Hypocrite, Thy Name Is McCain
An absolutely stunning, and quite frankly, sickening display put on by GOP front runner John McCain today. I’ve said publicly that if Hillary got the nomination instead of Obama, I’d vote for McCain, but not after today. I’ve lost all respect for the man after this affair and I hope he loses badly. Crooks and Liars says it best (my emphasis added):
“The Senate voted today to ban the CIA from using torture on suspected terrorists and the most famous POW in the Senate voted against the bill. The Maverick is now most assuredly dead and the betrayal is complete. In other words, the Senator who himself was tortured for years and has previously spoken out against it, voted to allow the use of torture on others to save his political hide and pander to a party base that despises him. Shame on you, Senator. Is this the sort of weakness you want from your Commander in Chief?”
I used to think McCain was unique because from time to time he stood on principals to defy the Republican party when he knew what he was doing was right. Now I know he’s scared and is desperately pandering to the base in order to become the next President of the United States. If he can’t hold fast to his principals on the issue of torture, an issue with which he is painfully familiar, how can any of us trust him to stick to his guns on anything?
McCain did not specifically vote against a ban on waterboarding. He said it was technically already illegal, and voted against this bill because of military/intelligence disagreement. (not to mention the fact that it was an obvious tactical move by the democrats to make McCain look hypocritical, and that it is certain to be vetoed by Bush.)
So think what you want, but I don’t think it can be construed as hypocritical.
I don’t agree Mike. McCain stated this past week that he voted against the measure because it would have forced the CIA as well as the military to abide by the treatment of prisoners in the Army Field Manual and he did not want to “tie the CIA’s hands.”
So he’s against water boarding and torture when the military does it, but when the CIA does it it’s okay? Why would that be? Isn’t torture torture no matter who’s doing it? You can’t say you’re opposed to treating U.S. prisoners one way when they are under the direction of one faction of our government, and another way for a second. In addition, if anyone needs to be bound by humane treatment of prisoners, it is, in fact the CIA. Given the use of secret prisons and people who have been wrongly “black bagged” the CIA could use a little hand tying IMO.
If you chose to not see this as anything but hypocritical on his part, that is your choice, but from where I stand he voted the way he did to curry favor with Washington GOP and the base that so desperately opposes him.