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Whistle Stopper - The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $8.96
Your Save: $ 5.99 ( 40% )
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Manufacturer: PoliPoint Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 328.73092
EAN: 9780979482298
ISBN: 0979482291
Label: PoliPoint Press
Manufacturer: PoliPoint Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 200
Publication Date: 2008-05-01
Publisher: PoliPoint Press
Studio: PoliPoint Press
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Why I Trust John McCain
Comment: I've watched this author on media newsclips on You Tube where he has appeared as a "democratic strategist". He has no credibility with me as he comes over as an overbearing loudmouth. I will support and vote for John McCain for many reasons. The biggest reason: when his campaign was floundering McCain said that he would rather lose the election than lose in Iraq. That type of political courage, to me and many other veterans, is maximum credibility during a time when we are in fact at war. A war being fought by courageous young men and women who are following in the footsteps of honorable service of men and women like McCain.
To put such a misleading picture on the cover also tells me everything I need to know about this book. Covers on books can be very revealing on the contents. For example, why is it so hard to find a copy of John Kerry's book THE NEW SOLDIER. Could it be because that its cover shows Kerry's friends, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, mocking (with an upside down U.S. flag) the scene photographed during the Second World War where 6,825 American boys died to plant that flag on Iwo Jima? By the way, remember that this was the same revered icon that Time equally defiled last month on its conver and angered so many Iwo Jima and ther veterans.
Bottom line--through the selection of the image on his cover, Schecter has destroyed any chance of being taken seriously. It is like using the well-known image of Obama in the African costume on the front cover of a book...I wouldn't take that book seriously either.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Real McCain
Comment: I will make this short because there are already a number of well written and detailed reviews posted. It is very well written and laid out in a manner that makes it easy to read and follow. It is very well sourced as well. I would hope that a lot of voters will take the time to read this book, recommend it to others and pass on the information it presents. No one can read this book and conclude that Senator McCain is Presidential material. His flaws are too numerous and too substantial.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A fast, breezy read - with lots of compelling evidence
Comment: I'm not a McCain fan, but I am interested in reading about him - and this quick read is compelling. (Think: Saturday afternoon in Napa Valley while you're sipping your chardonnay and munching on some brie...) And the best part about it - footnotes! Schecter has scrupulously documented his manuscript with 20 pages of footnotes, citing (among others) The New York Times, the Congressional Record, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post and the Orlando Sentinel, as well as a host of online sources including Slate. Exploring his references is as much fun as reading the book.
While The Real McCain portrays McCain as a flip-flopping brown-nosing politician who will do anything to succeed, one has to ask, so? For me the most surprising thing was how obvious this flip-flopping is - condemning the Confederate flag as offensive in one speech, and three days later saying "the flag is a symbol of heritage"; saying we should "stay the course" in Iraq one day and the next week saying he's "not an advocate for a 'stay the course' policy in Iraq." Schecter goes on and on in a conversational and easy-to-read tone that makes this an easy one-day read.
And if you Google "Cliff Schecter," you get to his blog - even more fun. The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is it's too short, although at $10 it's a great bargain.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Every Voter Needs to Know This
Comment: Cliff Schecter offers an understanding of three different McCains, not so much a study in multiple personality as a pragmatic progression in public life of a guy who doesn't really have a central core self. While McCain's inner compass is understandably fixated on the presidency, in this study we learn why we have impressions of him that aren't real.
The independent, the maverick, and the straight shooter are impressions we may have without some close study. This book isn't hard to read, not heavy with academic detail, but more traces these three McCains and the environments they have lived in and worked in through the years.
Schecter doesn't dispute the heroism and service to the country. He doesn't really seem to hate the guy. So it's easy reading through the years of service, tracing the influences, showing how the impressions we have are all about some other McCain who isn't any longer. Part of why he isn't is that he's had to make adjustments to keep his goal in view.
For me, there were more than a few surprises here. Recently I became alarmed seeing the "Barbara Ann" video. Recently I heard a longtime Democrat consider voting for McCain this year because of dismay over the other primary. Sure, vote however you like. But first, know this about your candidate.
The last chapter explores the possibilities of a McCain cabinet. It is this chapter, if you are a bookstore browser and don't want to make a purchase, that you should read. Just stand right there and read it. The prospects of a McCain presidency might seem fairly benevolent or even appealing until you get a little more informed. Schecter himself contributed to McCain's earlier campaign. Now, Schecter says, he wants his $20 back.
If you aren't getting your way with the Democrats and you might be thinking as my friend is, read this first, or just the last chapter!! First, contemplate the prospects for our nation's domestic and foreign policy, consider a future without a compass that points anywhere substantial. Just when you think we've had enough of Armageddon policy.
Thanks to Cliff Schecter. He'll get his $20 back. I'll vote Democrat no matter what. I'll loan the book to my friend and then it will go the local library.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A must-read for this year's voters, of any affiliation
Comment: Cliff Schecter has done a masterful job of summing up the many puzzling flipflops and changes that John McCain has continued to undergo since his first race for the presidency was aborted by BushCo/Karl Rove during the South Carolina primary in 2000. Terse, densely packed with facts, footnoted to a fare-thee-well, and not without touches of grim humor, the author offers the most important information about the man who would be America's oldest president (he'll turn 72 in August) if he successfully continues to dodge and weave when voicing (or not) opinions on issues crucial to America. In his efforts to be all things to all people, "when it comes to the tough votes," says Schecter, McCain has opted out, missing "a whopping 261 of 468 votes, or almost 56 percent, by March 2008." (The only Senator to miss more votes was Tim Johnson, recovering from a serious brain hemorrhage.) All candidates miss votes, but the author notes, "McCain the maverick ... betrays a calculated strategy: namely, to avoid going on the record when doing so would be politically risky."
Perhaps the most incredible--yet best explained--parts of this book depict McCain's shameful truckling both to the religious right and to the very man who once smeared him--George W. Bush. ("It's awfully hard to say no to the President," admitted McCain in 2006, when he said his loyalty to GWB was so "profound" that he wouldn't rule out leaving his Senate seat to become Secretary of Defense if and when Donald Rumsfeld were to leave.)
Schechter mentions briefly a number of McCain's obvious personal weaknesses, including his dissolute youth and poor academic record (he graduated sixth from the bottom of his class of nearly 900 students at the Naval Academy), his divorce, and his speedy remarriage to a wealthy younger woman, a beer heiress whom he courted while still married, and has helped bankroll his career ever since. Where such flaws as McCain's volcanic temper are concerned, Schechter ties them to specific incidents, which are legion. In addition, he points out McCain's reciprocated love affair with powerful members of the Beltway media elite, which is not shared by journalists in his adoptive home state of Arizona. Frightening evidence is provided of McCain's ignorance of numerous issues, such as the economy, public health, and the advisability of maintaining and even expanding the war in Iraq.
While this author acknowledges and praises McCain's service in Vietnam, he stresses that what's most crucial to prospective voters is what McCain the man has done since shedding his uniform. "The Real McCain" provides the most important 150 pages that prospective voters of any political affiliation should read before the November election.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Thinking about voting for McCain? Read this book. Cliff Schecter's hard-hitting profile explores the gap between the public record of Senator John McCain and his media image. Drawing on a range of sources and adding his unique perspective and humor, Schecter guides the reader though McCain's long history of expedient flip-flops, especially on his signature issues of national security and campaign finance reform. Far from a straight-talking maverick, McCain emerges as a temperamental political chameleon who will do or say virtually anything to become president of the United States. On issue after issue - including the invasion and occupation of Iraq, torture, abortion, and gay rights - The Real McCain reveals a politician who started as a Goldwater Republican, experienced a brief period after sanity after his loss to George W. Bush in 2000, and began pandering to the very groups he challenged after deciding to run again in 2008.
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