These are not "social issues"

Steve Benen points out that when John McCain says that he opposes amendments to defense appropriations bills he is either lying or senile.

Fair enough, but before he gets there, Steve writes,

Noting, for example, that the bill includes a repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, and may ultimately include the Dream Act, McCain says the problem has nothing to do with his animosity towards gays and immigrants. Rather, McCain says it's "reprehensible" to "use the defense bill ... to pursue a social agenda."

At first blush, this might seem half-way reasonable. Putting aside the fact that troop eligibility has quite a bit to do with the Pentagon, it does seem awkward to add extraneous provisions to spending bills that deal with unrelated subjects. Last year, for example, Democrats added the Hate Crimes Prevention Act to the defense authorization bill, though hate crimes and military spending don't seem related.

No.

It isn't "half-way reasonable." As Steve himself points out both issues are very much about troop strength.

McCain has zigzagged so much the "Straight Talk Express" should be pulled over for DUI, but repeal of DADT and passing the Dream Act are "national security" issues. One punishes our fighting men and women while they serve, the other fails to reward them after they served.

McCain "shifts"

Who could have predicted...

Three years ago, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was pretty clear about his stand on the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

A former war hero, McCain said he would support ending the ban once the military's top brass told him that they agreed with the change.

"The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it," McCain said in October 2006 to an audience of Iowa State University students.

That day arrived Tuesday, with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen testifying to senators after President Obama's announcement that he would seek a congressional repeal of the 15-year-old policy.

Mullen called repealing the policy, which bans openly gay men and lesbians from serving, "the right thing to do" and said he was personally troubled by effectively forcing service members to "lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens."

Gates told the Armed Services Committee, "I fully support the president's decision."

In response, McCain declared himself "disappointed" in the testimony. "At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," he said bluntly, before describing it as "imperfect but effective."

Mavericky move, for sure.

Now, some will call Sen. McCain a pathetic, disgusting old man who has nothing left but to prowl his front lawn snarling at anyone who comes near it.

And they'd be right. Apparently he doesn't consider it "an immense hardship" to be forced to hide who you are in order to serve this country and possibly make the ultimate sacrifice for it.

That's just par for the course for this shallow, self-absorbed, media darling (still!). What I (and Ezra) find interesting is his disdain for the notion of civilian leadership of the military.

McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said her boss has not shifted his position.

She noted that Mullen said repeatedly that he was speaking for himself and not for the military, and she dismissed Gates's testimony because he was expressing the Obama administration's line.

The neo Nazi?

Rashid Khalidi's colleagues at Columbia U are a little bewildered by the character assassination being done on him by the McCain campaign.

Rashid Khalidi had been bracing for the storm for months, friends said.

Since an April news report detailing his relationship with Senator Barack Obama, Mr. Khalidi, a Middle East scholar and passionate defender of Palestinian rights, had waited to see himself caricatured by Republicans as part of a rogues’ gallery of Obama associates, which has come to include the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and William C. Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground.

He was surprised, the friends said, that so little criticism came — until this last frenzied week before the election, when Senator John McCain cited the April article in The Los Angeles Times about a dinner Mr. Obama attended in Mr. Khalidi’s honor in 2003, and questioned Mr. Obama’s commitment to Israel.

In recent days, Republican partisans have accused Mr. Khalidi, a professor at Columbia University since 2003, of everything from anti-Semitism to baby-sitting for Mr. Obama’s children.

For Columbia, the firestorm is the latest episode in a string of messy, public controversies regarding Middle East politics. In 2004, pro-Palestinian professors were accused of intimidating Jewish students. Mr. Khalidi was not one of those teachers, but he was barred the next year from lecturing New York City public school teachers for having used the words “racist” and “apartheid” in discussions of Israel.

“It just seems really ironic to me that Rashid would be singled out as a figure in the trumped-up controversy,” Alan Brinkley, Columbia’s provost and a friend of Mr. Khalidi’s since 1985, said in a telephone interview Thursday. “In a field that is often politicized, he is respected by people on the right as well as the left.”

Ariel Beery, a former Columbia student leader who was involved in a pro-Israel group’s film about the 2004 controversy, said Mr. Khalidi was different from those accused of intimidation.

“In terms of his role as a professor, he was excellent,” Mr. Beery said Thursday in a telephone interview from Israel, where he lives. “He was provoking, he always allowed for different opinions, he had an open zone where people could voice their disagreement.”

Mr. Beery did criticize Mr. Khalidi’s leadership of the Middle East Institute at Columbia, saying it was “highly politicized” and “not promoting a diverse view of the Middle East.”

Mr. Khalidi, who is on sabbatical, declined to comment.

Remarking on this latest smear by McCain, John Judis declares this a dirtier campaign than Bush '88 (aka Willie Horton). You know, the one Lee Atwater would beg forgiveness for on his death bead.