It looks like the more things change the more they stay the same. From NYT http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22689222/ McCain parries a reprise of S.C. smear tactics Republican sets up ‘truth squad’ to rebut attacks that cost him in 2000 By Elisabeth Bumiller updated 11:09 p.m. CT, Wed., Jan. 16, 2008 COLUMBIA, S.C. - Volunteers making telephone calls for Senator John McCain in South Carolina last weekend noticed something odd: Four people contacted said in remarkably similar language that they opposed Mr. McCain for president because of his 1980 divorce from his first wife, Carol, who raised the couple’s three children while Mr. McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. By Tuesday afternoon, a group calling itself Vietnam Veterans Against McCain had sent out a crude flier accusing the candidate of selling out fellow P.O.W.’s to save himself. By Tuesday evening, a group called Common Sense Issues, which supports Mike Huckabee, had begun making what it said were a million automated calls to households in South Carolina telling voters, according to one of the calls, that Mr. McCain “has voted to use unborn babies in medical research.” (The campaign of Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, said it had no connection to the group and had asked it to stop the calls.) Hard lessons learned Mr. McCain quickly fired back, but he has seen this movie before. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, one of the most notorious smear campaigns in recent American politics peddled distortions and lies about him, among them that Mr. McCain’s current wife, Cindy, was a drug addict and that the couple’s daughter Bridget, adopted from Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh, was a black child Mr. McCain had fathered out of wedlock. Although Mr. McCain, of Arizona, roared into the state as the upset winner in New Hampshire that year — a feat he repeated last week — eight years ago he had neither the organization nor the money to respond. He lost the state to George W. Bush, and his campaign soon derailed. Hard lessons learned: This time Mr. McCain is deploying a South Carolina Truth Squad and much of the state’s Republican political establishment, which backed Mr. Bush in 2000. Mr. McCain, who over the last seven years methodically courted important South Carolina Republicans and showered them with money from his political action committee, now has them on board to try to intercept the attacks before there is major damage. In 2000, said Trey Walker, Mr. McCain’s South Carolina political consultant, “it was a lot like sitting in the Norad command center looking up at that big board and seeing all these thousands of missiles coming in on you and being able to get off one little puff of smoke back.” Now, Mr. Walker said, “If we get an indication there’s an early launch, we have certain detection devices out there, we’ll respond.” ‘We will not let it go’ Mr. McCain, who has acknowledged that the attacks in 2000 and his subsequent loss in South Carolina left him feeling angry and sorry for himself, now seems more determined to fight back aggressively in a state that once again could play a big part in determining the fate of his candidacy. “We hear that phone calls are being made,” he told reporters on his campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express, on Wednesday afternoon. “We will not let it go this time.” On Wednesday, within hours of the start of the automated calls, Mr. McCain’s South Carolina headquarters fired off thousands of e-mail messages with a statement from Henry McMaster, the state’s attorney general. “Allow me to set the record straight,” Mr. McMaster, a McCain supporter, said. “In the U.S. Senate, John McCain has been an unwavering voice for the rights of the unborn.” (Mr. McCain is a longtime opponent of abortion, but he supports research on stem cells gathered from embryos.) Rapid response On Tuesday, within hours of the first reports of the veterans’ flier, Mr. McCain’s campaign held a conference call with reporters to denounce the mailing, which showed a cartoon of Mr. McCain in a prison cell. Writing on the wall behind him said “Elect Me, Elect Me, P.O.W. for President” and “An Enormous Crime, The P.O.W.’s I Helped Leave Behind.” Orson Swindle, a former prisoner of war with Mr. McCain in Vietnam, also issued a statement on Tuesday calling the flier a “vicious” fraud. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” the statement said. “I know because I was there. The truth is, the North Vietnamese offered John McCain early release, and he refused.” And on Saturday night, within hours after Mr. McCain’s advisers learned of the people who objected to Mr. McCain’s divorce, his campaign sent out an e-mail alert to thousands of South Carolina supporters warning them of a potential dirty tricks campaign and advising them to call a McCain Truth Hot Line if they learned anything more. “It’s a fancy name for a dedicated cellphone,” said Buzz Jacobs, the state director of Mr. McCain’s South Carolina campaign. Familiar foes It is not clear who was behind the comments about Mr. McCain’s divorce, but the two other attacks can be directly traced to groups claiming credit, who seem primarily to attack at the time of presidential campaigns. Common Sense Issues, the group attacking Mr. McCain about unborn children, is run by Patrick Davis, who was the political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2004. In a telephone interview on Wednesday from his base in Colorado Springs, Mr. Davis said that he started the automated phone calls in South Carolina on Tuesday night, shortly before the polls closed in Michigan’s primary, and that they were directed against Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, and Fred D. Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, as well as Mr. McCain. Mr. Davis, who organized similar automated calls in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, agreed to let a reporter listen to one of them. The call first asked whom the listener was supporting in the primary. If the listener said Mr. McCain, the automated voice said that not only did Mr. McCain support research on “unborn babies,” but that in writing the McCain-Feingold bill tightening rules on campaign donations, Mr. McCain had created “the most restrictive assault on free speech ever passed in America.” The call referred to the bill as the “McCain-Feingold-Thompson law,” evidently because Mr. Thompson had also backed it. Mr. McMaster, South Carolina’s attorney general, said that his office was investigating whether some of the phone calls violated a state law that prohibits making automated calls directly to people and not to just their answering machines. Vietnam Veterans Against McCain is led by Gerard W. Kiley, who led a similar effort against Senator John Kerry’s Democratic presidential campaign in 2004. Reached Wednesday at his home in Garnerville, N.Y., in Rockland County, Mr. Kiley said that he was effectively the only member of his group and that “we really don’t have any money to speak of.” Mr. Kiley said he thought Mr. McCain gave up too much information to the North Vietnamese and was wrongly claimed as a war hero. Mr. Kiley, 61, a Vietnam veteran, said that he had worked for the past four decades for a major New York corporation that he declined to name. Mr. Kiley said that his flier had been distributed by U.S. Veteran Dispatch, an online newspaper published by Ted Sampley, who did not return a telephone call on Wednesday afternoon. It was unclear how widely the flier was distributed. Flag flap dogs McCain On Wednesday, Mr. McCain was greeted in South Carolina by people waving Confederate flags. They passed out fliers saying that he had “joined with the enemies of South Carolina history & heritage, calling for removal of the battle flag from the South Carolina Capitol Dome.” In 2000, Mr. McCain called the flag offensive and a “symbol of racism and slavery” but he later backed off and called it “a symbol of heritage.” Mr. McCain later said he regretted the shift, conceding that “I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary,” and that “I chose to compromise my principles.” This time, Mr. McCain is hoping that his “truth squad” and network of supporters will back him up. One of them is Mr. McCain’s good friend Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who was one of the few from the state’s political class to support Mr. McCain in 2000. “I told him, ‘John, it’s not going to be me and you against the world this time,’” Mr. Graham said. Michael Cooper contributed reporting from Spartanburg, S.C.
yeah I saw one of these flyers today. terrible stuff. pathetic how people will try to swift boat anyone
Some Democrats are low when it comes to politics, but these Republicans take it to a whole new level.
Is the "Truth Squad" anything like the "Justice League"? Seriously, though, this is pretty sad that they're attacking McCain like this. I don't support him because he kind of flipped a switch into this blind Bush follower. Otherwise, I respect him about as much as I can respect a republican politician. I think the Huckabee people feel the glow from Iowa fade and are resorting to any means necessary.
No what's sad is the rumors that McCain actually is the source and is slimming himself to garner sympathy votes.
We're also talking about someone who sold out his principles in various ways to get in the good graces of establishment Republicans. No surprise to me that he'd adopt their sleazy tactics too. He'll do anything to win. I doubt he did this, but I wouldn't put anything past him.
Any McCain supporter care to dispute the facts stated in the following article? http://www.usvetdsp.com/nov07/mccain_deceit.htm Betrayal, deceit, corruption and John McCain By Ted Sampley U.S. Veteran Dispatch November 14, 2007 Last week, Sen. John McCain launched on fellow Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani criticizing the former New York City mayor because Bernie Kerik, police commissioner under Giuliani, was indicted and accused of fraudulent dealings. "A president's judgment matters and Rudy Giuliani has repeatedly placed personal loyalty over regard for the facts," declared McCain, suggesting that Giuliani's support of Kerik showed a serious lapse in judgment. Kerik, 52, according to a 16-count federal indictment, received cash and gifts for lobbying regulators on behalf of a New Jersey construction and waste-management firm. Prosecutors allege that Kerik cheated on taxes and lied to investigators--including those recommending him for a cabinet-level post on behalf of President George W. Bush. McCain has forgotten his own history of involvement with betrayal, deceit and corruption When McCain returned to the United States in 1973 after more than five years as a prisoner of war, he found his wife was a different person. Carol McCain, once a model, had been badly injured in a car wreck in 1969. The accident "left her 4 inches shorter and on crutches, and she gained a good deal of weight." Despite her injures, she had refused to allow her POW husband to be notified about her condition, fearing that such news would not be good for him while he was being held prisoner. But, just a couple years later, McCain, while pondering a future in politics, met Cindy Hensley, an attractive 25-year-old woman from a very wealthy politically-connected Arizona family. While still married to Carol, McCain began an adulterous relationship with Cindy. He married Cindy in May 1980 -- just a month after dumping his crippled wife and securing a divorce. McCain followed his young, millionairess wife back to Arizona. Not long after settling in, the former POW newlywed was introduced to Darrow "Duke" Tully, publisher of the conservative and powerful Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette. Tully, who quickly became a close friend of McCain, wasted no time in using the power of his newspapers to jump start McCain's political career. His newspapers endorsed McCain's first run for Congress and touted him as successor for retiring Sen. Barry Goldwater. Described as "equal parts cowboy, commando, swashbuckler and elegant tycoon" by the Chicago Tribune, Tully was "a George Patton who drove a Corvette, a Randolph Hearst who flew an F-16, a John Wayne in aviator glasses and Air Force dress blues." Tully appeared to have a lot in common with his close friend, former Navy combat pilot and war hero McCain. Tully boasted of his 100 missions over Vietnam, retiring from the Air Force as a lieutenant-colonel. Tully's military service, according to Tully, included air combat in Korea, where he once was forced to crash land his P-51 Mustang fighter and spent time in a hospital as a result--so he said. His smashed front teeth were replaced with stainless steel, he also said. Tully, just like his friend McCain, claimed he had received the Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry. Tully painstaking groomed McCain for public office. He introduced him to the influential and gave him guest column space in The Arizona Republic. He manipulated endless favorable references from the paper's other columnists. McCain, in turn, honored Tully by asking him to be godfather of one of his children However, the day after Christmas 1985, it was revealed in the Chicago Tribune, that McCain's close friend Duke Tully had "an imagination as big as his ego." Tully had never even been the military. At the same time McCain's political ambitions were being assisted by Tully, he had cultivated political relationships with developer and future Arizona governor Fife Symington III and lawyer, politician and banker Charles Keating Jr. When Goldwater did not to run for re-election to the Senate in 1986, McCain's powerful new friends quickly catapulted him into Goldwater's Arizona senate seat. In the senate, McCain managed to stay low key until suddenly he found himself on television trying to explain himself as one of the "Keating 5," five senators who became enmeshed in the scandal involving the collapsed Lincoln Savings and Loan and the financial machinations of Charles Keating. Keating was convicted of federal fraud and racketeering charges and in 1997, McCain's friend Symington was forced out of office after being convicted on seven counts of fraud. For years McCain has successfully cultivated a false facade as the "straight-talking" politician unsullied by big-money influence of special-interest groups. He has shrewdly manipulated most of the national press corps into ignoring (or forgiving) facts that expose him as a disreputable character and enemy of the truth.. Reports from a variety of U.S. publications exposed McCain's true scandalous character The Arizona Republic - October 17, 1989" . . . both in telephone conversations with reporters and on a live radio talk show, the Republican senator was far from calm. He was agitated. Angry. And the way he dealt with unpleasant questions was to bully the questioners . . . 'You're a liar,' McCain snapped Sept. 29 when an Arizona Republic reporter asked him about business ties between his wife, Cindy McCain, and Keating . . . 'That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot,' McCain sneered later in the same conversation. 'You do understand English, don't you?' ". . . Not content with just bullying reporters, McCain tried belittling them: 'It's up to you to find that out, kids.' . . . McCain wasn't talking to liars. He wasn't talking to juveniles. The senator was talking to two reporters." The Arizona Republic - October 17, 1989 -- "McCain, in a radio talk-show appearance last week condemned disclosures of his family's ties to Keating as 'irresponsible journalism.'" The Phoenix Gazette, November 13, 1989 -- "Reporters also 'discovered' that the senator's wife and father-in-law invested $359,100.00 in one of Mr. Keating's projects in 1986 . . ." The Arizona Republic, April 29, 1990 -- "McCain's involvement with Keating . . . when reporters called him with questions last year about previously unknown ties to Keating, an investment by wife Cindy McCain in a Keating shopping center and trips to Keating's Bahamas home, McCain went into a rage." New Republic, Dec. 31, 1990--"The only Republican of the bunch [the five Senators], John McCain of Arizona wins credit for finally drawing the line. After the second of the two April meetings [with Federal regulators] he told Mr. [Sen. Dennis] DeConcini [D-Ariz.] and Mr. Keating that he wouldn't lean on the regulators any more. Mr. Keating called him a wimp. But before the rupture, Mr. McCain and his family were regular guests of Mr. Keating's on trips to the Bahamas. Mr. McCain reimbursed the owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan for only a small fraction of the cost of these holidays. Yet, he never reported the vacations on Senate disclosure forms, or his income taxes. He said he thought his wife had paid Mr. Keating back. This is hard to believe." Economist, Mar. 9, 1991--"Mr. McCain, despite his claims of innocense, was the only one of the five who benefitted personally--family holidays in the Bahamas on Mr. Keating's tab." New Republic, Sept. 9, 1991--Calling McCain part of the "Senatorial Lincoln Brigade," the New Republic reported that Keating, while bankrupting his savings and loan, had channeled $1.4 million to the campaigns or causes of the five senators, who in turn pressured the savings and loan regulators to back off our friend." Regardie's magazine, April-May 1992 issue. "Ultimately, the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan will cost the U.S. taxpayers $2 billion. It lost $1 million dollars a day from the time Keating bought it in 1984 until its collapse in 1989, and yet he continued to pay off McCain as 'one of his assets.'" Cindy McCain escaped prosecution for stealing/using drugs The Arizona Republic, August 24, 1994 -- "Cindy McCain, the wife of U.S. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, admitted in a series of media interviews Monday that she became addicted to the painkillers Percocet and Vicodin. She said that she used the drugs from 1989 to 1992 and acknowledged that she had stolen some pills from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a charitable organization of which she is president . . . at one point, McCain, 40, was ingesting 15 to 20 pills a day . . . the normal dosage for seriously ill patients is 6 to 10 a day for a short period." The Phoenix Gazette, August 25, 1994 -- "Cindy McCain was investigated recently by the Drug Enforcement Administration for stealing and using Percocet and Vicodin, both narcotic painkillers from her aid organization . . . the county attorney's report provides a window to drug dealings within Cindy McCain's nonprofit corporation . . . Gosinski also alleged that Cindy McCain abused her husband's office and diplomatic privileges by transporting illegal substances overseas. He also claimed, according to her lawyers, that Cindy McCain tried to prevent him from providing accurate information to the DEA." Playboy, July 1999. -- "Ms. McCain admitted stealing Percocet and Vicodin from the American Voluntary Medical Team, an organization that aids Third World countries. Percocet and Vicodin are schedule 2 drugs, in the same legal category as opium. Each pill theft carries a penalty of one year in prison and a monetary fine." However, McCain did not face prosecution. She was allowed to enter a pretrial diversion program and escaped with no blemish to her record. Source: James Bovard, Prison Sentences of the Politically Connected. McCain's Crime family connection The Arizona Republic Jan. 17, 1995 "About 300 guests turned out Saturday night to celebrate the 90th birthday of Joseph 'Joe Bananas' Bonanno, retired boss of New York's Bonanno crime family. He retired to Tucson in 1968 . . . John McCain, R-Ariz., and Gov. Fife Symington sent their regards by telegram."
I want to meet multi-million dollar heiresses with strong political connections. Either way, it's nice to see the nutjob portion of the GOP come out in full force against McCain again. I'm actually starting to believe in him again...
LOL yeah let's all blame the "vast right-wing conspiracy" when the facts presented are not even disputed. Now the question is what is the statue of limitation on the "youthful indiscretions" by John McCain, aka "the Straight Talker," aka "a real man of character"?
McCain is your generic career politican. Not terribly intelligent, deviod of integrity, and willing to stoop to any position to secure political advantage; yet capable of animosity towards those same flaws in others. He, like Clinton, is a textbook representation of the status quo. Disgusting.
This is funny. I got one of the automated calls from Commons Sense. It was almost like a choose your own adventure book with every answer causing a new nasty message about another candidate not named Huckabee. It actually made me laugh, I actually wanted them to call again so I could find out some more things that make Mike Huckabee great like if I chose abortion or illegal immigrants instead of economy as the most important issue.
<object width="425" height="373"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/X8QvpnY8eqY&rel=1&border=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/X8QvpnY8eqY&rel=1&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="373"></embed></object>
Exactly. That hatchet piece posted above was nothing. Like I care about someone's personal life in all its real or alleged manifestations. (edit) *Half* of that "article" is unprovable. I don't really understand what people want. Someone with policies that agree with them 100%, and someone who has never had an affair, a blow job, a puff of weed, a parking ticket, etc. They can have bankrupted companies and states, etc, but please no personal indiscretions! Mercy be.
Yes, I don't get this sentiment in the US where the leader have to be some kind of great human being. To me the president should be the one who can lead the country well, make the lives of the citizens better, and improve the standing of the country in the world. Why would I care if he have several willing mistresses?
When a candidate is championed for his "character and integrity," his personal history become a fair game, more so than those whose campaigns focus solely on issues.
that's a fair point but his wife and his friends and what they do are not under his control. we don't why he married his wife, or left his first. we aren't in their shoes. the keating affair is fair game but it was 20 years ago.
