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American's have long honored (Vietnam notwithstanding) the soldiers, sailors and airman,who serve or have served during times of war or peace. Equally, Americans loath those who dishonor their country through any number of unforgivable acts from treason to acts of malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance while serving the public interest. Most of us know someone who served with honor. They display, or put away, their medals went on with their lives with little fanfare or notoriety. Many have come home with severe disabilities but push on with their lives in ways that we all admire. George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower, were both pushed into the public spotlight and, against their desires, went on to serve as Presidents. Both chose experienced people as their vice-president. Washington, chose John Adams, and Eisenhower, selected Richard Nixon. Both Vice Presidents went on to be Presidents. But neither Washington nor Eisenhower had to politicize their individual war records since their exploits were well-known and honored. Exploiting the Medal of Honor But, what happens when a man wants to be President but his War record is less than stellar. If he is foolish enough to put himself in that position he must distort and re-create the image. That is what John McCain has done. To explore how this is done one might turn to former Air Force colonel and Medal of Honor recipient George "Bud" Day for lessons in distortion. For three months, in 1967, Day and McCain shared a POW cell in a Vietnamese village but for years Day, 83, has shamelessly been waving his Medal of Honor at political events in support of McCain's political ambitions. Day, who, according to veteranTed Sampley, claims to be the most decorated serviceman since Gen. Douglas MacArthur, with more than 70 medals, is McCain's leading front man and apologist. More recently Day has been used to deflect criticism of McCain's character for collaborating with the enemy during his captive years. Day, who is constantly introduced as "a famously heroic Medal of Honor winner, who when cued steps before the cameras and declares that any accusations against McCain accusing him of collaboration with the enemy as "the most outrageous f--king lie I've ever heard." But, then he adds that any actual collaboration was "technically is not a actual violations of the Military Code of Conduct." Day's qualification is a distortion of military code on such things. When Day is called to serve he uses his Medal of Honor to weigh in on any controversies surrounding McCain. In previous elections Day was critical of Kerry declaring that by bringing up his Vietnam service Kerry had "opened up his character as a war hero" for criticism. Day said, "Kerry's character is not only fair game, it is the primary issue." The same, of course, is true for Day and McCain. The vast majority of medal winners down-play their awards for reasons best stated by Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for actions on Jan. 6, 1968, near Chu Lai, South Vietnam. Brady said following the Medal of Honor ceremony: "I was awarded the Medal of Honor, but my fellow soldiers, who supported me in the actions and took the time to write it up, earned it. I wear it for them. They own my medals. And every Medal of Honor recipient and hero I know believes as I do. Medals should be a sign of patriotism, a symbol of sacrifice, support and defense of a great nation. The highest form of patriotism is service to our youth; heroes also wear their medal for them to signal the importance of courage. Heroes do not use their medals for personal political gain. As I said they are not theirs to use." Nonetheless, Day continues to flaunt his metal as a qualification to be used in defense of McCain especially over accusations of collaboration. Yet, according to Sampley "on his (McCains) fourth day of captivity, he felt he was going to die if he did not get special medical treatment so he offered the communists "military information" in exchange for taking him to a hospital. In addition, Sampley, referring to U.S. Government documents, reports that "after being told that McCain's father and grandfather were American admirals, the Vietnamese rushed the seriously injured McCain to Gai Lam military hospital, a medical facility normally unavailable to treat U.S. POWs, since they believed that McCain was from a "royal family," they considered him a "crown prince" who would when finally released return to the United States to an important military or government job. The Hanoi Hilton While being treated in the hospital, McCain made a series of propaganda statements for the communist including at least one television interview during which he gave specific military information pertaining to his mission. McCain was quoted in the communist press as describing the number of aircraft in his flight, information about rescue ships and the order of which his attack was supposed to take place. Six weeks after he was shot down, the Vietnamese transferred McCain from the hospital to a POW camp called "The Plantation." While McCain needed care to recover from his injuries, it is highly unlikely that he was every tortured, as he claims, and certainly not at "the Plantation." According to Ted Guy and Gordon "Swede" Larson, McCains senior ranking officers, they doubt, although they could not prove it, that he was tortured as he claims. According to Larson and Guy "no prisoner was beaten or harmed physically in the Plantation Camp." He (McCain), to the best of our knowledge, was not physically abused in any way. No one was in that camp. It was the camp that people were released from." Phung Van Chung, 70, who was a Communist Party official at the time, claims McCain was quickly singled out for softer treatment, adding: "I found out he was the son of an American admiral, so the top people wanted to keep him as a live witness so they could use him for negotiations." Yet, McCain was awarded a Silver Star for resisting "extreme mental and physical cruelties inflicted upon him by his captors." However, it appears that he was actually in the hospital making propaganda statements for the enemy in exchange for medical treatment. It remains highly unlikely that there was any maltreatment after that stay. Certainly, American's have the greatest sympathy for all military personnel who are injured, disabled or killed in military action. That is unquestionable. However, distorting ones record for political gain is not something to be admired and such exploitation does not make one a "hero," a term too-often applied to McCain. McCain, and his advocates, constantly remind people of his five and a half years being tortured in "The Hanoi Hilton," which was, in fact, the Plantation prisoner release center. Even more disturbing is the extent to which he has used his political power to cover up his treatment by the communists at the expense of other Prisoner of War (POW) and Missing in Action (MIA) personnel. Derailing POW and MIA Inquiries In December 1978, Vietnam invaded Cambodia complicating relation-building between the United States and Vietnam. At that time, President Ronald Reagan continued to enforce trade embargo's imposed on Hanoi in 1975 and barred normal ties as long as Vietnamese troops occupied Cambodia along with any chance of POW or MIA accounting. Any efforts to improve relations remained closely tied to United States willingness to honor its 1973 aid commitment to Vietnam and to Hanoi's failure to account for the whereabouts of more than 2,400 MIAs in Indochina. Since the Paris agreements in 1973 until mid-1978, the Vietnamese had routinely stressed the linkage between the aid and MIA issues calling for a full accounting for unreturned American POW/MIAs. Unfortunately, beginning in mid-1978, Hanoi dropped its insistence that the MIA and aid questions be resolved as a precondition for normalization But in 1985, Hanoi did permit the joint United States-Vietnamese excavation of a B-52 crash site and did return the remains of a number of United States servicemen between1985 and 1987. Vietnamese spokesmen also claimed during this period to have a two-year plan to resolve the MIA question but failed to reveal details. 1989, former congressman John LeBoutillier wrote that Republicans had intentionally held back the truth about hundred's of POW's in Vietnam in order to appease a handful of super-conservative Republicans who wanted Vietnam isolated. LeBoutiller argued that normalizing relations with Hanoi was necessary to obtain a full accounting of MIA's and POW's. In part, he felt that the time was right, since the Soviet Union had collapsed and it would allow the U.S. to reassert economic and diplomatic power in that part of the World. In mid-summer 1991, the U.S. Senate created the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs and charged it with conducting a no-holds-barred investigation into the long-festering matter of American POWs reportedly still held captive by the Communist North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao. Following months of negotiations between the committee and the George H. W. Bush administration, committee intelligence investigators were finally able to obtain the postwar intelligence files relating to live POWs. Committee investigators spent some 2,700 man hours vetting, analyzing and crosschecking the postwar intelligence. They found a blend of human intelligence (HUMINT); intercepts of secret enemy radio traffic (SIGINT), and images taken by unmanned reconnaissance drones and U.S. spy satellites (IMINT). The committee's intelligence investigators told the senators intelligence information indicates that the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao had held back hundreds of POWs from release for Operation Homecoming in 1973. Obviously, they concluded many servicemen were still alive in captivity during the late 1980's and early 1990's. In early spring 1992, committee investigators began secret briefings to Senators. McCain was upset for, at least, two reasons. First, because of the intense public interest in the subject and second because Texas businessman and longtime POW advocate H. Ross Perot had entered the presidential race alleging that President Bush was not doing enough to bring POWs home. By late May 01 1992, national polls showed Perot in first place, President Bush, in second place, and the presumptive Democratic nominee, Governor Bill Clinton, in third. The attention to the POW issue was certainly upsetting to McCain. McCain, because of his experiences, was, by default, the most powerful and influential member of the Select Committee. From the beginning, McCain, his chief of staff Mark Salter, allies from the Committee and the Bush administration worked to ridicule, attack, discredit, retouch photos, manipulate, and "cherry-pick" the intelligence in order to destroy its value and keep the matter of live POWs from becoming an issue in the 1992 election. During that spring and summer of 1992, McCain and the other members of the committee were briefed on some 925 human intelligence (HUMINT) reports that investigators deemed plausible, and credible. These were selected from thousands of reports the U.S. government had received from human sources who had testified that they observed or had been told or had otherwise learned about American servicemen in captivity after Operation Homecoming. Many of the reports corroborated one another as to location, time and circumstance, thus providing "independent source," confirmation of American's being held in the same area; in the same town or village, and at the exact same prison. However, McCain and Salter questioned the credibility of the information and declared that all 925 sources were either (1) lying, or (2) confused about what was actually seen. Not one report, McCain and Salter declared, related to American POWs trapped in Indochina after Operation Homecoming. Fortunately for those interested in the POW/MIA issue, former North Carolina Congressman Bill Hendon and Elizabeth Stewart, whose father is missing in northern Vietnam, make a compelling case that the U.S. knowingly left hundreds of POWs in Vietnam and Laos in 1973. They claim that every presidential administration since then has covered it up. According to them, the main reason for the cover up is the billions in war reparations demanded by the Vietnamese and promised by Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon at the Paris Peace talks. Unfortunately, for McCain and Salter, had to deal with the massive amount of intelligence as reported by Hendon and Stewart. One of the first issues for McCain and Salter was the signals intelligence (SIGINT) of a half-dozen or so postwar Pathet Lao radio transmissions that where heard describing how, when, where and why they were holding or moving American POWs from one point to another inside their country. When analyzed carefully by committee intelligence investigators and cross-checked with the HUMINT, it was clear that the intercepts confirmed that that over 100 American's were being held inside Laos. McCain's and Salter' discredited the SIGNIT as false. But soon, McCain and Salter had to address image intelligence (IMINT) from postwar satellites showing missing pilots' names, their official secret four-digit authenticators, secret USAF/USN escape and evasion (E&E) codes laid out on the ground by servicemen indicating they were alive. However, veterans familiar with the IMINT reports said that airman's names and authenticator codes were seen etched into a rice paddy near a known Prison camp in northern Vietnam on June 5, 1992. However, they had been photo shopped out. In addition they report that other such images, on prisoners along Route 4 in northern Laos, has been photo shopped out as has information about another Air Force pilot laid out beside a jungle road in northern Laos. McCain's position was that the 12 x 37 feet, four-digit authenticator codes, adjacent to prison camps, along side 24 x 19 feet secret E&E images were, according to McCain and Slater"were either "naturally occurring shadows on the ground, or information copied from an envelope by some unknown Laotian boy. Maverick or Bully Col. Earl Hopper, (Ret), former chairman of the board of the National League of Families, has criticized McCain for "never turning a finger to help any of the POW-MIA families." Hopper, a Vietnam veteran and father of MIA Lt. Col. Earl P. Hopper, Jr., lost over North Vietnam in 1968, contends that at a minimum, 66 men were left behind when McCain and the other POWs were released in 1973. Former N.C. Congressman Bill Hendon puts the number much higher and says that McCain undermined every effort to get the federal government to acknowledge that men were left behind. As McCain's political aspirations grew his antipathy towards families of POW's and MIA's grew intense. According to veterans and family members "John McCain failed to provide one positive contribution to the families that fought along side the first Mrs. McCain for close to six years to bring home those who were known to be captured by the Vietnamese." Further reports were getting back to interested Veterans and POW/MIA families that McCain was actually working against them in their effort to obtain accountings from the Pentagon. And, according to them, as they began to raise questions McCain became more aggressive and hostile. For example, during a congressional hearing, attended by the family of MIA Air Force pilot Col David Hrdlicka, McCain, barged into the hearing,and in a fit of anger, assaulted the airman's wheel-chair bound mother (Jane Gaylord) by shoving her wheelchair into her niece and forcing both of them against a wall. As McCain retreated towards an elevator, the airman's wife, Carol, raised a large photo of the missing Airman and shouted that she had clear proof that her husband was still alive in captivity. McCain did nothing. A later suit by the Hrdlicka family was dropped under pressure from McCain allies. In 1991McCain was verbally slapping around Tracy Ursry, the Minority Staff chief investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, over legislative inquiries on POW/MIA Issue. Testimony shows that McCain, in his hostile questioning of Ursry, was pursing an agenda to support his pressuring of President Clinton to re-establish trade with Vietnam and give up a full and accurate accounting of missing servicemen. Testimony shows that, in 1992, McCain, as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA's, would continually interrupt witnesses, argue with and ridiculed testimony given by various governmental employees, and family members. In one such confrontational rant, on November 11, 1992, McCain brought Mrs. Dolores Apodaca Alfond, sister of a missing Air Force pilot, to tears. As she pleaded with the committee to keep looking and reconsider overhead satellite images of apparent distress symbols alleged to be made by U.S. POWs. Further she asked the committee to reevaluate airborne data from motion sensors dropped along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Those testifying alleged that the sensor data contained "no less than 20 authentication codes that corresponded to the classified authenticator numbers of 20 U.S. POWs who were lost in Laos." Only military personnel would know how to manually enter authentications into the sensor pods. McCain had not planned to attend the committee meeting but when he heard that Mrs. Apodaca Alfon was to speak, he rushed into the room and confronted her. Red with anger and his voice loud, he accused her of making "allegations," that were patently and totally false and deceptive." Making a fist, he shook his index finger at her and said she had insulted an emissary to Vietnam sent by President Bush. He said she had insulted other MIA families with her remarks, and then added, through clenched teeth: "And I am sick and tired of you insulting mine and other people's [patriotism] who happen to have different views than yours." McCain continued to beat her down verbally and also shout down other participants who were pleading that MIA/POW investigations continue. But the dye had been cast. Three weeks earlier, on Oct. 23, 1992, in a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, President Bush - with John McCain standing beside him - said: "Today, finally, I am convinced that we can begin writing the last chapter in the Vietnam War." Two months later, the McCain committee shut down. By Feb 3, 1994, as Andrew Glass reports President Clinton lifted the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam. He cited Hanoi's cooperation in helping American forensic teams and in July 1995, Clinton established full diplomatic relations with Vietnam. In making that decision, Clinton said "he had been advised by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on the issue. The military has been keeping track of soldiers missing in combat since the Mexican War, and in 2003, the Pentagon expanded the number of full-time personnel dedicated to the recovery effort to more than 400. While communications and technology has improved the Pentagons ability to account for POW's and MIA's, those advances cannot overcome political malfeasance, misfeasance or nonfeasance. McCain has been in Congress since 1982, and his conduct on the issue has been far from stellar and suggests a man trying to hid something, no matter the cost to his fellow service men, their families and the Nation. Hiding the Record In 1989, 11 members of the House of Representatives introduced a measure they called "The Truth Bill." calling for the declassification of all reports pertaining to live sightings of Americans still declared missing in action. The bill was bitterly opposed by the Pentagon, and got nowhere. It was reintroduced in the next Congress in 1991, and again failed. In 1991, McCain succeeded in countering "The Truth Bill, and on December 5, 1991, Congress enacted 50 USC §435 as Public Law 102-190. Commonly referred to as the "McCain Bill,." The statute requires the Secretary of Defense to make available to the public--in a "library. However, it actually created a bureaucratic and restrictive maze from which only a fraction of the available documents could emerge. It became law. So restrictive are the provisions that it allows the Pentagon to categorize and withhold intelligence information of MIA's and POW's from the public and deny access to otherwise unclassified records. The bill is so restrictive that a request for information about Americans missing in the Korean War, and declared dead for the last 45 years, have been denied. . Among the many reasons that McCain wanted to halt the release of POW information is to hide access to his own Pentagon debriefing, conducted after he returned from Vietnam. His record is now classified and closed to the public under the McCain statute. According to Sydney Schanbert, Vietnam veterans and former POWs, have fumed at McCain for keeping these and other wartime files sealed up. His explanation, Schanbert says "is that no one has been proven still alive and that releasing the files would revive painful memories and cause needless emotional stress to former prisoners, their families and the families of MIAs still unaccounted for. However, as Schanbert reminds, returned prisoners reveal information during their debriefings about other prisoners believed still held in captivity. " What justification Schanbert asks, "is there for filtering such information through the Pentagon rather than allowing access to source materials? For instance," Schanbert says, "debriefings from returning Korean POWs, formerly available to the American public, provided both citizens and government investigators with important information about other Americans who went missing in that conflict." McCain's justification seems to disregard the tremendous emotional drain that most families of missing men, endured and they want to be assured that the government is doing its absolute best to rescue their loved ones. The McCain bill simply provoked the POW/MIA communities and family members to work with concerned legislators to craft the 1995 Missing Service Personnel Act, which in 1993 combined the laboratory and recovery operations into a single command, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, which is now run by an admiral and has an annual budget of $54 million. Original language in the Act would make the receiving of MIA information the responsibility of the Theater Commander's, thus making them responsive. However, in 1996 McCain, weaken the reporting language by making the Cabinet secretary, not the Theater Commander, the recipient MIA reports from the field. Essentially this took, a responsible commander out of the information loop, and pushed the information closer to Washington where he could control it. McCain also struck certification requirements, and enforcement penalties. Whereas, the original Act provided criminal penalties for anyone destroying, covering-up or withholding, from families, any information about missing personnel. McCain erased the penalty sections. McCain's watering down of the statute simply passed the cost and increased the anxiety of resolving questions about missing personnel to their families. Take the case of Marine Corporal Greg Harris, one of over 1,700 unaccounted for Vietnam POW's who family members have continued to argue, litigate and otherwise search for information in order to bring him home. In addition, the lack of penalties in the Missing Service Personnel Act, allows military case officers, and others, to cover-up facts involved in specific cases. For example, Corporal Harris's case analyst covered-up reports that confirmed his captivity. Covering up facts in the government is not new, but allowing such actions to continue is irresponsible in a legislator. The Man Who Saved John McCain On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile. McCain is enveloped in the image of selfless heroism, yet the real hero in the McCain story is a humble Vietnamese peasant. William Lowther reports that, "in an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbor, dragged him towards the shore. And when a furious mob at the water's edge began to beat and stab the captured pilot, but the peasant: Mai Van On drove them back." Lowther reports that On's widow, Bui Thi Lien, said that her husband felt that McCain had forgotten him. "Mr McCain would be dead if it weren't for my husband. He would never have returned to his family and he wouldn't be in the presidential race today, On's wife is reported as saying. McCain failed to mention Mr. On in his 1999 autobiography, Faith Of My Fathers, which laid the ground for his first, unsuccessful run for president in 2000, McCain wrote about his 1967 rescue, but did not mention Mr. On. What followed, according to McCain, was five-and-a-half years of torture and brutal beatings as a prisoner of war; thus giving a steely edge to his candidacy by establishing him as a true American war hero. But the story is at odds with the version uncovered by Vietnam veteran Chuck Searcy, who lives in Hanoi and is in charge of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Fund. In 1995, Mr On gave me a letter he wanted me to deliver to McCain, said Searcy. "It said: 'I am the guy who pulled you out of the lake and I have followed your progress over the years. I wish the best for you and your family and I hope some day you will be president of the United States.' Searcy, sent the letter to McCain's office. It came back with a response from an assistant saying, "Mr McCain isn't interested in these fanciful stories." Certainly, there were a lot of false claims about saving McCain,but Searcy did confirm that On was the key rescuer. Searcy met McCain in 1995, during a veterans' reunion in Washington, and told him the On story and McCain did agree to meeting with him and did so during a 1996 visit to Hanoi. Searcy reports that On raced up to McCain and kept repeating his name as he embraced him, and through an interpreter, Mr On recounted the events of that day as McCain listened. "He launched into a very emotional description," said Searcy. On reported dthat they saw the parachute come down and land in a lake. However, the villagers were afraid because they knew it was an American pilot. However, On grabbed a bamboo log and threw it into the water and jumped in after it One of On's neighbors joined him and the two of them swam out to the parachute and found McCain with both arms, and one leg broken. He had sunk to the bottom, but they pulled him out of the lake. When they got to the bank, a couple of men attacked McCain, breaking his shoulder with a rifle butt and stabbing his leg, before Mr On stopped them. McCain , according to Searcy,listened but without response. He just nodded, said, 'Thank you very much,' and gave Mr On a little Senate seal. It was the kind of thing you buy in the souvenir shop in the Senate basement, Searcy said. But Mr On, according to his wife, treated the gift as if it were the Congressional Medal of Honor. Nearly three decades later, a Vietnamese government commission confirmed that On was indeed the rescuer and, in a 1996 meeting in Hanoi, McCain embraced and thanked Mr On and presented him with a Senate memento. From that brief encounter to his death,at the age of 88, Mr. On never heard from McCain again. When Mr On died in 2006, an email was apparently sent to McCain's office requesting a message of condolence for the family. There was no response. A Loyal, Loving True Husband? Cindy McCain introduced her husband to the crowd at the Republican National Convention as a "Loyal, Loving True husband," and indeed he may be, but he has not always been. While McCain was imprisoned, on Christmas Eve 1969, his first wife, Carol, according to Robert Timbert in: "The Nightingale's Song," was in an auto accident. She had been thrown through her car's windshield. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries. When McCain returned to America in 1973 he first met President Richard Nixon and then saw his disfigured, permanently crippled wife, who was 4 inches shorter, walked awkwardly with a pronounced limp and had gained a good deal of weight. Carol McCain (née Shepp) had been a beautiful swimwear model from Philadelphia when she met McCain. They married in 1965, but today she is seldom seen and rarely written about despite being mother to McCain's three eldest children and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news. Sharon Churcher reports that Shepp-McCain, who now lives in a Virginia Beach, Va. Bungalow, has recently spoke about her 1980 divorce and McCains marriage to Cindy Lou Hensley, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona beer brewing fortune. According to Churcher, the Shepp-McCain feels her marriage ended ended because McCain didn't want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. Some of McCain's acquaintances are less forgiving, according to Chrucher. They portray the politician as a self-centered womanizer who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to 'play the field'. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons. McCain was then earning little more than $45,000 a year as a naval officer, while his new father-in-law, Jim Hensley, was a multi-millionaire who had impeccable political connections. Although privileged, McCain was rebellious and hung out with a group of young officers who called themselves the 'Bad Bunch'. His primary interest was women and his conquests ranged from a knife-wielding floozy nicknamed 'Marie, the Flame of Florida' to a tobacco heiress. Churcher says Carol had moved on with her life and when McCain, at 28, was reintroduced to her, she was married to an Annapolis classmate and had two children. Timberg, also an Annapolis graduate, says of McCain that: "He was 28 and ready to settle down and he loved Carol's children." The couple married and McCain adopted Carol's sons. Their daughter, Sidney, was born a year later, but domesticity was clearly beginning to bore McCain who, Timberg says, "wasted no time before he was out on the town partying. While Executive Officer and later as Squadron Commander of a Navy training unit, McCain used his authority to arrange frequent flights that allowed him to carouse with female subordinates and "engage in extramarital affairs.". In 1966 McCain requested combat duty in Vietnam and was assigned as a bomber pilot on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin. He was shot down over Hanoii on his 23rd mission. When McCain, his hair turned prematurely white and his body reduced to a skeleton, was released in March 1973, he told reporters he was overjoyed to see Carol again. But friends say privately he was 'appalled' by the change in her appearance. At first, though, he was kind, assuring her: 'I don't look so good myself. It's fine."But already the McCains' marriage had begun to fray, and he was carousing with women," Timberg says. He met the Cindy Lou Hensley in 1979 at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage, which Timberg says devastated his children and surprised his current wife. He married Ms. Hensley in 1980 and immediately moved to Arizona where his father-in-law gave him a job and introduced him to local businessmen and political power-brokers who smoothed his passage into the U.S. House of Representatives and eventually the Senate. Buying a Senator: The Abramoff Connection. On the stump, McCain without mentioning the Arizonia power-brokers, and his wealthy father-in-law, talks about his work tackling the excesses of the lobbying industry to bolster his reputation as a "maverick" reformer. "Ask Jack Abramoff if I'm an insider in Washington," McCain often contends. "You'd probably have to go during visiting hours in the prison, and he'll tell you and his lobbyist cronies of the change I made there." Abramoff is now serving five years and 10 months in prison on fraud charges in the purchase of a Florida casino cruise line, and recently Washington, DC., U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle sentenced him to an additional four years in prison for conspiracy in connection with a public corruption case. He admitted trading luxury golf junkets, expensive meals, skybox tickets and other gifts for political favors. The scandal shook Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to Capitol Hill and contributed to the Republicans' loss of Congress in 2006. McCain critics have seized on news that scandal-plagued conservative political strategist and Abramoff's former partner, Ralph Reed, is helping McCain's campaign. "On the campaign trail, John McCain likes to brag about chairing the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that investigated criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff's role in the Republican culture of corruption," but that's only part of the story when it comes to lobbyists. . Reed is the former executive director of the Christian Coalition and currently a principal of the political consulting company Century Strategies. H e was a key operative in past George W. Bush's in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary in 2000 and he is especially close to Karl Rove. Not long after Century Strategies started, Rove reportedly helped Reed land an Enron contract worth at least $300,000 to help build support for energy deregulation. Although McCain chaired the Indian Affairs committee, while attacking Abramoff and several prominent Republicans he also went out of his way to spare his congressional colleagues. Although McCain has long bragged of his role in the Abramoff investigation, he let Tom DeLay and the other members of Congress who were doing Abramoff's bidding completely off the hook. The sole exception was Rep. Bob Ney, who is now serving time in prison," said Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics In Washington. "Sen. McCain knew what his colleagues were up to, he chose to take the easier path and give them a free pass." The committees 350 page report explored layers of corruption that had allowed Indian tribes to part with tens of millions of dollars in search of political favors. But it did not include the names of prominent U.S. Senators with Abramoff ties, such as Conrad Burns and David Vitter, or for that matter Bush strategist Karl Rove, who accepted gifts from and met with Abramoff clients. However, while the report pushed for greater transparency and accountability, towards the end, McCain and the other authors seemingly put the onus for change not on Congress itself, but on the tribes that Abramoff bilked. "Although the Committee does not believe that additional federal legislation is required to address Abramoff and Scanlon's misconduct," the report reads, "it does recommend that tribes consider adopting their own laws to help prevent similar tragedies but notes, however, that it is not recommending that Congress enact legislation mandating tribes to enact laws dealing with these subjects..." What McCain fails to say, when it comes to collecting money or lobbyists is that he has accepted more than $100,000 in donations from employees of Greenberg Traurig, the firm where Abramoff once reigned. Those donations include several thousand dollars from registered lobbyists who represent, or have represented, several businesses. They include: NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch's media empire (including Fox); Spi Spirits, which fights with the Russian government for the rights to the Stolichnaya vodka brand name. Donors also include: El Paso Corp, a major energy company, General Motors, and the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a trade association. All told, McCain has received more than $400,000 from lobbying firms, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And among his major fundraisers, 59 have been identified as lobbyists by the non-profit organization Public Citizen. McCains close association with lobbyists and political savvy fundraisers may or may not be illegal but each association creates an unstated obligation thus diminishing the politicians, often stated, "Maverick" status. Lies, Lying and more Liars Both McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, lied to the public during the Republican National convention. Unfortunately, people have become so accustomed to untrue assertions that it's become a national pastime for political speech writers and high paid advertisers. Paul Abrams was right in remembering that "no one has so negatively impacted the lives of the American people as has Karl Rove. Rove, was behind the election of George W. Bush, and is implemented in several White House misadventures to further his goal of a permanent Republican majority. In doing so, he has destroyed the American political dialog as one can see in the current lies, lying and liars that inundate the news media. Each day too many in the mainstream media report political lies, lying and liars as "news" instead of pointing out how profound the stakes for the entire world are when politicians engage in Rove practices. Not all commentators ignore political lying but there are consequences when they aggressively pursue the truth during "news" events. Take the recent case of MSNBC commentators Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews, who have been removed from "news" reporting after their work at both the Republican and Democratic conventions. Their pursuit of the truth, and critic of Republican strategy resulted in allegations of bias from the McCain campaign. The campaign filed letters of complaint to the NBC news division about its coverage. It was a breath of fresh air to see Olbermann and Matthews attack the Rove tactic of "winning at any cost," through attacks. Unfortunately, NBC found the truth to hard to take. The McCain campaign follows the Rove strategy of using emotion, mockery and outright lies to counter rational thought which the news media too often picks up and reports as "straight news." In the Democratic primaries Obama called out the Rove tactic thus bringing it to peoples' consciousness the distortions, rather than leaving it buried in the emotional side of the brain. The Rove strategy, and those associated with it, including McCain and Palin, need to be exposed and not only by the Democrat's and the likes of Olbermann, Matthews and Rachel Maddow but by every serious and thoughtful citizen. The Rove Republican strategy, cannot be dismissed as simply "stupid," it must be taken very seriously and exposed for what it is, lies, lying and a total disrespect for, law, order and democracy. Fact checking Factcheck.org checked the accuracy of McCain's speech accepting the Republican nomination and noted the following: McCain claimed that Obama's health care plan would "force small businesses to cut jobs" and would put "a bureaucrat ... between you and your doctor." In fact, the plan exempts small businesses, and those who have insurance now could keep the coverage they have. McCain attacked Obama for voting for "corporate welfare" for oil companies. In fact, the bill Obama voted for raised taxes on oil companies by $300 million over 11 years while providing $5.8 billion in subsidies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels. McCain said oil imports send "$700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much." But the U.S. is on track to import a total of only $536 billion worth of oil at current prices, and close to a third of that comes from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom. He promised to increase use of "wind, tide He called for "reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs," but as in the past McCain failed to cite a single program that he would eliminate or reduce. He said Obama would "close" markets to trade. In fact, Obama, though he once said he wanted to "renegotiate" the North American Free Trade Agreement, now says he simply wants to try to strengthen environmental and labor provisions in it. Further factchecks reports that McCain's acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention was couched more in generalities than in specifics, offering fewer factual claims to check than we found in other speeches to the gathering. Factcheck found some instances where the nominee strained the truth. Insurance claims. McCain mischaracterized Obama's health care plan: McCain: His (Obama's) plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor. The claim that "small businesses" would have to "cut jobs, reduce wages," runs counter to Obama's actual proposal. Obama's plan would require businesses to contribute to the cost of insurance for employees or pay some unspecified amount into a new public plan. His proposal specifically says, "Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement." And it offers additional help to small businesses that want to provide health care in the form of a refundable tax credit of up to half the cost of premiums. Furthermore, McCains claim that: Obama's plan would "force" families into a "government-run health care system." Obama's plan mandates that children have coverage; there's no mandate for adults. People can keep the health insurance they have now or chose from private plans, or opt for a new public plan that will offer coverage similar to what members of Congress have. Obama would also expand Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. His plan certainly expands government-offered insurance (McCain's doesn't) but it's not a solely government-run plan, as McCain implied. McCain: My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. Fair enough. But McCain's plan wouldn't do nearly as well as Obama's One comparison, by the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, finds Obama's would reduce the uninsured by 18 million people in its first year, compared with a 1 million reduction under McCain's plan. TPC made various assumptions about the plans to fill in details each proposal lacks, so those numbers aren't definitive. We await more comparisons from other experts. McCain attacked Obama for supporting "corporate welfare" for oil companies. Both Parties, including McCain and Obama: Passed the corporate welfare bill for oil companies. The bill McCain is talking about is the 2005 energy bill, which actually raised taxes on the oil industry overall - by about $300 million, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Obama favored the 2005 $5.8 billion (over 11 years) bill since it contained tax incentives for renewable energy, energy efficiency and alternative fuels. McCain voted against it on the grounds that the $2.6 billion it contained for oil and gas incentives was too much, even though the bill also took away $2.9 billion from the industry, for a net tax increase of $300 million. Describing such a complex measure as "corporate welfare" is misleading. McCain proposes to cut the corporate rate for all companies - oil included - and that would result in an estimated $4 billion cut for the five largest U.S.-based oil companies, according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Obama, promises that he'll strip oil companies of "tax breaks" to the tune of an amount yet to be determined. Factcheck also found other exaggerations in McCain's claims about his plan for energy independence. McCain: We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much. In fact, the U.S. doesn't pay nearly that much for oil from hostile nations. According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S.imported 4.9 billion barrels of oil in 2007. At today's prices, that works out to about $536 billion, still a hefty chunk of change, but considerably less than $700 billion. More important, that's what we pay to all exporting nations, not just those that "don't like us very much." We note that 32 percent of U.S. oil imports came from Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom. McCain also made sweeping claims about green energy that aren't actually backed up by his policy proposals: McCain: We will attack the problem on every front. ...We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles.McCain has been quite specific about his proposals to clear the way for building 45 new nuclear power plants, opening offshore areas to oil drilling and spending $2 billion a year for so-called "clean coal" technology. He has also proposed a $300 million prize for developing the first practical plug-in electric car, although General Motors already is working on that and is aiming for delivery of the Chevrolet Volt by 2010, prize or no prize. McCain has also proposed a $5,000 tax credit for consumers who purchase zero emission vehicles. But when it comes to power from wind and tide, McCain's words are blowing in the breeze. His energy plan, which he calls the Lexington Project, proposes no new spending for renewable energy programs. Instead, he proposes to "rationalize the current patchwork of temporary tax credits," but hasn't said what he means by that. As we've written before, spokespeople for the wind and solar industries are unsure what this actually means Finally, we'll note that McCain himself told supporters at a July town hall meeting that he doesn't think that renewable energy is likely to be "as much of the solution as some people think. McCain repeated his vague promise to make spending cuts: McCain:Reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs will let you keep more of your own money to save, spend and invest as you see fit. However, McCain has not said which programs he considers to be "failed programs." He thus makes the spending cuts sound less painful than they will be should he fulfill his previously stated promise to balance the federal budget by 2013 while also making all Bush tax cuts permanent and adding new cuts of his own. McCain repeated his promise to eliminate "earmarks" from federal spending bills, saying: "the first big-spending pork-barrel earmark bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it." The fact is that earmarks amount to only $16.9 billion in the current fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile, the deficit is expected to be more than $200 billion in 2009. And McCain's tax cuts will add billions more to future deficits unless offset by spending cuts, which he so far has not been willing to identify. McCain said, "I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them." McCain may be alluding to Obama's threat earlier this year to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if Mexico and Canada won't open the deal to renegotiation. Obama said at a Democratic primary debate in Cleveland in February: I will make sure that we renegotiate. ... I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced. That's far from a threat to "close" markets to U.S. Exports. ' An expert from a pro-trade group agrees. "It's a stretch to take the heated comment from the Cleveland debate to pull out of NAFTA if it wasn't revised as indicative of a protectionist policy," Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told FactCheck.org. "In any event, the position on NAFTA has since been clarified." Obama has said he thinks it's unwise to repeal the trade deal, because to do so "would actually result in more job loss ... than job gains." And in a June interview with Fortune magazine, he stated that he didn't plan on pulling out of NAFTA. "Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he said. It's true that McCain has been a stronger advocate of free trade agreements than Obama, who supported the trade deal with Oman in 2006 and one with Peru in 2007 but opposed the one with Central America and another with Colombia.But saying he would "close" markets is nonsense. Finally, Factcheck notes that McCain and the Republican delegates applied a different standard to the Republican nominee's lofty rhetoric than they did to Obama's. McCain drew applause with this line: McCain: We must use all resources and develop all technologies necessary to rescue our economy from the damage caused by rising oil prices and restore the health of our planet. The previous evening, however, McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, ridiculed Obama for using similar high-sounding words: Palin:What does he actually seek to accomplish after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? That crack drew jeers and laughter. Perhaps Republicans see a distinction between "healing the planet" and "restoring the health of our planet," but it escapes me. Sources Abrams, Paul, "The McCain Strategy Is Vintage Karl Rove, the Media Loves It, and the Obama Camp Is Not Taking It Seriously Enough," at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-abrams/the-mccain-strategy-is-vi_b_116648.html Apuzzo, Matt, "Abramoff gets 4 years prison in corruption scandal," http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMZw4dYnLxr5AKkDn0bKGqH0epYAD9305V3O1 Blogspot.com "Gregory J. Harris, USMC POW Vietnam," at: http://gregoryjharris.blogspot.com/ Carper, Thomas R., "Congressional Papers, http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/findaids/carper/series/personal.htm Churcher, Sharon, "The wife U.S. Republican John McCain callously left behind," at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html Congressional Budget Office. "CBO's Baseline Budget Projections," March 2008. Congressional Research Service. Oil and Gas Tax Subsidies: Current Status and Analysis. Washington: GPO, 2007. DTIC, "The McCain Bill" 50 usc §435 as Public Law 102-190," at: http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/general_info/mccainbill.htm DTIC, "Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office," at:http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/Mar%2008.pdf Easton, Nina. "Obama: NAFTA not so bad after all." Fortune Magazine, 18 June 2008. Elliott, Philip. "Obama says rivals have failed." The Associated Press, 9 Oct. 2007. Knowles, David "Fact-Checking McCain/Palin," at: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_mccain.html Glass, Andrew, "Clinton ends Vietnam trade embargo on Feb. 3, 1994," http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8259.html GOP Convention Spin:Lieberman and Thompson make misleading claims about Obama on Day Two of the party in St. Paul. GOP Convention Spin, Part II: Palin trips up on her facts, and Giuliani and Huckabee have their own stumbles on Night 3 of the Republican confab. Guy, Ted and Larson, "Swede" Gordon, quoted from the The Phoenix New Times:"Two Former POWs Say They Doubt McCain Was Physically Abused," and quoted at: http://www.usvetdsp.com/mcianhro.htm Hendon, Bill, Steward, Elizabeth A:, "The dramatic history of living American soldiers left in Vietnam, and the first full account of the circumstances that left them there...," at: http://www.enormouscrime.com/thebook.html Hendon, Bill, Stewart, Elizabeth A., "An Enormous Crime: The Definitive Account of American POWs Abandoned in Southeast Asia,"at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312385382/interworpartners: Hendon, Bill and LeBoutillier, at: http://www.usvetdsp.com/aug08/mccain_unfit.htm Hit the Brakes "An Obama ad running in Michigan claims McCain didn't support loan guarantees for the auto industry. In fact, he does support them. Jackson, Brooks with Novak, Viveca Novak, Robertson, Lori , Miller, Joe and Kolawo, Emi "Factchecking McCain at: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_mccain.html Knowles, David "Fact-Checking McCain/Palin," at: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_mccain.html LeBoutiller, John, "Vietnam Now: A Case for Normalizing Relations with Hanoi," at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275932788/interworpartners Lowther, William, "Hero John McCain betrayed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life," at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-542277/How-war-hero-John-McCain-betrayed-Vietnamese-peasant-saved-life.html Maddow, Rachel, "The Rachel Maddow Show," at:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ Matthews, Chris, "Countdown with Chris Matthews, at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/ McCain, John, "Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir,"at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061734950/interworpartners McCain, John S., Salter, Mark, "Worth the Fighting For: A Memoir," at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375505423/interworpartners Obama, Barack. "Plan for a Healthy America." BarackObama.com, accessed 5 Sept. 2008. Obama, Barack "Remarks for Sen. Barack Obama: AFL-CIO." 2 April 2008. www.barackobama.com Obama, Barack. "Why I Oppose CAFTA." Chicago Tribune, 30 June 2005. Office of Management and Budget. "FY 2008 Appropriations Earmarks Summary," 28 January 2008. Olbermann, Keith, "Senator is acting like a child, needs immediate attitude adjustment," http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26271658/ OpenSecrets, Center for Responsive Politics," John McCain (R) Arizona, at: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/summary.php?cid=N00006424&cycle=2008#bli PolitiFact.com from St. Petersburg Times, "McCain teams up with old rival, scandals notwithstanding," at: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/624/ POW/MIA Policy and Process, "Hearings, before the Select committee on Pow and MIA Affairs at: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/pow/senate_house/pdf/hear_11_91.pdf Sampley, Ted, "Bud, "Col Bud Day, (Ret) Politicizing the Congressional Medal of Honor; his Medal of Honor and the McCain campaign's abuse of our nation's highest award for valor," at http://www.usvetdsp.com/may08/day_bud_moh.htm Schanbert, Sydney, "The War Secrets Sen. John McCain Hides Former POW Fights Public Access to POW/MIA Files," at: http://www.vvof.org/mccain_hides.htm "Spot Prices, Crude Oil in Dollars per Barrel." U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed 5 Sept. 2008. Stein, Sam, "McCain Received $100,000 From Firm Of Abramoff Notoriety,"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/12/mccain-received-100000-_n_86245.html Stelter, Brian "MSNBC Takes Incendiary Hosts From Anchor Seat," at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/media/08msnbc.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Tapper, Jake. "Obama Knocks Clinton, but Wouldn't Ax NAFTA." ABC News, 24 Feb. 2008. The Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, "Country Studies: The United States (Vietnam) at:http://countrystudies.us/vietnam/62.htm "The Lexington Project." JohnMcCain.com, accessed 5 Sept. 2008. The New York Times. "Transcript, the Democratic Debate in Cleveland." 26 Feb. 2008. Timbert, Robert, "The Nightingale's Song, at:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684826739/interworpartners U.S. Senate, "Gimme Five, Invesitagion of Tribal, Lobby Matters, Final Report, Before the Committee on Indian Affairs, http://indian.senate.gov/public/_files/Report.pdf "U.S. Imports by Country of Origin." U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed 5 Sept. 2008. Word Press, "The Measure of The Man," at: http://powwarrior.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/the-measure-of-the-man-why-john-mccain-doesnt-measure-up/ |
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