USNDemVet thinks McCain may be giving payback for South Carolina.

[charlyvi]

And, admittedly, the thought had crossed my mind as well. It doesn't redeem him in my mind for all the ass-kissing, but it sure does have a diabolical, revenge served cold aspect to it.

Heres DemVet:


Back during my misspent youth in Naval Aviation, the A-6 guys (and I don't know why it was them) always said, "It's better to get even than mad". John McCain was a light-attack bubba, having been a Spad/A-4 and A-7 driver, so maybe he just spent enough time in the Ready Room Bar in Cubi listening to the Grumman Ironworks Drivers pontificate on interpersonal strategery, who knows. But you know, this sure is starting to look suspiciously like Payback, and in a good cause if it is.

...snip...

Bunnypants and His Master, Rove have made a huge bet in this election season that they can once again tag Democrats with the "Weakling" label when it comes to National Security. In fact, right now it's looking like they've bet Preznit Brush Cutter's ranch on it, literally.

McCain has been playing the game with Bunnypants for the last couple of years, and is now in a perfect position to throw up more than a little AAA into Rove's election-year alpha strike with his stand on the Amendments that Deserter Boy and his courtiers want to make to the Geneva Conventions. After all, he lived with the protections of Article III, in so far as the North Vietnamese afforded US POW's any consideration under the Geneva Convention during Vietnam. I honestly don't see McCain turning his back on other servicemen and women now and into the future to help make Bunnypants look "Tough on Terra™"

Because in the end, there was always South Carolina. And I have to wonder if this become a case of "getting even" when it comes right down to it. It's free, no one is ever going to blame McCain (except Rove and perhaps a few shrieking Chickenhawk wingnuts) for this stand. He earns the gratitude of virtually every senior officer in DoD who understands the gravity and repercussions of the changes to the Article III "interpretation", and most importantly he sets himself up as "independant" of Beloved Leader on an issue that really counts to him personally, which gives him HUUUGE "character" points among the "McCainiacs" who have been disillusioned with is performance and sycophancy to the 1600 Crew over the past three and a half years.

So, South Carolina? Yeah, it makes sense to me. Your thoughts?

Payback is a bitch, isn't it?

http://www.usndemvet.com/blog/

[Miss Chybil]

1. You assume McCain is not going to give in...

I'm more inclined to think it's all a show. I hope I'm wrong.

[charlyvi]

4. I don't assume anything.

I agree that McCain will cave; I just think he intends to cause shrub as much grief as possible before he does. Payback of a sort.

[napi21]

2. I'm surehe hasn't forgetten SC, but I reallyt think John is siding

with the soldiersin this one. If there's some paybackassociated with his opposition, that's great, but I think his prime purpose is defending thesoldiers potentially captured in a war.

[charlyvi]

5. That's what DemVet is saying.....

"this sure is starting to look suspiciously like Payback, and in a good cause if it is."

[babylonsister]

3. It's either payback or a conscience and awareness of

what the blivet is asking for. I choose to believe McCain had to draw the line somewhere, yeah, the one dimson was trying to step over.
I like what Lindsay Graham said today: the issue is bigger than him as a politician; it's about the United States and the coveted Geneva Conventions that no man should be messing with.

[charlyvi]

6. I think it's both.

But in all honesty, I think he will cave at some point. I hope I'm wrong.

[Gabi Hayes]

16. he's utterly shameless; without any moral center...he'll do anything.

remember his recent appearance at Liberty U?

check back to 2000, and what he said about various religious fanatics. how does that track?

[Jim Sagle]

20. It looks as if he's getting ready to suck w off.

I KNOW you didn't intend such a foul suggestion. ;)

[Gabi Hayes]

21. WRONG!

he's buttoning him back up

[Jim Sagle]

22. I stand corrected!

:toast:

[SoCalDem]

7. McCain is trying to re-claim the "rebel" personna

Sorry John, you cannot flip-flop like a fish out of water for 5 years, and expect thinking people to buy it..'

He caved in to Bush like a wet cardboard suitcase, and as '08 approaches, he wants his rebel image back..

bah!

[Gabi Hayes]

9. all you ever need to know about that opportunist:

[charlyvi]

11. Sad. Really Sad.

[Warpy]

8. He used the word "compromise" on the AM gasbag shows

Sorry, but he's going to cave as usual.

He's corrupt, though and through.

[vi5]

10. You beat me to it....

I was about to post the same thing. He's going to buckle like a cheap belt.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. I don't agree

EDITED for typing

If McCain wanted to pay Bush back for South Carolina, the appropriate think for him to have done was to keep his distance from Bush's "re-election" campaign. I'm not saying that he should have left any doubt about for whom he was voting, but instead of publicly hugging the commandeer-in-thief, he could have given him no more than a lukewarm endorsement.

For those who go way back like I do, one might recall Mayor Daley's endorsement of Senator McGovern in 1972. Yes, he said he was going to vote for McGovern and thought others should, too; but, he added, he really had no control over his long-tauted and well-oiled machine and couldn't send his ward bosses out to help McGovern. That sent a clear message that Mayor Daley didn't give bits whether McGovern lost or not.

Why McCain doesn't take greater offense at the lies Rove spread about him in South Carolina, I really don't know. It would be a distubing flaw in McCain's character if he is willing to dismiss that as politics as usual, which is really how Bush and Rove misperceive it. McCain's problems with Bush right now are even more heart-felt. He was a POW in North Vietnam and knows what torture is and what it is about. He can tell you about sadistic Vietnamese guards the POWs nicknamed Rabbit and Straps and Bars. I suppose this is a good time to remind my friendly readers or inform them if they didn't already know that the North Vietnames denied that US pilots shot down over North Vietnam were entitled to POW status, just as Mr. Bush and the neoconservatives deny that detainees in secret prisons are POWs.

McCain does not want to see what happened to him in a North Vietnamese prison camp happen to anybody else. That means supporting universal human rights as outlined in the Geneva Conventions, even if that means not doing what we really, really would like to do to the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

[charlyvi]

13. I hope you're right, JackRabbit

It would be wonderful if someone finally stuck to his/her guns with shrub, but I have my doubts. I think he'll cave.

[Jack Rabbit]

15. I'm sure he'll cave in some way

He may agree to attempt to give the regime's war criminals some kind of immunity from prosecution. I don't think an act of Congress should or could tell international tribunals who they can and can't prosecute, but they'll try. I can see McCain joining that effort.

But I don't see him ever saying that there's nothing wrong with torturing POWs, even the regime just wants Congress to say that it's not torturing POWs but applying harsh interrogation techniques to illegal combatants. I'll give McCain credit for knowing Orwellian language when he hears it and having as much distaste for it as Orwell did.

[tsuki]

14. It may have had something to do with the free pass he was given

on the Keating Five scandal.

[Jack Rabbit]

17. Elaborate, please

At first thought, it doesn't sound like a good theory, but I'd like what you mean before I pick it apart.

[tsuki]

24. McCain is owned by the RNC. He took $112,000 and 3 Bahamas

trips (that we know about.) During the S&L collapse, McCain was given a free pass by the Ethics Committee. He's dirty, and he has to take what they dish out. I don't believe his "independence" or "pay back."

[Jack Rabbit]

25. Now that they/ve given him a free pass, how do they hold him in line?

I doesn't seem to me that implicit threats made to a Senator over a twenty-year-old scandal carry much weight. If they wanted to nail McCain, they should have nailed with the others then. If they brought that up now, it wouldn't exactly be blockbusting news.

[tsuki]

26. If they gave the okay to the corporate media to take him down, he'd

go down. They have more on him. I followed the Top Hill Land purchase and Red Hill Financial collapse. The most under-reported scam in America. By my reckoning, every man, woman and child still has about 8 years before the debt incurred is finally paid off.

McCain has been a player for a long time. This isn't all they have on him.

[babylonsister]

23. Thanks, Jack Rabbit. It may be political, but

finally the collective mentality has kicked in, and they know what is being asked for is too much. Even from this admin. They agreed forever, but he pushed those buttons and it's too much.

[bklyncowgirl]

18. Maybe McCain finally realized that Bush intends to throw him under a bus.

The only rational reason why McCain worked so hard for Bush in 2004 was that he was led to believe that he would have his Decidership's blessing for 2008.

That is simply not going to happen and maybe McCain has finally realized that he's been had.

Of course there is the possibility, however remote, that he really does care about this issue and is determined to oppose his president on this.

[charlyvi]

19. If McCain really trusts shrub to back him in '08

he's too gullible to be a President. NOTHING in the shrub/rove duo should lull him into a sense of security. South Carolina should have taught him that.

[DemoTex]

27. USNDemVet: "he [McCain] lived with the protections of Article III .."

This is crux to the wanton stupidity of Bu$h's fucking around with Article III of Geneva. In so much as we conducted the war in Viet Nam according to the template of Geneva (and for the most part, we did), the North Vietnamese, for the most part, treated the American POWs (in the North Viet Nam prison system) in kind.

However, when we strayed across that border into neutral Laos and Cambodia, all bets were off. We were, at that crossing, in violation of international law and Geneva (the Ho Chi Minh trail notwithstanding). Tens of thousands combat assault and direct combat support missions were flown over Laos and Cambodia. I flew more than a few of those combat missions over the "Trail."

We knew the score. Air crew members who survived a shoot-down over North Viet Nam stood a good chance of lock-up in Hanoi's prison system (and, as we saw in 1973, ultimate repatriation). Very, very few air crew members who were shot down over Laos ever made it into the Hanoi prisons. Those US crews' combat missions over Laos were illegal, and they were treated in kind (for many other reasons too, including the logistical burden a POW placed on NVA troops on the "Trail," if captured by NVA).

The titles and words of numerous books and songs come to mind when contemplating the fate of the hundreds of missing airmen from Laos and Cambodia: Into Thin Air, Kiss the Boys Goodbye, and Did he ever return? No he never returned, and his fate is still unknown (poor Charlie on the MTA).

If Bu$h has his way, the world can kiss Geneva goodbye. You would hope that a former TANG F-102 pilot would think about the implications of dismantling the Geneva Accords. Yeah, right. He was insulated from reality then, as he is now.

But McCain knows: he learned that lesson the hard way. McCain knows he was lucky to have gone down over Hanoi. A punch-out over Tchepone would have, perhaps, led to a fate worse than death. Please remember our brothers- and sisters-in-blood, past and future, Senator McCain. The Bu$hco Chicken-hawks do not .. can not .. will not.

Damn those perfidious bastards to hell.

[wakeme2008]

28. So right DemoTex

:hi: