No More of the McSame!

Here is a great article from Politico.com from someone who voted for John McCain when he ran for president in 2000. Very enlightening for anyone who thinks that John McCain has not completely sold out on his principles.

Not the candidate he used to be
By: Cenk Uygur
Mar 12, 2008 08:30 PM EST

I voted for John McCain in 2000. If he had won the Republican primary, I definitely would have voted for him in the general election against Al Gore. The John McCain of 2000 was the Barack Obama of 2008 — a guy who gave you hope that politics could change and that someone with integrity could actually win.

But he didn’t win. And instead of McCain changing politics, politics changed him.

Now, that McCain of yesteryear is unrecognizable. He has taken nearly every position he abhorred and gotten in bed with every loathsome political figure he fought against. Where have you gone, John McCain? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

There are two different McCains: the John McCain of 2000 and the John McCain of 2008.

The John McCain of 2000 called the Christian right preachers, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, the “agents of intolerance.” He was right. These people are complete charlatans — and McCain knows it. At least he did in 2000.

The John McCain of 2008 has kissed the ring of nearly every major Christian right preacher in the country, even Falwell. Falwell said the United States had the Sept. 11 attacks coming because we tolerate homosexuals, feminists and liberals. The John McCain of 2000 would have found that despicable. The John McCain of 2008 gave the commencement speech at Falwell’s Liberty University.

The John McCain of 2000 said this: “Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.”

The John McCain of 2008 has pandered to those same exact folks. Can you imagine if Obama gave a speech at an event honoring Farrakhan?

And now, McCain says he is “very honored” to get the endorsement of the Rev. John Hagee, who has called the Catholic church the “Great Whore.” The John McCain of 2000 must be hanging his head in shame.

The John McCain of 2000 thought cutting taxes when you couldn’t pay for it was a terrible idea. In 2003, he thought it was an even worse idea to do that in the middle of a war. The John McCain of 2008 says he will make these same tax cuts permanent.

Is anyone paying attention? Who snatched the body of McCain? I hope it wasn’t the same person who snatched Dick Cheney’s body in 2000.

The Sell-Out Express chugs on. The top issue for McCain has been lobbying reform. That is, until 2008. The man who helped build the public financing apparatus in America is now rejecting public financing in the primaries. But it gets worse.

Full story here…

Please post a caption in the Comments section. Thanks!

Re-posted from ONE LITTLE VICTORY:

Destroy Islam.

That is the message of John McCain’s self-proclaimed spiritual guide Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, Ohio.

Wow. With spiritual advice like that, I don’t think he’ll even need a Secretary of Defense.

My own experience with Pentecostals has left me with a very negative impression of the institution, but this guy takes the cake. He has complete disdain for any views opposing his own, and spews hate towards civil libertarians (I guess he and I won’t get along at all), abortion rights advocates, gays, the entertainment industry and of course, Islam. He has stated that he wishes to provoke people into a “holy war”.

Now I know that John McCain feels that he has to win over the right-wing base, but does he really have to continue to curry favor with the nutjobs? So far it seems like McCain believes that his own political salvation is tied to those who believe that the Rapture is imminent and that we should be preparing for total war. Is this what American politics has devolved into?

Senator McCain, if you do not denounce and repudiate this crackpot, then I am left to draw no other conclusion than that you are a crackpot as well. The “maverick” John McCain is a myth, alongside “compassionate conservatism” and the idea that we can exchange our liberties for greater security.

McCain’s Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam
By David Corn
March 12, 2008
source: Mother Jones

Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a “war” against the “false religion” of Islam with the aim of destroying it.

On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a “strong, true, consistent conservative.” The endorsement was important for McCain, who at the time was trying to put an end to the lingering challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a favorite among Christian evangelicals. A politically influential figure in Ohio, Parsley could also play a key role in McCain’s effort to win this bellwether state in the general election. McCain, with Parsley by his side at the Cincinnati rally, called the evangelical minister a “spiritual guide.”

The leader of a 12,000-member congregation, Parsley has written several books outlining his fundamentalist religious outlook, including the 2005 Silent No More. In this work, Parsley decries the “spiritual desperation” of the United States, and he blasts away at the usual suspects: activist judges, civil libertarians who advocate the separation of church and state, the homosexual “culture” (”homosexuals are anything but happy and carefree”), the “abortion industry,” and the crass and profane entertainment industry. And Parsley targets another profound threat to the United States: the religion of Islam.

Full story here…