16. too clarify a previous statement, john mccain was not born in the u.s.a, he is a zonian, meaning that he was born in the panama canal zone when it was still controlled by the united states. but he was still born on the north american continent, and is so still an american.

tom lloyd at 11:21PM on Mar 21st 2007

17. Once upon a time I may have voted for him. But he has been too supported to all of Bushes policys with the exception of torture. While I respect his time in the service if he had his way we would be still fighting in Vietnam. I do not want someone as my President who will not look at all the possible ways of dealing with Iraq. We will not win in Iraq on are own and McCain will keep us there no matter how many lives are losts, how money spent or how much this brings down this country. This is a man will not comprise on this matter. WE need a President who will not keep us in this war because of his anger of the past of the USA leaving Vietnam before we "won" the war.

Jenifer M at 11:40PM on Mar 21st 2007

18. Yewah writes: OR IF PHIL WHO SAYS WHO'S STABLE OR NOT ??? COULD YOU HAVE SURVIVED AS HE DID?? WOULD YOU HAVE LEFT BEFORE THE OTHERS ???? VOTE WHO-EVER YOU WANT. VOTE FOR THE EASTER BUNNY, SANTA CLAUSE AND LET US NOT FORGET//// THE JOB IS NOT EASY BUT..ISN'T GREAT THAT WE AS AMERICANS HAVE THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH & FREEDOM. THANKS, TO ALL THE SERVICE PEOPLE THAT HAVE SERVED, I HAVE ALSO BUT...THANK-YOU JOHN McCAIN FOR COMING BACK ALIVE & SURVIVING AND YOU ARE THE ONE THIS COUNTRY NEEDS TO KICK BUTT & TAKE NAMES


Yewah, you've got me confused with Michael (Post 11). I'm the one that wrote Post 8 saying that his constantly changing and/or illogical positions have gone in so many "straight talk" directions that he's line staight spokes on a bicycle tire. But since you mentioned it, I probably could easily have taken it and would have likely stayed if how I've dealt with my life is any indication. I also have to agree with Michael though, he is too unstable - his flip flops prove it.

Like you, I too am grateful for our servicemen who went over to fight in an oil/land grab war that was meant all along to turn Iraq into a colony. I'm especially empathetic of the wounded service men who come home to the horrible healthcare provided by Bush and Republicans. The real courage these men have shown is that they joined the service, and show the discipline we expect of servicemen, which is going to war - even if the person sending you to die or get injured is only looking for a new source of oil.

Yewah, one thing you may not know is that other people besides prisoners of war and servicemen have to face hardship also. When I was 26, I was in asleep in the backseat of a car where the driver lost control, the car rolled endlessly down a ravine and I was thrown threw the roof. I woke up, staring at the early morning stars in the darkness, lying on my split in half spinal cord with all the nerve endings cut in half, me lying on them full weight and not being able to move. I knew I would die if I got nervous - so I stayed calm.

When you suddenly in the middle of your 20s lose all feeling from the waist down its a horrible trauma. The spinal fusion operation alone was almost as painful as the accident. In the rehab center, patients eat with plastic silverware because of the high suicide risk. They didn't need to worry about me - I may the decision to live when I was lying on the ground staring at the stars.

I got to work, and was the fastest person to graduate from the rehab center for my level of injury and the fastest to return to full time work. The driver declared bankruptcy so I'm not one of those people who made millions off being normal one minute, and a paraplegic for the rest of my life the next.

When I felt I wasn't making enough money, I went to one of the top 20 law schools in the country, even though most people in my class were straight out of college and had their study techniques down pat - where I worked for 8 years before returning to the classroom. I beat out 80% of all of them, got hired by one of the largest law firms in California at the time (350 lawyers), and became a partner in the firm in 6 years.

During the time I practiced law, my work ethic was so strong that I refused to listen to any repeat doctors' warnings about slowing down an taking my disability into account. As a result, during the 12 years I worked as a lawyer I had 14 pressure sore operations. For roughly half of them - I literally could not leave the bed (for any reason) for six weeks. Now, I've had so many surgeries that another operation has almost zero chance of success so I have to lay down half the day.

For most of those 12 years I also had chronic urinary tract infections. Let me tell you what that feels like. Since I can feel diffused internal abdominal pain, when my infection soaked bladder would convulse from infection, my entire digestive tract would also convulse. The pain is indescribable - but you can go from feeling normal to throwing up in about one minute. The infections became so constant that I took antibiotics every three weeks and became immune to almost all of them. I'd be writing briefs and quietly moaning pain while I did it. Finally, the infections and spasms just didn't stop, my life was in danger, and after futiley trying to work part time (even though I could have easily gotten full disability then) I had to go out on permanent disability. It broke my heart - I loved my job.

Finally things got so bad with the urinary tract infections that I had to have my bladder cut out, they chopped a piece of my intestinal tissue out and created a new internal artificial bladder. So I had to deal with being mutilated once again. The pain of that operation cannot be described. Now, in the last six months, I've had sepsis three time - what that means is that my blood stream has gotten infected with fevers of 103 for days (its how Christopher Reeves died). Every time it happens, you don't know if you will live or die - kind of like being a soldier at a checkpoint in Bahgdad with a soaring fever that seems to never end on top of it. I found out the cause of the sepsis was that I was part of the unlucky 5% where scar tissue covered the ureters and the kidneys retain fluid - its potentially deadly.

Now after paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes, destroying my body because I simply couldn't stand not to work, I have to live as a retiree at age 50. Its taken me seven years to get adjusted to it. I can only be up half the day, my renal system is shot, and I've finally managed to reach some balance in my life. I blog for the Democratic party a couple hours a day if I'm not to sick. Last year my medical expenses were about $12,000 out of my pocket. I take one art course a week and promise each week I'll practice everyday between classes - but haven't been able to do that because now my intestinal tract is shot from all the antibiotics and I have IBS, which means constant pain, every day, and no pain pills.

I guess the lessons here are: (a) quote the right person when you post, (b) don't ask stupid "what if" questions, (c) drop the mindset that only military personnel face fear, suffering and pain, and (d) drop the idea that being a prisoner of war qualifies you to be President - it deserves commendation for bravery but doesn't instantaneously make you a genius.

Your attitude of "kick butt and take names" means you've never looked at the implications of this war. Besides the 3200 dead servicemen and women, there are tens of thousands of wounded who will have to live like I do - except worse because the Republicans cut military benefits. Bush's own intelligence service has said the war has created MORE danger than ever for America because now millions of Muslims have become potential terrorists and they are not all in Iraq. Plus, by invading Iraq which had no connection to terrorism or WMD, but did kill the Sunni buffer to insane Shiite Iran - we now face the threat of the craziest nation on earth having a nuclear bomb.

In closing, thank you for your service - I can relate, year after year after year. I still think John McCain's "Straight Talk Express" shoudl be named "Flip Flop Express." First, McCain said Evangelicals were the agents of intolerance (and in fact 20 million, or one third of evangelicals have stopped following the Jerry "agents of intolerance" religion that Jerry Falwell preaches. That didn't stop old flip flop from reversing his original opinion about them to get votes and going to Jerry's college to give the commencement address. McCain is also the one who said we should have gone in with 300,000 troops. Since we can barely manage a 25,000 person surge, its odd that McCain did not think through his warhawk idea and figure out where we would get the troops. McCain loves the surge, even though it means we are sending young men and women to die because they didn't have time to be fully trained, or are being sent back without insufficient time to rest between endlesss deployments. Also, old flip flop has gotten into the habit of blaming generals for the Iraq failure while not criticizing our commander in chief - again whoring for votes from those who love Bush. Old flip flop is also a slave of Big Pharma, and voted not to let Medicare negotiate lower drug prices for me and the other 40 million or so disabled and seniors who depend on those drugs to live - while at the same time dealing with fixed incomes.

McCain as President would be stay the course but worse, and, I agree with you that its wonderful that we have freedom of speech so I can talk about how unqualified he is to be President.

Phil at 3:05AM on Mar 22nd 2007

19. Get on board and go to the back of the Bus, I know who I am voting for
Billie

Billie Gentry at 11:11AM on Mar 22nd 2007

20. I'm on board with BBill and Billie Gentry. Actually, for Democrats, it would be a dream come true if McCain were the Republican nominee. He fell asleep during the State of the Union address. Maybe he would nod off in the Presidential debates.

"President McCain, we've just been invaded by radical Muslims !!!!" "Thank you General, I'll deal with it just as soon as I finish my nap."

Phil at 1:30PM on Mar 22nd 2007

21. HE WAS A HERO,THAT WAS THEN,THIS IS NOW.
I WOULD NEVER VOTE FOR MCCAIN.
AS FAR AS OTHER COUNTRIES ARE
CONCERNED,I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS
WHAT EUROPE,OR ANYONE ELSE THINKS
OF THE U.S.,FLAT OUT, THEY ARE JEALOUS.!!

robert seaton at 2:03PM on Mar 22nd 2007

22. I have never understood the intense pressure of who is going to be President. Yes, whomever can put up a better front and appearance than our good 'ole boy that is in office now but the only TRUE thing a president can promise is starting a war. That is the ONLY power they have. So, any candidate can promise you the sun, moon and the stars but they cannot deliver it without the approval of Congress. As far as I am concerned it is all cheap talk allowing people to believe that they can do the things they promise.
And while on the subject...John Edwards needs to be with his wife. She now has incurable cancer and even if she lasts the campaign he will always be consumed by her health (as he should be). I am a nurse and bone cancer IS incurable and the pain is beyond bearable. Shame on him. He could always run in 2012. He loses my vote on that issue along with how he became a millionaire ambulance chaser.
But let's get real people. No candidate can promise you anything but to TRY to initiate change.

Kat at 3:40PM on Mar 22nd 2007

23. "but it sometimes feels as though a huge percentage of conservatives don't even believe global warming is real, much less man-made."

As a scientist I feel like no one in the press ever makes the statement that global warming is a natural phenomenon. Anyone who took Earth Science in Junior High should know this information. Anyone who saw the movie "Ice Age" should be able to figure this out. How else do you think the Earth came out of the last glacial period? The current global warming crisis is the amplification of the natural signal by human activities. I must say that there is very little controversy over the existence of global warming as a natural phenomenon in science circles nor the amplification of that signal by human activities. I also must state that if the current global warming trends continue and the current climate of the Earth degrades, it is not the Earth we will destroy but rather human civilization as we know it. What a bunch of pompous, narcisstic know it alls we are to think that WE can destroy the Earth. The Earth will still exist, human civilization just may not be able to make the transition.

TJM at 3:48PM on Mar 22nd 2007

24. Need to leave Guantanamo open and put juan mccain in custody.

Carlos at 7:05PM on Mar 22nd 2007

25. McCain is trying to get elected President of the United States. Like all the others, he is seeking the right thing to say to get elected. Once in Office,like all the others, he is just another party politician.

Bbill at 9:35PM on Mar 22nd 2007

26. John McCain might as well run for the liberal ticket. He finally gave in to the far left when he said we should close Gitmo. While the terrorists are cutting off people's heads, the leftist-socialists are crying over keeping extremists in jail without cable tv and lawyers. It makes me sick. Our soldiers are in harms way every day and instead of honoring them, we put them on trial for killing a civilian or to in Iraq. By the way, who are the civilians and who are the terrorists? Is there any way to tell?

dan at 3:07PM on Mar 23rd 2007

27. Phil, you're my civilian Democratic hero. I am your retired military Republican friend. Here's to you!

Jean at 9:24PM on Apr 15th 2007