John "Used to be Straight Talk" McCain

In politics, it is critically important to frame your issues and yourself in a way that is compelling with the electorate. Quality framing can, if done well, mislead the populous with Orwellian elegance.

Republicans have done it better than anyone else, for a long time. I was enamored of the work of the Nixon White House as they attempted to spin and frame activities in Vietnam. They had a “protection reaction strike,” and an “incursion” into Cambodia. No invasion for the Nixonites. Just a modest little incursion.

The Bushies are masters of framing. Who can argue with “family values?” They easily claimed the core domestic theme of the past decade. It didn’t have substantive meaning but it was an effective code phrase that encompassed everything from prayer in schools, to anti-abortion and gay marriage. Militarily, they took their lead from Nixon and the war criminal Kissinger (do not forget that Nixon and Kissinger allowed at least 20,000 more young men and women to die in Vietnam so they could ensure victory in the 1972 Presidential election) when they branded the fiasco in Iraq, “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

Then the straddle legged Bush pranced across that aircraft carrier pronouncing “Mission Accomplished.” Just saying it is so, does not make it so. But, lots of people don’t know that, a fact the framers and spinmeisters count on.

We have always perceived McCain as a straight shooter. He framed himself well. He even named his campaign bus the “Straight Talk Express.” He wouldn’t knuckle under to the Vietnamese and he wouldn’t kowtow to the right wing nut cases in the Republican Party. Unfortunately, the “Straight Talk Express” has gone off the track. It started when he began his pander at Bob Jones University. He was sucking up to the very people who destroyed him in 2000. He has never been a suck up, so why start now.

The book, The Nightingale’s Song, is a portrayal of five Annapolis graduates, McCain among them. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Both his father and grandfather were Admirals in the United States Navy. He was a renegade as a young naval officer. He was a boozer, a womanizer and raced around in his Corvette. After his prisoner of war tenure in Vietnam he worked the Capitol Hill scene for the Navy. There was never a chance he was going to make Admiral. He was too much his own man.

Now, in pursuit of the biggest prize of them all, a man who has seemingly lead a principled life is throwing all that principle in the toilet. The capstone of his turn away from principle was his vote this past week on the torture bill. He had been assertive in the debates and on the campaign trail in his opposition to torture. Then, this past Thursday he voted against a bill that would require the CIA to adhere to the Army Field Manual limitations on torture.

It was a sorry move for a man who once sat at the helm of the “Straight Talk Express.” He has joined the lapdogs in the Congress and the Administration who will go to any end to maintain the façade and charade surrounding torture. We all know what the real deal is: there are people who are afraid they will be tried criminally for violating US and International Law.

Well, no shit!!