In search of McCains accomplishments:
As this election cycle creeps into its last days, I hear more and more from McCain about being "tested", and the things he has accomplished. Honestly, when i search any web page or book that documents these accomplishments, the only verifiable one I can find is his being a POW. After 26 years as a Senator, who among us can recall or lay a finger on "anything" sucessful that has McCains stamp on it. I mean, lets be real, what has he ever done? I wont go back to his early early years, because there is nothing to be found there, and the stuff that sticks out is mostly bad (Keating, adultery etc). Lets look at just the last few years of what McCain has brought to America.
In 1993 and 1994, McCain voted to confirm President Clinton's nominees Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg whom he considered to be qualified for the U.S. Supreme Court. McCain had also voted to confirm nominees of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, including Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Of these appointees who actually made it to the Supreme Court, doesnt that tell us a lot about McCain, and what he intends for future Supreme Court nominees? In my opinion, these may have been great conservative picks, but failed picks for America as a whole. OVERALL GRADE - F
Starting in 1994, he worked with Democratic Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform; their McCain-Feingold bill attempted to put limits on "soft money". McCain attacked what he saw as the corrupting influence of large political contributions – from corporations, labor unions, other organizations, and wealthy individuals –and he made this his signature issue. while this sounds good on paper, it has technically driven donors to give money in ways which are not classified as donations per-se. Fast forward to today. If politicians have an option to opt out of this then doesnt that make it a failed law? Once again McCain had no vision of America, and what could be done by "the people" on their own accord. This law has only motivated people to find grey areas around it, and is therefore useless in its implementation. McCain has been recently documented as finding innovative ways to circumvent this very law that he helped craft. As I heard Chuck Todd say on TV today, "money will always find a way". We are after all CAPITALIST!! OVERALL GRADE - D
McCain announced his candidacy for President on September 27, 1999 in Nashua, New Hampshire, saying he was staging "a fight to take our government back from the power brokers and special interests, and return it to the people and the noble cause of freedom it was created to serve". Following his loss, he made a speech in Virginia Beach that criticized Christian leaders, including Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, as divisive conservatives declaring "we embrace the fine members of the religious conservative community. But that does not mean that we will pander to their self-appointed leaders". Fast forward to today. He sucked a lot of you know whats to get these very same people on his side, and picked (Palin) one of their postr girls as his running mate. As to honesty and integrity OVERALL GRADE - F
John McCain was an early proponent of the Iraq troop surge.The President described the overall objective as establishing a "unified, democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and is an ally in the War on Terror" The surge created a variety of reasons for the improvements in Iraq, including the deployment of forces in counter-insurgency operations designed to protect Iraqi civilians, improving capabilities and ongoing expansion of the Iraqi Army and police forces, significant losses inflicted on Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Iraqi insurgents, the "Anbar Awakening" in which Sunni leaders rejected insurgent leaders and formed the Sons of Iraq groups to defend themselves, and sectarian homogenization and physical hardening (barriers) between Baghdad neighborhoods.Gen Petraeus told NPR News in March 2008 that the surge operation had created a "degree of hope" in the Iraqi population, though he described the situation as "tenuous" and "reversible."[6] He later said in September 2008 that "I don't use terms like victory or defeat... I'm a realist, not an optimist or a pessimist. And the reality is that there has been significant progress but there are still serious challenges." However, John McCain continues to use the word "victory".
Some analysts argue that the methods used in the surge are unsustainable and have actually decreased the likehood of a stable Iraq in the long term. Mccain doesnt get it. although violence is down, the entire scope of the surge has NOT been accomplished, and is NOT on the nearterm horizen. This is another McCain judgement failure. By saying that the surge (as a whole) has succeeded, it gives a false impression of where we are in the overall war strategy. Obama agrees that the surge reduced violence, but has not said the surge was an overall sucess. The current status is maintaining the status quo in Iraq, so where is success? OVERALL GRADE - F
These are just a few examples that McCain never tells us the truth, or when he does, the entire truth. the "Straight Talk" express is really the Spin Talk express, designed to place McCain in the best possible position politically. he is CALCULATING, and has never taken a position that placed his career in any real danger. A Maverick comes with the conotation that there are potential adverse results by taking the opposing view. McCain has always fought with people who didnt like him anyway. Thats not a maverick, thats a schemer. McCain has been this way all his life, and is just another FAILURE.