As I mentioned before, I’m starting to read the McCain book that is the closest equivalent to the Obama book I was reading last week. And on the very first page, I ran across this. In fact, it’s the second paragraph in the preface:
I have spent much of my life choosing my own attitude, often carelessly, often for no better reason than to indulge a conceit. In those instances, my acts of self-determination were mistakes, some of which did no lasting harm, and serve now only to embarrass, and occasionally amuse, the old man who recalls them. Others I deeply regret.
One such indulgence of a conceit that he will regret is choosing Sarah Palin, because I believe that decision lost the election for him. It didn’t turn ME against him, but it did a lot of people.
I’ve struggled for words to explain the aspect of John McCain’s character that caused him, after his party rebelled over his preferred candidate (my man Joe) to choose Sarah Palin. I’ve used the term "fit of pique," but that didn’t describe it. In a recent column, I tried to explain it this way:
Second, as much as I admire and respect John McCain, and have for years, I was not enchanted by his choice. It was like, If I can’t have Joe Lieberman, I don’t care WHO it is; if this is what the base wants, they can have her. Which is not a good way to pick a potential future president.
But that didn’t quite state it either. But I think the above paragraph from his book did.
Choosing Joe Lieberman would have been an assertion of everything that is the best in John McCain. But when he couldn’t go with Joe (or decided he couldn’t, rightly or wrongly), he "chose an attitude" that was ironic, contrary, and spiteful toward his party. Or at least that was the way I interpreted it. He chose to say, "Is THIS what you want? Fine, take her."
Yes, it’s more complicated than that. There are things about Sarah Palin that John McCain liked — particularly the fact that she won election against her own party establishment. But there was always an unstated something that I felt MUST have been present for him to make such a decision.
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One such indulgence of a conceit that he will regret is choosing Sarah Palin, because I believe that decision lost the election for him. It didn’t turn ME against him, but it did a lot of people.
-Brad
Admit it Brad, absolutely nothing whatsoever would turn you against McCain or give you pause. That sentence is pretty un-necessary.
One such indulgence of a conceit that he will regret is choosing Sarah Palin, because I believe that decision lost the election for him. It didn’t turn ME against him, but it did a lot of people.
-Brad
Admit it Brad, absolutely nothing whatsoever would turn you against McCain or give you pause. That sentence is pretty un-necessary.
John McCain has a penchant for baubles. Cindy was a bauble. Sarah Palin was a bauble. Those fourteen cars and twelve houses were baubles.
To his credit, Barack Obama has one woman, one car and one house.
But there was always an unstated something that I felt MUST have been present for him to make such a decision.
Actually it has been stated and is called recklessness. He was reckless in his choice as he has been in other areas such as pandering to the likes of Hagee or singing about bombing Iran.
Your continued indulgence of all things mavericky reflects more of an ongoing man-crush than any substantive insight into the artist formerly known as the straight talker.
Quite a state we’ve come to, isn’t it? If you respect a man — and respect him for who he has shown himself to be over a period of years, far beyond the talking points of a day or even a whole campaign — that respect gets labeled with some trendy term intended to demean that respect.
Why do people in this country have so much trouble speaking respectfully to and about people with whom they disagree?
One thing I’m being reminded of reading this book is of a lost world in which I grew up, a world in which you deeply respected men who devoted their lives to the service of their country. And you did so despite such side issues as their personal habits — drinking, cursing, gambling and the like. And you certainly didn’t have a stroke over something like that “bomb-bomb Iran” thing.
Yeah, I know the world is different. But I don’t think that’s necessarily for the better.
I was reminded of the “bomb-Iran” thing that offended modern sensibilities so in the first few pages of this book. McCain’s grandfather was one of the top admirals in the Pacific war under Halsey. He commanded fast aircraft carriers in the thick of the fighting. In one three-month period late in the war, he was responsible for sinking 101 Japanese warships and 298 merchant ships, while losing just one of his destroyers. He was a man who wept when notified of men he had lost (maybe y’all would say he had a “man-crush” on them; I don’t know). But he also had a “wicked” sense of gallows humor. In the few days after the announcement that Hirohito was to surrender, some kamikazes kept attacking U.S. ships. Though the war was over, Admiral McCain gave the order to shoot down any approaching Japanese planes. “But do it in a friendly sort of way,” he added.
No, it’s not the same thing. But it did remind me.
Brad, you have shown a complete unwillingness to acknowledge the problems with McCain, his positions, and his campaign. McCain has clearly betrayed the ideals you have championed in your UnParty and has taken a dramatically different approach than that of his 2000 campaign yet you turn a blind eye. Take for example McCain’s repeated statement that Obama wants to lose a war to win an election.
Despite this, you offer an abundance of Wright and Ayers threads while McCain is hailed on this blog as the great non-partisan because of some canned statements in his acceptance speech which he clearly contradicted with statements like the lose the war characterization of Obama.
This reminds me of W’s response when asked to cite a mistake he made. After a long pause he shrugs his shoulders, oblivious or unwilling to acknowledge what was obvious to almost everyone else. Conservatives, republicans, independents offer harsh and realistic criticism of McCain’s tactics. When confronted with all this you shrug your shoulders.
It’s not a matter of respect and offering a view point. It’s a matter of fairness.
Brad, in a sense I admire your steadfast respect for McCain, that is, you’re judging him as a human being by his entire life, and not the direction he may have taken in recent months. I don’t think the world “in which you deeply respected men who devoted their lives to the service of their country” is gone at all. Respected as military leaders, that is. But that doesn’t necessarily equate into believing men able to be President. Eisenhower was one who made the transition. Patton or MacArthur, to name two examples, were two superior military commanders who no rational person would ever want in a position of civilian command, for obvious reasons of temperament. (sound familiar?) (Curtis LeMay, too, for you 60’s nostalgia buffs.)
Brad, even admirable men make egregious mistakes, wrong turns in their lives. It’s sad but understandable that McCain would have decided to heed the voices of the very people who savaged him in SC in 2000. I only hope that in these last 3 weeks, he comes to understand that what his campaign has become is not helping him, and that the way he conducts himself (and insists that his running mate conduct herself) will, win or lose, leave him with his reputation as a man of integrity more or less intact. For each person like you who prefers to overlook the appalling nature of McCain’s campaign, there is a former Gov. William Milliken of Michigan saying, this is not the John McCain of old, he’s disappeared behind the veil of Tucker Eskew and Steve Schmidt.
In other words, McCain is hemorraging admirers, never mind voters. And as for Palin, it didn’t turn you against him, and in fact as an Obama supporter, where once I was concerned, now I’m elated with his choice. She truly is the gift that keeps on giving!
Interesting. Everyone who has commented about McCain here, other than Brad, is an Obama-only supporter.
I don’t know that that means anything, but it might.
No — I hope there are enough people that now realize what Ann Coulter said early on in this whole election, has come to pass:
Socialists have become communists.
Democrats have become socialists.
Republicans have become Democrats.
That leaves only one option: vote a third party this year and voice your protest. This will in time hopefully draw the pendulum back to neutral. I think Ron Paul is the smartest man this side of the Pearly Gates, so I will probably wear a tinfoil hat for 4 years if that is what he says to do…
But…
I’m not as suicidal as I once was about the likelihood of a Barack Obama presidency. He seems like a sensible chap when he speaks in generalities, anyway.
The Dixiecrats will go ballistic over this though. I just hope you all are ready for it!
Brad, I do judge McCain for the totality of his life. It’s the diehard supporters who pick and choose what to believe about him. I find his service to country and the hardships he endured in Vietnam admirable. He chose to adopt a young girl of color and he paid a steep political price for that. And on many occassions he has reached across the aisle to work with Democrats on a variety of issues.
But the full measure of the man cannot be limited merely to those times of accomplishment. McCain’s shortcomings, IMHO, far outweigh his strengths. He’s demonstrated an irrational side that recently manifested itself in the horrible choice of Sarah Palin for VP. That is hardly an isolated incident. He has also shown himself to be quite self-centered. That manifested itself in his adulterous lifestyle and abandonment of his first wife for his current trophy wife. And he has failed the test of campaign sensibilities by adopting the disgusting campaign tactics used against him in 2000. Then there’s the judgement thing. Clearly anyone who could choose someone as demonstratively vile as Phil Gramm to head his economic team cannot be trusted to make sound decisions.
On balance McCain has far more negatives than positives. Is he a good man? Probably. Despite some regretable personal choices he seems decent enough. Does he have what it takes to be POTUS? Absolutely not. The choice of John McCain would be a disaster for this country on so many levels.
When the McCain campaign turned to fear and prejudice last week at that point I lost all respect for McCain. I realize McCain grew up in a all white america but I grew up in the segregated south. Can anyone remember the “colored waiting room” “whites only” “burnt crosses” “the orangeburg massacre”? I personally do no think McCain is a racist but when he throws out there that “Obama palls around with terrorist” and his supporters show up to events with a sock puppet monkey proudly displaying it , you have to wonder is he really putting country first ? Yesterday on CNN McCain would not accept what is happening at his rallies and he flat out refuses to take responsibility. Beat Obama on the issues but don’t drag your reputation down by inciting violence. McCain has his own terrorist problem in the person of Gorden Liddy. Google his name to those who are interested. Obama cannot help that his middle name is Hussein nor can he help that his mother moved to Indonesia. Will this country return to our ugly past or will we start judging people on their character and deeds ?
McCain’s POW experience forty years ago should have no bearing on a decision made today on whether he is fit for President.
He peaked in 2000 and it has been a steady downhill slide into the muck of partisan politics since then. His demeanor, his tactics, his outright lying, his misjudgment, his political phoniness, all point to a man who would be a disaster as President.
It’s amazing to me that Brad can (hopefully) play close attention to this political campaign and not see what McCain has done to destroy his own reputation. When Obama wins in a blowout in three weeks, McCain will be on the path to political purgatory. And it will be his own fault. He has become what he claims to despise – a political hack.
But I’m sure the endorsement is ready to go… it’ll be full of historical references and boilerplate about the “war” on terror. It’ll be a love letter to McCain postmarked eight years ago.
Check out this year’s Halloween Gore and Folklore. Be sure to attend!
http://www.imakenews.com/bcb/e_article001220332.cfm?x=bdt4LmG,bbkjgG70
I don’t understand how choosing Palin could be anything other than a deal breaker. It definitively answers the question whether McCain would do something terribly against the national interest to further his own personal ambitions. He would, and he has. A third of VPs become president, and a VP elected with someone of McCain’s age would surely have higher odds. Alternatively, if one thinks that it is not McCain’s ambition but something like sheer carelessness that is at issue (as suggested by Brad’s original quote from McCain), I fail to see how that is better. A president who acted on such important matters on either basis would be catastrophic for the country.
No, Doug, the endorsement is not “ready to go.” In fact, I haven’t even set the meeting to discuss it. We have scrupulously avoided discussing it, but that will be at an end soon. Sometime in the next week to 10 days, we will sit down and do that.
It promises to be a difficult decision, and however we end up, we’ll be divided by it — as we were in both 2000 and 2004, both in the primaries and the general. Endorsements by their very nature — you’re choosing one or the other, and there’s no room for compromise on that point, although there’s lots of room for compromise on the explanation — strain the consensus that we try to achieve on all issues. The presidential endorsement tends to do so more than usual.
I had my break from that in January. It was wonderful. We were completely unanimous in our support for both McCain and Obama. But I knew then, as I know now, that IF we got our way and they won their respective nominations, our decision would be far more difficult. It will be.
I appreciate that y’all think you know me and my mind. The purpose of the blog is to help you do so, so it’s nice in a way that you feel comfortable extrapolating my decisions from what I’ve written in the past. But you ignore something very important: I’m the only person on the editorial board who blogs. And even the person you know through the blog has a very serious responsibility to lead a group of people you DON’T know as well through a very delicate decision-making process.
Hopefully, those of you who actually READ THE PAPER know Warren and Cindi better than you would know the board members at most newspapers. That’s the result of a deliberate policy that I instituted when I became editorial page editor in 1997 — we started writing fewer editorials (the unsigned pieces that speak for the full board) to give people time to write signed columns, so that you could get to know the people who participate in setting editorial policy. My blog is a continuation of that, taking the transparency thing to the nth power.
I don’t know how much management experience you have, Doug — or anyone else who thinks that our endorsement is set and everyone knows what it will be — but even if you make your living TEACHING management, it’s highly unlikely you’ve ever been in the situation that I deal with every day: Bringing a group of people with a variety of opinions and life experiences — very opinionated people — together in a consensus around controversial issues. Sometimes legislative leaders cry the blues to me about how hard it is to bring their members together around a piece of legislation over the course of a session, and I have little sympathy. I have to bring people together around definite positions, on deadline, every day. (Add to that the fact that it involves managing up as well as down, since the publisher is always a member of the board. The publisher stays out of most of our decisions, but he or she always participates to some degree in the presidential ones.) It’s not easy. And the presidential endorsement carries with it such baggage that it’s one of the toughest. And it’s a decision that is never gone. If y’all out there remember it (and you do), rest assured that we remember these internal struggles very vividly. And we’re very conscious of the tension going into the next such discussion.
Personally, I think for this election, it would be better for the readers of The State to read individual endorsements from Cindi, Warren, and yourself. That would be more useful to the readers than a decision made via a vote.
> And the presidential endorsement carries
>with it such baggage that it’s one of the
>toughest
What baggage would come from making a persuasive case for a candidate? And, really, when it comes to South Carolina, the endorsement of The State will not make a difference. I’ll give you the headline for November 5th right now: “Obama Wins Presidency, McCain Wins South Carolina”.
I just hope you base your endorsement on what the candidates will do and the campaigns they have run. I happened to catch the end of John McCain’s speech today in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania on the radio at lunch. He used the word “fight” at least a dozen times — and he wasn’t talking about terrorists. Do we REALLY want a President who looks at every situation as a battle that must be won at all costs – he’s willing to sacrifice his entire set of core beliefs to win this “fight” with Obama. He forgets that the people he is “fighting” make up about half the country.
Lynn, your assertion contains its own refutation.
You assert that the Palin choice somehow proves that “McCain would do something terribly against the national interest to further his own personal ambitions.” And yet choosing Palin was probably the single most self-damaging decision he has made in this campaign. Near as I can tell, Palin is the single most-cited reason why people who were undecided, or even leaning toward McCain, have decided to vote for Obama.
So it furthers “his own personal ambitions” in what way? Are you asserting that he didn’t KNOW this would be a bad call, that he thought it might WIN the election for him? Possible, but I think unlikely.
To go back to my original point, to the extent that the Palin choice shows us something bad about McCain’s character, it illustrates his tendency to do something that is SELF-DESTRUCTIVE, and pull us down with him. And that’s very different from what you just said.
Also, I never listen to Rush Limbaugh but came across him on the radio as he was talking to Sarah Palin. Or should I say giving her the radio equivalent of a back rub.
He opened by saying, “Governor Palin, I admire you so much that I almost wanted to just let you talk for ten minutes without asking a question”. Then they spent the next several minutes talking about how awful Obama is.
The conservative wing of the Republican Party is morally and ethically bankrupt.
Speaking of which, given the topic of this discussion, where does Randy get this stuff about “you have shown a complete unwillingness to acknowledge the problems with McCain”?
What was it I just said?
The problem here is the usual one, which is that I often find it difficult to find common ground with people who have COMPLETELY decided FOR one candidate, and for some reason think that requires them to be completely AGAINST that candidate’s opponent. Me, I see people as people. I see both virtues and faults in both McCain and Obama.
Apparently, Randy thinks one only sees the “problems” with McCain if one writes one of those columns people keep showing me where someone exclaims, “The scales have fallen from my eyes! I now see John McCain as a horrible person! Obama forgive me my blindness!”
To quote Dana Carvey’s impersonation of a former president, “Not guhn do it!” Not about McCain, and not about Obama. With both of them, I see a broader and more complex picture.
Yeah, Doug, I hate it when they say "fight." But I’ve mentioned that before.
(Sorry if this discussion is hard to follow; Doug’s comments and mine have been crossing each other.)
So humor Randy (and me)… aside from shooting himself in the foot with Palin, what are the other things McCain has done that would give you pause when it comes to endorsing him?
Did you think his suspension of his campaign (even though he really didn’t) to deal with the financial crisis was a positive or a negative?
Did you think his involvement in the bailout bill was a positive or a negative?
What exactly did he do, anyway?
Do you think he has run a campaign worthy of the Unparty? Has it been a campaign of ideas and hope or has he stuck with the typical partisan attacks that you claim to hate?
Do you like his idea to buy up bad mortgages and stick the taxpayers with the bill?
Do you like his healthcare plan – a tax credit for people to buy insurance balanced by having to pay taxes on employer funded healthcare?
Do you like his overall tax plan? Do you think he should continue the Bush tax cuts?
Those things either influence you or they don’t. If they don’t, then what would?
All the energy spent on debating the relative merits is probably a waste of time now anyway.
According to all the electoral map projections I’ve seen, Obama is going to end up somewhere north of 300 electoral votes.
For McCain to even have a chance, he has to win Ohio (trailing by 3%), Florida (trailing by 5%), Virginia (trailing by 6.5%), Pennsylvania (trailing by 13%), North Carolina (trailing by 1%), Colorado (trailing by 5%) PLUS pick up a couple smaller states.
McCain will be able to join Bob Dole on the Viagra commercials soon.
No Brad, I don’t believe for a moment that McCain understood his choice of Palin as damaging to his chances of winning, I think all the evidence points toward his believing that Palin increased his chances of success. It was self-destructive, but I don’t think he saw it that way until too late.
Lynn, I think you think people are more logical and literal than I think they are. You suppose that humans are fully conscious of their own motives for doing things. Sometimes they are; sometimes they aren’t. I am probably more conscious than most, because it is my profession to explain my choices. But even I fall down on that score.
Anyway, I’m asserting that McCain did a self-destructive thing. I’m not saying he got up that morning saying, "I’m going to do a self-destructive thing."
Doug, you must have read George Will’s piece the other day. An excerpt:
For George Will, life is baseball — it’s all about the stats.
Brad, you’re spinning like a top on this one. The Palin pick was most definitely an attempt to appease the GOP base and appeal to disaffected Hillary voters mostly women. It seemed at the time a shrewd political pick but one completely devoid of doing what’s right for the country. It was partisan, selfish politics at it’s very worst. The fact that it has failed to accomplish it’s objectives doesn’t show evidence of McCain’s love of country. Quite the contraray. McCain made that choice in a pique of anger and frustration, with a bit of electoral calculus thrown in. It was a miserable choice that has backfired on McCain and should lay to rest any lingering notion that this man is the best choice for the job.
I just wish you would admit that McCain’s action’s during the campaign are not in keeping with your anti-partisan proclivities. It’s obvious to everyone else, why the inability to see it?
Doug, I just scrolled up to your previous question. I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring you. Totally off the top of my head:
Hey, slow down a sec, guys! I can’t seem to answer one of you before the other asks a new question.
bud, I’m only “spinning” if you’re not following what I’m saying. I think YOU actually said what I’m saying when you said, “McCain made that choice in a pique of anger and frustration, with a bit of electoral calculus thrown in.” Only I’d say lots of pique, insufficient calculus. Personally, I was surprised that it DID help him as much as it did for awhile.
As for your assertion that “It was a miserable choice that has backfired on McCain and should lay to rest any lingering notion that this man is the best choice for the job.” You’re right with the first part (miserable choice, backfired), but wrong on the second.
Yep, picking Palin was bad, and it was a biggie. But I think Obama going to Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years was bad, and a biggie. But it’s not a deal-breaker.
I don’t think any one thing has been a deal-breaker for me since Watergate. And I’ve never chosen a presidential candidate on the basis of his vice-presidential pick. For instance, I would have hated it if Obama had picked Hillary, but it wouldn’t have been a deal-breaker. As it was, he picked somebody I really liked. But by itself, that’s not a deal-MAKER, either.
Now that’s it for me on this thread. Any more long answers, and I’m making it a separate post. Again.
Brad wrote: “For me, it’s a contest between two good men — one the battered veteran making his last stand and stumbling as he does it, the other a gifted but unproven rookie.”
Thought it was worth having show up here again.
Bud, for what it’s worth, I think that the choice of Palin was a move that McCain had to make in order to try and win over the large conservative wing of the Republican party, and win it over, it did. Except that the base is far more complex now than it used to be, with younger evangelicals interested in the politics of the emerging church movement (Brian Maclaren, and to some extent, Rick Warren).
Methinks the monolithic conservative front, at least as far as evangelicals is concerned, is changing. But Palin got James Dobson and others like him on board, and McCain had to do that. It may be unethical, but politicians don’t get elected by being ethical; they can only get elected by appealing to a broad base. It was a gamble that probably didn’t pay off, I would imagine.
Hey Brad, a bit of encouragement. This article puts some historical context on our disrespectful ways, don’t you think?
Unlike the unfair and baseless lies against John Kerry and his honorable military service, John McCain, as you quoted, “spent much of my life choosing my own attitude, often carelessly, often for no better reason than to indulge a conceit…”
It takes a simple search of the internet on words like “John McCain pilot investigate” to find the facts that John McCain endangered not only himself, others and expensive military property while in military service.
John Kerry, a wealthy young man could have avoided military service, but he not only went, he served in one of the most dangerous jobs, swift boats. Whether he was a hero or not, he choose to serve in one of the most dangerous military jobs during the Vietnam War.
John McCain, flew planes. Without paraphrasing the lengthy investigative reports about his clowning around, disobeying orders, and the resulting loss of life and property, you can hardly compare even his imprisonment (which appears could have been avoided if he had just followed orders), to Senator John Kerry’s service.
Yet, you think Sarah Palin was the worse decisions he made…hummm…on second thought, You may be right…A review of U-Tube shows her actually receiving blessings against witchcraft, telling troops that this is God’s war (as if she speaks for him), etc.
Ohboyohboyohboy, I’m really going to set people off asking this. I almost asked it yesterday, but held myself back. Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask it for the past four years, but I always hold myself back because Democrats are SO EMOTIONAL about it.
But here goes.
What were "the unfair and baseless lies against John Kerry and his honorable military service?" Just give me an example or two of these "lies," and why they were "baseless." I can remember some Democrats getting really, really upset, because this time they had themselves a hero, and some veterans were disputing that version of events. But perhaps there’s something else I’m not thinking of, because "baseless… lies" don’t seem to fit that particular thing.
Democrats were SO upset about that one thing that they even invented a new verb to describe it (actually, this link is to the gerund form, but you follow me) — an act which, when I take over the world, is going to be at least a misdemeanor, by the way. (And if anybody comes up with a "verb" as awful as "impact," it will be a felony.)
I’m sure there are any number of people out there who could answer this for me. But to make sure, maybe I should make this a separate post…
Wikipedia has the answers you seek:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_Boat_Veterans_For_Truth
Obama isn’t treated with respect for the same reason as Bill Clinton: too many people know his lying to them. Even his supporters know he is lying. They support him because they want a leader who mouths the lies they want to hear, but mostly because Obama promises to transfer wealth to them from people who created and earned the wealth.
Given just a few days of research, everything Obama says can be found to be a fabrication, a denial of how bad he really acted, or just ignorant nonsense sold as if it were deep thinking.
Yeah, I had looked at that site. The disputed charges and countercharges went WAY beyond anything that I remembered being part of the public discussion.
You have to realize that I wasn’t paying attention to all that; it’s the sort of sideshow that I steer clear of. Maybe if I’d had a blog at the time it would have loomed larger because blogs are the kind of place where people discuss such things.
HERE’S the part of the dispute that I remember: the Swift Boat Veterans charged that Kerry’s subsequent public actions dishonored them and the people he and they had served with. I didn’t go any deeper into it because I didn’t think it would help to argue about it. What that assertion did was define the lingering political division in our country, and it seemed highly unlikely to change anyone’s mind.
So does the “baseless … lies” thing refer to those more particular charges and countercharges — about where Kerry was at Christmas, or his account of the details of the incident for which he received the Silver Star? If so, you’ve answered my question. But that stuff seems less important than the political argument over what Kerry did after he came home, and even THAT was not important enough for me to get into it at the time…
Actually, I shouldn’t say “not important enough.” What I should say is that it didn’t seem like something that would make up anybody’s mind one way or the other. It sort of depended on people’s preconceived notions regarding the war and the antiwar movement.
I still think turning nouns and noun phrases into verbs ought to be a crime…
The attacks I remember were the ones that were questioning Kerry’s actions during the war and his conduct while in the military. That was what offended me and that’s what I remember offending a lot of people on the left.
If it was just the attacks on what he did after, I would agree with you that they were entirely secondary.
I am not sure that Democrats were so upset that they believed they had a military Hero as they had as their standard bearer, a person who, based on his station in life (Rich), could have avoided military service. Instead of getting out of service, he volunteered for one of the most dangerous jobs in Viet Nam – swift boats. He did not steal his metals – someone believed he earned them, but metals, like Prisoner of War Status does not make a President.
Compared to Bush’s first 4 years – War of Choice, lighweight knowledge of world affairs and inability to surround himself with people of substance to keep the country on track, Kerry’s years of experience as a Senator, education, eloquence, ideals, and his Military experience alone should have reassured the independents and those reasonable republicans that he could use his experience, education, etc. to guide the country through the next four years no matter what happened by Improving our Status in the World, guiding us through Economic Crisis, Terrorism, etc.
Instead, we chose President Bush again, and we know where we are now. Sinking fast.
So, in 3 weeks there will be another election and the polls map shows that South Carolinians appear to be supporting another flawed candidate from the Republican Party, just because…I’m unsure why, but that is the way it is shaping up.
And, who will the State Paper Endorse??? I’m sure it will not be a surprise – despite the fact you lament Sarah Palin is on the ticket.
John Kerry did try to avoid combat in Vietnam. He joined a Massachusetts reserve unit, thinking there was not chance he would go to Vietnam. To his surprise, they were called up to active duty on coastal patrol, which he thought would be soft, because the Vietcong had no navy.
To his surprise, he was attached to a brown water Navy patrolling rivers for pirates and supplies from North Vietnam. At that point, Kerry began faking injuries and actions to get his butt out of there.
Even if Kerry hadn’t been a coward and a fraud, he came back and ran a an “anti-war group” which turned out to have been financed and directed by the Soviet KGB.
Kerry was their “useful idiot”, to use the Soviet description.
And you know this how?
Even John McCain said the above information was not true about John Kerry.
I am sure you would not believe the lies about Obama that are circulating on the internet tho. You are smarter than that.
Back to the original question, “There are things about Sarah Palin that John McCain liked — particularly the fact that she won election against her own party establishment. But there was always an unstated something that I felt MUST have been present for him to make such a decision”
I suggest timing and convention surprise:
1. Timing – the convention was not starting well – the Ron Paul parallel or shadow Republican Convention, The protesters outside of the Republican convention, the fact that Bush and Cheney were scheduled to attend the convention and would tie their policies to McCain, and of course, the hurricane…John has problems with doing more than one thing at a time – i.e. Conventions and hurricanes, Votes and debates…
2. Need for Convention Surprise – If he sent people to vet Sarah Palin the media would find out and he badly need a convention surprise. Despite the fact this is a position for #2 in the Country, he believed a surprise for his campaign was more important than proper vetting…
I know it because of Kerry’s military records which are public, and the sworn testimony of his friends and fellow servicemen, which all corroborates his cowardice and fraud.
Kerry also refused to release his medical records. Many suspect they contain proof that he had no real wounds for his Purple Hearts, and that he got out of the service in 3 months on a psycological discharge.
John Kerry’s military records are public record – perhaps you might want to check them:
Kerry joined the United States Navy Reserve during his senior year at Yale. Upon graduation from Yale, Kerry entered active duty and served until 1970, eventually reaching the rank of Lieutenant. Kerry was awarded several medals during his second tour of Vietnam, including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts.
During the 2004 election, Kerry posted his military records at his website, and permitted reporters to inspect his medical records.
Kerry had agreed to an extension of his active duty obligation from December 1969 to August 1970 in order to perform Swift Boat duty, but in January, 1970, he requested early discharge in order to run for Congress the following fall. He was discharged from active duty on March 1, 1970.
John Kerry was on active duty in the United States Navy from August 1966 until January 1970. He continued to serve in the Naval Reserve until February 1978. Kerry lost at least five friends in the war, including Yale classmate Richard Pershing, who was killed in action on February 17, 1968.
I believe you might revisit your facts – they are suspect when compared with the truth.
Although wanting to run for the Senate might be construed as a psychological defect.
At least you see the lies about Obama for what they are.