June 12, 2004 (New York Times)
WASHINGTON, June 11 -- John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee
for president,
has repeatedly and personally asked Senator John McCain, the
independent-minded Arizona Republican, to consider being his running
mate, but Mr. McCain has refused, people who have spoken to both men
said Friday.
Mr. Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, made his first direct overtures
to Mr. McCain about three weeks after locking up the Democratic
nomination in March and approached him again, in person or by
telephone, as many as seven times, as recently as last week, according
to one person who has discussed the issue with both.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/12/politics/campaign/12MCCA.html?ei=5007&en=22de10fcb50e67f3&ex=1402372800&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=print&position=
"It was always artfully phrased, but he asked him on several occasions
to serve as his running mate," the individual said. "He'd say, `I
don't want to formally ask because I don't want to be formally
rejected, but having said that, would you do it?' or `I need you to do
it,' or `I want you to do it.' "
"It was always phrased in such a way as to give both men plausible
deniability," the individual added.
Neither Mr. McCain nor Mr. Kerry could be reached for comment on the
rare cross-party running mate discussions. Stephanie Cutter, Mr.
Kerry's communications director, said, "Senator Kerry and Senator
McCain are good friends and have spoken during the course of the
campaign, including when Kerry called McCain to thank him for standing
up and defending Kerry against baseless political attacks."
Aides to Mr. McCain did not return repeated phone calls on Friday; his
chief of staff, Mark Salter, told the Associated Press, which first
reported the discussions, that "Senator McCain categorically states
that he has not been offered the vice presidency by anyone."
Less than a month ago, Mr. McCain denied having even casual
discussions with Mr. Kerry on the subject.
Word of Mr. Kerry's personal entreaties, and Mr. McCain's flat
refusal, may bring an end to the persistent, and at times fevered,
speculation among Democrats and others about the potential of a
bipartisan ticket, with the two friends and Vietnam veterans matching
up against President Bush and Vice President Cheney, neither of whom
fought in that war.
Mr. McCain's testy relationship with President Bush, whom he ran
against in 2000 for the Republican nomination, fueled the speculation,
even though Mr. McCain has repeatedly denied being interested in the
job. He said as recently as last week on a late-night television show
made clear his lack of enthusiasm about being No. 2, "I spent several
years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, in the dark, fed with scraps.
Do you think I want to do that all over again as vice president of the
United States?"
But his denials did not stop prominent members of Congress - including
Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, himself considered a potential Kerry
running mate - from suggesting that a Kerry-McCain ticket would be
unstoppable in the fall. Mr. McCain showed in 2000 that he could draw
Independent voters. A CBS News poll recently found that a Kerry-McCain
ticket had a 14-percentage-point edge over Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney
among registered voters, 53 percent to 39 percent, compared to most
head-to-head polls that show Mr. Kerry alone tied or slightly ahead of
Mr. Bush.
Some Democrats have warned it recent days that the talk about McCain
threatened to make whomever Mr. Kerry did select look unexciting by
comparison. Among the many potential running mates, those mentioned
most frequently include Senator John Edwards of North Carolina,
Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Gov. Tom Vilsack of
Iowa. Indeed, the person who has spoken to both Mr. Kerry and McCain
said he believed Mr. Kerry's campaign had deliberately leaked the
story on Friday afternoon so it would be lost in coverage of Ronald
Reagan's funeral and in the thinly read Saturday newspapers.
A friend of both men said Mr. McCain's rejection of the idea came down
simply to his disinterest in being vice president, no matter who is in
the White House.
"Kerry and McCain have been close for some time, for years, and there
is a comfort level between them," this friend said. "But remember, the
first responsibility of a vice president is to be ready to be
president, the second is to be comfortable with the president, the
third is to know your place. One and two work for McCain, but three
doesn't. And I think John McCain knows that he could not be vice
president to anyone, whether it be John Kerry or a Republican."
The person who has spoken to both men gave a slightly different reason
for Mr. McCain's refusal to consider the job: "At the end of the day,
he's a Republican, he supports President Bush's re-election, and while
he and John Kerry agree on some major issues, they disagree on more
than they agree," the person said. "But the first two of those are
more important than the last."
Mr. McCain and Mr. Kerry's relationship began as an acid one; the
Arizona senator, a Navy bomber pilot who spent more than five years as
a prisoner of war in Hanoi, was outraged by the antiwar activities of
Mr. Kerry, a Navy Swift boat commander who famously led protesting
veterans in throwing their medals away in 1971.
Mr. McCain campaigned against Mr. Kerry in his first race in 1984, but
the two men made peace and worked together during the Clinton
administration to resolve the fates of American prisoners of war and
service members missing in action, and to normalize American relations
with Vietnam.
On the campaign trail until now, Mr. Kerry has cited his friendship
and collaborative work with Mr. McCain as evidence of his own ability
to reach across the partisan aisle to get things done.
He even used Mr. McCain's image in one of his recent campaign
commercials, showing a picture of the two senators side-by-side.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
On Apr 9, 6:59 pm, "Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names"
<PopUlist...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Bush and McCain's shared foreign-policy approach
>
> By Glenn Greenwald
> Salon.com
> March 28, 2008
>
> ON WEDNESDAY, John McCain delivered what was billed as a "major
> foreign policy" speech and today, David Brooks gushed (in The New York
> Times) that it was "as personal, nuanced and ambitious a speech as any
> made by a presidential candidate this year." In particular, Brooks
> said that the speech demonstrates just how different McCain's foreign
> policy approach is from that of Bush/Cheney: "Anybody who thinks
> McCain is merely continuing the Bush agenda is not paying attention."
>
> The reality is exactly the opposite. Thematically, rhetorically and
> substantively, McCain's speech, particularly as it concerned the
> Middle East, was essentially a replica of the speech George Bush has
> been giving for the last seven years. It trumpeted virtually every
> tenet of the neoconservative faith: to be safe, the U.S. must slay
> tyranny around the world, spread democracy, bring freedom to the
> grateful peoples of the Middle East so they turn towards us and away
> from the Terrorists, using "more than military force" -- but also
> military force. We'll only be safe by controlling and transforming the
> Middle East to look the way we want it to look.
>
> Pure Neoconservative
>
> McCain is a pure neoconservative in exactly the way that George Bush
> and Dick Cheney are, which is exactly why David Brooks, and like-
> minded ideologues like Bill Kristol, swoon over McCain's foreign
> policy "principles." That's fine. Brooks is a neoconservative and it's
> thus perfectly natural that he would find a neoconservative foreign
> policy speech to be filled with wisdom and insight. But to pretend
> that it's some grand departure from the Bush/Cheney approach is pure
> deceit.
>
> Just as was true for Bush in 2000, McCain is running at a time when
> the Republican brand is sullied (in 2000 because of the ugly Gingrich/
> impeachment crusades and in 2008 because of the destructive Bush
> years). Thus, McCain is being politically marketed in exactly the same
> way that Bush the presidential candidate was (he's a uniter not
> divider; a new kind of Republican; you always know where he stands;
> he's a conservative who deviates from dogma and appeals to Democrats;
> he transcends partisanship; we're going to be a more humble nation,
> etc., etc.). It's exactly the same wrapping. And the media believed
> all of that about Bush and they now believe it all about McCain.
>
> Carbon Copy
>
> But beyond just the political packaging, McCain -- with a couple of
> pointed exceptions -- is a carbon copy of Bush in substance as well, at
> least with regard to war and foreign policy. Just compare McCain's
> supposedly moving and novel foreign policy address with two randomly
> selected Bush speeches on the "war on terror" from 2005. On the key,
> defining points, they're virtually identical. I've compared the key
> passages of McCain's speech to the same passages from the Bush War on
> Terrorism speeches here.
>
> They sound like they have exactly the same speechwriters and precisely
> the same world-view. And all of that is to say nothing of the self-
> evidently identical positions they have on Iraq (we must stay forever)
> and Iran (we'll bomb them if they seem like they might develop the
> know-how to build a nuclear weapon). They're cut from the same cloth,
> except that McCain might actually be even more willing to use military
> force than Bush has been.
>
> Lip-Service Excuses
>
> It's true that, in his speech, McCain advocated a reduction in
> America's nuclear weapon stockpile and called for a "a successor to
> the Kyoto Treaty," something Bush/Cheney did not and would not accept.
> And he also advocated the creation of what he calls "the League of
> Democracies" -- an idea that, according to this Editorial in the right-
> wing Investor's Business Daily, is the brainchild of the Right's
> premiere foreign policy scholar and intellectual historian, Jonah J.
> Goldberg.
>
> But on the foreign policy issues that are most consequential, McCain
> is George Bush. They pay lip service to the same pretty concepts of
> internationalism and democracy in order to justify endless militarism,
> occupation and war. They believe the "transcendent" obligation of
> America is to use its military force and other resources to re-make
> the world in our image. The Middle East is our personal playground and
> controlling it will consume most of our attention and energy. We
> should work cooperatively with other countries whenever they are
> willing to support our foreign adventures.
>
> Ordure-Like Solutions
>
> With regard to the most complex and dangerous conflicts, they even
> sound almost exactly alike in their simple-minded belligerence. Here
> was Bush's "solution" to the Israel/Hezbollah war, spat out between
> food bites to Tony Blair:
>
> "What they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop
> doing this shit, and it's over."
>
> And here was McCain's equally insightful solution to the civil war in
> Iraq:
>
> "One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the
> Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, 'Stop the bullshit.'"
>
> Moronic Dictates
>
> The American Emperor issues moronic dictates to the world's primitive
> peoples, and they obey -- just as has happened for the last eight years
> -- and thousands-year old religious and ethnic conflicts vanish and
> freedom and Western democracy sprout magically in their place. As Matt
> Welch, author of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, said in a Februry
> speech at the Cato Institute:
>
> "[McCain's] whole career, his life, his training, his family
> background has been to be a member of . . . the Imperial Class; [he's]
> motivated by an inspiring trust of America's governance of the world;
> [and] he would be the most imperial-oriented President, most
> militaristic President, since Teddy Roosevelt, at least."
>
> Absurd Contradictions
>
> Just as one would expect, given their identical worldviews, Bush and
> McCain burdened with exactly the same absurd contradictions. Hence:
> The key to our security is to undermine Muslims' resentment towards
> the U.S., which we'll accomplish by occupying Iraq indefinitely and
> threatening Iran. "Victory" in Iraq means a government supported by
> the majority of Iraqis and yet which somehow is simultaneously a "key
> U.S. ally in the war on terror" and a friend of Israel. And: We must
> stop supporting autocracies, as we pursue hegemonic policies that make
> us increasingly dependent upon Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan.
> Democracy is the linchpin of peace, yet our enemies are Hamas,
> Hezbollah, and Iranian hardliners supported by large portions of those
> countries' populations. We should continue to interfere in Middle East
> countries (thus ensuring increased anti-Americanism) and
> simultaneously spread democracy (thus ensuring the election of anti-
> American political leaders). We must rein in government spending while
> pursuing hegemonic policies that we can't remotely afford to pay for,
> etc. etc.
>
> Whatever all of that is, a departure from the Bush/Cheney doctrine
> isn't it. It's precisely what has led us over the last eight years to
> where we are. It isn't the role of journalists to decide whether we
> ought to continue the Bush/Cheney policies, but it is their role to
> prevent John McCain and his Brooksian supporters from pretending that
> this isn't what he's advocating.
>
> (c) Salon.com
>
> http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/28/bush_mccain/
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