John McCain's final plane mishap was when he was shot down over Vietnam. He was on a bombing run, heard the warning buzzers that a missile was on its way, but chose to ignore them and press on with his mission. He dropped his bombs on target, and then his jet was hit and knocked out of the sky. Such disregard for his own safety can be characterized as many things: determined, heroic, foolhardy, stupid, and reckless are all terms I've seen tossed around under such circumstances. "Negligent" or "incompetent" don't usually come up, though.

For this mission, McCain received the Navy Cross. The second highest award the Navy can give. The highest is the Medal of Honor. The military does not honor cowards in this fashion nor does it highly incompetent people in high dollar airplanes.

Throughout history, it is the cut ups and non-conformists that are the ones that turn out to be the heroes i.e. Greg (Pappy) Boyington, George S Patton, others to numerous to name. To a man, these people were the innovators and the visionaries that won wars.

Dear American Citizens and the mass media of U.S.A.

As a concerned disabled American Veteran and American citizen, I consider it my duty and responsibility to bring following critical characteristics of so called Maverick McCain to you for proving me wrong or right.

"The citizens of the United States of America have the ultimate responsibility to elect the " Right Candidate with the right temperament" to lead our nation' to address our nations present and future moral, democratic, economic, educational, health care, energy, military, and foundational soul of our nation.

In my firm professional opinion that the media should help the common voter to explore and discuss following attributes of Hon. Senator McCain.

1. Does he have a calm, cool, and collected " temper " [ Presidential Temperament ]?
2. Does he have a sound and sustained "Judgment and Caliber"?
3. Does he have a reveal a presidential "Thought-fullness and togetherness" of purpose and positions?
4. Does he lot or little "ex-poser and exploitation" around Washington"?
5. Does he poses enough " Vigor, wisdom and Vision " for our Great-grand Nation?
6. Does he poses foreign policy exploit-es based on " American Values, Virtuous, Vastness"?
7. Does his campaign talk. slogans and ads are based of facts and free of fiction, deception, seduction, and attacks?

If your answer to the above questions is yes then recommend and vote for him.

But in my professional. political, and personal opinion that vote is against the common interests majority of American people, against the world humanity, continuation of status qua and possibly dangerous world order.

Long live U.S.A and its democratic people and their common sense.

COL.. A.M. Khajawall [Ret] MD., Colonel, USAR / MC Combat Stress Control[Ret], Disabled American Veteran and Iraq Freedom team.

Now that we've gotten those out of the way, can we PLEASE give some attention to the REAL issues?

Both parties and campaigns, and a host of 527s respond with a resounding "No."

Good try, though.

IN my experience, "Colonel", real Army officers of the United States are in the main able to use proper grammar in their statements, and to express their opinions separately from statements of fact.

Your comment failed on both counts, mister. You write like an illegal alien and spew venom like your personal CO is Michael Moore.

I would put the flame outs at higher than 50% of being a mechanical problem.

How many times someone crashes their plane\jet or damage it, is not a reliable indication of flying abilities or judgment. My spray pilot grandfather who flew "the Hump" in WWII used to joke he had more experience standing beside wreck planes than another local spray pilot had flying. My grandfather was a excellent pilot, it just that he flew in very hostile conditions.

It is similar to riding dirt bikes. Anyone who says they never wreck one has never really ridden one.

I was wondering if there would be a visit from Colonel A.M."Cut & Paste" Khajawall in this post.

Didn't take very long.

There was a mishap board for each aircraft loss. If there had been any suggestion of pilot error, there would have been further recriminations and discipline.

There was a mishap board for each aircraft loss. If there had been any suggestion of pilot error, there would have been further recriminations and discipline.

This is what I was thinking-although the DNC talking point on this one is that his daddy the admiral covered for him, so he wasn't held accountable for the losses.

My guess is the engine problems were probably both mechanical-I am not really sure how pilot error causes an engine to flame out-but maybe somebody familiar with flying could explain.

Just me - I believe the process was well covered in "Top Gun" [sarcasm off]

If Daddy covered, there should be a slew of retired Navy fliers and ground crew spewing "Swiftboat" allegations. None yet.

BTW, though I met a lot of USA Col's who might be able to write a comment like that after a bottle or two of Dewar's, all the Army shrinks I worked with were pretty rational, and ol' Doc K here doesn't even know how to construct a proper psychological evaluation for fitness for duty. He's a crock. A well known crock, slightly vetted here:

http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=1904

Thanks epador. That boy ain't right ...

Col. Khajawall,

But in my professional. political, and personal opinion that vote is against the common interests majority of American people, against the world humanity, continuation of status qua and possibly dangerous world order.

But the choice is not between the perfect and McCain, the choice is between McCain and Obama. How many of your 7 questions can you answer yes to for Obama. Ok, I'm sure you would answer them all yes as that's the way you designed them. However, in my professional, political, and personal opinion only question 1 can be answered yes for Obama. Of course, it can also be answered yes of any unconscious person.

Just google this supposed COL.. A.M. Khajawal for some interesting info.

He's a nutcase

FYI..

the semi-literate* "Col. Khajawall" comment is spam that cut-and-pasted over numerous sites.

*(or grammatically creative, if you prefer)

Flying a jet is a remarkable and unique skill. Landing it on an aircraft carrier at an angle while the ship is rocking and rolling is unbelievable. I will not fault McCain for his downed aircraft. I will argue immigration with him, but his service to our country is beyond reproach. ww

As a Naval Aviator (and not seeing the actual MISHAP Report), Mechanical errors and Human Error usually fall into the Human Error realm. Very rarely is a MISHAP 100% one way. They are a combination of factors. However, there should be a MISHAP board for each and if he was flying after each, I would assume they were favorable for McCain. Does crashing a plane end someone's career? Crashing a plane does not end one's flying career. Serious bad judgement does. Flying in itself is dangerous and prone for MISHAPS. I can see blaming three of those crashed on him (greater than 51%), but not the last two.

Now that we've gotten those out of the way, can we PLEASE give some attention to the REAL issues? This petty crap got real stupid real fast.

That'd be nice. There's too much frivolous nonsense floating around, on all sides. People forgive their own candidate everything, but call a Spanish Inquisition if the other guy double dips in the guacamole.

Willie: true enough, but irrelevant -- McCain never crashed a plane while trying to land on a carrier. Right up until his last mission, when he was shot down by a Soviet missile, he had a perfect record -- one successful carrier landing per carrier launch.

J.

You forgot one more myth that the Left likes to throw around.

They state that McCain in 1992 called his wife a "trollop" and a "cunt". Their source? A book written to smear McCain which quotes three anonymous "journalists" as over-hearing the insults.

Since when are journalists anonymous sources for a story? This "anonymous" story has b.s. written all over it yet that doesn't stop the left from repeating it as Gospel Truth.

"John McCain graduated almost last in his class at Annapolis. True. Of almost 900 graduates, McCain was about fifth from the bottom." -- Mr. Tea

Fifth from THE BOTTOM, HUH??? Damn!!!

And Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School.

This about sums up the conservatives: always willing to settle for some mediocrity or other, as long as they get tax cuts. And before some fool mentions, "Chimpy graduated from Harvard Business School!!!!" -- let me say, that was long before the Moron-in-Chief went prematurely senile.

And Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School.

This about sums up the conservatives: always willing to settle for some mediocrity or other, as long as they get tax cuts.

What's your point? I graduated Summa Cum Laude, but I don't feel I'm qualified to be a president. Takes more than high grades to make good presidential material.

Besides, the DNC was willing to schlep around Kerry, and he wasn't much better in the grade department than Bush...but I guess Democrat mediocrity is all well and good.

Oh, and Al Gore wasn't exactly the mensa candidate either:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A37397-2000Mar18

You really want to pursue this line of thought?

"John McCain doesn't know how many homes he owns. False.

John McCain knows precisely how many homes he owns -- none."

Interesting.

If at the time he was asked the question he knew he did not own any homes why didn't he say so?

I guess you are saying that he did know and does know and that he did not and does not want to answer the question. Why do you think that is?

WorldCitizen, if you'd bothereed to read past the section of my article you quoted, you wouldn't need to ask your pointless question:

John McCain was asked how many homes he and his wife own. That includes the homes he shares with his wife, the ones his wife owns and are occupied by her children, and the ones owned as investment properties.

When John and Cindy McCain got married, they signed a prenuptial agreement that kept their finances separate. She is a very wealthy woman, and owns a lot of property. It is entirely unsurprising that he didn't know at one moment just how many homes were part of her financial portfolio. So he gave the only answer he could -- that he didn't know, but would find out.

So, you are too stupid to actually read the articles you comment on, or are you so stupid that you think we don't read them either?

McCain did something very rare these days among politicians -- he actually answered the question he was asked. He didn't answer the question he felt like answering.

What a flipping moron...

J.

Jay Tea,

Thank you for your thoughtful and respectful response.

My point was that you state as fact, and again I will quote it for you, "John McCain knows precisely how many homes he owns -- none."

And so my question remains unanswered. How do you reconcile your first statement that he knows precisely how many he owns and then say "It is entirely unsurprising that he didn't know at one moment just how many homes were part of her financial portfolio."

What I find entirely unsurprising is that you make excuses for John. Not that I think this was a terribly eye opening moment on the campaign trail.

As for his record during his time in a cockpit I do not have access to the official Navy records so I can't comment on your narrative of events. Where did you get your information?

Jay Tea,

I do see your point. Not knowing how many houses his wife owns does not mean he is out of touch with the middle class.

WorldCitizen, I'm not sure why I'm bothering, but I'll repeat myself. The question was not "how many homes do you own?" It was "how many homes do you AND YOUR WIFE own?" McCain didn't konw offhand, probably because by the pre-nuptial agreement he signed the couple's finances are kept separate, but said he'd get the answer.

I'm trying to determine the relevance of this to the election (it certainly didn't seem that relevant when John Kerry ran in 2004, when he was the candidate married to a very, very wealthy woman), but there's the simple truth. Simple enough, I hope, for even you to grasp it.

But you're a "WorldCitizen." What compelling interest have you in the purely internal politics of a single nation?

J.

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cutting and pasting gets your ass banned -- J.

Good article and fine example of how fact can always be distorted to fit vested interests.