Brad DeLong on McCain’s Speech Last Night
I listened to John McCain’s Virginia victory speech last night as was thoroughly disgusted at its dishonesty and neo-McCarthyism. If anyone has a transcript, please let me know. In the meantime, we have what Brad DeLong had to say:
A correspondent tells me that beside John McCain as he gave his Virginia victory speech was the dog-eating Jew-counter himself, Fred Malek – the man who accepted from Richard Nixon the mission of trying to identify and fire the nest of Jews working in the Bureau of Labor Statistics whom Nixon was sure were plotting to undermine him. That’s the modern Republican Party: paranoia, bigotry, and a craven eagerness to do everything possible to assist the criminal enterprises of your highers-up – it’s not a disqualification, it’s a lifestyle. Shut down the Republican Party as quickly as possible. America needs an honorable opposition party to face off against the Democrats.
My sentiments exactly!
Update: I found a text of McCain’s speech. Let’s review.
They will promise a new approach to governing, but offer only the policies of a political orthodoxy that insists the solution to government’s failures is to simply make it bigger. They will appeal to our dreams of a better future for ourselves, our families and our country, but they would take from us more of the wealth we have earned to build those dreams and assure us that government is better able than we are to make decisions about our future for us.
In other words, Republican Presidents have downsized the government? Excuse me but this did not happen under Ronald Reagan. It did happen under Bill Clinton. George W. Bush increased the size of the government. McCain either does not understand the facts or he’s being dishonest here.
They will paint a picture of the world in which America’s mistakes are a greater threat to our security than the malevolent intentions of an enemy that despises us and our ideals; a world that can be made safer and more peaceful by placating our implacable foes and breaking faith with allies and the millions of people in this world for whom America, and the global progress of our ideals, has long been “the last, best hope of Earth.” We will offer different ideas, based in a better understanding of the challenges we face, and the resolve to confront them with confidence in the strength and ideals of free people. We believe that Americans, not our detractors and certainly not our enemies, are on the right side of history. We trust in the strength, industry and goodness of the American people.
McCain is still playing attacking Saddam Hussein was attacking Al Qaeda canard. But the decision to depose Saddam Hussein played right into Osama bin Laden’s hands as it gave him what he failed to achieve with 9/11 – getting the US bogged down in an occupation of a Muslim nation. To claim that the neocons have a “better understanding of the challenges we face” is ludicrous on its face. McCain has yet to understand that the decision on 3/19/2003 was a colossal mistake.
But when he accuses we Democrats of not recognizing that Al Qaeda is a threat and that we wish to placate these terrorists, he clearly has decided to be today’s version of Senator Joseph McCarthy. The truth is that we Democrats – as noted by Senator Obama last night – would have devoted more resources in 2002 to going after bin Laden and his crew. Alas, the Bush Administration diverted resources from Afghanistan and towards Iraq. And of course, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped Al Qaeda immensely. If McCain has been paying any attention to reality, he would know this.