McCain's Tortured Position

Feel the love. Simply remarkable.

"To be sure, McCain's self-scrutiny is withering. (And the estimation of others can be wrong.) If McCain is not always his own worst critic, he is still a vicious and constant one. The level of achievement, honesty and duty to his country that he sets for himself is incredibly high -- higher than most people's, perhaps even "towering.""

Oh my that was awesome!
"To be sure, McCain's self-scrutiny is withering"
"as I said in the threads, to McCain, it's not hypocrisy,"
And for no real reason
"This is the obverse of Clinton's claim that since she didn't promise to, for instance, conduct a clean campaign, you can't blame her if she plays dirty"

I wonder if McCain's first wife is a tougher critic of the senator?

This entire post, but especially this line -

"The level of achievement, honesty and duty to his country that he sets for himself is incredibly high -- higher than most people's, perhaps even 'towering.'"

- really deserves all the criticism it's going to get here. If this is the kind of thing you are going to write, please drop all pretense of reporting. This isn't even commentary, it's apologia.

AMC:

If McCain is not always his own worst critic, he is still a vicious and constant one. The level of achievement, honesty and duty to his country that he sets for himself is incredibly high -- higher than most people's, perhaps even "towering."

How do you know this?

"... for McCain, the most important standards are, well, McCain's."

I'm sorry, which number is the McCain amendment to the Constitution? Is that 28 or 29? After what we've put up with for the past seven years it would be really nice if we could have a President who followed the law instead of basing everything on what goes on between his ears.

Maybe this isn't what it appears to be. Maybe this is performance art,and we are all AMC's canvas? Or maybe AMC is parodying the ultimate court sycophant? Or maybe something in the BarBQue sauce addled AMC's brain?

Or ... or .... or?

Otherwise, the level of self-parody is astonishing from someone who assured us that the media was embarrassed by their behavior re McCain in 2000 and would certainly do better this time around.

I wonder if the media's autographed kneepads will be for sale on eBay after the election? I wonder if they are blue.

As I reread this I have to say it is going to be a classic.
A perfect encapsulation of Beltway Media.
Thanks for the post. Seriously.

As I reread this I have to say it is going to be a classic. A perfect encapsulation of Beltway Media. Thanks for the post. Seriously.

Maybe they can put it in the Newseum next to the slippers.

And what prompted this post?
AMC couldn't bear to read what was being said in MS thread below?
Too funny.

I think you pinpointed the debate, AMC.

I agree with everything in here other than -
"If McCain is not always his own worst critic, he is still a vicious and constant one."

See earlier swampland article about McCain's meta-spin.

Senator McCain's towering flip-flops on torture, together with his recorded actions, are, quite simply, one of the most dishonest derelictions of Senatorial duty in American history. We know, and he knows, that the Bush administration has been torturing, torturing and torturing. We also know that the Congress has, on mulitple occasions, attempted to stop it. Congress has failed to stop it - precisely because Senator McCain completely caved and allowed it. Both the DTA and the MCA specifically allowed non-military U.S. agencies and instrumentalities to conduct torture and the MCA even went further - immunizing all of the torturers from their wilful and wanton torture.

If Senator McCain had wanted to, he could have supported (or, as the draft shows, continued to support) efforts to proscribe torture by non-military U.S. agencies. He did not do so. He is a lying flip-flopper, who condones torture regardless of whether AMC and Michael Scherer want to fluff him or not.

It is pathetic and despicable that anyone would even attempt to defend his immoral actions.

Wow AMC, if you wanted to get beat up you could have put a punch me sticker on your back. I'll pass because this one is to easy.

Ana, please disconnect yourself from the Kool-Aid drip. I'm sure we can find a twelve-step program for you when the general election starts up and the stresses of the campaign reveal McCain's less manly attributes.

I do not doubt for a moment that if the his surrogates don't do his dirty work, McCain's own campaign will step in and start slinging the mud, fast and furiously. Do you really believe Cindy McCain's snide swipe at Michelle was her own idea and not vetted by McCain's handlers?

McCain has the enormous luxury of the rightwing noise machine. It doesn't matter if Rush says he doesn't like McCain, once Obama and McCain are opponents Limbaugh and the rest of that lot will be all over Obama like white on rice. So, ol' Johnboy can sit back and "sincerely" and piously deplore the nastiness of Ann and Rush and Laura and Dobson (and I'm sure, you, Ana will point out those folks are not fans of McCain the way, you, Ana are), all the while reaping the benefits of ugly campaigning.

HRC doesn't have many admirers in the press. She and her closest associates have had to do their own dirty work, which has made it easier for Obama, with the MSM's help, to remain relatively unscathed.

But McCain will be a harder target for Obama to hit because reporters love McCain so much and most of the icky stuff will not be coming out of the McCain camp directly but from Repug operators not directly alligned to McCain.

McCain's only failing is that he was unlucky enough to be born into an era in which the stupid, drooling peons who vote fail to recognize his greatness.

All hail the great McCain!

You're too much, Ana.

I thought Michael's piece was a pretty reasonable story about how legislation happens--that McCain made deals as part of the process of getting laws in place. One of the oft-stated reasons for senators not becoming president is they build up records of compromising votes and deals that undermine the sound bite messaging necessary for a presidential race. It's quite reasonable to me that McCain got as much as he could get in a hostile party environment, so he gets ticked off when people question his commitment.

OTOH, the contrast with Russ Feingold couldn't be starker. There are issues that aren't negotiable to him. Torture is one of them. And this is not the case with McCain, despite his claims to the contrary. He is still willing, even on the issue of torture, to put party before principle.

So basically what I'm learning is that what is important to the MSM are John McCain's words, not his actual actions. He can do one thing, but as long as he says the opposite, he's doing the honorable thing.

That explains a question I had yesterday: When McCain was on The View, he claimed that he disagreed with Bush on spending. Yet he voted for all of Bush's budgets, did he not? I guess we won't have to worry about some intrepid reporter asking him about that, since Cox has just informed us that the MSM just takes him at his word.

I can't decide what is more frustrating, McCain's hypocrisy, or the fact that he is allowed to get away with it. He can go from one end of an issue, housing for example, to the other in a matter of days and they will call him courageous.

It's unbelievable to watch him get a free ride, in real time.

jay, I'd agree with you but the problem with McCain is that he's running as McCain. That's his slogan: I'm John McCain.

Since he doesn't have much in the way of policies to examine, his calling himself a straight shooter (which heavily suggests he would never soil his hands by compromising)means he opens himself up to criticm when it's revealed he's not another hard-bargaining politician.

To be sure, McCain's self-scrutiny is withering. (And the estimation of others can be wrong.) If McCain is not always his own worst critic, he is still a vicious and constant one.

Can there be a clearer statement that reporters on the Straight Talk Express do not publish newsworthy on the record material?

"[A]s I said in the threads, to McCain, it's not hypocrisy, it was a deal he had to make to get the legislation passed.

...

McCain's aides say that, of course, McCain is disturbed by any reports of continued torture, and that, of course, he'll take steps to investigate/litigate these practices. In effect, he's arguing, 'I've done my part, I passed the law, now we just need to enforce it.' And his aides say that McCain would move to prosecute acts of torture with gusto. This is difficult to argue with."

Sorry to break it to you; the emperor still has no clothes.

Next time, choose the red pill.

AMC – this is reminiscent of all your pieces on Butterstick.

Try giving us the facts and letting us make our own judgments about credibility. You aren't any better at the latter than the rest of us, at least if you won't follow up and push for direct answers to hard questions, so you may as well try to focus on the objective stuff.

Interesting that AMC used the phrase "The problem lies not in the standards themselves, but in his certainty about them, a conviction that may sometimes blind him to even the question of whether he has, even by accident or mistake, blurred them in order to meet them" in her post.

One of Joe Klein's best editorial, ever, was titled "The Blinding Glare of his Certainty." It was about dubya. It's here:
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,423745,00.html

So Johm McCain isn't a straight shooter, but he believes he's a straight shooter so when he says he's a straight shooter and really believes what he's saying, it must be true.

Fail.

AMC - You should really be ashamed of yourself. Amazingly, you even topped Scherer with this post. If you are going to continue with stuff like this, please don't present yourself as an unbiased journalist. Ke-rist...you and Mike should set up a PR-shop for the Senator from Arizona. Really, this was bad. It's not your job to apologize for McCain. It's not your job to analyze the man's psyche. Hero worship also shouldn't be part of your job description. Your job is to report on and analyze this race.

Now excuse me while I wipe the vomit off my keyboard.

Do we need any further evidence that HH has been right all along?

fyi, I've now shared AMC's remarkable post with Yglesias and TPM. I suspect we'll see more of it. Even people like Sullivan were were already slamming MS' post - this one will be pure gold.

McCain has long said torture is a non-negotiable issue. Then he negotiated it "to get legislation passed." Yep, sounds like straight talk to me.

Then there's this: "The level of achievement, honesty and duty to his country that he sets for himself is incredibly high -- higher than most people's, perhaps even 'towering.' "

Duty to country? Check.

Honesty, oh, please.

But achievement???? The man has been in the Senate for twenty-one years! What "towering achievement did I miss?

when he has to defend getting Sunni and Shia mixed up... pretty much any time he's passed the muster of his own self-scrutiny, but fallen short in the estimation of others.

A fine opportunity to re-post the OTHER undercivered story. (The one Karen didn't mention).

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_Al_Qaeda_not_necessarily_just_0409.html

Rather than acknowlege a slip of the tongue, McCain is asserting things about Al Qaeda that are known to be false, even here among Swamplanders.

Good point Jabber. Tell that thing about honesty to his first wife. Or the FEC.

On achievement, I'm more impressed with people, like Bob Dole, who marry the money after they get into the Senate rather than before.

Oh, the irony.

Straight Talk And All That Jazz
04.11.08 -- 12:56PM
By David Kurtz

We've mentioned this before but it remains an interesting dynamic to watch.

You've got the John McCain of lore -- the maverick riding the Straight Talk Express who flirted with caucusing with the Democrats, if not running with Sen. John Kerry on the Democratic ticket in 2004 -- hitching his star to the right-wing noise machine, and the wingnuts hitching their star to him.

It makes for strange bedfellows and for trainwrecks just like this one.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis sent out a fund-raising letter this week trying to raise money off of George Soros' funding of indy Dem groups: "He and his group of billionaire left-wing Democrats have pledged $40 million dollars of soft money to smear John McCain in a national television ad campaign," Davis wrote in the letter.

The problem for McCain is that Soros has also funded groups like the Reform Institute, an advocate of campaign-finance reform that Davis himself served as president of from 2001-05 and for which McCain was honorary co-chairman. As TPM Election Central reports, Soros gave $150,000 to the McCain-Davis outfit back in 2003.

We're hearing that McCain also benefited indirectly from Soros money that was used for litigation defending the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law.

More on that shortly.

Late Update: Apropos of this discussion, the NYT Magazine interviews Grover Norquist, who is now actively supporting McCain:

Norquist now admits that calling McCain a "gun-grabbing, tax-increasing Bolshevik" was "an overstatement." At the same 2005 College Republicans gathering he referred to McCain as "the nut-job from Arizona."

But they're buds now.

According to AMC "to McCain, it's not hypocrisy" to which I must ask since when has the definition of hypocrisy been allowed to differ based on the speaker. Your obligation to your reader is to state objectively does this fall under the definition of hypocrisy as defined by lexicographer not to tease out the definition of hypocrisy as understood by Mr. McCain and then sell that idea to us as Mr. Scherer has done.

Indeed, jay. And certainly we must never mention the Keating Five.

If AMC and MS really want to raise a question with McCain, why not ask when we'll see his tax returns.

You guys beat the Clintons over and over to release theirs. But McCain ... (sound of crickets chirping).

The title of this should have been The MSM's Tortured Position.

The question I want is one that asks for a clear denunciation of the links between al qaeda and Iran.

There's no reason for people to be speculating about what he really means when he talks about Iran and al qaeda. He has not yet done so. All he's done is make non-denial denials.

All he's done is make non-denial denials.

Maybe we should all chip in and pay for a screening of this movie for the D.C. press so they can see what real reporting used to look like.

Maybe we should rank the Swamplanders by what they will do for McCain:

kneepads-Scherer
fluffler-AMC
swallow-?
take a bullet-?
kill-?

So...McCain's greatest flaw is that he's too awesome? Strange, that's my flaw too.

Here's another question:
Has his vicious self criticism blinded him to the fact that he's submitted to the party line on letting Bush torture, or that he has actively courted the religious right after calling them 'agents of intolerance'?

This does it. I can no longer stomach the bloggers at this site. GOOD-BY

AMC on Saint McCain:
And [McCain] believes that legislation outlawed torture.... McCain's aides say that, of course, McCain is disturbed by any reports of continued torture, and that, of course, he'll take steps to investigate/litigate these practices.

He may have thought the legislation would outlaw torture in some platonic sense, but I doubt he thought it was going to stop it. Don't you remember the wink-wink smiling meeting with Bush over this and not making a fuss over the signing statements? As for "of course" he'll "investigate/litigate". I'm sure a McCain DOJ will prosecute that as far up the Bush administration as it may go. No question about that. Tell me another one.

Florida: Fail.

No...Pinnacle of Fail.

What's McCain's greatest fault? That he occasionally falls short of his 'towering' integrity and sense of duty?...Pathetic; one part resume fluffing, one part stenography, AMC.

AMC:
To be sure, McCain's self-scrutiny is withering.

No question about that. When he was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for his role in the Keating Five scandal, he described it as an "exoneration". Yup, that rarest of sights, a Congressional Ethics Committee actually taking on a Congressman. At the time, the New York Times and the Washington Post had harsh words for him, now they often mirror his "exoneration" claim. Withering indeed.

So...McCain's greatest flaw is that he's too awesome? Strange, that's my flaw too.

Cliff wins the thread.

At the risk of getting banned, I'd like to point out that at least your friend Jessica Cutler got paid for doing this kind of thing for old men.

To be sure, McCain's self-scrutiny is withering. (And the estimation of others can be wrong.) If McCain is not always his own worst critic, he is still a vicious and constant one. The level of achievement, honesty and duty to his country that he sets for himself is incredibly high -- higher than most people's, perhaps even "towering."

Can you back this up, or am I just supposed to accept it as fact?

AMC on McCain's incredible, perhaps towering, honesty:
The level of ... honesty ... that he sets for himself is incredibly high -- higher than most people's, perhaps even "towering."

Counterexamples are legion. For instance, this scion of incredible, perhaps towering, honesty has repeatedly claimed that tax cuts increase revenues (not just promote growth, increase revenues) despite the overwhelming consensus of economists -- to say nothing of common sense -- pointing to the opposite. His spokesman Holz-Eakin claims that McCain "has never supported the idea that tax cuts pay for themselves". But in reality McCain said:

"Tax cuts, starting with Kennedy, as we all know, increase revenues. So
what's the argument for increasing taxes? If you get the opposite effect
out of tax cuts?" (March 2007, NRO interview)

"[T]he fact is the [2001] tax cuts have dramatically increased
revenues." (May 2007, primary debate)

"Tax cuts increase revenues." (Nov. 2007, Charlie Rose show)

"I would suggest that most economists agree that there was an increase in revenues . . . associated with the [Bush] tax cuts." (Dec. 2007, interview with the Boston Globe)

Sources:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/12/most_revealing_fibs_john_mccai.html
http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/supply-side_spin.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/business/09leonhardt.html

She can't and won't back it up. McCain fluffing needs no facts or reason.

Oh come on Crust! Who needs facts when you can lean on psychoanalysis that would make "Lucy" from "Peanuts" proud?

The Doctor is IN.

Ana, I like you a lot. Your posts often make me laugh and I appreciate that you usually laugh at the supposedly high and mighty.

But, your blindness about McCain is annoying. I don't think he's a bad person, I do believe he truly loves his country and is a patriot (I have the same opinon re HRC and Obama).

However your, and the MSM's in general, tendency to paint public figures in colors of white and black instead of shades of gray drives me crazy. Obama is the New Hope, McCain the Wise Maverick and HRC the Evil Something That Rhymes with Witch.

Hey, Ana, Wonkette is sleeping on the job if she doesn't post on this video:

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_really_weird_case_for_john.php

That is one. weird. video.

I think the smoke is from an illicit substance the video maker was imbibing in the editing room...

AMC, why can't you see that McCain softened his stance on torture in order to play to the wing-nut base of his party? Is it simply too difficult to imagine that a man of such "integrity" would stoop to such pandering? Or can you just not believe that a great American such as McCain would change his position on torture as easily as he has changed his position on tax cuts? Torture. Tax Cuts. Same level of moral imperative. Please click your heels together three times and repeat after me:

McCain is pandering to the right.

McCain is pandering to the right.

McCain is pandering to the right.

See you back in Kansas.

AMC,

As you surely know, on public financing for his primary bid, McCain is violating or at least dancing very close to the edge of the law that has his name on it (McCain-Feingold). He pledged public funds as collateral on a loan, which is supposed to lock him into the public system. Having done so, spending over the limit -- as McCain since has -- is a felony punishable by a fine and up to 5 years in jail. McCain's counterargument as to why he doesn't deserve to go to prison is that his lawyer slipped in some clever language into the loan so that the public funds are technically not collateral even though they function as one.

So Ana can you explain to me how this is consistent with McCain's incredible, perhaps towering, honesty and sense of duty?

this is consistent with McCain's incredible, perhaps towering, honesty

I believe it's the "incredible" part that clinches it.....

To be sure, McCain's self-scrutiny is withering. (And the estimation of others can be wrong.) If McCain is not always his own worst critic, he is still a vicious and constant one. The level of achievement, honesty and duty to his country that he sets for himself is incredibly high -- higher than most people's, perhaps even "towering."

Wow.

AMC, as a fairly new reader of your blog, I'm honestly surprised by this. Help me understand, do write as a reporter aiming at objectivity, editorialist with a certain bias (which would be?), or blogger actively working for a candidate? All three are legitimate types of reporting or blogs to me, but I usually have a better sense of what a blog is purporting to offer than I am getting from your postings.

Also, I know you appreciate transparency, and I have seen your transparency about your interactions with McCain, but what about your political views and biases? Bloggers are usually very transparent about their politics and political goals, but reporters are usually the opposite, clinging strongly to claims of non-bias in their writing regardless of their personal views. So do you claim a bloggers bias, or reporters non-bias?

OK, putting that aside and turning back to McCain, can you point me to a story, book perhaps, that makes a convincing case for the kind of assertions you are making about McCain's incredibly high standards? On what do you personally base your opinion about McCain's incredibly high standards? CW?

Source for public financing comment:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/29/to_some_mccains_financial_tangle_ironic/?page=2

I could go on and on and on. But the irony is that McCain's "incredible", perhaps "towering" "achievement, honesty and duty to his country" in the minds of his "base" -- Ana and the rest of the media -- could well make him president. On the merits, he wouldn't have a snowball's chance in h*ll. But the press is his titanium shield. The benefit of having the folks who buy ink by the gallon on your side is immense.

AMC:
I am sympathetic to his aides' point that he shouldn't be punished every time his actions meet "normal" standards but fail his own.

What an absurd hypothetical. Ana, you yourself from time to time throw in ironic references to the media as McCain's "base". The issue is whether he should be punished when he fails normal standards. Which he typically isn't.

(For simplicity, I'm treating the media as a monolithic block. Of course, there are exceptions. Even McCain occasionally gets a raw deal because a journalist uncritically absorbs some oppo spin on him or whatever.)

Paul Dirks:
I believe it's the "incredible" part that clinches it.....

This post is going to go down as a classic in the genre of the media beatification of McCain.

So how much did Johm McCain believe in his own words when he called his wife the c-word?

The amazing thing is that McCain and his campaign don't even NEED to spin. Journalists like Ana simply do the spinning for him, always using the most benign conceivable explanation (to McCain) to swat away the most legitimate criticism.

John McCain may be a war hero (though he was also an exceptionally inept student and pilot) and a good barbecuer, but that does not in and of itself make him worthy of being president.

On a General Election note, if Democrats and their supporters don't produce enough ads, billboards and campaign literature featuring the photograph of John McCain literally hugging George Bush around the waist that every single voter in America has seen it, they would be negligent to the highest degree.

*John McCain may be a war hero* (though he was also an exceptionally inept student and pilot) and a good barbecuer, but that does not in and of itself make him worthy of being president.

* See George McGovern, Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Al Gore, John Kerry, etc.

"However your, and the MSM's in general, tendency to paint public figures in colors of white and black instead of shades of gray drives me crazy. Obama is the New Hope, McCain the Wise Maverick and HRC the Evil Something That Rhymes with Witch."

That may be because there is so much reasoning by analogy going on. McCain is almost total metaphor and symbol since he hasn't been very specific about anything else, other than staying in Iraq forever. You need to be an expert in hieroglyphics to understand his policy platform. Wise maverick will just have to suffice for now, as the details sort themselves out.

Piper:
the photograph of John McCain literally hugging George Bush

Here's a link with the pic (it's a book cover for Cliff Schecter's "The Real McCain"):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/08/new-book-mccain-once-phys_n_95595.html

Apparently Project Vote Smart doesn't fully appreciate the depths of McCain's incredible, perhaps towering, virtues and are kicking him off their board:

Project Vote Smart, the nonpartisan voter-education nonprofit, confirms today that it has kicked John McCain off its board. Mother Jones reported on Monday that PVS was prepared to make the move due to McCain’s nine-month refusal to fill out its Political Courage Test. According to PVS President Richard Kimball, the nonprofit has a rule that bars nonrespondents from serving on its board.

PVS contacted the McCain campaign 25 times from June 2007 to February 2008 in the hopes of avoiding the embarrassment this move entails for both the organization and one of its long-time board members. Eventually, however, they were simply left with no choice. The senator who made his career on straight talk couldn’t spare some for the organization he served.

Source: http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/04/7929_mccain_gets_the_1.html

"If McCain is not always his own worst critic, he is still a vicious and constant one."

Well, it's clear the Cox, part of the McCain team, is no critic at all.

Would it be terribly uncivil to ask Ana to take McCain's penis out of her mouth before posting next time?

"Critics may seize upon this early draft of McCain's own legislation that Michael mentions as proof of further hypocrisy; as I said in the threads, to McCain, it's not hypocrisy, it was a deal he had to make to get the legislation passed. And he believes that legislation outlawed torture."

Not hypocrisy? I suppose not. How about pragmatic hypocrisy?

To make another Oz reference, reading this post sort of reminds me of watching Wizard of Oz with the sound down and listening to Dark Side of the Moon, except Dark Side of the Moon lines up with the movie better than The Dark Side of Cox lines up with the actual McCain.

Yes, but people who watch the Wizrd of Oz while listening to Dark Side of the Moon are incredibly high -- higher than most people, perhaps even "towering.....

It's good that McCain is such a hard critic of himself. Since it's obvious no one outside of the 'rabble' is going to be.

Seriously, Ana, listen to yourself. Just by the sheer amount of loaded, adulatory descriptors you piled onto McCain, it's hard not to see why people are accusing you of being a McCain shill.

Rather than acknowlege a slip of the tongue, McCain is asserting things about Al Qaeda that are known to be false, even here among Swamplanders.

Thank goodness there isn't any film of McCain asserting such things or it would be played over and over and commented endlessly upon, like Hillary and Tuzla.

And, good on you Ana! With all the McCain fluffing, you still managed to get in the requisite, gratuitous Hillary dig! And I am sympathetic to his aides' point that he shouldn't be punished every time his actions meet "normal" standards but fail his own. (This is the obverse of Clinton's claim that since she didn't promise to, for instance, conduct a clean campaign, you can't blame her if she plays dirty.)

I don't often comment, but I gotta say I'm stunned. Not by Ms. Cox's post, but by the reaction to it. This is a *negative* post, y'all. While Ms. Cox may like Sen. McCain personally --- which in and of itself would be no crime --- what she has written here is critical of a dangerous solipsism in a potential president. She points out that the man is so convinced of his own principles that he doesn't notice when he's violated them. It takes real effort to view the picture Ms. Cox has painted as complimentary.

The quote wvng noted --- "The problem lies not in the standards themselves, but in his certainty about them, a conviction that may sometimes blind him to even the question of whether he has, even by accident or mistake, blurred them in order to meet them" --- would not be written by a sycophant. Ms. Cox also wrote "to McCain, it's not hypocrisy," not an endorsement of his point of view, but an honest appraisal of what that point of view is.

I think Indy summed up the post well, "pragmatic hypocrisy." It's an excellent turn of phrase, one that I am likely to steal for my own occasional use. Seems to me like here, Ms. Cox's access has offered a valuable perspective on a deep personality flaw in the Republican nominee for president. Does the fact that she wrote about it without spewing bile render the point less valid?

"it's hard not to see why people are accusing you of being a McCain shill."

She has said multiple times that she is a McCain shill. When people "accuse" her of that all they are doing is repeating her own comments back to her.

1. She said in comments here that she is less likely to report negatively on people she likes, and that she likes McCain.

2. She told Howard Kurtz that she is "part of the McCain team" and gave specific examples of how she chose not to report on things McCain has said and done that were considered newsworthy by "outsiders."

3. She also told Kurtz that in her opinion reporting the truth was a bad idea if in so doing she would lose access to the people she was covering.

That is what makes this so absurd. That she is in the tank for McCain is not an accusation, it's something she has vouched for repeatedly.

Once you say you are part of the McCain team you don't get to complain when people "accuse" you of exactly that.

The person accusing Cox of being part of the McCain team is Cox.

Highway Rob, did you not notice e.g. this bit?

The level of achievement, honesty and duty to his country that [McCain] sets for himself is incredibly high -- higher than most people's, perhaps even "towering."

Ms. Cox does not provide any supporting examples or arguments to justify this contention. I've given several examples above to show why I think it isn't accurate, to put it mildly. Do you think this is accurate?

This is AMC at her disappointing best. McCain is so wonderful. He sets himself such high standards that even he, God Bless his Tortured Soul, cannot achieve it. But what a wonderful guy. He aspires to do so much that is good. He is so tough. So: BombBombBomb Iran.

AMC: I have not read such drivel in a long time.

Maragalis beyond the Kurtz appearance AMC made her case on Bloggingheads with Glen Greenwald.
She is so honest about her hackery that I almost admire it.

Crust,

In fact I did notice that bit. I don't think it contradicts my reading of the piece as a whole. He sets high standards for himself, and once he convinces himself that he's met them, then damn the torpedoes, etc. I took the quotes around "towering" as dual purpose to hearken to the Will insult and to serve as an indicator of doubt*; what good does it do to set "towering" standards if, as she says, he's unwilling to re-examine those standards in light of developing facts?

Seriously, everything about this post paints a picture of a "legend in his own mind," McCain as Macgoo, a case of self-evaluative myopia augmented by rose-colored non-prescription glasses. She just wrote it with a more kindly tone.

Oops. Meant that asterisk to lead to this footnote:

*I don't think of sarcasm quotes as appropriate for professional writing, but this isn't my blog.

(Obligatory Get Off My Lawn.)

I agree with Highway Rob that AMC's conclusion is a critique of McCain. I was just about to write about that, once I had my fill of trying to figure out what kind of blogger AMC is.

The problem lies not in the standards themselves, but in his certainty about them, a conviction that may sometimes blind him to even the question of whether he has, even by accident or mistake, blurred them in order to meet them.

Highway Rob also makes a good point that AMC's closeness to, and what seems like empathy towards, John McCain probably does give her the insight, and maybe the confidence, to write these almost intimate observations about a man. And, yes, whatever biases AMC may have, and I am still not clear what they are exactly, so I would love to see some links from Margalis, she was able to share a negative insight about McCain.

On the other hand, humanizing is not exactly the same as a political critique of a candidates character. I don't think goes so far as to call into question McCain's character, especially because it is couched in such effusive praise earlier in the post.

Paul-no not that one,

I also saw the blogging heads video, and it really raised some questions in my mind about what kind of blogger AMC is trying to be.

I didn't get the impression, though, that AMC admitted to Greenwald any bias in her writing. I thought her point was that we should judge her on her writing, however close she was to McCain in person; and that her closeness would not effect her writing to the extent that she would not report, albeit with disappointment, negative stories about McCain. And true to her word, I guess, she does critique him at the end of this post.

But that is why I was literally stunned reading the first half of the last paragraph. If, as I understood, she asked Greenwald to take her writing for what it's worth, and then she writes a graph this effusive about McCain's character, does that mean she really expects us to take this as her honest judgment about the man, or maybe even objective reporting about him? What AMC wrote was close to hagiography, and is that journalism, editorial, personal blogging, what? I'm honestly trying to evaluate AMC's intent/biases, and I'm not sure I get it.

There was another thought I had after watching the video and recalling AMC posts on the BBQ. I get the impression that AMC wants to pull a Bob Woodward. Get deep access into a McCain Whitehouse and write books. That sort of explains to me the intimate, almost hagiographic, writing about the man. Almost as if AMC were trying to create the story of a hero, maybe flawed, yet "towering", striding triumphantly into history. But what do I know, I'm new here.

Or maybe any critique of McCain must be couched by AMC in praise so as to preserve access?

I have to agree with Highway Rob about the nature of this post. I read the post and then dived into the comments only to question my initial understanding of the post. After giving it some time it seems more clear to me that the commentors - while being correct that AMC harbors good-will for McCain - missed the fact that AMC is, nevertheless, quite critical of his character.

My $0.02

alcatholic (nice name!)
I appreciate your thoughtful comments. I think your Woodward reference is smart. I have assumed AMC was more interested in being the next Dowd.
The Woodward comparison seems apt. Gaining access trumps all. And when granted "inside" status write fawning pieces to maintain it. When the wind blows a different way and your contact's time is nearing the end turn the knife.
Woodward's Bush trilogy is a perfect example.

Adding-Woodward does have a reportorial history that AMC does not.
Perhaps she is combining the worst of both Woodward and Dowd.
Access plus "attitude"

Perhaps she is combining the worst of both Woodward and Dowd.

Dowd? That's uncalled for. Seriously.

Oh Tom T I assure you AMC wouldn't be offended.
All snark and glory. She's not alone in wanting to "achieve" that position.

I read it the same was as Highway Rob.

Now, I like the man, but I don't think he should be president, and this reinforces it.

I also thought (And still think) he was the best choice out of the republican candidates.

Thanks, Paul-nnto :) It's a triple entendre nickname! Can you guess the meanings?

AMC, as a blogger, is definitely forging her own path in, into?, corporate media. I'm really interested in her as part of the media landscape, and at the same time wary of her writing because of what I feel is a lack of political transparency.

I like the radical transparency and honesty of the independent political bloggers. Those blogs support citizen political engagement. Swampland seems to offer the chance to interact with corporate media bloggers as if in a zoo. Maybe that is just my first impression. We'll see if I get more out of it than that. Although, I will say for all the grief Joe Klein gets, I appreciate his posts on Iraq, Iran, and the candidates. If I felt that Joe Klein endorsed a McCain foreign policy, which I consider imperial war mongering, then I would probably have no need to read Swampland anymore.

Anyway, I'm afraid I might be a bore on these comment threads, because I'm not sure I'm going to care about anything as much as resolving for myself whether AMC is being fundamentally honest or dishonest in her McCain posts.

For me the yardstick in measuring a writer like AMC is what happened in 2000 between Bush and the media. Really nothing angers me more than thinking Bush won the White House, at least partly, because reporters liked his frat boy antics on the press plane more than Gore's personality. I'm sure reporters would argue that voters chose, not they, but that is just smarmy cynicism in my book. So, is AMC writing to get McCain in the White House, like others before her wrote to get Bush in the White House and or keep Gore out of it?

Of course, I give AMC more credit than that. I get the sense McCain is more a literary (journalistic?), than political, fascination for AMC, i.e. my point that she wants access in order to write a book. I'm not at all personally knowledgeable about the media world, but I suspect it is more about the story than the politics for some reporters. And AMC might be one of those. I'm still working through these things, as you can see.

But as a citizen, I have to weigh the quality of a writer's judgments about our politicians, and, right now, I don't have confidence in AMC.

Terrapinion, I agree with your assessment that AMC was "quite critical" of Senator McCain's blatant flip-flops and rhetorical hypocrisy on torture only if we apply the sarcastic British definition of "quite" (meaning - "not very").

Maybe I'll use the vehement "by accident or mistake, blurred" criticism the next time I want to write a weak-kneed candy-assed criticism ostentatiously burdened with unwarranted fulsome praise.

Someone said on a Joe Klein thread that Joe shouldn't scold people for failing to comprehend what he meant when he writes. It's the author's duty to make himself clear, and its especially important when there a pack of hounds ready to lunge on any and every misstatement as evidence of the author's evil intent.

But this:

The level of achievement, honesty and duty to his country that he sets for himself is incredibly high -- higher than most people's, perhaps even "towering." And I am sympathetic to his aides' point that he shouldn't be punished every time his actions meet "normal" standards but fail his own.

remains one the most bizarre turns of phrase I've seen in quite awhile. In conjunction with AMC's inability to consider the possibility that the conflation of Shiite insurgents with Al Qaeda was deliberate, I'm forced to conclude that her admiration for Sen McCain is definitly and unfortunately clouding her better judgement.

Cox.

But what drives critics crazy isn't whether or not McCain believes torture has been outlawed, or, to a lesser extent, whether or not the DTA/MCA were honest attempts to outlaw torture: What drives them crazy is that they believe the Bush administration keeps torturing people.

That's wrong and presumptuous of you to assume what "drives" your and Scherer's critics "crazy." I consider myself one of them.

Let's look at all three elements of your magical telepathic mind-reading:

1) Whether McCain believes torture has been outlawed. Somewhat true so half a pinocchio for you. It's more like whether McCain has used his influence dishonestly to aid and abet the policy of torture and subsequent war crimes perpetrated by the Bush Administration. McCain knows or should know that with his influence and collaboration, torture has been ostensibly *legalized* in the United States of America.

2) Whether the DTA/MCA were honest attempts to outlaw torture (and "to a lesser extent"???) Four pinocchios for you and a demerit for poor writing, too. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the particulars of the MCA; if that's the case, you probably shouldn't be making sweeping statements about what we critics, who *are* very familiar with its contents, believe or not believe. Okay? The MCA was a piece of legislation that was EXACTLY what the Bush Administration needed to protect people who had conducted torture on prisoners from prosecution. So I really can't fathom where you are getting this "honest attempt" nonsense; apparently you pulled it intact from a bodily orifice. It demonstrates to me that you don't understand the legislation or the issue, and that you make sweeping statements about what *I* believe about it is risable, to put it charitably.

3) we believe the Bush Administration is still torturing people. Well that's true, but that isn't the context of our objection. Two pinocchios for misrepresenting and misunderstanding your critics' salient points. The context of *my* objection should by now be clear. You, by your own advertisement, are "in the tank" for McCain, and by your own statements, don't give a cr@p whether your readers are concerned about that and also don't give a cr@p whether it has an effect on whether your readers find you credible or take your work seriously. And I can assure you that I don't. Not that I don't *like* you and find you charming, mind you. I do. The context of the objection is that you and Scherer are actually dispatched as a voluntary arm of the McCain campaign, and that you dishonestly deny that and purport to be a journalist or a writer as opposed to a huckster for McCain. And you both are hucksters.

So six and a half pinocchios and a demerit for poor writing just for that one sentence alone. Tsk Tsk. I do give you credit, though, for coming clean about your biases. That's more than Scherer will admit to, as yet.

Hmmm. Little or no mention in this article of the media's role in helping to perpetuate "the brand." SHOCKING!!!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041104150_2.html?hpid=topnews

Took time to read AMC's post and commenters. Wow: she gets paid for this?

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