Less than half of the article is about his combat record. Most of it is about his legislative record and his behavior in the military outside of combat.
Did you get the part about how he cut off power to thousands of people in Spain by flying his airplane through a power line on an unauthorized maneuver, causing an international incident? Yet he was still allowed to fly because of his connections when any other pilot would have been grounded.
Hmm, maybe that’s why he said he wouldn’t meet with the Prime Minister of Spain. He might be afraid they are still mad at him.
Yes, this is the inconsistency I’m talking about. When Kerry’s record is being attacked, it’s false until proven true. If it’s about McCain, it’s true until proven false. I admit it: I’ve never cared a bit about McCain’s military record, so I don’t know the ins and outs of what he did or what he said he did.
When Kerry’s record was smeared, the smears contradicted the official records and Kerry’s accounts of what happened. The sources were people who were not present at the time of the events they claimed happened.
The claims about McCain’s record in this article have never been disputed by McCain…he just doesn’t talk about them. The people quoted were there. The incident in Spain is on public record. McCain has not disputed that other POWs were told they could go home if they made anti-American statements - he just implies that he was the only one who was made that offer, and leaves off the part that it was an offer that nobody would take. He does not dispute that he gave in to the Vietnamese and gave them information that could possibly endanger the lives of others or that he made statements that were useful to North Vietnamese propaganda.
It’s not a case of “McCain says this, they say something different” - it’s that there is a lot of negative stuff out there about McCain, but McCain and his supporters never talk about it, and speak so selectively about his record that it makes it seem like he was a war hero, and claim they are being unfairly attacked when the rest of the story is reported. The whole story needs to be public knowledge if people are going to make an informed decision about who they want to be President.
I’m sure I could make Stalin look like a great political candidate if I only talked about the good he did and tried to shout down anyone who tried to bring up the bad.
The truth is this; If a Democrat(Barack Obama for instance), was running for President with John McCain’s record and past, he would have been shredded and ripped to pieces by the vicious Republican attack machine.
Simply and plainly put, John McCain is NOT fit to be President of the United States of America.
The more I read about McCain, the more I come away with something now approaching profound contempt for his character, even his war record, which I had some respect for until recently. Now, he’s just a vain, preening, narcissistic flyboy and all-around dickweed, the kind of guy I’ve felt my whole life will someday get his comeuppance. Two or three years ago, I kinda liked the guy, in a grudging sort of way, and two or three months ago, I just wanted him to lose to Obama but I felt it might be an honorable campaign on the issues, and now I see that it never had a chance to be anything of the kind, solely attributable to his deeply flawed personal character. I think he’s just a sick, twisted motherfucker whose sole virtue is that maybe he believes the crap he’s spewing to be true. The man needs help, of a type he’s very unlikely to seek. I’m persuaded that his yearning for glory makes it virtually certain that there will be a new war in a McCain presidency, and my money would be on the first six months of 2009.
I always thought Swiftboating meant lying, not simply attacking someone’s war record.
Even if someone’s war record consists of being shot in the toe from a distance and then deployed out of battle, I would never question it. That soldier has done something I am all too glad to have other people do for me while I post away on the SDMB in middle class suburbia. I give every single person who wears the U.S. uniform into battle the full benefit of my doubt and any of my support possible.
But I have one exception. When someone is running to be the Commander In Chief, his war record is fair game. It has to be. It has to be because we owe our soldiers the best leader possible. Any questionable soldier will always get my support. A questionable soldier trying to run the U.S. army is where I draw the line.
You may want to check your facts. For one, his long-time nemesis, John O’Neill, had been criticizing Kerry since he recited his lies to the senate. And as much as I don’t like Bush, he has more integrity an honor on a drunk binge than Kerry ever had or will ever have.
There is plenty to attack McCain on that is true and indisputable. Attacking him on the basis of a character defect most people would not like to see tested in themselves isn’t a very strong attack. Maybe it resonates very strongly for you because of your family history, but it is a weak attack to say he gave in under torture. That he cheated on his wife and abandoned her, refused to defend his family is a very strong argument. If someone badmouths my family, if I ever get close enough to hug them, they are going to get either a knife in the ribs (in my dreams). If I am am forced to endorse the bastard, I’ll do it like Nancy Reagan endorsed McCain. Gotta say its the most class that bitch has ever shown: “Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided and then we endorsed. Well, obviously, this is the nominee of the party.” If that is the enthusiasm that she endorses an acquaintance of 30 years, you gotta wonder what McCain did that irks her: The same thing that irks me, abandoning his sick wife. And Nancy Reagan isn’t just someone casting stones from the opposite side of the aisle, she knew both of them for 30 plus years. She knows his character. That was the biggest slap in the face she could give the bastard.
If he won’t protect his family, he won’t uphold his oath of office. Just like when he was on the take for Charles Keating. Just like when he came out against earmarks one week and then the next week gives out 170 billion of the stupidest earmarks in the nation’s history in support of 700 billion of Wall Street earmarks. (Yes, I supported it, but I wasn’t whining about how awful 18 billion in earmarks were a week before.)
You shouldn’t. I served in the Army and did a combat tour in Iraq, there are plenty of lying dirtbags who wear a uniform. If I had a nickel for every former soldier who tried to make his service seem more spectacular than it really was I would be a rich man. Every war story should be viewed with a healthy skepticism.
Old news, but not necessarily well known. I’ve talked to a lot of people who had no idea that McCain even had a previous wife, let alone what he did to her. When they find out, they’re shocked and disgusted. His betrayal of his first family hits home especially hard with women.
Heck, I persuaded one diehard “I’m going to write in Hillary!” woman to switch her vote to Obama by telling her about Carol McCain. She didn’t much care for John before, but when she heard that story her tepid dislike flamed into a furious determination to prevent his election.
I was going to say it’s hypocritical because you don’t like being hit below the belt, but if you have to ask, I don’t think I can explain it to you. It sounds like we have different values.
I think I can boil down the ethical debate in this thread to a pair of movie quotes:
Viewpoint A:
You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way! And that’s how you get Capone. Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that? I’m offering you a deal. Do you want this deal?
Viewpoint B:
We don’t do dirt. Our job is to make it clean and then we will win because our ideas are better.
I’m sorry but this is inane. I can truthfully claim that “I don’t like being punched”, but if I’m in a bar and some drunk attacks me and starts punching, I can sit there and take it and try to argue my way out of it (which is my preferred way of dealing with conflict), but after a while of not succeeding in stopping the attack, I will punch back. That is not hypocrisy. No one can say “Oooh, but you don’t like being punched, why are you now punching someone”?
Even the law understands this. You can kill someone in self-defense. Just because you don’t like murder doesn’t mean you should sit there and be killed by some attacker because you don’t want to stoop to his level and kill a person.
Prisoner of war nearly a half century ago is a gift that just keeps on giving. I do not see how the experience, whatever it was .prepared or qualified him to be president. But he is like Bush, a spoiled rich kid .who used family wealth and power to climb over the better qualified. I worry about his temper. A lot of politicians feel it disqualifies him. He would be Bush all over again. I grow weary of our voting for people to loot the system.
He is a pro deregulation ,pro war republican. He would be a terrible mistake for us and our standing in the world.