By now you all know that McCain didn't even bother to show up for the Senate's vote on the Webb GI Bill. This is no minor vote, this is setting up for a veto/override showdown.
Obama, who voted for Webb's bill, had this to say:
I respect sen. John McCain's service to our country. He is one of those heroes of which I speak. But I can't understand why he would line up behind the President in his opposition to this GI bill.
I can't believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans. I could not disagree with him and the President more on this issue. There are many issues that lend themselves to partisan posturing but giving our veterans the chance to go to college should not be one of them.
At which point, McCain lost his fool mind.
Try to follow along as we trace the tortured logic, impotent rage, and just plain weird ramblings of The Idiot the Republicans are Stuck With.
SEE! As rage overcomes grammar and syntax!
It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of.
Yes, Obama actually has negative understanding of the issue ... because he trusted Webb, a Vietnam War veteran, and voted for his bill. Obama sure comes off as naiïve, trusting a veteran like that!
Let me say first in response to Senator Obama, running for President is different than serving as President.
... and you would know about this ... why? I mean, if I take enough ginko, will I remember my years as president, too?
The office comes with responsibilities so serious that the occupant can't always take the politically easy route without hurting the country he is sworn to defend.
Do you mean like invading Iraq to get cheap political capital? Or do you mean sticking with Bush's war in Iraq because you don't have the guts to admit you were wrong, John?
Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim.
How does anyone earn the right to claim that Obama's "admiration, respect[,] and deep gratitude for America's veterans is [sic]" so cheap? Did you earn that right the same place you were excused from subject-verb agreement? Or were you so pissed off that you forgot where you were?
Are you lost, senator?
When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed. I rarely saw him again for four years. My grandfather, who commanded the fast carrier task force under Admiral Halsey, came home from the war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day. I grew up in the Navy; served for twenty-two years as a naval officer; and, like Senator Webb, personally experienced the terrible costs war imposes on the veteran. The friendships I formed in war remain among the closest relationships in my life. The Navy is still the world I know best and love most. In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well .
Ah, he is lost. Not only did the McCain campaign foolishly let him write his own press-release, it looks like they let him type it, too.
What. The. Fuck. does any of this stuff that you remember from nineteen dickety-one have to do with the price of tea in China, old man?
But I am running for the office of Commander-in-Chief. That is the highest privilege in this country, and it imposes the greatest responsibilities. It would be easier politically for me to have joined Senator Webb in offering his legislation. More importantly [sic], I feel just as he does, that we owe veterans the respect and generosity of a great nation because no matter how generously we show our gratitude it will never compensate them fully for all the sacrifices they have borne on our behalf.
OK, I get that you're running for this high office thingy, but how does that excuse you from voting against something you clearly oppose? Why were you AWOL, Senator?
And if you feel just as Webb does, that veterans deserve this, why didn't you vote for it?
What do you mean? Do you know?
McCain goes on to talk about his bill, that didn't make it to the floor, leaving out that Webb asked McCain to join him in penning this bill, but McCain wasn't interested.
But then McCain goes on, and this time we see where the Senator's priorities lie:
The most important difference between our two approaches is that Senator Webb offers veterans who served one enlistment the same benefits as those offered veterans who have re-enlisted several times. Our bill has a sliding scale that offers generous benefits to all veterans, but increases those benefits according to the veteran's length of service. I think it is important to do that because, otherwise, we will encourage more people to leave the military after they have completed one enlistment. At a time when the United States military is fighting in two wars, and as we finally are beginning the long overdue and very urgent necessity of increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps, one study estimates that Senator Webb's bill will reduce retention rates by 16%.
And there it is. McCain may 'feel' that we owe veterans these benefits, but he's afraid they'll misuse them. That they'll leave their units and go off, irresponsibly using the benefits they earned, thus hurting retention.
You know what else hurts retention rates, especially among officers? Pissing away life and limb in the middle of nowhere for nothing. McCain's OK with bleeding the military white and throwing away young lives, but college? No, that's where he draws the line. You might ... use it or something.
Wow.
Your gratitude sucks, Senator.
Most worrying to me, is that by hurting retention we will reduce the numbers of men and women who we train to become the backbone of all the services, the noncommissioned officer. In my life, I have learned more from noncommissioned officers I have known and served with than anyone else outside my family. And in combat, no one is more important to their soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen, and to the officers who command them, than the sergeant and petty officer. They are very hard to replace. Encouraging people not to choose to become noncommissioned officers would hurt the military and our country very badly. As I said, the office of President, which I am seeking, is a great honor, indeed, but it imposes serious responsibilities. How faithfully the President discharges those responsibilities will determine whether he or she deserves the honor. I can only tell you I intend to deserve the honor if I am fo rtunate [sic] to receive it, even if it means I must take politically unpopular positions at times and disagree with people for whom I have the highest respect and affection.
Yes, it's politically unpopular to tell people who've put their asses on the line that they still haven't done enough to earn the kind of benefits that veterans of WWII received, which was Webb's whole point of drafting this bill. It takes real guts to stay home and not venture anything at all on this brave, politically unpopular non-move of yours, John. A very gutsy move of no kind whatsoever.
Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election.
"Obama" nothing, Senator. Who wouldn't stand with Webb and the seventy-four other Senators who voted for this legislation even though they know that George Bush, who also doesn't give a shit about the troops, is going to veto it? I know I don't agree with Webb on everything, but sometimes it's important to side with Americans just because they're Americans and they're trying to do right by people who have earned it.
You stayed home.
Bravely, according to you.
You've "earned" the right to your nation's contempt.
.