Thread: McCain feels hurt by 'traitor' placard (Boo Hoo)

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/pol ... ls_hu.html

By Scott Helman
Globe Staff

Senator John McCain of Arizona said today he is "guardedly optimistic" that the Senate's controversial immigration reform plan will pass Congress, but said he has been stunned by the personal attacks on him from conservatives angry about the bill.

"I'm still hopeful we can get it done," McCain said in a wide-ranging interview with reporters and editors at the The Boston Globe.

McCain, who acknowledges that his outspoken support for immigration reform is complicating his presidential campaign, relayed a story about attending a recent fund-raiser where protesters were standing outside holding signs that declared: "McCain -- traitor."

"I'm a pretty tough guy and I'm not asking for any sympathy," said McCain, a former Navy combat pilot who spent five years as a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down in Vietnam. But, he added, "You see something like that and you think, `Wow, what would make these women ... think I'm a traitor?"

He also said the ugly debate over immigration reflected the "deterioration of the political discourse in America today." "It disappoints me so much," he said, and repeated, "It disappoints me so much."

McCain said that several of his Senate colleagues had proposed "killer amendments" designed to scuttle the immigration plan altogether. The bill, which President Bush helped craft, failed to advance on a key Senate vote earlier this month, but leading Democratic and Republican lawmakers say they will bring the legislation back to the floor in the coming days.

One of the toughest amendments, McCain said, is one that would require illegal immigrants to return to their home country before applying for a "Z visa," which the bill would create to allow them to legally work in the United States.

McCain conceded that some of the proposed amendments had some merit, making them especially threatening to an delicate compromise easily derailed by a last-minute change.

"There's something to them," he said. "That's what makes this tough."

McCain said conservatives who want to focus exclusively on securing America's borders are missing a major part of the problem: that 40 percent of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States are here because they overstayed their visas, not because they sneaked across from Mexico.

McCain described how migrants and their families have died in the desert and been deceived by smugglers who promise to take them into America.

``It also has something to do with what kind of a nation we are," he said. "I don't know how you round up 12 million people. We don't have 12 million pairs of handcuffs, much less detention cells, etcetera."

McCain, who first ran for president in 2000, finds himself in a crowded Republican field this time around, a field that's only getting bigger. In addition to facing rivals such as Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, McCain is now facing a challenge from former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, a friend from the Senate and star of NBC's "Law & Order" who is poised to become the 11th Republican White House hopeful.

As he did in 2000, McCain has staked his candidacy in part on on his authenticity, often saying that it's more important to him to do what is right than to win an election. His support for immigration reform is hampering his outreach to conservatives, and his outspoken support for continuing the war in Iraq appears to be pushing independents away from him.

At the Globe McCain also talked at length about Iraq, reiterating his support for the president's plan to try to secure Baghdad with an additional 20,000 combat troops. He said none of the other proposed solutions for Iraq is a good one.

McCain said he "could not be more worried" about the prospect of peace between Palestinians and Israelis. He said that with fierce factional fighting among Palestinians, Iran's nuclear ambitions, and an emboldened Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite group, Israel is in greater danger now than it's been since its founding in 1947.

"McCain described how migrants and their families have died in the desert and been deceived by smugglers who promise to take them into America.

``It also has something to do with what kind of a nation we are," he said. "I don't know how you round up 12 million people. We don't have 12 million pairs of handcuffs, much less detention cells, etcetera." "

Isn't that pathetic? He thinks a deportation program requires arresting 12 million people all at once.

What's even more pathetic? The moron doesn't know there's 50 million illegal aliens in the United States counting their minor offspring, not 12 million.

Traitor. Moron. Clueless.

TMC Disease.

GET THESE PEOPLE OUT OUT OUT OF OUR GOVERNMENT!

It really gets under my skin when they pretend to not know why they are hated. I am kind of sick of it.



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`Wow, what would make these women ... think I'm a traitor?

Gee, I don't know, maybe it's because you support

MEXICAN LAWBREAKING INVADERS OVER

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!!!

He knew the job was dangerous when he took it.

Duplicate

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