John McCain

McCain defended our country and spent years imprisoned by the enemy, suffering long term medical issues.

I didn't always agree with his political stances - I rarely did - but he deserved respect for what he did for the country.

It's not about McCain specifically. It's about a presidential candidate (as he then was) saying those things about a former POW and sitting senator and getting away with it. Not just getting away with it, but being elected president afterwards.

He was nothing special, just Duke Cunningham with a rich wife (so he didn't need to steal as much).

I don’t think anyone is above criticism, but no one should ever denigrate the sacrifice that someone makes when they enlist to serve in our military. They are literally putting their life on the line to serve our country.

BECAUSE HE'S MY DADDY!!!!!

I agree to a certain extent R4 but Americans do have a tendency to deify military service. Not every vet is a hero.

Not every vet risked their life either.

I was never a fan of his and I thought a lot of his "maverick" image was just posturing....but attacking him for being a POW is pretty stupid, especially coming from a guy who was too cowardly to serve

Tsk! R8 -- you don't think Trump avoided the draft because he was a conscientious objector with pacifist views, like the Quakers?

Because, OP, McCain single-handedly saved Obamacare.

I know, just think of all those insurance premiums! What a hero to the industry!

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Oh, please!!! Enough with "I hate Trump, but...."

Fuck you, Trump's shitlicker. Fuck your mom for giving birth to a hideous fattard like you too.

Trump has done plenty of contemptible things but insulting McCain didn't bother me. The man was scum of the earth. Basically he befriended the DC political media in the 90s and that made them feel special so they responded with slobberingly deferential coverage. If the media likes a politician,they will have an easier time in the public eye. If they hate a politician, they will rip them to shreds for the minorest infractions. Just look at how the media treated Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and The Clintons. The press usually reserves the worst treatment for democratic politicians, contrary to popular belief. They also loved that pig Newt Gingrich.

R14, I'm currently reading Rick Perlstein's Reaganland, & it wasn't just the media who gave Jimmy Carter a hard time. The left could not tolerate him, so much so that Ted Kennedy primaried him with their initia, enthusiastic support.

You're kindof missing the point. Yes, St. John McCain was a douchebag on numerous levels, but Trump's comments put him on the defensive and don't allow him to control the current narrative. What anyone thinks of John McCain is irrelevant.

He should have stepped down. I bet he would have shown up to the Senate on a stretcher with cancer dribbling out of his ears if he could have.

Never cared much for McCain but anything to piss off Trump is fine with me.

Because McCain served bravely whereas Trump and his grandfather were draft-dodging cowards.

McCain was the Republicans' nominee for President and was once sacred to them.

But now, like conservatism itself, the Republicans are willing to betray much of what they stand for in the race to fellate their Orange Fuhrer's ballsack because they love to harm those minorities!

OP, are you tuned-in at all to mainstream politics? Did you first hear of John McCain on The View?

[quote]... fellate their Orange Fuhrer's ballsack...

I hate to be that guy, r19, but you can't fellate a ballsack. It can be licked, tongued, or possibly sucked, but it cannot be fellated. Only a penis can be fellated.

I remember when McCain was running against Obama and defended him when one of his supporters--an old angry white woman-- accused Obama of being a dirty Muslim. He stopped and corrected her. This was a time when GOP knew when to draw the line. WIth this POTUS, nothing is sacred anymore, he breaks the norms and acts above the law and the GOP is fine with it.

John McCain was more of a man in his baby toe than Trump. His biggest mistake was choosing Palin as a running mate, but again he was not Trump. Good god anyone else would have been better at this point, given the unrest and the pandemic. Instead we get Mr. “Make-Matters-Worse”

The president is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and he asks those who have enlisted and who have been drafted to die for the country.

The absolute very least the president should be is respectful of that, instead of using the Armed Forces for whatever hairbrained scheme he has that day, and then blurting out that they're all suckers for doing what he's ordered them to, and idiot losers for dying or getting captured.

R24, that always gets me so mad. How someone like Donald Trump can carry the title of Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Someone whose daddy got him out of the draft for bone spurs. Someone who talks shit about a Vietnam vet.

George Washington. Dwight Eisenhower. Ulysses Grant. JFK. Jimmy Carter. Many others. Yes, they can carry that title, but Trump? Fuck him.

OP, because it is a clear example of Trump's disdain and lack of respect for those that have served.

It wasn't about McCain - it was Trump's statement that he thought POWs were cowards and lame for being captured.

He could have made that statement about any POW - not just McCain.

And this is coming from a man who dodged the draft with 'bone spurs'.

Say what you will about the military, but it's outrageous to say POWs are cowards or to say anything negative about their time.

Why are POWs exempt from any sort of negative personality traits? You can have been a POW and still be an amoral jerk. Do we need to review the horrific atrocities American troops committed against Vietnamese civilians for years and years with zero accountability?

McCain graduated at the bottom of his training class and was captured in Vietnam because he defied the orders of those in charge of his unit. He cheated on his first wife non-stop and dropped her ass after a disfiguring car accident for Cindy and her daddy’s money. He blocked MLK day as a state senator in Arizona, gave George HW Bush the vote he needed to block the 1990 civil rights act, gleefully used racist tactics to try and discredit Obama in 2008–not mention inflicting Sarah Palin on the world. He was not a maverick or a hero but an entirely conventional republican senator like all the rest of them and despite his criticisms of trump, more often than not he voted for the orange one’s agenda.

John McCain was the son and grandson of Admirals. When he was a POW in Vietnam, they were aware of who he was, so they offered to let him go early.

The rule was, first in, first out when it came to being a POW. So the POW who was there the longest should have been the first to be released. McCain was then the most recent arrival, so he should have been the last to be released. The Vietnamese wanted to release him first, so they could get good publicity for releasing an Admiral’s son.

McCain said no, he would take his turn. He knew what would happen to him if he said no. He knew they would take their revenge, and they did.

The Vietnamese were very angry and they beat and tortured him. He described the torture, it was severe. When he was first captured, his arm was broken in three places. It wasn’t treated properly and he couldn’t lift that arm up for the rest of his life. He couldn’t comb his hair. They had him six years before he was released. He was in bad shape and needed crutches for other injuries for a while. He nearly died from beatings and his original barely treated injuries.

McCain was an asshole for a lot of other reasons, but not this. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was in pain for the rest of his life. They couldn’t do much to fix his arm. McCain was a brave man who did the right thing. He fucked up a lot in his life, but he set an important example for the men there. Imagine how demoralized they would have felt if he had left them there ahead of his turn? Like the Admiral’s son could get out, and nobody gave a damn about the rest. Imagine the precedent that would have set for future POWs to get out first if they could. Nobody else took that offer either. McCain set the tone. When people are beating, starving and torturing you, it’s a lot more important to do the right thing than any other time. He supported the other men when they really needed it.

When McCain was finally released, at 36, his hair had turned white.

"Why are POWs exempt from any sort of negative personality traits?"

No one said they weren't. But it's one thing to trash someone for their views and another to call someone a "loser" solely for having been a prisoner of war - especially coming from a guy who was too much a coward to serve. Btw, I'm not a fan of McCain's views either - you forgot to mention when he called it a "sad day" when DADT was overturned.

Too bad all the Vietnamese who were bombed, shot, raped, mutilated, and poisoned with agent orange didn’t have a chance to leverage their injuries for political and financial gain.

Like Trump cares about Vietnamese kids. That's not why he thinks vets are "losers"

Thank you, R31, I was starting to think this place was a damned American Legion hall.

This never gets old . . .

"John McCain, at a fundraising dinner in Arizona a decade ago. “Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly?” he told a handful of big Republican funders. “Because Janet Reno is her father.”

The remark packed into its 15 words several layers of misogyny. It disparaged the looks of Chelsea, then 18 and barely out of high school; it portrayed Reno as a man at a time when she was serving as the first female US attorney general; and it implied that Hillary Clinton was engaged in a lesbian affair while the Monica Lewinsky scandal was blazing. Not bad going, Senator McCain."

Trump didn't refuse to join the military because he cared about Vietnamese kids being killed. That's not the reason.

Karma got him, R34, when W and Rove smeared him in the South Carolina primary for the crime of adopting a brown child.

I'll be eternally grateful for McCain on his spectacular healthcare vote. But my God, was he a warmongeror.

Assuming you're not a troll, OP, you're making a straw man argument is saying the media is obsessively deifying McCain. The point people are raising is that Trump's public comments about McCain are consistent with the way he's been reported to denigrate military service and make them more believable.

John McCain's worst sin was creating Meghan.

R38 Well when Trump made the initial comments the media was freaking out on behalf of their precious McCain. And yes, the press did deify him obssessively and it went on for decades. They giggled at Trump as if he were a harmless court jester as he viciously trashed minorites and marginalized people but lost their proverbial shit when McCain was insulted. The same McCain who joked about destroying Iran the way we did Iraq. He was a psychopath.

Well, R40, if you're OP you asked why you should care about Trump's comments on McCain, and there are good reasons why you should that bear on the current issue and Trump's presidency generally (to which McCain's own policies, comments, etc. are irrelevant).

R41 Not op just chiming in. I care about the comments he made about troops in general...just not what he said about McCain.

John McCain was not badmouthed by Trump for saying any of the nasty remarks mentioned above. Not at all. So there’s no point in mentioning them, because probably Trump never heard of any of them and if he did, he wouldn’t care at all.

Trump was attacking ALL POWS, not just McCain, when he said he didn’t like POWs because they were caught. Think of it this way: if you were thinking about joining the Army because you were poor and couldn’t find a job, how would you feel if you heard the Commander in Chief would think you were a loser if you were taken as a POW, and thought no effort should be made to recover you because you were a loser? Would you join up if you heard that? Then how is the military supposed to recruit when this guy spends all his time saying he has no idea why anybody would serve and if you are killed or captured, you’re a loser?

I used to know a woman who was from South Central LA. She grew up in a bad neighborhood with lots of gangs and crime. She joined the Air Force. When she returned, she had a lot more self esteem and was able to get a job elsewhere and move away to a much safer area. She learned when she was away about other options she had in life. A lot of her school friends ended up in jail or in gangs.

These are the kind of people that sometimes join the military. Poor people looking to improve themselves. If you were poor and had zero options but the military or jail, and you heard the Commander in Chief thinks soldiers are scum, what option is left?

Trump’s entire family has avoided military service since they first entered the U.S. He had a draft dodging grandfather or great grandfather who came to the U.S. to dodge the draft in Germany. It’s a big deal in his family never to serve. He told Marla he would disown her child if she joined the military. He hates the military. John McCain has nothing to do with it. Do you think Trump’s grandfather was a draft dodger because of John McCain? They’re a whole family of cowards. And they hate anybody that’s better than them in any way.

OP, Dump is a DRAFT DODGER. This POS has no place commenting on anyone's service to this US. PERIOD.

He's a foul fetid POS grifter and a COWARD.

Dump also has a small dick, he should be teased about that relentlessly! Because you know that sure drives him nuts. That's the main reason he wants to be a big powerful man! His micro-penis has driven him to try and achieve many things. Yet, he's been an epic FAILURE at pretty much EVERYTHING, including his presidency! He's sure not a billionaire.

Stormy Daniels probably had to stifle a laugh when she saw his baby cock, because if anyone knows dick, it's a pornstar!

Two things can be true - Donald Trump said an offensive thing about POWs. And John McCain was also not the man everyone says that he was. The latter has nothing to do with the former.

I remember when Republicans used to call Bill Clinton a draft dodger....but they don't say that about Cadet Bone Spurs

I had a lot of contact with John McCain's local office, and exchanged several letters with him. I'm left of center, and he knew and clearly respected that. He was the genuine article, willing to listen to and consider the opinions of those who were unlikely to vote for him. The way real public servants do it.

They never called Bush Jr our on that either, R46. As in so much else (the national debt, executive privilege, etc.), Republicans have a flagrant double standard when it comes to the military service of baby boomers. Clinton ultimately put himself up for the draft and was lucky enough not to get chosen. Bush's daddy made a few calls and got him stateside service in the TX Air National Guard, which he skipped out of and never finished, without any consequences. Trump's daddy paid a dr to make up something about bone spurs. The list goes on—Rush Limbaugh was let off because of some physical malady, supposedly an "inoperable pilonidal cyst" ("a congenital incomplete closure of the neural groove at the base of the spinal cord in which excess tissue and hair may collect and cause discomfort and discharge").

Rush Limbaugh IS an inoperable pilonidal cyst

^ and he stubbornly refuses to die....