Objectify This

John Sidney McCain III. You’d think that this candidate, of all people, would not want to hang out with a dictator heading a notoriously murderous and oppressive regime. But no. The Huffington Post reports that McCain hung out with Augusto Pinochet, whose reign was marked by the assasination without trial of over 3,000 civilians and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of others.

The article reports that “According to a declassified U.S. Embassy cable secured by The Huffington Post, McCain described the meeting with Pinochet “as friendly and at times warm, but noted that Pinochet does seem obsessed with the threat of communism.” McCain, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time, made no public or private statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of the democratic opposition in Chile, as far as could be determined from a thorough check of U.S. and Chilean newspaper records and interviews with top opposition leaders.”

“At the time of the meeting, in the late afternoon of December 30 [1985], the U.S. Justice Department was seeking the extradition of two close Pinochet associates for an act of terrorism in Washington DC, the 1976 assassination of former ambassador to the U.S. and former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier. The car bombing on Sheridan Circle in the U.S. capital was widely described at the time as the most egregious act of international terrorism perpetrated on U.S. soil by a foreign power.

“At the time of McCain’s meeting with Pinochet, Chile’s democratic opposition was desperately seeking support from democratic leaders around the world in an attempt to pressure Pinochet to allow a return to democracy and force a peaceful end to the dictatorship, already in its 12th year. Other U.S. congressional leaders who visited Chile made public statements against the dictatorship and in support of a return to democracy, at times becoming the target of violent pro-Pinochet demonstrations.”

Do not be mislead, dear OT readers. Pro-dictator demonstrations are not joyful events; they are acts of self-defense, which are not quite mandatory but which occur with the understanding that attendance will be taken, and that those who do not attend are probably communists who should be shot.

“Senator Edward Kennedy [an Obama supporter to the last, though McCain referred to him in the debates as a great friend] arrived only 12 days after McCain in a highly public show of support for democracy. Demonstrators pelted his entourage with eggs and blocked the road from the airport, so that the Senator had to be transported by helicopter to the city, where he met with Catholic church and human rights leaders and large groups of opposition activists.”

So, you might ask, wassup with that? The answer comes in video form (video thanks to creativity online; via Pete)