So we have an intersection of a couple of US political problems here, and if it's a little late to do anything about it we can at least remind ourselves to stay awake.

John McCain at the town hall meeting in Denver on Monday this week:
QUESTION (7/7/08): Hi, Senator McCain. I have been a registered Republican since I turned 18. I'm the compliance officer of a local broker dealer, as well as a registered investment advisory firm. Many of the proposals that are being created for people of my generation no longer include Social Security because of the belief it will not be there. Tell me how you plan to fix it.

MCCAIN: Thank you very much. I’d like to start out by giving you a little straight talk. Under the present set-up, because we've mortgaged our children's futures, you will not have Social Security benefits that present-day retirees have unless we fix it. And Americans have got to understand that.

Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed.

Now, how do you fix it? Now, how do you fix it? You fix it by reaching across the aisle, and you say to the Democrats, "Sit down with me at the table. Sit down with me, the way Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did the last time that Social Security was in deep trouble, and that was way back in 1983."

Ronald Reagan, a conservative president from California, Tip O'Neill, the liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, sat down together, and they walked out of the White House together, and they said, "We're going to fix Social Security." And they did, for about 20, 30 years. Right, Hank?

And Hank Brown and I were in the Congress at the time. And we were proud. We were proud to see the kind of bipartisanship that was exhibited for future generations.

Well, now it's broken again. Now it's broken again. Nothing is forever in America. I want to promise you that I'll say to the Democrats and I'll say to the American people: “Here's a chart. Here's how much is coming in. Here's how much is going out. And here's where there's more money going out than coming in, and here's where there's no money left."

John McCain on CNN Tuesday: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0807/08/ltm.03.html

ROBERTS: Senator, I'm sure you're also hearing from them about social security. Because you say that part of this plan, if you're going to balance the budget, is to reform social security. You've talked about the idea of private accounts, as President Bush tried to get through and couldn't. What else would you do to reform social security?

MCCAIN: I would sit down with democrats and republicans the way Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did in 1983. And they said, OK, we've got everything on the table here, let's come to an agreement. The approval rating of Congress right now 12 percent last time I saw. I know how to work across the aisle, I've done it with democrats and I've done it for many, many years. We'll sit down across the table with the backing of the American people.

ROBERTS: But do you have any idea on what you can do?

MCCAIN: On the privatization of accounts, which you just mentioned, I would like to respond to that. I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money which is their taxes and put it in an account which has their name on it. Now, that's a voluntary thing, it's for younger people, it would not affect any present-day retirees or the system as necessary. So let's describe it for what it is. They pay their taxes and right now their taxes are going to pay the retirement of present-day retirees. That's why it's broken, that's why we can fix it. We can do it together, republicans and democrats alike.

So, audience, which of the follwing best applies to McCain:
1) NcCain considers Social Security to have been a disgrace from its inception, including the Reagan "fix".
2) McCain does not know how Social Security was set up and works, let alone what is going wrong with it.
3) McCain is deliberately deceiving his intended audience, and counting on media cooperation in this endeavor.

And which of the following to the media involved:
1) the media is cooperating with him in ignorance - they don't know anything about Social Security either.
2) The media is cooperating with him out of habitual capitulation in the face of confidently asserted nonsense by righties.
3) The media is cooperating with him in deliberate furtherance of a shared agenda.
4) The media is cooperating with him out of friendship or courtesy for his age and failing powers, temporarily suspending their journalistic duties.

Substance having generated no debate (perfectly understandable, as almost no one actually expects both competence and honesty from McCain)

we turn to image. There's a photo montage here:

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/

That illustrates this:

Up until now the Frighteningly Striking Similarities between the wholly-fictional Colonel Saul Tigh (XO, Battlestar Galactica) and the largely-fictional Senator John McSame (Commodore, Ship of Fools) have been merely amusing (The terrifically eerie montage above was created at the artist[s?] at Metamerist.com and happened across by me at Adam Pieniazek's site here.)

After all, they are both;

The cranky remnants of hard living fighter jocks from a long-ago war.

Ex-POWs.

Rageholics, who cannot keep their mercury fulminate-tempers under control.

Comfortable in gigs where no one fires them for being true to their son-of-a-bitch natures.

Completely unfit to be Chief Executives.
and this:
But now that each has heard his own dog-whistle siren’s song that activated long-buried, core-programming…

And now that each has rid himself of a burdensome First Wife, and moved on to knocking chrome boots with their respective

Number Sixes *... {another photo}

...I for one am getting more than a little creeped out.

Wow. Come to think of it, he does look and act a lot like Tigh...