EATING BOOGERS & BRIDGETTE McCAIN

In the last 24 hours I have seen two different people ask Sen. McCain the same basic question. "Why do you approve the message of campaign commercials that are proven lies?" I've wondered how the engineer of the "STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS" would answer this question. I have had no idea how he could reconcile his sense of fairness with the lies being put out by his campaign presumably in his name. And I have not been alone in my wonderment. Many of McCain's friends on the left (most notably James Carville and Chris Mathews) swear that it must be the campaign and not Sen. McCain. "He's too good for that", they say. Well now we know.

Sen. McCain's answer was in two parts both times and the same both times. First he tells us that the tone of the campaign would have been different if Sen. Obama would have done town hall meetings with him. Then he tells us that "this is a tough campaign". How incredibly first grade of him! You remember back in grade school, when you didn't want to play at someone's house so they told the rest of the class that you "eat boogers"! It's pretty much the same mentality. Whether Sen. Obama was right or wrong to turn down the town hall meetings, it should not influence your personal behavior. Come on Senator, show some personal responsiblity.

This is something new for McCain. He really didn't start these "swift boat-esque" attack ads until his campaign hired the same people who smeared Sen. McCain in the 2000 primary. You know the people who claimed he was crazy and had an illegitimate black daughter? Worked for Karl Rove & George Bush. Now they work for McCain and they are still very good at their job!

I suppose that the bottom line is that it's politics. But I had hoped for better from Sen. McCain.

One does wonder what Bridgett must think about this? Who's Bridgett you ask? Bridgett McCain is the adopted daughter of Sen. John McCain. She is never seen on the campaign trail (and rarely mentioned). Years after the 2000 election, she googled her father's name on the internet and was horrified by the terrible things said about her. She was embarrassed. Cindy McCain said that to protect her, they don't take her out on the trail anymore. (And I'm not blaming her for that. It shows parental responsibility) But I do wonder what Bridgett thinks about this. How must it feel to know that your step-father wants to win so bad, he's willing to hire the man who smeared his daughter.

Sen. McCain, you probably do eat boogers!


UPDATE:

This Sunday on Fox News, Karl Rove weighed in on McCain's attack ads.

"McCain has gone in his ads one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test," said Rove. "Both campaigns ought to be careful about... there ought to be an adult who says: 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad?"

WHEN KARL ROVE THINKS YOUR TV ADS GO TOO FAR, YOU HAVE OFFICIALLY "JUMPED THE SHARK"

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?