John McCain’s straight talk not so straight

by Tim Strube Daily Trojan (USC)

Touted by the media and echoed on the side of his… by Tim Strube Daily Trojan (USC)

Touted by the media and echoed on the side of his campaign bus, you’ll find the mantra that’s said to epitomize the mentality of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain: straight talk.

His supporters say he’s a new breed of the Republican Party, one that can correct the wrongs of a disastrous term. He’s an honest, no bullshit, straight-talkin’ son of a gun whose got the cajones to take on those pesky Islamic extremists. But as many will recall, his straight talking went crooked during a news conference in Jordan two weeks ago, unwittingly claiming that “al-Qaida is going … into Iran and is receiving training and [is] coming back into Iraq from Iran.”

Truth is, Iran is, for the most part, Shiite Muslim and has been toiling with the predominately Sunni al-Qaida fighters spilling over from their war torn neighbor. As the Associated Press reported, Iran “has been at pains to close its borders to al-Qaida fighters of the rival Sunni sect” and adamantly voiced their denial to these groundless accusations.

After McCain’s verbal slip up, Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut traveling alongside the senator, whispered in his ear to correct his flub and not-so-gracefully tried to recover: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training the extremists, not al-Qaida. Not al-Qaida. I’m sorry.”

Yes, he’s a straight talker indeed.

But he didn’t misspeak and it wasn’t a “brain fart,” as implied by Time magazine columnist Joe Klein.

Lieberman rightfully corrected him during this particular incident, but he’s made the same assertion on several occasions, including a March 17 appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s talk radio show and during an appearance on Fox News that same week.

It wasn’t so much a slipup as it was a careless, continued regurgitation of shoddy military intelligence.

As Juan Cole, president of the Global Americana Institute, noted regarding McCain’s mistake, “the senator was just parroting the Pentagon line of a few years ago, which gradually was muted because even the gullible U.S. press wouldn’t swallow it.” And if McCain is “so ignorant or confused [to] think Shiite ayatollahs in Tehran are training and arming radical Salafi Sunnis to blow up Shiites in Iraq, [he] really should not be president.”

The straight talking that made McCain famous during his first congressional term in 1983 has morphed into reckless talking.

It’s the kind of reckless talk that we’ve all become so familiar with over the past seven years. It’s the same unwavering hubris of one individual to assert whatever he pleases in serving a dangerous ideological agenda.

In speaking for the Council on Foreign Relations, McCain makes his ideology very clear: “Since the dawn of our republic, Americans have believed that our nation was created for a purpose.” He goes on to quote Harry Truman, echoing the notion that “God has created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some great purpose.”

Like our current president, McCain indicates the same prophetic machismo that insists our nation is bound to some ultimate purpose or crusade to impose our political and economic ideology on the world – that it’s our destiny as Americans to intervene, liberate and democratize.

He said that “Given the present dangers, our country cannot afford … malaise, drift and recklessness … the next president must be prepared to lead America and the world to victory – and to seize the opportunities afforded by the unprecedented liberty and prosperity in the world today to build a peace that will last a century.”

But the empty promise of “peace that will last a century” starkly contrasts with what he told a town-hall meeting in Derry, N.H.: The United States could stay in Iraq for “maybe a hundred years” and he’d be “fine” with it.

So, which is it, John? Peace that will last a century or century long wars? Must we bear the burden of endless conflicts in order to achieve peace?

Listening with an informed ear will tell you that McCain is yet another double-thinking, double-crossing, two-faced politician who can’t decipher between Iran and al-Qaida, Shiite and Sunni or even war and peace.

Matt Welch, author of “McCain: The Myth of a Maverick,” said in a February speech, “[McCain’s] whole career, his life, his training, his family background has been to be a member of … the Imperial Class; [he’s] motivated by an inspiring trust of America’s governance of the world [and] he would be the most imperial-oriented president,” and undoubtedly would be the “most militaristic president.”

Like many of our incumbent politicians, and those of the Cold War era, he insists upon lurking dangers that can only be defeated by the strong arm of the United States military.

He promises prosperity and peace for the American people while simultaneously encouraging a policy that will result in more wasteful military spending, willingly sending our own citizens to not-so-peaceful places and emboldening our adversaries by sullying their territories and feeding sectarian fires.

Perhaps his talk isn’t so straight after all.