The political Quote of the Day comes from Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain who is framing this election as one between a candidate who cares for his country (him) and a candidate who really only cares for his own political advancement (Democratic Sen. Barack Obama) — suggesting his opponent knowingly discards the vital interest of the United States for cynical political purposes, unlike someone else whose pronouncements are pure (himself):
And that’s how we see this election, country first or Obama first and I have a feeling [chant of “Country First, Country First”]… So when it comes to cutting taxes for seniors, for working families, for small businesses my opponent didn’t put the hardworking people of this country first. When it came time to support our troops fighting to protect our freedoms and way of life my opponent said he’d never deprive them of the funds they needed to fight and then did just that.
What a world of difference there is between this Richard Nixon-like John McCain, who all but uses the word “traitor” in describing his opponent, and the 2000 John McCain that so many independent voters (including yours truly) supported eight years ago because he wasn’t just another divide and rule or demonize and defeat politician. This McCain is right out of this book.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.