10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don’t)
1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has “evolved,” yet he’s continued to oppose key civil rights laws.
2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi.”
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.
4. McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”
5. The Children’s Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children’s health care bill last year, then defended Bush’s veto of the bill.
6. He’s one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a “second job” and skip their vacations.
7. Many of McCain’s fellow Republican senators say he’s too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He’s erratic. He’s hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.
9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his “spiritual guide,” Rod Parsley, believes America’s founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a “false religion.” McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church “the Antichrist” and a “false cult.”
10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.
This is pretty heavy stuff, but certainly worth a look. Make sure to check out the site to see the sources. I haven’t had a chance to look this over, but I’ve already noticed that many of the sources are from ThinkProgress an extremely left-wing site that rarely, if ever, posts negative blogs about Obama and constantly takes swings at Bush, McCain, and the Republican party. Again, I haven’t been able to check out these sources to see what Thinkprogress is relying on, but these are pretty powerful statements.
One thing I will add is that both candidates have been accused of having ties to cotroversial religious leaders. The media tends to sensationalize these fact and we are guilty as well of believeing that simply because a person is of a Church, then he must agree with everything the leader of that group says. Both Obama and McCain are capable of disagreeing with their religious mentors on several points. I just don’t think these facts represent true worries for the American people.
