John McCain - Fit to Command?

After the "swift boating" of John Kerry, I am very hesitant to jump on any bandwagon that wants to smear a political candidate. It offends my sense of fairness, especially after learning that the "swift boat smeared" John Kerry helped to expose atrocities committed during Viet Nam and was also instrumental in bringing the reprehensible and corrupt conduct of the U.S. Government to light in the Iran Contra affair during the 1980s. I disagreed with Senator Kerry on countless issues, but I dislike attacking him baselessly.

Technically, I am a Viet Nam veteran, although as a woman serving in the U.S. Air Force, I was never within 10,000 miles of that southeast Asian hell hole. Nevertheless, I served on active duty during that period, and I did so because I believed in America and in the war. Like many other Americans, I was fooled by the Gulf of Tonkin lie. I came to know the truth eventually, but I certainly understand why my fellow patriots of that era believed in that war.

Futhermore, I have no issues with anyone who spent years in a POW camp and was forced to collaborate to survive. While that might not be the best solution to an impossible situation, I am well aware that it might be the only solution. None of us who have never been in such a situation can say with certainty what we would or would not do, despite any sincere oath to follow the POW Code of Conduct. It is unwise to judge any man until you have walked a mile or two in his shoes. It does offend me, though, that any candidate would have the chutzpah to run as a "war hero," when a plethora of released U.S. documents clearly prove otherwise. I would have far more respect for Senator McCain if he would simply state that he did whatever he was forced to do in order to come home. So be it. If McCain were an honest man, we could let this collaboration issue drop. No human being is a super hero, no matter how badly we might want to believe otherwise.

I do have serious political differences with Senator McCain. Senator McCain is anti-Second Amendment, for one thing, and I believe strongly in our right to keep and bear arms. McCain is also very much for the Iraq war, and he has publicly stated that it would not trouble him if we had American soldiers serving in Iraq for the next hundred years. How I personally feel about this war based on lies is well known. Nevertheless, I do still firmly believe that a candidate should run on the issues as he sees them, and so long as the election is free and fair, we should abide by the final results, however we might feel about those issues. Every American has a right to their say.

For these reasons and others, my sense of personal fairness insists that I give McCain the benefit of the doubt as a human being, even while vigorously campaigning against him.

I dislike bigotry of any kind. Recently, I have heard rumors of McCain references to "gooks" that troubled me. However, I have known many survivors of that ghastly war who came away with emotional baggage where their opponents were concerned. It seems to me that a POW would have worse. I dislike this, but viewed dispassionately, it is understandable.

However, I have recently had the opportunity to view an utterly disgusting video that convicts Senator McCain right out of his own mouth. In the most callous and heartless scene I have ever viewed, McCain belittles and berates the head of the National Alliance of POW/MIA when she was petitioning Congress for help. He was in America at that time, and in no personal danger whatsoever, so his behavior cannot be easily explained away. This is not a potentially doctored or forged document. This is John McCain himself, and it is impossible to ignore by any standard of decency whatsoever. I describe it as cruelty incarnate. This man should not be welcome in our country, let alone in our White House.

Having been a POW himself, I would expect Senator McCain to at least have some sympathy for the POW/MIA cause. Clearly he has no such sympathy in this video, and the sheer heartlessness of his behavior is literally beyond belief. Could it be, sir, that you did not wish for any more of your fellow POWs to come home at all? Could they have come home with stories they might want tell about "Songbird McCain," the POW so very famous for telling his captors anything and everything they wanted to know just to save his own skin? How much of what you told the north Vietnamese led to other captured or dead Americans, sir? How would this have damaged your future political aspirations?

If you doubt that this "Songbird" nickname was real, ask a Viet Nam vet. There are a lot of us still around and kicking. Better yet, ask a former POW.

If you are military yourself, or if you have a son or daughter serving in uniform these days, is this the man you want for American Commander in Chief? Should he have a security clearance high enough to clean toilets, let alone have access to the nuclear "football" at will? Should he be responsible for the return of our captured kids in Iraq? We've just experienced eight years of a President unfit for Commander in Chief. Can we survive another such 4-8 years?

According to Dave Gibson, just last year:

In 1992, John McCain was serving on the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. Vietnamese officials began to complain that American POW/MIA activists (mostly family members of the missing men) were causing too many problems and posed a threat to lifting the U.S. trade embargo on Vietnam. Incredibly, Senator and former POW McCain then went on a campaign against the POW/MIA activists and accused them of fraud. McCain once said of the families: “The people who have done these things are not zealots in a good cause. They are criminals and some of the most craven, most cynical, and most despicable human beings to ever run a scam.”

If McCain hates his former captors so much, and has nothing to fear from returning POWs, we have to ask one question. Why?

Watch the videos. Judge for yourself.

Note:
The videos are embedded in this blog entry at the author's site: Freedom Scribe

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