I simply don't know enough ACCURATE information to assess his military career. He did a great job of using the perceptions of it to launch his political career.
My only interaction with him was years ago when the State GOP Convention included a plank in the state platform that would do away with tribal sovereignty at the state convention. (2000 in Spokane, actually).
He called the GOP office in Tukwila directly and demanded that the, at the time, highly publicized plank be removed, as if I could wave a magic wand and simply overturn a decision voted on by the state convention.
I explained to him that even as Executive Director, I wasn't in any position to simply hit the delete key. and that removal would have to be set up via the state executive board. It could be... and ultimately was... accomplished through a phone conference with the EBoard within a few days.
He didn't like that at all, but it was what it was.
My concern with Sen. McCain rests entirely on the damage he did... and his failure to champion the cause of veteran health care was part and parcel of the deaths of tens of thousands of us.
His involvement in the Keating 5 scandal was both inexplicable and inexcusable.
His decision to vote against the repeal of Obamacare which just about every Republican member of Congress... including all of his Senate GOP colleagues...had ran on to get elected... was a betrayal of everything the GOP stood for.
Done out of spite like so many RINO decisions, it once again made him the darling of the left that he was until he was nominated for president and those same leftist colleagues did their best to destroy him.
The problem I have is that when I as a veteran needed him, he wasn't there. He was in the Senate for 35 years. When it became clear veterans were dropping because the VA generally and the VA in Arizona particularly was delaying appointments until we were DEAD... what did he do about it?
Nothing that I'm aware of.
And when he was treated for his cancer, it sure wasn't done at a VA facility.
Why do you suppose that is? If VA care was all that great, then why aren't Senators lining up to receive it?
When I as a Republican needed him, he, like our worthless Congresswoman, wasn't there.
He wasn't a "Maverick" as so many of the polite, social circle limousine RINOs now calls him.
He was just a RINO who acted out of spite and who failed this country when we needed him the most.
Am I sorry he's gone? Will I miss him? Was he anything special?
As sorry as he would be if I were to die while he was alive. As much as he'd miss me if I were to die while he was still alive. And when we needed him most in Congress, he voted like a spoiled rotten, petulant jerk... like a Rivers, like a Wilson and like a Herrera... and those votes hurt us all terribly.
In short, no. He wasn't.
There, I've said it. People will be angered by my words, no doubt, but I call them like I see them and this won't be the first time.
In time, everyone will get over it... but there it is.
My only interaction with him was years ago when the State GOP Convention included a plank in the state platform that would do away with tribal sovereignty at the state convention. (2000 in Spokane, actually).
He called the GOP office in Tukwila directly and demanded that the, at the time, highly publicized plank be removed, as if I could wave a magic wand and simply overturn a decision voted on by the state convention.
I explained to him that even as Executive Director, I wasn't in any position to simply hit the delete key. and that removal would have to be set up via the state executive board. It could be... and ultimately was... accomplished through a phone conference with the EBoard within a few days.
He didn't like that at all, but it was what it was.
My concern with Sen. McCain rests entirely on the damage he did... and his failure to champion the cause of veteran health care was part and parcel of the deaths of tens of thousands of us.
His involvement in the Keating 5 scandal was both inexplicable and inexcusable.
His decision to vote against the repeal of Obamacare which just about every Republican member of Congress... including all of his Senate GOP colleagues...had ran on to get elected... was a betrayal of everything the GOP stood for.
Done out of spite like so many RINO decisions, it once again made him the darling of the left that he was until he was nominated for president and those same leftist colleagues did their best to destroy him.
The problem I have is that when I as a veteran needed him, he wasn't there. He was in the Senate for 35 years. When it became clear veterans were dropping because the VA generally and the VA in Arizona particularly was delaying appointments until we were DEAD... what did he do about it?
Nothing that I'm aware of.
And when he was treated for his cancer, it sure wasn't done at a VA facility.
Why do you suppose that is? If VA care was all that great, then why aren't Senators lining up to receive it?
When I as a Republican needed him, he, like our worthless Congresswoman, wasn't there.
He wasn't a "Maverick" as so many of the polite, social circle limousine RINOs now calls him.
He was just a RINO who acted out of spite and who failed this country when we needed him the most.
Am I sorry he's gone? Will I miss him? Was he anything special?
As sorry as he would be if I were to die while he was alive. As much as he'd miss me if I were to die while he was still alive. And when we needed him most in Congress, he voted like a spoiled rotten, petulant jerk... like a Rivers, like a Wilson and like a Herrera... and those votes hurt us all terribly.
In short, no. He wasn't.
There, I've said it. People will be angered by my words, no doubt, but I call them like I see them and this won't be the first time.
In time, everyone will get over it... but there it is.