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John McCain.
(Official page for John McCain)

.Miscellaneous Comments/Observations.  Palindromes.  Paradoxes.  Rhymes.

Miscellaneous Comments/Observations, etc..

How McCain could "straight-talk" his way to the nomination and to the presidency:.
Polisat's proposal that McCain, an indisputably admirable hero, adopt the following "straight-talk" based on a more objective self-assessment that he's displayed thus far
(2000-03-01 Daily Update-01.© 2000):

1. Apology:..Having tried to make a virtue of my willingness to admit my own mistakes, I acknowledge that I was wrong to permit my campaign to conduct a phone-campaign misleadingly identified as a "Catholic Voter Alert" accusing Bush of being tolerant of the anti-Catholic views of Bob Jones.  I now realize that Bush's failure to expressly castigate Bob Jones University's anti-Catholic bigotry no more constituted an implied tolerance of such bigotry than his failure to castigate Bob Jones' demonization of President Bush constituted implied tolerance of such demonization of George W. Bush's own father.
2. Admission re Campaign Finance "Reform":..Knowing that I had used bad judgment by becoming involved in a situation creating an appearance of undue influence in the Keating Five "scandal," I realized that that the only way I could inoculate myself from unfair criticism for such conduct would be to "admit" my errors in judgment and advocate a type of campaign finance "reform" that would be worshipped by the dominant media and thereby guarantee me almost limitless "free" publicity and favorable treatment by the media to enable me to gain the nomination as a "reformer."  I now recognize that my lingering, but unjustified, feelings of guilt in the wake of the Keating Five scandal-- in which real wrongdoing was done only by other Senators-- caused me to lose my objectivity on the subject of campaign finance "reform" and blinded me to the fact that such proposals would violate our Constitutional guarantees of free speech and free association.  Therefore, in the spirit of my demonstrated willingness to admit my own mistakes, I hereby withdraw my support for McCain/Feingold and will protect the First Amendment "to my last breath" by advocating repeal of the existing, Byzantine campaign-finance regulatory scheme that makes it necessary for any citizen desiring to engage in serious and effective political advocacy to engage the services of  a $500/hour lawyer to try to avoid the risk of criminal prosecution for political-advocacy activities.
3. Tax Reform:..Despite the fact that I "virulently opposed" Clinton's 1993 soak-the-"rich" tax increase (which opposition I only recently reaffirmed while being interviewed by Sam Donaldson on ABC on 02-06-00), I used the standard, socialistic, class-warfare language I knew to be loved by the dominant media to unfairly characterize Bush's proposal to reverse that tax increase (while also providing substantial relief to lower-income taxpayers) as "benefits for the rich."  Having regained my objectivity, I now see the merit of an even better proposal than that advocated by Bush:  I will propose the tax-reform plan recommended by Richard Lugar during his short-lived campaign for the nomination in 1996:  Repeal the income tax and replace it with a national sales tax exempting food, medicine, housing and legal services.  (I would also exempt fees charged by companies providing access to the internet.)  This would make all our exports instantly more competitive abroad by removing from our companies' prices in foreign markets the price-inflation factor caused by such companies having to keep their prices high enough to make a profit large enough to pay income tax and still have enough profit left over to reward investors and stockholders. It would also protect our industries marketing their products overseas from other countries' ability to erect trade barriers against any tax-law adjustment to minimize the adverse effects of our current income-tax system on the competitiveness of our products in foreign markets.
4. Anti-Tobacco Zealotry:...polisat has effectively demonstrated that my wife's ownership interests in a large Budweiser Beer distributorship had blinded me to the fact that there is utterly no meaningful distinction between the effects on children by Budweiser's commercials using animated Frogs and Lizards and the alleged effect on children by "Joe Camel," who was never even depicted in television commercials at all-- much less the Super Bowl and numerous other sporting events popular among pre-teens as well as teens as has been the case with the ubiquitous television commercials featuring the Budweiser Frogs and Lizards and animated beer-bottles "playing football" during commercial breaks in sporting events. I now recognize that it has been just as unfair to characterize the "Big Tobacco" executives as people who've "poisoned and addicted our children" as it would be to similarly characterize Big Beer executives (and owners of Big-Beer distributorships) as being directly responsible for the massive carnage occurring each year on the highways by youthful drunk driving and for countless teenagers being lured into drinking with significant numbers of them becoming "hooked" on drinking and eventually becoming alcoholics.  I've also come to understand that the annual carnage attributed to drunk-driving, spousal abuse occurring during drunkenness, and other criminal activity during drunkenness eliminates more life-time years annually than the old-age lifetime years deemed by statistical analysis to be eliminated by slightly lowering the average life-expectancy among those smoking heavily for 30 years or more.  I also now realize that the statistically-alleged  "harmful" effect of "second-hand smoke" pales in comparison to the empirically demonstrable, immediately-lethal "second-hand" effects of drunk driving.  I also realize that to continue the anti-tobacco crusade would be to take us further down the slippery slope leading inevitably to governmental sanctions against, and demonization of,  any product or service presenting the user with any statistical risk of harm or death -- i.e., bacon, eggs, sausage, red meat, mayonnaise, snow-skiing, sky-diving, SUV driving, snow-mobiling, motorcycle-riding, youth sports involving dangerous activity (e.g., hardball, head-banging in soccer, ice-hockey, field hockey, lacrosse), and any other product or service that my become politically incorrect among pantheopians (i.e., those who worship nature over mankind)... etc. © 2000

"Straight-Talk" McCain:   "I did not have campaign relations with that phone-campaign implying Bush is 'anti-Catholic.'"   When first confronted with questions about the phone-campaign in Michigan smearing George Bush as being "anti-Catholic," McCain denied any involvement in any phone-call-campaign "accusing" Bush of being "anti-Catholic."  When subsequently confronted with the fact that campaign-staff people had admitted authoring and implementing the "Catholic Voter Alert" phone-campaign, McCain lamely contended his first denial was truthful because the calls by his campaign merely "truthfully" recited that George Bush had visited Bob Jones University without overtly condemning that school's anti-Catholic views.   However, despite such obviously lame and tenuous distinction, it is patently obvious that his campaign engaged in telephone-fraud by identifying "Catholic Voter Alert" (rather than the McCain Campaign) as the source and author of those calls.    Whose conduct does this most resemble?  Can you say "Bill Clinton."???  © 2000
(2000-02-29 Daily Update--01)
Blind Arrogance & Self-Righteous Zealotry.
    The tone of McCain's "concession" speech yesterday evening makes it obvious he's a man who completely, unequivocally and blindly believes his own rhetoric about himself.  With false humility, he tries to disguise his incredible arrogance and self-righteous zealotry.  His claim that his campaign was so "pure" and "positive" is insulting.  He started his campaign with the accusation that everyone but he is corrupt, that Bush's proposal for across-the-board tax cuts was designed to give "most" of the "benefits" to the "rich," and that Bush posed a threat to Social Security.   Regardless of what he says, the solutions he proposes are clear manifestations of a government-knows-best philosophy.
    As much as Al Gore may deserve criticism for his participation in the Buddhist Temple fundraising event and for his unrelated speech contending there was "no controlling legal authority" prohibiting campaign-solicitations via telephone located on federal property, McCain's repeated characterizations of those events plainly distort them in ways relatively easily refuted.  Is this kind of distortion and overstatement what he means by a "positive" campaign?
    When Bush spoke at Bob Jones University, he should have known the school promotes bigoted viewpoints and should have overtly condemned such views.  Arguably, Bush should have disassociated himself from the views of the veteran who spoke so unkindly in his presence about McCain, yet when Bush -- in response to being castigated by McCain for not having repudiated such comments -- pointed out McCain's failure to disassociate himself from Warren Rudman's bigoted criticism of Christians, McCain feebly said Rudman was entitled to his own views.   (Of course, Rudman is a decent man, but he should have apologized for his bigoted remarks.)
    Finally, McCain's commercial implying Bush is a liar like Clinton was as unfair as would be a Gore commercial equating Bradley with Clinton.  Perhaps McCain's demonstration of blind self-righteousness and ungraciousness is a manifestation of the reason so few of his senatorial colleagues support him. © 2000 (2000-02-20 Daily Update-01 © 2000)

The War Between the Stakes (McCain's and Bush's stakes in the South Carolina Primary)
What a paradox is John McCain:  He's a heroic and honorable man who risked his life for his country and principles of freedom.  He endured torture at the hands of totalitarian propagandists who tried to force him to agree that "up" was "down"-- i.e., that "freedom" was "slavery" and "slavery" was "freedom" (while Hanoi Jane frolicked with his captors).   Even recently, in commenting about the plight of Elian Gonzales, he correctly analogized the language of Cuban officials as the same type "commie-speak" spoken by his captors in Hanoi.
    McCain Paradox #1:  It's paradoxical for him to now use standard, leftist "class-warfare" language in characterizing across-the-board tax cuts as "benefits" for the "rich."  One subscribing to the view that the government is the servant of the people, rather than vice versa, could not reasonably view a reduction of taxes as a "benefit" from the government to taxpayers.  Only leftist-philosophy views the issue as whether a particular group "needs" such "benefit"-- this is clearly a leftist manifestation of the philosophy of Karl Marx:  "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need" with the collective group -- not the individual -- deciding what should, and should not, be considered to be that individual's "needs."  That's the antithesis of our notion of the land of the free and the home of the brave.
    McCain Paradox #2:   His lingering feelings of guilt for having been involved in the Keating Five scandal have apparently motivated him to become blind to the unconstitutionality of his proposals for campaign-finance "reform."  His prior, heroic sacrifices for freedom make it paradoxical for him to propose campaign finance "reform" that would put the government in charge of political speech in the land of the free and the home of the brave.  No one could seriously dispute that large sums of money controlled by small groups can, and probably often do, influence positions taken by those in power (or those seeking power), but the "solution" of having the government regulate political speech by severely limiting a citizen's right to expend his property in a manner he sees fit to express his political views is a solution far worse than the problem.  Our founding fathers recognized this principle when they decided to include a constitutional guarantee against governmental infringement of free speech and freedom of association-- they knew that government efforts to prohibit "bad" speech would ultimately become a far worse evil than tolerating "bad" speech.  McCain tries to deny that his campaign-finance proposals would limit free speech-- He says they would only limit the bad "special interests."  Yet his own response to a political-action group's criticism of his proposals make it obvious that he expects his proposals to severely limit the rights of citizens to pool their resources to engage in issue-advocacy and/or support for, or opposition to, particular candidates or parties:   He said the reason the pro-life political-action committees oppose him is that they are currently running a highly lucrative fundraising business to engage in such political advocacy and that they know enactment of his proposals would put a stop to their activities.  I rest my case!  (By the way, I personally oppose most of the views and tactics of the pro-life PACs, but loyalty to the principles of free speech restrains me from advocating enactment of laws to restrict their political-speech activities.)
    McCain Paradox #3:  It's paradoxical that the fact that he's luxurating in the lap of Big Beer does not engender in him any sense of hypocrisy or contradictory behavior in his failure to launch a campaign to send the Budweiser Frogs and Lizards to the Joe Camel Graveyard.  (Personally, I would not want him to launch such a crusade-- I just wish he'd stop being so self-righteous and fanatically zealous in his "crusade" against "Big Tobacco" and "Joe Camel"-- Scroll down to read my "Solution" comments in the paragraph above the 2000-02-12 Daily Update.)   I'm reasonably sure that "Big Beer" executives would unhesitatingly state under oath before congress that beer is not "addictive" (although some become "addicted" to it just as some become "addicted" to nicotine).  I'm also reasonably sure they would deny that they intend advertisements using characters such as animated frogs and lizards to induce minors into a desire to drink beer.  Would he then call them "liars" as he did "Big Tobacco" executives?  Would he then call them "people who addicted our children" as he characterized the "Big Tobacco" people?  (Scroll down to read my comments at 2000-02-04 Daily Update--07.)   His fanatical zealotry on this issue is just as offensive as the totalitarian fanaticism of leftists.
    Do I admire McCain?  Yes.  Am I, as a citizen favoring limited government, angered by his anti-freedom positions on these issues?  Yes.  Am I, as a citizen, engaging in "issue advocacy"?  Yes.  Am I a "tool" of "Big Tobacco"?  No.  Please excuse the absence of satire in these comments.  Jim Wrenn, Editor © 2000 (2000-02-19 Daily Update © 2000)

McCain:  Heroism, Sanctimoniousness, Zealotry and Say/Do Contradictions:
 (Please excuse the non-satirical nature of this item-- but it doesn't hurt for you to know how I think.)
    McCain has justifiably become perceived as a larger-than-life heroic figure on the basis of his courageous endurance of barbaric cruelty at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors.  (Remember those anti-imperialist heroes so deeply admired and publicly supported by Hanoi Jane?)  By his actions he earned, and deserves, our eternal gratitude, admiration and respect, but he has not earned any entitlement to be immune from criticism for supporting bad ideas, acting in ways that contradict what he says, and exhibiting sanctimoniousness and zealotry on some issues.
    Campaign Finance "Reform"  McCain sanctimoniously implies (and sometimes directly says) that those who oppose his campaign-finance "reforms" are "corrupt."  (Of course, if someone else's commercial contains minor inaccuracies about his proposals and/or record, he sanctimoniously views such actions as attacks on his personal integrity.)  While claiming his proposals would not violate free speech, he characterized the pro-life political-action committees as lucrative businesses that know enactment of his proposed reforms would dramatically limit their political-advocacy activities.  [Although I personally disagree with much (probably most) of the political agenda of the pro-life PACs, I vehemently oppose government regulation of their constituencies' expenditures of their "property" in exercising their free-speech/free-association rights to advocate their political agenda.]   McCain's comments about the pro-life PACs plainly demonstrate that notwithstanding his claim to the contrary, he actually expects his campaign-finance "reforms" to have the effect of limiting the free-speech and free-association rights groups of Americans who choose to band together and pool their resources to advocate their political agenda via lobbying, commercials, political endorsements, "issue advocacy" and by supporting and opposing various candidates and parties.  (By the way, Bush says he supports "banning soft money" but only if there's "paycheck" power of union members to prevent their dues being spent on political advocacy with which they disagree-- thus, Bush merely supports a less-evil version of campaign finance "reform" than does McCain, but, at least Bush hasn't made such anti-freedom proposals a centerpiece of his campaign and doesn't seem to be closed-minded zealot on the subject.)
    Tax-cuts-- McCain's class-warfare rhetoric and self-contradictory statements:
    McCain employs class-warfare rhetoric to characterize Bush's tax-cut proposal as overwhelmingly "benefiting" the rich.  However, on 02-06-00, he told Sam Donaldson on This Week, that he "virulently opposed the 1993 income tax increase" passed by Clinton and the Democrats, yet he characterizes Bush's proposal to reverse that tax cut as being a "benefit to the rich."  I agree that it's beneficial to an overtaxed taxpayer for the government to start taking less of his money, but how can he fairly call such tax cut a "benefit" as if the government were giving something to the taxpayer?   Why does he use such Orwellian language?  Why does he characterize a tax cut as a "spending" of the "surplus"?   How can he characterize the act of having the government take less of a taxpayer's money as if it constitutes the "spending" of money by the government? © 2000 
    Anti-Joe-Camel Zealotry while luxuriating in the lap of Big Beer's Frogs & Lizards:.
Is he--as a financial beneficiary of Big Beer-- proud of the Budweiser Frogs and Lizards and similar commercials frequently aired on sporting events popular among kids?  In terms of years of life-expectation eliminated among our "kids," deaths from drunk driving by kids lured into drinking by Big Beer's commercials targeting the adolescent sense of humor eliminates more life-expectation years than the effects of the slightly-lower, long-term life-expectancy among smokers.  See polisat's 2000-02-05 Daily Update (scroll down to find it)].  Furthermore, the "second-hand" effects of drunk driving often kills innocent, non-drinkers unlike the merely annoying effects of "second-hand smoke."
    Plain Hypocrisy:   See polisat's challenge to McCain in polisat's 2000-02-05 Daily Update (scroll down to find it)].  Of course he'll have a ready-made excuse for not doing so, but in refusing to do so, he'll be doing the right thing for the wrong reason.  It should be obvious that if his family's financial well-being were secured by a Big Tobacco distributorship instead of a Big Beer distributorship, he'd be waging a holy war against the Budweiser Frogs and Lizards while ignoring Joe Camel, a lesser threat to "our children" than the Budweiser Frogs and Lizards.
    Solution:  The solution is not to launch a holy-war against the Budweiser Frogs and Lizards.  Although that's clearly the logical extension of the holy-war against "Joe Camel," it would take us further down the slippery slope to an Orwellian society.  Successes in such holy wars will lead to holy wars against red meat, mayonnaise, bacon, sausage, eggs, fast-food, carbonated drinks, sugar, etc.-- the list for holy-war do-gooders would be endless.  The solution is to stop the holy war against tobacco and not initiate any more holy-wars to placate the utopians and pantheopian activists.  ("Pantheopian" is a term I coined to describe the currently fashionable form of activism based on a worship of nature and a view of man as a corrupting and plundering intruder on nature.)  © 2000
(2000-02-13 Daily Update--01  © 2000)

 McCain's Self-contradiction on Tax-Cuts  (du 2000-02-06)
Today (02-06-00), you told Sam Donaldson on This Week, that you "virulently opposed the 1993 income tax increase" passed by Clinton and the Democrats, yet you characterize Bush's proposal to reverse that tax cut as being a "benefit to the rich."  I agree that it's beneficial to an overtaxed taxpayer for the government to start taking less of his money but how can you fairly call such tax cut a "benefit" as if the government were giving something to the taxpayer?  Why do you use such Orwellian language?  Why do you characterize a tax cut as a "spending" of the "surplus"?  How can you characterize the act of having the government take less of a taxpayer's money as if it constitutes the "spending" of money by the government?   © 2000

 Polisat's Challenge to John McCain & Big Beer  2000-02-05 Daily Update
  Show your complete independence from Big Beer by promptly introducing (or by giving your word that you will introduce) federal legislation to do the following things:
    1. Require Big Beer to eliminate underage drinking by the end of the year 2002.
    2. Require Big Beer to withdraw all advertising from television, radio and the internet.
    3. Ban Big Beer's use of cartoon-like characters, such as frogs and lizards, in any form of advertising in any medium (including magazines, newspapers, billboards, etc.)-- i.e., send the frogs, lizards, animated beer-bottles, etc. to the Joe Camel graveyard.
    4. Prohibit Big Beer from directly or indirectly sponsoring, or advertising at, any sporting event popular among minors.
    5. Prohibit Big Beer from directly or indirectly causing, or permitting, any brand name, trademark or company name associated in any way with beer to be imprinted upon hats, T-shirts, sweatshirts, tote-bags, or other novelty items that might be attractive to minors.
    6. Require  Big Beer to to establish a multi-billion-dollar fund to support government-run, nationwide alcohol-recovery programs.
    7. Require Big Wine to fund homeless-people shelters in all major cities.
    8. Impose a $0.75 per can tax on beer to be used for federal programs designed to attain those goals and whatever other goals may be devised in the future for "the children," "the elderly," and "the homeless."
    9. Impose a $3,000 per child penalty for every minor caught drinking any time after January 1, 2003.
  10. Impose a $100,000 fine on Big Beer for each person killed in an accident caused by drunkenness (whether in the form of drunk driving, drunken brawls, domestic quarrels, etc.)
  11. Impose a $500,000 fine on Big Beer for each person killed in a crime in which the offender's blood-alcohol content was sufficient to constitute impaired driving.
  12. Require Big Beer and Big Wine to fund a nationwide educational program involving public-service announcements graphically explaining the death, injuries, broken homes, spousal abuse, etc. caused by alcohol consumption.
    Embracing this 12-step program would go a long way toward convincing me you are motivated by principle rather than political expediency in your war against Big Tobacco.  By the way, I am NOT a "tool" of Big Tobacco.  I do not now own, and never have owned, any tobacco company stock and have never represented any tobacco company.  I'm just an American citizen angered by big government and determined to insist that those who demand such exacting standards by others live up to such standards themselves.  There's often a fine line between being principled and becoming a zealot, and on tobacco, campaign-finance and using the Orwellian tactic of calling a tax-cut a "benefit", you have, in my opinion, crossed that line.  Let me know whether you'll accept my challenge.  By having admitted what you considered to have been your own wrongdoing in the "Keating Five" episode, I know you have the courage to change your mind when you can be persuaded you're wrong.  You can reach me at the email address shown below.  Jim Wrenn, editor@polisat.com.  © 2000

 McCain Quote of the Day about Smokers' Coalition criticism of his tobacco-tax increase
 2000-02-04 Daily Update:  On 02-03-00, McCain said (in South Carolina):  "I'm proud to be opposed by the people who addicted our children" presumably referring in part to Big Tobacco's use of "Joe Camel" to entice "kids" into smoking.  As the spouse of an owner of substantial interests in a huge beer distributorship, is he, as a financial beneficiary of Big Beer, proud of the Budweiser Frogs and Lizards and similar commercials frequently aired on sporting events popular among kids?  In terms of years of life-expectation eliminated among our "kids," deaths from drunk driving by kids lured into drinking by Big Beer's commercials targeting the adolescent sense of humor eliminates more life-expectation years than the slightly-lower, long-term life-expectancy among smokers. © 2000

Palindromes (what's a palindrome?)? McCain paradoxes
Rhymes about McCain --For rhymes about McCain, go here.