Why the PhD won’t vote McCain

Doing my evening patrolling around the internet, I stumbled over a post by Deebow at Blackfive entitled “One Reason I Will Vote For McCain“. Deebow links to an opinion piece on Military.com entitled “Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain“, written by Phillip Butler, a former Naval Academy classmate and fellow POW of John McCain’s.

Now, Deebow did an admirable job critiquing Mr. Butler’s piece, but I’d like to pile on – seein’s how I’ve recently become a “Blog for McCain“.

Mr. Butler begins by telling us what a piss-poor student and cadet John McCain was. I’m sure he wasn’t the first and as an ROTC instructor, I can tell you he wasn’t the last. The worst story he could recite was the time McCain took Butler, an underclassman, off of the campus grounds to a bar seven miles away and wouldn’t let Butler have a beer. GASP!

Now Butler goes on to say “I could tell many other midshipman stories about John that year…” but he doesn’t, because that’s the worst one he could tell – if he had worse stories to tell he certainly would have given the title of his article. (Emphasis is my own throughout)

Then Butler writes;

[H]e barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates.

Ah! Speculation – not proof, just a bunch of post-pubescent boys making guesses about their elders’ judgement. Hardly evidence.

Butler begins to veer off into the absurd;

People often ask if I was a Prisoner of War with John McCain. My answer is always “No – John McCain was a POW with me.” The reason is I was there for 8 years and John got there 2 ½ years later, so he was a POW for 5 ½ years. And we have our own seniority system, based on time as a POW.

More of the same crap I’ve run into from the VVAW and IVAW people recently – an intellectually vacant discussion over whose service has the most worth. Funny how they always slip into that mode of superiority. But Butler continues along that line of reasoning;

Was he tortured for 5 years? No. He was subjected to torture and maltreatment during his first 2 years, from September of 1967 to September of 1969. After September of 1969 the Vietnamese stopped the torture and gave us increased food and rudimentary health care. Several hundred of us were captured much earlier. I got there April 20, 1965 so my bad treatment period lasted 4 1/2 years.

I’m not demeaning Butler’s service, but splitting hairs like that is ridiculous. It borders on being a crybaby.

But my point here is that John allows the media to make him out to be THE hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true, to further his political goals.

The media makes him out to be a hero, he hasn’t contributed to that not a whit. He’s always said he’s no different than from any other POW. His book is very clear on that point.

John was badly injured when he was shot down. Both arms were broken and he had other wounds from his ejection. Unfortunately this was often the case….But it must be known that many POW’s suffered similarly, not just John.

Who has said differently? I’ve never seen any media stories, books or movies that ever said McCain’s treatment and condition was different from anyone else’s.

John was offered, and refused, “early release.” Many of us were given this offer.

That’s not a reason to not vote for him, Mr. Butler.

John certainly performed courageously and well. But it must be remembered that he was one hero among many – not uniquely so as his campaigns would have people believe.

Again, no one has ever made that distinction.

He was not an individual POW hero. He was a POW who surmounted the odds with the help of many comrades, as all of us did.

McCain has admitted that thousands of times, so where is Butler going with this?

We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John’s age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.

So now Butler can see into the future? It’s the same thing they said about President Reagan in his 1984 campaign – not very original.

I furthermore believe that having been a POW is no special qualification for being President of the United States. The two jobs are not the same, and POW experience is not, in my opinion, something I would look for in a presidential candidate.

I agree completely. If that was the only thing McCain was campaigning on as his experience I probably wouldn’t vote for him either. In fact, I voted against a guy in the 2004 election who campaigned solely on his medals and his three months in Vietnam. But John McCain isn’t even talking about his time as a POW during the campaign, is he? John Kerry, on the other hand ended each sentence with a reference to his three months service in Vietnam.

I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button.

I’m known as a hothead, too, but see we hotheads know when to turn it off. The “finger next to that red button” was just scare mongering and hyperbole, wasn’t it, Mr. Butler?

I’m disappointed to see John represent himself politically in ways that are not accurate. He is not a moderate Republican. On some issues he is a maverick. But his voting record is far to the right.

I’ll bet Dennis Kuchinich is too far right for Mr. Butler. Now he’s completely outside his area of expertise since this whole thing is about how well he knows John McCain from their days in the Navy together.

…he has taken every opportunity to ally himself with some really obnoxious and crazy fundamentalist ministers lately.

“Some”? Or did Butler mean “one”? Please.

I was also disappointed to see him cozy up to Bush because I know he hates that man.

How does Butler “know” John McCain hates President Bush? Did McCain tell Butler, or is this just more guesswork on his part?

Senator John Sidney McCain, III is a remarkable man who has made enormous personal achievements. And he is a man that I am proud to call a fellow POW who “Returned With Honor.”[…]I think John Sidney McCain, III is a good man, but not someone I will vote for in the upcoming election to be our President of the United States.

Those two sentences are at odds…well until you read Mr. Butler’s bio and get to the last line;

He is now a peace and justice activist with Veterans for Peace.

So all of the previous blather and speculation can all be boiled down to it’s essence; Mr. Butler won’t vote for a Republican president. Pure and simple. He could have saved us all the time and trouble if he’d just said that upfront.

Category: Antiwar crowd, Historical, John McCain/Sarah Palin, Politics, Support the troops, Terror War