Every election, it seems like I get emailed a list detailing all kinds of negative "facts" about the candidate I'm supporting. Most of the time, the list ends up being a bunch of discredited or made-up stuff designed to smear and stain the other side with no actual basis in reality. I sat down the other day and decided to see if I could take the high road and still come up with 10 things about John McCain that could be demonstrated as true and I came up with this list, complete with sources. The truth is it was much easier than I thought.
I've posted it on my music blog and emailed it to a few friends and the response was eye-opening. People really don't know these things. I'm not claiming that these matter at a policy level, but I think they connect with people at a 'truthiness' level. It's starting to show up on other blogs & message boards, so I thought I'd put it in a diary here and give it a push...
Here's the list. Forward with confidence...
Ten Things Every American Should Know About John McCain
- John McCain was not born in the United States. He was born on a military base in Panama, a U.S. territory at the time. No U.S. President was ever born in a place that didn't have a chance to vote in his Presidential election.
- McCain attended the US Naval Academy where he ranked 894th out of 899 in his graduating class.
- After returning from Vietnam, McCain had extramarital affairs, ultimately resulting in his divorce from his first wife who had been crippled in an automobile accident. McCain began dating his current wife, Cindy, before his divorce was granted. His divorce was final in April 1980 and he married Cindy just one month later in May. His children did not attend.
- In 1983 as a Republican Congressman, McCain voted against the establishment of a federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
- If elected, McCain would be the oldest first term president ever at the age of 72. McCain is a cancer survivor with a family history of heart problems. As part of his 2008 campaign, he released his medical records which were over 1500 pages, but only made them available for 3 hours and only to hand-selected members of the media. No copies, cell phones or internet access were allowed during the 3 hours and the records couldn't leave the room.
- According to Congressional Quarterly, in 2007 McCain voted in support of the Bush Administration position 95% of the time, making him the Senate’s most consistent supporter of President Bush.
- McCain on economics: "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."
- McCain on how much money it takes to be rich: "I think if you're just talking about income, how about $5 million?"
- McCain on the Iraq War: "I don’t think Americans are concerned if we’re there for a hundred years, or a thousand years, or ten thousand years."
- McCain on computers "I am an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance I can get."
SOURCES:
http://mediamatters.org/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
http://politicalhumor.about.com/...
http://www.cnn.com/...
EDITED: To clean up the wording around McCain's birth status.