{"id":1666,"date":"2008-05-14T20:29:08","date_gmt":"2008-05-15T00:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=1666"},"modified":"2008-05-14T20:39:17","modified_gmt":"2008-05-15T00:39:17","slug":"nyt-tries-to-demean-mccains-experiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=1666","title":{"rendered":"NYT tries to demean McCain’s experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ll tell you what, if the New York Times is trying to drive me more solidly into the McCain camp, they’re doing a great job – and what they’re telling veterans about our service, I won’t be alone. Matt Bai writes “The McCain Doctrine<\/a>” in the upcoming Times Magazine.<\/p>\n

Bai begins by pointing out that McCain happens to be the only Senator who served in Vietnam who also supports our efforts in the Middle East – as opposed to Kerry, Webb and Hagel – so that makes his opinion suspect. Bai neglects to mention that the other three are bald-faced opportunists who consistently subscribe to the politically expedient position at a given moment. Not that McCain doesn’t do the same, but at least as far as national security, McCain has been consistent. Kerry, Webb and Hagel have been cheap whores on national security.<\/p>\n

Since none of these three would say anything to Bai against McCain, Bai went to Max Cleland – the guy who says he lost his last election because his patriotism was questioned by President Bush.<\/p>\n

\u201cMcCain is my friend and brother, and I love him dearly,\u201d Max Cleland, Georgia\u2019s former Democratic senator, told me when we talked last month. \u201cBut I think you learn something fighting on the ground, like me and John Kerry and Chuck Hagel did in Vietnam. This objective of \u2018hearts and minds\u2019? Well, hello! You didn\u2019t know which heart and mind was going to blow you up!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the Battalion Signal Officer who blew himself up with an errant grenade inside the protection of a fortified fire base on his way to have a few beers with buddies claims he had some special experience that a guy who was in a POW camp for five-and-a-half years couldn’t have when it comes to national security. I’m not in the habit of disparaging veterans’ service, but people who start throwing crap need to understand it flies both ways.<\/p>\n

Of course, Bai doesn’t go into that much detail about Cleland’s injuries – probably because McCain is the target, and Cleland has already proved himself to be a crybaby when people bring up the actual story of his injuries. Checking on the details of Cleland’s injuries, I found this on Wikipedia<\/a> about Cleland’s political defeat;<\/p>\n

Voters were allegedly influenced by Chambliss ads that featured Cleland’s likeness on the same screen as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, ads that Cleland’s supporters claim questioned his commitment to homeland security. The ads were removed after strong bi-partisan protest from prominent politicians including Republicans like John McCain<\/strong> and Chuck Hagel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So McCain stuck up for Cleland against the ads that were run against Cleland, but Cleland is unwilling to return the favor apparently and stabs McCain in the back by insinuating that McCain’s experience, flying planes at 15,000 feet and then locked in prison makes him retarded on the war in Iraq.<\/p>\n

Bai goes on to recite the fact that after McCain returned from the war, since he was locked away the only way McCain could learn about the war was from books – but that’s the same way that all of these dippy professors became such experts on the war since they dodged the draft and avoided service in Vietnam. So how did that influence McCain differently?<\/p>\n

The Vietnam veterans say McCain didn’t experience the war the same as they did and that’s why he differs from them on this war, but McCain did experience the war the same as the so-called intellectuals who sat out the war on hairy-legged hippie chicks and McCain differs from that class, too.\u00a0 You can’t have it both ways, Bai.<\/p>\n

Maybe the truth is that McCain’s experiences, the physical and the intellectual experiences, have made him the only one in the two groups that might be right. But, of course, Bai would say that, would he?<\/p>\n

Nope, Bai goes off on a tangent after an interview with McCain in which McCain gives him reasons for NOT using US military force in places like Zimbabwe and Burma. So Bai encapsulates “The McCain Doctrine” as;<\/p>\n

In other words, to paraphrase Robert Kennedy, while most politicians looked at injustice in a foreign land and asked, \u201cWhy intervene?\u201d McCain seemed to look at that same injustice and ask himself, \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, what’s the problem with that? “Why” and “why not” intersect at the same point regardless from which direction you reach that point.<\/p>\n

The article is eight pages of irrelevant crap, typical Leftist navel-gazing that borders on the Jay Rockefeller bit on McCain<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Rockefeller believes McCain has become insensitive to many human issues. “McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit.<\/p>\n

“What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Except this time, Bai claims that because John McCain was insulated from the war because of his good fortune to have been captured and stuffed in a jail cell for over five years he just doesn’t understand warfare and politics.<\/p>\n

h\/t The American Pundit<\/a> and Hot Air<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll tell you what, if the New York Times is trying to drive me more solidly … NYT tries to demean McCain’s experiences<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}