AGE IS RELATIVE

McCain answers the age question. Again I say, when candidates become afraid to speak they become something other than themselves. If candidates were more forthcoming and real they would become more human. Reagan was a master at this. Check this one out and laugh as I did.

This is where John McCain may have won the Republican nomination. It was obvious he didn't so much plan this as it just happened. It is remniscent of Ronald Reagan's zinger of Walter Mondale in answer to the age question. Sound familiar? McCain needs to do more of this type of speaking and let people get to know him. It is rare to watch all of the other candidates applaud his statement. That was a total winner.

A post at Dr.D's American Power (blogroll) got me thinking about war and it ramifications. As I said at his site, most veterans return home and live boring, mundane lives. While boring may be a bad thing to some, to us it represents normalcy. When you have been subjected to abnormalcy, it is a blessed beautiful thing to get back to normal. I have been blessed everyday of my life to return home and be a husband, father, brother and and a son. It has been great.

When my daughter was diagnosed with MS I was devastated. It represented the only time in my life I felt out of control. I have adjusted to her disease and I am in awe at her determination to live her life to the fullest. She has showed me what it takes to fight back and succeed against something against which you have no control. In my life control has been everything. Now it is nothing. Events have controlled me and I have to adjust. I am.

I picked this video because it reminds me of some things I had forgotten. It also reminds me of why I didn't want Kerry to be president. McCain is the epitome of a veteran who has adjusted to his life and excelled. He said that the minute he stepped off the plane in 1973 he forgot about Vietnam. That is what I tried to do and I am amazed, after what he went through, he was man enough to say good-bye.

We have to have a man like McCain be our president. Kerry was crap and I was glad to work for his defeat. He wasn't crap because he was against the war. Anyone who was in one is against war. He stepped over the line when he talked about his brothers as criminals. That was a blatant grab for power on his part and was unforgivable. I will never forgive him for that.

I will never vote for someone who advocates the disarmament of our country. Obama is wrong on every issue and I will work to defeat him. He is a panderer to anti-war groups. I don't like war, but I understand that it is necessary at times in history. MCCAIN.

McCAIN'S NEW AD

Thanks to Dr.D at American Power (blogroll)for posting this first.

As anyone who has read this blog knows John McCain is a big hero of mine. As a fellow Vietnam Veteran I am excited about the prospect of having a brother in the White House. While I share in some small way his service, I am in no way equating my service with his. A comparison of McCain with his Dem challengers is unfair on its face. He is a hero who sacrificed an unbelievable amount for his country.

That is not to say that people who have not been in the military are not on an equal footing with those who have. The point I want to make is that McCain understands, as no other candidate, what it means to be ready to defend America. In Dr.D's blog he posted several who looked upon this commercial as a repudiation of Obama's patriotism. On the contrary, the commercial was verification of McCain's sacrifice for his country and his qualifications for this job. I don't want a president to learn on the job in this extremely trying time.

The debate rages between the Dems about who is ready on "Day One." McCain is the only one who can lay claim to being ready on "Day One." As the commercial says he has felt the fire and he is ready to lead us.

THE BEST RENDITION OF THE NATIONAL ANTHEM I HAVE EVER HEARD

This is the video. I play it a lot and I am touched each time I hear it. For a veteran, this puts into perspective what your service was about. I have said many times I went in the military when I did because I thought it was the right thing to do. The decision others made was personal to them. The decision I made was personal to me. Give this a listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKCVS57j284
This might be the most incredible rendition of the National Anthem you have ever heard. Thanks to Right on the Left Coast for posting this. I was overwhelmed when I heard it today.

OBAMA TRIES FOR DAMAGE CONTROL

Obama's speech yesterday was well-crafted. Much as Obama himself, closer examination reveals flaws. The speech wasn't so much about race as it was a blatant attempt at damage control. Put aside the attempt at camoflouge concerning the incendiary remarks of Jeremiah Wright. There is absolutely no way to misunderstand the remarks. They are racist and inflammatory. They are divisive, shocking in their hatred, and of no use in bridging any racial divide. That is not their intent. Statements of a similar nature by a white preacher would have been universally condemned.

My biggest problem with the speech is that you really have to want to be convinced by it for it to work. A couple of things really bothered me in the speech. First, Obama admitted, after intially denying it, that he had heard Wright make controversial statements from the pew. Isn't it interesting that that statement drew little attention. That is an admission of lying. You have to want to believe him for that to be ignored. YES WE CAN!

Then comes the uncontrollable urge of liberals to frame everything through the prism of moral equivalence. In his speech, Obama equates Geraldine Ferraro's statement that he would not be as successful in the election if he were white, with those of Wright. Put aside for a moment that the statement is clumsy. His resume is incredibly thin for a candidate at this stage of the campaign. Edwards fell by the wayside and rightfully so. Their political philosophy is almost identical. Their political experience is about the same, although Obama's is even less than Edwards. To equate Ferraro's statements with those of Wright is patently absurd. You have to want to believe. YES WE CAN!

Next Obama gallantly and with a lot of love I'm sure, gently throws his grandmother under the bus. Nice! To equate his grandmother's stated fear of being approached by a black man on the street with Wright's statements is incredible. Assuming that his grandmother is probably older, she is probably normal in experiencing fear of being approached by males of any race. I was a police officer and in certain situations I was nervous about being approached on the street by a male, regardless of race. And I had a gun. You have to want to believe. YES WE CAN!

Obama had a great opportunity to accept responsibility for his obfuscation and he dropped the ball. In the process, his character flaws and the bankruptcy of his campaign were laid bare for all to see, provided you allowed yourself to see. You have want to believe in him to buy his rhetoric. YES WE CAN!

NEA WITHHOLDING THEIR ENDORSEMENT

Having read the latest issue of the Ohio Education Association (NEA) I was shocked to find out that they are withholding their endorsement for POTUS, saying that neither Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama has met their criteria for endorsement. That criteria would of course be merely securing the Democrat nomination for president. I would imagine that as soon as it is official, the Democrat will get the nod as they have for years.

I was upset that John McCain wasn't offered the endorsement since he has already secured the Republican endorsement. McCain is intensely interested in education issues as are most Americans. His mistake is that he hasn't professed the issues as the NEA demands. I think it is safe to say he doesn't have much of a chance to gain the endorsement of the biggest labor union in America. The dirty little secret is that a large portion of the members of these unions in America don't support liberal candidates, as their leadership does and they resent their dues being disbursed to and used to endorse candidates they don't support. This is not a fair set-up and should be stopped. We know Dems don't have the courage to buck the unions and this system will thrive as long as Dems are in charge. I do not accept this system.

IN HIS OWN WORDS

As I have read his book "Faith of My Fathers," I have become more impressed with McCain, the man. I could write in this post about my admiration for him, however, I felt it would be quite instructive for others to read his words. Therefore, the following are excerpts from his book:

"Our senior officers always stressed to us the three essential keys to resistance, which we were to keep uppermost in our mind, especially in moments when we were isolated or otherwise deprived of their guidance and the counsel of other prisoners. They were faith in God, faith in country, and faith in your fellow prisoners.

Were your faith in any of these three devotions seriously shaken, you became much more vulnerable to various pressures employed by the Vietnamese to break you.

Ironically for someone who had so long asserted his own individuality as his first and best defense against insults of any kind, I discovered that faith in myself proved to be the least formidable strength I possessed when confronting alone organized inhumanity on a greater scale than I had conceived possible. Faith in myself was important, and remains important to my self-esteem. But I discovered in prison that faith in myself alone, separate from other, more important allegiances, was ultimately no match for the cruelty that human beings could devise when they were entirely unencumbered by respect for the God-given dignity of man. This is the lesson I learned in prison. It is perhaps, the most important lesson I have ever learned.

During the worst moments of captivity, keeping our faith in God, country, and one another was as difficult as it was imperative. When your faith weakened, you had to take any opportunity, sieze on any sight of it, and use any temporary relief from your distress to recover it.

To guard against such despair, in our most dire moments, POWs would make supreme efforts to grasp our faith tightly, to profess it alone, in the dark, and hasten its revival. Once I was thrown into another cell after a long and difficult interrogation. I discovered scratched into one of the cell's walls the creed "I believe in God, the Father Almighty." There, standing witness to God's presence in a remote, concealed place, recalled to my faith by a stronger, better man, I felt God's love and care more vividly than I would have felt it had I been safe among a pious congregation in the most magnificent cathedral.

In prison, I fell in love with my country. I had loved her before then, but like most young people, my affection was little more than a simple appreciation for the comforts and privileges most Americans enjoyed and took for granted. It wasn't until I had lost America for a time that I realized how much I loved her.

But though I longed for the things at home I cherished most, I still shared the ideals of America. And since those ideals were all that I possessed of my country, they became all the more important to me.

I thought glory was the object of war, all glory was self-glory. No more. For I have learned the truth: there are greater pursuits than self-seeking. Glory is not a conceit. It is not a decoration for valor. It is not a prize for being the most clever, the strongest, or the boldest. Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principles, to the people on whom you rely, and who rely on you in return. No misfortune, no injury, no humiliation can destroy it.

This is the faith that my commanders affirmed, that my brothers-in-arms encouraged my allegiance to. It was the faith I had unknowingly embraced at the Naval Academy. It was my father's and grandfather's faith. A filthy, crippled, broken man, all I had left of my dignity was the faith of my fathers. It was enough."


Do yourself a favor and read this book. You will know McCain as you never have before. You will also realize just how much this man dwarfs the others in the race. He is the epitome of a leader, tried and true. I hope America sees it as well.

PUTTING ASIDE IDEOLOGY TO VOTE FOR McCAIN

I have always considered myself to be a conservative. In fact, I would describe myself as a hard-core Republican. I first voted in the 1972 election for Nixon. I was in the military, in fact, I just returned from a Southeast Asian vacation, all expenses paid by the US Government. I thought then, and I think now, that we needed to either win the war or leave. It was apparent in 1972 that we were looking for a way out. Operation Linebacker and later Linebacker II, were nothing more than feeding more and more GIs into the meatgrinder in an effort to get the North Vietnamese to the bargaining table. I was appalled by the government's policy.

You then should ask yourself why I voted for Nixon. McGovern had stated that he would immediately withdraw the troops from the theater. While I and my colleagues were happy to hear that, we also understood that he was pandering to us. We were the ones who had been there and we saw that to pull out without finishing the mission would dishonor all who had paid the ultimate price. That may sound a little naive, but it is how we felt. How can I say "we?" McGovern got crushed in the election. We of all Americans got it.

For those who use Reagan's name to say that we should engage our enemies, I have some news for you. This isn't the Cold War. The Soviets were a lot like us in that they didn't want the destruction of the world. They wanted to dominate the world, that's for sure. But they also understood that if they were complicit in the destruction of the world in the process, everybody lost. The Cold War was a battle of ideals. Thankfully, the US won and our ideals are those of most of the world.

However, the difference then and now is stark. Our enemies now are of an incredibly different type. Unlike the Soviets, the Islamic extremists aren't about anything but making the rest of the world bend to their will by any means necessary. All you have to do is look at the fact that suicide bombers, and beheadings are their form of political speech. My question is this: How do you think that you are going to talk to these people, and be able to converse on some kind of human level?

History is a good lesson in how you should deal with foreign leaders. Let's take Woodrow Wilson for an example. He was an idealist who felt that if you get people together to talk out their differences you can save the world. That thought is very attractive. Attractive, but very misguided. That thought was thankfully rejected by the Senate. Article 10 of the League of Nations stated that an attack on one member was an attack on all members. George Washington was right in his Farewell Address when he counseled that America should avoid "entangling alliances." America should, as a country, act in its own interest. There are countries on who conversation is lost. These people are not someone that you can talk to. As much as Obama and Clinton want to portray these people as ones that you can engage in a dialogue, these people can not be engaged in a constructive dialogue. They respect bombs and beheadings. They deny that the Holocaust occurred. They think 9/11 was an inside job. They are convinced that blowing yourself up and killing innocent people is a political statement. Are you kidding me?

I don't want some starry-eyed idealist, or a political opportunist to be my president in these times. I want a president that understands that the world is populated by some scary people who only understand a resolute realist. As President Bush said, "I don't give a damn about polls." That's what we need at this time in history. In other words, we need someone who has felt the fire. We need someone who has been in the battle. The only candidate who fits that bill is JOHN McCAIN.