Category: John McCain/Sarah Palin

Battling computer problems (fricken Dell is really start to anger me), I was unable to comment on that fella Gloria Steinhem’s attack on McCain yesterday, so I’ll give a shot today, from this NY Post link;

Steinem’s slap at McCain’s service in Vietnam came during a “Women for Hillary” campaign event in Austin on Sunday night.

Her anti-military riff was part of her claim that the press has a gender-based bias against Clinton.

“Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight years,” she said.

“Reporters would ask, ‘What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?’ ” Steinem said.

She went on to slam military experience in general – an unusual tactic in a state with some of the country’s largest military installations.

“I am so grateful that she hasn’t been trained to kill anybody,” Steinem said of Clinton.

How desperate is Clinton that she drags out Gloria Steinhem’s corpse – who’s next Bella Abzug? No reporters have to ask John McCain what he did wrong to get captured – it’s in his book “Faith of My Fathers” – the book doesn’t have any color pictures so Gloria might have passed on it.

Hillary knew she needed an excuse as to why she doesn’t have any military experience – that’s why she made up the story about the Marines rejecting her back in the 70s because she’s a girl (NY Times link);

She told the group gathered for lunch in the Dirksen Office Building, according to The Associated Press, that she became interested in the military in 1975, the year she married Bill Clinton and the year she was teaching at the University of Arkansas law school in Fayetteville.

She was 27 then, she said, and the Marine recruiter was about 21. She was interested in joining either the active forces or the reserves, she recalled, but was swiftly rebuffed by the recruiter, who took a dim view of her age and her thick glasses. ‘Not Very Encouraging’

“You’re too old, you can’t see and you’re a woman,” Mrs. Clinton said she was told, adding that the recruiter dismissed her by suggesting she try the Army. “Maybe the dogs would take you,” she recalled the recruiter saying.

“It was not a very encouraging conversation,” she said. “I decided maybe I’ll look for another way to serve my country.”

1975 was the year after I joined the Army – all of the services were taking anyone they could get at that time – as long as her vision was correctable to 20/20, she was under 35, she was fair game to recruiters – and a law school degree would have made her eligible for OCS – a recruiter would’ve broke his neck trying to get her paperwork in order – it was even before urinanalysis – she’d have been a shoe-in. So, like every other story she’s told trying to give her some credibility – it’s a lie.

So when is Clinton going to start serving her country? Letting Gloria Steinhem attack the military from Clinton’s stage isn’t a good way to start. Demeaning John McCain’s years as a POW is a poor substitute for Hillary’s lack of service to her country.

Oh, and just because Hillary Clinton hasn’t been trained to kill that doesn’t mean she’s not responsible for any deaths. Just another reason her 3AM phone call ad gives me chills.

Bob Parks at Outside the Wire quotes Steinem in another interview;

In an interview with the New York Observer, Steinem added,

… from George Washington to Jack Kennedy and PT-109 we have behaved as if killing people is a qualification for ruling people.

See, there’s her problem, right there – she doesn’t understand the concept of a representative Republic. Since when have the American people chose someone they want to “rule” us? Unfortunately for Gloria (and Hillary, for that matter) Americans want someone to lead us and there’s no better place to prove that you can lead people in distressing times than in military.

That’s why George McClellan didn’t get elected.

Democrats are trying to railroad McCain on people who are endorsing his campaign. Its megachurch leader John Hagee from San Antonio this time (AP Link);

Democrats quoted Hagee as saying the Catholic Church conspired with Nazis against the Jews and that Hurricane Katrina was God’s retribution for homosexual sin, and they recited his demeaning comments about women and flip remarks about slavery.

“Hagee’s hate speech has no place in public discourse, and McCain’s embrace of this figure raises serious questions about John McCain’s character and his willingness to do anything to win,” said Tom McMahon, executive director of the Democratic National Committee.

So where was the denunciation of Louis Farakhan’s endorsement of Obama – how many times has Calypso Louie called white people devils? How many times has Farakhan or his followers denigrated Jews publicly? McCain handled it well, I think.

McCain was pressed on the issue Friday morning in Round Rock, Texas. Hagee “supports what I stand for and believe in,” McCain said.

“When he endorses me, that does not mean that I endorse everything that he stands for and believes in,” McCain said. “I don’t have to agree with everyone who endorses my campaign.”

He added that he was “proud” of Hagee’s spiritual leadership of his congregation at the 17,000-member Cornerstone Church.

But the perpetually offended won’t turn loose of that bone;

The Catholic League and Catholics United called on McCain to reject the endorsement.

“By publicly addressing this issue, you will reaffirm to the American public and to Catholics that intolerance and bigotry have no place in American presidential campaigns,” Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, wrote McCain in a letter sent Thursday.

Look, I don’t support what Hagee preaches if the AP has reported it correctly, but McCain is right – he can’t and doesn’t agree with everything every single person who endorses him believes or says. This habit the Democrats have of trying to force Republicans to repudiate and back away from odd-ball endorsements is all a losing political game for Republicans. I hope McCain stands his ground on this one and stops it at the start before we get morality lessons from the Democrats every day until November.

When Democrats start turning away endorsements and returning filthy campaign cash without being caught with it in the first place, maybe we can take them a bit more seriously.

The New York Times stoops to new lows, questioning whether John McCain’s birth in the former US Canal Zone disqualifies him for the Presidency. Couched in philosophical language, the Times tries to create a new reason to not vote for McCain among the folks who only read headlines;

The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.

Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

“There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,” said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. “It is not a slam-dunk situation.”

Mr. McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a Navy officer, were stationed. His campaign advisers say they are comfortable that Mr. McCain meets the requirement and note that the question was researched for his first presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.

So even though it’s already been settled since 1999, the chattering classes want to bring it up again, huh? I guess that’s why they call them the chattering class.

Um, my youngest daughter was born in Gorgas Hospital in the Canal Zone – about 100 feet from Panama City proper. She has a Panamanian birth certificate, and another certificate issued by the US State Department entitled “Report of US Citizen Born Abroad”. At the time, Gorgas Hospital was in the US-owned Canal Zone, US property, administered by the US government and surrounded by US citizens.

John McCain, and my daughter, were born to American parents on US territory. It’s like saying Abe Lincoln couldn’t be President because Kentucky wasn’t a State when he was born there, for pete’s sake.

I guess if Obama had been born two years earlier we’d be having the discussion about him, too, since Hawaii wasn’t a State two years before he was born?

h/t to Right Voices who first twigged me to the subject. Pirate’s Cove is virtual Panamanian rainforest of links on the subject.

Last night I saw several blogs (who will remain nameless and linkless) who criticized John McCain for apologizing to the press about some disparaging remarks about his tentative rival in the upcoming election (Miami Herald link);

‘Now we have a hack, Chicago-style Daley politician who is picturing himself as change. When he gets done with you, all you’re going to have in your pocket is change,” Cunningham said as the audience laughed.

The time will come, Cunningham added, when the liberal-leaning media will ”peel the bark off Barack Hussein Obama” and tell the truth about his relationship with indicted fundraiser Antoin ”Tony” Rezko and how Obama got ”sweetheart deals” in Chicago.

McCain wasn’t on stage or, he says, in the building when Cunningham made the comments, but he quickly distanced himself from the radio talk show host after finishing his speech. McCain spoke to a couple hundred people at Memorial Hall in downtown Cincinnati.

”I apologize for it,” McCain told reporters, addressing the issue before they had a chance to ask the Arizona senator about Cunningham’s comments.

”I did not know about these remarks, but I take responsibility for them. I repudiate them,” he said. “My entire campaign I have treated Sen. Obama and Sen. [Hillary] Clinton with respect. I will continue to do that throughout this campaign.”

McCain called both Democrats ”honorable Americans” and said, “I want to dissociate myself with any disparaging remarks that may have been said about them.”

I tend to agree with McCain. As a presidential candidate he should avoid that kind of childish banter. I’ll admit that I’m quick to call names – but I’m not running for President. George W. Bush in the face of childish namecalling and outright lies brushed them off, his father and Ronald Reagan did the same. Even Bill Clinton checked his natural inclination to return in kind insults on most occasions until he was out of office.

But, I disagree with McCain on Obama’s middle name usage;

Asked whether the use of Obama’s middle name — the same as former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein — is proper, McCain said: “No, it is not. Any comment that is disparaging of either Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama is totally inappropriate.”

McCain said he didn’t know who decided to allow Cunningham to speak but said he was sure it was in coordination with his campaign. He said he didn’t hear the comments and has never met Cunningham, but “I will certainly make sure that nothing like that happens again.”

It’s Obama’s middle name – if he doesn’t like it, he should change it. We all know John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Milhouse Nixon, James Earl Carter, Ronald Wilson Reagon, George Herbert Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton.

If Obama doesn’t want to be known as Barak Hussein Obama, he’d better do something about it now. Just like his supposed sensitivity about his ears – that’s just childish. Being ashamed of his name and his appearance is something he should have outgrown in his teen years like the rest of us.