McCain/Palin

Who cares about McCain’s VP pick when people can’t even support McCain himself? If actions speak louder than words (or lofty speeches), let's take a closer look at the Real McCains:

Like Bush’s popularity because of 9-11, and chance rather than merit, John McCain’s constant reliance on his POW background to gain political power is a mistake for many reasons. But what people may not know is McCain’s flip-flop in regard to torture was a bigger mistake.

“In all the discussion of John McCain's recently recovered memory of a religious epiphany in Vietnam, one thing has been missing. The torture that was deployed against McCain emerges in all the various accounts. It involved sleep deprivation, the withholding of medical treatment, stress positions, long-time standing, and beating. Sound familiar?

According to the Bush administration's definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.”
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/was-mccain-tort.html

JOHN MCCAIN this week had a choice between his principles and propping up a failed president. He chose the latter - McCain drops the torture ball - http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/16/mccain_drops_the_torture_ball/

And what of McCain’s first wife Carol? Many don’t know the history of “The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind” His infidelities put strain on his first marriage, and he was divorced from Carol McCain, his wife of 15 years, in 1980. He married Cindy a month later.

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.’

Ross Perot: ‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said. ‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’ -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html


And we continue with the rest of the history. John McCain is no more moral than John Edwards, and Cindy makes a $300 hair cut look like nothing. Who is Cindy McCain? Aside from their 7, or is it 11 properties, Cindy is known to spend as much as $7,000 in one month on just one American Express card. So they are rich, out-of-touch Republicans. What’s new? The real story of interest goes a little farther back.

“In 1989, following two back surgeries, Cindy McCain became addicted to the painkillers Vicodin and Percocet. To keep up with her daily need of 10 to 15 pills, she used other people's names for prescriptions and stole drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a mobile surgical unit she'd begun in 1988 to provide emergency medical services around the world. A 1993 DEA audit of the amount of painkillers her charity had obtained quickly uncovered her thefts.” -
http://www.snopes.com/politics/mccain/cindy.asp

Her addiction isn’t the big story, but rather how John McCain tried to cover-up the illegal activity with his political power. And if that’s not enough skeletons in the closet to worry about, in trying to link Obama with Rezko, McCain has re-opened the door to yet another scandal in his past.

“The problem with this attack? Aside from being thoroughly misleading -- Obama has not been seriously alleged to have done anything unethical in his interactions with Rezko -- this ad is a serious strategic blunder by the McCain campaign. Why? It blows wide open the door to talk about McCain's all-too-close relationship with Charles Keating and well reported on though somewhat forgotten charter membership in the so-called "Keating Five."

…In the end, the crash of Keating's savings and loan -- which had been shielded by some of his best friends in the United States Senate -- cost billions to the American taxpayer, as mentioned above, and all told the federal government ended up on the hook for close to $125 billion in the fallout of the crisis that befell the underregulated industry in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Does McCain really want to have to talk about all of this? About the Bahaman vacations he took paid for by Keating? Probably not. But he may soon have to as a result of the shortsightedness of his campaign advisors. Nice move team McCain!” -
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/8/21/185928/267

Conservatives claim morals (e.g., infidelity) are just as important as committing a crime (e.g., perjury--no, I’m referring to Scooter Libby). But once again we see the hypocrisy as Republicans choose another candidate with questionable character.

The way a candidate manages his/her campaign is a first indication of how they’ll run the country. McCain has been all over the place with promises and positions, and rather than take the high road, he quickly reverted to the Rovian tactics that were used against him in 2000. He can’t get people to a rally or the convention, and if it wasn’t for the RNC and Big Business, he wouldn’t have any funds either. It also is said that the VP pick is the first example of presidential judgment for a candidate. McCain’s selection of a woman is only historical for the Republican Party. All this does is remind people how backward the RNC is. But was this the best decision McCain could have made?

A most disturbing thing about John Edward’s recent behavior was that he was unfaithful while his wife was fighting breast cancer. Conservatives, including right-wing women, have always hated Hillary because she wanted to pursue a career in law rather than serve “tea and cookies.” Here we have Sarah Palin, who is praised for being a mother of five, including a baby with Down Syndrome. Where are those fundamentalists now when this woman is choosing to pursue fame and fortune instead of putting “family values” first?

Moose meat versus arugula is the least of our worries. She is anti-science. She does not believe in evolution, or climate change, or development of natural gas and other clean fuels, and most of all she does not believe in women’s rights. There is a reason the prior presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham is not, and probably never will run for President -- the Terri Schiavo intervention. That’s when Americans woke up to the fact that religious radicals had taken over the Republican Party. Palin would shake things up all right, she’d help take this country back to the Dark Ages (you know, when McCain was born), with invasion of privacy and lack of respect for individual rights. Since Palin has a background in talk radio (A.K.A. “hate” radio), it’s not surprising to see some folks basing their support on Rush Limbaugh’s opinion.

And let’s not forget why we’ve had to endure the tyranny of Cheney all these years. Cheney made it clear he had no intention of running for POTUS. This automatically made him unaccountable. If McCain intends to serve for only one term, or if Palin is just a temporary gimmick for the upcoming 2008 election (I doubt the RNC will want her to be the frontrunner in the future), we would be in for more of the same.

But most of all, after eight miserable years of Bush/Cheney, our country wants to move forward, not backward. It has been my hope that this time Americans would place the bar a little higher in regard to qualifications for the most important jobs in our country, and in the world. Like Bush with his C-grade average and business failures, neither McCain nor Palin have very impressive credentials from education to career achievements outside politics. If experience is what counts, where is it? The Bush administration has been copying Obama’s foreign policy positions for a reason. This duo makes Obama look like John Adams.

In the meantime “my friends,” not only has McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time, let’s not forget that McCain is to the right of Bush in regard to war-mongering. We’ll have to get out the old bumper stickers: “Four More Wars!” and “Drop McCain Not Bombs”

So go ahead Republicans, tow the Party line like you always do. Hold your nose and vote for McCain/Palin (or should we say vote against Obama), even though it’s not in your best interest or putting our country first.