Where Have You Gone, John?

Questions on McBush's character or "lack thereof" are not new. They go way back to his abandoning his first wife to marry a much younger cindy:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html

The piece is right on. My decision for whom to vote is not a snap decision. I try to digest as much of the written material - paying very little attention to the airways - and let my subconscious point the way. I want to vote for John McCain. I supported him in 2000 and was disappointed in his response to the Rove/Bush hatchet job. My hero? What the hell is wrong with him? He has let these same fools take charge of his campaign. If I do not hear him publically repudiate the Bush administration as the worst in the history of our country, I will either not vote or hold my nose and pull the Democrat lever. As bad as a Democratic President coupled with a Democratic Congress would be, it would be an improvement over this current bunch of clowns.

Kerry did not attack George W Bush as stupid. Since that time we have received many reports from former members of his own cabinet that corroborate the fact the George W Bush is willfully ignorant and unwilling to learn or change. In this respect George W Bush is very stupid even though he may indeed have keen political instincts which were not dulled by his years of alcohol abuse.

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WMR has been informed that crewmen aboard the Forrestal have provided additional information about the Forrestal incident. It is believed by many crewmen and those who have investigated the case that McCain deliberately "wet-started" his A-4E to shake up the guy in the plane behind his A-4. "Wet-starts", done either deliberately or accidentally, shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft.

In McCain's case, the "wet-start" apparently "cooked off" and launched the Zuni rocket from the rear F-4 that touched off the explosions and massive fire. The F-4 pilot was reportedly killed in the conflagration.

"Wet starting" was apparently a common practice among young "hot-dog" pilots. McCain was quickly transferred to the USS Oriskany (the only Forrestal crewman to be immediately transferred). After the disaster, McCain was shot down over North Vietnam on October 26, 1967.

As WMR previously reported, at the time of the Forrestal disaster, McCain's father, Admiral John McCain, Jr., was Commander-in-Chief of US Naval Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR) and was busy covering up the details of the deadly and pre-meditated June 8, 1967, Israeli attack on the NSA spy ship, the USS Liberty. 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 by the neocons.

WMR has also been informed by knowledgeable sources, including an ex-Navy A-4 pilot, the "wet-start game" was a common occurrence. However, it is between "very unlikely" and "impossible" for the Forrestal "wet start" to have been accidental. "Wet starts" were later rendered impossible by automated engine controls.

McCain's history of cancer tied to age. But some things are, such as the less-publicized array of his potentially compromising conditions, ailments and medications.

Everyone knows about the cancer. In the last 15 years, McCain has had "every kind of skin cancer you can get, basal cell cancer, squamous cell cancer and, of course, malignant melanoma ...[and] quite a few precancerous lesions," said Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who reviewed McCain's medical records. "He's going to get another skin cancer".

The melanoma on his temple, discovered in 2000, is the most worrying. His current doctors described a single site. But buried in the medical reports released on May 23, was previously undisclosed information. Two pathologists at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology who examined the melanoma specimen in 2000 noted both a primary and satellite cancer, meaning the original site had metastasized and a recurrence was more likely than with a single site.

It is amazing that reporters unearthed this fact. In a parody of openness, McCain allowed a few HAND-PICKED news outlets three hours -- an average nine seconds a page -- to review 1,173 pages of medical records covering eight years. The campaign cloistered about 20 reporters in a room and barred cell phones, Internet access and leaving the room except for bathroom breaks. The New York Times, which had pushed hard for disclosure, was not invited. A follow-up conference call, scheduled for 90 minutes, was stopped after 45.

That the supine media agreed to these conditions rather than boycott the "release" is a travesty. That McCain -- who has pledged to "set a new standard for transparency and accountability" -- drew little criticism is a triumph of manipulation.

In fact, McCain had pulled the same one-time-only, beat-the-clock trick in 1999 when he released a 1,500-page batch of medical records that included mental health assessments relevant to his imprisonment in Vietnam. They remain sealed.

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The recent document dump revealed an aging man on numerous drugs for a panoply of age-appropriate ailments: Hydrochlorothiazide for kidneys, Simvastatin for high cholesterol, occasional Ambien CR for sleeplessness, aspirin to prevent blood clots, and Zyrtec and Claritin for allergies. The amiloride he takes to preserve potassium in the blood also lowers blood pressure, which is still at the high end of normal (134 over 84). Possible side effects include kidney damage, impotence, fast or uneven heartbeat, acting awake (driving, eating, talking) while in drug-induced sleep, confusion, and dizziness.

Occasional dizziness is one of the ailments McCain has suffered, along with degenerative arthritis; signs of diverticulitis, an inflammation of the colon; kidney and bladder stones; and benign cysts in both kidneys. Before quitting, he smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for 25 years. He was not tested for memory function.

McCain has undergone at least a half dozen surgeries for skin cancer, a prostate procedure called "transurethral resection," removal of kidney and bladder stones and of potentially cancerous colon polyps. He's had a lens implanted in one eye and mild-moderate high-frequency hearing loss.

McCain can still spin with the best. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, boasted that the medical records would show that "he defies all the rules of aging." The campaign also trots out McCain's nonagenarian mother as evidence of good genes, omitting that his father died of a heart attack at 70. A grandfather died at 61.

McCain's age is an issue, but not the issue. While his medical records raise questions, his political record of reactionary policies, poor judgment and a dated worldview are more unhealthy -- for the nation and the world.

To the Writer: I believe your truth telling hit a nerve. Keep up the good work.

Mr. Alter, with all due respect, you seem to pretend that Obama's distortions of McCain's "100 years" statement, and his attempts to tie McCain to an unpopular Pres. Bush, and his association between the McCain campaign and rumors about his "funny name" or "did I mention he's black", to say nothing of attacks on G.W. Bush the candidate as being stupid in 2000, false assertions in 2004 that he lied, attacks on Sen. Dole in 1996 distorting the meaning of his votes, and attacking G.H.W. Bush in 1992 as "out of touch" were equally founded in biased interpretations of evidence, but there was no great outcry from the media about those. Turnabout is fair play.

"War is one thing, collaborating with the enemy is another; it is a legitimate campaign issue that strikes at the heart of McCain's character. . . or lack thereof. In occupied countries like Iraq, or France in World War II, collaboration to that extent spells an automatic death sentence. . . . The question is: What kind of collaborator was John McCain, the admitted war criminal who will hate the Vietnamese for the rest of his life?

"Put it another way: how psychologically twisted is McCain? And what actually happened to him in his POW camp that twisted him? Was it abuse, as he claims, or was it the fact that he collaborated and has to cover up? Covering-up can take a lot of energy. The truth is lurking there in his subconscious, waiting to explode.

"McCain had a unique POW experience. Initially, he was taken to the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison camp, where he was interrogated. By McCain's own account, after three or four days he cracked. He promised his Vietnamese captors, "I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital ...

"His Vietnamese captors soon realized their POW, John Sidney McCain III, came from a well-bred line in the American military elite. . .The Vietnamese realized, this poor stooge has propaganda value. The admiral's boy was used to special treatment, and his captors knew that. They were working him."

"....two weeks into his stay at the Vietnamese hospital, the Hanoi press began quoting him. It was not 'name rank and serial number, or kill me'. as specified by the military code of conduct. McCain divulged specific military information: he gave the name of the aircraft carrier on which he was based, the number of U.S. pilots that had been lost, the number of aircraft in his flight formation, as well as information about the location of rescue ships."...McCain was held for five and half years. The first two weeks' behavior might have been pragmatism, but McCain soon became North Vietnam's go-to collaborator...McCain cooperated with the North Vietnamese for a period of three years. His situation isn???t as innocuous as that of the French barber who cuts the hair of the German occupier. McCain was repaying his captors for their kindness and mercy.

"This is the lesson of McCain's experience as a POW: a true politician, a hollow man, his only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain's campaign contributors today, protected and promoted him, and, in return, he danced to their tune. ..."

why is 'faith' in Obama a worse bet than McCain, who's failed in everything he's ever done (other than marrying for money the second time around)?

John McCain's been getting kid-glove treatment from the press for years, ever since he wriggled free of the Keating scandal and his profitable association-- another collaboration,-- you might say with the nation's top bank swindler in the 1980s. But nothing equals the astounding tact with which his claque on the press bus avoids the topic of McCain's collaborating with his Vietnamese captors after he'd been shot down.

How McCain behaved when he was a prisoner is key. McCain is probably the most unstable man ever to have got this close to the White House. He's one election away from it. Republican senator Thad Cochrane has openly said he trembles at the thought of an unstable McCain in the Oval Office with his finger on the nuclear trigger.

What if a private memory of years of collaboration in his prison camp gnaws at McCain, and bursts out in his paroxysms of uncontrollable fury, his rantings about "gooks" and his terrifying commitment to a hundred years of war in Iraq. What if "the hero" knows he's a phony?
Doug Valentine has written the definitive history of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He knows about the POW experience. His dad, an Army man, was captured by the Japanese and sent to a POW camp in the Philippines for forced labor. Many of his mates died. Doug wrote a marvelous book about it, The Hotel Tacloban.

Now Valentine has picked up the unexploded bomb lying on McCain's campaign trail this year. As he points out, he's not the first. Rumors and charges have long swirled around McCain's conduct as a prisoner. Fellow prisoners have given the lie to McCain's claims. But Valentine has assembled the dossier. It's devastating.

why is 'faith' in Obama a worse bet than McCain, who's failed in everything he's ever done (other than marrying for money the second time around)?

Not only is John McCain undermining his own integrity, he's undermining the entire democratic process. He is in favor of spreading democracy around the world, but he is refusing to allow democracy to function at its highest form here. His gimmicky tactics are distracting from the issues. I thought this would be a great campaign season, with two different but strong candidates, that would allow the electorate to really choose the direction of the country. Instead, McCain is taking an "ends justify the means" approach to winning that conceals the issues that should be so prominent in an American election.

http://www.politicswithagrin.blogspot.com/