Our political Quote of the Day comes from Andrew Sullivan who suggests that today’s repeat of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell by the Senate says a lot about Barack Obama’s style and John McCain:
Like 2009’s removal of the HIV ban, which was as painstakingly slow but thereby much more entrenched, this process took time. Without the Pentagon study, it wouldn’t have passed. Without Obama keeping Lieberman inside the tent, it wouldn’t have passed. Without the critical relationship between Bob Gates and Obama, it wouldn’t have passed. It worked our last nerve; we faced at one point a true nightmare of nothing … for years. And then we pulled behind this president, making it his victory and the country’s victory, as well as ours.
We also know now what a McCain administration would have done: nothing. The disgraceful bitterness and rancor and irrationality that the Senator has shown these past few months reveal just how important it was to defeat him and his deranged, delusional side-kick in 2008.
And, indeed, the Washington Post’s Dana Milibank paints a portrait of an enraged, almost out of control John McCain — one that should make those who considered voting for him but didn’t feel thankful that someone with so much rage and anger didn’t make it to the Oval Office…and provides further evidence that those who supported him in 2000 supported a version of John McCain that is long gone from the scene. Here’s part of Milibank’s report:
If John McCain gets any more hostile toward his Senate colleagues, they might consider having him go through the metal detector before he enters the Capitol.
Saturday’s debate on the repeal of the “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” policy was only half an hour old when the Arizona Republican burst onto the floor from the cloakroom, hiked up his pants and stalked over to his friend Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Ignoring Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who had the floor, McCain hectored the men noisily for a few moments, waving his arms for emphasis.
When McCain finally stormed off, Durbin shook his head in exasperation and Lieberman smiled. A minute later, McCain returned – he had apparently remembered another element of his grievance – and resumed his harangue.
It turns out McCain’s fury was stirred by a trifle – he had wanted more time for the debate, which the Democrats eventually gave him – but that was typical. It doesn’t take much to set off McCain these days.
Earlier in the week, he was observed in the unseemly act of publicly gloating on the Senate floor over his success in killing a massive spending bill. He’s also been raising hurdles to the ratification of the Obama administration’s nuclear arms treaty with Russia. At the same time, he led the opposition Saturday to repealing the ban on openly gay men and lesbians serving in the military – taking on Lieberman, who led the other side.
The 2000 version of McCain would never support the 2010 version of McCain. MORE:
McCain’s statement on the floor was roughly one part argument, four parts tantrum. “So here we are about six weeks after an election that repudiated the agenda of the other side,” he said, and those who would repeal don’t-ask-don’t-tell “are acting in direct repudiation of the message of the American people.” (Actually, polls show support for repeal.)
He bemoaned “this bizarro world that the majority leader has been carrying us in,” and taunted: “Maybe it will require another election.” The Arizonan suggested those who vote to repeal would have blood on their hands. “Don’t think that it won’t be at great cost,” he said, punctuating his words by bouncing on his toes and chopping with his left hand. It will “probably,” he said, “harm the battle effectiveness which is so vital to the survival of our young men and women in the military.”
There’s more but here’s the end:
When it came time for his closing argument before the day’s key vote, McCain spoke for only a few seconds: “Today’s a very sad day. The commandant of the United States Marine Corps says when your life hangs on the line, you don’t want anything distracting. . . . I don’t want to permit that opportunity to happen and I’ll tell you why. You go up to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Marines are up there with no legs, none. You’ve got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs.”
McCain turned and, without another word, walked into the cloakroom.
Lieberman later said that he expects his friendship with his volatile colleague to recover. “I don’t think this will leave any scars,” he said. “I just think we leave this fight knowing that I was right and he was wrong. I mean, it’s as simple as that.”
Uh-oh. Now McCain is really going to be steamed.
This account of McCain is a further sign of my overall conclusion, as someone who voted for McCain in the 2000 California Republican primary and who was saddened by his 2008 Presidential campaign: the post- 2008 John McCain seems less angry about the content of issues.
He seems to be all about getting power, attaining power and getting even with those who defeated him or were parts of his old coalition who left him — after he left them first.
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.