A Personal Blog
by Michael Froomkin
Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Miami School of Law
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Category Archives: Politics: McCain
McCain Votes Against Banning Waterboarding
Maverick Fails The Test: McCain Votes Against Waterboarding Ban.
He was against torture before he voted for it.
Posted in Politics: McCain, Torture
6 Comments
McCain vs. the YouTube Generation
In what likely will be my only decent piece of political prognostication this electoral cycle, back in November 2006 I predicted that John McCain would be undone by YouTube, saying “it's interesting to see just how out of touch with modern realities the increasingly aging McCain seems to be. Pre-YouTube it might have been possible to campaign out of both sides of one's mouth, but that approach is in the dustbin of history now.”
The media will let you run away from what you say in the primaries. YouTube will not. Yesterday I posted a masterly example of what McCain is in for. Here's another, hot on its heels, that's almost as good, YouTube – John McCain: No, You Can't.
In the competition between the YouTube generation and a 71-year-old with a penchant for gaffes and the occasional doubletalk, don't bet on the get-off-my-lawn guy.
Posted in Politics: McCain
2 Comments
Brilliant Obama/McCain Video
Someone has done a brilliant takeoff of the Obama video that is taking the Internet by storm.
It's not a parody of the video exactly, although it has parodic aspects. The real target is McCain.
Posted in Politics: McCain
2 Comments
A Tale From the Forked Tongue Express
Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director, takes a ride on the Forked Tongue Express, and writes that John McCain Should Be Ashamed. Here's the start:
I have just listened to carefully coached staff members for Senator John McCain lie repeatedly about the Senator's failure to show up and vote on the first Senate economic-stimulus package, which included tax incentives for clean energy. I am in a state of shock not because of the Senator's vote, although that disappointed me, nor over his desire to avoid public accountability for that vote — that's politics. But to carefully coach your Senate staff (I assume the Chief of Staff, not the Senator, was the author of this shameful performance) in how to mislead callers in such depth is appalling, and surprising, because it was almost certain to be found out.
He's got details.
Posted in Politics: McCain
1 Comment
McCain — What’s Fair Criticism?
The Smirking Chimp, Puffing up John McCain, POW, has some rough stuff about McCain.
I think this part is not only fair criticism, but gets at the heart of one of the main reasons I can't trust the guy and get steamed every time I hear about his 'Straight Talk':
McCain's tragic flaw: He knows the right thing. He often sets out to do the right thing. But he doesn't follow through. We saw McCain's weak character in 2000, when the Bush campaign defeated him in the crucial South Carolina primary by smearing his family. Placing his presidential ambitions first, he swallowed his pride, set aside his honor, and campaigned for Bush against Al Gore. It came up again in 2005, when McCain used his POW experience as a POW to convince Congress to pass, and Bush to sign, a law outlawing torture of detainees at Guantanamo and other camps. But when Bush issued one of his infamous “signing statements” giving himself the right to continue torturing-in effect, negating McCain's law-he remained silent, sucking up to Bush again.
Ditto McCain's off-again on-again kowtows to the theocratic right wing. Or yesterday's cowardly eleventh-hour failure to vote on the stimulus package even though McCain was in DC.
But the main thrust of the Smirking Chimp article is that McCain is to be blamed for cracking after days of very vigorous torture that he suffered as a POW and/or for not correcting people who say he didn't. I don't buy that.
