You can take the man out of the Navy, but you can't take the Navy out of the man.
Sen. John McCain laid in to Sen. Barack Obama today, slapping him hard for having the temerity to question the former Navy pilot and POW for opposing a bill on veterans.
The Senate today easily approved legislation that the Bush administration say could encourage some service members to leave the military to take advantage of the benefits to get a college education, at a time of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama took to the floor and, while saying he respected McCain's military service, criticized McCain's opposition to the legisation.
"I can't understand why he would line up behind the president in opposition," he said.
McCain, who missed the vote because he was campaigning in California, let Obama have it.
"It is typical, but no less offensive, that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of. ...
"Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as president, the country would regret his election."
The war hero also pointed out that Obama never served in the military.
"I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did."
— Joseph Curl, senior White House correspondent, The Washington Times
Comments (2)
I'm 35, and have been following politics for quite a while, and I've never been so disappointed with a politician I've admired and respected. Yesterday's tactics weren't just wrong, they were offensive. For that matter, they seem to be part of a deliberate strategy to tear Democrats apart and ensure a defeat in November.
For several weeks, I've appreciated the fact that Clinton considers herself the superior candidate, and has kept her campaign going in the hopes, from her perspective, of saving the party from itself. But after yesterday, it's become impossible for me to consider Clinton's intentions honorable. Her conduct is not that of a leader.
Instead of trying to help bring the party together _ Election Day is 24 weeks away _ Clinton went to Florida to argue that if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, his nomination will be illegitimate. And if the DNC plays by the rules Clinton used to support, it's guilty of vote-suppression _ comparable to slavery, Jim Crow, and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe.
It is disgusting for HRC to co-opt the Civil Rights struggle after weeks of transparent appeals that whites won't vote for the black guy which JUST SO COINCIDENTALLY took form during the Appalachian primaries (which conveniently occurred after North Carolina, the last state with a large black population)
It really is disgusting, and yet another nail in the coffin of what used to be Bill and Hillary's positive legacy to the party. She is now being openly mocked across the media and political spectrum. But I'm sure mentioning that is "sexist", and that everyone criticizing the joke her campaign has become is sexist as well.
Posted by SMS | May 22, 2008 4:41 PM
Since he professes to only being 35, SMS would have been in middle school when- of all sources - The New York Times published information about Hillary Clinton's shenanigans with the Rose Law Firm. Chief among them being that she accepted a retainer from her business partner Jim McDougall, and that she represented her business partner before the state of Arkansas while her husband was a sitting governor. That's a double conflict of interest; either of which could have gotten her debarred had anyone in Arkansas followed up to complain. The only reason she escaped indictment for her time at Rose Law firm was that her allegedly "missing" billing records were not found until after the statute of limitations had passed.
But even if SMS was remiss in knowing about the above, how can SMS respect someone for wanting to be president so much that she stayed married to a serial philanderer like her husband who allegedly had an open affair with a Canadian MP that he broke off with only within the past year when HRC decided to run for president? I saw evidence of that with my own two eyes on CPAN. Bill was sitting next to Blondie, and Hillary was sitting far away on the other side of a big round table from him, at some televised political function, so I'm not just relying on Drudge for that info.
She went to China and criticized their one child policy- this from someone who had one child herself. Personally, I think the Chinese are to be commended for this. How dare she be so sanctimonious as to judge a country with a billion people living in the same space as the United States east of the Mississippi. But she thought she could get a headline, so there she went.
There are very few things I can think of to commend this person and much to criticize. Perhaps the same could be said of myself, but I'm not running for president.
Posted by George Robertson | May 22, 2008 10:39 PM