Saturday Night Live
John McCain was good humored and willing to work with people from across the political spectrum. Below are some of his appearances on Saturday Night Live.
14 Oct 2013
23 Sep 2013
Moderate Views
Here are some quotes and commentaries about John McCain’s moderate views.
- NewsMax.com – “He is the anti-conservative. He instinctively sides against conservatives and relishes poking them in the eye…. he opposed the Bush tax cuts because he received insufficient guarantees that they’d be coupled with spending cuts, his stated reason at the time was that they were cuts just for the rich. … McCain was only one of two Republican senators who opposed the plan. … Lest you think McCain’s opposition to the Bush tax cuts was just a single exception to his stellar conservative economic credentials, I cite the recent California debate, in which McCain similarly disparaged big business, profits, producers and wealth. This constant harping against the engine and fruits of capitalism is tantamount to waging war against the American ideal. McCain’s liberal instinct once again rears its unflattering head. … He’s been good mostly on Iraq, from a conservative perspective, but very disappointing on opposing tough, life-saving interrogation techniques, in wanting to close down Gitmo, and in favoring constitutional protections for enemy combatants.”
- George Will – “In 2004, one of John McCain’s closest associates, John Weaver, spoke to John Kerry about the possibility of McCain running as Kerry’s vice presidential running mate. McCain’s evident aim is to reduce pharmaceutical companies’ profits. He has indeed worked with Ted Kennedy on immigration reform, with Russ Feingold on restricting political speech (McCain-Feingold) and with Kennedy and John Edwards — a trial lawyer drawn to an enlargement of opportunities for litigation — on the ‘patients’ bill of rights.’ … In the New Hampshire debate, McCain asserted that corruption is the reason drugs currently cannot be reimported from Canada. The reason is ‘the power of the pharmaceutical companies.’ When Mitt Romney interjected, ‘Don’t turn the pharmaceutical companies into the big bad guys,’ McCain replied, ‘Well, they are.'”
- GunOwners.org – “John McCain is one of these pretenders. He is a leftist in disguise, using his popularity and charisma to masque his liberal leanings. In reality, McCain resides as far to the Left as John Kerry. Anyone who thinks otherwise deludes himself.”
- Slate.com – “A few years ago, McCain called Jerry Falwell an ‘agent of intolerance’ and compared him to Louis Farrakhan. … he made the comment that if his daughter—who was 15 at the time—became pregnant, it would be up to her to decide whether to have an abortion. In 2004, McCain was one of only six Republican senators to vote against the Federal Marriage Amendment, and after a Massachusetts court affirmed gay unions, he took the position that states could decide their own marriage laws without federal help. In the early 1990s, McCain caught the reform bug and became the Senate’s foremost advocate of campaign finance reform, as well as an outspoken opponent of corporate welfare and pork-barrel spending. His reform zeal opened the door to other heresies and formed the basis for his presidential run. Part of what was compelling about McCain as a candidate in the 2000 primaries was that he was a politician in genuine flux. On the campaign trail, you could see him losing faith in conservative orthodoxy on issues like poverty, income inequality, health care, and global warming, spurred by encounters with humans in New Hampshire and elsewhere. This political evolution continued through Bush’s first term. McCain rejected the president’s fiscal recklessness and tax cuts skewed to the wealthy. He allied himself with Democratic colleagues on a variety of social issues, including HMO reform, environmentalism, and gun control. Democrats implored him to switch teams, as a couple of his advisers, frozen out by the right, actually did. But instead of accepting John Kerry’s offer to become his running mate in 2004… He continues to take on the president and his own party where it matters to him, on the use of torture in the war on terrorism and on immigration, where he sponsored a bill with Ted Kennedy to allow millions of illegal immigrants become citizens.”