"At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt!"

Rolling Stone is one of those things left over from the 60s that occasionally still rises to the occasion. While the music coverage generally sucks because, well, the sort of music they're covering generally sucks, their political and cultural vision stays through to the days when Hunter Thompson covered the national desk at the Mint 500 and rode with Richard Nixon, discussing the chances the Redskins had in 72...And, their coverage of McCrazy and the Madwoman of Wassila and what they mean for us is frankly worth reading
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To begin with Matt Taiibi captures the whole ambiance of McCain world and where we're at and where we could be in one great paragraph that would cause Hunter to hoist a bottle of ether infused Wild Turkey to the man as he describes the free speech zone in Minnesota.

All around me, a million cops in their absurd post-9/11 space-combat get-ups stand guard as assholes in papier-mâché puppet heads scramble around for one last moment of network face time before the coverage goes dark. Four-chinned delegates from places like Arkansas and Georgia are pouring joyously out the gates in search of bars where they can load up on Zombies and Scorpion Bowls and other "wild" drinks and extramaritally grope their turkey-necked female companions in bathroom stalls... Only 21st-century Americans can pass through a metal detector six times in an hour and still think they're at a party. (AXE Comment--Some Americans. Totalitarian Americans of either left or right... the metaphysical space between Protein Wisdom and Shakesville is really pretty minute if not non-existent ) The defining moment for me came shortly after Palin and her family stepped down from the stage to uproarious applause, looking happy enough to throw a whole library full of books into a sewer... a middle-aged woman wearing a cowboy hat, a red-white-and-blue shirt and an obvious eye job gushed to a male colleague... "She totally reminds me of my cousin!" ... Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore...And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket...if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed Middle American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will... rush to the booth to vote for her... because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

Tim Dickinson takes on the character of John Batshit McCain and I find the piece disturbing. I switched parties in 2000 briefly so I could vote for ole' Batshit in the primary. I cringe to realize that my adventure in real politic was totally wasted, because the bastard is everything I really don't like about the military. I never went to OCS and became an officer despite often being the toughest and the smartest guy in the room because I didn't like officers as a class. Some of my best friends are and remain officers; but on the whole, fuck 'em. It's a blind spot. Thinking that McCain was something different was a serious mistake...being naive is a real flaw in a guy who hates Hobbits almost as much as he dislikes overbearing, privileged bullies.

Dickinson's piece is less poetic than Taiibi but has enough meat in it to satisfy any pitbull. McCain is a spoiled jerk; accustomed to having his own way, taking advantage of the political connections of his family and friends; vain, obnoxious and unpredictable. He can cook off over nothing and is absolutely vile when he does.

• McCain encounters a former alum of the Hanoi Hilton while he's attending the War College. Discussing the overseas trip they're supposed to take, the guy tells McCain he's going to the mid-east. McCain asks why, and the guy -- John Dramesi, an Air Force Colonel who received the Air Force Cross for his valor in captivity -- says " It's a place we're probably going to have problems...where are you going, John." "Rio" "Why the hell are you going to Rio?" McCain, married father of two in a service where adultery is a criminal offense punishable by dishonorable discharge, shrugs and says, ""I got a better chance of getting laid."...Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."
• There are some sad and telling trends here..."In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical I one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot."
• "Seen in the sweep of his seven-decade personal history, his pandering to the right is consistent with the only constant in his life: doing what's best for himself. To put the matter squarely: John McCain is his own special interest. "John has made a pact with the devil," says Lincoln Chafee, the former GOP senator, who has been appalled at his one-time colleague's readiness to sacrifice principle for power. Chafee and McCain were the only Republicans to vote against the Bush tax cuts. They locked arms in opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And they worked together in the "Gang of 14," which blocked some of Bush's worst judges from the federal bench. "On all three — sadly, sadly, sadly — McCain has flip-flopped," Chafee says. And forget all the "Country First" sloganeering, he adds. "McCain is putting himself first. He's putting himself first in blinking neon lights."
• McCain is pure bully. "During his 1992 campaign, at the end of a long day, McCain's wife, Cindy, mussed his receding hair and needled him playfully that he was "getting a little thin up there." McCain reportedly blew his top... "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." Even though the incident was witnessed by three reporters, the McCain campaign denies it took place." (AXE emphasis and snark.Yeah, the old straight talk thing -- straight up, I'm lying my ass off. Who you gonna believe...ask Cindy if I ever called her a cunt. Hey Cunt, did I ever call you a cunt?") In the Senate — where, according to former GOP Sen. Bob Smith, McCain has "very few friends" — his volcanic temper has repeatedly led to explosive altercations with colleagues and constituents alike. In 1992, McCain got into a heated exchange with Sen. Chuck Grassley over the fate of missing American servicemen in Vietnam. "Are you calling me stupid?" Grassley demanded. "No, I'm calling you a fucking jerk!" yelled McCain. Sen. Bob Kerrey later told reporters that he feared McCain was "going to head-butt Grassley and drive the cartilage in his nose into his brain." The two were separated before they came to blows.(AXE Comment-- Damnit! If Kerry had been a little bit slower, we wouldn't be here! Kerry, of course, was a SEAL in Vietnam, losing a foot and more than a little bit of sanity in that cauldron. He'll recognize violence where others would just be saying, "What did I miss?") Several years later, during another debate over servicemen missing in action, an elderly mother of an MIA soldier rolled up to McCain in her wheelchair to speak to him about her son's case. According to witnesses, McCain grew enraged, raising his hand as if to strike her before pushing her wheelchair away.

What the hell, if they win, maybe we should all head to Rio...

Comments

[nikkos]

"...the metaphysical space between Protein Wisdom and Shakesville is really pretty minute if not non-existent..."

I find this to be a hilariously provocative comment. Can you please elaborate?

[Crusader AXE]

Between the dimensions lies the difference; between the minutes, hours. Both are totalitarian minded; the people who write them are both bright, write reasonably well, and are essentially not capable of living in a reality based world. Oh, and they both hate my brothers, who then stay up light thinking up new ways to fuck with their heads.

[Christopher]

"a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne"

Perfect. Just perfect.

I've been astonished that anybody took her seriously, even for a moment.