The obligatory weekly (at minimum) link to The Other McCain ...

... is always more fun when it comes with a bonus opportunity to slam Michelle Malkin.

Why the obligatory link? Rule 2, baby, Rule 2. When I link to him, he links to me. And since he's coming up on three million visitors in his second year of blogging and carries a Google Page Rank of 6, that's a damn good deal. But, as time goes on, I find myself more inclined to pick nits than to either weigh in with "me tooz" or try to start detailed ideological arguments (Stacy's got bigger game to hunt than me; he occasionally offers a substantive reply, which is nice, but I'd rather not wear out that tendency on his part).

What's my beef with Malkin? Well, it irks me that someone with so much potential -- in the 90s, I'd have picked her in a heartbeat as "young libertarian columnist most likely to become a big-name libertarian columnist" -- blew it so badly. The jury's still out on whether she went completely batshit insane after 9/11 or whether she just decided that it was easier to cash in on paranoia and hitch her wagon to the War Party than eke out an honest living in the real world, but that's a distinction of little importance. The only redeeming characteristic of her post-9/11 output is that she mercifully serves up her rotten, wormy political stew as "conservatism" instead of damaging the "libertarian" brand with it.

Anyway, from the obligatory weekly OTM link:

Go read what terrible things were said about Michelle Malkin when she published In Defense of Internment. Malkin took on a very difficult topic, exploring the reality of the U.S. security situation circa 1941-42, explaining circumstances so as to cast a new light on that troubling episode in American history. For her skill in performing a difficult task -- a task she surely knew out that the outset would expose her to angry attacks -- Malkin was denounced as if she were actually endorsing the internship [sic] of Japanese during WWII, or advocating some similar policy today.

There's no "as if" about it. Malkin clearly did endorse the internment of the Issei and Nisei populations. From the introduction of In Defense of Internment:

The central thesis of this book is that the national security measures taken during World War II were justifiable, given what was known and not known at the time.

Is Malkin's endorsement of internment justified? Is her defense of internment successful? My answer to both questions is "no," but those are separate issues and ones which I urge you to reach your own conclusions on, preferably after reading the book, or at least the excerpts available on Google Books (see link above -- I won't stoop to selling this one for an Amazon commission). The relevant question is whether or not she did, in fact, endorse internment. There's no doubt whatsoever that she did.

Nit picked.

NO ONE expects the Klannish Inquisition!

... but it's pretty much a given that American right-wingers are going to be put to The Question sooner or later. Or, more likely, rather than being put to The Question, they're going to simply be accused of having answered "yes" to that question, which leaves them four alternatives: Deny it, defend it, ignore it, or dance around it.

The question/allegation, of course, is "Are you a racist?" / "You are a racist!" And over the last couple of weeks, the guy the question/allegation has been most visibly put to in the right-wing blogosphere is The Other McCain. For a wee bit of background, see here. McCain's latest riposte is here.

At the beginning of this cage match, my natural inclination was to cheer Stacy on. I've met him -- hell, I've spent a couple of days stuffed in a van with him. He's a nice guy, personable, and while I strongly disagree with his notion that a Peckerwood Populism of the Bob Barr / Wayne Allyn Root variety -- a marriage of convenience between libertarianism and "states rights" conservatism -- is either workable or desirable (here's my own brief take on the possibility of a libertarian populism), he didn't strike me as a racist.

The fact that McCain's primary interrogator/accuser is Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs made it easier to assume the righteousness of McCain's cause. If you're not familiar with LGF, try to imagine a massively multi-player online simulation of Saddam Hussein's old Ba'athist regime in Iraq, with Johnson cast as The Leader. He's omnipresent and demands the worship of his subjects. He and his Baghdad Bobs "disappear" internal dissidents, brandish the equivalent of WMD (allegations of racism, for example) at external enemies, and spend a good deal of their time marching up and down the public square in their fancy uniforms. It's a disgusting display, and the temptation is always present to assume that the enemy of LGF is, if not necessarily a friend/comrade, at least worthy of sympathy and support.

And then, of course, there's the whole "cage match" angle. As McCain puts it, "Being Notorious Is Not the Same as Being Famous, But It's Better Than Being Anonymous." He loves a good blogosphere food fight, he can run smack with the best of'em, and his World Wrestling Entertainment^®-like approach produced more than a million hits in his first year of blogging, with the smart money on another two million before his second year is done. So, he has an incentive to milk this kind of stuff for every hit it's worth.

BUT!

In terms of actual content, McCain's response to the question/allegation seems to me to have been of the "dance around it" variety ... and now I notice that that mode of response goes way back to long before the Charles Johnson episode.

Time machine time. First, let us take a giant leap all the way back to 2002, when Michelangelo Signorile, writing in New York Press, attributed the following quote to McCain:

"[T]he media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion. The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sister-in-law, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us."

So far as I can tell, every time McCain is confronted with this alleged quote, things get weird. The venue of said confrontation suddenly turns into a 1950s Jitterbug contest. McCain calls his accusers liars. He invokes the wrath of God. He proclaims his personal righteousness and portrays himself as the long-suffering victim of lesser men. In at least one case -- listen to the MP3 coming up -- he seems to deny that he wrote it ... but not exactly. He certainly denies that he posted it on a web site ("Reclaiming the South") operated by "white separatist" Dennis Wheeler, as Signorile claims, but at least one variant of the allegation claims that while he didn't post it, he did in fact write it (in a "private" email discussion which Wheeler re-posted to the site).

Fast-forward to 2006 and a phone call from McCain to the Alan Colmes radio show [hat tip and file hotlink -- John Amato at Crooks & Liars]:



You know, I never in my life imagined myself calling Robert Stacy McCain this, but there's no other word for it: Clintonesque. I mean, WTF, Stacy? In fairness, it does sound like he may have been ambushed when he thought he was calling in to discuss another topic, but the RS McCain I know is pretty quick on his feet.

I'm no Charles Johnson. I don't excommunicate people from my blog for disagreeing with me or failing in their duty of reverence and worship (nor do I believe that anyone would give a damn if I did). Nor am I Torquemada -- if McCain doesn't want to answer my questions, there won't be any tongs, pincers or breakings on wheels.

I am, however, going to quote Stephen from Braveheart in relation to the matter: "The Almighty says quit changing the subject and answer the fuckin' question[s] [or quit styling yourself the victim]." Stacy:

- Did you write that?

- If so, could you -- pretty please with sugar on top -- explain it to the 90% or so of people who would read it as a racist statement, albeit one followed by a statement that it isn't? Put it in its greater context if there is one, for example, or explain that you were quoting someone else by way of disagreeing with them, or whatever?

- If not, could you please explain (to the extent that you may know) who did write it and how it came to be attributed to you by Signorile et. al.?

Inquiring minds want to know, and I mean that. Unlike some others, I'm not leaping to conclusions. I'd like to understand what's going on here.

(The Other) McCain Agonistes

As you'll see later on in this post, I'm not the one who brought Hitler into the matter at hand. But as long as he's hanging about, I'm going to use him in a hypothetical "alternate history" scenario:

Imagine that for some reason, at some point in World War II, after the death camps were fully cranked up but before D-Day, a negotiated end to hostilities took place. No need to put a bunch of skullwork into why, as that's non-essential to the scenario (if you insist, let's just say that the US never entered the war and that England and the USSR were exhausted and so was Germany). Germany withdrew to its borders. Poland, France, Austria, the Sudetenland, Alsace-Lorraine ... everything returned to status quo ante. Except, of course, for the fact there were a lot of missing Jews, and everyone knew what had happened to them, and part of the truce negotiations was a requirement that the camps be closed down, the survivors freed, etc.

Further, imagine that instead of offing himself in the Führerbunker, Adolf Hitler survived and continued to lead Germany until he turned 60 in 1949, then passed the baton off to Himmler or Goering and got himself elected to the European Parliament in a much earlier EU, serving for a full 40 years until he turned 100 in 1989. Over the years, his attitude toward Europe's remaining Jews was well understood by all around him. He didn't go around screaming "Juden raus!" at people or anything, but his vote could be counted on for anything that he thought might torment Jews, and counted out for anything that he thought might aid them.

Now, imagine if another member of the European Parliament (an Austrian chap by the name of Kurt Waldheim, let's say) congratulated Hitler on his 100th birthday thusly: "When Adolf Hitler attempted to conquer the world and cleanse it of the Jews, we served in the Wehrmacht. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the continent had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either."

End of scenario.

Quoth Robert Stacy Mccain:

I have never been a great admirer of Trent Lott, but when Senate Republicans dumped him for having dared to say nice things about Strom Thurmond -- on the occasion of Thurmond's 100th birthday -- that was like ceding the Sudetenland to Hitler.

And now, a snippet from those "nice things" that Lott had to say:

When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either

Just as a history memory jog, here's a summary of Thurmond's presidential campaign platform, in his own words:

I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.

This is the sort of aside from McCain that I'd normally snort at, perhaps issue a snarky retort to in comments, and then write off as part of his patented "feuds make for hits" schtick ... except that it's taking place in the context of a slightly more lively tempest, in a slightly larger teacup, than usual.

Short version: Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs says that Robert Stacy McCain is a racist. McCain says no, he's not. The argument seems to be propagating rapidly across the right-wing blogosphere, mostly to Johnson's disadvantage.

Long version: Too long to even begin to explain here. If you want the original material, try punching the following two searches into Google:

"Robert Stacy McCain" site:littlegreenfootballs.com
"Charles Johnson" site:rsmccain.blogspot.com

One problem to expect in evaluating the material you'll find:

Whatever else anyone may have to say about him, Robert Stacy McCain can write, and I'm not just referring to technical command of the English language (although he does indeed possess that). It might be going a little far to put him in the same league as Hunter S. Thompson and Mark Twain ... but not much too far. The guy knows his craft. He knows how to tell the story his way and make you like it. Which means you're going to want to believe it.

Johnson's polemic, on the other hand, reads like a Usenet posting hacked out by a Randroid who gulped down a bottle of Robitussin^® about half an hour ago. He's also got a real cult vibe going at LGF, complete with summary excommunication for questioning His Divine Omniscience, and if you're anything like normal it's going to weird you out. Which means that you're going to want to get the hell out of there before he can attach the brain slug, which means that you're going to want to dismiss his claims.

Consider yourself forewarned that puzzling the whole mess out is going to take some work.

Is McCain a racist?

Last May, I spent somewhere between 26 and 28 hours, in two installments of 13 to 14 hours each, in a crowded van with McCain and a bunch of other guys, at least one of whom was, unless I'm suffering from false memory syndrome, an African-American. I usually have pretty decent antennae for racial animosity, and I've spent more time than I'd rather have around racists of the overt (a cousin who got too radical for the Ku Klux Klan, for example) and subtle (fellow Marines who just didn't seem to like Marines of races other than their own very much) variety. My recollection is that McCain and the African-American gentleman conversed pleasantly, debated a bit, and (again, if my memory isn't going) sat at the same table and broke what passes for bread at McDonald's during one of our gas/food breaks.

Which proves nothing, of course, but it's relevant such as it is, and I don't think it would be honorable to address this matter without mentioning it.

On the other hand, as expounded upon at length in the first part of this post, it takes real brass for McCain -- in a post about the controversy over whether or not he's a racist, no less -- to bring up Trent friggin' Lott's Thurmond Bomb but omit relevant, essential and damning facts about it. WTF is up with that?