Arizona Senator John McCain (official)

[BuckeyeSoldier]

As someone who works in the healthcare field, I am just gonna throw this out there. The biggest problem with the highcost of healthcare has less to do with how much doctors or insurance cost, but medical supply equipment is so grossly overpriced its an absolute travesty. Ive used machines that cost over 700,000 dollars to do the job it used to take 2 or 3 techs to do. Note, you still need at least one tech to run the machine and a contract with the company that made it who now charges you to come do routine maintenance and repairs when it stops working. Just saying.

[shetuck]

WSJ: Fiorina Seems Comfortable Following McCain's Lead

There is some buzz out there (patricularly last week) about Fiorina getting the Veep nod from McCain.

All I can say, if that happens, is that I hope she does a better job at helping run the country than she did at running HP. How anyone can run a company like HP -- one of the most venerable, successful, and visionary companies in the history of this country -- into the ground is beyond me.

Ex-CEO Fiorina Seems Comfortable Following McCain's Lead



By ELIZABETH HOLMES

April 28, 2008; Page A6

Carly Fiorina, the millionaire former head of Hewlett-Packard Co., traversed crumbling and shuttered pockets of the country last week with Sen. John McCain, following the likely Republican presidential candidate's every cue.

She rode a ferry in rural Alabama, waved politely to crowds in Youngstown, Ohio, and even sang a duet with the senator on a bus ride in Appalachia.
Associated Press Carly Fiorina listens as Sen. McCain speaks to reporters aboard his campaign charter plane.

Ms. Fiorina, 53 years old, is the Republican National Committee's "Victory" chairwoman, a role that includes fund raising and get-out-the-vote activities. She's one of a trio of tech giants who support Sen. McCain, joined by John Chambers, head of Cisco Systems Inc. and Meg Whitman, former chief executive of eBay Inc.

Of the three, Ms. Fiorina is the most visible, after her headline-grabbing ouster from H-P in 2005. These days, she frequently accompanies Sen. McCain on the campaign trail. She is most prominent when he addresses his economic policies, having appeared at events this month in New York and Milwaukee.

Ms. Fiorina is careful not to overstate her role. "It's not like he needs a lot of coaching," she said in an interview aboard his campaign plane. "When I can provide a point of view and perspective, I'm privileged to do so."

Her influence is apparent, though. Last week, the campaign visited struggling communities and often proposed technology-based solutions; bringing Internet access to rural Kentucky, for example, or retraining laid-off steel workers in Ohio for information-technology jobs.

cont'd...

[sandgk]

McCain on a long term presence in Iraq - He was against the idea before he was for it:

Bring Them All Back Home - Huffington Post

McCain Strongly Rejected Long-Term Iraq Presence: "Bring Them All Home"


When it comes to getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, Sen. John McCain was for the idea before he was against it.
Three years before the Arizona Republican argued on the campaign trail that U.S. forces could be in Iraq for 100 years in the absence of violence, he decried the very concept of a long-term troop presence.
In fact, when asked specifically if he thought the U.S. military should set up shop in Iraq along the lines of what has been established in post-WWII Germany or Japan -- something McCain has repeatedly advocated during the campaign -- the senator offered nothing short of a categorical "no."
"I would hope that we could bring them all home," he said on MSNBC. "I would hope that we would probably leave some military advisers, as we have in other countries, to help them with their training and equipment and that kind of stuff."
Host Chris Matthews pressed McCain on the issue. "You've heard the ideological argument to keep U.S. forces in the Middle East. I've heard it from the hawks. They say, keep United States military presence in the Middle East, like we have with the 7th Fleet in Asia. We have the German...the South Korean component. Do you think we could get along without it?"
McCain held fast, rejecting the very policy he urges today. "I not only think we could get along without it, but I think one of our big problems has been the fact that many Iraqis resent American military presence," he responded. "And I don't pretend to know exactly Iraqi public opinion. But as soon as we can reduce our visibility as much as possible, the better I think it is going to be."
The January 2005 comments, which have not surfaced previously during the presidential campaign, represent a stunning contrast to McCain's current rhetoric.
They also run squarely against his image as having a steadfast, unwavering idea for U.S. policy in Iraq ...

[Best Buckeye]

Another political Hack.

[CookyPuss]

Originally Posted by sandgk

McCain on a long term presence in Iraq - He was against the idea before he was for it:

Bring Them All Back Home - Huffington Post

The Straight Talk Express has become The Double Talk Express. I used to really respect McCain. Sometimes it's better not to look behind the curtain.

[BuckeyeMike80]

Originally Posted by sandgk

McCain on a long term presence in Iraq - He was against the idea before he was for it:

Bring Them All Back Home - Huffington Post

Hence the reason I'm probably writing in Donny/Thump '08 on my ballot

BTW I DO see an extended presence in Iraq for the US. Short of Vietnam (which in and of itself is an entirely different scenario from Iraq), our recent military history shows we likely won't completely leave at all. Just saying....

[CookyPuss]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMike80

Hence the reason I'm probably writing in Donny/Thump '08 on my ballot

BTW I DO see an extended presence in Iraq for the US. Short of Vietnam (which in and of itself is an entirely different scenario from Iraq), our recent military history shows we likely won't completely leave at all. Just saying....

I'm curious about what McCain thinks about how Vietnam was resolved. Did he think we should have pulled out? Did he think we should have applied more force? I think this would inform us of how he thinks of Iraq. Past statements indicate that he thought we lost that war because we didn't have the guts to do what it took to win. This article is somewhat insightful:

McCain's Vietnam obsession | Salon News

I think this would be the perfect debate question for him:

What are the lessons from Vietnam and how do they apply to Iraq?

Edit: As BuckeyeMike80 pointed out: is this even a the right comparison?

[CookyPuss]

Those town hall meetings can be kind of rough:

YouTube - Did John McCain Call His Wife A C**t?

Clive businessman Marty Parrish was escorted from Sen. John McCain's town hall meeting by Des Moines police and members of the Secret Service after asking McCain if he had called his wife Cindy an expletive in 1992.
Parrish, an ordained Baptist minister who holds a master's degree in political science, was questioned by Secret Service agents before being released. He was not charged in the incident. Parrish asked whether McCain called his wife Cindy an expletive related to the female anatomy, as has been alleged in the book "The Real McCain," written by Dem strategist Cliff Schecter.

Baptist Minister Asks McCain: "Did You Call Your Wife A C**t?" (VIDEO) - Politics on The Huffington Post

[bucknut74]

Originally Posted by MuckFich06

Those town hall meetings can be kind of rough:

YouTube - Did John McCain Call His Wife A C**t?

Baptist Minister Asks McCain: "Did You Call Your Wife A C**t?" (VIDEO) - Politics on The Huffington Post

Haha good find. He did in fact call her a [censored], but it was like sixteen years ago, when he was like...85

[methomps]

"Now for my favorite part of the show....What does that say? Talk to the audience! Ugghhh, this is always death..."

[MaxBuck]

Originally Posted by MuckFich06

YouTube - Did John McCain Call His Wife A C**t?

I hate it when "pillow talk" becomes a campaign issue. So she likes a little rough language to help get her in the mood; so what?

[CookyPuss]

YouTube - Happy "Mission Accomplished"...

Why does this matter? First, I think it shows how strongly McCain was influenced by the neocon thinking about Iraq. Second, I have no military training/experience and I sure as hell knew it wasn't over. It made me sick to my stomach when Bush landed on that aircraft carrier because I knew it meant years of our troops getting picked off by IEDs. You don't win a war by playing capture the flag, which is essentially what we did. We ran to Baghdad and said, it's over. Any moron knew that they had a paper army and that we would roll over them and win any conventional battle. Apparently, too many morons in DC thought any counterinsurgency would be a joke as well. We "secured" about 10% of the country and almost none of the borders, and yet thought we'd somehow have minimal problems occupying a muslim nation in the middle freaking east! Ugh, it still [censored]es me off to no end to think of the lack of disregard for our military. It's not as if they weren't warned. Anyways, I'm extremely disappointed to see that McCain of all people didn't get it. If anybody, I would have expected him to have been arguing that we needed to be flooding the country with ground troops to secure it after the "conventional" war was completed. Okay, I need to stop typing as this always gets me going. I'm just saddened that if the McCain "surge" had been deployed then, we might be out of there by now and not have suffered so many casualties.

[CookyPuss]

McCain finds his own radical friend -- chicagotribune.com

Can a presidential candidate justify a long and friendly relationship with someone who, back in the 1970s, extolled violence and committed crimes in the name of a radical ideology--and who has never shown remorse or admitted error? When the candidate in question is Barack Obama, John McCain says no. But when the candidate in question is John McCain, he's not so sure.

Obama has been justly criticized for his ties to former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, who in 1995 hosted a campaign event for Obama and in 2001 gave him a $200 contribution. The two have also served together on the board of a foundation. When their connection became known, McCain minced no words: "I think not only a repudiation but an apology for ever having anything to do with an unrepentant terrorist is due the American people."

What McCain didn't mention is that he has his own Bill Ayers--in the form of G. Gordon Liddy. Now a conservative radio talk-show host, Liddy spent more than 4 years in prison for his role in the 1972 Watergate burglary. That was just one element of what Liddy did, and proposed to do, in a secret White House effort to subvert the Constitution. Far from repudiating him, McCain has embraced him.

Or how about this from his favorite pastor:

YouTube - Clips From Hagee's Sermons - Scary Stuff

Cenk Uygur: An Overlooked Hate Sermon by Rev. Hagee - Politics on The Huffington Post

I call this a hate sermon by Reverend Hagee. I'm not sure what else you can call it when they guy is shouting maniacally at poor people to "Starve!" and encouraging others to die before they compromise on (Hagee's view of) Christianity.

Politics by association is never a good idea.

[BuckeyeMike80]

Originally Posted by MuckFich06

YouTube - Happy "Mission Accomplished" Anniversary, Senator McCain

Why does this matter? First, I think it shows how strongly McCain was influenced by the neocon thinking about Iraq. Second, I have no military training/experience and I sure as hell knew it wasn't over. It made me sick to my stomach when Bush landed on that aircraft carrier because I knew it meant years of our troops getting picked off by IEDs. You don't win a war by playing capture the flag, which is essentially what we did. We ran to Baghdad and said, it's over. Any moron knew that they had a paper army and that we would roll over them and win any conventional battle. Apparently, too many morons in DC thought any counterinsurgency would be a joke as well. We "secured" about 10% of the country and almost none of the borders, and yet thought we'd somehow have minimal problems occupying a muslim nation in the middle freaking east! Ugh, it still [censored]es me off to no end to think of the lack of disregard for our military. It's not as if they weren't warned. Anyways, I'm extremely disappointed to see that McCain of all people didn't get it. If anybody, I would have expected him to have been arguing that we needed to be flooding the country with ground troops to secure it after the "conventional" war was completed. Okay, I need to stop typing as this always gets me going. I'm just saddened that if the McCain "surge" had been deployed then, we might be out of there by now and not have suffered so many casualties.

In military terms, the mission of removing Saddam from power was indeed accomplished.

But it's all about dissemination. They never actually clarified what they meant, which was that Saddam was no longer in power.

I very seriously doubt anyone in the administration truly thought the war and the aftermath of the removal of Saddam was going to be over that quickly. I say this mainly due to the fact that if they had thought so, we would have been drawing down in early 2004, but we couldn't because we kind of knew something was coming. The insurgency didn't really really really blow up on us until April of 2004 let's remember - everything was simmering, but things were mostly quiet when I arrived in January of 04 - we could still travel at night then. Not so by the end of March....

But yeah, the aircraft carrier thing was over the top, especially without any clarifying remarks about what part of mission was actually accomplished. Just my .02 I guess....

[CookyPuss]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMike80

In military terms, the mission of removing Saddam from power was indeed accomplished.

But it's all about dissemination. They never actually clarified what they meant, which was that Saddam was no longer in power.

I very seriously doubt anyone in the administration truly thought the war and the aftermath of the removal of Saddam was going to be over that quickly. I say this mainly due to the fact that if they had thought so, we would have been drawing down in early 2004, but we couldn't because we kind of knew something was coming. The insurgency didn't really really really blow up on us until April of 2004 let's remember - everything was simmering, but things were mostly quiet when I arrived in January of 04 - we could still travel at night then. Not so by the end of March....

But yeah, the aircraft carrier thing was over the top, especially without any clarifying remarks about what part of mission was actually accomplished. Just my .02 I guess....

I can't disagree with you on any of that. Certainly, that moment was the least of our problems over there, just symbolic for me. I remember having a horrible sinking feeling when I saw that landing we weren't taking things seriously enough. I'm pretty disappointed that McCain was not advocating for more troops... not that any rational voice was getting through to our civilian leadership (Powell was not a significant influence). I incorrectly recalled McCain as being an early advocate for increased troop presence, so when I saw the clip it really surprised me to be honest.