Will the Real John McCain Please Stand Up?
Friday, September 26, 2008
(Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation)
As Published in the
Rochester Business Journal, September 26,
2008
[Full
text of submitted column appears
below]
Will the real John McCain please
stand up? What once
endeared him as a maverick, against the
excesses of the extreme right wing of
his own party, have disappeared over the last
eight years and now it seems like
that was just hype. This was the man who
in the 2000 Presidential primary
refused to embrace the religious right, calling
them agents of
intolerance. Barry Goldwater back in the
day also shunned such an
alliance, calling the religious right
intolerant and predicted over the long
haul they would do more damage to the
Republican Party than the Democrats ever
could. McCain is the man who was
viciously slandered in that 2000 primary
by Bush's Brain, Karl Rove. Now, if Rove
isn't running his
campaign, lobbyists, dozens of them, are
running McCain's campaign and
using Rove's playbook.
It is time to end the sound bites about
saluting the flag, wearing a flag pin,
and elitism. There was a time when
conservatives with status and money
were proud to consider themselves elites.
They defended the status quo
and their privileged place in society as based
on merit, whether individually
earned, or earned by an ancestor. Now
money and power denigrate Senator Obama
as a Harvard educated elitist snob, out of
touch with regular people. Are
there really people who still want to vote for
the person they would like to
have a beer with? What happened to
respect for the best and the
brightest, especially when they came from very
modest and humble beginnings,
like Senator Obama, who achieved the top at
Harvard Law, State Senate, US
Senate and now is the Presidential
nominee. Achievement and the best
education are denigrated as snobbish elitism,
but we blame rappers when
children believe reading books and doing well
in school is "un-cool".
We have actually had a number of Presidents
bring into their administration the
best and brightest experts, regardless of their
politics, to address foreign
threats and domestic hardship. When a
policy was found wanting they went
back to the drawing board and modified or
changed it. It was called
leadership and problem solving, the quest for
solutions. Now the hard
right has convinced many that this is
"flip-flopping" and character
is obstinate staying the course, even when
policies fail or bring disaster.
The best and the brightest have been replaced
by cronyism, incompetence, and
close-minded stubbornness.
When it comes to John McCain, his war time
service generates support,
especially among veterans, and his service and
experience should be
honored. My problem is that there are
several million veterans and
current servicemen that also need to be
honored, yet McCain stood against
Senator Webb's GI Bill. I am in somewhat
of a unique position on these
issues as I have been an advocate for members
of a union in a federal workforce
since 1974. Federal unions represent more
veterans and disabled veterans
per capita than anyone due to laws giving
veterans and disabled veterans
preference in hiring. I have represented
veterans in the workplace and
while lobbying legislators, beginning with
World War II veterans to today’s
veterans from the conflicts in the
Senator McCain uses as an excuse in voting
against our veterans that some of
these bills had "pork", earmarks that he must
vote against on
principle. By the way, earmarks total
eighteen billion dollars, less than
two percent of the Federal Budget and he
selected a running mate from a state
that continues to receive, under her
leadership, more earmarks per capita, than
any other state.
The hypocrisy continued from the Republican
Convention in the twin cities, near
the
I remember when all of
Here is a direct quote from McCain, the change
candidate, "on the
transcendent issues, the most important issues
of the day, I've been totally in
agreement and support of President Bush ".He
has voted with Bush 90% of
the time and on the few issues he opposed the
administration, immigration,
torture, and giving tax cuts to the rich during
war time, which he called
"irresponsible", he is now with President
Bush. The so-called
maverick, claiming to be the change candidate,
would continue the Bush
nightmare: continued war in Iraq, tax breaks to
oil companies making record
profits, more tax cuts for the wealthiest,
income inequality unsurpassed since
the Gilded Age, more corporate trade deals that
give tax breaks to those
off-shoring jobs at a time when we are
hemorrhaging jobs, privatizing social
security, further unraveling health care;
leaving people to negotiate alone
with insurance companies liberated from
regulation, more hostility toward
labor, and more codifying conservative social
policies through the appointment
of reactionary judges.
Senator Obama's 40 minute speech accepting the
Democratic nomination was
inspiring on its own, but even more so for one
who came of age during the Civil
Rights movement. I must agree with the
newscaster who said one word in
that speech keeps coming back as the word for
this election and that word is
ENOUGH! Enough, Enough, Enough! It
is time to Turn Around America
from the catastrophe which McCain is part and
parcel of. Labor will be
doing everything we can to shout "Enough!" and Turn
Around
James V. Bertolone, President
American Postal Workers