In May the McCain campaign revealed that the Republican presidential candidate is taking a variety of medications. This isn’t surprising; many elderly Americans do.
But there’s definitely more than eight years separating 2000’s Straight Talk Express–the glad-handing, shoot-from-the-hip aging flyboy who liked to shoot the shit with the journos in the back of the bus–and today’s carefully calibrated, creepy-smiling control freak. And I think I know what that something is: antidepressants.
Zoloft? Prozac? Who knows? What’s obvious is that McCain’s personality has flattened. Anyone who knows someone who has gone on antidepressants knows what I’m talking about.
If McCain is taking one of these meds, which are known for serious psychological side effects in some people, the American people deserve to know now. Toward that end, I renew my offer to contribute $10,000 to McCain’s presidential campaign (the previous offer expired when he and his toadies were unable to back up his assertion that the U.S. had been created as a Christian nation). All he has to do is take a comprehensive drug test administered by a qualified neutral party in order to determine what, if anything, he is on. In order to qualify for the $10,000 said test should be administered, and its results released, prior to October 1, 2008.
Maybe spending eight years licking Bush’s bunghole has transformed the quick-witted, hot-tempered McCain of 2000 into the Stepford Wives robot before us today. But $10,000 says it’s more than that.
27 Comments.
I agree, this is not at all a personal matter. Such high ranking public servants should 1) be required to disclose their medication where side-effects could occur, and 2) be required to attend therapy while in office.
We need to stop treating politicians like individuals and start treating them as property of the state. Hell, the British Monarchy figured this out 500 years ago, and yet we still play to personal narratives and cults of personality.
man… mccain licking bush's bunghole… when are we gonna see THAT cartoon???
I agree. I've been saying the same about President 'Clean & Sober' ever since the pretzel-choking incident (of course, many, many people can relate to simply passing out and hitting a table head-first while eating a pretzel cold sober). Bush is a walking pharmaceutical factory, pumped so full of emotion-flattening drugs that he can LITERALLY kill one million people and sleep like a baby. I doubt even his predecessor, Saddam Hussein, was that indifferent to his killing of Iraqis.
…Way to go Ted! Nice to read about somebody backing themselves up with cash. (my attempt to avoid the following cliche: putting your money where your mouth is). Get 'em!
I think every candidate should be drug-tested. If not for the sake of full disclosure, than surely for the humour value.
By the way, I thought that the Federal Election Commission prohibited individuals from contributing more than $3,200 per candidate per election cycle. Or are you planning on "bundling" the $10,000 if McCain comes clean?
Even with his relatively moderately-paced campaigning, could it be jet lag and the result of frequent use of Provigil or some other "upper?"
Anti-depressants are pretty specific, and he's not the introspective type, and so seems unlikely to develop depression. He seems more the type that causes depression.
Plus, I can count the number of 72 year-olds I know that are still "fly" on one hand. They may be insightful and thoughtful and erudite, but they're usually not flexible.
I'm just saying you might lose your $10k and find that he's clean of psychotropics. It would be good information either way, but kind of pricey if it's negative.
Good point, Seth. What the hell, I know some cartoonists who will bundle the moolah for me.
I'm not saying McCain is loopy. I'm saying his personality has changed markedly in recent years.
Why does controlled mental illness make someone less qualified for office than other chronic conditions?
So what if McCain is on SSRIs? If he's got his figure on a nuclear trigger, I'd rather he take is meds.
Would we be safer if political figures with psychological issues refused treatment for fear of creating a paper trail?
Should we also require candidates to get spinal taps to check their dopamine and serotonin levels? It would be the only way to be guarantee non-depressed candidates, especially if there's a stigma attached to psychiatric treatment.
The long and short is that he does not look like a well person.
The presidency is a very high stress job. Those who hold it visibly age, except for those who basically nap or go to the gym through it.
I always liked the separation of powers on the bridge in StarTrek: The Next Generation. The ship's counselor and the ship's doctor could take out anyone they thought was unfit for duty. There is a big difference between being fit for duty and being declared loopy.
McCain just doesn't seem very sharp mentally and that seems to have gotten worse in the last year. Perhaps, though, it is his personal reaction to losing the kind of control he needs to feel comfortable. Simply put, he may be both way over his head and out of his element.
Mandate from the voters for stuff like this will not occur until voters understand what their interests are.
…and, NO, they don't know yet (example: bush not losing by a landslide in 2004).
So, can we stop hammering the only guy who is going to bring supply side economics to its logical conclusion? Because only then will we have any chance of getting rid of it once and for all.
…and, NO, it has not been taqken to its logical conclusion because people are still voting for it.
…and, no, we will not have to worry about the Supreme court at that point.
We can languish on indefinitely, or we can crash and heal. I choose the latter.
All the better if he is high the whole time.
Ted,
How about old age and fatigue? 64-72 is quite a step.
Also, Ted, you really ought to take a look at McCain's plan for health care.
The "Straight talk express" lost, Ted. He's got one last shot and is giving the Rove method a go. It appears to be working too, unfortunately for one's view of humanity or Americans.
The Britsh do not force the Queen to have urine tests, you dorks.
I hope you won't crow too loudly, Ted, when McCain ignores this request for a gross invasion of his privacy. The only person looking silly would be you.
As to the rest of you, think about the sort of people you'll get in office if only people who are sure they're righteous and perfect in all ways need apply. Hint: they won't be very tolerant.
Go far more basic: offer John McCain $10,000 if he will allow unfettered access to -all- his medical records. To date, he's made them "available" to a closely-supervised collection of reporters for three hours. (Literally!) It may not be pill-popping, but he's almost certainly hiding -something-.
Hmm, that raises an excellent point. If I have to pee in a cup to get a $7/hr job at BestBuy, why shouldn't public officials have to pass a drug test?
With all due respect, Sean, I think that being on antidepressants does make someone less qualified to be president of the United States. We're not talking about barring people from ANY work, but when it comes to the importance of who becomes PRESIDENT, this is precisely the time to be discriminatory (based on qualifications, just in case anyone wants to claim some other kind of discrimination) because it is essential that we place the best and brightest in office.
Currently, there is absolutely no contest in competence, worldview, health and well-being, intellectual curiosity and basic intelligence between Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin. The only chance McCain-Palin has to win is to trivialize every single important qualification to be President.
The republican party decided GW Bush was more qualified to be president 8 years ago than John McCain. John McCain is 8 years older and more exhausted, and 8 years more beaten down by the right wing of his party now. This is only a contest because of the one thing the media refuses to address anymore, or anyone else for that matter.
70% of the "undecided" voters aren't willing to admit that they won't vote for a black man. If they were voting strictly on the merits of qualification and policy positions, Obama would win this election with 80%. Our entire election system is allowing people to be ignorant, incompetent bigots.
A large part of me at this point doesn't even care if McCain wins, he's the next Herbert Hoover. On the precipice of institutional failure, we are led by the blind.
We need the best leaders in office, and McCain's medication is just ONE MORE disqualifier in a long list.
Ted,
You are missing the simplest explanation for John McCain's personality transformation. He is a chameleon who can change his traits to suit the times. Whether he is using drugs to aid in this transformation is irrelevant.
In Arizona, he sits in Barry Goldwater's old seat. He is appealing to a constituency that values a degree of independence in its candidates. That independence was an act. Now that he's running for national office, he's towing the mainstream Republican line. His orthodoxy is an act too. I'm doubtful that we've ever seen the real John McCain.
While he was a "maverick", he took contributions from Keating. He also diverted the senate's attention from Iraq to his silly Barry Bonds investigation. At that time, a well supervised reconstruction in Iraq may have avoided significant bloodshed. He never was a maverick, he's like a professional wrestling heel. He was a scripted antagonist to make rubes believe there's more to the Republicans than big oil and big Jesus. He never deviated from the script when it counted.
aggie nails it:
"if McCain wins, he's the next Herbert Hoover. On the precipice of institutional failure, we are led by the blind."
exactly! institutional failure
LOL
McCain for pres!
"pull it"
Yeah yeah. The "conservatives" are nationalising your financial services industry, the "liberals" are talking about mandatory abortion and compulsory urine sampling. Cats and dogs, living together…
callmechuck, I would have thought the answer was that Bestbuy shouldn't be allowed to demand your bodily fluids from you, but that's just me I suppose.
Money speaks for money,the Devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone?
What a comfort for the widow,a light to the child
There is power in a Union
I agree with aggie "it is essential that we place the best and brightest in office."
AlGore lectures us about Global Warming yet received a "C"
from the WaPo:
"In his sophomore year at Harvard, Gore's grades were lower than any semester recorded on Bush's transcript from Yale. That was the year Gore's classmates remember him spending a notable amount of time in the Dunster House basement lounge shooting pool, watching television, eating hamburgers and occasionally smoking marijuana. His grades temporarily reflected his mildly experimental mood, and alarmed his parents. He received one D, one C-minus, two C's, two C-pluses and one B-minus, an effort that placed him in the lower fifth of the class for the second year in a row."
Read more:http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A37397-2000Mar18
In other words, AlGore is a lazy uncurious dolt who'd rather eat burger then learn anything. That's the inconvenient truth.
It's funny, but the guitar player from the Doobie Brothers is a missle defense consultant. He was also in Steely Dan and a band called the Ultimate Spinach. I'm talking about Jeff "Skunk" Baxter. You have to remove pot smoking from your no-no list because all of us over 40 inhaled.
What was W's grade point average? Grades don't mean shit apparently.
Anon,
You are using one measure, and a fairly meaningless one used by itself. Grades in the sophomore year of college are irrelevant, unless they speak to a consistent pattern over a long period of time.
You sound like the old Edward on here, pulling one meaningless statistic out of a trend and out of context and using it to justify a stupid argument.
It is about the actions of a person on a day-to-day basis that count. Al Gore's service to humanity vs. GW Bush's.
Was very interested to see another outlet also speculating about the McCain depression idea:
"The voice analysis profile for McCain looks very much like someone who is clinically depressed," says Pollermann, a psychologist who uses voice analysis software in her work with patients. Previous research on mirror neurons has shown that listening to depressed voices can make others feel depressed themselves, she says.
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/mg19926746.200-software-spots-the-spin-in-political-speeches.html
Of course, I cannot vouch for the credibility of Ms. Pollermann's methodology, but the coincidence of this blurb and Ted's column was enough to raise my eyebrows.
Rall, once again you are showing your total ignorance. You cannot contribute $10K to McCain's campaign. Maximum individual contribution to a presidential campaign is $2,300.
Ever heard of bundling?
I was thinking about taking antidepressants. I figure I will give them a try and see what happens. Perhaps I can continue to live in this second rate country paying thousands a year on war and not feel bad about it. Then I can stay here with my family and friends.
Do you really think they flatten your personality? My sister took them once, and so did this girl I know. It definitely toned them down a bit, but when they got off, they went back to their old selves.
Of course I've heard of bundling. Give me a break. If I understand enough about campaign contributions to know that individual limits are $2,300, I would certainly understand bundling. However, that isn't what you proposed. You said "I renew my offer to contribute $10,000 to McCain's presidential campaign." Notice "I". Notice "my". You didn't say you would get a bunch of your buddies to bundle. You said "you" would contribute. Which of course, you can't.