Scarborough: People Know John McCain….Oh really?

In the deliciously gosippy story of Rachel Maddow spanking the Very Serious Person(al) tushy of Joe Scarbough for talking over her…Moran Morning Joe states the following (paraphrased): “People don’t know him, (Obama) they know John McCain….snip….It’s about defining the candidate, defining your opponent.”

Do they Joe? Do they REALLY know him? Let’s play “Define The Candidate”

The conversation was about attacking/smearing Obama through his associations, Maddow contends that it is a matter of focusing on this sort of trivial ‘dirt’ by the campaign…and by extension the media, who can’t resist the salaciously prepared Red Meat. The classic Rovian Politics of Personal Detruction. She asks why, for example, this association, of a McCain associate in a bathroom associating with an undercover cop isn’t associated with “Knowing McCain.” Or defining him.

Teh video, from Crooks and Liars.

Also via C&L, from Cogitamus a bit of a “definition.”

Do you think if Barack Obama had left his seriously ill wife after having had multiple affairs, had been a member of the “Keating Five,” had had a relationship with a much younger lobbyist that his staff felt the need to try and block, had intervened on behalf of the client of said young lobbyist with a federal agency, had denounced then embraced Jerry Falwell, had denounced then embraced the Bush tax cuts, had confused Shiite with Sunni, had confused Al Qaeda in Iraq with the Mahdi Army, had actively sought the endorsement and appeared on stage with a man who denounced the Catholic Church as a whore, and stated that he knew next to nothing about economics — do you think it’s possible that Obama would have been treated differently by the media than John McCain has been?  Possible?

And — this is fun to contemplate — if Michelle Obama had been an adulteress, drug addict thief with a penchant for plagiarism — do you think that she would be subject to slightly different treatment from the media than Cindypills McCain has been?  Anyone?  

More questions for those pundhats that “know McCain,” if they “know him,” do they know about this?

…A debate question from Mike Stark

Senator McCain, your first wife kept the candle lit for you all those years you were away in Vietnam.  When you returned, she was there for you.  Soon afterward, she was disfigured in a tragic car accident.  You left her for a younger, prettier and richer heiress that bankrolled your political career.  Of course, it’s common knowledge in DC that you are a skirt-chasing hound-dog and you’ve cheated on this wife as well.  If you can’t be faithful to your wife, how can we expect you to keep the faith with us?”

Or this, via Turkana

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain’s intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain’s hair and said, “You’re getting a little thin up there.” McCain’s face reddened, and he responded, “At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.” McCain’s excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

Or perhaps the meme de destruction that was used to “define” John Kerry in 2004. Do they “know about” McCain’s “flip-flopping” as brilliantly outlined by Avenging Angel?

1. Embracing “Crazy Base World”

  2. Closing Borders – and Minds – to Immigration

  3. Campaign Finance Fraud

  4. Going Over to the Supply Side on Taxes

  5. Attention: Deficit Disorder

  6. Let’s Overturn Roe v. Wade After All

  7. Supreme Courtship of the Right

  8. France-Basher to Alliance Builder

  9. A Tortured Position on Torture

 10. A Hate-Love Relationship with George W. Bush

Do they know about his naked bigotry toward Asians?

Also in 2000, McCain insulted Asians. “I hate the gooks,” John McCain hissed, “and I will hate them for as long as I live…and you can quote me.” After a few days of negative press attention, he took it back: “I apologize and renounce all language that is bigoted and offensive, which is contrary to all that I represent and believe.”

(h/t to 73rd Virgin in the comments!)

Do they “know” about the unhinged temper tantrums that Saint McCain has thrown his whole life? Or as his “hometown paper” which endorsed him five times (so it is hardly a hatchet job) “defines him…”

“If McCain is truly a serious contender for the presidency, it is time the rest of the nation learned about the John McCain we know in Arizona. There is also reason to seriously question whether he has the temperament, and the political approach and skills, we want in the next president of the United States.”

And if they do know all that, and still support this grouchy geriatric misogynist mountebank ……how the hell is a “character defining issue” of something as minor as a freaking flag pin what they think this campaign for the office of “Controller of the Worlds Biggest Supply of Nuclear Weapons” should hinge upon? Character? They have the nerve, while supporting this guy to make character THE issue?

What are they, blind to the facts, self-interested idiots?

Wait, don’t bother to answer that. Sorry.

Let’s just hope that as American voters, who now disagree with McCain’s major plank in the campaign that Iraq is a “must win” by a two-to-one margin get to “know” St. McCain as well as you and your ass-kissing buddies in the press do…..

That they have the good taste and brains to reject you both.