Notes On The Candidates

[poliphilo]

They say old soldiers make peace-loving politicians because they know first-hand how horrible war is, but this doesn't seem to apply to McCain, who has already- and he's not even in the White House yet- threatened to go to war with Russia.  Maybe this is because his military service involved flying above battlefields, not slogging accross them.

I'll say this for Palin: she hasn't pulled strings or called in favours to keep her son out of her holy war.

As for Obama, he's supposed to be hugely intelligent, right? So why in the world did he make that crack about the pig and the lipstick when he- or his minders- should have known that the GOP attack dogs would be all over it? The more I see and hear of him, the flimsier he seems to be.

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Good question.

McCain has claimed, if I remember correctly, that he personally refused the offer, not wishing to leave other prisoners behind. Other accounts say that his US POW commander ordered him to remain and he obeyed. There has been speculation, which you may take for what you will, that McCain turned down the release for political reasons. Given his cooperation with his captors, coerced though it was, an early release of the admiral's son would likely have been an embarrassment for both his father and himself.

I don't know. I always liked McCain, until he spent the past eight years sucking up to the Bush administration and tirelessly cheerleading the worst strategic blunder in US military history. It's impossible to see his campaign against Barack Obama as honorable, and by reflection, it's difficult to still see McCain as an honorable man. I've watched him spinning and outright lying without shame on the campaign trail for weeks, now, and at this point I honestly wonder whether anything he's said, then or now, is credible.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Who knows? Politics is a mirror-maze.

It's difficult, I would suggest, indeed, almost impossible- for an honourable man to keep his honour on the campaign trail.

My impression of McCain is of a bad-tempered, not particularly bright, old man. Strong-willed, easily led- not a good combination.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree. Not a good combination of traits at all.