Trump Thumps McCain...AND Loses by “Winning”

Donald Trump

It’s kind of ironic that a vile insult of his own state’s voters, by John McCain brought out Donald Trump’s most egregious character flaw – “The Donald” is a bully,” who seems unable to rise above anything, by ANYONE, no matter how petty.

WHY didn't Donald Trump make the issue about McCain's dimwitted and short-sighted view of the folks in his home state?

Donald Trump CAN’T seem to help himself. After McCain derided those who showed up for Donald Trump at an Arizona venue as “crazies,” Trump responded in his patently petulant way, “McCain is not a war hero...well, he’s a war hero because he was captured. I prefer guys who weren’t captured.”

OK, as insensitive as that was, it IS true, in that John McCain is a war hero largely because he endured a long and very brutal captivity at the hands of the barbarous North Vietnamese, NOT, for instance, by taking out a machine gun nest single-handedly, or jumping onto a grenade.

John McCain APPEARS very much a war hero (see 2nd linked article below). He IS also a very Left-of-Center Republican (a “Country Club” Progressive/Corporatist) Republican.

Moreover, he ran an embarrassingly bad campaign in 2008. So BAD, in fact, that it appeared as though he actually threw that race, or in boxing parlance, “took a dive.” He didn’t seem to want to win.

In 2008, he was already a declining 72 y/o who appeared MUCH older and whose pathetic vaudevillian delivery made an absolute mockery of himself – “I don’t know much about the economy,” he infamously said, when “Joe the Plumber” (Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher) demonstrated a better grasp of the economy than either he, or Barack Obama!

That failed campaign SHOULD HAVE effectively ended his political career. His presence in the senate today is a national disgrace.

That said, Trump’s later charge that John McCain did nothing for veterans is, well, also apparently pretty much accurate. He was brought to account by a local Arizona newspaper after pillorying President Obama over the VA scandal last year; “But is it not also McCain's watch?

"Should not members of Congress display a little of that "leadership" and "accountability" McCain talked about?

"John McCain has been a U.S. Senator for a very, very long time. He has a strong connection to the military based on his own service and his time as a POW in Vietnam. He cares deeply about veterans and veterans issues.

"The crisis with the VA hospitals came to light because of problems in Phoenix - McCain's home city.

"So is it fair to ask: Where was John McCain when these problems were developing?

"He's a senior senator. He's the state's highest ranking federal official. He is deeply concerned with veterans issues. Should he or his staff have a strong connection to the local VA? Given that, does McCain feel as if HE bears any responsibility for not recognizing a problem?

"Should he?

"Or should members of Congress who represent communities where VA problems have surfaced bear no responsibility at all?

"And if so, why not?

"Serving their constituencies the most important job of elected officials."

"Are not veterans a key element of that constituency?"
(http://www.azcentral.com/story/ejmontini/2014/05/21/president-obama-senator-john-mccain-veterans-administration-va-hospital/9379599/)

AND the national media’s trumpeting that “Donald Trump has maligned all military veterans, especially former POWs,” doesn’t appear at all accurate either. In a very recent article in Veterans Today, by Senior Editor Gordon Duff, these sentiments were expressed; “Some of us have seen the reports about John McCain. I know what Ted Guy had to say about McCain and I know how angry POW activists have been at his betrayal of their cause. What I didn’t know and that few of us knew, is that John Holland, Rolling Thunder Founder, had called for the Republican Party to remove McCain from the ticket.

This isn’t a minor story and isn’t one that has gone away just because the election is over. Many of us who knew what McCain had done didn’t know how much power the money boys behind Palin and McCain could go to suppress this information during the campaign.

Rally after rally, fellow POW and controversial Medal of Honor holder, Bud Day, stood beside McCain, backing him up. With substantiated claims of hundreds of counts of treason, collaboration and aid and comfort to the enemy suppressed against McCain and a number of unnamed other POWs who were expecting to be prosecuted when returned, this entire act during the election seems sick.

Ted Sampley, Vietnam combat veteran, now deceased, wrote at length about McCain and Day. Sampley’s article on Day’s Medal of Honor is extremely revealing.

With McCain supporters continually touting his heroism and attacking Democrats that served honorably in Vietnam like John Kerry and Al Gore, the unavoidable embarrassment that their standard bearer may have been the biggest American traitor since Benedict Arnold, confidence in Conservative news sources has to disappear, at least with veterans.

A fair comparison to McCain would be Jane Fonda. Both spent time in North Vietnam.

(*) Both are accused of helping North Vietnam, Fonda by being photographed and McCain by doing many propaganda broadcasts and helping the enemy plan attacks on American soldiers.

(*) Fonda returned to be reviled and spit on while McCain returned to the Senate, spending years helping North Vietnam keep Americans prisoner and amassing a huge fortune trading on heroism and sacrifice we are now told never happened.

(*) Of the two, Fonda was the more honest and by far had done the least harm to the United States.

(*) According to sources, it was John McCain that fired the rocket that caused the Forrestal incident, the most serious disaster on an American ship. Stories make him out to be a “hero” and an “unnamed” total idiot is blamed. McCain is said to be that idiot with his daddy running cover for him. Thus far, Jane Fonda has never attacked one of our ships. We will be taking a look at both McCain and Fonda and try to verify claims. Perhaps they could have a contest to see who killed the most Americans. No tally as to how many pilots were shot down using intel McCain admits giving the North Vietnamese has been made. The Forrestal incident may be a huge cover-up in itself.

McCain’s cover story, that the plane behind him fired a missile into his plane is at odds with other stories that blame exploding bombs on some other part of the ship. The investigation and all records involving his military records were under the direct supervision of his own father.

We are going to look at Holland’s evidence and see if there are statements from people on the Forrestal.

Colonel Ted Guy was preparing criminal charges against John McCain when Nixon took Admiral McCain’s little boy under his wing. Where are McCain’s 32 propaganda tapes that were made during Vietnam and broadcast over the radio to US troops? (Colonel Ted Guy)

Why did McCain accuse American soldiers of war crimes during Vietnam? What did he get in return?

If our news media can go thru a presidential election hiding all of this from the American people, nearly putting someone like this in office, what else are they capable of? What else have they done? What else are they hiding?

Vietnam veterans are requesting that the records of the debriefing of all POWS be made public. Those who were heroes need real recognition and shouldn’t have to hide behind a presidential pardon they never needed or wanted.
(http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/07/18/trump-right-about-hanoi-john-mccain/)

BOTH of the above articles are troubling. So long as there are other vets who’ve leveled charges and the “exonerating,” or “exculpatory” evidence has been withheld, then John McCain SHOULD be seen, by thoughtful voters, as unfit for public office.

BUT, Donald Trump has shown and perhaps sowed the seeds of his own campaign’s destruction. IF he cannot do a better job of disciplining himself, of editing some of his off-the-cuff musings and if he cannot control and rein in his innate propensity toward bullying those he disagrees with, his chances of political survival seem very slim.