It is possible that many Americans know of a couple that have been so intimately connected over the course of several years that they begin taking on each other’s personality traits and habits. It is unclear how intimate Senator John McCain was with the imbecile quitter and 2008 running mate Sarah Palin during their campaign for the presidency against Barack Obama, but it must have been an intense affair even though it was short-lived.
Some Americans may recall that prior to the Iraq invasion in 2003, country music entertainers, the Dixie Chicks, were raked over the proverbial coals, threatened with death, ostracized as humans, boycotted, and condemned mercilessly for daring to criticize then-president George W. Bush while in a foreign country. Conservatives of all stripes were absolutely apoplectic over a personal opinion made by a private citizen because there must be some unwritten statute that being abroad and criticizing the president is a treasonous violation.
However, when a Republican public official harshly condemns a Democratic President while out of country, or to the foreign press, it is warranted because the President is an African American. Evidently, because sitting U.S. Senator John McCain heard his moronic running mate Sarah Palin condemn President Barack Obama while traveling abroad with impunity, he concluded he should parrot Sarah Palin and condemn the President to the foreign press. Of course, in both instances Palin and McCain received no sanctions, condemnation or reproach from conservatives because Obama derangement syndrome.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Where McCain really reveals he is becoming Palin is in his blaming President Obama for every and anything, whether true or not. Palin, recall, even blamed President Obama when her drug-addled son physically attacked his wife, and to keep pace John McCain actually blamed President Obama for being directly responsible for the Orlando massacre; in spite of the President’s heroic support of the LGBT community and restricting maniacs from easy access to guns.
Last week, John McCain was doing his best Palin impression again and told the foreign press, specifically a Pakistani television station, that the United States is to blame for the devastation in Afghanistan. Except that when McCain said the United States, he meant President Barack Obama; the man not responsible for invading and occupying Afghanistan, or Iraq for that matter, because he was not serving in any national office.
When a Pakistani television interviewer asked Senator John McCain about the current Afghani president, Ashraf Ghani, and his culpability for the problems still plaguing Afghanistan since America invaded and occupied the nation fifteen years ago. Interviewer Moeed Pirzada asked, “Do you think [the] Taliban are the only issue or is something else needed in Afghanistan?”
McCain replied:
“I believe that I have to be very frank. I don’t blame [current president] Ashraf Ghani. I blame the United States of America for not consolidating the gains that we made. And this president has this idea for the last eight years that if we pull out of conflicts, those conflicts end.
Let me give you an example of what just happened. In Istanbul, the rise of terrorism and a base for terrorism in a place called Raka [Syria, where the Islamic State is based], and that is now, that ISIS group is now establishing a beachhead. Guess where? Afghanistan.
We see abject failure of American policy and no strategy. I don’t blame Pakistan for that. I don’t blame Ashraf Ghani for that. I blame this president of the United States, who is a failed leader.”
So, not only is McCain’s memory bereft of facts or the concept of time periods, he has gone full Sarah Palin and blamed President Obama for a couple of monumental Bush blunders that occurred before he was elected to serve in the United States Senate in late 2004, much less as President beginning in 2009. Remember, Bush idiotically invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003; a full four and two years respectively before Barack Obama was sworn in as a Senator, and eight and six years respectively before he was inaugurated as President. All of the unrest, instability and increased terror activity, including the creation and rise of ISIS in Syria are the direct result of Bush’s ill-advised invasion of Iraq, and to a lesser degree, the war in Afghanistan. It is no exaggeration to claim that without Bush’s invasion of Iraq, there would be no such entity as the Islamic State.
Some conservative warmongers, like John McCain and national moron Sarah Palin, still assert that invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq were both brilliant military maneuvers, well-thought out and executed, and a last resort to save America from nuclear annihilation at the hands of Saddam Hussein; but that is patently false and only a fool would claim otherwise. In fact, to refute McCain’s ludicrous contention that President Obama is responsible for the rise of ISIS, the British government just released a long-awaited report, the Iraq Inquiry, about the U.K.’s support for and entrance into the Iraq invasion and occupation and concluded the Iraq War was a debacle that should never have happened except for the Bush administration’s mountain of lies, woefully inadequate planning, and gross incompetence.
The report said in part,
“The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability, and Al Qaida activity in Iraq, were each explicitly identified before the invasion.”
Now, that one sentence belies McCain’s assertion that what is happening in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan or Orlando is down to President Obama. Remember, there was no such thing as the Islamic State, civil war and unrest in Syria, al Qaeda in Iraq, or a corrupt American puppet in Afghanistan until Bush began his “crusade” against Muslims. A crusade, by the way, that resulted in the killing of 1.3 million innocent Muslim civilians that helped foster anti-American sentiment and enhance the recruitment efforts of al Qaeda and ISIS leaders in the region and around the world.
At this juncture, everybody gets it: McCain and his mentor Sarah Palin are still seething they lost an election to an African American Senator and they are furious they don’t have a war to kill more Muslims to celebrate. But this nonsense of blaming President Obama for George W. Bush’s monumental screw-ups, or the Orlando gay massacre, or Palin’s wife-beater son is beyond sour grapes over losing an election.
John McCain may have been an honorable man at some point in his career, but when he goes to the foreign press to blame all the world’s woes on President Obama, especially for actions he had no part in, it looks like “the maverick” has finally become exactly what he wrought on this great nation; a moronic imbecile like Sarah Palin.
What one is waiting for is an outcry against McCain for going to the foreign press to criticize a sitting President, because all things being equal, what Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks said was nothing compared to the lies and vitriolic blaming being trumpeted by a sitting United States senator. As McCain’s possible opponent in his race to keep his Senate seat, U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ), said:
“Arizonans should be shocked and appalled that McCain would go to the foreign press and ‘blame the United States of America’ for Taliban gains in Afghanistan. These reckless, insulting comments have become commonplace for John McCain because he’s changed after 33 years in Washington. McCain is all out of ‘straight talk’ because he cares more about trying to shift blame and saving his political career than focusing our efforts on keeping Americans safe.”
All that is true, of course, but it would have been more accurate and “straight talk” if Ms. Kirkpatrick had just stated the obvious: McCain is shifting the blame to be more like his hero Sarah Palin.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
