Mr. Straight Talk tells a fib
February 20th, 2008 at 03:05pm Pat Cunningham
John McCain is falsely accusing Barack Obama of wanting to do something the Bush administration already is on the VERGE OF DOING.
Before long, most Americans will understand that John McCain’s record of valorous service in the Vietnam War, admirable as it is, does not make him especially knowledgeable about foreign policy or national security.
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17 Comments Add your own
1. Red Rover | February 20th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
While he was in Vietnam, John McCain used a high-powered airplane to kill innocent Vietnamiese who never did him or any other American any harm.
Ho Chi MInh had every right to hang McCain’s baby-killing terrorist butt, but did not do so because he knew that the real enemy of the innocent Vietnamese people was the corporate fascist, Christian-nazi US government.
If John McCain’s record of service in the Vietnam War is valorous and admirable, then how do we characterize the terrorists who used powerful airplanes to kill innocent Americans on 9-11?
John McCain is just another American mass murderer. He should be in jail, not in the White House.
2. Pat Cunningham | February 20th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Whoa, Rover. I’m no fan of John McCain, but neither am I an advocate of putting him in jail. So, you won’t be voting Republican this year, right?
3. Mike Carroll | February 21st, 2008 at 9:25 am
There are a substantial number of Red Rover’s on your side of the aisle Pat which is why National Security issues are a winner for Conservatives. The voting public only trusts Liberals with the presidency when they mistakenly feel the dangers have passed which is how we got Billy Bob.If the Democratic Party was still the Scoop Jackson/Sam Nunn party, I might still be a member.You can thank the McGovernites for your Red Rovers.
4. Pat Cunningham | February 21st, 2008 at 9:42 am
Mike: So your theory explains how George W. Bush won two terms as president (although he didn’t really win the first term in the popular vote). And what will Bush’s legacy of failure do to Republican prospects for holding the White House this year? Michael, you’ve bought into the myth that Republicans are better than Democrats on national security issues. It’s all part of the GOP’s self-image as the Daddy Party, the party of big, strong protective John Wayne types. There’s as much reality in that nonsense as their was authenticity in John Wayne’s image as a cowboy and war hero. The Duke was a fraud, and so is the Daddy Party.
5. Mike Carroll | February 21st, 2008 at 11:21 am
Pat-glad to see that you acknowledge W’s win in election #1. So few liberals do. As far as his so called legacy of failure, you’ll excuse me if I wait for the judgement of historians. It is possible, of course, that they will judge him as to be a failure as they have judged Bubba but time will tell.
Yep, Republicans are the Daddy Party and Democrats are the Mommy party and you know which the electorate prefers in times of war.
I wouldn’t be too confident that your standard bearer will be selling nights in the Lincoln bedroom come 2009. Care for a wager? If I recall, I’m 1 up.
6. Pat Cunningham | February 21st, 2008 at 12:33 pm
And what will your standard bearer be selling? Influence in return for a little nookie?
7. Mike Carroll | February 21st, 2008 at 12:45 pm
It worked for Bubba.
8. Red Rover | February 21st, 2008 at 4:56 pm
The Vietnam War was a foreign policy disaster for the US that weakened and did not strengthen our national security, and John McCain learned NOTHING at all from his time in jail during that racist, criminal war, except how to be an arrogant bully and foul-mouthed jerk.
Now he supports another racist, criminal war — this time in Iraq — that has also weakened our national security and made us the most hated nation on the face of the earth. If doing things to make lots of other people hate us constitutes what Mike Carroll calls a “winner” National Security issue for Conservatives, then we as a nation are in big trouble.
But all that hatred that others feel for us has no effect on John McCain. He favors bombing Iran and allowing the CIA to use torture on the often innocent people it arrests and jails, which would make even more people around the world hate us.
John McCain, however, clearly doesn’t care about who hates him and who doesn’t. I mean, this arrogant baby-killer even bullied Chelsea Clinton back in 1998, and thought that it was a big joke. McCain is also hated by many of his Senatorial colleagues. Below are some excerpts from an article on that topic.
Will our nation really be more secure with a vicious bully and foul-mouthed jerk like John McCain in the White House? Real conservatives ought to be examining the evidence and asking themselves that question.
——————————————[excerpts]————————–
As portrayed by the mainstream media, McCain is an engaging war hero, a man of political moderation positioned between the left and the right.
But to insiders who know him, McCain has an irrational, explosive side that make many of them question whether he is fit to serve as president and be commander in chief.
Nowhere is that sentiment stronger than in the Senate, where McCain has few friends or supporters. In fact, when McCain ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2000, only four Republican senators endorsed him.
“I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues,” said former Senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on Republican policy committees. “He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We’ve all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I’ve never seen anyone act like that.”
McCain’s outbursts often erupted when other members rebuffed his requests for support during his bid in 2000 for the Republican nomination for president. A former Senate staffer recalled what happened when McCain asked for support from a fellow Republican senator on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.
“The senator explained that he had already committed to support George Bush,” the former Senate staffer said. “McCain said ‘f— you’ and never spoke to him again.”
“He had very few friends in the Senate,” said former Senator Smith, who dealt with McCain almost daily. “He has a lot of support around the country, but I don’t think he has a lot of support from people who know him well.”
Another former senator who requested anonymity recalled an exchange at a Republican policy lunch. McCain turned on another senator who disagreed with him.
“McCain used the f-word,” the former senator said. “McCain called the guy a ‘sh–head.’ The senator demanded an apology. McCain stood up and said, ‘I apologize, but you’re still a sh–head.’ That was in front of 40 to 50 Republican senators. That sort of thing happened frequently.”
“People who disagree with him get the f— you,” said former Rep. John LeBoutillier, a New York Republican who had an encounter with McCain when he was on a POW task force in the House. After LeBoutillier had openly tape recorded comments at a conference, McCain got the idea that LeBoutillier was secretly tape recording him.
“Are you wired up?” LeBoutillier quoted McCain as asking. “Of course not,” LeBoutillier said.
“Prove it,” McCain said.
LeBoutillier said he lowered his pants, apparently satisfying McCain that he was not taping him.
“He is a vicious person,” LeBoutillier said. “Nearly all the Republican senators endorsed Bush because they knew McCain from serving with him in the Senate. They so disliked him that they wouldn’t support him. They have been on the hard end of his behavior.”
MUCH MORE LIKE THIS AT:
McCain’s Out-of-Control Anger: Does He Have the Temperament to Be President?
Ronald Kessler
Wednesday, July 5, 2006
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/7/5/00548.shtml
9. Kaus | February 21st, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Man oh man….Red Rover….lover of communism…Stalin, Ho Chi Minh….gotta be an Obama voter.
10. Pat Cunningham | February 21st, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Rover’s a wordy dude, ain’t he?
11. Mike Carroll | February 22nd, 2008 at 10:48 am
He’s on your team Pat.
12. Pat Cunningham | February 22nd, 2008 at 11:58 am
Mike: If Rover’s on my team, David Duke, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Bob Ney, Duke Cunningham and countless other Republican miscreants on yours.
13. Kaus | February 22nd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Pat….you still have Robert kkk Byrd….David Duke is no longer on ‘our’ team. nyah nyah.
14. Red Rover | February 22nd, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Pat Cunningham is right: I am not now and never have been on his “team”. Pat Cunningham claims to be an unabashed liberal, but has publicly applauded our ultra-conservative Congressman-for-Life Don Manzullo’s violation of his vow not to run for more than 6 terms in Congress. If that’s “liberal” then I am surely not one of those.
Nor am I a “lover of communism”. That, too, is Congressman Manzullo’s steadfast policy. Why, hell, he was just in Beijing last December brown-nosing Communist tyrants while they were using the huge profits they have made from so-called “free trade” (that Manzullo approves of) to buy military secrets from American traitors.
Manzullo has NEVER denounced Red China’s human rights abuses and repeated acts of espionage against us, and I have publicly denounced him for it. So, tell me all you knee-jerk conservatives, who is really the “lover of communism”?
As for John McCain: he is a dangerously deluded man who, if elected will lead this nation into even more trouble by going to war at the drop of a hat.
He has already called for the bombing of Iran, making a joke out of it by sinking “Bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys “Barbara Ann”.
On Tuesday after his victory in Wisconsin and as a possible pretext to yet another war misadventure, John McCain laid claim to Venezuela’s oil reserves:
————-[excerpt]————————————
And on a day when oil prices hit a new record high, McCain referred to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as “a self-important bully” who “threatens to cut off our oil at a time of sky rocketing gas prices.”
SOURCES:
http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7165&Itemid=33
http://www.24.com/news/?p=tsa&i=844386
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/US_Elections_2008/0,,2-10-2339_2273900,00.html
—————————————————————
As far as my being a “wordy dude”, I suggest that it is my readers who lack the attention span needed to consider the multiple facets of complicated issues. They are men and women of faith, and therefore blind to their own ignorance and unwilling to read things that challenge their misguided faith in a broken system and a failing country.
15. Pat Cunningham | February 22nd, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Rover: Where’d you get that crap about me applauding Manzullo’s vow of self-imposed term limits? Are you off your meds, or what?
16. Pat Cunningham | February 23rd, 2008 at 10:37 am
Rover: Upon further reflection, if I haven’t applauded Manzullo’s abandonment of term limits (and I don’t recall doing so), I should have. Term limits are stupid. The Founding Fathers had term limits in the Articles of Confederation but deliberately and wisely excluded them from the Constitution. The only system of term limits we need is the one we’ve got, a system of elections. Unpopular incumbents don’t get re-elected. And incumbents who are not unpopular should not be barred from re-election.
17. Red Rover | February 23rd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Mr. Cunningham:
Term limits may be stupid, but vows are meant to be kept, especially by holy-roller Christians like Don Manzullo.
You absolved him of his lies in a column published on 17 Dec 2001 [see below].
If that’s what you call “liberal”, then I am not one of those.
RedRover
Rockford Register Star
Monday, December 17, 2001
Pat Cunningham has been with the Register Star in various roles for nearly 30 years. He is Page One Editor, and his column runs Mondays and Fridays.
E-mail: pcunningham@smtp.registerstartower.com
Phone: (815) 987-1353
Mr. Manzullo, it’s OK to end support for term limits
[by Pat Cunningham]
If he’s a man of his word, Don Manzullo filed congressional candidacy petitions for the last time last week.
Manzullo vowed when first elected to represent the 16th District of
Illinois in the U.S. House that he would serve no more than six terms. If he wins again next November — a pretty safe bet, considering the makeup of his district — he will have reached the end of the line.
But keeping one’s word is not always virtuous, especially in politics.
Times change. People evolve. Promises based on faulty reasoning sometimes are shown to be better broken than kept.
I know of what I speak in this regard, for I, too, once embraced the
same faulty reasoning Manzullo has employed in touting term limits.
In fact, when Manzullo first ran for Congress in 1990 (failing to make
it past the Republican primary), I wrote a column lauding his support for term limits. I subsequently changed my mind, after which he and I squared off with pro and con columns on the issue.
I RECOGNIZED, albeit belatedly, that limiting the choices of voters was fundamentally undemocratic. It occurred to me, as it had to others whose arguments swayed me, that we already have a system of term limits. They’re called elections, and they give voters perfect opportunities to get rid of incumbents who no longer satisfy them.
As Ronald Reagan once said of term limits, they amount to “denying the people their most hallowed democratic right of having whomever they desire hold their offices for as long the people desire.”
Yes, Reagan referred to mandatory, not voluntary, term limits.
Manzullo’s pledge to serve only six terms was self-imposed. It doesn’t deny voters their democratic rights. So, why not hold him to his word?
Well, for starters, Manzullo seems less rigid on the subject than he
used to be. Chuck Sweeny reported in this space last year that the congressman was “keeping his options open” with respect to how long he might want to serve.
Sweeny wrote then, and I’m writing now, that Manzullo should keep
running for re-election as long as he wants. If the voters ever choose to bounce him, nothing will stop them.
BESIDES, IT WOULD do the local electorate good to see a former champion of term limits like Manzullo change his mind — just as I changed mine. It would advance the cause of ridding the political process of this bad idea.
Even Californians, who midwifed the modern term-limits movement more than a decade ago, are having second thoughts. There’s a campaign afoot in the Golden State to create a loophole in the law that limits the tenure of state legislators. Voters are beginning to recognize that many of the state’s problems are caused or exacerbated by the inexperience of so many lawmakers
swept into office by term limits.
To be sure, millions of Americans still favor term limits. They somehow have convinced themselves that they must be prevented from re-electing popular incumbents. (Unpopular incumbents are not the problem. They always lose.)
These people are wrong, and it would be fun to see Don Manzullo say so.
Copyright © 2001 Rockford Register Star.
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