McCain as Schizophrenic

Sen. John McCain's speech Thursday night accepting the Republican Party's presidential nomination was lackluster, as any TV viewer who's honest can admit. It certainly didn't hold a candle to the recent speeches by Democratic nominee Barack Obama or Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate.

More importantly, though, McCain's screed -- full of empty and contradictory platitudes -- made no sense to anyone paying attention to the words themselves.

Joe Conason, an author and columnist for the New York Observer, elegantly and succinctly summarizes the problems with McCain’s bizarre speech on the Salon.com Web site. Although Conason’s main point is that McCain’s top advisers failed him by writing and approving such a clichéd message, he also underscores the major lapses in logic that run throughout the address.

Here’s the relevant excerpt:

“The result on display in his convention speech was a kind of political schizophrenia. He praises the leadership of ‘the president,’ to whom he has offered unstinting support for the past four years, and at the same time promises to restore the public trust forfeited by the Republican administration, as if someone else has been in the White House all this time.

He denounces both parties for making government bigger, while simultaneously suggesting that he will expand or create new programs for displaced industrial workers, families with autistic children and students in struggling public schools.

He scourges Barack Obama for supporting the Bush administration's energy bill, replete with ‘corporate welfare for oil companies,’ yet promises to subsidize the same ‘clean’ coal, nuclear and oil development programs that are the foundation of the Bush energy policy.

The question that McCain’s speech failed to answer is exactly what, besides the nameplates, will change if he and Sarah Palin win this election. He will slash away at congressional earmarks and expose the self-serving pols who misuse them, but that represents a tiny portion of the federal budget. Earmarks may be important as a symbol of integrity but eliminating all of them would not appreciably change the lives of the people that McCain swore to stand up for in his speech.”

In other words, by trying to be a candidate who appeals to everyone, McCain ends up saying nothing substantive.

— Kevin Osborne

Comments

[Laura]

Well if you are looking for the best speech giver and crowd pleaser Barack Obama is the right choice. Of course if you are looking for someone of substance to run the country, McCain is the right choice. Apparently you have not done your homework on this subject. The unfortunate part is that uneducated people like yourself are able to vote November 4th. By the way, when you figure out what Barack Obama's plan is if he makes the White House, besides Socialism, that might make a good article.

[Kevin Osborne]

Laura,

Please enlighten us how McCain -- who voted with Bush 95 percent of the time -- is going to bring "change" to Washington.

Please enlighten us how McCain -- who was part of the Republican majority for most of his time in Congress -- is going to bring compromise, unity and "change" that he already hasn't.

Please enlighten us how McCain -- who supports the current policy in Iraq -- is going to bring "change" to the war and our foreign policy.

I suppose you find democracy irritating, since you don't want every adult to have the right to vote.

[David E. Gallaher]

As a peaceful anarchist who has made the fundamental observation that governments are formed to wage wars, McCain, who sang, "Bomb , bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," confirms he will give us more of the same.
It is refreshing that Obama's meager "substance" seems to resist government's main aim.

[MacFli]

I noticed in the first paragraph that Palin's speech was considered to be descent. I have to disagree. She bored me to tears for what seemed like hours with a speech that had to have been written by the Bush speech writers.

[David E. Gallaher]

MacFli,
Thanks. You have made a funny with your misspelling:
"descent"

[walter madison washington jr]

This should all come out in the debates. however the american people old people like me are just
that stupid to not notice what has happened the last eight years.

and believe the bull crap the republicans accept to be the truth.

[Breen]

I should be shocked once again (but I'm not) that people in this country are so gullible as to believe everything the Republicans make up to get elected. Dumbest. Country. Ever.

[Not the Mamma Cass!]

Kevin: please report on Obama's voting record vis-a-vis its agreement with Bush. I think you'll be surprised and not just a little disappointed.

And please also report on Obama's eloquence when bereft of a teleprompter or prepared remarks. He becomes a Stuttering John incapable either of wit or wisdom, mixing his metaphors and struggling to speak from knowledge and experience instead of Harvard Debate Class.