John McCain, Porker

That John McCain now feels he should be telling easily debunked, bald-faced lies about Iraq really does make you wonder. Which seems like as good a time as any to note that Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano came by The American Prospect's offices on Friday afternoon. In talking about her state, she noted how much of the local economy is driven by defense contractors. And, indeed, as you'll see here in The Arizona Republic, "The escalating cost of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is eroding funding for some longer-term defense projects, but contractors in Arizona continue to benefit from government spending to support troops in the field."

War, in short, is good for business in Arizona. And yet, Saint John McCain's strident militarism never gets discussed on these terms -- is never seen as something on a par with how Carl Levin loves cars and Joe Biden loves credits cards.

Comments

Well, the whole modern American mindset is invested in militarism pretty completely. We pretend to have a love affair with cars, and pretend not to have a love affair with credit cards. With guns, it's entirely genuine.

Posted by dj moonbat | April 2, 2007 12:06 AM

Yeah, well, how can you say a word about old John when he's so, shall we say, audacious? The man did a guest appearance in Why We Fight, the documentary about the military-industrial complex and wrung his hands and said, "The question is, where is the line between being a force for good, and imperialism?"

Posted by ploeg | April 2, 2007 12:46 AM

His appearance in that movie was a total joke. Here's virtuous John McCain slamming excessive military spending, what principle! Except he's done a lot for defense contractors in his home state. Good thing for him, too, I mean, those guns and that chopper flying overhead came in handy for him on his peaceful, casual stroll around Baghdad.

Posted by Matthew Struhar | April 2, 2007 1:27 AM

Read the article fully. The war is a definite mixed bag for the defense contractors since they aren't so much as getting new funds, as having funds shifted from r&d and advanced programs to existing programs. That is sort of good and also sort of bad. Some of the existing programs are getting pretty long in the tooth and presumably need to be replaced by the r&d and advanced programs.

The land warrior is being scrapped. Amongst the land warrior's benefits would have been the ability to track every soldier with his or her own gps coordinates -- pretty useful stuff.

We're not supposed to be eating our seed corn.

(Oddly though, the article states that FCS funding will continue, but my understanding is that McCain is not a friend of FCS...)

If I had a question for Napolitano it would be: what are you doing as governor to diversify the state's dependency on the military? If the state has a predominance of high tech work that is military related, isn't the state vulnerable to slowdowns that affected Los Angeles and the Bay Area? What are you doing as governor to keep the Raytheons, GDs, Boeings, Honeywells, Lockheeds in the state when the military dollars slow down?

Posted by anon | April 2, 2007 1:29 AM

Keep in mind that the Army's Intelligence school is in Arizona--Ft. Huachuca. Tons of contractors there. Tons of fraud, waste and abuse. Worth looking into. Even in all the reporting on interrogators, intel abuses/misuses, etc this aspect has never been mentioned to my knowledge. How did we raise a bunch of Soldiers who don't question improper interrogation practices? Faulty training. Unqualified contractors are a big factor in this.

Posted by bubba | April 2, 2007 1:52 AM

Good for him, we're going to need a lot more Blackhawks and Apaches made if the new Iraq security plans requires every Iraqi to be escorted by 5 choppers and 100 troops.

Posted by aleks | April 2, 2007 2:15 AM

The Apaches suck ass: they are far too vulnerable to small arms fire to be our front line attack helicopters. Too bad both parties have made objective criticism of the military off limits (aside from the snide condescension liberals sometimes express for enlistees). There needs to be a top-to-bottom reappraisal of the Army and Marine Corps after these wars. If we can't fight against small arms and improvised explosives effectively, maybe both services should be radically scaled down. The personnel savings could be put into more special ops, combat drones, etc.

Posted by Fred | April 2, 2007 2:42 AM

To add to earlier, there is this odd perception on the part of the public that the Military Industrial Complex only churns out heavy weaponry.

It is also, especially after Rumsfeld's tenure, heavily invested in training, computer systems, ordinary supply and logistics, etc etc.

Arguements can be made that, when properly managed it can increase efficiency in the latter two categories and not have crippling effects when slightly mismanaged. But when training, especially in the intel arena, is mismanaged as it has been, and even when it is managed properly as they are trying (somewhat) to do now, it has terrible and long-lasting effects.

Posted by bubba | April 2, 2007 4:14 AM

"And yet, Saint John McCain's strident militarism never gets discussed on these terms -- is never seen as something on a par with how Carl Levin loves cars and Joe Biden loves credits cards. "

Duh. He's a straight talking maverick, don't you know?

Posted by Ginger Yellow | April 2, 2007 4:46 AM

"...Saint John McCain's strident militarism never gets discussed on these terms -- is never seen as something on a par with how Carl Levin loves cars and Joe Biden loves credits cards."

The same is true for Joe Lieberman.

Posted by ~~~~ | April 2, 2007 6:30 AM

Perhaps it isnt talked about in such terms because most people require more than crude circumstantial ad hominem before they feel comfortable in making such lurid suggestions. You are seriously insinuating that a man who endured the horrors of war first hand, and still suffers to this day from the experience, is commited to putting others in that situation because it's good for his states economy. For most people to even hint at such a thing would require evidence of some significance. You however have made it clear that you will quite happily smear anybody on even the most dubious of grounds should they happen to disagree with you.

Posted by the invisible pimp hand | April 2, 2007 7:09 AM

STFU, invisible pimp hand:

The Yglesias family has a proud tradition of military service itself. Matt's older brother Chaim is serving in the 1st Battalion, 75 Rangers Brigade right now. Matt has earned the stature to call McCain a porker.

Posted by Stephan | April 2, 2007 8:16 AM

I always find it interesting that people in the Western states are so anti-federal government - yet they are so dependent on it. Phoenix would be a wasteland if the rest of us weren't subisidizing their water, electricity, and businesses.

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | April 2, 2007 8:35 AM

I hope you treated Gov. Napolitano, a fellow Santa Clara University grad, well. The SCU alumni magazine ran a profile on her back in 2004, if anyone is interested.

http://www.scu.edu/scm/winter2004/napolitano.cfm

Posted by Tiparillo | April 2, 2007 1:33 PM

"Matt has earned the stature to call McCain a porker."

OK, I get it now. He has the Absolute Moral Authority earned by other members of his family to call someone a porker without rolling out any facts to support the name-calling.

Posted by Bill | April 3, 2007 11:36 AM