McCain’s Big, Bigger, BIGGEST LIE

Yesterday, the McCain camp released 1,172 pages of McCain’s medical records. That is to say, as the New York Times put it, “a tightly controlled pool of about 20 reporters was shown into a conference room at the CopperWynd Resort near the Mayo Clinic. The reporters were permitted three hours to review and take notes on the 1,173 pages of Mr. McCain’s medical documents, spanning 2000 to 2008, but they were not permitted to remove the documents from the room or photocopy them.” And all the doctors dutifully reported that McCain is in great health, mentally and physically, that he may once have had malignant melanoma but he’s all better now; that, relatively speaking, he’s on few drugs (none for mental problems); that he would make an awesome and healthy prez at age 72. Joy Tomme would like to respond, “BULLSHIT!” to that bullshit. If the tag line to the NYT article is any indication of the truth of the medical report, then the medical report is a mendacious cover-up perpetrated by a bunch of cover-up liars. NYT tag line: "As a prisoner of war, Mr. McCain told doctors, he had tried to commit suicide twice. But by 1977, he said he had 'all but forgotten the traumas of captivity.'" My God! Who is he kidding? Ask guys who weren’t subjected to torture in POW camps, but simply fought the war in Viet Nam. Ask guys who didn’t try to commit suicide twice, but came home with war wounds. Have they, could they all but forget the traumas? And, if it’s remotely possible that McCain did forget, then that’s worse. Even in the medical reports that have now been kind–of-sort-of released, McCain’s mental state is glossed over. I would like to see psychiatric evaluations by psychiatrists who are not government/and or military flacks. I would like to know what meds he’s taking for mental health. Of course, we are no more likely to know those facts than we are going to know about McCain’s wife’s finances in exquisite detail. Let me quote a couple of paragraphs from the back page story (“Ferguson”) in tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine section. The article is by Michael Norman who teaches journalism at New York University. Norman tells about a Marine, Ferguson, who Norman knew for only one minute in Viet Nam before Ferguson fell on top of him dead. First paragraph: “A colleague dropped by on a recent day to tell me that it was the third anniversary of her son’s coming home from Iraq. That stopped me. It’s been 40 years since I stepped off the battlefield and I’m not home yet. I can still feel the muck of rice paddies pulling on my boots, still hear the jungle hiss and snap in the dark. Even after the night dreams and day drifts have stopped and the loud noises no longer startle, you still press your chin against your shoulder and look back.” Last paragraph: “So I took Ferguson home with me. Who else was going to remember him? Who else among us “knew” him and could carry his good name, his reputation, the memory of him as a marine? Remembering was part of the bargain we all made, the reason we were so willing to die for one another.” McCain’s big lie is that he doesn’t remember the horrors of Viet Nam, his bigger lie is that the torture and horrors of Viet Nam have not had a lasting and irreparable ill effect on him. And his biggest lie is that he is physically and mentally fit to be president of the United States. John McCain is not mentally or physically fit to be president, nor can he be expected to be. McCain should not have been allowed to run for president. But the worst of it is that these guys believe the citizens of the United States think it's commendable for a man to fight a war, be imprisoned by torturers and have no effects from it. (And they are willing to lie to push that agenda.) IT IS NOT COMMENDABLE. And it is not possible.

The Issue Is Color

The headline in the NYT today reads: “Many Florida Jews Express Doubts on Obama” Two women having brunch in Boynton Beach were quoted in the article. Both are 83 years old. Ms Weitz said, “The people here, liberal people, will not vote for Obama because of his attitude towards Israel. “They’re going to vote for McCain,” she said. Ms Grossman didn’t disagree that Florida Jews would not vote for Obama. But her reasoning was different from Ms. Weitz. “They’ll pick on the minister thing, they’ll pick on the wife, but the major issue is color,” she said. Ms Grossman will probably vote for Obama she said. But she is keeping her mouth shut about that. I heard a woman here in Philadelphia say she couldn’t vote for a man whose name was so close to Osama. The color element in this election is sticky. We’ll never know how many people boasted they had no problem voting for a black man when they had no intention of voting for a black man. But it sounded good at the time. How many people will carry their racism to the extent that they will vote for McCain rather than vote black? Probably not a huge percentage. The NYT says Jews account for 5 percent of the vote in Florida. And, as Ms Weitz and Ms Grossman can attest, not all Florida Jews will vote for McCain. Besides, it is difficult to come up with plausible reasons to vote for McCain that would adequately cover up innate racism. Also, antipathy regarding color has more resonance with senior citizens than it does with young voters. But color is a factor in this election and it may represent an obstacle for Obama in the next four years. If Obama is the Democrat Party’s candidate and wins, how many in Congress will oppose his policies because he’s black? We don’t know. The interesting thing is that most white people do not know the extent of their racism. It can’t be reasoned away with logic, but it’s there, in the background, underneath, nearly forgotten and hidden. And like a successful nose job, you can forget what it looked like until a reminder rises up from the past. If ever there was a moment to GET OVER IT, it is now. In our world today, color is irrelevant.

John McCain is Certifiable

McCain has been told to distance himself from the Prez because Bush is the worst and most unpopular President ever to have been foisted on the American public. And also because Bush is insane. One way the insane McCain is distancing himself from the insane Prez is by setting a date when the US will be out of Iraq, which Crazy George would never do. Yesterday, Crazy John said that the war in Iraq will have been won (WON! As in VICTORY IS OURS!) by 2013. Not only that, in what has been called “a mystical speech” McCain said that by 2013 Osama bin Laden will be dead or captured, al-Qaeda will have been defeated, Iraq will be functioning on its own, Afghanistan will be shut of the Taliban, and Americans will have the choice of simply paying a flat tax or using form 1040. I have a few prophesies of my own. By 2013, John McCain will be 77 and will be incapacitated by his physical maladies or dead from cancer. In any case, he will have been committed to a loony bin for the hopelessly insane. Nothing will have changed in Iraq, and if our troops are still in Iraq they will still be being killed for no good reason, Afghanistan will still be in the drug trade from which the US will be profiting, as it is now and nothing will have changed. The IRS will be doing business about the same way it is doing business today. Bin Laden will be dead from his physical maladies and he never was captured. The US will be coming up on the second term of a Democratic president under a Democratic administration who will be doing its level best to undo the disasters and criminal acts the Republicans visited on the United States from 2000 through 2008. Oh. And George W. Bush will be drinking and using drugs openly and on a monumental scale. The Bush family and the Secret Service will try to keep him out of sight and will be mostly successful except when he occasionally escapes and causes a ruckus.