Wow, McCain’s recent decision to go negative on Obama is starting to backfire on him in a big way! Almost every major newspaper today carries an article detailing some aspect of McCain’s long list of character flaws that make him unfit to be President. Here’s a sampling:
The Washington Post has an article examining McCain’s long history as an adulterer and philanderer.
The Separate Peace of John And Carol
This details how McCain met a glamorous young heiress named Cindy Lou Hensley at a cocktail reception in Hawaii in 1979.
McCain spent months flying from Washington to Arizona pursuing this new relationship. Soon, the 43-year-old naval attache and his 25-year-old sweetheart were engaged.
There was only one complication: McCain was still married.
Carol Shepp McCain, then 42, had endured much in more than 14 years of marriage to John. She had raised their three young children alone while her husband languished in a North Vietnamese prison camp for 5 1/2 years. Her tribulations grew immeasurably after a near-fatal car accident that immobilized her for months and left her scarred for life. Despite their reunion and physical rehabilitation, by the late 1970s the McCains' marriage had begun to crack, as John engaged in what he later termed "dalliances" with other women.
Now it was being torn apart by his relationship with Cindy Hensley.
It goes on to say that he and Cindy received a marriage license in Maricopa County, Ariz., in early March 1980, four weeks before his divorce from Carol was final. John and Cindy were wed six weeks later, on May 17.
Now, I'm no expert, but isn't bigamy a felony, even if only for a month? But that's really the least of his sins.
Continuing on the same theme, the NY Times published this article earlier this year about McCain’s suspect relationship with attractive lobbyist Vicki Iseman during his 2000 campaign:
For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk
We don’t know what McCain and Vicki did or did not do in private, but it’s clear he displayed very questionable ethics in many ways throughout this affair – McCain was flying all over the place with this sexy telecom lobbyist, in her bosses' plane, and writing letters on her bosses' behalf . So this is about more than a possible extra-marital affair (which for McCain would not be news) – this is about ethics, abuse of power, lobbyists, political favors – all the things McCain claims to be against.
The longest and the most comprehensive article is a 10-pager in Rolling Stone magazine titled
Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty
Yes, this is a long read, but a fascinating one. It puts the life of McCain under the microscope and it's not a pretty picture. As it says:
This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.
It's worth the read, but just in case you don't make it thru, here's the end:
But perhaps the most revealing of McCain's flip-flops was his promise, made at the beginning of the year, that he would "raise the level of political dialogue in America." McCain pledged he would "treat my opponents with respect and demand that they treat me with respect." Instead, with Rove protégé Steve Schmidt at the helm, McCain has turned the campaign into a torrent of debasing negativity, misrepresenting Barack Obama's positions on everything from sex education for kindergarteners to middle-class taxes. In September, in one of his most blatant embraces of Rove-like tactics, McCain hired Tucker Eskew — one of Rove's campaign operatives who smeared the senator and his family during the 2000 campaign in South Carolina.
"Always telling the truth in a political campaign," McCain writes in Worth the Fighting For, "is a great test of character." He adds: "Patriotism that only serves and never risks one's self-interest isn't patriotism at all. It's selfishness. That's a lesson worth relearning from time to time." It's a lesson, it would appear, that the candidate himself could stand to relearn.
"I'm sure John McCain loves his country," says Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar under Bush. "But loving your country and lying to the American people are apparently not inconsistent in his view."
Meantime, the LA Times takes a closer look at McCain’s flying record
Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator
John McCain crashed 3 planes even before Vietnam - 2 were destroyed, and in the third, flying dangerously low over southern Spain (yes! That terrorist nation whose President he won’t sit down with!!) damaged his plane and cut power lines, causing a blackout in the area.
"Three mishaps are unusual," said Michael L. Barr, a former Air Force pilot with 137 (!) combat missions in Vietnam and an internationally known aviation safety expert who teaches in USC's Aviation Safety and Security Program. "After the third accident, you would say: Is there a trend here in terms of his flying skills and his judgment?"
Just for comparison, McCain flew 23 missions in Vietnam for a total of roughly 20 hours in combat. A Vietnam war veterans website points out that McCain was awarded 28 assorted awards for those 20 combat hours, compared to about 7000 hours for an average soldier on the ground.
Even Conservatives question McCain’s attack strategy, including conservative columnist David Brooks and GOP Strategist Mike Murphy. Chris Wallace on Fix News, too, questioned whether the McCain camp was doing the right thing in an interview with Joe “Turncoat” Lieberman.
In response, the Obama campaign is stepping up its own attacks, but is so far staying away from personal attacks and focusing on McCain’s policies and history on issues which are relevant to Americans today. For instance, it released a 13-minute video detailing McCain’s involvement and Senate censure in the “Keating 5” savings-and-loan scandal, a situation that bears an uncanny resemblance to the current investment bank bailout. Here’s a 30-second trailer.
In this video, William Black, former deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., states, "Fraud is the creation of trust and its betrayal. The 'Keating 5' involved all the things that have brought the modern crisis. Sen. McCain has not learned the lessons, and has continued to follow policies that are going to produce a disaster."
UPDATE: McCain now denies his wrongdoing in the Keating affair after admitting it for 20 years. In the campaign in which he has already lost his honor and credibility, McCain is too much of a coward to stand up and accept responsibility for his past words and actions.
Obama said “Senator McCain and his operatives think they can distract you with smears. I cannot imagine anything more important to talk about than the economic crisis. And the notion that we’d want to brush that aside and engage in the usual political shenanigans and scare tactics that have come to characterize too many political campaigns, I think is not what the American people are looking for.”
But if McCain/Palin continue with the smears and the lies, Obama hinted they would respond strongly. "One of the things we've done during this campaign: We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last," Obama said.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment