What Did McCain Do In The War?

I've about had it with McCain's incivility. The latest is attacking Obama for using the phrase, "Lipstick on a pig," referring to the McCain campaign's attempt to hijack the theme "Change." McCain tried to imply that Obama was calling Palin a pig, when Obama wasn't even talking about Palin. CNN found an example of McCain's using the "lipstick on a pig" phrase referring to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

OK, so McCain what did you do in the war? How many missions did McCain fly over Vietnam? According to this perhaps biased website, he was shot down in 1967 on his 23rd mission. He then spent 5 1/2 years as a POW. No doubt his years as a POW were awful, but his battle in prison was basically a personal battle; he did not do anything to help the US win the war against North Vietnam. The referenced column by David Hackworth, written in 2000, probably during the campaign when I supported McCain, also says that the many medals received by McCain upon his return from being a POW were basically boilerplate citations, not awards for individual acts of heroism.

So, what did McCain do for America during those 5 1/2 years? Not much. He spent much of it in bed due to his injuries, or in solitary confinement after he recovered enough to get out of bed. Those are extraordinary personal triumphs, but they don't win wars.

So, enough McCain! Shut up about being a heroic POW! Shot up about lipstick!

Speaking of POW. Basically, McCain used his celebrity as a returning POW to win his way into the House and Senate. His Navy career essentially ended when he was shot down as a lieutenant commander, far below his father's and grandfather's rank as four star admirals. He got some subsequent promotions when he was released, but like his medals, they were proforma promotions for any POW. His Navy career was respectable, but not a great success, especially for someone who graduated from Annapolis. However, the fame he acquired when he returned advanced his career outside the Navy.

It no doubt helped him woo Cindy Hensley, the Paris Hilton of her day. She was a rich heiress with a hot body. McCain dumped his old wife, who waited years for him while he was in prison, to marry Cindy and her money. His old wife never speaks; I think it's because he paid her off with some of Cindy's money. He has taken care of his children with his first wife, most recently illustrated by the fact that his son Andrew was a director of a bank that recently failed, and is also a big shot in the Hensley beer business.

Then with Cindy's money and his POW celebrity status, McCain won a House seat in Congress from Arizona, later upgraded to a Senate seat.

In Congress, McCain has been a maverick, which he can afford to be because Cindy has made him extremely wealthy. He doesn't have to worry about kowtowing to the big money lobbyists to get re-election money, which is good. But what about the big deal he makes about earmarks. Sure they are bad and McCain doesn't use them, partly because he has Cindy's money for re-election and doesn't need the dirty money that other politicians get for earmarks, e.g., Ted Stevens. But earmarks are basically an inside the beltway Congressional issue. Why hasn't he done something about them while he has been a Senator. He says he will veto any bill with earmarks, but we know from experience that the earmarks will be inserted in a bill containing appropriations for the troops in combat, or some other essential function. Will McCain be willing to veto that? He should be talking about some serious issues, like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, health care, the budget deficit and the national debt, the stability of our financial system, etc. The Republicans have poor records on all of these issues, so McCain avoids the issues and talks instead about personalities, in particular personally attacking his opponents. It works for the election, but it's not good for America and illustrates that McCain doesn't really care about America, despite all his hypocritical campaign slogans like "Country First." McCain is not putting his country first.

McCain Bank Fails

I think it's odd that there hasn't been more talk about the fact that a bank connected to John McCain failed last Friday. Until shortly before its failure John McCain's son Andrew had been a director of the Silver State Bank. Only the Financial Times and the WSJ had brief articles about it. The WSJ implied that the FDIC may have been delayed in closing the bank by Nevada regulartory authorities, giving Andrew McCain time to quit as a director before it was closed.

Hometown Girl or Trailer Park Trash?

Everybody has certainly fallen in love with Sarah Palin. What does it mean?

CNN Showbiz Tonight this morning had a segment on how Sarah has become a bigger celebrity than Obama. Does that mean McCain will have to disavow those commercials comparing Obama to Paris Hilton? Would it be more accurate to compare Sarah to Paris, or to Britney, or to Britney's mom, since Britney's little sister has gotten pregnant?

Unmarried, pregnant, teenage daughter? No problem, "it just makes her more like you and me." Really? Well, we all have problems, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. People shoot their neighbors on a daily basis, but by and large they don't get congratulated for it. There are a lot of shotgun weddings, and a lot of unmarried, single mothers, but that doesn't mean it's society's ideal. It's a little suspicious that there was apparently no urgency for Bristol to get married to her baby's father until her mother got named vice presidential candidate. Does that mean they didn't care, that they didn't really like the boy, or what? Apparently the religious right in the Republican party says it's okay for teenage girls to have sex and get pregnant, as long as they don't get an abortion. That's a pretty low moral standard. I'm not sure there's a lot of Biblical support for that position, and maybe some criticism, like the Commandment not to commit adultery. Kids today reading Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter probably have no idea what the fuss is about.

In sum, while Sarah may have been an okay governor, she was a less than completely successful mom.

Meanwhile we have the black candidate, Obama, who comes from a tradition where black men routinely desert the women having their babies, but who has tried to have a traditional family relationship with his wife and kids. His wife says she tries to do only campaign day trips so that she can be at home with her kids afternoons and nights. Did Sarah do that while she was working on her career? Or did her career come first, ahead of her family?

Finally, besides wanting to know what Sarah knows about foreign policy, what else does she cares about. She didn't go to a big name school, no elitism there. But does she read? Does she know anything about Plato, Locke, Samuelson, Shakespeare? What music does she listen to? Does she have in-depth knowledge about the economy, or does she get everything in sound bites? Is she more interested in hockey than war and peace? It doesn't take much effort or intelligence to be a hockey mom. It takes more to be vice president, or at least it should. I would like the Vice President to be someone with a little culture, refinement and background. My impression is that in terms of upbringing and social status, she's no Margaret Thatcher.

The problem with people with little education and experience is that they tend to reinvent the wheel, even if they are smart. They don't know what other smart people have thought about similar problems before, and what solutions worked and what didn't. Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. While Obama has relatively little executive experience, he is well educated, and so far, no matter what you think of Harvard and elitist institutions, they do tell people important things, and if you learn well, it helps in life. Bush's problem is that he went to Yale but made a point of rebelling against it, as McCain did at Annapolis. Remember that Cheney flunked out of Yale; maybe we should have paid more attention to that before we put him in a position to start a war with Iraq and order the torturing of prisoners.

McCain's Risky Foreign Policy

Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times says McCain would be a risky foreign policy maker. He says McCain is too prone to take risks, as illustrated by his selection of Sarah Palin as his VP. His risk taking may work sometimes, but there is the potential for tremendous damage if it comes out wrong, which is possible when dealing with Russia, which he dislikes. Thus McCain is not the "safe" choice for commander-in-chief. Rachman sees the possibility of an even more aggressive foreign policy than than pursued by Bush.