McCain; Increasingly Critical, Isolated. Calls Iraq, Trainwreck

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/12/AR2007011202220.html



The War Within Sen. McCain
Vocal Supporter of Bush Is Increasingly Critical, Isolated

By Dan Balz and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 13, 2007; Page A01

There is no mistaking the anguish of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Sitting in his Senate office, he is uncharacteristically subdued, his voice at times almost inaudible.

Although the Bush administration this week finally embraced his long-standing call to send more troops to Iraq, McCain believes the way it has handled the war "will go down as one of the worst" mistakes in the history of the American military.


"One of the most frustrating things that's ever happened in my political life," he said, "is watching this train wreck."

McCain, an all but announced presidential candidate, offered those assessments toward the end of a lengthy interview Thursday night. No politician in the United States is more clearly identified with President Bush's new policy, and no politician has more to lose if it fails. Democratic opponents have already coined a name for the troop "surge": the McCain Doctrine.






(sorry if dupe. I didn't see this article anywhere)

straight into my presidential aspirations".

No sympathy from me.

His chances of being elected president are marginally better than mine.

who were his worst political enemy in 2000!

I don't feel a bit sorry for the fool.

to see how he is. Senator Obama is on as well. It will be more interesting if they are on together...
Anti war vs. war delussional.

One for each face.

An intelligent person looks ahead to avoid mistakes. McCain of all people should have known better than to support Bush. Now he is making a second mistake by pressing for a surge.

he is unfit to be a commander. Just another wannabe; a gambler rolling the dice against all odds with other people's lives and limbs at stake.

His prize if he wins in '08: He gets to be the guy at the end of the parade, sweeping up after the elephants.

It won't be pretty.

see more & more......Ride the High Horse long enough & you will fall off.

but he refuses to acknowledge the likelihood that the surge will fail and when we have shot the last bullet in our gun (to use Biden's description) we will be in an even weaker position in the world than we are right now.

of the planes flying them home...McCain, Bush, Rice, Gates...should be MADE to go to every funeral of every military who they sent to death

in-order for him to have any chance getting elected president.

let's not leave out little joe.

it would be the continuation of a clusterfuck.

...left after the bushista trainwreck.

McCain such a "great" potential candidate for the Repukes. Not only is he going to be too old by 2008 (IMO) all he's done this past year is bounce from one opinion to another! I dont think 72 is OLD in this day and age, but simply older than most who run for President, and not one I could go for even if he was a Democrat. Sorry, don't mean to offend.

If ever there was a Flip-Flopper, this guy takes the cake! He's been on so many sides of so many issues I sort of find it completely confusing! All he's doing is trying to jump from one wagon to another, and each wagon is the one he THINKS is the winning one. When it turns out that the wagon isn't in the lead, or the wheels start to come off, he jumps!

There was once a time, about 4 or 5 years ago that I felt he was somewhat moderate and sounded a lot more together, now I'm just wondering if he isn't suffering from initial stages of DEMENTIA!

I've seen this disease up close and personal, in several people, one of them my mother-in-law who now has severe Alheimer's, and there are some definite signs of weirdness about him. I'm NOT saying this because he's a Repuke, I just see some delusional thinking here, and given the fact that he spent so much time as a POW, it could have had a much more powerful psychological affect on him.

He just doesn't seem able to make up his mind about where he stands from one month to the next! I would certainly worry a lot if I was a Repuke who will be throwing my hat in the ring for him. And I'm NOT being facetious here, I really think there is some problem here. Perhaps I should take back the comment about him being a Flip-Flopper because IF he is suffering in some way, I don't want to make overwhelming negative statements about him.

I could be wrong and he's just putting "two" fingers up in the wind and is having a super hard time of deciding which finger to follow.

His body is a wreck.

From this month's Vanity Fair article on McCain:

(snip)

…But he is visibly older, thinner, balder - and yes, frailer - than he was just six years ago. Like his friend Bob Dole, he tries to minimize his disabilities, but they are serious. He suffered severe injuries when his plane was shot down over North Vietnam 40 years ago; his right knee was broken when his seat was ejected from the cockpit, and both arms were broken in the crash. These injuries were compounded by the profound abuse he endured during five and a half years in captivity.

McCain seldom talks about the details of his torture by the North Vietnamese, but he was written about them in clinical depth. Despite the injuries he had already suffered, upon capture he was promptly bayoneted in the ankle and then beaten senseless. The North Vietnamese never set either of his broken arms. The only treatment of his broken knee involved cutting all the ligaments and cartilage, so that he never had more than 5 to 10 percent flexion during the entire time he was in prison. In 1968 he was offered early release, and when he refused, because others had been there longer, his captors went at him again; he suffered cracked ribs, teeth broken off at the gum line, and torture with ropes that lashed his arms behind his back and that were progressively tightened all through the night. Ultimately he taped a coerced confession.

McCain's right knee still has limited flexibility. Most of the time this is not too noticeable, but McCain mounts the steps onto planes with a herky-jerky gait. A climb up dozens of steps at the new Hampshire International Speedway, in Loudon, leaves him badly winded and sweating profusely. Because his broken arms were allowed to heal without ever being properly set, to this day McCain cannot raise his arms above his shoulders. He cannot attend to his own hair. An aide is often nearby with a comb and small can of hair spray.

McCain has difficulty putting on his suit jacket unassisted. Once, as we prepared to get out of a cramped airplane cabin in Burlington, Vermont, where McCain would be greeted by the governor, I turned my back for a moment, only to find him struggling. He could sense that his collar was all bunched up, and asked me matter-of-factly to help him straighten it out. I felt the pang that those around McCain feel whenever they realize the extent of his injuries. "You comb someone's hair once," his 2000 communications director, Dan Schnur, says, "and you never forget it."

One of McCain's aides tells me that two years ago, campaigning with McCain, George W. Bush asked him if the senator would like to work out with him. Told that McCain did not, could not, really, "work out," Bush replied, "What do you mean?"

too much history and baggage to make any clear decisions about failed wars, 'acceptable' torture- and knowing when enough is enough.

I regret what was done to him during Vietnam- but I don't believe that gives him any special right to place other human beings into a similarly destructive hell-

Like Guantanimo-
Like Iraq-
Like military 'tribunals'-