What I love about this article, is how many levels at which it works.
By the end I wasn't simply thinking of poor John McCain and the derailment of his Straight Talk Express. Nor simply appreciating your taking me back home to Tucson where I mostly grew up.
No, what got to me was the moment. 'Cause we've all been there. Hell, I've been there more than once, going deeper and deeper into the shit, like being hammered on the back of my skull with a 2x4 till finally, maybe finally I'd get it. Finally five years ago, I did get it, followed promptly by trying to kill myself. That was my fucking moment.
What I'm appreciative of is your writing makes present for me, how human we all are, how much all of us struggle to accomplish our dreams, and that the one thing we can never give up to gain our dreams is ourself.
Like I did in Spring 2002, McCain will learn or die. It's never too late to become an adult. I've always hated his politics, but the man himself did something remarkable 40 some years ago. He could do so again and that'd be great by me.
Wonderfully evocative stuff LM. Thank you.
McCain never knew it (probably still doesn't realize it, even now) but his Presidential aspirations bit the big one when he was anally raped by Karl Rove in South Carolina all those weary years ago.
But instead of standing up to the Bushies, he became their favorite cheap whore.
I respect his service to our nation, but as a man and a (shudder) politician? Especially one with a Potomac jones?
Stick a fork in him - he's done.
Dead in the water.
Hopefully, like the Republicans.
The thing about George Allen's macaca moment was that I knew from the first time that I saw the video that I was witnessing political suicide by self-immolation. That was a sweet moment.
Ohhhh...this was only ONE of the bail-out moments happening recently.
:o) :o) :o)
Today, the most important convocation in D.C. was NOT the HJC taking hastily-cobbled-up-bullshit-testimony about GonzalesGate; it was when Stephen Hadley met with the first batch (More to come! :o) ) of GOP rodents doing the gangplank boogie, as they look to cover their asses for the 2008 election.
6 of them told him that they would support the Salazar bill calling for the ISG "findings" to be implemented by next spring.
Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel stated that they will support the democratic withdrawal legislation to end combat participation by our troops, by next April.
You can hear republican 'nads cracking like chestnuts in an open fire. :o)
We aint gonna get the whole Monte, just yet, but soon, soon. :o)
Our military HAS to be watching this and thinking:
"Those people who have NOTHING to lose but their cushy jobs and sweet bennies, are bailing?
Then why in the plu-perfect fuck are WE sitting here slowly being ground into Alpo, while the same assholes vote closure on the discussion to lengthen the period between deployments to Iraq, for our troops?"
Things could start to happen VERY quickly, now that the reality-and-truth monster is out of his cage and stalking the streets of downtown D.C. like Godzilla in Tokyo.
We just need to keep goosing him in the ass with a sharp stick, and holding press conferences, as we point to him and say:
"Lookit! Bush and the GOP need to ground that damn kid of theirs!" :o)
I'd put the moment here:
http://
www.desertratdemocrat.com...in_bush_hug.jpg
or here (during Katrina):
http://i73.photobucket.com/
album...CoastFloods.jpg
The walk trough the market was just the coup de grace to the walking dead.
And LM rounds the 4th base waving to the crowd
Karma "ain't it a BITCH"
Well said, LM, but...
I'm still seeing all those lying-down dead people.
The walking dead better run for it.
A-men. McCain has been a political dead man walking since April 1st. It's only NOW that he's finally starting to realize it.
A thing of terrible beauty, no?
I could not agree more. It was the moment when even Republicans had to admit that McCain was full of shit about Iraq. Once Mr. Straight Talk is widely understood to be full of shit, you can't take him seriously ever again.
It's like when a movie goes too far for you to suspend your disbelief anymore (e.g. Will Smith knocking the alien out with one punch in Independence Day).
I think there were always weaknesses in McCain as a candidate, but until he did something stupendously idiotic, you could suspend your disbelief and pretend you were watching a real contender.
Well, obviously you can't gainsay McCain's service/POW years, but that aside, the guy has constantly failed to make the platform in time to take the train. Also, is there any truth in the story that points to McCain's antics leading to the dreadful fire aboard Forrestal in July '67? I seem to remember something........ and McCain was an A-4 pilot at the centre of things.
Your description of The Moment is very powerful. It certainly touched me.
My Moment came in 1971. I was climbing out of a small twin-engined transport at a tiny airfield in the Mekong Delta with the rain pouring down. Unbidden, the theme song from the movie, "M.A.S.H." started going through my head as I realized that I was there only because I'd volunteered for a one-year tour with the Brown Water Navy.
Ah, youth!
Those moments rarely come without a buildup. McCain's Moment was set in motion when he abandoned any pretense of opposing some of Bush's ideas and embraced (literally) Bush. From there forward he was despised by moderates and still distrusted by conservatives.
No one worked harder for his Moment than John McCain did.
Pimp Daddy Dick:
Yo! Georgie! Bitch, gitcho ass over here and check this new corner hoppa out.
Georgie Stankbush aka Sugah Booty One:
You mean dat ol' PTSD'd skankaroni ho'cake JohnnyMac?!?
Pimp Daddy Dick:
Yep - Yep!!! Miz Thang look lik' she can take it where she make it!
Georgie:
Oh, she can take it all right. Killa Karl done pushed up in dem guts and turned dat one into a salad tossa extra-O-D-I-N-A-I-R-E.
Pimp Daddy Dick:
Ahem - and just what, pray tell, do you kno' 'bout dis bitch and her salad tossin' skill level??
Georgie:
Uhhh, nuthin sweet Daddy...I don't know nuthin' - it's just dat - well, ummm...
Pimp Daddy Dick:
Well "ummmm..." what?!?! Spit it or swalla bitch!!!
Georgie:
Remember dat trip to South Carolina me and Killa took a while back???
Pimp Daddy Dick:
Yeah...whaddaboutit? Wha'int you and dat punkass s'posed to have been down there spreadin' round some of my loose skrilla, 'mongst the religious chickenheads and holyrollers???
Georgie:
Yeah...
Pimp Daddy Dick:
Oh, I see now - dis is gon' be one of dem dental extraction type conversations where I gotta pull shit outta you like its my job. Remember what I said a minute ago bitch. SPIT OR SWALLA!!! Now - whazzitgonnabe?!?!
Georgie:
OOooo Daddy! You got dat fire in yo' eyes!! I think Georgie needs her sum' correctin'!! Where is dat clothes hanger?!?!
Pimp Daddy Dick:
Dammit! You always pushin' my kink button wheneva I'm tryin' to git the truth out yo' ass. You know whut?? After I steps off in that devious lil ass of yours, I'm gonna pimpstep over to JohhnyMac and choose up on her as my new Bottom Bitch 'cause you just can't seem to get da message.
Pimp DaddyDick:
Oh - and by the way. BITCH!!! WHERE IS MY MONEY!?!?
just beautiful.
The really pitiful part is that McCain was a son of privilege too, but he bought the package - he had to play by the rules, and he got tortured for it. Didn't keep him from being an asshole when he could get away with it, but bydamned when there was a question of the rules, he bydamned played by them, when it was his own lilywhite privileged ass on the line.
Even in this - it may have been the son-of angels of his nature that made him sell his soul to these trashy people, but he sold it, and he keeps his bargains.
The part that really kills is the part where he thinks they keep their bargains too.
It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for the man, except for the part where he leaped into bed with the people who made his daughter a national dirty joke.
And even there - they adopted a little girl from Pakistan? FFS, does anyone think that John McCain and his heiress trophy wife couldn't have lined up a blue-eyed baby in a minute? He did a decent thing, and it's going down in history as a betrayal.
The man is definitely starcrossed.
Bollox Ref: the Forrestal was just bad luck. another jet had some elctricla dificulty that hit his A4 with a rocket.....he was lucky ot get out with his life...then a shortage of bobmbs ment the planes where armed wit hI beleive korean war vintage munitions that where more heat sensitive then their normal ordinance...just good old murphy leting his prescense be known
There are "rumors" about him (McCain) having been culpable in the Forrestal incident, but from what I've gathered from the most reliable sources, his jet was in the wrong place at the wrong time on the deck when it took a stray missile from another one on deck.
Boom! Boom! Boom! All hell broke loose, and as moonglum said--Murphy stood up and yelled "Hello!"
McCain had to crawl through the nose of his burning plane and popped out below on the blazing deck, managing to limp away just before his plane went "Ka-flooey!
Right or wrong, I cringe when I think of the nightmares he must have some nights, based on the shit he's seen and experienced. Damn.
He's even done in AZ..... I hope. That's what one poll showed anyway. I hope he goes away and takes Renzi and Kyl with him. I want some representation... dammit!
Photo.... now why do you want to do that to a perfectly good guitar! 
Let's not forget John McCain's other moment.i>
Elegantly done, LM.
And if Iraq is Vietnam on meth, then perhaps in Bush/McCain we seen the Johnson/Nixon dynamic on terminal speed-up.
One goes full throttle into a disaster of a war, and for deeply twisted mental and political reasons that 100 historians can maybe unravel 20 years from now, the other one fucking adopts his predecessor's devil baby and gives the little beast his own last name.
Let’s hope the endgame is equally (and mercifully) expedited: from the initially innocuous-seeming catalyzing event(s) to resignation in months this time.
Because I still believe there is a lot of merit in the line Steve used to push (how it just shatters me still to have to say that): Dubya is simply too big a punk to survive a genuine, direct, serious and sustained assault on his Fortress White House.
Push hard and he’ll quit, just like he has his whole miserable life.
"Push hard and he'll quit." Thassit, Drift. :o)
I'm up to $80 in bets that BOTH he and Cheyney will resign before the elections. :O)
I fart "We told you so!" in my sleep.
HOLY CRAP! McCain was on the forest fire in 71?
he served with my father... yuck.
Doc, et al; aint gonna be no sweeping Iraq under the rug.
Tanbark
Wanna bet????
drbopperthp
Driftie & Tanbark -
The Big Fella and I had a private bet going - one which I wasn't too enthused about ever winning - about whether or not Sugah Booty One aka The Decider would quit his sweet POTUS gig. I said(say) nay, Steven said yea. Our debate centered around the issue of understanding how circumstance can trump characterologic traits - Bush being a punkass, but now a punkass with too many power players putting batteries in his back and too much (historically/politically) at stake to allow him to pull his usual El Foldo. The bet involved a dinner at the place of the winners choice and would have included an invite to driftie, LoLo and various other regulars of the old homesite. That bet is moot, for reasons well known to all. Since you like to toss skrilla Tanbark, I'll take you up on the same bet (you're already $80 deep), along with the one referenced above that you seemed to have missed downpost. You name your poison - money, dinner, stupid pet tricks, whatever - and prepare to drink it.
Bush and Cheney quit?!?!? Why??? Pressure them, "push hard" and he/they'll quit?!?!? Who is going to do that and when??? All due respect and wishin' you were right - but you guys have got to be fuckin' kidding me.
Along with yourselves.
LM it was a rocket not a missle, only diference in the guidence....the rocket didn't detonaite but instead tore a hole in his fule tanke...and than ignighted the fuel, the fire then cooked of the substandared ordinance killing the only trained firefighters on the boat..woops.
Hubris Sonic McCain was the fire, it was his A4 that was initaly hit
In 2004, Pete Peterson, who was also in the Hanoi Hilton... and later became the FIRST USA amabassador back into vietnam, spoke for an event that I was organizing.
He was and is a fierce patriot, a democrat, a diplomat, a serious man.
He was campaigning and fundraising for John Kerry.
Pete also experienced the hell that John McCain endured. and came out of it NOT a conservative.
I say McCain's moment was
when he survived that and STILL became a conservative.
when he wasn't absolutely OUTRAGED and screaming for BLOOD when abu gahrib broke.
when he let his party do the swiftboat gig on Kerry...
he was broken loooonnnnggg before the shopping spree.
*tlg
I've said it before and I'll say it again: We all know how notoriously thin-skinned Bush is. We know he can dish out the nastiest abuse (usually disguised as "humor" of a frattish nature) but simply ca-aaa-aaan't take it. Not even a little. We know he doesn't respond well to people challenging him, and it doesn't take much to imagine the sheer malignant joy the ugly-minded little creep must have felt when forcing McCain to eat shit and like it back in 2000.
But sociopaths are funny creatures, y'know? It's not enough that they win: Everybody else must lose. And go on losing. I'd be willing to bet that not only has Bush still not "forgiven" McCain for the heinous crime of competing with him for the 2000 nomination, but that Bush truly despises him for it, with the sort of ever-burning hate that can't be put out by even the most boot-licking, cringing, servile appeasement.
Which is what Mr. "Maverick" has been serving up to his dear buddy Bush for the past 7 years. It's been a skin-crawling spectacle to watch. Much to Bush's delight, I daresay, just as he's undoubtedly been every bit as delighted to observe McCain's slow and steady slide into irrelevance. And for this reason, I can't find it in me to feel even a smidgen of sympathy for Maverick Boy. Not to sound vindictive, but I'm only sorry he's not going to end up 10 times as humiliated when this is all over. Fuck it, I have no patience for Democratic politicians who 'respond' to the GOP attack dogs by promptly falling down and peeing on themselves, so why cut McCain any slack? Not only does it serve him bloody well right, but it's really the least he deserves.
Happy to see this anger at McCain.
Happy, happy, happy...
Oliphant cartoon today:
McCain, waiting....holding a suitcase, standing in front of a massive armored door, labelled "der Bunker", as it opens a crack to reveal Dick Cheyney and bush suspiciously looking out...
McCain: "Got any room in there?"
Probably not. :o)
John D.:
"Skin-crawling spectacle" it has been.
FUCK John McCain, how many American troops have died because of his disgusting support of Bush's war of aggression
DocBop; Dig your stuff. Sorry to miss that estimable estimate until now. :o)
But, sometime in the next 16 months, the REPUBLICANS are going to go to the democrats and BEG them to help them force bush out of office.
Your "They'll stay until their terms end" thesis is predicated on two things:
That Iraq is not going to get much worse, and that it's going to stay tolerable enough to americans that they won't be looking TOO hard for anyone to blame.
I'm sorry. You are badly mistaken.
Encouraging the GOP in this, will be:
A HUGE Majority of american voters.
Wall St.
Our military.
Most of the leaders of most of the rest of the countries in the world, because they don't want to have to deal with this pack of assholes one day longer than they absolutely have to.
And because they are afraid (as they should be) that the borgs somehow will gin up a regional war, in which to enfold the clusterfuck they've already created.
The mouthbreathers can "stay the course" until the green zone is an R&R spa for the insurgents, but it's already very near to the point where they are irrelevant. From here on out, it's the money that counts. Our power-elite "loaned" bush the wherewithal to start his bloody ponzi scheme. (I happen to think, rather reluctantly)
Now that it's collapsing, the last thing they want is to be politically or philosophically tied to a president
whose approval ratings are headed for the high 'teens.
It's simple. If bush is still in office at the time the elections take place, EVERY beloved fatcat "We've got ours; fuck YOU guys!" precept will be tattooed oh his forehead.
Going on Russert's show and speaking the word "marketplace" will be like them adjusting their tie, smoothing their hair, and as the camera cuts to them, screaming the word:
"Motherfucker!" 25 times in a row.
What do you think has been happening in the past couple of days in congress?
Those repub congressmen who are
openly calling for fixed drawdowns, and soon, are voodoo pins. As more of them do it, the pins will become bayonets.
Politically speaking, the GOP is going to leave "Caesar" on the steps of the senate, but with waaaay more holes in him than the original. :o)
At this point, it's all about dickering. I just hope that Reid and the Democrats drive a bargain that's as hard as the fucking Hope diamond.
"Lessee, Mr. Boehner; you guys are 8 miles up shit creek, and you want US to climb in the body-parts scow with you and let you duck down out of sight while WE try to row it past all the voters lining the banks, with their RPG's, just to get a FEW of the signatures of the maggots who dragged us into this?
We don't think so.
What else you got?
BTW, make nice, and we might help you at least threaten goatboy with impeachment.
We both know that's all it'll take for Daddybush to make that "sorry, son" phone call. :o)
Shorter:
Every time george bush speaks publicly, whatever he WANTS to say, what's really coming out is:
"I'm a sacrificial goat. Who wants to start gnoshing?"
Tanbark! 
Your "They'll stay until their terms end" thesis is predicated on two things:
That Iraq is not going to get much worse, and that it's going to stay tolerable enough to americans that they won't be looking TOO hard for anyone to blame.
I'm sorry. You are badly mistaken.
Tanbark
LOL! Wrong again. My "thesis", as you put it, is based on one single, simple premise that has proven true throughout the history of this country and certainly over the last six years - all of this HAS been tolerable enough for Americans (particularly White Americans) that nothing much has changed and nothing much will, up to and including the 2008 elections. Put your money where your mouth is Good Buddy - money where your mouth is or...well, you know the rest.
Was talking more about f-nut mccain last night... got so worked up I couldn't get to sleep.
the thing is, to have survived what he did in vietnam... when the torture memo and abu came out- he should have left the gop. he should have run as an idependent. he should have done what he knew/ knows is right.
he didn't
he deserves no sympathy whatsoever.
he sold out every soldier ever detained and tortured.
When I met Pete peterson it was the week after the torture story broke, he could barely get his outrage out through his clenched teeth. He called it the worst outrage of our time, and said it made him sick. where was mccain...???
*tlg
And this post is why I keep coming back, and hope more people discover this site.
My John McCain is a creep moment was the hug at the 2004 convention, you all know which hug that one was. Nose in armpit of dear leader...
Blech, it made me want to puke, and until that moment, I would have given McCain a half a thought as a possibly not horrible politician before remembering he was an R and dismissing him.
And of course a whole bunch of Iraqi workers from that market were kidnapped and executed the very next day.
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