By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

Back in the day, when John McCain actually deserved the Republican nomination, say circa 2000, I had no qualms about supporting him over Bush. All I knew of McCain was what I heard in the news reports, "he's a maverick", "he breaks with his party". And as I have written before, he seemed a good alternative to Bush. My impression, needless to say, has changed dramatically.

This election cycle has seen McCain move inexorably away from the maverick label, while screaming the word "MAVERICK", hoping that we won't notice that he voted with Bush over 90% of the time. McCain's ace in the hole appeared to be the "Straight Talk Express", or at least the assumption that the express was still on the right track. Oh, I realize that he tepidly crossed party lines to attempt immigration reform, only to back-pedal when his "base" threw a hissy fit. I think the end of all things McCain was when he crawled to Jerry Falwell and sought Falwell's "blessing", a member of the former "agents of intolerance". Since choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, one untruth after another has rolled out from team McCain, I remembered the phrase from the Sermon on the mount, "By their fruits, ye shall know them", meaning that you can tell who and what a person is by their actions, words and intentions. I believe that people will tell you who they are, if you listen hard enough. So, let's review some of the words used by McCain again, shall we?

When I hear John McCain speaking about the experiences of "everyday Americans", he always says "you are struggling with whatever". To me, this sounds completely out of touch. And when you add the fact that unemployment is at a 5 year high, families are losing their homes to foreclosure, gas is at an all time high and people are struggling to pay the bills, Cindy McCain waltzes around in Couture fashion. Marie Antoinette much? So, McCain is stating, and Cindy is echoing, that we, and not the McCain's are struggling. When the chips are down, McCain doesn't understand the issues facing everyday Americans. By their fruits, ye shall know them.

Recently, Meghan McCain went on the Today show and blithely announced that "her family", alone are the only ones who understand war. Now, granted, Meghan is young, and her father was a POW, but the statement appears to me to be essentially telling, when you combine the statement and behavior from her parents. Regardless, the McCain family seems to be spectacularly out of touch with the experiences of you and me. Wow, maybe some community service might have come in handy, ya think?

Now we add Palin into the mix and more issues present themselves. As reported on the Crooks and Liars blog, Rob Caldwell from WCSH in Portland tried to pin McCain down on specifics on Palin's actual foreign policy experience. What ensues is McCain asserting that Palin was right and Obama wrong on a laundry list of issues. However, no specifics were included, such as "her position was XXX, which turned out to be correct". I guess we were expected to shake out heads and come out of our respective trance and gasp "Wow, she was right about Russia!". How could I have been so blind, all we have to do is LIVE next to Russia and we become an expert! This spate of doublespeak and vague tripe, culminated in the assertion that Sarah Palin knows more about energy than anyone in the United States. You can see the interview here.

I have looked at the fruit on McCain's tree and frankly, the fruit is moldy and rotted on the tree.