Meghan McCain: I Take It Back.

Last month, at the old site, I wrote a glowing piece about Meghan McCain possibly being the "future of the GOP."  I even wrote the following words:

I’m a fan of hers, and do believe that she’s a step in the right direction for a struggling GOP.

I'd read her blog on The Daily Beast.  I followed her on Twitter.  I'd read interviews, and thought she came across as a confident, bright, well-read, intelligent kid.  Maybe she really could help "rebrand" the conservative philosophy into something the youth of today could get behind.

But there was something that gave me pause, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  One reader left a comment after my piece:

If Meghan McCain is the “future of the GOP”, let this country turn into a 1 party system. Mrs. “Don’t you know who the **** I am” needs to float away. Her 15 minutes of fame living off her dad’s campaign are up.

I chalked that comment up to a bitter neocon, angry that his party was losing its grip.  You know, like Rush Limbaugh.

But then I came to the realization that I hadn't ever heard Meghan McCain actually speak.  I mean, ever.  I'd just read written word on paper and in pixels.  Never watched a YouTube clip, never saw her on The View, didn't catch her on Colbert -- nothing. 

So when she started tweeting that she was going to be on Real Time with Bill Maher, I made sure to check it out.

Oooh, boy.  Um... unimpressive.

As soon as she came out, she appeared nervous.  I could sense her palms sweating through the television.  She couldn't make eye contact.  I would have only been mildly surprised if she would have thrown up on Bill as soon as she shook his hand.

The rest of the panel last night:  Joel Stein, Paul Begala, and fellow Daily Beast writer, Katty Kay.  Three accomplished journalists, all with an admittedly liberal bent.  Along with Bill Maher, she had to feel like she was walking into the lion's den.

Some topics of conversation, and Meghan's takes:

• Palin/Letterman Feud:  McCain refused to acknowledge that Letterman was joking about Bristol (18) and not Willow (14).  Kept saying it was in poor taste to make fun of a little girl.  No one brought up John McCain's "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly" joke.
• Ensign sex scandal:  McCain's only apparent meme -- Republicans are uptight about sex.
• Barack Obama:  McCain's tired of Obama blaming Bush "all the time."

The Barack Obama topic led to the biggest dagger in McCain's credibility as anything more than a politician's daughter.  When she started whining (yes, whining) that Barack Obama spent too much time blaming George W. Bush for the problems the country is in, Paul Begala piped in that he believed Obama doesn't blame Bush enough.  McCain volleyed back something about Republicans don't do that kind of thing.

Begala pounced, saying Ronald Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter every single day for eight years. 

McCain's retort?  She wasn't born then, so she didn't know anything about that.  She followed up with a look of self-satisfaction that could only be described as the personfication of the word, "nyah."

Begala destroys her with his reply.  Video below (not sure how long the clip will remain up on YouTube... copyrights and all):

It got worse from there.  I won't get into the gory details, but suffice it to say the twitterverse is abuzz this morning with the awkward disaster that was her Real Time appearance last night:

Locs_n_Laughs Caught Meghan McCain on Real Time. The only topic she could speak intelligently about was sex.

niknoks1912 Just watched Meghan McCain on Bill Maher... ouch. That did not make for comfortable viewing.

reedrodger Meghan McCain needs to stay off of television. Why do we give a forum to people who obviously have no historical basis for their opinions?

amirtalai Meghan McCain is an insipid idiot who absolutely does not deserve to have a journalistic mouthpiece.

lauramannino Meghan McCain looks like she's going to break into tears on Bill Maher.

djadamjay watching Bill Maher. Not even Columbia University could remove that annoying, valley girl, voice pitching from Meghan McCain. :::shriek:::

And so on, and so on.  And so on.

Hey, everyone has a bad night.  It happens. 

But let's get right down to it:  the conservative party has been hijacked by the intellectually incurious, as has been written about in this blog a few times.  And Meghan McCain, for all her savvy internet skills, is just as guilty as Sarah Palin or Joe The Plumber.

"That happened before I was born," is as pathetic an answer as I've ever heard, particularly in the realm of political debate.

So though she may (claim to) be a moderate, I don't believe she's in any position to be the "point of the spear" in reviving the GOP.

And if articles are still being penned tagging Meghan McCain as the "future" of the party after her disastrous appearance on HBO last night, then the GOP is in bigger trouble than I thought.

Comments

[iamnnotstarjones]

Excellent points -- I was aghast at her rationale for not being knowledgeable about political history beyond her father's first campaign for President in 2000. It seems that Ms. McCain believes her proximity to her father should impress Republicans and Democrats that she's an intelligent, needed voice for the GOP.

That's her delusional right.

MY hope is that she, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Michael Steele remain the face of the GOP forever.

[TheLoft2000]

You're obviously smart...I'm surprised it took you this long to get a clear picture of Meghan McCain. To me (and I'm NOT so smart) it was painfully obvious after reading a couple of Daily Beast columns and some of her twitters that this girl is nothing but an attention-seeking, self-absorbed, phony little idiot.