BEWARE MCCAIN: THE HAWK IN HAWK'S CLOTHING

Super Tuesday is almost upon us. While the Democratic race is likely to carry on until the summer, with Obama breathing down Clinton's bony neck until the bitter end (and, fingers crossed, triumphing against all odds!), Tuesday's tsunami of nationwide Republican primaries could easily see Senator John McCain wrap up the GOP's presidential nomination.

Since McCain's victory in Florida over his quiffed millionaire chief rival Mitt Romney, the pundits have anointed him as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee and the Democrats have begun asking which of their two candidates (the pro-war white woman or the anti-war black man) is best placed to beat the maverick Republican senator from Arizona.

McCain, as usual, has benefited from an uncritical and unthinking wave of positive, flattering and semi-adulatory press coverage (including an endorsement from the supposedly liberal New York Times). He is often described, bizarrely, as a "moderate" and a "liberal". In fact, one newspaper described McCain and his two newest best friends in the GOP - Governor Arnold Schwarznegger of California and former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani - as the three "liberal Republican amigos":

Yet, the only liberal or moderate criteria which these three subscribe to relate to social issues - they are all pro-homosexuality and pro-abortion. Is that how we now define liberalism? How we now define moderation? Whether or not you vote for gay marriage? Whether or not you support the killing of foetuses? Forget issues of war and peace, forget econonomic issues; it's all about trendy and amoral 'social liberalism'.

The fact is, as Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo has outlined in great detail, John McCain is more pro-war than even George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. He was perhaps the only Republican in Congress to attack the then US Defense Secretary -and bloviating warmonger-in-chief - Donald Rumsfeld from the right. He ludicrously believes the US military 'surge' in Iraq is working - despite swathes of evidence to the contrary. He thinks American Muslims should stay out of politics and are unsuited for high office. And his solution to the 'problem' of Iran's nuclear programme is - wait for it - to BOMB! Don't believe me? Watch him sing - yes, sing - his solution to a crowd of cheering (and presumably bloodthirsty) Republican supporters:


As for his new best friend - and, God forbid, potential vice-presidential running-mate - Rudy Giuliani, his views on the need to bomb the Middle East into submission and declare World War III against Islamists (or does he really mean Islam?) are well-known and well-documented. In fact, the man who, according to Senator Joe Biden only has three words in his vocabulary ('a noun, a verb, and 9-11"), came close to describing all Muslims as a "perverted people" in one of his campaign ads. Again, don't believe me? Watch for yourself how naked appeals to redneck Islamophobia and knee-jerk militarism have become the defining characteristics for Republicans who are supposed to be 'liberals' and 'moderates':


In fact, Middle East scholar and blogger Professor Juan Cole has an excellent piece in Salon this week, entitled 'Blowback from the GOP's holy war'. Cole points out:

"Why might all this rhetoric targeting Muslims be unwise? For one thing, allowing the Christian conservative base to set an agenda that demonizes Muslims contains the danger of turning off more moderate segments of the GOP and American voters at large. McCain's comment on the importance of a president's being Christian appeared to have backfired on him in precisely that way.

"Moreover, Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans are swing voters in key states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida. While they tended to vote for George W. Bush in 2000, by 2004 these groups overwhelmingly supported John Kerry, and the heavy-handed and bigoted rhetoric of the Republican candidates may drive them away from the GOP altogether."

Here's hoping - and here's hoping that US Muslims, combined with US lefties, liberals and independents who see through the McCain-Giuliani-Arnie 'liberal/moderate' charade, elect a Democrat to the White House in November.