I’ve avoided joining the echo chamber of GOP bashing post-election, but I can resist no more: The maverick act is up, and it’s time for John McCain to pack up his cattle and head home.
Although politicians bloviating, exaggerating, and fabricating on cable news and the Senate floor is not breaking news, since his 2008 presidential defeat, McCain has taken the hypocrisy and deception inherent in D.C.’s DNA to unprecedented new heights.
His target — President Obama, waging an all-out crusade to delegitimize the President or create a scandal that doesn’t really exist. His motives seem to stem from stark bitterness over losing out on the White House as the nation was swept away by hope and change, leaving him in the background. Maybe, he is trying to remain relevant with the pipe dream that he can still one day become the oldest living president in American history.
McCain’s most recent weapon of choice has been the self-fueled hysteria over the attacks on the American embassy in Benghazi. Again and again, he appears on the cable airways and Senate floor, raging about “what the President knew” and “why talking points were changed.” His most recent shameless drum beating was on Sunday’s Meet the Press, asking David Gregory “do you care whether four Americans died?” For me, this was the last straw.
First, we should all care when four Americans are killed by terrorists. It is a tragedy and their deaths merit investigation, figuring out what caused the attacks and how to prevent future attacks. We all agree with McCain on this.
Most importantly, President Obama and his administration agree with Senator McCain, and have investigated and released all the information pertaining to the attack. This though, has not been enough for the maverick, and he will not stop until he has a log of how many times the President used the bathroom that day. It seems nothing can satisfy the sore-loser Senator.
While David Gregory did not shy away from fighting with mad-men McCain, he didn’t find it important to ask him some other tough questions. So, I will:
Senator, where was your outrage, where were your calls for answers, after the deaths of 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001?
I don’t recall McCain asking what President Bush or Vice President Cheney were doing during the attacks, or “why talking points were changed” about the attacks, or why President Bush went hunting and fishing during the whole month of August 2001 instead of reading a memo titled:
“Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US.”
I do remember McCain leading the charge of Bush cowboys and Cheney indians to go to war with Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, where close to 4,500 American soldiers have died and 33,000 more were wounded.
So let’s compare the McCain outrage meter:
9/11 and Iraq War (7,500 Americans killed):
McCain’s reaction – crickets, with a call for more war.
Libyan Embassy attacks (four Americans killed):
McCain’s reaction – “It is now the worst cover-up or incompetence I have ever observed in my life.”
That, by the way, was McCain speaking with CBS’s Bob Schieffer. He also added “Somebody the other day said to me, ‘this is as bad as Watergate.’ Nobody died in Watergate.”
See any problem there?
Maybe McCain should go door to door around the nation, answering questions from the parents of fallen soldiers in Iraq, as to why their son child died needlessly for a war based on lies. I’d like to see him utter the phrase: weapons of mass destruction.
Americans being murdered by terrorists is a tragic outrage regardless of the number, but where I come from, 7,500 versus four is a significantly higher cause for concern. The fact that McCain and his neo-con army call for the head of a Democratic president when tragedy occurs, but call for war and unity under a Republican is politics at its worst. It’s bitterness and obstruction that hurts one group the most:
The people of Arizona, who don’t have a Senator representing their interests such as improving the economy or better healthcare access…
But one representing a grudge over the Oval Office call that never came.
So Senator, you can continue acting as if the call will eventually come, if you just stay in front of the camera or Senate floor, foaming at the political mouth.
Or, you can realize it’s time pack up the cattle, and head back to your ranch.
Jordan Chariton Jordan Chariton is a politics, media and culture writer. He has previously produced for Foxnews.com’s “Strategy Room,” Fox Business Network’s “Freedom Watch,” and MSNBC Dayside. Tweet him @JordanChariton
