Robert Stacy McCain
Robert Stacy McCain | |
---|---|
McCain at Young America's Foundation event | |
Born |
Atlanta, Georgia | October 6, 1959
Education | Jacksonville State University |
Occupation | Journalist, columnist, editor, blogger, author, political activist |
Notable credit(s) | The Washington Times, Donkey Cons, theothermccain.com |
Religion | Protestant Christian |
Website | http://theothermccain.com/ |
Robert Stacy McCain (born October 6, 1959) is an American conservative journalist, writer, and blogger. McCain is a former assistant national editor and reporter 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 blog, The Other McCain.
Biography
McCain was born on October 6, 1959[1] in Atlanta, Georgia. He 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 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 writing about communism included feature stories about Joseph McCarthy, The Black Book of Communism, and the obituary of former U.S. Communist Party leader Gus Hall. McCain's reporting on controversies surrounding sexuality 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.[2]
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.
In 2006, McCain co-wrote Donkey Cons with Lynn Vincent (ISBN 978-1-59555-024-8), and created a blog to promote the book.[3]
McCain also contributed freelance articles, reviews and commentary pieces to a number of publications including The American Spectator,[4] Reason,[5] The American Conservative,[6] Ripon Forum,[7] and Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture,[8] as well as such online forums as The Conservative Voice[9] and The American Thinker.[10]
After The Washington Times
In January 2008, McCain announced he would resign from The Washington Times in order to concentrate on a book project[11] and began blogging about the 2008 presidential race as "The Other McCain".
In March 2010, McCain returned to the Times as a freelance writer, covering a New York congressional race with a candidate with connections to the Tea Party.
On March 13, 2013, McCain was named the editor-in-chief at ViralRead.com.[12]
Personal life
McCain lives on the Atlantic Seaboard with his wife. They have six children, whom they homeschooled.[13] 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".[13]
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.[14]
Controversy
The Southern Poverty Law Center reported in 2000 that McCain was once a member of the League of the South.[15][16]
Views and opinions
McCain was once a 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."[13] He pointed to reading back issues of The Freeman, a libertarian magazine, through the mid-1990s, to explain his political conversion. McCain now identifies himself as a supporter of Austrian economic theory in the vein of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. He has come to believe that government imposition of broader social goals such as "social justice" cannot work out as a practical matter. He also calls himself "profoundly skeptical of radical notions of moral and political progress" in social issues, citing Edmund Burke as an influence.[13]
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].[13]
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 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."
References
- ↑ Fincher: 300 Years in the USA. A.W. Fincher. 2003. p. 537.
- ↑ http://home.att.net/~r.s.mccain/essays.html
- ↑ Donkey Cons, blog
- ↑ http://www.spectator.org/dsp_author.asp?author_id=490
- ↑ "Robert Stacy McCain". Reason.com.
- ↑ The American Conservative
- ↑ Final GMA for Ripon
- ↑ "MONKEYS IN THE CLASSROOM: September 2006 - A Magazine of American Culture - Chronicles Magazine". line feed character in
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at position 41 (help) - ↑ http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/29667.html
- ↑ "Articles: Magazine Madness".
- ↑ McCain Says Farewell – FishbowlDC
- ↑ ViralRead Signs Robert Stacy McCain as Editor in Chief
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Interview with RS McCain of The Other McCain". Jumping in Pools (a group blog). March 30, 2010.
- ↑ McCain, Robert Stacy (August 9, 2010). "VIDEO: John McCain Admits What Everybody Always Knew: He's a Liar". The Other McCain. Retrieved September 26, 2010.
- ↑ "League of the South Considers 'Black Spring Break' in Biloxi a Call to Arms". Southern Poverty Law Center. September 15, 2000. Archived from the original on February 27, 2016.
- ↑ Heidi Beirich (January 17, 2008). "The house cleaning continues at the Washington Times". Southern Poverty Law Center.
External links
- The Other McCain McCain's blog
- "Who is Robert Stacy McCain" Autobiographical blog post
- Selected Essays By Robert Stacy McCain