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Dear Senator McCain: I am going to lecture you
Senator John McCain stepped off of the False-Outrage Express today to launch one of the most reprehensible political attacks of the campaign. It went like this:
And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did," the Arizona senator said in a harshly worded statement issued Thursday.
Well, Mr. McCain, I served six years in the US Navy and, since you feel it is necessary to invoke the ghosts of your family , let me say that it took Vietnam almost twenty years to kill my father through alcoholism and my grandfather was awarded multiple Purple Hearts for the wounds he received while a POW of the Japanese in World War 2. He was in his sixties before the rice mold growing in his lungs developed emphasema. So, let me lecture you on how you are betraying our comrades in arms.
I agree with you that being President means that you must make tough decisions based on what is right rather than what is politically expedient. Please explain why it is right for us to now turn our back on our veterans. I'd really like to hear this come from your mouth, Senator McCain, since taxpayers footed the entire cost of your years at the Naval Academy - why is it that the grunts that actually risk their lives now are worth less than you have received? In fact, it seems rather niggardly to me for you to stand up after four generations of your family have had free educations at taxpayer expense and say that it is simply too expensive to give equal consideration to others. Have you no shame, sir?
Apparently not. You tout your "alternative" as being generous when the real effect is to cut our young veterans off from the guarantee of a college education they now have. For generations, our deal for veterans has been that a single enlistment qualifies a veteran for full educational benefits - you would impose a "sliding scale" on that deal. Instead of serving six years and having a bachelor's degree before they are thirty, you would have them serve a full career to be able to get that benefit. Have you no shame, sir?
Apparently not. You claim that allowing veterans to have their full benefits will encourage them to leave the military. The truth of the matter is that it has not handicapped our military to date. But shutting younger veterans out of their full benefits will save millions of dollars - so it's nice to see that you've fully embraced the Bush Doctrine of cheap compassion and a swift kick in the seat of the pants for the veterans your decisions send into harm's way. You talk of allowing veterans to pass their benefits along to their children - but of what use is that unless you realize that they will be too old to utilize those beneftis themselves? You would send them into battle and them have them hand down their future to their children as if it were somehow a wonderful new entitlement. Have you no shame, sir?
I agree with you fully when you say, "How faithfully the President discharges those responsibilities will determine whether he or she deserves the honor." Your actions today - and your cowardly and dishonest attack against Senator Obama, who has stood to keep faith with our veterans - have proven that you are not fit to speak the President's name, much less to aspire to that position. Have you no shame, sir?
No. You have no shame. I do, though - and I am ashamed of you and your actions.
Comments (24)
As one who would never vote for McCain, I believe his having to listen to blather from YOU (it's your RELATIVES WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES, you jerk, and I'd bet they're rolling in their graves at what a useless piece of crap you've turned out to be), is offensive even to the Obamists, I would hope. Whadja do in the Navy, pinch zits? Well, there ya go. Lots of 'em here. Maybe they'll let you post more crap, or something, as their resident whiner with relatives who actually DID something for their country. The credibility link, though, is pretty faint. Not even there, I'd wager.
May 22, 2008 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eat dirt.
May 23, 2008 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're a putz, Casey451. Go, Thurman Hart!
May 23, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am an Obama supporter, and I agree with Hart.
May 22, 2008 11:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am an Obama supporter, and I agree with Hart.
May 22, 2008 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whoa there, casey451. While you laid into a 40-year-old veteran as a zit-pinching whippersnapper, I took a look at your profile and guess what I found? Nothing. You don't even have the guts to post YOUR age or ANY personal details at all.
Lots of my family served in our country's uniforms, too. My Uncle Bill was one of the last Americans to die in Europe, just five days before VE day. My dad served in Okinawa during the big one. Lots of other family served, too. I didn't, but then, I'm disabled, and last I heard, they weren't taking disabled just yet.
I have enormous respect for people who choose to serve America by joining the armed services. So let me be clear about this, you offensive worm, THE MILITARY ISN'T THE ONLY WAY TO SERVE THIS COUNTRY WITH HONOR AND DISTINCTION.
If you can't name any civilians who've served their country with honor and distinction, go back to fourth grade and do your homework.
Every doctor who spends each day healing sick kids is a hero to this country. Every welder and teacher and dock worker and cop who comes home at 8 p.m. and has only 10 minutes with his or her spouse before collapsing into bed is a hero.
Every single parent raising a kid the best they know how is a hero. Every journalist who holds the feet of Congress or their local city council to the fire is hero. Every mine worker who dies at age 55 of black lung is a hero.
There's lots of ways to serve this country. Some of the civilian ones take their toll on lives and families, too.
So don't throw your hysterical bs at a guy whi DID serve his country in the military. Because YOUR credentials are non-existent, bub. Zero, just like you.
May 23, 2008 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for this, honestly. I'm glad to hear a serviceman come out a) in support of Obama and b) against McCain for what he said. McCain really should be ashamed of himself.
May 23, 2008 1:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you Thurman. I am horrified by McCain's senseless rude jabbering. Our veterans deserve every form of support we can give them while they serve and after they come home. They are offering the ultimate sacrifice and getting almost nothing in return. This is a crime.
May 23, 2008 7:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
As a 4 year Viet-era Navy vet, I was stationed in Hawaii for three years. Yes, it was cake duty. But what everybody who has served understands and to those of you who have not served, unless you intend to make a career of the service, my life was put on hold for 4 years. I had 2 years of college under my belt before I entered the service and 6 months into my hitch, I married and had 2 kids while in Hawaii. When I returned home, I had my GI Bill education benefits waiting for me, which I used to finish my bachelors and masters degrees. For McCain or anybody not to extend these same benefits to all men/women who have served lacks the moral authority and conscious speak to anybody concerning their right to choose military service. On the other hand, anybody who has served and is entitled to these benefits, I believe is their responsiblity to utilize them. McCain has become a political hack! I could have voted for him in 2000, but this election I will pull the lever for Obama.
May 23, 2008 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I served 28 years on active duty in the U. S. Navy as both an enlisted man and an officer and am a Vietnam vet. My father was badly wounded while serving with the USMC on Iwo Jima. My uncle, a Navy medical officer, won a Silver Star and Bronze Star serving with Carlson's USMC Raider Battalion in the Pacific. My brother, also a Vietnam vet, served both in-country and on the USS Repose.
Now that we have my bona fides out of the way, allow me to comment. McCain's rebuke of Obama is outrageous. McCain has made it very, very clear that his alleged "support" of our troops and vets does NOT extend to stopping this debacle in Iraq and bringing them home. He has supported Bush's policies right down the line, virtually without exception. His reasons for opposing the GI Bill are two-fold: cost and "enticing troops to leave the military at the end of their enlistment." In other words, better to continue to waste billions upon billions of dollars in Iraq than spend a fraction on educational benefits for our vets and, second, keep the troops in the Army and uneducated so they have fewer options.
Despicable!
May 23, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another six year Navy vet here. And, note that casey451 failed to address one single point in Thurman's post.
In fact, Hart nailed it. And, I'll add one more point to it. Anyone who looks at educational benefits as an enticement that would pull people out of the service has completely ignored that educational benefits are an enticement that gets people into the service in the first place. I know. It's why I enlisted in the last year of the Vietnam War before I had even graduated from high school (It was called "delayed entry").
And, if you don't like the idea of service members getting out at the end of their enlistment, or before they become a casualty, for a decent college education, how does it grab you when Blackwater comes along and dangles a contract in front of them for up to 10 times their military pay?
May 23, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to hear McCain's explanation to the VFW and American Legion on why he opposed the 21st Century GI Bill. They both supported it. The VFW said they "demanded" its passage.
May 23, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems like we have a real live junior McCain troll here in casey451. Spends a lot of time insulting people on various threads with a predilection for talking about peed pants and pinched zits.
May 23, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Senator McCain: I am going to lecture you.
Oh No No No. Unless you are "experienced" and have served in the military you can't do that.
May 23, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The education benefit of the GI Bill has a play -it-forward bonus; it is not only the person who earned it who benefits, but also his (or her) children, who directly benefit from the increased earning power almost guaranteed as a result of the program.
My father, who served in both WWII and Korea, went to graduate school, afterward, on the GI Bill...for which he was genuinely grateful. I never heard a word of complaint from him about the years of delay in his life his tours caused. Rather, my memory is of his happy smile as he wrote the checks -- made possible by the career boost his GI Bill education provided -- that enabled him to send his children to college without a penny in student loans looming over their heads. The GI Bill enriches lives, for generations.
John MaCain concerns me. It may be that few have endured what he survived as a POW. But what is the lasting mark it has left on his psyche? To propose that his fellow vets be given benefits on a sliding scale -- based on endless tours, etc. -- implies to me that, in his mind, they have to somehow match the level of pain he expereinced to qualify.
Is this an example of someone who was abused becoming an abuser? He has released his medical records. Now it would be re-assuring for him to release his psychiatric records.
May 23, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
"based on endless tours, etc. -- implies to me that, in his mind, they have to somehow match the level of pain he experienced to qualify."
Draft vs. no draft. Unfortunately that's what this boils down to. That and the endless taxcuts for Bush's rich buddies.
McCain made a deal with Bush to get the nomination. Support his war and taxcuts for the rich.
May 23, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
casey541 - You are shameful.
(x3 year Navy vet here btw )
May 23, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Republican problem is they think retention under the Webb plan would plummet putting the lie to all those stories we hear from Repubs of overwhelming support for the mission in Iraq and better than peacetime retention rates. That may or may not be true but it sure as hell sounds like they don't believe their own fairytales. Webb's plan ought to be a boon to recruiters too.
I am not for creating a permanent class of preferred beneficiaries of military decedents. You should get what you earn not what your daddy or mommy earned unless they died while serving. Deceased relative benefits is a different program for a different branch of government anyway, the VA.
May 23, 2008 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the college benefit is so attractive, it ought to help recruitment at least as much as it hurts retention. If you can get one person to sign up for two tours or two people to sign up for one, what's the difference?
Besides, of course, the extra GI benefits for the second enlistee, which would translate to less money available for doubling the Bush tax cuts for the superwealthy.
May 23, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would like to take a moment to compliment the readers of this post for being generally smart.
When I saw that Mr. Hart used the word "niggardly" [reluctant to give or spend; stingy; miserly], I wholly expected to see at least a handful of knee-jerk reactions, defenses, and accusations.
Congrats to all for being thoughtful and educated, and not getting all Republican over it.
Ice cream for everyone!
May 23, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I saw it and thought "Oh boy, someone put a dictonary in here before the flaming starts."
May 23, 2008 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
casey451 must be off his meds ... his comments make NO SENSE WHATSOEVER!!! Thanks for the VOICE of someone who has been there/done that Thurman!
GOBAMA!!!
May 23, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Thurman. My hat's off to you!
May 23, 2008 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Words well said Thurman. Casey451 is a troll and nothing more.
May 23, 2008 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
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