Comments on: Rolling Stone: McCain a ‘Mean Little Fu_ _er,’ That Puts Own ‘Advancement Above All Else’

By: Oog

Oog — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:24:21 +0000

I’m with tibor. The article is filled with verifiable claims and on-the-record quotation from reliable sources. Someone says reporter find McCain likable? Of course they do! That’s the communication strategy he has honed for years — and it works.

By: tibor warski

tibor warski — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:13:07 +0000

Yeah…yeah…yeah. Keep bitchin’ and whinin’ about the article but don’t bother debunking the main assertions.

By: PG

PG — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 02:44:43 +0000

1) David Foster Wallace isn’t in the building anymore. If you are troubled by the use of profanity, you may not be the type of person who keeps up with post-modern literature, but DFW suffered from severe depression, went off his meds and apparently committed suicide last month.

2) DFW’s article was written from the perspective of the “boys on the bus,” the journalists who ride with the candidate. From what I understand, reporters who hang out with McCain find him extremely likable. Interestingly, what you quote from DFW actually supports aspects of McCain’s character that, in the Dickinson article, you deem to be hateful: “hellraiser,” “talents for partying and getting laid.”

3) Dickinson, in contrast, has reported favorably on McCain but at a distance. That makes it easy for Dickinson now to investigate McCain critically.

By: Libertarian Girl

Libertarian Girl — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:26:33 +0000

Thanks for the link to the piece. It was one of the most amazing pieces of journalism I’ve ever seen in my life, not for its quality. I did learn a few things, such as his relationship with Nancy Reagan and how that deteriorated over his divorce.

I had a subscription to Rolling Stone for 15 years (that I had for the music coverage) that I just let lapse due to articles like this. In 2000, a huge difference was that they didn’t run hit pieces like this, that came around due to Bush and the Iraq War. Their political coverage used to be focused more on issues, and now it’s more on partisanship. If you look at some of their mid-’90s issues, they really went after Clinton on a lot of things. Now they just put Obama on the cover with a halo. It’s quite a different attitude.