McCain’s Disingenuous Claim to Put Country above Politics by Skipping a Presidential Debate

Fortunately for the American people, John McCain has finally been pressured into attending tonight’s Presidential debate in Mississippi. Even some of his most ardent supporters had the good sense to recognize that the American people deserve the opportunity to obtain a full understanding of the differences between the candidates’ positions on issues of crucial importance to our nation and the world before casting their votes on November 4th. Here is a recent statement from Mike Huckabee on the subject:


For those who believe that McCain’s request to put the debate on hold was truly motivated, as he claimed, by his decision to put country above politics, there are several facts that the American people should keep in mind:


McCain’s recent (lack of) voting record

It has long been accepted tradition in our country that U.S. Congresspersons who run for President will miss a lot of congressional votes. 2008 has certainly been no exception to that rule. Of the 8 U.S. Senators with by far the largest percentage of missed votes, two have had very serious illnesses (Kennedy and Johnson), and the other six are the six U.S. Senators who were candidates for President in 2008.

But leading the pack by far is John McCain, having missed 64.1% of all Senate votes for the 110th Congress. Significantly, Barack Obama is a distant third in that category, having missed 45.9% of Senate votes.

I don’t begrudge John McCain missing Senate votes because of his presidential campaign. As I said, he is not alone in that regard. And it is very important that U.S. citizens get ample opportunity to evaluate their candidates for president. But then for McCain to turn around and try to cancel the first debate against his Democratic opponent on the presumption that he puts “country over party” is highly disingenuous, to say the least. Presidential debates are much more important to the American people than is traditional campaigning. They provide an opportunity for us to view and evaluate substantive discussion between candidates, in contrast to the sound bites and prepared speeches that we hear during normal campaigning. And given the intensity of inflammable, racist and strongly negative campaigning that the McCain campaign has conducted against Obama, it would seem like the decent and honorable thing to do to give Obama the opportunity to defend against those attacks in a face-to-face forum.

And not only that, but the pattern of McCain’s missed votes is highly suspect. John McCain is an intensely pro-corporate Republican who has managed to nevertheless cultivate the image of someone who is concerned about our environment. That is quite a trick, but it has been essential to his remaining competitive in the presidential race against Obama. How does one maintain an image of concern about the environment when the non-partisan League of Conservation Voters (LCV) gives him a 24% lifetime score for his global warming policies, and a 0% score for 2007?

One way to do it is to avoid certain crucial votes. Yhere were two recent instances (December 2007 and February 2008) where the Senate missed by one vote an effort to end a filibuster that would have provided billions of dollars for clean energy incentives. Those two examples of 59-40 failures had one thing in common: McCain was the only Senator who didn’t vote. And for one of those votes there was good evidence that the dodge was intentional:



McCain’s recent attempt to dodge a debate with Obama

McCain’s recent ploy to get out of tonight’s debate was especially riddled with dishonesty. For one thing, just last week McCain claimed that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy were sound. How does one go from that position, in one week, to the position that the economy is in such dire danger that immediate action is required? I’ll bet he’s hoping that nobody asks him that question at tonight’s debate.

Secondly, though McCain claimed to “suspend his campaign” to deal with our economic crisis, he in fact did not suspend his campaign at all:


Thirdly, all indications are that McCain had nothing to add to the process. The New York Sun had this to say:


Barney Frank had this to say about McCain’s participation in the whole process:


And Chris Dodd was even more blunt about the meeting at the White House:



McCain is now in a position of defending the un-defendable

It is certainly understandable why John McCain wouldn’t want to debate Barack Obama on anything having to do with the economy (or anything else for that matter, but that’s another story.) McCain has long made it quite clear that he is against government regulation of almost any kind.

His early political career was marred by the Keating 5 scandal, in which he used his influence to impede investigation of one of his major contributors (Keating), thus resulting in a $2.6 billion government bailout.

And his whole career has been marked by radical anti-regulatory rhetoric and ideology:


So how does he defend that long Senate history when we are now faced with what many believe is the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and when it is widely agreed that the fundamental cause of the crisis is several years of Republican-fostered deregulation of the banking and credit industry?

That is most certainly not something that John McCain should look forward to. His running mate was recently made to look like a bumbling idiot, when she was repeatedly asked to think of a single example in McCain’s long Senate career when he adopted a pro-regulatory stance. The only thing that she could come up with was to repeat over and over again that John McCain is a “maverick”.

Sarah Palin has since been widely disparaged for appearing so incompetent in that interview (and others). But in one sense it is somewhat unfair to blame her for that infamous interview that she had with Katie Couric. How many people could have thought of an example where John McCain has supported corporate regulation? It will be interesting to see how McCain himself handles that question tonight if he’s asked about it.

disingenuousness is exceeded possibly only by his hypocrisy and the tendency to get involved in the messy likes of the Keating five. :D

"By midnight, it was hard to tell who had suffered a worse evening, Bush or McCain. McCain, eager to shore up his image as a leader who rises above partisanship, was undercut by a fierce political squabble within his own party's ranks." --Charles Babington

Rod Dreher:

a religious-conservative blogger who frequently appears on Fox News and was as recently as last week a Palin supporter, says the Alaskan Governor "was mediocre". Dreher says he felt "embarrassed" listening to Palin "regurgitating talking points mechanically, not thinking. just babbling. She makes George W. Bush sound like Cicero."

He has made so many major mistakes: His long term advocacy of corporate deregulation; his advocacy of the Iraq War from the very beginning ("Nobody supports the President on Iraq as much as I do"); his support for the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in the midst of an economic crisis; his refusal to support clean energy (whcih he lied about in the debate); his refusal to support veterans' benefits (which he also lied about); and so many more.

After helping torpedo the Democratic version of the bailout bill on Thursday, McCain lamely let himself be pressured by debate moderator Jim Lehrer into promising support for the bill.


McCain doesn’t even know what the plan is going to look like yet, when it comes up for a vote, and yet he let the moderator quickly pressure him into agreeing to vote for whatever it is, instead of having the presence of mind to say that he couldn’t promise to vote for a bill that hasn’t even been written yet.

McCain then went into a lecture about the importance of accountability. Apparently he doesn’t understand that connection between accountability in the private sector and government oversight and regulation, since he has always been unabashedly and ideologically against government regulations of corporations.

Barack Obama did a thoroughly credible job during the debate, demonstrating a solid grasp of every issue he was asked to speak about. Though some talking heads incredibly criticized him for agreeing with McCain on too many issues, thus appearing “weak”, I think that most Americans want a president who is level-headed, not quick to anger, and willing to find areas of agreement with his opponents. To reflexively criticize everything McCain said would have been un-presidential and dishonest. I do, however, acknowledge that Obama could have (and should have) done a more aggressive job of calling McCain out on his many lies and distortions.

John McCain, on the other hand, came across as incredibly condescending, arrogant, and hostile towards Obama, and he exhibited some very ugly and weird facial expressions. I don’t like or expect to see our leaders use that kind of behavior to make their points, in place of reasoned argument.

But McCain’s style was not by any means the worst aspect of his debate performance. His numerous attempts to mislead and outright lies should clearly brand him as the debate loser. But the truth of the matter is that he has little choice. He can’t afford to be honest with the American people about his long record in Congress because he has consistently followed a pro-corporate and far right ideological agenda, to the great detriment of the American people.