Fellow Republicans on McCain

by J. Wilkes

John McCain has a problem with his party. His Phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes campaign- largely driven by his success with moderates and non-Republicans- has thrown a curveball to the GOP, which has been vocal in its criticism of McCain in the past. Now they're under pressure to fall in line behind a man whom they've expressed serious concern about in the past, or risk handing the White House keys to a Democrat.

Though many Republicans have begun to coalesce around McCain in recent months, the statements they've made over the years are telling of their personal opinions of the Arizona Senator.

"The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
Senator Thad Cochran, R-MS

"I decided I didn't want this guy anywhere near a trigger."

Senator Pete Domenici, R-NM

"If either [John McCain or Mike Huckabee] gets the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party, it's going to change it forever, be the end of it."

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh

"There's nothing redeeming about John McCain...he's a hypocrite."

Former House GOP Whip Tom DeLay

"He is a vicious person. Nearly all the Republican Senators endorsed Bush because they knew McCain from serving with him in...

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McCain Recycles Bush Talking Points To Hit Obama On Terrorism

by Sam Stein

John McCain and his aides took a fairly sharp jab at Barack Obama on Tuesday, accusing the presumptive Democratic nominee of downplaying the threat of terrorism by viewing it as a criminal activity.

If the attack line strikes political observers as familiar, that's because it is all but lifted from the playbook of George W. Bush.

Late Monday evening and Tuesday morning, the McCain campaign hit Obama for statements he made to ABC News arguing that the United States was able to arrest and put on trial those responsible for the first World Trade Center attack and could do the same for detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Such logic, McCain's aides asserted, demonstrated a "stunning and alarming misunderstanding of the threat we face from radical Islamic extremism." Obama, they concluded, represented "the 9/10 Candidate."

(For full audio of the McCain campaign's Tuesday conference call on the topic: click here)

Put aside, for the time being, whether what Obama said was historical fact (the McCain campaign disputes that, but argued primarily that using the criminal justice system to help combat terrorism was a "policy of delusion"); or that McCain himself advocates closing the prison camp at Guantanamo and moving the detainees to the U.S. mainland; or that the Illinois Democrat never said anything about not using military force (Obama, after all, has advocated going after Bin Laden in Pakistan even without that government's sign-off). And consider how similar McCain's talking points are to those Bush deployed...

Continue this story at: The Huffington Post

McCain's Secret, Questionable Record

by Jeffrey Klein

"At a meeting in his Pentagon office in early 1981, Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman told Capt. John S. McCain III that he was about to attain his life ambition: becoming an admiral.... Mr. McCain declined the prospect of his first admiral's star to make a run for Congress, saying that he could 'do more good there,' Mr. Lehman recalled." So claimed the New York Times in a front-page article on May 29 this year.

This story is highly improbable for several reasons, not least of all because John McCain himself has always told a very different story about his stalled naval career. For example, on page 9 of his memoir Worth The Fighting For, McCain writes:

"Several months before my father died, I informed him that I was leaving the navy. I am sure he had gotten word of my decision from friends in the Pentagon. I had been summoned to see the CNO, Admiral Heyward, who told me I was making a mistake.... His attempt to dissuade me encouraged me to believe that I might have made admiral had I remained in the navy, a prospect that remained an open question in my mind.... Some of my navy friends believed I could earn my star; others doubted it.... When I told my father of my intention, he did not remonstrate me.... But I knew him well enough to know that he was disappointed. For when I left him that day, alone in his study, I took with me his hope that I might someday become the first son and grandson of four-star admirals to achieve the same distinction. That aspiration was well beyond my reach by the time I made my decision...."

McCain's father died on March 22, 1981. McCain retired from the Navy within a week. He wrote about his retirement soon thereafter. McCain never mentioned the alleged offer of an admiralship by Lehman in any of his books, nor in the numerous interviews McCain gave during his first run for the presidency in 1999-2000.

Furthermore, articles written during the current presidential campaign quote McCain's closest friends about McCain's failure to be promoted to admiral before he retired from the Navy. For example, in an April 26, 2008, National Journal cover story, William Cohen (then a Senator, subsequently Secretary of Defense and the best man at McCain's second wedding) recounts that McCain "knew his career in the Navy was limited." Former Senator Gary Hart, who served as a groomsman at McCain's 1980 wedding, says in the National Journal story that he had been told "that [McCain] was not going to receive a star and not going to become an admiral. I think that was the deciding point for him to retire from the Navy."

John Lehman doesn't figure in any accounts of McCain's naval career, probably because Lehman was appointed Secretary of the Navy less than two months before McCain retired. The New York Times didn't note this, or the pertinent fact that John Lehman is currently serving as National Security Adviser to McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. Two admirals in the Times story...

Continue this story at: HuffingtonPost.com

Some Funny.

McCain Vows To Replace Secret Service With His Own Bare Fists

Pin at the GOP state convention in Texas: "If Obama is President... will we still call it the White House?"

by John Aravosis

Expect the Republican party to do absolutely nothing about the racists in its own midst. The national Republican party in Washington has contacts all the time with its state parties. I'm sure there's money involved, and you'd better believe that when John McCain visits the states, he meets with local party officials. At what point do we hold John McCain responsible for fraternizing with racists? You don't see John McCain ever saying that he's no longer going to meet with, fundraise with, any state parties that promote or tolerate racism (like the folks in NC and TN). All McCain and that national party does is say "gosh, that's so bad, stop that now." McCain and the GOP have the power to punish the racists in their midst. So when will they? Oh, and for all of you...

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