Ghost of a flea

In some small defence of La Coulter and others, it's personal.

McCain has a tendency to get into fights, especially when he feels that he has been wronged. (Something to remember for the fall.)

He's a good man to have in a storm, but not so great at other times.

The reason he'll get elected, if he does, is that we'll have decided that we need him at this particular moment in history.

"It's personal."

I cannot imagine what this means. But then you did describe your position as a "small defence". Indeed.

But then my post is about the five and a half years McCain spent in captivity, his endurance under torture and by extension his honour. So I had other issues in mind than whatever Coulter might think justifies her slur.

Hey, I made my choice in January.

But what I mean is that for many conservatives, it has crossed the line from the political to the visceral with McCain.

And?

Odd... does your blog now strip HTML code from comments, Flea? Or did I mess up my code? (Must've left out the quotation marks.)

(Your html was fine. Generally speaking, if anyone is going to post links here it will be me. - Ed)

***

And... rhetoric gets overheated. The point is, I know very well why a large number of people who by all rights should be standing with Senator McCain aren't, and are now lashing out in a seemingly unbalanced way at him.

Which is still to miss the point of this post. There are Republicans who oppose McCain. Got it. (There are people who not noticed?) Read McCain's account of his time in captivity and tell me Coulter's remark was "seemingly unbalanced". Or better yet, don't.

Politically, I had to hold my nose when I voted for John McCain in the primary. (Fred! had already quit unfortunately.) McCain's position on amnesty and his so-called campaign finance reform bill are travesties.

That being said, McCain is a man of honor who served his country faithfully. I suspect that his decisions on his amnesty bill and the campaign finance "reform" have been sufficiently modified by the metaphoric beating about the head and shoulders he took on the amnesty bill and the fact that McCain-Feingold is now biting him on the ass.

Besides, given a choice between an honest-to-God war hero and an unqualified senator from Illinois who was only elected because his opponent, Jack Ryan, wasn't satisfied only having sex with Seven-of-Nine. I'll take the damaged goods war hero any day

Exactly. Something Ann Coulter and her apologists - whose souls are missing something - cannot comprehend.

I have to agree with the you, Fleaster, on the character issue - perhaps Ike could claim equal moral voice - but disagree with ye and Ben both perhaps that Coulter is a Republican voice. Never has "the far right" dismissal been more appropriate. The time for her and others is done.

But I really do find it problematic that Ben should be treated so roughly - if only out of fear that I am losing my ranking on the "incomprehending ee-jit" ladder.

No worries there.

Given a choice between Cooler Jesus (Obamessiah), and an occasionally cranky ex-POW, I'll pick the cranky guy. Who knows, maybe he'll replace Nixon as the US president the memory of whom is sure to leave uppity foreigners in shuddering dread.

The following is from the same US News and World Report article, in McCain's own words:

"I think it was on the fourth day that two guards came in, instead of one. One of them pulled back the blanket to show the other guard my injury. I looked at my knee. It was about the size, shape and color of a football. I remembered that when I was a flying instructor a fellow had ejected from his plane and broken his thigh. He had gone into shock, the blood had pooled in his leg, and he died, which came as quite a surprise to us—a man dying of a broken leg. Then I realized that a very similar thing was happening to me.

"When I saw it, I said to the guard, "O.K., get the officer." An officer came in after a few minutes. It was the man that we came to know very well as "The Bug." He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends that we had to deal with. I said, "O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital."...

"Sometime later, "The Bug" came rushing into the room, shouting, "Your father is a big admiral; now we take you to the hospital.""
_______________________________

I'm not posting this as an insinuation that McCain has no honor -- even with his willingness to give up military information in order to save his own life (which this segment seems to indicate) the guy went through a heck of a lot with his dignity intact. But what might have happened had the Vietnamese not learned of his father's rank at that critical moment?

Just something to think about when people like Sue Everhart put him up on the cross.
http://www.ajc.com/state/content/metro/stories/2008/05/17/gagop_0517.html

Fortunately the Republic can rely on men of your asinine, nit-picking fortitude, Yossarian. Best of luck voting for Obama; his courage in facing up to ivy league student loans as a community organizer is legend.

Whoa, straight to the ad hominem, eh? You don't mess around. ;)

I'm not an enormous admirer of Obama myself -- his track record as a senator is decidedly lacking when it comes to... well, anything. Other than Iraq, I guess, which most of us (with the exception of the far right) believe was a pretty big boner.

I'm worried more than anything that McCain will continue Bush's policy of preemptive war... a very dangerous thing, in my opinion. There's a difference between fortitude and reckless, irrational warmongering.

And I don't think my post was all that nit-picky, given the central role McCain's captivity has played in shaping his image as a politician. Again, he showed amazing courage under the circumstances -- I probably would've given up the farm on day two -- but I've seen a lot of misrepresentation in recent days (people suggesting he never once caved under the torture (despite the fact that he's admitted he did, repeatedly)). Everhart's McCain/Jesus Christ comparison sort of sent it over the top.