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 Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 1:34 pm Post subject: Squelching the McCain-Jeb Rumor |
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Squelching the McCain-Jeb Rumor
John LeBoutillier
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Washington is alive with the latest Campaign '08 rumor: a dream ticket of John McCain and Jeb Bush.
The thinking of D.C. insiders is that their favorite Republican - McCain - teamed with electoral-rich Florida's outgoing governor, Jeb Bush -
would be an unbeatable ticket against Hillary or any other Democrat. This theory comes from last week's announcement that GW Bush's
media maestro, Mark McKinnon, was joining McCain's 2008 campaign. Many took this to mean that Team Bush - a powerful political
and fund-raising machine that presently 'owns' the GOP and the conservative movement - was now going to endorse and support its archenemy,
John McCain.
The problem with this theory is that McCain can't - and should not - win the GOP nomination - whether the Bushes support him or not.
He is anathema to the Republican base.
These clueless pundits love McCain - for one simple reason:
He is a Republican who loves to blast Republicans, thus doing the dirty work for the so-called 'mainstream media.'
He has no constituency - other than these media types, who, like the Democrats, are becoming increasingly marginalized.
McCain is an arrogant, condescending prima donna who can't work with people. He is a false image who, upon further reflection,
is a total nothing. He stands for nothing; he says nothing; his record is filled with nothing.
He specializes in tweaking anyone in authority. He is not a leader; he behaves like a punk.
Ask those who knew him growing up; they will all tell you the same thing: McCain was a spoiled brat with a gigantic chip on his shoulder
who got away with his misbehaviors because his father and grandfather were Navy Big Shots who protected their wayward boy.
Only his connections kept him in the Naval Academy, where he was repeatedly on the verge of flunking out.
As a pilot he was a poor flier who quickly got shot down over Hanoi and, again, because he was the 'Crown Prince' (
as the Vietnamese came to refer to this son of CINCPAC Admiral McCain), he was treated better than the other U.S. POWs.
Contrary to what the ignorant media believed, once McCain was identified a few days after his capture, he was never beaten or physically tortured.
Colonel Ted Guy, USAF, was McCain's SRO (Senior Ranking Officer) in several prison camps. Colonel Guy was quite adamant:
"They never laid a hand on John."
To his credit, McCain has never claimed to have been tortured or beaten. But whenever he is interviewed and the interviewer says,
"Now with us today is Senator John McCain, who was tortured and beaten as a POW in Vietnam ...,"
McCain never corrects this misstatement. Instead he allows this false impression to continue until it is a given that he was treated like all the other
POWs. He was not.
McCain has gone out of his way to insult and alienate the GOP base - those conservative primary voters who actually nominate the Republican nominee.
This huge group of voters despises McCain. And one of their unofficial leaders, Rush Limbaugh, is going to fight John McCain if it is the last thing he ever does.
I do not believe Team Bush is really supporting McCain. My guess is that the Bush Machine is searching for a candidate to support and so far has not found one. But there is still a long time before Iowa in January 2008.
Mark McKinnon does not count one bit. If Karl Rove joined McCain, then that would be significant. But Rove is no McCain fan. And neither is G.W. Bush - or, more importantly, G.H.W. Bush.
Team Bush has trotted out rumored candidacies of Dick Cheney and Condi Rice (people they can control) and Bill Frist (a total failure in the Senate leadership). They are still searching. They also may have run out of steam - and 2008 could be the beginning of a New Era in the GOP: no Bush or Dole on the ticket for the first time since 1972.
When the D.C. press and punditry class start telling us who the Republicans are going to nominate in 2008, count on one thing: They do not have a clue what they are talking about.
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John LeBoutillier is a former U.S. Congressman and a nationally recognized political commentator. He has been a frequent guest on many national talk show programs and is author of the book Harvard Hates America. He is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.
John LeBoutillier can be reached at: johnlebout@johnlebout.com
He keeps an archive of his articles at: JohnLeBout.com
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powactivits wrote:
July 11, 1995, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., (right), and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., (center), gave President Bill Clinton, (left), the valuable political cover he needed to remove the U.S. imposed trade embargo against communist Vietnam.
All major U.S. veterans organizations, the two POW/MIA family groups, and the majority of Vietnamese Americans in this country opposed Clinton's lifting of the embargo.
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Here's what Ted Stampley has to say about McCain. You will want to note that McCain admitted to trading military information for special medical treatment in an article he wrote in 1973, before he became a politician.
"However, John McCain's actual behavior from October to December 1967 is quite different from the Navy's version of events.
On October 27, 1967, four days after being shot down, McCain called for a North Vietnamese guard. He told the officer, "O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital." -U.S. News and World Report, May 14, 1973 article written by former POW John McCain
McCain was taken to Gai Lam military hospital. (U.S. government documents) "Demands for military information were accompanied by threats to terminate my medical treatment if I [McCain] did not cooperate. Eventually, I gave them my ship's name and squadron number, and confirmed that my target had been the power plant." Page 193-194, Faith of My Fathers by John McCain
On Nov. 9, 1967, Hanoi press began quoting the seriously injured McCain giving specific military information.
One report dated read, "To a question of the correspondent, McCain answered: 'My assignment to the Oriskany, I told myself, was due to serious losses in pilots, which were sustained by this aircraft carrier (due to its raids on the North Vietnam territory - VNA) and which necessitated replacements.
"'From 10 to 12 pilots were transferred like me from the Forrestal to the Oriskany.
"'Before I was shot down, we had made several sorties. Altogether, I made about 23 flights over North Vietnam.'"
In that report, McCain was quoted describing the number of aircraft in his flight, information about rescue ships, and the order of which his attack was supposed to take place.
Through the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. Veteran Dispatch acquired a declassified Department of Defense (DOD) transcript of an interview prominent French television reporter Francois Chalais had with McCain.
Chalais told of his private interview with POW McCain in a series titled Life in Hanoi, which was aired in Europe. In the series, Chalais said his meeting with McCain was "a meeting which will leave its mark on my life."
"My meeting with John Sidney McCain was certainly one of those meetings which will affect me most profoundly for the rest of my life. I had asked the North Vietnamese authorities to allow me to personally interrogate an American prisoner. They authorized me to do so.
"When night fell, they took me---without any precautions or mystery--to a hospital near the Gia Lam airport reserved for the military. (passage omitted) The officer who receives me begins: I ask you not to ask any questions of political nature. If this man replies in a way unfavorable to us, they will not hesitate to speak of 'brainwashing' and conclude that we threatened him.
"'This John Sidney McCain is not an ordinary prisoner. His father is none other than Admiral Edmond John McCain, commander in chief of U.S. naval forces in Europe. (passage omitted)'"
". . . Many visitors came to talk to me [John McCain]. Not all of it was for interrogation. Once a famous North Vietnamese writer-an old man with a Ho Chi Minh beard-came to my room, wanting to know all about Ernest Hemingway . . . Others came to find out about life in the United States.
"They figured because my father had such high military rank that I was of the royalty or governing circle . . . One of the men who came to see me, whose picture I recognized later, was Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the hero of Dienbienphu." U.S. News and World Report, May 14, 1973 article written by former POW John McCain
December 1967, Vietnamese doctors operate (early December) on McCain's Leg. Later that month, six weeks after he was shot down, McCain was taken from the hospital and delivered to Room No. 11 of "The Plantation" into the hands of two other U.S. POWs, Air Force majors George "Bud" Day and Norris Overly. They helped further nurse him along until he was eventually able to walk by himself. --Faith of My Fathers by John McCain Read retired Army Col. David Hackworth's opinion of Sen. McCain's medals."
You may also be interested in what his superior officers in the POW camps at the same time as McCain have to say about McCain's claim that physical abuse drove him to make propagand broadcasts for the enemy:
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Joe Olivers Note: if Col. Ted Guy didn't suddenly come down with a form of lukemia thats now associated to Agent Orange -
he would have stumped after McCain when McCain was humping for president calling him to issue on matters people have a right
to know about concerning presidential candidates. And if you DON'T Believe that I will find the emails where he was planning
to do so. Some former PoW's tried to dismiss his actions as that of a loony tune - I have that mail too.. the fact was Col. Guy
was a true mans man who spent most of his time in Solitary yet was able to fullfill his role as SRO, under the most adverse
conditions, without giving an inch to the enemy. If you haven't read his and other PoW storys on how they risisted so that they
would Return With Honor you need to. Some of the most inspiring. http://www.soft-vision.com/hanoi/
(Joes Drivel Ends )
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Two Former POWs Say They Doubt McCain Was Physically Abused
1999 - March 25, 1999, The Phoenix New Times: Ted Guy and Gordon "Swede" Larson, two former POWs, who were McCain's senior ranking officers (SRO's), at the time McCain says he was tortured in solitary confinement, told the New Times that while they could not guarantee that McCain was not physically harmed, they doubted it.
"Between the two of us, it's our belief, and to the best of our knowledge, that no prisoner was beaten or harmed physically in that camp [known as "The Plantation"]," Larson says. ". . . My only contention with the McCain deal is that while he was at The Plantation, to the best of my knowledge and Ted's knowledge, he was not physically abused in any way. No one was in that camp. It was the camp that people were released from."
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