Thread: The Case Against McCain

The National Review Online sums up why we have to make sure that McCain is NOT the Republican Nominee.

The Real McCain Record
Obstacles in the way of conservative support.

By Mark R. Levin

There’s a reason some of John McCain's conservative supporters avoid discussing his record. They want to talk about his personal story, his position on the surge, his supposed electability. But whenever the rest of his career comes up, the knee-jerk reply is to characterize the inquiries as attacks.

The McCain domestic record is a disaster. To say he fought spending, most particularly earmarks, is to nibble around the edges and miss the heart of the matter. For starters, consider:

McCain-Feingold — the most brazen frontal assault on political speech since Buckley v. Valeo.

McCain-Kennedy — the most far-reaching amnesty program in American history.

McCain-Lieberman — the most onerous and intrusive attack on American industry — through reporting, regulating, and taxing authority of greenhouse gases — in American history.

McCain-Kennedy-Edwards — the biggest boon to the trial bar since the tobacco settlement, under the rubric of a patients’ bill of rights.

McCain-Reimportantion of Drugs — a significant blow to pharmaceutical research and development, not to mention consumer safety (hey Rudy, pay attention, see link).

And McCain’s stated opposition to the Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts was largely based on socialist, class-warfare rhetoric — tax cuts for the rich, not for the middle class. The public record is full of these statements. Today, he recalls only his insistence on accompanying spending cuts.

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, McCain was consistently hostile to American enterprise, from media and pharmaceutical companies to technology and energy companies.

McCain also led the Gang of 14, which prevented the Republican leadership in the Senate from mounting a rule change that would have ended the systematic use (actual and threatened) of the filibuster to prevent majority approval of judicial nominees.

And then there’s the McCain defense record.

His supporters point to essentially one policy strength, McCain’s early support for a surge and counterinsurgency. It has now evolved into McCain taking credit for forcing the president to adopt General David Petreaus’s strategy. Where’s the evidence to support such a claim?

Moreover, Iraq is an important battle in our war against the Islamo-fascist threat. But the war is a global war, and it most certainly includes the continental United States, which, after all, was struck on 9/11. How does McCain fare in that regard?

McCain-ACLU — the unprecedented granting of due-process rights to unlawful enemy combatants (terrorists).

McCain has repeatedly called for the immediate closing of Guantanamo Bay and the introduction of al-Qaeda terrorists into our own prisons — despite the legal rights they would immediately gain and the burdens of managing such a dangerous population.

While McCain proudly and repeatedly points to his battles with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had to rebuild the U.S. military and fight a complex war, where was McCain in the lead-up to the war — when the military was being dangerously downsized by the Clinton administration and McCain’s friend, former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen? Where was McCain when the CIA was in desperate need of attention? Also, McCain was apparently in the dark about al-Qaeda like most of Washington, despite a decade of warnings.

My fingers are crossed that at the next debate, either Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney will find a way to address McCain’s record. (Mike Huckabee won’t, as he is apparently in the tank for him.)

— Mark R. Levin served as chief of staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese in the Reagan administration, and he is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host.

McCain no friend to POW families and has backstabbed them every step

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: comm-526314099@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-01-02, 4:20PM CST


Wife of POW Navy Pilot, Who Had Husband's Remains Sent Home By North Vietnamese in 1989, Was Lied to by U.S. Officials For Years About His Whereabouts And POW Status

Diane Van Renselaar says she still hasn't gotten the truth about her husband from the military and lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain who she claims is 'no friend' of POW families and has backstabbed them every step of the way toward getting at the truth.
31 Oct 2005
http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/31-oct-2005.html
By Greg Szymanski

The remains of captured Navy pilot, Larry Van Renselaar, came home in a body bag, sent back by the North Vietnamese in 1989, after his wife put up a 20 year fight against a corrupt U.S. government, concealing her husband's whereabouts as a POW for political expediency reasons.

Instead of telling Diane Van Rensaleer her husband was alive and in a slave labor camp, the lying contingent of morally irreprehensible politicians and military brass concealed his status, closing the official book on the pilot in 1978 even though credible CIA intelligence information revealed he was still alive in 1987, two years before he arrived home in a body bag.

"Larry was shot down on September 30, 1968. They closed his case in 1978. In fact, John McCain, who is a very dangerous and violent man, was the driving force behind closing all the POW files, classifying records in order to keep the truth from the families and the American people," said Van Rensaleer this week from her home in Corte Madera, California.

"McCain is even more dangerous than Bush. I don't want to see this man ever become President and that's why I want this story out because he is one of the biggest liars in our government and, by no means, a friend of the POW families.

"After backstabbing all of us, hiding the truth about the POW story, I wish they would have kept him in a prison camp for life like so many others who didn't have his military and political clout. If they lied to us about this, just think about the lies spread about 9/11 and the present-day war in Iraq?"

Van Renselaar's story is just another in a growing number of cases, showing the deceit, deception and outright lies advanced by the Pentagon, Congress and the Executive towards POW family members seeking the truth about their loved ones,

The cold, hard facts, said Rensaleer's wife, is the U.S. government has left thousands of prisoners left behind, telling family members they were "missing, presumed dead" when high-ranking scoundrel-Senators John Kerry and McCain continue to advance government lies started after World War II by then President Eisenhower.

Van Rensalaar, a leading activist for more than 30 years in bringing home POW's who still may be alive in North Korea and Vietnam, started the search for the POW truth after her husband was taken prisoner, but over the years the story has grown wings larger than expected, revealing government corruption and lies at the highest levels, including Kerry, McCain, former President George H. Bush and many others.

Her long and difficult quest of searching for the truth has opened up so many cans of political worms, most high-ranking officials like McCain and "Daddy Bush" run and hide when they see her face in the halls of government.

Perhaps it's guilt, knowing the real truth or wanting to save their political hides, but without question these high-ranking, two-faced politicians want nothing to do with the likes of Renselaar, once being on the board of directors of the National League of POW/MIA Families.

"In 1992, when George H. Bush was giving a political speech with many of the POW families gathered in a large hotel ballroom trying to get answers, I said straight to his face: 'we can help you get elected if you just tell us the truth about the POW's,'" said Van Renselaar, who added Bush basically ignored her request, but had his jaw drop to the floor when she mentioned the name of Lt. Col. William Atkins, a man who told her many sordid things about Bush, including his involvement with the Iran-Contra scandal when Col. Atkins acted as an intermediary between Bush and Oliver North.

"When I told him, again straight to his face, that 'you know Col. Atkins briefed you about many things, including the truth of the POW's,' he look at me with wide-open eyes, saying nothing, but his jaw literally dropped to the floor.

"I talked to Col. Atkins many times about CIA files he had uncovered with Oliver North about John McCain, telling the real truth about McCain's POW captivity. Also, Atkins told me he was a liaison between Bush and North, the pair traveling on Irish passports during Iran-Contra.

The Iran-Contra Affair, also known as "Irangate", took place in the mid-1980s. A political scandal of wide-ranging proportions where President Ronald Reagan's administration sold arms to Iran, an avowed enemy.

At the time, Americans were being held hostage by Islamic terrorists in Lebanon, and it was hoped that Iran would influence the terrorists to release the hostages. At the same time, Iran, which was in the midst of the Iran-Iraq War, could find few nations willing to supply it with weapons.

The U.S. diverted proceeds from the sale to the Contras, anti-Communist guerrillas engaged in an insurgency against the socialist, democratically elected Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

Both the sale of weapons and the funding of the Contras violated stated administration policy as well as legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress, which had blocked further Contra funding.

Col. Atkins, who became a friend and close confident of Van Renselaar and other POW family members, was arrested in 1992 for his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal, a twist of fate she said preventing him from testifying about the real truth about McCain and the POW lies advanced by lawmakers and the military.

"I know for a fact Sen. Bob Smith, who was trying to help us get at the truth in the Senate hearings on the POW issue, never got a chance to depose Col Atkins since he was arrested and then jailed for years over Iran-Contra," said Van Renselaar, adding it "was very strange" how Atkins was left to rot in a District of Columbia jail system until at least 1999. "They didn't want him to talk about a lot of things, but he talked to me about McCain's CIA file and many things the senator wants kept from the American people.

"People need to know the truth about McCain. He sealed his own records, as well the records of all POW's, so he could continue lying about his POW experience. He was never tortured, never in a dog-cell like the other prisoners and never deprived of food.

In fact, Col. Atkins, who died in 2001 of a cerebral hemorrhage, told Renselaar that when he and North acquired McCain's CIA file it showed he was out of the system for at least two years, being in an eastern European country instead of being in solitary confinement in a Vietnam jail cell like he has told the public.

To verify Atkins' claim, Van Renselaar said she has talked to several Vietnam POW's in the same camp McCain was s held, including Larry Larson, who told her "without a doubt I didn't see McCain for at least a year."

Further, she added John Parcels, a former helicopter pilot, and his wife, Patty, who visited Vietnam after the war, said they were taken on a tour by the North Vietnamese, who showed-off with pride the 'plush cell' in which McCain was held as well as the memorial in his honor put up by the banks of Lake Hanoi.

"Why have the North Vietnamese honored him? What did McCain tell them and how was he really treated?" questioned Van Renselaar, adding Parcels said McCain's prison cell was of a much higher standard then the other dog-cells prisoners were given.

"They gave him special treatment and it is documented he was even out of the country for two years instead of being in solitary confinement. He is lying about what happened and that is why he had his own POW records sealed for life. He was never tortured, never deprived of food and I've even learned he may even have fathered two children after having an affair with his Vietnamese nurse.

"According to my very credible Vietnamese contacts he had an affair with the sister of Nguyen Tan Thanh, a high-placed North Vietnamese official. Since they knew McCain was the son of A Navy Admiral, he was given a special nurse, Tan's sister. I've been told he fathered two sons with her, one attending the University Of Colorado, Up until now, though, we haven't been able to get their names."

Besides what Renselaar calls McCain's "pack of POW lies" about his real record of captivity, she recalls her husband saying McCain was not well-like by him or other pilots when they were under his direction before the Vietnam War when McCain was an operation's officer at a Meridian, Miss., flight-training center.

"I remember my husband saying he was not well-liked and thought of as a hot dog and a punk," said Van Renselaar. "And nothing has changed over the years. Once when POW families were outside his Senate office on Capital Hill demanding answers, he pushed his way through the crowd in a violent manner refusing to answer questions, almost knocking a POW supporter over in her wheel chair."

And last week to keep Renselaar's fight alive, as well as the entire POW issue, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) has now taken up the cause on Capital Hill to get the truth out about the thousands of living POW's still incarcerated in political prisons around the world.

Last Friday, Rep. Paul held a press conference to revive the issue, officially sending to each legislator on Capital Hill a copy of an historic video called "Missing, Presumed Dead: The Search for American POW's," in an attempt to open new hearings, being introduced under House Resolution 123.

House Resolution 123 seeks to force Congress to investigate "all the unresolved matters relating to any United States personnel unaccounted for from the Vietnam era, the Korean conflict, WW II, the Cold War missions and the Gulf Wars, including all issues regarding MIA's and POW's.

In a portion of the video, written and directed by Hollywood producer, Bill Dumas, former Sen. Bob Smith, pushed out of pubic life, said he was convinced from the evidence that there are many men still alive in political prison camps in both Korea and Vietnam.

"We should accept the evidence and move ahead to find these men," Sen. Smith said in the documentary.

http://omaha.craigslist.org/pol/526314099.html

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN ACCUSED OF SELLING OUT LAW ENFORCEMENT

By Jim Kouri
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
January 11, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

"The news media and Republican Party bigwigs may be happy with a John McCain candidacy for President of the United States come this November, but a lot of law enforcement officers will probably sit out election day if McCain is the GOP presidential candidate.

United States Border Patrol agents are not happy with Senator John McCain (R-AZ) since he voted for the Amnesty Bill (S. 2611). And they're not being quiet about their collective anger over the senator's actions and remarks.

According to members of the agents' union Local 2544, Senator McCain has never been a friend to rank-and-file Border Patrol agents. Local 2544 represents US Border Patrol agents in Arizona, McCain's home state.

"He routinely ignores correspondence from Border Patrol agents and often gives the impression that he is just too big and too important to deal with us," they said.

"He attempts to undermine our mission at every turn and actively supports the criminals who violate our laws. He always tries to downplay the fact that illegal aliens knowingly and willingly violate our laws, and he is a close ally on immigration matters with Senator Ted Kennedy, who we believe is the biggest disgrace of all time in the United States Senate."

These law enforcement agents point to Senator McCain's "imperious attitude" towards rank-and-file Border Patrol agents and his complete disdain for their mission has been evident for many years.

"We will not bother listing his website [for citizens to write to him] because it's obvious he couldn't care less what the average American thinks and he isn't up for re-election until 2010."

And these agents aren't just singling out McCain for their ire. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is also in their sights. They point to how Senator Specter, at the last minute, put a clause in the Senate's shameful immigration bill that forces the United States government to "consult" with Mexico prior to planning or building any fences or barriers on our border.

"Not on Mexico's [side of the] border, but yes, on United States soil. We can't wait to see this fencing project after the "consultations" take place. Maybe they can even appoint "Congressman" Raul Grijalva to lead the "consultations" for the United States of America."

The agents said that this is the same Mexican government that sends millions of Mexican citizens here illegally to steal jobs and send billions of dollars back to Mexico. This is the same Mexican government whose soldiers smuggle drugs and shoot at Border Patrol agents. This is the same Mexican government that is corrupt to the core. This is the same Mexican government that uses its consular officers to sue the United States government.

"While McCain pleases the special interests with his support for illegal aliens, local cops in cities like New York have to deal with the crime and criminals being imported from Mexico and other countries," said Police Officer Edie Aguayo.

"And then the mainstream media try to cover-up cases in which cops are murdered by illegal aliens," the decorated officer added."

The Senate passed a shameful immigration bill at the urging of an equally shameful George W. Bush, fresh off his dune-buggy riding jaunt in Yuma surrounded by a bunch of adoring, star-struck Border Patrol managers, quipped the agents.

"This bill cheapens citizenship in this country (again), it throws the rule of law out the window (again), it places unconscionable burdens on DHS (verifying the identity of every illegal alien in this country within 90 days), it repeats, and at a minimum, quadruples the worst immigration mistake in the history of this country.

"it sells out our sovereignty by forcing the American government to "consult with the Mexican government" before planning or building any border fences, it encourages more widespread fraud than this country has ever seen (you'll see what we're talking about if this actually passes the House), and it is completely unenforceable and will overwhelm the system," the agents said in a statement submitted to the US Senate.

"You [McCain, Kennedy, Specter, et al] have succeeded in placing the morale of frontline Border Patrol agents in the toilet just when we thought it couldn't possibly get any worse," said Local 2544 officials.

John McCain's first-place showing in the New Hampshire primary did not impress many conservatives including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). During a Fox News Channel interview, the man known to friend and foe alike as "The Hammer" criticized McCain in an interview Wednesday with FOX News.

There's nothing redeeming about John McCain," DeLay said.

The Texas Republican went on to say that McCain "betrays conservative principles."

When asked on which issues McCain was not a conservative, DeLay did not mince words. He said: "[T] here's tons of them" and then he listed Senator McCain's positions on immigration, the International Criminal Court, environmentalism, his support for affirmative action and taxes. He also called McCain a "hypocrite" when it came to lobbyists.

"[McCain] appealed once again to independents," DeLay claimed. "He's not going to go much further than New Hampshire," he predicted.

NewsWithViews.com contacted Senator McCain's campaign headquarters for his response to the statements made by Border Patrol agents and others, but our efforts were met with negative results."

http://www.newswithviews.com/NWV-News/news24.htm

What are McCains positives ?

Does he have any at all ?

Besides being a traitor to this country...I hear plenty of talking heads say McCain is a 'Mean and Cranky' individual. Wow! what a wonderful trait for a president!

McCain no friend to POW families and has backstabbed them every step

Absolutely, check out http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/

The headline is John McCain left his POW friends behind. The truth about this self proclaimed hero, who even now is a traitor to the US.

And go to http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmc ... 060269.pdf where the "straight talk express" in 1969 goes on Viet Cong radio to tell what wonderful care hehas been given and all the atrocities he has inflicted upon our enemy. He is a liar and a traitor, plain and simple !!! He sold our country then and now.

Originally Posted by Dianne

McCain no friend to POW families and has backstabbed them every step

Absolutely, check out http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/

The headline is John McCain left his POW friends behind. The truth about this self proclaimed hero, who even now is a traitor to the US.

I wonder if they have the article that I posted above??

Where is all of the outcry from these groups----like they did to Kerry??

Besides being a traitor to this country...I hear plenty of talking heads say McCain is a 'Mean and Cranky' individual. Wow! what a wonderful trait for a president!

He has a horrid temper. Don't you remember when he let the F bomb go on the floor of the Senate when Senator Cornyn wasn't going the McCain/Kennedy amnesty bill? Just the kind of nut case you want manning all the nukes we have in the US.

McCain, Cornyn Engage in Heated Exchange
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) hasn't spent much time in the Capitol this year as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination. But one of his rare appearances this week provided a pretty salty exchange with a fellow Republican.

During a meeting Thursday on immigration legislation, McCain and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) got into a shouting match when Cornyn started voicing concerns about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive, according to multiple sources -- both Democrats and Republicans -- who heard firsthand accounts of the exchange from lawmakers who were in the room.

At a bipartisan gathering in an ornate meeting room just off the Senate floor, McCain complained that Cornyn was raising petty objections to a compromise plan being worked out between Senate Republicans and Democrats and the White House. He used a curse word associated with chickens and accused Cornyn of raising the issue just to torpedo a deal.

Things got really heated when Cornyn accused McCain of being too busy campaigning for president to take part in the negotiations, which have gone on for months behind closed doors. "Wait a second here," Cornyn said to McCain. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line."

McCain, a former Navy pilot, then used language more accustomed to sailors (not to mention the current vice president, who made news a few years back after a verbal encounter with Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont).

"[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room," shouted McCain at Cornyn. McCain helped craft a bill in 2006 that passed the Senate but couldn't be compromised with a House bill that was much tougher on illegal immigrants.

Cornyn's office declined to comment on the incident. McCain's camp specifically denied that the senator ever claimed to know more about the immigration issue than other senators, but acknowledged that the two Republicans had quite a disagreement.

"These negotiations can be very tense, and there was a spirited exchange. That's it," said Brian Jones, spokesman for McCain's presidential campaign.

McCain's aides have acknowledged that the senator hasn't been as active in the Senate this year as he's been out campaigning. As Capitol Briefing noted Thursday, McCain hasn't cast a vote in more than five weeks now.

But Jones said McCain's staff has been deeply involved in the immigration talks.

Ultimately, a deal was crafted and, as McCain suspected, Cornyn did not join in on the final agreement.

By early Thursday afternoon, McCain joined nine other senators and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez at a Capitol press conference announcing the deal.

After making a few comments, McCain left the Capitol to head to New York for presidential campaign events. Later that day, McCain missed his 43rd straight vote, this on the $2.9 trillion budget outline.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol- ... wdown.html

Here is more that needs to be circulated far and wide:

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1999-03- ... -war-hero/

Is John McCain a War Hero?
The senator's five years as a prisoner of war have been widely viewed as heroic. But as he prepares a White House bid, a small group of detractors is determined to expose him as a wartime traitor.
By Amy Silverman
Published: March 25, 1999

Craig Willbanks wants you to know that John McCain--former prisoner of war, current senator, White House aspirant--is a traitor, a liar and a wimp.

Willbanks and McCain have never met. The senator probably has never heard of this hunched-over, soft-spoken fellow who served two tours of duty in Vietnam as an Army combat engineer and now lives in a run-down apartment in Mesa.

Craig Willbanks is obsessed with John McCain, and he is not alone.
He is part of a small, nationwide movement hell-bent on convincing the rest of us that in spite of glowing accounts of McCain's valor as a POW, Arizona's senior senator betrayed his country by collaborating with the North Vietnamese, and has been trying to cover up that fact ever since.

Willbanks' mission: "Don't get him elected. Cannot have . . . a traitor in the top position, giving away secrets of the United States."

To that end, Willbanks spends virtually all his free time retyping any Arizona Republic articles that portray the senator in an unflattering light. He intends to post them on the Web, where they'll join a pile of documents that, Willbanks insists, proves McCain collaborated with the Communists during his five years as a POW.

Willbanks has a paying job, as a bus driver for the City of Mesa. But he was recently reassigned to drive an adult day-care van. He's excited about it; the older people will want to talk about war history, and he can give them packets of information he keeps on McCain. He's already given out 15 or so.

"I give them a packet, and they come back and say, 'Well, that goddamn traitor,'" he says.

The "documents" include an article McCain wrote for U.S. News & World Report in 1973, upon his release from prison camp. In the article, McCain admits that he--like many POWs--confessed to war crimes under physical and emotional duress. There's also a transcript of an interview POW McCain did for French television, a story about McCain that appeared in a Vietnamese newspaper and an account of an interview of McCain by a Spanish psychiatrist.

Willbanks got these documents from retired Army Colonel Earl Hopper Sr. and his wife, Patty, who run a POW/MIA research organization from their home in Glendale. The Hoppers' goal is to force the U.S. government to produce a full accounting of the more than 2,000 men whose bodies have not been recovered from the Vietnam War. Among those men is Earl Hopper Jr., the colonel's eldest son.

Willbanks and the Hoppers believe that live American soldiers were left behind at the end of the Vietnam War, and that McCain is part of the conspiracy to cover it up. McCain has long contended that there is no proof that live Americans remain in Southeast Asia. The Hoppers have gathered a motley crew of local Vietnam veterans and POW/MIA family members to assist in their crusade against McCain, and have hooked up with like-minded vets and POW kin across the country.

One foot soldier for the cause is Roy Kerr, a veteran from Goodyear who researches McCain's business interests full-time. Around New Year's, Kerr hand-delivered anti-McCain packets to syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington, U.S. Representative Henry Hyde and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who were in town for "The Weekend," a conservative confab at the Arizona Biltmore resort. Kerr packaged the documents in manila envelopes labeled "Veterans for McCain," figuring no one would open a package that said "Veterans Against McCain."

Kerr says he has driven to McCain's home at night to drop copies of anti-McCain literature and "Dump McCain" stickers over the senator's fence. And he's a frequent caller to radio talk shows when McCain is a guest. He proudly provides taped copies of these interviews, bragging that he made the senator stutter. (Barely, if at all.) He does all of this, he says, "to keep myself busy and appease my dislike for McCain."

And then there's Ted Sampley, who publishes a newspaper out of Kinston, North Carolina, called U.S. Veteran Dispatch. Sampley calls McCain the "Manchurian Candidate," maintaining that the Vietnamese brainwashed McCain, then sent him home to do their bidding--which, to Sampley's way of thinking, explains why McCain was instrumental in the nation's normalization of relations with Vietnam.

The POW/MIA zealots are a dwindling subculture. Mainstream society tends to dismiss the Willbankses, Hoppers and Kerrs as sad footnotes to an ugly chapter in American history.

Stanley Kutler, professor of law at the University of Wisconsin and editor of The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, calls the behavior of these people "Sick. If it weren't so sick, it would be laughable. These are not nice people. They are the other side in an ongoing uncivil Civil War in America. They would refight Vietnam, criminalize abortion, make public school prayer mandatory, prove that Hillary bumped off Vince Foster, and indict Teddy Kennedy for Chappaquiddick. They are uncivil and intolerant of any views or information they do not share."

Kutler examined the Hoppers' packet, which, along with the "documents," includes political cartoons lampooning McCain, and accounts of testy exchanges between McCain and POW/MIA activists. Aubrey Immelman, associate professor of psychology at St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota, looked at the anti-McCain propaganda, too, and observes:

"Once a person becomes as committed to a cause as some of these individuals, it becomes difficult to let go, and the lines between activism, crusade and obsession--and perhaps even paranoia--become increasingly blurred."

Is John McCain a hero or a traitor?
What a question.
In post-Monica politics, there aren't many taboos. Enter the presidential sweepstakes, and it's open season on every detail of your life. Everything except the hero status of a man who endured a broken leg, two broken arms and five and a half years in North Vietnamese prison camps.

Even McCain foes who carp about his youthful philandering, his grandstanding, his political flip-flopping, his membership in the Keating Five, his wife's drug addiction, don't question his war heroism.
So the Earl Hoppers of the world are dismissed as crazies, wackos, extremists--and perhaps it's a deserved label. Then again, to paraphrase another Arizona senator: Extremism in defense of a lost loved one is no vice. Who couldn't imagine themselves single-mindedly demanding the truth about a vanished son or husband?

McCain says he understands. "Those people who are family members, at least I have--I hope I feel--sympathy and some understanding for their zealotry on this issue," McCain tells New Times. "If I had a brother or a son who was in this situation, then clearly I think I would feel very strongly about it."

Not every POW/MIA activist despises John McCain, and among those who do, there are gradations of disgust.

Many activists don't like the way McCain has behaved since he was freed. They abhor his support for the normalization of relations with Vietnam, his apparent lack of respect for them and their cause. They say he has unfairly attacked those he says prey on the family members by selling them false hopes in the form of faked pictures of their loved ones, even though in some cases McCain has been proved right. And most of all, the activists feel McCain has used his POW status to spring up the political ranks, with his eye on the presidential prize.
But a few have let their ire take them even farther. A handful of POW/MIA activists are critical of McCain's behavior during the war. They believe that John McCain did not return from Vietnam a hero. They say his own clumsiness caused his limbs to be broken as he ejected from his plummeting warplane. They claim McCain was never tortured in prison. They accuse him of collaborating with not only the North Vietnamese but with Communists in the Soviet Union and Cuba. They quote unnamed sources who say McCain had a wife and children in Vietnam.

Some even claim he was broken and brainwashed by the Communists and then returned to the U.S. to amass political power and carry out the Reds' wishes. Why else, they ask, would McCain support normalization? Why else would he have embraced onetime North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin during hearings into POW/MIA issues? (They circulate a photo of that traitorous act as evidence.) Why else would the North Vietnamese have erected a monument at the lake in Hanoi where he was shot down in 1967?

All these claims disintegrate upon close inspection--they cannot be proved or disproved--with one tenuous exception: two former POWs who say they were senior officers at a camp where McCain claims to have been tortured tell New Times they knew of no such torture during that time at that camp. McCain has denied that he ever reported to these men.

Originally Posted by Dianne

Besides being a traitor to this country...I hear plenty of talking heads say McCain is a 'Mean and Cranky' individual. Wow! what a wonderful trait for a president!

He has a horrid temper. Don't you remember when he let the F bomb go on the floor of the Senate when Senator Cornyn wasn't going the McCain/Kennedy amnesty bill? Just the kind of nut case you want manning all the nukes we have in the US.

McCain, Cornyn Engage in Heated Exchange
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) hasn't spent much time in the Capitol this year as he seeks the GOP presidential nomination. But one of his rare appearances this week provided a pretty salty exchange with a fellow Republican.

During a meeting Thursday on immigration legislation, McCain and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) got into a shouting match when Cornyn started voicing concerns about the number of judicial appeals that illegal immigrants could receive, according to multiple sources -- both Democrats and Republicans -- who heard firsthand accounts of the exchange from lawmakers who were in the room.

At a bipartisan gathering in an ornate meeting room just off the Senate floor, McCain complained that Cornyn was raising petty objections to a compromise plan being worked out between Senate Republicans and Democrats and the White House. He used a curse word associated with chickens and accused Cornyn of raising the issue just to torpedo a deal.

Things got really heated when Cornyn accused McCain of being too busy campaigning for president to take part in the negotiations, which have gone on for months behind closed doors. "Wait a second here," Cornyn said to McCain. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line."

McCain, a former Navy pilot, then used language more accustomed to sailors (not to mention the current vice president, who made news a few years back after a verbal encounter with Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont).

"[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room," shouted McCain at Cornyn. McCain helped craft a bill in 2006 that passed the Senate but couldn't be compromised with a House bill that was much tougher on illegal immigrants.

Cornyn's office declined to comment on the incident. McCain's camp specifically denied that the senator ever claimed to know more about the immigration issue than other senators, but acknowledged that the two Republicans had quite a disagreement.

"These negotiations can be very tense, and there was a spirited exchange. That's it," said Brian Jones, spokesman for McCain's presidential campaign.

McCain's aides have acknowledged that the senator hasn't been as active in the Senate this year as he's been out campaigning. As Capitol Briefing noted Thursday, McCain hasn't cast a vote in more than five weeks now.

But Jones said McCain's staff has been deeply involved in the immigration talks.

Ultimately, a deal was crafted and, as McCain suspected, Cornyn did not join in on the final agreement.

By early Thursday afternoon, McCain joined nine other senators and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez at a Capitol press conference announcing the deal.

After making a few comments, McCain left the Capitol to head to New York for presidential campaign events. Later that day, McCain missed his 43rd straight vote, this on the $2.9 trillion budget outline.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol- ... wdown.html

Yes, I remember him doing that!!!

Remember when he was asked what we should do about Iran----and he started singing........

bomb bomb bomb----bomb bomb Iran!!! (Barbara Ann, Beach Boys)