Redstate

McCain did not share the disillusioning and morally jarring experiences of soldiers like Kerry

They got that backwards. Kerry never shared the disillusioning and morally jarring experiences of soldiers like McCain.

he never underwent the conversion that caused Kerry, for one, to toss away some of his war decorations

Umm...that's a good thing!

Let's hope the Democrats open up this line of attack against McCain. We would win all 50 states.

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

Forget all the sappy pretense about combat veterans and how they're above any and all reproach. I think it goes without saying that just about any military service is entirely honorable and respectable...and combat service is awe-inspiring.

But this just goes to show how much the entire liberal paradigm is so covered up in political correctness that it doesn't know which end is up. It doesn't matter what you say or think as much as it matters who you are and what your life experiences are.

Does John McCain's Vietnam experience make his opinions regarding Iraq any more or less valuable than anybody else's? Not really, IMO. But because liberals have gotten themselves so mired in this way of thinking (ie, that service in Vietnam does make one's opinions more valuable), they're now having to say that McCain only thinks as he does because he wasn't on the front lines in Vietnam and, if he was, he'd think differently.

The comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq are tiresome -- they're two entirely different situations, with entirely different surrounding circumstances, etc.

Moreover, if I hear Chuck Hagel say these sorts of things one more time, I think I'm going to vomit. The guy voted for the war and even co-wrote an prewar op-ed (with fellow tail-turner Joe Biden) telling all of us that we needed to be prepared for the long slog.

Somebody ought to send him his own essay.

Would Max Cleland trade his Vietnam experience for McCains'? Perhaps thats a better question to ask, which this thinly veiled attempt to discredit McCain's military service.

There were thousands of service members that never set foot 1 in the jungles of Vietnam but were still important to the mission no less.

So yes, I am hot, completely Pi$$ed off and if ever there was a reason to work diligently to defeat the left, this is enough.

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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle

Perhaps the NYT is putting this up as a trial baloon, to see if it can get any traction?

Sickening & maddening. I would think that Sen. McCain has as much "ground time gravitas" as anyone - & much more than most.

the Democrat just for GP....I am way to competitive a person to let this trash rag get what they want in November!

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

We all knew this was coming, including McCain. McCain may not have been my first pick for POTUS, but by darn no one can take away from the hero he is.
McCain is reminded daily of his service to our county by the injuries that say with him today. Kerry can be reminded of his anti-American antics by the pictures of him tossing his medals.
McCain will rise above all of this with grace and integrity.
MelZ

Obama- you walked into
the party, like you were
walking onto a yacht *

* corrected spellin' courtesy of absentee-aint' I gettin' gooder?

..."Whatever anger McCain felt remained focused on his captors, not on his own superiors back in Washington."

This one sentence pretty much sums up everything I despise about self-loathing liberals and their reflexive tendency to side with anyone and everyone against America.

They hate terrorists *almost* as much as they hate the POTUS...and they try to redefine their warped view as patrotism. They're sickened that McCain suffered at the hands of a barbaric enemy and found that enemy to be more evil than his own government.

These useful idiots can't imagine a world where life and death issues cannot be settled over a cup of tea and a plate of appeasement and arugula. John McCain understands far better than Hagel, Kerry, or Cleland that there is evil in the world.

--
"We want great men who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged." - Colonel Henry Knox

It was always a left-wing advocate but in the past it was, I admit, somewhat intelligent. I mean, I would disagee with the strong liberal slanting given in its supposedly "balanced and objective" reporting but I would admit that the stories were well-written.

Now, it's like reading the National Enquirer. Even some of my more liberal friends are complaining about its decline in journalistic standards.

*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!

I can't believe that they are trying to question McCain's status as a "real" vet. NYT, Murtha et al can go to hell. This is the lowest trash yet that the dead tree media has throw out yet.

Seen some grumbling out there about McCain losing five planes while serving. One even had the gall to include the plane he was in when the Forrestal caught on fire...sickening.

Dear John,
We loved you when you were the "Maverick" going against your party. We loved it when you riled up the right wing. That's why we endorsed you. You didn't really think we wanted you to reside in that big white house on Penn Ave did you? Come on, you're a Republican! Now that you are up against the chosen one, we will do our level best to defeat you. No hard feelings?

Love,

NYT

Semper Fi

being tarnished, Cleland sure likes to play turnabout. Only this time it is not the figment of his own imagination.

McCain '08

Vietnam is the liberals' Precious, especially for the 60s refugees spread throughout the media. They thought when they finally achieved their victory with helicopters evacuating the embassy in Saigon, their "truth" about Vietnam was to be eternally etched in stone as the template for judging American intervention. How dare that lowlife white trash McCain try to mess with their legend.

"Look voters, don't think of John as a war hero and veteran with military experience. He was busy alternating between cushy, pressurized cabins dispensing futuristic laser justice and kicking it really really old school at the Hanoi Hilton. He wasn't in a real war."

Yeah you understand their line better than they do. A lot of them think Kerry's "testimony" about the hordes of Genghis Khan was the real American heroism of that war.

With all my gripes about McCain, supporting him for President just seemed like a duty I had to go through. But now thinking about how much it will rub those twits noses in it, when they have to suffer a real Vietnam hero getting elected President, really adds some pleasure to it.

Just spot on.

Exactly the same thing they did with Bush 41 and Bob Dole, both of whom had served their country, against the draft dodging Bill Clinton. Even after Gulf War I. Didn't matter, doesn't count, they said.

I say Helter Skelter, "This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles, we're stealing it back."

One of the great things a John McCain victory in November can do is take back the legacy of Vietnam from the "anti-war" movement (in quotes because they weren't against the war, they were on the other side).

They'll try to say it doesn't count. We won't let them.

___________________________________
Just like PayPal, except it's free and a $25 bonus to sign up!

Okay, my blood pressure is back to near normal now!

is troubling on so many levels.
The one thing that really gets me though is how willing certain people are to throw away a years long relationship for their 15 minutes of fame.
IIRC, John McCain was a vocal critic of those that criticized Kerry and Cleland's service. Something about principle over politics. Funny how now he is the one being criticized by them.
I've been around the military all my life. I must say that it saddens me to think that some would turn on their brethren in such a manner. All for the New York Times to quote them.
What a pitiful shame.
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Just a typical, small town, white girl...

in something like this.

Of couse, the Times and Dems will quickly point out that we fail to appreciate the nuance of their argument. Hence, any anger arising from the article is our fault, not theirs.

Every, and I mean EVERY, GOP candidate, should carry a copy of this article as he/she campaigns.

The Dems could have stopped this by refusing to participate, by refusing to be interviewed for the article. They didn't. Fine. Let them wear this one.

"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)

During those years, McCain did not share the disillusioning and morally jarring experiences of soldiers like Kerry, Webb and Hagel, who found themselves unable to recognize their enemy in the confusion of the jungle; he never underwent the conversion that caused Kerry, for one, to toss away some of his war decorations during a protest at the Capitol.

The author seems to be arguing that McCain's flying missions for the Air Force wasn't as "dirty" as grunts going to fight guerrillas on the ground, which the author considers an inherently disillusioning experience.

That's what I call a biased sample. I would remind the author of other examples:

In World War II, George McGovern flew B-24 bombing missions for the U.S. Army Air Corps. He never fought any enemy troops on the ground, and from that altitude, probably never saw the enemy face to face. Yet he came out of that war with a loathing of what he had done. Which has influenced his pacifism ever since, something that the MSM rarely mentions when they talk about him. As soon as he left the service, he went and got a divinity degree. And shortly after that, he went to work for the campaign of far-left candidate Henry Wallace in 1948.

McGovern went into what was supposed to be a "good war," flew heroic Air Corps missions--and came out even more of a left-wing pacifist than Kerry. Why? Paul Tibbets didn't, even though his bombing mission was way more devastating.

And then there's the many thousands of troops who served in Vietnam and/or Iraq, on the ground, fought on the ground, but who did NOT come back from the war as peacenik liberal Democrats. If all the troops who went to Vietnam and Iraq had come back as liberal Democrat peaceniks, organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion would be much further to the left than they are--but they're not. It would seem that pacifist veterans like McGovern are more the exception than the rule.

The MSM has this script of the "disillusioned, embittered veteran" who was bamboozled by the Government into going off to fight useless wars. The new publisher of the Times, "Pinch" Sulzberger, who had been a radical Vietnam War protester in his youth (arrested twice), certainly subscribes to that script. They don't know what to do with veterans who don't fit that script. So they just ignore them.