McCAIN CALLS THIS SUPPORTING THE TROOPS?

One thing that always bothers me in blogging is the number of people who are willing to call me Un-American because I tend to be more liberal than they would like. Somehow being anything other than Super Conservative gets you labeled as unpatriotic. People constantly throw Republican's out as the ones who support both troops and America as if the rest of us do not.

This especially makes me mad when no one questions John McCain's support of the troops. I know he was a POW (he's told us many times). But that does not necessarily make him overly supportive of the troops. In fact, it seems to make him even harder on them, expecting more & more from them because after all they have it easier than he had it.

A recent example is that he did not support the Veteran's Benefit package that recently passed Congress. Some would have you believe that it was because it was laden with pork....but according to Sen. McCain it was because the education benefits would be so good that people would leave the service to go to school rather than enlist for another term of service. The military's own analyists claimed that the number of troops who left the service would be offset by the number of new enlistees who wanted to earn the benefits. But that didn't matter to McCain. (Maybe someone who ranked 894 out of 899 in the Naval Academy doesn't see an advantage in education.) The really sad part is that all the bill did was improve today's benefits to equal what was given to our WWII vets. (Come to think of it, it was also the same thing offered to John McCain for his service.)

But on Sunday, McClatchy News ran a story that really questioned McCain's concern for our troops and their families. Apparently in the late 90's he was approached outside his office by a group representing Vietnam MIA families. They were trying to find out information about thier missing family members. During this period they were very vocal and very much underfoot in the Capital. Still, I think the sacrifice made by thier children earned the parents better treatment than how six separate people claimed John McCain treated them on this day.

"Six people present have written statements describing what they saw. According to the accounts, McCain waved his hand to shoo away Jeannette Jenkins, whose cousin was last seen in South Vietnam in 1970, causing her to hit a wall.


As McCain continued walking, Jane Duke Gaylor, the mother of another missing serviceman, approached the senator. Gaylor, in a wheelchair equipped with portable oxygen, stretched her arms toward McCain.

"McCain stopped, glared at her, raised his left arm ready to strike her, composed himself and pushed the wheelchair away from him," according to Eleanor Apodaca, the sister of an Air Force captain missing since 1967.

McCain's staff wouldn't respond to requests for comment about specific incidents."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/51660.html>


IF YOU ARE SUPPORTING ACTIONS LIKE THIS, HOW DO YOU QUESTION THE PATRIOTISM OF THE LEFT?