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After having (mostly) navigated through the sociopolitical minefield that was Obama vs. Clinton in terms of race and sex, we now get another area to broach: John McCain is old.
The weird thing about McCain is that he seems much older than he actually is. Seventy-two, while certainly elderly, still leaves years of capable, mentally alert life barring significant disease or disability. And the issue with his age isn’t his mental capacity (he’s the exact same kind of cluelessly aggressive conservative demagogue that we see coming out of Young Republican groups on campuses the nation ‘round), it’s simply how he comes off - as a caricature of every crusty old meanspirited coot wondering about kids these days and their e-pods and the funny new athletes with the odd names like “LeBron” and “LaDanian” and “Albert”.
But here’s the funny thing about John McCain: when you look at him, he’s always been kind of a meanspirited coot, just not one that was so deliciously ripened on the vine of life.
Of course, there’s the sham-esque charity thing:
Between 2001 and 2006, McCain contributed roughly $950,000 to the foundation. That accounted for all of its listed income other than for $100 that came from an anonymous donor. During that same period, the McCain foundation made contributions of roughly $1.6 million. More than $500,000 went to his kids’ private schools, most of which was donated when his children were attending those institutions. So McCain apparently received major tax deductions for supporting elite schools attended by his children.
There’s the cunt thing. And the bitch thing.
There’s the temper thing, and the other temper thing and the passive-aggressive asshole thing.
This stuff goes back decades, according to friends and acquaintances - it’s not new, and it’s not a function of age. Perhaps at one point the cranky might have been called sauciness, the redolent vigor of an angry youth. Perhaps later it might have been called crabby, spiced with the salt of middle age. But it’s all the same thing, really: John McCain’s natural home is somewhere in Assholetown.
They have great tax rates, but shitty transportation. Ba-dum-bum!
What we need to be careful about is that the particular expression of his assholishness, as influenced in its expression by his age as it is, is not actually a function of his age. The fact that he stands in rooms of dour, bitter people complaining ad nauseum about a man 25 years younger than him isn’t because he’s old - if he was 41, he’d be standing in rooms full of dour, bitter people complaining ad nauseum about a man five years older than him.
McCain isn’t a cranky old man - he’s an old man who’s cranky. Let’s remember that going forward. And before you step on his lawn.
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Jesse Taylor on 05:22 PM •
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In his defense (sort of) spending several years in a commie prison camp would damage anyone’s psyche and make them a bit weird. Remember Admiral James Stockdale (Perot’s VP) and his weird personality? McCain is kind of cut from the same cloth.
Looking at his biography, though, he’s had the same temper since he was a kid - it may have made the things he got angry over different, but it’s the same personality characteristic.
To borrow what my late, dear father said about Bob Dole:
Sure, I’d vote for McCain for president. Of the VFW.
I think that the left’s persistent “grandpa simpson” attacks are most likely to ultimately help McCain in the general by causing older voters to polarize and identify with McCain more-- the same way that race-baiting from the Clinton camp appears to have helped inspire African-American voters to gel for Obama, the same way that sexism directed at Hillary Clinton appears to have caused a lot of women to take up Clinton’s cause. This is the problem with attacks that are based around exploiting stereotypes of a group, it pisses the group off and might lead to that group voting as a group against you. Given, I know there exist older voters who are concerned McCain may actually legitimately be too old to be President (see: Ronald Reagan), but nobody wants to be made fun of, and older voters are both more likely to vote and more likely to be part of the Clinton camp.
On the other hand, then we have McCain’s speech last night, wherein he makes specific reference to that Obama is a much younger man than he is, and then he said something like how he can’t understand how such a young man could possibly have bought into so many old-fashioned ideas, specifically here referring to… the idea the government can serve to solve problems, something McCain attempted to demonstrate in his speech has now been shown wrong. In other words, McCain’s speech actively pushed the idea that the way of the future is Barry Goldwater. Oh yeah, the kids today, they’re all wild for Goldwater! All bought his book, and they’re crazy about his fresh new ideas! ... I mean, how are we supposed to react to McCain saying something like this?
Mr. Cindy Lou McCain-Hensley is not old, he’s just youth challenged. Puh-leeeze. After all, with a sugah-mamma like Cindy Lou he’s got a lifetime of facelifts awaiting him if he loses this race (again).
Mcc, I think you’ve got a good point, especially since the older people get, the more they vote.
Actually, some studies/polls suggest that older voters are the most likely to have concerns about an older candidate.
Ben D, that’s really interesting. I’d be really curious to see that study if you can remember where you saw it.
John McCain’s natural home is somewhere in Assholetown.
And he’s the mayor.
Actually, some studies/polls suggest that older voters are the most likely to have concerns about an older candidate.
I have heard that, too.
I don’t have any direct links, but its been mentioned several times in the MSM. I think you could find something if you googled it.
Basically it boils down to the fact that voters in their late 60s and 70s know that THEY have periods of forgetting etc., and think “wow I wouldn’t want someone like me to be in charge of nuclear weapons!”
I don’t think that we progressives should engage in disqualifying someone merely b/c they are advanced in years, or “old.” We just got through a difficult primary fight in our own party, with overtones of arcism and sexism. Let’s not let ageism rears its ugly head too.
Woah, I didn’t hear about the sham charity.
Really blows a hole in the “Republicans contribute more to charity” stuff, doesn’t it?
(Although I always seriously doubted it because nobody asks for your political affiliation at the offering collection at church, and you don’t mark your clothes that you put into the donation bin with your political affiliation. That accounts for almost all of the charity that most people are able to afford. Given that the top ~1% of income-earners are overwhelmingly Republican, I’d certainly HOPE that most large, tracked charity donations are Republican.)
Forgot to say, VERY nice Grandpa Cranky Kong picture...lol.
I loved how in Donkey Kong Country he’d talk about how games were so much harder in the good ol’ days.
Mcc, there is a Pew Research Study on this here. The key graf:
In general, McCain’s age is of greater concern to older voters than it is to younger voters. Just 24% of voters under age 35 themselves believe that, at 71, McCain is too old to serve. But among voters who themselves are of retirement age, 40% say that McCain is too old.
Also, I disagree about the left’s “attacks.” I’ve seen the Grandpa Simpson/Cranky Kong, etc. on blogs, but not too much on the mainstream media, where it may be seen by more people who disagree. I don’t think there are too many undecideds or independents regularly reading the blogs.
There’s everything wrong with mocking the old. There’s everything right in asking if a man in his seventies can manage the strains required of the most demanding civilian job on the planet. (If I looked at you and said that a man in his seventies could run, say, an infantry division, you would rightly question my grasp on reality.)
Ha, did anyone watch the video? Gloria Borger goes “lobbying reform...is very imprtant to [McBush]”.
No, reform implies progression, moving forward. What this man wants is regression. Hell, if he can get us to regress enough, maybe he can prove that the world really is only 6,000 years old and that dragons DID exist.
**I should say, the video to go along with the passive-aggressive letter article.
Two decent legs to the necessary diagnostic triad.
-Irrational anger...bursts of
-Forgetfulness..lapsed memory in spots.
-One final & conclusive… simple cognitive testing
[which we as electors should be able to demand]
And you’ve got the Alzheimer’s conclusion..
Only one possible; one of the variants thereto.]
(Although I always seriously doubted it because nobody asks for your political affiliation at the offering collection at church, and you don’t mark your clothes that you put into the donation bin with your political affiliation. That accounts for almost all of the charity that most people are able to afford. Given that the top ~1% of income-earners are overwhelmingly Republican, I’d certainly HOPE that most large, tracked charity donations are Republican.)
Is it self-reported? If so, then maybe Republicans are just more willing to lie about their charitable contributions. Additionally, if it’s based on IRS write-offs, it might just be the Republican aversion to giving any money to Uncle Sam.
Besides, in terms of percentage of income (not total amounts), the working poor contribute more to charity than any other group. And they can’t write it off.
Hey, my father in law is way older than John McCain and definitely sharper. I have always attributed this to his active lifestyle and veracious (sp?) reading and keeping up w/the news. He’s a hard line repub, but I’d sure as hell vote for him before McCranky.
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In his defense (sort of) spending several years in a commie prison camp would damage anyone’s psyche and make them a bit weird. Remember Admiral James Stockdale (Perot’s VP) and his weird personality? McCain is kind of cut from the same cloth.