Talk:John McCain

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Things younger than John McCain

Via this article, I found said website, nice stuff... And should there be a category on this wiki that is "Things younger than John McCain"? (the problem I see is it would be too many things... but comments on it?) --S 11:59, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

I don't think that would be a very good category (should we also have "things that are older than B.O."?), mostly because if he loses in November, it will be a dead issue. But, yeah, that site is awesome! ħuman 15:36, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

That's true. The site is good enough. --S 17:40, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

Just an off-the-wall comment

I'm starting to think that McCain's only chance to win is to buy a nationwide thirty-minute prime-time spot and have his wife Cindy and Sarah Palin mack out on one another. --Edgerunner⁷⁶_{Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?} 20:33, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

Five weeks is an eternity in a Presidential election year. Maverick could do a 180 on the Wall Street give-away and come out against it, and start attacking Obama's support of it as "business as usual in Washington". Francine 20:43, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

Yup, "most people" don't even pay attention until the last week or two. Odd, considering it's been going on for two years now. ħuman 00:00, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Cancer

Beat it John! Beat it! -Bigljbigl (talk/stalk) 11:05, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Fuck cancer, indeed. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:13, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

He is dead now. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! 68.0.189.224 (talk) 01:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

FUCK YOU CANCER БaбyЛuigiOнФire🚓^(T|C) 05:17, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

He went out on his own terms, I can respect that. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 11:48, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Flip flops: ISIL

I feel like it should be noted that there were multiple rebel groups in Syria, and by "multiple", I mean "almost as many rebel groups as there were rebels". At the start of the war, there were indeed "moderate" rebels in Syria, and McCain was proposing support for those groups. What happened was that Al Qaeda was organized and after every victory by the various rebels Al Qaeda made sure to always be the loudest and most visibile, taking all the credit for themselves. The other rebels were too busy/dead from the actual fighting, and weren't really willing to have a civil war in their civil war, so they ignored it. The end result was Al Qaeda got a fuckton of legitimacy and ended up with a lot more support than they deserved. But before they could seize victory, a power struggle occurred over which Al Qaeda asswipe would get to be chief asswipe, and ISIS broke off. McCain never supported those bastards. Should we remove this from the flip flops, please? CoryUsar (talk) 01:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Some of the items in that section cite "Think Progress," which is more of a political blog than an actual news source. Could anyone please run a check on them? Thanks! Nerd (talk) 16:06, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

"political blog" is putting it mildly. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 16:20, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I learned the art of understatement from the British. :-) Nerd (talk) 16:24, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, think progress is a bad source, no the statements are still not wrong, here's a conservative publication with the exact same analysis. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 16:45, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

If you're referring to what was removed in this edit, it's not about whether or not the statements are wrong, it's about whether or not they belong in a section about flip flops. It's only a flip flop if you believe there is no distinction between Syrian rebels and ISIL. I don't object to including the information elsewhere on the page. CowHouse (talk) 14:30, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@CowHouse I'd say put it in "The bad". Nerd (talk) 14:34, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I get where you're both coming from, but it's more characteristic of what I'd largely describe as his incessant militarism, where basically anyone outside the US who could be framed as hostile deserves to be bombed, attacked, subverted, and when those things go awry, he wants to bomb different new people in each case. He's maybe emblematic of the imperial always-on-for war republican. One who thinks killing is almost always justified because there's bad people out there. That's not just Syria and ISIS, it's Iran, North Korea, it's Iraq, Libya, Ukraine(even though in that case I might have taken his side because we actually had a mutual defense treaty, maybe). If there's a core reason to hate the man, it's the people he's constantly in favor of killing. "The bad" should maybe just be "The wars, always more wars" ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 15:54, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Do we necessarily have to split it between good and bad? Just make the article outlining his policy decisions and organize it by importance and detail (which is subjective, but basically according to article structure. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 16:38, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

In fact we do not. It adds nothing, but his constant support for every war ever is probably worth noting in detail. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 19:41, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Overhaul

@Ikanreed Please see the history page for why I made those edits. Nerd (talk) 16:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, the few edit summaries you made were not super informative. I responded to one of the few substantial ones on this talk page. As to the other that managed to give a full sentence justification: he wants to bomb Syria, and Syria's government being also shit doesn't really make that sentence worth cutting. You trimmed a lot of sourced content. For reasons that basically amount to "shouldn't we be a little fairer to the things he's said in public as a public official?" Not a fan of a single change. Not a one. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 17:21, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Cool. We can agree to disagree. I don't think that's a fair representation of the reasons for my edits. Nerd (talk) 17:23, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Then we can agree to disagree without the shitty outtakes that detract from the article. Sorry not sorry. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 01:09, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Just repeating, that no, you can't use "agree to disagree" to mean "I'm right" this is why I call you intellectually dishonest because you use the pretense of polite debate to ignore actual debate. It's not okay. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 13:57, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

You can also point to a specific edit and we can discuss. Nerd (talk) 14:01, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Or you could answer literally any of the specific objections I've already placed here. This is the second time you've started edit warring with me after I've made specific concerns clear and come back to say "you never said anything specific so I'm okay edit warring". Answer for cutting the ISIL comments because you allege they come from a biased source, when I provided other sources that also establish the same basic facts. Answer for cutting the completely entirely true fact that he wanted to mass bomb Syria without resorting to "well syria is bad" as a reason for cutting it. Answer for the specific goddamn concerns already. In a broader sense, pretty much all of your edits are cutting sourced content because you think it reflects badly on him. That's not okay. Really none of it is okay, and you should be making a better case for your changes. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 14:07, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ikanreed, @Nerd:I'd like to ask for a moratorium on the edit wars so I can go and correct the tenses in the article, OK? RoninMacbeth (talk) 14:08, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

If you go and do that for the shitty unjustified state of the article, then it's gonna make it a giant pain to go back and fix all the pointless content cuts later. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 14:10, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

(EC) Go ahead, @RoninMacbeth Nerd (talk) 14:16, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

And of course there's an edit conflict on the page. You know what I think? Both of your versions are shit. They both have too many unsourced statements, incorrect tenses, and inconsistent tones. I don't want EITHER of your versions to win, because they are both BAD. RoninMacbeth (talk) 14:17, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@RoninMacbeth Say what you wish. But at least I tried to include reliable sources as often as I can. Oh, I was not done yet. I wanted to correct the tenses, too. Nerd (talk) 14:21, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

(EC)How about this: We work on updating the section that was clearly written in 2008 and never touched again, and THEN we can revamp everything else. RoninMacbeth (talk) 14:23, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Cool. Nerd (talk) 14:25, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

(EC, ECx2 fuck)I'll admit that you added 1 ref for every 2-3 you took out. Good job.

@RoninMacbeth This isn't gonna put you on my side, and that's fine, but do have any idea how annoying it is to have you condescend about there being a content dispute in the article and think you're better by taking a third side where you don't address the issues at hand? It's not helpful to come in and say "I'm better than both of you, so stop" without actually addressing the question of where to stop? Come on, man. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 14:33, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a prideful bastard. But I don't have a solution for all the issues of the article, particularly the ones you and Need have been arguing over. But I do have a solution that has plagued almost all of our political articles: That they are written when the person is relevant in the present and subsequently never edited again. RoninMacbeth (talk) 14:37, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Alright, fair, you make your changes, and I'll do the difficult, painstaking work of undoing the damage I'm worried about later. Just make sure all the tenses suit you for 10000 years, I don't want to come back and have another important edit war interupted by the need for pluperfect cases. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 14:40, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

(EC) @Ikanreed Some of the edits were made not because the article reflects badly on him but because the old contents were no more than bashing instead of sensible criticism. (Some of the others were updates.)

Bombing Syrian government forces for using chemical weapons was justified. Recall that the most recent episode involved not just the U.S. but also the U.K. and France. Nerd (talk) 14:19, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Whether it was "justified" to you or not doesn't really explain cutting him saying it. That's just, like, your opinion, man. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 14:33, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Cool. So you can move it elsewhere? We can, for example, use it as an example of when he criticized Obama's foreign policy. Nerd (talk) 14:37, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Sure. Fine. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 14:41, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Nerd cut it because the page is structured into "the good", "the bad", etc. sections. This kind of discussion shows why I don't think section headings like that are a good idea. For example, one of the clips many have shared since McCain's death as being one of his "good" moments was arguably not that good at all. I don't think anyone wants to spend time debating about this, or intervention, but the section headings force us to do that. CowHouse (talk) 14:59, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@CowHouse That's one way to put it. Another way is that the the person was insinuating Obama was a threat to the nation because he was an Arab. McCain responded by saying he was a decent man. Note he did not say Obama was not an Arab and therefore a decent man. Nerd (talk) 15:04, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Rather than starting a debate I was trying to avoid, do you agree it would be better with different section headings? CowHouse (talk) 15:23, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@CowHouse Yes. I'd say combine "The good", "The bad" and "The Ugly" into two sections, "Domestic policy views" and "Military and Foreign Policy views". Nerd (talk) 15:28, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@LeftyGreenMario. Nerd (talk) 16:44, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Could work, those subheads aren't actually snarky enough to warrant the opinion-ifying they do. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 15:48, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I want subheaders that deal with his stuff rather than have it organized by binary "good" and "bad". The snark can go in there afterward. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 17:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@RoninMacbeth What's the difference between {{cn}} and {{fact}}? Nerd (talk) 15:04, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

None, it seems, but I sometimes get the former mixed up with whatever produces "citation not needed," so I prefer the latter. RoninMacbeth (talk) 15:07, 28 August 2018 (UTC)