Err, I think you missed the whole of the 2000 Republican primary.
Current Affairs John McCain - hero or Republican
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dholliday
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what do you mean, mate?
Just look back at some of the reporting during the 2000 Republican primary and the "Straight talk express" - McCain has always got good liberal press.
During his career he was very accessible to journalists being unusually frank and open for a politician with them. Also he was, despite his frequent irascibility, generally well liked as a person and admired for what he endured in Vietnam.
Yes of course the contrast with Trump enhances some of that but you'd be getting a lot of this coverage even without Trump, although the latters pettiness does provide a useful journalistic foil for McCain being able to reconcile with his opponents.
dholliday
deconstructed rep
fair point, I admit only knowing him since the 2008 elections: because of Obama-mania, and choosing Palin, McCain wasn't painted all that positively.
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https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...e-weasel-twelve-monkeys-and-the-shrub-194272/
One reason a lot of the media on the Trail like John McCain is simply that he’s a cool guy. Nondweeby. In school, Clinton was in student government and band, whereas McCain was a varsity jock and a hell-raiser whose talents for partying and getting laid are still spoken of with awe by former classmates, a guy who graduated near the bottom of his class at Annapolis and got in trouble for flying jets too low and cutting power lines and crashing all the time and generally being cool.
At 63, he’s witty, and smart, and he’ll make fun of himself and his wife and staff and other pols and the Trail, and he’ll tease the press and give them [Poor language removed] in a way they don’t ever mind because it’s the sort of [Poor language removed] that makes you feel that here’s this very cool, important guy who’s noticing you and liking you enough to give you [Poor language removed]. Sometimes he’ll wink at you for no reason.
If all that doesn’t sound like a big deal, you have to remember that these pro reporters have to spend a lot of time around politicians, and most politicians are painful to be around. As one national pencil told Rolling Stone and another nonpro, “If you saw more of how the other candidates conduct themselves, you’d be way more impressed with [McCain]. It’s that he acts somewhat in the ballpark of the way a real human being would act.”
And the grateful press on the Trail transmit – maybe even exaggerate – McCain’s humanity to their huge audience, the electorate, which electorate in turn seems so paroxysmically thankful for a presidential candidate somewhat in the ballpark of a real human being that it has to make you stop and think about how starved voters are for just some minimal level of genuineness in the men who want to “lead” and “inspire” them.
This story originally appeared in the April 13th, 2000 issue of Rolling Stone
https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...e-weasel-twelve-monkeys-and-the-shrub-194272/
One reason a lot of the media on the Trail like John McCain is simply that he’s a cool guy. Nondweeby. In school, Clinton was in student government and band, whereas McCain was a varsity jock and a hell-raiser whose talents for partying and getting laid are still spoken of with awe by former classmates, a guy who graduated near the bottom of his class at Annapolis and got in trouble for flying jets too low and cutting power lines and crashing all the time and generally being cool.
At 63, he’s witty, and smart, and he’ll make fun of himself and his wife and staff and other pols and the Trail, and he’ll tease the press and give them [Poor language removed] in a way they don’t ever mind because it’s the sort of [Poor language removed] that makes you feel that here’s this very cool, important guy who’s noticing you and liking you enough to give you [Poor language removed]. Sometimes he’ll wink at you for no reason.
If all that doesn’t sound like a big deal, you have to remember that these pro reporters have to spend a lot of time around politicians, and most politicians are painful to be around. As one national pencil told Rolling Stone and another nonpro, “If you saw more of how the other candidates conduct themselves, you’d be way more impressed with [McCain]. It’s that he acts somewhat in the ballpark of the way a real human being would act.”
And the grateful press on the Trail transmit – maybe even exaggerate – McCain’s humanity to their huge audience, the electorate, which electorate in turn seems so paroxysmically thankful for a presidential candidate somewhat in the ballpark of a real human being that it has to make you stop and think about how starved voters are for just some minimal level of genuineness in the men who want to “lead” and “inspire” them.
dholliday
deconstructed rep
uff....don't like that bit. He supported the CIA using torture despite making a big public fuss he was against it (as his Vietnam experiences informed him).
- In 2000 he also supported forceful regime changes: "I'd institute a policy that I call 'rogue state rollback. I would arm, train, equip, both from without and from within, forces that would eventually overthrow the governments and install free and democratically- elected governments."
- In the Palestine question, he was pro-Israel, which when we look at the bodycounts of the two sides is a questionable position to take.
- He was not in favour of peace negotiations between Israel & Syria back in 2008.
- He implied support for war against Iran (as well as supporting attacking Iraq, Libya & Afghan).
...and plenty more still. The things he supported cost untold hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.
It sounds to me that the hawkish liberal elements liked him, he was no pacifist and thus no humanist.
I think they were meaning his humanity in being able to have a normal conversation with him rather than from a policy perspective.
But, at least in the 2000 run, a lot of those types of policy issues you raise got a bit more of a soft focus treatment than they might have done with a different candidate. Especially as his opponent in that primary was Bush.
dholliday
deconstructed rep
Maybe...but war is a terrible terrible thing, the worst of humanity. Being a nice guy but still supporting those things? Especially after his Vietnam experiences he was still supporting violent regime changes. That is a reflection of his humanity in any context.
And despite your fair game argument: I still maintain many on the liberal Left, at least those who are mainly anti-war, are only now eulogising McCain not because he was a nice guy back in 2000, but because it feeds their incessant anti-Trump agenda.
You'll have to take it up with the author about their word choice, I believe that the context he was meaning it in was more limited than you are expanding it to.
I am unclear who you are defining as belonging to this group and also whether they are US based or foreign - are you meaning the Guardian? Your original post referred to a more generic "liberal press" which I took to mean CNN, Washington Post etc. And since they have journalists who have spent a lot of time with McCain I believe their motivations are most complex than you suggest especially since there is a general taboo against speaking ill of the dead.
This is only partly true. McCain would always have gotten a lot of good press. As for trump, the majority of Americans don’t like him. To most Americans McCain offered a glimpse of the kind of politics we should aspire to. Sure he screwed up a few times and I disagree fundamentally with his ideas on how this country should be run but he offered a sliver of hope that compromise was possible and with his passing, that hope moves further away. That’s why he’s getting good liberal press.
dholliday
deconstructed rep
Well, you linked the article.
I do mean a generic liberal press, yes. And I'm not speaking ill of the dead. The man was a senior politician with his hand in many pies which affected not just Americans, but ultimately even us here in Germany (by way of the refugee crisis). He's not immune to criticism of his pro-war views just because he's recently passed, just as Kissinger or Bush won't be. And I'm sure should Trump pass on there'll be many here itching to speak actual proper ill of the dead (we saw this with Thatcher).
Fair argument, I can concur with this if we disregard the profound distaste some of us have regarding his views on foreign policy. A man willing to compromise is a strong man in my book.
McCain gets positive coverage because of his lifelong service to the country and his generally moderate views.
Trump gets negative coverage because he's earned it.
Trump gets negative coverage because he's earned it.
Yes, I linked the article to show that well before Trump liberal publications gave him good press - and that holds regardless of which of our interpretations the author meant by humanity lol
As I said early on in this thread I hoped his flaws/errors were not whitewashed and I agree with you that much of his foreign policy views fall into that category, But I do think that, most particularly for the journalists who knew him well who are generally writing these obituaries, that going full bore into heavy criticism of him for it would feel like speaking ill of the dead. Especially, as @Ruairi77 expressed more eloquently, there were other, more aspirational, strengths they could focus on instead.
FWIW I was with a group of friends tonight, all somewhere on the liberal spectrum and in a very dem area. We spent quite a while talking about McCain and his foreign policy views weren’t mentioned once - it was his patriotism and bipartisanship that were. Sure Trump was mentioned at times too, particularly the pettiness with the flag, but McCain in his own right stood apart and there was genuine sadness at his loss.
There was a recent poll with McCain scoring much higher favorable ratings with Democrats than Republicans. Right wing media has been painting him as a traitor to their cause for beards.
Conservative media is an utter divisive stain on the political world. We have Trump and others because of their decades long efforts of making the common man fear and hate anyone different from them.
Most of my family have been sucked in. It's so sad.
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