{"id":2764,"date":"2008-06-25T05:55:39","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T10:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2764"},"modified":"2008-06-25T05:55:39","modified_gmt":"2008-06-25T10:55:39","slug":"are-you-experienced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2764","title":{"rendered":"Are You Experienced?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charlie Quimby wonders just how much experience counts<\/a> for.\u00a0 He’s not completely impressed:<\/p>\n

But McCain’s “experience” is subject to some skepticism.<\/p>\n

First, there’s the tour as POW. Hard to match, and certainly impossible to criticize. But can we be frank here? Serving five-plus years in a North Vietnamese hellhole has less to do with running the country than installing tail lights on Chevy Malibus has to do with preparing someone to run General Motors. Street cred to the max, but relevant experience?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, Charlie, that’s a strawman in a black pajama-fabric uniform carrying an AK47 and a copy of the Little Red Book.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nobody says that being a POW counts as government experience.<\/p>\n

But it is <\/em>a sign that Mac is a person of unshakeable integrity.\u00a0 Compare and contrast:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. After years of barbaric torture, one of our candidates was offered an early release by the NVA.\u00a0 He refused to be freed ahead of his comrades.<\/li>\n
  2. After weeks of criticism, one of our candidates cut loose a man he’d described as his “spiritual mentor” in his first book.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    You, as always, be the judge.<\/p>\n

    Then, stringing out his Naval career, a post-service whirlwind courtship of Arizona money and its attendant House seat, leading to succeeding Barry Goldwater as Senator.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    And this is bad – or even atypical in Senate-level politics – why?<\/p>\n

    Early in his Senate career, McCain gained valuable experience as a waterboy for Arizona S&L crook Charles Keating, Jr. McCain’s image as a reformer and straight talker got manufactured soon after.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    And, absent party grudges and partisanship, wouldn’t that be considered a good thing under most circumstances?\u00a0 Someone who aqcuires a nasty smudge spends the rest of his career trying to be Mister Clean?<\/p>\n

    (As opposed to creating “MoveOn.org”, “Fight the Smears”, or engaging in a media effort to turn “swift-boating” into a pejorative verb)<\/p>\n

    But it’s “experience”\u00a0 that’s going to be the siren song for moderates and fearful liberals. McCain will keep us safe. He’ll be tough with dictators and terrorists. He has… like, all this, you know, experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Now, Charlie, I’m sure the scare quotes count as an argument among the “Daily Show” set, but really – what exactly are you impeaching about a multi-decade political career that’s seen him embraced and ostracized on both<\/em> sides of the aisle?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Charlie Quimby wonders just how much experience counts for.\u00a0 He’s not completely impressed: But McCain’s “experience” is subject to some skepticism. First, there’s the tour as POW. Hard to match, and certainly impossible to criticize. But can we be frank here? Serving five-plus years in a North Vietnamese hellhole has less to do with running […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}