John McCain is a hero for his defiant resistance of his captors as a prisoner of war, and for enduring the torture that Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and their despicable crowd of lawyers think is OK to inflict on prisoners we have taken. But wartime heroism does not automatically bestow good judgment in foreign affairs, nor actually in anything else. We need only look at Duke Cunningham, the flying ace war hero to see that. He's serving prison time for sullying his office as a Congressman by accepting bribes totalling millions.
John McCain's visit to Baghdad last year is illustrative. McCain and his side kick, Lindsay Graham, came back with stories of shopping in a street market as proof of how much "progress" had been made in reducing violence in Iraq. Graham sounded like a tourist, gushing about his purchase of rugs there.
Now, these guys were driven to that market in armored Humvees in a military convoy and were accompanied by the top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus. As they shopped and sipped tea with the locals, both men and their two Republican colleagues wore body armor and were guarded by heavily armed soldiers. The same month that McCain and his cohorts were shopping in Baghdad, almost 1,900 Iraqi civilians and 200 Iraqi policemen and soldiers were killed. The US military lost 85 soldiers.
I give John McCain great credit for his wartime heroism, but at the same time, I recognize that being a prisoner of war does not translate into foreign policy expertise (nor, for that matter, does being a fighter pilot). McCain is easily the most palatable of the Republican candidates, but he's getting an undeserved break on his foreign affairs expertise.
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Comments: 19
For awhile, I thought he was a straight shooter in Congress...opposing Bush and Co. on campaign finance reform and on torturing of prisoners. He was even pro-choice back in his good old days.
But now he cozys up to the Religious Right, is fanatically anti-women's choice, turns his head on waterboarding...the man wants to be President so badly he will compromise any principles to get votes.
Today I read that he is proposing 'suspension' of gasoline taxes. The Republican Right Wing has never seen a tax cut they don't like. Meanwhile our deficit grows and grows. Trouble is, most people don't care about the deficit But lower gas prices...YEAH! The Bushes have based their whole political careers on cutting taxes and letting deficits balloon. Our children and theirs will pay for this. I cannot imagine what the American people are thinking, but I am afraid they will eat this up and vote for him in droves.
"the man wants to be President so badly he will compromise any principles to get votes"
The same can be said about Obammy. He has already told so many lies I don't see how he keeps them straight. I watched him struggle through the debate tonight. He side stepped most of the questions.
You want the real picture, check out his voting record. It sucks. Besides which he has missed voting 130 times.
The discussion here is about McCain. Do you have anything to add to it?
Start your own article on Obama if you like.
Go here and check Obama's record. http://obama.senate.gov/votes/
He missed 70 votes in three months from 4-18-07 - 8- 2-7.
As for listing his lies, why bother, you bammyites wouldn't believe it anyway.
There have been a ton of articles here on Gather that are critical of Obama and Clinton.
McCain has been getting a free ride, and it's time somebody looked at his record...and his credentials.