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As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

The McCain-Bush-Cheney Agenda

The media has made much of John McCain's problems with evangelicals and hard-core conservatives. That's true - they are depressed. But McCain's biggest problem is that any attempt to reassure them will rebound with an immediate loss of support among moderates and independents.

Well, here's the death blow. John McCain is on the record loving himself some George Bush and Dick Cheney.

On Bush, from Meet the Press in 2005:

MR. RUSSERT: You have a 59 percent approval with Democrats; 59 with Independents; and just 56 with Republicans. And what people point to--and this is an article in your hometown paper, the Arizona Republic, "At Odds With Bush. John McCain repeatedly has taken maverick positions that have put him at odds with President Bush's administration, and rankled his party's right wing. Among McCain's stances that differ from those of Bush: tax cuts...War...Domestic spending...Campaign-finance reform...Medicare...Drug importation...Stem-cell research...Environment...Patients' rights...Judicial appointments...2004 campaign," and particularly the rhetoric about John Kerry. The fact is you are different than George Bush.

SEN. McCAIN: No. No. I--the fact is that I'm different but the fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush. So have we had some disagreements on some issues, the bulk--particularly domestic issues? Yes. But I will argue my conservative record voting with anyone's, and I will also submit that my support for President Bush has been active and very impassioned on issues that are important to the American people. And I'm particularly talking about the war on terror, the war in Iraq, national security, national defense, support of men and women in the military, fiscal discipline, a number of other issues. So I strongly disagree with any assertion that I've been more at odds with the president of the United States than I have been in agreement with him.


On Cheney, from his biographer Stephen Hayes:

In an interview he gave to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes in 2006 for Hayes’ biography, “Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President,” McCain said: “I will strongly assert to you that he has been of enormous help to this president of the United States.”

Going further, McCain even told Hayes in comments heretofore unpublished that he’d consider Cheney for an administration post.

Asked whether he’d be interested in Cheney had the vice president not already have served under Bush for two terms, McCain said: “I don’t know if I would want him as vice president. He and I have the same strengths. But to serve in other capacities? Hell, yeah.”


The video of the MTP quote shouldn't be too hard to find. The text of the Cheney quote is even more striking - McCain would use Fourthbranch in his Administration in any number of capacities. Would he be running energy policy? Would he use him and David Addington as Constitutional consultants? Would he give him a mask and let him run some interrogations?

Whatever the case, McCain can be sunk by his own words. He has lashed himself to the Bush-Cheney legacy and it's time to tie those bonds in double knots.

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