John McCain touches the hearts of all Americans. I was hooked when John McCain took his 2000 loss to George W. Bush and returned to serving his Country with Courage and Dignity. I vote Democratic Party, but I will vote for John McCain. I will vote for America.
John McCain took positions based upon his understanding of finding the best possible way out of a problem for all Americans, whether it was cutting wasteful Federal spending, campaign reform, immigration, health care, improving the quality of the American environment, and especially helping fight the global war on Islamist Terror.
John McCain stuck his chin out for his country and took the blows of political enemies on the left and the particularly ugly shots from the extreme right.
John McCain is no Mitt Romney - McCain has the scars and bruises of a guy who gets into the combat of living and Mitt looks like Central Casting's pick for the next HBO mini-series adaptation of The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit - Hollywood wishes it could look like Mitt Romney.
John McCain looks like CPD Homicide Detectives Marty Tully and Billy Higgins; Cook County Sheriff Community Service Director Willie Winters; Veteran Grayslake Coach and Teacher Charlie Olson; ER Nurse Mary Terese Riordan; Carpenter J. C. Gutierrez; Roofer Eddie Carroll; 399 Stationary Engineer Dewey Sheehan;Coffee Shop Owner Kristi Martens who was run out of business by a greedy landlord; Grocer Tom Baffes - naw Tom's too good looking; Plumbing Contractor Tommy Hopkins; CFD Fire Capt. Mike Miller and former Fire Superintendent James T. Joyce;Special Education Teacher Ms. Pat Rosenhagen; Laid Off Veteran News Editors John Hector and Ed Koziarski; Labor Leader Brian Hickey; Leo High School President Bob Foster; Professional Boxer and CPD Recruit Thomas 'The Hit man' Hayes (27/1)and Thomas's coach attorney Mike Joyce. These are Americans I love and respect.
John McCain looks like all of the courageous people listed above who are scarred from Vietnam, burned on the job and because of job, bruised by disappointments, and burdened with responsibilities. Higgins and Tully caught the people who murdered little girls and allowed them to decompose in the trunk of a car for most of the hottest summer Chicago ever experienced. Kristi Martens who lost her business though she paid every bill and met every payroll because a real estate developer exacted an excessive rent on her; James Joyce ordered every firefighter in his command out of a building and waited until his order was obeyed - the building fell in on Jim Joyce and turned his tough athletic body into jelly. Jim Joyce went to rehab for years and returned to lead the entire Chicago Fire Department. Bob Foster stepped in and went sleepless and exhausted for years in order to save failing Catholic high school so black young men would have a school that would provide them an opportunity to succeed. Charlie Olson resigned as tennis coach rather than act against the interests of his students - though it cost him a place in the IHSA Coaching Hall of Fame.
Most Americans understand fear and face it down. They understand loss - grieve and go back to work. Americans suffer set-backs and disappoints and shake it off to move up the next grade with greater determination. Americans see what is the ugliest and most horrific in human experience and exert every effort to make sure that none of that reaches the people they love.
They understand what William Butler Yeats wrote 'A King is but a foolish laborer who wastes his blood to be another's Dream.' Heroes bleed. Most heroes say 'it hurts a bit.' ( Click my post title for this beautifully wonderful and under examined poem - its speaks to the nature of heroism)
They do not live to 'Be Somebody, but to Serve.' John McCain said that last night.
Friday, December 28, 2007
ReplyDeleteJohn McCain? Are you kidding me? Who are you people?
I've been meaning to write something about John McCain along the lines of other questionable GOP candidates.....
John McCain? Are you kidding me? Who are you people?
Hugh Hewitt hits a few high points in his article today, I hope you will PAY ATTENTION, if you have ANY notion of voting for McCain. Don't forget, McCain is the MEDIA/Democrat pick. He's the guy who insulted every American when he said NO US citizen would pick lettuce for $50.00 an hour! He gets notice every year when the worst tempered legislators are picked. I know lots of war heroes, and some, like McCain aren't stable enough to be a senator, much less president.
John McCain Needs A Neuralyzer: Why McCain Is Performing An Encore, Not An Opening Act
townhall.com ^ Thursday, December 27, 2007 | Hugh Hewitt
John McCain needs to get ahold of the producers of Men In Black I and II quick. The only way Arizona's longtime thorn-in-the-side of the GOP can claim the Republican nomination is with a neuralyzer, the device the MIB agents use to selectively erase the memory of civilians who have seen the aliens among us at too close a range.
In fact, he's going to need a lot of them as there's a lot McCain has to hope Republicans forget as they head to the polls in Iowa, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan and beyond.
First, they have to forget that the fundraising advantage the GOP built to counter the Dems' union juggernaut was overthrown by the McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform," and done so in an unconstitutional fashion, proving not only McCain's indifference to the party's success but also to the idea of Free Speech. This bust of a bill also unleashed the 527s on the land, guaranteeing even more secretive and dirty pool politics. Senator McCain's signal legislative achievement turns out to be deeply flawed constitutionally and counterproductive of its announced goals.
Economic conservatives will also have to have their memories erased of Senator McCain's votes against the Bush tax cuts.
The neuralyzer will also have to get to the social conservatives and erase the memory of John McCain's votes against the Federal Marriage Amendment.
The biggest issues for many Republican voters center on immigration and border security. These voters will have to be persuaded to forget John McCain's ill-fated attempted jam down on immigration which McCain ally Lindsey Graham forced through the Judiciary Committee. Not remembering the bill is a bit of a big order since it was known as McCain-Kennedy and was widely understood by conservatives to be tantamount to amnesty.
National security conservatives will have to agree to set aside the fact that McCaiin's grandstanding on the issue of the treatment of unlawful combatants in September 2006 derailed the entire GOP's endgame agenda heading into the elections. The Senate leadership and the White House had agreed on a careful series of legislative propositions on the Gitmo detainees and on surveillance protocols for use when watching terrorists abroad communicating with their allies inside the U.S., an agenda which also included some crucial judicial nominations like the still stalled one of Peter Keisler to the D.C. Circuit of Appeals, an agenda which would have done much to recapture the sense of momentum the upper chamber and the GOP as a whole had lost and which would have focused the public on the war and the role of intelligence gathering in it. Senators McCain and Graham smashed up the entire plan and the Senate majority was erased a few weeks later.
And all conservatives will have to set aside their deep, deep anger over John McCain's Gang of 14 coup that ended the hopes of restoring decency, order and constitutional process to the judicial confirmation process.
Days before the vote and the end of the filibusters, John McCain engineered a deal with six other Republicans and seven Democrats which threw some fine nominees under the bus in exchange for a temporary abandonment by Democrats of filibusters against some Bush nominees. The shock and outrage at McCain among conservatives at this awful deal was of a intensity that has rarely been matched. John McCain in effect undid the vote of 2004, compromised away an issue he had not been asked to lead on and on which millions of Republican voters had voted and for which they had contributed. Millions of Republicans care deeply about judges. John McCain did not. He could not allow Majority Leader Frist his victory, but in sabotaging Frist, he sunk his own candidacy. The one issue on which all three core GOP constituencies agree is the importance of originalists on the bench. It was obvious amid the wreckage brought about by the Gang of 14 that John McCain didn't care about the courts. He cared about John McCain.
The neuralyzer will have to be set to be careful not to obscure the memory of John McCain's heroic service and painful sacrifices during his long imprisonment, and it will have to leave the memory of Senator McCain's steadfast support for victory in the war. He is truly a great American.
But he is a lousy senator when it comes to legislation and priorities, and a terrible Republican when it comes to the party's agenda.
The independents and the newspapers of New Hampshire love the idea of a McCain candidacy. Some are giving a last salute to McCain for his wartime heroism. Others are expressly attempting to stop Mitt Romney's momentum for the reason that the same newspaper tried to stop Ronald Reagan in 1980 --Romney has the best chance in November.
But it is the Republican nomination McCain is seeking, not the applause of the MSM and independents. A Republican nomination he won't be getting.
http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2007/12/john-mccain-are-you-kidding-me-who-are.html
That was Aunt B of the Towncrier, Boys and Girls! Visit Her and cheer Aunt B up some.
ReplyDeleteThanks for Stopping by Aunt B. Mind the kids in the driveway when backing out! Plenty of room. There you go. Missed the fire hydrant. Drive safe now!
Pat
He's a hero and winner Pat...good post
ReplyDeletePat nice post. But you are being too humble today. Where is the link to the Southtown article?
ReplyDelete