Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

In the fifties a true "Maverick Republican" like Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon was so sickened by the smear antics and repeated accusations of treason and soft on Communism by the Nixon-McCarthy wing of the party that he initially became an Independent, then switched to a Democrat after supporting Democrat Adlai Stevenson for president.

What about the McCain who in the Senate cast votes against the Bush tax cuts earmarked for society's economic elite on grounds that this was an irresponsible act that would reap fiscal repercussions?

McCain was right then and our national debt is now less than a half trillion dollars away from a massive and unprecedented $10 trillion figure.  Nobody came anywhere close to that previously, not even the Voodoo Economics tandem of Ronald Reagan and George Bush the Elder during three terms of soak the middle class and poor while rewarding rich Republican benefactors.

In order to secure the Republican nomination, McCain reversed himself on the tax issue and is now advocating a similar tax cut bill should he win November's presidential election.  What a responsible position considering the nation's current indebtedness.

As for the Iraq War, McCain has placed himself on record as stating that he is willing to commit U.S. troops there for one hundred years or beyond if necessary.  

Claims by McCain and supporters that his statement was taken out of context is pure hokum.  Yes, he said that his century or beyond proviso meant as long as troops were essentially out of harm's way, comparing such a mission to the United States' commitments in Japan and South Korea.

The comparison is the sticking point and proves how out of touch McCain truly is since any comparisons of Asian troop commitments in the aforementioned nations are totally fallacious.

So what has McCain been up to lately in the campaign?  Barack Obama appeared in Berlin and drew a crowd of two hundred thousand, individuals starving for an end to Bush-Cheney neoconservative madness and a restoration of problem solving through diplomacy.

This type of diplomacy was exemplified by Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Harry Truman, as manifested by international successes such as the Good Neighbor Policy, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps, and an Underground Nuclear Test Ban, to reveal some examples of positive U.S. diplomacy from the aforementioned presidents.

In his speech Obama drew a broad picture of the importance of diplomacy in a world containing great strife with the looming threat of nuclear weapons being employed.

So the same John McCain who earlier suggested that he was better qualified to become president since his passport contained more stamps than Obama's found reason to complain about the Democratic candidate taking a trip to Europe.

McCain then delivered his sickest line yet in Rochester, New Hampshire when he charged that Obama "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign."

This sleazy and totally false comment shows that McCain is now a solid member of the same brigade that brought us the Willie Horton sleaze attacks in 1988, the Swift Boat lies of 2004, and accusations of Communism smears of the fifties.

Attorney Joseph Welch during the Army-McCarthy hearings finally put demagogue McCarthy out of business for good by asking him before an enraptured national television audience, "Sir, have you no decency?"

Now this question must be asked of Senator McCain, who checked any decency he might have possessed at the door to obtain the support of neoconservative sleaze merchants in pursuit of the presidency in today's twisted, perverted, thoroughly out of touch Republican Party.