ONE INVESTMENT HAS WORKED OUT REALLY WELL FOR THE REPUBLICANS-- BUYING THE AMERICAN MASS MEDIA

Earlier today we excoriated Republicans as incompetent and-- more important-- dishonest custodians of investment money. When Greed is worshipped as an attribute above all others, trouble is inevitable. The biggest Republican Establishment-connected investment scam artists on the planet, the Carlyle Group, just defaulted on $16.6 billion in loans from the biggest banks in the world, thanks to laws that have been passed specifically to allow the rich to get richer at the expense of everyone else.

But one set of investments has paid another kind of dividend for the GOP and its allies, and this one is golden: the mass media. Again, laws were manipulated to favor themselves to the disadvantage of the public good. Reactionary Democrats, especially Blue Dogs and the DLC (including President Bill Clinton) went along for the lucrative ride. Republican billionaires set about buying up our entire mass media. They succeeded. The result has been catastrophic for America, creating people like these, who bask self-righteously in their own gross ignorance and narrow-minded bigotry.

So today we have a significant portion of the electorate who know for certain that Barack Obama is a Muslim and we have a population almost completely oblivious to the death toll in Iraq.

No one in their right mind would ever imagine that Bush, with his 18% job approval rating could be elected to a third term. And yet, with the manipulation of the media, many Americans-- perhaps enough-- think McCain is somehow different from Bush or even that Americans support the Bush-McCain agenda of endless war.

So, while bloggers get out the truth about McBush, most Americans hear nothing but a prefabricated story line from GOP Central. Today, for example, Cenk from the Young Turks, fought back with a careful look at the vaguely reformist McCain of 2000 and this year's model (a lemon).

Now, that McCain of yesteryear is unrecognizable. He has taken nearly every position he abhorred and gotten in bed with every loathsome political figure he fought against. Where have you gone, John McCain? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

There are two different McCains: the John McCain of 2000 and the John McCain of 2008.

The John McCain of 2000 called the Christian right preachers, such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, the “agents of intolerance.” He was right. These people are complete charlatans — and McCain knows it. At least he did in 2000.

The John McCain of 2008 has kissed the ring of nearly every major Christian right preacher in the country, even Falwell. Falwell said the United States had the Sept. 11 attacks coming because we tolerate homosexuals, feminists and liberals. The John McCain of 2000 would have found that despicable. The John McCain of 2008 gave the commencement speech at Falwell’s Liberty University.

The John McCain of 2000 said this: “Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right.”

The John McCain of 2008 has pandered to those same exact folks. Can you imagine if Obama gave a speech at an event honoring Farrakhan?

And now, McCain says he is “very honored” to get the endorsement of the Rev. John Hagee, who has called the Catholic church the “Great Whore.” The John McCain of 2000 must be hanging his head in shame.

The John McCain of 2000 thought cutting taxes when you couldn’t pay for it was a terrible idea. In 2003, he thought it was an even worse idea to do that in the middle of a war. The John McCain of 2008 says he will make these same tax cuts permanent.

Is anyone paying attention? Who snatched the body of McCain?

A few days ago, I wound up-- through no fault of my own, in a political conversation with my reactionary brother-in-law who launched into a bizarre rant about an undefined conspiracy of Negroes (Obama and Oprah). Trying to bring the discussion back into the realm of sanity, I asked him why he insists McCain is qualified to be president because of what a great military figure he was. You see, this is another GOP talking point that has been hammered into the consciousness of many voters. The myth: McCain defeated Napoleon, Stalin, Mao and Hitler. The reality: he was a terrible pilot who crashed up 5 planes, killed hundreds of American sailors, refused to obey orders or pay attention to manuals and then sat out the Vietnam war as a prisoner where he claims he resisted torture but where others labeled him a "songbird" and traitor. McCain's real military record bears no resemblance to the one he created for himself and has been amplified and set in stone by the Republican media.