Biggest Bigot

October 9, 2005
R. D. Kushner

Democrats and Republicans alike, may be resistant to repeal their staunch support of the “independent-minded” and vociferous John McCain; but the man needs to be called out on his latest bluff.

Just last week Mr. McCain rallied the Congress around him in an attempt to right one of the many grievous wrongs committed by the Bush administration in the name of their “War on Terror.” John McCain stood on the Senate floor and vehemently objected to the White House’s intentional ambiguity regarding the treatment of detainees by the American military. Mr. McCain roiled against the prisoner abuse, and argued coherently about the consequences of ignoring an existing American military policy that lets these kind of abuses occur:

"Mr. President, to fight terrorism we need intelligence. That much is obvious. What should also be obvious is that the intelligence we collect must be reliable and acquired humanely, under clear standards understood by all our fighting men and women. To do differently would not only offend our values as Americans, but undermine our war effort, because abuse of prisoners harms – not helps – us in the war on terror. First, subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop. Second, mistreatment of our prisoners endangers U.S. troops who might be captured by the enemy – if not in this war, then in the next. And third, prisoner abuses exact on us a terrible toll in the war of ideas, because inevitably these abuses become public. When they do, the cruel actions of a few darken the reputation of our country in the eyes of millions. American values should win against all others in any war of ideas, and we can’t let prisoner abuse tarnish our image." <link>

Based on the gravity and determination of his words [the complete transcript is available on Mr. McCain’s Congressional web site through the link above] this sounds like a gesture of heroic proportions. John McCain appears to be on his own side of the fence, while so many others simply fall in line with an administration that treats disagreement as tantamount to collusion with the terrorist enemy. But in order to give Mr. McCain so much credit one must have selective amnesia. One must forget his loud and credulous support for the President just one year ago, even as exactly the same prisoner abuse issues were playing themselves out before a stymied American public.

The editors at Architecture Ink carried an editorial about the issue of detainee rights in January 2002; almost two years before the GOP convention, where John McCain unequivocally supported the President’s leadership in the “War on Terror.” Now, Mr. McCain finds it convenient to rewrite history by disagreeing with the President on exactly the grounds that he supported him during 2004 Presidential election. If an online web magazine with limited research capabilities and no connections to political operatives was aware of this administration’s intentionally obscure language regarding prisoners of war then surely a high ranking politician like Mr. McCain was aware of this as well.

During the GOP convention, Mr. McCain stood in front of the Republican crowd and said, “our military superiority is matched only by the superiority of our ideals and our unconquerable love for them.” Mr. McCain was speaking in support of President Bush when he made these remarks and he was suggesting that Mr. Bush would be a better facilitator of “our ideals and our unconquerable love for them.” He was also well aware that the Bush Administration had already put in place intentionally ambiguous language regarding the treatment of Prisoners of War in Iraq; and it is exactly this ambiguity that lead to the abuses at Abu Ghraib [which have still not been fully exposed or explained to the American public]. John McCain wants Americans to think that he’s a knight in shining armor; but with President Bush’s dismal approval ratings, McCain looks more like a rat fleeing the ship. He claims that he wants to protect Americans from an administration that has overstepped its bounds; but John McCain already knew that these bounds had been overstepped when he supported President Bush during the 2004 election. Will the real John McCain please stand up?

John McCain hasn’t changed his mind on this issue any more than Osama Bin Laden has changed his mind on his nihilistic view of world politics. What Mr. McCain has revealed, is his unquestionable support for the Republican administration that he is now flimsily criticizing. Rather than stand up for these values when it would have mattered most to America, he is temporarily standing up for these values now that it is convenient to portray some illusion of political autonomy prior to next year’s mid-term elections. That’s fine for Mr. McCain. In Washington this makes him a politician. But the rest of America has a word for a person engaged in this kind of two-faced hypocrisy: a bigot.