The Press is the Enemy? Comments on an Interview with John McCain

Tonight I was going to talk about Infrastructure and how little progress we have made in the past 30 years in that area, but after reading this Time interview with John McCain, a man who potentially could become the next President of the United States, I had to change my plans. Take a few moments to read the interview (the excerpt in question is short - believe me, and the answers are very repetitive, so it’s a quick read).

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1836909,00.html

As an election in the US looms, and the direction of North America’s economy with it (I won’t kid myself into thinking that Canada is fully independent), it is important to keep track of what is going to happen. Right now in the polls, this man basically has a 50% chance of being the next President, so his policies and decisions could realistically govern the course of our economy for the next 4 years. Also, with an election almost certainly looming in Canada (the press expects an announcement within a month at their best guesses), watching how political maneuvering south of the border is working is wise – our politicians tend to be more moderate, mini-versions of their US counterparts.

In his interview with Time, McCain repeatedly told the reporter to refer to his books, that the campaign was acting as it had planned to all along, and that words were taken out of context. The short story is he stops answering questions, and starts quoting party lines. How he follows in the footsteps of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan, and how his current condemnation of Russia is similar to Reagan’s policies from the early 80’s (which I have discussed before). It’s as if he’s aware that the press is the “enemy”, and is not to be spoken with.

Falling back on party lines is hardly unexpected as the ballot day nears, but one thing McCain is right about. There hasn’t been this much “I don’t recall” going on in American leadership since Reagan was being questioned on Iran-Contra. His foreign policy will also no doubt be something any Reaganite could be proud of. But this press “lockdown” that he seems to be exhibiting now, after an earlier bid at claiming candidness, going so far as to naming his campaign bus the “Straight Talk Express”, is disturbing indeed.

If the people are not allowed to know the true positions of the politicians running for office, how can they cast an educated vote? Shall we expect the same here in Canada in the months to come? It has been said that politicians at the upper echelon, left and right, have nearly the same agenda, just different ways of sugarcoating the pill that middle and lower class citizens will have to swallow. A move AWAY from transparency is the last thing needed in a time when our leaders should be proving that adage wrong. While our parties tend to be a little to the left of American politics, I would hate to have to decipher who the best candidate is through a shroud like the one being raised in this interview.