The foreign media is catching on to the fact that there is a distinct difference in the American public from a few years ago. Once, it was easy to understand why the American people allowed the most outrageous statements to circulate unchallenged, not the least evidence of which was an outrageous claim made by Frank Gaffney, Jr. of The Washington Times concerning a bogus Abraham Lincoln "quote" supporting the current-day concept of the Unitary Executive and used by Republican Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) during this week's Iraq debate.
FactCheck.org spokesman Brooks Jackson found that this "quote" came from an article written by conservative author J. Michael Waller in an article for Insight Magazine, and the Washington Post has printed an article exposing that fact. And, in a wonderful sign that the media is again fulfilling its role as the informant of the voters instead of acting as our propagandizer, so has CBS.
This would lead one to wonder just how blind and ignorant the stereotypical Republican voter is - or was - until one reads this article in The Nation about the Republican voters of District 11, John McCain's home district, threatening to leave the party because of McCain's recent comments.
This assertion is attributed to Rob Haney, the Republican state committeeman in Arizona's District 11, whose characterization of John McCain borders on the slanderous. "The guy has no core, his only principle is winning the presidency. He likes to call his campaign the 'straight talk express.' Well, down here we call it the 'forked tongue express.'"
District 11 voters hold extremely conservative views, and they feel that McCain is taking positions that are far too liberal for them to continue to support him. They don't like how he supports restricting "free speech" in the form of campaign finance reform, and they doubt his loyalty to their Second Amendment right to own assault weapons. In addition, his opposition to a Constitutional Amendment opposing gay marriage upsets them greatly.
But nothing has riled the Right in District 11 more than McCain's opposition to Arizona Proposition 200, a state ballot measure restricting public services for undocumented immigrants which passed with support from nearly 70 percent of GOP voters.
Would you trust such a guy who misreads his public so badly with the codes to America's nuclear arsenal? Haney hopes not!
Haney was himself the target of a McCain reprisal over a resolution in District 11 to censure McCain for "dereliction of his duties and responsibilities as a representative of the citizens of Arizona." The resolution passed overwhelmingly in District 11, and was introduced before the GOP committee of Maricopa County, once home to Barry Goldwater. Acceptance of Haney's resolution was nearly unanimous. Haney says, "McCain and the party establishment came down on me hard. They said, 'You're going to destroy his chances in the presidential campaign.'"
Article comments
1 - Joe
A nice article. To many career pols, willing to say or do anything to gain office. They have to be watched very carefully or we are the ones that will suffer.
2 - Lee Richards
If you really want to see the roaches scatter, just bring up the issue of congressional term limits (maybe the only way to save our representative democracy.)
3 - Baronius
I understand that McCain was cleared, and innocent, in the Keating Five scandal.
Still, if I had to name the two least principled people in the whole Senate, I'd come up with the names of the frontrunners for each party's presidential nomination. That bugs the heck out of me.