McCain is Not Spelled R-E-S-P-E-C-T

From ABC, an interesting item about a young voter (or perhaps pre-voter) who wanted some straight talk about gay issues from the straight talk express and got a pile of BS.

What made it newsworthy is that the young man called out the old fart on it.

Senator John McCain had a testy exchange with a high school student in Concord, NH, Tuesday, but one that McCain himself characterized as “what America is supposed to be about.”

William Sleaster, a student at Concord High School rose to ask McCain a question about gay rights and, ultimately dissatisfied by the answer he received from McCain, told the Republican presidential contender that he’d come looking to see a leader and didn’t.

Lets look at the specifics:

McCain first answered the high school student by talking about his support for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the military’s policy regarding gays, and about his belief in the sanctity of marriage.

“Discrimination in any form is unacceptable in America today,” McCain said.

“I understand the controversy that continues to swirl around this issue,” McCain said. “That debate needs to be continued.”

Now, to be absolutely fair to McCain, he may have learned how to shovel out non-answers on gay issues from the way that the Rhode Island Avenue Cesspool of Transphobia shovels out non-answers (and platitudes and other aspirational nothingness) about trans-inclusion.

Sleaster pressed on. “Do you support civil unions or gay marriage?”

“I do not,” McCain answered.

OK – now that was straight (in both senses of the word.)  But..

“I think that they impinge on the status and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.”

Back to the unquantifiable BS.  Former Navy pilot McCain, I ask you: If, prior to getting into a plane to run a bombing mission, you asked for the coordinates of the target and you got an answer that was as mealy-mouthed and devoid of quantifiable specifics as that, would you have gone ahead and taken off?  Or would you – and your hot head – have demanded to know where the hell you were actually supposed to fly the plane?

“So you believe in taking away someone’s rights because you believe it’s wrong?”

“I wouldn’t put that interpretation on my position, but I understand yours,” McCain said diplomatically.

“Diplomatically” is a diplomatic way to characterize that response.  I think evasive would be a bit more accurate.

Sleaster went on to ask another question about how to help the working class in America, which McCain fielded by talking about the country’s need to figure out education and health care, and to secure the environment.

Sleaster indicated that he wanted to follow up again.

“You have one more? Go ahead you’re doing good,” McCain encouraged.

“I came here looking to see a leader,” Sleaster said. “I don’t.”

The assembled students murmured, and a teacher started to step in.

“I understand,” McCain said. “I thank you. That’s what America is all about.”

No – unfortunately, the caliber of BS that McCain was non-answering the questions with is what America has come to be about.  And what’s really telling is this comment to the story:

Wow! That was disrespectful of the teenager. McCain has served our country for many years and I don’t think he deserved that.

And this one:

McCain seems to have handled the situation in a very diplomatic way to a student who was quite disrespectful.

Now, fortunately, more of the commenters were reality-based.

•  Kudos to the kid for speaking the truth! McCain is no leader and never will be. Its too often we coddle senators, congress men and women that we are in the sad situation we are in today. Time we call all these fools for who they are “Cowards”
• Disrespectful?!! It is our duty to ask hard questions of anyone who wants to be the president. If ANY of the media had done this in 2000 we wouldn’t be stuck with the monkey in the white house we have now!
• Disrespectful are you kidding me? The HS student was dead on with his concerns, he asked profound questions and received a typical answer from a politician.
• Kudos for this brave high school student for speaking truth to power when so many adults have been too craven or too selfish or too blinded by ideology to do the same.
•  I’m sick of reading responses that perpetuate the belief that asking questions of a Presidential candidate and voicing an opinion about a candidate’s position is somehow *disrespectful*. It is the duty of every citizen to ask questions of those seeking office (and those who presently hold office) *and* to voice opposition when the answers are *BS*!  Anything less is un-American and downright un-Patriotic!
• The student was correct. Sen. John McCain is not a leader. He is a follower. Following whatever the Right Wing Religious Organizations tell him to do. He is doing the work for Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and Gary Bauer.  

• No one running for office deserves respect. That’s a guise they hide behind in an attempt to have people NOT question them.

I might not go quite as far as that last one, but lets not lose sight of the respect-under-all-circumstances (something I doubt seriously that any of them would afford to Vietnam Vet John Kerry) comments – after all, fake patriotism is the mental enema that was performed on everyone while they were dazzled by the ever-changing fuzzyfest of the RNC convention jumbotron backdrop.

Respect?

For McSame?

For McThirdBushTerm?

For McKeatingFive?

For McBaghdadLooksSafeToMeButThenAgainI’veGotAnArmyGuardingMeWhileI’mHereAtThisMarket?

For McSellout?

For McI’mHiringTheSamePeopleNowWhoUsedMyAdoptedDaughterToDestroyMy2000Campaign?

For McObamaIsn’tQualifiedToLeadButPalinIs?

No.

Hell no.

Never.

Not on your life – or anyone else’s

All that McCain has ‘earned’ is whatever was due to him per the specific terms of his service agreement(s) with the United States Navy.   Pay.  Rank.  Pension.  And John McCain, the naval officer, has indeed also earned appreciation for having served his country in uniform at the time he was in uniform.

Well, as that great philosopher Jim Rockford once said ‘The good thing about being a civilian?  You outrank officers.’  (If someone locates the exact wording of that quote, please let me know; I think it might have been Army-specific.)

John McCain’s respect-earning stopped when he transitioned from military officer to politician.

Everything else that is the walking lie that the christianist party anointed on Thrsday night was bought and paid for with his second wife’s money (if Teresa Heinz Kerry was the ‘bag lady for the radical left,’ then what exactly is Cindy McCain other than an overpriced fashion reject from a mid-1970s Doctor Who episode whose inherited money comes from an industry that those who now run the republican party view as immoral?).  Adulterous John ‘Keating Five’ McCain has earned no respect from anyone.

Not from high school students.

Not from LGBT Americans (including this one who believed his ‘Maverick’ bullshit eight years ago.)

Not from straight Americans.

Not from any American.

Not from anyone.

I’ll repeat: John McCain’s respect-earning stopped when he transitioned from military officer to politician.  And John McCain the politician has all but flushed all of the legitimate respect earned by John McCain the naval officer in the Hanoi Hilton down the Paris Hilton crapper.