Any KOS pukes out there ? Please read this !!
And thank your privileged butts we have people like
John McCain in this country.

Sen. John Murtha voluntarily served in Vietnam also & has a number of medals to his credit. According to this logic, if I bring up Abscam or his behavior regarding the Haditha incident, that makes me a “Hot Air Puke” to the people over at KOS.

You can’t employ what has typically been a tactic of the left, which is to disqualify every policy debate or examination of a candidate based on their victim status or, as is the case with McCain, his “hero/POW/victim of torture” status.

Getting to Know John McCain
By KARL ROVE
April 30, 2008; Page A17

It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day. No, not that Doris Day. The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.
As we ate near the Days’ home in Florida recently, I heard things about Sen. McCain that were deeply moving and politically troubling. Moving because they told me things about him the American people need to know. And troubling because it is clear that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history.
When it comes to choosing a president, the American people want to know more about a candidate than policy positions. They want to know about character, the values ingrained in his heart. For Mr. McCain, that means they will want to know more about him personally than he has been willing to reveal.
Mr. Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, “I told you I would make you a cripple.”
The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day’s will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at “a goofy angle,” as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.
But it didn’t heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day’s splint in place.
Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complemented the treatment he’d gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.
Another story I heard over dinner with the Days involved Mr. McCain serving as one of the three chaplains for his fellow prisoners. At one point, after being shuttled among different prisons, Mr. Day had found himself as the most senior officer at the Hanoi Hilton. So he tapped Mr. McCain to help administer religious services to the other prisoners.
Today, Mr. Day, a very active 83, still vividly recalls Mr. McCain’s sermons. “He remembered the Episcopal liturgy,” Mr. Day says, “and sounded like a bona fide preacher.” One of Mr. McCain’s first sermons took as its text Luke 20:25 and Matthew 22:21, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” Mr. McCain said he and his fellow prisoners shouldn’t ask God to free them, but to help them become the best people they could be while serving as POWs. It was Caesar who put them in prison and Caesar who would get them out. Their task was to act with honor.
Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain can’t raise his arms over his head.
One night, a Vietnamese guard loosened his bonds, returning at the end of his watch to tighten them again so no one would notice. Shortly after, on Christmas Day, the same guard stood beside Mr. McCain in the prison yard and drew a cross in the sand before erasing it. Mr. McCain later said that when he returned to Vietnam for the first time after the war, the only person he really wanted to meet was that guard.
Mr. Day recalls with pride Mr. McCain stubbornly refusing to accept special treatment or curry favor to be released early, even when gravely ill. Mr. McCain knew the Vietnamese wanted the propaganda victory of the son and grandson of Navy admirals accepting special treatment. “He wasn’t corruptible then,” Mr. Day says, “and he’s not corruptible today.”
The stories told to me by the Days involve more than wartime valor.
For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.
Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. “I hope she can stay with us,” she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.
I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris, is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.
“We were called at midnight by Cindy,” Wes Gullett remembers, and “five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L. A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport.” Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, “I never saw a hospital bill” for her care.
A few, but not many, of the stories told to me by the Days have been written about, such as in Robert Timberg’s 1996 book “A Nightingale’s Song.” But Mr. McCain rarely refers to them on the campaign trail. There is something admirable in his reticence, but he needs to overcome it.
Private people like Mr. McCain are rare in politics for a reason. Candidates who are uncomfortable sharing their interior lives limit their appeal. But if Mr. McCain is to win the election this fall, he has to open up.
Americans need to know about his vision for the nation’s future, especially his policy positions and domestic reforms. They also need to learn about the moments in his life that shaped him. Mr. McCain cannot make this a biography-only campaign
– but he can’t afford to make it a biography-free campaign either. Unless he opens up more, many voters will never know the experiences of his life that show his character, integrity and essential decency.
These qualities mattered in America’s first president and will matter as Americans decide on their 44 th president.

Over the course of the weekend my comment sections on several posts was hit by anti-McCain comments that appear to be astroturfed, claiming that McCain’s actions during his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese was dishonorable…

The military pay chart in the above post is PER MONTH… not YEAR…

If you left your company and decided to receive your 401k payment in monthly installments nobody would claim that you are receiving a “handout” even if there was a matching component to it.

Which “measures” has he repeatedly voted down that are mentioned in the Kos piece?

Can you cite one?

The issue for McCain in this new GI bill – not yet voted on – is whether it will harm retention rates.

SteveMG on June 9, 2008 at 9:29 AM

Jeez, read the first comment in the piece. Do I have to do everything for you?

C’mon Kos, Aravosis and Amato. Let’s talk about how much he doesn’t deserve it. What could go wrong for you?

Fred Thompson talks about "Adhering to the Principles that Keep America Prosperous & Free."  How did we let him slip away and end up with McCain?
Congress still hasn’t worked this out?
$4 average per gallon of gas.  And it…

Which “measures” has he repeatedly voted down that are mentioned in the Kos piece?

Can you cite one?

The issue for McCain in this new GI bill – not yet voted on – is whether it will harm retention rates.

I am a partially disabled Desert Storm vet from the Navy. I am fully capable of performing my *civilian* job, but can no longer fully perform my military job. As a result, I get a small check from the government.

It is a form a retirement, but it is not retirement as is thought of in the traditional sense. I can no longer serve the country in the military, and so the government compensates me for the loss. My military job was considerably more rigorous (and fun!) than my current civilian job.

The fact that I’m outwardly fine, still run competitively, lift weights, and wrestle my son, mean nothing. The government says I can’t do my job, so I’m out.

John McCain can’t lift his arms over his head, for Christ’s sake! I’m sure we can agree that for that service he is due some compensation, but it doesn’t mean that he is prohibited from working for the rest of his life. Good freakin’ Lord, can’t these people take a breath and think?

MB4 on June 9, 2008 at 4:45 AM

OK, I can’t let this one pass. The military, until very recently, were the only group in the nation that had to fund their own disability out of their retirement. What this meant was, if I retired with, for example, a 50% disability (somewhere in the vicinity of $1300 a month) I would draw that amount from the VA, tax free, as it has always been. But my retired pay would be reduced from its normal amount (in my case, around $2600) by the same amount. Oh, and I get to pay taxes on all of that.

After decades of lobbying, a bipartisan bill passed saying that America’s warriors should be able to receive their pensions (retired pay) as well as any disability pay they are entitled to. Is that so extreme???

Did you not think people would read the Kos piece?

IMO, the Dems have every right to question McCain about his taking disability/compensation pay; after all, he is trying to win THEIR votes. He owes them an explanation. Remember, he has promised to remove the “obscene” profits from the oil industry (and hence, other peoples’ pay checks); and he regularly laments the growing disparity between the haves & the have-nots. Clearly, he believes that compensation rates in a number of industries are the purview of the government. And since he is obviously in the camp of the “haves”, he needs to explain to the liberals why his personal situation appears to be so much better than that of hard-working illegal aliens, McDonald’s & Wal-mart employees or even other injured war vets who really are unable to advance a career due to their disability.

Don’t get me wrong, I reject this entire premise….but for liberals (whom McCain loves so dearly & sides with so often) it is all about equality of outcomes for everyone, not justified compensation that is equal to the amount of work nor the amount of sacrifice.

To me it is a matter of compensation. I believe we have an obligation to our service men and women to provide that compensation. It has nothing to do with where they go/how high they climb afterwards. It has to do with where they were and what they did at the time.

Limerick on June 8, 2008 at 9:20 PM

The problem is calling it “compensation”. Disability/Compensation pay in nearly every industry is intended to cover disabilities that prevent earning future income & compensation to cover estimated lost wages.

If you believe we are obligated to give a monetary reward for certain injuries received in combat situations, fine. I wouldn’t even disagree with that….but also wouldn’t disagree with that for firefighters, police officers or other emergency responders who are injured in the line of duty. But I don’t believe that is how they get paid when injured. If their disability allows them to earn a living in another industry, their disability compensation is usually cut off or reduced accordingly based on their new income.

What does allow one to say that McCain’s $58k is disability pay is the fact that his pay, like mine, comes under a Democratic sponsored provision that eliminates the old “offset” Your disability pay until recently had the VA disability payment deducted from it.

Linh_My on June 9, 2008 at 3:53 AM

Congress lives in an alternate “reality”.

The left are fools to bring this up. MB4, sorry but you are wrong on this one.

Reread my much earlier comment.

He’s not getting $58k worth of disability. He’s retired O-6 with over twenty years.

MB4 on June 8, 2008 at 11:24 PM

We absolutely should be paying all our soldiers WAY more, it is obscene what the enlisted are paid.

melda on June 9, 2008 at 3:45 AM

Obscene? E-1′s will be getting $1,245.90 next year, plus “room and board” and Army food may be fit for human consumption by now. Plus enlistment bonuses of, what?, $20,000 or more? As an E-1, I got $98/mo = not quite $1,200 a year. There hasn’t been anywhere remotely enough inflation to make up anything like that difference.

But I would agree that, particularly with so few people joining these days, pay needs to be enough to attract sufficient Americans just like with anything else, except where some anti-Americans use illegal labor of course.

Starting in Aug, 1968:
2 months @ $100/mo = $200.
2 months @ $110/mo = $220.
6 months @ $250/mo = $1,500.
12 months @ $300+/mo = $3,600+
12 months @ $400+/-/mo = $4,800+/-
7 months @ $700+/mo = $4,900+
Total = $15,220+/-

In 1965 my base pay started at $78.00/month, so your $16k sounds reasonable. Still the linked pay chart shows that the same E-1 boot camp pay will be $1,245.90 next year.

My current 100% disability compensation for service in Viet Nam is roughly $30k/ year. My E-6 retirement, 8 years active 12 reserve is about $10k. so with disability and a reserve E-6 retirement I get roughly $40k. For a retired O-6 to get $58k sounds absolutely reasonable to me.

What does allow one to say that McCain’s $58k is disability pay is the fact that his pay, like mine, comes under a Democratic sponsored provision that eliminates the old “offset” Your disability pay until recently had the VA disability payment deducted from it.

If somebody offered you a $58,000 annual pension if you survived being shot out of a plane and torture for five years, would you accept it?

Discuss among yourselves.

Tantor on June 9, 2008 at 2:31 AM

Agree. The left are fools to bring this up. MB4, sorry but you are wrong on this one. About the only thing that makes me happy to pay taxes is the military. McCain and other disabled (or retired) vets deserve every penny they get (and more). We absolutely should be paying all our soldiers WAY more, it is obscene what the enlisted are paid.