McCrazy

Politics and religion
1

Ezra Klein has a blog post in which he highlights some McCain absurdity.

Alex directs me to this Fortune interview where McCain unsheathes a SuperSoaker of crazy:

[quote]Senator, what do you see as the gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy?" That was the first question we put to John McCain when he sat down for an interview with Fortune on a sunny afternoon in June. The moment felt charged…McCain at first says nothing. He sits in the corner of a sofa, one black, tasseled loafer propped against a coffee table. We’re in the presidential suite on the 41st floor of the New York Hilton. McCain has come here - between a major speech on the economy in Washington, D.C., this morning and a fundraiser tonight at the 21 Club - to talk to us and to let us take his picture. He is wearing a dark suit, as he almost always does, with a blue shirt and a wine-colored tie. He’s looking not at us but into the void. His eyes are narrowed. Nine seconds of silence, ten seconds, 11. Finally he says, “Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we’re in against radical Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence. Another successful attack on the United States of America could have devastating consequences.”

“If they prevail.”

There are essentially two sets of premises under which you could answer this question. The first is the real world, which contains likely threats to the American economy. Things like a deep recession that’s worsened by a credit contraction. Or oil prices that turn out to be skyrocketing not because of transient speculation, but enduring global instability and a dawning recognition of peak oil. Or a health system that isn’t fixed, and is chewing up 30 percent of our GDP in two decades.

The other set of premises is the fantasy world. This is more like Marvel’s “What If?” series. What is the Supervolcano explodes? What if we have an “I Am Legend” style pandemic? Or a “28 Days Later” zombie virus? What if “radical Islamic extremism” prevails and terrorists establish a global caliphate?[/quote]

The whole post is worth reading, and it really highlights a couple of troubling things I with people would talk about more.

  1. John McCain isn’t very interested in domestic policy. It’s not that he’s dumb - the guy’s obviously talented; you don’t get where he is in life without having at least some brains. BUt insofar as he talks about stuff like healthcare, the economy, and gas prices - it’s because he’s running for President and so he’s expected to. But the reality is he just doesn’t seem to care - he’d much rather talk about how great the troop surge was, and how much he’s looking forward to bombing Iran.

This should really unnerve us because we’re coming out of a presidency where the guy in charge is famously uncurious about everything.

  1. With regards to his views on foreign policy (specifically on war, which is what the guy seems to really care about): he’s kind of unhinged. Ezra Klein makes the point really well: there just isn’t any chance of bin Laden and company prevailing in a way that threatens this country’s existence. The most these guys can do is occasionally strike at us. That’s bad, we don’t want these guys to be able to kill Americans - but the idea that they’re some kind of existential threat is just ludicrous.

One of our major presidential candidates is not very interested in most of the important issues facing this country in the next eight years. And regarding the one issue he is interested in - he’s living in a fantasy land!

2

Calling McCain crazy, though – and making fun of his name – is rude and hurtful. It’s a sign of disrespect that stands for all the errors of the Left and will justly drive real Mittelamerikaner to vote for him in defiance of your smug liberal elite.

3

Frankly anyone who decides to vote for McCain just because I called him McCrazy is a fucking idiot.

4

Why do you hate America?

5

The problem is that nobody here is likely going to vote for McCain anyway, and if they are, this isn’t going to change their minds. By using “McCrazy,” however, you are asking for the few and the proud to turn this thread into a flame war. If that’s what you want, great.

Personally, I would have chosen a less judgemental title and put the facts out and see if it generated a rational discussion of McCain. That’s not going to happen now.

6

Since that accounts for roughly 50% of the voting public…

7

I’m not sure how I feel about how serious he is with respect to domestic policy: his focus on Iraq and foreign policy seems fairly appropriate and proportional to me. I just don’t agree with him, that’s all, but I don’t think his emphasis is wrongheaded in the sense you are suggesting.

With regards to his views on foreign policy (specifically on war, which is what the guy seems to really care about): he’s kind of unhinged. Ezra Klein makes the point really well: there just isn’t any chance of bin Laden and company prevailing in a way that threatens this country’s existence. The most these guys can do is occasionally strike at us. That’s bad, we don’t want these guys to be able to kill Americans - but the idea that they’re some kind of existential threat is just ludicrous.

I would say that’s true for the most part: AQ is not an existential threat in the purest sense. However, it does represent a pretty far reaching challenge of the American way of doing business abroad, and I think it would be needlessly dismissive of what they’ve accomplished to focus purely on the material threat.

Their greatest weapon isn’t terror, it’s the fact that they have a lot of really cogent criticisms of American policy intermixed with their agenda and Islam-related goals. The crossroads we are at right now is whether we are going to engage those challenges meaningfully and honestly (not going to happen for a lot of reasons), opt to continue casting it in the terminology of Armageddon (McCain, obviously), or go for an in between route that strives to defuse some of the biggest points of contention without fundamentally upsetting the apple cart (Obama). In the absence of any proposals being possible along the lines of the first anytime soon, the third seems like a no brainer to me.

So I don’t know whether that gets to what you’re saying: again, I think the problem is that McCain is wrong in how he wants to address it, not that he’s incorrect in gauging the seriousness of the situation.

8

I think he IS dumb, at least on domestic matters. Virtually every utterance he has made on that front this campaign season has been ridiculous and banal, showing a complete lack of understanding about basic economic matters, resorting to red meat instead. It’s quite frankly embarrassing.

I don’t care if he wants to focus on Iraq in his campaign, I think its suicide but he is free to do it. But he should show at least some knowledge and understanding of basic matters gripping the country at home today. I mean, that response was straight out of Giuliani’s playbook, and what happened with that buffoon?

9

McExaggeration maybe. But if terrorists are able to obtain and plant nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, that’s a pretty big threat.

10

That was my first thought as well. The only stylistic difference is that he made no mention of 9/11 specifically.

11

One great thing about the Obama presidency is we (hopefully) won’t be spending the next four years bankrupting the nation by trying to respond to constant ridiculous what-if scenarios through fear-mongering and useless security measures.

12

I’m not saying that we’re taking the right approach to preventing it (or that McCain would do a better job of preventing it than Obama) and it’s not something I can be tangibly worried about, but it does feel like it’s only a matter of time before there’s an attack on some major city that makes people forget about 9/11.

Edit: Oh, I totally missed the word “economy” in the question. Yeah, that changes it a bit. It’s not a horrible answer, but it wouldn’t be in my top 5.

13

Well, for me, 9/11 was a huge tragedy but it’s complete domination of American politics for several years was out of scope. There are dozens of problems within our country which cause far more harm than 9/11 did. 9/11 was just really, really scary.

As a utilitarian, interested in maximizing overall happiness in our country, terrorism isn’t at the top of the list. It is an important issue and I do want a president who has the right ideas about that (and I probably agree with most that this isn’t McCain) but I also think that its priority needs to be taken down several notches. We’ve got some real problems to solve right now that are a more immediate, pressing and soluble.

I also ascribe the feeling the feeling that terrorism is basically a scary, real-life way of trolling. The terrorists didn’t “win” because they killed a few thousand Americans. They won because we gave them exactly what they wanted: attention. Overall the damage the 9/11 terrorists caused on 9/11 itself was nothing compared to the overall damage inflicted on our nation through our own reaction to that day.

14

Christ, man, the terrorists have won, at least in your head.

All hail the power of propaganda!!

15

So George Bush and the Republicans’ policies have reduced the threat of terrorism or 9/11 was a fluke that will never happen again?

16

Sarkus: The posting so far seems to indicate you’re wrong.

LK: Fundamentally I agree with you - Al Qaeda and the larger issue of Islamic radicalism are issues that should be addressed. I also agree with your assessment of the nature of the threat, and by and large I agree with what should be done about it.

That being said - I don’t think McCain’s correct in his assessment of the threat. From what I can tell, he really does see this as some sort of apocalyptic Super Bowl of geopolitics. A lot of conservatives (and especially the neocons) seem to view radical Islam this way, and it just makes no sense. Do they have the potential to do some damage? Of course. Should we devote resources to preventing that from happening? Absolutely.

But they’re just not the world-ending threat that McCain and the Republican party would have us believe.

As I study (look at me and my monocle!) the history of modern conservatism - it occurs to me that its fundamental problem is that it’s still stuck in the mindset of the seventies and eighties. It shows from every angle - from their rhetorical focus (the whole Democrats are elitists is a trope that developed in the sixties) to their domestic focus (keep cutting taxes!) to their international focus (armageddon!). Modern conservatism cut its foreign policy teeth on the problem of the Cold War, in which America faced a genuine existential threat. In terms of “threats to our existence,” Islamic radicalism isn’t in the same ballpark as communism. It’s not even in the same league. Hell, it’s not even really in the same sport.

Again - that’s not to diminish the threat of radical jihadism. It’s just that we need a realistic assessment of the threat it presents, and how to deal with it. McCain (and conservatism at large) fail on the latter point, simply because they’re incapable of the former.

Anyway - I think that’s probably the most long winded way I can imagine of deciding we basically agree. Moving on…

Hanacker: you’re right of course - the idea that terrorists might get a nuke is a scary one. Which is why it’d probably be good for us to pursue policies to prevent that from happening. One of the great failures of the Bush administration is how sadly it’s let nuclear nonproliferation fall by the wayside. Go read up on A.Q. Khan and the nuclear tech store he was basically running out of Pakistan for a while, it’ll keep you up late at night.

That being said - Andrew’s right. We should soberly assess the risks of proliferation and take sensible steps to ensure it doesn’t happen. Cracking down on Pakistan and getting them to hand over A.Q. Khan for some questioning would be a good start. Helping Russia to secure it’s nuclear materials (which are notoriously poorly accounted for) would be another.

You know what probably won’t help at all with preventing terrorists from getting nukes? Attacking Iran. For many reasons they’re not at all likely to provide nuclear weapons to terrorists, and yet that’s the large focus of Bush’s and McCain’s nonproliferation efforts (now that they’ve dealt with Iraq, which was even less likely than Iran to give nukes to terrorists…)

This is one of the reasons Obama excites me - for a long time Democrats have just ceded the issue of national security to Republicans out of political cowardice. A healthy does of post-Vietnam (and post Gulf-War) trauma made Democrats believe they can’t argue national security with Republicans - even when the Republicans are obviously, manifestly, totally and completely insanely wrong on the issue!

17

How about neither? I think Bush’s policies have done much to actually increase the threat of terrorism. Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, has created a lot of resentment in the Arab world. jeffd’s point about nuclear non-proliferation is another big point. The fact that the administration has also let Afghanistan turn into a failed narco-state could really come back and bite us in a big way eventually (on top of, you know, all the heroin).

But that’s a topic for another time.

18

Neither. The possibility of another 9/11 just doesn’t happen to be as pressing an issue as the current economic crisis, oil shortages, the broken health care system, etc. While 9/11 was scarier than a broken health care system (to most people), it actually had far less direct effect on people’s lives. And a lot of the indirect effects it had were our own doing. The terrorists didn’t make us agree to the Patriot Act or re-elect Bush. We did that all by ourselves. Largely because we were willing to let ourselves be fear-mongered.

19

You don’t seem to realize that this isn’t an either-or thing.

Based on history, it’s actually really really really hard to conduct a major attack on the US. The two major ones were the first WTC bombing (early '93) and then of course 9/11.

The fact that we haven’t had another mass-casualty event isn’t evidence that Republicans have “reduced the threat of terrorism,” though I realize that may seem paradoxical. Based on history we shouldn’t expect to see “another 9/11” any time soon. It’s a really hard act to pull off!

Most neutral analysts will say what jfletch said - Bush’s reaction has probably increased our chances of being attacked again. Terrorists are motivated by hatred, and Bush’s approach the policy vis a vis the Middle East and Islam has been great for recruiting!

That being said - I do think 9/11 was largely a fluke. I’ve long said that 9/11 was radical Islam’s money shot. Short of detonating a nuke, they’re just never going to get that kind of mass casualty event again. And despite what 24 might have us believe, nuke’s are a) really really hard to come by b) really really hard to use and c) really really really really really really really really really hard to make.

That doesn’t mean we should ignore the problem of course - we should take sensible, rational steps to protect our country and to destroy our enemies. Unfortunately Republicans seem incapable of understanding “protect our country” in any other context than dropping bombs on people.

20

How much correlation was there between 9/11 and our economy going in the crapper? Looking just at the Dow Jones Industrial Average, it crashed right after, recovered a bit a couple years later, and then started crashing again last year. It was already on a downturn from the dot com bubble bursting but it does spike down pretty sharply right after the attack.