Obama Uncovered...

[mikedevilsyanks]

I have two words for all my conservative friends itching for a great Obama scandal


KEATING FIVE!!!!!!!!!


look it up if you want to be completely educated

If YOU, looked it up, you would have seen that McCain was COMPLETELY cleared of ANY wrong doing in this case.

 

[DISUNC]

I have seen your posts on other threads and the fact that you supported Hillary and care so little for the policies she espouses. Ones that mean so much to so many, women, middle class, poor, homeless, children...That you will simply throw that away because she lost is simply sad

What Hillary stood for & could actually have achieved has absolutely NOTHING in common with Obamas campaign.
Your thoughts are pure Obama Campaign Spin, that has nothing to do with the reality of the situation!

 

[gmboy95]

Can't someone make a decision based upon who they think will be a better leader? Or make a decision not to vote for someone because they don't trust them?

IMO....to completely abandon principle simply because you dont like that your person lost is sad....Obama's story is a great american story of a kid who overachieved and made himself into what he is today. The fact that he was able to defeat the Clinton machine is nothing short of astounding....And for anyone who supported Hillary Clinton (like my wife) to feel like they have the political moral high ground is simply laughable

 

[DISUNC]

I have two words for all my conservative friends itching for a great Obama scandal

For the ZILLIONTH time....Not all McCain Supporters are Conservatives.

 

[gmboy95]

What Hillary stood for & could actually have achieved has absolutely NOTHING in common with Obamas campaign.
Your thoughts are pure Obama Campaign Spin, that has nothing to do with the reality of the situation!

I beleive the party platform is the same, and Hillary supports that platform, unless there was some type of Voodoo that hillary had in mind. They are on the same page on any of the major issues....Obama ran the campaign he had to in order to win against a seemingly inevitable candidate...The fact that you are willing to abandon that platform for a man who is the polar opposite is as stated before very sad.....My wife voted for hillary and was very angry at the outcome, however she is a teacher of special needs students, and she knows full well what a Mccain administration would meen...I beg you to reconsider

 

[DISUNC]

IMO....to completely abandon principle simply because you dont like that your person lost is sad....

IMO-
To simply think Obama has any principle, simply because he tells you so is what is really sad. Where are the witnesses to Obamas Principles??????

Obama's story is a great american story of a kid who overachieved and made himself into what he is today.

The fact that he was able to defeat the Clinton machine is nothing short of astounding...

He defeated NOTHING! The DNC handed him the nom (against the Democratic Primary voters) on a silver platter.

And for anyone who supported Hillary Clinton (like my wife) to feel like they have the political moral high ground is simply laughable

Stop laughing at your wife, behind her back on the internet! Not nice!

 

[gmboy95]

For the ZILLIONTH time....Not all McCain Supporters are Conservatives.

I get that....but it sounds like you are making a protest vote, and IMO we can not afford that...We have over 100,000 troops in Iraq, a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, an economy in shambles, a supreme court poised to overturn roe v wade, a vp who wants women who are raped and the victim of incest to not have a choice, continued intrusion of religion in our political processes and in our bedrooms.....I understand your anger, I hear it every day trust me...We just cant afford more of the same

 

[gmboy95]

I still hold out hope that the dissaffected Hillary vote will still have that moment of truth when the curtain shuts and the rubber hits the road....At least I hope so

 

[mikedevilsyanks]

IMO....to completely abandon principle simply because you dont like that your person lost is sad....Obama's story is a great american story of a kid who overachieved and made himself into what he is today. The fact that he was able to defeat the Clinton machine is nothing short of astounding....And for anyone who supported Hillary Clinton (like my wife) to feel like they have the political moral high ground is simply laughable

A great story maybe to you, but not to everyone. He has had shady friends, and shady supporters. Clinton was more to the center than Obama will ever be and alot of Clinton supporters are the same way. McCain is more centerist than Obama.

 

[DVCKennyD]

Never mind the link: Read it, Kenny. Btw, As far as Bill Daley? McCain was one of those who voted for him for Secretary of Commerce. Did you know that? Bet cha didn't.

Guilt and Associations
September 23, 2008
McCain once again tries to tar Obama with the controversies of others.
Summary
A McCain-Palin ad says that Obama was "born of the corrupt Chicago political machine" and implies that the candidate himself is corrupt by association with four local political figures. But the ad's implication and many of its supporting details are false. In fact, this is a particularly egregious example of ricochet sliming:

* William Daley, the first figure mentioned in the ad, is indeed related to the other famous Chicago Daleys, but he's never been accused of any wrongdoing. And the former commerce secretary isn't Obama's only economic adviser, as the ad implies.

* Emil Jones, Illinois state Senate leader, may indeed have been Obama's "political godfather." But he, too, hasn't been charged with or even seriously accused of misdeeds despite the ad's claim of an "ethical cloud."

* Obama did have a past relationship with real estate developer Tony Rezko, but he is no longer Obama's "money man." Obama hasn't been associated with him since his indictment for wire fraud, bribery, money laundering and attempted extortion, and Obama donated all of the disgraced businessman's previous campaign contributions to charity.

* Rod Blagojevich has been touched by plenty of scandal but his relationship with Obama doesn't extend much beyond being "his governor." In fact, Obama has worked on ethics legislation triggered by some of the Blagojevich's questionable moves.

Most important, the ad offers no evidence of wrongdoing by Obama himself in connection with any of these relationships, however close or distant.
Analysis
The McCain-Palin campaign's new ad, "Chicago Machine," tries to tie Barack Obama to four Illinois powerbrokers. The campaign says it will air nationally. We'll take a look at the merits of each individual's "corrupt" status as well as their connection to Obama in turn.

Daley and Nightly

The ad begins with a statement that Obama was "born of the corrupt Chicago political machine," then shows Obama saying that Chicago toughened him up. The announcer returns, saying, "His economic adviser: William Daley. Lobbyist. Mayor's brother."

McCain-Palin 2008: "Chicago Machine"

Announcer: Barack Obama.
Born of the corrupt Chicago political machine.

Barack Obama: In terms of my toughness, look first of all, I come from Chicago.

Announcer: His economic adviser, William Daley. Lobbyist. Mayor's brother.
His money man, Tony Rezko. Client. Patron. Convicted Felon.
His "political godfather." Emil Jones. Under ethical cloud.
His governor, Rod Blagojevich. A legacy of federal and state investigations.

With friends like that, Obama is not ready to lead.

John McCain: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
First off, Obama wasn't born in Chicago and didn't grow up there. He didn't arrive in the city until 1985, after he finished college. As a community organizer, he often fought City Hall. His rise in politics there wasn't a product of grooming by the Chicago machine, though he made allies of some machine politicans along the way.

Second, William Daley isn't "his economic adviser." He may be one of his advisers in that area, but look at some of the others: Former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, former National Economic Adviser Gene Sperling, former chairpersons of the Council of Economic Advisers Laura Tyson and Joseph Stiglitz, former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker, and Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett.

Not that Daley is without qualifications himself. He's a former secretary of commerce. But the ad's likely intent here is to remind viewers of the mayoral administration of Daley's father, Richard J., which, though the elder Daley himself was never indicted, was riddled with corruption and patronage politics. The Boss died in office in 1976, almost a decade before Obama arrived in Chicago.

William Daley's brother, Richard M., is the current mayor of Chicago. He hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing, though some members of his administration have been.

But William Daley, the Daley mentioned in this ad, has had no such scandal or corruption allegations leveled against him. The implication to the contrary is false.

Rezko Redux

The ad lists convicted Illinois businessman Tony Rezko as Obama's "money man," "client" and "patron." Rezko was convicted on 16 counts of wire fraud and mail fraud in June. But Obama has not been seen with Rezko for some time, and he donated the former businessman's $11,500 in campaign contributions to charity in 2007.

As we concluded back in December 2007, "Obama has a relationship with Rezko that dates back many years, but there’s no indication Obama did anything improper."

The Godfather

The ad then turns to Obama's "political godfather" Emil Jones, who the ad says is "under ethical cloud." Jones certainly has been a close confidant of Obama and has used the "godfather" verbiage himself – though the relationship wasn't always so cozy. Obama described him as an "old ward heeler" in his memoir.

But the ethics charge could use a bit more explanation.

The words "under an ethical cloud" do appear in a June 16 Associated Press story about Jones. The full quote is:

AP: Another Obama mentor, state Senate President Emil Jones, serves under an ethical cloud. He has several family members on the state payroll and uses his clout to aid their business interests.

Another AP report said: "Jones has relatives on the state payroll, steers state grants to favorite organizations and uses his clout to punish enemies and bury GOP legislation." But there have been no indictments, investigations or serious inquiries into any improper behavior by Jones.

O Governor, My Governor

Finally, the ad turns to "his governor, Rod Blagojevich" and his "legacy of state and federal investigations." His governor? Ooooh. (Cue scary organ music.)

The Democratic governor certainly has been besieged by investigations, controversy and other charges of impropriety. But his connections to Obama are not substantial. Obama is just one of more than 13 million Illinois residents of whom it could also be said that Blagojevich is "their governor."

In a July 2008 New Yorker article, Illinois Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel did tell a reporter that "he and Obama 'participated in a small group that met weekly when Rod [Blagojevich] was running for governor.' " But there hasn't been evidence of much contact since then. In fact, the ethics bill that Obama spearheaded while in the Ilinois Legislature was a response to some of Blagojevich's transgressions. And the Chicago Tribune reported that:

Chicago Tribune (Sept. 19): The embattled Illinois governor was shunned by the Obama camp at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last month while several potential opponents to a possible Blagojevich third-term bid were showcased with floor speeches.

Hardly favorable actions from Obama toward "his governor." And no less an authority than Karl Rove said on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes" yesterday, "Blagojevich only has the most tenuous ties to Obama."

Please... GMAB will ya'?? You should know,as well as I do, coming from this area, this place is an absolute cesspool of political shenanigans. Emil Jones is a patronage loving hack that is hardly the type of "mentor" I want the next POTUS to be emulating...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-jones-wedaug20,0,4459136.column

Family ties are what bind Illinois into its sad state

John Kass August 20, 2008 Once Democratic machine warlord state Sen. Emil Jones (D-Com Ed/Obama) announced his retirement and expressed his desire to install his son into his old job, Chicagoans had typical reactions.

If you said them out loud, your mom would stick a bar of soap in your mouth. So let's use polite euphemisms instead:

Outrageous! Who do they think they are? Nepotism!

At least Jones didn't go out like a wimp on Tuesday in discussing it with the Tribune's savvy Springfield correspondent, Ray Long.






"I recall John F. Kennedy, president of the United States, when he became president, he recommended his brother. Right?" Jones said in his great, gravelly voice.

"And his brother [Ted] was elected. Mayor Richard M. Daley begot Richard J. Daley. Dan Hynes—my former senator, Tom Hynes. Mike Madigan— Lisa Madigan. . . . So that's nothing new for one who has been working with you over the years, been involved, walked precincts for candidates. So that's nothing new," Jones said.

Jones got the order of some

begots mixed up, but his meaning was clear. He was talking about a lot of pink white guys. Media outlets often skip over the Kennedy-Daley-Madigan thing when we're wagging our angry fingers against African-Americans like Jones. It happened a few years ago, when the Chicago media's hapless punching bag, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger—also known as Urkel—was plugged in after his machine Democrat father suffered a stroke.

Yes, it is arrogant of Democratic bosses to nourish their children on the taxpayer dime. But public outrage about Emil Jones ignores one simple fact.

African-Americans don't control Illinois politics. Guys who march at the head of the St. Patrick's Day Parade control the politics of this state. They didn't create the system either. A Bohemian mayor named Anton Cermak created it, with the help of the Chicago Outfit, who had him killed, though they later honored him by naming Cermak Road after him, so they could pass between their Chicago and Cicero headquarters on 22nd Street and laugh and laugh, thinking fondly of Pushcart Tony as they drove.

Haven't you noticed how House Speaker Michael Madigan has been hamstringing Gov. Rod "The Unreformer" Blagojevich, with daughter, Lisa Madigan, the state attorney general, waiting for her dad to make her governor?

Mayoral brother Billy Daley—euphemistically billed by MSNBC as an "economic adviser" to Barack Obama's ambition—is testing the gubernatorial waters.

That would give us a Gov. Billy Daley, a Mayor Richard Daley and a Cook County Commissioner John Daley as de facto boss of the Cook County Board. Do we blame Jones for such arrogance? And, do you think that Todd Stroger—with Big Tony Fratto's brother Joe as his chief of staff—would dare turn heretic and defy the Great Daley Spirit?

The last time Bill Daley flirted with a run for governor, he essentially froze fundraising for the fellow who should have been elected, Paul Vallas.

Madigan may have hypnotized former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris to run for governor, and Burris took the African-American vote in the Democratic Party primary away from Vallas. There are no accidents in Chicago politics.

Vallas lost. Blagojevich was elected as a reformer. And Lisa Madigan rode into the state attorney general's job, to breathe heavily on the back of Rod's neck. It's their family business, and they treat it that way.

You and me, we're just renting.

The Daleys; the Madigans; the installation of former Cook County Assessor Tommy Hynes' son as Illinois comptroller; Ald. Edward Burke making wife, Anne, an Illinois Supreme Court justice; the 19th Ward's Tommy Dart as Cook County sheriff. Or all the various legislators putting their kids in office. All of it by design.

A much more complete list is at the Tribune's politics blog, Clout Street, at www.chicagotribune.com/cloutstreet. If any were missed, please forgive. It's like trying to count the flies on a chunk of liver sausage in the alley.

The political families are the haves. They keep telling us we don't need a constitutional convention in Illinois, to stop this sort of thing. Surely they have their reasons—like power and greed.

I've used this theme in the past, particularly about Stroger, fumbling, stumbling, suffering self-inflicted media wounds, his ridiculous haplessness reinforcing the political subtext the mayor of Chicago thrives upon:

That without Daley to protect us, we would get a Stroger, and the sky would fall.

That's a political lie. Chicago thrives in spite of its politicians, not because of them, but it is a convenient falsehood, artfully dropped into the news to help maintain the status quo.

And Emil Jones? The wily boss hog Democrat, gorging on patronage and the fruits of politics, should have a new political job soon, once his protégé, President Obama, finds one for him.

How about ambassador of reform?

 

[gmboy95]

A great story maybe to you, but not to everyone. He has had shady friends, and shady supporters. Clinton was more to the center than Obama will ever be and alot of Clinton supporters are the same way. McCain is more centerist than Obama.

Could you supply a single issue that obama is to the left of clinton....wow and is clinton or mccain short of shady friends

 

[profdsny]

Jones is no prize. But there is no evidence anywhere that 'mentor' is what he was. As it is, Obama ran against some of the picked party candidates when he first sought election. He wasn't groomed.
And regardless, and I'm no fan of Jones, Stroger, or even Daley, but.... they are good politicians. And they are no different than the lovely Sarah.
Heck, I was even a fan of George Ryan and think he got a bum deal.

 

[Dolce27]

IMO-
To simply think Obama has any principle, simply because he tells you so is what is really sad. Where are the witnesses to Obamas Principles??????





He defeated NOTHING! The DNC handed him the nom (against the Democratic Primary voters) on a silver platter.

Stop laughing at your wife, behind her back on the internet! Not nice!

A great story maybe to you, but not to everyone. He has had shady friends, and shady supporters. Clinton was more to the center than Obama will ever be and alot of Clinton supporters are the same way. McCain is more centerist than Obama.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

I have two words for all my conservative friends itching for a great Obama scandal


KEATING FIVE!!!!!!!!!


look it up if you want to be completely educated

Are you aware of JM's role?

 

[gmboy95]

Are you aware of JM's role?

you asked......

During the 2000 Republican Presidential Primaries, Slate.com writer Chris Suellentrop wrote an excellent in-depth feature article about John McCain and his role in the Keating Five. This is a must read article for every American, especially for anyone who thinks John McCainis a hero.

Two Important things to know before you read the article:

1. John McCain admitted to intentionally filing false income tax returns to defraud the IRS by not claiming thousands of dollars in gifts McCain and his family received from Charles Keating and Keating’s company. Years later, when the IRS noticed Keating’s company had written off the gifts to McCain as business expenses, McCain fessed up and admitted filing false returns and made a “donation” to the U.S. Treasury to cover the amount he defrauded American tax payers. (Committing tax fraud is one of the least offensive things John McCain has done over his career, but this article just focuses on his role in the Keating Five, and the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal of the late 1980’s-early 1990’s). McCain also leaked information about the Keating Five to the press multiple times in an effort to appear above the other Senators in the scandal. A 1989 Phoenix New Times article summed it up best with their title - McCain: The Most Reprehensible of the Keating Five.


2. John McCain’s wife, Cindy McCain, along with her father, made a $359,000 investment in retail property owned by Charles Keating in 1986, a year before John McCain first met with federal regulators on behalf of Keating. Keating was later convicted on 73 counts of fraud, conspiracy, and other crimes. Years later, Cindy McCain sold her investment for $15,000,000.

For anyone not aware of the Keating Five, here’s a very simple summary:

Charles Keating owned a savings and loan in California. He was illegally using the money of his bank’s customers to give loans to himself and friends that they didn’t have to repay, and to speculate on risky real estate investments, which was strictly forbidden by U.S. law (and was one cause of the Great Depression).

When the feds found out what was going on and launched an investigation into Keating and his company, Keating called five U.S. Senators whom he had wined, dined, and lavished with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign donations and personal gifts.

Keating asked the five Senators to tell the feds to bug off, and the five Senators, later known as the Keating Five, obliged, meeting with federal investigators twice and pressuring them to stop investigating Keating’s crimes. They bought Keating some time, but the feds didn’t give up and eventually Keating was nailed. The reason the feds were so persistent was because Keating wasn’t playing with mere chump change. Keating blew $3.4 billion through illegal personal loans and bad investments, and the FDIC had to reimburse Keating’s customers who had been ripped off.

(Background Info - Keating wasn’t the only Savings and Loan owner who was committing fraud, 20% of the S&L’s that failed during that three year period were found to have been caused by fraud and/or insider trading. The failure of the Lincoln Savings and Loan and other S&L’s pushed the country into a recession, costing the U.S. government $126 billion dollars in FDIC insurance payouts to investors. All of this came to a crescendo during the first year of the presidency of George H.W. Bush, who pushed through the S&L bailout plan to keep the economy afloat.)

When the involvement of the Keating Five was made public, a scandal erupted and the Senate Ethics Committee launched their own investigation into whether the Keating Five had violated Senate ethics rules. The other four Senators left office either immediately or within one term. John McCain was formally rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising “poor judgment” for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating, but because McCain accepted Keating’s gifts of travel and vacations to Bahama while McCain was a member of the House of Representatives (he served one term there before moving to the Senate), the Senate claimed they had no jurisdiction to censure McCain. (However the meetings to pressure federal regulators occurred during the first few months of McCain serving in the Senate in 1987, so that excuse doesn’t hold up)

John McCain then went back to the drawing board and re-invented himself as “the Straight-Talk Express” and the media gobbled it up. “Tax-Evading-Criminal” doesn’t sound as catchy as “Straight-Shooting-War-Hero”.

Ever since the scandal, when McCain lies today, it’s never questioned, because he’s a “straight talker”. The man has more skeletons in his closet than any politician in history. The Keating Five is just one bone.

After reading the Slate article, ask yourself: if Obama or any other candidate had a scandal such as the Keating Five in their past, would the mainstream media never question it? Could any other candidate even have a political career after the Keating Five? For the other four Senators, the answer is no. And while Charles Keating went to prison for his role in the scandal, John McCain swept it under the rug and could soon be President of the United States of America.

Read the full Slate.com article here.

 

[gmboy95]

Here is a link to the article listed above

http://www.slate.com/id/1004633/

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

Here is a link to the article listed above

http://www.slate.com/id/1004633/

Here's another take...

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1836937,00.html

Understanding John McCain
By JAMES CARNEY AND MICHAEL GRUNWALD

John McCain, according to one of his most perceptive and persistent critics, has struggled throughout his career to balance his principles and his ambitions, to reconcile the code of honor instilled in him as a boy with the insistent demands of political expedience. His worst moments in public office, this critic has charged, have come when he has failed to put his country first — opposing a holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. to bolster his conservative credibility in Arizona, concealing his abhorrence of the Confederate flag to troll for votes in South Carolina. And before you judge, you should know that the critic in question is John McCain, who has explored and deplored his own flaws in remarkable detail in his books and speeches and has apologized for them with candor that is rare in a politician. In 2000, after sidestepping the flag issue during his first presidential campaign, he returned to South Carolina to flay himself for pandering. "I don't seek absolution," he said. "I can only try to resist future temptations to abandon principle for expediency."

If it be a sin, as Shakespeare wrote, to covet honor, then McCain might be the most sinful politician alive. His 50 years of nearly continuous service to his country — in the Navy, as a POW and in Congress — have been a tumultuous and often inspiring saga of a man and his code. McCain languished in prison in Hanoi for years rather than accept a release he considered dishonorable, and he has made his mark in Washington as a kind of honor politician, a crusader who has chosen his battles on the basis of morality rather than ideology. Fighting to limit the influence of money in politics or performance-enhancing drugs in sports, attacking Democrats who opposed the surge in Iraq or Republican lobbyists who exploited Indian tribes, McCain tends to approach his pet issues not as arid policy disputes about which reasonable people can disagree but as emotionally pitched battles between good and evil, affairs of honor vs. the ignominy of disgrace. If it hasn't won him a lot of popularity contests with his colleagues, it has burnished his national reputation for being his own man.

To John McCain, honor means telling the truth, doing the right thing rather than the easy thing and putting America's needs ahead of your needs. But as he has reminded us so many times, McCain is not a saint. And he is now the Republican nominee for President, the anointed leader of the party establishment he has antagonized so often. He has a real chance to extend his public service to the Oval Office and an abiding conviction that these perilous times require his leadership. But getting there in a year when so much is stacked against the GOP may require him to play by rules that don't always conform to the code of honor to which he subscribes.

Honor Bound
These days, there is a new McCain on the campaign trail. He has forsworn his freewheeling sessions of straight talk with the press, sticking religiously to GOP talking points, bottled up by a campaign that is highly disciplined, curiously hostile to reporters and quick to launch negative and often misleading attacks. During a brief, weird and remarkably uninformative interview, TIME asked him about the abrupt shift in strategy. The candidate who used to spend hours kibitzing with reporters refused to acknowledge that anything has changed. "I don't know what you're talking about," McCain said, staring blankly at a press aide, without even a wink.

Acknowledged or not, the change in strategy has worked: as McCain heads to his convention, he is virtually tied in the polls. The theme of McCain's coronation in St. Paul, Minn., will be putting "country first," but his aides are not about to apologize for putting victory a close second. They say they would have loved to run a classic McCain campaign, with a series of high-minded town-hall debates and the usual open access, but Barack Obama refused the debates, and the Obama-smitten media decided that the campaign is all about their new darling. "The race is as we found it," says Mark Salter, a close adviser and the co-author of McCain's five books. "We're not going to do anything dishonorable. But we are going to try to win."

The candidate is, more than anything else, a born fighter. John Sidney McCain III grew up in the considerable shadow of the first two John Sidney McCains, both four-star admirals who were small of stature but large of presence, both true believers in the military code of Duty, Honor, Country. "They were my first heroes, and their respect for me has been the most lasting ambition of my life," the Senator said at a 1994 ceremony to commission the destroyer U.S.S. John S. McCain in their honor. His grandfather, known as Slew, was a Navy legend, an innovative strategist and a relentless warrior who dropped dead four days after attending the 1945 Japanese surrender on the U.S.S. Missouri. McCain's father Jack was a highly decorated World War II submarine skipper who rose to command U.S. naval forces in the Pacific and ordered the bombing of Hanoi despite the danger to his prisoner-of-war son. Jack was a workaholic and an alcoholic, and he wasn't home much, but he tried to instill in John his greatest-generation values and strict sense of honor.

At first, the lessons seemed wasted. The young John McCain was a constant breaker of rules, a brawler and a slob, an undersize punk with an oversize chip on his shoulder. He reluctantly followed his forebears to the Naval Academy, but he continued to flout authority there, leading a band of late-night miscreants known as the Bad Bunch, accumulating so many demerits that he finished 894th out of 899 in his class. And in flight school, a culture more accepting of go-it-alone bad boys, his womanizing and partying were considered impressive even by the standards of naval aviators. But he had his limits; McCain always sensed how far he could bend a system without breaking it — or being broken.

On Oct. 26, 1967, McCain's opportunities for high jinks were severely limited when he was shot out of the sky, beaten by a Vietnamese mob, then transported to a prison camp for 5 1/2 years of hell. The fact of his captivity is common knowledge, but the pain he endured and the defiance with which he endured it are not so well understood. "The first time I saw him, I thought he'd be dead by morning," recalls his cellmate, retired Air Force Colonel George (Bud) Day. "He'd been beaten, bayoneted and starved. He weighed maybe 95 lb. He just willed himself to live."

In the Hanoi Hilton, McCain's family tradition of honor and his own instinct for rebellion meshed into an inspiring example for his fellow prisoners. He was the camp troublemaker, cursing out guards despite the constant threat of torture, defying rules barring communication to tell his comrades vulgar jokes. He refused several offers of freedom because the military code of conduct requires all prisoners to be freed in order of capture and he knew that an admiral's son accepting early release would be a propaganda victory for North Vietnam as well as a devastating blow to camp morale. The one time his captors brutalized McCain into a sham confession, he considered suicide. "He could not avoid the conclusion that he had dishonored his country, his family and himself," wrote his biographer Robert Timberg.

In books with names like Faith of My Fathers, Character Is Destiny and Why Courage Matters, McCain has said his captivity was a personal turning point that opened his eyes to causes larger than himself, transforming a vain jet jockey into a servant of his country. It was also a political turning point that forged his views on foreign affairs. McCain saw Vietnam as an honorable and winnable war botched by spineless politicians who tied the hands of American soldiers and betrayed their South Vietnamese allies, dishonoring the U.S. and emboldening its enemies. And those were not just knee-jerk reactions to his own traumas; McCain spent a year after his release studying Vietnam and its history at the National War College. McCain's Vietnam lessons dovetailed with the World War II lessons he had learned at home. He even believed his father should have resigned to protest President Lyndon Johnson's insufficient aggression. "John gets that appeasement doesn't work with our enemies," says Orson Swindle, a fellow POW who later served in the Reagan Administration. "They have to know that if they slap us, we're going to knock the hell out of them."

The Crusader
A few years after his return, McCain was posted to Washington as a Navy liaison on Capitol Hill, a political job his Beltway-connected father had performed with flair. Still a rebel by nature, McCain used his connections to lead a rearguard effort to save a $2 billion aircraft carrier from President Jimmy Carter's budget ax, even though McCain was supposed to be representing Carter on the Hill. By 1980, he wanted to stop advising members of Congress and start becoming one.

From his beginnings as a politician, he was inspired by the sunny conservatism of Ronald Reagan, especially Reagan's efforts to rehabilitate Vietnam as a noble cause and the military as an honorable profession. McCain's first marriage had crumbled — he has admitted he was unfaithful — but he was remarried, to an Arizona beer heiress named Cindy Hensley, and the day in 1982 a Phoenix Congressman announced his retirement, she bought a house in his district. McCain was elected to the House as a Reagan Republican that year, but he already had his eye on the Senate. He easily moved up in 1986 after Barry Goldwater's retirement.

In his early years as a politician, McCain was mostly a party-line Reaganite; his cleanest and most difficult break with the President was his 1983 call to withdraw the Marines from Lebanon because he didn't see a clear mission for them. He turned out to have been tragically right. He was otherwise notable mostly for his bursts of temper, especially when he perceived an affront to his honor. In his first House race, he threatened to beat up an opponent who had called his ex-wife to look for dirt. In his initial Senate run, he exploded after his opponent accused him of selling out for special-interest contributions.

As incomprehensible as it sounds, McCain has told friends his involvement in the Keating Five scandal of the late 1980s caused him more pain than his imprisonment in Hanoi. Again his honor was on the line, and the scandal seemed to drain his mojo; he went through the motions of his job, but he was visibly depressed. Salter, his speechwriter, ghostwriter and alter ego, remembers walking back to the Capitol with his boss in uncharacteristic silence after a press conference. McCain's mind was clearly elsewhere, perhaps wondering how he ever got so close to the savings and loan crook Charles Keating Jr. during the go-go 1980s. "It won't always be like this," McCain finally told Salter. Recalls his friend Bill Cohen, then a Senator from Maine: "John had never felt so wounded, even in Vietnam, because his sense of honor had been challenged. And he was seething."

The common myth is that McCain was caught pressuring federal regulators to ease up on a political benefactor, then sought penance for his sins by leading a crusade to limit the influence of money in politics. But the real story is more complex. Despite all that Keating gave to McCain — $112,000 in campaign contributions, several junkets to his Bahamas estate — McCain never did anything official for Keating. He did attend two meetings with regulators along with the rest of the Keating Five, but he told the regulators that Keating's banks should receive no special treatment. After a long and agonizing investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee found McCain guilty of nothing more than "poor judgment."

McCain has acknowledged misjudging Keating, but the dishonor and especially the casual allegations of corruption left him more outraged than ashamed. The episode soured him on partisanship — and in some ways on the Senate. "He got screwed, and he took it personally," says Slade Gorton, a former Republican Senator from Washington State. "That's what led to the whole McCain-Feingold thing." Says New Hampshire's Bob Smith, a former Republican Senator who tangled with McCain: "He did get shafted, and he never really got over it. I think he said, I'm on my own now." The Keating ordeal led McCain to team up with Democrat Russ Feingold on soft-money restrictions — not only to attack political corruption but also to remove what he saw as a cloud hanging over honorable politicians.

It also began his transformation from party man to party maverick. He forged alliances with Senators John Kerry, to normalize relations with Vietnam, and Ted Kennedy, to promote immigration reform. He crusaded against tobacco, steroids, corporate criminals, ultimate fighting, a sweetheart deal for Boeing and all kinds of pork. He crusaded for a patients' bill of rights and even a boxers' bill of rights. He got great press, and colleagues have often rolled their eyes at his ubiquitous television presence, but the Sunday shows wouldn't have invited him so often if he hadn't become so interesting — and so candid. "He's fascinating: basically a doctrinaire Reagan conservative, but when something offends him, he breaks from the orthodoxy," says Ivan Schlager, the top Democratic counsel to McCain's Commerce Committee during the 1990s. "It's not ideological. It's good guys and bad guys."

Doping might not seem like an issue of vital national import, but it offended McCain's sense of fair play, and the possibility of a U.S. scandal at the Athens Olympics horrified him. So he started issuing subpoenas and ended up with enough evidence to get a dozen athletes disqualified before the Games. "He didn't want American athletes dishonoring their country," recalls his former aide Ken Nahigian. He has free-market instincts, but like his political hero Teddy Roosevelt, he has taken great pleasure in regulating and otherwise harassing those he considers malefactors of great wealth.

McCain's GOP colleagues have not always appreciated his moral crusading or his suggestions that any disagreement with "St. John" about soft-money rules was somehow tantamount to corruption. "He was so condescending. If you weren't with him, you were obviously wrong," Smith says. And McCain sometimes approached debate the way he approached boxing as a midshipman, throwing wild haymakers until someone went down. He has offended the clubby Senate with his sailor's mouth, cursing at Pete Domenici of New Mexico over pork, John Cornyn of Texas over immigration and even the Mormon Orrin Hatch of Utah over judges. During McCain's campaign to normalize relations with Vietnam, he nearly came to blows with Charles Grassley of Iowa. Smith served on a tanker in the Gulf of Tonkin, but he says that when he was the Senate's only Vietnam vet to oppose normalizing relations, McCain belittled his service to other Senators as noncombat busywork. "That's way over the line," Smith says. "McCain was nasty, vindictive and mean-spirited. Those are tough words, but that's how he was."

Talking Straight
As with many military men, McCain's Vietnam experiences seemed at times to make him wary of U.S. involvement abroad. He opposed Reagan's deployment in Lebanon and peppered the Clinton White House with questions about military interventions in Haiti, Somalia and the Balkans. But as he began his presidential quest in the late 1990s, McCain began to argue that America's honor required much stronger responses to tyrants, and he attacked the Clintonites for refusing to send combat troops to the Balkans and for appeasing a retrograde regime in North Korea. "I understand the instinct to protect national honor, but [North Korea] has got 800,000 men 40 miles from downtown Seoul," says Cohen, who was best man at McCain's second wedding but has not endorsed his friend. "Wars can get started over honor."

McCain's enemies say he lacks the temperament to be President; his friends say he is just a spirited fighter who isn't afraid of taking on sacred cows. Some of McCain's worst enemies have been GOP appropriators like Domenici, Ted Stevens of Alaska and Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who has said the thought of a President McCain sends a cold chill down his spine. McCain has been a relentless critic of congressional pork and has made a point of publicizing the pet-project earmarks that appropriators slip into budget bills. "He ruffles a lot of feathers because he doesn't worry about playing the game with the boys in the club," says Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who has replaced McCain as the Senate's top porkbuster — and top headache. "I call him a crusty old fart. People say he's bullheaded, but he's never afraid to irritate people if it will get something done for his country."

While Coburn has been willing to bog down the Senate to try to stop pork, McCain stops short of drawing the line. He tends to bend institutions without breaking them; he never alienated his caucus enough to lose his chairmanship, and even Cochran has endorsed McCain's candidacy now that he's the Republican nominee. "McCain used to make great speeches about all the garbage in military spending bills, especially after 9/11, but he'd do nothing to stop it," says the Center for Defense Information's Winslow Wheeler, a former GOP staffer who supports Obama for President. McCain "got the porkbuster reputation, but he never strayed too far off the reservation."

In 2000, McCain ran for President as a reformer, vowing to clean up Washington and restore honor to the presidency after eight years of Bill Clinton. But the wheels came off the Straight Talk Express right after New Hampshire, when he impulsively decided to pull all his negative ads off the air even though George W. Bush supporters were spreading vicious lies about him. Bush soon co-opted McCain's message — he too vowed to be "a reformer with results" — all the way to the White House. And McCain spent the next several years picking fights with Bush and the GOP establishment over campaign finance, health care, gun control and the President's massive tax cuts, which McCain characterized as fiscally irresponsible. The battles burnished his maverick image, but critics within the party attributed them mostly to vanity and sour grapes. "He was just grumpy about losing to Bush," says Grover Norquist, the antitax activist who has clashed with McCain but supports him now. "Anybody could see that."

But as he prepared to run for President again, McCain made peace with Bush and their party. The iconoclast who attacked Jerry Falwell as an "agent of intolerance" during the 2000 campaign made a pilgrimage to Falwell's university to make amends. The scold who attacked the Swift Boat Veterans campaign as dishonorable in 2004 signed up its funders for his campaign. McCain now wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and he has not only reversed his opposition to offshore drilling but has also made offshore drilling the centerpiece of his economic message. Several veterans of the McCain 2000 campaign told TIME that they barely recognize the McCain of 2008, but most of them also noted that the McCain of 2000 lost. "He's learned over the past eight years that the world of politics he'd like to inhabit is not the world he inhabits," says Dan Schnur, the communications director from the 2000 campaign. The world he inhabits paid almost no attention to McCain's heartfelt and self-critical speech about Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tenn., but has buzzed about McCain's tawdry ads comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Moses.

Honor and Its Limits
The unanswerable question is whether McCain's rough campaign will eventually violate his own code of honor; he adores boxing, but he considers ultimate fighting a sickening national disgrace. Most Americans see McCain's focus on honor as a commendable commitment to principle; the danger comes when that insistence turns into dogma or a belief in one's monopoly on virtue. Asked whether he would look back at his tactics with Confederate-flag-style regrets, McCain at first refused to answer. When pressed, he gave the kind of canned, these-are-my-talking-points response he used to ridicule on the Straight Talk Express: "I'm very happy with the way our campaign has been conducted, and I am pleased and humbled to have the nomination of the Republican Party."

Behind the new front, McCain and his aides believe a straight-talk hiatus, a few necessary policy reversals and some standard-issue political attacks are small concessions to expedience, considering the stakes of the election. The race may turn on economic matters — and McCain seems to be learning how to talk about gas and housing prices with passion — but his driving issue is America's honor in a dangerous world. He has framed his support for the surge in Iraq — and Obama's unrepentant opposition — as proof of his superior qualifications to be Commander in Chief and of Obama's willingness to put politics before country.

Though McCain is quick to say he considers his opponent a "patriot," McCain and his aides now view Obama with the same level of contempt they once reserved for tobacco-company executives, corrupt lawmakers and George W. Bush. They have convinced themselves that Obama is not honorable, that he does not love his country as much as himself. That makes it easier to justify doing whatever is necessary to defeat him — especially if it's done in the pursuit of honor.

McCain genuinely believes that America's honor is at stake in this election. His friends say he's learned through hard experience as well as family values that tough talk backed by force is the only language our enemies understand, that vacillation in the face of evil will dishonor America and endanger our safety. And this obsession with national honor has driven his belligerent approach to dishonorable regimes — not only North Korea and Iraq but also Iran, Cuba and, most recently, Russia. His hard-edged approach has a visceral appeal and an undeniable consistency; it is also popular with some conservatives who are otherwise skeptical of McCain. But it's a radical and potentially dangerous approach to foreign affairs. In a messy world full of unsavory despots, belligerence can have its costs, even when it's belligerence in the pursuit of honor.

John McCain had dedicated his adult life to that pursuit; in November, Americans will have to decide whether to make his obsession with honor their own

 

[rie'smom]

For the ZILLIONTH time....Not all McCain Supporters are Conservatives.

Democrat with liberal leanings here

I beleive the party platform is the same, and Hillary supports that platform, unless there was some type of Voodoo that hillary had in mind. They are on the same page on any of the major issues....Obama ran the campaign he had to in order to win against a seemingly inevitable candidate...The fact that you are willing to abandon that platform for a man who is the polar opposite is as stated before very sad.....My wife voted for hillary and was very angry at the outcome, however she is a teacher of special needs students, and she knows full well what a Mccain administration would meen...I beg you to reconsider

I bet Hillary vomits in her mouth everytime she has to say she backs Obama. I'd bet my house, all our money, and my first born child that she is not voting for Obama.

And they are no different than the lovely Sarah.

She is lovely, isn't she?

IMO-
To simply think Obama has any principle, simply because he tells you so is what is really sad. Where are the witnesses to Obamas Principles??????





He defeated NOTHING! The DNC handed him the nom (against the Democratic Primary voters) on a silver platter.

Stop laughing at your wife, behind her back on the internet! Not nice!

Absolutely 1000% correct!

 

[mikedevilsyanks]

Could you supply a single issue that obama is to the left of clinton....wow and is clinton or mccain short of shady friends

Taxes.

 

[mikedevilsyanks]

Here is a link to the article listed above

http://www.slate.com/id/1004633/

Once again, he was found completely clear of any wrong doing.