian movement and McCain for a long time, and who's at the Republican Convention now. Scared the shit out of me. He said it's hard to overstate how deeply militarism and faith in the power of the military to solve all problems is in McCain's blood. This business of McCain's family history goes so deep, he said, with men in every single generation of that family being part of the military going back to 1776. As if it's a calling.

He also pointed to the times McCain has said, and written, that negotiation is worthless unless (paraphrasing here) you have somebody over a barrel, or, presumably, a knife at their throat.

This is the man we're dealing with. This is the guy who wants to have his finger on the trigger. It's mind-boggling.

So, drip, yes, broadly speaking, we have become "a stupid, mean, nasty people."

[drip]

I heard the interview too. Somewhere i read about Jesus as community organizer. I try to tell people that no matter which one you pick, god demands peace and love. I have few friends because this puts me squarely in the "extremely angry left."

[Lisa Simeone]

Hah! I know, isn't it funny how talking about "peace, love, and understanding" gets one labeled extremist and angry?

That line about "Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor" is making the rounds. I don't know if it originated at Kos -- I do know a writer there used it -- but now it's all over the place. It's definitely bumper sticker fodder, and e-mail signature fodder. Since my current e-mail signature is "Lisa Hussein Obama," at least until November 4th, I'd have to add a line to accommodate the Jesus/PP one. You know how that goes -- those e-mails from people where their signature is almost longer than the message itself.

[drip]

"peace, love, and understanding" gets one labeled extremist and angry or as Brinsley Schwarz. Paul Waldman is on Democracy Now, speaking of interviews about McSame.