By Michael Rutschky
Published on January 30, 2008
I just got back from the John McCain campaign rally at PJC’s Hartsell Arena, and I have a lot of wasted adrenaline to spend, which is now coming out of my nose and mouth in the form of smoke and brimstone. If you have a bad heart, a weak stomach, or any article of clothing with the American Flag on it, stop reading here.
I am typing this with clammy hands, one of them still moist from a handshake with the Senator. All week I had anticipated a brief backstage interview with McCain that The Corsair had arranged days ago with McCain’s guy, Mark Braden.
I waited backstage after McCain’s speech, sacrificing my time in the press box while he was answering questions from other reporters (as well as my morning classes), only to be pushed aside when McCain walked by because he was running late. I went there as the voice of my school, the very place that allowed him the time and the venue to promote his campaign for Presidency, and I was overlooked.
However, I cannot say that I am surprised that the younger generation ranked so low in McCain’s interests. For someone who made his campaign stop at a college campus, he gave very little attention to the young first-time voters that were welcoming him to their school. On the event schedule at the John McCain Web site, the stop at PJC was called a “Florida Military Veteran’s Rally.” The event was heavily directed towards the active and retired military community; he had a brigade of WWII and Vietnam veterans to introduce and support him. It was never meant for the students in the first place.
About three-quarters through the speech I came to my personal conclusion as to why he picked a college campus to stop at: we are fresh, juicy meat in his mind, and he wanted to tend to what will one day be his cattle.
McCain said weeks ago in New Hampshire that we could stay in Iraq for another hundred years and it wouldn’t bother him. I originally wrote this off as him pushing people’s buttons to get a rise out of people in the press, something he has done many times before in the past.
But no, he was being serious. He wants to expand the military exponentially. He said that it was a mistake for Rumsfeld to put the army in a position where soldiers are serving extended tours, and he wants to expand the army to keep rotations on schedule. If you’re savvy enough to see through the fa‡ade of electioneering, you were probably able to infer what he was really saying.
Was the senator insulting the students of PJC by coming to our school and seemingly promising a draft if he gets elected? At that moment I reacted just as any other sentient life-form would have, by falling into a heightened sense of self-preservation. I identified him as a threat to my personal well being and the well-being of my people, just the same as any terrorist leader or power-mad despot that sends his people into the path of a bullet while they sit at home and profit.
If you believe in this war, by all means, enlist. But I don’t want to go, I don’t want my little brother and all of my friends and my favorite bands to go, and if you think for one second that the American people would let conscription fly in this country, you’re out of your mind.
So, obviously I had a lot on my brain when it was time for me to wait to meet him. The question I had prepared the night before was “what do you think are the issues that will matter most to first-time voters?”
However, after considering what else I could ask, I opted for something a little less kiddy sounding: “How do you propose to reign in government spending while at the same time expand and prolong a war that already costs us $5,000 per second (according to Sen. Ted Stevens in a report he conducted for the purpose of requesting even more money for the war)?”
I felt that this would be the course of action that benefited me the most while at the same time concurring with my responsibilities as an objective journalist. My instinctual reaction would have been to bare my fangs and claw at his eyes.
But of course, an answer for my question was never provided. I would love to know how McCain would respond, especially since one of the biggest reasons he gave for cutting back spending was supposedly to benefit future generations, the same generations he would gladly hurl into the meat-grinder of the Middle East. Perhaps his new campaign slogan should be “Save the Children (for Future Wars).”
Then again, he also told a really super joke about a monkey flying a jet plane, so I guess that makes it all okay. You can do whatever you want with me, Mr. Senator; just keep those nice monkey jokes a-comin’!
P.S.: As I type this, reports have come in that Heath Ledger has been found dead in his New York apartment. Ledger’s amazing turn as The Joker in the next Batman movie was one of the biggest things I had to look forward to in 2008. From what CNN Headline News is saying, Ledger had been complaining recently that the role itself was so dark and troubling that he had to turn to sleeping pills to get to bed at night. Thanks for putting so much dedication into a character that means so much to so many people, Heath. You were a true artist and it’s plain to see that your final movie will be your best yet.
