I’ll give Cruz this election cycle, but here’s the most irresponsible thing said this week by a member of the McCain/Palin GOP candidates this week:
Two military officers who have conducted lengthy reviews of the circumstances that led to the abduction of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan in 2009 have concluded that he should not face jail time for having left his base.
Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, however, seems to think he knows better. Mr. McCain, a Navy pilot who was held captive for five years during the Vietnam War and tortured, told The Boston Herald that Sergeant Bergdahl is “clearly a deserter,” and threatened to hold a congressional hearing into the case “if it comes out that he has no punishment.”
***General Abrams is expected to decide soon whether the case should go before a court-martial now that the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding has concluded. He could decide to impose nonjudicial punishment or simply discharge him from the Army.
Mr. Bergdahl’s lawyer, Eugene Fidell, rightly protested that Mr. McCain’s remarks could constitute unlawful meddling by the legislative branch over a military prosecution. The senator should make it clear to General Abrams that he will respect his decision.
I simply refuse to treat Walnuts as an American hero anymore. He’s used up any good will he once may have earned.
Some guy
Public stocks, rotting vegetables. This is where McCray belongs
Ruckus
I simply refuse to treat Walnuts as an American hero anymore. He’s used up any good will he once may have earned.
He served, he spent several yrs as a POW, he deserves chops for that. Hero? Not from the stories that I’ve heard. Maybe I’ve only heard the bad ones, that is possible. So where are the stories that might make him a hero? In his own mind?
So yes, he’s used up all his good will for being a POW and is showing negative in the big book of points.
Brachiator
It’s odd that McCain has become the designated expert for military affairs. Totally undeserved, but the media and people who pay excessive attention to McCain are lazy and need to make better use of their time.
McCain’s remarks may be legally or ethically irresponsible, but that’s not the worst of it. He represents those who demand a pound of flesh from Bergdahl as proof that we now love our military and have atoned for the past sins of supposed Vietnam era disrespect.
But it seems to me that unless there is some evidence that Bergdahl deliberately did anything that put US soldiers in harm’s way, he should be dealt with mercy, because he has already suffered much.
I still respect McCain for what he endured. But it is telling that he shows no empathy for a person whose captivity resembled his own:
I think that both men have been punished enough.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Those kids on McCain’s lawn again!
What do you mean not his lawn? It’s all his lawn if he says so!
Time for the beltway media to find another military ‘expert’.
Villago Delenda Est
McCain damned himself to the netherworld forever with his choice for a running mate. Bringing Mooselini onto the national stage is an unforgivable sin.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
We should sing McCain’s praises to the heavens for his selection of Palin as running mate.
This helped secure Obama’s victory.
Emerald
As I recall the reason for McCain’s heroism was that he refused early release from the Hanoi Hilton when it was offered, and insisted that he would stay until the rest of the prisoners were released. The Vietnamese knew his daddy was an Admiral. They treated him badly when he refused to cooperate with their publicity plans.
But yeah, he’s getting to the sell-by date.
“But it is telling that he shows no empathy for a person whose captivity resembled his own”
Indeed
Brachiator
@Emerald:
So, their use of torture was reasonable, or even understandable? And somehow McCain was at fault, or partly responsible?
Frankensteinbeck
@Brachiator:
I’m pretty sure Emerald is saying the opposite, that McCain did actually sacrifice heroically during his captivity. Yet as much as that selflessness should be admired, the person he has become since has spit on and betrayed those actions, and now deserves no respect.
David Koch
This is a guy who kept screaming the congress shouldn’t interfer with the executive branch when Bush was president. He would go on about “we can’t 535 Defense Secretaries!”
NotMax
Anything McCain has said this century has been wrong.
Including “hello” and “good-bye.”
trollhattan
Fucking McCain. Just retire, or something, dude. The downside is Arizona will send us someone several times as crazy.
In the category of “most disturbing article I’ll read this year” I give you Malcolm Gladwell on the rise of school spree shooters. Chilling to the very core. A brief excerpt.
seaboogie
Grampy’s affinity with Graham, and their mutual macho brotherhood of whaaarrrhhhh would probably be worthy of a politico grad student/psych grad student case study.
Between Grampy’s “Bomb, bomb, bomb – bomb bomb Iran” deal, and Lindsey’s constant vapors and agro posturing, they are a pretty weird twosome. I suspect the the favored son POW who crashed two planes and the bachelor senator are doing a whole lot of compensating. An interesting updated version of “The Odd Couple.” I’m not saying they are gay together, but that they’ve found strength in uniting in war against other countries in order to deal with their own, individual personal issues which are larger in their minds than they are in ours.
seaboogie
@trollhattan: Wow…for some reason of links and such, I ended up exploring the Columbine massacre, and related newer shootings in the last couple of days. In reading your post, I will tell you that as a non-violent person, if you torture a pet, or even any other animal that we have domesticated, I WILL CUT YOU! That’s when you release my animal. Knee in groin and fist driving nose into skull…
EconWatcher
Yes, an elected legislator throwing himself into adjudicative proceedings is completely outrageous.
But McCain is 79 years old, and his body and mind have been through more than most people.
He needs to get out of public life, and someone who loves him needs to convince him of this.
But I don’t think his behavior now discounts who he was and what he did earlier in his life.
My dad turned into a complete raving wingnut in his last years, and I’m glad he wasn’t in public life for everyone to see it, but I don’t think it discounts his earlier life.
Certainly, McCain has always been opportunistic, and his most liberal period was after the Bushes played dirty against him in the 2000 primaries. But he has genuinely stood for some decent things, including campaign finance reform.
I’m just resisting the idea that a very old and worn man, who may be simply losing it, can wipe out any honor from his past through absurd or outrageous things he says now. There but for the grace, etc., etc.
Mandalay
@Emerald:
But did McCain really ever have the option of personally accepting or refusing early release? Wouldn’t it have been be up to his superiors to decide that? (I’m not picking on McCain. I just wonder whether people in that situation even have the option to accept or refuse early release from the perspective of the US Military.)
AFAIK McCain was offered early release on multiple occasions, and on one occasion Kissinger explicitly refused it. It surely would be awful for morale if he had been released while others were left behind.
I suspect we will never know the full truth about McCain’s captivity, in part because McCain himself went to great lengths to cover things up, and some unkindly refer to him as Hanoi John.
We get different versions of the truth from different sources (the military brass, McCain’s former comrades, and McCain himself) and I don’t think anyone truly knows all the facts. Not even McCain.
Villago Delenda Est
@EconWatcher: He destroyed his honor, his integrity, when he went along with the torture regime of the deserting coward as the price for having a shot at the 2008 GOP nomination. He sold his soul for that, and he’s been a void ever since.
Mandalay
@Villago Delenda Est:
This.
Palin instantly became (and remains) an object of ridicule, but that masked the massive irresponsibility of what he did. Though the consequences of his action were far less severe than Bush’s invasion of Iraq, it was done with the same level of recklessness, and was on that level of absolute stupidity. What McCain did was unforgivable and inexcusable.
And for all his other failings, Sullivan pointed out better than anyone that it really wasn’t a joking matter.
Marc
Neither of my senators is worth much, IMHO. They get the respect of being a Senator, but nothing of that is attached to them as a person – I’m respecting the office they occupy. The little land deal with the mining company they slipped into defense legislation should the the final nail in their careers, but since they’re politicians (and Republican), it doesn’t even ruffle their feathers, because it helps ‘business’. Foreign owned business, but that is just nitpicking…money is money, when it comes to running for reelection.
ThresherK (GPad)
This is sorta the mirror image of “When do we stop punishing an ex-con for having been convicted?”
Also, how can he turn into Driftglass’ Crazy Uncle Liberty if people with media megaphones keep paying attention to him? We’re all supposed to be sitting in a minute of uncomfortable silence, eye-rolling allowed, until McCain loses focus of nods off.
Patricia Kayden
“threatened to hold a congressional hearing into the case ‘if it comes out that he has no punishment.’”
Nice. So now McCain is a straight up bully. Perhaps he should personally punish Bergdahl since he’s already determined that the man is guilty of desertion. It’s not as if McCain has demonstrated that he has poor judgment about people (i.e. thinking that Palin was even slightly qualified to be VP). Looking forward to his retirement.
Calliope Jane
Same guy who in 93/94 went to the senate floor to rail against…the federal government forcing Arizona to celebrate Dr. MLK Jr day.
Who used his opposition to MLK day while campaigning in SC in 2000 to show what a fan he was of “states’ rights,” in solidarity with the state flying the confederate flag.
When asked in 2008 about his MLK Day comments, he insisted on only referring to the 93/94 comments, ignoring ’00, and saying something about youthful mistakes…in his 50s?
And, I believe as mentioned above, condemned torture one day then said nothing when Bush issued a signing statement stating the executive could ignore the prohibition.
Plus inflicting Palin on the rest of us. Also, I’m still irritated that no one on his staff could tell the difference between Walter Reed AMC and Walter Reed Elementary School. WRAMC wasn’t too far away and they even had a website! Didn’t anyone ever visit the rehab center there? That he was stuck with that ridiculously green screen behind him during his convention speech seemed appropriate payback.
Another Holocene Human
@Brachiator: Beautifully said. But mercy is a foreign word to our brave new world.
Another Holocene Human
@seaboogie: Graham can’t really hide that he’s gay but he also seems to be celibate by choice. I doubt that he’s hiding something because people like that always tell on themselves. Sure, he jumped on the Chik-Fil-A thing to try to ingratiate himself with his voters, but that is several layers of abstraction away from the nasty sorts of things that closet cases tend to say in public. Even Josef Ratzinger came out with nastier stuff; clearly, he was angry about whatever he was struggling with.
Not everyone has the same sex drive. We don’t really know about the heterosexual ones because ambitious political men seek to make the advantageous political marriage. For whatever reason Graham didn’t have to or it never worked out. So he stands alone.
In a sense he has that in common with McCain because his marriages were grist for his political career, not love matches. McCain did divorce the first wife for a richer model, IIRC, which is the only hint of “sexual” scandal between the two of them.
Matt McIrvin
So he’s angling for a bill of attainder if the military courts don’t get him the results he wants?
kindness
See and I figured he used up his ‘goodwill’ after he crashed his 5th fighter jet.
burnspbesq
Dumbass can hold hearings all day AFAIC. If (as I believe, but couldnt be certain of without doing research that I don’t have time to do right now) there is nothing that Congress can do to overturn the results of the Article 32 hearing, then BFD. Is anyone who matters going to pay attention?
brantl
McCain was disobeying orders when he was shot down. He wouldn’t have been in that airspace, if he hadn’t. What a hero! He also set fire to an aircraft carrier by hot-dogging, and crashed 4 planes (at least one of those by hitting a power line!), and another as a civilian.
brantl
@Brachiator:
It’s both! It’s a candy and a breath mint!
NotMax
@brantl
Which, under the operational rules at the time, would have been beyond sufficient to remove a pilot from the flight line, other than one who was the son and grandson of admirals.
EconWatcher
@burnspbesq:
The problem with McCain’s loose and nasty talk is the implicit threat to the judges and prosecutors: do what I want, or I’ll drag you to Washington for hearings, humiliate you in public, and hurt your careers.
He’s compromising the independence of the judicial process. It is outrageous.
Booger
Let’s not forget that John McCain destroyed more U.S. military aircraft piloted by John McCain than the Viet Cong could ever have hoped to. His captivity story is remarkable, but how has he built an entire career on that? Particularly when he has clearly forgotten the one lesson of empathy and decency he took away from that time.
Cervantes
@Ruckus:
I agree.
sherparick
@EconWatcher: McCain knows better, or should, since he is a retired field grade officer, and his dad and granddad were 4-star admirals. Further, I believe he was disciplined a couple times himself during his military career. Military courts martial can be appealed to the Supreme Court and one of the biggest problems now with any court martial would be the specter of command influence. If I was Bergdahl’s defense counsel I would subpoena McCain and at least depose him on his communications with the Military District of Washington and his superiors to see if he was placing pressure on them to use command influence on the decisions and outcome of Bergdahl’s court martial.
The context of this is Bergdahl has become another snipe to hunt because Obama negotiated his release through a prisoner exchange. Bergdahl is just another means to the end of hurting the Obama administration, Democrats, and liberals.
Ruckus
@brantl:
I’ve already shown that I don’t care for the guy and his actions on that carrier after the fire started are not good but he didn’t start the fire. That’s been pretty well established as far as I’m concerned. As I said he was a POW for a number of years and he was tortured and that’s real. That he got there because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time may be real but I know a fella who’s plane got shot 3 times, made it back to the carrier once OK had to ditch twice and no one accused him of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You flew over there, decent chance you could get hit, lots of people did. McCain’s problem is that he’s more than burned up all of his possible, if not at all real, positive sides from his service. And yes some say that you can’t do that, but I give you his record for the last 40 yrs and easily argue that he’s proven that one can.
Paul in KY
If that dickhead hadn’t been the son/grandson of navy admirals, he’d have been cashiered at the academy. If he’d somehow managed to get out of the academy, he’d have never made lieutenant.
Adam L Silverman
@Emerald: The rule was last in, last out. Once his captors realized that they had the son and grandson of admirals they wanted to leverage that. While its true that higher ups in the chain of command and the national command authority, it has been pretty well reported that he, himself, refused the offer as well.
Paul in KY
@Booger: The NVA should have released him, only after getting assurances from Navy that he’d be back flying planes!
Paul in KY
@sherparick: Pedantic point, but an O-6 is considered ‘senior’ grade.
azlib
McCain s just playing politics. He is protecting his right flank. The Teahadists in AZ really hate him.
Jamey
“TRUMP WAS RIGHT!!!” (na-na-na-na-na-naaaa)
burnspbesq
@EconWatcher:
I agree that if McCain were a flag-rank officer, his threat would be a clear case of inappropriate command influence, but given his lack of ability to adversely affect their careers I expect the officers involved to politely shrug this off.
EBT
He got shot down while disobeying an order, then spent years in a pow camp. He is just mad someone is horning in on his bit.
john b
In related news, NY Times is reporting that Bergdahl will be the subject of the upcoming season of the mystery podcast Serial (from one of the producers of This American Life):
NY Times article
It was apparently first reported by Maxim (?!?!) after they saw Sarah Koenig at a Bergdahl hearing. From that article:
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: US Senators, even senile ones, can make trouble for officers wishing to be promoted.
Sophist
@burnspbesq:
He’s the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over “pay, promotion, retirement, and other benefits and privileges of members of the Armed Forces”. Sounds like plenty of ability to “adversely affect their careers” to me.