"The Right's Man" (Krugman, NYT, 03/13/2006)

[swag]

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/opinion/13krugman.html?hp

. . .

So here's what you need to know about John McCain.

He isn't a straight talker. His flip-flopping on tax cuts, his call to send troops we don't have to Iraq and his endorsement of the South Dakota anti-abortion legislation even while claiming that he would find a way around that legislation's central provision show that he's a politician as slippery and evasive as, well, George W. Bush.

He isn't a moderate. Mr. McCain's policy positions and Senate votes don't just place him at the right end of America's political spectrum; they place him in the right wing of the Republican Party.

And he isn't a maverick, at least not when it counts. When the cameras are rolling, Mr. McCain can sometimes be seen striking a brave pose of opposition to the White House. But when it matters, when the Bush administration's ability to do whatever it wants is at stake, Mr. McCain always toes the party line.

It's worth recalling that during the 2000 election campaign George W. Bush was widely portrayed by the news media both as a moderate and as a straight-shooter. As Mr. Bush has said, "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

[WyLoochka]

1. Get to know McCain,

You will likely find that you don't like his policies. I never have . . .


"Mr. McCain is happy to shower benefits on the most fortunate. He recently voted to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, an action that will worsen the budget deficit while mainly benefiting people with very high incomes."

Believe it!


"When it comes to foreign policy, Mr. McCain was never moderate. During the 2000 campaign he called for a policy of "rogue state rollback," anticipating the "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war unveiled two years later. Mr. McCain called for a systematic effort to overthrow nasty regimes even if they posed no imminent threat to the United States; he singled out Iraq, Libya and North Korea. Mr. McCain's aggressive views on foreign policy, and his expressed willingness, almost eagerness, to commit U.S. ground forces overseas, explain why he, not George W. Bush, was the favored candidate of neoconservative pundits such as William Kristol of The Weekly Standard."


Please remember this and think about it

McCain was supported by Little Willy Kristol in 2000 over **

Why?

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/opinion/13krugman.html?hp

[acmavm]

2. The person McCain is most willing to 'shower' benefits upon is

himself. Nothing he won't do to promote himself.

Ask Charles Keating.

[Octafish]

3. Hey! ABCNNBCBSFoxNoiseNutwork: Ask McCain about the 1,000 pound bombs.

The guy'll turn redder than heck in no time flat.

Sailors to the End: The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal and the Heroes Who Fought It

By Gregory A. Freeman. William Morrow. ISBN 0-06-621267-7.

In 1967, U.S. Navy Capt. John Beling sailed his ship, the aircraft carrier uss Forrestal, to Vietnam. The ship would suffer the worst accident in the U.S. Navy since World War II. On July 29, 1967, while performing strike operations, the Forrestal was suddenly wracked by explosions and fire. The carrier was severely damaged; 134 men were killed and 161 wounded. This book tells their story.

Author Gregory Freeman is a journalist with a keen sense of drama and a reporter's eye for thorough research and vivid description. In Sailors to the End, his second book, Freeman uses his skills to tell a remarkable story of naval history, tragic mistakes, unbelievable luck, and selfless courage.

Aircraft carrier life always has been dangerous. There are many ways to get hurt even when things run smoothly. However, as Freeman reveals, when bad luck and bad decisions combine, disaster results.

On that hot July day a large air strike against North Vietnam was being prepared on the carrier's flight deck. Jet planes, ordnance, and people were everywhere. Suddenly, a 5-inch Zuni rocket accidentally fired from a waiting fighter jet, striking the plane of Navy pilot (now senator) John McCain, rupturing the fuel tank and causing a massive fire that engulfed other planes, pilots, and crewmembers.

McCain and several other men escaped the blazing inferno just before nine 1,000-pound bombs loaded on aircraft began to explode. The blasts and raging fire blew the flight deck apart, allowing burning fuel to penetrate deep into the ship's interior decks. Men were incinerated, suffocated, and mangled from flying debris. In just a few minutes the ship appeared mortally stricken.

Telling this story from the perspective of the officers and men of the Forrestal, Freeman describes shipboard horrors that are beyond belief. However, the 5,000-man crew reacted as they were trained to, fighting the fires, controlling the damage, and rescuing injured shipmates. Many rescuers died trying to save others. The ship's entire professional firefighting team was wiped out when a 1,000-pound bomb exploded right in front of them. Other sailors heroically stayed at their battle stations, doing their duty, until they perished.

CONTINUED...

http://www.moaa.org/magazine/January2003/bookshelf.asp

My cousin's roommate's uncle's friend's step-sister told me McCain had been ordered not to fly with the WWII-era 1,000 pound bombs because they were unstable in a fire. This fellah said McCain has some things in the family's military file that Karl Rove could use on him.

Why is John McCain so supportive of Bush and Cheney after being so viciously attacked by them in the 2000 campaign? The answer to this question may partially rest in Navy records detailing the events that took place on the USS Forrestal in "Yankee Station" in the Gulf of Tonkin at the end of July 1967. The neo-cons, who have had five years to examine every file within the Department of Defense, have likely accessed documents that could prove embarrassing to McCain, who was on board the USS Forrestal on July 29, 1967, and whose A-4 Skyhawk was struck by an air-to-ground Zuni missile that had misfired from an F-4 Phantom. What have sealed Navy records given to the neo-cons to blackmail McCain? Plenty, according to eyewitness on the USS Forrestal.

According to an eyewitness to the Navy's worst fire disaster that killed 134 sailors and injured 62, McCain and the Forrestal's skipper, Capt. John K. Beling, were warned about the danger of using M-65 1000-lb. bombs manufactured in 1935, which were deemed too dangerous to use during World War II and, later, on B-52 bombers. The fire from the Zuni misfire resulted in the heavy 1000 pounders being knocked loose from the pylons of McCain's A-4, which were only designed to hold 500-pound bombs.

During the fighting of the fire and while VF-74 and VF-11 were still counting their dead, McCain was helicoptered off the Forrestal to the USS Oriskany, which suffered a major fire on October 27, 1966, that killed 44 sailors. In that event, thousand pound bombs were jettisoned away from the fire but the lessons of the Oriskany went unheeded by the Forrestal's officers, including McCain, who served with the VA-163 Saints on board the Oriskany when the fire on that vessel occurred. On October 26, 1967, McCain was shot down over North Vietnam during a bombing sortie from the Oriskany.

The unstable bombs had a 60-second cook-off threshold in a fire situation and this warning was known to both Beling and McCain prior to the disaster. On January 14, 1969, the USS Enterprise, steaming 75 miles southwest of Pearl Harbor, suffered a major fire. In that episode, similar unstable 1000-pound bombs detonated, killing 27 sailors and injuring more than 100. At the time of the Enterprise disaster, the Commander-in- Chief of US Pacific Forces was Adm. John S. McCain, Jr.,Sen. McCain's father.

At the time of the Forrestal disaster, Admiral McCain was Commander-in-Chief of US Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR) and was busy covering up the details of the deadly and pre-meditated Israeli attack on the NSA spy ship, the USS Liberty, on June 8, 1967. The fact that both McCains were involved in two incidents just weeks apart that resulted in a total death count of 168 on the Forrestal and the Liberty, with an additional injury count of 234 on both ships (with a number of them later dying from their wounds) with an accompanying classified paper trail inside the Pentagon, may be all that was needed to hold a Sword of Damocles over the head of the "family honor"-oriented (McCain's persona is supported by his book about his father and grandfather, both Navy admirals, titled "Faith of My Fathers") and the "straight talking" McCain.

SOURCE: http://deepbutter.blogspot.com/2006_01_15_deepbutter_archive.html

Gee. The truth on McCain. I bet every time Bush brings it up, McCain hurts his neck.