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John McCain has died

nytimes.com

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Re: John McCain has died

#131

Post by rpiguy »

gammateam wrote: post #129
rpiguy wrote: post #124

John McCain’s first wife was a model who had a car accident that left her crippled and eroded her good looks. John McCain then cheated on her and then left her, eventually remarrying a younger, very attractive, very heiress. By most biographical accounts he was not a nice man in private, very egocentric, and had a very carefully constructed and well-maintained public image. He also was a POW to a brutal, Communist re…

Thats not complicated. Uncomplicated men are as faithful as their options. This is a timeless tale and largely irrelevant to me, unless I wanted to look past the well-maintained public image and notice "oh hey he's human too".

You are right. “Human Too” would have been better than saying “complicated.” I thought it was relevant to this thread because every other comment has the word “honorable” in it, but in fact he was no better or worse than any of us.

Re: John McCain has died

#133

Post by jjeaff »

Spooky23 wrote: post #126
austincheney wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A McCain/Lieberman ticket would have been a dream.

For Obama. A Jewish candidate would have been like Al Smith in 1932. Good luck turning out the base.

Not to mention two old white guys going up against the first black nominee. The fact that Palin was a women likely bolstered the arguments to choose her a great deal.

Re: John McCain has died

#134

Post by pmorici »

adventured wrote: post #119
pmorici wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, I seem to remember him as one of the lone voices that spoke against torture. A point of view that came from his time as a POW.

From the article: "As a torture victim, Mr. McCain was sensitive to the detention and interrogation of detainees in the fight against terrorism. In 2005 the Senate passed his bill to bar inhumane treatment of prisoners, including those at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by limiting military practices to those permitted by the United States Army Field Manual on Interrogation. His 2008 bill to ban waterboarding as torture was ad…

Yes, I'm wondering why the op thought he was a torture apologist.

Re: John McCain has died

#135

Post by fastball »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #21
chx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His concession speech: > I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherite…

Of course he also said if Hillary won that he would refuse to confirm Garland for the entirety of her presidency...

And? That's the entire point of checks and balances.

Re: John McCain has died

#136

Post by dwaltrip »

aerovistae wrote: post #51
ransom1538 wrote: post #6

"McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958 and followed his father and grandfather—both four-star admirals—into the U.S. Navy. He became a naval aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. While McCain was on a bombing mission over Hanoi in October 1967, he was shot down, seriously injured, and capture…

I dislike this mentality and wish to dissent. I feel bad about playing video games sometimes and have to remind myself of the photograph called Hubble Deep Field. Look it up if you haven’t seen it before. Do what you want to and don’t stop yourself from enjoying it by comparing your life to some famous person or some blogger. It’s easy to feel bad when you read a biography of Augustus....why aim low and settle for co…

I think both of your mentalities are good. I like my ambitions with a side of chill out and take it easy.

Re: John McCain has died

#137

Post by mnm1 »

adventured wrote: post #117
mnm1 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can fight in a war or even be a senator. Very few people have the capability to develop software. You should be proud of your accomplishments. Building software is a much bigger accomplishment than winning a popularity contest or killing people because others order you to.

You're missing the obvious. Very few people would be capable of enduring torture across nearly six years, while letting numerous other prisoners go free in their stead. McCain signed up to the military willingly. He comes from a family line of professional soldiers. Who knows how many of those others he put before himself were forcibly drafted into it, plausibly many of them (late 1967 was near peak US troop levels,…

If he was drafted, you might have a point. Yet he willingly joined a war that even back then everyone knew was unjust and pointless. I don't see how that makes anyone a hero, no matter what they do in said war. People in this country sure have a really fucked up conception of what a "hero" is.

Re: John McCain has died

#138

Post by atomi »

chx wrote: post #14
BoysenberryPi wrote: post #4

John McCain did somethings that I disagree with but the one thing I will always remember is when during the 2008 election there were multiple times during town halls and rallies that people would verbally attack Obama and McCain always shut them down without fail.

His concession speech: > I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherite…

Albeit, McCain had historical perspective.

Re: John McCain has died

#139

Post by abcdcba »

majos wrote: post #63
dopeboy wrote: post #24

I got to live in Iowa in the summer of 2007 for an engineering internship at Rockwell Collins. One bonus of that was getting to go to all the rallies. I went to a McCain rally and an Obama rally. I remember the energy of the room when Obama came in. The crowd was young and loud. Obama got up and gave his usual stump speech and then went around to shake hands. I shook his hand and got a word or two in but I could tell…

David Foster Wallace had a similar reaction to McCain when he covered him in the 2000 election [1]. [1] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/davi...

This might be a dumb question but how does a prisoner refuse to leave? Can't they just kick him out?

Re: John McCain has died

#140

Post by iambateman »

gbacon wrote: post #70
EpicEng wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is complete conjecture, so grain of salt and all that, but I'm not so sure it says what you think it does about his judgement. He had run before. Honest campaigns, little to no mud slinging, not what you typically see from politicians. He lost. He gave in to the RNC advisors and others around him that time around. Palin obviously turned out to be awful (maybe not strong enough a word) and he didn't care for her…

I remember reading that McCain picked Palin over his handlers’ strong objections. Was it the other way around?

At this point, everyone wants to claim someone else made that decision.
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