McCain...Is he a neocon? A centrist? Against conservatives? Good? Bad?

I'm really perplexed about where John McCain lands on the political spectrum.

Many suggest he's a centrist.

However, he stood in lockstep with *, during the 04 campaign. He called Junior "a great man and a great president." Prior to that, he hated Junior because of his low-brow tactics in the primary.

He's been outspoken in his support of the Iraq war--but then again, he's criticized the low number of troops being used in the battle.

Does McCain have any PNAC ties? I haven't seen his name associated with any of their documents. Did I miss something?

Rush Limbaugh lambasted McCain today. He said McCain is just shoring up his name recognition for a future presidential run. He's clearly enraged at McCain and sees his recent actions as a total betrayal. Rush said, "McCain doesn't think that he needs us conservatives to become president. He thinks he can land the centrists, moderates and new voters." Rush went on to say that McCain will start a new kind of politics and position himself as a part of a new political wave in which extremists in both parties are not welcome.

I'm wondering if Rush's words aren't strategic. Maybe Rove and Co realize that they've gone too far with their neocon/conservative agenda (just look at their polls). Maybe they figure--the only way for 06, 08 wins is to allow a supposed centrist superstar to shine.
That's probably the only way they will retain power.

Sorry to ramble. I'm just a bit boggled by who McCain is and what is going on.

I'm extremely concerned by what Rush was saying. If McCain can create a few more national dramas--with himself center stage as the "voice of reason" he could successfully position himself as a diplomatic moderate. He could garner lots of support for 08, and I find that frightening.

Any thoughts?

Opportunist!

If his party needs him, he'll come running.

A joke of a man. A laughingstock. A whipping boy. A disgrace.

That is all.

NGU.

cozy up to someone who treated him like garbage four years earlier. Perhaps he's putting the maxim "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" into practice, but without knowing for sure his behavior bothers me to no end.

Like, he's generally pro-environment. But the whole "McCain is a moderate" and "McCain is a straight talker" is the same bs from the same bsers in the MSM that brought us "Smirk is a different kind of Republican", "Smirk is a compassionate conservative". He lies through his hat for the neocon right all the time - - on social security, on what a great moral leader Smirk is, on whether Smirk fixed the intel to con the country into supporting the invasion of Afghanistan (hint: McCain says Smirk didn't)...

He is a major danger for us in 2008, and if the far right take him out now, they'll be doing us a major favor...

is a rugged individualist--which puts him in a bit of a bind since rugged individualists cant follow in anyone else's footsteps, can they? Not even in the footsteps of a maverick.

Poor, conflicted McCain.

Put it another way. He is a good soldier. A good soldier is a team player but knows that there are a lot of superiors who give conflicting orders so he has to figure out which ones are best for the team.

political opportunitist in my opinion.

He is, just like Kerry, willing to say anything to become president.

:shrug:

he's an opportunist and will sway with the wind...that's why it's so hard for you to pin him down.

love child..i dont think so...

for the Bush Regime.

and all of them spell out loud and clear just one thing: OPPORTUNIST!!!

Very much like Nixon in a lot of ways - not in the way he appears in public but in the way he behaves. A right-wing professional politician with no qualms about jumping on bandwagons and making impressive U-turns, but not a PNAC lunatic fascist or a scary theocrat.
As president he would likely be more fiscally responsible than Shrubbie and, although he'd still send the USA to the right, he wouldn't do it in the same reckless, extremist, constitution-shredding way as Shrubbie has. Still bad, but not disasterous.

Did cheney just smack him on the back or what? Looks like McCain had the air knocked out of him.

Cheney drains the life-force of all those around him.

a War hawk, and the media darling. Just turn on the Teevee on Sundays...guarantee, he'll be there....somewhere.

I have tons of respect for what he was forced to endure. But as a politician, I think he's jumped the tracks. I can't figure him out at all.

The 2008 "moderate" republican Presidential candidate, he will be heralded as an alternative to the radical extremism of the Bush administration, but actually chosen to insure the continuation of the of the PNAC extremist agenda.

He will appeal to naive moderate/right "Democrats", who may actually vote for him instead of the Democratic nominee, and if he is elected the republican/fascists will then hammer the nation with more radical RW extremism.

These republican voting moderate/right "Democrats" always buy the "compassionate conservative" line, and then say, "oh, gosh, we didn't know!" when they find out it was they who were largely responsible for electing a demented actor or a nazi chimp.

he sold his very soul to Satan , imo. One particular photograph says it all for me: it's Bush aboard Air Force 1, and he's clearly dragging McCain back to the press quarters,practically has him in a headlock, with an evil grin on his face that just screams,
"See??? He doesn't support Kerry, he supports ME. I OWN you, Bitch"
So humiliating...

"Revenge is a dish best served cold"

along with Sun-Tzu's wisdom "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"...

He's a Republican as opposed to a NeoCon/Theopublican.

He's also got a score to settle with Chimpy.

This 'brokered agreement' was basically him 'assuming' leadership of the 'Republicans' (as opposed to the NeoCon/Theopublicans).

Between now and '08, he'll sink Pres CuckooBananas, and laugh all the way...

He'll still be a Republican, but I would rather deal with a Republican than the NeoCon/Theopublican wing....

by running with Kerry in '04. It would've completely eliminated the bushista wing of the gop. Instead, he campaigned for him. He is not out to get bush. The "maverick" is his role. Bottom line.

until he sees the opportunity to mutiny and escape.

Rush said, "McCain doesn't think that he needs us conservatives to become president. He thinks he can land the centrists, moderates and new voters." Rush went on to say that McCain will start a new kind of politics and position himself as a part of a new political wave in which extremists in both parties are not welcome.
Well, duh. Rush is absolutely right (and I think his reference to GOP extremists as "conservatives" is just too adorable). But of course, that is WHY he's so angry with McCain. Rush knows it's a brilliant strategy which will easily attract extremism-weary swing voters. But more important, Rush knows that McCain is ready and willing to go against Bush/Rove/Cheney in a big way if that's what it's going to take. McCain took a giant step in that direction by brokering the filibuster deal behind the Fristians' backs. And if the Bush White House continue to elbow aside too many GOP moderates, anything could happen--up to and including impeachment procedures!

:headbang:
rocknation

It is HIS organization, part of the AEI, that spawned PNAC. Before Bush picked Cheney as his running mate, the neo-cons were all backing McCain.

Read this and weep.

====

Project for the New American Century (PNAC)is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project, a non-profit 501c3 organization that is funded by the Bradley Foundation.

The line is in the middle of a discussion about the military's employment of emerging information technologies, and the report guesses that full transformation to new technologies is likely to be a slow process, absent some "catalyzing" event which would presumably cause the military to upgrade much more quickly.

http://www.factbites.com/topics/New-Citizenship-Project

The John M. Olin Foundation, Inc. listed grants in 1997 show the subtitle for The New Citizenship Project as the "Project for the Next American Century." It clearly appears that the origninal 1994 PNAC concept has become the current Project for the New American Century.

www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=New_Citizenship_Project


NCP shares the same address and suite as PNAC.

http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/P/Project-for-the-New-American-Century.htm


New Citizenship Project is a non-profit organization funded by large right-wing foundations. Founded in 1994, NCP initiated the Project for the New American Century, one of the key behind-the-scenes architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy. According to his senate biography, John McCain served as a president of NCP,

www.worldhistory.com/wiki/N/New-Citizenship-Project.htm

NCP shares the same address and suite as PNAC. According to NCP's listing in The Right Guide, NCP and the Philanthropy Roundtable share the same phone number. The Philanthropy Roundtable's office is on the same floor of the same office building as PNAC and NCP. ((My note: and the whole rotten lot of them on the 5th floor of the American Enterprise's Institute))

And straight from the neocon's mouth:

"But John's work outside of government is equally admirable. John is currently serving as President of the Philanthropy Roundtable, a national association of charitable donors who are doing great work in our communities. He was previously President of the New Citizenship Project, an organization created to promote greater civic participation in our national life. John also served on the Council on Crime in America, a bipartisan commission on violent crime co-chaired by former Drug Czar Bill Bennett and former Attorney General Griffin Bell.


http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Newscenter.ViewPressRelease&Content_id=684

The watchdog group Media Transparency, the Money Behind the Media", reports 47 grants totalling $2,722,900 given to the New Citizenship Project from 1994 through 2001.

Funding sources appear to be exclusively from three far right-wing neo-conservative think tank funders:

1. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (www.bradleyfdn.org) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This is the primary sponsor of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which was the recipient of over a million dollars in 2001 alone. "By way of a program known as the New Citizenship Project, Inc., PNAC Project for the New American Century received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

"http://www.endthewar.org/Downloads/CLIflyer.rtf

2. John M. Olin Foundation, Inc. of New Yorkhttp://www.JMOF.org: This foundation grew out of a family manufacturing business (chemical and munitions) and funds right-wing think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Change, and the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace.

http://www.mediatransparency.org/search_results/info_on_any_recipient.php?258


3. Scaife Foundations --
Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation - http://www.scaife.com and Scaife Family Foundation- http://www.Scaife.com -- in New York. These foundations are financed by the Mellon industrial, oil, and banking fortune (http://www.mediatransparency.org/funders/scaife_foundations.htm)

The John M. Olin Foundation, Inc. listed grants in 1997 show the subtitle for The New Citizenship Project as the "Project for the Next American Century." It clearly appears that the origninal 1994 PNAC concept has become the current Project for the New American Century.http://www.jmof.org/grants/1997n.htm

http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/N/New-Citizenship-Project.htm

===


Now as a Lagniappe... Here's something to make you SICK to the stomach about McCain's Philantropy Roundtable:

It was founded in the early 1980s, when conservative donors left the Council on Foundations to protest the Council's adoption of The Principles and Practices of Effective Grantmaking, a statement intended to encourage its members toward greater public openness and accountability.

With the presidents and trustees of major conservative foundations as officers and members of the board, the Roundtable today expresses ironic concern over the "politicization of philanthropy."
Michael Joyce, (former) president of the Bradley Foundation, formerly chaired the Roundtable's board of directors. James Piereson (Olin Foundation), Joanne B. Beyer (Scaife Family Foundation), David B. Kennedy (Earhart Foundation) and Chris Olander (JM Foundation) served with him.

(snip)

The Roundtable is adding its voice to the growing number of new right grantees aggressively articulating the virtues of a philanthropic paternalism that would in effect place the poor under the direct moral guidance of the rich, or those who have presumably demonstrated their moral superiority through hard work, self-reliance and personal responsiblity. Growing concern over declining "social capital" is used to buttress conservative claims that government expansion stifles the philanthropic impulse and that private philanthropy, not government, is the proper and most effective vehicle for responding to social needs, encouraging civic responsibility and restoring social trust.

--From Moving A Public Policy Agenda: The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, July 1997.

http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipients/philanthropy_roundtable.htm

===


Want to get really sick? Check out some of the stuff they were using their own grant money for:


- to prepare a book, LEO STRAUSS AND THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

- To support the Project for the New American Century

- To support research for the biography of Justice Clarence Thomas


http://www.mediatransparency.org/search_results/info_on_any_recipient.php?recipientID=258



Check them out for yourselves: http://www.ncrp.org/


I could go on and on about McCain. This is just a small part of it. Beware the neo-con in ANY shape or form!

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He's looking out for number 1, and he wants to be the 44th President of the United States.

His only problem is that there are no moderates left in his party and Independents don't vote in primaries, and he can't count on Democrats crossing over in NH and Michigan like they did in 2000.

He says that's okay because we had troops in Germany for 50 years which of course is entirely different because we had them there to counter the Soviet Union's expansionist possibilities, not to steal their oil and repress their people.

He campaigned for George Bush.

He is a neo-con enabler who says whatever he thinks will be popular to the group he is with at the time.

Need anything else?

Question answered?

.

And a sell out.

Pretty much like Colin Powell who also worked on the PNAC documents (1992.) Where he differs from the junta is in the execution no the ideology.

He will do the same as Bush..campaign from the middle of the road then if elected move to right...He is a Republican always has been always will be...I just don't understand why Democrats can not see through this...

bold, daring and willing to fight for principled ideas. Conservative,but not to Conservative. Actually, he is a self- serving, egotistical at times dishonest, power hungry man. His goal is to become president and anyway or anything that will get him closer to that goal is not beneath him. I think you will find him becoming very aggressive in his pursuit of this goal. This is his last shot in my opinion, he is getting old. I think he will be around 68-70 years old in 2008.