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McCain conundrum

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John McCain addresses the National Guard Association in 2007.

The recent war of words between Donald Trump and Senator John McCain have unleashed vitriolic comments and enigmas that are troubling for a number of reasons. On the surface, the five and a half years Senator McCain spent as a POW in Vietnam is one that should earn him much respect – at least for his willingness to serve and his ability to survive.

However, his history in the United States Senate presents a bit of a conundrum: how could someone who is believed to be an American patriot – a hero – establish a political record that is filled with questions regarding his alliances and his loyalties to the veterans he identifies with and the country he served with honor? Perhaps it is these peculiarities, along with McCain calling Trump supporters “crazies”, that inspired Donald Trump’s recent rhetoric.

McCain the hero v. McCain the senator

John McCain speaks in Kiev.

John McCain at Euromaidan, Kiev, Ukraine, 15 December 2013. Source: VO Svoboda, CC BY 3.0 Unported License.

Logically, it is hard to reconcile the actions of a war hero with the voting record of Senator McCain. It is also hard to dismiss all of the allegations and suspicions of wrong-doing he has endured over the years. (Editor’s note: The Powdered Wig Society has an interesting list.) If you assume that Senator McCain was once a hero and you compare that assumption to his record and the many allegations against him, you may conclude that something corrupted his morality, as well as his mentality. On this basis, it can be argued that years of compromise and playing-along-to-get-along can corrupt even those who are the epitome of nobleness, which would be the strongest argument for term limits that one could imagine.

If you believe that where there is smoke; there is fire, the smoke engulfing the one-time presidential candidate may be enough to sway your opinion of him. And it may very well be the reason Senator McCain is so willing to “move beyond” the Trump episode. On July 1, 2010, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Sydney Schanberg, wrote a detailed and well-researched analysis of Senator McCain’s influential position on the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA affairs, which was formed in response to the pressure from the families of Vietnam veterans. The article was published in the “American Conservative” (and published on-line at WND on Monday evening) and titled McCain and the POW Cover-Up. In it Schanberg documents pages within the report that led him to the conclusion that there were 10 pieces of evidence that men were left behind, in direct contradiction to the general statement issued by the Committee and the position held by Senator McCain.

Schanberg concluded:

An honest review of the full report, combined with other documentary evidence tells the story of a frustrated and angry president (Nixon) and his national security adviser (Kissinger) furious at being thwarted at the peace table by a small, much less powerful country that refused to bow to Washington’s terms.

McCain, on the other hand, always contended that the report of surviving POW’s was a concoction by deluded purveyors of a “conspiracy theory.” Perhaps McCain’s explanation would be more believable if it weren’t so frequently used as a tactic by elitists to disqualify those questioning their actions in an effort to pursue the truth.

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McCain and ISIS?

Additionally, Senator McCain has not escaped the scrutiny of other “conspirators” or truth seekers – as the case may be. On February 4, 2015, Ben Barrack wrote an article in Walid Shoebat’s entity, Shoebat.com, titled LEAKED EVIDENCE Shows Senator McCain Involved In Major Islamic Conspiracy to Transform Middle East Into Islamic State. In this article Mr. Barrack reported that when McCain was in Libya with Ambassador Chris Stevens, he told an Al Jazeera reporter that the Libyan rebels (the Muslim Brotherhood) were his heroes. The allegations presented in the article do not stop there. They go on to report that John McCain defended Hillary Clinton’s adviser, Huma Abedin, against charges made by Michele Bachman in a letter sent to the Inspector General’s Office of the State Department, wherein Bachman raised credible concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood’s connection with Abedin. If McCain defines the Muslim Brotherhood as heroes and American citizens as “crazies”, then America should not be offended when Donald Trump also weighs in with his definition of what a hero is and is not.

McCain’s strange alliance with John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, his betraying confession while a POW, and his voting to reduce the pensions of our military while receiving embarrassingly high benefits as a Senator, as well as his failure to provide medical benefits appropriately for our military when he is in a prime position to do so are all peculiar accusations against a war hero. However disturbing these allegations may be, this week’s war between two Titans and its relevancy to the up-and-coming presidential election may be the most disturbing revelation of all.

Donald Trump v. a captured GOP

Donald Trump in 2011. He took on McCain. Maybe he's right.

Donald Trump speaking to the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference. Photo by Gage Skidmore; CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported License.

Of course the front-runner in any coveted campaign – especially one for the presidency of the United States – would be subject to intense scrutiny by the media and those competing for the office. And of course, Donald Trump gave his competitors and the media much to scrutinize. But there may be still more troubling indicators regarding this week’s follies other than political opportunists predictably attacking the front-runner.

Goal #15 of the 45 Goals of the Communist Party states: Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

I shudder to think that this week’s display of mad dogs attacking an isolated victim may be an indicator that Goal #15 may have been realized but it is hard to avoid the fact that Senator McCain is a perfect example of a Republican acting like a Democrat – and God knows there are plenty more like him. While we can explain away the motives of Trump’s competitors, the sheer number of instances of Republicans acting like Democrats is troubling. Another good example is the re-election of John Boehner as Speaker of the House. It is a matter of record that 60% of Republican voters contacted their representatives requesting that they not vote for Boehner. In a representative government, as we were designed to be, that 60% should have resulted in a huge loss for the Speaker. It did not. Only 25 out of 246 Republican representatives honored the wishes of their constituents. The rest voted for Boehner, a closet Democrat who has consistently disappointed those embracing their delusion that a two-party system exists in America today . This, along with the Republicans in charge of both houses of congress compliance with America’s communist party a/k/a “the Democrats”, nurtures the notion that the Republican Party may only exist in principle and not in reality.

Additionally, the media has contributed to the illusion that a two-party system still exists. It parades its choice candidates before us, like Jeb, but much to their chagrin, their parade is being exposed for the illusion it is by the real maverick of the political world: Mr. Donald Trump. And to add to their distress, their old tactics of dismissing the person they fear most through innuendo and ridicule seems to be failing as well. Has the sleeping giant that once was the backbone of our Constitutional Republic finally awakened from its long nap? If it has, perhaps there is more hope for the future of America than any of us anticipated.

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Love him or hate him, there can be little doubt that Trump is his own man – and that perhaps is his best qualification for the coveted office. After all, we wanted someone who spoke from the heart abandoning politically correct speech. Well, we got him. Now: do we want him to be president or will we elect someone more palatable?

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RoseAnn Salanitri is a published author and Acquisition Editor for the New Jersey Family Policy Council. She is a community activist who has founded the Sussex County Tea Party in her home state and launched a recall movement against Senator Robert Menendez. RoseAnn is also the founder of Veritas Christian Academy, as well as co-founder of Creation Science Alive, and a national creation science speaker.

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