The Event Horizon at Warp Factor Nine for McCain?

By Number Six

Monday, May 22, 2006 at 03:57 AM

Poor Senator McCain. Did he really think this new-n-improved strategy of his was going to work? At all?........

McCain, of course, if you've seen stuff so far, is now courting the ultra-religious right in order to get himself the same backing as once did Il Douchebag, old Chimpy McFlightsuit. Oh, any idiot can see right through it: This is the same crowd he once, well, they were not on speaking terms, now, were they?

Fast forward to McCain making a speech at a college. Witness a young woman taking apart one or more of his past speeches and well, handing the senator his hat and his coat. Jean Rohe went into the same corner as Stephen Colbert, Cindy Sheehan and Natalie Maines: Those who have balls big enough to point out that the emperor hath a little weenie, eh?

Jean then explained herself over at Huffington Post, and to, of course, tons of accolades from fellow progressives, who, like me, see McCain as attempting to ride Bush's wake into office.

In short, McCain got the trip to the woodshed he deserved. As Pete Townsend so waxed, "Won't get fooled again!". Nobody's buying it this time, save for those 25 percent leftover rightie lunatics still clinging madly to the hull of the HMS Bush, eh?

Well, Jean got herself a cute nastygram from one Mark Salter, who calls himself an aide to the senator. Now, how do you defend a person whose candicacy is about as transparent as a cellophane candy wrapper?

By writing another speech, of course. Salter's reply, buried in the commentary is a page right of The Marie Antoinette Guide To Smooth Public Speaking, of course. To wit:

I am employed by Senator McCain and I helped draft his remarks for the New School commencement ceremony. Ms. Rohe takes exception to the fact that the speech was written with all four commencements he has been invited to address. The Senator's intention was to discuss with Americans, not any particular subset of Americans, but his fellow countrymen, the things that he feels are important to remember in our political debates: that we owe each other our respect just as we owe each other our best advocacy for the things we believe are important for our country. He did not feel that the students of Liberty University were a more appropriate audience for his address than the New School's graduates. It was an act of respect. Although it is quite clear that part of his audience at Madison Square Garden had no intention of reciprocating.

"Analysis, Spock?"
"It would appear that the senator intends to use these ceremonies, to, in the venacular of that era, stump, Captain."

In other words, commencement addresses, usually, are inspirational stuff, oft replete with stuff from Lombardi, Berra, or, in one case, lines from John Kay of Steppenwolf. The idea is not to use such as a platform for establishing a candidacy. As such, Ms. Rohe merely points this out.

But, we go on:

Evidently, the Senator's regard for his audience was misplaced. Ms. Rohe and those of her fellow graduates who hailed their school's President as a war criminal and who greeted the Senator's reference to a friend's death with laughter proved only one thing, one sad thing, that they could learn a thing or two about tolerance and respect from the students of Liberty University. Like the protestors at the Garden, many in the audience at Liberty University disagreed with various of the Senator's views. Some disagreed with his support for campaign finance reform. Some disagreed with his support for comprehensive immigration reform with a path toward legalization for undocumented workers. Some disagreed with his position of climate change. Some disagreed with his opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment. Whatever their differences with him they listened to him attentively and respectfully, as one American to another, divided in some respects, united in much more important ones.

Nope, sir, it were like this: Old saying from my youth...Never Play Country Tunes At A Rock Concert. It was pretty simple, dude, Ms. Rohe saw McCain coming, had the deflectors already raised, the alert klaxons blasting, and gee, what the hell did you guys expect?

Obviously, they were expecting a tame audience that would just sit there and swallow the sperm. They didn't count on coming across Ms. Rohe playing Scotty! ("Fool me once, shame on ye, fool me twice, shame on me!)

But, still...oh, it gets so lovely!...

You took exception to the paragraph in which he lightly deprecated the vanity of youth. Well, Ms. Rohe, and your fellow graduate's comical self-importance deserve a rebuke far stronger than the gentle suggestions he offered you. So, let me leave you with this. Should you grow up and ever get down to the hard business of making a living and finding a purpose for your lives beyond self-indulgence some of you might then know a happiness far more sublime than the fleeting pleasure of living in an echo chamber. And if you are that fortunate, you might look back on the day of your graduation and your discourtesy to a good and honest man with a little shame and the certain knowledge that it very unlikely any of you will ever posses the one small fraction of the character of John McCain.

The vanity of youth? Like Einstein turning in his best work when he was still in his twenties, eh, Salter, is that your point?

Needless to say, Salter's "commentary" (to which I add quotes, because if you read the whole fucking thing, it's another goddamned speech!) was as quickly pounced upon and with Klingon-like glee by the many readers of Huffpo, and the overall tone of the most of them?

All of which can best be summed up as a hearty, healthy and wondrous go fuck yourself and take that idiot you work for with you. Well, that was the prettiest way to put it.

It was, though, the tone used that really grated my ass no end. Salter's "rebuttal" reads like another campaign speech, rife with the usual claptrap, BS and other stuff we normally hear over those ads on the tube. Too, it also stings of the same tone of Marie Antoinette, wherein the fascists disdain we "little folks" any attempt to extend the middle finger right back in their ugly pusses, especially when we, the people, have every right to.

It's like this: McCain's bid for president is as openly transparent as fresh-cut and installed plexiglas for a cockpit, he's openly courting the same American Taliban that backed Bush, and if he thinks he's fooling anyone at all, well, he and Mr Salter need to go light another doob.

Well, that or they need to stand right next to those monstrous HIWATT stacks, the next time Pete rails off with Won't Get Fooled Again. Maybe, even at that volume, Salter and McCain may well learn: The joke worked once, it may well backfire the second time.