The ONLY ones who will vote for John McCain

Written by: Ed Tubbs on Aug 27, 2008 7:22 PM EDT

Ignorant: 1. Destitute of knowledge or education. 2. Lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified, resulting from or showing lack of knowledge or intelligence. 3. Unaware, uninformed.

—    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ignorant

Stupid:

For the purposes of this critique, it is the third definition for “stupid” that showing a lack of care, that will be relied upon.

—    http://www.thefreedictionary.com/stupid

You probably don’t need to know that the corpus callosum, the cerebellum, and the temporal lobe are all components of the human brain. But if you’re a neurosurgeon and you don’t, you’re not simply lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified, in other words, “ignorant,” you’re also “stupid” in that you have shown a lack of care that will be relied upon.

You may not have much need to know the principles within the Bernoulli Effect, or the principles behind liquefaction, unless you’re a civil engineer designing a bridge over a waterway. In that case, you’re ignorant and stupid in that you lack knowledge and comprehension of the thing specified, and you lack care for that which will be relied upon.

You may not have an essential reason to research the genuine biography of a particular person; say an athlete, or a movie star, or even a political figure — their educational background, skills, record of accomplishments, and so on. But if that particular person is running for president of the United States and you’re planning on voting for him or her, it seems to me you have an obligation to have on hand the necessary facts (not beliefs, facts) to buttress your decision. And if you haven’t done at least minimal research for the basic facts (again, not mere beliefs, facts), then, by the subscribed to definitions, you’re both ignorant and stupid.

Or, what would you call it?

Here are some of entire libraries-full very basic facts about John McCain:

The privileged son and grandson of 4-star admirals, with only a C+ overall high school GPA, he was admitted to the US Naval Academy. He graduated 894^th in a class of 899. The fact he graduated, rather than being kicked out for academic performance and personal deportment, is once again traceable to his genetic lineage.

Not by dint of any personal accomplishment, following graduation he secured the plum assignment: jets. Regardless how he came by “jets,” he managed to crash two of them and one propeller-driven trainer.

By his own admission, he resigned his Navy commission because his record was so poor, even allowing for his 5½ years of POW captivity, that he had “no future” in the service. It wasn’t until he happened upon his second wife, Cindy Hensley (more in a moment) and, through her father’s extraordinary financial reach of contacts, that he entertained moving to Arizona and entering politics! He has earned no education, began no business, entered no political fray, nor owned a home on the least of his own efforts.  

Prior to the sea-duty deployment that ended in his being shot down over Hanoi, John McCain married Carol Shepp, an 18-year-old swimsuit model; fourteen years his junior! Christmas Eve, 1969, his young wife hit a patch of ice and a tree that left her needing 23 surgeries over a two year period, 4 inches shorter, and no longer quite as pretty; medical care paid that was for by Ross Perot, by the way.

As immediately as he returned, finding Carol no longer the ravishing young thing he had married, McCain began chasing a number of fresh young things, among which was multimillionaire Cindy Hensley; like Carol, an attractive blond, but one with money, and this time, a pretty little thing 28 years his junior!

In Worth the Fighting For, McCain wrote that he did not begin dating Hensley until he and Carol were legally separated. In his February 1980 divorce petition, under penalty of perjury, he swore that he and Carol were “cohabiting,” which court and other documents prove conclusively was an abject lie. With the divorce petition court seal barely dry, he and Cindy married in April 1980, only five weeks later!

In Faith of My Fathers, McCain tells how he thwarted and insulted his North Vietnamese interrogators by using the Green Bay Packers NFL team, his “favorite team,” as the chain of command. But in July this year, while in Pittsburg, he retold the story as one wherein his “favorite team” had been the Steelers, and the chain of command was the starting lineup of the Pittsburg franchise.

A few weeks ago, at Rick Warren’s Saddleback church, John McCain asked whether he could relate one of his POW experiences; one where a North Vietnamese “gun guard” approached him one Christmas Eve and, without saying a word, scratched a cross in the dirt — an anecdote that just so happened to have been lifted directly from Alexandre Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago!         

At one of his town meeting gatherings, McCain got into it with a military veteran who was arguing that the senator did not, contrary to his claim of universal support from “all the major veterans organizations,” have such support, or that his voting record demonstrated he supported either the active military or veterans. Follows immediately is his Senate record of “Nays”:

May 2008 (S.22.IS — “Post 9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act” provided military veterans with post-service educational benefits similar to those enjoyed by servicemen returning from World War II and Korea) NOTE: Senator McCain did not vote concerning this bill. However he argued vociferously against its enactment, claiming it was “too generous,” and would “negatively effect needed reenlistments.”    

Sept, 2007 (S.Amdt 2909 — Provided all troops in Iraq to have at least as much time home for recuperation and training as had in theater before redeployment to theater) http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00341

May, 2006 (S.Amdt 3704 — Provided VA with an additional $20 million for healthcare facilities) http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00111

April 2006 (S.Amdt 3642) — Provided for $430 million for VA outpatient care and facilities) http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00098

March 2006 (S.Amdt 3007 to S.Con.Res — To increase VA medical services funding) http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00041

March 2004 (S.Amdt 2745 — Provided for establishing a VA reserve fund to treat returning Iraq/Afghanistan combat veterans because the then current fund had not taken into consideration the number of returning casualties) http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=2&vote=00040

October 2003 (S.Amdt 1817 — Provided an additional $322 million in safety equipment for soldiers and marines in Iraq) http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=1&vote=00376

April 2003 (S.Amdt 452 — Provided $1 billion-plus to update the equipment for National Guard and Reserve troops headed into combat in Iraq) http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=1&vote=00116

August 2001 (S.Amdt. 1218 — To increase amount available for medical care for veterans by $650 million) http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00263

(NOTE: Excepting the first example, the preceding reflect the entirety of actual votes cast by Senator McCain concerning benefits, safety equipment and otherwise, effecting active combat military and veterans. Senator McCain, far more than any other senator, has missed 59.2% of all votes during the 110^th Congress!)  

Earlier this year, when the US Senate overwhelmingly sought to right the Lilly Ledbetter vs Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. Supreme Court travesty (Ledbetter, a 19-year supervisor in Goodyear’s Alabama plant, had been paid considerably less than her male counterparts, a strict violation of the Fair Employment Act that Goodyear did not contest. Goodyear argued, and the Court found, that, unlike every previous case where the 180-day tolling time in which to file a complaint commenced, the tolling for Ledbetter was 19 years earlier, 19 years before she became aware how Goodyear had violated the law!), McCain spoke against the proposed legislation and iterated that “If women want to get ahead, they need to get more education and training;” not even an issue in the case!

McCain also referred to the Court’s recent Guantanamo habeas corpus ruling as “one of the worst in the country’s history,” overlooking, or not familiar with the Dred Scott or Plessey vs Ferguson or the WWII concentration camp incarceration of US citizens decisions! Indeed, McCain referred to the habeas corpus finding as a “Miranda case.” Miranda, as most Americans know, via the oft repeated “You have the right to remain silent . . .” airings on almost every crime drama on television for the past decades, is a 5^th Amendment issue, not an Article I, Section 9 habeas corpus matter!

With Connecticut’s US Senator Joe Lieberman by his side, McCain demonstrated how he did not know Shiite from Sunni, or which was dominant in Iran and where in Iraq, or the relationship, if any, of either to al Qaeda, until the overseeing Lieberman whispered the correct answer in his ear. But then, the very next day! the Arizona senator repeated the gaffe! But that not being sufficient, John McCain remarked on the boundary between Iraq and Pakistan???

Concerning the economy, John McCain has said “[its] fundamentals are strong,” and that he would “Increase revenues by cutting taxes.” David Walker, previously the Comptroller General, head of the Government Accountability Office, and first nominated to his position in the government by President Reagan, has since 2002 been arguing, using charts and Power Point demonstrations, before House and Senate committees and private seminars and gatherings how upwards of 60% of the federal budget deficit is attributable exclusively to the revenue shortfalls caused by the 2002 and 2003 tax cuts. He has further argued that eliminating entirely all discretionary spending by the federal government would have “virtually no impact on the looming fiscal disaster facing the United States!”

It is a quite basic economic principle that the relationship between taxation and spending is a fragile balancing act wherein inadequate tax revenues will be as devastating as overly excessive spending; a fundamental that John McCain misses absolutely in his unswerving devotion to a trickle-down/supply-side orthodoxy that has never been shown to have economic legitimacy.

And as to temperament, the following quotes from McCain’s Republican colleagues, those one would presume would most support him are particularly illuminating:

"The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." — Senator Thad Cochran, R-MS

"I decided I didn't want this guy anywhere near a trigger." — Senator Pete Domenici, R-NM

"There's nothing redeeming about John McCain...he's a hypocrite." — Former House GOP Whip Tom DeLay

"He is a vicious person. 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." — Former Representative Charles LeBoutillier, R-NY

"John was very rough in the sandbox. Everybody has a McCain story. If you work in the Senate for a while, you have a McCain story. He hasn't built up a lot of goodwill." — Former Senator Rick Santorum, R-PA

"There would be a lot of people who would have to recalibrate their attitudes toward John." — Senator Bob Bennett, R-UT

"His temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, that should disqualify him." — Former Senator Bob Smith, R-NH

An "embarrassment to the party." — Arizona GOP State Senator Susan Johnson

"What happens if he gets angry in crisis in the presidency? It's difficult enough to be a negotiator, but it's almost impossible when you're the type of guy who's so angry at anybody who doesn't do what he wants. It's the president's job to negotiate and stay calm. I just don't see that he has that quality." — Former Arizona GOP Chairman John Hinz

"No dissent, no opinion to the contrary- however reasonable- will be entertained. Hardheaded is one way to say it. Arrogant is another way to say it. Hubristic is another way to say it. Too proud for his own good is another way to say it. It's a quality about him that disturbs me." — Col. Larry Wilkerson, US Army (ret.) and former chief aide to Colin Powell


"It just seems like everything we did, John was someplace else..." — Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-IL

"I think it's his style as much as much as the positions he takes...I think it's his attitude that it's his way or the highway." — Former Senator Tim Hutchinson, R-AR

"I don't like McCain. I don't like him at all." — Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-CO

And neither last (of all available) nor least, "John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism, and youth. Like McCain, pollsters assured us that Dole was the most electable Republican. Unlike McCain, Dole didn't lie all the time while claiming to engage in ‘straight talk.'" — Ann Coulter, conservative columnist and author

While I acknowledge the preceding is hardly all that is exhausting in a search of FACTS concerning candidate John McCain, given his sub-par academic record, his manifested ignorance of even the most basic of international, geographic, constitutional and economic principles, his demonstrated deficit or integrity, his overabundance of a hair-trigger intemperate reactions, and intolerance of alternate voices, it is more than sufficient to provide substantive evidence that the only ones who support and who will vote for John McCain are either incredibly irreconcilably stupid or the most irredeemably evil of self-serving miscreants!

As for those women (and men) who supported Senator Hillary Clinton, and who now say they’re going to vote for John McCain . . . Either your only devotion was a consequence of her genetalia, which defines you within the group just articulated, or if what you were most interested in were the issues espoused by the New York senator, and you’re nonetheless intent on casting a vote that is in direct opposition to your own professed interests . . . you are the most irreconcilably stupid of all!

For any and all veterans . . . nothing will be able to explain or define that cascaded over the precipice moronic obtuseness. Don't bother visiting a VA medical center, you're beyond all help! 

— Ed Tubbs

     Reno, NV

PS — Of course I welcome responses, those that disagree as well as those that agree. But I’ve got to insist that only those retaining the courage of their convictions to include their real name and the city where they reside, exactly as they would for any letter to the editor, will be read or responded to. Now is the time for all of us to live up to the words and sentiments in our National Anthem.  

PPS — Once again, whether or not to be an ignorant fool is a completely voluntary choice each of us makes. For those who are more insistent on opinions backed by facts than opinions out the rear sphincter, I’m appending the just plain facts database URL, with links to how your party or office holder voted concerning every (EVERY) issue that came before the House and/or the Senate. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/?wpisrc=newsletter

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Location: Reno, NV 89433