My reference is to the title character of Robert Service's poem, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew." But John McCain is far more dangerous than any Klondike gunslinger, because McCain would use (and has used) the power of government to suppress speech in the name of "clean government."
Many bloggers have picked up on McCain's latest outrageous utterance:
He [Michael Graham] also mentioned my abridgement of First Amendment rights, i.e. talking about campaign finance reform....I know that money corrupts....I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government.
But no blogger whom I have read has gone to the heart of "Dangerous Dan" McCain's twisted agenda. When speech is suppressed in the name of "clean government," the essential element of "clean government" -- namely, competition for control -- is removed.
McCain and his ilk like to pretend that money "buys" politicians. Money may buy criminal acts -- such as those committed by Duke Cunningham -- but those acts are easilty dealt with as matters of criminality. In the main, money only "buys" politicians to the extent that it helps to elect those politicians whose views are already attuned to the views of their contributors.
Incumbents already have been "bought" in the sense that their success has been abetted by like-minded supporters. The best way to keep incumbents "honest" is to ensure that they face strong challenges at election time. But the power of incumbency requires that challengers have access to more money than incumbents. McCain will have none of that because his real agenda is to make it difficult for challengers to raise enough money to defeat incumbents. It's a power-grab, pure and simple.
It should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than a nanosecond that "Dangerous Dan" McCain -- that arrogant hypocrite -- is opposed to free speech and "clean government." His twisted agenda is to suppress potential challenges to the power of incumbency.
