Sometimes I think my fellow Democrats are like a large mouth bass. They see something shiny and attack – but forget there’s a hook in that lure. I take a backseat to no one in my contempt for the notion of Sarah Palin becoming my president. (Indeed within minutes of learning that McCain had chosen Palin, I wrote a post headlined: "JOHN MCCAIN IS OUT OF HIS MIND.")
Let’s be clear: John McCain’s real running mate is George W. Bush. It is Bush – with the active assistance of John McCain – who has crippled the American economy. It is Bush – with the constant cheerleading of John McCain – who has cost thousands of American heroes their lives in an invasion of a country that was no threat to America. It is Bush – with the strong support of John McCain – who tried to privatize Social Security. It is Bush – with the big-time backing of John McCain – who turned our energy policy over to Dick Cheney and the oil company lobbyists. And it is Bush – with enthusiastic encouragement of John McCain – who has packed the federal courts with right-wing zealots who look like the third guy from the left on the evolutionary chart.
The greatest success of Sarah Palin was not (almost) surviving her interview with Charlie Gibson. Her greatest success is providing an indispensable distraction from the wreckage of the Republican Party. They have controlled the Congress for 12 of the past 14 years. They have controlled the White House for the past seven and a half years. Lord knows they control the Supreme Court. But the Palin distraction has allowed McCain to pretend that somehow he and his party are not responsible for their disastrous policies.
I admit, when I’m looking at reasons to criticize Sarah Palin I feel like a mosquito in a nudist colony – everywhere I land I find a juicy target. And yet I think Democrats should re-focus away from Palin and onto Bush and his soulmate: John McCain.
With a dozen gifted researchers and writers, I spent six months examining the McCain record. The result is a new book called Third Term: Why George W. Bush Loves John McCain. And while his sycophantic supporters in corporate media extol his maverick status, the real record is very different. We went through property records to uncover that McCain actually owns nine homes, not the seven you’ve heard about. We plowed through voting records to document that McCain votes with Bush 91 percent of the time. 91 percent. As Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) said, when a senator votes with the president 91 percent of the time, he’s not a maverick, he’s a sidekick.
But all that research – reflected in the 800+ footnotes in our book – didn’t tell the story as dramatically as I wanted. So I asked Ari Rabin-Havt, resident genius, to tell the McCain-Bush story more effectively. He rummaged through old movie posters and reinterpreted them to reflect the Bush-McCain relationship. My favorite, given the macho-man posturing of Bush and McCain, is this:
That’ll piss off the wingers, don’t ya think?