But in fact, McCain was a deeply psychologically damaged man, who legislated based upon 3 simple principles: 1) Who John McCain hates at any given time and how he can try and screw that person 2) What gets John McCain the most press 3) What is in John McCain's political interest.
Most of McCain's brief period of sanity, which extended from about 1999-2003, saw him join Democrats on everything from campaign finance reform to a patient's bill of rights, opposing Bush's tax cuts to opposing the Christian Right, supporting CAFE standards to supporting closing the gun-show loophole. But the reasons behind this transformation, as I laid out in my book, had little to do with his being a responsible man of the people, as he was portrayedvirtually everywhere.
My buddy Cliff Schecter is hosting a discussion this evening in D.C. on his new book, The Real McCain. Cliff is always an entertaining guy, and has promised to leak some new tidbits about McCain to anyone who attends. I'm currently traveling in the Midwest, but if you are in D.C. and free, I'd strongly urge you to go. You won't be sorry.
If you had drinking plans, there'll be free booze, too. There, now you have no reason NOT to go.
Details:
Cliff Schecter and The Real McCain
Samuel Gompers Room
AFL-CIO
815 16th Street NW (down the street from McPherson Square metro, White House exit)
6-8 pm
Cliff Schecter's The Real McCain has gone as high as #2 on the political best-seller list, and #15 on the non-fiction list, so the progressive media machine is having some success in getting the word out on how good and important this book is. The only thing that really pisses me off is that Cliff, and other great authors like Glenn Greenwald and David Sirota, just aren't getting asked on TV at all. You know that if some right-wing author like Jonah Goldberg had a book out with stories doing damage to Obama's or Clinton's reputation like Cliff has with this book on McCain, the media would be all over them with the hype.
So keep the pressure on big media. If you haven't bought Cliff's book, buy it, and if you have, buy some copies for your swing voter friends. We need to get the word out on this, and keep the momentum going, so that his stories about McCain get more attention.
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