Rolling Stone article ..... 10 pgs ..... McCain is a first class jerk

[Botany]

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

A must read ..... thanx to DUer Vinca for posting a link to this article.

Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty
By TIM DICKINSONPosted Oct 16, 2008 7:00 PM

snip

There's a distance between the two men that belies their shared experience in North Vietnam — call it an honor gap. Like many American POWs, McCain broke down under torture and offered a "confession" to his North Vietnamese captors. Dramesi, in contrast, attempted two daring escapes. For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry, didn't survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word, and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the service's highest distinctions. McCain would later hail him as "one of the toughest guys I've ever met."

On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.

"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."

"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.

"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.

"Why? Where are you going to, John?"

"Oh, I'm going to Rio."

"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"

McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.

"I got a better chance of getting laid."

Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."

[TwilightGardener]

1. Ouuucchh. Thank you for the truth, Mr. Dramesi.

[Botany]

2. The story of how he got an aircraft carrier built even though Jimmy Carter ...

.... had vetoed it says much about McCain total like of character.

[DebbieCDC]

3. I wish Hunter S. Thompson were still with us

His Rolling Stone writings on the Nixon campaign are immortal. Can you just IMAGINE what he would do with McPOW/Mooselini????

RIP Dr. Gonzo

[damntexdem]

4. Oh, I wouldn't call him a first class jerk -- second class at best.

But he's really no class.

[FrenchieCat]

5. I printed that one and set it in the bathroom.......there to read

while I sit on the toilet!

[Botany]

6. Flush John McCain Away

So many things in the article show McCain is unfit to be President.

[DebbieCDC]

7. Reading this article made me think

Haven't we had ENOUGH of unqualified "presidents" just trying to one-up daddy? Jeebus, how many times do we have to go down this road before this national Oedipal nightmare runs its course???

[Mist]

8. After living through the improbable residency of *, the bar has been set so

very very low. I know the phrase "down the rabbit hole" has been used, and over-used, but this is surely the strongest example of how surreal life in American politics has become.