ather because he didn’t study very hard. He didn’t have to. His father was a four-star U. S. Navy admiral. No instructor at the Naval Academy is going to flunk the son of a four-star admiral. And McCain knew it.Another reason people give for calling McCain Senator McDoofus is that he frequently forgets what he said a few days ago or how he voted on a particular piece of legislation. Perhaps McCain is suffering from pre-senile dementia. Or perhaps he is in the early stages of senile dementia. He is, after all, 72 years old.McCain’s father died of a stroke at the age of 70 and his grandfather died of a heart attack at age 68. And John McCain III was a former two pack a day tobacco user. Tobacco use, especially heavy tobacco use, does irreparable damage to the cardio vascular system.Perhaps the reason for McCain’s forgetfulness is the heavy stress of a presidential campaign. Of course, there will be very little stress once he is elected President of the United States.Another nick name given to McCain is Senator Hothead. It has been reported that Senator Hothead has frequently cursed out his colleagues andmembers of his own  staff. Several people witnessed Senator Hothead call his wife Cindy McCain, the “C” word. The “C” word that cannot be said on any licensed television station or radio station without risking the broadcast license of that station.Is this the kind of person we want in the White House and with his finger on the trigger of nuclear missiles?Speaking of the “C” word, recently McCain suggested that his wife Cindy participate in the Miss Buffalo Chip contest in Sturgis, South Dakota. This contest involves partial and/or full nudity and the contestants demonstrate their sexual skills with bananas or cucumbers.Is McCain the “Family Values” presidential candidate? Perhaps McCain should have taken his daughters with him to Sturgis to participate in the Miss Buffalo Chip contest. Perhaps McCain regards all women as just the “C” word.Is this the kind of person we want in the White House? Is John McCain the person women and men who respect women, will vote to occupy the White House? Hopefully not.John and Cindy McCain own eight personal and private homes. Most of these homes are worth several million dollars each. Yet, John McCain presents himself and a ‘good ole boy’ very similar to the way George W. Bush does. How many of your friends own eight personal and private homes? Probably none. How many of your friends own more than two personal and private homes? Probably none.Supporters of John McCain claim that he is a “war hero.” I submit that he is not a hero—just a survivor. A hero is someone who risk their own life to save the life of someone else—not just themselves.When John McCain dropped bombs on North Vietnam military targets from 30,000 feet above, was there any collateral damage? Did he kill any innocent civilians? It is very likely that he did.Do heroes kill innocent women and children? No.
 A mid morning politics break for you.  ABC's Rick Klein and Hope Ditto write in "The Note" about McCain and pro-life, pro-choice flexing.  This piece is getting a big reaction. 
 Barack Obama has attracted nearly six times as much money as John McCain from military personnel deployed overseas, according to a study released this morning by the Center for Responsive Politics. Obama has received contributions from 134 soldiers serving on foreign soil so far this election cycle, for a total of $60,642. McCain received support from just 24 such donors, bringing in $10,665.When all military personnel are taken into account -- whether stationed abroad or at home -- Obama's fundraising lead narrows. The Democratic candidate has received donations from 859 soldiers since the beginning of 2007, raising $335,536. McCain has brought in $280,513 from 558 such donors.Trailing just behind McCain? Anti-war Republican Ron Paul, who has raised $232,411 from 537 military personnel.
 As John McCain weighs his choices for vice president, he gave a fascinating interview today in which he said he would not rule out the possibility of choosing an openly pro-choice running mate—something no Republican President has ever done.In a wide-ranging—and fascinating—interview with the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, McCain said a support for abortion rights would not be a disqualifier. He specifically mentioned former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, a close McCain ally who is a VP contender, despite Ridge's pro-choice views."I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party," McCain told Hayes. "And I also feel that--and I'm not trying to equivocate here--that Americans want us to work together. You know, Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders, and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don't think that that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out."In the past, as Hayes pointed out, McCain had said it would be difficult to choose a running made who did not oppose abortion, since it was a cornerstone of the Republican party platform."I think it's a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life, but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. We just have a--albeit strong--but just it's a disagreement,” McCain said. “And I think Ridge is a great example of that.”Joe Lieberman, another close McCain friend and ally, also is on McCain’s VP short list and is pro-choice, although the Independent Democrat is much more liberal on other social issues than is Ridge. Both Ridge and Lieberman campaigned yesterday with McCain, offering rousing introductions during a big town hall meeting with 3,500 people in York, Pa. After the meeting, Lieberman told me that he hadn't talked to McCain about VP. He declined to discuss it further.Either Ridge or Lieberman would be a "transformative" VP pick who could help open up the Republican Party and deliver moderate voters and Independents, some McCain advisers believe. McCain is seriously weighing that option, sources say.But it’s a tough calculus: A pro-choice nominee would infuriate the anti-abortion element of the conservative base and potentially be a bitter divorce from the Religious Right. McCain learned the hard way in his 2000 presidential bid that the wages of tearing that union apart was political death. Will it be now?
 Browne: You Should Know, I'm Not Team McCain!  Posted Aug 14th 2008 3:08PM by TMZ Staff  Guess elephants have some serious short-term memory issues! Everyone knows singer Jackson Browne is a serious liberal, everyone except, apparently, John McCain. Now Browne is fighting mad and has filed suit against McCain and his party, alleging they falsely suggested he was on their side.  Browne claims the GOP used his epic hit "Running on Empty" in an ad for McCain without his permission, adding that the ad mocks Barack Obama, which Browne ain't none too happy about.The suit wants the ad to stop running -- STAT -- and is seeking damages. Browne's lawyer Lawrence Iser says this ain't the first time McCain has done this -- he did it with ABBA's "Take a Chance on Me" and well-known Democrat John Mellencamp's song "Pink Houses." Iser says "In light of Jackson Browne's lifelong commitment to Democratic ideals and political candidates, the misappropriation of Jackson Browne's endorsement is entirely reprehensible."McCain's rep Tucker Bounds shoots back "This was not a McCain campaign ad, but rather a local state Republican party ad. It is clear that the suit was mis-filed by an overeager Barack Obama supporter and it's 'running on empty;."
 The McCain folk are touting a night of house parties in spots like King of Prussia  , Harrisburg and Strasburg  , and across the nation. While traditional house parties involve cocktails, tasty vittles and light entertainment or maybe a friendly game of bocce, these are expected to include plans to "recruit volunteers, organize grassroots activity, make voter contact phone calls, and register new voters."We think the Coopersburg Police might want to put on a few extra officers in case things get out of hand.The McCain campaign's grassroots effort has lagged behind that of Barack Obama,in Pennsylvania. The Obama campaign has opened more offices, much earlier than the Republican nominee.We wonder if Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert will take offense at the McCain campaign's appropriation of the name he has given his supporters: Colbert Nation.
  John McCain, in a moment of staggering stupidity that would have sunk his campaign were he still running in the primaries, commented yesterday on the Russia-Georgia conflict: In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.  Such a statement is revelatory, but the question is “what is it revealing?” I have seen McCain speaking on television frequently, and in the past few months he has, if possible, begun to look more wooden and monotonic than in the past, back when he was just boring and uninspiring. The series of grocery store speeches he gave while Obama was wooing Europe are some of the most dull and lifeless forays into public mumbling I’ve seen since doing high-school French dialogues. He is apparently very poor with the teleprompter and known to wing it all too often for his campaign organizers to feel comfortable, so maybe this was simply an unintentional slip from a man who has been campaigning hard for a year and is probably underslept and stressed. Nevertheless, this is not good for the guy who has opted to run on his ability to be Commander-in-Chief. Unless, of course, his campaign is slyly trying to keep hold of Bush voters by sending out a signal - John McCain is just as stupid as George W Bush - park your vote with the dullard. What happens if McCain did not screw up? What is it saying about his campaign if he intended to make this statement? Certainly, telling Russia “we can invade soveriegn nations in the name of freedom, but you can’t enslave them to your wicked ways” is a throwback to the good ol’ days of the Cold War when the US and the USSR merrily re-jigged national borders in the 20th-Century version of The Great Game. If this is the intention, then is McCain showing us his vision of a new Cold War, one with an extra dozen or so nations with nuclear weapons and non-state cells like al Qaeda thrown in for good measure? Is this a merger of the old and new? Are we about to see a renewed colonialism in which the fear of terrorism has replaced the fear of communism as the rationale? Have things changed so little?Is the McCain campaign so desparate to reincarnate Ronald Reagan that they would be willing to push Cold War aphorisms to shake the rust off of the US image?Update: How simple-minded could I be? I overlooked graft in my little analysis above. The Washington Post (and others) have pointed out that Randy Scheunemann, one of McCain’s top foreign policy advisors, is a lobbyist for the Georgian government, and was integral in drafting McCain’s regional “policy”. Can you imagine, John McCain the Maverick, who claims to reduce the impact of lobbyists in DC while placing a cadre of them at high levels in his campaign team, acting as bagman for his paid lobbyist. Anyone that would vote for John McCain is an idiot. I could understand not wanting to vote for Obama - a person might disagree with his policies, but to want to vote for this old twat would take a special kind of stupidity.
 The political world, and the Democratic Party in particular, is in a buzz over news that John McCain will attend a fundraiser hosted by Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition who fell from grace during the Jack Abramoff scandal.'The Senator has come full circle,' goes the most common refrain -- a reference to both McCain's claim to scorn Washington's seedy lobbyists culture and the fact that his investigation into Abramoff effectively derailed Reed's political ambitions.But there is, in fact, a far more curious and potentially damaging tie that connects the Arizona Republican and the religious right figure.One of the projects on which Reed aided Abramoff was an effort financed by the Mississippi Choctaws to shut down other cas