McCain Demands a Crown

Maybe I should be pleased that I still harbor a core of innocence (or something vaguely in that category), but it continues to amaze me that there is apparently no limit to the slack that will be cut for the Most Venal Senator McCain. This guy is obviously so extremely desperate for the power of the presidency that he will basically say or do any dang thing. Plain-speaking, integrity, adherence to campaign finance rules, avoidance of negative campaigning? He's long ago dropped those as even considerations in his shamefully egomaniacal grasping for a monarchy unfettered by checks and balances. Yet the "mainstream" media seem to love him, and obviously there are a lot of folks willing to vote for him and his program for continued destruction of America as the Founders conceived it and as it once was, namely admired as a bastion of democratic and egalitarian virtues, the friend and supporter of the downtrodden, etc.

Of course it is a major departure from the norm for the repub party to nominate someone who has actually served with honor in the military - I have to give McCain that (while fully questioning his mental capacity, honesty, and general grasp of reality - well sanity, to be frank). Bush 41 had a genuine military record, but was nevertheless labeled a wimp by his own party and the media they control (he only climbed out from under that label by approving ridiculous and shameful attack on the frightening military might of Panama). But otherwise, this is a party monopolized by chicken-hawks. Full-on war-mongering cowards. Cheney. Bush 43. Rumsfeld. The exceptions are very few (oh yes, Powell, who heinously betrayed the world community with his UN speech).

Mr. Greenwald finds the now almost constantly crooked-talking McCain lauding the principles enshrined by our founders, including, prominently, checks and balances between the three branches, but with one little hitch:

John McCain yesterday delivered a speech in which he hailed the inspiring constitutional principles of Government on which our country was founded, including the central goal of avoiding excessive, unlimited power in any one branch, secured by checks and balances from the other two branches:

In America, the constitutional restraint on power is as fundamental as the exercise of power, and often more so. Yet the framers knew that these restraints would not always be observed. They were idealists, but they were worldly men as well, and they knew that abuses of power would arise and need to be firmly checked. Their design for democracy was drawn from their experience with tyranny. A suspicion of power is ingrained in both the letter and spirit of the American Constitution. . . .

The executive, legislative, and judicial branches are often wary of one another's excesses, and they should be. They seek to keep each other within bounds, and they are supposed to. And though you wouldn't always know it from watching the day-to-day affairs of modern Washington, the framers knew exactly what they were doing, and the system of checks and balances rarely disappoints.

Sadly, though, McCain lamented that "there is one great exception in our day" to these principles. Surely "the exception" to which McCain refers must be the fact that we've lived for the last eight years under a President who literally has claimed powers greater than those possessed by the British King; whose underlings have promulgated radical and un-American theories literally vesting him with the power to rule outside of the law, who has exploited a political and media culture devoid of "suspicion of power" when exercised by the White House, and who has acted with no meaningful constraints or checks from Congress and virtually none from the judiciary? No, actually, that isn't the "exception" to which McCain was referring at all. Instead:

[It] is the common and systematic abuse of our federal courts by the people we entrust with judicial power. For decades now, some federal judges have taken it upon themselves to pronounce and rule on matters that were never intended to be heard in courts or decided by judges. With a presumption that would have amazed the framers of our Constitution, and legal reasoning that would have mystified them, federal judges today issue rulings and opinions on policy questions that should be decided democratically. Assured of lifetime tenures, these judges show little regard for the authority of the president, the Congress, and the states. They display even less interest in the will of the people.

According to John McCain, then, executive power in the U.S. now is exactly what it should be, perfectly in line with what the Founders envisioned -- except that it is too constrained by a judiciary which "show[s] little regard for the authority of the president." To McCain, the only real problem with our system of checks and balances is that the judiciary has too much power, and the President not enough.

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I encourage you to check out the rest of this typically excellent and inspiring post. Greenwald goes on to describe how McCain, replying to questionnaire submitted to major candidates by Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe (one of the handful of actual journalists I know of working mainstream these days) either was too cowardly or "could not think of" any over-reaching in executive power by bush that he would object to. Oh really?? Obama had quite a list in response to that questionnaire.

Please read full post. And by all means give any lunkhead you find who thinks McCain should be even considered as an air-breathing option a full-on shiver. This guy has fully lost his America-vibe and patriotism in his absolutely desperate and despicable grasping for power.

Go home, John, and find a good therapist. No, two.