Living in the Arid Zone Of
April 29th, 2006A brief note: this is a bit of poetry I wrote about John McCain and Barry Goldwater. Who says political commentary can’t rhyme?
EDIT: this is a poem I am, in a lot of ways still fond of, but man…it’s such a sixteen-year-old’s poem.
Living in the Arid Zone Of
John McCain of Arizona
Lives in the Arid Zone of
Barry Goldwater’s Shadow
A place that glows like El Dorado
But all that glitters isn’t gold
And this space is bright and green
I’ve never heard it told
That McCain’s a weapon’s dream
People seem to be forgetting
The legacy they’d be getting
If they insisted on electing
The Senator from Arizona
Who lives in the Arid Zone of
Barry Goldwater’s Shadow,
A place called “Bald Bravado”
Some whisper that he’s mad
Driven so by the Vietcong
I say it cause he’s never had
A reason not to bomb
On Iraq — let us attack
On Iran — let flights run
On Kosovo — if it’s Clinton, No
On China — just give it time, duh
Years before Bush proposed invading
John beat the War Drums
His calls for War predating
Even the new Millennium
This is a Moderate Hawk?
He’s a man who can not talk
Without taking a Swipe
At Apples just not Ripe
For invading
McCain wants the form of Campaign Finance
I guess it’s from Saints that he’s Financed
John doesn’t know Jack! (Abramoff) (he does)
He only takes the Dollars of
“Good lobbyists” — at least he claims a nice stance!
Oh McCain — the man’s Untainted
What a way he’s been painted
By those with no need for acquaintance
With facts, who needs those
When a Senator is Sainted
McCain’s men so excel at Public Relations
That if his aides had been Stationed
In the Arid Zone of
Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Arizona
This would be a different nation
If you watch the Senate close
You might see Goldwater’s ghost
It’s over McCain that he hovers
Laughing at what the Media don’t cover
The subject of Goldwater’s Revenge
Is scarier than Stonehenge
But it’s hard to hear that story
When the press finds Itself adoring
The man from the Arid Zone of
Barry Goldwater’s Arizona
Goldwater called for us to Saw Off the Coast
If McCain said it, there’d be many toasts
To his wonderful charm
Because what’s the harm
In giving a ride to Goldwater’s ghost
McCain is a leader!
But I see him as addled
You see, my dear reader
Goldwater’s truly in the saddle
And Barry Goldwater never looked this good
Because Goldwater didn’t have a fawning press
And Goldwater never looked this good
While setting out to make a mess
April 30th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
just a quick update,
still haven’t heard anything from chambliss, and isakson hasn’t replied to my second inquiry.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
[…] So how can the Democrats win? you ask, because you refuse to say that they will lose. They can win one way and one way only: by successfully painting John McCain as an extension of George W. Bush, and to do that (which is a tricky proposition) they will have to wrap their fists around McCain’s infamous “100 years in Iraq” comment and hit him in the kidneys until they’ve given way and he has bled to death. There is very little way around it, otherwise, because he is a moderate and an independent as perceived by the public and he is a candidate who will have broad appeal unless he is labelled a warmonger. Unless the Democrats can successfully tear him down (which is difficult because of their historical ineptness and the fact that McCain is a war hero) they will lose because their candidates lack national appeal and will be easily labelled and ridiculed, their organization is not as good as the Republicans, McCain is a strong candidate running at the right time in his party’s history. I think it will be an electoral landslide in favor of McCain and Democrats will be left to wonder why the rest of the nation didn’t buy the platitudes of the Democrats who aren’t Bush, “how could this have happened!“. I will be there to point out that McCain isn’t Bush, either, and Americans like Republican government, overall, even if they have tired of the man who I once ridiculed in a poem two years ago. […]