John McCain: Why He Should Not Be President

John McCain Admits That American Intervention in the Middle East Was Always About Oil

John McCain: Why He Should Not Be President:

As I've written earlier, I believe that Barack Obama is the best candidate for President of the United States and while I don't like the way Hillary Clinton has run her campaign and gone negative, if for some unforseen reason she snatches the Democratic nomination, I would still pick the Democratic ticket over John McCain. McCain may have a reputation as a "straight talker" and a "maverick," but these labels are exaggerations and McCain is a very flawed candidate.

The following are my reasons why John McCain should not be President of the United States of America.

1. Trigger Happy:
At one event, in response to a question from the audience, John McCain sang, to the tune of the Beach Boys song Barabara Ann, "Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran." This alone is cause for serious alarm about a potential McCain Presidency. Any Presidential candidate who thinks bombing a country is a joke and a trivial matter is a very dangerous person to have in the Whitehouse where his finger will be on the red button.

On top of that, McCain stubbornly clings to his support for the Iraq War, even though it's a virtually unwinnable quagmire on the scale of Vietnam. The War has cost both American and Iraqi lives as well as drained resources from America's treasury to the tune of half a trillion dollars. In both human and financial costs, this war is unsustainable, but McCain still wants to continue it.

A major factor that led to the downfall of the USSR was that country's involvement in an expensive and unwinnable war in Afghanistan. John McCain would take America down this same path in the Middle East with catastrophic consequences both for the Middle East and the United States.

George W. Bush's unilateralist foreign policy was a disaster, but John McCain's (with his trigger happiness) could potentially be much worse.

One thing I have to give McCain credit for though, at least he's honest about the reasons for American military involvement in the Middle East - Oil. He revealed this until now unspoken motive at a recent speech he gave in Denver.

2. Hypocrite:
John McCain is supposedly the "Straight-Talker" who stays true to his principles (this is an image that has been built up by a media which he has successfully courted over the years, click here for a good discussion on the media's pro-McCain bias).

However, despite this "straight-talker" and "man of principle" reputation, McCain has been more than happy to throw principle to the wind when it suited his political ends. For example, McCain recently condemned the North Carolina Republican Party for using an advertisement containing the controversial Reverend Wright, yet, a few days later, McCain himself was using the Reverend Wright line of attack against Obama (and furthermore said it was now okay for state Republican Parties to use Reverend Wright in their ads as well).

As well, on a campaign stop to hurricane ravaged New Orleans, McCain proclaimed that, unlike Bush during the Katrina disaster, he would have gotten off his plane and helped rather than just flying over. However, at the time, as a Senator when he could have done something to help, McCain voted against measures to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.

3. Flip-Flopper:
In 2000 McCain condemned Christian right leaders such as Pat Robertson as being agents of intolerance. Now, he's courting these very same Christian right leaders -- one of the leaders he actively courted (and was ultimately endorsed by) is Pastor Hagee who called the Catholic Church the "great hoar" and said that Hurricane Katrina was a punishment from God to the people of New Orleans. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, McCain upheld his acceptance of Hagee's endorsement. This flip-flop on the Christian right is especially egregious as McCain has not hesitated to attack Obama over Reverend Wright even though Wright has no political relationship with the Obama campaign -- so, according to McCain, Reverend Wright bad, but Pastor Hagee okay?

On the Bush tax-cuts which contributed to America's soaring deficits, when they were initially introduced McCain opposed them saying they were fiscally irresponsible and primarily rewarded the rich who didn't need them. Now he supports making these tax cuts permanent indicating both a major flip-flop and an acceptance of the fiscally irresponsible policies of the Bush administration.

4. Clueless About Economic and Social Issues:
McCain himself has said he doesn't know much about the economy. This is hardly what's needed for a President whose likely to inherit a country in recession.

On the home foreclosures issue, McCain stumbled repeatedly - reluctant to give up his neo-conservative "leave it all to the market" ideology - until he finally came up with a somewhat coherent plan... on his third try. On healthcare, McCain refuses to acknowledge its a public good and wants to unleash it even more to market forces, so much for the 47 million Americans without health care or the health insurance companies who deny healthcare in order to rake in even greater profits.

McCain may say he's a moderate, but he still strongly subscribes to the neoconservative notions that refuse to acknowledge the positive role of government and prefers to leave people at the mercy of unregulated market forces.

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