Episode 53: Them

"I know how to win wars
-John McCain, July 15, 2008

**************************
The Odd(est) Couple

There they were, on a stage in Pennsylvania after their convention, looking like a really bad date the day after the computers crashed at eHarmony.com.

***************************

YouTube Alert

Some measure of hypocrisy creeps into the words and actions of nearly all politicians, but Republicans have made it an art form. Check out www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086, sent along by friend Kellie as evidence of conservative versions of truth-telling.

Hookers & Blow: When asked to tone down their celebrations in light of the hurricanes approaching the Gulf Coast, the compassionate conservatives at their convention certainly tried. Not.

Check out www.youtube.com/watchv=nWerT-e08I&feature=related.

**********************************************************

What We Know About Him

(Note: Unlike the vicious daily rondelay of lies and distortions emanating from the McCain camp, the statements of fact recounted below have been triple-checked for accuracy and context.)

* He's rich. But not due to his own entrepreneurship or business acumen. He married an heiress.

* He's had cancer four times and he's old. He could drop dead giving his inaugural address, making reality of a nightmare, given his V.P. choice.

* He graduated fifth from the bottom of his class of 899 cadets at the Naval Academy. He got in because he was a legacy, the son and grandson of two admirals. He has no advanced degrees.

* Before he ever got to Southeast Asia, he crashed three planes - at Pensacola, on duty over Spain, and near Philadelphia while flying to an Army-Navy game. His shipboard nickname of "Ace" was not a compliment.

* He intends to appoint Supreme Court Justices in the mold of Scalia, Alioto, and Thomas.

* Although avowedly opposed to torture, he voted against a bill to ban waterboarding.

* Has supported the war of choice in Iraq from the beginning.

* Doesn't know the difference between Shites and Sunnis.

* Favors making permanent the Bush tax cuts, which overwhelmingly profit the rich. Lies that Obama proposals would tax middle-income families.

* Voted against the children's healthcare bill.

* Admits he doesn't know much about economics at a time when the economy is the leading issue of concern to voters.

*Was one of the Keating Five. Received $112,000 in political contributions from Charles Keating, later a convicted felon, in addition to accepting three free stays at the crook's Bahamas spa and nine free flights on Keating's private jet. Censured by the Senate.

* Puts himself forward as the man to lead the nation on into the 21st Century but doesn't know how to get on the Internet or send an e-mail.

* With somewhere between four to eleven houses, he has suggested that people facing foreclosure get second jobs and skip their vacations.

* After his return from Vietnam in 1973, he embarked on a series of affairs that lasted until he met Cindy Hensley, a former cheerleader 17 years his junior. Given his brutal treatment at the hands of the Vietnamese, his desire to make up for lost time is understandable, at least for most honest men. But the rest of us aren't running for president from the family values party.

* After Obama criticized McCain for not supporting a bill to increase college tuition benefits for veterans, McCain angrily countered, "I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lecture on my regard for those who did." An obvious response is that most people would prefer to pursue other options in life, including those named Bush, Cheney, Rove, and, come to think of it, his gun-toting running mate.

*Given his family history, McCain was all but pre-destined for a naval career. But there is nothing inherently noble about military service. It has been fairly said that there are four major reasons to enlist: Because it's the family trade. Out of deeply felt patriotism. Simply needing a job. And, for the opportunity to kill people.

* McCain was a bomber pilot. He voluntarily entered an arm of the service that carries with it the moral burden of knowing that one's actions will result almost certainly in the deaths of innocents.

* War hero? Americans of all ideological persuasions have accepted that claim as if it had been injected into a vein, and few dare challenge it. McCain was shot down, possibly in part due to his own incompetence as a pilot. He was taken prisoner and subjected to mistreatment that was all but intolerable, by his own accounts and those of others. He admits he sought relief and medical care by offering to provide the military information his captors sought. Whom among us would not, nor contemplate suicide, as he did.

Heroism is a choice - the soldier covering a grenade with his body to spare his friends, a firefighter entering a burning building when everyone else is fleeing.

McCain was a prisoner. He lived. There was no choice. There was only hope. McCain was a survivor. Heroism had nothing to do with it.

* Suffering is not a qualification for the highest office in the country. For McCain to demand compensation for his, as he implicitly did in his near-lachrymose recounting of his P.O.W. years in his nomination acceptance speech, is reprehensible. He has been hardly reluctant to play the poor-me card throughout his campaign:

*In response to criticisms about the McCains' seven houses, his spokesperson angrily replied: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years - in prison." Asked about high milk prices: "This is a guy who didn't have the luxury of milk for five and a half years." Queried about the need for alternative energy sources: "This is a guy who lived in the dark for five and a half years - in prison, with no light bulbs."

* His prison experience ended 35 years ago, but McCain continues to live in the past. When old soldiers and older politicians start talking about "honor", the rational response is to check your wallet and your kids and slowly back away. McCain bellows about "victory with honor" in Iraq. He fails to define what exactly he means by "victory", but can we escape the feeling that he envisions a full-dress ceremony on a battleship in the Persian Gulf with Osama bin Laden handing over his grenade launcher and signing twelve copies of an unconditional surrender?

He wants to re-do Vietnam. It's too late.

McCain is so far over the hill he can't see tomorrow.

***********************************************************

Next Up: What We Know (So Far) About Her

***********************************************************