It’s nice to see Barack Obama call John McCain what he is, a coward:
Obama also said he was surprised some of those attacks weren’t brought up by his opponent at the debate Tuesday night at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn.
“I am surprised that, you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days, that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face. But I guess we’ve got one last debate. So presumably, if he ends up feeling that he needs to, he will raise it during the debate.”
John McCain fancies himself a hero because he was a terrible pilot that ruined four incredibly expensive airplanes and got himself captured. That’s not courage in my book. That’s reckless incompetence. I know he suffered terribly for his incompetence, and I’m sorry about that. But the old codger hasn’t learned a damn thing from his experiences and he’s afraid to be a man and level his accusations to Obama’s face. He knows Obama is the better man. And John McCain is afraid. All bullies are ultimately, deep-down, afraid. McCain is no different. He’s spent his whole life mistreating people and we’re supposed to respect the fact that he was mistreated? I don’t respect John McCain. I don’t think anyone who knows him well really respects him either. What is there to respect? Show me one thing about John McCain that I can respect? That he graduated third from the bottom at the Naval Academy? That he used a fellow cadet to take the fall so he wouldn’t be kicked out for having too many demerits? That he crashed three planes? That he flew too low and got shot down in a fourth? That he broke under torture and denounced his country? That he followed orders and refused early release? That he dumped his disabled wife for a beauty queen? That he used his beauty queen’s money to buy a congressional seat and immediately went about soiling the institution with his corruption? That he voted against Martin Luther King Day? That he voted to impeach a president for getting a blow job? That he was one of the first members of the Senate to advocate invading Iraq? That he couldn’t denounce the Confederate Flag? That he is running a dishonorable campaign, now?
John McCain isn’t a hero. Heroes put their lives on the line to help people in trouble. McCain never did that. Barack Obama is right. John McCain doesn’t have the courage to say a peep to Obama’s face. But he’ll talk about him behind his back. That’s the kind of punk John McCain is and always has been. McNasty is just a third-rate legacy, with a fourth-rate character. Everyone who has ever worked with him thinks he is a jerk.
Did someone say John McCain? Eww.
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I keep on wondering why someone is lauded as such a hero when he couldn’t avoid getting caught by the enemy, even in an airplane. I mean, really?
And McCain is a chickensh*t bully.
l head, or read, someone the other day posit that the only difference between mcstain and chimpy, is that chimpy was a better pilot…he never crashed one.
compares their records and deems Bush the better pilot:
I liked the article, but that short passage was weak. In an otherwise well-documented article, that line seemed snarky in comparison. The only objective criteria I know if is how many planes McCain crashed, especially given his own culpability in those crashes.
On the other hand, Bush didn’t train to land on moving aircraft carriers in the middle of the night, and surely didn’t have as many flight hours. Bush, in similar circumstances as McCain, might have done worse. If the Rolling Stone had some criteria they used to make the comparison, I wish they had mentioned it.
That he graduated third from the bottom at the Naval Academy?
It takes a pretty shitty student to finish 5th from the bottom of close to 1,000 students at Annapolis when your father and grandfather are Admirals. I wonder how many classes, if any, he ever attended.
I’ll say it again, he used up his lifetime’s integrity at the Hanoi Hilton. Some people survive near death or otherwise traumatic experiences stronger, better people, others revert to primal self-preservation and stay there.
McNasty sounds like another spoiled brat type. Is this a qualification for present day Republican presidential candidates? Selfish, mean, and egocentric, McCain fills the bill nicely. And, as you write, BooMan, he is a coward to boot. I think the Republican Party has got some serious identity problems, like so many of its adherents.
While McCain was getting shot out of the air, I was leading an infantry squad on the ground in Vietnam –11th Brigade of the Americal Division, 1969-70. And I’m not proud of it.
Obama can’t say this, but I will– the Vietam war was a godawful atrocity that should never have been fought in the first place. Dropping napalm on innocent children, obliterating villages with B-52 strikes, and poisoning an entire nation with dioxin is hardly a noble enterprise. McCain’s story is nothing to celebrate, even if it’s true.
Well, I respect your service a hell of lot more than John McCain’s. Leading an infantry unit in Vietnam required more courage than flying bombing runs, even if the bombing runs required courage, too. And your job, almost by definition, required you to put your life on the line to protect your buddies. But it’s not so much as I don’t respect McCain for flying airplanes, as I don’t think he should have been allowed to fly them in the first place. Plus, he never shuts up about it. You want me to respect your service and sacrifice? Don’t bring it up every two seconds. And don’t treat people with disrespect if you want me to respect your misfortunes.
What I respect is the fact that you are not proud of what you did in Viet Nam, and that you have the conviction and courage to say so.
This is interesting. You might have good stories to tell.
Um, an unmitigated vicious disaster, um, like Iraq??
When I worked in the Senate, John McCain would get his haircut in the Senate barber shop and no one could talk while he was in the chair or they would feel the wrath of John McCain. True Story.
The stories of him mistreating his staff and other Senators were legendary in the Senate. He is a complete ahole personally and professionally.
Only to be fair, Liddy Dole was super pleasant in person and John Kerry was a pompous Dbag. Specter was a prick to his staff and Mikulski was a horrible boss to her employees.
I hope McCain bring this crap up in the next debate and Obama goes “do you want to play the associations game?”
We ought to meet up one day. I bet we can trade some interesting stories.
My office wasn’t too far from the barber shop. I can only imagine him acting like a petty dictator.
I never, NEVER understood the hype around McCain. Luckily, I never had to interact with him or his staff.
I did, however, pass Strom Thurmond in the hall, and he turns to me and says, “That’s a purty sweatah.”
Ew. I wanted to bash his fucking face, but I kept my composure and kept walking. Jail wasn’t worth it.
Hell yes, call him what he is a spoiled, juvenile and incompetent bully. He would have won the republican nomination in 2000 except he was up against an even more spoiled, juvenile, incompetent in Bush. No doubt his campaign is dysfunctional because of his temper and God delusions. In his warped and tortured mind he believes that he is God’s gift to the world.
I’m not sure if I’ve read such a blunt assessment, and I’m surprised that I don’t remember doing so, but hell, he can’t even look Obama in the eye, ’cause he knows it himself.
than I remembered Matt Tabibbi’s piece in Rolling Stone. First class jerk.
He knows it himself.
Right on, Booman.
More bloggers need to be writing this exact same post. If anyone needs documentary proof of McCOWARD’s story, see this article: Make Believe Maverick at Rolling Stone Magazine…
Frankly, I believe that McCain is just going through the motions at this point. I don’t think he really wants (or expects) to win. I actually believe that he would quit now if he could. He is so obviously tired, beaten, discredited, and out of ammo. He has to realize that he has not only lost this race, but sacrificed all that he once stood for. There was a time, not so long ago, that McCain would have been not only a more formidable opponent but an interesting one, too. What happened to comprehensive immigration reform? Campaign finance reform? Calling out the religious right? He sacrificed all that made him a viable candidate by capitulating to the religious and ideological extremists in his party, only to find that “winning” under those circumstances simply wasn’t worth it. I honestly believe that he is going to run out the clock until Election Day but that he has no interest, intention, nor expectation to actually win this thing. Thank God. I also believe he had reached that decision when he picked Palin– if he couldn’t have Lieberman, then fuck everyone on the right: I’ll go down in flames with the most absurd and non-viable choice I can make.