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# Shame on John McCain
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/shame-on-john-mccain/
- Published: 2008-07-25T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:24:00.000Z
- Author: Jack Neworth
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

IN 2000, JOHN MCCAIN WAS ON HIS way to the presidential nomination until the South Carolina primary. Days before the election, George W. Bush’s supporters contacted every registered Republican in the state and asked:“Would you feel differently about John McCain if you knew he fathered an illegitimate black child out of wedlock, and that his wife was a drug addict?” They didn’t say either was true, mind you, just would it make a difference, which of course it did.

A day later, during their televised debate. McCain was so mad I thought he was going to rip Bush’s throat out. (If only.) He looked Bush straight in the eye and said, “George, you should be ashamed of yourself.” After the past seven years, it’s obvious Bush is beyond shame.

Back then the maverick McCain stood up to the religious right calling them “agents of intolerance.” Now he’s fawning over them. He voted against the Bush tax cuts saying, “My conscience won’t allow me to support it.” McCain’s now wants the cuts to become permanent. Campaigning in the south, McCain said the confederate flag issue should be left up to the states. On “60 Minutes” he later confessed he didn’t believe it. Asked why he had pandered so, he responded sheepishly, “For all the wrong reasons. Ambition.”

If ambition has overtaken McCain, so has his need to tell jokes. Somebody on his staff should tell him he’s not funny. We’ve had eight years of Bush’s giggling at his own jokes, even when they bomb. The thought of even four years of McCain doing it is unbearable.

Speaking of “bombs,” what was McCain thinking when he sang, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran?” Or when he repeatedly confuses Shias and Sunnis. (Some say that’s like confusing the NACCP with the KKK.) Foreign policy is McCain’s area of expertise and yet he continues to make these inexplicable gaffes.

On three occasions McCain has referred to Czechoslovakia, a country that hasn’t existed since 1993! At a press conference he warned Iran to stop training Al Queada, only to have Sen. Joe Liberman whisper in his ear that he misspoke. And just the other day, McCain referred to the volatile Iraqi- Pakistani border region, apparently forgetting they don’t share a border. (There’s 1,500 miles between the two countries.) After Barack Obama’s visit to Iraq, Prime Minister Malaki said that he agreed with the senator’s timeline and wants American troops out by the end of 2010.(We’ve already been in Iraq two years longer than all of WWII.) Immediately, Bush and McCain claimed that Malaki’s statement got lost in translation. Is that the best they can do? Apparently.

The next day, not only was it confirmed that Malaki’s translator had gotten it right, but Iraq’s Vice President repeated the time-line request. The Iraqis want us out. Most Americans want us out. McCain and Bush are the only ones who want us to stay. (Not counting Exxon, that is.) McCain continually brags about the success of the surge. (Mistakenly giving it credit for the “Anbar Awakening”which occurred 10 months before the surge.) That violence In Iraq has lessened and American casualties have been dramatically reduced is comforting. But probably not to the family of the soldier who died on July 15, the date of our most recent fatality. Keep in mind, 3,985 GI’s have died (and 30,000 wounded) since Bush announced “mission accomplished.”

And if the surge has been so successful, doesn’t that prove that General Shinsecki was right all along? Shinsecki testified before Congress that if we were to undertake this invasion we needed a minimum of 200,000 troops. Shinsecki’s reward for candor was being forced to retire.

McCain wants credit for success in a war that a majority of Americans don’t feel was necessary. Go to YouTube and type in “Dick Ceney 1994.” You’ll see Cheney on CSPAN saying invading Iraq would “create a quagmire” and “destabilize the region.” It concludes with Cheney’s rhetorical question, “How many dead Americans is toppling Saddam worth? Not very many.”

My biggest complaint about the McCain of 2008 is his integrity. He has insisted his campaign would be a clean one and yet the other day he said of Obama, “He’d rather lose a war to win an election.” Highly-respected political analyst David Gergen, a lifelong Republican, said “McCain crossed the line.” Reporter Joe Klein said in all his coverage of nine presidential elections it’s the most scurrilous charge he’s ever heard.

In essence McCain accused Obama of sedition. To me that’s on the same level as calling voters and asking if it would make a difference if they knew a certain candidate had fathered a black child out of wedlock and whose wife was a drug addict.Using McCain’s own words, “John, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 25, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/072508.pdf?ref=smdp.com)