Rolling Stones' McCain article

Trojan

How credible is the Rolling Stone in general, and this article in particular?

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print

The Raven.

Trojan wrote: »

How credible is the Rolling Stone in general, and this article in particular?

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print

The magazine has been around since the sixties and was read mostly by pop culture enthusiasts and musicians. It has been criticised as a ‘left-leaning magazine’ that ‘goes beyond its musical roots to dabble in liberal politics, with Jonah Goldberg opining that "Rolling Stone has essentially become the house organ of the Democratic National Committee."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RollingStone

The article is rather long and I will read it tomorrow. At a first glance it seems a bit below the belt.

Black Swan

What is interesting about the McCain biography published in the Rolling Stone are the extraordinary number of names, dates, quotes, and related details that could be reviewed for accuracy, if someone wanted to confirm or debunk the facts claimed in the article.

I would think it fair to say it's left-leaning, but for Jonah Goldberg to claim that it has "essentially become the house organ of the Democratic National Committee" evidences Goldberg's own bias.

Needless to say, the McCain portrayed in the Rolling Stone article is very different from the image broadcast by his campaign.

speedboatchase

The illustration on the cover is very offensive if you ask me and Rolling Stone is an incredibly biased rag. Aside from Peter Travers its all pretty rubbish. However you think of McCain he still has extraordinary strength of character and had to have endured hell in that POW Camp. For some cartoonist to draw him in that light that is just disrespectful and overly partisan, particularly when they were up in arms over Kerry's record being called into question

BenjAii

It is consistent with other unflattering portraits of his character I have read and very well sourced, but at this stage will it make any difference ?

I don't see how it will get much attention or be able to be exploited by the Democrats. Unless maybe, Barack Obama, wants to take advantage of that legendary temper, by winding him up on tomorrows debate .

KerranJast

Much more balanced article here -> http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1836937,00.html Personally I think McCain has just been pandering to the base in the last 6 months and if elected would return to being the centrist guy we all wanted to see win in 2000. Conversely Obama has gone from a very left wing guy to the middle ground in the space of a very short time (literally the week after winning the nomination) and since he's been around for a very short time how do we know he won't go back to that left wing stance if he wins? At least McCain would be balanced by the House & Senate Democrat majority. Obama will have carte blance to do anything he wants.

alastair

KerranJast wrote: »

Obama has gone from a very left wing guy to the middle ground in the space of a very short time (literally the week after winning the nomination) and since he's been around for a very short time how do we know he won't go back to that left wing stance if he wins? At least McCain would be balanced by the House & Senate Democrat majority. Obama will have carte blance to do anything he wants.

Obama might go bat**** crazy and advocate some watery version of social democracy? If you think he's a 'very left wing guy', you probably believed Bertie Ahern when he claimed to be a socialist. Obama has only ever proposed the most tepid of wealth redistribution, and there's precious little on the social side to suggest he's going to set the country alight with revolution either.

brianthebard

speedboatchase wrote: »

The illustration on the cover is very offensive if you ask me and Rolling Stone is an incredibly biased rag. Aside from Peter Travers its all pretty rubbish. However you think of McCain he still has extraordinary strength of character and had to have endured hell in that POW Camp. For some cartoonist to draw him in that light that is just disrespectful and overly partisan, particularly when they were up in arms over Kerry's record being called into question

Probably because kerry was called a coward and other such names, and his record was generally ridiculed by the Republicans. But its ok to do that if they are Democratic vets right?

Hobbes

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

What is interesting about the McCain biography published in the Rolling Stone are the extraordinary number of names, dates, quotes, and related details that could be reviewed for accuracy, if someone wanted to confirm or debunk the facts claimed in the article.

Exactly which is generally a good story. But always research the details!

Rolling Stone articles are not bad and generally good to research off. They were the ones (IIRC) that broke the election rigging last time around.

I think for McCains camp they are probably best with dropping the attacks on Obama and focus on what the party is planning to do. For example Palins recent "pally" comment to try and tie Obama to terrorists has back fired. Many people have done more digging.

For example: "Look, is this guy, Laden, really the bad guy that's depicted? Most of us have never heard of him before." - McCain 98.

and that McCain being on the board of "US Council for World Freedom".

I think the best for McCain camp (as they told him a month back or so) is just to stfu so no more digging happens.

banquo

I think that's what Obama's been doing the last week or so - saying little of anything and avoiding stirring anything, working off the philosophy of 'We're ahead, so let's do no harm'

Amazotheamazing

Read that article, to be fair, McCain is a guy who got to where he is because of his connections and the fact he married an heiress. What's worrying is the sheer scale of his recklessness that comes across in the article. The former POW, the one who didn't break under torture, didn't seem to have too much regard for McCain, though the torture McCain endured, in addition to his injuries was horrific.

turgon

Apparently Obama just has to win Florida and hes got it. Not saying thats easy, just that victory looks favorable for him now.

Black Swan

turgon wrote: »

Apparently Obama just has to win Florida and hes got it. Not saying thats easy, just that victory looks favorable for him now.

Florida: McCain vs. Obama Polling Data:

FOX News-Rasmussen/ Obama 52 McCain 45 (Obama +7)
CNN-Time/ Obama 51 McCain 47 (Obama +4)
InAdv-PollPosition/ Obama 49 McCain 46 (Obama +3)
Suffolk-WSVN/ Obama 46 McCain 42 (Obama +4)
Quinnipiac/ Obama 51 McCain 43 (Obama +8)
SurveyUSA/ Obama 47 McCain 48 (McCain +1)
PPP (D)/ Obama 49 McCain 46 (Obama +3)

Hobbes

I had a read of the article. To be honest the majority of it I knew already as the information has been freely available for some time. They just to have appeared put it into a more story form.

catch--22

Apologies if this has been posted before....had a look around and couldn't find it anywhere here. But this is an eye-opening article on the early years of John McCain.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

yaynay

It has already been posted here:

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055392682

What in particular did you find eye-opening or interesting?

catch--22

yaynay wrote: »

It has already been posted here:

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055392682

What in particular did you find eye-opening or interesting?

Sorry, had a look and didn't spot it. (mods - feel free to lock/merge)

What was eye-opening to me was his early history. I had only a loose idea about his early years but his character does not come across very well in that piece at all.

Overheal

speedboatchase wrote: »

However you think of McCain he still has extraordinary strength of character and had to have endured hell in that POW Camp.

If you read the section pertaining to McCain's time in Hanoi you'd see quite a bit. First, that he gave up more information than I thought he did in a previous thread in exchange for medical treatment (this is when they learned he was the son of an admiral) And that his refusal to leave early wasn't very heroic at all - the conditions of early release would require him to have seriously breached military conduct by claiming publicly that he was treated well and that what the US was doing in Vietnam was wrong. He would have been court-marshaled. Secondly, of the 5 years that McCain was imprisoned, there were no witnesses to the vast majority of the alleged torture and that for the last 3 and a half years the Vietnamese started taking a very different approach to their treatment of POWs:

"McCain has also allowed the media to believe that his torture lasted for the entire time he was in Hanoi. At the Republican convention, Fred Thompson said of McCain's torture, "For five and a half years this went on." In fact, McCain's torture ended after two years, when the death of Ho Chi Minh in September 1969 caused the Vietnamese to change the way they treated POWs. "They decided it would be better to treat us better and keep us alive so they could trade us in for real estate," Butler recalls."

Either way, there is enough citation and reference in the article to be worth taking a read of. His military record is a disgrace, and if he has as big a temper as Rolling Stones claims he does, I don't want him holding The Football.

Trojan

catch--22 wrote: »

Sorry, had a look and didn't spot it. (mods - feel free to lock/merge)

What was eye-opening to me was his early history. I had only a loose idea about his early years but his character does not come across very well in that piece at all.

Merged

kenco

As a long time subscriber of RS I can safely say that its political writing is relatively unbiased and fair albeit from a liberal mouthpeice.

My own personal gripe is that too many of their political writers pepper the articles with needless profanity to impress a point.

Note: Hobbes correct on RS highlighting the 04 Election scandal in Ohio. To my knowledge they were the only mainstream publication to touch this.

Manic Moran

Not knowing where else to put it (I hate opening new threads) Orson Scott Card has a blast at reporters.

http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

<etc.. Long enough OpEd>

I usually don't care what famous people say (Even if Ender's Game is a fantastic book and is well worth reading), but he does seem to say it rather well.

NTM

2Scoops

Manic Moran wrote: »

Not knowing where else to put it (I hate opening new threads) Orson Scott Card has a blast at reporters.

http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/081017light.html



I usually don't care what famous people say (Even if Ender's Game is a fantastic book and is well worth reading), but he does seem to say it rather well.

NTM

Strong words there from the homophobic, anti-evolution, global-warming denying science fiction author. :pac:

Manic Moran

Is he wrong?

NTM

JohnMc1

brianthebard wrote: »

Probably because kerry was called a coward and other such names, and his record was generally ridiculed by the Republicans. But its ok to do that if they are Democratic vets right?

Its laughable to compare Kerry's Nam service to McCain's.

Trojan

Given how easy it would be to debunk the RS article, have any come out in the last couple weeks?