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McCain's Foreign Policy Speech Today: "Only A Fool Or A Fraud" Sentimentalizes War
John McCain is set to deliver a big speech today on foreign policy, which in many ways looks like it will be a not-too-subtle denunciation of President Bush's romanticization of war at the same as McCain sets out to continue many of Bush's bottom-line policies. McCain will call for greater cooperation with allies, and will even go so far as to say, "I detest war."
"Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war," he will say. "However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us."
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sounds more like a swipe at cheney's "so?"
March 26, 2008 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
And he will follow it up by saying "That's why I favor 100 more years of war."
March 26, 2008 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Only a fool or a fraud . . ." would want McCain running our foreign policy and bombing Iran.
March 26, 2008 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
trying to shed his "bomb bomb bomb Iran, 10,000 years in Iraq" image, as he's obviously realized it's not exactly popular.
March 26, 2008 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
"We should still shed a tear for all that is lost when war claims its wages from us" still sounds pretty romanticized to me. It sounds like freshman poetry.
March 26, 2008 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I thought this was a problematic turn of phrase as well. "Wages of war" is a euphamisim for the destroyed lives, limb and minds that is the inevitable cost of war. It is a phrase used to avoid mentioning explicitly the dirty and awful truth. To use this phrase is itself a romantisization of war.
March 26, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess "war claims its wages from us" could be taken literally too...think of all the money we've been pissing away on that war. Again, not really the sort of thing McCain would want to remind us of.
March 26, 2008 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is fucking RICH coming from McCain!! The glorious silver-haired warrior, for whom every conflict and argument is a matter of honor! McCain voted for the Iraq war on sentiment!
March 26, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you guys are missing the point.
McCain is setting himself up as the reluctant hero, who MUST go to war, even though he doesn't want to.
He will then frame the Democrats as advocating defeat.
Of course, we all disagree with that. But how will independents take it?
March 26, 2008 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, I get it. I'd like to think people realize that actions are actions regardless of whether you're smiling or frowning while you do it, though.
Interesting framing by his campaign, though. I'm curious how far he'll try to distance himself from Bush without actually saying that he disagrees with Bush.
March 26, 2008 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
he's trying to reconstruct the coalition that re-elected bush in 2004... that's been his strategy from the very beginning.
how far behind can gay marriage and abortion be? get ready for the 2008 rollout of the greatest hits from 2004...
March 26, 2008 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
And I, my friends, am that fool and fraud....
March 26, 2008 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey just make sure your friends and family understand and get to see as much McCain as possible, clearly one of the things you can take away from this campaign as well as others that the longer someone stands in the spotlight the more likely a mistake will appear. I am quite comfprtable telling all of the people I can who say that McCain is moderate to go back and look at his rhetoric this campaing trail. Where has the maverick gone? He is a pragmatist willing to pander to whichever base his lobbyist tell him to pander to, this is not to say that John McCain is not a Vet and not a genuinely less slimy than the other guy type of politician, but it seems to me that one of the way the right moves is to not know what one hand is doing. They count on the uninformed just as much as the count on some of the more business conservative(reagan principle) people to sit in the same house together. They have little countrol over the party except at the top and depend heavily on preachers and talk radio to get out the bottom of their base. To win we need to show that the Democratic party is the party of multicultuaralism, it is the party that can be identified within the minority groups as well as White America that does not feel comfortable with Rush or preaching in politics. We all need to come together in aMom and pop fashion to point out that there is a village idiots who pander for one group then play the victim by saying all the media is out to get them. Well they are wrong I am and other like me are out to get them because the preach division and hate!
March 26, 2008 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey just make sure your friends and family understand and get to see as much McCain as possible, clearly one of the things you can take away from this campaign as well as others that the longer someone stands in the spotlight the more likely a mistake will appear. I am quite comfprtable telling all of the people I can who say that McCain is moderate to go back and look at his rhetoric this campaing trail. Where has the maverick gone? He is a pragmatist willing to pander to whichever base his lobbyist tell him to pander to, this is not to say that John McCain is not a Vet and not a genuinely less slimy than the other guy type of politician, but it seems to me that one of the way the right moves is to not know what one hand is doing. They count on the uninformed just as much as the count on some of the more business conservative(reagan principle) people to sit in the same house together. They have little countrol over the party except at the top and depend heavily on preachers and talk radio to get out the bottom of their base. To win we need to show that the Democratic party is the party of multicultuaralism, it is the party that can be identified within the minority groups as well as White America that does not feel comfortable with Rush or preaching in politics. We all need to come together in aMom and pop fashion to point out that there is a village idiots who pander for one group then play the victim by saying all the media is out to get them. Well they are wrong I am and other like me are out to get them because the preach division and hate!
March 26, 2008 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
And what are the odds anyone in his base in the press will ask him whether he thinks Bush is a fool or a fraud?
March 26, 2008 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
And y'know? Three years ago, I think I would have believed he actually meant it.
March 26, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sen. McCain:
Given that you "detest war," which American wars or potential wars have you opposed and why?
[Since the true answer is none at least in recent history, I'd be interested in McCain explaining away how on the one hand he detests war yet on the other hand he is constantly in favor of starting wars.]
March 26, 2008 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink