Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest…

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So you probably heard, Dana called McCain a whore the other day. The story was splashed all over Dan C.’s august Liberal OC, which got it from Allan Bartlett’s venerable Powder Blue Report, and Allan evidently saw it live, at one of those CRA tea parties.

So, how can a politician be a whore? It is unheard of (and I have scoured the archives) for anyone to pay a politician for sex!  The money always goes the other way, with politicians and sex.  I guess it’s always subjective and arguable, but we might call a politician a “whore” when they take what we think is an unreasonable position for the benefit of someone who contributes a lot of money to them, or is likely to offer them future employ, or if they change their positions nonsensically in order to get more votes and power, or if they just generally use their powerful position to get more money than we think is reasonable, or if their rise to power was originally funded by a sugar-daddy or wealthy heiress second wife.

In this case, when Dana called McCain a whore, he was addressing his anti-immigrant faithful on the subject of the imprisoned border guards Ramos and Compean, and referencing McCain’s failure to speak out on their behalf and his general moderation on the immigration issue. Dana evidently considers this a sellout to the “moneyed interests” tearing the GOP away from its (in Dana’s mind) nativist base.  Many people in both parties feel Ramos and Compean got an overly harsh sentence, and they are probably on the short list for a Presidential pardon.  But Dana’s crowd goes even further – in their minds these two trigger-happy cops are HEROES for shooting at an unarmed fleeing immigrant (who later turned out to be a marijuana smuggler.)  And even better, the two guards are Hispanic Americans who shot a wetback in the butt – just the kind of folks, along with the rare Tía Tomasina like Lupe Moreno, that Dana’s crowd can point to to try to prove that its hysterical crazed nativism is not simple racism.  Which, as much as they protest, the rest of us don’t believe.

So, Dana called McCain a whore – repeat that out loud a few times, it has a nice internal rhyme, and can be sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle, Twinkle Twinkle, London Bridges, or Mary Had a Little Lamb.  How could Dana be so crude?  Well, don’t forget Dana is a man of low and vulgar tastes – his idea of a fun weekend is putting panties on a Muslim’s head and applying electrodes to his genitals. But don’t feel too badly for John McCain if he gets dragged into the mud – not only does he regularly drop F-bombs on his startled senatorial colleagues, he also famously called his wife Cindy a c**t in front of reporters (don’t miss this unforgettable video!)

And finally, how would McCain react if he knew Dana had called him a whore? That is, if the Presidential candidate even took notice of such an insignificant creature as the twenty-year incumbent rated one of the least effective Congressmen, shunned as an embarrassment by his fellow Republicans and trotted out as comic relief by Democrats?

I imagine he would begin with that condenscending sigh, and that amused glance toward you and I, just as he did whenever Dr. Ron Paul talked sense about foreign policy in the Republican debates.  Then would come the nervous “hih-hih-hih” cackle, so similar to that of his soulmate President Bush.  And finally, if his wits were about him that day, he would deliver a winged bon mot referencing one of Dana’s many instances of political whoredom, and cackle some more while looking away from Dana and toward us.

But would Dana take that sitting down, or would he not rather be the type to double down with more instances of McCain prostitution, raising his eyebrows in those crazy triangles and grimacing in exasperation the way he does?  Before you and I knew it, all humor would be draining from both men’s faces as they raced from pink to scarlet and unexpected veins began to bulge and pulse.  And then it would be time for us to get out the popcorn.  I picture the Whore-Off thus, if the two men stuck to the facts about each other:

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DANA: You’re a political whore just like I said the other day. There’s no principle behind your immigration bill except kissing up to the moneyed interests who want amnesty for the illegals so they can keep taking American jobs and raping our American women! And I’m not gonna support you for President until you promise clemency for Ramos and Compean.

MCCAIN: Hih-hih. That’s rich. What do I care if you back me for President, nobody takes you seriously. You’re the whore anyway on immigration.

DANA: Heh? Come again?

MCCAIN: You know, I’ve always said that we’re all God’s children no matter where we come from, and at least I’ve tried to do something about the immigration mess that affects all of us. All you do is make speeches blaming all our problems on the Mexicans because you know it’ll get you votes with the crazy racists in Orange County. But what have you ever accomplished in twenty years?

DANA: Hey, I say what I believe, and everyone knows it! And my speeches are so bitchin’ that my constituents want me to be President! And these are good, hardworking Americans, real, God-fearing Americans who love America! And they want me to be President. ME, not YOU!

MCCAIN: I said, what have you DONE about immigration besides make speeches?

DANA: Well… I recently proposed an amendment that would make hospital ER’s have to report any illegals who get services there.

MCCAIN: Yeah, I remember that, a total nonstarter. It got, what, 88 votes? Most Republicans didn’t even vote for that crock.

DANA: Yeah, because they’re all whores like you!

MCCAIN: No, because you don’t really care enough to write a bill anyone will support—you just make speeches and grandstand for the racists. I call THAT being a whore—pandering for votes!

DANA: Yeah, well, let’s talk about your sudden conversion on offshore drilling, Johnny-come-lately!

MCCAIN: Oh! My change of heart on that? Have you seen the price of gas lately? It’s…

DANA: I don’t know…

MCCAIN: Well I heard it’s through the roof. And the American people need relief now, my friend!

DANA: Yeah right. Probably just a coincidence that you were against it for twenty years and then right when you change your mind, your contributions from oil and gas executives go up FIVE TIMES, to over a million a month. And I’m sure you saw the polls too, people think their prices’ll go down with offshore drilling and we both know they won’t. Now there’s some nice whoring for votes and money, “my friend!”

MCCAIN: I thought you were Mr. Offshore Drilling, Mr. Pollute My Surf Right Now.

DANA: Yeah well the difference is I always have been that. At least people know where I stand.  I never pretended to care about… some stupid water.

MCCAIN: You’re saying I’m a whore and you’re just a slut.

DANA: Whatever, I don’t put my finger in the wind and change my positions every month. Is there anything you’ve been consistent on for even the last few years?

MCCAIN: Sure, you whore, I don’t pretend global warming doesn’t exist or that humans don’t have anything to do with it.

DANA: Well people know where I’m coming from on the so-called “environment.” Like I told ’em at the OCBC Water Summit last May, I don’t give a damn about protecting some dirt, or some stupid mouse, I just love American Children and making money. Plus, global warming is the biggest hoax in the history of mankind.  A bunch of scientists said so, and some of them even have Ph.D’s!

MCCAIN:  … You nut.  You freak.

DANA:  OK, OK.  Global warming is the one thing you haven’t sold out on, yet.  How about Agents of Intolerance, you hated them when you weren’t running for President, then when you are running you go kiss Jerry Falwell’s ring. Torture—you’re the big holier-than-thou anti-torture hero, aren’t you, until you figure out that Republican voters like torture, then you single-handedly make sure the Military Commissions Act passes. You’re the big patriot against Immunity for Telecom Companies that broke the law to help the government spy on us, but when push comes to shove you remember the…what… $1.3 million they’ve given you this year, and you listen to the 23 telecom lobbyists you got working for you, and you change your tune on that too.

MCCAIN:  Fine!  You wanna know why I get such big bribes?  Because I’m a Senator, and I’m running for President; you’re just small potatos. If I’m a whore, you’re a two-bit whore: you’ll take money from anybody!

DANA: Oh yeah? Examples?

MCCAIN: Uh… just a sec…

DANA: (Hm, who’s he calling now, someone on his staff? Or a lobbyist? Oh, did I just repeat myself?)

MCCAIN: (You sure? Hang-Up Moon? Really? OK thanks – hangs up) Well, my friend, you’re always talking trash about Communist China, but it sounds like you had no problem taking $4000 from Hang Up Moon, the president of commie outfit Tridus International, and then voting to give his company $315,000 in taxpayer funds!

DANA: Hey, weren’t you one of the Keating Five?

MCCAIN: That was twenty years ago. And how about that crooked Hollywood producer Joe Medawar, who bought your lame-ass Vietnam screenplay you wrote in the 70’s and could never interest anyone in—bought it for $23,000! Then you introduce him to all your Washington friends, and he uses your name to bilk 5.5 million from investors? Pretty whorish if you ask me…

DANA: Screw you, that screenplay is a masterpiece. And weren’t you one of the Keating Five?

MCCAIN: Shut up. You accepted $500 from Philip D. Harvey, owner of a major porn studio and prostitution advocate. And you got a LOT of money from one of the biggest abortion doctors in the country—Dr. Edward Allred, all the time pretending to be anti-abortion!

DANA: Kind of reminds me of this case back in ‘89. This young, up-and-coming Senator from Arizona, and four other senators, helping out a crooked S&L chairman with regulatory favors in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Chairman was named Keating. Hey, I think that Senator was you!

MCCAIN: Damn you, I apologized for that a long time ago!

DANA: Yeah that was a neat trick, take the money, get caught, apologize and grovel, get a reputation as an honest “maverick” in the press, but I notice you’ve never changed, and I’ve never seen you more than an arm’s length away from a lobbyist. What’s it now, 66 former or current lobbyists in your campaign?

MCCAIN: You wanna talk Keating Five?  I have one word for you. One word!

DANA:  Eh?

MCCAIN: Abramoff.

DANA: … Don’t you DARE say anything about that great American.

MCCAIN:  Yes, Jack Abramoff, the poster boy for the Republican culture of corruption this past decade.

DANA:  Ah, yes… [begins to tear up]

MCCAIN: Made Keating look like a cub scout. Cost us Congress in 2006. But, man, what a smooth operator.

DANA: My Jack…

MCCAIN: You were friends since the 80’s. You were a Reagan speechwriter, he was chairman of the college Republicans.

DANA: It seems like yesterday…

MCCAIN: You were his character reference when he was starting SunCruz Casinos.

DANA: We Fought for Freedom. We Had Fun.

MCCAIN: You vouched for his character after he and Ralph Reed ripped off all those Indian tribes and called them “monkeys” and “troglodytes.”

DANA: Hey, isn’t Ralphie having a fundraiser for you this week?

MCCAIN: You were one of the Congressmen who jetted off to the Mariana Islands with Abramoff, and helped make it legal for the female guest workers there to get paid starvation wages while still selling the garments they made with a “Made in the USA” label.

DANA: [sigh] Those were the days…

MCCAIN: They were kept behind barbed wire fences. The attractive ones were forced into prostitution. When they got pregnant they were forced to have abortions.

DANA: True, true…

MCCAIN: Forced abortions, Dana. We’re supposed to be against abortion.

DANA: Hey, I didn’t see you doing anything about it.

MCCAIN: I ran the investigation of Abramoff.

DANA: And you kept that investigation as limited and circumscribed as you could.

MCCAIN: I’m glad you noticed. It isn’t good for any of us Republicans when stuff like this gets out.

DANA: He’s in prison now.

MCCAIN: And singing like a canary, from what I hear.

DANA: I was never closer to another man… except maybe old Charles Koch…

MCCAIN: Oh, Charles Koch—isn’t that your billionaire sugar-daddy who funded your political career from the start? That energy executive who wants to have global warming debunked and oil-rich countries invaded and occupied?

DANA: [pause, softly] How do you know so much about me anyway? I didn’t know you cared… I’ll be your running mate if you’ll have me, John… You’d just have to make a speech about Ramos and Compean. Just one little angry speech, that’s all it’ll take…

MCCAIN: You pathetic clown.

DANA: Right. What was I thinking. We were talking about sugar daddies, we were calling each other whores. Well, I have a story for you now!

MCCAIN: Oh, great. Can’t wait.

DANA: A story about a brave Navy pilot, shot down over Hanoi, beaten by a mob and imprisoned in the brutal Hoa Loa Prison – the Hanoi Hilton – for more than five years…

MCCAIN: …yes…

DANA: …and the faithful wife who waited for him all those years…

MCCAIN: Don’t even go there…

DANA: …she has a tragic car accident Christmas Eve 1969, nearly dies, needs a lot of surgery…

MCCAIN: I’m warning you…

DANA: …don’t worry, this story has a happy ending. So the Navy pilot finally comes home to a wife who’s fat, crippled, and four inches shorter, and immediately starts chasing everything with a skirt…

MCCAIN: Fine.

DANA: …and he finally hits pay dirt with a wealthy, beautiful beer baroness young enough to be his daughter. So naturally he dumps his old wife, marries the new one a month later, and his career really takes off. Smart move, too!  Look at him now—he’s a Senator, he’s got ten homes, he wears $500 shoes, he thinks you’re not rich unless you’ve got $5 million, and he might even be Leader of the Free World in a few months! Whore, much?

MCCAIN: Fine. You done? I’ve got one for you. About this eccentric, loose cannon sort of Congressman from California. Votes against gay rights because he’s a Republican, but everybody knows which way he swings in private…

DANA: Psst. Ixnay on the aygay.

MCCAIN: Rumors have flown around DC for years of this guy’s trips to Mexico for muchachos, his cruising for boys to take on “surfing trips” up and down the coast…

DANA: No, seriously, this isn’t good for us. People are already calling us the Gay Old Party.

MCCAIN: I’m not talking gay you creep, I’m talking young boys—like the kind that landed your buddy Jeff Nielsen in prison. Anyway this guy I’m talking about, he’s been married since ’97 to his campaign manager, a well-known lesbian and a felon herself, convicted of falsifying campaign documents. She’s what’s known in gay circles as a “beard,” helping our friend “pass;” her name rhymes with Wanda Harmony.

DANA: OK…

MCCAIN: So in 2004 this clown gets a primary challenge from an even crazier politician who starts spouting off about our friend being gay. And suddenly—mirabile dictu!—triplets are conceived! You could say, like Nathan Arizona, “Medical science caught up with them, with a vengeance.” And then to bring things full circle, Jack Abramoff throws the triplets a baby shower at Signature’s!

DANA: OK, my friend, I forgive you for telling this story, because I know you went through a lot as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and it must have taken its toll on you.

MCCAIN: I don’t like to talk about that.

DANA: Of course, everybody knows you don’t like to talk about being a POW. So go ahead, tell us—what did they do to you at the Hanoi Hilton?

MCCAIN: Well… they kept me in a bamboo cage, and they beat me every day for the first couple of years… They broke my teeth, they broke my bones…

DANA: You don’t say.

MCCAIN: …When my bones would heal, they’d break them again, they’d jump on my injuries, they’d make me stay standing up for days on end, people have no idea how painful that gets …

DANA: Go on, what else did they do?

MCCAIN: …People also don’t realize what hell solitary confinement is, especially with no light or ventilation, in the wet heat of Vietnam… I tried to kill myself at one point because of the constant pain…

DANA: [begins chuckling quietly to himself]

MCCAIN: …They also had what I call “torture ropes,” which they kept tied as tight as they could around my arms, twisting my arms, contorting the muscles—when they pulled on those ropes just a little, it was excruciating… Are you laughing about all this, you sick bastard?

DANA: Heh heh, I’m sorry, heh heh, I just couldn’t help thinking… did they also put panties on your head?

MCCAIN: You are one sick fuck. I should kill you. The world would be a better place.

DANA: No, my friend, you’re a whore, and now I’ll tell you why. When the Vietnam War ended you were the Senate’s greatest advocate for all the POW’s and MIA’s who were still left there. But, come 1995, the money wing of the Republican Party suddenly decided they wanted to profit by trading with Vietnam, normalizing relations and taking advantage of the dirt-cheap labor there, and you went along with the program, threw all those men under the bus, and started treating their families like nuts.

MCCAIN: That’s a lie! There was nobody left there!

DANA: You sold out the other POW’s and MIA’s for money and political acceptance. Their families are still calling you a traitor. Check, mate, and whore!

MCCAIN:  Now I’m gonna strangle you, you goddamn chickenhawk! [lunges forward]

DANA:  Ahh! HELP!  Blackwater guy, don’t just stand there, pull this maniac off of me!

HANS:  I can’t, sir, he’s a War Hero.

DANA:  AAARRGZLL…………….…….