McCain's Mental Stability

This is a sensitive issue but it is one that needs to be addressed. Of course Democrats should acknowledge McCain's service to this country and his valor during a time of war. There isn't any question he is a patriotic American. But the 7 years he spent as a POW and the effects those years had on McCain's mental health should definitely be explored.

Experts should be consulted; people who have known McCain through the years should be interviewed.

What does being a POW for such a long period of time do to a person mentally? If his mind was deeply effected because of it (we know he has a raging temper), will he be able to handle the rigors of the presidency or will be become unhinged? Do we really want someone with their finger on the button where there's a remote possibility of that happening?

I think not, that's why it's so important for Democrats to ask questions, in a very respectful way of course. The American people have the right to know.

and denounce it. The DNC can ask that 527 to pull it. Mediawhores will give it play.

But this has nothing to do with McCain's being a POW. Forget that.

Just push he's #1. forgetful and/or #2. unstable and unable to control his temper.

Several generals went on record saying outright McCain isn't stable.

The ad could show him in uniform and when he was rescued, etc. then show him angry. I think the angle would work; especially if it has a concerned tone; poor old guy. Doesn't matter if there's a real relationship or not.

He's unhinged because he is a Republican.

It's got to be thoughtful; "concerned". The poor guy.....

to come out during the debates. Unless they give him Valium or something.

Obama could never attack and goad Hillary the way he will with McCain. Debates should be very interesting.

but that's not the way he campaigns against fellow democrats.

The finger-on-the-button argument is lame. Contrary to popular belief, you have to jump through a fair number of hoops to launch nuclear weaponry. Yes -- he has a monumental temper, and many of his own party members have commented on it.

McCain, were he to be elected, would be older than Reagan, with harder mileage. I think you attack that, and you ask the American people how well off they think we'll be with President . What if he spends a lot of his term sick? What is his family medical history? What if he goes senile like Reagan did in his second term (a charge the GOP denies) (but is true)?

as well as a history of acting like a jerk

“A spokesman for McCain's campaign said he would be unavailable for an interview on the subject of his temper. But over the years, no one has written more intimately about McCain's outbursts than McCain himself. "My temper has often been both a matter of public speculation and personal concern," he wrote in a 2002 memoir. "I have a temper, to state the obvious, which I have tried to control with varying degrees of success because it does not always serve my interest or the public's."

That temper has followed him throughout his life, McCain acknowledges. He recalls in his writings how, as a toddler, he sometimes held his breath and fainted during moments of fury. As the son of a naval officer who was on his way to becoming a four-star admiral, McCain found himself frequently uprooted and enrolled in new schools, where, as an underappreciated outsider, he developed "a little bit of a chip on my shoulder," as he recalled this month.

During a campaign stop at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, the most famous graduate of the Class of 1954 opened a window on what swirled inside him during his school years. "I was always the new kid and was accustomed to proving myself quickly at each new school as someone not to be challenged lightly," he told students.

"As a young man, I would respond aggressively and sometimes irresponsibly to anyone who I perceived to have questioned my sense of honor and self-respect. Those responses often got me in a fair amount of trouble earlier in life."

He defied authority, ridiculed other students, sometimes fought. The nicknames hung on him at Episcopal mocked his hair-trigger feistiness: "Punk" and "McNasty." Hoping to emulate his father and grandfather, also an admiral, he went on to the Naval Academy, where his pattern of unruliness and defiance continued, landing him near the bottom of his class. "I acted like a jerk," McCain wrote of the period before he righted himself to become a naval aviator, a Vietnam POW and eventually a career politician.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/19/AR2008041902224_pf.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/19/AR2008041902224_pf.html

..democrats should stay as far away from this stuff as possible.

which I haven't read...but heard somewhere I thought credible...when he was a kid he'd get so angry he'd pass out. His mental problems didn't start at the Hanoi Hilton. He was called McNasty in HS.
The only reason someone who graduated 4th from the bottom in his class at Annapolis got into flight school (and graduated) is that his father and grandfather were admirals.

I'm hoping he'll show his true self during the GE.