The "I Don't Know" Express

I'd like to know more about who created this John McCain mash-up, which is just a bit unfair but also, I think, pretty effective and cutting:

Mike Crowley says McCain is "at once defensive, irritated, and a little arrogant" these days. It seems to me that years of worshipful media coverage have sort of addled his brain. Years worth of having craven panders hailed as yet another example of your straight-talky awesomeness have, I would guess, rendered him incapable of coping with the idea that some people may doubt his intrinsic awesomeness.

Comments

McCain has been in the US Senate for over 25 years and in all that time he has never found a single thing the United States Government does that he believes is worth paying for. Not a one.

Yet, being the hypocrite he is, he has taken numerous pay raises, then is too much a coward to ask his constituents to pay for.

Posted by ken | June 11, 2007 12:18 PM

I see McCain in that clip and I see an old, old man, though of course Petey will say that I'm actually enabling his "experienced candidate" narrative.

I don't think this has anything to do with media coverage, and it's silly to suggest otherwise. The last few years have been very difficult for McCain, mostly Iraq and his stance there. I'm pretty sure deep in his heart McCain knows the war is lost, but he just can't admit it to himself. Meanwhile he basically sold out to Bush in order to clinch the Republican nomination, but now it's all backfiring on him, like a house of cards. It's really a Shakespearean sort of tragedy.

Posted by Korha | June 11, 2007 12:43 PM

Don't forget those five and a half years he spent in Viet Nam listening only to his demons. Some would say he is unbalanced; of course, I would never say this.

Posted by Rula Lenska | June 11, 2007 1:30 PM

I agree with MattY and Korha re McCain. I'd add that 1) he seems to want/need to be preznit a little too badly; 2) Bob Novak reported a couple of days ago that he's running out of money, and the debates sure didn't help him (he polled poorly in all three); 3) the whole "maverick" shtick looks a little old by now, especially with Ron Paul on the stage; 4) the "comprehensive immigration" bill was strongly opposed by the primary-voting base, with whom he has no credibility on this issue.

McCain is probably through (and I went to a McCain rally in Alexandria in 1999!).

I still can't see Giuliani or Romney being righty enough to win the Republican primary -- which leaves the field wide open in my sick, twisted view.

Posted by Zagnut | June 11, 2007 1:36 PM

There's only one thing McCain can do to save his sinking ship: take to the Senate floor in September and announce with deep sadness that it's time to bring the troops home, and then to lead the effort to do so. Course that ain't gonna happen, so by the time this is thing is over, he's gonna have like three supporters left: his wife, Chris Matthews, and Howard Fineman.

Posted by david mizner | June 11, 2007 1:50 PM

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz.......

Here's a much better McCain video, with a regular citizen asking him a question that he can't answer:

youtube.com/watch?v=pdg8JVUStSo

For balance, here's a question that MattY and those above him in the MSM don't have the guts to ask BillRichardson:

youtube.com/watch?v=i0YRHXoygRM

Posted by TLB | June 11, 2007 1:53 PM

I should add that just last week I said McCain was still the man to beat, and I've also predicted a primary victory for Fred Thomspon, Chuck Hagel, and Frank Keating, who never was and still isn't a candidate, so don't listen to me when it comes to assessing the GOP field.

Posted by david mizner | June 11, 2007 1:56 PM

Matt Y: The politics of resentment are no more attractive when its liberals resenting the "washington media establishment." I disagree with many (most?) of McCain's positions and his pandering to christian right in the last year is disheartening, but when I look at the republican field I can't help thining that McCain is one of the more decent human beings (and by far the most decent of the top three). Being wrong on policy matters, but he's a guy I can disagree with and still respect.

Speaking of Chris Matthews (as david minzer was), I think he took a shine to Young Ezra Klein on Hardball the other night.

Posted by Led | June 11, 2007 2:13 PM

Speaking of Chris Matthews ... I think he took a shine to Young Ezra Klein on Hardball the other night.

You have to be kidding. Could he have said the word "blogger" with any more disgust?

Posted by sangfroid826 | June 11, 2007 2:58 PM

Of course McCain doesn't have a health care plan. The man has never said anything of substance on the issue, and I was under the impression that the issue bored him.

Of course McCain doesn't have a strategy for Iraq. The time for plans and strategies and tactics has ended. We are in a purely reactive mode right now, so the only options are to keep going or get out. Unless Giuliani gets his way and we just indiscriminately go on offense.

The thing is, I suppose, that John McCain doesn't really have any original or interesting ideas. He doesn't even have an interesting spin on the whole conservative phenomenon (like that of Ron Paul, for example). He's a constituency conservative, trying to keep all the groups in the coalition happy enough to vote for him. Unfortunately, constituency politics effectively doomed the Democratic Party to exile (just ask Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry), while policy-based politicians (e.g. Carter and Clinton) have been successful. At this point, the only GOPer who has had anything interesting or novel to say is Ron Paul, which is probably why he's gaining a following.

I'm happy to report that, considering the data, ideas might win elections after all.

Posted by Adam D | June 11, 2007 3:04 PM

Started off with disgust, but Young Ezra won him over. Matthews then redirected his contempt toward the woman working for the Terminator.

Posted by Led | June 11, 2007 3:08 PM

Someone should tell McCain that wearing an outdoor jacket during an indoor interview doesn't say 'common man' but 'elderly man who's losing vital heat' (and supporters).

Posted by lampwick | June 11, 2007 7:11 PM

The McCain in the "I don't know" montage is Reaganesque.

TLB's YouTube clip of McCain is more damning, and impressive at the same time. It's damning because the questioner demonstrates that McCain, Bush and other advocates of the Senate bill never implemented the enforcement bill passed last year; the questioner also makes the great point that, had they done so before proposing the Senate compromise, they might have gotten it passed.

Out of a long list, Bush's stupidest tactical political failure was to not build that 700 mile fence quickly, before the amnesty bill got to the Senate. It's one thing not to enforce employer sanctions, but building only 2 miles of a 700 mile fence in six months is such a tangible and obvious sign of contempt for voters that even the affable and sincere-sounding McCain can't talk his way past it.

If it weren't for the immigration issue, I'd vote for McCain. But he's on the wrong side of this issue and now he's toast, even if Nina Easton's husband and other Beltway media types don't realize it yet. It's between Rudy and Romney now.

Posted by Fred | June 11, 2007 8:35 PM