Robert Stacy McCain
Encyclopedia
Robert Stacy McCain is an American conservative journalist, writer, and blogger. McCain is a former assistant national editor for The Washington Times
and co-author (with Lynn Vincent
) of the 2006 book Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party. He is proprietor of The Other McCain, a somewhat ribald conservative blog.
and graduated in 1983 from Jacksonville State University
in Alabama. His journalism career began with the (now defunct) Cobb News-Chronicle in 1986. He then worked as a sports editor for the Marietta, Georgia
-based Neighbor Newspapers, before joining the Calhoun (Ga.) Times as sports editor in September 1987. The Calhoun newspaper is a division of Rome, Georgia
-based News Publishing Co.
In 1991, McCain joined the staff of the company's flagship daily newspaper, The Rome News-Tribune, working closely with special projects/editorial page editor Pierre Rene-Noth. Frequently writing about such subjects as education and history, McCain was awarded a George Washington Honor Medal from the conservative Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge
for his 1995 series of columns about the National Standards for U.S. History.
, The Black Book of Communism
, and the obituary of former U.S. Communist Party leader Gus Hall
. McCain’s reporting on controversies surrounding sexuality has included features about Alfred Kinsey
, the Jesse Dirkhising
murder case, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Judith Levine
’s controversial 2002 book, Harmful to Minors
.
In 2003, McCain was named editor of the “Culture, Etc.” page of The Washington Times, which appears on Page A2 of the newspaper Monday through Friday. Over the years, McCain interviewed many prominent authors and personalities, including John Stossel
, David Horowitz
, Peter Jennings
Wendy Shalit
, Ronald Radosh
, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Tammy Bruce
, Andrew Breitbart
, William J. Bennett, Phyllis Chesler
, Ward Connerly
, Michael Savage
, Dinesh D'Souza
, L. Brent Bozell III, David Frum
Ann Coulter
Michelle Malkin
and Cal Thomas
. When former President Ronald Reagan
died in June 2004, McCain authored the memorial article that appeared as a special feature in The Washington Times
.
In 2006, McCain co-wrote Donkey Cons with Lynn Vincent
(ISBN 978-1-59555-024-8), and created a blog to promote the book.Donkey Cons, blog
McCain also contributed freelance articles, reviews and commentary pieces to a number of publications including The American Spectator
, Reason
, The American Conservative
, Ripon Forum, and Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, as well as such online forums as The Conservative Voice and The American Thinker
.
in the 2008 election.
His main blog, The Other McCain, has been growing in popularity since he started it in early 2008, reaching a million hits in February 2009. Soon after that he wrote "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year".
On March 30, 2010, McCain sarcastically commented that "we know that John McCain is sincere about his newfound border-security concerns, right? All that stuff a few years ago calling his critics hatemongering xenophobes – just kiddin’ guys, hahaha." He then wrote 'J. D. Hayworth
for U.S. Senate' in all capital letters
.
McCain frequently derides Senator John McCain
, as "Crazy Cousin John". The distant kinship is based on a common ancestor in South Carolina listed in the 1790 Census.
has noted that McCain is a member of the Southern nationalist League of the South
, which the SPLC feels is a white supremacist hate group
--
a charge the League denied.
In response, McCain states that the SPLC "first attacked [him] after" he reported statements criticizing it in a Washington Times news item, and that he "was an outspoken leader of the non-racist faction" when a white supremacist tried to get the League to adopt supremacist views.
He also claims that The Washington Times forbade him to respond to the SPLC's accusation for many years, because doing so would supposedly have publicized the SPLC.
He pointed to reading back issues of The Freeman
, a libertarian
magazine, through the mid-1990s that his then-editor lent him. McCain identifies as a supporter of Austrian economic theory in the vein of Ludwig von Mises
and Friedrich Hayek
such that he thinks that government imposition of broader social goals such as "social justice
" cannot practically work out. He also calls himself "profoundly skeptical of radical notions of moral and political progress" in social issues, citing Edmund Burke
as an influence.
McCain said in March 2010 that he disagreed with the invasion of Iraq and wanted to express his criticism publicly at the time, but he could not do so since his supervisors and colleagues at The Washington Times did not approve. He remarked that "Any way you look at it, war is a very bad thing" while adding "but losing a war is worse" (italics in the original).
Multiple disputes have cropped up between McCain and the feminist blogosphere, both liberal and conservative. Mediaite's Tommy Christopher once took McCain to task for appearing to excuse date rape when, in a blog post, McCain wrote about promiscuity among women: "Listen up, sweetheart: You buy the ticket, you take the ride." After indignation broke out among both liberal and conservative defenders of women, Christopher confronted McCain on-camera at the CPAC conference in March of 2011, seeking clarity. McCain conceded the point, explained why he had been skeptical of a widely publicized date-rape accusation (against Julian Assange) and repeated after Christopher: "No means no; stop means stop." Writing about this encounter, Christopher remarked that "McCain still holds many opinions that I find objectionable, but I also think that [the video] places the 'character' that is RS McCain into a context that simply reading him does not."
Likewise, McCain has been intensely critical of any thought he regards as "feminist," even among conservatives--to the point of making "Offend a Feminist" a running theme on this blog. This has brought him into conflict with Roxeanne de Luca of the Haemet blog, Darleen Click of Protein Wisdom, and Joy W. McCann of Little Miss Attila (whom he famously debated on the topic of "Feminism Within Conservatism" on the radio show "Peter I, Da Tech Guy" on April 2, 2011 on WCRN in Massachusetts).
McCain is a fan of Herman Cain
in the contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination; Cain, who comes from a business background, is one of the two African-American "Tea Party"-linked potential candidates.
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
and co-author (with Lynn Vincent
Lynn Vincent
Lynn Vincent is a bestselling conservative American writer, journalist, and author or co-author of 10 books. Vincent's work focuses on memoirs, politics and current events...
) of the 2006 book Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party. He is proprietor of The Other McCain, a somewhat ribald conservative blog.
Biography
McCain was born in Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
and graduated in 1983 from Jacksonville State University
Jacksonville State University
Jacksonville State University is a regional public coeducational university located in Jacksonville, Alabama, USA. Founded in 1883, Jacksonville State offers programs of study in four academic units leading to Bachelor's, Master's, and Education Specialist degrees, in addition to continuing and...
in Alabama. His journalism career began with the (now defunct) Cobb News-Chronicle in 1986. He then worked as a sports editor for the Marietta, Georgia
Marietta, Georgia
Marietta is a city located in central Cobb County, Georgia, United States, and is its county seat.As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 56,579, making it one of metro Atlanta's largest suburbs...
-based Neighbor Newspapers, before joining the Calhoun (Ga.) Times as sports editor in September 1987. The Calhoun newspaper is a division of Rome, Georgia
Rome, Georgia
Located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Rome is the largest city and the county seat of Floyd County, Georgia, United States. It is the principal city of the Rome, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Floyd County...
-based News Publishing Co.
In 1991, McCain joined the staff of the company's flagship daily newspaper, The Rome News-Tribune, working closely with special projects/editorial page editor Pierre Rene-Noth. Frequently writing about such subjects as education and history, McCain was awarded a George Washington Honor Medal from the conservative Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge
Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge
The Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge is a national, non-profit, non-partisan, non-sectarian educational organization, founded in 1949. The Foundation is located adjacent to the Valley Forge National Historical Park, near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, U.S., and sits on ground that was once part of...
for his 1995 series of columns about the National Standards for U.S. History.
The Washington Times
McCain joined the staff of The Washington Times in November 1997. In addition to his regular duties as an editor, McCain also contributed numerous by-lined news and feature articles to The Washington Times. He frequently reported on controversial issues in the “culture war,” including stories related to sexuality, education and history. His writings about communism included feature stories about Joseph McCarthyJoseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
, The Black Book of Communism
The Black Book of Communism
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression is a book authored by several European academics and edited by Stéphane Courtois, which describes a history of repressions, both political and civilian, by Communist states, including genocides, extrajudicial executions, deportations, and...
, and the obituary of former U.S. Communist Party leader Gus Hall
Gus Hall
Gus Hall, born Arvo Kustaa Hallberg , was a leader and Chairman of the Communist Party USA and its four-time U.S. presidential candidate. As a labor leader, Hall was closely associated with the so-called "Little Steel" Strike of 1937, an effort to unionize the nation's smaller, regional steel...
. McCain’s reporting on controversies surrounding sexuality has included features about Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology, who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as producing the Kinsey Reports and the Kinsey...
, the Jesse Dirkhising
Jesse Dirkhising
Jesse William Dirkhising , also known as Jesse Yates, was an American teenager from Prairie Grove, Arkansas, who was bound, drugged, tortured, raped, and died as a result of the drugs given him and the position in which he was tied down..Dirkhising's death received only regional media coverage...
murder case, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Judith Levine
Judith Levine
Judith Levine is an American author, journalist, civil libertarian and co-founder of the National Writers Union, a trade union of contract and freelance writers, and No More Nice Girls, a group dedicated to promoting abortion rights through street theater...
’s controversial 2002 book, Harmful to Minors
Harmful to Minors
Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex is a 2002 book by Judith Levine...
.
In 2003, McCain was named editor of the “Culture, Etc.” page of The Washington Times, which appears on Page A2 of the newspaper Monday through Friday. Over the years, McCain interviewed many prominent authors and personalities, including John Stossel
John Stossel
John F. Stossel is an American consumer reporter, investigative journalist, author and libertarian columnist. In October 2009 Stossel left his long time home on ABC News to join the Fox Business Channel and Fox News Channel, both owned and operated by News Corp...
, David Horowitz
David Horowitz
David Joel Horowitz is an American conservative writer and policy advocate. Horowitz was raised by parents who were both members of the American Communist Party. Between 1956 and 1975, Horowitz was an outspoken adherent of the New Left before rejecting Marxism completely...
, Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings
Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM was a Canadian American journalist and news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer...
Wendy Shalit
Wendy Shalit
Wendy Shalit is an American author who has written two books— A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue, published by Free Press in 1999 and Girls Gone Mild: Young Rebels Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good, published by Random House in 2007.Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,...
, Ronald Radosh
Ronald Radosh
Ronald Radosh is an American writer, professor, historian, former Marxist, and neoconservative. He is known for his work on the Cold War espionage case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and his advocacy of the state of Israel....
, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Tammy Bruce
Tammy Bruce
Tammy Bruce is an American radio host, author, and political commentator. Her nationally-syndicated talk show, The Tammy Bruce Show, airs live weekdays from 11am-1pm Pacific time online via ....
, Andrew Breitbart
Andrew Breitbart
Andrew Breitbart is an American publisher, commentator for the Washington Times, author, an occasional guest commentator on various news programs who has served as an editor for the Drudge Report website...
, William J. Bennett, Phyllis Chesler
Phyllis Chesler
Phyllis Chesler is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women's studies at the College of Staten Island...
, Ward Connerly
Ward Connerly
Wardell Anthony "Ward" Connerly is an American political activist, businessman, and former University of California Regent . He is also the founder and the chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, a national non-profit organization in opposition to racial and gender preferences...
, Michael Savage
Michael Savage (commentator)
Michael Savage is a conservative American radio host, author, and political commentator. He is the host of The Savage Nation, a nationally syndicated talk show that airs throughout the United States on Talk Radio Network...
, Dinesh D'Souza
Dinesh D'Souza
Dinesh D'Souza is an author and public speaker and a former Robert and Karen Rishwain Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is currently the President of The King's College in New York City. D'Souza is a noted Christian apologist and conservative writer and speaker....
, L. Brent Bozell III, David Frum
David Frum
David J. Frum is a Canadian American journalist active in both the United States and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency...
Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events...
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin is an American conservative blogger, political commentator, and author. Her weekly syndicated column appears in a number of newspapers and websites. She is a Fox News Channel contributor and has been a guest on MSNBC, C-SPAN, and national radio programs...
and Cal Thomas
Cal Thomas
John Calvin "Cal" Thomas is an American conservative syndicated columnist, pundit, author and radio commentator.-Life and career:...
. When former President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
died in June 2004, McCain authored the memorial article that appeared as a special feature in The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
.
In 2006, McCain co-wrote Donkey Cons with Lynn Vincent
Lynn Vincent
Lynn Vincent is a bestselling conservative American writer, journalist, and author or co-author of 10 books. Vincent's work focuses on memoirs, politics and current events...
(ISBN 978-1-59555-024-8), and created a blog to promote the book.Donkey Cons, blog
McCain also contributed freelance articles, reviews and commentary pieces to a number of publications including The American Spectator
The American Spectator
The American Spectator is a conservative U.S. monthly magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. From its founding in 1967 until the late 1980s, the small-circulation magazine featured the writings of authors...
, Reason
Reason (magazine)
Reason is a libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
, The American Conservative
The American Conservative
The American Conservative is a monthly U.S. opinion magazine published by Ron Unz. Its first editor was Scott McConnell, his successors being Kara Hopkins and the present incumbent, Daniel McCarthy....
, Ripon Forum, and Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, as well as such online forums as The Conservative Voice and The American Thinker
The American Thinker
American Thinker is a daily conservative online magazine dealing with American politics, foreign policy, national security, Israel, economics, diplomacy, culture, and military strategy. American Thinker has been mentioned in other media including Le Monde, The Guardian, Inter Press Service, Campus...
.
After The Washington Times
In January 2008, McCain announced he would resign from The Washington Times in order to concentrate on a book project and began blogging about the 2008 presidential race as "The Other McCain". Stacy McCain argues that John S. McCain is not a "real conservative," and ended up supporting Bob BarrBob Barr
Robert Laurence "Bob" Barr, Jr. is a former federal prosecutorand a former member of the United States House of Representatives. He represented Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003. Barr attained national prominence as one of the leaders of the impeachment of...
in the 2008 election.
His main blog, The Other McCain, has been growing in popularity since he started it in early 2008, reaching a million hits in February 2009. Soon after that he wrote "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year".
On March 30, 2010, McCain sarcastically commented that "we know that John McCain is sincere about his newfound border-security concerns, right? All that stuff a few years ago calling his critics hatemongering xenophobes – just kiddin’ guys, hahaha." He then wrote 'J. D. Hayworth
J. D. Hayworth
John David Hayworth, Jr. , usually known as J. D. Hayworth, is an American politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 2007 from Arizona's 5th congressional district...
for U.S. Senate' in all capital letters
All caps
In typography, all caps refers to text or a font in which all letters are capital letters. All caps is usually used for emphasis. It is commonly seen in the titles on book covers, in advertisements and in newspaper headlines...
.
Personal life
McCain lives in Maryland with his wife. They have six children, whom they homeschooled. He is a Baptist, and has remarked, "I am a poor excuse for a Christian, but I really do have a deep faith in God".McCain frequently derides Senator John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
, as "Crazy Cousin John". The distant kinship is based on a common ancestor in South Carolina listed in the 1790 Census.
Dispute with SPLC
The Southern Poverty Law CenterSouthern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an American nonprofit civil rights organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups; legal representation for victims of hate groups; monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations; and educational programs that...
has noted that McCain is a member of the Southern nationalist League of the South
League of the South
The League of the South is a Southern nationalist organization, headquartered in Killen, Alabama, which states that its ultimate goal is "a free and independent Southern republic." The group defines the Southern United States as the states that made up the former Confederacy...
, which the SPLC feels is a white supremacist hate group
Hate group
A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other designated sector of society...
--
a charge the League denied.
In response, McCain states that the SPLC "first attacked [him] after" he reported statements criticizing it in a Washington Times news item, and that he "was an outspoken leader of the non-racist faction" when a white supremacist tried to get the League to adopt supremacist views.
He also claims that The Washington Times forbade him to respond to the SPLC's accusation for many years, because doing so would supposedly have publicized the SPLC.
Views and opinions
McCain was once a staunch Democrat, but now supports conservative Republicans; he has said that "anything that is good for the Democratic Party is bad for America, and vice versa."He pointed to reading back issues of The Freeman
The Freeman
The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty is one of the oldest and most respected libertarian journals in the United States. It is published by the Foundation for Economic Education . It started as a digest sized monthly study journal; it currently appears 10 times per year and is a larger-sized magazine. FEE...
, a libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
magazine, through the mid-1990s that his then-editor lent him. McCain identifies as a supporter of Austrian economic theory in the vein of Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig von Mises
Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian economist, philosopher, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the modern Libertarian movement and the "Austrian School" of economic thought.-Biography:-Early life:...
and Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich Hayek
Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...
such that he thinks that government imposition of broader social goals such as "social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
" cannot practically work out. He also calls himself "profoundly skeptical of radical notions of moral and political progress" in social issues, citing Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
as an influence.
McCain said in March 2010 that he disagreed with the invasion of Iraq and wanted to express his criticism publicly at the time, but he could not do so since his supervisors and colleagues at The Washington Times did not approve. He remarked that "Any way you look at it, war is a very bad thing" while adding "but losing a war is worse" (italics in the original).
Multiple disputes have cropped up between McCain and the feminist blogosphere, both liberal and conservative. Mediaite's Tommy Christopher once took McCain to task for appearing to excuse date rape when, in a blog post, McCain wrote about promiscuity among women: "Listen up, sweetheart: You buy the ticket, you take the ride." After indignation broke out among both liberal and conservative defenders of women, Christopher confronted McCain on-camera at the CPAC conference in March of 2011, seeking clarity. McCain conceded the point, explained why he had been skeptical of a widely publicized date-rape accusation (against Julian Assange) and repeated after Christopher: "No means no; stop means stop." Writing about this encounter, Christopher remarked that "McCain still holds many opinions that I find objectionable, but I also think that [the video] places the 'character' that is RS McCain into a context that simply reading him does not."
Likewise, McCain has been intensely critical of any thought he regards as "feminist," even among conservatives--to the point of making "Offend a Feminist" a running theme on this blog. This has brought him into conflict with Roxeanne de Luca of the Haemet blog, Darleen Click of Protein Wisdom, and Joy W. McCann of Little Miss Attila (whom he famously debated on the topic of "Feminism Within Conservatism" on the radio show "Peter I, Da Tech Guy" on April 2, 2011 on WCRN in Massachusetts).
McCain is a fan of Herman Cain
Herman Cain
Herman Cain is a candidate for the 2012 U.S. Republican Party presidential nomination.Cain has a background as a business executive, syndicated columnist, and radio host from Georgia. He served as chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza from 1986 to 1996...
in the contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination; Cain, who comes from a business background, is one of the two African-American "Tea Party"-linked potential candidates.
External links
- The Other McCain McCain's blog
- "Who is Robert Stacy McCain" Autobiographical blog post
- Selected Essays By Robert Stacy McCain