Politics and Culture

McCain isn't my "lesser of evils." I actually like and respect him; he's a good guy and one with whom I generally agree. But, I don't like being part of a drumbeat so I'm purposefully criticizing McCain:

Generally:

McCain has a sincere speaking style, but sometimes trips over his words, reminding us, to the detriment of McCain's campaign, of the difficulty our current commander and chief has with impromptu speaking. He's reduced his use of "friends" in speaking, but for a while, it was almost a verbal tick. McCain sprinkles his sentences with "breakers" like "I believe" or "if you will." He repeats jokes often.

Specifically:

McCain responded to Obama's "losing his bearings" comment by accusing Obama of slyly bringing up his age. Now, I believe this. Unless it's something that Obama says regularly, somebody gave him a phrase that denotes "meandering" and connotes dementia. However, it's not good for McCain to worry about "intentions" or hidden insults. Doing so makes him sound, frankly, like the seemingly wimpy Obama (Blunted somewhat by the fact that surrogate Salter and not McCain himself leveled the charge.). It reminds me of how Democrats worry about crypto-racism or sexism.

On two recent McCain sayings:

"My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East,"

He later explained that he was referring to the first gulf war. People of bad faith said he was admitting that Bush went to war with Iraq for oil.

Is Huffington right that McCain "implied" that the Iraq war was for oil? No, it's ridiculous. When do we start taking Iraq's oil? How much oil could we have bought for the money we spent on the war? Why are foreign companies getting most of the contracts? Since Saddam's oil was already on the market, it had the effect of lowering prices. If they wanted higher prices, then...ahh, like I said, ridiculous. The easiest thing to do would have been to lift sanctions and trade with Iraq like France and Germany did.

I tend to believe people's explanations unless I have reason to doubt them, but I think that McCain really meant that the Middle East is more important than it should be because of oil. That, and he just wanted to mention his energy plan (which should include ANWR).

"The bridge in Minneapolis didn't collapse because there wasn't enough money," he said. "The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was spent on wasteful, unnecessary pork-barrel projects."

First, it was shameless for Obama to mention it. And, McCain's reply wasn't quite beyond the pale, but still silly- kind of. Obviously, if the government were more adept at finding and prioritizing problems, it would find and prioritize bridges in near-collapse. Earmarks are quite a separate appropriation and it's not clear that the money saved on earmarks would go to increase infrastructure. McCain could propose that, but he probably wants to reduce taxes more.

Pastor problems:

McCain's pastor, the one that people should compare to Wright, is a pretty moderate guy and I'm sure representative of McCain's feelings toward religion.

My friend showed me this clip of David Corn saying some negative things about Islam. I don't actually care about religions fighting amongst each other. As long as people aren't killing each other or forcing conversion, vigorous debate is a good thing. These people say Catholicism is wrong; I say they are- so what? What I don't like is Corn's insinuation that America's armies are at his church's disposal to fight Corn's enemies (something which I'm sure McCain will make clear). If Corn means it in some prophetical, destinational kind of way, O.K., but Corn, if he wants to involve himself in politics, should make clear that he doesn't expect the Republican nominee to use his interpretation of prophesy and national purpose as a foreign policy guide.

Three words: Gas tax Holiday.