I sort of like this thread from the WayBack machine when one of the bloggers named Quang stated in the comments section:

War records should be seen for what they are. McCain, for example, is a POW survivor and not a hero to me. As a naval aviator, I view getting shot down by the enemy as an act of mistake and/or bad luck.

http://www.ocblog.net/ocblog/2006/10/stuck_in_iraq_o.html

Now correct if I'm wrong. Quang was a former blogger on this site?

And BTW. Despite official records to the contrary as well as subsequents retractions, the Swift Boats did exactly the same thing to John Kerry.

I guess I'm trying to figure out why graduating at the bottom of his Naval Academy class, getting a coveted fighter pilot job through nepotism, crashing 3 aircraft, getting shot down, and spending 6 years as a POW make someone (a) a war hero and (b) qualified to be President of the United States.

Eisenhower I can understand. McCain always has been nothing more than a selfish as***le to this very day. What exactly makes him presidential material?

It's painful watching my Republican Party try to put lipstick on the McCain pig.

Mr. Whipple, you can't beat something with nothing (and that's not conceding your attacks on McCain's record. Would you prefer a charismatic but inexperienced leftist like Barack Obama?

OC Watcher:

Nope. I'd prefer an experienced conservative who supports the Constitution, has a record of voting to limit the power of the federal government, and won't be a de facto third term for the Bush trainwreck.

Unfortunately Republicans have surrendered their small government credentials and joined the Democrats in the race to a Brave Socialist Future. McCain is as anti-Republican a candidate as the GOP has ever nominated.

Shameful.

General Wesley Clark's recent comments echo the theme. I think surviving in a Hell-hole for 5+ years constitutes heroism. But I agree with Whipple. McCain's military record doesn't especially qualify him to be Commander-in-Chief - a civilian job.

It's ironic that it was Republicans (i.e. W's henchmen in South Carolina 2000) who started the whisper campaign that McCain was callaborator in VN, and that his years as a POW left him with a screw loose.

From today's OCR site - more on McC's military experience NOT from the Leftosphere but from the Republican Crankosphere:

SANTA ANA – The T-shirt said it all. Costa Mesa resident John Powelson, a lifelong Republican, displayed his political sentiments across his chest at an anti-illegal immigration meeting last week: "Is John McCain the Manchurian candidate?"

The slogan, Powelson explained, refers to the title of the 1962 film starring Frank Sinatra, in which Soviet agents capture an American soldier, take him to Manchuria, China, and brainwash him to become a communist agent.

Powelson, 57, wonders if McCain's policies on guns and immigration, which he sees as far too liberal, are the result of a real-life Manchurian incident. "It could very well be that he was brainwashed," he said, referring to McCain's six years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam.

Red,

You were right when you said, "McCain's military record doesn't especially qualify him to be Commander-in-Chief - a civilian job."

Question: Why do years of government service make one qualified for elective office rather than years of private sector experience?

McCain's biography on Wikipedia (taken for what its worth), chronicles a career in government service (whether military service or civilian "service"). What I don't see is private sector experience. Maybe that's why he's so hostile to markets.

I may not agree with all of Senator McCain's stands on the issues, but he has shown great courage in supporting the war against terrorism.

The comments by "Mr. Whipple" and his fellow Quislings are nothing short of disgusting. While masquerading as conservatives on this blog, they are in reality acting as Bin Laden's 5th Columnists seeking to undermine America's resolve. Whipple and his ilk are the true "Manchurian candidates" in this debate.

Chris Jones, I've been called lots of things - but never a Quisling! You'll have quite a few OCBlog readers googling that one.

If you actually take time enough to read the comments above (there you go, nice and slow - no child left behind) you'll notice that the "Manchurian Candidate" line came from some idiot named Powelson a "life-long" Republican - and a bastion of anti-terror sentiments, no doubt.

Redperegrine, my comments were directed at "Mr. Whipple" and Mr. Powelson. So unless you are one of these two individuals, then you have nothing to be offended about.

However, I would like to reiterate that those so-proclaimed conservatives who slander Senator McCain's military record are nothing more than "useful idiots" for America's enemies.

Jubal--Please don't foist Medea Benjamin on an already scoliosis-plauged back of the Democratic Donkey. She's a Green Party member and undoubtedly will support Ralph Nader, he who thinks Obama is trying too hard to "talk white."

It's pretty outrageous that people are taking shots at McCain's war record but par for the course. He deserves all of our respect for his sacrifice, regardless of how any of us felt about the political virtues or lack thereof in the Vietname conflict.

RP--I agree....Hanoi Hilton is not the Harvard Presidential Internship Institution. But its part of the overall career that gives him the experience cred. And Wesley Clark didn't do Obama any favors by his comment. Its one of those sound bites which, while having a ring of truth, creates a false impression. He needed to add that it was an important part of McCain's being qualified for President, just as Clark portrayed his military background as an important part of Clark being qualified for president when he ran.
Obama, to his credit, repudiated the Clark remark. Obama doesn't need to get into a qualifications battle with McCain, where he will fall short. Not that it mattered in the Democratic primaries where experienced candidates like Richardson, Biden, Dodd and, finally, Clinton were vanquished in a prioritization for change over experience. But better to just say they are both qualified based on their life's experience and focus the campaign elsewhere.

BR - my main point on this thread was that it was Republicans, not "the Left" who started slandering McCain's "record" in Nam - and many continue to do so still.

Personally, I don't really think Clark's comments were out of line. They were an appraisal of McCain's military record as it relates to presidential qualities. We can agree or disagree with that appraisal, but this mock "outrage" (Apologize now! Fire him! Blah, blah blah) is getting soooooo tedious. Unfortunately it's become a staple of American political life: Yes! We made him apologize! Victoire!

It's quite telling that Chris Jones turns to name-calling over actual substantive arguments in accusing me of "masquerading as [a] conservative." Such has been the M.O. of the neoconservatives who have infected the Republican Party over the last 15 years. By denouncing real conservatives and rallying to the "war on terror", Jones fulfills Samuel Johnson's insightful statement, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

Pray tell, Mr. Jones: What exactly is "conservative" about John McCain? His voting record shows nothing but support for preserving the power of incumbents (McCain-Feingold), leaving American borders unprotected (amnesty for illegal immigrants), higher taxes or bigger spending at the expense of private property (support for global warming initiatives), and propping up the military-industrial complex (which Republican president Eisenhower warned us about).

It takes no "courage" for McCain to support George Bush's disastrous "war on terror", only a desire to stir up votes among the jingoistic masses in the GOP who are quite happy to let America's best fight and die in Iraq for what is, at best, a huge mistake.

You, sir, represent everything that is wrong about today's Republican Party. The true conservatives that created the modern GOP -- Taft, Goldwater, and Reagan -- would be ashamed at what has happened to us.

Also, please note that the Republican smear campaign run by Karl Rove made the issue (over and over and over) in 2004 that John Kerry's military service didn't qualify him for the Presidency.

Only one election cycle later, and now the GOP is forced to defend themselves from the very same charge. And we're now watching McCain's team scramble when Wesley Clark states the obvious.

As Reverend Wright would say, the chickens have come home to roost.

Where's the violin music to go along with Mr. Whipple's whining. "Whipple" claims to be a conservative yet trouts out the old leftist canard about the "military-industrial complex" to justify his isolatist defeatism.

Real conservatives aren't isolationist jerks. Real conservatives stoop up to Soviet Communism and brought down the Berlin Wall. Real conservatives understand that Radical Islam is a threat to America and must be fought both at home and overseas.

I disagree with Senator McCain on many issues--especially immigration--but at least we can count on him to defend America from harm. Which is a lot more than can be said about "Mr. Whipple" and his merry band of Vichy Conservatives!!

First Quisling; now Vichy. Too funny.

C'mon Chris, admit it: this is satire, right?

My goodness! I mention exactly how and why McCain is not a conservative, and Chris Jones goes into full playground mode. (Sticks and stones, sir...)

How, exactly, is the problem with the military-industrial complex a "leftist canard" when it was Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower who warned America about it in his farewell address? (This was the same Eisenhower who commanded U.S. forces in the defeat of the Nazis, so he wasn't exactly a "quisling" or a "Vichy conservative.")

In the Through-The-Looking-Glass world of the neocons, anything less than full-frontal assault on every two-bit dictator (a.k.a. "the Bush Doctrine") qualifies as "isolationism." And I guess anyone who doesn't sieg-heil the Glorious War on Terror is "jerk" and a "defeatist."

Real conservatives believe in a small, limited government, both at home and abroad. When there is a real threat to our survival (like, say, 40,000 nuclear warheads pointed in our direction), they meet the challenge. When there is a false and overblown threat to America (like, say, a handful of radicals with some AK-47s and a box of C-4), they know that small, limited, reasonable response will solve the problem best.

The neoconservative "war on radical Islam" is a sham, America is less safe because of it, and a broad plurality of Americans know it. McCain's support for it is wrong, and it is the reason why he will not win come November.

Whipple,

Why don't you tell the thousands of families who lost loved ones in the 911 Attack that the threat of terrorism is "false and overblown". I bet you won't because you truly are a pathetic coward.

And yes Redperegrine, I really do mean that "Mr. Whipple" and his ilk are traitors to our County.

Chris

"Traitors"? Seriously? Wow, you HAVE been drinking the neocon Kool-Aid, Chris.

9/11 was a terrible tragedy caused by a group of evil men. But it happened because these thugs simply got lucky. As horrible as it was, it did not justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq, nor the Bush administration's desire to do the same thing in Iran.

9/11 happened largely because of government stupidity and ineptness. The neocon response has been to give that same stupid, inept government MORE power -- power to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, power to spy on its own citizens, power to torture, power to detain without due process, power to ruin the lives of people who stand in their way. These are NOT conservative values.

If anyone is the traitor, it's Bush and his enablers who have no respect for the Constitution. God preserve us from the neocon horror.

According to "Mr. Whipple" the danger of terrorism is "false and overblown" and the 911 Attack was America's fault. What a nut!!

Whipple should stop complaining about Senator McCain and run for President on the Lunatic Party ticket with his fellow-traveling anti-American activist Medea Benjamin.

RedPeregrine was right: Chris Jones is a satirist. His arguments rise no higher than the level of "I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I?"

I done feeing this troll. Thanks for the fun, Chris.

Whipple,

You don't really agree with Redperegrine. You're just doing what traitors do best--running away with their tails between their legs.

Chris,

My dad can beat up your dad.

And your mother wears army boots.

Farewell,

MW