<p>It’s because he purposely inflames religious tensions. It’s one thing to claim the truth of one’s own doctrine; it’s quite another to say, not only that the Catholic Church is wrong, not even that it is the “Whore of Babylon”, but to indict millions of Americans as “in thrall” to what he would consider to be a “foreign” power.</p>
<p>This kind of tripe should have disappeared 70 years ago. To me, what Wright said, in context, is angelic compared to what comes out of the mouth of this guy.</p>
<p>Of course, you’re entitled to your opinion of the matter regarding the Swift Vets. The incidents are disputed by sworn testimony and there will be no resolution of the issues argued. Kerry lost the election and that’s history.</p>
<p>McCain was not a witness to the Swift Vets events. He appears to simply dislike the heated nature of the attack.</p>
<p>The nastiness exhibited in the 2004 election and elsewhere likely started with the “borking” of Robert Bork in 1987 by Senator Kennedy.</p>
<p>“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government.” TV ads narrated by Gregory Peck attacked Bork as an extremist. </p>
<p>It is now fair to viciously attack the other side with smears, half-truths and whatever it takes to win. Rather than allow the other side to have their turn at the helm, our political parties now want to utterly destroy those with whom they disagree. I greatly dislike the process and the win at all costs attitudes. The historic “smoke filled rooms” where Democrats and Republicans created agreements through comity and compromise may not have been so bad after all. </p>
<p>It will get a lot more “snippery” before November. :eek:</p>
<p>Oh…I like the Gang of 14 who have for now put a stop to borkings in the Senate. :)</p>
<p>“Of course, you’re entitled to your opinion of the matter regarding the Swift Vets.”</p>
<p>Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts. If you do a little independent reading, you’ll find that the people who actually had the facts sided with Kerry (I’m talking in particular about his service and his medals). Those who didn’t like his position on the war and his post-war statements were entitled to their opinions on that, but they weren’t entitled to spread lies about him. As McCain said, “I condemn the [SBVT] ad. It is dishonest and dishonorable. I think it is very, very wrong.”
So in honor of McCain’s integrity with regard to that controversy, I’ll reserve judgment on whether he called his current wife a bad name. I think he acted shamefully with respect to his first wife, of course, but that’s a different matter.</p>
<p>I actually mark it as starting with Willie Horton against Dukakis – even while acknowledging that that was Gore, not Bush I, that first used Horton. But Lee Atwater was relentlessly aggressive. And when Clinton used some of the same tactics against Bush I in 1992, Bush said, stupefied, that he couldn’t believe how mean campaigning had gotten. In fact, his side had used it profligately.</p>
<p>I like McCain. He seems to have real character. His likeability on a lot of levels, though, has gotten him a free pass both on his politics and on his character. With respect to the issues very broadly defined as character: he doesn’t know the Middle East and foreign affairs and what to do there (as evidenced by his repeated misstatements) even though it’s claimed that experience and judgement are his long suits; he himself acknowledges his temper, and if he’s elected, trust me on this one (I know, why would you?), this will damage his presidency quickly and irrevocably; he’s not as pure as he claims from political dirtiness and he’s not as moderate as he claims.</p>
<p>I read through some of the Swift Vets affidavits before responding. Each soldier in combat or under stress sees things differently (the fog of war, so to speak). </p>
<p>None appear to have a commanding version of the truth, thus the remaining dispute. The historic records seem to comport with Kerry’s version, but there are strong statements to challenge those records by people who were on site.</p>
<p>There appears to be insufficient evidence to remove Kerry’s awards, but he may not have received them had all arguments been made known at the time. Of course, some of that has to do with Kerry’s actions as an anti-war activist and his subsequent inflammatory statements. Many times people allow events to occur because they don’t have a dog in that fight.</p>
<p>“there are strong statements to challenge those records by people who were on site”</p>
<p>No, there aren’t. All the people who were actually on site said that Kerry deserved his medals. Even the one member of the Swift Boats for Truth who was actually on site said that Kerry deserved his Silver Star. No other member of the group was on site at any of the times in question. You could look it up.</p>
<p>I would suggest the statements on the videos constitute strong statements, especially when coupled with the affidavits from the men that dispute Kerry’s version of events that are available.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that Kerry may not have released his full set of military records, even to today. Perhaps many issues could be resolved if Kerry releases all the records.</p>
<p>Actually, they attack his veracity about physically being in Cambodia on Christmas, 1968 and another event, but perhaps this is enough to make the point.</p>
<p>Do some reading that’s not on the swiftvets site, and you’ll understand better how they fudge the facts. They challenge his veracity, but the people who were actually there don’t.</p>
<p>This is of little moment. I read through the Annenberg Fact Check Site and there remains a dispute among those veterans. </p>
<p>Unless you have some compelling information I will continue to resolve this set of issues as unresolved. It is a political issue that will probably always haunt Kerry.</p>
<p>P2N, they lost me with “They’re the men who served with Kerry in Viet Nam…” That’s not a “My father marched with Martin Luther King” misstatement, or an “I was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve” misstatement. It’s a basic, knowing, fraudulent misrepresentation about the source of your authority, stated for the express purpose of misleading people about the reliability of one’s statements.</p>
<p>The men who actually did serve “with” Kerry on his boat in Viet Nam, with a sole exception, all supported him and defended him against the post-hoc confabulations of the politically inspired and bitter men who did not, in fact, “serve with” Kerry in Viet Nam. The men who actually did “serve with” Kerry were smeared along with him by the Swifties. It’s to McCain’s credit that he could see that, even if you guys can’t.</p>
<p>The “Swift Boat Veterans” are a sorry group of weak and self-righteous men who have been sordidly and cynically used by political operatives of the right wing. I have a lot more respect for the likes of Jim Rassmann, a Republican sheriff’s deputy who stated at the time that John Kerry saved his life at the risk of his own than I do for some opportunistic prig who conveniently “remembers” factoids thirty years later which can be used to harm someone he has political issues with. The Swifties smeared Rassmann right along with Kerry. Why should they care? They were being feted and brown-nosed by the right wing so hard it’s a miracle they didn’t explode. And none of them had the personal integrity to stand up and say "hold on a minute, guys - are we really being honest here? The Swift Boat Veterans had all the personal integrity and character of a lynch mob.</p>
<p>If you had visited the Swifties website back in 2004 (as I did) you would have noted that provably false claims were being floated on a regular basis there, but if too strong evidence came up to refute it the site operators moved in to shut it down, erase all record of the claims, and to warn off the eager confabulators from those claims, and tell them to move on to vaguer ones. All they had left was stuff which was demonstrably false to a fair observer, but lacking iron-clad DNA-level evidence of its falsehood. Interesting question for you, P2N - can you point to a single bit of contemporaneous evidence in support of the Swifties claims? Not some convenient, thirty-year-after-the-fact “memory” but something that was memorialized back in the 60’s? Because Kerry’s side of the story has it in abundance. What does that tell you?</p>
<p>Seriously, if you can’t recognize and acknowledge the essentially base motivation and conduct of the Swifties, you haven’t come to grips with the sophistication and determination of the propagandists of the right wing.</p>
<p>The Swift Boat Vets was a piece of garbage thrown out, and now all these Republicans are trying to beg Obama to run a nice campaign. After the right-wing shrill outrage (mostly unfounded) over Wright, it’s off the table. The people who run campaigns for the Republicans are near the bottm of the heap of society.</p>
<p>I am trying to be even-handed in my review of the Swift Vets and the Democrat’s perception of them and I am also rapidly losing interest in rehashing history. </p>
<p>They have some claims that still stand up and some that fell apart. Kerry made some terrible public statements and he has a lot of political enemies who will never go away. </p>
<p>The Viet Nam War is over. I lived through that period and remember plenty of the attitudes that were present. Those sentiments contaminate politics today. Obama seems to have transcended them to some extent, but he’s not been examined yet. My hope for the Democrats are the Blue Dogs.</p>
<p>But you weren’t even-handed at all. All you did was quote the Swift Vets own site, and you didn’t even look at even-handed treatments of the issue (which I did). False claims only stand up if people accept them uncritically.
So to bring it back to topic, if three Arizona journalists did hear McCain insult his wife, they should step up and say so.</p>
<p>Yes, he’s in fact only human. So let’s judge him not on media-created image of heroism or goodness, but let’s look at what he actually stands for. For me, permanent tax cuts for the rich, 100 years of war, extremely anti-choice on the issue of abortion. Someone who has bartered whatever integrity he may have had in order to get the Republican nomination (by kowtowing to the Pat Robertson faction of the Republican party). This is what he stands for for me. And he’s not really that good; he keeps mixing up Sunnis and Shi’ites in a region where we need crystal clear, new thinking, not knee-jerk decision-making.</p>
<p>Actually, the story with his first wife is even worse than the excerpt above suggests. While he was a POW, his wife was seriously injured in a car accident. When he returned, she was physically impaired, and had gained a lot of weight. Did he stick by her despite this? No, he didn’t. He admits now that he acted wrongly.</p>
<p>I have this vague recollection that McCain’s first wife was married to his best friend and that McCain had promised to take care of her and the two children from that marriage if anything happened to the friend?(I seem to remember this from the 2000 campaign, when she and her children supported him…someone help me out?)</p>
<p>I’d rather not hold him to a rash youthful romantic oath but rather note that to this day those kids are HIS kids. I’d say that his friend would be happy enough.</p>
<p>“Oops, shouldn’t have blown what turns out to be one of my life’s major character tests – especially now that I’m in the public eye.”</p>
<p>Look, people should be able to move beyond this, I agree, but since the title of this thread is “On McCain’s Character,” we may as well be getting the full picture. I agree with the biblical dictum “take the plank out of your own eye before criticizing the mote in another’s,” but this demonstrates that while McCain has some really admirable and likeable traits, he’s also been a self-serving king a**hole and sleazebag at other times.</p>
<p>So now we can move beyond that kind of talk and get to substance.</p>
<p>McCain’s 1st wife had the accident on the same day he became a POW. He never knew of it until he came back.</p>
<p>His 1st wife harbors no ill to him, and his adopted children (hers still call him Dad and is on the trail with him) —unlike both of Guiliani’s kids.</p>
<p>I am a military wife, I can totally get how the marriage failed…Let’s look at it rationally.</p>
<p>Your husband spends 5 yrs of being torture living in a box that you can’t even stand in. You live 5 yrs in therapy wondering if he will ever come home. He comes home a different man and you are definetely a different woman (single mom with a disability will change you) They were newlyweds when he left, it is unrealistic to believe that this was an easy decision.</p>
<p>Did he drink and have affairs? Yes, but you know what I can understand it? Can you imagine what he had to live day in and day out?</p>
<p>Many couples in the military are forced with 1 yr deployments or remotes, when they come back it is hard to assimilate back into a marriage. I have many friends who actually had to go into marriage counseling. The husband comes home and wants to be Dad, Mom has been both and the kids run to Mom, Dad gets mad and fights with Mom that she is not supporting him. This is the typical situation, that does not place in the factor of emotional issues and nightmares from being a POW or their wife.</p>
<p>As far as Cindy is concerned, she openly admitted her problems and they dealt with them, never was there a conflict of issue.</p>
<p>Keating 5 was addressed and cleared.</p>
<p>His temper has always been an issue, but then again I hear that Hil and Bill have an infamous one too</p>
<p>“I have this vague recollection that McCain’s first wife was married to his best friend and that McCain had promised to take care of her and the two children from that marriage if anything happened to the friend?(I seem to remember this from the 2000 campaign, when she and her children supported him…someone help me out?)”</p>
<p>I don’t know about the best friend part, but his first wife did have two children from a previous marriage, who McCain adopted. They then had a daughter of their own. I don’t think you can chalk his first marriage up to a rash romantic oath.</p>