MCCAIN UNBUTTONED
McCain’s Maverick Spirit Emerges
In Aspen this week, Sen. John McCain was loose, comfortable and looking like the straight-shooting Western politician his longtime fans adore and his handlers try to muzzle.By David Frey, 8-15-08
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No tie, collar unbuttoned, reclining comfortably in his chair, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain looked like the straight-shooting Western politician his longtime fans adore and his handlers try to muzzle. Appearing in famously-liberal, fabulously-wealthy Aspen, Colo., McCain punctuated his tough talk on Russia and Iraq with wit. When audience members groaned that his $3.75-a-gallon-gas reference was well below Aspen prices, McCain chuckled.
“That’s the classic Democratic approach: soak the risk,” he joked.
Apologizing to the crowd members on the left side of the audience for turning his back to them, he joked they were probably all liberal Democrats anyway. Not so, though. Chatting at the Aspen Institute think tank with its CEO Walter Isaacson in front of a crowd of over 700, mostly supporters, McCain received resounding applause throughout his talk. Despite Aspen’s cachet among left-leaning glitterati, its wealthy second-homeowners are tilting the town rightward, and for many of them, McCain’s maverick style has been appealing for years, even when it wasn’t striking much of a chord with most voters.
For all the talk of that straight-shootin’ Western political model offering hope to the Democratic Party, it is ironic that this Arizona senator long struggled with the GOP using the same sort of approach.
A year ago when McCain spoke at the Aspen Institute, his campaign was in crisis. The Straight Talk Express seemed stuck in the mud. McCain was sinking in the polls. His campaign team was in the midst of a shakeup. “At this time last year when I was here, not only was I declared dead but I was reminded of the words of Chairman Mao who once said it’s darkest before it’s totally black,” McCain joked.
What a difference a year makes. McCain’s message won out over his Republican rivals, though, and despite Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s rock star appeal with supporters, polls show the two running neck-and-neck. A daily Gallup poll showed them tied at 44 percent on Friday.
“How did you get your groove back?” Isaacson asked.
Maybe that Western maverick style is lifting McCain. He attributed the comeback mostly to his calls for a military surge in Iraq. His support for the unpopular war initially cost him, but as the surge produced results, it paid off for the candidate as well.
McCain chose two touchy issues on which to buck popular opinion. Iraq was one. Immigration, a subject on which McCain had long staked out a moderate stance, didn’t always play well with voters, either. But with the situation in Iraq improving and the immigration debate less hot-button than it was a year ago, those two tough topics seem to matter less.
Some question McCain’s maverick credentials, though. One audience member, who described himself as a past supporter, engaged in a back-and-forth with McCain, accusing him of leaning farther to the right, cozying up to the evangelicals he used to ridicule and abandoning his pledges for a clean campaign to talk dirty about Obama.
Larry Gellman, of Tucson, Ariz., criticized McCain for hiring Republican operatives who, he said, painted Obama as a “traitor,” much as they had painted McCain in his primary campaign against President Bush eight years ago.
“How could he hire the same people who did that to him?” asked Gellman, who described himself as a “left-leaning independent” who had contributed to McCain’s last Senate campaign and voted for him, but is supporting Obama for president.
Most in the crowd cheered McCain, though. He got applause when he called for building 35 more nuclear power plants by 2030. The crowd was with him when he said “Let’s drill and drill now” to help satisfy the nation’s energy needs. Even here in western Colorado, no one balked when he said, “Oil shale? That’s fine with me.”
McCain’s appearance in Aspen comes just two weeks before the Democratic National Convention gathers across the mountains in Denver. It was his second visit to Aspen in a month. Last time around, he showed up to meet with the visiting Dalai Lama and attend a fund-raiser. This time, his appearance was sandwiched between even more high-dollar, high-altitude fund-raisers: A luncheon at a private home in the Vail area, a $1,000-a-head gathering at the Hotel Jerome and a dinner for 160 top fundraisers, dubbed his Trailblazers, at the Pine Creek Cookhouse.
McCain was joined by several prominent Republican politicians, including Gov. Jon Huntsman, of Utah; Sen. John Thune, of South Dakota; former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, McCain’s campaign co-chairman; and Sen. Lindsay Graham, of South Carolina. At least some of the top GOP brass traveling with the Senator are thought to be on his running-mate short list.
Dozens of supporters, many of them mothers with children, stood outside the swanky Hotel Jerome to greet him as he stepped out of his black SUV and shook their hands. Supporters, some calling themselves “McCainiacs,” held signs and shouted “Vote for John McCain!”
“He feels very honest to us and very forthright,” said Diane Ash, of nearby Basalt, who said she is an independent. She was holding a McCain sign with her daughters, Morgan, 8, Hunter, 11, and husband Prentice.
And isn’t that what the Western political model is all about?
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Comments
Why such hostility for a fairly benign column?
So who is Malek? From the Aspen Daily News:
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/128559
"Malek, 71, was described in April by the Washington Post as “one of Washington’s ultimate insiders.”...Malek once carried out an order from President Nixon to count the number of Jews working at a federal agency because Nixon feared they were not loyal to him. Malek has said he regrets his actions and later sought the counsel of Jewish leaders over the incident."
All of us have had a little "regret" after doing a little "rat f***ing" for the racists in the Republican party. Do you think he'll count blacks or Hispanics for McCain and then feel really bad about it years later?
McSame the Maverick is also setting aside time to meet with billionaire Sheldon Aldeson, who is the main moneyman behing the "independent" 527 group Freedom's Watch. They wouldn't be illegally coordinating how Freedom's Watch is going to help McSame out are they?
http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/14/chasing-the-obama-mirage
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Chasing the Obama mirage
Progressives who see a kindred spirit in Barack Obama are fooling themselves.
August 14, 2008
SINCE CORRALLING the Democratic presidential nomination in May, Sen. Barack Obama has spent the last few months moving to the "center" on a number of issues that motivated his supporters during the primaries.
His somersault from opposing to supporting the rotten Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) bill that pardons major telecommunications companies for their collaboration with the Bush administration's illegal spying program occasioned protests from liberals.
Thousands of Obama supporters filled his campaign's interactive Web site with protests of his sell-out on the FISA bill, and other prominent supporters expressed unease in editorials in various liberal publications.
One group of prominent Obama supporters issued "An Open Letter to Barack Obama" in the pages of the liberal Nation magazine. After congratulating Obama for his campaign's "tremendous achievements" that have "inspired a wave of political enthusiasm like nothing seen in this country for decades," the letter went on to raise concern: "[T]here have been troubling signs that you are moving away from the core commitments shared by many who have supported your campaign, toward a more cautious and centrist stance."
The open letter goes on to enunciate a list of policies--including withdrawal from Iraq on a fixed timetable and universal health care--that the signatories consider a minimum program for Obama to pursue. It concludes, in part: "If you win in November, we will work to support your stands when we agree with you and to challenge them when we don't. We look forward to an ongoing and constructive dialogue with you when you are elected president."
In the light of such indications of unease among his liberal supporters, Obama felt compelled to note the displeasure among "my friends on the left"--only to slap them down again.
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http://socialistworker.org/2008/07/09/to-politics-as-usual
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From politics of hope to politics as usual
Having raised expectations among his supporters during the primary campaign, Barack Obama is now systematically lowering them.
July 9, 2008
THE HEADY days of Obamamania have given way to one big Obummer.
Since securing the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama has moved so far and fast to the right that even the Wall Street Journal could approve, with an editorial headlined "Bush's Third Term."
"We're beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of 'George Bush's third term,'" the editorial said. "Maybe he's worried that someone will notice that he's the candidate who's running for it.
"Most presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely 'running to the center.' He's fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?"
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Obama comes from a middle class family, got a scholarship to a prep school he could not afford because he was a good student. He went on to college and then Law School on scholarships and with student loans. He graduated top of his class through hard work and discipline. He married a middle class girl and made a name for himself with hard work.
McSame was the son of Admiral. He was a poor student but got into the best schools based on his Dad's money and influence. He leached off "government run health care" the whole time. He went to college and graduated 5th from bottom in his class. Some say the only reason they graduated him at all was because they were afraid of his elitist daddy. McSame then crashed 5 planes in a fiscally irresponsible manner, then went on to garner the nickname "Songbird" in Vietnam because he talked to the VC so much. When the war ended, McCain dumped his wife and kids and shacked up with millionaire heiress named Paris Hilton who was 20 years younger than him (and who later went on to steal prescription pain killers from a non profit org). He still leaches off "government run health care" even though he claims to hate it at the bequest of his handlers.
Obama and McSame couldn't be more alike!
As to who Obama is, see it in his own words: http://www.eyeblast.tv/Public/Video.aspx?rsrcID=2036
As for flounder dissing the years McCain spent as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, that can only be flounder floundering around for something to say, the very fact he survived says a lot. There are many stories that he has refused to tell that others in the prison with him, have told of his bravery and caring for those with him there. He is tough and that is the only thing that will save our country.
Obama doesn't have a clue what to say or do until his handlers script it for him. Like a wind up doll, he is a great speaker.
http://www.unfitmccain.com/Donations.html
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.html?PageNr=1
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McCain's POW record attacked, again
By Shawn Zeller
Published on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 08:03 p.m.
SUMMARY: Once again, Sen. John McCain faces false allegations about his past. This time, a flyer from the Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain alleges he's a traitor.
In an echo of the attacks from the 2000 South Carolina primary that dealt a critical blow to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, the Arizona Republican is again facing unfounded allegations about his past.
In 2000, McCain was targeted by false charges that he had fathered a black child. (The truth was he and his wife had adopted a girl from Bangladesh.) This time, on the eve of the 2008 South Carolina Republican primary, a group that calls itself Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain has distributed a flyer alleging that McCain, widely regarded as a hero for his five years as a prisoner of war, is a traitor.
The flyer says that when he was a POW, McCain was a “Hanoi Hilton songbird” who collaborated with the enemy.
The flyer provides scant evidence to back up this claim and it is strongly contradicted by many other accounts reviewed by PolitiFact: interviews with other POWs, an author who has written a McCain biography and the senator’s own accounts.
Robert Timberg, author of John McCain: An American Odyssey , who has interviewed many POWs who served with McCain, said there’s no evidence that he ever collaborated with the North Vietnamese. “I’ve never known of any occasion in which Sen. McCain provided the North Vietnamese with anything of value,” Timberg said.
'Collaborations with the enemy’?
The flyer was sent to about 80 media organizations in South Carolina and is posted on the group’s Web site. The flyer probably would have been ignored, but the McCain campaign issued a statement calling it “a vicious attack.”
The flyer has a caricature of a surly-looking McCain in a prison cell under the words, “Hanoi Hilton Songbird.” The second page is headlined “FACT SHEET: Military Record of John Sidney McCain III” and it begins with some accurate biographical information.
The flyer contains 1½ pages of criticisms of McCain, but only a few support the accusation that he was helping the enemy:
• That he told his captors “Okay, I’ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.”
• That the Hanoi news media reported he had given information about his flight, rescue ships and the order of U.S. attacks.
• That he broke the military code because he answered questions from a Spanish psychiatrist who had apparently been cooperating with the North Vietnamese.
There is some truth to these claims, but collectively they do not prove McCain was involved in “collaborations with the enemy,” as the flyer alleges.
In his memoir Faith of My Fathers, McCain says that he initially offered the information because he was badly injured and afraid of dying. But, he wrote, “I didn’t intend to keep my word.”
When he was later interrogated, McCain gave his ship’s name and squadron number and confirmed the target of his failed mission, he wrote. He also gave the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line and said they were members of his squadron.
Asked to identify future targets, he mentioned North Vietnamese cities that U.S. planes had already bombed.
George “Bud” Day and Orson Swindle, fellow POWs, told PolitiFact that POWs sometimes were forced to talk when they were tortured, but they tried to tell lies to mislead their captors.
“We were all tortured and we wrote confessions under the pressure of torture,” said Swindle, who was a cellmate with McCain and is active in his campaign. “John McCain never collaborated with the enemy. He, like every one of us, submitted to severe torture. John McCain did nothing dishonorable. He was heroic.”
At one point, McCain broke down and signed a confession. But Timberg, the biographer, said McCain deliberately used misspellings, grammatical errors and Communist jargon to show he was writing under duress: “I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died, and the Vietnamese people saved my life . . . ”
Day, a Medal of Honor winner who also is supporting McCain’s campaign, said the flyer is “the most outrageous f------ lie I’ve ever heard.”
Behind the group
The man behind the flyer is Gerard “Jerry” W. Kiley, 61, of Garnerville, N.Y., who says he served in Vietnam for about a year.
He describes his group as a one-man operation unaffiliated with any political party or campaign. He says he opposes McCain because of the senator’s efforts to normalize relations with the Vietnamese communist government and because, in his view, McCain has helped the U.S. government keep information about POWs classified.
“John McCain has made sure the information concerning the lives of Americans we clearly abandoned after the war remain in government files 40 years later,” he says.
He teamed with political activist Ted Sampley of North Carolina to distribute the fliers to South Carolina media outlets this month. Sampley did not respond to requests for comment.
Sampley also is a longtime McCain opponent. In 2000, he gained attention when he called McCain a “Manchurian candidate” on his Web site and said that he was an agent of the Vietnamese. In 1993, Sampley was convicted of misdemeanor assault and sentenced to 180 days’ probation for attacking a McCain aide, according to a 2004 article in the New York Times.
McCain is not the first politician to draw the men’s ire. In 2004, they formed Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry.
Kiley has twice interrupted events featuring Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, forcing an American flag in his hand on one occasion and throwing red wine at him on another, according to a Secret Service agent who later arrested Kiley. He admits he threw the wine, but he was later acquitted in federal court of threatening Khai.
Kiley says he bases his most damning charges against McCain — that McCain gave information about the schedule of U.S. attacks in Vietnam in 1967, the year his plane was shot down and McCain was captured — on the word of Earl Hopper, a retired Army colonel.
In an interview, Hopper’s wife, Patty, said that Hopper wasn’t able to address the charges over the phone because of poor hearing. She said that Hopper has long been involved in the POW movement and that Earl Hopper’s son, Earl Jr., is missing in action in Vietnam.
She cited as evidence for Hopper’s charges a 1973 article by McCain that ran in U.S. News and World Report and what she said were “declassified U.S. military documents” she claimed to possess describing McCain’s collaboration. Patty Hopper said she was away from her Arizona home and could not fax those documents.
But the 1973 article does not back up the charges made in the flyer. It provides the same basic account as McCain’s book, corroborated by Timberg’s book, which was based on interviews with many POWs.
Timberg, Day and Swindle noted that McCain, the son of a Navy admiral, was offered an early release from the prison but refused so that he could adhere to the military’s code of conduct.
Timberg said he was perplexed by the allegations.
“Why do they hate him? There can be lots of issues you disagree with him about. But why try to destroy him?”
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The courage and honor demonstrated by both John McCain and Leo Thorsness is something to behold and cherish.
Flounder seems to be entrapped in his ideology and simply cannot bring himself to praise real American service. But this is not uncommon for nom de guerre partisans.
Well we'll never learn the real story, because McSame talked the Vietnam Government into hiding the records. And McSame's story keep changing, so it is unbelievable (the latest example is flip-flopping on which football team his listed off to the VC as the names of his squadron; and if you really want to nitpick the football team story wasn't invented until the '80's in the first place, but that is another story).
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Thorsness had quite a bit to say about McCain’s performance as a POW. In his friendly but firm way, he debunked the smears that certain people have tried spreading about his supposedly preferential treatment in Hanoi. Thorsness says that he and his colleagues can personally account for every day of McCain’s detention, and he testifies to McCain’s dedication to honor and service... Afterwards, I got a brief moment alone with Col. Thorsness — who was very popular with the local press — and asked him to elaborate on the difference between McCain and Obama. For Thorsness, it comes down to character:
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Character = ditching your wife and shacking up with Paris Hilton.
I must assume that with your display of disdainful judgment you are reflecting the best of Obama and his own thoughts about veterans such as McCain and Thorsness. No wonder Obama ducked debating McCain at Fort Hood Texas before active mililitary and their families.
Regrading Thorsness and McCain read it here: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/07/021058.php
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Colonel Thorsness flew 92 S Wild Weasel missions over North Vietnam. He earned the Medal of Honor for a Wild Weasel mission he flew on April 19, 1967, 11 days before being shot down. His Medal of Honor citation tells the story, but the Air Force account of his heroics makes a somewhat more readable narrative:
Thorsness, then a major, was "Head Weasel" of the 357th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Takhli Air Base in Thailand. On April 19, 1967, he and his backseater, Capt. Harold Johnson, fought a wild 50-minute duel with SAMs, antiaircraft guns and MiGs. They set out in a formation of four planes. Their target was an army compound near Hanoi, heavily defended. Thorsness directed two of the F-105s north and he and his wingman stayed south, forcing enemy gunners to divide their attention. After initial success at destroying two SAM sites, things turned for the wors[e]. First, Thorsness' wingman was hit by flak. He and his backseater ejected. Then the two Weasels he had sent north were attacked by MiGs. The afterburner of one of the F-105s wouldn't light, so he and his wingman were forced to return to Takhli, leaving Thorsness alone to fight solo.
As the F-105 circled the parachutes, relaying their position to the Search and Rescue Center, Johnson spotted a MiG off their left wing. The F-105, though not designed for air-to-air combat, responded well as Thorsness attacked the MIG and destroyed it with a 20-mm cannon, just as another MiG closed on his tail. Low on fuel, Thorsness broke off the battle and rendezvoused with a tanker.
In the meantime, two A-1E Sandys and a rescue helicopter arrived to look for the crewmen. Upon being advised of that fact, Thorsness, with only 500 rounds of ammunition left, turned back from the tanker to fly cover for the rescue force, knowing there were at least five MiGs in the area. As he approached the area, he spotted four MiG-17 aircraft and initiated an attack on them, damaging one and driving the others away from the rescue scene. His ammunition gone, he returned to the rescue scene, hoping to draw the MiGs away from the remaining A-1E. It could very well have been a suicidal mission, but just as he arrived, so did a U.S. strike force and hit the enemy fighters.
But Thorsness' day wasn't over yet. Again low on fuel, he headed for a tanker just as one of the strike force pilots, almost out of fuel himself, radioed him for help. Thorsness knew he couldn't make Takhli without refueling, but he quickly determined he could make it to Udorn, 200 miles closer, so he directed the tanker toward the strike fighter. Once across the Mekong Delta, he throttled back to idle and "glided" toward Udorn, touching down as his tanks went dry.
Colonel Thorsness didn't find out about his receipt of the Medal of Honor, however, until 1973. He was shot down by an air to air missile in late April 1967. He ejected from his exploding fighter doing nearly 700 miles per hour and injured both his knees. He was captured and held as a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton. Like John McCain, he was "tied up" for the next six years. His Medal of Honor was kept a secret so that the North Vietnamese would not use the citation against him and aggravate the conditions of his captivity. As it was, he was tortured unmercifully for the first three years.
Upon his capture, he was tortured in interrogation for 19 days and 18 nights, without sleep. He mentioned to me in passing yesterday that he didn't break for 18 days, at which time he finally provided something more than name, rank and serial number. Reading the Medal of Honor link above, it is noted that he was in captivity when a Cuban team came in 1968 and stayed for a year. They taught the North Vietnamese how to extract information. Colonel Thorsness was not among the eight tortured by the Cubans, but they systematically tortured POW Earl Cobiel to death: "Corbeil was struck along the brow with a hose and didn't blink. And they took a rusty nail and carved a bloody X across his back."
As for his own treatment, he has recalled:
With a wire, strap, or rope, the guards would pull your elbows together behind your back. Then they'd tie your hands together at the wrist and pull, cutting off the circulation. They would put a clevis around your feet and run a bar through it. It was hardest if they put the clevis behind because they'd bend you forward and put your head under the bar. Sometimes they'd hoist you off the floor and it felt like your sternum was going to break.Generally, you'd pass out. It didn't bother them if they dislocated your shoulders; most of us had our shoulders dislocated. We called it the Suitcase Trick. It was brutal, painfully brutal.
Speaking of Senator McCain, Colonel Thorsness vouches for his intelligence, character and devotion to country. He recalled how on "film night" at the Hanoi Hilton, when the POWs would entertain each other with accounts of their favorite movies, McCain was by far the best storyteller. McCain's favorite movie was "African Queen." McCain meticulously noted the gun emplacements, provided descriptions of the plot that grew more elaborate and entertaining with each telling, and generally told the story with gusto. Colonel Thorsness testified to McCain's appropriation of Thorsness's own story about killing a horse with a shotgun on a dare in Walnut Grove. According to Thorsness, McCain told Thorsness's own story better than Thorsness did.
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The men that finally returned were certainly not the same men that went off to war. His wife would not have been the same person as when he left, the gulf that each of their experiences left them with would be terrible. Who are we to judge?
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July 19, 2008
McCain's bravery, as seen by one man imprisoned with him
"Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." That was retired Gen. Wesley Clark's condescending assessment of John McCain's military service. Clark's words have great weight because he was speaking as a key political/military advisor to Barack Obama.
If Gen. Clark had been talking about me, his remarks might be true. After all, I rode in a fighter plane and got shot down over North Vietnam. In no way do Clark's words apply to McCain. I know, because I was a firsthand witness to his singular leadership and courage. In the years I spent as a POW in North Vietnam, I saw McCain inspire and lead under trying circumstances that Gen. Clark has not the imagination to understand.
As for the role of a president, I was fortunate enough to serve as a domestic policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan. Seeing him in action, and seeing John McCain in action, I know they are equals in character, ability and political courage.
I met John McCain in a POW camp in Vietnam. He told me his father and grandfather read history every evening. Since our release, I have done the same. From my study of history I know what we need in a leader.
Great leaders have an undefinable quality: Call it charisma. Young Winston Churchill once wrote to his mother, "We are all worms, but I am a glowworm." And so it proved. John McCain, too, is a "glowworm." You cannot help but notice him.
Gen. George C. Marshall, Army chief of staff during World War II, said, "The first thing a leader needs is courage." Churchill had courage. As a cavalry officer in the British army, Churchill left garrison duty to go where the action was. During his army career he was several times under hostile fire and conducted two daring and famous rescues. The second rescue came when he was a war correspondent covering the Boer War in 1899. It led to his capture as a prisoner of war. He escaped and after several adventures reached safety in Portuguese Mozambique. The story made him a world-wide hero and helped get him elected to Parliament.
When he became Prime Minister in World War II, all looked bleak. After the surrender of France there were some who thought that Britain could not carry on alone and should negotiate a peace with Hitler. But Churchill would not quit. He fought on until, as he said, "In God's good time, the new world comes to the rescue of the old."
McCain, like Churchill, has courage. McCain, like Churchill, stood strong when all looked bleak. My friend, Col. Jack Van Loan, was in a cell from which he could see several senior Communist officers, along with an interpreter and men with a stretcher, enter McCain's cell. He knew that John was immobilized by his wounds. He heard them offer McCain early release and heard John answer that he would go home when we all go home.
He heard the voices of the officers rising until they were shouting angrily at McCain and threatening him. This was followed by a stream of obscenities from McCain and the rapid exit of the senior officers. John told them never again to try to get him to accept early release. He was defiant at a time that he was physically helpless, unable even to crawl on his own.
In the spring of 1971, I personally witnessed John McCain's courage. After the attempted rescue of POWs at the camp at Son Tay, in November of 1970, almost all Americans were moved to Hoa Lo prison in Hanoi, the infamous "Hanoi Hilton." The communists felt so threatened by the raid that, for the first time, they concentrated us in large cells, with as many as 60 men to a cell.
One of the first things we did was to institute regular religious services in our cells. On Jan. 1, 1971, we were told that all religious activity was forbidden. This led to a long series of increasingly hostile confrontations that someone has labeled "the Church Riots." I was in a cell next to McCain's. In early March, the four senior men in his cell were removed and for some time we lost contact with them. Then the four senior men in my cell were removed, and we lost contact with them, also. The confrontations rapidly escalated. On the evening of March 18 there was a confrontation that almost descended to guards shooting mutinous POWs. The communists were now afraid of losing control.
My recollection is that John McCain was now the senior man in his cell. In any case, I know that he was deeply involved with what followed. The senior men in our two cells kept us under tight control, but carefully staged demonstrations of our anger over the religious ban and the removal of our cell mates. On March 19, St. Joseph's Day, the day after the dangerous confrontation, I remember the men in McCain's room singing, at the top of their lungs, first "the Battle Hymn of the Republic," then "Onward Christian Soldiers." This was not merely courage, but exquisite leadership to get men to show open defiance when it was clear that there would be retaliation. The only question was in what form and how harsh that retaliation would be. Remember that all of these men had been tortured and knew to what lengths the enemy was willing to go to maintain control.
Courage alone, however, is not sufficient. A great leader also needs greatness of spirit. Again, I turn to Churchill, who never held a grudge and was prepared to be gracious and magnanimous toward a defeated foe. When McCain led church services, he prayed for the enemy who had tortured him. I have observed Ronald Reagan in the White House and I have observed McCain in the Hanoi Hilton. I have seen that McCain, like Churchill, like Reagan, has courage, prudence, and magnanimity. That is why he is qualified to be president, even if he hadn't ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down.
James H. Warner is a retired attorney. He was a policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1985 until 1989. He was a Marine officer in Vietnam and was held as a POW, in North Vietnam, for five and a half years.
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Comments
posted by mmcgrath62, August 4, 2008 09:16 PM – Report this comment
I personally know John McCain and Jim Warner. I was with them in Hanoi. Both are true warriors. The article is well stated and accurate. I was one of those men in the nearby rooms who joined in to sing the songs. The guards called it a riot. We called it patriotism. In 5 years 8 months of incarceration, I never received socks, shoes, medical treatment, a bed, a pencil, pen, paper, reading glasses, let alone a Bible or permission to hold a church service. Our captors were brutal. McCain was strong in his resistance. He was a role model for all of us to admire. I'm proud of him. Captain John M McGrath, USN (Ret), POW in North Vietnam with John McCain
MCCain's war record is what it is. Problem is there are increasing examples of him exaggerating it. Like that cross in the sand story, and the lineman of the Pittsburgh Steelers. And why he like ABBA. You might even say his history of voting against funding the VA and lying about it is his "war record". And since he blames dumping his wife and kids to canoodle with Paris Hilton on "the war" that is his "war record" as well.
If he's going to bring up his war record every time he opens his mouth, that makes it fair game and even necessary to figure out just how much exaggeration there is, and bring up the parts he has disappeared because they don't match his myth. I'm willing to be the mean old bad guy for that.
Hey Marion, you can see that picture you claim doesn't exist at that link I left above.
http://socialistworker.org/2008/07/09/to-politics-as-usual
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From politics of hope to politics as usual
Having raised expectations among his supporters during the primary campaign, Barack Obama is now systematically lowering them.
July 9, 2008
THE HEADY days of Obamamania have given way to one big Obummer.
Since securing the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama has moved so far and fast to the right that even the Wall Street Journal could approve, with an editorial headlined "Bush's Third Term."
"We're beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of 'George Bush's third term,'" the editorial said. "Maybe he's worried that someone will notice that he's the candidate who's running for it.
"Most presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely 'running to the center.' He's fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?"
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... THANK YOU, DAVID FREY! ~ for writing this article and please thank NewWest.net for publishing what may be the ONLY article I've ever seen published here about McCain that even begins to have a SMILE in the margin or a GRIN to gamble upon!!!
Those of us who frequent NewWest.net have come to understand that Montana is the State-of-Choice and Barry Hussein is the Candidate-Preferred. The GOOD News about both IS: there has never been the slightest effort made to camouflage either of those facts!
But it IS nice for change to see
Your words about McCain,
Although I'm sure some readers will
Regard them with disdain.
And you are RIGHT, there's MUCH to say
That ties him to The West.
There's also MUCH to hope will happen
If he's voted BEST!
He IS a man with character;
Historic, must be Praised!
He's proven that he stands with Honor
When our Flag is raised!
Those of you who've written comments
FREELY here today
Should take the time to THANK this man
For each FREE word you say!
For one thing that we all do know
Is that HE PAID OUR DUES!
If he's elected we can hope
We'll never EVER loose.
But THAT he does NOT promise us;
THAT we only pray
Would be a bit of insight used
To gain one more FREE day.
To each his own when day arrives
To cast a single vote.
But just for now I THANK YOU, DAVID,
For the words you wrote!
Sincerely so ~ Rose Mary
Maverick? I don't think so.
Then look at what Obama has done. http://www.ontheissues.org/Barack_Obama.htm
People can decide for themselves what percentage of the time these two voted in their interests.
Or is John McCain's word not worth anything anymore?
Doug, can you explain why Obama voted for the 2005 energy bill support by President Bush while McCain opposed the pork? There are reasons why the Socialist Worker paints Obama as the candidate of Bush's 3rd term. Do you need the link or can you find it for yourself?
But since you insist on bringing up the subject of past associations and how those associations in the past might influence a candidate or reflect upon his basic character and/or his judgment should he become the POTUS, I'll buy into a piece of that action just to Make Your Day.
While I'm not even sure that McCain has known Bush for 20 years I sure as hell know Barry Hussein spent his Sunday mornings FOR THE LAST 20+ YEARS at the Trinity United Church of Christ and the Pastor of it, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. ~ BY BARRY HUSSEIN'S OWN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ~ taught him everything he needed to know about all the important things of life, was a regular member of his extended family while bouncing Barry's babies on his knee and baptizing them, and was credited in Barry Hussein's published books as the MENTOR of his life. If THAT does not mold a character and influence the fundamental characteristics of a man ~ or reflect on what his future "judgment" might be ~ what would?
If you want to know all the details of just what that might have consisted of, click on this link which will take you directly to the "About" page of the Trinity United Church of Christ: http://www.tucc.org/about.htm
There you can read right from the horse's ... uh ... er ... MOUTH ... what Barry Hussein was taught daily and weekly for OVER 20 YEARS as a member of this congregation until it all of a sudden it became the *politically* correct and most *expedient* thing for him to do to take a hike, hide in a closet elsewhere and claim a denial of his true-EST and best-EST friend. One might be willing to ask just what it would take for him to deny his next best-EST friends as the years go by ... or, perhaps ... the citizens of this Nation?
Since you do not seem all that prone to access links given to you, Doug, let me help you out with all that ... and I QUOTE from THEIR printed words:
"We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black ... We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. ... A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA." (Capitalization and all other emphasis is a copy/paste from the site ~ NOT added by me.)
If you have failed to witness the videos of those GOD DAMN AMERICA rampages from the pulpit of Barry Hussein's favorite "church" then you can access those elsewhere on the Internet, I'm sure ~ along with all the equally rambunctious anti-"whitey" rhetoric that has been recorded and preserved for our children and grandchildren as a guide for future generations.
Now, YOU tell me, Doug: what would YOUR comments be if McCain had spent the last 20 years in a congregation that was Unashamedly WHITE? ... or if he claimed ANY nation other than the USA as his true native land? ... or he had a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO ANY OTHER NATION?
John McCain's birthright as a CITIZEN of the USA has passed the muster of Congress.
When and IF that ever becomes true of his opponent I'd sure like to be the first to know.
YOU walk the land in a FREE nation because of the likes of McCain ... NOT because of the likes of Barry Hussein Obama.
McCain ADOPTED a child of color with severe health problems, paid to cure those health problems and embraced that child as one of his own without the fanfare of the press.
Barry Hussein has spent OVER 20 YEARS worshipping only ONE color and worshipping at the feet of those who condemn every "whitey" on the face of this earth. His published books ~ written by HIS own hand ~ have acknowledged his prejudices and his preferences.
For my money it is the Webster's definition that is accurate when it comes to defining the word "racist" and by that definition Barry Hussein is the ONLY one who qualifies or ever has qualified in this long drawn-out race for the office of POTUS.
You sure can't pin that button on either Clinton OR McCain since BOTH have had better "judgment" than that! ... and BOTH still do.
Your so-called "judgment" of McCain's judgment fails the litmus test, Doug.
However, rest assured I certainly respect your right to be WRONG!!!
If this is how Barack treats his brother by ignoring him, what can we expect for the rest of us? The reality does not match BO's rhetorc.
I read that article too Craig, good ol Obama is a millionaire .....somehow, but his brother lives on $1 per month. Obama spends more than that on every pack of cigarettes.
Proof positive of all those good "Family Values" Barry Hussein has been spouting of late ... as always, for *political* purposes and *expediency* in order to woo voters who might actually HAVE some of those actual/for-real Family Values they voice on a daily basis.
A "family" is
What's only his
To exploit for his gain.
Suppose this man
Might fly and can
Attend Convention reign?
For surely scrubbed,
His filth all rubbed
With Michelle's beauty soap
He'd pass the muster
In a cluster
If poor soul could cope?
Amazing how
The FACTS that now
Are surfacing might say
That truth is best
When time for test
On our Election Day!
... or so we can always HOPE ...
Then the Keating Five scandal happens. McSame needs some good press. He talks his wife into bringing home a couple street urchins so they can talk about how "charitable" they are.
Paris goes and grabs a couple kids, using her husbands political clout to circumvent the normal adoption process. Laws are for little people. Then Paris lies about Mother Teresa "convincing" her to adopt children:
http://digg.com/politics/Cindy_McCain_Mother_Teresa_Story_Fabricated
McSame meets her at the Phoenix Airport, press in tow. they act charitable and sane for a few minutes. His AZ approval rating goes from 16% to 40% over the summer of '91.
Nothing like using a couple orphans as political props.
Hey, since we are playing the long-lost family game, what are Paris McCain's two half-sisters up to?
To be fair the CS Monitor did write about the embellishment to the adoption story. One thing that was confirmed was that the McCain's did adopt an at risk child of color and have raised her as their own. Meanwhile as the Telegraph story points out, Barack Obama has met his Kenyan brother on two occassions. Their last meeting was in 2006. Barack's brother lives in abject poverty. BR conveniently sprinkles biblical quotes in his speeches. Perhaps in 20 years at his Chicago church he never heard about being his brother's keeper.
By the way, the UK Independent has a followup story: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obamas-halfbrother-is-tracked-down-to-nairobi-slum-904126.html
As to the CS Monitor story that flounder has his fish scales flapping about there is this also: features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/08/20/watchdogs-make-it-harder-for-politicians-to-stretch-the-truth/
>>>>>>>>>>>
Misremembering and stretching the truth is without doubt a bipartisan phenomenon. Twenty years ago, Sen. Joe Biden (D) of Delaware’s presidential campaign faltered when it was learned that he had lifted passages from a speech by then-British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock and that he’d also said he’d done better in law school than he actually had.
Earlier this year, Barack Obama’s campaign admitted that he overstated his father’s connection to the Kennedy family.
In speeches, Obama had said the Kennedy family provided funding for the 1959 airlift that brought his father from Kenya to the United States for an education. But according to research done by The Washington Post, the Kennedy clan didn’t contribute to the airlift efforts until 1960, a year after his father was already studying in Hawaii. When The Washington Post brought the discrepancy to the attention of the Obama campaign it readily acknowledged there was a mistake.
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Cindy McCain is not running for president. Obama, who ignores his own brother, and massages the truth whether about his 20 years at his church, where racist and anti-American rhetoric spewed, or about the Kennedy's, is.
Maverick?
McCain's own words: "I vote with President Bush over 90% of the time."
-----------
From Politico.com: "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own. 'I think — I'll have my staff get to you,' McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. 'It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you.' "
-----------
By the way, his campaign staff count 4 houses across the country, but Newsweek counts 7. Which is it John McCain? -- Boy, McCain's maverick "straight talk" is just so refreshing, er, well entertaining anyway.
McCain's own words: "I vote with President Bush over 90% of the time."
I'll betcha dollars to donut holes that you can search until your teeth drop out and you won't find even ONE crook intertwined with the purchase of even ONE house (or anything else) owned by the McCains!!!
But WAIT!!! What have we HERE?! Is that a lyin', cheatin' CROOK ~ a FELON, perhaps? ~ we see hangin' onto the arms of Barry Hussein and his sweetheart Michelle as they troll the grounds of their where-DID-they-get-those-MILLIONS-to-buy little cottage in which THEY live?
Well, by golly ... it sure looks like that is EXACTLY what greased their slide into that expensive master bedroom and the guest room that is NOT open to the lesser-known of their family members!!!
Go figure! Ain't that a SURPRISE to find out about The Anointed One?! ... at least to YOU it must be?
A buck's a buck by any measure ...
... but it ain't a STOLEN treasure
For those who have come to own
Without once chewin' crooked bone.
There's FEW who cut their baby teeth
In politics out there beneath
The bridges of Chicago Town
That don't know how to CROOK around!
Ah, yes, there's "polish" and there's "shine"
On all those boys and girls, divine!
But ROOTS are firmly planted where
MANURE ain't exposed to "air"!
... the wicked ways of their normal days have produced but yet another? ...
According to a well known reporter highly respected in Republican quarters, John McCain's fortune can be traced to the Maffia.
See for yourself at this link:
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http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57354
ELECTION 2008
McCain fortune traced to organized crime
Mob figures later implicated in Arizona savings and loan scandal
Posted: February 26, 2008
By Jerome R. Corsi
McCain: "I vote with President Bush over 90% of the time."
.... but we sure don't have to go back ANY generations of any number to catch a glimpse of Barry Hussein and his sweetheart Michelle pickin' THEIR tulips with THEIR personal best friends in their NOW-owned yard, do we?
Here's more from Corsi on McCain:
----------------
http://wnd.com/index.php?pageId=57678
Group tied to al-Qaida backs McCain for prez
'They will do all they can to turn Kosovo into a jihadist camp in the heart of Europe'
Posted: March 02, 2008
By Jerome R. Corsi
John McCain's own words: "I vote with President Bush over 90% of the time."
But, unfortunately, there are more than a few of those suckers that are most likely headed to Denver as we speak. And I am just hoping that an envelope with white powder will be ALL they bring with them.
Colorado does not need another "Columbine" anniversary to mark every year for the rest of our lives ... or longer. Denver has hauled in every cop in the state and it still might not be enough.
There's just too much emotion and too much anger boiling in the pot and we can only hope and pray it does not get out of hand.
Dont' worry Craig, I haven't forgot about McCain's supposed maverick-i-ness,
McCain's own words: "I vote with President Bush over 90% of the time."
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/mccains_water_woes/C37/L37/#comments
Marion is complaining about the terrible person who sent the fake anthrax style letters (I wonder if they are copying Chad Castagena?). My question is: is someone who threatens actual violence against a Presidential candidate a bad person just like someone who sends out a fake anthrax attack?
My answer is I think they are both despicable.