Anger Is an Energy

Matt Welch | January 22, 2008

Wait, did someone just say "willingness to use the power of his office to ruin the lives of those who dare to cross him" in regards to a Republican presidential contender? Well, here's a blasto from el pasto that I found too late to make into the "Anger Management" chapter of my libro:

In their effort to discredit a retired Air Force sergeant who had made apparently false accusations against John G. Tower, Pentagon officials and a Republican Senator revealed a selective and perhaps misleading version of his mental health records, according to material made public today.

Experts in privacy law said in interviews today that any release of military medical records was a violation of the sergeant's rights.

A letter from a top Air Force official read in public Thursday by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, gave partial quotations from the sergeant's medical reports indicating that he was psychologically unstable. [...]

Senator McCain, an Arizona Republican and a retired Navy captain, said in an interview today: ''I'm sorry I had to do it, but weighed in the balance of assassination of a man's character, it was the lesser of two evils.'' [...]

In an interview, Ronald L. Plesser, a Washington lawyer who is considered the nation's foremost authority on the laws of privacy, said the release of the medical records was ''a clear violation of the spirit of the Privacy Act.''

Only under extraordinary circumstances, said Mr. Plesser and other experts, can medical records be made public without the consent of the serviceman involved.

Comments

|1.22.08 @ 9:39AM|#

I don't know, Matt.

You could be wrong, you could be right.

|1.22.08 @ 10:00AM|#

*sigh*

|1.22.08 @ 10:09AM|#

John McCain is an unpredictable, vindictive and angry man? I believe it.

|1.22.08 @ 10:14AM|#

anger is energy ... didn't you see Monsters, Inc.? Laughter has far more energy.

|1.22.08 @ 10:20AM|#

When should I expect to see Matt Welch's medical records and other confidential information make it to the public realm?

Bryan|1.22.08 @ 11:22AM|#

*yawn*

The only good things about Welch's antidotial attacks on McCain is that everyone is quickly realizing just how little dirt he has on the guy. Fairly isolated incidents from 19 years ago used to attcks a candidate that has been in public service for 26 years...its a stretch.

I guess since the book is already written, you don't make any money unless you hawk it, right Matt?

jj|1.22.08 @ 11:23AM|#

Substantial dirt on McCain?: McCain-Feingold. Case closed.

|1.22.08 @ 11:29AM|#

Silly Rabbits,

Everyone knows that when you join the military, they own you (and your medical records).

Fluffy|1.22.08 @ 11:44AM|#

McCain is an idiot who sings songs about attacking other countries at campaign events, and makes burka jokes during campaign debates [still waiting for him to make a yarmulke joke].

His entire campaign is based on the press fellatio he's been getting since 2000.

|1.22.08 @ 12:01PM|#

His entire campaign is based on the press fellatio he's been getting since 2000.

... which is really inexplicable, considering the lengths he's gone to over the last seven years to always be on the wrong side of every issue the moment it became the wrong side to be on, apparently just for the love of alienating anybody who mistakenly supports him.

2001, 2002 - Still sore-arsing about Bush when most of the country have "Hail to the Chief" ringtones. Acquires a small base of misguided leftists ...

2003, 2004 - ... and then loses them all by spending the next two years fellating the religious right, apparently bought into the idea that evangelicals now drive all politics. Social cons still don't like him. However, by ...

2005 - ... he's begun to receive another windfall as it becomes clear even to the GOP that Bush is actually a total disaster and the Iraq War maybe the poster disaster of his administration, at which point ...

2006 - ... McCain becomes a fervent Bush/Iraq War booster, down to trotting out that tired morale argument aimed at critics. His cadre of left idiots realize he isn't a maverick and leave. Social cons still aren't happy, particularly now that immigration is heating up as an issue. By

2007 - the only thing between him and a well-deserved press hammering is the widespread belief in the success of the Iraq "surge," which he now claims credit for, though in truth all he did was fall over himself to slobber the idea.

If the nomination goes to John McCain, it will be in spite of his talent as a politician, not because of it. Actually, it'll be because of the fucking terrible choice of clowns the GOP have this year.

Bryan|1.22.08 @ 12:32PM|#

jj,

the propaganda machine seems to have gotten to you pretty well. Mc/F must not be working after all. Or perhaps its cutting into your livelihood.

Fluffy|1.22.08 @ 12:50PM|#

McCain-Feingold is not working because the courts slapped down the most egregious parts.

That's no thanks to John McCain.

John McCain hates free speech EVEN MORE than Jerry Falwell did - and that's saying a lot. If the day ever comes when it's illegal for a private citizen to walk down to a radio station and use their own money to pay for a political ad, that citizen should leave the radio station, find John McCain, and hit him in the face with a crowbar.

PC|1.22.08 @ 2:24PM|#

Yes McCain would be a tough pil to swallow.

|1.22.08 @ 2:51PM|#

McCain is such a fucking scumbag. The thought of him being president makes me want to shoot myself in the face.

Jennifer|1.22.08 @ 3:32PM|#

Dammit, now I'm going to have that song running through my head all day. Thanks a lot.

Bryan|1.22.08 @ 3:36PM|#

You don't know what you are talking about Fluffy.

R C Dean|1.22.08 @ 4:36PM|#

McCain-Feingold is not working because the courts slapped down the most egregious parts.

Even if the courts had struck nothing down, M-F would not be "working" in the sense of delivering spring-fresh politics to our doors.

Of course, regardless of what was struck down, M-F is doing the work that most of its legislative supporters intended - tilting the field toward incumbents.

Fluffy|1.22.08 @ 4:55PM|#

Thanks, RC, for correcting me.

Naturally, I was trying to say that the reason McCain-Feingold had turned into a less onerous burden on free speech than its authors intended was the fact that sections had been struck down. That is certainly not the same as "working", you're right.

Bryan -

Jerry Falwell hated free speech that he personally thought was obscene, and hated free speech that criticized him [spoof cartoons showing him sleeping with his mother, for example], and hated free speech if it cost him money [if someone called his 800 number over and over to run up the bill, for example].

John McCain hates all of those types of free speech, too, but goes beyond that to hate free political speech if it either advocates for or speaks out against a political candidate within a certain time frame of an election. [Because election time isn't the right time for citizens to engage in political speech. Or something.]

Therefore, it is appropriate to say that John McCain hates free speech even more than Jerry Falwell did. QED.

Bryan|1.22.08 @ 8:22PM|#

RC Dean

Its funny that the SpeechNow story broke today since it goes to the heart of what I think Mc/F is about. As a supporter of McCain-Feingold, I think it appears that the FEC is getting that decision wrong. I don't think that oganizations operating independently of parties and campaigns that don't take corporate and union support were meant to be covered by Mc/F (including both the contribution limits and electioneering communitcation provisions). Assuming I am correct, and the FEC's decision gets overturned, what is the free speech violation that carves out such a wide exception to unregulated advertising?

Fluffy,
Also assuming I am correct on the incorrectness of the FEC's draft decision, how is it fair to say that McCain hate free speech? Seems to me that he only hates certain ways of funding certain speech (i.e. speech coordinated with the campaign or certain speech funded by the general treasuries of corporations or unions around election time).

|1.22.08 @ 11:21PM|#

Grammar alert: Shouldn't that be "un blasto del pasto"? Of course, "El Pasto" may also be Spanish for His Noodly Magnificence, and in that case, "un blasto del Pasto" would have an entirely different meaning.

Flying Man|1.23.08 @ 11:37PM|#

There are plenty of valid reasons to dismiss McCain that do not involve delving into psychology. First is his new government program sponsoring Wage Insurance-
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/1/11/mccains-new-square-deal.html
How many people can afford that?

Second, is his focus on the importance of sacrificing and volunteering. This is the position of someone who views individuals as a means to an end, to be sacrificed to 'needs of the many'. A dangerous idea to mix into politics. We need politicians who defend a persons right to spend time bettering his own life, not sacrificing his life to others.