McCain Plays Down Issues of Age, Health

[Omaha Steve]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070318/D8NUQQO00.html

McCain Plays Down Issues of Age, Health
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Mar 18, 5:20 PM (ET)

By LIZ SIDOTI

WASHINGTON (AP) - John McCain, 70 and scarred, cannot deny his age. So he jokes about it.

"I'm older than dirt, more scars than Frankenstein, but I learned a few things along the way," quips the Republican presidential candidate, who tries to play down the ravages of time for the wisdom acquired over seven decades.

His body is battered from torture in Vietnam. The scar along his left cheek is a reminder of a different battle, with skin cancer. Yet, McCain packs his work days so tight that aides grouse. And the man who could be the oldest first-term president hiked the Grand Canyon from "rim to rim" last summer.


Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks at the Federalist Society Convention in Washington, in this Nov. 16, 2006 file photo. McCain, 70 and scarred, cannot deny his age. So he jokes about it. "I'm older than dirt, more scars than Frankenstein, but I learned a few things along the way," he quips (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

Despite McCain's high-energy lifestyle, getting older begets questions about health. The four-term Arizona senator no doubt will have to prove to voters that he is physically and mentally up to the demanding job of president.

FULL story at link.

[saltpoint]

1. I wish John McCain the very best of health and a long life.

But I want him as far away from the White House as possible.

His voting record is the record of a right-wing kook and we've already got plenty of them running around Washington now.

[rurallib]

2. best of health in retirement in Arizona

like to see him totally out of Washington.

[hlthe2b]

3. Yup...

He's got quite the albatross to carry with him his remaining years-- that he putzed away an honorable, honest, and even heroic reputation, to kiss up to Bush* and his cronies under the hope he would be the heir apparent and the Bushies* would not stab him in the back...

Now, he and Lieberman are running neck to neck for the most disgusting, lying sycophants.

[Pyrzqxgl]

5. McCain is a Republican & for that reason alone

I WANT HIM OUT OF WASHINGTON. He can fall over the rim of the Grand Canyon for all I care. This man doesn't care about
the people or he wouldn't be a Republican. Republican's don't care about people except for what they can steal from
them or con them into. Go home John McCain and take the rest of the Republicans with you. Lets fill the Grand Canyon
with them.

[sam sarrha]

4. he lost all credibility humping W's leg at convention.. i saw him and W on a stage recently and he

tarted to hug or kiss W and W pushed him away.. no shit, it was really strange

[Olney Blue]

6. It's over, John. Retire. Go home. Write your memoirs.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. Has he explained the mumps?

He's looked like he has mumps for the last four or five years. I think he is on steroids or something for whatever they carved off of his face a few years back. The chipmunk effect is getting a little gross.

[MasonJar]

8. All that catering to Bush and the right has been the opposite of what

might have gained him the nomination. Now he is just another lying, pug hypocrite.

[kskiska]

9. His health is worse than it appears

From Feb.issue of Vanity Fair:

(snip)

…But he is visibly older, thinner, balder—and, yes, frailer—than he was just six years ago. Like his friend Bob Dole, he tries to minimize his disabilities, but they are serious. He suffered severe injuries when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam 40 years ago; his right knee was broken when his seat was ejected from the cockpit, and both arms were broken in the crash. These injuries were compounded by the profound abuse he endured during five and a half years in captivity.

McCain seldom talks about the details of his torture by the North Vietnamese, but he has written about them in clinical depth. Despite the injuries he had already suffered, upon capture he was promptly bayoneted in the ankle and then beaten senseless. The North Vietnamese never set either of his broken arms. The only treatment of his broken knee involved cutting all the ligaments and cartilage, so that he never had more than 5 to 10 percent flexion during the entire time he was in prison. In 1968 he was offered early release, and when he refused, because others had been there longer, his captors went at him again; he suffered cracked ribs, teeth broken off at the gum line, and torture with ropes that lashed his arms behind his back and that were progressively tightened all through the night. Ultimately he taped a coerced confession.

McCain's right knee still has limited flexibility. Most of the time this is not too noticeable, but McCain mounts the steps onto planes with a herky-jerky gait. A climb up dozens of steps at the New Hampshire International Speedway, in Loudon, leaves him badly winded and sweating profusely. Because his broken arms were allowed to heal without ever being properly set, to this day McCain cannot raise his arms above his shoulders. He cannot attend to his own hair. An aide is often nearby with a comb and small can of hair spray.

McCain has difficulty putting on his suit jacket unassisted. Once, as we prepared to get out of a cramped airplane cabin in Burlington, Vermont, where McCain would be greeted by the governor, I turned my back for a moment, only to find him struggling. He could sense that his collar was all bunched up, and asked me matter-of-factly to help him straighten it out. I felt the pang that those around McCain feel whenever they realize the extent of his injuries. "You comb someone's hair once," his 2000 communications director, Dan Schnur, says, "and you never forget it."

One of McCain's aides tells me that two years ago, campaigning with McCain, George W. Bush asked him if the senator would like to work out with him. Told that McCain did not, could not, really "work out," Bush replied, "What do you mean?"

more…
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/02/mccain200702

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

10. The fact that he voted for changing the US's adherence to the Geneva Convention

regarding torture, after vociferous grandstanding decrying the changes, told me he was hopelessly forever on the dark side.

Thus my sig line. MKJ

[Doctor_J]

11. "As you have noticed, my age does not prevent me from doing flip-flops

every day" joked McCain. "I am also able to pander, schmooze, and prevaricate as well as any man half my age".

[sutz12]

12. But can he play down the insanity? nt