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Troop Push Is Personal For McCain (Senator Calls for Iraq Boost as Son Becomes a Marine)
The Washington Post ^ | Tuesday, December 26, 2006 | Elizabeth Williamson

Posted on 12/26/2006 2:31:11 AM PST by MinorityRepublican

As the Iraq Study Group issued its long-awaited report on the war, declaring that the United States should not dispatch more troops, Sen. John McCain reacted with his long-held and contrary view: It will take more boots on the ground, or the nation faces "sooner or later, our defeat in Iraq."

Then the Arizona Republican discreetly flew to San Diego, where the next day, Dec. 8, he sat under a hot sun to watch a skinny 18-year-old in military-issue glasses graduate from boot camp and become a Marine. His son Jimmy.

John McCain's public certainty about Iraq masks a more private and potentially wrenching connection. If more troops go there, as McCain hopes they will, his youngest son could be one of them, taking his place in a line of family warriors that is one of the longest in U.S. history.

Sen.-elect James Webb (D-Va.) also has a son in the Marine Corps named Jimmy. On the campaign trail, Webb declined to talk about his son, who is in Iraq, but he wore Jimmy's boots as he called for American forces to come home.

McCain has not drawn any attention to his son and declined to be interviewed for this article.

A leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination, McCain has been one of the few and among the most vocal politicians pressing for more troops in Iraq. "We left Vietnam, it was over, we just had to heal the wounds of war. We leave this place . . . and they'll follow us home," he said on a news show recently. "So there's a great deal more at stake."

McCain's own father faced the anguish of sending a son to war. Adm. John McCain Jr., who commanded Pacific forces during the Vietnam War, ordered airstrikes on Hanoi......

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: iraq; iraqstudygroup; iraqsurrendergroup; isg; mccain; stuckonstupid
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To: holyscroller
There are two sons from the first marriage, if I recall.

He spends no more time with his children from this second marriage than he ever did with the first wife and children.

Despite the fact that Cindy had a stroke, he goes about his world travels with no concern at all for his family.

21 posted on 12/27/2006 4:03:01 AM PST by OldFriend (THE PRESS IS AN EVIL FOR WHICH THERE IS NO REMEDY)
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To: Van Jenerette
The Real McCain

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: THE ULTIMATE "RHINESTONE HERO"

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: THE ULTIMATE "RHINESTONE HERO" Part II

John McCain Gets Soros Cash

John McCain Is No Hero

U.S. Sen. John McCain is no War Hero

John McCain: The Manchurian Candidate

JOHN MCCAIN, WARTS AND ALL

John McCain, you treasonous bastard, I challenge you or any of your traitorous cohorts...

McCain Is Booed by Labor Activists

McCain Rides to Kerry's Rescue: "John Kerry is Not Weak on Defense" (Today Show alert)

John McCain SCREAMS AT 9/11 FSA MEMBERS FOR OPPOSING HIS BILL TO GIVE AMNESTY FOR ILLEGALS

John McCain's Skeleton Closet

A number of articles on McCain. (some the same as above)

McCain/Soros by Rabbi Areyh Spero

Soros' "Reform" (an article about Soros‘ instrumental hand in McCain/Feingold)

Not Child‘s Play [McCain/Schumer bill could effect FR?]

22 posted on 12/27/2006 11:12:13 AM PST by TigersEye (Ego chatters endlessly on. Mind speaks in great silence.)
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To: MinorityRepublican

I will not vote for that man. He is not the person we need in the office of President. Frankly, he scares me.


23 posted on 12/27/2006 11:16:29 AM PST by MamaB (mom to an Angel)
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To: Vermont Lt

Perhaps sedition would be a more appropriate term. Anyone who thinks the 2nd Amendment is something to be toyed with for the bogus goal of "Campaign Finance Reform" is no American.


24 posted on 12/27/2006 11:17:01 AM PST by TigersEye (Ego chatters endlessly on. Mind speaks in great silence.)
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To: Van Jenerette
He is one of 2 people who really, really, scare me as a politician. The other one is Kucinich or however it is spelled. I will not vote for him.
25 posted on 12/27/2006 11:19:11 AM PST by MamaB (mom to an Angel)
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To: OldFriend

That's what I thought too. McCain is sacrificing his son on the altar of political expediency.


26 posted on 12/27/2006 11:27:58 AM PST by streetpreacher (What if you're wrong?)
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To: Van Jenerette

I agree with you. I may disagree with a lot of McCain's policies and I hate what he did to Bush the first few years of his presidency.

But come on, the man is a patriot. What he suffered through in Vietnam is something you would not wish on your worst enemy. He had the opportunity to go back, but was honorable enough not to.

The man was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the country. He maybe many things, but he certainly isn't a traitor


27 posted on 12/27/2006 11:34:39 AM PST by NorthEastRepublican
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To: streetpreacher

"That's what I thought too. McCain is sacrificing his son on the altar of political expediency."

Your lunacy is an insult to the integrity of the United States Marine Corps. To become a United States Marine, you have to want it, bad.
Semper Fi



28 posted on 12/27/2006 11:35:07 AM PST by jamese777
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To: Van Jenerette

I would not vote for John McCain. He's a backstabbing RINO.


29 posted on 12/27/2006 11:41:08 AM PST by sissyjane (Don't be stuck on stupid!)
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To: jamese777
We saw how difficult it was for McCain to get into the Naval Academy.

You can invent facts if you wish, but we're not going to buy them.

30 posted on 12/27/2006 11:52:06 AM PST by OldFriend (THE PRESS IS AN EVIL FOR WHICH THERE IS NO REMEDY)
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To: NorthEastRepublican

Getting shot down by the enemy was not something McCain wished for, but that hardly makes him a patriot. The life he has led since his release is not one of honor or integrity.


31 posted on 12/27/2006 11:53:00 AM PST by OldFriend (THE PRESS IS AN EVIL FOR WHICH THERE IS NO REMEDY)
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To: NorthEastRepublican

Would you say the same thing about Benedict Arnold, a true war hero?


32 posted on 12/27/2006 12:47:33 PM PST by streetpreacher (What if you're wrong?)
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To: MinorityRepublican

God Bless John McCain for raising a patriotic son!!!! Fourth Generation military. John McCain will make a fine President someday. He is patriotic and conservative!!!! Good for the Country. He has a few faults but so does every other name mentioned for 08!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


33 posted on 12/27/2006 12:55:59 PM PST by napscoordinator
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To: streetpreacher

Is John McCain fighting against us? No he is as patriotic as he can be in the WoT


34 posted on 12/27/2006 2:48:53 PM PST by NorthEastRepublican
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To: DeusExMachina05; All
I couldn't have said it better. The "Real conservatives" need to get over themselves unless they want the GOP to stay a minority party for another forty years. A lot of the people who dominate the conservative movement today would have been considered part of the fringe when Reagan was in office.

As for this business about McCain being a traitor because he was forced to make a bogus war crimes confession-this is what the Vietcong animals did to many POWs. They treated him visciously when he refused to accept an offer to be repatriated. How well would any of the McCain bashers have held up under such circumstances? I should also like to point out that criticizing President Bush or the religious right is not a crime. To many conservatives, neither President Bush or the religious right are even close to actually being conservative.

Let the loonies (and they know who they are) back people who don't have a snowball's chance in hades of winning. Many of them are the same types who backed Alan Keyes, Pat Buchanan, etc. Remember how well that turned out? I'm willing to hold my nose and vote for someone I agree with seventy or eighty per cent of the time because of the threat we face. We are at war, and we need a warrior, not a nanny-stater.

35 posted on 12/27/2006 3:34:02 PM PST by WestVirginiaRebel (Common sense will do to liberalism what the atomic bomb did to Nagasaki-Rush Limbaugh)
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To: OldFriend

"We saw how difficult it was for McCain to get into the Naval Academy.
You can invent facts if you wish, but we're not going to buy them."
Geting in is the easy thing, staying in and making it a career is another thing and being a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton for five and a half years is quite another thing.
What "facts" did I invent?


36 posted on 12/27/2006 5:08:39 PM PST by jamese777
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To: NorthEastRepublican
What he suffered through in Vietnam is something you would not wish on your worst enemy. He had the opportunity to go back, but was honorable enough not to.

The Democrats on Captiol Hill managed to do to him what his Vietcong jailers failed to.

37 posted on 12/27/2006 5:18:31 PM PST by lowbridge ("I wonder if he's in touch with the critics out there, like Matt Damon, the actor" -Chris Matthews)
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To: MinorityRepublican

The McCain Doctrine: "When you are hip deep in sh*t, keep digging until you are in over your head."


38 posted on 01/02/2007 12:14:43 PM PST by MurryMom
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