Hot Head (Joe) McCain

John McCain's temper (lack of proper temperment) is so well established that a video on the subject merely scratches the surface:



Now we hear that the hot temper seems to run in the McCain family. John's younger brother Joe is hating life for recently loosing his temper and called 911 to complain about a traffic jam in the Arlington, VA area. Perhaps it's anger. Perhaps it is also a sense of entitlement.

Sources:

Associated Press, After Joe the Plumber, Joe the Hothead ?

A Warning to John McCain

If Barack Obama is assassinated, will John McCain bear some of the responsibility? Frank Schaeffer, a former evangelical preacher, and active McCain supporter in the 2000 campaign, is warning McCain by saying exactly that. Schaeffer has written an open letter to McCain in the Baltimore Sun:

"John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as ‘not one of us,’ I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence."

“John McCain, you are no fool, and you understand the depths of hatred that [surround] the issue of race in this country. You also know that, post-9/11, to call someone a friend of a terrorist is a very serious matter. You also know we are [a bitterly divided country] on many other issues. You know that, sadly, in America, violence is always just a moment away. You know that there are plenty of crazy people out there."

“Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs."

“John McCain, you’re walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out ‘Terrorist’ or ‘Kill him,’ history will hold you responsible for all that follows."

Sources:

DemocracyNow, "Former McCain Supporter Accuses the Senator of “Deliberately Feeding the Most Unhinged Elements of Our Society the Red Meat of Hate” October, 13, 2008.

McCain's Mortgage Bailout Plan

McCain's mortgage bail out idea rewards the bad behavior of both mortgage lenders and irresponsible home buyers. A diagram makes it easy to see:

McCain Mortgage Double-Bailout Plan

So, the lesson is, if in the future we or the banks want to take a risk to make big bucks, but things go bad, the government (aka tax payer) will bail us out. That gives us an incentive to take big risks for potentiall big profits, and not worry about the consequences. This is known as the moral hazard of such policies, and is looked down upon gravely by honest conservatives. John McCain doesn't appear to be one of them.

But there are better alternatives. I provide one below.

0) Most of our mortgages now reside in "bundles" of 500 - 1,000 mortgages that can be sold or used as collateral for issuing bonds (aka securities) that make up the mortgage backed securities we hear of. Before we can do anything with individual mortgages, they must be un-bundled, and the bad mortgages must be separated from the good mortgages(McCain has to do this too).

1) Buy Bad Debt: We the tax payer (aka the government) give holders of bad mortgages (like banks) the option of buying their bad mortgages and assuming the debt (let banks get them off the books). The option is completely voluntary. The houses would be purchased at the prevailing prices. With prices continuing to drop, the mortgage holders have an incentive to sell them to us (the tax payer). The banks loose the red part on the graph above, but with prices dropping, they could loose more (they better sell now).

2) We Own Bad Debt: Waahoo! The tax payer now owns lots of property. Not the first time. We (aka the government) were the largest property owner in the US following the 1980s Savings and Loan Bailout (same thing, smaller scale, yet HUGE... making today's debacle, uber-HUGE, I like to call it historic).

3) Separate Renters from Owners: The government will need to provide jobs to help sort out the mess. Some home buyers will be able to pay for the house, with some adjustments. They can continue to own their home. Others will be in way over their heads. For them, the government takes ownership of the house, and the people can rent. A third group might be able to "rent-to-own." Nobody is thrown out into the street. The payments on mortgages and rent help pay for the new jobs needed to "sort thru the mess."

4) Sell the Houses Back to the "Free Market:" In time, as the economy recovers and the property values have risen, the tax payers can place these houses back on the market and receive a hansom profit. Most likely, the reintroduction of homes back into the market would be done over several years through a bidding process.

5) Enjoy the Profits: We take the profits and pay for all the things we need, not military stuff nor any corporate welfare, etc.

6) Control Our Destiny Forever: We rule over the banking industry, as we should, and we live happily ever after. Ah Men.

McCain Straight Talk Video

Over 6 Million views. The video McCain doesn't want you to see.



Sources:

Brave New Films, YouTube Channel.

McCain: Iraq War Will be Easy

McCain said the Iraq war would be short, easy, before he said it would be long, hard. McCain speaks for himself:



Sources:

Brave New Films YouTube Channel

McCain and Keating-Five Scandal

This 90-sec video is worth the watch.



This isn't the only time McCain has tried to influence regulators. Remember Vickie Iseman? McCain tried to strong-arm Federal Communications Commissioners on behalf of Paxon Communications for whom Iseman was a lobbyist.

Sources:

HuffPolitics YouTube Channel video.

McCain: Aspires to be Our Future Dictator

The 30 sec. video speaks for itself:



Sarah Palin can oversee the national police.

McCain Incorrectly Equates a Military Tactic with a Strategy

McCain exposed his own lack of understanding about the difference between a "tactic" and a "strategy" after he accused Senator Obama of not knowing the difference:

I'm afraid Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.

I'm certain that Obama does understand the difference. A strategy is the big picture goal and approach. Tactics are the smaller actions taken to implement the larger strategy.

It's not clear that McCain understands the difference. McCain exposed his lack of understanding in the September 26 debate when he equated a "tactics" used to implement the troop surge with a "strategy":

There is social, economic progress, and a strategy, a strategy of going into an area, clearing and holding, and the people of the country then become allied with you.

"Clearing and holding" areas is an example of a military tactic. The "strategy" was the broad goal of stabilizing the security situation so that the Iraqi governance system could become functional. The troop surge could be considered either a sub-strategy or major military tactic to support the larger stabilization strategy.

But "clearing and holding" is definitely not a strategy. It might even be considered a sub-tactic of the tactical surge designed to meet the "strategy" of bringing a period of stability to Iraq. McCain clearly displayed his lack of understanding of strategy and tactic.

Don't take my word for it. Consider what former Director of the National Security Agency, William E. Odom, LT General, USA, Ret., said in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 2, 2008.

It is an honor to appear before you again. The last occasion was in January 2007, when the topic was the troop surge. Today you are asking if it has worked. Last year I rejected the claim that it was a new strategy. Rather, I said, it is a new tactic used to achieve the same old strategic aim, political stability.

(Full Testimony)

McCain's muddled brain is further exposed by his circular thinking about strategies:

This strategy requires additional troops, it requires a fundamental change in strategy and I fought for it.

McCain's idea of a "strategy" was to have "a fundamental change in strategy"? Oh Kayeee. I'm not impressed with this so-called straight talking maverick. McCain's a phony.

Sources:

Los Angeles Times, Full Transcript of the First Debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, September 26, 2008.

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Testimony of William E. Odom, April 2, 2008. [PDF]

McCain: Evidence He is Whacko

Many of us have had the following experience. We have a series of exchanges with a person in which the communication seemed very clear and we felt like we were on the same page. Then, the person later does something, or fails to do something, that shocks us, making you think, "Whoa. What the heck? Is this person nuts?" or "WTF?"

Here's such an exchange between Obama and McCain:

• On Tuesday night Obama received a phone message from Republican Sen. Tom Coburn who suggested that Obama and McCain make a joint statement outlining their shared principles on the financial crisis.
  
• On Wednesday morning, after conferring with aides, Obama placed a call to McCain to run the idea by him and left a message.
  
• At about 2:30 p.m., Obama received a return call from McCain, which lasted about five minutes. They discussed the joint statement idea and exchanged contact information so their campaign aides could follow up.
  
• On that call McCain also raised the idea of suspending his campaign and delaying the debate. Obama said he didn't rule out either option, but told McCain he wanted to see how events unfolded and suggested the candidates first address the immediate priority of speaking with one voice before Bush's address.
  
• About 20 minutes later, McCain publicly announced his proposal to delay this Friday's debate.
  
• Obama's jaw drops. He stammers and thinks, "Whoa. What the heck? Does McCain have a screw loose?"
  
• When pressed by reporters Obama'a aides refused to accuse McCain of bad faith. "No, John's just a little Whacko sometimes."
  

Sources:

Washington Post, Obama: Debate Should Go On, Shailagh Murray, September 24, 2008.

Fire the SEC Chair: Great Idea John

In another example of his poor judgment, John McCain says:

"The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president and, in my view, has betrayed the public's trust," McCain told a rally in this battleground state. "If I were president today, I would fire him."

Imagine. We're in the middle of a spiraling crisis and John wants to put the #2 in place at the SEC. SEC Chairman Cox responded diplomatically:

Cox said the financial crisis was "presenting new challenges on an hourly basis" and that "steadiness and reduction of uncertainty" is what the U.S. and the world needed.

"History will judge the quality of our response to this economic crisis, but now is not the time for those of us in the trenches to be distracted by the ebb and flow of the current election campaign," Cox said. "And it is precisely the wrong moment for a change in leadership."

McCain has 26 years of experience in Washington, but that doesn't imply he has good judgment.

Sources:

Associated Press, McCain says he would fire SEC chairman, GLEN JOHNSON, September 18, 2008.

Watch These States on November 4

A sporting event is far more exciting to watch when you know something about the teams and players before watching the event. On November 4, 2008 the presidential election will be an exciting event. It will be more exciting for those who are watching the results come in for the top ten states that are presently "undecided" on the candidates.

Battleground States and their Electoral Votes:

• Colorado (9)
  
• Florida (27)
  
• Indiana (11)
  
• Iowa (7)
  
• Missouri (11)
  
• New Mexico (5)
  
• Nevada (5)
  
• North Carolina (15)
  
• Ohio (20)
  
• Virginia (13)
  

Check out the yahoo political dashboard for up-to-date statistics. It also allows you to play "what if" scenarios, turning switching the combination of red and blue states to see the effect on the electoral vote count.

McCain: Phony Reformer

The phony biographical background on McCain is that after the Keating Five incident, McCain switched sides to become a "maverick" who fights the kind of corruption in which he earlier engaged. The only problem with the story is that it's make-believe.

The Paxon One scandal is more recent evidence that McCain is not who he claims to be.

Sarah Palin: False Narrative Exposed

Everyone in the blogosphere knows that Peggy Noonan believes McCain's choice of Sarah Palin represents "political bull shit about narrative" (See Noonan Video). What's the narrative? The "narrative" is that the McCain ticket represents fundamentalist christian "values" and "maverick" politics.

A "narrative" is a "story" and the McCain/Palin story is make-believe. It's a false narrative, an attempt to dupe the American public.

McCain isn't the champion against the powers-that-be that his Maverick false-image claims. One "story" is that McCain was "born again," becoming a crusader against Washington corruption, after he was caught trying to strong-arm savings and loan regulators in the 1980s to protect family friend, and criminal, Charles Keating (Keating Five Scandal). Not True. Keating eventually served time in jail and McCain didn't really learn his lesson.

Remember Vickie Iseman (Photos)? Most people don't realize that the Vickie Iseman intrigue involved much more than questions about a potential sexual tryst. It exposed a more recent attempt by McCain to strong-arm regulators while he was Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee responsible for telecommunications. In this case, an August 2000 investigation concluded that McCain violated rules by trying to influence a decision of the Federal Communications Commissioners (FCC) on behalf of Paxon Communications for whom Iseman was a lobbyist.

The narrative about Sarah Palin is also being exposed. She opposed the $400 million dollar US taxpayer funded bridge to the town of Gravina (pop. 50) after she supported it (Fact Check) - Bridge to Nowhere Video Montage - Wall Street Journal Article (Sept. 9, 2008).

Thanks, but no thanks, we don't buy the false narrative about Palin opposing the bridge to nowhere as evidence she is a "maverick" politician.

What about the claim that Palin enforces ethics, even against members of her own party? For example, Palin filed ethics charges against an oil commissioner who used an official e-mail account for political campaign activity. Unfortunately for the "narrative" Palin was caught sending campaign e-mails on her city hall account while serving as mayor of Wasilla. The real narrative might be ruthless politician who is a hypocrite.

It wasn't too long ago that vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle criticized the TV sitcom character Murphy Brown for having a child out of wedlock. It set a bad example. The christian right cheered Quayle, while the rest of the Nation rolled its eyes recognizing things like that happen. Now the christian right is cheering Sarah Palin, a national champion on abstinence-only birth control policies, for being normal saying, you guessed it, "things like this happen." If not "false" it's certainly a forced narrative.

OK, things like pregnancy out of wedlock happen. But what are we to think of the Palin "family values"? It would clearly be an embarrassment if the 17-year-old daughter of a conservative christian family became pregnant. Imagine how it would feel for a conservative christian girl to have friends and family you know she was unable to abstain and did ... well, "did the deed." Now imagine exposing that to the world? Everyone looking at her pictures, knowing what she did, wondering ... all sorts of things.

What kind of mother would subject her daughter to the kind of humiliation a 17-year-old conservative christian would predictably feel by having her situation splashed across the world? What kind of mother would bear a child with downs syndrome five months ago and run off to the campaign trail, and possibly Washington DC, knowing that this child will need a lot of... mothering? Perhaps a ruthless, power-hungry mother. Again, does that square with the "narrative" of Sarah Palin setting an example as the "family values" candidate? Sounds like another false narrative.

I could go on and on, but the corporate media, which craves such money-generating titillation, is well out ahead on this.

Sources:

Palin's Ethics Scrapes May Undercut Pledge to End Old Politics, Bloomberg.com, September 11, 2008.

Who is Sarah Palin and Does McCain have Good Judgement?

For a change I'm in total agreement with No. 3 Democrat Rahm Emanuel when he said, in reaction to McCain's choice for running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin:

On his 72nd birthday, is this really the one-heartbeat-away he wants to put in the White House? ... What does this say about his judgment?

And you could almost visualize the jaw drop on analyst Ron Fournier, of the the Associated Press, which led him to write:

A governor for just 20 months, she was two-term mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of 6,500 where the biggest issue is controlling growth and the biggest civic worry is whether there will be enough snow for the Iditarod dog-mushing race.

Every politician has some skeleton's in their closet. Palin's is fresh, according to Fournier:

She has an ethical issue as well. Alaska lawmakers are investigating whether Palin abused her power in firing a public safety commissioner. Lawmakers say they want to know whether Palin was mad at the commissioner for not firing an Alaska state trooper who went through a messy divorce and ongoing child custody battles with Palin's sister.

This Just In:

The pick earned McCain praise Friday from evangelicals and other social conservatives who have been skeptical of him. "Conservatives will be thrilled with this pick," said Greg Mueller, a conservative GOP strategist.... Maybe.

Palin, the darling of the social conservatives, has another fresh skeleton in her closet, from the perspective of the social conservatives, Palin's seventeen year old, unwed daughter is five-months pregnant. Of course, this doesn't bother me, but I'm not a social conservative.

Nice headline with which to start off the GOP convention: "Palin says daughter, 17, is pregnant"

Ya gotta wonder if McCain knew this was coming (apparently he knew)? If not, there could be some future trust issues between McCain and Palin. If he did know, then he better start playing up the, "Hey. Palin's just like a lot of other families out there where this sorta thing happens..." Except she has health insurance.

Maybe they're going after the sympathy-vote. And you thought the Democrat convention was a soap opera.

More: Fact-Check Article. Some examples:

+ McCain: "She's been governor of our largest state."

FACTS: Big? Yes, but mostly wilderness. Alaska is ranked 47th by population.

+ McCain: "She's been in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply."

FACTS: She's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state.

Sources:

Associated Press, Analysis: Palin's age, inexperience rival Obama's, Ron Fournier, August 29, 2008.

Associated Press,
Palin says daughter, 17, is pregnant, September 1, 2008.

McCain "Experience" does not equal "Competence"

Recent analysis suggests that McCain's campaign helped give Georgia a false sense of US support for their initial attack on South Osetia. McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randall Scheunemann, is said to still be a registered lobbyist for Georgia. Combined with State Department Secretary claims that the US will "fight" for Georgia, the McCain presidential campaign posture and bellicose rhetoric helped nudge Georgia into it's aggressive action.

Now what? Some want to argue, as if they are more clever than most, that "This little crisis in Georgia is designed to pin Russia down so the US can take action in Iran without Russian interference." Perhaps it is. But more likely, it is further evidence of how things can begin to unravel when incompetent, arrogant militarists, like Bush and McCain, are given power. It should give pause when we hear historians reference the similarity between this little crisis and the little crisis in Sarajevo that unraveled into World War I.

It seems that McCain's campaign has unwittingly played a role in the unraveling that is taking place in the Caucuses. That's a major foreign affairs blunder to which McCain has contributed. It is ever more clear that McCain's claimed "foreign policy experience" isn't the same thing as "foreign policy competence."

Read More on McCain and Scheunemann's ties to Georgia

Sources:

McClatchy News Service, Top McCain adviser lobbied for nation of Georgia, August 8, 2008.

Paris Hilton Rebuts John McCain in YouTube "Campaign Add"

Surprizingly good delivery from Paris (only about 30 Sec.) The remainder is Kieth Olbermann and clips that make McCain look like.... John McCain.

McCain and Paxson Communicaion

John "Keating Five" McCain is famous for being one of five Senators caught trying to intimidate federal commissioners responsible for enforcing the rules of the Savings and Loan industry. Charles Keating's S&L was in financial and legal trouble after making huge profits before the S&L crash in the 1980s. McCain tried to get regulators to look the other way in Keating's case.

A more recent case goes by the name Paxson Communication. In the Paxson case, there is written evidence that McCain clearly violated ex parte rules barring outside pressure on Federal Communications Commissioner (FCC) decisions, like trying to influence a judge. What makes it even more improper is that McCain did this as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the FCC, its chartering legislation and its budget. Being in government myself, when the Senator of the committee that approves your budget asks you to jump, you don't wait to ask "how high," you immediately jump as high as you can.

The Issue:

At issue in the Paxson case was Paxson's desire to gain commercial control over a public TV station in Pittsburg, PA. It was a small-time issue, which makes it even more suspicious that Chairman McCain would take a personal interest. The reason for his personal interest was that the now-famous Vicki Iseman was lobbying Chairman McCain on behalf of Paxson.

What McCain Did Wrong:

First, McCain took sides on an issue in favor of a private organization contrary to the public interest. Second, he did so by trying to pressure the "judges" in the case, members of the FCC. There was an issue of the clock running out on Vickie Iseman's client Paxson. McCain wrote letters directly to each FCC commissioner inquiring about their votes, and asking them to respond by a specific date. FCC Commissioner Tristani wrote McCain saying, in diplomatic terms to the man who controlled the FCC budget:

“In that letter, you requested that each commissioner advise you in writing by the close of business today whether we have acted upon these applications. Respectfully, I cannot comply with your request, in order to preserve the integrity of our processes. It is my practice not to publicly disclose whether I have voted or when I will be voting on items in restricted proceedings prior to their adoption by the full commission.”

It's not only Tristani's practice, it's the law. She knew that McCain's actions were illegal. According to Angela Campbell, director of the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center, McCain's actions were formally proven to be a violation:

... on December 20th, we actually filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission’s general counsel, alleging that he had violated the rules, and we asked for them to act on it right away. They did not. However, eventually, in August of 2000, they did rule that the senator had violated the rules.

So, McCain's claims of high integrity are probably no better than any other Senator. Given his fame in the Keating Five scandal, his record is probably worse than most.

Update:

John McCain's campaign has denied the Sentor met with Paxson Communications in 1999; however, Lowell Paxson has contradicted this statement. McCain's Paxson Problem.

Sources:

Nearly 40% of Americans Unemployed

Peter Goodman writes...

The unemployment rate does not count people who have given up looking for work. Over all, the percentage of working age Americans employed dropped to 62.6 percent in May from 63 percent a year earlier.

That means nearly 40% are unemployed. Even if one argues that 10% of these unemployed people are unemployable, due to health or other legitimate reasons, the real unemployment figure in the US is closer to 30% not 5% as we are lead to believe.

Goodman's Article is worth reading. It's an example of the establishment media acknowledging a distinction between the Main Street economy and the Wall Street economy.

It also exposes John McCain's superficial and misleading inference that Obama's economic policies represent a return to "the past that advocate higher taxes.." implying this would apply to typical "... families at this critical time..." Goodman lets Obama clarify in his own words that the Obama tax policy would help typical families because, “We can’t afford John McCain’s plan to spend billions of dollars on tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy C.E.O.’s.”

Sources:

New York Times, Job Losses and Surge in Oil Spread Gloom on Economy, Peter S. Goodman, June 7, 2008.

McCain's False Image of Foreign Policy Knowledge

We can expect John McCain's campaign to claim he has more foreign policy experience than his rival. However, the evidence keeps mounting that this is a false claim.

One might dismiss this it if McCain's lack of knowledge was about a remote part of the World. But the troubling evidence pertains to the most prominent region of US foreign policy, the Middle East.

We're all aware of McCain being prompted in Jordan by "Whispering Joe" Lieberman who effectively said that, "No John, it's not "common knowldege" that Al-Qaida, radical Sunnis, are receiving training from Shia-oriented Iran, because it's not true."

Oops.

Next is McCain's comment to TIME Magazine's Joe Klein in early 2008 that the southern Iraqi city of Basra is "not a problem," at a time when friends of mine were saying, "Keep an eye on Basra," because it's under control of al-Sader and is a choke point of US supply lines. Then, as many bloggers have reported, Muqtada al-Sadr showed the Iraqi central government who's in charge in Basra when his militia stood up to the central government's attempted crack down leaving the Arizona senator "surprised."

Oops again.

Then, what about this major pillar of McCain's foreign policy platform known as the "League of Democracies"? The Star Tribune (via L.A. Times) reports:

Only days after laying out his foreign policy agenda, Sen. John McCain has begun scaling back a key proposal that had been greeted with alarm by some Republican supporters and wariness by important U.S. allies.

Oops on foreign policy again.

Then, as reported in the New York Times, there was McCain's proposal to kick Russia out of the Group of 8 (G-8) nations that meet on economic and other foreign policy matters. One of many problems with McCain's naive idea is that the G-8 makes decisions by consensus, so no single nation can eject another. Besides making himself look, "just dumb," as one senior US official on Russian policy put it, McCain risks creating friction with Russia with nothing to gain from it. [More]

Oooops!

McCain's flip-flop on banning torture can be viewed as another foreign policy blunder. The bottom line is that McCain caved to Bush, as he told Chris Mathews of MSNBC:

I think you do understand that there are some people who are very, very bad people, and I think that to continue a program for some of them, without torture, is something that we can't deprive the President of the United States of.

Philip Giraldi explains McCain's slight-of-hand, which is understood among foreign policy circles and by other nations, even if the "average American" doesn't know it:

But the catch was that President Bush made clear his interpretation of the legislation in a signing statement, reserving what he described as his presidential constitutional authority to avoid further terrorist attacks, which would include the use of torture if necessary. McCain knew perfectly well that he had surrendered on the issue but did not object, feeling that he had occupied the moral high ground and picked up the favorable headlines while preserving the president's authority to carry out "enhanced interrogations."

Doh!

In another exchange with Joe Klien, McCain revealed that he doesn't understand that Iran's president Ahmadinejad is basically a loose cannon figure head. The real decision-making power lies with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. When Joe Klien called McCain on this McCain said,

the fact is he's the acknowledged leader of that country and uh you may disagree, but that's, that's a uh that's your right to do so, but I think if you ask any average American who the leader is, I think they'd know.

Oops yet again.

.

Ilan Goldenberg of the National Security Network, who does have some foreing policy expertise, clarifies who runs Iran:

at the top of it sits Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who essentially has only accountable to the Council of Guardians made up of clerics, many of whom are appointed by Khamenei. So, Ahmadinejad is not the leader. And as the Council on Foreign Relations explains, especially in the area of foreign policy, Ahmadinejad has very little influence.

It seems that McCain's reliance on "common knowledge" and the uninformed average American reflects his true level of foreign policy expertise. To understand the source of McCain's misguided perception, we merely need to read CNN Wolf Blitzer's May 21, 2008 blog entry:

there is no doubt that McCain’s strategy of hammering Obama on a nearly daily basis on foreign policy is deliberate. McCain certainly feels very comfortable talking about national security. He sees that as his major strength. And most observers agree McCain would much rather have national security on the agenda right now than the economy where he and his fellow Republicans see themselves as rather vulnerable..

McCain Policy Traps US Soldiers in Iraq

That title isn't about McCain's 50-100 years in Iraq, although there is a connection. You see, John McCain doesn't want good veteran's benefits because of a "practical" concern that the benefits would attract soldiers away from staying in military service where they have health care and other "benefits."



Sign the Petition to McCain

Sources:

The Real McCain dot Com