Nobody has denied that his valor in captivity offers insight into his character. But so far almost nobody has asked the most important question about McCain's military experience, which is how his past might influence his future as president.
The most pertinent issue is not what McCain did or didn't do during the war in Vietnam, but what he learned from that searing, incredibly bloody and wholly unnecessary failure of U.S. policy. Clearly he learned that torture is morally wrong, illegal and counterproductive, and he has spoken with great moral authority on that issue. But listening to him now and over the past decade or so, he also seems not to have learned why that war itself was a tragic mistake -- and why we needed to leave Vietnam long before we did.
Indeed, what is most striking about McCain's attitude toward Vietnam is his insistence that we could have won -- that we should have won -- with more bombs and more casualties.
[snip]
And it is hard to imagine why voters would elect a president who still believes that 60,000 American dead and more than 300,000 wounded in Vietnam were not quite enough.
Fireblazes(CheetohsandCatfood)
· 1 year ago
People are so shallow and uninformed that they like him because he was a soldier, he was a prisoner, he is "honest". In this crazy war-like atmosphere we have created troop worship is rewarded and expected of us all. That gives the mean SOB McCain a leg up.
Õ¿Õ
· 1 year ago
Yeah, we really have been turned into a martial society over the last 50 years, especially the last 8 and it doesn't bode well. The wingnuts act like our military is like a tribal preemptive war party to send out to kill enough of the other tribe over the hills so they don't come and attack us. It's really beyond stupid.
maggiePA08
· 1 year ago
Unless you are John Kerry.
Fireblazes(CheetohsandCatfood)
· 1 year ago
True, but he was not conforming to the "ideal" of a true "troop". He was questioning their ideals and that made him an easy target. It all goes back to people being not very informed. The emotional dirty gossip always beats the reasoned, logical truth.
lynchie
· 1 year ago
I think the bench mark has been set by Chimpy. When you have no talent, no gray matter, no cognitive ability, but the support of your Daddies friends you can be President for 8 years. Same goes for McCriminal, what has he actually done in his life? His Dad and Granddad got him through Naval Academy, he crashed 4 planes, got shot down over Vietnam and came back a hero which he turned into a lifetime as Senator. Beyond being at the public trough his whole life what has he actually done. Keating Five? Flip Flopped on dozens of issues? Turned his back on the Troops by voting against the Educational Bill for Troops? Lied about the war in Iraq? Said absolutely anything to win the Presidency including applying tongue to Bush's tea bag? Yeah, he has done all that and more.
Õ¿Õ
· 1 year ago
I try to avoid poetry because it always seems to increase my natural melancholy. I understand exactly what this writer means because of that, though. Some people adore that feeling. It does feel really nice sometimes but too much, I don't know.
I like the following poem I remember reading in high school. I copied and pasted it on another blog but the author's name wasn't included. Then I got accused of trying to claim it as mine. It's such a well known poem, I didn't bother responding.
There Will Come Soft Rains
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire, Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn Would scarcely know that we were gone.
-- Sara Teasdale
jr
· 1 year ago
Laura Flanders panel on Medicare for All HR 676 was really good on Grit TV
Gas is over $4.00 per gallon, food prices are going thru the roof, people are losing their homes and jobs, and Harry Reid tells us that "Coal makes us sick, Oil makes us sick", and does absolutely nothing to solve the problems. What a fool!
TheOriginalLiz
· 1 year ago
It's a passive, ineffective Harry Reid et al that's making me sick.
aquarius2
· 1 year ago
Hmmm, 7 1/2 years of Republican domination of the government which has led to $4.00 per gallon gas, high food prices, foreclosures on homes and month after month of job loss and you concentrate on a statement from Harry Reid???? For shame, I would think you would be apologizing for empowering the Republican masters you serve rather than downgrading a single person for being unable to magically reverse 7 1/2 years of downward spiral.
CDS2
· 1 year ago
Wrong again aquarius....I was concentrating on Reids and the rest of the Democrats lack of progress on anything !
aquarius2
· 1 year ago
No, I wasn't wrong. You have a lot of gall to be blaming Democrats for what is currently wrong in this country. Too bad you are so blind to what has happened under the Bush administration..
CDS2
· 1 year ago
I did not blame the Democrats for what has gone wrong. I blamed the Democrats for not doing anything to solve the problems. Please re-read my comment.
bluestockton
· 1 year ago
McPOW promises to make the Bush tax cuts permanent because "tax cuts pay for themselves." He also promises to cut spending by vetoing all earmarks.
If tax cuts pay for themselves, why does he have to cut spending? Won't there be more than enough money to pay for the earmarks?
All Comments
and all.
The most pertinent issue is not what McCain did or didn't do during the war in Vietnam, but what he learned from that searing, incredibly bloody and wholly unnecessary failure of U.S. policy. Clearly he learned that torture is morally wrong, illegal and counterproductive, and he has spoken with great moral authority on that issue. But listening to him now and over the past decade or so, he also seems not to have learned why that war itself was a tragic mistake -- and why we needed to leave Vietnam long before we did.
Indeed, what is most striking about McCain's attitude toward Vietnam is his insistence that we could have won -- that we should have won -- with more bombs and more casualties.
[snip]
And it is hard to imagine why voters would elect a president who still believes that 60,000 American dead and more than 300,000 wounded in Vietnam were not quite enough.
There Will Come Soft Rains
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
-- Sara Teasdale
SOYLENT GREEN IS STOOPID!!!
Dana Milbank, Washington Post
(video - please wait through the ad)
If tax cuts pay for themselves, why does he have to cut spending? Won't there be more than enough money to pay for the earmarks?