McCain has a small brain but plenty of bluster. He is without honor. HIs POW status qualifies him for nothing but sympathy.

"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 ... "

Those are the words of a bigot, a phony, a jackass.

It is absolutely pathetic to excuse Senator McCain of questions concerning the Military simply because he served. It does a disservice to the entire election, and it makes him look like a fool. As a veteran, shouldn't be be more ready to respond to questions of why he wouldn't vote for the GI Bill? I would think so.

The similarity goes further. McCain and Guliana became more classical ReThugs to get elected...which is what really turned me off of Guliani.

I liked McCain for the past 7 years, but I've lost interest in him this year ever since he started veering hard right. Since he protests he's always been a true conservative, I must say that I am happy that he has chosen to show his real colors now rather than later.

I hope he continues to campaign badly.

What a ridiculous bunch we can be. How hard is it to do what Senator Obama is doing? How difficult is it to, on the one hand, respect and honor a man like John McCain for his service and sacrifice as a POW while, on the other hand, we give him no cover when he advocates an unbridled militaristic foreign policy. John McCain is an American hero who doesn't deserve our vote. Grow up and deal with it.

McCain's 5 years as POW is to Commander In Chief training as my 3 years as backup high school quarterback is to Green Bay Packer head coach training. While I greatly respect McCain and all other POWs for enduring their horrific emprisonments, I was pleased to see Wesley Clark recently publicly point out that McCain's service hardly eclipses Barack Obama's as training for Commander In Chief. McCain entered the Naval Academy as a legacy admission and he finished in the 1 percentile. He commanded a few men associated with his flight crew, but he spent most of his service as a POW in confinement.

Most of the pundits immediately bestow the advantage to McCain in the military affairs / national security category without a closer look at McCain. He continuously mixes up the adversaries in Iraq. His "I will never surrender in Iraq" comments should prompt a pundit to ask "surrender to whom?" We are at best in a policing action in Iraq. I believe McCain has come to equate troop withdrawal with surrender, meaning he'll be loathe to withdraw anyone. Neither have I heard a pundit challenge McCain's attempts to equate our presence in Iraq to our presence in Germany, South Korea, and other posts in the world. In those places, our troops are a buffer against foreign elements. In South Korea, our troops are welcomed as protection against North Korea. Our presence in West Germany was intended to dissuade the Soviets and the Eastern Bloc countries. In Iraq, we are policing internal conflicts. This is not a winnable war from a military standpoint. McCain is the wrong man to bring this conflict to a reasonable and honorable conclusion.

Military service is off the table. After eight years of George "AWOL" Bush and Dick "Deferment" Cheney no Republican candidate can credibly suggest that lack of military service is a disqualifier. In fact in the last four presidential elections, the candidate without the military service background has won: Clinton vs. Bush; Clinton vs. Dole; Gore vs. Bush; Kerry vs. Bush.

Several points need to be emphasized:

1) To compare McCain's POW notion to Rudy's 9/11 notion trivializes McCain's. Rudy was never in the same type of physical danger as McCain was. So let's be clear thinking here.

2) Every candidate used their backgrounds to justify why it shaped them to be better leaders. Hillary's supporters, for example, didn't have a problem with her invoking that she was a mother to justify her capabilities. When was the last time you heard a male invoking that he was a father and that entitles him to special insights? This is politics -- every candidate will highlight something unique about their resume to claim superiority.

3) John McCain did more than just spend years as a POW: he turned down the idea of special treatment. That is a measure of character; how many of us would do the same. In that sense, it does say something about him as a candidate.

4) That said, voting records and how they react as politicians are, and always have been, more important than vague connections made to personality. After all, for all her talk about being a mother, Hillary Clinton sent young men and women into battle... where was the mothering impulse there?

5) A final thought: given the recent death of a prominent journalist, I think it behooves us to think carefully about how vehement we are when someone is alive and how sympathetic we are when someone has died. The campaign has enough issues to use that as a basis of decision rather than attacking the candidates personally. In his youth, John McCain was an undeniably brave man, and did so in the service of his country.

Does that make him a hero?

Not to me. But then again, many of the so-called hero's promoted by both sides of the political spectrum strike me as coming up short. Few presidents are heros... the huge exception: Abraham Lincoln. And even he, was a master politician before all else.

If you want my definition of a hero consider:

Martin Luther King -- incredibly brave for a cause

Malcolm X -- who was smart enough to have an epiphany late in life (on a hajj) that cost him his life (his book should be required reading of every citizen in the US)

if mcsame's military service were in some way commendable or exemplary, then mcsame could talk, and Obama would have to listen.

but when you finish 891 out in a class of 896 at West Point, crash five planes, and spend five years in captivity, I don't see how that qualifies you as a military expert

when you compare West Point (where mcsame was a legacy admission) to Harvard, and when you compare the "891 of 896" factor to the "Editor of the Harvard Law Review" factor, maybe mcsame should just shut his fooking pie hole

ya think ???