Hernando Today
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Getting To Know The Real John McCain
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Published: July 31, 2008
More than 1.1 million dollars donated to the John McCain campaign by Big Oil! Does that finally tell you who benefits if the offshore drilling promoted by McCain and Gov. Charlie Crist becomes a reality? Don't get it yet?
Then maybe the record $482 billion deficit being left by Bush (does not include costs of the act of aggression in Iraq) will get your attention. These corporatists are not "fiscally responsible." They have darned near bankrupted the country, and that means you and me, the ones stuck with no money for essential services will have the honor of trying to survive.
Barack Obama has just returned from an amazing trip to Afghanistan, Iraq, Germany, France, Israel and England. Some of these countries have long since ceased to be "friends" of the United States, but all greeted Obama warmly. If you watched his meetings with the troops, you saw genuine smiles on all their faces, not the stiff looks that greeted McCain or Bush on their last visits. Does the U.S. need the return of friendship and support from countries around the world? Folks, we are up to our necks in two "wars," darn near bankrupt and at the mercy of worldwide creditors. Without the return of support from new and former allies, we are lost.
McCain's campaign gets nastier day by day, to the point that he has now fundamentally accused Obama of sedition. What you hear on the news is that people still don't know Obama, but do we know McCain? From his own party: Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine." Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., in an interview with Newsweek in 2000 said, "I decided I didn't want this guy anywhere near a trigger."
This from the guys who know him best. He is famous for his nasty temper and foul mouth and, as far as his intelligence goes, he graduated 894th out of 899 graduates. If daddy and grandpa were not admirals, he would never have made the rank of captain and, no, you do not claim military strategy experience when you spend five years as a POW unless classes in strategy were provided to the prisoners in that camp.
McCain claims Obama has attended no meetings on Afghanistan. (Remember, that's the place that Osama bin Laden ran to, where we failed to stay and hunt down the real villain of 9/11?) The fact is that there were six meetings during the last two years with three attended by Obama and not one by McCain. He claims Obama does not care about our troops because a visit to wounded troops in Germany was canceled, not due to cameras and press not being allowed as alleged by McCain, but because the Pentagon claimed it would be "political."
How much does McCain care about the troops? Well, in April 2003 McCain voted against a bill authorizing money for safety equipment (armored vehicles, vests, etc.). In March of 2006, he voted against closing corporate tax loopholes to provide money for the troops. In April of 2006 he voted against money for health care for the wounded vets. In August of 2007 he voted against minimum rests between deployments and in May of 2008 voted against the GI Bill. When this last bill passed, both McCain and Bush took credit for a bill they had both fought against passing!
McCain says, "We can't go back on our word on free trade." So kiss your jobs goodbye, assuming you still have a job. McCain's "tour" included Colombia due, I'm sure, to the fact that Bush and he are pushing a trade agreement with a violent country that ensures our addicts stay well supplied. Is this a country we wish to honor and accept? Obama's intelligence and truthfulness will bring the world back to our side and, don't be fooled; we need their support in many ways. We cannot, for one thing, succeed in any efforts in the Mideast without troop support from others, and I believe Obama will bring back that support because success in that area will make the entire world safer. We are not safer now but much more at risk than ever.
Instead of "getting to know Obama" better, we had better open our eyes and get to know the real McCain. The monopolized media in this country covers up the fact that he thinks there is a border between Iraq and Pakistan, that he cannot distinguish between the Shiites and the Sunnis, that he himself has said he is no good at the economy problem, that he makes so many gaffes that anyone would be thinking senility(?). My God, we are sinking in the mud that Bush and McCain and their ilk are leaving for us – can anyone with a functioning brain not see that we cannot take even another day of this incompetence and total lack of morality?
Frances Earl, former vice-chairwoman of the Hernando County Democratic Executive Committee, can be contacted at fearl@tampabay.rr.com.
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