From The Consortium News
By Robert Parry

The Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin has been dubbed “Maverick Squared,” with much of the U.S. news media hailing the pair as reformers who are above partisanship and eager to challenge corrupt Washington.

Beyond that, Sen. McCain presented himself in his Thursday night acceptance speech as a grandfatherly figure who loves peace and would only go to war reluctantly to protect America’s vital interests.

However, both propositions – McCain-Palin as a reform ticket and John McCain as a man of peace – could only be taken seriously in the up-is-down world that has become American politics.

McCain was a leading – and early – advocate for the neoconservative plan of invading Iraq despite no evidence connecting its government to the 9/11 attacks. He also endorses the neocon concept of a “long war” against Islamic militants and even joked about attacking Iran, singing, “Bomb, bomb Iran.”

Some of his Senate colleagues privately consider McCain an ill-tempered warmonger who would keep the Iraq War going indefinitely and would stoke tensions around the globe. But the press corps offered almost no commentary about McCain’s dark side during the Republican National Convention.

There was near total silence, too, about evidence that McCain – like Palin – is a fake reformer. His support for a few high-profile reform bills became a political necessity in the 1980s after he got caught in a savings-and-loan influence-peddling scheme with Cindy McCain’s business partner, Charles Keating.

Read more Phonies Squared