Plessner Chronicle Blog

    John McCain is a nice guy — the sort of fellow you would want to travel with on a long vacation trip. He has an inspiring life story and a great personality but he has a long history of working with lobbyists who serve the interests of major corporations.

    McCane will not come to the White House with the clout or the flexibility needed to purge the building and the government of the neo-conservative Cheney machine or the lobbyists installed by president Bush. Those people now hold important regulatory and decision-making positions which are at the root of every failure and embarrassment of the Bush administration.

    The vice president’s staff is twice a large as the president’s and it has much greater influence on Bush administration policy than the president’s other advisors, according to an excellent series published by the Washington Post. That staff either writes, rewrites of scuttles every White House initiative that does or does not fit into Cheney’s neo-conservative, imperial presidency, corporate-interests-first mentality.

    The vice president has been the force behind our so-called war on terrorism. Through his staff he has guided the development of the policies on torture and the denial of civil rights, the illegal surveillance of Americans, the use of signing statements to void the legitimate actions of the Congress and the selection of Supreme Court justices. The concept of the imperial presidency is Dick Cheney’s guiding principle.

    Along with the vice president’s office, the State, Justice and Defense departments are now managed by neo-conservatives and other rightwing zealots largely chosen by Cheney and his cohorts.

    Every new president has the privilege of keeping or replacing hundreds of appointees who fill critical roles and it will be impossible for a president McCain to reduce the influence of the neo-conservatives now placed in so many critical positions. And there is no indication that he would want to.

    Even a Democratic president will need months to complete that task, giving the Cheney gang plenty of time to continue harming America and trashing our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

    And even if John McCain wanted to reduce their influence — which is doubtful given his admitted willingness to keep American troops in Iraq for as long as 50 years — he would have to replace them with other rightwing individuals and the same kind of lobbyists which the Bush administration has used to advance their corporate supporter’s interests. McCain is just as beholden to corporate special interests as Bush and Cheney.

    Tthat would mean that a McCain presidency would probably be more of the same — a Bush-like administration that cares little for the needs and concerns of average Americans or the world at large.

    In our lifetime we have seen a number of elections described as historic and world-changing. Some of them were. But given the harm that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their Republican sycophants in Congress have done to America and the world, the coming change in Washington must bring profound change, initiated by a president and a Democratic party committed to bringing the people back into the governance of their own democracy.

    We cannot suffer another four years of Cheneyism.