Peter Wehner thinks John McCain is like Pericles of Athens. Methinks some folks have been drinking too much of their own kool-aid.
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Department of Crazy Comparisons
02 May 2008 02:12 pm
Comments (22)
Insert mandatory age joke (e.g., "Didn't McCain and Pericles go to high school together?") here.
Shakespeare's Pericles is a misguided mess, with a rambling plot that was considered out-of-date in its own time. Indeed, it was also a classical tale filtered through the genre of a medieval romance. Although popular, contemporaries recognized it as fluff, and even Shakespeare's earliest editors don't include the play in his first collected edition.
So: confused, out-of-date, old, and only superficially liked: yes, this is exactly McCain.
Shakespeare's Pericles is a misguided mess, with a rambling plot that was considered out-of-date in its own time. Indeed, it was also a classical tale filtered through the genre of a medieval romance. Although popular, contemporaries recognized it as fluff, and even Shakespeare's earliest editors don't include the play in his first collected edition.
So: confused, out-of-date, old, and only superficially liked: yes, this is exactly McCain.
Not to mention that Pericles' oligarchic/militaristic policy towards Sparta led to Athens' eventual defeat and destruction. Just sayin'.
He's calling Cindy a whore?
Wow. You guys just used every joke I was going to use. That was fast. Either I'm not funny, or you're one erudite group. Or both, I suppose.
I'm not sure he's so far off. Hmm, relatively autocratic ruler of a nominally democratic polis whose use of an aggressive, expansionist foreign policy lead to a disasterous prolonged war that ultimately caused the downfall of his native state.
Yeah i could see that.
Maybe he meant Pericles of Athens, Georgia --
the old guy who hangs out by the Coke machine at the Stop-n-Shop, maundering about how we just need to nuke those Eye-raney-uns once & fer all ....
Pericles II: The McBushening
What's McCain thinking when he says boot Russia from G-8?
By Matt Stearns and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers | Thursday, May 1, 2008WASHINGTON — John McCain dropped a little-noticed bombshell into his March foreign-policy address: Boot Russia from the G-8, the elite club of leading industrial democracies whose leaders try to coordinate economic policies.
One major problem: He can't do it because the other G-8 nations won't let him.
But the fact that he's proposing to try, risking a return to Cold War tensions with the world's second-largest nuclear power after 20 years of prickly partnership, raises questions about McCain's judgment. It also underscores that many of his top foreign-policy advisers are of the same neo-conservative school that promoted the war in Iraq, argue for a tougher stance toward Iran and are skeptical of negotiating with North Korea over its nuclear program.
The Group of Eight, or G-8, as it's popularly known, makes decisions by consensus, so no single nation can kick out another. Most experts say the six other countries — Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Canada — would never agree to toss Russia, given their close economic ties to their neighbor. A senior U.S. official who deals with Russia policy said that even Moscow would have to approve of its own ouster, given how the G-8 works.
"It's not even a theoretical discussion. It's an impossible discussion," said the senior official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly. "It's just a dumb thing."
Wait, no one has yet mentioned that Pericles also ditched his wife and the mother of his children for an alluring younger mistress? Republican family values for sure.
I think Matt has gotten lazy.
I mean if its such a ridiculous proposition, Matt, to say that McCain = Pericles, than surely you can demolish it, right? Apparently not. He'll just use the tired, old, kool-aid comment.
But the other commenters above have far excelled Yglesias even on the manner of snark.
*sigh*
So, just to clarify, this is an OBAMA supporter accusing a MaCain supporter of drinking the KoolAid?????!!!!!! Pot, kettle, etc.....
Regardless whether the comparison of McCain to Pericles is apt, Pericles was dead before Athens made its fundamental errors, got involved in debilitating foreign ventures (e.g., Sicily), etc. That's not to say that Pericles' strategy of hiding within the long walls of Athens was really working when he did. There is something positive to say, however, about Pericles' prior strategy of "moderate imperialism" -- particularly when compared to the alternatives on offer.
Also, John McCain is older than Pericles.
Re Von's comment "There is something positive to say, however, about Pericles' prior strategy of "moderate imperialism" "
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"moderate imperialism"?? -- You mean like the Melian Dialogue? -- and the massacre of the Melian population when they wouldn't play ball?
Why do you guys think the other city states backed Sparta against Athens?
And Athens didn't just lose a war -- Athens became the BITCH of foreign powers for the next 2300 years!
When you are a blustering bully, people don't just hit you hard. They make damm sure (a) you get no warning and (b) that you don't get back up.
Say what, Don? Athens came back fine. They were actually leading resistance to Alexander when he came around. Didn't win, but it's not like anybody else did better.
If you want to say that Greece as a whole lost the war, that's fine. But Athens?
Maybe Wehner just meant that McCain was probably going to die in office too?
Thanks, Don, for making my point that folks on this blog shouldn't be talking about Pericles v. McCain because they have no idea what they're talking about.
"moderate imperialism"?? -- You mean like the Melian Dialogue? -- and the massacre of the Melian population when they wouldn't play ball?
The Melian dialogue occurred in 419 BCE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melian_dialogue
When it occurred, Pericles had already been dead for a decade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles
Sorry, 419 = 416 BCE, and Pericles had been dead for 13, not 10, years.
Re von's comment "When it occurred, Pericles had already been dead for a decade."
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So what?? Ronald Reagan will soon be dead for a decade -- and had been brain dead 15 years before he departed.
Yet Bush and the Republicans can do little besides recite the talking points Reagan laid down in 1980.
Look at Pericles' famous oration and tell me you see no imfluence in creating the Athenian imperialistic mindset that led to the Melian massacre.
Pericles started the disastrous Peloponnesian War with Sparta and led Athens in prosecuting that war until he died two years later.
Sparta was able to acquire allies because the other city states saw how "democratic" Pericles had extorted tribute from Athens' allies "for the mutual defense" and had then embezzled the money on a massive scale to support public works projects in Athens (Partheon) -- in order to keep his rabble satisfied and himself in office.
The practice some Southern Democrats have of soaking the taxpayers for "national defense" and then using the defense budget to buy votes has a long and ancient precedent. One of the benefits of a "classical education".
Comments closed May 16, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
You know, this comparison may not be so off base. Pericles was a hip, quippy kind of leader of the sort for whom, if he were a modern politician, journalists would totally be his base.
Pericles was also an overly romantic militarist who got Athens into a protracted and unnecessary war with Sparta, which Athens lost. Miserably.
Posted by Lucky Adrastus | May 2, 2008 2:36 PM