Pointing you now to Matt Taibbi's scorching investigative column -- "Full Metal McCain" -- posted today in Rolling Stone here and on alternet here as "McCain's Playbook: Hate, Fear and Caveman Politics", I am reminded of a football head coach's recipe of opening first quarter set of plays he gives to his quarterback based on scouting reports of the opponent.
Never mind that the assembled playbook has proven to be a losing one in the season concluded to date. Moreover, the particular head coach's underlying big game philosophy is tragically stuck in his own past demonology, in that psycho-mythical time when men-were-men, and (as Matt closes his column):
Then as now, the crime of the Obama class in the eyes of a wronged veteran like McCain wasn't that they caused these wartime sufferings; it was that they didn't cheer them as righteous and necessary, and unhesitatingly support the sending of more soldiers to the same fate. In the present day, it is George Bush who got us into this new Vietnam-like mess and revived the specter of tortured prisoners, but McCain's anger isn't focused in that direction. He's not mad that it's happening again, not looking to blame the people who actually started the fire. Instead he seems re-energized by the fact that we are all back in that same hell, back to living the PTSD-inducing nightmare that McCain himself never got to leave -- and if it takes dumbing down his act and playing to the Rush and Hannity crowd to give his story a happy ending this time around, he won't hesitate. So if you thought Hillary was bad, buckle your seat belts: The really dumb stuff is just beginning.
Reading Taibbi, there are multiple bits on which to chew, but his in-the-trenches take on the what's coming packs a provacative bite.
Enjoy and discuss.