McCain's DADT Support Letter Signed By A Bunch Of Dead Guys

On the matter of "Don't Ask Don't Tell," Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) once promised that he would listen to "leaders in the military," telling people that the "day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, Senator, we ought to change the policy, then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it." But when those military leaders came to him and told him it was time to change the policy, McCain retreated from his previous pledge, because it turns out he gets to pick and choose which military leaders he gets to heed.

And in this case, McCain has chosen the signatories of a letter signed by "over a thousand retired and flag general officers," among other folks. But, as noted by Amanada Terkel, that letter turns out to be something of an exercise in ghost whispering:

...a new Servicemembers United report obtained in advance by DC Agenda severely undermines the legitimacy of this letter. Some of the problems:

- The average age of the officers is 74. The "oldest living signer is 98, and several signers died in the time since the document was published." Servicemembers United Executive Director Alex Nicholson added that only "a small fraction of these officers have even served in the military during the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' period, much less in the 21st century military," so it's hard to believe that they "know how accepting and tolerant 18- and 21-year-olds are today."

- "At least one signer, Gen. Louis Menetrey, was deceased when the letter was published and didn't sign the document himself. According to a footnote on the letter, his wife signed the document for him after his death using power of attorney -- six years after Alzheimer's disease robbed him of the ability to communicate."

Additionally, there's the little problem of those living signatories who "never agreed" to sign the letter, as well as a handful who have some remarkably backward views on the world in which we live, such as this guy.

Anyway, for his next trick, John McCain will produce an 1876 letter from General George Armstrong Custer that reads, "No, no, don't worry, I can totally take these guys!"

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Comments

[myhomeo]

04:20 PM on 03/13/2010

John McCain has no integrity and no honor. Plain and simple.

[RobRob]

11:09 AM on 03/08/2010

God, I hope Hayworth wins and that old RINO is put out to pasture.

[Clevelandinwi]

10:45 AM on 03/27/2010

Careful! Do you really want jdhaywort, the BIRTHER ? Having another one of these in Congress is scary.

[dfranz]

09:03 AM on 03/08/2010

Hahahaha The average age of retired military personnel signing his letter was 74. What a joke. McCain is so out of touch he's become a dinosaur and doesn't realize that time has changed things.

John McCain's time has come and passed it's time for him to retire.

[myhomeo]

04:36 PM on 03/13/2010

Show some respect. General pershing signed that letter.

[Clevelandinwi]

10:46 AM on 03/27/2010

Someone said there was a Gen. G. Washington as a signer.

[hallowellboy]

09:01 AM on 03/08/2010

Poor John McCain. All his pals and ideas have gone.

[armadillo]

08:42 AM on 03/08/2010

By observing him for the past 24 moths it's amazing that McCain has come as far as he did in politics. For God's sake, you should only be able to ride a burning jet down for so long.

[marecek]

08:30 AM on 03/08/2010

Well, McCain respects the opinion of those he feels most comfortable with the AGED and the DEAD, aka HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

[dimplesmile7]

06:18 AM on 03/08/2010

He is no war hero and I don't care if you disagree. He was shot down the second he arrived in Vietnam and taken as prisoner. There were many that fought in real battles, died, lost limbs and made bigger scarifies than McCain. Those are the real heros.

[ena]

06:31 AM on 03/08/2010

I feel the same way. As the saying goes: "He's a legend in his own mind." The more I know about this man the less I like him. He is bereft of any integrity, then and now.

[istvan13]

09:25 AM on 03/08/2010

I agree, he was a hot dog and endangered fellow officers. He was shot down because of his errors, and if one believes some of what happened while he was a prisoner, he was a coward. He was accused of recording propaganda for the VC. I give these statements credit. He made sure all records from his time during Vietnam were sealed, and ended the search for MIA's at the behest of the Vietnam government in the early 90's.

There was a recording of a hearing where he yelled at a woman representing a group of families of MIA. It was disgusting; he ended up leaving in a huff.

His career is full of examples of his greed, hypocrisy and flip flopping, he needs to go down in flames.

[Rober]

05:01 AM on 03/08/2010

The arguments against gays in the military were also made with respect to African Americans serving in the military and were also made with respect to women serving in the military. Too bad so many refuse to learn the lessons of the past.

[SFTech]

03:10 PM on 03/10/2010

The difference is that you don't have male on male sexual desires in ANY of those other situations. I don't know if it's right or wrong, but didn't Bill Clinton (a democrat) initiate that policy?
All the John McCain bashing with not a PEEP about Billy C.

[Rober]

02:55 AM on 03/11/2010

Thanks for making my point. The sexual desire problem was strongly touted during the debate on integrating females in the military. To this day that argument is one of the ones used to prevent females from serving in combat units.

[NotStarvingArtist]

01:35 AM on 03/08/2010

Here is more evidence, if anyone still needs it, that McCain was not presidential material. The kindest view of this is that he was fooled by this letter. A less charitable view is that he knew it was bogus and decided to use it anyway to support his position on DADT. Either way, he certainly doesn't measure up to my standards for the presidency. As Barack Obama said, the election is over. John McCain is irrelevant and should stop his petty campaign to undermind the man who beat him. He just looks more and more foolish when he flip flops like this just because he wants to disagree with Obama.

[NevadaLib]

01:46 AM on 03/08/2010

John McCrashalotofplanes would be singing a different tune if a gay man saved his life when he was a POW.

[TheHandyman]

03:28 AM on 03/08/2010

We don't really know if one didn't do we. I served in Vietnam and there were 5 guys who didn't flaunt their "gayness," but they also would say that they weren't the only ones in our company. Some of McCain's fellow prisoners may well have been gay. They may still feel the need to remained closeted. Wouldn't it be a hoot if one of them came out and confronted Senator nobrains with it?

[Layman23]

12:09 AM on 03/08/2010

McCain, wimpy old cynical bitter man. If not for vietnam he will be a nobody.

[NevadaLib]

01:47 AM on 03/08/2010

actually, if not for divorcing his wife and marrying a different, very wealthy woman, he would not be anybody.

[ena]

06:32 AM on 03/08/2010

Great comment.

[Lilly-G]

09:48 AM on 03/08/2010

McC is such a classless human being and always has been.

[NotStarvingArtist]

12:12 PM on 03/08/2010

If not for his Admiral father getting him out of scrapes at Annapolis and getting him cushy assignments after Vietnam, he would be a nobody. Actually, since his failed election campaign, he is a nobody. He just can't accept it. I hope the people of Arizona have the good sense to vote him out of office.

[myhomeo]

04:25 PM on 03/13/2010

If not for his father he wouldn't have even made it to Annapolis.

[LarBear]

11:13 PM on 03/07/2010

Nothing really new here... Way back in Vietnam, when Mc Cain was a prisoner of War, there's good documentation Mc Cain gave the Enemy information about our Military, so they would go easy on him... Also, after being released and becoming a Senator, he did his best to block any information on POW's and MIA... Didn't want truth on HIM coming out... (google it)

A young Jane Fonda foolishly (young people do behave foolish sometimes) posed on a North Vietnam gun mount and is hated by many to this day... John Mc Cain is held up as a Hero, who survived torture... Which one was the greater betrayal, actually?

A far as I can tell, John Mc Cain has always said and done whatever HE Believes will benefit John Mc Cain... He has never been about America... It's (HE's) always, all ways, IS about John Mc Cain and getting what Mc Cain wants... Cindy Mc Cain is one of his best promoter/supporters...

[TheHandyman]

03:36 AM on 03/08/2010

Indeed. I have read several well documented articles on the fact that for 25 years after we turned tail and ran a stream of evidence came out of Vietnam that there were POWS there. A professor with access to Russian documents has said the Russians knew and tried to broker returns. Everything was quashed by McCain, he even got a little known law passed that if anyone released any of this information it was akin to treason. He even browbeat a woman in a wheelchair who tried to talk about her MIA son. That McCain ever survived in Congress to get to the point where he could run for President shows how bad it has gotten. One would have thought that a man who almost immediately abandons his wife and children to commit adultery with a rich woman who could satisfy his political ambitions would have been chewed up and spit out. But Americans do love their heroes, even when they are make believe ones!

[Lilly-G]

09:49 AM on 03/08/2010

Cindy acts like a battered wife.

[Michael Valentine]

10:55 PM on 03/07/2010

Well sure their dead now ......

[Mas]

10:46 PM on 03/07/2010

The sounds of crickets from the media. Just take a second and consider the outrage, call for a Congressional inquiry, media overdrive if the peron was a member of the Democratic Party. Take half a second to consider if it was ACORN.

[NevadaLib]

01:48 AM on 03/08/2010

yeah, but gay people don't tend to register a lot of democrats to vote.

[mardees]

08:58 AM on 03/20/2010

So true. And yet, what are we doing about it? Nothing.

[Kelsi Kennedy]

10:33 PM on 03/07/2010

disgusting

[FantasticFourFan]

10:28 PM on 03/07/2010

McCain used to be a real independent, now he's just anohter GOP hack. How sad.

[NevadaLib]

01:49 AM on 03/08/2010

he was never really an independent, or a maverick. that was campaign rhetoric that doesnt stack up with his past very well. When youre that old, chances are it's easy to remember a few occasions where you strayed from your party.

[TheHandyman]

03:39 AM on 03/08/2010

The fact that way back early in his career he was one of the Keating Five who participated in the first great economic collapse, the Savings and Loan crimes. He should have never survived that. John was always a wheeler and dealer in the inner circle of corruption!

[ena]

06:36 AM on 03/08/2010

McCain was never an independent. But it is sad that he is in a place to make law that affects us all when he never had any use for abiding by anything.