Isn't this simply the best evidence for the damage torture does? And worst of all it has created yet another abuser, that he attains such high office is not a good sign for a political system. People do keep saying that he reminds them of the character in Stephen King's 'The Dead Zone', the presidential candidate that in the future will use nuclear weapons.

Yes. The state of McCain is a perfect statement on what all abuse does to people. As the amazing band Tool says in the song Prison Sex:

Do unto others what has been done to you

I hadn't heard that one, about McCain the Nuker. But I tell you, I mean it when I say a world of rage. I see nothing out of his reach, nothing "off the table" but peace. He must never get near that button. And thankfully, I think he has destroyed his own chances better than any Democratic candidate ever could.

I share your views on McCain. I thought I liked the design of his website. A change from the typically cheesy, red-white-and-blue, cookie-cutter variety, until I realized it was your design.

When he began to pander to the likes of Bob Jones University, Jerry Falwell and their ilk, my stomach turned. His frequent appearances on and sucking up to Don Imus over the years, stirred my bile.

After he compromised on an unequivocal condemnation of torture and he birdie-flipped the Geneva Conventions, I projectile vomited at the very sight of him.

Was he dipping into his wife’s Vicodin jar? Could the damage done during his captivity have been more deep-rooted than we all realized?

Or could it be that for just a brief moment in time, I had bought into the notion of him being a maverick, seduced by his challenges to Emperor Bush?

When someone lies, obfuscates and flip-flops, suddenly everything else authentic becomes suspect. Was he really tortured? Did he really refuse to furnish his captors with information? The problem with his ever-shifting positions is that nothing he says carries weight anymore. Simply utterances of expedience and convenience.

I wrote the following about John McCain back in 2000. Not much has changed.

[McCain] up a good fight, but in the end, no one really cared about the Vietnam POW hero days he milked to death - and then some. In a culture so superficial most of us barely remember Monica Lewinsky, his long-winded gush on campaign finance reform proved to be such a bore that a Texas billionaire graciously and altruistically alleviated our collective boredom (although short-lived) by financing an attack ad on McCain's environmental record and making the Vietnam vet loose his temper. His public outburst all but ruined the vein-popping restraint he exercised during a debate where Alan Keyes attacked him on his abortion record. Addicted to the politics of fighting, like his wife Cindy, he just did not know when to say No.

Gush and Bore and Nothing More, March 2000

Harsh and unfair as it sounds, John McCain is too old and too disfigured to be elected President. America elects politicians who look good on TV and who pretend to care about children. But even if we were a more mature, more sophisticated electorate, would we really elect a man who jokes about bombing a country, when indeed he would have just such power?

Unfortunately, probably, yes.

i'm going to read your piece in a bit, clinton, i'm out the door. and i agree with your sad statement at the end. of course america would!

but i wanted to clear up, before i split for a few, and for anyone reading: the black and white monochrome layout was his design. he changed it to red, white, and blue (and black and white), as the link shows. but all i added were the bombs, fire, graves, and text at the bottom ("selling you...enlisting you..." etc).

i agree...it is nice to see change. but the general's star, the "black and white" flag, and the military look scares the shit out of me. as it ought to scare anyone thinking about electing yet another "war president."

the smaller top left image is an exact screenshot of the original site.

He's a coward - didn't even bother to vote today.

Yes, hopefully his access to any big red buttons will be zero. Torture is also a macho thing I think in that it seeks to make the world a brutal place, to create a caste system of violence. Proponents either are ignorant of that or do not admit to that being one of their aims.
I feel sympathy for the tortured man, but contempt for the politician who serves the torturer in chief.

Once upon a time, like 2000, I voted for him in the primary (Virginia let's you vote in any primary, no voter registration) as a block-the-bush vote. Now I can't tell who is the lesser of the 2 evils. McStain is damaged goods.

This is what I wrote about McCain: The Manchurian Candidate....

The man in question is the scion of a powerful political family. Served his nation on a foreign land, against the godless communist hordes. He was captured by the enemy and the released and returned home a hero. But then something happened after he came home. He turned against the system, he became a maverick. He had the enemy in his sites and was about to shoot him down once and for all.

In Hollywood’s version his name is Raymond Shaw, Sergeant U.S. Army. The war is Korea and his captors are Chinese. In real life his name is John McCain, naval aviator. The war is Vietnam, his captors, Vietnamese. Their biographies are similar. Both fight the communist hordes in Asia, both are captured and tortured by the enemy and both come home as decorated heroes. There are some differences as well. Shaw has a incestuous relationship with his mother, who is an enemy agent and his controller. McCain love-hate relationship is with America and in particular the press. Their targets are also different. One seeks to shoot down a vice presidential candidate, the other the Republic.

I don't know if my analisys of the movie is correct, I let Nezua tackle that one (although everybody is a movie critic these days!), but I am certain that McCain the Patrician Senator, raised within a system of power and privilige (instead of Righst and Responsabilities) will do everything in his power to protect it, even if its means moving froma faux populist stance in one sentence to the image of a conquering Ceasar the next. He sees himself the savior of the Amerikan Empire, and will do whatever it takes to acomplish that goal.

Yes. The state of McCain is a perfect statement on what all abuse does to people. As the amazing band Tool says in the song Prison Sex:

Do unto others what has been done to you

Yes... exactly. I've always loved that song, too... because having been abused myself I know how it feels to want to become it. To want to be the powerful thing that your abuser was instead of the victim that you were.

But even knowing that, as someone who has experienced physically violent treatment... how you can stand for torture if you know how it feels, how you can condone it, is a mystery to me. The feelings that song discusses are real, and "normal"... but acting on them is the most horrible thing one could ever do.

yes, trin. i agree. at least in a leader, we want those neuroses worked out, those issues worked out. in a citizen, it would be nice. but they aren't going to act out on the entire world and with massive weaponry.

and i would add that while many people recognize the full circle in that song (I've come round full circle) it is important to note that the celebration takes place within the madness/loss of the self/narrator. yes, he finds himself walking the path of his abuser, and the song sounds a dark glee as the narrator takes a power that was leveled against him. yet, at the same time, he recognizes what he has lost in meeting the full circle. his reveling in this is, then, more like mourning its reality. and if there is an unresolveable contradiction there—or ambiguity—i think this shape is purposeful, for it speaks of a deeper truth about being a victim who then victimizes.

Show me something
Thought I could make it end
Thought I could wash the stains away
Thought I could break the circle if I
Slipped right into your skin
So sweet was your surrender
We have become one
I have become my terror
And you my precious lamb and martyr

"i have become my terror." i would say this agrees with your remark "acting on them is the most horrible thing one could ever do."

and...i think tool should write a tune about Rage McCain.

McCain strikes me as a frightening changeling. "The devil hath power / to assume a pleasing shape," so to speak. Only thing is we get to see the ugly by-products between each shapeshifting.

[Sidenote: I think I'm becoming more gullible. "McCain actually says he wants to bomb heathens on his site?! What the hell!!!!" Granted, I did wake up at quarter to six...but still...]

yes clinton..."vein popping restraint." that's a good one. and i like the lines about George W's compassionate conservatism vis a vis women was stolen from the O.J Simpson school of gender parity. that cracked me up.

yes, sylvia. the devil and marzipan candies. lava lamp globs...and women. pleasing shapes. mccain? hmmmm. i'm not sure about that one!

yes. bomb the heathens. it's no wonder you thought it was real. it is america's current interational policy!

yeah, manny. good point. he shows his real sense of conviction and strength when he won't make his voice known on the public record for where he stands. and on such an issue crucial to his usual talk. oh, whoops, i mean "Straight Talk™."

he is both a warmonger and a coward. what a great combo, que no?

hey rafa, that is interesting. i will have to keep your notes near me when i next watch the flick. see what i think. i remember liking that movie. if it's what i'm thinking.

Watch the original, its the best, the remake is good, but lacks the punch of the original.

wow, really? i think i am psyched then. if i haven't seen it already. which i probably have, as its a notable film and there was a time i was swallowing those up. but i think i am remembering the remake, as you say...because it's in color. the orig would be in b/w, right? i guess i'll just imdb it.

"yet, at the same time, he recognizes what he has lost in meeting the full circle. his reveling in this is, then, more like mourning its reality. and if there is an unresolveable contradiction there—or ambiguity—i think this shape is purposeful, for it speaks of a deeper truth about being a victim who then victimizes."

yes.