John McCain has been pitching his maverickiness for many a moon. And it wasn't until today when Joe (the Senator) Biden, while on the stump, had a slip of the tongue and called him "John McClane" that it hit me. When it came to maverickiness in the late 1980's--Bruce Willis as wisecracking, tough cop John McClane in the "Die Hard" movies, was the "bomb"(or as McCain might croon "bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb-Iran...)". So perhaps it wasn't a slip of tongue, but an homage to the Joe Six Pack-like character that Bruce Willis played with such abandon.
Well, those were the late 80's and Bruce Willis is not quite the hot commodity he was back in the days when:
- Charles Keating was under indictment
- $2.6 trillion in national debt seemed out of hand
- NASA scientist James Hansen told Congress to watch out for global warming
- George Bush, Sr. had nominated Dan Quayle as his running mate (yes, the Republicans know how to pick 'em).
- The only one even talking about "Faith" back then was George Michaels.
But we are in 2008 now. John McCain is trying to use Joe the Plumber and Sarah the Governor to win the election for him. In the 80's, the Ty-dee Bowl man (whose name we never did learn) was still motorboating around in people's toilet tanks in a blue blazer and dickie. Such was the quality of life for plumbers back then. No one knew who the Governor of Alaska was back then.
Today we don't need a John McClane running around--"yippie-yi-yo, Motherf...rs" is not likely to win us back any friends. Frankly when you consider the body count in those movies, McClane was rather a blunt instrument. This is not to say that John McCain would be, but after this current incarnation of Republican rule, why take chances?
Today both John McClane "John the cop" is probably back in one of New York's many burroughs trying to keep his house from being repossessed and his police pension from dwindling to zippo before he retires in a few years (unless they alread offered him early retirement due to departmental cutbacks or the PTSD he must have from his extracurricular activities).
He's also might vote for Barack Obama--after all he did have his back covered by Samuel L. Jackson, Reginald VelJohnson (and the Mac v. PC guy, but seriously, how helpful was he?)and he didn't care much for corporate America.
Of course, Bruce Willis is supporting for McCain (after Fred Thompson dropped out)--it's called "acting" folks.
One thing is for sure, in 1988 Bush/Quayle beat Dukakis/Bentsen in 40 of 50 states. I'm pretty sure that Obama and Biden and their "Die Hard" supporters won't have any of that.
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