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McCain Stand Comes at a Price
LA Times ^ | 09-19-06 | By Janet Hook and Richard Simon, Times Staff Writers

Posted on 09/21/2006 12:10:42 AM PDT by MNJohnnie

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To: michigander

Yup! When Rush said Susan Collins talks like a Miss America contestant, he also implied that McCain operates like a woman!


61 posted on 09/21/2006 8:59:16 PM PDT by BobS
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To: nopardons
I don't know that we are that far apart, but I can tell you right now, I won't be voting for McCain, Guliani, Pataki, Frist, The Mormon from Mass, etc. Newt and Tancredo are closer to my taste. Guliani won't even be in the top 3 in the South, and you can take that to the bank.

I'm not in love with Newt, He's just the best of the bunch so far. Kinda scary isn't it?

62 posted on 09/21/2006 9:08:08 PM PDT by chuckles
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To: chuckles
Rudy is actually doing VERY well in the South.

Newtie has far too much baggage and no, he is most certainly not "just the best of the bunch".

Frist and Pataki and Allen have absolutely NO chance at all; NONE!

McCain not only has NO chance, but every single time he opens his mouth, now, more and more and more people decide that they hate him.

Romney and Rudy have people who won't vote for them for ridiculous reasons....kneejerkers, who won't even look at the facts before they decide. Is Mit really ready for prime time? I don't know; haven't seen enough of him yet.

I don't think that we are all that far apart, either. :-)

I think that someone who isn't even being thought of, is going to appear next year; maybe even two somebodies.

63 posted on 09/21/2006 9:20:42 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: Jeff Chandler
From A "Flying Squad" Of Returned POWs Are Protecting McCain's Image by Major Mark A. Smith, United States Army, Retired Former POW (Vietnam) at Smith article

My intentions have nothing to do with any feelings I may harbor toward John McCain personally. I have none. My intentions in all of this have to do with him professionally.

They have to do with his treatment of [North Vietnamese Army Colonel] Bui Tin, who I consider nothing more than a "sent agent." They have to do with his simplistic attitude toward the issue of MIAs and his utterly vile behavior toward those who disagree with him, including POW/MIA family members...

...I don't care if he has a temper unless he decides to vent it on an aging MIA mother, and he did just that. I can't forgive that and no one else should.

MIAs? I wrote then-Congressman McCain while still in the Army, from Korea, about the MIAs. Senator Denton wrote to me encouraging me to trust the Government. I didn't like the answer, but I got an answer from Senator Denton. My letter to McCain was answered by DIA. I wrote to him as one of the few POWs the Communists returned along with himself, and he checked nothing. So much for John's concern about MIAs.

A friend of mine was with Admiral McCain when he came to meet his son upon his return to U.S. control. When he reminded Senator McCain of this, John responded with a tirade and claimed that he received no "special treatment" and even denied his father was there. I'm sorry, but that was just a lie.

There was deep concern among the intelligence community about John McCain. His interviews and statements from Hanoi and pictures of him in an actual hospital gave great worries to many, including Bill Colby himself. His hero image was not nearly as solid in 1973 as it is now. That may have been wrong, but it was a fact.

I don't know why John did many of the things he did in captivity and since, but I do know that none of this is off limits, when it concerns someone running for President.

At Sign On San Diego Forum

During a break in the hearing, Sen. McCain moved to where Col. Bui Tin was seated and warmly embraced him as if he were a long lost brother.

And on the pow issue; The POW/MIA families point out that they worked hard during the Vietnam War to secure POW McCain's freedom when he was being held by the communists and the families want to know why he is now betraying them today in their efforts to get answers about their missing loved ones.

McCain, as a member of the 1992 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, took the lead in demanding a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the POW/MIA activists and their organizations.

McCain openly attacked the activists telling the press, "The people who have done these things are not zealots in a good cause. They are the most craven, most cynical and most despicable human beings to ever run a scam."

From POW-MIA Network

It was McCain, who during the SSC Hearings, was adamant in promoting the 'they're all dead' myth of American POWs and MIAs. And it was McCain who was instrumental in supporting Clinton's lifting of the trade embargo and ultimate normalization with Vietnam.

McCain's latest credit is the McCain Amendment which severly impacted the Missing Service Personnel Act of 1995/1996. Who's side is this guy on anyway?

***

McCain uses his POW history for his own benefit; he's doing so again, to get attention and to appeal to all who love to see him oppose Pres. Bush.

64 posted on 09/21/2006 11:03:13 PM PDT by skr (We cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.-- Ronald Reagan)
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To: Inge_CAV; nopardons; John D; middie; F14 Pilot; Jacquerie
That none of us would vote McCain for county dog catcher is irrelevant.

As a young man John McCain served his country as a Naval Aviator.

He volunteered to fly the A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft in combat.

He flew missions against the most heavily defended airspace in history.

He was shot down.

He was held prisoner under inhumane conditions for over five years.

The fact is that McCain was once a brave young man who daily risked his life for his country. These facts are not changed by his political enemies forty years later.
65 posted on 09/22/2006 4:09:17 AM PDT by Jacquerie (Those who risked nothing easily fault those who risked everything.)
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To: Jacquerie

I will stand beside him and salute our flag and him for his service to our country.

Never will he get my vote for any public office though.


66 posted on 09/22/2006 4:34:35 AM PDT by Inge_CAV
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To: MNJohnnie

I think you got that right. McCain is dead in the water, most apt being he is former navy. I am still not giving up on George Allen. People here point out his "gaffes" but they should remember he is under constant attack by the Washington ComPost. President Bush survived the attacks the media put on him when he ran - the Clymer remark, the DWI, the tape showing him making fun of the woman executed in Texas, the world leader pop quiz. Some people on FR do not think highly of George Allen but given the attention he gets by the ComPost and other media outlets, obviously someone is worried about him.


67 posted on 09/22/2006 4:46:24 AM PDT by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: beaversmom

Good enough! 8-)


68 posted on 09/22/2006 4:46:47 AM PDT by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: 7thson

The people running down Allen here are under the mistaken notion it helps their choosen guy in 2008. I suggest we put all talk of 2008 aside until after Nov 7tn, 2006. One ucler at a time, please?


69 posted on 09/22/2006 4:54:20 AM PDT by MNJohnnie (Ann Coulter: "I love Freepers!" Told to Freeper eeevil Conservative)
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To: nopardons

What about the guy down in Mississippi, the former RNC head. I forget his name but he got his state up and running quickly after Katrina. I realize he may not look the Presidential part - too heavy - but just asking your opinion.


70 posted on 09/22/2006 5:00:32 AM PDT by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: volunbeer
I gave up on McCain politically long ago, and right now I support Romney. (I'd rather have Gingrich but wishes aren't horses). But I think he is right on the substance of this issue, ignoring its politics.

It really has nothing to do with "applies to" or previous agreements or obligations. The obligation is self imposed and entirely a matter of what is right or fitting. They are making a law about it, not obeying one. Morality and highest level policy are the only guides.

I've heard a lot of blood curdling crap on FR recently in praise of various bits of cruelty, how expedient they are or how effective, which are all morally blind and miss the point. In order to explain it to the deaf, I'll clarify.

If you tie people to boards to drown them, or freeze people, or deprive them of sleep deliberately for days at a time, or beat them, or hack off parts of them, or pour acid on them, or drill holes in them with power tools - or in any other way use absolute power over a human being in your custody to intentionally inflict maximum suffering - then I really don't care what they deserve or how you picked them or how much it helps you. Because I just want to stand you not them up against a wall and shoot you at dawn.

You are making a covenant with hell. Those who do it or support it are accursed. They deserve to be blown apart, to be murdered in buildings as they go about their lives, to be called little Eichmanns. I'm not on their side and they are not my countrymen. Stripping anyone who does or advocates such things of all power and responsibility is a moral duty on every decent human being.

As a matter of mere expediency, that will divide support for our authorities. As a matter of mere history, it is how and why the French lost the war in Algeria. As a matter of personal conscience, I'd rather be a terrorist murdering supporters of torture than a supporter of torture. Our enemies are perhaps worse - the precious structure of the various layered circles of hell may be debated - but I'll fight them later, after those who claim to represent and speak for me are human beings again rather than fiends from the pit.

The voice of nature and more than nature cry out against you.

We don't need such problems, they are utterly gratuitous.

Men ask for clear rules, OK. If you have to ask the answer is no. Can you waterboard? No. Can you forcibly inject drugs and interrogate for days without sleep on top of them? No. Can you throw a naked shivering man in a 40 degree cell doused in water to induce hypothermia? No. The answer is no. You may not do any of it, you must cease immediately, you must banish the thought from your head forever, you must renounce Satan and all of his works and get down on your knees.

71 posted on 09/22/2006 5:07:25 AM PDT by JasonC
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To: JasonC
You have told me what I cannot do. Now, since I asked, what can I do to get information from people who want to kill you. I admire, somewhat, your faith. However, you fail to realize or accept that during man's history on this planet, people had to do things that while it damaged their soul and chances to get to heaven, allowed the likes of you and I to live and prosper in today's society.

Let me tell you a story. While stationed in Naples, Italy in the late 70's, I was invited by a Sergaent I worked for to travel with him and his family to Venice to visit other family members. He is black and I am white. I said yes and I drove with him and his family 8 hours in a van up north. Sitting in the back of the van, he did not have the heat on back there. His kid - about 10 at the time - had a tape player and for eight hours he constantly played the song Le Freak by Chic. Play it, rewind, play it, rewind, play it, rewind. I thought that was torture. And you are saying I cannot put a insane animal who wants to murder thousands of my fellow citizens - simply because they listen to music as I listened to above - into a 40 degree room and play music that offends him, loudly and repeatedly. You would rather have people die then do that? Again, tell me what I can do to get information from these insane people?

72 posted on 09/22/2006 5:27:17 AM PDT by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: 7thson
You can imprison them, you can keep them on limited rations, you can confine in solitary, you can question for 2-4 hours at a time, you can offer better conditions and treatment for compliance, you can stop any immediate violence on their part by stronger violence yourself, which can include physical restraint as long as such behavior continues, you can spy on them, you can infiltrate their organizations or discussions, you can try them for their actual crimes and if they are guilty of murder you can shoot or hang them, and you can use the offer of reprieve or reduction of sentence to induce cooperation.

You may not torture them.

And I do not fail to realize what men have done to each other in history, and I know exactly what it does to their souls, and I do not have any desire to live or to prosper by supporting a particle of it, and I don't. I'd rather be on a rack myself that support Ahmadnejad, and if you do what he did to his prisoners in the early 1980s then he has already conquered you and you have already converted to his religion.

You mild discomfort at music you did not like in a cold van is not torture. Discomfort is not remotely the point and you could have asked you friend to change conditions at any time etc. If you instead sucked in up to be polite bully for you, but none of it has anything to do with torture. Torture is rubbing men's face in their powerlessness and animality to force submission to immorality and to eradicate their spirit. They do so, but they also know what it means of those who do it to them, and they rightly hate it from the bottom of their hearts forever. And yes, deliberately inducing hypothermia is torture and you may not do it. I don't care in the least what the ones you propose to do it to have done or what you hope to get out of it - they are not the ones I am interested in, in the piece. You are. It profits you nothing if you lose your soul.

73 posted on 09/22/2006 5:50:51 AM PDT by JasonC
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To: JasonC

If I waterboarded one individual and obtained information that saved the lives of 20 thousand people, that is worse if I took my time and the attack occurred, and 20 thousand people died. I later find out the terrorist knew this was about to happen, and my slow techniques allowed it to happen. I can find myself in front of God and said one of two things. Yes Lord, I did wrong. Yet, I saved 20 thousand people, giving them another chance to come to You. Or I could say, yes Lord, I realized I could have saved 20 thousand souls but I chose to save my own soul instead. I don't know, bub. It's a hell of a call. Sort of reminds me of the talent tale told by Jesus, where the man selfishly did nothing with his talent, afraid to risk losing it. In the end, he lost it all. In your case, I hope you can stand up to the next of kin of those you let die and tell them you were worried about soiling your soul and so their loved ones had to die.


74 posted on 09/22/2006 6:08:33 AM PDT by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: DTogo

You left out McCain-Feingold. And the Keating Five. And his odd deal (with Kerry) betraying our MIA's in Vietnam. You might have to go for a Top Ten Reasons.


75 posted on 09/22/2006 6:12:29 AM PDT by maryz
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To: DTogo

Oops! How could I forget -- even momentarily -- the Gang of Fourteen?


76 posted on 09/22/2006 6:13:12 AM PDT by maryz
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To: 7thson

Haley Barber? (If I'm spelling it right.)


77 posted on 09/22/2006 6:17:38 AM PDT by maryz
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To: maryz

That's the guy! What do you think of him as President?


78 posted on 09/22/2006 7:01:04 AM PDT by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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To: 7thson

President of what? ;-)


79 posted on 09/22/2006 7:23:44 AM PDT by maryz
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To: maryz

President of the maryz fan club! 8-)


80 posted on 09/22/2006 7:25:08 AM PDT by 7thson (I've got a seat at the big conference table! I'm gonna paint my logo on it!)
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