| Why does it seem to be resonating with the American public? It's probably not just because he couldn't say, off hand, how many houses he's actually got. Though, the pattern of not answering questions he's not been prepared for has, by now, become familiar, and irritating, to quite a lot of people. Irritating because they've also noticed that the information from the staff, if it comes, is often inadequate and misleading--just like the four houses, this time. |
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Very likely, that McCain prefers condos probably has more to do with it. Because, ever since American cities and then the suburbs and the beach-fronts got condoized, a lot of Americans have been negatively impacted by this development. In the beginning, when staid old high rises were privatized--i.e. converted into individually-owned units--to relieve the owners of the buildings of maintenance and up-keep responsibilities, a lot of long-time residents were displaced from their neighborhoods and their friends, because they couldn't afford to live there anymore, having to pay for repairs and improvements piecemeal once the economies of scale of caring for a whole building or block were lost. While it's true that many of those so affected have died off, the memory of their distress lingers in their off-spring. And the thought that condo-dwellers don't even appreciate where they're living enough to keep track of their houses is not welcome.
Indeed, while there's obviously a class of people that likes shutting itself away behind iron gates and electronic entries, this self-segregation is not necessarily welcome in the communities where the new condos are being erected. Even people who live right across the street find that their pedestrian access to parks and schools and shopping areas and all the conveniences they depend on has been denied, unless they get in the car and drive around. So, suddenly, as the cost of gasoline goes up, we're confronted with another one of those "externalities," where people who don't derive any benefit are stuck with the cost. And it's not just a job-providing industrial complex. The new externalities are being imposed by an enterprise that produces nothing; it just consumes.
For people living along our coasts, this story is probably going to hit particularly hard. Because, if anybody's been deprived of their access to the wonders of the ocean, the sunrise and the sunset, it's the people whose views and access has been obstructed by the condoizing of the beach front. Even if the longtime locals still enjoy pedestrian access to take a stroll on the beach, when everything to the high water line is posted or fenced, public use is effectively restricted to the low tide periods. Not to mention that the casual stroller is made to feel like an intruder. It will be interesting to see how the McCain condo on Coronado Island interacts with other residents.
It's probably not even worth considering the insensitivity of the response that because McCain was imprisoned for five years in Vietnam he should now have four or five or seven houses of his own. I say "insensitive" because of the thousands of veterans who were engaged in actual combat for that length of time and are now wandering, homeless, through our bi-ways and streets, lacking even the bootstraps by which they might try to lift themselves up. Of course, if you're wearing five hundred dollar loafers, you're probably no longer familiar with bootstraps either.
Which is really the issue, isn't it? John McCain seems to have made a career of looking after his own interests and his "inability" to answer the most basic questions is just another example of the "limited hangout" that's gotten him out of scrapes almost for ever. He admits a small portion of his mis-behavior, asks for forgiveness, and then laughs up his sleeve at another mission accomplished. The mission being to deceive and intimidate and accumulate as much wealth and power as he can get.
Another power addict. Let's hope this time there's an intervention ahead of time--before there are millions more dead people in the wake of the passing of John McCain.
The Cuban psychologist who interviewed McCain in Hanoi had this to say:
From the psychological point of view, Dr. Barral has the following opinion of the personality of the prisoner who is responsible for many criminal bombings of the people of DRV:
He showed himself to be intellectually alert during the interview. From a morale point of view he is not in traumatic shock. He is neither dejected nor depressed. He was able to be sarcastic, and even humorous indicative of psychic equilibrium. From the moral and ideological point of view he showed us he is an insensitive individual without human depth, who does not show the slightest concern, who does not appear to have thought about the criminal acts he committed against a population from the almost absolute impunity of his airplane, and that nevertheless those people saved his life, fed him, and looked after his health, and he is now healthy and strong. I believe that he bombed densely populated places for sport. I noted he was hardened, that he spoke of banal things as if he were at a cocktail party.
During the interview he quietly drank three cups of coffee and smoked one of the cigarettes the Vietnamese had placed on the central table.
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