My worry is not that McCain would curl up in a fetal position during a crisis, but that he’s a hothead who might overreact or blow up unneccesarily. A guy who randomly goes off and calls his wife a “cunt” in front of reporters might not be a guy who needs his thumb on any buttons.
I think it basically boils down to this: Some people feel that how you handle an immediate personal crisis is indicitive of how you hand other, potentially national, crisises. Hence all the cites about McCains cool headedness under pressure.
Diogenes, although he’s not admitting it, feels the same way. When McCain allegedely called his wife a ‘cunt’, that was a personal situation. Diogenes thinks that will reflect how he handles a national crisis. But you can’t have it both ways. If you want to use a personal example to smear him, then you have to admit the plethora of good evidence as well.
So, when Obama says that McCain is hero, is he lying?
What sort of random ass straw man is that?
He may think he’s a hero because of his war service.
Or he may have a different personal definition of hero.
Either way, what has anyone said on this thread that remotely justifies that question?
When did I say McCain wasn’t a hero?
It was simply a question. Questions aren’t straman arguments.
Do you think he is? I couldn’t tell for sure from your posts, but they seem to imply you didn’t think he was.
I think he’s a hero for choosing to stay in Hanoi rather than leave without his fellow POWs.
OK, so that tells us something about his ability to respond to an extraordinary crisis situation, no? Few of us will ever be tested in that way. Obama has not been. That is not to say that he wouldn’t live up to the same standard if he were tested, but he hasn’t been. I think that’s all some people are trying to say, and that’s why Americans would, in general, look to his leadership rather than Obama’s in situation like a terror attack on the US.
I don’t think that was a moment of crisis. It was a test of other things, but it wasn’t a crisis, The word “crisis” to me indicates a moment of urgency and uncertainty – an emergency – if you have lots of time to think about it, it’s not a crisis. McCain’s decision showed a number of admirable aspects about his character, but it was not an example of response to a crisis.
By the way, the last time the US had to make a major national security decision, John McCain made the wrong decision and Barack Obama made the right one. Let’s not forget that. The history we have shows that Obama passed and John McCain failed.
Logically, a terrorist attack before the election ought to hurt the incumbent party more than the challengers, but history has already shown us in no uncertain terms that the voters aren’t logical. Logically, the fact that the US suffered its worst attack in its history under Bush’s leadership ought to make Bush look ineffective at combatting terrorism, but it had the opposite effect in the 2004 elections.
By your definition, that wasn’t a crisis.
I don’t want to say that McCain deserves especial credit for courage during the Forrestal fire. But if you look at the beginning of this video* you’ll see the sort of conflagration that this fire was. Being able to think clearly at all while sitting on the flight deck, while one’s aircraft is on fire, loaded with live munitions, and all the other aircraft preparing for sortie, are likewise loaded with live munitions is a sign of someone who can think clearly under pressure.
Here’s another copy of the video, enhanced to emphasize McCain’s actions. It’s from his campaign, but I don’t believe it is inaccurate. Even accepting that jumping into the fuel fire was the only way he could survive - he only had moments to observe, assess, and act on that conclusion.
I do agree with you that the courage to go back and try to fight the fire after having escaped his immediate hazard is not all that extraordinary. If you look at the first video I’d linked you’ll see a goodly number of people doing just that. Many of whom were killed as a direct result of their courage and dedication to duty.
I’m not trying to boost McCain for President - his temper, and willingness to be Bush Mk3, damn him in my eyes, and much of the respect I used to have for him has been pissed away by his willingness to support torture. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think he hasn’t shown an ability to act in a crisis situation.
I will add, however, that the skills and mentality that makes one able to act well in a physical crisis may not be those that are best suited for dealing with political or diplomatic crises. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I suspect the patterns for dealing with a physical crises are antithetical towards effective dealing with what I’d call social crises.
*This particular voice-over with the video seems to be exactly the video used during my basic training to introduce the concept of ship-board fire fighting.
When you start a question with “so”, you imply what you’re about to ask has some logical connection with what has been said previously. It did not.
Bush said it was.
Cite? 
So what?
So everybody had to treat it like it was a crisis, even if it wasn’t. You can gauge how people respond to a cry of “fire,” even if there really isn’t a fire.
So, it seems logical now to ask JM, was he lying?
No, they didn’t.
We had been dealing with SH for 10 years and had been calling for regime change for about 4 years. Bush started talking about this “situation” in Feb of '02 in his SotU address. We got things moving with more sanctions from the UNSC in May. The vote on the AUMF wasn’t until Oct.
In fact, I don’t think Bush called it a crisis, as you are defining it. His was a pre-emptive attack. By definition that is done to prevent a crisis from happening.
He called it a “gathering threat” and Cheney summoned up images of mushroom clouds. Then they put the war powers authorization to a vote right before an election to force Congress to have to choose right now.
To deny that Bush tried to sell Iraq as a crisis situation is just silly.