John McCain Settles Old Scores
This sounds like Arizona Senator John McCain settling old scores. McCain isn’t just unhappy that former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama today, he still sounds extremely angry that Powell endorsed Obama (and not him) in 2008:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) ripped Colin Powell for endorsing President Obama again, saying the former Secretary of State had “harmed” his legacy by doing so.
“General Powell, you disappoint us and you have harmed your legacy even further by defending what is clearly the most feckless foreign policy in my lifetime,” McCain said Thursday on the Kilmeade and Friends radio program.
Powell cited Obama’s foreign policy as one of the reasons for his endorsement. The retired four-star general said he agreed with Obama’s decision to withdraw troops from Iraq, essentially ending the conflict that began during Powell’s tenure in the Bush administration, and argued that Obama had kept the U.S. safe from another terrorist attack.
It’s a bit ironic McCain talking about Colin Powell harming HIS legacy.
Many analysts (including yours truly) and those who voted for him in Republican primaries in 200 (including yours truly) feel McCain threw away his unique role in American politics that he had in 2000 as a special kind of candidate — the original hope for a post-partisan candidate. But McCain tossed that status away (including some of his previous attitudes on immigrants) when he realized he had to be more of a straightforward conservagive party man to get the nomination.
McCain’s virtual abandonment of his own venerable political status was breathtaking and sad but he still has proven to have an independent streak. Plus, the breathlessness many moderates and centrists experienced in watching McCain distance himself from the Old McCain has been trumped (no pun intended) this year by Mitt Romney’s change-on-a-dime position shifts.
Romney hasn’t just triggered breathlessness; watching him gives many moderates and centrists the bends.
Share This
This is McCain’s projection: McCain has disappointed us and has harmed his legacy by angry partisanship….. He is not the same man that he was prior to the 2008 running… John McCain has been underwater for the last four years because he turned the presidential defeat into a personal humiliation…One of the issues during McCain’s run was his anger and how he would be under stress..The past four years shows those to be legitimate concerns….
Better feckless than reckless. Mr. McCain’s anger management problem has been known for decades; his Senate cohorts often bore the brunt of it. His pick of Palin for VP gave us the final clue that he was owned and not his own man. I’m sure she was almost the last person he’d choose to run with him.
This is very small from a man I used to respect. I asked in 2008: “Where is the McCain of 2000? Where is this Maverick we continue to hear about and occasionally see on news clips?”
Just how, exactly, is Obama “feckless” on foreign policy? The criticism would mean more if it was backed by anything.
McCain’s anger is misdirected. I think it all started when he was treated like a mangy dog during the primary with GWB. Also he may be a little put out with that Sarah Palin character, although it was a gross failure of judgement on his part. The GOP is his problem, not Obama.
The most feckless? Worse than Bush’s? McCain is just way off base on that one. Obama’s foreign policy has been about as good as you can ask for. Unless you live in GOP fantasyland where people think because we have a big army all the middle east issues should be under our control. The first step to a wise foreign policy is to understand you can’t control every single event that happens, you have to be able to anticipate, analyze, and come up with intelligent responses, not charge in like a bull in a china shop. The GOP simply should not have the White House for this reason, although there are plenty of others.