Republican candidates and Vader have the same line:
“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
Here’s a post by Frank J. over at IMAO — one of the right-wing blogs where you’ll find a lot of carping about John McCain just not being bat-shit crazy conservative enough — titled The Lovable, Huggable President, in which he writes about what he sees as the ideal qualities of a president:
Opinion seems to be that Obama is pretty unbeatable. Why? Because he’s so charming. He has no accomplishments and no more experience with foreign affairs than the average college student, yet there’s a good chance he could be elected president just because he’s so darn likable. If this strategy of nominating a nice looking empty suit works, expect future presidential elections to be between two plush toys (“Looks how adorable they are! I can decide which one to pick!”).
Just a reminder: We’re currently the most powerful nation in the world and the definitely leader at blowing crap up. Our leader should never be charming. He should be scary. He should appear in the nightmares of our enemies, eating their children. Diplomats should not want to meet with him unless they have numerous armed guards for protection. That’s who the leader of the most powerful nation should be.
Sounds like an endorsement for the Vader/Voldemort team in ’08!
You can buy the T-shirt here.
I’d like to think that it’s not necessary to point out that there’s a difference between strength and bullying, but given the tenor of the times, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Dig deep enough into a bully, and you’ll find a coward at the core. As the fine folks at The Metaverse put it in their analysis of the short story The Cold Equations (a good read if you’re into the ethical implications of engineering):
It’s a commonplace that our civilization is soft and sentimental. It’s less remarked that soft and sentimental people– particularly the chair-bound geek variant– often idolize brutality. The actual inhabitants of barbarian eras don’t necessarily share this feeling; they often took pains to appear as refined and cultured people.
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I'm assuming you know that IMAO engages in hyperbole quite frequently as a form of satire...
Personally, I object to McCain because he is a latter-day Tony Blair. Tough wartime rhetoric, but in the meantime has voted against serious recapitalisation efforts for the forces making significant contributions to the war effort.
The US Air Force wants to retire 300 aircraft that are too structurally fatigued to safely fly. Congress decided that only 18 of those aircraft are allowed to be retired, because to lose them all would be a giant loss of pork for their districts.
USAF is flying about 275 missions per day in support of OEF/OIF. Air Mobility Command is flying about 120 of those to move around supplies, equipment and personnel. A lot of those missions are intra-theater to alleviate the threat of ambush and IEDs of road-based convoys, which has also resulted in a significant reduction in casualties for ground forces. Guess who was one of the Senators holding up funding for new C-130Js (to replace Vietnam-era C-130Es)?
The C-17 also flies some strat-lift missions direct to forward airfields, and has actually used up a significant amount of the fleet's structural lifetime in OEF/OIF missions. Guess who doesn't want to buy replacement C-17s for those ten or twelve-year-old birds who are eating up their combat-useful airframe life at an alarming rate?
The F-15 fighter is used to conduct air patrols worldwide, both by the US as well as allies (Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Korea). All of the A-D models have been sidelined due to structural cracks because they are 20+ years old. Their replacement, (the F-22) is not being produced fast enough to cover the strategic gaps caused by grounded and retiring assets. Guess who wants less money funnelled to the F-22 program?
The Air Force relies on 1950s-vintage KC-135s as the bulk of its air refueling fleet. They are approaching the age where, like the F-15, one catastrophic accident could result in the grounding of the entire fleet, leaving just 40-odd KC-10s to handle all of USAF's worldwide air refueling needs. Guess who sunk the KC-767 tanker lease and has threatened to hold up KC-X/Y/Z funding, should Boeing win the competition to replace the 135? I have no doubt he'll do likewise is Boeing wins the CSAR-X competition (to replace combat search and rescue helos) as well.
McCain has never met a USAF acquisition program he's ever liked. He seems to reserve that for his old service, the Navy.
You can call that "not batshit-crazy enough" if you want, but I would expect McCain to want to support all of America's expeditionary forces with the equipment they need in a timely fashion. Especially since the Air Force is doing a lot more heavy lifting in OEF/OIF than the Navy is.
I respect Senator McCain's prior service, and I am sure he is a nice guy in person, but there are plenty of good reasons for conservatives to oppose him, none of which involve mental illness.
@Chris Taylor: Yes, I'm familiar with Frank's style, which in the tech world would be classified as "Ha ha only serious". But under the hyperbole lies the germ of what he's trying to say: "You can be feared, or you can be loved, and those are the only choices."
By "not batshit-crazy enough", I am referring to McCain's not being pleasing enough to Limbaugh, Ingraham, Coulter, Dobson et. al.. Local tech-meets-law blogger Rob Hyndman put it quite well: the pundits are terrorizing the party towards the fringe while the Super Tuesday results seem to indicate the voters' desire to pull towards the center.
As far as his "talk big, spend little approach" re: the military, it's end-of-era Blair, but it's also reminiscent of Rummy's flippant quip about "fighting with the military you have, not the military you want".
@Chris Taylor: As far as the F-15 goes -- a topic near and dear to my heart, especially since I did consider a career in aeronautic/avionics engineering -- it's a plane for a different era and the different threats from those days of yore. As sweet as the Eagle was for serious dogfighting and sattelite-killing, I'm all for replacing the ol' bird with F-22 Raptors, which are more suited to the kinds of skirmishes that are likely to be faced from non-monolithic, distributed threats in asymmetrical conflicts.
I get what you're saying re: VRWC punditry... but then I don't know anybody who has enough free time and Rolaids to tune in to talk radio. I barely have enough time and energy for 680 News in the morning. =)
Re: F-22 -- the other thing to consider is that it is "the" stealth fighter now. Has low-observable + ISR + penetrating strike capability out the ying-yang, and that's handy since the F-117s are retiring next year. So it can complement a huge variety of low-density, high-demand platforms. All that AND and an air dominance fighter, too.
hey i think obama is the BOMB!!!!