I did not know that John McCain's son was in Iraq

[my3boyz]

Someone on another board posted a link from a New York Times article that said he did not want the article published. They said he does not want to discuss his son's service and thinks that the media should respect his son's privacy. Anyway, even though I'm 100% against this war, I do have a tad more respect for McCain than the rest of those damn chicken hawks that started this war. YES he is still wrong about the war but at least he did not dodge the war and his son did not dodge a war that his dad approves of. Having said that Obama is still going to kick McCain's butt in the general election. LOL

[boppers]

1. His father was an admiral when he was a POW.

I'm pretty sure he doesn't want that history repeated.

[MADem]

10. His grandfatther was a flag officer, too.

Of course, Popeye never made it to flag rank--he topped out at 0-6.

His temper got in his way--with the jobs he was given after he got out, he should have been able to grab a star or two. He was very high viz on the Hill at OLA.

All that interaction with legislators DID give him the idea to run for Congress, certainly.

[LisaL]

2. Knowing he is McCain's son could put him in danger, aka Prince

Harry, I guess.

[Changenow]

3. Do you have a link? nt

[bbinacan]

5. Here's a link

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/us/politics/06mccain.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[MADem]

4. Yep. He's a Marine. Enlisted, too. He's something like twenty years old, and

he's been in since he was eighteen. I'd be sick with worry.

From an old TIME article written before he deployed:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1220528,00.html

Jimmy McCain's deployment will affect more than his family. His father is a leading contender for the White House in 2008. If Jimmy deploys to combat, it appears that McCain will join Franklin Roosevelt to become one of the very few American presidential candidates to have had a son at war.....In the way that happens more frequently in fiction than in life, a McCain family drama is replaying itself. As a prisoner of war, Senator McCain declined an offer of early release by his Vietnamese captors, extending his stay at the Hanoi Hilton by almost four years and nine months. During that time, his father continued to approve air strikes against Hanoi, knowing his son was there. Now comes Jimmy McCain, putting himself in the line of fire even as his father calls for more troops to be sent to war.

Named after McCain's father-in-law, James Hensley, Jimmy is the lively, happy-go-lucky member of the clan, friends say. During the 2000 campaign, a Boston Globe reporter spotted Jimmy, then 11, chasing his older brother Jack around the house, calling him a "pork-barrel spender"--a deep cut in the McCain home. During that year, when McCain was on the road in New Hampshire, the candidate proudly read aloud from a school report on General George S. Patton Jr. by Jimmy that he had faxed to his father: "The Tanks Will Roll On."

McCain's personal influence on Jimmy appears to have outweighed the privileges that came with being his son. McCain is rock-star famous, and his wife Cindy came to the marriage with money as the daughter of a Budweiser distributor. While others have signed up for duty--the sons of Senator Kit Bond of Missouri and Tim Johnson of South Dakota have served combat missions in Iraq--it is nonetheless unusual for children with their background to enlist. By comparison, at least 32 congressional family members were found to be lobbyists.....Jimmy knows the risks of war from his father's descriptions of battle, imprisonment and torture in Vietnam. The Senator's book, Faith of My Fathers, dryly relates the experience of "small pieces of hot shrapnel" tearing "into my legs and chest" and tells how, in solitary confinement, "the first few weeks are the hardest," as "the onset of despair is immediate." Not exactly a prime recruiting tool for your kids. Still, when it comes to them, McCain the elder is stoic. "I don't think there's anything unusual about Jimmy," he says. "There are, thank God, lots of young men and women like him."

In some ways, though, Jimmy is breaking with tradition. His brother Jack, now 20, has just finished his plebe year at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather went before him. And McCain, the Navy aviator and keen interservice competitor, has been known to crack more than a few jokes at the Marines' expense. McCain says he doesn't read much into Jimmy's decision. "I know that he's aware of his family's service background," he says. "But I think the main motivator was, he had friends who were in the Marine Corps, and he'd known Marines, and he'd read about them, and he just wanted to join up."

McCain says his son's service won't change his position on the war, and claims it won't even affect how he feels about it. "Like every parent who has a son or daughter serving that way, you will have great concern, but you'll also have great pride," McCain says. But it will be hard to ignore. If Republicans retain control of the Senate after November's midterm elections, McCain is due to become chairman of the Armed Services Committee in January, a position he has long aimed for. There he would have day-to-day responsibility for oversight of the war.

[patrice]

6. If this sort of thing Really matters, why do you suppose they're obeying Cheney???????? nt

[butterfly77]

7. I knew it..

they made a big deal about it when he was about to go. Oh well, I guess this means I have to vote for him.

[MADem]

8. Actually, they have downplayed it. He's not the only kid in service, either.

From the NYT cite elsewhere in this thread:

Mr. McCain has largely maintained a code of silence about his son, now a lance corporal, making only fleeting references to him in public both to protect him from becoming a prize target and avoid exploiting his service for political gain, according to friends. At the few campaign events where Lance Corporal McCain appeared last year, he was not introduced.

The McCains declined to be interviewed for this article, which the campaign requested not be published. “The McCain campaign objects strongly to this intrusion into the privacy of Senator McCain’s son,” Steve Schmidt, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “The children of presidential candidates in this election cycle should be afforded the same respect for their privacy that the children of President Bush and President and Senator Clinton have been afforded.” (To protect Lance Corporal McCain in case he is again deployed to a war zone, The New York Times is not publishing recent photographs of him and has withheld some details of his service).

Born in 1988, the third of John and Cindy McCain’s children, Jimmy inherited his father’s features and slight build, outrageous humor and family tradition of military service that stretches back to the Revolutionary War. His grandfather and great-grandfather were the first parent and son to achieve four-star admiral status in Naval history.

Then there was his father’s ever-growing legend. A hell-raising Navy pilot, John McCain relied on a defiant streak to survive nearly six brutal years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. As Jimmy grew up, his father, first a congressman and then a senator, was always dashing off to speak at military events — a dedication here, a graduation there. Mr. McCain’s reputation was burnished with his memoir, “Faith of My Fathers,” and its adaptation into a television movie.

Two of Jimmy’s three older brothers went into the military. Doug McCain, 48, was a Navy pilot. Jack McCain, 21, is to graduate from the Naval Academy next year, raising the chances that his father, if elected, could become the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower with a son at war.

[hfojvt]

9. His son wasn't in when he voted to start the war.

The only person that was true for was the Democrat Tim Johnson.

[Red Zelda]

11. No one in the family

works for the private sector. Gubmint checks are a McInsane tradition.

[anigbrowl]

15. Flag admirals earn their 'gubmint checks'.

There's nothing wrong with a family tradition of military service, even if that's maybe a better qualifier for Sec. of Defense than the oval office.

[Red Zelda]

26. Welfare queens

all of them. Get a real job in the private sector.

[galaxy21]

12. I don't like Mccain but I hold him to a slightly higher standard than bush, cheney, rumsfeld...etc

He's ten times the man any of them will ever be.

He's still crazy though.

[Muttocracy]

13. Biden's son (DE Atty Gen & Natl Guard) may be going in a few months

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080222/NEWS/80222044

[anigbrowl]

14. Yep - McCain is wrong about a lot o things, but he does have integrity

I don't want him as President but I still think he's a decent old guy. I want Obama to win over him on the issues, not because of electoral BS. I don't like ti when people on DU are calling him a doddering old fool either - his age is an issue for me, but I don't believe he's senile or suchlike. And we shouldn't give the Republicans ammunition by resorting to snide insults that are unecessary.

[DesertRat]

16. A decent old guy? Integrity?

McCain dumped his first wife who was crippled after a car accident, for the young, wealthy and politically connected Cindy Hensley
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4695824&mesg_id=4695824

His involvement in the "Keating Five" with the Lincoln Savings & Loan debacle robbed seniors of their life savings
http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/mccain/articles/0301mccainbio-chapter7.html

Remember his tasteless joke about Chelsea Clinton when she was a young girl?
http://www.salon.com/news/1998/06/25newsb.html

"The thought of McCain being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." -- Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who has known McCain for 35 years
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/27/famed_mccain_temper_is_tamed/

The media may try to portray him as decent, but those of us who have followed his life and career for many years are not fooled.

[newfie11]

17. not to mention he is senile

[DesertRat]

20. I don't think that's true. Why do you say that? n/t

[galaxy21]

19. I would disagree there

Oh, come on...in regards to his marraige...


That's as bad as saying, 'Obama left his granny to starve in a hut in Kenya.' or 'he left his mom to die alone.'

You can't comment on someone's else's personal life in detail without knowing all the facts.

[DesertRat]

21. I know the details

In my opinion dating while married combined with the many other instances I provided do not describe a "decent" man with "integrity". Read the links I provided and tell me if you still think he's a good guy.

[galaxy21]

22. 'I know the details' Where you there at the time?

[anigbrowl]

24. I was talking about his military service in the family tradition

Believe me, I don't have the hots for him as a politican.

[GoldieAZ49]

18. both of his sons have served in Iraq one is still there right now

and he does not discuss it publicly

[stahbrett]

23. I disagree with McCain on many issues, but I do like him

I see him sort of like my grandfather, who was someone else whom I disagreed with on many issues, but didn't dislike personally at all.

[DesertRat]

25. Did your grandfather have a mean sense of humor?

Here are two examples of the wit of John McCain:

" Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father."

"Leonardo Di Caprio is an androgynous wimp."

You only know the public side of McCain. Listen to those who have known him for years and see what they think of him.

And those examples pale in comparison to the ethical violations he commited as a member of the notorious "Keating Five."