The pathetic downfall of John McCain gets another tragic wrinkle this morning, via Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has long identified himself as an Episcopalian, said this weekend that he is a Baptist and has been for years.
Campaigning in this conservative, predominantly Baptist state, McCain called himself a Baptist when speaking to reporters Sunday and noted that he and his family have been members of the North Phoenix Baptist Church in his home state of Arizona for more than 15 years.
“It’s well known because I’m an active member of the church,” the Arizona senator said.
While McCain has long talked about his family’s and his own attendance at the Arizona church, he appears to have consistently referred to himself as Episcopalian in media reports.
In a June interview with McClatchy Newspapers, the senator said his wife and two of their children have been baptized in the Arizona Baptist church, but he had not. “I didn’t find it necessary to do so for my spiritual needs,” he said.
He told McClatchy he found the Baptist church more fulfilling than the Episcopalian church, but still referred to himself as an Episcopalian.
It’s tough to say how much of a sleazy politician John McCain was before he sat at the feet of the Shrub and stared in awe as Bush lied and dealt dirty and did whatever he need to do to win. What we do know is that McCain got a raw deal from bush early on in the primaries—a hint of the election-stealing, dirty dealing, pure lying that would happen to Gore in the general election—and he took the opposite path that Gore took. Gore rose above it all, but McCain decided to dwell in the dirt, embracing the Shrub after he and his campaign spread rumors that McCain was crazy and insulted his wife and children.
If you haven’t heard the full story of the South Carolina primary where Bush (with his ever-present evil companion Karl Rove) took out McCain by exploiting racism and prejudice against mental illness against him through ads and push-polling, well don’t be surprised. When I heard what might be one of my favorite radio pieces, David Foster Wallace on “This American Life” reporting on the South Carolina primaries, I was absolutely floored that the mainstream media didn’t cover this juicy story. (If you have a chance today—after listening to my latest podcast of course—check it out. It’s a great bit of radio journalism.) I shouldn’t have been surprised, in retrospect. The mainstream media openly engaged a similar smear campaign against Gore—hell, they didn’t even have to take BushCo’s cues, but just lied and smeared Gore all by themselves like good like propagandists for a one-party state. If you think McCain’s story has Lear-like tones of a tragic downfall, the South Carolina primary is as good a first act as it gets.
What McCain has failed to understand is just that media issue—Bush gets away with lying because the media lets him. They have either feared or adored him for so long, they could, like in that Rude Pundit routine, watch him rape a monkey to death during a press conference and cheerfully pretend that’s not going on. How could McCain lie about his religious beliefs? Well, he’s been watching Bush pretend he’s a devout Christian forever now—even though Bush doesn’t go to church—and outside of Amy Sullivan calling Bush out for this, I haven’t seen the mainstream media address this bit of bullshit at all. In the grand scheme of things, the lie about religious devotion is actually a small one, but it’s telling. McCain probably saw this as a free pass and he’s learning that the press has different rules for different politicians.
19 Responses to “The slow death of a presidential hope”
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Many of the movers and shakers are still Episcopalian…wonder how they feel about this?
Well, what one has to remember is that the modern press is like a grown up version of high school. Nobody questions the rich Prom King about the rumors he’s spreading, especially if he has really great refreshments on his press plane,(like ice cream bars) and gives you a fun nickname, like he actually knows you.
The uptight nerd, on the other hand, gets wedgied on a regular basis (the reporters for the Wapo and the NYT, in particular, reported on Gore with all the hissy fit snittishness of Cute Girls forced to sit next to the Science Fair winner at lunchtime)
McCain, on the other hand, is a bit like the football hero who scored the winning touchdown a couple years ago, but hasn’t done much since. Much as they might have admired him then, they don’t want to be seen with him now. Particularly after the Prom King flew the Hero’s underwear from a flag pole.
Well, he was a Republican.
I don’t care how much Stephanie Miller I listen to where she points out how much less sleazy and unprincipled her late father and his running-mate, Barry Goldwater were, not just back in the ’60s but on into the ’80s. I also realize that Democrats, especially back when they had a big share of power before ‘94, were and still are often machine hacks and have never, since the ’60s anyway, shown much of a recognizable endoskeleton–at any rate the ones who have are generally the outsiders and mavericks; the Kewl Kidz among them being the most gelatinous and slimy. But again–in my lifetime (since 1965) there has been a clear distinction between the cultures of the two main parties.
Not every Republican office-holder or candidate, and still less every loyal Republican voter, has been a sleaziod in the Rovian mold–but that has, time and again since Nixon’s election in ‘68, been their key to power and apparent success. The more notable and influential, the surer they have been to have both indulged in filthy campaign techniques ranging from slander to fraud, and to be in up to their eyebrows in massive and massively profitable conflicts of interest, the kind that also clearly betray the public interest in favor of a few.
This has been Republicanism as I have known it, I don’t care what fine individuals your grandfathers and mine, staunch Republicans to their last breath, may have been. (One of my grandfathers was actually a staunch New Dealer Democrat till his last breath, but he drew that breath some months before I was born, so I never knew him personally. The other one, fine and good person though he was, was a reactionary of the nuttiest kind, the kind who was against FDR all through the ’30s and ever after–guess which set of grandparents I was supposed to emulate and which grandmother kept her peace about her views lest she alienate my parents…)
How could McCain lie about his religious beliefs? Well, he’s been watching Bush pretend he’s a devout Christian forever now
What’s more puzzling is why? Maybe he thinks that claiming to be Baptist is the quickest way to the wingnut heart, but Bush has shown it’s possible to be a bugfuck crazy dominionist even as a nominal Methodist.
I could see the strategic value of actively positioning himself against the EC by embracing the antiequality African Anglican churches, I guess, but not this.
Keating Five.
This is also why McCain became a big proponent of “campaign finance reform” - to get his name attached to something that wiped the stink of the scandal from his name.
McCain has never been an angel, though you wouldn’t know it from the fawning the press did over him in 2000.
The contrast between the unlikely and unmerited rise of one of the least talented politicians of our time - GWB - and the continuous string of ruined careers and lives of those opposing him (or even near him) should be something straight out of fiction. Unfortunately, it’s all too real…
McCain’s destruction was tragic. But to watch him embrace his tormentors, in some bizarre twist on the Stockholm Syndrome, has been sickening.
Bush more than deserved that ride into infamy, but McCain was the one who took it. In the end McCain is nothing but a hollow shell of a man, while Bush prepares to ride off into the sunset of his own fictitious “heroic” drama…
I could never really feel all that bad for John “refuses to apologize for open use of anti-Asian racial slurs” McCain having racist bullshit turned against him. As sleazy as the attacks on him were, he was not the noble tragic figure people tend to portray.
I don’t think McCain’s fall was tragic so much as just desserts. I wish it would happen to more sleazy Repubs.
We all hate the religion game in U.S. politics, which is why it’s so sweet and beautiful when it backfires against the people trying to manipulate it. If only political discussion was centered around politics..
Anyone see Fred Thompson reply to that question that was along the lines of “do you plan on speaking in Christian language, to Christians, during your run” (like other Republicans)? He said no. He answered with something like “that’s not how I’m going to speak, it’s personal stuff.” How awesome, for a Repub.
I could never really feel all that bad for John “refuses to apologize for open use of anti-Asian racial slurs” McCain having racist bullshit turned against him. As sleazy as the attacks on him were, he was not the noble tragic figure people tend to portray.
Dude. If he’s talking Southern Baptist, I’ve got news for him. My family has been Southern Baptist so long I’ve got it encoded in my DNA, and I can tell you that if he hasn’t been baptized as an adult, there isn’t an SBC affiliate church in the world who will claim him. They have a lot of autonomy in the minor beliefs, but in that one, no. It’s a requirement for membership. That’s why it’s IN THE GODDAMNED NAME OF THE DENOMINATION. He ain’t no Baptist.
Remember, the media liked John McCain early on. They admitted ‘taking him off the record’ whenever he tried to self-destruct. Bush had to stop hanging out with them until defeating Saint McCain in the primary, then get them back by waving a juicy bone or however you train Powder Wigged Pundits. John probably didn’t adjust well when they stopped worshiping him.
I saw something today about Fred Thompson’s laziness (which I can’t seem to find!) that make me think he and McCain share a certain core cluelessness — it seems that both assume that because something worked for GOP-god Reagan or Dictator-in-chief Bush, that it’ll work for them too. Completely ignoring all the financial/organizational/media backing involved in presenting a lazy self-involved opportunistic wastrel as the Next Best Hope…
Come to think of it, that seems to be endemic to beltway thinking, doesn’t it?
Hey, it’s the Storyline. “Drunk Wastrel Turns His Back on Demon Rum to Embrace Jesus and Redeem Family Name” is ever so much more exciting than “Vice President Succeeds Successful President”. The Ordinary Guy Makes Good is a better plot than Smart Man Makes Good. Never mind that said Ordinary Guy has billions in corporate intersts backing him, and nothing really going for him save his family name and family wealth.
Don’t bother the media with the facts.
Is the DFW radio piece mentioned above the same as the tale described while on the road for Rolling Stone in Consider The Lobster? Due to various work related proxies and filters I no can do streaming audio or video (no youtube for me) while at the office.
Well, if McCain’s past record is any indication, what will happen now is that his support among Episcopalians will tank while his support among Baptists will stay completely even.
The really funny thing is that even in this moment of desperation, McCain is misreading the nature of his party’s own base. It’s not really whether you’re a baptist that matters, I think. It’s whether you’re a evangelical, which is a sort of ephermal thing that has nothing to do with religious denomination and everything to do with whether you are part of this floating religious subculture that the Real True Christians have built for themselves within America. The SBC is a big part of this subculture, to be sure, but they aren’t the subculture itself, and many of the most important people (read: televangelists) among the evangelicals are denominationally unaffiliated.
This is why it doesn’t matter that Bush is a Methodist, or whether he goes to church that often (although apparently when he does attend church, it’s Episcopal?). He knows the code words, he can convince people he’s listening to the right televangelists or read a Left Behind book once or whatever, and this is probably what defines his religious identity more than denomination.
The devotion is beautiful (ah, young love…), but I do wish they had kept this a more private moment…
And if Bush is a Methodist and McCain a Baptist, won’t that religious difference hinder their chances for happiness? Or is this more along the lines of the Romeo and Juliet type of tragedy instead of king Lear??
Anybody thunk on that maybe Rove’s
machinations were actually based in something real.
I.e. He is? unbalanced.
Louise, you are so correct! As my ex-mother-in-law said to her family after I (a Methodist) got divorced from her Baptist son, “I told you that mixed-marriages just don’t work.”
Of course, religion was not the problem in the marriage (it was her son telling me I would never be equal in the marriage as long as I made less money than he did), but you could never tell her that.